Today the Industrial Age is being superseded by the Information Age, the Third Wave, hard on the heels of the agrarian and industrial eras. Our present army is well-configured to fight and win in the late Industrial Age, and we can handle Agrarian-Age foes as well. We have begun to move into Third Wave warfare, to evolve a new force for a new century.
Predictor: Army Chief of Staff
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Jame Der Derian, author of “Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War,” writes: ”Clearly the Army doesn’t read French critics like Jean Baudrillard or Paul Virilio for answers about the potential hazards of global simulation at digital speed. But what do they read? … The press kit for the Advanced Warfighting Experiment (AWE) [is] collected in a large, three-ring binder … [with] more than 30 press releases, brochures, and articles on the Army of the future. Computer-generated images were mixed in with all kinds of fonts and graphics. Leading the paper charge was a prolegomenon from the office of the Chief of Staff that provides the best encapsulation of the rationale behind the 21st Century Army, Force XXI: ‘Today the Industrial Age is being superseded by the Information Age, the Third Wave, hard on the heels of the agrarian and industrial eras. Our present army is well-configured to fight and win in the late Industrial Age, and we can handle Agrarian-Age foes as well. We have begun to move into Third Wave warfare, to evolve a new force for a new century.’ In the slickest brochure, bearing the short yet pretentious title, ‘The Vision,’ I found a section called ‘Exploit Modeling and Simulation’ that read like a good cyberpunk novel: ‘Ten thousand linked simulators! Entire literal armies online, Global real-time, broadband, fiber-optic, satellite-assisted, military simulation networking. And not just connected, not just simulated. Seamless.’ It gets better, and for good reason: it was written by Bruce Sterling for Wired (see ‘War is Virtual Hell,’ issue 1.1, page 46). What does it mean when Wired is appropriated for the Army’s information war? Perhaps in the new era of simulation, Sterling’s writing, as well as my own reportorial presence at Fort Irwin is just one more chip in the Army’s motherboard.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Peacekeeping/Warfare
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Cyber-Deterrence: Wired Visits the Digital Battlefield of Desert Hammer VI to See Whether the U.S. Army Can Win the Next War Without Firing Another Shot
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/cyber.deter_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney