A good column on my "hobby horse", military procurement. We spend billions for B-2's and F-22s, and can't take care of the grunts. From WP
When the Troops Need Radios . . .
By Richard Hart Sinnreich
Wednesday, August 7, 2002; Page A21
A pair of recent stories from the European Stars and Stripes tells an interesting but cautionary tale about the American soldier, his military superiors and the challenge of rapid technological change.
In one story, the paper reported that National Guard soldiers performing peacekeeping duties in Bosnia have been snapping up hand-held two-way radios from the PX for use both on and off duty. The commercial hand-helds are smaller, more powerful and more reliable than those issued by the Army, one platoon leader reportedly insisted.
While the Army has purchased similar radios for military use, they have less range than commercial versions and currently are issued only to active Army units, leaving National Guard soldiers to make do with older and heavier portables or their vehicle-mounted radios.
So, GIs being GIs, the Guardsmen apparently decided to fund their own radios out of pocket, at $69 to $159 a pop. The commercial hand-helds have been used for everything from foot patrolling and convoy control to in-garrison personal communications.
Of course it couldn't possibly last. Apart from the professional indignity associated with letting soldiers buy their own equipment, using commercial radios in the field sends higher commanders and their communications security watchdogs into orbit.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, the day after the Stars and Stripes story appeared, Bosnia Stabilization Force authorities confiscated all personal two-way radios. Soldiers were warned that failure to surrender the radios could result in disciplinary action.
"The use of commercial radios is not authorized by U.S. Army Europe and Stabilization Force policy," a command spokesman told Stars and Stripes a week later, adding that soldiers were given receipts for their confiscated radios and will be able to reclaim them at the end of their overseas tours.
In the meantime, of course, that leaves the Guardsmen high and dry. "This action will seriously hamper the operations of my unit," one sergeant reportedly complained.
The irony is that both parties were trying to do the right thing. The troops were looking for a better way to do their jobs, just as we should want them to do. Their bosses were unhappy to see them spending their own money to do it, and rightly concerned about the risk of insecure radio communications and troop safety, just as we should want them to be.
Moreover, while the issue in this case concerned radios, similar flaps have arisen over issue items as diverse as combat boots and laptop computers, as soldiers have attempted on their own initiative to substitute newer and better commercial equipment for older or less capable military versions.
Nor is it entirely fair to criticize the military procurement system. The reality is that technology in many areas is outpacing the capabilities of current procurement procedures. Buying a new hand-held radio every year or so may cost an individual soldier a hundred bucks. Replacing several hundred thousand every year is another matter altogether, never mind issues of compatibility, reliability and security. The same problem applies to a host of other issue items, from field glasses to flashlights.
This dilemma is only going to get worse, and resolving it will require genuinely innovative thinking. That should include a serious reexamination of the way we fund, purchase and replace common-use military commodities, including increasingly ubiquitous small electronic devices, such as hand-held radios, that until now have not been considered commodities.
Likewise, in dealing with matters such as communications security, commanders increasingly will have to decide at what point it makes more sense to trust in the self-discipline and training of their troops than to continue relying on traditional but also initiative-deadening blanket prohibitions.
Finally, the radio episode is a reminder that among the notable peculiarities of today's military environment is the likelihood that adversaries not inhibited by the need to procure in quantity and justify the expense of frequent replacement -- terrorists, for example -- may be able to acquire and employ some forms of new technology faster and more easily than the U.S. military forces they confront.
Carefree presumptions about American military technological supremacy thus are, at best, imprudent. Indeed, if history is any guide, technological change often tends, initially at least, to favor the weaker and less conventionally organized force.
That's still another reason to revisit the way we procure rapidly improving commodities, empower the troops to decide when issue equipment doesn't serve their needs as well as do commercial alternatives, and then find ways of enabling them to replace the former with the latter on Uncle Sam's dime rather than their own.
Meanwhile, it would be nice to get our deployed Guardsmen some decent hand-held radios. |
