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Are We Developing a "Different Kind" of Leaders?
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Dempsey, the commander of U.S. Training and Doctine Command (TRADOC), went on to say that the "complexity on the battlefield that, in turn, requires a different kind of leadership and a decentralized command structure that pushes down decision-making authority to more junior leaders."
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“We must prepare leaders for the shifting balance of operational and tactical art due to complexity and decentralization [on the battlefield],” Dempsey said. “As the operational environment becomes more complex, commanders at much-lower echelons of command must gain an appreciation of the operational art.”
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Soldiers in the Blogosphere: Would you use "interactive" FMs?
Another idea for using new media for purposes of military knowledge formation, in this cases shortening the lessons learned, doctrine development loop.
Thoughts on the “New Media” (Updated) (SWJ Blog)
There is some excellent material over at the Small Wars Journal blog about perceptions of the value of new media for the lessons learned process. I've been thinking of writing a paper on this very topic, but focused on "military knowledge formation" more generally. This post, linked PDF, and other posts that link to and comment on it, will all be great material for that.
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“The New Media: Ricks cited a discussion on Small Wars Journal once and also cited some things on PlatoonLeader.org but never considered the way in which the new media has revolutionized the lessons learned process in the U.S. military. (Forget Abu Muqawama, though, because this lowly blog started around the same time as the surge.) Instead of just feeding information to the Center for Army Lessons Learned and waiting for lessons to be disseminated, junior officers are now debating what works and what doesn't on closed internet fora -- such as PlatoonLeader and CompanyCommand -- and open fora, such as the discussion threads on Small Wars Journal. The effect of the new media on the junior officers fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was left curiously unexplored by Ricks, now a famous blogger himself.”
Who's using wikis
Federal Computer Week provides a quick list of government agencies using wikis and what they are using them for.
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The list of government wikis and the variety of purposes for which they are used continues to expand. The versatility of wikis’ freely editable Web pages makes them a great tool for the types of knowledge sharing and collaborative projects that government employees work on every day.
Here is a sampling of government wikis that illustrate that wide range of uses.
The Air Force's Tug-of-War
Via the D-Ring blog, links to two stories about the internal war within the Air Force over the use of social/new media and Internet technologies more generally.
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Two views of the Air Force:
Cognitive dissonance anyone?
West Point Puts Troops' Stories Online
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Lt. Col. Paul Owen, West Point Class of '90, came back to the academy to tell his story about Iraq. Sitting before a video camera in his dress uniform, Owen described the oppressive heat, the "moon dust" sand and a string of some 300 night raids in search of insurgents.
"We were quick," he said. "If they heard us coming, they'd flee."
Owen's recorded recollections will be transcribed and posted on the Web as part of an ambitious oral history project under way at the U.S. Military Academy's new Center for Oral History. He is among some 150 Soldiers - most West Point graduates - who have so far taped interviews destined for the Web before year's end.
How Gadgets Helped Mumbai Attackers
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The Mumbai terrorists used an array of commercial technologies -- from Blackberries to GPS navigators to anonymous e-mail accounts -- to pull off their heinous attacks.
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For years, terrorists and insurgents around the world have used off-the-shelf hardware and software to stay ahead of bigger, better-funded authorities. In 2007, former U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid complained that, with their Radio Shack stockpile of communications gear, "this enemy is better networked than we are."
Data Catalog - District of Columbia
The District of Columbia is providing RSS feeds as well as mashups of "city operational data," such as crime reports, building permits, purchase orders, and much more. This seems like a great example of using new media/web 2.0 technologies to increase government transparency.
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For years the District of Columbia has provided public access to city operational data through the Internet. Now the District provides real-time data from multiple agencies to citizens, a catalyst ensuring agencies operate as more responsive, better performing organizations. Use the data catalog below to subscribe to a live data feed in Atom format and access data in XML, Text/CSV, KML or ESRI Shapefile formats.
Live Piracy Map
A Google Map mashup showing maritime piracy events for 2008.
Army Warns of Twitter Dangers
AFP's take on the Army intel report about terrorist use of cell phones, GPS, and yes, Twitter. AFP cites Wired, which slightly misrepresented the contents of the Army report, playing up the Twitter aspect when most of the report was actually about cell phones and GPS. Twitter plays even more prominently in the AFP version.
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Add Sticky NoteBesides Twitter, the report examined the potential use by militants of Global Positioning Systems and other technologies.
- Ya, this should be the other way around..."Besides cell phones and GPS, the report examined Twitter." So, which is it AFP? Did you not read the report or are you purposefuly misrepresenting? - on 2008-10-27
Report: Taliban Using Skype to Make Secure Phone Calls
Surprisingly enough, Fox News has a more skeptical view of the Taliban's supposed use of Skype.
