Txt Msg: The Redcoats Are Coming
2nd Stryker Btn CPT Hsia at Small Wars Journal says the US military needs to rethink OPSEC because it’s spilling out all over the place between embedding and rampant wiredness. Embedding, troop wiredness, contractors and joint operations all create vulnerabilities.
It’s an overly simplistic argument that doesn’t address the extent to which it actually has been a problem and other real-world considerations, and appears to suggest the genie needs to get shoved back in its bottle.
Considerations include the fact that we are a free and democratic society, and the extent to which embedding and wired troops have provided insight, understanding and ultimately support for the war effort, countering a lot of misconceptions. Hsia’s WWII analogy doesn’t quite work. Conventional war with Russia and China is unlikely to look much like WWII, and in our current wars, I suspect insurgents probably get more useful information about U.S. military unit movements and intentions by direct observation than off the Internet. A caveat is that detailed information on capabilities, methods, tactics, etc., may well be useful to the enemy.
But the information battlefield is a very dynamic place, and simply trying to shut down your part of it makes as much sense as immediate withdrawal from Iraq iand other isolationist ideas. The media isn’t going away, and not talking to the media also creates problems. Contractors are likely to remain a part of the battlefield, and joint operations with allies have to be. The last seven years offers a wealth of information for serious study to quantify and qualify the degree to which what Hsia describes is a threat, has created problems, and a look at whether new guidelines for OPSEC discipline on the part of individual soldiers and commanders is called for, as well as the nature of relations with the media, contractors and allies.
Here’s Hsia at LA Times last year. Use of contractors fools Americans into thinking they aren’t at war, risks Fall of the Roman Empire redux.
Here’s Hsia at SWJ, My So-Called Greatest Generation. Not enough Americans understand or are interested in what he’s doing, nor are they stepping forward. … Good point. More communication, not less.
These articles don’t say what Hsia actually does in Iraq, which would be interesting to help understand his perspective.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:35 am on Sunday, February 24, 2008
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