Role of the Computer If the Pentagon had been "graded on

While the air battles pounded Iraq, and aircraft losses and casualties were amazingly low, the conflict did reveal major gaps in the ability of the United States to deal with the sort of regional conflicts that are likely to dominate the decade of the 1990's.

From a pure logistics standpoint, it took too long (over five months) to get enough war material into the Persian Gulf theater of operations. Some of the most sophisticated and expensive weapons in the U.S. arsenal (such as the B-1 bomber and the Trident submarine) were absent and apparently were not even missed (Dwyer, 1991, p. 30).

The workhorses of this war were machines and equipment based upon the technology of the 1960's. One of the clearest messages that the military/industrial complex in the United States has been sent is that the Soviet menace is no longer real.

Now that the Warsaw Pact has dissolved, military planners must pay more attention to regional fire-fights against well-equipped, although not necessarily well-trained Third World armies. Clearly the battles of the future will be low-intensity conflicts fought with high-tech weapons (Dwyer, 1991, p. 30) in an environment where only one superpower exists to mitigate the c

. . .
ercially available computing systems. Unfortunately, the type of performance exemplified by the above Army procurements is atypical. More typical are procurements mired in red-tape, confusing compliance to obtuse specifications and general lack of order as seen recently by an overturn of a $40 million contract which had been awarded to Electronic Data Systems (EDS) by the GSA Board of Contract Appeals (Connelly, 1991, p. 26). Another element which has not been sufficiently addressed by any of the Services nor has it been addressed by other procuring agencies within the Federal Government has been the issue of repair, maintenance and user training associated with the fielding of these systems. As is too often the case, the agency involved undertakes to repair, maintain, and train its personnel in the proper care and use of the equipment. Increased emphasis must be placed on the contractors for these additional services. Additionally, these services must be performed in a simple yet fairly standardized manner to insure a uniform level of quality and efficiency. Role of the Computer One aspect of reducing the logistical quagmire is to increase the use of the computer in the planning and deployment process. Clearly the Arm
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2373
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)