Phi Beta Iota: Our political, policy, and military leaders simply do not know what they do not know. Assuming–desiring–that they have the best of intentions–the reality is that they are not receiving the intelligence (decision-support) that they require to make intelligent decisions. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, because there was political will, trillions have been wasted on “security” instead of sustenance. Haiti, because there were no political will, was a microcosm–20,000 troops with a huge logistics tail when what was really needed were CAB 21 Peace Jumpers able to call in a Reverse TPFID…. Advanced Cyber/IO starts with imagination & intelligence.
Chuck Spinney and Robert Steele have pretty well identified the new U.S. Air Force (USAF) drone program for what it is, but here are some ancillary remarks on the subject.
The Gorgon Stare, a new UAV built presumably to USAF specifications is a technological marvel and does indeed multiply not only surveillance capabilities, but store and forwarding capabilities as well. In the excitement over this new collection platform several essential questions are being ignored.
The most important is how much help is this device going to be in actually fighting enemy forces in Afghanistan. Is it going to help the U.S. or Coalition High Commands understand that what they call the “Taliban” is not a monolithic force with an elaborate hierarchy using a Soviet era command and control systems? But is actually a rubric for disparate tribes, groups, and gangs that engage the foreigners when they fell like it or to protect their opium trade or home village or to up grade their armament. I don’t think so.
Perhaps it will help the actual U.S. and Coalition fighters (boots on the ground) by providing heads up warnings of impending attacks or dangerous stretches of road. Perhaps but this will depend not simply on enhanced surveillance, but as Robert Steele has observed enhanced processing as well.
Thus the second important question is how will all the extra data being down linked from the Gorgon be processed, analyzed, and disseminated in a timely manner? It may not be, but it can be certain with all the extra data coming in the USAF will argue for greatly increased processing staffing along with new information handling systems with impressive, if expensive, bells and whistles. This of course will be a hidden, but real addition to the cost of the Gorgon. So will enhanced processing and analytic capabilities mean that Gorgon data may actually get to the war fighters in time to save lives and materially aid in defeating enemy forces? My guess is it won’t make a bit difference.
Unfortunately the whole Gorgon Stare Program is one more example the increasing tendency to use technology as a substitute for target knowledge and analysis (what Chuck Spinney calls synthetic as opposed to analytic thinking). As one who designed my share of ‘Gold Plated Shovels with Rope Handles’, I suspect the Gorgon falls into that category.
Phi Beta Iota: See the three graphics below. Historically the excess profit is in collection with few humans, and both government managers and contractor carpet-baggers shy away from the processing challenge–the contractors don't do processing well (a major problem with single-point of sale snake oil salesmen) and humans are “messy” and there are not enough of them to go around if you insist they have clearances. The future is HUMAN, Multinational, Ezight-Tribe Sharing, and THINKING. Gorgon Stare has no brain and neither does the US Air Force. This web site contains all of the information the US Government refuses to take seriously. Until at least one element of the US Government gets serious about creating intelligence for every level of command across all mission areas, Gorgon Stare will continue to be the norm: expensive, useless, and harmful to the infantry that take 80% of the casualties because 96% of the Pentagon's budget continues to be spent irresponsibly (and without being accounted for in a responsible manner either).
The American Way of War: If You Can See Everything, Can You Know Anything?
With Air Force's new drone, ‘we can see everything,'in today's Washington Post (attached below) is a good example of how the high-cost addiction to techno war is running amok. One thing ought to be clear in Afghanistan: A tiny adversary armed with the most primitive weapons, and a command and control system made up of prayer rugs and cell phones, has brought the high tech US military to a stalemate … or even worse, the looming specter a grand-strategic defeat, because we are becoming economically and morally exhausted by the futility of this war. It does not matter whether it is President Obama presiding over a vapid strategic review or a low ranking grunt on point in Afghanistan — the central problem facing the United States in Afghanistan is the absence of what the Germans call fingerspitzengefühlor the feeling in the fingerprints needed for an intuitive feel for or connection with one's environment.
