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Winning (and Losing) the First Wired War
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri May 19, 2006 05:35 PM
from the distributed-tactics dept.
from the distributed-tactics dept.
Noah Shachtman writes "The Iraq war was launched on a theory: That, with the right networking gear, American armed forces could control a country with a fraction of the troops ordinarily needed. But that equipment never made it down to the front lines, David Axe (just back from his 6th trip to Iraq) and I note in this month's Popular Science. That's a problem, because the insurgents are using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts to stitch together a network of their own."
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Not to be contrarian or anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not to be contrarian or anything (Score:5, Funny)
Now comes the more interesting question: What do you think the prize was? I'm thinking it was $1. [imdb.com]
Parent
Re:Not to be contrarian or anything (Score:3, Funny)
Shinseki vs Rumsfeld (Score:4, Interesting)
Rumsfeld: We're invading Iraq to take their oil...I mean, destroy their WMDs!
Shinseki: Okay, that'll take several hundred thousand men.
Rumsfeld: Nonsense! It'll take six Special Forces guys armed with bananas!
Shinseki: No, it'll take several hundred thousand men.
Rumsfeld: Who's the expert here soldier? You with your decades of hands-on military experience or me with my |337 Risk skillz?
Shinseki:
Rumsfeld: Okay, just to make you feel better, we'll send Rambo as backup.
Shinseki: [shakes head in disbelief] Sir, Rambo is a fictional character.
Rumsfeld: YOU'RE A FICTIONAL CHARACTER!
Shinseki: Calm down, sir. After we beat the Iraqi Army, "Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers...would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground- force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this." Again, that's several hundred thousand pairs of boots on the ground!
Rumsfeld: Boots...why didn't you say so in the first place! Here's the plan: six heavily banana-laden Special Forces guys (backed by Rambo with a big, pointy knife) will fly in with cargo blimps and pummel Iraq with hundreds of thousands of brand new boots until they surrender their oil.
Shinski: There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin.
Rumsfeld: Maybe you're right. Forget new boots, just get the boots from the Marines after they complete basic training. Nice and stinky--that'll show the Iranians!
Shinseki: You mean Iraqis.
Rumsfeld: Well, for now at least.
Shinseki: Exactly how many countries is this administration planning on invading? We don't have enough troops! Iraq alone will require several hundred thousand men!
Shinseki: What is your fascination with "several hundred thousand men?" Are you gay? I'll bet that's it. You just told me you're gay, so under "Don't ask, don't tell" you told, so you're fired!
Shinseki: [resists urge to strangle jabbering senile old fool]Sir, I don't know what world you live on, but it isn't the same one as the rest of us. Reality isn't subjective. Iraq will require several hundred thousand troops.
Rumsfeld: [pouts]Haven't you heard? We're all postmodernists in this administration. Reality is what we say it is, so if I say six soldiers armed with bananas (supported by Rambo and a big pointy knife) can successfully secure Iraq's vast oil wealth by dropping several hundred thousand pairs of stinky boots from cargo blimps, then by God that's what will happen or my name isn't Queen Elizabeth the Great!
Quote taken from wikipedia [wikipedia.org] from exchange between Senator Levin and General Shinseki before the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
Parent
It should be (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be. The bottom line is that the internet and the information age are exposing US cluture to the rest of the world in a big way. It is difficult for even the US government to deal with the internet, but I think that many don't understand that for Islamic countries like Iran, Saudi, and Egypt - it is a complete and absolute culture shock. Countries like Iran and radical sects just didn't decide to lash out at us one
Re:It should be (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not to be contrarian or anything (Score:4, Interesting)
We have about 150,000 troops in-theatre. According to the CIA factbook (link here: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ iz.html [cia.gov] there are 26.7 million Iraqis. According to the math, we have one soldier for every 179 Iraqis, many of whom are still armed. This is a recipe for disaster.
The quote "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." has been variously attributed to Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke, Colin Powell, Murphy Military Laws, and Heinz Guderian (there may be others). D. Rumsfeld and his boys would do well to remember that, since they seem to be incapable of altering either their battle plans or their rhetoric.
Parent
wired war (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez I must have an uber fancy one then...
American Army now an ISP! (Score:4, Interesting)
Essentially they are an ISP onto themselves, but then if the Iraqi's or Al Quaeda are the customers, using networks to cover a larger amount of ground with less troops is exactly the same as Verizon overselling their bandwidth. It's great because most of the time, terrorist cells only activate in short bursts, similar to grandma checking webmail... But if ever multiple cells decide to work all at the same time, I fear the marines may be in for a slashdotting!
