Finding Alligators: The Future of Network-centric Warfare

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

- Charles H. Duell, Office of Patents, 1899

The Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) interest in networked operations is hardly recent, although it may seem so at times. Since the 1991 Gulf War, Australian military professionals have understood that better networked forces would be one of the key aspects of the future battlespace. Since that time, in various guises, we have been developing a range of networking capabilities in all three Australian services but usually with an environmental rather than a holistic or joint focus. For the ADF, network-centric warfare (NCW) is a means to an end and not an end in itself. We anticipate that it will assist us to achieve the strategic priorities that the government has given us—namely the defence of Australia and its national interests, and support for allies and friends.

Within the ADF, the NCW program office has been established and a network implementation team has commenced its work. Moreover, the Defence Department has devised and is implementing the NCW Roadmap. In the face of these developments, it is time to begin exploring what lies a little further down the road in the evolution of networking.

It is time to look forward in order to try to identify those alligators that may in time, disrupt our collective boat on the journey towards a networked and seamless defence force. This article seeks to pose a variety of questions about NCW by relating the process of networking to the intellectual study of the future security environment. Identifying the key drivers of the future security environment is an exercise that the ADF has become intimately involved with over the course of the past decade. However, the aim of this article is not to cover the precepts or costs and benefits of NCW.

In his book Foundations of Future Studies¹, the Canadian scholar, Professor Wendell Bell, examines the history of futurology and the aims of what is often called futures studies, along with its linkages to strategic planning. This article will examine the future of networked warfighting through the lens of Bell’s interesting work. In particular, the framework of Bell’s nine assumptions about future studies will be employed as a starting point to pose some questions that may be at the heart of networked warfighting.

Assumption 1: 'Time is Continuous, Linear, Unidirectional and Irreversible'²

Professor Bell’s statement alerts us to the problem of time in achieving military modernisation. In the history of military innovation, the length of time taken to implement significant change is generally between ten and twenty years. Such a gestation period approximates to an entire Army career. Over a period spanning up to two decades, an officer moves from a lieutenant in command of a platoon to eventually assume the rank of lieutenant colonel in command of a battalion. Indeed, most military innovation in the 20th century has occurred not only over a long period, but also generally in between conflicts.³

A good example of the phenomenon of lengthy innovation is the development of carrier-based aviation between the world wars. The inter-war period was an era in which enemies such as Japan and Germany could be identified and military organisations such as the US Navy could concentrate on preparing for a war at sea in which naval aviation would play a key role. In short, in the 1920s and 1930s, military organisations possessed the precious commodity of time to innovate and develop their force structures and weapons systems. In the early 21st century we no longer have the luxury of time or of clearly defined opponents.

The character of warfare has changed over the past decade and, as a result, we face a variety of transnational adversaries and other non-state actors intent on avoiding traditional interstate combat while seeking to change the global security environment.

In an era of asymmetry and surprise attack, Western militaries no longer have the breathing space of ‘inter-war’ periods to innovate and change. Indeed, in retrospect, the 1990s proved to be an inter-war decade; however, given the first Gulf War, multiple peace enforcement operations and crises in Bosnia and Somalia, few security analysts recognised those years in such a way. In the first quarter of the 21st century, we may be constantly involved in military operations; as a result, our efforts at innovation and attempts at organisational change must occur in the midst of deployments. Because of such realities, any form of innovation—including NCW—must involve a greater degree of risk than it did in the 20th century. One could argue that NCW is an initiative in our Defence Force that is being implemented in a wartime environment, albeit one that does not involve mass military mobilisation on the 20th-century model.

While it is arguable whether Australia is at war in the traditional interstate sense, we must move forward and not wait for a more ‘peaceful’ period in which to network our force. It is precisely because of this reality that the ADF adopted a ‘learn by doing’ approach to the NCW program.⁴ It is a conceptual approach to change that accepts that mistakes will be made in the development of networked forces. However, if it is accepted that we are in a period of prolonged conflict, too much focus on organisational change such as NCW may have the effect of compromising current operations. The lack of a classic ‘inter-war period’ means that achieving a correct balance of investment between current and future operations is more important now than ever before. A reasoned assessment of this balance will determine whether or not we can afford NCW as we currently envision the initiative.

