Summary: The Washington Times gives us some Christmas Eve war advocacy. Very suitable for 21st century America — all war, all the time, for every problem.
Hat tip for this to Winslow T. Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information: “High-tech, low-risk wars“, Tim Haake, Washington Times, 24 December 2009. The WT editors call this as “opinion/analysis”, and describe Haake as…
“Retired Major General Tim Haake is a Washington lawyer who served on active and reserve duty in special operations for 36 years.”
They neglected to list his clients. His firm’s website provides a partial list, which includes General Dynamics, Corporate Training Unlimited, SecurityPoint Media, United States Protection and Investigations (article here), and Cohort International. Plus some I cannot identify, like Stag Mountain.
This timely article reminds us of an important truth, to be told children gathered tonight around the Yuletide fire:
Peace does not pay in modern America. War does, more for its advocates and corporate profiteers than the men and women actually fighting.
Now to General Haake’s Christmas sermon. Picture in your mind the excitement with which he writes these things, imagining all the future wars these will facilitate. And profits, profits, profits.
… Nowhere is the American affinity for technology in warfare more decisively demonstrated than in Operation Desert Storm of the first Gulf War. Gens. Colin L. Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. were able to take down Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in a matter of hours thanks to their critical weapons initially conceived and developed during the Carter administration a decade earlier. The cruise missile, the Abrams main battle tank and the Apache helicopter demonstrated conclusively that technology in well-trained hands and integrating all branches of the military can achieve impressive results.
If we combine these two elements, casualty reduction and technology, how should we organize, train and equip the force that will defend the homeland and our interests in the future? The answer has to be Predator-like remotely controlled and robotics weapons. Imagine the land and sea equivalent of the Predator system that permits the destruction of al Qaeda leaders in North Waziristan and is piloted by an Air Force major in Arizona who has dinner with the wife and children every night; lots of technology and no U.S. casualties.
The Army is not far behind. The Stryker vehicle is the workhorse of the Army. Armored and agile, it moves an 11-man squad quickly around the battlefield. With 10 variants and 25 million combat miles it is a proven system.
… Also under development is an unmanned ground autonomous mobility vehicle that could have myriad uses, all of which would eliminate causalities and free up soldiers for those tasks best performed by humans. Beyond the remotely controlled vehicle is the autonomous vehicle that operates on a combination of Global Positioning System, FLIR (forward looking infrared) ground surveillance radars and sensors of varying types. Such a platform could find its own route to a predetermined point, conduct a mission such as surveying a road junction with real-time uplinked video feeds and then return; lots of technology and no casualties.
No longer would it be necessary to risk a Special Forces team on such a mission.
… From a maritime perspective, the potential is also limitless. The Navy has wisely developed an unmanned autonomous antisubmarine craft ideally suited to that mission – and it doesn’t complain, get sick or go AWOL and has no dependents. Applications for this combination of technologies is limited only by the imagination of the combat developer.
… The American way of war in the future will employ the maximum use of technology while safeguarding our personnel to the greatest extent possible. The Buck Rogers Death Ray From Above will soon be a reality.
Merry Christmas to all.
Afterword
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