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As American and coalition troops fight the
first battles of this new century -- from Afghanistan to
Yemen to the Philippines to Iraq -- they do so in ways never
before seen. Until recently, information war was but one
piece of a puzzle, more than a sideshow in war but far less
than the sum total of the game. Today, however, we find
information war revolutionizing combat, from top to bottom.
Gone are the advantages of fortified positions -- nothing
is impregnable any longer. Gone is the reason to create
an overwhelming mass of troops -- now, troop concentrations
merely present easier targets. Instead, stealth, swarming,
and "zapping" (precision strikes on individuals
or equipment) are the order of the day, based on superior
information and lightning-fast decision-making. In many
ways, modern warfare is information warfare.
Bruce Berkowitz's explanation of how information
war revolutionized combat and what it means for our soldiers
could not be better timed. As Western forces wage war against
terrorists and their supporters, in actions large and small,
on several continents, The New Face of War explains
how they fight and how they will win or lose. There are
four key dynamics to the new warfare: asymmetric threats,
in which even the strongest armies may suffer from at least
one Achilles' heel; information-technology competition,
in which advantages in computers and communications are
crucial; the race of decision cycles, in which the
first opponent to process and react to information effectively
is almost certain to win; and network organization,
in which fluid arrays of combat forces can spontaneously
organize in multiple ways to fight any given opponent at
any time.
America's use of networked, elite ground
forces, in combination with precision-guided bombing from
manned and unmanned flyers, turned Afghanistan from a Soviet
graveyard into a lopsided field of American victory. Yet
we are not invulnerable, and the same technology that we
used in Kuwait in 1991 is now available to anyone with a
credit card and access to the Internet. Al Qaeda is adept
in the new model of war, and has searched long and hard
for weaknesses in our defenses. Will we be able to stay
ahead of its thinking? In Iraq, Saddam's army is in no position
to defeat its enemies -- but could it defend Baghdad? As
the world anxiously considers these and other questions
of modern war, Bruce Berkowitz offers many answers and a
framework for understanding combat that will never again
resemble the days of massive marches on fortress-like positions.
The New Face of War is a crucial
guidebook for reading the headlines from across our troubled
planet.
Bruce Berkowitz is a research fellow
at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior
analyst at RAND. He is currently a consultant to the Defense
Department and the intelligence community. A widely published
author and frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal,
he lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
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