Editing Cybernetics (section)

=== Vietnam ===
<blockquote>On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, tracked, and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer assisted intelligence evaluation, and automated fire control. With first round kill probabilities approaching certainty, and with surveillance devices that can continually track the enemy, the need for large forces to fix the opponent becomes less important. I see battlefields that are under 24-hour real or near-real time surveillance of all Tags. I see battlefields on which we can destroy anything we can locate through instant communications and almost instantaneous application of highly lethal firepower ... In summary, I see an Army built into and around an integrated area control system that exploits the advanced technology of communications, sensors, fire direction, and the required automatic data processing.<ref>Quoted: Antoine Bousquet “Cybernetizing the American War Machine: Science and Computers in the Cold War” Cold War History Vol. 8, No. 1, February 2008, pgs. 77-102)</ref></blockquote>General Westmoreland, Commander-in-Chief of US forces in Vietnam, made this famous prophecy of a frictionless and cybernetic form of warfare.