“Shock and Awe” trademarked by Sony

Japanese electronics giant Sony has taken an extraordinary step to cash in on the war in Iraq by patenting the term “Shock and Awe” for a computer game.

It registered the term as a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office on March 2 1 – just one day after war started. It wants to use it for computer and video games, as well as a broadband game played both locally and globally via the internet among PlayStation users.

The phrase, coined by former US navy pilot Harlan Ullman, was adopted by Washington to describe the fierce bombardment of Baghdad on the second night of the war – the military tactic designed to bully the Iraqi resistance into submission.

. . . which is rather remarkable, considering that the term “shock and awe” is an actual term for a military strategy devised in the mid-1980’s and is first cited example in modern warfare being the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. It is the difference between going headlong against the enemy (3rd Gen Warfare) or disorienting them into capitulation (4th Gen Warfare), with the ultimate goal to destroy the opposing forces with minimal loss to civilian infrastructure (people, bridges, hospitals, etc).

Here is a brief explaination from the USA Today on the history of the term.