Fifth Generation of Warfare (5GW) is "indistinguishable from magic"

[astonas]

Re: Remembering the Past

Thank you! Your "2 cents" is worth considerably more.

I have only one final question: To the best of your knowledge, does a similar parallel organizational structure exist in the clandestine services (eg. CIA and NSA), or are there other structural differences affecting accountability to rule of law that are noteworthy?

[Woodsman]

Re: Remembering the Past

I don't fight. I don't resist. I don't organize. I don't demonstrate. I don't discuss such matters in public life. And I write no words for attribution. I tend to my business and to the needs of those depending on me. I have my opinions and since they are no more than that, I trust people here have enough common sense to pay them no mind at all.

[jk]

Re: Remembering the Past

Sayre's law: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

If the only differences between two halves of humanity were the color of their eyes, that would be enough to flatten the earth.

that "color of their eyes" link was really an amazing article. thank you.

[don]

Re: Remembering the Past

"Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."

Lovely quote!

We just had a chance to attend a showing of Sarah Treem's The How and the Why, a mother/daughter day-of-reckoning, set in an academic catfight. Delicious.

[DSpencer]

Re: the war on terror

Who demeans soldiers?
...

Great post. Long in internet terms but well worth the read.

[astonas]

Re: Remembering the Past

that "color of their eyes" link was really an amazing article. thank you.

Thanks, jk.

I first learned of the concept of such demonstrations when I read the german book "Die Welle" (the wave). (It's also been made into a movie.) Apparently it, too, is based on real-life examples of a demonstration in Palo Alto, CA.

Only later did I encounter Jane Elliott's far tamer attempt to demonstrate the darkness lying just beneath the surface of ordinary people.

To me, such demonstrations show first and foremost that we cannot simply rely on the goodness of individuals to serve as the sole bulwark against violent extremism. The human mind, however well trained, is simply too easily mislead by group dynamics. We are in our very nature social creatures, who rely on social cues to establish our emotions, and that is a challenge that requires external intervention to ensure it can't get out of control.

It simply isn't a question of being a good person. Good people can indeed do evil things. Even the worst of things.

So instead, structural measures must exist that force mutual supervision by individuals with very different identities, and different motivations, so that groupthink cannot take hold.

[vt]

Re: What magic, what technology?

One of the tragic results of war is the death or wounding of servicemen and servicewomen.

For the past six years I have given generously to the Fisher House, which provides a place for wounded soldier's families to stay free of charge while their soldier family member is being treated for injuries.

https://www.fisherhouse.org/

There are other organizations that help wounded soldiers:

https://support.woundedwarriorprojec...FQQSMwodXxYAag

http://www.pva.org/site/c.ajIRK9NJLc...of_America.htm

http://www.specialops.org/

If you are looking for places to make charitable contributions, these and others are for worthy causes.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: What magic, what technology?

One of the tragic results of war is the death or wounding of servicemen and servicewomen.

For the past six years I have given generously to the Fisher House, which provides a place for wounded soldier's families to stay free of charge while their soldier family member is being treated for injuries.

https://www.fisherhouse.org/

There are other organizations that help wounded soldiers:

https://support.woundedwarriorprojec...FQQSMwodXxYAag

http://www.pva.org/site/c.ajIRK9NJLc...of_America.htm

http://www.specialops.org/

If you are looking for places to make charitable contributions, these and others are for worthy causes.

Fisher House and the Wounded Warrior Project are both good ones.

6 months ago I had the pleasure of meeting a fella named Dick Winters the namesake of the Easy Company commander Dick Winters in Band of Brothers.

He's a retired Vietnam veteran and now works as liaison to Walter Reed fundraising, facilitating, begging, borrowing, and stealing to help them out. He invited me down to visit the fellas at Walter Reed during a trip to the area a few months later.

The one thing he shared with me that was quite disconcerting is the growing problem of some military related charities out there doing more scamming than helping. So sadly, thorough due diligence is required before making a donation by the sounds of things.

You've posted at least two good ones.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Remembering the Past

Thanks, jk.

I first learned of the concept of such demonstrations when I read the german book "Die Welle" (the wave). (It's also been made into a movie.) Apparently it, too, is based on real-life examples of a demonstration in Palo Alto, CA.

