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40 Army Hist. 1 (1997)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0040 and id is 1 raw text is: ARMY HISTORY THE PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF ARMY HISTORY PB-20-97-1 (No. 40) Washington, D.C. Winter 1997 Army History: A Call for Action in the Information Age Steve E. D)ietrich This article derives fr.m one Colonel ric r;h publiishedin the JanuareFebruary 1996 issue of M ili- iary Revew. Copyright 1995. Steve E Drrich,. All right reserved by the author., To be effective in the future. historians can no longer live only in the past Army historians who do not understand phrases such as d iitized hI zefld, Force XXl, or information o atns wallhe l in the commuter lot as the Army speeds d wn the informa- hion highway into the twenty-first century. Miltary htorianswho do not enwrt orirup out ofd3hisrfatx will likely be left by the wayside I ikew eas Ameria3 Army m nemi':, , mu. do so w ith its history itact As the Army evoles its procedures, so too must the historians, archivists, cura tors, photographers, and unit r mcords manag-rs whru comprnse the A ry's hi toncal community. 1i The cost of failure is high-an Army unable to capture or retrieve its history and or to maintain ts legay-and a historical community severely handicapped by its inability tosupponi Army schoolsleaders and planners with pertnent historical analysis. in spring 1994, then Chief ot Milary listory Hrig. (en. Harid W. Nelson called a small group into his of fice. Nelson was getting ready to meet with then Army Chief of Staff Geneal Ciordon R. Sullivan to discuss how to prepare the Army for i future where we do not even know what the lexicography w ilt be. Sullivan had quipped. 1magine what a secretary's reaction would have been ten years ago if you told her there was a mouse on her desk. We po rd over dozens of briefing slides an scorts of si blI d notes Nelsonhadmad during arherme tin withSulliv We hatened as Nelson described the chief of staff's passion for technology, digitization, and Alvin and Heidi Toftler's theories of a future in which inteligent societies will dominate those which depend on brawn. (2) A precedent exists for what Sullivan had in mind. Perhaps the armed forces' most successful glimpse into the future was Toward New llorizons, a study writ ten by Dr. Theodore von Kanan's U S Air rorce ScicnIlis Advisory Group in 1945. The commanding general of the Army Air Forces, General Henry It_ Hap Arnold. had directed Kanran to project the sh ape of the air war, of air power, in rivc years, or ten, or sixty-five. Arnold urged the scientist to forget the past. regard the uipen t nowa ailable try as the basis for f the) boldest predictions. Much of what Karmran's group foresaw has been realized: transonic flight. fling w rgs (similar to the B 2bomber) target seekM) aniaic raft misi and unmanned preision muniltions with ranges of : veral thousand miles. i) kec Amnold, Su li an propo.e using emerging technologies and forward-looking theories to mold the Army of the future--Force XX . Sulhvan's claim that the Army will gct belter asrt gets smatlcris based on thc greatly enhanced potential that informiation age tcch- nolgies promise. Fut ure capabhties will stem not from brute force and mass product ion. but from knowl- edge and the aihdity to generate, access, use, and conmrol inlbrma;ion. Operation DESERT STOR M of- fetred a peek at hw digitizati. smart weapons, supe- riotr communications. satellite-based navigatonalsys- temsnonlethai weapons, and computers mit be used to control future battlefields. Mastery of knowledge and information has become morc of a force multiplier than ever before. Because of this phenomenon. infor-

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