On a late summer night of 2004 in al Anbar province, Iraq, just south of Abu Ghraib, an observation post (OP) of four Marines was shot at briefly from the shadows. The Marines made out two silhouettes in the distance, returned fire, and pursued them into the darkness. One of the Marines said to the others as they searched the area, "I think I got one!" But no sign of them was found. Moments later, in a small tent several miles away, I read their report on my computer delivered by email.
Fifteen minutes after that, another report came in over the radio from a different Marine foot patrol in the vicinity. They'd stopped a vehicle and found two men inside; one of them had a gunshot wound to the shoulder. The driver told the Marine patrol leader that his friend had been caught in the crossfire of a civil dispute run amok. He was rushing him to the hospital.
It was a likely enough scenario -- we routinely saw the results of these sorts of incidents -- but the patrol leader quickly called me to be sure. "This guy is bleeding pretty bad," he said. "You want me to let them go? Or do you want to send us a Medevac?" He didn't know about the OP engagement that had taken place less than a mile away.
"Tell him to hold on to them," I said to my radio operator. "I'll have a helicopter there in five minutes." As I spoke, I began generating my own report on my laptop to send up to headquarters.
The entire chain of command knew what was happening even before it was over.
This is the nature of the modern battlefield.
I joined the Marine Corps when I was eighteen. That was in 1989, when the great Soviet armored divisions were still considered our primary threat, Communism was still the prevailing ideology to fear, and infantrymen ("grunts" or "ground-pounders" as we're often called) never ever touched computers.
How times have changed. Modern warfare is predominantly made up of decentralized small-unit actions and low-intensity skirmishes in complex "semi-permissive" settings. Today's adversaries are not assembled into the ponderous formations of yesteryear with static defenses and unwieldy supply lines. The prototypical "enemy" of the twenty-first century is an urban guerilla who is mobile, adaptive, and draws his strength and resources primarily from the indigenous population. The prototypical soldier needs more than a rifle to deal with him. He requires a different skill set, and needs speedy communications.
Coming from an older generation of infantrymen, I was astonished to see my unit suddenly being outfitted with every variety of electronic equipment, from "ruggedized" laptop computers with Internet access and instant messaging, to man-packed tracking systems, to a plethora of cameras, videos, and other imagery devices. These innovations were introduced to the battlefield in hopes of increasing situational awareness, rapidly gathering data, analyzing it, organizing it, then pushing it back out to operators as actionable intelligence. They also provide commanders with the freshest possible information and aid them in their moment-to-moment decision-making.
But with the diffuse and often dynamic nature of today's battlefield, the military discovered it needed not only a new line of electronic gadgets, but a new breed of soldier as well -- a thinking soldier.
Comments
Excellent article. Keep up the good work.
Time to reread Crisis in Command, Gabriel and Savage, New York: Hill and Wang, 1978 (ISBN 0-8090-3711-4). They said it all then... nice to know nothing changes... My copy is dog-eared from being carried in a ruck in Germany in the early '80's as a junior officer - which did not endear me to my seniors.
Very interesting article. My brother is a Non-com in the marines and he has mentioned similar problems.
Great article. Hope I can apply it. Thanks.
The one book that comes to mind is "Wagin Modern War" by Wes Clark (Former SACEUR). Despite his misgivings... he describes this phenomemon of real-time or near real-time info flow to senior decision-makers in the Beltway interfering with the battlefield decisions. Interesting read.
Unfortunately, this has always been a problem, it's just that modern technology allows more and more examples of it.
I was reading Patton's memoirs of world war II, and in it he talks at length about why a commander should never show on his map units more than two level of command down from him. The more he can see, the more he will be tempted to manage, and the more he will manage poorly. He talked a great deal about the fact that a commander's job was largely to make sure that the men making the actual decisions on the ground were qualified to do so, not to make the decisions himself.
Sounds like somebody higher up should have paid attention to him.
You made the right decision to not tell the soldiers in your chain of command. A soldier and by a extension a squad of soldiers needs to be able to think on his feet, assess his situation and make a decision. Any type of over the shoulder second guessing does nothing but cloud his judgment and take his mind away from the task at hand... namely executing his mission. Now, if this technology can be used to help a soldier with better situational awareness, great; otherwise it's just a battlefield distraction.
