Because information breakdown is an obvious and well-known problem to all military members, I am surprised to learn that there is so much resistance to changes that could drastically improve both training and operations. Were it simply a matter of operations security issues, I would have some sympathy, but the way you portray the issue suggests that the real problem is one of military culture (as is evident in your opening story about General Cartwright’s experience with open blogging).

In regards to the ‘seniors won’t use it’ argument, I think that there is some measure of truth in that criticism when applied to the general military population (not military personnel with high tech or extremely computer-oriented jobs), however, as more and more senior positions are taken over by new blood that problem will eventually fade away. I think your opening paragraph summarizes the solution to this problem best, “As hard as it is to imagine (I’m in my mid-twenties), there was a time when there were no word processors to type reports, or email to send messages. Information was typed and distributed hard copy.”

Finally, I’d like to comment on the 3rd criticism you discuss, the perpetuation of bad information. This is completely my opinion, but my experience has taught me that military personnel, as part of their culture, love to criticize and analyze. I would believe it more likely that wikis would end the perpetuation of bad information rather than facilitate it.

Since Intellipedia’s inception in 2006, have there been any notable situations that could be used to make or break the case for the use of wikis in military operations? I understand that your emphasis is on the professional intelligence community, but I am curious as to whether or not you have happened across any interesting bits of ‘intelligence’ that would suggest any interest on behalf of the military to use blogs and/or wikis for general professional discourse.