Only later did I encounter Jane Elliott's far tamer attempt to demonstrate the darkness lying just beneath the surface of ordinary people.

To me, such demonstrations show first and foremost that we cannot simply rely on the goodness of individuals to serve as the sole bulwark against violent extremism. The human mind, however well trained, is simply too easily mislead by group dynamics. We are in our very nature social creatures, who rely on social cues to establish our emotions, and that is a challenge that requires external intervention to ensure it can't get out of control.

It simply isn't a question of being a good person. Good people can indeed do evil things. Even the worst of things.

So instead, structural measures must exist that force mutual supervision by individuals with very different identities, and different motivations, so that groupthink cannot take hold.

I largely agree with your post.

And that was the point of my mention of "Act of Killing".

I can think of no better and more frightening example of dehumanization and the complete lack of mental/emotional consequences for mass murder.

I would bet my last dollar that not one of the folks featured in film consider they did anything more than an essential act of pest control.

I think many consider the effects of PTSD on returning service men and women to have a lot to do with the "unnatural" act of killing another human being and it's mental/emotional toll. Personally, I think it has very little to do with killing.

I've posted before my thoughts on a seeming disconnect between human development and technology by many in the well insulated west. I think many assume technological revolution should somehow result in a linked revolution in human development and behavior.

As if our shift to Star Trek technology will lead to Star Trek behavior. I think it's a very dangerous assumption. We're still stuck inside a caveman thinking box.

[vt]

Re: What magic, what technology?

There are lots of scam charities:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/us/worst-charities/

http://cironline.org/americasworstcharities

Charity Navigator helps pinpoint some problems:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/inde...3#.VIITKjHF-MI

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Remembering the Past

Thank you! Your "2 cents" is worth considerably more.

I have only one final question: To the best of your knowledge, does a similar parallel organizational structure exist in the clandestine services (eg. CIA and NSA), or are there other structural differences affecting accountability to rule of law that are noteworthy?

As I understand it, the legislation that encompasses US national security and foreign relations foundation consists of Title 10(military), Title 22(foreign service/State Department), and Title 50(which includes intelligence/covert/clandestine operations and emergency powers).

That would be a good place to start for some insomnia inducing reading.

I do know there's a heated argument and turf war over bridging the gap between it all in the form of specialized military personnel conducting some additional operational scope(with oversight) rather than the cumbersome and convoluted task of falling under CIA for some operational activities such as having to be "sheep dipped" for legal purposes. I believe that had to occur in the Bin Laden raid for example.

As best I can tell, this would mostly involve US Army Special Forces(who spend the majority of their time as culturally immersed and language trained advisors and trainers....like an unofficial parallel diplomatic service).

Where it gets weird is with contractors "green badgers" working directly(and others indirectly) on behalf of US intelligence.

It's not all nebulous and problematic. As it was two CIA "green badgers" and former servicemen who died defending US personnel in Libya, along with the death of two "blue badger" US State Department permanent employees.

Here's some articles that might offer a sense of where things can start to get muddled:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-o...ce-2014-1?IR=T

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/wo...nted=all&_r=1&

I can relate to some minor aspects of this. I conducted a number of tours to Afghanistan where I was specifically requested to work as a contractor on behalf of our version of the State Department after a number of incidents occurred that raised the threat level and freedom of movement for our permanent diplomatic personnel at a time when some "halo" nationally associated projects were at risk.

While my total time on the ground pales compared to most folks I know who served there(a few I know spent 6 out of the last 13 in uniform there), my time was almost exclusively 24/7 living and working right amongst the Afghan people, not hiding behind Hescos, razor wire, and machine guns.

There were some high risk areas and boundaries we didn't cross(such as only flying back and forth from Kabul to the Hindu Kush due to high kidnapping risk), but overall it was safe-ish for us if we randomized our schedules and used discretion.

It was like a watered down live action version of one of my favourite books Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean.

And in the conduct of our jobs we would run into all kinds of interesting and unsavory characters and interesting coincidences.

Our job, while adventurous, was not the least bit covert or clandestine. But we were living in and visiting communities and accessing local nationals overtly in ways that is hard to put a value on.

Serendipity comes into play, such as finding yourself having lunch with 2 strangers(amongst other acquaintances), 1 of which with great family influence, who were far from home and hailed from a very insular provincial village where 30 Americans were killed in a single contact. There's value in such overt and open source coincidental opportunity.

