This book examines the human factors issues associated with the development, testing, and implementation of helmet-mounted display technology in the 21st Century Land Warrior System. Because the framework of analysis is soldier performance with the system in the full range of environments and missions, the book discusses both the military context and the characteristics of the infantry soldiers who will use the system. The major issues covered include the positive and negative effects of such a display on the local and global situation awareness of the individual soldier, an analysis of the visual and psychomotor factors associated with each design feature, design considerations for auditory displays, and physical sources of stress and the implications of the display for affecting the soldier's workload. The book proposes an innovative approach to research and testing based on a three-stage strategy that begins in the laboratory, moves to controlled field studies, and culminates in operational testing.

This is a book about strategy and war fighting. It contains 11 essays which examine topics such as military operations against a well-armed rogue state, the potential of parallel warfare strategy for different kinds of states, the revolutionary potential of information warfare, the lethal possibilities of biological warfare and the elements of an ongoing revolution in military affairs. The purpose of the book is to focus attention on the operational problems, enemy strategies and threat that will confront U.S. national security decision makers in the twenty-first century.

Scales on War is a collection of ideas, concepts and observations about contemporary war taken from over 30 years of research, writing and personal experience by retired Major General Bob Scales. The book melds Scales’ unique style of writing that includes contemporary military history, current events and his philosophy of ground warfare to create a very personal and expansive view of where Americn defense policies are heading in the future. The book is a collection. Each chapter addresses distinct topics that embrace tactical ground warfare, future gazing, the draft and the role of women in the infantry. His uniting thesis is that throughout its history the United States has favored a technological approach to fighting its wars and has neglected its ground forces. America’s enemies have learned though the experience of battle how to defeat American technology. The consequences of a learning and adaptive enemy has been a continuous string of battlefield defeats. Scales argues that only a resurgent land force of Army and Marine small units will restore America’s fighting competence.

This study seeks to clarify the nature of light infantry. General characteristics of light infantry forces are identified, and an analysis of how light forces operate tactically and how they are supported is presented. In the process, the relationship of the light infantry ethic to its organization is evaluated, and the differences between light infantry and conventional infantry is illuminated. For the purpose of this study, the term conventional infantry refers to modern-day motorized and mechanized infantry and to the large dismounted infantry forces typical of the standard infantry divisions of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The study concludes that light infantry is unique and distinct. A light infantry ethic exits and manifests itself in a distinctive tactical style, in a special attitude toward the environment, in a freedom from dependence on fixed lines of communication, and in a strong propensity for self-reliance. The study is based on a historical analysis of 4 light infantry forces employed during and since World War II: The Chindits, in the 1944 Burma campaign against the Japanese; The Chinese communist Forces during the Korean War; British operations in Malaya and Borneo 1948-66; and the First Special Service Force in the mountains of Italy 1942-44. -- p. [2] of cover.

Volume 2, Bringing Order to Chaos: Combined Arms Maneuver in Large Scale Combat Operations, opens a dialogue with the Army. Are we ready for the significantly increased casualties inherent to intensive combat between large formations, the constant paralyzing stress of continual contact with a peer enemy, and the difficult nature of command and control while attempting division and corps combined arms maneuver to destroy that enemy? The chapters in this volume answer these questions for combat operations while spanning military history from 1917 through 2003. These accounts tell the challenges of intense combat, the drain of heavy casualties, the difficulty of commanding and controlling huge formations in contact, the effective use of direct and indirect fires, the need for high quality leadership, thoughtful application of sound doctrine, and logistical sustainment up to the task. No large scale combat engagement, battle, or campaign of the last one hundred years has been successful without being better than the enemy in these critical capabilities. What can we learn from the past to help us make the transition to ready to fight tonight?

