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Defense & The National Interest has a/is becoming a blog !

Zounds! But I’m honored to make the short blogroll – Hoo-HA!

By now many of you have probably read the exchanges between Thomas P.M. Barnett and Noah Shachtman of WIRED’s Danger Room over Shachtman’s recent article “How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social – Not Electronic“. If you haven’t, the exchange pretty much went like this:

“Wired’s subpar Iraq analysis” -Barnett

“My ‘Weird’ Article, ‘Well Worth the Read’ ” -Shachtman

“Tom’s reply to Noah” – Barnett

“Blog Fight? Zzzzzzzzzz” – Shachtman

“File it under whatever you want” – Barnett

Admittedly, Network-centric Warfare today is a larger concept than the original theoretical ideas of Arthur Cebrowski and John Garstka; whenever a theory is accepted by a large and powerful bureaucratic organization- like, say, the Pentagon – it collides with reality. Some ideas get tested, tinkered with, discarded or adapted to existing factional agendas by people with more enthusiasm than understanding. Network-centric Warfare, an emerging doctrine, had more “legs” inside the DoD bureaucracy than did it’s main rival, the 4GW School, because it suited the intellectual needs of armed services planning to fight a future “near peer competitor” state military and to rationalize the U.S. military’s systemic coordination and use of emerging technology on the battlefield (“rationalize” in the sense of provide a coherent order – though NCW was also used as a justification in making budgetary requests). And as with any bureaucratic paradigm shift, factional partisans who had career and mission objectives became personally invested in deriding or advancing NCW’s ” transformation”. That’s a far cry from the complexity of the NCW ideas, as presented by Cebrowski and Garstka. Some examples:

“Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future”

“Network-centric Warfare:An Overview of an Emerging Theory”

“Arthur K. Cebrowski on Transformation of Defense”

“Statement of Vice Admiral A. K. Cebrowski, Director, Space, Information Warfare, Command and Control, Chief of Naval Operations – Senate Select Committe on Intelligence Hearings 1997”

The crux of the problem with Shachtman’s article is that his opener gives the impression that the botching of the occupation in Iraq should be laid at the door of two men who articulated strategic ideas with impressive intellectual celerity and subtlety, one of whom is no longer able to defend himself.  It’s a preposterous implication. When the  4 star grandees of the post-Vietnam War U.S. Army decided to “purge” COIN doctrine from the Army’s institutional memory, Admiral Cebrowski was a mere Navy fighter pilot. The creation of the CPA with the subsequent incompetence of Paul Bremer and a bunch of non-Arabic speaking kids just out of college, who interned at AEI, was above the pay grade of any uniformed officer of the United States. Dr. Barnett, who was very close to Admiral Cebrowski, was justly irritated by this cartoonish libel of his friend and mentor.

In fairness to Shachtman, as the WIRED article proceeds, he offered a more nuanced picture of the role of Network-centric Warfare in the larger scheme of things and backtracked somewhat during his exachanges with Tom. However, not all of WIRED’s readers are defense geeks who surf obscure PDFs from OSD.mil and understand the entire context of defense doctrine and policy; Cebrowski and Garstka are therefore, left tarnished by Shachtman in a way that’s sort of akin to blaming William Lind and 4GW theory for Pakistan and India brandishing nuclear weapons at each other.

The prestigious SWJ Blog featured an important IO/Public Diplomacy article ” What the SecDef Didn’t Call For, But Should Have” by blogriend Matt Armstrong of MountainRunner. Matt is bringing one of those critical but obscure inside-baseball variables into the light of public view and out of the realm of government lawyers and interagency staff meetings.

An excerpt:

“In his clarion call to revamp the current structures of government to meet modern threats, Mr. Gates sidestepped an obstacle that has been misinterpreted and misapplied over the last three decades: Public Law 402: United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith-Mundt Act. Despite popular belief, the restrictions the Act is known for today were not designed or intended to be a prophylactic for sensitive American eyes and ears.

Understandably, Mr. Gates did not suggest revising the “anti-Goebbels” act, even if it is misunderstood (while his Department firmly believes themselves to be covered by the Act, a source tells me outgoing Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes was not aware of this until a few short months ago). Smith-Mundt has shaped the content and methods of communications from State and Defense through institutionalized firewalls created along artificial lines, fostering a bureaucratic culture of discrimination that hampers America’s ability to participate in the modern struggle over ideas and managing perceptions.

Simple communications models of the 1940’s have been replaced by global networks of formal and informal media. Perception overcomes fact as deliberation by both the consumers and producers of news shrinks to almost nothing. Too often, by the time the truth comes out, the audience and media have moved on. How America participates in this new world is central to the success of Mr. Gates’ proposed reorganization”

Go read the whole thing…and give a shout out in the SWJ  Blog comment section.

HOPPING ON THE BLOGOSPHERIC BOYD BOOK BANDWAGON

Colonel Frans Osinga, PhD, who gave a tour de force lecture at Boyd 2007, managed to prevail upon his publisher to sell a paperback version of Science, Strategy and War:The Strategic Theory of John Boyd at a price non-billionaires could afford.

I will be reviewing Science, Strategy and War in December and – tentatively – organizing a roundtable discussion at Chicago Boyz, most likely after Christmas. If you are a blogger, academic or a current or former member of the armed services and are interested in participating, send me an email at zenpundit@hotmail.com.

REVIEWING LEARNING TO EAT SOUP WITH A KNIFE

“Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife -Book Review” is now up at Chicago Boyz.