Well, why not train the warriors to understand all the geeky details?

What I don't understand in the slightest is why the article or /. responses are making a distinction between "veteran" and "techie"?? A veteran is someone with military training and experience. A "techie" (another stupid vague term) is someone with technical training. It seems obvious to me that the right person for this job is someone who falls into both categories, and given the technology used today in the military, there should be plenty of those.

While the quote from the office was pretty stupid, it was also the only real mention of the term "geek" in the article. His point was he wanted competent technical people who also had military training, not "techie" civilians. And if I go in for laser eye surgery, I'd prefer the experienced ophthamologist perform it, not the guy who built the laser.

It was mostly European scientists who won WWII for the Americans, thanks to their development of nuclear technology.

Oppenheimer was an American born in New York City. Einstein took the oath to achieve American citizenship in 1940.

The Korean War was basically a draw. In many ways, it was an outright loss for the Americans, since they've had to keep troops stationed there for decades now, and this is quite costly.

By that logic, the Cypriots must have the most powerful military in the world.

The Cold War was initially thought to be an American "win", but it was more due to problems within the USSR, rather than anything America did.

Not really. The problems within the USSR were largely caused by pressures due to their participation within the Cold War. In a sense, the U.S. won the Cold War by out-producing the Soviets.

The First Gulf War can barely be considered a war, given that their enemy was almost non-existent, and had itself been subject to a decade of devastating war just before.

The First Gulf War was nothing but a display of muscle to show Saddam Hussein that he didn't know who he was messing with.

The Second Gulf War was a complete failure.

It depends on how you define success. If by "success" you mean did the U.S. achieve regime change? No failure there. If by "success" do you mean did the U.S. achieve peace in Iraq? If so, I'm fairly sure that was never a goal of the U.S. military.

The War in Afghanistan has been nothing but a disaster, as well.

Again, no. The goals in Afghanistan were: 1) overthrow the Taliban (check) 2) bring various members of Al Qaeda to justice (check) 3) capture Osama Bin Laden. The status of the 3rd item is, at best, inconclusive, but the other 2 goals have been largely achieved.

"Warriors are capering heroes, good only for dying when they meet trained troops." The equivalent in the network security realm is the flashy wannabe uberhacker vs. the solid network administrator who gets the job done. It doesn't really matter where the military gets the people, only that they're more of the latter than the former -- whether that's on the battlefield, or sitting behind a desk.

They're control freaks by training and fighter jocks especially think they're better than anyone else and should be in charge of everything. In fact, if you think about it this is an IT role. The idea that some senior fighter jock is going to have decent intuition or judgement about things IT is as laughable as the idea of turning your IT decisions over to the sales VP. Too much ego, not enough technical skill to think about these things properly. In this case though as is often the case testosterone wins out over thinking. Of course that all begs the question of whether cyber "warfare" is a good idea or not which it probably isn't.

Give a problem to a soldier and they'll charge at it until its fixed. If its a machine gun nest, they'll keep charging until they run out of bodies. No questions asked.

I don't know where to begin to address this ridiculous idea. I served in the U.S. Army Infantry in the 80's and I'm willing to bet that I know a hell of a lot more combat veterans than you do. This notion that the military wants mindless automatons who follow orders without question is so utterly at odds with the the training I received that it's laughable. One of the most prized characteristics a soldier or Marine can possess is the ability to improvise, especially under pressure (read: people shooting at you).

Contrary to popular belief fostered by countless poorly made war movies, combat units don't exist merely to break things and hurt people. It's about the mission, and they accomplish their mission by the threat of force, and failing that, by its application. The major reason fighting men and women put themselves in harm's way is not out of some sense of bravado or a thirst for glory. It's for the bonds of brotherhood they feel with their comrades and the reluctance to let them down by not doing their jobs.

Many geeks tend to be loners, and in my experience have an inflated sense of superiority over those they consider to possess a lesser intellect. They tend to have zero understanding of the leap of faith required to put their very lives in someone else's hands, and conversely to accept that the lives of their buddies depend on their performing their part, no matter the personal dangers they may face. People who have never served don't truly understand the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good: the lives of your brothers; the successful completion of your mission; the knowledge that your mission is an essential part of a greater effort.

I had the privilege of serving with many true warriors, men who desire peace above all and truly believed that a warrior's role is to end war, and if it's necessary to fight, to accomplish their mission with the minimum of bloodshed. These men adhered to the philosophy that the ultimate expression of the warrior ethic is to mold themselves through hard training, sacrifice, and an almost ascetic self-discipline, into weapons that a potential adversary would be loath to face, thereby avoiding conflict altogether. Nations start wars for one reason, and one reason only: because they think they can win. True warriors frown on wars of aggression and consider the outbreak of war to be a dramatic failure of political leadership, on one or both sides. In my experience, being both a warrior and a pacifist is not a dichotomy. And let me add that not all warriors carry weapons. Warriors are those willing to sacrifice for something greater. Firefighters, cops, nurses, teachers, EMT's count many warriors among their number, and in my view Richard Stallman is absolutely a warrior.

Give a similar problem to a geek and they'll examine the problem and devise a solution that keeps their ass from getting shot off. And they'll push back if the orders don't make sense.

Any leader worth his salt will also devise a solution that minimizes the danger to his men, while also accomplishing the mission. On July 1st, 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army marched across no man's land, rifles at the ready, dress-right-dress in perfect formation, toward the German positions. The acres of barbed wire channeled them into tight masses towards the few gaps, which German machine gunners had already ranged. The British suffered 26,000 casualties that day, the worst one-day loss in their long military history. Even though the high command were fully aware that 17th Century-style mass attacks were useless against automatic weapons, they discounted the machine guns and refused to alter their traditional tactics. Notably, one young British officer ordered his men to advance across t

So stop pretending these guys aren't as technically qualified as you.

They aren't. You know why? Because I taught them everything that they know, but I didn't teach them everything that I know.

A fighter would understand, for instance, if an enemy had penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times, said Dusty Rhoads, a retired Air Force colonel and former F-117 pilot who recruited the original task force members. "A techie wouldn't have a clue," he said.'

Whereas a techie would know that for the last 3 months they failed to penetrate the network and their target was to access the coordinates or target times ... Our To a hammer everything looks like a nail. What we want to do is prevent the successful attacks, not detect a successful attack and the "warriors" don't generally have a clue to distinguish between a spam phishing attack and a coordinated attempt to break security.

"The FUD of war."(tm) Tjp

And yet...

Sub Trouble [foreignpolicy.com]

Hell, the US Marines were created to deal with muslim terrorism, which was presumably due to our oil policies at the time.

You mean the US Marine Corps, founded on November 10th, 1775?

The Marine Corps was founded to serve as an infantry unit aboard naval vessels and was responsible for the security of the ship and its crew by conducting offensive and defensive combat during boarding actions and defending the ship's officers from mutiny; to the latter end, their quarters on ship were often strategically positioned between the officers' quarters and the rest of the vessel.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Marine_Corps#Historical_mission [wikipedia.org]

Because back in the days just before the US was founded, the primary objective of the government was to protect it's oil interests (of which it had none) against Muslim terrorists aboard it's ships.