Robert Charette recently published an article called
Open-Source Warfare with the IEEE Spectrum newsletter.
He makes some good points, but the fundamental drive of his piece has some gaping holes and prompts more question than answers. The thrust of the article is "terrorists are like an Open Source organization and this gives them advantages over the bureaucratic means which America uses to conduct operations in Iraq". This is a shallow and sensationalist observation which is mostly true, but lacks foresight and grossly oversimplifies the differences between guerrilla warfare and traditional warfare.
I aim to analyze Charette's argument by simply quoting what he wrote, and making my own comments which should point out some points that Charette may not have considered. For a better understanding on my argument, you should probably start by reading the entire piece written by Charette to gain a basic understanding of the subject area.
But the fact remains that a US $100 000 [PackBot] was done in by what was probably a few dollars' worth of explosives, most likely triggered using a modified cellphone, a garage-door opener, or even a toy's remote control.
If you want to play the money game, the
benefits that the Army pays to the family of a soldier who is killed by an IED is way more than the cost of the PackBot. From a human rights perspective, choosing between the welfare of a robot versus a human-being shouldn't take longer than a couple of minutes (especially when the robot doesn't have some other main function that could be better utilized to protect other lives later on).
As for the ability of the insurgency to produce cheap explosives, America could do the same thing but chooses not to because random killing is not part of the goal of their mission. By killing 5 soldiers with an IED, the insurgency accomplishes a goal of creating fear and chaos. Simply having goals which are well suited for low-tech solutions doesn't make the insurgents "Open Source". It just makes them simple minded.
“What we are seeing is the empowerment of the individual to conduct war,” says John Robb, a counterterrorism expert and author of the book Brave New War (John Wiley & Sons), which came out in April.
Robb is quoted throughout the article, so I thought that it would be prudent to call attention to his initial quote. Robb is making money by selling books, so his credibility is automatically suspect...
Need satellite photos? Download them from Google Earth or Microsoft's Virtual Earth. Need to know the current thinking on IED attacks? Watch the latest videos created by insurgents and posted on any one of hundreds of Web sites or log on to chat rooms where you can exchange technical details with like-minded folks.
Maps and satellite photos from Google/Microsoft are useful but not perfect. Entire facilities were camouflaged to avoid being seen from the skies during the Cold War. Saying that these maps give a major advantage is faulty. Additionally, these maps are NOT EVEN OPEN. They are proprietary maps that happen to be freely available. It is
critical not to confuse software and services that are provided gratis with software and services that are provided as a liberty. (and I would go so far as to deny that the argument that Google is "Open" since they provide an API that allows that maps to be extended because there is no fundamental way to tinker with the underlaying Map software).
And saying that the internet provides unparalleled communications abilities is just too obvious. This advantage is largely negated by a point made on page 3 of the article, "Last year, a team of Pentagon analysts told Congress that of the thousands of jihadist sites they monitor, they closely watch fewer than 100—the ones they deem the most hostile." It is trivial to spy on an enemy who uses the internet to communicate key points about their missions. So yes, technologically speaking it is very "Open Source" to let your opposition see what you are doing. But as far as developing the warfighter, this "Openness" is very limiting.
It can take years and sometimes decades—not to mention many millions or billions of dollars—for a new military machine to move from concept to design to testing and out into the field.
The article goes on to mention the 25-year development cycle of the F-22 Raptor, but also follows up by saying (page 5), "The Pentagon is also now granting certain high-priority projects “rapid-acquisition authority.” That process allowed warheads for the thermobaric Hellfire missile, used to attack caves and tunnels, to be developed in just 60 days, rather than the year it might have taken."
Of course, something to take into consideration is that the
Thermobaric version of the Hellfire is a modification from a previous design of Hellfire. It represents adaptation and evolution. Wouldn't this support that the US Army is agile and has the capability to react quickly? Given that these are traits attributed to Open Source, doesn't this suggest that American warfare is "Open Source" capable?
Concerning cost overruns in the F-22 program, the article says the following, (page 5) "Although the Air Force originally planned for a force of 750 Raptors, at the current price of $138 million per plane, fewer than 200 will likely ever be built." This ignores the fact that
thousands of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are slated for production over the next 20 years. It makes sense to cut back on the F-22s because something better is right around the corner. By being able to change their plans over time to suit the newer, modern needs of the military, this provides more evidence that the military is somewhat "agile".
Furthermore, it is an insult to "Open Source" for Charette to insinuate that it is "cheap" and can be developed "rapidly/agilely/quickly". In reality, GNU development began circa 1984. As of 2001 (prior to Fedora and Ubuntu distributions of Linux, and while Netscape was still relevant), the value invested in GNU/Linux was
$1 Billion. It took a long time to build the "Open Source" platform that is running the laptop that I'm typing on right now, and to compare that effort to a bunch of hackers putting together improvised explosives is an insult to the people who spent years of their life developing the GNU software tools and architecture.
“For every move we make, the enemy makes three,” U.S. Brigadier General Joe E. Ramirez Jr. told attendees at a May conference on IEDs. “The enemy changes techniques, tactics, and procedures every two to three weeks. Our biggest task is staying current and relevant.”
The insurgents are developing "disposable prototypes" while America develops "certified and tested products". Being able to churn out dozens of prototypes does not lead to success, in the long run. With determined leadership, it is possible to steer the efforts of a group who is designing small, incremental improvements into the products. However, the prototypes and the improvements need to fit into a grander scheme or they won't work. I will put forward that the insurgents don't have a grand scheme that they are working towards. If they *do* have a vision, it isn't clear to a common American such as myself. In the article, Charette quotes Robb as saying "“System disruption is going to be the main thrust of warfare for quite a long time.”" He insinuates that the insurgency vision is to disrupt our "systems" for living a comfortable life. For what it is worth, "system disruption" is not a goal or vision because it is impossibly general and lacks any measurable metrics for success.
By contract, the vision of GNU is, "to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of Free Software users." And using this vision, it has been possible to create software that competes with Microsoft, Adobe, and any other vendor of proprietary software.
With "system disruption" the best hope is to cause several months of discomfort for a percentage of citizens from non-allied nations. You can measure success by (a) the level of discomfort, (b) the quantity of citizens with discomfort, and (c) the amount of time that the discomfort lasts. And if this really is the vision, then the optimized goal would be to make (a) kill, (b) all citizen, (c) now and forever. This is not a realistic goal. This is the type of goal that will mark you as a target by the whole of society. On the other hand, it is an incredibly achievable goal to say, "use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute" this computer software.
Thus, it follows that the insurgency is not guided by a strong governing set of interests, like the Open Source movement is. The vision from America of "ensuring justice and democracy" is much more aligned with the Open Source movement.
In summary, at best the insurgency is akin to an incredibly immature free software movement. All things considered, the sheer maturity of Open Source software in terms of quality and usability make the comparison an embarrassment, though. Using road-side bombs instead of jet-fighters is resourceful, but it is not "a community approach". A true community approach would combine skills and talents and develop a much larger, more complex set of weapons and tactics. And no army anywhere will succeed in accomplishing that using "Open"techniques because of the limiting factor that their enemies would be able to easily view their innovations and develop countermeasures to stop them.
So please, realize that there is no such thing as "Open-Source Warfare". It is just a buzzword that Robb made up to generate hype for his book.