But I wonder about the risk of disconnect where oversight exists for "blue badgers" and in house operations.

But does that always apply consistently with contracted personnel and contracted operational activities?

In the case of Robert Levinson(CIA contractor missing since 2007, after a ridiculously ill advised trip to Iran) it might be argued that the CIA possibly failed to follow it's own internal rules in the management of contractor operational latitude/operational approval and payment.

I reckon there's legitimate concern for the potential for risk stemming from direct contracted operational activity.

But I also think one of the most underutilized resources for intelligence collection, particularly in dealing with asymmetric opponents, is ethical overt open source networking with NGOs for atmospherics , confirmation of other sources, and targeting for new sources.

If I had my way, I'd recruit several hundred US Army SF and FBI agents in their 40's/50's/60's with a few decades of experience, put them through language/culture coursing(most will have already done it repeatedly earlier in their careers), and deploy them around the world to live in local communities working in arms length partnership with the conventional State Department diplomatic infrastructure and just overtly network the hell out of the place with local military/law enforcement and local governance(think 3rd world versions of Tammany Hall and local political machines) and map the legitimate and illicit networks. And leave them there.

There's already heaps of retired guys permanently living(and often married to locals) in the developing world in places they trained in uniform. Why not leverage that existing community trend by vetting and shaping it?

If something horrific happened in Lagos, Nigeria the solution could never be to deploy troops, invited or not. That city(and many like it around the world) would swallow the entire US military without a trace.

The effective answer, if it involved anything beyond just watching from a distance, would likely be a very small mashup cross functional team driven by accurate ground truth.

[astonas]

Re: Remembering the Past

I largely agree with your post.

And that was the point of my mention of "Act of Killing".

I can think of no better and more frightening example of dehumanization and the complete lack of mental/emotional consequences for mass murder.

I would bet my last dollar that not one of the folks featured in film consider they did anything more than an essential act of pest control.

I think many consider the effects of PTSD on returning service men and women to have a lot to do with the "unnatural" act of killing another human being and it's mental/emotional toll. Personally, I think it has very little to do with killing.

I've posted before my thoughts on a seeming disconnect between human development and technology by many in the well insulated west. I think many assume technological revolution should somehow result in a linked revolution in human development and behavior.

As if our shift to Star Trek technology will lead to Star Trek behavior. I think it's a very dangerous assumption. We're still stuck inside a caveman thinking box.

Thanks, lakedaemonian. It was indeed the mention of the Act of Killing that brought up some dark and long-dormant thoughts, which may have permeated my writing here.

Dehumanization and detachment are certainly candidates for the most chilling, and perhaps even the most damaging, consequences of war. Both of these can be achieved with frightening ease in a day in Riceville, IA or Palo Alto, CA, but for some segment of any society, they become inescapable in an environment steeped in fear and desperation, when shadows make people disappear into the night.

And while the Act of Killing might be one of the most vivid documentations, it is not the first, and won't be the last. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is another one. There is no terror so great that it cannot be brought about by perfectly sane, mild-mannered people going about their daily lives, quite confident that they are good people doing their best in a difficult world.

You point to technology as an amplifier of this disconnect, and I agree. I also recall agreeing with at least some of your arguments on the topic of drones. The increased asymmetry of warfare presents a very real moral hazard. While poison gas and biological weapons are purportedly banned due to the heinous nature of their mechanism, another key benefit of the ban is that these extremely asymmetric weapons are no longer available to amplify the moral hazard of war. Is it perhaps time to view sufficiently asymmetric weapons - regardless of their mechanism - as inappropriate for that reason alone? While this isn't the "linked revolution in human behavior and development" that one might hope for, perhaps it could be made functionally equivalent in the interim?


It seems like the next obvious technology-driven update to the treaties of war already in the world.


I'll be honest, though. I don't really expect a unilateral disarmament of these tools as a political possibility. It would lead directly to greater casualties for the same projection of force. What leader has ever said, "this fight is necessary, but let's do it in a way that costs more of our soldiers their lives, just so we really feel its impact too?"

