HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations or net-centric warfare, is a
military doctrine Military doctrine is the expression of how military forces contribute to campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. It is a guide to action, rather than being hard and fast rules. Doctrine provides a common frame of reference acros ...
or theory of war that aims to translate an information advantage, enabled partly by
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...
, into a
competitive advantage In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors. A competitive advantage may include access to natural resources, such as high-grade ores or a low-cost power source, highly skilled ...
through the
computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
ing of dispersed forces. It was pioneered by the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
in the 1990s.


Background and history

In 1996, Admiral William Owens introduced the concept of a ' system of systems' in a paper published by the Institute for National Security Studies in the United States. He described a system of intelligence sensors, command and control systems, and precision weapons that provided
situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...
, rapid target assessment, and distributed weapon assignment. Also in 1996, the United States'
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
released ''Joint Vision 2010'', which introduced the military concept of
full-spectrum dominance Full-spectrum dominance also known as full-spectrum superiority, is a military entity's achievement of control over all dimensions of the battlespace, effectively possessing an overwhelming diversity of resources in such areas as terrestrial, a ...
. Full Spectrum Dominance described the ability of the
US military The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six Military branch, service branches: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States N ...
to dominate the
battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve milit ...
from peace operations through to the outright application of military power that stemmed from the advantages of
information superiority Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
.


''Network Centric Warfare''

The term "network-centric warfare" and associated concepts first appeared in the United States Department of Navy's publication, "Copernicus: C4ISR for the 21st Century." The ideas of networking sensors, commanders, and shooters to flatten the hierarchy, reduce the operational pause, enhance precision, and increase speed of command were captured in this document. As a distinct concept, however, network-centric warfare first appeared publicly in a 1998
US Naval Institute The United States Naval Institute (USNI) is a private non-profit military association that offers independent, nonpartisan forums for debate of national security issues. In addition to publishing magazines and books, the Naval Institute holds se ...
Proceedings article by Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and John Garstka. However, the first complete articulation of the idea was contained in the book ''Network Centric Warfare : Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority'' by
David S. Alberts David Stephen Alberts (born 1942) is a former American Director of Research for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (NII). Biography David S. Alberts did his undergraduate work was at Cit ...
, John Garstka and Frederick Stein, published by the
Command and Control Research Program The Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) was an active DoD Research Program from 1994 to 2015. It was housed within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (NII) and it focused upon (1) improving both the state of the art and the ...
(CCRP). This book derived a new theory of warfare from a series of case studies on how business was using information and communication technologies to improve situation analysis, accurately control inventory and production, as well as monitor customer relations.


''Understanding Information Age Warfare''

''Network-centric warfare'' was followed in 2001 by ''Understanding Information Age Warfare'' (UIAW), jointly authored by Alberts, Garstka, Richard Hayes of Evidence Based Research and David A. Signori of RAND. ''UIAW'' pushed the implications of the shifts identified by network-centric warfare in order to derive an operational theory of warfare. Starting with a series of premises on how the environment is sensed, ''UIAW'' describes three domains. The first is a ''physical domain'', where events take place and are perceived by sensors and people. Data emerging from the physical domain is transmitted through an ''information domain''. It is processed in a ''cognitive domain'' before being acted upon. The process is similar to a "observe, orient, decide, act" loop described by Col. John Boyd of the
USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
.


''Power to the Edge''

The last publication dealing with the developing theory of network centric warfare appeared in 2003 with '' Power to the Edge'', also published by the CCRP. ''Power to the Edge'' is a speculative work suggesting that modern military environments are far too complex to be understood by any one individual, organisation, or even military service. Modern information technology permits the rapid and effective sharing of information to such a degree that "edge entities" or those that are essentially conducting military missions themselves, should be able to "pull" information from ubiquitous repositories, rather than having centralised agencies attempt to anticipate their information needs and "push" it to them. This would imply a major flattening of traditional military hierarchies, however. ''Power To The Edges radical ideas had been under investigation by
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
since at least 2001. In ''UIAW'', the concept of
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
activity combined with more traditional
hierarchical A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
flow of data in the network had been introduced. Shortly thereafter, the Pentagon began investing in peer-to-peer research, telling software engineers at a November 2001 peer-to-peer conference that there were advantages to be gained in the redundancy and robustness of a peer-to-peer
network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements ( links, nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, including command and contr ...
on the battlefield. Network-centric warfare/operations is a cornerstone of the ongoing transformation effort at the Department of Defense initiated by former
Secretary of Defense A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in so ...
Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Preside ...
. It is also one of the five goals of the Office of Force Transformation,
Office of the Secretary of Defense The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is a headquarters-level staff of the United States Department of Defense. It is the principal civilian staff element of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out aut ...
. See Revolution in Military Affairs for further information on what is now known as "defense transformation" or "transformation".


