Peer-to-Peer may enrage the music industry, but the military’s getting pretty hot to trot when it considers the “decision superiority” potential of P2P networking.

[ Lt. Col. Robert Wardell, special assistant to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] recalled how incompatible computer systems forced an F-14 Tomcat pilot flying over Kosovo to shut down his secure radio system in order to talk freely to officers aboard a B-52 bomber and tell them the location of ground targets.

Several times, he said, the targets were able to move faster than their attackers after the enemy apparently intercepted their radio talk.

More recently, he said the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier whose computers are set up to communicate primarily with Navy planes, found itself facing communication troubles when it suddenly had to carry Army helicopters to Afghanistan.

Soldiers need a communication system that will be more nimble and flexible if they are to counter the threat from international terrorists, Wardell said: “You have a dispersed enemy who basically is operating on a peer-to-peer system, at a very low level. How are we going to attack that? Probably the same way.”

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