Awesome article. I was an IT while in the Marines, and now work IT support for the Marines; so I have first hand experience with how amazing the military's technical systems are. However, without the proper "common sense" training all these systems are is a pretty picture for the commanders. I went to boot camp the week we invaded Iraq, and after 5 years as a system administrator for one of these systems, I only spent a total of 3 months in Iraq. That right there should say that the men on foot and vehicle patrols are doing a far more important job than those of us who simply work to provide information to the commanders. Many of the guys I've supported have only the bare essential knowledge of these systems IOT do their job, which is really all they need. No system, no matter how advanced, can replace an NCOs judgement and leadership ability when faced with adversity, danger, and split second decisisions. The only way any Marine or Soldier can hone those skills is to be trusted by their command to be placed in those situations at an early time in their military career.
Excellent article and I have pre-ordered his book from Amazon. I was in the Marine Corps from 1977 to 1990 and was medically discharged due to combat injuries. I was a Gunnery Sergreant at this time. This was before IT had made much of an impact on the infantry. After I left the Marines I earned a Computer Science degree from the University of Illinois and am now a senior IT architect. It is very interesting to see my old and new worlds collide!
A "thinking soldier" is a two-edged sword, to use a perverse metaphor. Not enough thinking, and things can get goofed up. Too much thinking, and fundamental tactical and strategic decisions may shift from the command structure to the footsoldier.
In any case, there is currently a race condition occurring in the US military. On the one hand, provide the lower echelons with the resources described in the article. On the other, create remote-controlled and semi-autonomous robotic devices that remove humans from the theater. Both approaches will co-exist in the US-operated battlefield for the next 20 years or so. Whether one wins out over the other, and what happens in subsequent years is impossible to predict.
Anyone doing IT for anything corporate should have a complete lack of surprise. This is probably the biggest growing pain in companies going from phones, memos and yelling really loud to a modern communications system where information flows freely. The structures are often built around information being restricted and once it isn't, the structure has to change or micromanagement and demanding to be micromanaged to avoid responsibility is the natural outcome. I don't think there was any reason to think the military would work out any differently, especially being a traditionally very buerocratic organization. Well, except for that office workers don't actually die from poor management. Ok, not very often anyway.
It's called maneuver thinking, and it's been around for 50years. But then again, the war winners don't have to learn new tactics and strategies. When I was doing my military service in the north of Europe, this was as natural as rewarding initiatives. The problem here is not IT (regardless if its telephone, morse code or e-mail), it the "micromanagement". And unfortunately, there's obviously a long way to go before the US military have liberated their culture and customs from this problem.
Civilian operations are no different. I completely agree with the need to not include the patrol leader in communications hassle from up the chain; and vice versa. Each level of operations has its own operational details to manage. If the upper echelon is provided too much access to controlling all aspects of "the grunts" operations, larger organizational needs are being ignored. In business, this usually means financial failure. In military operations, the consequences have fatal consequences on a larger scale. I applaud feeding the upper command a steady diet of sarcasm; they deserve the bad taste.
So I don't understand. Why did they let them go?
sounds like foucault
it was obvious these people were terrorists, why didn't the patrol shoot them as soon as they saw them?
Can you let us know the name of the book ? Patton's memoirs. I search on Amazon couldnt find the exact book.
Outstanding article!!!!! The right call was made by the patrol leader with the information he had available to him at the time, it is always easy for those not on the scene to second guest someone else decision. I applaud the Commander for how he handled the questioning from higher headquarters concerning the chain of events. He makes a valid point with his concerns, senior Commanders must be very careful in not using this new technology in a way to stifle the initiative of their Soldiers and Marines engaged in battle. They need to resist the urge to micro-manage and instead, heavily invest in the training of decision making processes of the men and women who will be faced with an array of situations on the battlefield having strategic military and political implications.
Very well written, and universally true in civilian and military life. Fortunately for me, when my boss is 2nd guessing me, nobody dies. I enjoy your blog and look forward to the book.
Semper Fi
Everyone: Thanks for all of the thoughtful comments. Tyler is aware of them. There is additional discussion about this article taking place on Slashdot ("A Marine's-Eye View of the Networked Battlefield") and Wired's Danger Room blog ("Micro-Managing the War by E-mail").