Related technologies and programs

The US DOD has mandated that the
Global Information Grid The Global Information Grid (GIG) is a network of information transmission and processing maintained by the United States Department of Defense. More descriptively, it is a worldwide network of information transmission, of associated processes, a ...
(GIG) will be the primary technical framework to support US network-centric warfare/network-centric operations. Under this directive, all advanced
weapons platform A weapons platform is generally any structure, vehicle or mechanism on which a weapon can be installed (via various mounting mechanisms) for optimal stability and performance. The mounted weapons, the platform and all other associated supportin ...
s, sensor systems, and command and control centers are eventually to be linked via the GIG. The term system of systems is often used to describe 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 The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
and the BCT Network of the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...
. Net-Centric Enterprise Solutions for Interoperability (NESI) provides, for all phases of the acquisition of net-centric solutions, actionable guidance that meets network-centric warfare goals of the United States Department of Defense. The guidance in NESI is derived from the higher level, more abstract concepts provided in various directives, policies and mandates such as the Net-Centric Operations and Warfare Reference Model (NCOW RM) and the ASD(NII) Net-Centric Checklist.


Doctrinal tenets in United States

The doctrine of network-centric warfare 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, ranging from
Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
to
Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...
to
Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to ...
. This is part of the principle of joint warfare. The tenets of network-centric warfare are: * Tenet 1: A robustly networked force improves information sharing. * Tenet 2: Information sharing and collaboration enhance the quality of information and shared
situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...
. * Tenet 3: Shared situational awareness enables self-
synchronization Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are said to be synchronou ...
. * Tenet 4: These, in turn, dramatically increase mission effectiveness. Net-Centric operations are compatible with Mission Command doctrine, which theoretically allows considerable freedom of action for combat troops, and with more decentralized approaches to
Command and Control Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ...
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
employs human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization o ...
(C2).


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 Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by ...
for battlefield communications that will be backwards compatible with a very large number of other military and civilian radio systems. * An April 10, 2008 GAO report
GAO FCS report
highlighted the scalability of the network as a major risk factor to the Network Centric FCS program. The proposed system will be unable to network all the units into one self-forming, self-healing network. * 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 Multilevel security or multiple levels of security (MLS) is the application of a computer system to process information with incompatible classifications (i.e., at different security levels), permit access by users with different security clearan ...
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 The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite ...
(GPS) coverage is weak or non-existent. These areas include the inside of buildings, caves, etc. as well as built-up areas and urban canyons, which are also 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 network-centric warfare/network-centric operations is difficult, since successful
key management Key management refers to management of cryptographic keys in a cryptosystem. This includes dealing with the generation, exchange, storage, use, crypto-shredding (destruction) and replacement of keys. It includes cryptographic protocol design, ...
for
encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can d ...
is typically the most difficult aspect of
cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adv ...
, 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. The NATO Command Structure and many NATO and non-NATO nations have joined the
Federated Mission Networking Federated Mission Networking (FMN) is a significant initiative to help ensure interoperability and operational effectiveness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is a key contribution to the Connected Forces Initiative, helping Allied and ...
(FMN) initiative and work together under the FMN Framework Process to coordinate the design, development and delivery of operational and technical capabilities required to conduct net-centric operations. Within the Alliance the
NATO Interoperability Standards and Profiles Description NATO, through its interoperability directive, has recognized that widespread interoperability is a key component in achieving effective and efficient operations. In many of the operations world-wide in which NATO nations are engaged, the ...
(NISP) provides the necessary guidance and technical components to support project implementations and
Federated Mission Networking Federated Mission Networking (FMN) is a significant initiative to help ensure interoperability and operational effectiveness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it is a key contribution to the Connected Forces Initiative, helping Allied and ...
. Individual ''Standardization Agreements'' are the coordinating vehicle for establishing shared technical standards among
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
nations. See also
Partnership for Peace The Partnership for Peace (PfP; french: Partenariat pour la paix) is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet state ...
for information on extending coordination efforts to non-NATO nations that are keen to support
military operations other than war Military operations other than war (MOOTW) focus on deterring war, resolving conflict, promoting peace, and supporting civil authorities in response to domestic crises. The phrase and acronym were coined by the United States military during the ...
activities, such as international peacekeeping, disaster response, humanitarian aid, etc.


