Derian, James Der, "War Games: The Pentagon Wants What Hollywood's Got"

Derian, James Der. "War Games: The Pentagon Wants What Hollywood's Got." The Nation 270.13 (3 April 2000 [special issue on independent film-making]): 41-44.

The author of Virtuous War covers the opening at the University of Southern California in August of 1999 of the "Institute for Creative Technologies" (ICT), a "'very exciting partnership' [according to Louis Caldera, US Sec. Of the Army] that seemed to include just about every major LA player in high tech, higher education and high- as well as lovbrow entertainment." Goes on to quote Caldera on how "'This partnership will leverage the US national defense and the enormous talent and creativity of the entertainment industry and their treamendous investment in cutting-eduge applications of new technology.' Having stroked the local powers, Caldera addressed the needs of his own constituency, in the now-common military langague that makes [William Gibson's] Neuromancer sound like an out-of-date army filed manual. 'The ICT will significantly enhance complex interactive simulations for large-scale warfighting exercises and allow us,'" i.e., the Armed Forces of the United States in general and US Army in particular, "'to test new doctrines in synthetic environments that are populated with intelligent agents in future threat challenges'" (41). "The ICT is the brainchild of Mike Macedonia [...], chief scientist and technical director at STIRICOM (Simulation, Training and Instrumention Command)," located, significantly, near Disneyworld in Orlanda, FL. STIRICOM heads "a combined military and industry effort to create 'a distributed computerized warfare simulation system' and to support 'the 21st century warfighter's preparation for real world contingencies.' Its motto is telling: 'All But War Is Simulation'" (41-42). See under Fiction O.S. Card's Ender's Game, and VR entries in Index.