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"The trouble with this technology is that it is easily available but devilishly hard to crack," the source told the Mail. "The technology can now be accessed on mobile Internet devices and the country's mobile-phone network is expanding rapidly."
It's true that Skype's encryption is impossible to crack. It's also true that Skype is available for Windows Mobile smartphones.
But it's doubtful that a Taliban commander standing by the side of a dirt road 20 miles outside of Kandahar is going to get much mobile broadband Internet access on his $600 phone.
More likely, any insurgents using Skype to evade Western ears are sitting in front of regular old PCs, using fixed lines to route calls over the Internet.
Taliban using Skype phones to dodge MI6
Article from the Daily Mail on Taliban use of Skype as a way to avoid interception of phone calls.
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Taliban fighters targeting British troops in Afghanistan are using the latest ‘internet phones’ to evade detection by MI6, security sources said last night.
Skype, a popular piece of consumer software that allows free calls to be made over the web, has been adopted by insurgents to communicate with cells strung out across the country.
Unlike traditional mobile calls, which can be monitored by RAF Nimrod spy planes, Skype calls – the commercial application of a technology called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) – are heavily encrypted.
The Revolution in Intelligence Affairs
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Now, the crowd, armed with a variety of speedy communication devices and simple, online tools with which to exploit them, can increasingly outpace the most sophisticated news and intelligence capabilities.
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However, the changes that modern telecommunications technologies and their associated applications have brought to the world are only the most visible of those that are already affecting intelligence affairs. Three other trends, the ascendency of the “open,” the collapse of the so-called intelligence cycle and the changing perception of intelligence in the public eye, are likely to completely revolutionize intelligence over the next 5-10 years.
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New media plan to combat Taleban
An idea in the UK about using short cell phone films as a way of countering Taliban propaganda.
Read different
This latest piece by T.X. Hammes, a "fourth generation warfare" theorist and follower of Boyd's teachings, provides a list of 12 recommended readings said to be helpful in allowing the defense community to think differently about the technologicl and social changes affecting the world. The list is an interesting mix of popular press works on nonlinear science and new media.
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Add Sticky Note
Since the early 1990s, the defense industry has been talking about the revolutionary technological changes taking place across society. It has worked hard to ensure we know what those changes are and how they are affecting national security. Yet, the industry rarely talks about the fundamental requirement to change the way we think in order to understand the implications of the technological and social changes we face.
Although the wider academic and business communities are coming to grips with the fact that many of these advances are changing the way we understand the world, the defense industry does not seem to see this as an issue. We still tend to view the world as responding to linear approaches applied by bureaucratic entities.
Fortunately, over the past couple of decades, a number of books have provided thought-provoking new theories of how the world works. Unfortunately, these theories do not align with the planning processes we use in the defense industry. The first step in fixing our planning processes is to examine how science’s understanding of reality is changing.
- In my dissertation, I wrote about military theory as "articulation." That is the idea that military theory seeks to define and link certain elements in the world in a way that makes sense. Especially in the twenttieth century, military theory has often served to define and link military understandings of science, technology, society, military, and war. These efforts often begin with the assumption that changes in any one of these areas should mirror/be mirrored by changes in the others. The elements either are or should be in sync or congruent, should change in a "coperiodized" way. Elements out of sync are typically identified as a problem in need of solution.
This is exactly the reasoning we see in Hammes' introduction to his recommended reading list. His three short paragraphs provide one of the most concise renderings of this narrative. In effect, he is saying that there have been changes in technology and science that have led to changes in society and war. Unfortunately, he says, the U.S. military has not kept pace, has not changed its "internal" thinking in a way that is in sync with changes in these other elements of the world. Another common piece of this narrative is the claim that others (e.g. businesses, terrorists, insurgents, etc.) have recognized changes and adapted themselves appropriately while the U.S. military has not. Thus, the need for action, the need to "read different" so as to think differently and, ultimately, act differently, in a way that is congruent with the world "out there." - on 2008-10-04
- In my dissertation, I wrote about military theory as "articulation." That is the idea that military theory seeks to define and link certain elements in the world in a way that makes sense. Especially in the twenttieth century, military theory has often served to define and link military understandings of science, technology, society, military, and war. These efforts often begin with the assumption that changes in any one of these areas should mirror/be mirrored by changes in the others. The elements either are or should be in sync or congruent, should change in a "coperiodized" way. Elements out of sync are typically identified as a problem in need of solution.
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Add Sticky NoteThe authors of these works highlight aspects of how the world has changed. This forces us to change how we frame problems, how we organize to deal with them and even how to get the best out of our people.
- Assumption: Epistemological and organizational changes in the world "out there" should be mirrored by the same kinds of changes "within" the military. - on 2008-10-04
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