Ho Chi Minh

Delanda's article takes me back to the not-so-distant past (September 4th) and our reading of Paul Edwards' work "“Why Build Computers? The Military Role in Computer Research." This reading seems to cover similar themes concerning automation/interactivity concerns....

Early on in the Edwards piece is an account about complex sensors on the Ho Chi Minh trail that were used to dispatch airplanes to attack spots where the sensors had detected some form of trouble. The trouble turned out to be something the military with all its machines and might couldn't easily detect - "The guerrillas had simply learned to confuse the American sensors with tape-recorded truck noises, bags of urine, and other decoys, provoking the release of countless tons of bombs onto empty jungle corridors which they then traversed at their leisure," (p. 4).

Delanda's oppositions and the construction of military machines reminds me of the "Boids" we discussed in class. Following very simple rules the system is able to simulate complex behaviors. Delanda seems to state that future development of military machines will leave the only window of hope to come from hackers and visionaries. Well, what about IED's?

Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's for short), have been readily used in the resistance to the current occupation in Iraq. According to the Washington Post, 63% of U.S. deaths in Iraq have been killed by IED's. "They [IED's] now account for nearly two-thirds of military deaths from hostile actions in Iraq, and slightly less than half in Afghanistan."

IED's, bags of urine, recordings of truck noises...How do these "guerrilla" tactics fit in with the picture Delanda paints?

Well, and maybe these examples don't exactly fit in with what Delanda discusses concerning the development of military intelligence. It strikes me that these simple machines (IED's and bags of urine) do so well to subvert a highly mechanized and even computerized army.