Iraq Success Spurs New Pentagon Investment in Information Technologies

George Gilder's Friday Newsletter ^ | 4/18/03 | Gilder "Friday Letter"

[LS]

Buoyed by its decisive win in Iraq, the Pentagon is betting billions that the information technology system that helped defeat Saddam Hussein will evolve into a more potent weapon than cluster bombs and howitzers.

Department of Defense futurists call it network-centric warfare. Other military strategists simply refer to it as the digital war. The first Gulf War was analog, they say. This one was digital.

Digital it may have been--using real-time video images to target missiles in flight, wireless PDAs to connect with stateside medical records from the battlefield, and virtual-reality simulations to provide just-in-time delivery of material to front-line troops. But the nascent version of network-centric warfare waged in Iraq was but a pixilated, low-res harbinger of computer combat to come.

Check out four network-centric initiatives currently receiving a cut of the Department of Defense's $500 billion budget.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58422,00.html.

[LS]

While I don't think this is the "breakthrough" boost that the tech sector has been awaiting, it sure won't hurt. Government is NEVER in the forefront of major breakthroughs, but it is good at accelerating existing work.

[Paleo Conservative]

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58422,00.html

[Restorer]

Such systems may work great, but they also have some obvious vulnerabilities.

Hacking and viruses are obvious potential problems.

Will there be backup systems if the network goes down?

I would hate to see something like the system at Lowe's where they can't sell you a box of nails if the computer goes down.

[Lazamataz]

I would hate to see something like the system at Lowe's where they can't sell you a box of nails if the computer goes down.

           GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT IN M-16 RIFLE
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            Hex Dump Follows:
            00FF 0E52 F572 FFFF 0000 0A61 6192
            0000 0000 0000 1281 19F2 AB36 3556
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           REBOOTING RIFLE, PLEASE WAIT...............
           WINDOWS 2005 (MILITARY VERSION, SMALL ARMS)
           ERROR IN BOOT RECORD. PLEASE REINSTALL WINDOWS.

[mylife]

While I don't think this is the "breakthrough" boost that the tech sector has been awaiting, it sure won't hurt.

You are right it wont be a breakthough boost.
This work has been going on for a long time, It is a constantly evolving project, no sudden breakthrough.
We are just seeing the fruits of the hard work that is "in progress".

[mylife]

Government is NEVER in the forefront of major breakthroughs,

You are wrong about that, In fact the internet we are using was a breakthru concept developed by the DOD.

[LS]

Nope. That's a myth. The first internet was set up among universities. It is true that the Pentagon/DOD had ONE of the first internet connections---but even there, this is the result of a) Bill Gates and a computer ops system; b) Steve Jobs and the PC; and c) Marc Andreasson and Netscape; and Bell Labs (the modem). DOD had nothing to do with any of these inventions.

[LS]

Well, but clearly there are going to be new initiatives and new spending. That's what the article says.

[mylife]

The Netcentric concept will allow commanders access to information from all plaforms, even individual soldiers..it will eventually even allow someone stateside to monitor the heath of individual troops.
Using "smart fabrics" in uniforms that can measure temp, heart rate and can report bullet wounds when the fabric is penetrated.

The major challenge of Netcentric is being able to "filter" the tremendous amount of information so that commands are not flooded with info. It all has to be filered in a coherent way to be useful.
Imagine if you had every signal intercept in a battle coming to you at onetime. How do you weed out all of the signals of non interest and focus on the signifgicant signals??

[LS]

I admit there are problems. Now, notice how many of those "problems" surfaced in Gulf War I, Afghanistan, or Iraq? None. Why is that? Because anyone smart enough to hack these systems ain't hiding in a cave, sending out little tapes to suicidal kooks.

To defeat the west, you must become like the west---ALL THE WAY, and that means developing individual initiative, secular skepticism, and valueing human life.

[mylife]

Well, but clearly there are going to be new initiatives and new spending. That's what the article says.

I'm just trying to point out that it is already "in progress" not a "new" initiative.

[mylife]

Id have to do some reseach on that. But as I understand it the DOD developed arpanet and the concept of TCPIP packet protocal. I may be wrong but I believe universities set up tophernet based on work that had already been done on arpanet. At any rate the Co. I work for is a civilian company that develops this kinda stuff...But we develop it for the DOD, And DOD contracts us to develop DODS concepts.

[mylife]

Nope. That's a myth. The first internet was set up among universities. It is true that the Pentagon/DOD had ONE of the first internet connections---but even there, this is the result of a) Bill Gates and a computer ops system; b) Steve Jobs and the PC; and c) Marc Andreasson and Netscape; and Bell Labs (the modem). DOD had nothing to do with any of these inventions.

After doing some research..Ive found that DOD did spearhead most of this stuff(arpanet and modems) the universities and Bell labs had contracts with ARPA to develop this stuff.
Gates and Jobs are civilian innovators, but they based their products on technology that was first introduced thru DOD developments.

[Restorer]

To defeat the west, you must become like the west---ALL THE WAY, and that means developing individual initiative, secular skepticism, and valueing human life.

Gibbon said something very like this around the time of our Revolution.

Nomadic savages could no longer be a threat to civilized countries, since to be a threat they would first have to become civilized.