You may also be interested in reading Tyler's well-written blog, Deeper Than War, where he writes about his experiences in the Marine Corps and talks about future projects -- including his upcoming book and his pending trip to Jordan to aid Iraqi refugees.
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
>a commander may be dismayed to find his soldiers have become too heavily reliant on headquarters for
>critical decisions. That's dangerous, because sooner or later headquarters won't be available.
Sounds like it could have similar consequences to WWII Germany's "Führer principle," in which battlefield commanders who had temporarily lost contact with higher-ups hesitated to take the initiative and so lost a critical opportunity to our side.
Tactical email response is to keep large chunks of boilerplate text at hand to embed real answers in. A 30 page response to confirm "unknown" will slow the PHBs and allow you to tend to important issues. The boilerplate should be respectful and devoid of actual content or context and not reused too frequently.
Was any consideration given to the "well timed" loss of radio contact? Someone should have suspected localized jamming if it happened again.
As a rule, blogging or IM among cohorts should be read-only by higher levels of management - otherwise that well of knowledge will be poisoned.
"I never did pass on headquarters' harangue to the patrol leader. It seemed to me best not to."
Unfortunately, what the Captain describes in the military theater is all too common in the civilian theater of operations - that is, the corporation.
What the Captain did is excellent management. It is what I look for in my own management, and what I offer to those whom report to me - I provide, or am provided with, an umbrella, that keeps the sh*t off of those whom are getting the work done.
Unfortunately, working in Silicon Valley, I have seen engineers in management replaced by MBAs, until dot-coms' entire managerial hierarchy contained not a single engineer, and the entire company's weight rested upon a thin veneer of engineers that actually did most of the work, created most of the income, but received the least in terms of money.
I suspect that the same is true in the military. Those with a keen sense of politics and a willingness to give most of their thought to what is best for their superiors' wellbeing, are promoted. All others are - for one reason or another - eventually replaced.
The problem, you see, is that uppermost management does not look kindly upon those whom fail to place upper management's wellbeing ahead of the wellbeing of those below. These 'superiors' do not forget.
This is probably what the Captain encountered, that led him to resign from the USMC, after twelve years - his career was sabotaged by his superiors and he was denied promotions that he deserved, as a result of insisting on putting his men first - and not lying about his priorities, to anyone.
He will not encounter anything different when he is reporting to Captains of Commerce, back in these United States.
This is, IMHO, the crux of our current "culture shift". Technology always moves faster than culture, so new norms are created while some try to preserve the "old ways". Eventually the marketplace of ideas kills off the inefficient ones -- though that can take decades....
Ironically, the same ay you posted this article, I posted a similar piece on my 'blog:
http://oz.deichman.net/2008/06/on-information.html
My ideas too come from years of service with the Corps (albeit from the civilian side of the fence :-).
Semper Fidelis.
As a 19-year old Marine Radio Operator,(1962-65) I am astounded at the capabilities described here. This is no joke, literally half the time our radio's didn't even work (ANGR-9, PRC-10, PRC 47, PRC 41). Once we were given single side band (PRC 47 and 41) they worked better, but not reliably. One time I was in Vieques, PR when we wanted to test the new SSB gear. We got through to North Carolina, but I couldn't communicate with the next hill.
I concur with most of the comments. It will be impossible for command NOT to interfere with small tactical decisions as they will have the data and feel their ass is on the line if things go wrong (think Haditha).
I'm not sure though if this isn't cultural though. In business we are blackberry obsessed, and I always ask the question, if everyone has to check with everyone, then who is making the decisions, haven't they hired people to make these decisions, and if they have and they still "check in" then we are paying them too much. I guess this is hear to stay, and I would rather have a radio that worked, then none at all.
The reasons the US Military works so well is that we have had a tradition of strong NCO's running most tactical operations. To centralize this on a computer screen, with a Lt. or Captain looking over your shoulder could create the kinds of NCO's that mimic the idiots I see in a Starbucks line looking at their blackberry's.
