Not a concept.
hostlist.6223.soscoe.c16That line of code, like modern-day hieroglyphics, flashes on a flat screen in a classified Boeing plant under the studious gaze of the warriors of the future: software developers, one with spiked hair, another who looks too young to vote. They are working on the largest software program in Defense Department history, a project that the military says dwarfs Microsoft's Windows. The project is the heart of Future Combat Systems, the Army's most expensive weapons program."There's nothing like it, ever," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense consultant at the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank. "Nobody has ever before attempted to integrate a software system as remotely complicated as FCS is going to be. It is many times more complicated than any other defense program."Future Combat Systems, or FCS, is a roughly $200 billion weapons program that military officials consider the most thorough modernization of the Army since World War II. It all depends on the software, under development by the Army's battalion of contractors, led by Boeing. The software is intended to do what military commanders have until now only dreamed about: give soldiers the power to communicate through a wireless network in near real time with hovering drones; remotely control robots to defuse bombs; fire laser-guided missiles at enemies on the move; and conduct a video teleconference in a tank rumbling about 40 mph in the haze of battle.
That line of code, like modern-day hieroglyphics, flashes on a flat screen in a classified Boeing plant under the studious gaze of the warriors of the future: software developers, one with spiked hair, another who looks too young to vote. They are working on the largest software program in Defense Department history, a project that the military says dwarfs Microsoft's Windows. The project is the heart of Future Combat Systems, the Army's most expensive weapons program.
"There's nothing like it, ever," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense consultant at the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank. "Nobody has ever before attempted to integrate a software system as remotely complicated as FCS is going to be. It is many times more complicated than any other defense program."
Future Combat Systems, or FCS, is a roughly $200 billion weapons program that military officials consider the most thorough modernization of the Army since World War II. It all depends on the software, under development by the Army's battalion of contractors, led by Boeing. The software is intended to do what military commanders have until now only dreamed about: give soldiers the power to communicate through a wireless network in near real time with hovering drones; remotely control robots to defuse bombs; fire laser-guided missiles at enemies on the move; and conduct a video teleconference in a tank rumbling about 40 mph in the haze of battle.
I have doubts.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:08 (eighteen years ago)
In "At War With Asia," Chomsky cites various military authorities talking about how they were just steps away from fully automated war in the late 1960s.
Seems to me that all they'd have to do once they create that is find a way to develop battlefield conditions in which that was actually an effective way of fighting.
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:17 (eighteen years ago)
bring on the killer robots!
― gff, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:19 (eighteen years ago)
Conducting a video conference in a tank - where in the Art of War does it suggest that fighting battles by committee is a good idea?
― ledge, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:21 (eighteen years ago)
Gotta start somewhere.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:36 (eighteen years ago)
wait, soldier can't already communicate with each over a wireless network? Or do they mean with the drones?
― Ste, Thursday, 24 January 2008 16:55 (eighteen years ago)
i read an interview with some general in iraq that instant, easy communication (via email and mobile phones) has contributed to how poorly the occupation and reconstruction effort has gone so far. he said that often things didn't get planned properly because everyone was always avilable - so why make plans? knowing you can't communicate with others makes it necessary to create extensively-thought-out plans in advance that everyone has to stick to. it was, to this guy's mind, an example of how flexibility and adaptability actually hinder forward planning.
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:01 (eighteen years ago)
haha "Just text my commander later and will figure out where to meet up. I'm going to go workout"
― Hurting 2, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:02 (eighteen years ago)
lol complaining generals
― gff, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:02 (eighteen years ago)
'the kids and their texting and emailing'
― gff, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:03 (eighteen years ago)
an example of how flexibility and adaptability actually hinder forward planning.
wow. i would LOVE to get a copy of that article. any ideas?
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:14 (eighteen years ago)
i may have dreamed it :/
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:17 (eighteen years ago)
you should write the article, then
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:17 (eighteen years ago)
i would be interested to see president bush's safari bookmarks
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:18 (eighteen years ago)
i got it totally wrong, it's an embassy official and i extrapolated wildly - it's from a george packer (ugh) artcle about iraqi collaborators:
A former Embassy official pointed out that cell phones and e-mail connect officials in Iraq to their bosses there or in Washington around the clock. “When you can always connect, you can always pass the buck,” he said.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/26/070326fa_fact_packer?printable=true
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:32 (eighteen years ago)
lol skynet
― sanskrit, Thursday, 24 January 2008 17:35 (eighteen years ago)
Like nuclear weapons: works only when the other side doesn't have it.
― M.V., Thursday, 24 January 2008 18:34 (eighteen years ago)
"Nobody has ever before attempted to integrate a software system as remotely complicated as FCS is going to be..."
Perhaps they should have asked around about some of those other extremely complex software projects before they committed to this one. Do we really want our national defense capability founded upon something one tenth as reliable as Windows Vista?
― Aimless, Thursday, 24 January 2008 18:55 (eighteen years ago)