I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but as someone who spends at least part of your time making soldiers more efficient than they already are, I can only assume that you might resist this as well. I don't mean to get personal here, my point is really that the entire history of war has been a relentless drive toward maximizing the very asymmetry of impact we are talking about. Increasing the combat effectiveness of each single soldier represents a push on the same continuum, and in the same direction, as increased technological leverage. So could the services, or their civilian leadership, realistically choose to unilaterally reverse this historical trend? If there is a bright line that qualitatively distinguishes these force multipliers (in terms of their moral hazard) I am not yet able to see it.


So instead, perhaps the challenge is to find a way to offset the newfound ease of killing with a higher moral cost, through some other external structural reform.


I suggest that perhaps a radical increase in transparency might serve a role here. While it is troubling when drones are used at all, it is truly frightening that they are used by the CIA, presumably in the sorts of missions that will never be known. That a person or location, somewhere in the world can be targeted, and simply turned into an explosion of dust by a barely-visible speck in the sky, with no one ever having to acknowledged that this has even happened is more than worrying. It is the technological equivalent of the "disappearing" of people, only without any limitations on geography or physical presence.

I know that my opinions are colored. I believe you mentioned, in an earlier post, "wannabe Einsatzgruppen." As someone whose grandfather vanished without a trace one day, presumably to the originals of these, I feel pretty strongly that this isn't a good thing to permit in the world. But I think that even setting aside that personal bias, this could be something reasonable people can agree on.

Is it perhaps time to restrict the most advanced tools of war into the exclusive domain of publicly-acknowledged strikes? To radically curtail the capabilities of the less-acountable services?

After all, other technological advances came with this exact limitation, based on their nature. A nation couldn't, for example, deploy a nuclear weapon and expect to maintain deniability. I would argue that this is probably a major reason that we haven't experienced a nuclear attack since WWII. And while ascertaining the origins of chemical and biological agents isn't always trivial, at least the mechanism of death is evident to a physician, and the list of organizations possessing the capability is finite.

Perhaps it is time to consider the fragments of a drone-dropped guided munition in that same category of war-crime evidence, when the shards are unaccounted for, or missing attendant legal process.

[astonas]

Re: Remembering the Past

As I understand it, the legislation that encompasses US national security and foreign relations foundation consists of Title 10(military), Title 22(foreign service/State Department), and Title 50(which includes intelligence/covert/clandestine operations and emergency powers).

That would be a good place to start for some insomnia inducing reading.

I do know there's a heated argument and turf war over bridging the gap between it all in the form of specialized military personnel conducting some additional operational scope(with oversight) rather than the cumbersome and convoluted task of falling under CIA for some operational activities such as having to be "sheep dipped" for legal purposes. I believe that had to occur in the Bin Laden raid for example.

As best I can tell, this would mostly involve US Army Special Forces(who spend the majority of their time as culturally immersed and language trained advisors and trainers....like an unofficial parallel diplomatic service).

Where it gets weird is with contractors "green badgers" working directly(and others indirectly) on behalf of US intelligence.

It's not all nebulous and problematic. As it was two CIA "green badgers" and former servicemen who died defending US personnel in Libya, along with the death of two "blue badger" US State Department permanent employees.

Here's some articles that might offer a sense of where things can start to get muddled:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-o...ce-2014-1?IR=T

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/wo...nted=all&_r=1&

I can relate to some minor aspects of this. I conducted a number of tours to Afghanistan where I was specifically requested to work as a contractor on behalf of our version of the State Department after a number of incidents occurred that raised the threat level and freedom of movement for our permanent diplomatic personnel at a time when some "halo" nationally associated projects were at risk.

While my total time on the ground pales compared to most folks I know who served there(a few I know spent 6 out of the last 13 in uniform there), my time was almost exclusively 24/7 living and working right amongst the Afghan people, not hiding behind Hescos, razor wire, and machine guns.

There were some high risk areas and boundaries we didn't cross(such as only flying back and forth from Kabul to the Hindu Kush due to high kidnapping risk), but overall it was safe-ish for us if we randomized our schedules and used discretion.

It was like a watered down live action version of one of my favourite books Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean.

And in the conduct of our jobs we would run into all kinds of interesting and unsavory characters and interesting coincidences.

Our job, while adventurous, was not the least bit covert or clandestine. But we were living in and visiting communities and accessing local nationals overtly in ways that is hard to put a value on.

