thread: 2006-03-05 : No, THIS is the perfect medium
On 2006-03-06, Jason Larke wrote:
What about the issue of awareness and interaction?
Only a human being existing in the combat zone can apply all the faculties of human perception directly to the situation. Someone sitting inside an armored vehicle or flying overhead has the advantage of fancy sensor systems, but those systems can create tunnel vision or an incorrect sense of total sensory mastery, which can be disastrous.
All this is ignoring counter-insurgency, in which person-to-person interactions may well be the deciding factor of the war.
This makes JM go "4GW"
You can't fight jihadis from inside an M1 Abrams.
This makes SF go "Situational awareness, check"
A huge issue, on which the combined arms triple tradeoff rides like birds on a rhino's back, but too much for today. It's hardly a new thing to "4GW," either: Sun Tzu goes on about this.
This makes SF go "Human interactions, check"
Every action in war must weaken your enemy, or sway the neutral, or strengthen your side. In conventional war, there are few neutrals, and each side is pretty committed, so "weaken" comes down to "kill." In insurgency, less commitment all around, so more leeway. But it's all points on the same spectrum. Again, you go back to Sun Tzu.
This makes NinJ go "Yeah, the stuff about getting your (and neighboring) people on your side..."
... is pretty good stuff. Politics of the front line.
This makes TB go "Awareness isn't just about defense"
Awareness is AT LEAST as useful, I would contend, on attack. Also, if awareness is the reason infantry hold ground, then why not "Armour holds ground, with a few guys hidden outside on spotting duty"
