Welcome to information war decade

[vir-jin]

Pentagon Envisioning a Costly Internet for WarNYTimes, Nov. 13, 2004

The Pentagon is building its own Internet, the military's world wide web for the wars of the future.

The goal is to give all American commanders and troops a moving picture of all foreign enemies and threats - "a God's-eye view" of battle.

This "Internet in the sky," Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force, told Congress, would allow "marines in a Humvee, in a faraway land, in the middle of a rainstorm, to open up their laptops, request imagery" from a spy satellite, and "get it downloaded within seconds."
(by the way, Lufthansa began to give it's customers access on the internet since august 2004, using a space sattelite)

The Pentagon calls the secure network the Global Information Grid, or GIG. Conceived six years ago, its first connections were laid six weeks ago. It may take two decades and hundreds of billions of dollars to build the new war net and its components.

Advocates say networked computers will be the most powerful weapon in the American arsenal. Fusing weapons, secret intelligence and soldiers in a globe-girdling network - what they call net-centric warfare - will, they say, change the military in the way the Internet has changed business and culture.

The American military, built to fight nations and armies, now faces stateless enemies without jets, tanks, ships or central headquarters. Sending secret intelligence and stratagems instantly to soldiers in battle would, in theory, make the military a faster, fiercer force against a faceless foe.

Robert J. Stevens, chief executive of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation's biggest military contractor, said he envisioned a "highly secure Internet in which military and intelligence activities are fused," shaping 21st-century warfare in the way that nuclear weapons shaped the cold war.

Every member of the military would have "a picture of the battle space, a God's-eye view," he said. "And that's real power."

Pentagon traditionalists, however, ask if net-centric warfare is nothing more than an expensive fad. They point to the street fighting in Falluja and Baghdad, saying firepower and armor still mean more than fiber optic cables and wireless connections.

But the biggest challenge in building a war net may be the military bureaucracy. For decades, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have built their own weapons and traditions. A network, advocates say, would cut through those old ways.

The ideals of this new warfare are driving many of the Pentagon's spending plans for the next 10 to 15 years. Some costs are secret, but billions have already been spent.

Providing the connections to run the war net will cost at least $24 billion over the next five years - more than the cost, in today's dollars, of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Beyond that, encrypting data will be a $5 billion project.

Hundreds of thousands of new radios are likely to cost $25 billion. Satellite systems for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications will be tens of billions more. The Army's program for a war net alone has a $120 billion price tag.

"We want to know all things at all times everywhere in the world? Fine," Mr. Hamre said. "Do we know what this staring, all-seeing eye is that we're going to put in space is? Hell, no."

This article tells us, that the pentagon will see everything we do in Japan, for example the position I will be shitting on the presidents face and that we will never be able to break into the pentagon, catch the top secret images of ourselves and get away with it. I think this is not fair, not just and has to be STOPPED! In the contest of speed from the hunting times to the information war we have taken a big step forward to handle a new technology that was used to prevent war and will make all damages of world war III possible. thanks to the pentagon that decides about life and death of all nations in future. my father has been working for NASA until december last year developing radar for spaceshuttles. bush used the 10years lasting research for the war in Irak, my dad and seven other researchers quit their job. since this is top secret, they cant relly quit which means they are paid until they are retired. seems there might be no way to stop a whole lot of shit at this point

[Steve Bildermann]

I'm not sure I se the Japan connection in this News posting. Perhaps it's deeper in the orginal article but I can't check because we don't have a link.

[Samurai_Jerk]

This "Internet in the sky," Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force,

[vir-jin]

I'm not sure I se the Japan connection in this News posting. Perhaps it's deeper in the orginal article but I can't check because we don't have a link.

Steve, the link is me. I live in Japan. That might be hard to proof but I swear I tell the truth! And since we still live in times where swearing ought to be accepted...as cultural habit... In about 15 years you could see the proof through the military web. If you would be working for them
Besides, something like that doesn't happen everyday. once in 100 years I guess... The fact that Japanese newspapers didn't write about it is the deeper connection. I wanted you to have a healthy cold morning shower before you start in the Japanese everyday life.