Serendipity comes into play, such as finding yourself having lunch with 2 strangers(amongst other acquaintances), 1 of which with great family influence, who were far from home and hailed from a very insular provincial village where 30 Americans were killed in a single contact. There's value in such overt and open source coincidental opportunity.

But I wonder about the risk of disconnect where oversight exists for "blue badgers" and in house operations.

But does that always apply consistently with contracted personnel and contracted operational activities?

In the case of Robert Levinson(CIA contractor missing since 2007, after a ridiculously ill advised trip to Iran) it might be argued that the CIA possibly failed to follow it's own internal rules in the management of contractor operational latitude/operational approval and payment.

I reckon there's legitimate concern for the potential for risk stemming from direct contracted operational activity.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. The muddled line between intelligence gathering and military operations is clearly a very rich subject, on which you shed much light. I suppose that while I do see the increased use of unaccountable contractors to be a troubling trend, I see those generally as limited in scope to their task, and hence also as a (comparatively) limited threat to broader society.

The greater concern (to me) is the degree to which the CIA can operate extralegally or illegally. While some of this may be achieved by keeping an arms-length with contractors, I suppose I have come to assume that a some portion of this must be performed in-house. (Perhaps it a bad assumption, but I guess I assumed that while the intelligence side of the house could be outsourced, operations would be more closely held.)

Given disclosures about the gaps between what is revealed to congressional oversight committees and what is stated publicly, I have far less faith than before that even the portions disclosed to oversight bear much resemblance to what is actually happening.

I guess I have some insomnia-inducing reading to do, should I want to know more about the intended checks on clandestine power. Thanks for providing the reference.

But I also think one of the most underutilized resources for intelligence collection, particularly in dealing with asymmetric opponents, is ethical overt open source networking with NGOs for atmospherics , confirmation of other sources, and targeting for new sources.

If I had my way, I'd recruit several hundred US Army SF and FBI agents in their 40's/50's/60's with a few decades of experience, put them through language/culture coursing(most will have already done it repeatedly earlier in their careers), and deploy them around the world to live in local communities working in arms length partnership with the conventional State Department diplomatic infrastructure and just overtly network the hell out of the place with local military/law enforcement and local governance(think 3rd world versions of Tammany Hall and local political machines) and map the legitimate and illicit networks. And leave them there.

There's already heaps of retired guys permanently living(and often married to locals) in the developing world in places they trained in uniform. Why not leverage that existing community trend by vetting and shaping it?

I think there might be some problems with this, in terms of an end to local acceptance of vaccination drives and other world-health related concerns. If it is known that every westerner is a potential agent, you've got a seriously hard problem preventing less developed nations from turning into breeding grounds for everything from AIDS to ebola.

I can certainly understand a desire for unlimited tactical intelligence, but surely you agree that a full strategic analysis might extend beyond the military and even diplomatic realms? A chance to eliminate forever something like polio or malaria is not a temporary achievement for a nation, but a permanent one for all mankind! Is the loss of these opportunities really just acceptable collateral damage?

If something horrific happened in Lagos, Nigeria the solution could never be to deploy troops, invited or not. That city(and many like it around the world) would swallow the entire US military without a trace.

The effective answer, if it involved anything beyond just watching from a distance, would likely be a very small mashup cross functional team driven by accurate ground truth.

I'd honestly never considered the possibility of a city that could swallow the whole US military without a trace. I rather assumed that even non-nuclear carpet-bombing could pretty much wipe out any city. It certainly has in the past.

But I take your point. A military solution cannot be limited in scope without intelligence. My concern is not with limiting the scope of the Intelligence directorate, however, but rather the Operations. (In particular, those operations that have nothing to do with gathering information, but everything to do with eliminating targets.)

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Remembering the Past

Thanks, lakedaemonian. It was indeed the mention of the Act of Killing that brought up some dark and long-dormant thoughts, which may have permeated my writing here.

Dehumanization and detachment are certainly candidates for the most chilling, and perhaps even the most damaging, consequences of war. Both of these can be achieved with frightening ease in a day in Riceville, IA or Palo Alto, CA, but for some segment of any society, they become inescapable in an environment steeped in fear and desperation, when shadows make people disappear into the night.

