What's good?

When it comes to what the latest and greatest technology that our military has to offer, I would have to say the official military websites for the individual branches of armed services have the best, most reliable information.  The military is part of the government, so all of the information that is accessible to the public on those websites is a direct representation of the government.  All of that information is edited and proofread to make sure all the information is correct.  I believe though, there may be a slight exaggeration sometimes, but I feel like that is only really done to make a boring articles about the military a little bit more interesting.  Nobody likes to read an article about the specifications of a certain new piece of equipment, but a little information regarding what the new piece of equipment might do might draw readers to read the full article and come back to the site later for more information.  Being a Marine, I’ve only really gone to marines.mil, where they have a “News” section that will periodically have articles on new equipment and technologies. 

I also think that any news articles that are a part of the AP (Associated Press) are very good and reliable news sources.  The AP is a very credible because it has a strict set of standards and guidelines to its news articles.  They don’t even produce any kind of information from anonymous sources unless:

1. The material is information and not opinion or speculation, and is vital to the news report.
2. The information is not available except under the conditions of anonymity imposed by the source.
3. The source is reliable, and in a position to have accurate information

For more information, the AP issued a statement in 2006 regarding their values and principles; the link to it is http://www.ap.org/newsvalues/index.html

Any information you find on personal blogs or any kind of blog or article where there are no specific standards or guidelines to their writing, that’s when you should be a little wary of what they say.   There are really no checks and balances to what a blogger might write.  A blogger is free to write what they wants, so they can put their own opinion on things, and even skew the facts so that something that they might like is seen in a negative light.  In those situations, it is best to take that information at face value only and research it some more using official military sites or AP news outlets/articles.  An example of a good blog site, however, that I found was http://bit.ly/azDD7V.  (If you clicked on the link, you find that it’s my own blog, but I do my research, and any information you find here is totally true either from research or personal experience.)

So I searched “military technology,” and the first page was full of websites devoted to military technology, but they were all by private companies, companies that have no obligation to the government to give credible information.  I was a little surprised that there was no government sponsored site, but I guess that’s the illusion of control caused by searching and googling.  Like my previous blog post, I encourage you to look for, in your own life, how the illusion of control affects your actions. 

illusion of control

Many, if not all, people have their own superstitious beliefs that compels them to do rituals before an event, small or large.  I knew some Marines who would always pray before going outside the wire, but in actuality, if they prayed or not, that IED (improvised explosive device) would be in that road no matter what they did before going out.  What matter to them though, was that they felt safer going out because they had been able to pray.  This is the illusion of control.

Just like you see basketball players bounce it twice before shooting a free throw, they feel like the bounce will help them to make the free throw.  The illusion of control is the tendency for people to believe that a desired event occurs when they do a certain behavior.  It was first developed by Dr. Ellen Langer, the first female to ever be tenured in psychology at Harvard University.  The illusion of control is one of the three “positive illusions,” the others being illusory superiority and optimism bias.

Dr. Ellen Langer’s research found that people were more likely to behave in such a way that they thought they had control over an event if it involved, “skill cues.”  Skill cues are related to situations in which the person believes skill has something to do with the outcome.  The best example of this was found in gambling (rolling dice in craps); research showed that people would throw dice hard trying to get a higher number but throwing softer for a lower number.

Since coming out with this theory in 1975, there have many complementary theories and many criticisms as well, but it is hard to argue that the illusion of control does not exist when we do it every day of our lives.

Weapon of Mass Destruction for the Masses

The internet is such a valuable tool that has grown exponentially in terms of usability and technologically in the past 5 years and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down anytime soon. Not surprisingly, the Defense Department was the one who developed the computer system in which the internet evolved from. The ability to keep academic and military researchers in contact really helps to speed up the time it takes to develop something. Without it, imagine having to write a story with somebody by mail correspondence only…that would take much longer then if you had your friend right next to you.


That development led to the internet, which, according to the article, only had 25 million daily computer users in 2005. That number really shows how much the internet has grown, as facebook, arguably the most popular of the social networking sites, just recently passed its 500 million user mark. Also showing the internet’s growth is its development of software to combat some of the perils of the internet. The article begins with an example of how spam e-mails negatively affect the internet, but my initial reaction was, “what about spam and pop-up blockers? From what I remember, spam blockers and pop-up blockers were really just initially being implemented.

