too many Daves

My reading tonight produced an odd convergence. Two unrelated pieces of writing seemed to harmonize, to enter into unexpected conversation. The first: a blog post by The New Yorker’s Steve Coll titled “The Future of Soldiering.” The second: a thin-on-data NY Times mag story postulating a trend toward “‘free-range parenting,’ a return to the days when childhood was not ruled by the fear … that children would be maimed, kidnapped or killed if they did something as simple as riding their bikes alone to the park.”

In “The Future of Soldiering,” Coll lays out an argument made by Marine Corps Four-Star General James N. Mattis: 

On today’s battlefield, linked technologies are so pervasive that soldiers conducting routine patrols are in constant real-time audio—and sometimes video—contact with their superiors, who watch over operations as they occur, with lawyers and civilian policymakers sometimes at their sides, issuing orders and advice from afar. The advantage of these all-seeing systems is that they can ensure that violent operations are carefully reviewed and calibrated before they occur. Mattis, however, clearly thinks that these systems are depriving soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and junior officers of the independence and initiative they need to operate effectively in places like Afghanistan.

Here’s where the Coll piece converges so unexpectedly with the “free-range parenting” piece:

Mattis said he is “not a Luddite” but, in fact, his reading of how pervasive networked technology will play out in the future, even in relatively unplugged environments like Western Pakistan, may nonetheless be tinged with some old-school nostalgia. Once this sort of technology is established, it is hard to reduce its effects on perception and culture. In the suburbs a generation ago, for example, we went off on our bicycles, built our secret forts, threw around our rocks and sticks, and carried from parental authority vague directions to be home by sunset—but we were secure in the knowledge that we might be difficult to find if we strayed. Today parenting is like those Nextel commercials—no stray thought or anxiety passes without a cell-phone or messaging check. So it is on the battlefield.

“That’s no longer going to work,” Mattis argued. He quoted Petraeus as saying that the U.S. military must “decentralize to the point of discomfort…Technical systems will come under attack and will go down.” When they do, only “commander’s intent” will be there to guide soldiers and officers in the field.