Network-centric warfare
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Network-centric warfare (NCW), or Network-centric operations (NCO), is a new military doctrine pioneered by the United States. It aims to exploit technical advances in information technology and telecommunications to improve situational awareness and the speed of decision-making.
Network Enabled Capability (NEC) is a term used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for a similar doctrine.
Contents |
Background and history
The doctrine of network-centric warfare for the United States military draws upon the work of many military strategists and policy theorists, including that of Thomas Barnett at the US Naval War College and Vice-Admiral Arthur Cebrowski at the Office of Force Transformation in the U.S. Department of Defense (US DoD).
See Revolution in Military Affairs for further information.
Vision
The vision for NCW/NCO is to provide seamless access to timely information to all warfighters and decision-makers at every echelon in the military hierarchy. The goal is to provide ubiquitous connectivity throughout the organization, including individual infantry soldiers and ground vehicles, command centers, aircraft and naval vessels, and spacecraft. This enables all elements to share the information collected to be combined into a coherent, accurate picture of the battlefield, which is made available to all units. Every unit "sees" the sum of what all other units "see" and thus enjoy a greatly increased situation awareness. It is envisioned that having rapid access to reliable situational awareness and a relevant common operational picture will result in faster strategic planning and more effective tactical decisions.
Related technologies and programs
The US DoD has mandated that the Global Information Grid (GIG) will be the primary technical framework to support NCW/NCO. Under this directive, all advanced weapons platforms, sensor systems, and command and control centers are eventually to be linked via the GIG. The term system of systems is often used to descrbe the results of these types of massive integration efforts.
The topic Net-Centric Enterprise Services addresses the applications context of the GIG.
A number of significant U.S. military programs are taking technical steps towards supporting network-centric warfare. These include the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) of the United States Navy and the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program in the U.S. Army.
Doctrinal tenets of NCW/NCO
The doctrine of NCW for the United States armed forces draws its highest level of guidance from the concept of "team warfare", meaning the integration and synchronization of all appropriate capabilities across the various services (Army, Navy, etc). See Joint warfare for more information.
Some architectural and design challenges
- The complexity of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) offers insight into the challenges of integrating numerous different communications systems into a unified whole. It is intended to be a software-defined radio for battlefield communications that will be backwards compatible with a very large number of other military and civilian radio systems.
- The problem of coordinating bandwidth usage in a battlespace is a significant challenge, when every piece of mobile equipment and human participant becomes a potential source (or relay) of RF emissions.
- It is difficult to efficiently transfer information between networks having different levels of security classification. Although multi-level security systems provide part of the solution, human intervention and decision-making is still needed to determine what specific data can and cannot be transferred.
- Accurate locational awareness is limited when maneuvering in areas where Global Positioning System (GPS) coverage is weak or non-existant. These areas include inside buildings, caves, etc. as well as built-up areas and urban canyons, which are also the settings for many modern military operations. Much work on reliable fusion of positional data from multiple sensors remains to be done.
- Providing secure communications in NCW/NCO is difficult, since successful key management for encryption is typically the most difficult aspect of cryptography, especially with mobile systems. The problem is exacerbated with the need for speedy deployment and nimble reconfiguration of military teams, to respond to rapidly changing conditions in the modern battlespace.
International activities
There is significant need to harmonize the technical and operational aspects of net-centric warfare and net-centric operations among multiple nations, in order to support coalition activities, joint operations, etc. STANAG is the coordinating vehicle for establishing shared technical standards among NATO nations.
See also Partnership for Peace for information on extending coordination efforts to non-NATO nations that are keen to support international peacekeeping, disaster response, and other MOOTW activities.
Supporting comments
"With less than half of the ground forces and two-thirds of the military aircraft used 12 years ago in Desert Storm, we have achieved a far more difficult objective ... In Desert Storm, it usually took up to two days for target planners to get a photo of a target, confirm its coordinates, plan the mission, and deliver it to the bomber crew. Now we have near real-time imaging of targets with photos and coordinates transmitted by e-mail to aircraft already in flight. In Desert Storm, battalion, brigade, and division commanders had to rely on maps, grease pencils, and radio reports to track the movements of our forces. Today, our commanders have a real-time display of our armed forces on their computer screen." <ref>STSC Crosstalk</ref> -- Vice President Richard Cheney .
"Net-centric warfare's effectiveness has greatly improved in 12 years. Desert Storm forces, involving more than 500,000 troops, were supported with 100 megabit per second (Mbit/s) of bandwidth. Today, OIF forces, with about 350,000 warfighters, had more than 3,000 Mbit/s of satellite Bandwidth, which is 30 times more bandwidth for a force 45 percent smaller. U.S. troops essentially used the same weapon platforms used in Operation Desert Storm with significantly increased effectiveness." [citation needed] -- Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., Defense Information Systems Agency.
Dissenting views
"Our incipient NCW plans may suffer defeat by [adversaries] using primitive but cagey techniques, inspired by an ideology we can neither match nor understand; or by an enemy who can knock out our vulnerable Global Positioning System or use electromagnetic pulse weapons on a limited scale, removing intelligence as we have construed it and have come to depend upon. Fighting forces accustomed to relying upon downlinks for information and commands would have little to fall back upon." -- Charles Perrow, Information Assurance, National Defense University, May 2003
The aspiration of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to embrace NCW is outlined in the document ADF Force 2020. This vision has been criticized by Aldo Borgu, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). By developing interoperability with U.S. systems, in his view, the three arms of the Australian Defence Force could end up operating better with their sister United States services than with each other. See Max Blenkin, AAP General News (Australia), 9/17/2003.
References
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External links
- NCW related article on Crosstalk - Defense SOftware Engineering Journal
- Army War College article: Principles of Warfare on the Network-Centric Battlefield
- http://www.defenselink.mil
- http://www.globalsecurity.org
- NCW Topics on Defense Update
- Network-Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC)
See also
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