Friday, August 12, 2005
Read Belmont
If you haven't been checking out Belmont Club lately, you should click on over and scroll through recent posts for some fascinating analysis on technology in warfare. One conclusion from "Unintended Consequences":
And from "The Unstoppable IED":
Islamic terrorism, by threatening ruthless destruction, has provoked 21st century technological civilization into responding without limit; every scientific advance, every mathematical discovery, every material, method or craft will be brought to bear at a geometric rate on the Jihadi problem until it is solved.
And from "The Unstoppable IED":
By engaging America in a technological arms race of sorts they are playing to its strengths. The relative decline in IED effectivity suggests the enemy, while improving, has not kept up. The move to bigger bombs may temporarily restore his lost combat power, but the advent of new American countermeasures plus increasing pressure on the bombmakers, means he must improve yet again. It is far from clear whether the insurgents can stay in the battle for innovation indefinitely. The logic of asymmetric warfare suggests the enemy will at some point abandon the direct technological weapons race and find a new paradigm of attack entirely. That is essentially what they did when they abandoned the Republican Guard tank formation in favor of the roadside bomb in the first place.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Aug 13, 04:36:00 PM:
Dear Charlottesvillian:
Belmont Club did write an interesting post discussing the technological aspects of adaptation in warfare.
At Westhawk we discuss in a post Open range - the war without borders how U.S. strategy in the war on terror may need to fundamentally change if nation-building in Iraq fails, and MSM coverage of the war succeeds in sapping domestic support for the effort. We are not gloomy on the outlook for Iraq, just suggesting that U.S policy-makers need to adapt their strategy if their current plan for Iraq fails.
Westhawk
