[MUD-Dev] Online Games Fighting Terrorism

[Dave Rickey]

From: "Koster, Raph" <rkoster at soe.sony.com>
> From: Dave Rickey

>> A Pentagon-sponsored group called the Highlands Forum met this
>> week to discuss what are known as "Massively Multiplayer Online
>> Games."

> I was invited to this roundtable and was unable to attend because
> of work pressures. The emphasis that the DoD wanted appeared to be
> on how to re-invent the DoD based on a more networked model; this
> seems to me to miss the point a bit. But since I couldn't go, I
> didn't get to say so. :)

I'm not so sure, you have to understand the context.  There's been a
growing awareness in military circles that there are really multiple
networks active in any military organization.  There's the official,
heirarchal organization of the chain of command, and there are
various shadow networks, some official and some not.  Special
Operations, for example, is a non-heirarchal collection of entities
from all the services, as well as various elements of the
"intelligence community".  NCO's have their own network of
friendships and owed favors, without which it would be impossible
for the military to operate.  And we won't even get into the mess
that is the intersection of military and political infighting at the
General Officer level.

Lately all of the military systems have been getting more connected
(literally networked in the electronic sense), and "chain of
command" is becoming a polite fiction.  For example, the command for
a Navy aircraft to attack a target in support of an Army unit may
come from an Air Force sergeant 4000 miles away from any of it, and
the only officer involved is a pilot who makes no decisions, but
follows "orders" originally issued by a lance corporal with a radio
and GPS/Laser sighting system.  In the Air Force there's been a long
fight between the "jocks" (who fly the planes) and the "geeks" (who
know how to make all the devices required for those planes to fly
work).  The Predator that launched Hellfires in Afghanistan
announced the inevitable victory of the geeks.

Al Quaeda does have some attributes in common with an OLRPG "guild".
Each of the participants is a volunteer with his own agenda,
anonymity is a given for most interactions, and nobody really gives
orders.  I won't say there's a lot of promise in pursuing the
analogy too far, but examining the behaviour of such networks may
allow the deriving of general principles that will aid in fighting
specific examples such as Al Quaeda.

--Dave


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