Curbing Innovation / 4 / 4.3 / 4.3.5

4.3.5 The Network Centric Warfare Story Line

The journey towards the Network-Centric vision, starts with a fully networked war machine. To achieve that initial state, one must develop and acquire the information infrastructure, a set of hardware components proponents are in the habit of calling infostructure [13]:

Our future warfighting concepts, built upon leveraging Information Superiority, are predicated upon the existence of a secure, reliable, and interoperable infostructure. We are, in effects, banking on an infostructure, one that will not be there unless we focus our collective efforts on making it happen. We need to pay the entry fee.

This infostructure would provide all elements of the warfighting enterprise, to include deployed forces, supporting forces based at home, and allied and coalition partners, with access to high quality information services. It would consist of an integrated network of communications and computational capabilities. This network would employ multi-mode data transport capabilities, including military and satellite communications capabilities, multiple types of data links and radios, and commercial information services to provide the interconnecting fabric for a wide range of computational and storage capabilities. The architecture of the infostructure would enable multiple stand-alone networks to be integrated into an adaptive and reconfigurable network-of-networks.

If the first two hypotheses of Network Centric Warfare were true, this infostructure would allow for the generation and accumulation of shared information and shared knowledge. The stated goal would be to cumulate enough shared information and shared knowledge as to achieve information superiority, which the theory defines as [14]:

a state of imbalance in one’s favor in the information domain achieved by being able to get the right information to the right people at the right time in the right form while denying an adversary the ability to do the same.

What is important here is not the amount of information that one has at any given time, but the extent to which that information fulfills one’s information needs. The difference between these two quantities, the information position and the information need, is called information situation. Therefore, information superiority should be measured in terms of the corresponding information advantage the superior side has when that side manages to fulfill a larger fraction of its information needs that does the other side.

This information advantage would lead to a cognitive advantage if the third hypothesis were also right. The first step in the cognitive domain is to generate a shared awareness of the situation. Battlespace awareness refers to what the people know, and are aware they know, about the situation on the battlefield, not what the information systems know. Because human perception is therefore now fully involved, the attainment of shared situational awareness is a hypothetical proposition [15]:

The potential for the commander’s awareness to be incomplete or failure to recognize important differences is a significant element distinguishing the information system from awareness.

Nevertheless, the doctrine asserts that when the people involved not only receive the same information, but also have an opportunity to discuss that information, their awareness would be both shared and enriched.

The second step in the cognitive domain transforms this shared awareness into shared understanding. To attain shared understanding, the commander relies upon his Command and Control system. This system consists of the organizations, people, processes and systems that enable him, not only to understand the situation, but also to provide intent, plans, and direction to the troops under his command. It is important to understand, however, that when the proponents of Network Centric Warfare speak of the Command and Control system they do not mean the traditional institution we have employed in the remote past; they have in mind, instead, the much larger entity that obtains by merging together Command and Control with Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. Moreover, they intend to use this enlarged entity, under development during the last few decades, in new ways.

Thus, the Network-Centric Command and Control system is characterized by complete integration over echelons, functions, and geography. Integration over echelons means that subordinate echelons, which currently are required to wait for plans from higher echelons before undertaking the detailed planning needed to implement the plans from senior headquarters, will get involved, together with other echelons, directly in the initial thinking and continue that involvement throughout the collaborative process. Integration over functions means that specialists in different functions can have access to a common operational picture and that therefore each can extract tailored information from the same underlying knowledge base. Integration over geography refers to the possibility of connecting geographically dispersed sensor through the network. This connection will contribute to a shared understanding by integrating the view from everywhere into a coherent understanding of the battlespace and then making that understanding instantly available to everybody.

According to the fourth hypothesis, this shared understanding enables synchronized action. This happens in three steps: first individuals and organizations engage in what Network Centric Warfare doctrine calls “sensemaking”; next, the sensemaking process leads to the promulgation of commander’s intent, and finally, the commander’s intent initiates a process designed to synchronize effects. In the sensemaking process, the participants transform the shared understanding of the situation into a set of alternative actions [16]:

The purpose of this process is to generate alternative actions intended to control selected aspects of the situation, identifying the criteria by which those alternatives are to be compared, and conducting the assessment of alternatives.

From these alternatives, the commander constructs his intent. Commander’s intent is a statement that communicates to all concerned how a given mission is to be accomplished. The commander’s intent must be specific enough to indicate which elements are decisive to the accomplishment of the mission, but general enough to allow ample room for initiative and interpretation by individual commanders empowered by the network. In a Network Centric force, therefore, commander’s intent will go beyond the mere choice between possible alternative plans which passes for commander’s intent today and becomes the outcome of a collaborative process involving commanders and their staff at more than one level.

Once command intent is established, the force engages in the last step leading to synchronized action. This step involves the generation of a specific plan reflecting that intent, the prompt and clear dissemination of that plan, the monitoring of its implementation, and the support needed to quickly recognize the need for adjustment to the plan. This process of synchronization, of course, is not new; it has been the foundation of warfare throughout all of history. What is new, is the degree to which it is supposed to happen in a world of networked forces [17]:

The high quality of information facilitates precision control of forces and a high degree of coordination among force elements. All relevant elements across the spectrum of echelons and functional areas can participate dynamically through improved networking. A high degree of information sharing and collaboration permit dispersed elements to rapidly adjust plans, schedules, and actions in accordance with changes in the situation.

The natural consequence of this tighter integration across functions and echelons made possible by the network is a greater integration over time and therefore a shorter time interval between the promulgation of the commander’s intent and its implementation in action [18]:

As the decision transparency increases due to the network, the distinction between command intent and execution blurs and these processes become merged.

The fifth hypothesis now asserts that synchronized action leads to the total collapse of the enemy described in the Network-Centric-Warfare vision. This is supposed to be a consequence of the radical increase in the speed with which a force synchronized through the network can plan and execute directed action, of the synergy of effects that is made possible by action synchronized over entire theaters of war, and of the degree to which the synchronized force can be made to either match or lead the dynamics of the battlefield. Synchronization, as conceived by Network-Centric-Warfare doctrine, means the ability to orchestrate events in the battlespace. Given the characteristics of synchronization achieved through the network, this orchestration of events can shape the battlespace in such a way as to completely deceive the enemy as to our intentions, can be executed so fast that the enemy will have no time to understand and respond to them, and will contain attacks upon his forces whose synergistic effects will be so devastating that the enemy will not be able to survive them.

In the end, according to this narrative, a networked military force conducting Network Centric Warfare will have the capability to destroy catastrophically any organized enemy force. This finding is, of course, subject to the five hypotheses discussed above, the validity of which is in turn conditioned by a relatively large set of important considerations.

However, even if all the hypotheses underpinning the doctrine turned out to be valid, and if the networked force turned out to be able therefore of executing the revolution in military affairs envisioned by the doctrine, it does not follow that the political goals that necessitated the military action in the first place will thereby be achieved. In fact, it is fair to note, that the very invincibility of a networked force will make sure that few enemies will be foolish enough to confront it head on. Rather, most enemies would have to fight a different war, conducted according to different rules, and executed by different means if they did not intend to submit to our political will. Unfortunately, the doctrine of Network Centric Warfare, has nothing to say about such an asymmetric war.