> Autonomy — enabled by artificial intelligence, edge computing and other technologies — allows you to operate at scales and speeds that you simply cannot do under the traditional model of big, expensive, heavily manned systems that, no matter how much money you throw at them, will only be able to do a limited number of things.
I can't wait to see the headlines in 2050 about a badly-trained neural network leading to US warbots gunning down anyone carrying a banana.
I'd rather my town's police department have a bunch of gear they don't need than for there to be a SWAT situation that they have to wait an hour for another department to come handle.
I am not so sure about that. If Afghanistan and corona response have shown anything, a complete and total failure of American intelligence and military apparatus isn’t really far fetched anymore.
Neither of those examples have anything at all to do with the military or IC, so it's hard to understand what you're trying to communicate. Would you mind trying a different approach?
How is the Afghanistan withdrawal and subsequent collapse of the propped up government anything but a US military and intelligence failure? #1 was badly organised, hurried and left many people behind to certain death ( translators and others who helped the US army). #2 came as a complete surprise to everyone.
The decision to withdraw wasn't a military one, but they didn't really do a good job at executing it. What better way to cap off the fiasco that was that war?
Will the machines work against Talibans as well?The best U.S tech couldn't deter some medieval-like army. You can't talk about a super army/next level army and forget Afghanistan...
When the US invaded Afghanistan in the Taliban was defeated within about 6 weeks. US deterrence very much remained in place until it began to withdraw.
Winning against a force like the Taliban requires you to be able to operate with much looser ROEs than the US as well as operate against their enabled in the region and outside of it which the US was unable and or unwilling to do.
The Taliban was formed in Pakistan and it drew many of its fighters from there it was true in the late 80’s and it’s true today.
Winning a war and sustaining occupation are also completely different things, and most importantly this is about a peer or near peer enemy.
An occupation that is actually being opposed can only be won by extermination or expulsion whilst wars are won by making it too costly to continue fighting and allowing for or forcing a surrender.
The results of the US withdrawal make it pretty obvious that the Taliban as an organization were in hiding rather than defeated, and probably had backchannel communications going with local leaders the entire time the US was there, given that at least some of the rapid takeover of the country again seems to have come from pre-negotiated surrender agreements.
You win a war by achieving your political goals. It's entirely possible to win every battle and completely defeat the enemy but still lose the war, if those battles don't bring you any closer to achieving the goals. Or because you're not even sure what your goals are.
An occupying force can win the war by convincing people that resistance is no longer worth it. That tends to require clear goals, a clear vision of the future, and selling that vision to the people.
>> When the US invaded Afghanistan in the Taliban was defeated within about 6 weeks.
They certainly don't look defeated now. I would say the opposite is actually more likely.Hint: the loosing team was scrambling to evacuate.
>> US deterrence very much remained in place until it began to withdraw.
Or you could simply admit that the U.S. lost the endurance test...what does it matter if the U.S won the first rounds if it threw the towel in the 12th round? I wonder what kind of signal is this for a more advanced enemy (i.e. China, Russia or even Venezuela).
> An occupation that is actually being opposed can only be won by extermination or expulsion
I wonder this. If you think of it as memetic warfare, what weapons were brought to bear? The US had 20 years to reprogram a whole generation of Afghans. Did they supervise school curriculums? Force kids to attend? Shut down religious schools hostile to the government? Create entertaining TV programs with empowered women?
Sure, that sounds Orwellian, but this is an occupied country. Wiping out certain cultural practices sure beats wiping out the humans.
so now that the us couldnt beat them we promoted them to the status of a … “force”? illiterate, barefoot, malnourished, lacking an economy, and education, the taliban are now a “force” op thinks.
> formed in Pakistan
yeah mighty Pakistan, the country with a thriving economy and the mightiest tech innovation machine
> winning a war and sustaining occupation
the caliban simply moved from place a to place b and waited it out
it’d much more beneficial to admit defeat and learn from it. there is no amount of tech that can wash the shame away and hide the fact that the us has been loosing wars despite trillions and gazzilions of dollars invested in useless tech. as the would be dictator of the us would put it: sounds good, doesn't work. the us lost to illiterate barefoot folk hiding in caves. period.
The US didn't create the Taliban nor fund their creation.
The mujahideen that the US supplied weapons to in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation are not the same as the Taliban. The mujahideen also existed prior to the US supplying weapons to them.
The Taliban were a strict Islamist student group, the foundation of which consisted largely of refugee students in/from Pakistan, not from soldiers that fought the Soviets.
The Soviets had already been pushed out of Afghanistan years prior to the creation of the Taliban by Mohammad Omar. The US involvement in Afghanistan had dropped to practically nothing by that time. The Taliban easily stepped into a power vacuum post Soviet occupation, which is what they're doing again.
Here you go:
"Mullah Mohammad Omar in September 1994 in his hometown of Kandahar with 50 students founded the group. Omar had since 1992 been studying in the Sang-i-Hisar madrassa in Maiwand (northern Kandahar Province). He was unhappy that Islamic law had not been installed in Afghanistan after the ousting of communist rule, and now with his group pledged to rid Afghanistan of warlords and criminals. Within months, 15,000 students, often Afghan refugees, from religious schools or madrasas – one source calls them Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run madrasas – in Pakistan joined the group. "
US tech has plenty of capabilities to deter even modern armies. US simply lacks the will to inflict the level of casualties necessary for deterrence. In a weird twist, there are worrying signs that US is in the process of turning its deterrence will inwards.
The biggest story that the mainstream American media won't report on, and actually runs cover for, is agencies like the FBI using early-2000s anti-Muslim "terrorism" and MK-Ultra tactics to manufacture a "domestic terror" threat to both vilify anyone with dissident opinions as well as justify further privacy violations of US citizens.