Supporting comments

"With less than half of the
ground forces An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
and two-thirds of the military aircraft used 12 years ago in
Desert Storm The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases ...
, 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 A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions ...
,
brigade A brigade is a major tactical military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute a division. ...
, and division commanders had to rely on maps, grease pencils, and radio reports to track the movements of our forces. Today, our
commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...
s have a real-time display of our armed forces on their computer screen."
—former
Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...
Richard Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...
.
"Net-centric warfare's effectiveness has greatly improved in 12 years. Desert Storm forces, involving more than 500,000 troops, were supported with 100
Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...
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."
Lieutenant general Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on th ...
Harry D. Raduege Jr, director,
Defense Information Systems Agency The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) until 1991, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians, and contractors. DISA pro ...
.


Contradictory views

The aspiration of the
Australian Defence Force The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia and its national interests. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Fo ...
(ADF) to embrace network-centric warfare 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.Blenkin, Max
AAP General News
(Australia), 9/17/2003
Network centric warfare is criticized by proponents of
Fourth Generation Warfare Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. The term was first used in 1980 by a team of United States analysts, including William S. Lind, to descri ...
(4GW) doctrine. Also, since Network-centric warfare focuses so much on distributing information, one has to be wary of the effect of false, misleading, or misinterpreted information entering the system, be it through enemy deception or simple error. Just as the usefulness of correct information can be amplified, so too can the repercussions of incorrect data entering the system achieve much greater non-positive outcomes. One way that this can happen is through errors in initial conditions in an uncorrected, closed system that subsequently skew result-sets; the result-sets are then reused, amplifying the initial error by orders of magnitude in subsequent generations of result-sets; see
chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to hav ...
. Other possible
failure mode Failure causes are defects in design, process, quality, or part application, which are the underlying cause of a failure or which initiate a process which leads to failure. Where failure depends on the user of the product or process, then human e ...
s or problem areas in network-centric warfare include the occurrence of the Byzantine generals' problem in
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
systems; problems caused by an inadequate or a shallow understanding of (or general disregard for) self-regulation, self-organization,
systems theory Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
, emergent behavior and
cybernetics Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson ma ...
; in addition to this, there are potential issues arising from the very nature of any complex, rapidly developed artificial system arising from complexity theory, which implies the possibility of failure modes such as
congestion collapse Network congestion in data networking and queueing theory is the reduced quality of service that occurs when a network node or link is carrying more data than it can handle. Typical effects include queueing delay, packet loss or the blocking ...
or
cascading failure A cascading failure is a failure in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts leads to the failure of other parts, growing progressively as a result of positive feedback. This can occur when a single part fails, in ...
.


See also

* Autonomous logistics *
Battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve milit ...
*
C4ISTAR Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...
*
Cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyber attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation or economic ...
*
Information warfare Information warfare (IW) (as different from cyber warfare that attacks computers, software, and command control systems) is a concept involving the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a ...
*
List of cyber warfare forces Many countries around the world maintain military units that are specifically trained to operate in a cyberwarfare environment. In several cases this units acts also as the national computer emergency response team for civilian cybersecurity threa ...
*
Network simulator In computer network research, network simulation is a technique whereby a software program replicates the behavior of a real network. This is achieved by calculating the interactions between the different network entities such as routers, switche ...


References


External links


The OASD-NII Command and Control Research Program (CCRP)

Net-Centric Enterprise Solutions for Interoperability (NESI)


* Army War College article: Principles of Warfare on the Network-Centric Battlefield
globalsecurity.org

C4I.org - Computer Security & Intelligence
{{Authority control Net-centric Command and control United States Department of Defense doctrine Information operations and warfare