Compass Points - Aner Shapira
The heart to fight.
Compass Points - Aner Shapira
The heart to fight.
November 16, 2023
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Technology tools and traditional tools are both ways to see the world, to understand the environment, and to work with it effectively. The difference is when technology goes down, traditional tools provide a way to keep going. When the GPS goes down, Marines must be able to find their way and fight.
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Recently, Aner Shapira, a SSgt in the Israel Defense Forces, was faced with a very difficult situation and he had no technology to assist. He had to dig in and fight with just his hands and his heart. Technology is important but is not all that is important.
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Recently, a Compass Points reader and experienced Marine, Keith Holcomb reflected on the limits of technology, his comment has been edited for length and content:
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LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY
Over the years, I have been able to work with DARPA, the DOD’s high tech Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with industry, with the Department of Homeland Security, and others on a variety of high-tech initiatives, so I have an appreciation for the power and necessity of technology. But technology, like any tool, must be used with care.
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Today, so often we see the world through technology. Technologies replace real and natural sensing with imperfect representations of reality --- and we do not understand how those representations are developed, or how they interact with our cognitive processes. In a sense we are skating on the surface of representations that “hide” the natural world --- and our natural brain is not all that well equipped for dealing with the ever-changing and deceptive “ice.” Dangerous stuff! We ought to be more concerned about the representations of reality (they will always be imperfect because code cannot capture all reality) and how they interact with our decision making. Readers may want to dive into the writings of Dr. Gary Klein --- a father of “recognition primed decision making.”
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Even the most basic skills (land navigation) have atrophied dramatically. I suspect that the loss of GPS (and it will happen!) will render not only sophisticated weapon systems inoperable; many military people will be struggling to determine the locations of friends, foes and non-combatants.
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In the 19th century West Point cadets, many of whom had been raised close to the land, learned to do terrain studies, and make maps; they had a deep and intuitive understanding of terrain and its shaping by natural elements. As young officers years ago, we spent considerable time learning ‘land navigation.” We participated in orienteering meets and we learned at least some rudiments of how to use the natural world to maintain direction.
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For example, back with 4th MEB Desert Shield, 2nd LAI Battalion (-) spent some time training in Oman. Land navigation systems were unreliable. When I guided my LAV to a specific point in the flat expanse, subordinate officers were surprised by both the speed and the accuracy. How was it done? Open ocean vectors combined with terrain association (intersection of intermittent stream beds). “But, Sir, no evidence of stream beds --- just flat, wind-blown, smooth sand surface?” Answer: “Line up the sparse and scraggily plants scattered in that square kilometer --- you will see a pattern!” That vignette was nothing amazing. Many Marines can do the same or better, but those Marines who think technology holds all the answers will be lost when technology no longer provides an easy answer.
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Tracking is another lost skill. It reminds me of leading a recon platoon in the Philippines: We had Negrito guides assigned to us; they were amazing: Suddenly, the jungle was a pharmacy, a restaurant, a security system, and so on. And they could track with speed. The Negrito guides knew their jungle; they understood it; they were connected to it.
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We cannot say the same of our technologies; they introduce imperfect representations, and, in some cases completely false “artifacts” into our systems.
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Technology can be a powerful tool, but we must grasp its strengths and weaknesses and we must be able to operate without it.
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The Marine Corps has fieldcraft training centers at Bridgeport and on Okinawa. Both provide tremendous opportunities for Marines to learn a variety of field skills. We must be constantly learning about our whole toolbox and always understand how much we do not understand. Regrettably, I sense too many officers today are way too confident that they know all that is relevant. Military operations is a subject that can be studied but never mastered. For those ready to learn, every new lesson can be a doorway to deeper and deeper understanding. The journey never ends.
-- Keith Holcomb
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What did SSgt Aner Shapira, IDF, learn about technology? On October 7, 2023 Aner Shapira found himself immediately under attack.
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When the Hamas terrorists arrived on that fateful morning of October 7 (Simchat Torah, what should be one of the happiest days of the Jewish year, but this year blackened by evil). Aner, like others, tried to escape, and ran with his friends into a migunit: a type of public shelter from rockets, with no door. There were over 20 people huddled in that shelter already, absolutely petrified. Taking the reins, the young man immediately announced, “Hi everyone. I am Aner Shapira, I serve in the Orev unit of the Nahal brigade. My friends from the army are coming soon. I am going to take care of things here, so don’t worry.” Someone responded, “Thank you, Aner, we feel calmer now.”
Realizing that tactically the terrorists would choose to throw grenades into that dangerously small and enclosed space, Aner told everyone: “I’ll catch the grenades and throw them back – and if I miss any, you throw them back.”
-- The Times of Israel
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Standing at the door of the shelter, SSgt Shapira batted or threw back grenade after grenade, at least seven in all. The eighth grenade exploded in his hand and killed him. After SSgt Shapira was killed, some of the people in the shelter were killed or kidnapped by the Hamas terrorists but some survived thanks to SSgt Shapira.
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SSgt Shapira’s great-grandfather was Haim Moshe Shapira (also spelled Shapiro), a former Israeli lawmaker who was a signatory of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Incredibly, the elder Shapira back in 1957 was seriously injured when a terrorist, threw a grenade into the Knesset plenum hall.
