War in the Information Age
In yesterday’s Opinion Journal (the online opinion page from the Wall Street Journal) one of my favorite bloggers wrote a column about “Digital Warriors”. This was basically just a publication of a post he put on his blog a couple weeks ago but it is a well researched and thought out column about how the way wars are fought is changing. He compares war in pre-industrial times to war after the American Civil war and then compares Gulf War 2 to late-industrial wars like World War 2 and Gulf War 1. It really is worth a read.
Dan sent me a link to another excellent story from Wired magazine’s web page. It describes war in the Information Age from the point of view of the soldiers who have to fight it (and the soldiers who set up all the networks and do the computer nerd stuff). The writer is pretty critical of Rumsfeld and his push towards new ways of fighting war but he also expresses well how effective this new way of fighting a war is even though there are many wrinkles to be worked out.
It will be interesting to see how history judges Donald Rumsfeld. While most of the new ideas about how to fight aren’t directly attributable to him he is the chief proponent for aggressively implementing the new procedures. He isn’t very popular with much of the military Establishment (especially the Army brass) but this latest fight does seem to have vindicated his views to a great degree. I think he’s cool but I’m not an expert on any of this. We’ll see…
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I like Rumsfeld, but I’m sure I know less about him then the next person. Oh well, I still like him.
Comment by Michael — May 21, 2003 @ 2:45 pm