War Remains Primarily a Human Endeavor

Well now, who said that?

I was just reading the article on the Joint Warfighter Conference held last week in Virginia Beach, VA. Well, to be honest I've read a couple more articles here and here on the conference as well.

Now then, gadgets and technology to aid our Warriors abounded at this little get together and I'm sure that everything was displayed in just the most appealing way. Back in the day I used to go to an annual conference called Semicon. Yep, I'm a semiconductor engineer and at one time I was the Queen of Gadgetry, and so I tend to look at these kinds of displays with a raised eyebrow.

Generally speaking the most important things at these kinds of conferences can be found in the presentations given by the speakers. After going over all of the speeches that were given, I believe that was also true last week at the Joint Warfighter Conference.

In each speech the human factor carried more weight than the technological factors. The Air Force: Dominance is more than technology, it's the right mix of people. The Army: The IED is a strategic weapon to wear our will down. The Navy: we need to do a better job of launching ideas.

And of course the guy who rounded out the conference on the last day: Marine General James N. Mattis:

“War is going to remain a human endeavor. It’s going to require human solutions and technology is not a panacea,” he said. We want to make sure we keep technology in its enabling role, not in a dominant role as we move forward. It must enable the human interface, not replace it.”

Here's what a few said (from JFCOMs article):

Commander of the Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC) Air Force Gen. John Corley:

"I've talked about the people, I've talked about technology and in my mind the joint force does currently enjoy a technological advantage," he said. "Dominance is more than just having that advanced technology. It's going to require the right mix of people and capabilities along with relevance and effective concepts of operations. To be a deterrent and to be an effective force, we must be able to prosecute missions across the spectrum of conflict.

Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz:

Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz said he thinks it is important for all Americans to know about IEDs because the country as a whole has to defeat this weapon system of choice of the enemy.

“Make no mistake about it: these thugs write what they are going to do. It’s very clear as to what they want to do and they are using this weapon as one of their strategic tools,” Metz said. “I am personally convinced that we will fight irregular warfare for the next 20 or 30 years and the enemy in that warfare will use asymmetrical weapons and find out where we don’t want to fight.”
Metz explained why the IED is not a tactical weapon. He said that the enemy can not defeat a country of 300 million people with the IED.

“It is a strategic weapon to wear our will down because our soldiers, sailors, airman and Marines can whip this thing tactically,” Metz said.

Commander of U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) Navy Adm. James Stavridis:

"My proposition for you today is all of us in this room need to be in the business of thinking, reading, writing and publishing because that launching of free ideas I believe is what makes our country so strong," Stavridis said. "In the world we face today, we are going to have to launch some Tomahawk missiles — there is no question in that, but we need to do a better job of launching ideas."

I am reminded of the Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon where the Enterprise and her crew are declared all killed in action in a bizarre computer simulated war where the actual deaths must occur in little death chambers where you are painlessly vaporized. But I don't think our enemy is going to allow this to happen. They want us to die in the most painful and gruesome way.

We need to wrap our minds around that concept, they want us to die in the most painful and gruesome way. As a nation we can no longer afford to have these sniping contests sponsored by the media at the behest of the extreme left in their effort to gain control over the White House. There is no denying that al Qaeda wants to take America down and unless we unite as one nation with the goal of a world free from terrorism, we may indeed die. We must lay down our differences, the left and the right, and unite against terror. Once we defeat that, we can go back to our domestic squabbling.