Future Battles Will Be Fought in Cyberspace - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), April, 2000

The wars of the future will be fought in cyberspace and on the real battlefield simultaneously through a "tactical Internet" known as Battlespace, predicts Nick Cullather, associate professor of history, Indiana University, Bloomington. Each soldier will have a flat panel display covering one eye, allowing him or her to see the electronic battlefield and the real one at the same time. Targets eliminated in real space will automatically be registered in Battlespace. In addition, Battlespace will identify high-value targets and automatically direct weapons to destroy them in the most economical way.

However, Cullather says, the Battlespace concept downplays one of the most essential elements of military strategy. "What is not visible in Battlespace is politics. No Chinese embassies, refugees, Muslims, Christians, UN peacekeepers, Congressmen, or presidents are visible. The realities of a war like [in] Kosovo, Timor, or Haiti would be invisible in Battlespace, since the human element is missing."

He says the Pentagon has been moving toward the Battlespace concept for a long time. Rather than picturing the war the U.S. military wishes to fight in the next millennium, though, Battlespace really shows the one it hopes to avoid. "The war the Pentagon wants to fight is the Persian Gulf War -- a clean, precise war against enemy machines."