A problem with an easy solution... (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason we are losing in Iraq is because we are trying to have a small number of troops fight a small number of insurgents. This doesn't work because the in that environment, the insurgents get to choose when to fight.
We are never going to be successful until we have enough troops and equipment in Iraq to control transportation and communication.
Parent
Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
War Stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Both those wars are unwinnable, never expected to win, designed and prosecuted by the same people, and directed against the naive American public - with foreigners as expendible props from Central Casting.
Parent
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd bet that those calls are being recorded, too. But so what? How do you know who is calling whom if the phone can't be traced? Perhaps they steal the cell from businessmen, use them for a few days and then abandon them. The NSA could track them back to their legitimate owner, but what about the insurgent that was actually using it?
Without a relational database filled with tons of other personal information, just intercepting a phone call isn't going to do squat. You need voiceprint software, you need street-level info on the caller. Is he a real threat? Where does he hang out? Which faction is he involved with? Simply intercepting a call tells you none of this, usually. And how many Arabic speakers does the NSA employ? If it's anything like the CIA, not nearly enough.
You know, maybe we wouldn't be losing this war so badly if the NSA concentrated on getting intel in Iraq instead of spying on Americans at home. It seems that they are doing a bang-up job of infringing on our rights [gregpalast.com], but they haven't actually achieved any meaningful successes when it comes to defeating terrorism.
Kinda makes you wonder if fighting terrorism is the real goal....
Parent
They don't have time to monitor calls from Iraq (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Signals Intelligence Gathering (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, Ackbar never caught on [elitemrp.net]
Re:We can intercept it all, understand none of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
According to a recent State Department IG report, [washingtonpost.com] Radio Sawa, our pop music and news station aimed at young Arab audiences, has very little influence since parents tell their kids not to listen to it- "because its broadcasts contained such poor Arabic grammar."
Parent
Re:We can intercept it all, understand none of it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Parents all around the USA are telling their kids not to listen to Hip-Hop "because it contained such poor English grammar".
Seriously! Since when do kids listen to their parents anyways? I know I sure as hell didn't. If it was "cool", it's game-on.
This is not news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is not news (Score:3, Funny)
On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:5, Insightful)
This again offers the advantage of making it hard to find senior leadership while it has the disadvantage of not allowing them to utilize their assets in a centralized manner which would be far more efficient and effective.
You Completely Miss the Point (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the central point of asymetric warfare. Effective insurgencies employ highly decentralized, organic and redundant C3I structures which degrade gracefully under attack. The highly centralized C4ISR structure of Iraq's Regular Army collapsed over a period of days as a result of decapitation attacks, twice. On the other hand the insurgency remains highly effective despite intensive attacks over a period of 3 years. As for intelligence, the insurgency is quite effective as evidenced by the number of ambushes, assasinations and kidnappings sucessfully pulled off. You can't fight termites with a sniper rifle.
To provide another analogy, the bane of Organized Crime is accounting. While the Mafia (which developed from a Sicilian insurgency) is often resillient to conventional procecution over their violent crimes, the need for systematic accounting and banking often proves to be their Achilles heel.
While terrorists and insurgencies can and do exploit high tech is is usually in a fashion quite different in structure of established goverments. Read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" for a good example.
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
A war of attrition. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the insurgency can outlast our occupation, they have, by definition, "won".
Strategically, there are more factors than just them fighting us. There's also our huge debt and deficit. There's also the price of a gallon of gas.
We are NOT fighting this war to "win". That is obvious because we are not focusing on the strategy that will allow us to remain in Iraq long enough to outlast the insurgency. As a country, we need to start rationing and saving. Just like in WW2.
Instead, we're sending the National Guard to Iraq, and then to the Mexican border. Because we cannot afford to correctly handle either situation.
The insurgency will "win" when we leave.
And we will leave before the insurgency dies. Because we will be broke.
Parent
Amerika is building 14 permanent bases in Iraq. (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=14+permanent+bases
Your leadership is keen to hold press conferences on it, but you are there to stay.
It is the only choice they have because there simply is no base for a US friendly regime in Iraq.
To keep control over their oil you will need military presence
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:5, Insightful)
The US simply refuses to learn from history that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, much as the friend of your enemy is not necessarily your enemy. Syngman Rhee, Dihn Diem, Noriega, now here. It's the broken goddamn record of foreign policy.
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:4, Insightful)
What progress can insurgents really say they have made since the start of the war?
