When NATO forces recently mobilised to enforce a No-Fly Zone over Libya, the powers-that-be named the US arm of the mission ‘Odyssey Dawn’. Some shook their heads at the name, observing that it sounded a bit like a late 70s album title or the name of a cruise ship.
Others were concerned the word Odyssey was ill-advised, for a short ‘in-and-out’ mission.
After all, Homer’s Odyssey was a tale of the long and arduous series of perils faced by Odysseus and his men on their journey home after the Trojan War. A US military spokesman explained at the time that ‘Odyssey Dawn’ was essentially an unclassified code name with no intended symbolic meaning, given so that defence forces could communicate about the operation without giving too much away. Giving names to US military campaigns is largely a practical matter. Yet, an official list of do’s and don’ts must be applied when considering an appropriate ‘brand’ for military operations.
There are strategic, political and diplomatic sensitivities to be observed. While the name should rally the troops and inspire the wider public to support the campaign, care is also taken in the 21st Century to avoid overwhelmingly aggressive or hubristic code names. The name should also refer to something dignified, for the sake of personnel who lose their lives, or in the event that the battle is lost. ‘Odyssey Dawn’ seemed to tick all those boxes. It also related to the general Mediterranean location of the mission and conferred a certain heroic status on the participants.
There seem to be fewer restrictions on the naming of military equipment or weaponry. Some traditions apply – such as naming helicopters after Native American warrior tribes like Apache and Blackhawk. But in this arena, it appears the more aggressive the name, the better. There are plentiful references to Greek mythology to be found here.
As Steve Thorne writes in his book The Language of War, it’s no coincidence that weapons like the Titan, Poseidon, Hercules and Orion and are named after powerful mythical entities capable of great destruction. Thorne also argues that these names suggest a higher and much more powerful hand than the one that created the weapons is guiding them. In other words, the name attaches mythological (almost magical) power to a weapon, by association. As with ‘Odyssey Dawn’ indicating the beginning of a protracted battle, fraught with perils and monsters, it strikes me that those who name weapon systems don’t always know how the relevant myth ends.
Take the technology being developed for the controversial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – or drones – for example. In 2010, an improved surveillance system was developed for the drones, which significantly enhanced the vehicles’ ability to ‘see’ what was happening on the ground. Nine cameras arrayed around a sphere made it possible to capture a much wider area, in much greater detail, and to follow more than one activity or person simultaneously on the ground. This video capture system was called ‘Gorgon Stare’. At the time, a military spokesman said that they had named the new system ‘Gorgon Stare’ after the Medusa, because ‘it could see everything’. That struck me as odd.
The Medusa couldn’t see everything, but her ‘gorgon stare’ turned any mortal who caught her eye to stone. So, to my mind the name was euphemistic – the improved video capture technology essentially meant a better, and therefore more lethal, gaze. Yet, the mythology hasn’t played out fully in the minds of whoever named these technologies. Medusa was ultimately decapitated, and her (now disembodied) gorgon death stare was used by her killer, Perseus, as a weapon to kill others. Such an end was undoubtedly not what the creators of the nine-camera sphere had in mind for their drone technology, yet recently a drone was reportedly downed and captured in Iran.
Rumours persist that Iran is auctioning the drone’s technology to both China and Russia. That would play out the mythology of the Medusa quite neatly. Since ‘Gorgon Stare’, there has been another advance in surveillance technology for the so-called Hummingbird helicopter drones. New video capture technology has been developed by DARPA which has a 1.8 gigapixel camera, capable of rendering an entire city in live, high definition video, and of following many objects or individuals moving in different directions from 20,000 feet up in the air. It is billed as the ultimate drone surveillance technology, and it is called the ‘Argus-IS’. The name is an acronym, but the reference to the Greek myth of Argos Panopticon (‘all-seeing’) is clear.
Who was Argos, and how did his myth play out? Well, Argos was a giant who is often represented in Greek ceramics as having a body entirely covered with eyes. It’s a long story, but he was tasked by Hera to stand 24-hour guard over Io, a woman whom Zeus had loved and turned into a white cow. Hera was determined there would be no more hanky-panky between her husband and Io.
The great and powerful Argus, ever-wakeful, all-seeing watchman, patrolled night and day in the service of Hera. He was eventually lulled into sleep by the sweet flute music of the trickster god Hermes, who then killed him, either by sword or by stone. All things considered, I think it would be safer to name the technologies of war after the immortals of Greek mythology, rather than their victims.
* Joanne Lock is an independent writer based in Australia. To contact Joanne or to read more of her work, please visit www.joannelock.com