From Wired Magazine: How Technology Almost Lost the War
Back in the 1970's and early '80's when America stood toe to toe with the Soviet Union in Europe, the Soviets enjoyed numerical superiority militarily.
For example, in numbers of tanks the Soviets enjoyed a 5 to 1 advantage. This advantage led to the development of the Abrams Main Battle Tank and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System. Rather than produce enough of those weapons to match the Soviets tank for tank, the approach taken was to develop weapons capable of defeating a numerically superior enemy through technology. This approach led to a reliance on technology throughout the American military. People were subordinated to a systems approach.
Forgotten in this approach was the fact of war requiring a baseline of people you can never get away from. A key to the problems we have had in Iraq is the lack of the proper number of people to do mundane military tasks like guarding ammunition dumps to keep them from being looted.
We are, in fact, relearning the lessons of Korea. Korea came at time when America felt its possession of the Atomic Bomb gave it the ultimate technological superiority. Conventional forces, particularly the Army, was given short shrift for funding and maintenance. But as T. R. Fehrenbach wrote in his classic critique of the Korean War, "You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life. But if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
In this case, we have put our young men into the sand and (as the article points out) their efforts have earned us a window. The question is whether we can be successful with this window and make the Iraqis do what they need to do for themselves.
A quick side note is that one of the reasons we have this lull is how many people we detained during the surge. What happens when we begin to release those people and what do you do when and if you are able to get the refugees who fled Iraq to return?
Here is a link to the article.
http://www.wired.com/print/politics/security/magazine/15-12/ff_futurewar
A quick side note is that one of the reasons we have this lull is how many people we detained during the surge. What happens when we begin to release those people and what do you do when and if you are able to get the refugees who fled Iraq to return?
Here is a link to the article.
http://www.wired.com/print/politics/security/magazine/15-12/ff_futurewar
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