Are we the Mongols of the Information Age?
The future of U.S. power rests in its Industrial Age military adapting to decentralized adversaries.
Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2006, Max Boot
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www.latimes.com]
Zentrales Zitat: "Or imagine how much damage our enemies could inflict by using computer viruses — or directed-energy weapons — to immobilize critical bits of our civilian or military computer networks. In theory, it's possible to crash stock markets, send airliners plowing into the ground and blind our most advanced weapons systems."
In den USA wird die Gefährdung durch Directed Energy Weapons angesprochen, in Deutschland, wo sie genauso relevant ist, wird sie bislang in den Medien weitgehend verschwiegen.
Auszug:
GREAT POWERS cease to be great for many reasons. In addition to the causes frequently debated — economics, culture, disease, geography — there is an overarching trend. Over the last 500 years, the fate of nations has been increasingly tied to their success, or lack thereof, in harnessing revolutions in military affairs.
These are periods of momentous change when new technologies combine with new doctrines and new forms of organization to transform not only the face of battle but also the nature of the state and of the international system. Because we are in the middle of the fourth major revolution since 1500 — the Information Revolution — it is important to grasp the nature and consequences of these upheavals...
New revolutions in military affairs, possibly centered on biotechnology and cyber-war, promise to give smaller states or sub-state actors more destructive capacity. Imagine the havoc that could be caused by a genetically engineered contagion combining the worst properties of, say, smallpox and the Ebola virus. Or imagine how much damage our enemies could inflict by using computer viruses — or directed-energy weapons — to immobilize critical bits of our civilian or military computer networks. In theory, it's possible to crash stock markets, send airliners plowing into the ground and blind our most advanced weapons systems...
It may sound melodramatic, but the future of U.S. power rests on our ability to remake a government still structured for Industrial Age warfare to do battle with decentralized adversaries in the Information Age. After all, aren't we the mightiest, richest nation in history? How could our hegemony possibly be endangered? That's what previous superpowers thought too. But their dominance lasted only until they missed a revolutionary turn in military technology and tactics.
