Buying the wrong weapons.

* Your article, "Why the Pentagon Keeps Buying the Wrong Weapons" (November 2008) makes for interesting reading and clearly was intended to present an opposing viewpoint to today's procurement philosophy. The article's premise that the country is wrongly researching and developing weapon systems for the future war is at best an oversimplification and is itself incorrect. Robert Forsch's contention that the methods used to analyze weapon system performance in warfare situation are incorrect and obsolete for the last 25 years is patently wrong.

Within the Army's modeling community, we constantly revise the models and assumptions based upon what we've learned from previous combat and intelligence community assessments about future possibilities. If anything, the models are conservative; they have a cushion to guard against underestimating the enemy's capability. The performance of the Abrams tank system against the vaunted Iraqi T-72 in Desert Storm is a simple and compelling counterexample to Woolsey's criticism that more capability doesn't mean we need fewer systems on the battlefield

Barry Siegel

Retired Army materiel systems analyst

* As a retired military war fighter and passionate associate of the modeling and simulation community, I'm concerned about a reference in your recent article "Why the Pentagon Keeps Buying the Wrong Weapons" in the November 2008 issue. The article was brought to my attention because of a quotation cited from Defense Secretary Robert Gates' remarks to National Defense University students, "be skeptical of systems analysis, computer models and game theories." I was disappointed by the implication that the secretary has little confidence in modeling and simulation. I researched Gates' speech and discovered that the quote, although accurate, was selective and taken out of context. The entirety of his comment was "But also never neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of warfare, which is inevitably tragic, inefficient, and uncertain. Be skeptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories, or doctrines that suggest otherwise."

My view of his comment is not that he was cautioning the learned audience to be ever mindful of the very real dynamic of human conditions in today's wartime environment and to think critically about advice obtained, regarding those conditions, from non-human sources.

In fact, I think you will find that the modeling and simulation community is in agreement that legacy models and simulations (some of which are decades old and built around those Lanchester algorithms you reference in the article) are not always capable of replicating the many variations of today's modern warfare.

Additionally, they recognize the difficulty and challenges in modeling those dimensions of warfare cited by the secretary, but are working diligently to meet the need, for example consider the work being done modeling the political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information domains. Consequently, I think that modeling and simulation practitioners for the most part are guarded in describing results from that type analysis and endeavor to advise senior decision makers accordingly which, in the end, is supportive of Gates' caution.

Michael L. Finnern

Reston, VA