A really good read on why we are losing the technology battle against insurgents in Iraq.
Pretty strange as we (the U.S.) spend billions on military spending, and the enemy is beating us with low cost tech. That tech: free email accounts and disposable cell phones.
This war in Iraq was launched on a theory: That, with the right communication and reconnaissance gear, American armed forces would be quicksilver-fast and supremely lethal. A country could be conquered with only a fraction of the soldiers needed in the past.
"There is a connectivity gap," a draft Army War College report notes. "Information is not reaching the lowest levels."
And that's a problem, because the insurgents are stitching together a network of their own. Using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts, these guerrillas rely on a loose web of connections, not a top-down command structure. And they don't fight in large groups that can be easily tracked by high-tech command posts. They have to be hunted down in dark neighborhoods, found amid thousands of civilians, and taken out one by one.
From an administration that doesn't embrace technology, this story doesn't really surprise me. What exactly are we getting for the billions spent on defense contracts?
Tags: [billions spent on defense contracts], [Winning (and Losing) the First Wired War], [There is a connectivity gap], [Information is not reaching the lowest levels], [guerrillas using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts]
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