Enemy of the U.S. Military the United

¶ … Enemy of the U.S. Military

The United States military is currently wrapping-up two full-scale wars in which its performance was tested in ways previously unforeseen. One particular aspect of the military's standard operating procedure which has become a problem is its dependence and use of PowerPoint presentations to organize information regarding battlefield operations. For instance, in the book Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks, a tale is recounted how the general who actually led the ground forces in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Gen. David McKiernan, "grew frustrated when he could not get Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander at the time of American forces in the Persian gulf region, to issue orders that stated explicitly how he wanted the invasion conducted, and why." (Bumiller, 2010) The problem lay with General Franks' complete reliance on PowerPoint presentations containing slides which, while seeming to explain a point, instead contained vague and often confusing information. The New York Times article titled "We Have Met The Enemy and He is PowerPoint" provides a perfect argument for why the U.S. military has become too dependent on PowerPoint presentations and the illusion of control and understanding they provide.

"PowerPoint" is a program which was acquired by Microsoft after it first went on sale in 1987 and allows users to create comprehensive slides that can be used in conjunction with a presentation. Over the years the program has been incorporated by the U.S. military as the primary means by which to present information. However, in the attempt to the organize the highly complex information regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the graphs, charts, and bullet-points that were created to simplify the information have become a source of confusion and hostility. Case in point, the so-called "spaghetti graphic," which was an attempt to present the American military strategy but has become a symbol of how convoluted and out of control PowerPoint has become. General McChrystal summed it up when he stated that "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war." (Bumiller, 2010)

Because PowerPoint can be used to distill a great deal of information to a simple diagram or chart, the U.S. military has come to depend upon it to organize the vast amount of information regarding its current military ventures. However, as stated by General McMaster, who banned these types of presentations when he commanded military operation in northern Iraq in 2005, PowerPoint is dangerous "because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control." (Bumiller, 2010) And as Marine Corps General James Mattis stated at a recent military conference, "PowerPoint makes us stupid." (Bumiller, 2010) The problem lies in the nature of the program, with the user who creates the charts, graphics, and other aspects of the slides used for the presentation. For it is the user who chooses which information to include and exclude, organizes that information into graphics, and creates the slides which present to the audience a view of the situation that has been created based on the user's choices and decisions. In effect, the persons tasked with creating the PowerPoint presentation can create whatever vision of that information that they want, and it will be presented to the audience as reality. Military success can be created where it is not, and problems can be spun into whatever the user wants them to appears as.

Another problem with the military's dependence on PowerPoint presentations is their reliance on bullet-points, or the distilling of a great deal of information into a brief statement of one or two sentences. The problem lies in the fact that bullet-points are too small to convey full meaning of what the bullet-point is attempting to sum-up. Bullet-points, because of their briefness, are often used to present a single point without reference to any interconnection with other issues. For instance, when discussing the cause of a conflict bullet-points cannot present the complicated political, economic, and social forces which may have played a part. One General who has a particular dislike of bullet-points is General McMaster, who stated that without reference to all the aspects of a war's origin, "it becomes a targeting exercise." (Bumiller, 2010) His meaning, of course, is that without a full understanding of the reasons behind the war, the military cannot solve the fundamental underlying problems causing the war; and that bullet-points do not provide the information necessary to solve the underlying issues.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a program that can aid in the presentation of information to an audience by the creation of graphics that can present complicated information in a simplified manner. In many fields this type of program can be used as a means of presenting information in a brief, but informative way that will give the target audience a better understanding of the information being presented. However, in some cases the over-use of PowerPoint can, instead of simplifying matters, lead to problems. This has been the case within the U.S. military, which has come to rely on PowerPoint presentations as a "magic-bullet" that can solve all the problems faced by a modern military. Unfortunately, the reliance on PowerPoint has created a major backlash within the ranks of the military as they reject what has been called "death by PowerPoint." Too many soldiers are using too much of their time to create PowerPoint presentations. "PowerPoint Rangers," as these soldiers have come to be called, are not solving the problems faced by the military but are creating more complex ones. In short, PowerPoint is becoming too important and the military is spending too much of its resources on a program that cannot provide the necessary intelligence in order to win wars.