Recommended Reading
RC: I believe that we could have fought this war in a far smarter way. Fighting smarter does not have to involve an existential threat. If the President of the United States and his war cabinet determine that committing US troops and US civilians and American taxpayer money was a critical thing to do for our national security, then I believe the organs of our government had an obligation to employ those resources in the most judicious way possible. You outline a number of problems that I illustrate in the book. Each of the problems you cite has a different cause. Let me take a few of them.
The Marine decision to push for contiguous battlespace – let me say at the outset that this book is not in any way a criticism of the Marines who went to Afghanistan and fought so bravely. They did phenomenal work and I try to capture that in the opening chapters of this book. I recently found out that the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade is going to be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, an incredibly prestigious award. I think that a reader would determine from their work that I detail in the book that they were deserving of an honor like this. My criticism is with senior officers in the Corps in Washington, as well as our senior Pentagon leadership for sending the Marines where they were sent. There is no argument that Helmand is a bad place; lots of insurgents there. Helmand is the epicenter of poppy production. It was a nasty place, but was it the nastiest place in all of Afghanistan? Was it the most critical place?
The Glittering Eye –Education As the Key to a Bright Future, Again
Dave is right. The problem of an advanced economy with rentier policies is that economic stagnation is the natural byproduct of managing markets for the benefit of a politically connected oligarchy:
….I see that others are beginning to recognize the point that I made several years ago, that if you want more scientists you need to produce more jobs for scientists: Obama has made science education a priority, launching a White House science fair to get young people interested in the field. But it’s questionable whether those youths will be able to find work when they get a PhD. Although jobs in some high-tech areas, especially computer and petroleum engineering, seem to be booming, the market is much tighter for lab-bound scientists — those seeking new discoveries in biology, chemistry and medicine. The smartest math PhD I know is working at, essentially, the same job as he held before he got his doctorate, working as a computer programmer. Outside of a handful of fields, e.g. petroleum engineer—a field that produces fewer than 300 new graduates with bachelors annually from just a handful of programs nationally, or biomed, enormously subsidized, there just aren’t a lot of jobs out there. Even biomed is shrinking:
CTOVision.com (Alex Olesker)-Tech at the Tip of the Spear
I think they used to call some of this “network-centric” in the old days: 🙂
….though most don’t associate computer networks with special operations forces, SOCOM is seeking technology for cyberspace operations. It is looking information assurance throughout worldwide enterprise systems that also connect to joint, coalition, and partner networks. SOCOM is also interested in offensive and counter-threat capabilities, wanting to globally identify, attribute, geo-locate, monitor, interdict, and defend against threats while simultaneously being able to access, control, and disrupt enemy networks.
Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance requirements also hinge on information technology, analytics, and Big Data. SOCOM seeks to identify and track targets using biometrics, unique mechanical defects, and augmentation of natural signatures. They want advanced processing techniques for the intelligence they gathered with secure data warehousing and data mining. Special Operations Command also seeks to improve communication and navigation technology on unmanned vehicles and data transmission on sensors.
Page 2 of 3 | Previous page | Next page