War's Risks Include Toll on Training Values

[Steve Blair]

Very good points, Tom. To me they point out that one of the keys to a good military mind is the ability to be flexible in both thought and action. Many of the 4GW pundits seem to want to push it as "the only way to go", just like some of their opponents who jump on the technology bandwagon.

War is war, and if you look at it over the long term you can see it spiral back in on itself in strategic and tactical terms and then explode outward again. Technology impacts that spiral in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is the way that it speeds up the sprial process.

By way of an example I offer the following, and then I'll stop my morning ramble... The Spanish-American War saw what could be considered one of the earlier attempts at media manipulation by an insurgent power (the Cuban resistance to the Spanish colonial power). Their atrocity stories (some true, some stretched, and a few that were most likely fabrications) found a ready audience in the Hearst newspapers (and others, of course). Given the limits of technology, this attempt took months, but eventually resulted in the US getting involved (for reasons of its own, of course, but without the Cuban rebels it would have been a much harder sell). Now fast-forward to the Second Indochina War and you see the same level of press manipulation by an insurgent power (the NLF), although its impact was much more immediate because of television. Jump ahead again, and you find the instant updates of Islamist websites and the impact of images of youths throwing rocks at Israeli tanks shown on CNN during the first Intafada. Old concept (media manipulation) made much more immediate and effective through technology. This to my mind makes it harder for the defenders to counter, unless they launch an offensive of their own aimed at the same centers of gravity (to borrow from another thread).

Just some Tuesday morning thoughts on a very complex subject, with an afternoon addition.