Wired War

DefenseTech's Noah Shactman and David Axe have a story in Junes 2006 issue of Popular Science outlining the failure (over time) of the Military's first Wired War. The network centric warfare, that is suppose to connect every soldier to every other soldier, worked initially in 2003 when we first went into Iraq.

Most ground level soldiers were not wired up then, but it was enough that their commanders were, allowing them to march to Baghdad at an amazing speed. However three years later, the ground level troops still don't have the information downflow that was the Pentagons objective at the beginning of this new war.

But really, what's new? Ground levels troops since the beginning of war, have never had all the information they needed, wanted, or were promised. Ask any WWII or I vet and they may say, "Information? What information?" At least, though, the Pentagon is actively trying. However, in that sense, anybody who has any knowledge of the Pentagon knows the lumbering procurement they trudge along.

What the Pentagon wants is to invent the World Wide Web, for just themselves, and it took a decade for us to just develop one for the World. To schools of thought, then, would exist. Either it should be easier for the Pentagon to implement a Net-Centric battlefield since the Army is a bit smaller then the World, or the other school of thought might suggest that the original WWW didn't have has much bureaucracy as our good old Pentagon and therefore it should be harder to implement.

Which ever path you follow, the grunts fighting behind mud walls, and searching the bomb laden streets of Baghdad will have to wait a good, long time, for their wires.