The U.S. military does not believe its soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines should be engaged in combat with adversaries on a "level playing field." Our combat individuals enter engagements to win. To that end, the United States has used its technical prowess and industrial capability to develop decisive weapons that overmatch those of potential enemies. In its current engagement-what has been identified as an "era of persistent conflict"- the nation's most important weapon is the dismounted soldier operating in small units. Today's soldier must be prepared to contend with both regular and irregular adversaries. Results in Iraq and Afghanistan show that, while the U.S. soldier is a formidable fighter, the contemporary suite of equipment and support does not afford the same high degree of overmatch capability exhibited by large weapons platforms-yet it is the soldier who ultimately will play the decisive role in restoring stability. Making the Soldier Decisive on Future Battlefields establishes the technical requirements for overmatch capability for dismounted soldiers operating individually or in small units. It prescribes technological and organizational capabilities needed to make the dismounted soldier a decisive weapon in a changing, uncertain, and complex future environment and provides the Army with 15 recommendations on how to focus its efforts to enable the soldier and tactical small unit (TSU) to achieve overmatch.

The defense debate tends to treat Afghanistan as either a revolution or a fluke: either the "Afghan Model" of special operations forces (SOF) plus precision munitions plus an indigenous ally is a widely applicable template for American defense planning, or it is a nonreplicable product of local idiosyncrasies. In fact, it is neither. The Afghan campaign of last fall and winter was actually much closer to a typical 20th century mid-intensity conflict, albeit one with unusually heavy fire support for one side. And this view has very different implications than either proponents or skeptics of the Afghan Model now claim. Afghan Model skeptics often point to Afghanistan's unusual culture of defection or the Taliban's poor skill or motivation as grounds for doubting the war's relevance to the future. Afghanistan's culture is certainly unusual, and there were many defections. The great bulk, however, occurred after the military tide had turned not before-hand. They were effects, not causes. The Afghan Taliban were surely unskilled and ill-motivated. The non-Afghan al Qaeda, however, have proven resolute and capable fighters. Their host's collapse was not attributable to any al Qaeda shortage of commitment or training. Afghan Model proponents, by contrast, credit precision weapons with annihilating enemies at a distance before they could close with our commandos or indigenous allies. Hence the model's broad utility: with SOF-directed bombs doing the real killing, even ragtag local militias will suffice as allies. All they need do is screen U.S. commandos from the occasional hostile survivor and occupy the abandoned ground thereafter. Yet the actual fighting in Afghanistan involved substantial close combat. Al Qaeda counterattackers closed, unseen, to pointblank range of friendly forces in battles at Highway 4 and Sayed Slim Kalay.

An urgent, prescient, and expert look at how future technology will change virtually every aspect of war as we know it and how we can respond to the serious national security challenges ahead. Future war is almost here: battles fought in cyberspace; biologically enhanced soldiers; autonomous systems that can process information and strike violently before a human being can blink. A leading expert on the place of technology in war and intelligence, Robert H. Latiff, now teaching at the University of Notre Dame, has spent a career in the military researching and developing new combat technologies, observing the cost of our unquestioning embrace of innovation. At its best, advanced technology acts faster than ever to save the lives of soldiers; at its worst, the deployment of insufficiently considered new technology can have devastating unintended or long-term consequences. The question of whether we can is followed, all too infrequently, by the question of whether we should. In Future War, Latiff maps out the changing ways of war and the weapons technologies we will use to fight them, seeking to describe the ramifications of those changes and what it will mean in the future to be a soldier. He also recognizes that the fortunes of a nation are inextricably linked with its national defense, and how its citizens understand the importance of when, how, and according to what rules we fight. What will war mean to the average American? Are our leaders sufficiently sensitized to the implications of the new ways of fighting? How are the attitudes of individuals and civilian institutions shaped by the wars we fight and the means we use to fight them? And, of key importance: How will soldiers themselves think about war and their roles within it? The evolving, complex world of conflict and technology demands that we pay more attention to the issues that will confront us, before it is too late to control them. Decrying what he describes as a "broken" relationship between the military and the public it serves, Latiff issues a bold wake-up call to military planners and weapons technologists, decision makers, and the nation as a whole as we prepare for a very different future.