Tag Archives: logistic curve

Where has Cyberwar Gone

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As others beside me have noted, one of the most astonishing things about the war in Ukraine is the fact that cyberwarfare does not seem to be playing a major role in it. To be sure, there has been what one source calls “a steady drumbeat of attacks, including disinformation campaigns, distributed denial-of-service attacks that temporarily knock websites offline, and ‘wiper’ attacks, which infect computer networks and render them inoperable by deleting all files. But no question of malware taking the place of bullets, shells, rockets missiles and bombs, small and large. No talk of countrywide water, gas, electricity, communication and transportation systems being knocked out by all kinds of oddly-named devices used by either side. Instead, old-fashioned kinetic warfare seems to be not only alive but kicking out ferociously in every direction at once. Just take a look at images filled with wrecked Russian tanks, or, on the other side, some photographs of what much of Mariupol now looks like.

Why the role of cyberwar seems to be so much smaller than expected I do not know. Judging by some articles on the topic that have surfaced on the Net, neither do others. Based on what decades of study have taught me about the relationship between technology and war, though, personally I think there are several possibilities. First, it may be that the difficulties an attacker faces in effectively penetrating an enemy’s computer network in such a way as to make a difference are greater than many experts had thought. Second, the defenders on both sides may have prepared much more effectively than anyone expected. Third, there is the question of secrecy. Meaning that, if there has ever been a field in which holding one’s cards, whether offensive or defensive, close to one’s chest is vital, this is the one.

Such being the situation, I want to provide a fourth explanation. Many of you will be familiar with the name of Giulio Douhet (1869-30). Douhet was a World-War I Italian general originally commissioned into the artillery. In 1922 he published Il dominio dell’aereo, almost certainly the most famous volume on the topic ever written and a cardinal point of reference for practically everything that has been written on it since. However, it is neither this book nor Douhet’s influence on airpower that I want to discuss here. It is, rather, his theories on the way technology, specifically including technological innovation, and war interact. In 1913 Douhet, while still only a major on the general staff, produced an article on that question. It is that article which I have used as my guide.

So here goes.

Stage A. A new technology is introduced. Normally this is done by the inventors and manufacturers who hope to make a profit and turn to the military as a potentially very large customer; also, perhaps, by all kinds of visionaries out to make their ideas known. The idea meets with skepticism on the part of defense officials and officers who, often not before being repeatedly harassed, are sent to examine it. Having conducted a more or less thorough investigation, they submit their report in which they claim that the new technology is simply a toy and will never amount to much. Good examples of the process are provided by the Zeppelin, heavier than air aircraft, the submarine, the torpedo and the tank, all of which were invented before 1914 and all of which initially met this fate. There is even a story about a British regimental commander who, upon receiving a couple of machine guns, told his men to take the “bloody things” to the wings and hide them.

Stage B. The manufacturers do not give up. Having perhaps enlisted (bribed?) a visionary or two, and directing at least some of their efforts at the public at large, they continue to push. Sometimes by offering their invention to an enemy of the country they first approached. Sir Basil Zaharoff, though not an inventor but a merchant, was the undisputed master in this game, selling warships to both Turkey and Greece. Slowly and gradually, the military undergo a limited shift. They are now ready to find out whether there is any way in which they can incorporate the new weapon or weapon system into the existing organizations without, however, acknowledging the need to change that organization in any fundamental way. At times they even start adopting a new invention in order to prevent change; as the German Luftwaffe did when it developed the V-1 as a counter to the early ballistic missiles favored by the land army and as the US Army did with the Redstone missile during the 1950s. Other good examples of the attempt to pour new weapons into old organizations are, once again, the heavier-than-air aircraft and the submarine. And the aircraft carrier, of course.   

Stage C. Quite suddenly, the wind changes. As older officers die or retire, younger ones—those in charge of the new technologies and in favor of them—start shouting their virtues from the rooftops. The more so if the technologies in question can be shown to have played a key role in some recent war. Military history is making a fresh start! They say. The new technologies are about to take over! Everything else is ripe for the dustbin! And so on and so on. Douhet himself set the example. By the time he wrote his book he had convinced himself that armies and navies were about to disappear and that airpower, like the Jewish God in one of the prayers addressed to him, “all alone would rule in awe.” Similar claims on behalf of aircraft were made in the US by General Billy Mitchel; whereas in Britain another officer, Brigadier general John Fuller, was doing the same on behalf of tanks. Nowadays they are being made on behalf of artificial intelligence and autonomous killing machines among other things,

Stage D. It becomes evident that, useful as the new technologies are, they do not provide answers to all problems. As invention is followed by counter-invention, pilots find that they cannot simply bomb the hell out of whomever they want at any time they want. Submariners discover that, without support from the air (later, satellites), their ability to find their targets is very limited. Tanks are threatened by anti-tank guns and missiles and are, moreover, only useful in certain, well-defined, kinds of terrain. Carriers, even such as rely on nuclear propulsion, have to be escorted by entire fleets of anti- aircraft and anti-missile destroyers, anti-submarine destroyers, and supply ships. And autonomous killing machines have a tendency to break lose and kill indiscriminately. Briefly, the new technologies must be integrated with everything else: strategy, tactics, command and control, logistics, intelligence, doctrine, organization, training and what not.

