Wired For War, Taliban Style

It's not news that insurgents and terrorists are adept at wielding cell phones and social media to thwart U.S. ambitions, but an article by retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the most recent issue of Foreign Policy illustrates how difficult it has been for the military to adapt to a well-networked enemy. In referring to the Taliban, McChrystal says:

When the sky above became too thick with our drones, their leaders used cell phones and the Internet to issue orders and rally their fighters. They aimed to keep dispersed insurgent cells motivated, strategically wired, and continually informed, all without a rigid -- or targetable -- chain of command.

As with most new technologies, the capability itself is only part of the impact -- the second- and third-order effects on organizations can be just as important and confounding. When U.S. forces first encountered Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2003, officers attempted to diagram the enemy on white dry-erase boards, mapping out the organization of a traditional military structure, but the model didn't apply because Al Qaeda is a collection of self-identified fighters organized on the basis of relationships and reputations.

"An effective network involves much more than relaying data," McChrystal wrote. "Ultimately, a network is defined by how well it allows its members to see, decide, and effectively act. But transforming a traditional military structure into a truly flexible, empowered network is a difficult process."

That's quite an understatement. As my colleague Bob Brewin reported yesterday, the Army is planning to issue smart phones to soldiers in Afghanistan soon -- something service leaders have been talking about since last fall. But what passes for "soon" on Army Time is undoubtedly different from Taliban Time. As the story noted, the Army must first do a risk-benefits analysis, which is expected to take at least six months. And that's just to get the technology into the hands of soldiers. The real question is how the new communications capability will be used by a rank-bound organization like the Army.