When I last fought, my troops battled the enemy with rifle, machine gun and grenade. They were supported by guns, mortars, tanks, planes and ships. Apart from adjusting to a few innovations, such as helicopters, a second-world-war company commander would not have felt out of place in the Falklands in 1982.
The next world war, according to James Adams, will out-Spielberg Spielberg. Soldiers will send wasp-sized robots to gas sentries at missile sites already reconnoitred by 4 inch-long, hand-launched, micro-aircraft powered by tiny whisper jets. Patrol commanders will communicate with headquarters by e-mail, using a wrist keyboard and screen. Aggression by, say, China, could be halted, thanks to previously implanted sensors and microchips in key computer-controlled systems.
Using WBOM (War By Other Means) the American president will be able to close down the telephone network in China and trigger drought in the Yangtze flood plain--all from a PC in Washington.
The name of the game is Information Warfare (IW): first, discovering what your opponent is up to; second, destroying his information-dependent systems; third, targeting his information resources. The motion and gunnery systems in Abrams tanks rely on 50 interdependent microprocessors. Disrupt their ability to communicate with each other, and the tank is junk.
Among the myriad technological gizmos that make Adams' predictions possible are Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (Mems). They trigger the airbags in our cars, and the latest versions are the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Scientists in Albuquerque have already made robots the size of sugar cubes, and that is just the beginning. The possibilities are endless and America is a leader in the field.
So all is well, the baddies will be made offers they can't refuse, or zapped at no cost in lives. We can all relax and go holidaying in Tuscany, or whatever takes our fancy.
Not so, says Adams. In the IW game, the better you are at attack the more vulnerable you are to attack--like the Abrams tank. Technology can get into the "wrong" hands, terrorists, for example. Hackers can spoil your day. In other words, the enemy thinks, too.
Even identifying the "enemy" will be difficult if with a few keystrokes on a computer in Hong Kong, connected by modem and land-line to a remote satellite dish, someone can detonate bombs planted in Washington. How does the US strike back, and at whom? Lacking perception and will despite its power, America is, according to Adams, a Goliath waiting to be hacked down by a ruthless David.