Stage E. Following the usual logistic curve, shown above, the process of reorganization has been driven as far as it will ever be and is now flattening out. Advanced, even revolutionary, weapons and weapon systems have become an integral part of the forces. Perhaps, as in the case of carriers from 1941 on, their lynchpin. By this time most of those who initially opposed the changes are gone. A new generation of officers has risen and takes things as they now are for granted.

Judging by what little is known of the role cyberwarfare is playing in Ukraine, we seem to be taking leave of stage C. Could it be that we are now entering stage D? And if so, what new gizmos will the future bring?

How Innovation Works

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As experts from every conceivable field never stop repeating, as of the early years of the twenty-first century humankind is facing unprecedented challenges. The pace of innovation is said to be accelerating. Cutting our links with history and, in the minds of many, rapidly turning it into a bunch of irrelevant tales fit, if for anyone at all, a bunch of elderly antiquarians. Each day seems to bring an avalanche of new, previously unconceivable, discoveries such as open the way to tremendous developments in every field. But also, as they cause everything stable to crumble and fall apart, creating a real danger that, overwhelmed by those very changes, we shall lose our way amidst our own inventions.

That, at any rate, is the conventional wisdom. Not that all of it has not been said, and well said, many times by those who lived long before us. Putting together The Communist Manifesto back in 1848 Marx and Engels referred to what, today, is known as “creative destruction as a necessary condition for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism. “Blind we walk, till the unseen flame has trapped our footsteps,” sang the chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone twenty-five centuries ago.

From horseless carriages and wireless and flying machines and space travel and champion level Go-playing computer programs and genetic engineering down, so many things that used to be considered impossible have come true! To the point, indeed, that the young in particular take them for granted and can no longer imagine life without them. As my grandson asked me some years ago, how on earth did you keep busy before computers? Nevertheless, considerable room for doubt remains. The fact that so many expectations have been and are being fulfilled and will go on being fulfilled does not mean that everything is possible. Let alone that there are no underlying realities that hardly change at all.

The reason why they do not change is that innovations, even the most important ones, always seem to go through the following five stages. First come the Doubting Thomases who insist that the new gadget, or device, or method, or even social movement, will either fail to work properly or, if it does work, never amount to much. A happened to both Robert Fulton and Alexander Graham Bell when they tried to sell their wares to Napoleon and Western Union respectively. And to the brothers Wright when, having failed to sell their flyer to the U.S Army, they moved to Europe instead.

Second, when it becomes clear that the new technology does in fact work and has some potential uses, attempts are made to deny its novelty by fitting it into some existing framework. As, for example, happened when early steamships began to be used on inland waterways and inside ports but kept well away from the open sea. And as happened when the pre-1914 military, having finally deigned to buy a few aircraft, incorporated them into the artillery arm or the cavalry (which was responsible for reconnaissance), or the signals corps, or whatever.
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Third, there is what is sometimes known as the Aha moment. When the blinkers fall away and everything seems to have changed or changing or about to change. And when the sky, opening up, appears to be the limit. The point, to use the lingo of economists, at which the logistic curve suddenly takes off, gaining momentum and dragging along many others that are linked to it. Normally this is when careers and fortunes are made; think of Thomas Edison, think of Henry Ford, think of Bill Gates.

Fourth, it becomes clear that the new invention will not work, or will not work very well, unless it is integrated with the “everything” in question. Including, to return to the example of military aviation, an organizational framework, the availability of appropriate raw materials—where would aviation have been without the timely discovery of cheap methods of producing aluminum? And without engineering, manufacturing, airfields, fuel depots, weapons and ammunition, maintenance- and repair shops, pilot selection and training, navigation aids, communications, a ground control system, a meteorological service, and what not.

However, invariably the point will come when it becomes clear that there are some things the new technology cannot do. Moreover, the one certain thing about any logistic curve is that, on pain of filling the universe with itself and draining it of everything else, it must and will come to an end. Once it flattens out people, looking back, invariably realize that some of the most essential things have changed little if at all. Including, to mention but a few, the way we enter this world when we are born and leave it when we die. And including, between those two landmarks, many if not most of the principal ways we, considered both as individuals and as part of the societies in which we live, feel and think and behave and act.