Assumption 2: 'Not Everything that will exist has existed or does exist'⁵

In many respects, Bell’s second assumption contradicts the old saying that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. Whether something is new is, of course, partly a matter of perception. For example, to the Germans in 1940, Blitzkrieg doctrine represented an evolution in warfare based on twenty years of reflection on the lessons of World War I. Blitzkrieg was a technique that combined some older capabilities such as combined arms warfare and indirect artillery fire with some new ones such as mechanisation, tactical aviation and radio communications. For the French, however, the 1940 Blitzkrieg represented the shock of the new and unknown, as can be seen by the results of German operations in the Ardennes and around Sedan.

Similarly, as Bell’s second assumption suggests, NCW is an aggregation of existing and emerging concepts and technologies. However, it is the emergent properties of NCW that hold the possibility of innovation in terms of linking sensors, weapons systems and command support elements to achieve a more collaborative approach to decision-making in combat. The people that will use the enhanced networks in a decade from now will not be those that grew up without the Internet. In 2015, networks will be dominated by those that cannot imagine a time without 24-hour access to mobile phones with digital cameras. NCW technologies of the future are likely to include some foreseen but also some new and disruptive innovation. As a result, we may discover that 20th-century methods and organisations may not be suitable for future challenges. If military forces are to engage in enhanced networking and eventually make connectivity as reliable as combustion engines, one side-effect may be to invalidate many of the underpinnings of our current organisations and styles of command and control.

Assumption 3: 'We can't consciously act without thinking about the future'⁶

Strategic planning, that is long-term planning, is an essential component of any approach to the development and implementation of a NCW system. As the late American scholar, Carl Builder, once wrote, ‘every organisation needs an idea of itself—a concept, a strategy, a notion of who it is and what it wants to be, of what it is about and what it wants to be about. A concept which is a source of inspiration and a means for explaining its actions, if only to itself’.⁷ [sic]

The ADF’s NCW Roadmap provides some useful insights into what the Australian military aspires to be. Networking is a combat support system and is aimed at making our military personnel more effective at warfighting.

Accordingly, a vision of the future ADF is required that encompasses our aspirations for NCW. While we have taken the first steps with prescriptive documents such as Force 2020 (2002) and the Future Warfighting Concept (2003), it is not apparent that the ADF yet has a coherent view of future warfare and of the effects that may be generated by new weapons technology.

Other nations have attempted to grapple with future warfare planning through assorted ‘transformation plans’. The best known of these is the United States Department of Defense approach as seen through the Office of Force Transformation headed, until recently, by Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski. While the use of the term transformation engenders a degree of resistance within the ADF, we need to consider a similar program. Such a program is necessary in order to ensure that we are able to measure the effectiveness of the implementation of NCW and balance investment in networking against other vital components of capability in the future ADF.

Assumption 4: 'In making our way in the world, both individually and collectively, the most useful knowledge is knowledge of the future'⁸

One of the most important aspects of activity in the work of any modern military organisation is the effort to explore the contours of the likely future security environment. Currently, such study is focused on examining globalisation, demographic trends and the structure of international relations. In terms of implementing NCW, however, it is the examination of the impact of technology that is the most important feature of futures analysis.

While ADF efforts in the field of future technology remain in their infancy, there are already interesting questions related to NCW in the areas of quantum computing and quantum encryption. For example, if we are, in the future, able to develop and employ quantum encryption (as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently demonstrated), such a development would enhance the reliability of information shared in the network. Encrypted information systems may act to increase the level of trust in networked systems, and such communications may mean that signal intelligence capabilities may begin to become obsolete.