And while the Act of Killing might be one of the most vivid documentations, it is not the first, and won't be the last. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is another one. There is no terror so great that it cannot be brought about by perfectly sane, mild-mannered people going about their daily lives, quite confident that they are good people doing their best in a difficult world.

You point to technology as an amplifier of this disconnect, and I agree. I also recall agreeing with at least some of your arguments on the topic of drones. The increased asymmetry of warfare presents a very real moral hazard. While poison gas and biological weapons are purportedly banned due to the heinous nature of their mechanism, another key benefit of the ban is that these extremely asymmetric weapons are no longer available to amplify the moral hazard of war. Is it perhaps time to view sufficiently asymmetric weapons - regardless of their mechanism - as inappropriate for that reason alone? While this isn't the "linked revolution in human behavior and development" that one might hope for, perhaps it could be made functionally equivalent in the interim?


It seems like the next obvious technology-driven update to the treaties of war already in the world.


I'll be honest, though. I don't really expect a unilateral disarmament of these tools as a political possibility. It would lead directly to greater casualties for the same projection of force. What leader has ever said, "this fight is necessary, but let's do it in a way that costs more of our soldiers their lives, just so we really feel its impact too?"

I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but as someone who spends at least part of your time making soldiers more efficient than they already are, I can only assume that you might resist this as well. I don't mean to get personal here, my point is really that the entire history of war has been a relentless drive toward maximizing the very asymmetry of impact we are talking about. Increasing the combat effectiveness of each single soldier represents a push on the same continuum, and in the same direction, as increased technological leverage. So could the services, or their civilian leadership, realistically choose to unilaterally reverse this historical trend? If there is a bright line that qualitatively distinguishes these force multipliers (in terms of their moral hazard) I am not yet able to see it.


So instead, perhaps the challenge is to find a way to offset the newfound ease of killing with a higher moral cost, through some other external structural reform.


I suggest that perhaps a radical increase in transparency might serve a role here. While it is troubling when drones are used at all, it is truly frightening that they are used by the CIA, presumably in the sorts of missions that will never be known. That a person or location, somewhere in the world can be targeted, and simply turned into an explosion of dust by a barely-visible speck in the sky, with no one ever having to acknowledged that this has even happened is more than worrying. It is the technological equivalent of the "disappearing" of people, only without any limitations on geography or physical presence.

I know that my opinions are colored. I believe you mentioned, in an earlier post, "wannabe Einsatzgruppen." As someone whose grandfather vanished without a trace one day, presumably to the originals of these, I feel pretty strongly that this isn't a good thing to permit in the world. But I think that even setting aside that personal bias, this could be something reasonable people can agree on.

Is it perhaps time to restrict the most advanced tools of war into the exclusive domain of publicly-acknowledged strikes? To radically curtail the capabilities of the less-acountable services?

After all, other technological advances came with this exact limitation, based on their nature. A nation couldn't, for example, deploy a nuclear weapon and expect to maintain deniability. I would argue that this is probably a major reason that we haven't experienced a nuclear attack since WWII. And while ascertaining the origins of chemical and biological agents isn't always trivial, at least the mechanism of death is evident to a physician, and the list of organizations possessing the capability is finite.

Perhaps it is time to consider the fragments of a drone-dropped guided munition in that same category of war-crime evidence, when the shards are unaccounted for, or missing attendant legal process.

I like your post, but I think it's too aspirational and lacks the practicality needed for the grey world we live in.

I think the doctrinal use of drones is actually based on an iTulip perspective.

The huge hourly operating cost combined with the huge cost of precision weapons when employed( not even factoring in the drastically reduced lifecycle availability for contingency operations) of say an F15E Strike Eagle orbiting day and night in Afghanistan is simply staggering.

I'd be guessing something like $100,000 an hour......possibly far higher when factoring in expeditionary logistics cost per hour flown.

Then it's another $25,000 up to several hundred $K if a weapon is released at a target.

In order to destroy 2-3 guys paid $500 to emplace a $100 IED.

It's economically unviable for conventional high dollar weapon systems/sensor platforms to continue spending hundreds to thousands of $ per enemy $ spent.

So either you don't do it(which I think most on this forum would prefer to see), or you attempt to find a less insane ratio of dollars spent to negate every enemy dollar spent.

