Image: Flickr/U.S. Marine Corps.
Aaron Picozzi, National Interest: Are U.S. Soldiers Ready If War ‘Goes Dark’?
The United States has recently enjoyed the tactical benefit of fighting enemies incapable of matching the technological prowess of the U.S. military. The use of modern weaponry against relatively antiquated forces has led to successful operations on the battlefield, particularly against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S. military’s high-tech upper hand relies upon the leverage of these technological disparities, and in turn, has fostered an inflated level of combat supremacy. This problem resonates from foot soldiers to the highest level commanders and planners.
Confidence in the reliability and accuracy of combat technology has not been an issue of concern for the United States during recent or ongoing conflicts. However, in the face of Russian aggression toward Ukraine and Chinese expansion in the contested South and East China Seas, the massive benefit of American technology will be limited during conflict with either competitor. Either country could match what the United States has seen as their unique advantage for the past twenty-five years. There are even certain technologies upon which the United States has relied that could be equally countered, or even rendered useless, by the modernized militaries of China or Russia.
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WNU Editor: Technology has been a force multiplier for the U.S. in recent wars. It has saved lives, and it has proven to be a difficult obstacle for the enemy to overcome. But in the event that the U.S. should lose this "edge", the immediate impact will be in higher casualty rates, and the use of far more human resources than what would otherwise be the case.
5 comments:
Thermal Imagining is a good example the Chinese are now producing TI not as good as the west but they are working at it. TI is a major threat, target acquisition with TI is very effective, and if the playing field is leveled which it will be, and if a counter to TI is not forth coming then movement day or night will become very difficult, a conscript with an AK and a TI scope will be able to pick up a highly trained professional with relative ease, unless counter measures are developed. It is difficult to determine with TI if a heat signature is a combatant or not, but some how I don't think that it will matter to some, it will be if it glows shoot it.
the u.s. technological military edge is nothing without the battle hardened human element that deploys it. both of which combine to make up the most tested and tactically effective modern combat force to date, with the idf and perhaps the 1/3 elite of the russian military component that can be a close second to that level tactically. as far as shear experience in modern warfare goes and in any environment, other major forces would have great difficulty in full scale warfare with the u.s. in that regard.
http://www.wired.com/2007/11/ff-futurewar/
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-paradox-of-military-technology
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a545545.pdf
The US has not faced a peer based military, since the Korean War.
jay, what is a peer based military?
"Unfortunately for Western soldiers, the proliferation of small arms can put even the most primitive foes on an almost equal footing with the representatives of the most advanced militaries." -max boot (neo-con, with zero military experience)
this is false. without giving away anything, the experience/training/tactics gap between a "primitive force" and a western sof is massive, from precision small unit tactics in a cqb environment to just the basic execution of tactics under fire.
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