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I think our success can only be measured by our ability to give Iraq the ability to defend themselves and our ability to make Iraq free. To that end, Iraq has had free elections, we've incorporated the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites into the government and we training of their military is ongoing.
My impression of the popularly elected government is that it is immensely fragile and that, for the majority of Iraqis, is essentially switching one strong Saddam for many small ones. Oh, and also their power and water don't work and they're shelled every now and then. I don't imagine that the Iraqi government will survive long in the power vaccuum when the US leaves. I hope I'm wrong, and I very well could be. It's hard to judge what things are actually like there there's so much noise.
What progress can insurgents really say they have made since the start of the war?
That they've been an immensely destabilizing influence? Which is really their goal. They obviously can't fight the US toe-to-toe, hence the adoption of the Maoist tactics.
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:3, Interesting)
What news sources are you consuming? The amount of violence in Iraq certainly qualifies as low intensity civil war by any conventional measure. And the situation has been continuously deteriorating. Denying this will just set us up for a colossal failure. Even Alawi who has been the US most favorite Iraqi politician (not counting Chalabi) has said as much [cbsnews.com]. Now [atimes.com] even Basra [belfasttelegraph.co.uk] is starting to co
Creating order vs. maintaining chaos (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite a bit, unfortunately.
For a start, they've successfully prevented much of our reconstruction efforts. The large majority of the funds set aside for reconstruction have been allocated, but oil production, electricity generation, water, sewer systems, road networks, security, and employment are all around or below pre-war levels. Security and employment troubles are especially bad - about 1,000 civilians and police/military are being violently killed per month now, as opposed to well under a tenth of that in the last years of Hussein's regime, and unemployment is running at about 40%, making insurgency or crime look tempting to large numbers of desperate young men with nothing else to occupy their time.
If the money runs out and Iraq still hasn't been effectively rebuilt, the insurgents have scored a major victory. Without that rebuilding, it's questionable whether the democratic reforms we've started in Iraq can really take root - without jobs, security, and infrastructure, the new society will remain extremely fragile. That fragility isn't so much of a problem at the moment, since it's widely known that a great deal of time, money, and effort is being spent to rebuild Iraq. If that effort fails to bear fruit, though, the insurgents will have successfully undercut our attempt to stabilize the situation, and it's not clear that we'll give it a second try.
That's the thing about asymmetric warfare like this: the status quo means the insurgents are winning. Our task is to create order; theirs is to maintain chaos.
We all know US troops won't be there forever, meaning every day that passes without enough order being created is a day the insurgents make progress. The greater the chaos in the country when US troops finally leave, the greater the opportunity for insurgents to move into the power vaccuum and exert greater control over the country. If this happens, they win.
Essentially, we're in a race against time - we need to make Iraq stable, safe, and prosperous before we leave - and "progress" for the insurgents is simply blocking our progress towards that goal. Every day Iraq doesn't get better fast enough - every time a pipeline is attacked, every time a hospital isn't built because security costs took up the construction budget, every time a death squad murders civilians of the "wrong group" - the insurgents make progress.
The shorter our withdrawal timetable, the more progress we have to make each day, and hence the more progress the insurgents make when we fall behind. If we truly are willing to stick this out - and remember that the average counter-insurgency of this type lasts 9 years - they have almost no chance of winning. But they're betting we won't - or can't - and it's not clear they're wrong. It's an alarming situation. I hope this is a race we win, even if it means we have to eat crow to get the manpower it takes.
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:5, Insightful)
But who only has another 2 1/2 years to win, something that is far from certain will happen, and has a growing unrest with his policies at home.
Our training of the Iraqi National Army so they can stand up to the insurgents when we leave.
Which has been working *so* well so far
The fact that most of the insurgents are driven to fight by our very prescence. When we leave, much of the motivation for the majority of terrorist groups in Iraq leaves with us.
Either you're wrong, or the insurgents are pretty stupid. Because if they agreed with you, then their best course of action would be to stop fighting for a few weeks. So either they don't agree that they just want us out of Iraq, or they are too obtuse to recognize the shortest path to their goal. Which do you think it is?
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:4, Interesting)
The bad guys suffered significant military defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is obvious, and I think what you are alluding to. However I think we must realize that Bin Laden et al have no real expectation of winning militarily. This never was a military war for them. This is an economic war. I think the grand strategy for them is to keep the US engaged in a war which they are not financially able to maintain indefinitely, and I believe they are doing it. Iraq is costing hundreds of billions. The US dollar is weakening significantly. Foreign nations are starting to move away from the US dollar. Iran is setting up their own oil bourse.
