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Defense -- Hilton
ISSS Meeting at Asilomar, June 28-July 2, 1999
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Paper session, June 30, 1999, 3:45 p.m., hosted by Enrique Herrscher
These participant's notes were created
in real-time during the meeting, based on the speaker's presentation(s)
and comments from the audience. These should not be viewed as official
transcripts of the meeting, but only as an interpretation by a single individual.
Lapses, grammatical errors, and typing mistakes may not have been corrected.
Questions about content should be directed to the originator. These notes
have been contributed by David Ing (http://coevolving.com) at the IBM AdvancedBusiness Institute ( http://www.ibm.com/abi ).
Works in defense -- the business of killing people, as final force.
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Use of extreme force is very rare, so how would we audit?
In British military doctrine, fighting depends on three things, and need
to think about them temporarily:
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Physical component: manpower and equipment
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Conceptual component: ideas in people's heads, not just commanding officer,
on how they deploy and use resources.
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This is very difficult to observe, especially when they're in stress.
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Moral component: ability to sustain performance in extreme adversity.
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Functioning even if cold, wet and friends are dead.
Military organizations have evolved over a long time, and is resistant
to change.
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Egotism: You can't have an ego and successful, as you could be eliminated
at any moment.
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British military leaders are at the front.
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Can't command and control while in battle.
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Senior managers reinforce the moral component in battle, by exposing themselves
just as the lowest man does.
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Decouples the person and ego from how the system performs.
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Have to move senior and middle managers around.
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If you have a bad manager, you only have to endure for 18 months, and then
everyone gets moved around.
Involved in downsizing activities.
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Trying to use virtual reality to train people.
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Simulation: Doesn't takes resources (to send forces to Canada).
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Problem: you can push the reset button.
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On the other hand, even if running around Suffield and firing off guns,
it doesn't really test moral component.
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The ultimate test of being in battle doesn't really happen.
Encouragement of diversity.
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Evolved out of decades of experience.
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e.g. army, air force and navy, which would make sense to move things together.
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Nature of warfare on air, land and sea is completely different, and the
people are different.
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e.g. air force: of 70,000 people, about 500 put themselves at risk, flying
into the front line. Lots of antipathy between support and pilot. Support
are 500 miles behind the lines.
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Support would like to be personal with pilot, but after you've lost many
pilots, you can't function well.
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In the navy, you're in a small space, but the context is closer -- a greater
human relationship.
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In the army, the lowest person in the organization who makes the decision.
e.g. young man in a truck needs to get the ammo through the lines.
These cultural differences are there for functional reasons.
Questions
Simulation removes a moral component. Can you do something with officers?
Why not war in virtual reality?
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War is about trying to break the will of the opponent.
Key driving force for military is to justify its existence. This connects
to the industrialists behind, who couch evil as heroism. Can we choose
to not study war any more?
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