Maybe the Pentagon's focus on technology is all wrong, former U.S. military leaders are wondering.
"What is happening on the Iraqi battlefield," National Defense magazine notes, "indicates that while the overpowering U.S. technology is winning battles, this prowess has not helped achieve strategic objectives, such as stabilizing Iraq and creating conditions for a new regime."
"An obsession with technology blinded us to some degree to this countervailing universe that happens in all wars: that is the cultural side of wars, and the ability to understand your enemy: his intents, his motives, his will," retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr. says.
"Slogans such as 'transformation' and 'revolution in military affairs increasingly are masquerading as ideas," retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper adds. "My experience has been that those who focus on the technology, the science, tend towards sloganeering. It does a great disservice to the American military, the American defense establishment."
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