A fascinating snapshot of the current US command structure! Information technology has flattened the hierarchy of command in major corporations as well. It would be an interesting investigation to compare the two, and see if maybe one could teach the other on how to much information, and at what time it should flow, between various levels in a command structure, military or corporate. I would recommend _Powershift_ by Alvin Toffler, which predicts the rise in power of the corporation and the terrorist. It discusses the way power hierarchies were changing, and is very prescient on how IT will change the way things are managed.
Fascinating -- and expectable. In business school in 1975 we studied a case where IBM had discovered this same phenomenon - connecting the top management directly to data at the front lines, and it almost crashed the company before they figured out what was going wrong. I've been pondering that since then.
The current managment literature, by the way, now at last strongly supports the idea that in "complex adaptive systems" the front line people need to be given authority to make decisions. The literature on highly reliable systems supports that. Books like Taking Charge (Perry Smith, 1983) and the US Army Leadership Field Manual (http://newbricks.blogspot.com/2006/12/us-army-leadership-field-manual-fm...) support that. In Katrina, the Coast Guard was most effective because the Captains had the authority to make decisions on their own and indeed, communication with "the top" was effectively broken because no one was answering the phone.
In fact, in any actual large scale crisis, it might be the norm, not the exception, that the people at the top are so preoccupied with huge questions that they cannot take time to answer the phone to deal with smaller questions. This suggests that the entire National Incident Management plan is based on a false premise and, in a crisis, would collapse.
I suspect that the problems are due to two factors - one, information is actually context sensitive and context varies with level in the hierarchy; and two, the shape of information is actually "fractal", meaning that each worm in each "can of worms" is itself, upon inspection, a new can of worms. The details matter and do not "go away" as readily as they do on the powerpoint slides and over-simplifications at each higher setting of the zoom lens as one goes up the hierarchy. People at the top (military or civilian) have absolutely no idea why the people on the bottom have such trouble dealing with obviously simple situations, and conclude people on the bottom are idiots. People on the bottom have no idea what world upper mangement lives in, an conclude all management or high ranking officers are idiots. Nobody grasps that the world visible, and the "right" answer, is a factor of the zoom-setting on the lens being used to view the problem. Everyone has seen cases where a decision in local space or time is good locally, but bad viewed in the longer term or bigger picture, but we refuse to comprehend that answers depend on scale, on the zoom factor, or the length of the ruler used to measure realilty.
Until IT system designers grasps that reality is not "flat" and it is completely wrong to simply "translate" news from the front to the top without correction for scale, this problem will remain and baffle everyone. This enlightenment is not likely in the near future, given historical trends.
At least we have some understanding of the nature of the problem. A sample image on this page http://www.wu.ece.ufl.edu/courses/eel6562f07/project_topics.html near the bottom appears to be "clearly" Albert Einstein when viewed close up, and is equally "clearly" Marilyn Monroe when viewed from afar. These are called "hybrid images" in the literature. Sadly, much of life has this property, and almost every business is being destroyed by having so much vertical height that the view from the top is disconnected entirely from the view from the bottom, and failure to "listen" upwards correctly. They say, as goes GM, so goes the US. Hmm. GM's top execs could not believe that people cared about gas mileage. The carnage is evident. Everyone else in the world except them seemed to know this, and this kind of structural blindness is rampant and astoundingly powerful.
It needs more study before the carnage gets worse.
In way simpler words -- imagine that someone didn't understand the idea of "perspective" and made decisions based on the fact that things actually get smaller when they move far away from you. This is the kind of error the IT system is making - the local situation should have been correctly reduced in size to invisible by the time it got to a General's desk. By leaving it "full screen" in magnitude, he now imagines it must be the size of a mountain to be even visible to him, and feels compelled to respond. The solution is to let the General respond to things he sees, and correctly scale what he sees for him, which is what he's used to. It's not the speed that's the issue - it's the scale correction.
You didn't mention the PRC-25.....you must have had that radio by then?
Every hear of a TRC-97......
Danang 70-7l
2532
MWCS-1, MWHG-1, 1st MAW
My opinion is that the military puts too much emphasis on a perfect record for promotion. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as you (a) learn and (b) don't repeat them.
The "perfect record" requirement makes commanders risk averse, which is the same as making control freaks. Which is how you end up with systems where generals can watch sergeants in the field. And Sergeants should never be watched except by other sergeants or a platoon commander.
Liked the article, will get the book.
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