The terrorists just want to keep the US engaged. They don't care where. The US has more resources available to them than anyone, but the manner in which they conduct war is orders of magnitude more expensive than the terrorists, and thus less sustainable.
I think Bin Laden was happy when the US invaded Iraq. This development shifted the financial costs of the war even further in his favor. Thus, while the US has achieved many military goals, his financial strategy is coming to fruition.
Parent
Re:On the terrorists ad hoc C3 (Score:4, Interesting)
It's hard to group terrorists together and say they all want an Islamic state. I'm not sure Bin Laden's desired end state is another Iran.
However I think we must realize that Bin Laden et al have no real expectation of winning militarily. This never was a military war for them. This is an economic war. I think the grand strategy for them is to keep the US engaged in a war which they are not financially able to maintain indefinitely, and I believe they are doing it. Iraq is costing hundreds of billions. The US dollar is weakening significantly. Foreign nations are starting to move away from the US dollar. Iran is setting up their own oil bourse.
That's a good point. In that sense I think you could argue Bin Laden is making progress towards his strategic goal. But in the context of this thread, I don't think you could say insurgents in Iraq are winning. Also I think you have to ask yourself, does Bin Laden's finnancial plan solve? Will it bring the US to its knees? I think he underestimates our strength. His logistical and financial support to the insurgency is definitely a pain but one that I think we can overcome.
The terrorists just want to keep the US engaged. They don't care where. The US has more resources available to them than anyone, but the manner in which they conduct war is orders of magnitude more expensive than the terrorists, and thus less sustainable. I think Bin Laden was happy when the US invaded Iraq. This development shifted the financial costs of the war even further in his favor. Thus, while the US has achieved many military goals, his financial strategy is coming to fruition.
I agree with you here. Iraq was really the wrong war. But now that we are in it, leaving prematurely would give such a huge information operations campaign victory to the insurgents. Additionally I fear leaving Iraq in its weakened state would allow it to become a puppet for insurgents (eg. Taliban's relationship with Al Qaeda) and it will inevitably force us to return there if we don't finish the job this time.
Parent
I'm kinda glad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, this can be seen as more of a failed experiment than a conclusive result. When the tools are available, and less humanity necissary for the military control of a population... well, tyranny can then become something greater than a Thomas Paine pamphlet [amazon.com] can help fight anymore.
The automated undermining of freedoms is a scary concept.
Ryan Fenton
there's a clear solution (Score:5, Funny)
If you've been reading the recent slashdot articles, and seen the decisive actions governments are considering, it's only a matter of time before these terrorists are reined in. All they need to do is quickly enact legislation that, among other things:
Sheeesh, how simple can this be?
What do you mean by "control" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can get people converted to your brand of god it's easy to control them, the more people who believe in your god the more control you have. The vast majority of the worlds population believes in some god or another.
You need to be able to constant bombard the populace with your message and you need to be able to change this message subtly and continuously. In oder to do that you need television. The vast majority of the population view television every night after work. For the vast majority of people their entire waking hours are spend either at work or in front of the TV. As a bonus television makes your eyes focus on a very narrow depth of field which is surprising similar to a hypnotic state. Television is successful mostly because it puts people in a mildly hypnotic state during which they are prone to suggestions. Why do you think people spend a dollar for colored, sugared water?
Finally you need to fill their bellies to kill their ambition (apologies to Lao Tzu). You need to keep them fed and comfortable so that they don't take action against you. You will need to increase wealth till everybody can go to church and afford a TV.
Voila, you are now controlling a country and you don't need a 150,000 soldiers. The largest economy in the world, the richest country in the world with a population of over 300 million people and taking up vast almost unthinkable amount of space is controlled by a surprisingly few people. Much less then 100,000. Hell much less then 50,000.
Look at it another way. A very small cabal of neocons got their boy electected, got themselves into positions of power and took over a country and all it's natural resources with the full consent of the US population. These people (less then a 100 really) "controlled" the US population into waging a war for their beneift/profit/ideology/god.
Re:What do you mean by "control" (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:What do you mean by "control" (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the real question is why do you think people spend 2 dollars for plain water?
Then factor in that they can get it with sugar and colour for half the price...
Nevermind with alcohol...
The obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution is obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Taste of Freedom (Score:4, Funny)
not the first wired war (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "wired war" we're talking about the use of telecommunications technologies we have to consider the telegraph. The American civil war is the first conflict I can think of where it was used as a strategic communications tool but it had been around for about 20 years by that point, so it's possible that telecommunications had been used in a major conflict prior to that.
