The PBS science series Nova had a very interesting show last night (5/4/04) "Battle Plan Under Fire" on the U.S. military, new technology, "transformation" and "network-centric" warfare. The home page for the show is at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wartech/. The transcript isn't available yet -- the site says one to three weeks after the broadcast.

For opposing views of "transformation" ("moving from an Industrial-Age massing of troops with most intelligence held by commanders to an Information-Age era of special operations, precision weapons, and a level of interconnectivity that goes right down to the individual soldier") see an interview with Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, Director of Force Transformation at the Department of Defense promoting "transformation", and an interview with Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, former president of the Marine Corps University. Van Riper led the "enemy" force in the embarassing military wargame "Millennium Challenge 2002". Van Riper's troops successfully employed low-tech and unconventional tactics to defeat the high tech "transformed" military.

jd