More national security and science than global health and foreign policy, but Rick Atkinson’s four-part “Left of Boom” series in the Washington Post is a sobering look at the military’s attempts to use science to innovate away the devastating problem of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. IEDs have proven to be a low-tech and deadly way to attack U.S. troops as they travel the roadways of Iraq. U.S. countermeasures have proliferated, only to see insurgent bomb-makers quickly innovate new approaches using widely available commercial products such as key fobs and radio controlled cars. The Pentagon’s broken procurement process plays a role in the story, as do inane and impractical projects like harnessed bomb sniffing bees ($2 million invested in those bees until Brig. Gen. Joseph L. Votel asked “How does, say, 1st Platoon manage their bees?”)
Just as interesting is what the articles say about the nature of this war and why high-tech solutions to the IED problem may only be half-measures. Retired General Montgomery C. Meigs who directs the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, provides a key observation:
“The IED is the enemy’s artillery system. It’s simply a way of putting chemical and kinetic energy on top of our soldiers and Marines, or underneath them… What’s different is the trajectory. Three 152mm rounds underneath a tank, which will blow a hole in it, are artillery rounds. But they didn’t come through three-dimensional space in a parabolic trajectory. They came through a social trajectory and a social network in the community.”
In other words the artillery shells are not being fired at vehicles by a traditional army, but are coming at U.S. forces through a social network of insurgent financers, bomb-makers and low-level persons paid to place IEDs. Dealing with this social network is low-tech, requiring deep understanding of language, culture and insurgent social networks. The Pentagon’s high-tech efforts to protect troops against IEDs have had some success, but low-tech, on the ground intelligence may be the only way to stop IEDs before they explode under our troops, ie. to move left of boom.
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on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Harley Feldbaum, News.
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