Network-centric operations: a need for adaptation and efficiency

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2008 by Phillip G. Pattee

IN AN ARTICLE published in 1998, Vice adm arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka argued that "network-centric warfare and all of its associated revolutions in military affairs grow out of and draw their power from the fundamental changes in american society. These changes have been dominated by the co-evolution of economics, information technology, and business processes and organizations." At that time, the authors noted that three themes governed the path that the military would take to change the way it conducted operations:

* The shift in focus from the platform to the network

* The shift from viewing actors as independent to viewing them as part of a continuously adapting ecosystem

* The importance of making strategic choices to adapt or even survive in such changing ecosystems. (1)

The Department of Defense (DOD) has made tremendous strides along the lines of the first theme by exploiting networks of high-technology weapons systems but little progress on the second theme, including--at the most basic level--understanding what it means. The third theme, a clarion call urging the military to change in order to remain competitive, should cause the national security establishment to reflect on the second theme and decide exactly what it wants to do about it. Back in early 1998, cebrowski and Garstka asked, "How can the military not change?" (2) The military's biggest obstacle to change lies in its failure to rethink its rules as an actor among others in a continuously adapting ecosystem. Currently, the DOD focuses overwhelmingly on exploiting new technologies for military advantage, but these gains "are of marginal utility against a diffuse and elusive insurgency" such as the one pursued by al-Qaeda. (3) Only one actor among many in the national security environment, the DOD will not realize the promise of dramatically improved national security if it continues a nearly exclusive emphasis on exploiting new technologies for their value within the context of traditional military operations. Ensuring its continued viability requires a balance between exploitation and exploration: exploitation in order to promote efficiency and economy, and exploration in order to investigate radically new approaches to national security.

Networking Is Not New

Although the DOD has not precisely defined network-centric warfare, proponents identify "to network" as a verb, noting that the concept fundamentally concerns human behavior and the way humans behave "in the networked environment." (4) When referring to the environment, "network," as a noun, means an interconnected group or system, while "to network" denotes the act of interconnecting. Networking is not novel: humans have operated in a networked environment for millennia. The relevant point about networking involves determining which types of interconnections to encourage, permit, discourage, or restrict, as well as using new technology to foster desired networking but restrict the undesirable variety. Network-centric operations deal with shaping networks to exploit the emerging environment to one's advantage.

Networking for Exploitation

The Office of Force transformation developed a construct for network-centric warfare as the intersection of four warfare domains: physical, informational, cognitive, and social (fig. 1). The physical domain includes the continuum of space and time. In the information domain "information is created, manipulated, and shared." The "mind of the warfighter" makes up the cognitive domain, and in the social domain, "humans interact, exchange information, form shared awareness and understandings, and make collaborative decisions." (5) In this paradigm, the information and cognitive domains intersect to form shared awareness, the cognitive and physical domains intersect to form compressed operations (planning, organizing, deploying, employing, and sustaining), and at the intersection of the information and physical domains, speed and access enable precision force. Although its proponents state that network-centric warfare "exists at the very center where all four domains intersect," they have not ascribed any importance to the social domain as a piece in the ecosystem. (6) Moreover, the model itself follows a narrowly defined mission for the military, based on deterring war and--when deterrence fails--fighting and winning the nation's wars. One finds evidence for this in the fact that the domains of conflict intersect to form the construct for network-centric warfare. The cognitive domain embodies the mind of the war fighter. The Office of Force transformation's emphasis on warfare, conflict, and war fighter shows that its conception of network-centric operations represents a strategic choice to network within a narrowly defined social domain of military professionals for the conduct of strictly military operations.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

This type of limited networking to exploit a war-fighting advantage has already produced an excellent precision force that has repeatedly demonstrated a battlefield advantage over less-networked adversaries. (7) With today's technology, only adversaries beyond sensor reach feel safe. For example, during exercise north ern edge 2006, the F-22 raptor air-superiority fighter prevailed against 40 simulated enemy aircraft, achieving an impressive overall kill ratio of 108 to zero. Moreover, when operating in a network, the F-22, by using its onboard sensors to direct other aircraft's weapons, improved the performance of the older F-18s and F-15s. (8) Networking in this manner enables the best sensors to couple with the combined payload of all aircraft, effectively spiraling performance by combining the best attributes of each platform. The DOD has made tremendous strides along the path from platformcentered operations to network-centric operations, but this progress has little bearing on the second of the themes, "the shift from viewing actors as independent to viewing them as part of a continuously adapting ecosystem," mentioned above.