Postmodern Wars Imaginary and Real: World War III - Chris Hables ...

Postmodern Wars Imaginary and Real [ 165 ]
HUMRRO's influence has been deep and fundamental. It has been the
major catalyst in changing traditional training and task assignment procedures
from those in effect during World War II to new ones dictated by
"the systems-orientation," or training geared to the system that a man is
to be part of, whether it be a "rifle system," a helicopter or a missile battery.
The HUMRRO approach—and subsequently the Army's—is to look at
men as integral parts of a weapons system with specific missions, (p. 149)
James Gibson concurs that this is the military's dominant value system. He
claims that
Military strategy becomes a one-factor question about technical forces;
success or failure is measured quantitatively. Machine-system meets machine-system
and the largest, fastest, most technologically advanced
system will win. Any other outcome becomes unthinkable. Such is the logic
of Technowar. . . . Vietnam represents the perfect functioning of this
closed, self-referential universe. Vietnam was The Perfect War. (1986, pp.
23, 27; emphasis added)
Such was the theory. Details of the practice show both its ideological
content and its practical limitations. Heavy investment in computers and
automation by the military continued all through this period, with several
purposes, including controlling domestic labor:
Automation would "rationalize" the economy by strengthening the control
of management, especially the management of big firms. Techniques
developed during the war, primarily in the defense industries to compensate
for the wartime lack of skilled labor, would be extended to create the
"factory of the future," where less and less labor would be needed. Industry
could thus replace manpower with machine power and so discipline an
increasing obstreperous work force. As Charles Wilson of General Motors,
vice chairman of the War Production Board and later secretary of defense,
put it in 1949, America had two major problems: "Russia abroad, labor at
home." (Roszak, 1986, p. 178)
Autonomous weapons and sensors were to replace manpower on the
battlefield. Prototype sensors were deployed right after the Korean War and
first saw major combat in Vietnam, as did the first working autonomous
weapons. While both have been touted by some as great successes, it is
important to note that the United States lost the Vietman War, and it lost
most of the battles where they were deployed. The U.S. military abandoned
McNamara's wall, which failed to stop infiltration, fought to a bloody draw
at Khe Sanh, and suffered total tactical and strategic surprise during the Tet
offensive.