So it has been. So it is. And so, in spite of talk about approaching singularities that are always around the corner but never seem to arrive, it will remain.

On Technology and War (3)

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Two weeks ago I tried to answer the question, how to use military-technological superiority when one has attained it. A week ago, to point out the things that technology does not change and will not change and cannot change. Today’s post is the last in the mini-series. I want to use it in order to ask: How is a new military technology received, and what happens to it once it is received?

Many of you will be familiar with the name of Giulio Douhet (1869-30). The Italian general who in 1921, published Il dominio dell’aereo, probably the most famous volume on the topic ever written. His portrait graced this column last week. But it is not this book I want to discuss here. In 1913 Douhet was a major on the general staff. In that capacity he produced an article on the above question, which I have used as my guide.

Stage A. A new technology is introduced. Normally this is done by the inventors and manufacturers who hope to make a profit and turn to the military as a potentially very large client. The idea meets with skepticism on the part of the officers who are sent to examine it. Though ingenious it is a mere toy, or so they declare. Good examples for this argument can be found in the Zeppelin; heavier than air aircraft; the submarine; and the tank. All of which were invented before 1914, and all of which initially met this fate. There is even a story about a British regimental commander, who receiving a couple of machine guns, told his men to take the “bloody things” to the wing and hide them.

Stage B. The manufacturers do not give up. They continue to push, sometimes by offering their invention to an enemy of the country they first approached. Sir Basil Zaharoff, though not an inventor but a merchant, was the undisputed master in this game, selling warships to both Turkey and Greece. Slowly and gradually, the military undergo a limited shift. They are now ready to see whether there is any way in which they can incorporate the new weapon or weapon system into the existing organizations without, however, acknowledging the need to change that organization in any fundamental way. At times indeed, they start adopting a new invention in order to prevent change; as the German Luftwaffe did when it developed the V-1 as a counter to the early ballistic missiles favored by the land army. Other good examples of the attempt to pour new weapons into old organizations are, once again, the heavier-than-air aircraft, and the submarine. And the aircraft carrier, of course.  

Previously, because of some overly spread out myths on tadalafil 20mg generic regarding loss of vision for couple of minutes being medically proven , most people got scared , and were reluctant buy even a single erectile dysfunction drugs. It has been utilized by different individuals far and wide and encountered the positive change in cheap viagra in india see description their sexual health. Some partial reactions like head ache, pains in muscles, gastric tendencies, vision loss, painful and less urination than normal identified level and abdominal pain can sometimes levitra pills look these up bother you and should be treated instantly to prevent the health deformation. The reality is viagra cost in canada quite different. Stage C. Quite suddenly, the wind changes. As older officers die or retire, younger ones—those in charge of the new technologies and in favor of them—start shouting their virtues from the rooftops. Military history is making a fresh start! They (the new technologies) are about to take over! Everything else is ripe for the dustbin! And so on and so on. Douhet himself set the example. By the time he wrote his book he had convinced himself that armies and navies were about to disappear and that aviation, like the Jewish God in one of the prayers addressed to him, “all alone would rule in awe.” Similar claims on behalf of aircraft were made in the US by General Billy Mitchel; whereas in Britain another officer, Colonel John Fuller, was doing the same on behalf of tanks. Nowadays they are being made on behalf of artificial intelligence and autonomous killing machines among other things,

Stage D. It becomes evident that, useful as the new technologies are, they do not provide answers to all problems. As the defense becomes stronger, pilots find that their aircraft cannot simply bomb the hell out of whomever they want at any time they want. Submariners discover that, without support from the air (later, satellites), their ability to find their targets is very limited. Tanks are threatened by anti-tank guns and are, moreover, only useful in certain, well-defined, kinds of terrain. Carriers have to be escorted by entire fleets of anti-missile destroyers, anti-submarine destroyers, and supply ships. And autonomous killing machines kill indiscriminately. Briefly, the new technologies must be integrated with everything else: strategy, tactics, command and control, logistics, intelligence, doctrine, training and what not.

Stage E. Following the usual logistic curve, shown above, the process of reorganization has been driven as far as it will ever be and is now flattening out. Advanced, even revolutionary, weapons and weapon systems have become an integral part of the forces. Perhaps, as in the case of carriers from 1941 on, their lynchpin. By this time most of those who initially opposed the changes are gone. A new generation officers has risen and takes things as they now are for granted. And they start asking themselves: What has really changed?

Which, of course, itself is both cause and consequence why, as we have seen, so much does not change.