5.4 RETIRING THE PLATFORM-CENTRIC WAR MACHINE
The other important claim made by Network Centrism appears to be the proposition that there is much to be gained by dismantling current weapon platforms and embedding the resulting elements into a continuously adapting network-centric ecosystem. This fundamental shift from platform-centric to network-centric warfare [11]:
translates information superiority into combat power by effectively linking knowledgeable entities in the battle space.
Specifically, Network Centrism aims [12]:
at decoupling of sensors from weapon platforms and at decoupling weapon platforms from actors. In Network Centric Warfare actors do not inherently own sensors, and decision makers do not inherently own actors. All three types of entities work collaboratively in response to the dynamic of the battle space.
By thus concentrating our capabilities into one ecosystem we invite the enemy to accomplish in one blow what might otherwise have required many. The seemingly overwhelming power of the ecosystem should not fool us as to its invincibility. To kill a thousand Philistines, Samson had to wield the jaw bone of an ass a thousand times; once the Philistines had symbolically concentrated all their capability into one, seemingly invincible Goliath, it only took David one well-aimed shot from his sling to win the entire war.
In addition to acquiring this singular failure mode, a network-centric force would also be highly unstable. If one moved from the platform centrism of today to the network centrism of tomorrow, sensors and weapons systems will have become cells in a large, living organism. As such, their independent existence will have slowly atrophied and they will have become vitally dependent on the life-giving information flowing through the embedding organism. Should the enemy interfere with that flow, one will no longer have a collection of independently capable weapon platforms to fall back on, but a bunch of dead cells.