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SSgt Aner Shapira was faced with a very difficult situation and no technology to assist. He had to dig in and fight with just his hands and his heart. Technology is important but there are many other things much more important.
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Compass Points salutes Aner Shapira for his heroic defense of the innocent, salutes Keith Holcomb for his insights on technology, and salutes all those working to make sure US Marines always have both the technology and the heart to fight and win.
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Marines (marines.mil) 08/26/2018
Welcome to the Jungle Warfare Training Center
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Marines (marines.mil)
Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center
MCMWTC BRIDGEPORT CA
https://www.29palms.marines.mil/mcmwtc/
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The Times of Israel (timesofisrael.com) 10/19/2023
‘I’ll catch the grenades’: The incredible heroism of Aner Shapira
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ill-catch-the-grenades-the-incredible-heroism-of-aner-shapira/
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Reuters (reuters.com) 11/15/2023
In bid to save shelter from Hamas raiders, Israeli tossed back their grenades
By Dan Williams
More Context:
As our discussions progressed, we referenced cognitive psychologist Dr. Gary Klein's work in "recognition primed decision making." Two of us recalled his brief provocatively entitled: "How Technology Makes Us Stupid." To elaborate on just two points:
1) Technology can be a filter which interferes with our natural sensing; we miss real world cues that are not captured by and represented by technology. Gary’s work included among others the study of neo-natal nurses, fire fighters, pilots, and military.
Negative Pilot Example: Gary related cases whereby technology interfaces masked real-world cues of aircraft problems.
Positive Nurse Example: Despite all the great medical technology, experienced nurses “knew” (deeply embedded cues from much experience) as soon as they walked into the unit which of the four babies in their care first needed attention.
This "knowing" is an internalization over much time and experience with the real world. Frequently, highly skilled practitioners could not describe how they "knew" and thereby teach others --- they just knew.
Implications for technology/C4ISR systems/Simulators: All technologies are attempted representations of dynamic reality. Their sensors have parameters which capture some (much?) but not all. Latency, however small, is always an issue. Most importantly, systems distort by over and under representing key real-world cues. Practitioners can become quite good with representations of reality and still make fatal errors because technological interfaces masked real-world cues and issues.
2) Technology can replace skills developed by living and working in the natural world. When working and spending much time in high-technology environments, practical, real-world skill sets and natural sensing atrophy over time. When (not if) technology systems fail, are inoperable due to weather/natural phenomenon, or are neutralized, even temporarily, by adversaries, practitioners can discover that they lack fundamental survival skills and operational competence.
Implications for developing and integrating technology: Those of us who have studied complexity science have learned that we humans tend to under-appreciate processes within a complex system that work. Our cognitive bias is to focus on the narrow process/feature we intend to improve. Worse, we have a tendency to implement BEFORE understanding how an insertion might impact those features are actually working.
Corrective disciplines:
Proposals to insert planned improvements should include comprehensive analysis of potential impacts on not only the target system we desire to improve but also those systems (friendly and adversary) with which it interacts.
Rather than extolling only the positives of the planned insertion/modernization, skilled and successful innovators explicitly identify to themselves and others, skills and capabilities that will atrophy and might be lost. And, they identify and develop action plans for preserving and even further developing skill sets for those occasions when planned technology insertions fail, misrepresent, or are neutralized.
Key to successful technology insertion is a comprehensive and detailed listing of dependencies. All capabilities, new and old, are dependent in some way. Adversaries contending with US/allied capabilities are always seeking to identify exploitable dependencies.
Successful operational technology insertion is dependent on the disciplines to identify exploitable dependencies and develop mitigation measures and backup capabilities. Such disciplines and measures are essential to avoid fragility and system collapse.
Background/Context:
CP post drew from a much longer and broader discussion that began with reflections on hunting, precision, and war that morphed to issues with technology development/fielding.
Spanish philosopher (and hunter) Jose Ortega y Gasset's book "Meditations on Hunting" originally written 1942 guided our initial discussion. Points relevant to CP readers:
1. Progress in weaponry leads to regression in field craft/hunting skill. In Hunting and Reason chapter, Ortega y Gasset traces the devolution in offensive hunting ethos from hunter to shepherd to farmer: A trend worthy of reflection as the Marine Corps continues its embrace of specialized, low density, high tech, long range systems. Yes, consider what we are losing in all-purpose, practical, combat-proven capabilities, but perhaps more importantly, what will be the subtle and pernicious effects on our offensive fighting ethos?
2. Ortega y Gasset's statement on the alert man is a powerful guide to both strategists and leaders/developers of truly capable and balanced forces-in-readiness : "The only man who truly thinks is the one who, when faced with a problem, instead of looking only straight ahead, toward what habit, tradition, the commonplace, and mental inertia would make one assume, keeps himself alert, ready to accept the fact that the solution might spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of focusing on a relatively small portion of the globe and a rather narrow capability, the Nation would be much better served by a Marine Corps and Navy team that focused on developing and maintaining balanced, full spectrum, global presence forces for the threats that "spring from the least foreseeable spot on the great rotundity of the horizon."
Perhaps, instead of a "me-too" acquisition strategy of sensors and missiles, the Marine Corps and the Navy might have tackled the tough problem of conducting from-the-sea offensive operations in an era of PGMs?