Although spam and pop-up blockers are now used in full force, the internet’s growth has not been all positive. The internet is an open forum for anybody to write and produce whatever they want. Recently, many classified documents from the war in Afghanistan were illegally posted on a website called “wiki-leaks.” You can imagine the operational security risks that documents like that can present and the potential danger it can have on our military overseas. .

No "Busy" Signal with the Internet

Earlier, I briefly introduced you to the topic of military technology and the human effect of it. Well you see, the military is always trying to improve itself to be a more efficient fighting machine and minimize damage and better equip its most valuable resource, the individual service member. This is done by advancing current technologies and creating new ones. Keeping in pace with the communication technology boom of the last 10 years, arguably the most critical improvements made by the military have been in how the military communicates.

When the military finds a need for something, most of the time, they will usually let all the major defense contractors know that they have a need for a device to do a certain thing. Then these contractors all make a product fitting that description and try to win a government contract. The military was the first to come up with the idea of GPS in 1973 and launched a satellite called NAVSTAR 1 (an acronym for Navigation Satellite Timing and Ranging) in 1978. In 1993, the final satellite needed to use GPS was launched. More satellites have been sent up since to enhance and refine the system, which gave birth to the Blue Force Tracking system (run by Harris Corp, under contract to Northrop Grumman) . The Blue Force Tracking system allows for more accurate tracking which before was done with a map and compass and depended on the navigational skill of the person relaying the position back. All the information is sent over radio communications and satellites.

By far the biggest thing that has influenced military technology is the internet. Before the internet, there was no other communication medium that was so convenient and able to reach so many people at one time. Instead of 100 calls to 100 different people, there could be just one e-mail for those 100 people. The internet over in Iraq and Afghanistan is not done by hard lines like here in the US, but by satellite. So if a satellite was down, an e-mail is much more easily re-sent than constantly re-dialed like a phone call. Ten years ago, it would have been near impossible to get a mass message to troops, but now with the internet, it’s possible. One of the biggest problems a military may have is getting certain information across, but with the internet, it was much easier.

The prevalence of the internet has also greatly affected the individual service member in that, it now allows for easier communication back home. Twenty years ago, if you were in a combat environment, it would have been very hard to get just a phone call out to your loved ones. Now you have computer rooms where a service member can video message his loved ones and exchange e-mails with friends and family. This moral boost has immeasurable benefits for a service member.

The greatest problem with technology though, is the abuse of it. The most recent example of this is the leaking of government documents through wiki leaks. Also, there are concerns that e-mail and video-messaging could be hacked and valuable information can be gained from it. Although it is instructed that only non-classified information go in e-mails, those instructions are not always followed. Only the future will show how the military handles these problems.

My Topic

My blog, “The Future of War is Now,” focuses on the advances in technology and how that affects how war is fought. I also wanted to focus on the affect that technology has on the human aspect of war. Much of what you see in movies and television are not just science fiction, but things that actually do exist. I did not even realize how much technology goes into fighting a war.

I’ve been a US Marine since 2007 and I’m a small arms repairman (which just means I work with the weapons), so the only technology I ever saw or need in my training before going to Iraq was a hammer, a screwdriver, and a punch. The only time I would use a computer was if I wanted to do paperwork with it rather than writing it by hand. All of my references are very large and thick manuals, but many references, yet not all, are making their way into electronic format.

Technology, though, has a very large role in the way we fight war and its affect on US service members and that is why I have selected that topic. I was just so very astonished at how much we can do with the new technologies that we have. For example, we have something called the Blue Force Tracker system, where Marines on a convoy hundreds of miles of way can be tracked from a central location with enough accuracy that they can be told of upcoming hazards or rough terrain. Likewise, those Marines in that convoy can know where the other vehicles are, something very critical in a combat environment. And if you have every played the video game “Call of Duty,” you have most certainly heard of predator drones, drones that I heard almost every night flying around.

I also selected this topic because how the advancement of communication technology made it easier for me to contact with home, thus I want to see how it affects people. When I was over there, not only did we have phones, but we had internet, albeit, very slow internet, running through a system of satellites all over base, which allowed us to contact home and allowed us to keep up with current events. This is a very big morale boost in a highly stressful environment.

Because of my personal experiences while in Iraq, my goals for selecting this topic is that I want to further explore the technology that shapes and will further shape warfare, but I also want to further explore how technology positively/negatively affects the human aspect of war.