Day: March 1, 2024

The US military commitment to the Pacific was underlined in a White House meeting between the leaders of the US and Japan. But behind the scenes, this renewed focus on Asia has sparked a fierce debate within one of its most fabled military forces, writes defense analyst Jonathan Marcus.

A bitter family row has erupted in one of the US military’s most hallowed institutions, the US Marine Corps.

A host of its former senior commanders are lining up to attack the current leadership over plans for its reinvention.

At issue is a plan to adapt the service for a potential conflict against China – a plan dubbed Force Design 2030. Almost from its inception, this plan has been under attack with a cohort of retired generals taking the unusual approach of going to the press to air their frustrations.

Retired senior officers have been meeting regularly; speaking at seminars and think tanks; and devising their own alternatives to a plan which they see as a disaster for the Marine Corps future. 

One prominent critic is the former US Navy Secretary and former Senator for Virginia, Jim Webb, who served as a Marine officer in the Vietnam War and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he described Force Design 2030 as “insufficiently tested” and “intrinsically flawed”. He warned that the plan “raised serious questions about the wisdom and long-term risk of dramatic reductions in force structure, weapons systems, and manpower levels in units that would take steady casualties in most combat scenarios”.

So what has got them all so upset? 

Launched in 2020 by Marine Corps Commandant General David H Berger, the plan is intended to equip the Marines for a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific region rather than counter-insurgency wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new plan sees the Marines as fighting dispersed operations across chains of islands. Units will be smaller, and more spread out but packing a much bigger punch through a variety of new weapons systems. Huge amphibious landings like in World War Two or massive deployments on land – like in Iraq – will probably be things of the past.

Before the pandemic, Mark had a lot of autonomy in his job in the IT department of a US industrial firm. He and his teammates were able to get their work done, he says, “without our manager doing much, you know, managing”. 

That changed abruptly when the company transitioned to working from home. “The monitoring started on day one,” says Mark, whose surname is being withheld for career concerns. The company began using software that enabled remote control of employees’ systems, and Mark says his team had to give their manager the password “so he could connect without us having to accept. If the password changed, he requested it by email first thing in the morning”.

The surveillance, explained Mark’s manager, was aimed at making sure everyone stayed productive and had the same kind of open communication they’d had in the office. In reality, it made Mark anxious, and contributed to him quickly feeling overworked and burnt out. “It was just stressful, feeling that I had to be actively using the computer at all times for fear of him thinking something like a phone call or bathroom break was me slacking off,” he says.

With the rise in remote work has come a surge in workplace monitoring – some 2022 estimates posit the number of large firms monitoring workers has doubled since the beginning of the pandemic. Some monitoring programs record keystrokes or track computer activity by taking periodic screenshots. Other software records calls or meetings, even accessing employees’ webcams. Or, like in Mark’s case, some programmes enable full remote access to workers’ systems. 

Regardless of how they choose to monitor workers, many firms are embracing monitoring because they believe it ensures the productivity of remote employees, says Karen Levy, associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University, US, and author of the book Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance.

But amid the uptick in monitoring, there’s mounting evidence that electronic surveillance can, in some cases, do more harm than good. Workers chafe against it, and surveillance can lead to stress, cause employees to quit and even make workers do their job worse – on purpose.

More workers being watched 

A 2021 study from internet-security tool ExpressVPN of 2,000 employers and 2,000 employees working remotely or on a hybrid schedule showed that close to 80% of bosses use monitoring software.

“Managers are increasingly interested in using software to monitor employees’ keystrokes, activities and attention in new ways,” says Levy. She adds some are even doing “more fine-grained data collection about workers’ communications – since so much more of that happens on digital channels rather than face-to-face – and bodies, through wearable technologies and biometrics”. Some companies, for instance, have installed time-clocks that scan an employee’s fingerprint to clock them in and out. Some use webcams to collect data on eye movement, which is used to track an employee’s attention.

Still, says Levy, other companies aren’t just watching what employees are doing in a given moment, but also using that information to anticipate what they might do, through “predictive analytics about whether a worker is likely to, for example, ask for a raise or leave for another job”. Software that monitors employee search history – and even social media – can reveal they’re on the job hunt, and trackers that capture things like tone of voice can indicate a worker’s level of engagement.

Not every firm keeping tabs on employees is implementing surveillance software due to suspicion; some are required to, says Levy, “for security reasons, or in order to comply with laws or regulations in some industries”.

As the world opens up to international travel again, it’s time to look beyond the usual tourist trails for your next adventure on rails. But instead of using the train as just a mode of transport, how about making it a vacation? Here’s our guide to 10 of Europe’s most underrated scenic train routes for 2023.

Few train journeys can boast a visit to Hell and a crossing of the Arctic Circle, but Norway’s wonderful Nordland Railway (main photo) is exceptional by any measure. Running for 452 miles from Trondheim to Bodø, this is the longest and most isolated railway in Norway, traversing deep valleys, high mountain plateaus and skirting countless lakes and fjords on its epic 10-hour journey north.

Just two trains a day make the full trip – choose the daytime one to make the most of the views, though there’s also a comfortable sleeper train connecting with trains to and from Oslo for the way back. Trains are now operated by SJ Nord, a division of Swedish State Railways.

Construction of the railway proceeded at a glacial pace from 1882 until 1940 when occupying Nazi forces pushed it forwards. Even so, the full route to Bodø was not completed until February 1962, 80 years after the first section from Trondheim to Hell (half an hour east of the city) welcomed its first passengers. 

It remains a challenging route to maintain but provides a vital lifeline for the sparsely populated regions it serves, especially in winter. If you’re heading even further north, to Narvik and Tromsø, buses connect with trains at Fauske, taking a spectacular route through rugged mountain landscapes and over countless fjords. 

While the Oslo-Bergen railway steals most of the limelight, there’s much more to see in Norway and most journeys will deliver memorable scenery – not least the underrated Nordland Railway.