The Networked battlefield from a grunt's point of view | Hacker News Reader

The Networked battlefield from a grunt's point of view

thestandard.com

9 pointsChris85354 comments

On a late summer night of 2004 in al Anbar province, Iraq, just south of Abu Ghraib, an observation post of four Marines was shot at briefly from the shadows...

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"... They depend on their small-unit leaders, who contend with an infinite assortment of situations and variables, to understand the mission, evaluate the circumstances carefully, and exercise initiative in the absence of orders. The military's training has undergone painstaking changes over the past decade to produce exactly this kind of soldier ..."

What happened to the "Strategic Corporal" vision that was borne from the lessons of Mogadishu? Krulak tried to lower the command level of decision making required in todays complex battleground and called it the "Three block War". From peace keeper to low intensity warfare to full out civil war ~ http://www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?document...

"... A strategic corporal is a soldier that possesses technical mastery in the skill of arms while being aware that his judgment, decision-making and action can all have strategic and political consequences that can affect the outcome of a given mission and the reputation of his country ..."

Read here how the Aus military is approaching this (pdf, 60Kb) ~ http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/liddy.pdf A measured leadership at the lowest level. A lot like startups.

I think he makes a pretty astute observation that relying on technology to solve command problems actually exacerbates the problem.

I really want to believe its not just "The Office" with 50 cal. machine guns over there.

This does not instill me with a great deal of confidence in this regard.

The author, who was in the Marines for 12 years and served in Iraq, brings up a few very interesting points about how the chain of command and tactics have been impacted by the Internet and electronic devices.

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