More than technology is needed to win wars.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Defense Watch

As events unfold in Iraq, much second-guessing goes on in Washington, not just about the overall U.S. strategy or lack thereof, but also on whether the hundreds of billions of dollars allocated every year to weapon systems are being spent on the right things.

Every commander agrees that the winning edge comes from well-trained, smart troops, not necessarily from superior technology. But it's also true that the fundamental thinking that prevails in the Defense Department today is based on the concept of "transformation."

The military services have spent the past several years trying to figure out how to transform into leaner, faster-moving forces with fewer heavy formations, more special operations, information technology and bandwidth. To that end, the defense secretary in recent years has pushed the services to redirect their $75 billion yearly procurement budgets away from Cold War platforms--such as tanks, large warships and air-to-air combat jets--to "transformational" technologies such as unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, space surveillance systems and precision weapons.

But what is happening on the Iraqi battlefield, so far, indicates that while the overpowering U.S. technology is winning battles, this prowess has not helped achieve strategic objectives, such as stabilizing Iraq and creating conditions for a new regime.

The question of whether the U.S. military's high-tech weaponry can compete against guerrilla tactics was the topic of a PBS documentary aired earlier this month, called "Battle Plan Under Fire." Most compelling in that program were comments by retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., former commandant of the Army War College and a forward-thinker, who predicted more than a decade ago that the Army's future wars would be unconventional and that the enemies would fight "asymmetrically," rather than try to match the capabilities of U.S. weaponry and forces.

"An obsession with technology blinded us to some degree to this countervailing universe that happens in all wars: that is the cultural side of wars, and the ability to understand your enemy: his intents, his motives, his will," Scales told PBS. In the kind of close combat U.S. forces are in today, the enemy "doesn't need a UAV to locate you or a precision bomb to kill you. All he needs is a 13-cent bullet."

Slogans such as "transformation" and "revolution in military affairs" increasingly are masquerading as ideas, said retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper...