Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

ARTICLE: How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic, By Noah Shachtman, Wired, November 27, 2007

A weird, decidedly subpar effort from Shachtman where he commits three cardinal sins: 1) he forces an either-or dichotomy (net-centric versus COIN) that's simply unhelpful and most clearly untrue (like we have to choose); 2) he trumps up Cebrowski and Gartska (plus their Catholicism! OMYGOD! What if they'd have been Jews! Or evangelicals!) as the villains of our near-defeat in Iraq (yes folks, Wired scoops everyone--NOT! Geez, I wrote a much better description of this tension three years ago in BFA); and 3) he then let's Petraeus, too smart to buy into this painful simplification, shit-can his thesis in the very same article (with Shachtman comically slapping his own forehead in response? GROAN!).

Finally, even Noah's melodramatic F2F with Garstka comes off flat (unlike John's beer, which he polishes off in such a macho way ... Uh ... Or maybe he just drank it).

I worked with John at length in OFT: he got and always understood what NCW was good for and where other, more people-oriented skills were required.

Cebrowski pushed my work, to include the SysAdmin stuff, like crazy throughout the bureaucracy as early as 2002--eventually right up to Rumsfeld himself. I briefed all of Rummy's senior aides, as I describe in PNM, in the summer of 2002.

Tell me, how can Art be a champion of both NCW and SysAdmin stuff at the same time?

How?

By being a far more complex figure than Shachtman seems capable of comprehending.

Giving in to the MSM's childish need to pit heroes-versus-villains instead of accurately pursuing complex descriptions of doctrinal and bureaucratic challenges/battles (something Jaffe was always a master at, and BTW, didn't he write Cebrowski up as senior champion of my SysAdmin concepts on the fucking front page of the Wall Street Journal THREE-AND-A-HALF-YEARS AGO?).

As a result of these multiple bad choices, Shachtman delivers old news, badly packaged, badly argued, and self-destructively staged. It's like watching a bombmaker blow off his hands: I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Wired should have known better. This piece is out of date and out of touch. Plus it meanders without focus repeatedly.

Shachtman interviewed me. I told him the thesis was sophomoric and that he needed to aim higher. And he ignored my advice.

He gets what he deserves for peddling such gross simplification: incomprehension and professional downgrading from anybody with a clue.

(Thanks: Kim Sommer)