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Network-Centric Warfare
Naval War College Review, Wntr, 2001 by Edward A. Smith, Jr.
If we compare the Japanese and American combat cycles at the time of the torpedo attack, it becomes evident that the cycles were out of phase with each other. Had they been in phase, American and Japanese strikes would have passed each other in the air and struck empty decks on both sides, without the disastrous consequences for the Japanese-but possibly dire ones for the smaller force of American carriers. But thanks to its intelligence coup, the American side completed its observation, orientation, and decision phases in time for its air-strike "act" to hit the Japanese when they were most vulnerable and before they could initiate a fleet action. The American success rested partly on careful preparation-the intelligence, reconnaissance, and early launch of aircraft-and in part on the serendipity of the poorly (in terms of the plan) coordinated arrival of their strike elements over the target.
To emulate Midway, we must measure the enemy OODA cycle correctly and then coordinate our actions to occur at exactly the right times. This requires not only the "battlespace awareness" that in 1942 enabled the American fleet to launch its strikes first but also knowledge of the enemy necessary to identify and exploit critical junctures. [12] We must then be able to sustain controlled, high-tempo operations. There is a problem here: intelligence simply will not yield such knowledge of the enemy reliably, consistently, or at all levels. [13] How then might network-centric operations enable us to bring about another Midway?
One solution is to multiply the number of opportunities to repeat the Midway serendipity. The more frequent the stimulus, the greater the chance a strike will occur at the right time to obtain the desired effect on the enemy decision-making process. Shortening the length of our overall combat cycle (see figure 6) would multiply the number of impacts on an adversary's decision making over a given period and increase the likelihood of striking at the "right time" to disrupt the adversary's cycle. But as we have noted, the power-generation side of the combat cycle can be compressed only so much.
Another approach would be to build on "self-synchronization" and "shared situational awareness" to launch smaller, more numerous operations, each of which could generate a stimulus sufficient to affect the adversary's OODA cycles. [14] The length of the individual unit combat cycles might remain the same, but they could be staggered, overlapped, so as to produce a rapid succession of stimuli. This approach has an obvious limitation: the more we diminish the size of our individual actions, the more vulnerable each will be to defeat in detail. However, with better awareness and better knowledge of the enemy, we can hope to anticipate enemy actions and optimize forces for disruptive effect or for mutual support (see figure 7).
Finally, we could multiply the number of cycles but also compress the time needed to execute each cycle. In essence, we would use our network-centric capability to liberate individual forces to operate at their respective optimum combat cycles and by so doing increase the number of OODA cycles we execute. Ideally, the stimuli can be made numerous enough to overwhelm enemies with new developments, forcing them continually to revisit decisions, redirect efforts, and pause for observations, even to the point that they cannot ever take action.
