Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Too Much Reliance on Hi-Tech

In combat conditions, nothing takes the place of well trained troops, according to this from Defense News (via Defense tech):

In interviews here, security experts and military officers not directly involved in the fighting say there are fundamental flaws in Israel’s budget-draining techno-centric defensive strategy, which is being funded at the expense of training and discipline throughout the lower echelons of active-duty and reserve forces.
It is intolerable, sources here assert, that Hamas commandos from Gaza and Hizbollah fighters in south Lebanon — within a 10-day period and despite early warnings — were allowed to sneak across borders fortified by a network of manned, unmanned and ground-based systems...One IDF brigadier general said... "With all due credit to technology and the capabilities it provides, we cannot neglect basic soldiering and discipline. But time and again, we’ve seen our training budget gutted to allow for full-bore investment in Tzayad [the IDF’s digital Army program, a rough equivalent of the U.S.' Future Combat Systems]. And now we’re seeing the results blowing up in our faces."

Then there was the story about how an Israeli warship failed to turn on anti-missile radar while she was in combat zone. The fog of war.