Behavior Modification

Atlantic, The, April, 2002 by James Fallows

When fighting begins, military establishments are nearly as eager to observe and record the results as to win. This emphasis is natural, since claims about what did and didn't work may be used for decades afterward to settle arguments, justify new weapons, and affect military doctrine. Long before the first bombs were dropped on Afghanistan, some of the Pentagon's official historians had been invited into the building to observe the proceedings.

The process of interpreting battlefield results can be surprisingly slow. William S. Lind, a military analyst, has observed that it took several years after the end of the Gulf War for the American public to realize that much of Iraq's Republican Guard had escaped. The full answers about the first stage of this war, the battle against the Taliban, may take as long to emerge as the Bush Administration says the war on terrorism will last—again, years. But it ...