Technology, Tactics and the Reality of the War on Terror
Todd Bandrowsky
October 09, 2005
Despite a tab of nearly 500 billion dollars a year, our US military is not able to either completely control nor defeat a protracted insurgency. This is not because of a mythological insurgent power. Instead, this is merely a set of technological problems that can and will be overcome.
Conventional wisdom mythologizes the insurgent. To the popular press, the insurgent is a heroic freedom fighter whose will to win and defend his homeland gives him magical powers. He triumphs over less motivated but more industrialized opponents, and it is impossible for a conventional army to prevail in a guerilla war.
Other myths abound. First off, there is the myth that American troops are not motivated. Our troops are just as motivated, if not more so, than any insurgent. Our troops are volunteers, serving far away from home, and they have been to multiple tours of this Iraq. There is the myth that our troops are better equipped. Yes, they have radars, nightvision, space age MREs, to accompany unprecedented air and naval support. But, they do not protect against hidden bombs or RPGs launched from stealthy positions.
These hidden bombs and RPGs expose a shortcoming in our army and the terrorists are exploiting it. In war, if you have one way to prevail over an enemy, that is the only way you need to fight the war. If, while playing football, a savvy coach discovers that his opposing team cannot defend against a screen, he will always run the screen and will usually win. So it is in war, and it is solely for this reason that the terrorists are using IEDs, hit and run sniper attacks, and hit and run RPG attacks. If the terrorists could win with conventional arms and tactics, they would use them. If they could win by launching chickens at us, we would be confronted with chicken casualties. Wars are fought to be won, and barring a countermeasure, we are losing this war. Even the Sec of Defense tipped this hand, when he said, that the war of terror will not be won with military means alone. If you can't win a war with your army, you are in serious trouble. Make no bones about it, we are in trouble. The terrorists are going to run the same suicide bomber, concealed explosives play against us whereever we meet them, until we can stop them.
Fortunately, the government is aware of this, and there is a great deal of research going on to close these gaps.
The weapon we hear so much about is the IED, a roadside bomb. One of them nearly killed my brother in law, now serving in Ramadi. Our troops, outfitted with nightvision, radar, and computers, still cannot see if a bomb is hidden in a pile of rubble or on a person. The government is working on several ways to counteract this.
First, there is basic signal jamming. The Army employs or is researching several devices to try and jam signals to detonate bombs. The Warthog system is now deployed to this end, with mixed success. The wide range of transmitters available favors the insurgent. More research is needed on disrupting various kinds of communications and at farther ranges, lest the jamming signal detonates the bomb itself. The insurgent counteracts this by using wire communications, which cannot be jammed.
Second, there is outright remote explosives detection. In a way, this technology is a holy grail of the war on terror. If there was a way to see if someone was carrying a bomb from half a mile a way, forces could move to neutralize the threat before it emerged. Furthermore, mobile patrols outfitted with such a device could scan neighorhoods looking for explosives before they are even employed by insurgents. This sounds like science fiction, but teams such as those at the University of Florida are working to achieve this very end.
Third, there is detection by comparison. Systems are being developed to image the entire path a convoy route might take. If something changes, for example, there is a new car present, or a rubble pile has shifted, the system would detect the changes in images and raise a red flag.
Finally vehicles themselves are being hardened. The Army is feverishly working on a successor to the HMMV that is better able to counteract explosives. In particular, the new armoured car will have an armoured bottom with a rounded shape to better able to defect blasts.
Research is also underway to counteract RPGs. Several vendors have developed systems to intercept RPGs in flight and for various costs. Vehicles equipped with such systems would be able to quickly target RPGs in flight and intercept them. In a similar vein, firms are readying systems with high performance radar and sound detection to determine where a sniper's round was fired from.
Conventional wisdom mythologizes the insurgent. To the popular press, the insurgent is a heroic freedom fighter whose will to win and defend his homeland gives him magical powers. He triumphs over less motivated but more industrialized opponents, and it is impossible for a conventional army to prevail in a guerilla war.
Other myths abound. First off, there is the myth that American troops are not motivated. Our troops are just as motivated, if not more so, than any insurgent. Our troops are volunteers, serving far away from home, and they have been to multiple tours of this Iraq. There is the myth that our troops are better equipped. Yes, they have radars, nightvision, space age MREs, to accompany unprecedented air and naval support. But, they do not protect against hidden bombs or RPGs launched from stealthy positions.
These hidden bombs and RPGs expose a shortcoming in our army and the terrorists are exploiting it. In war, if you have one way to prevail over an enemy, that is the only way you need to fight the war. If, while playing football, a savvy coach discovers that his opposing team cannot defend against a screen, he will always run the screen and will usually win. So it is in war, and it is solely for this reason that the terrorists are using IEDs, hit and run sniper attacks, and hit and run RPG attacks. If the terrorists could win with conventional arms and tactics, they would use them. If they could win by launching chickens at us, we would be confronted with chicken casualties. Wars are fought to be won, and barring a countermeasure, we are losing this war. Even the Sec of Defense tipped this hand, when he said, that the war of terror will not be won with military means alone. If you can't win a war with your army, you are in serious trouble. Make no bones about it, we are in trouble. The terrorists are going to run the same suicide bomber, concealed explosives play against us whereever we meet them, until we can stop them.
Fortunately, the government is aware of this, and there is a great deal of research going on to close these gaps.
The weapon we hear so much about is the IED, a roadside bomb. One of them nearly killed my brother in law, now serving in Ramadi. Our troops, outfitted with nightvision, radar, and computers, still cannot see if a bomb is hidden in a pile of rubble or on a person. The government is working on several ways to counteract this.
First, there is basic signal jamming. The Army employs or is researching several devices to try and jam signals to detonate bombs. The Warthog system is now deployed to this end, with mixed success. The wide range of transmitters available favors the insurgent. More research is needed on disrupting various kinds of communications and at farther ranges, lest the jamming signal detonates the bomb itself. The insurgent counteracts this by using wire communications, which cannot be jammed.
Second, there is outright remote explosives detection. In a way, this technology is a holy grail of the war on terror. If there was a way to see if someone was carrying a bomb from half a mile a way, forces could move to neutralize the threat before it emerged. Furthermore, mobile patrols outfitted with such a device could scan neighorhoods looking for explosives before they are even employed by insurgents. This sounds like science fiction, but teams such as those at the University of Florida are working to achieve this very end.
Third, there is detection by comparison. Systems are being developed to image the entire path a convoy route might take. If something changes, for example, there is a new car present, or a rubble pile has shifted, the system would detect the changes in images and raise a red flag.
Finally vehicles themselves are being hardened. The Army is feverishly working on a successor to the HMMV that is better able to counteract explosives. In particular, the new armoured car will have an armoured bottom with a rounded shape to better able to defect blasts.
Research is also underway to counteract RPGs. Several vendors have developed systems to intercept RPGs in flight and for various costs. Vehicles equipped with such systems would be able to quickly target RPGs in flight and intercept them. In a similar vein, firms are readying systems with high performance radar and sound detection to determine where a sniper's round was fired from.
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