They go after vulnerable people like schizophrenics and wholesale devise terror plots, motives, and means and convince the vulnerable person to go along with it. These are people who would have no inclination or means for terrorism in the first place. And in a recent case the FBI paid the leader of a satanic pedophile cult to take over another organization and use drugs and brainwashing to entrap its young members.
There is no reason to think the US government wouldn't turn technology talked about in this article against its own citizens if it was deemed necessary. It's clear that the American government sees its own citizens as a threat.
Afghanistan was nothing more than a live training exercise for the U.S. military. The war in Afghanistan gave the young officers live battle training, and prepared the next generation of U.S. Military leadership.
In order to "win" in Afghanistan it would have required slaughtering a substantial percentage of the population, which is not a particularly popular way to operate.
However, if the Taliban was actually a threat to the U.S. then the Taliban would have been eliminated, and eliminated quickly.
The hard part of modern warfare is only killing the people you intend to kill. If you are fine with collateral damage you can just send in the nuclear weapons. The desire to kill an individual may end the world but the mission is accomplished either way.
Readit News
I can't wait to see the headlines in 2050 about a badly-trained neural network leading to US warbots gunning down anyone carrying a banana.
Coming to a town near you!
We all know where the biases are going to be
Deleted Comment
The meme that the US kills only browns and blacks is to keep the white middle class complacent about what's coming for them.
The decision to withdraw wasn't a military one, but they didn't really do a good job at executing it. What better way to cap off the fiasco that was that war?
Winning against a force like the Taliban requires you to be able to operate with much looser ROEs than the US as well as operate against their enabled in the region and outside of it which the US was unable and or unwilling to do.
The Taliban was formed in Pakistan and it drew many of its fighters from there it was true in the late 80’s and it’s true today.
Winning a war and sustaining occupation are also completely different things, and most importantly this is about a peer or near peer enemy.
An occupation that is actually being opposed can only be won by extermination or expulsion whilst wars are won by making it too costly to continue fighting and allowing for or forcing a surrender.
An occupying force can win the war by convincing people that resistance is no longer worth it. That tends to require clear goals, a clear vision of the future, and selling that vision to the people.
They certainly don't look defeated now. I would say the opposite is actually more likely.Hint: the loosing team was scrambling to evacuate.
>> US deterrence very much remained in place until it began to withdraw.
Or you could simply admit that the U.S. lost the endurance test...what does it matter if the U.S won the first rounds if it threw the towel in the 12th round? I wonder what kind of signal is this for a more advanced enemy (i.e. China, Russia or even Venezuela).
I wonder this. If you think of it as memetic warfare, what weapons were brought to bear? The US had 20 years to reprogram a whole generation of Afghans. Did they supervise school curriculums? Force kids to attend? Shut down religious schools hostile to the government? Create entertaining TV programs with empowered women?
Sure, that sounds Orwellian, but this is an occupied country. Wiping out certain cultural practices sure beats wiping out the humans.
so now that the us couldnt beat them we promoted them to the status of a … “force”? illiterate, barefoot, malnourished, lacking an economy, and education, the taliban are now a “force” op thinks.
> formed in Pakistan
yeah mighty Pakistan, the country with a thriving economy and the mightiest tech innovation machine
> winning a war and sustaining occupation
the caliban simply moved from place a to place b and waited it out
it’d much more beneficial to admit defeat and learn from it. there is no amount of tech that can wash the shame away and hide the fact that the us has been loosing wars despite trillions and gazzilions of dollars invested in useless tech. as the would be dictator of the us would put it: sounds good, doesn't work. the us lost to illiterate barefoot folk hiding in caves. period.
The mujahideen that the US supplied weapons to in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation are not the same as the Taliban. The mujahideen also existed prior to the US supplying weapons to them.
The Taliban were a strict Islamist student group, the foundation of which consisted largely of refugee students in/from Pakistan, not from soldiers that fought the Soviets.
The Soviets had already been pushed out of Afghanistan years prior to the creation of the Taliban by Mohammad Omar. The US involvement in Afghanistan had dropped to practically nothing by that time. The Taliban easily stepped into a power vacuum post Soviet occupation, which is what they're doing again.
Here you go:
"Mullah Mohammad Omar in September 1994 in his hometown of Kandahar with 50 students founded the group. Omar had since 1992 been studying in the Sang-i-Hisar madrassa in Maiwand (northern Kandahar Province). He was unhappy that Islamic law had not been installed in Afghanistan after the ousting of communist rule, and now with his group pledged to rid Afghanistan of warlords and criminals. Within months, 15,000 students, often Afghan refugees, from religious schools or madrasas – one source calls them Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run madrasas – in Pakistan joined the group. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#History
They go after vulnerable people like schizophrenics and wholesale devise terror plots, motives, and means and convince the vulnerable person to go along with it. These are people who would have no inclination or means for terrorism in the first place. And in a recent case the FBI paid the leader of a satanic pedophile cult to take over another organization and use drugs and brainwashing to entrap its young members.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-fbi-knew-oklahoma-bomb-p...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment...
https://www.unz.com/estriker/exclusive-the-fbi-paid-leader-o...
There is no reason to think the US government wouldn't turn technology talked about in this article against its own citizens if it was deemed necessary. It's clear that the American government sees its own citizens as a threat.
Deleted Comment
In order to "win" in Afghanistan it would have required slaughtering a substantial percentage of the population, which is not a particularly popular way to operate.
However, if the Taliban was actually a threat to the U.S. then the Taliban would have been eliminated, and eliminated quickly.
I'd suggest what a successful war, Operations Desert Storm, looks like from an extremely detailed perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSqKx3FG0Lw