Off the shelf drone technology and off the shelf weapon systems that provide a much improved "bang for the buck" against asymmetric enemies(insurgents and lower order sovereign state enemies) is something that is here to stay.

I'm a huge believer in representative public oversight of even the most important and sensitive clandestine/covert programs.

When it comes to drones used directly(missile payload) or to enable a strike(say a raid) there's not enough time to allow public debate or even consensus if you're dealing with a legitimate bad guy who knows better than to stay in one place too long.

I don't see drones as evil......just like firearms....they are simply tools.

If my kid goes missing and a search and rescue drone is able to find him before he dies of hypothermia where a police helicopter is not an option due to budget and population density...that's a good thing.

If my kid is older and the search and rescue drone is upgraded to include real time mobile phone interception and geolocation capability to track my now older son because of something texted on his phone...that's a bad thing.

It's about the people(who we all know are all too often weak, lazy, and too easily led astray) and robust control measures we put in place.

We will always relentlessly keep producing more efficient tools of all kinds...some of them relate to our ability to surveil and destroy each other.

I think it's a people problem, rather than a tool problem. I don't see us "un-inventing" a tool.

As far as chem/bio/nuclear weapons not being used. It's really not used much recently(outside of small outlier incidents).

Those horrible things can't be "un-invented" and I suspect a few will inevitably attempt to use them again......like in an asymmetric fashion.

There were numerous examples of their use since 2003......I know of 1 person seriously affected by a chemical IED attack in Iraq(I think he may have cooperated with the recent NYT articles on it).

Sadly, asymmetric subcritical use of nuclear materials is pretty likely at some stage, in my amateur opinion.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Remembering the Past

I think there might be some problems with this, in terms of an end to local acceptance of vaccination drives and other world-health related concerns. If it is known that every westerner is a potential agent, you've got a seriously hard problem preventing less developed nations from turning into breeding grounds for everything from AIDS to ebola.

I can certainly understand a desire for unlimited tactical intelligence, but surely you agree that a full strategic analysis might extend beyond the military and even diplomatic realms? A chance to eliminate forever something like polio or malaria is not a temporary achievement for a nation, but a permanent one for all mankind! Is the loss of these opportunities really just acceptable collateral damage?

Something to bear in mind is that the US already deploys US Army SF and FBI agents to many countries around the world on a regular basis, possibly even the majority.

A lot of that work is capacity building training/liaising with local counterparts. It's not always(or at times often) about shooting people in the face directly or indirectly "by, with, thru" the local counterparts.

I see it as an additional layer of coal-face diplomacy that works beneath conventional diplomacy which rarely, if ever, shows it's head or knows it's way around the mega-ghettos of today and the even bigger/badder ones of the future.

A State Department FSO working out of an embassy would be very hard pressed in terms of training/experience/latitude to meet directly with the Boss Tweed of West Lagos to facilitate US resources used to mitigate an Ebola outbreak, for example. The kind of unconventional diplomats I'm talking about would have a better chance of facilitating it.

I'd honestly never considered the possibility of a city that could swallow the whole US military without a trace. I rather assumed that even non-nuclear carpet-bombing could pretty much wipe out any city. It certainly has in the past.

David Kilcullen's book "Out of the Mountains" is a good primer of how and why you will never see a western army seize and hold a current or future mega-ghetto.

The force structure, political will, societal patience and appetite for losses, and money needed to do so doesn't exist.

Will the west still intervene when and where it thinks appropriate? Yup.....but I'm thinking it will be very small and very discrete cross functional teams that will be disclosed, but maybe not publicly(or at least immediately).

Like a mashup of Gangs of New York, Bladerunner, and Soylent Green.

But I take your point. A military solution cannot be limited in scope without intelligence. My concern is not with limiting the scope of the Intelligence directorate, however, but rather the Operations. (In particular, those operations that have nothing to do with gathering information, but everything to do with eliminating targets.)

What's interesting is how when you have state on state violence and artillery barrages with massive casualties, while horrifying and distasteful, is accepted as part of conventional war.

But a drone strike discretely targeting an unlawful combatant, also horrifying and distasteful, is considered unacceptable in an irregular war.

Definitions of war are backwards.

Conventional(regular) wars are relatively rare and uncommon

Irregular wars are extremely common, we have been surrounded by them constantly our entire lives.