As the American strategist Colonel John Boyd (USAF Ret.) showed, fingerspitzengefühl is absolutely essential to the kind of synthetic (as opposed to analytic) thinking that is necessary for quick, relevant, and ultimately successful decision making in war, where quick decisions and sharp actions at all levels must be made and harmonized in an ever-present atmosphere of menace, uncertainty, mistrust, fear, and chaos that impedes decisive action.[1]
Article About Grogon Stare
To paraphrase Clausewitz, these difficulties multiply to produce a kind of friction, and therefore, even though everything in war is simple, the simplest thing is difficult. Clausewitz considered friction is the atmosphere of war. Nevertheless, according to the Post, the Air Force is about to deploy to Afghanistan a “revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.”
Quoting Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, “Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything.” Nirvana. While the Post dutifully reports a smattering of opposing views, it misses the ramifications of the central idea epitomized by General Poss's confident assertion: namely, how the American ideology of techno war assumes it can negate the human need for fingerspitzengefühl on a battlefield.
General Poss's confidence suggests quite clearly he believes seeing everything enables one to know everything. This a stunning theory of knowledge. It is also a classic example of the American military's unquestioned belief that complex technologies coupled to step-by-step analytical procedures can negate the friction of combat to solve any problem in war. Lifting the fog of war is, in fact, a phrase frequently used in contractor brochures touting the efficacy of these technologies. This reflects theory of knowledge — really an unquestioned ideology — that views war as fundamentally a procedural problem of methodical analytical thinking, as opposed to its messy reality of being in large part an art of synthetic thinking.
Officer won't sign order for troop indoctrination, asks to be relieved of command over repeal of ‘gay' ban in military
Worldnet.com,Posted: December 24, 2010
An Army lieutenant colonel has asked to be relieved of command rather than order his troops to go through pro-homosexual indoctrination following the repeal of the policy, which required homosexuals to keep silent about their sexual preference.
This year will see the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan and, according to current plans, the beginning of British troop withdrawal. A decade into the military campaign, there is no longer even discussion of winning. The initial objective to release the country from the despotic grip of the Taliban and prevent its use as a safe haven for al-Qaida was achieved within months. Since then, it has only ever become harder to discern what victory might look like.
There is some clarity on what would count as defeat. If Nato withdrawal leads to the total collapse of Hamid Karzai's government and a return to Taliban rule, there would be no disguising the humiliation to western powers, nor the increased security threat from jihadi terrorism. Not that President Karzai is an attractive ruler. His administration is corrupt and repressive.
Very hard to disagree with anything this article says. ((HOWEVER)), increasing special operations forces (SOF) is constrained by a set of iron laws, the five “SOF Truths”:
1. Humans are more important than hardware.
2. Quality is more important than quantity.
3. Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced.
4. Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after an emergency occurs.
5. Most special operations require non-SOF assistance.
To put a fine point on it, if we try to crank up the pipeline now, we may not get significant benefit before the Presidentially-mandated disengagement point for Afghanistan. Then, we could find ourselves, as we did after Vietnam, over-resourced with special operators. Some of us can remember standing on a PT field at Fort Bragg every morning in 1976-77-78 and receiving the latest play-by-play as to whether our Special Forces Group was going to be deactivated in the post-Vietnam drawdown. Other elements of the US Government can relate similar experiences.
If there is a bright side to this, IMHO, it would be that there does not today appear to be the antipathy toward SOF on the part of conventional forces that existed during the Vietnam era. A former colleague, well known for competence and dedication to some of you, visited his Army assignments officer while assigned as an A-Detachment commander in the 10th Special Forces Group, then at Fort Devens, MA. His assignments officer told him, “… see, you're not soldiering. …” I think that is less of a problem today, but I'm not sufficiently sanguine to believe that the knife fights will not recur as resources tighten while conflicts and attendant requirements persist indefinitely.
Phi Beta Iota: Not mentioned in the article are the fact that Private Military Contractor (PMC) firms have been allowed to rape, pillage, and loot the ranks of Special Forces. Retaining highly-qualified individuals and outsourcing indiscriminately are a contradiction.