War and occupation (Score:5, Insightful)
The article misses an important point, I think. It speaks about the full spectrum of US involvement in Iraq as if it were all one affair. The invasion was successful in that American forces rapidly toppled the Iraqi government and defeated those Iraqi forces that presented resistence. That was a purely military operation, and the American technology that was designed for high-intensity conflict worked quite well.
However, at the conclusion of the invasion, American forces had to switch to peacemaking activity. American units in Iraq are part of a larger civil-military effort, and regardless of whether you feel the effort will succeed in the long run or not, it clearly hasn't succeeded yet. The invasion lasted 21 days. The peacemaking effort has lasted three years. According to the Army's own manual on low-intensity conflict [globalsecurity.org], peacemaking operations run into trouble if they last too long:Low-intensity insurgency/counterinsurgency operations have always been markedly different than all-out war. Technology is not the force multiplier that it is in high-intensity operations. The most important factors in the success of counterinsurgency operations are political. Troops on the ground are constantly engaged in diplomacy, as the article demonstrated. But soldiers and marines do not conduct their negotiations in a vacuum. If the larger political context is not positive, soldiers confronting insurgents are fighting an uphill battle.
In Iraq, the locals know the physical environment. They know the cultural environment intimately. They know the individuals and organizations that influence a particular area. Regardless of sectarian schisms, they share a common religion. Technology gives occupiers no advantage in dealing with these advantages enjoyed by insurgents. Getting involved with the locals and making them feel comfortable often requires taking some risks in order to demonstrate good intentions. The American approach, which emphasizes technology and force protection above all else, may actually hinder the development of trust between locals and American forces.
The larger issue is that while Saddam placed his trust in generals who only gave him news he wanted to hear, the Secretary of Defense seemed to feel that American warfighting technology would win the war and somehow obviate the need for occupation of Iraq. As we have found out, the miscalculation was enormous.
Is the war really being lost? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still not entirely certain I agree, but it's an interesting read nonetheless. A quote:
Since my first encounter with Iraq almost 40 years ago, I have relied on several broad measures of social and economic health to assess the countrys condition. Through good times and bad, these signs have proved remarkably accurateas accurate, that is, as is possible in human affairs. For some time now, all have been pointing in an unequivocally positive direction.
The first sign is refugees. When things have been truly desperate in Iraqin 1959, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1988, and 1990long queues of Iraqis have formed at the Turkish and Iranian frontiers, hoping to escape. In 1973, for example, when Saddam Hussein decided to expel all those whose ancestors had not been Ottoman citizens before Iraqs creation as a state, some 1.2 million Iraqis left their homes in the space of just six weeks. This was not the temporary exile of a small group of middle-class professionals and intellectuals, which is a common enough phenomenon in most Arab countries. Rather, it was a departure en masse, affecting people both in small villages and in big cities, and it was a scene regularly repeated under Saddam Hussein.
Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television setsand we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark. Many of the camps set up for fleeing Iraqis in Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia since 1959 have now closed down. The oldest such center, at Ashrafiayh in southwest Iran, was formally shut when its last Iraqi guests returned home in 2004.
Re:They should learn from history (Score:5, Interesting)
Take some of those billions we're spending on bombs and spend it on infrastructure- build sewers, electical plants, roads, hospitals and schools. Send in the army medics to treat at the hospitals. Send peace corp workers to teach at the schools (if you can't find enough Iraqis). Put Iraqis in charge of these things- and let them make actual decisions. Give tax breaks to a few US companies to build factories there to provide jobs.
The first Iraqi president was an old CIA lackey. Horrible choice. Worst they could have made. The correct choice would be to find someone who has some respect from the 3 factions and dump the job on him. Bonus points if he's moderately anti-US- it makes it look more realistic. Let the IRaqi government actually control Iraq, just use the US army to maintain security at the infrastructure projects. Plan a slow phase out of troops.
Faced with something like this, an insurgency wouldn't get the support of the people they need to be anything but a lunatic fringe. They'd be completely ineffective. For a fraction of what we spent on bombs and guns, we would have ended up not only with fewer deaths but with a trading partner and possible ally in the middle east. And a democratic government that would actually work without propping up by the US army.
Parent
Link to Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Here [defensetech.org] you are. Notice the sentence about "...a Linux-based operating system, as opposed to Windows. 'Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS,'" says the program's manager, Lt. Col. Dave Gallop".
Parent
Re:Genius at pentagon (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I'd say it had more to do with Sam Walton's realization that there was a lot more business available in smaller towns than Sears and K-mart realized.
-jcr