Peter Fuchs, then the Secreary General, was very gracious in coming to speak to the third annual international conference. His most memorable remark was along the following lines: “The media has an attention span of one war at a time. The Red Cross this year is active within 34 armed conflicts.” Most people, especially those from organizations devoted to stealing secrets about seven hard targets (denied areas) while ignoring the challenge of global coverage, had no idea. Below are his prepared remarks as delivered.
It was a privilege to be asked by the National Research Council to comment on the U.S. Army's multi-billion dollar future communications architecture. I noticed immediately that the entire program assumed self-generated bits and bytes and made no provision, ZERO PROVISION, for acquiring and making sense of external information from anyone outside the DoD “grid.”
As a Marine familiar with how our arriving Marines could not communicate with the US Embassy they were coming to save, and as a CEO newly familiar with the plethora of open sources relevant to the real world of operations other than war (OOTW) and what is now called Irregular Warfare (IRWF), I considered my contribution valuable.
They did not. As with all other early warnings from myself and many others in the 1980's and 1990's, “the Borg” just kept on marching along, oblivous to the real world and the known future requirements.
