Interesting article. Argues that America's preocupation with high-tech weaponry ignores the human element of warThe Army's Empire SkepticsThere are those who make the argument that in an era of targets laser-painted by elite forces, technological advance compensates for less-than-optimal human elements. But at a time when some of the most crucial postwar military functions--infrastructure rehabilitation, military police, civil affairs, to name but a few--are almost exclusively the province not of active-duty but of part-time Reserve and National Guard units, training and experience count for a lot. As far as effective occupation-style rebuilding is concerned, officers who have been assigned to the Balkans are skeptical about what might come in Iraq, based on their experiences in Bosnia and Kosovo.
"The preoccupation with force protection kept us more apart from the natives, as well as keeping us from being truly effective in terms of addressing problems that I thought we were there to deal with," says one officer of his Balkans rotation. "I can't imagine it will be any different in Iraq
"The preoccupation with force protection kept us more apart from the natives, as well as keeping us from being truly effective in terms of addressing problems that I thought we were there to deal with," says one officer of his Balkans rotation. "I can't imagine it will be any different in Iraq
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