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Thursday, August 15, 2002 |
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News: How will the U.S. military operate in 2020? -- http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Jul1997/r19970710aanbrf.html Comment: This is a transcript of an analysis of a war game exercise in 1997. As a military history buff, I thought it was very interesting reading that has some applications to how a war with Iraq is likely to be fought. Highlights: 1) Battlefield nukes are unlikely to be used against U.S. troops, because the enemy (like Iraq) knows we will massively retaliate. 2) Germs and chemical weapons are unlikely to be effective because our troops will move much too fast. They are not going to stand still and wait to get doused with anthrax. 3) The Army must learn how to better apply massive amounts of intense force very quickly. This article has an interesting comparison. In WWI, armies moved at 11 mph - the speed at which they could extend the railroad for moving their supplies. Today's army can zip along at 200 mph, the speed of a Blackhawk chopper. What holds an army back is the long supply chain (are you reading this, Vanessa?) In the Gulf War, the Army had to have a ton of supplies to support each ton of men and weapons. The author says that's way too much and that the Army needs to learn how to operate leaner and meaner. 4) The need for highly trained troops who can survive the psychological stresses of a high-tech, information intensive battlefield means we need military forces who have trained and served together for 15-20 years. The author says it might look like the old Roman Legions. Click here to see current comments and add your own. 11:50:23 AM 
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News: Sushi goes mainstream as more people prepare it at home -- http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/dining/14SUSH.html?8idg Comment: I've made a little sushi at home (just with vegetables and cooked shrimp) and it's tricky. The rice is very sticky and I got it all over the kitchen. I'm not sure I'd trust getting fresh, raw fish here in the Lansing area. What I actually like even more than sushi is steaming up a nice batch of frozen dim sum. I get bags of it from an Asian market in Ann Arbor. News: Article about "radical Islamic fantasy ideology" -- http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id0002122 Comment: This is a long and dense, but interesting, article about bin Laden and his ilk. The author's conclusion is that these people can't be understood or reasoned with in any Western sense because they are simply evil - "You do not make treaties with evildoers or try to adjust your conduct to make them like you. You do not try to see the world from the evildoers' point of view. You do not try to appease them, or persuade them, or reason with them. You try, on the contrary, to outwit them, to vanquish them, to kill them. You behave with them in the same manner that you would deal with a fatal epidemic--you try to wipe it out." Chilling but probably true. Click here to see current comments and add your own. 8:28:04 AM
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