Another useful tool in the development of futures analysis is our experimentation capability. Experimentation offers a military organisation the ability to explore potential futures—across a range of subject areas—prior to investment in highly sophisticated and very expensive new weapons, sensor, transportation, and communications systems. In the ADF we must ensure that we employ experimentation in a way that enables us to make the best decisions about the level of networking that is possible and desirable.

Assumption 5: ‘The future can’t be observed, and therefore there are no facts about the future’⁹

Military organisations are often accused of designing the future rather than predicting it. In stating that NCW will deliver a range of benefits, we are assuming that the ADF’s specific design will succeed. Yet there is no certainty that NCW will significantly enhance the way we as a military force conduct operations. Does, then, the ADF need a hedging strategy in case the NCW experiment falls short of expectations in terms of delivering decision superiority within the battlespace? In the ADF we need to be aware of the law of unintended consequences in the sense that collaborative and devolved decision-making via networks may cause information overload, command gridlock and even a degree of chaos in operations.

Assumption 6: ‘The future is not totally pre-determined’¹⁰

In the future an Australian networked military force may well not conform to our assumptions. This lack of conformity between assumption and reality may emerge simply because the single services tend to design their future operations around current (or slightly modified) forces with an overlay of network improvements based on today’s knowledge. In 1914 the European armies expected to fight a more sophisticated version of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War or, at worst, of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. Very few military analysts anticipated a trench warfare deadlock on the Western Front. Similarly, the reality in the early 21st century may be that future networks will create an operational environment that cannot be anticipated or predetermined. 

The professional military inclination is always to seek to control change since control means order and predictability. It is a military characteristic to try to plan, to the last detail, the evolution of the ADF’s networked force. Yet it is almost certain that the consequences of networking the force will contain unpredictable features.

Unpredictability should not be feared. It is a situation that can be advantageous in the sense that such a situation is capable of yielding opportunities. The ADF needs to introduce the network and follow its implications in a ‘learn by doing’ approach. In his book on the Manhattan Project of the 1940s to construct the first atomic bomb, US Brigadier General Leslie Groves, who directed the project, noted that ‘nothing would be more fatal to [American atomic] success than to try to arrive at a perfect plan before taking any important step’.¹¹ It is necessary for the ADF to adopt Groves’s philosophy in the implementation of the NCW Roadmap. The latter provides us with a general direction, but we must possess the imagination to exploit unforeseen opportunities as they arise.

Assumption 7: ‘To a greater or lesser degree, future outcomes can be influenced by individual and collective action’¹²

At a 2004 conference on NCW in Tondon, the theory of networking and its possible implications in the human dimension were subjects of discussion. Interestingly, the theoretical sessions attracted over 150 delegates. In contrast, discussion of the all-important human dimension was confined to little more than a dozen conference participants. Yet the future of NCW as a theory of war is dependent on the interaction of the network with human beings. In the ADF, we have sought to ensure that the human dimension of networked warfare is not neglected and a study team led by Leoni Warne has attempted to develop insights into what a networked force may mean for the individual warfighter.

Several of the Warne team’s findings are of interest. First, the team found that the element of human trust is vital to networking. A military technical network does not negate the requirement for individual and group relationships. On the contrary, information-sharing and collaboration require interpersonal skills and a degree of group interaction. Second, for successful networking to occur, the study team found a distinct requirement for a robust military education and training system that is both joint and professional. Such a system would produce high-quality personnel. In other words, the ADF needs to invest in human intellectual capital as much as technology. 

What financial investment advisers call the miracle of compound interest may be applicable in the human dimension of NCW. Such an investment in human intellectual capital requires that the professional military education continuum include areas such as economics, geopolitics and technology as subjects of study. In an age of whole-of-government security strategy military professionals require an expanded curriculum and a broad-based education.

Assumption 8: ‘Interdependence in the world invites a holistic perspective and a trans-disciplinary approach’¹³

In the ADF’s projected NCW Roadmap, the Military Strategy Branch recommended a more holistic approach to developing military capability. Such a holistic approach to implementing NCW will require more than examining intended and unintended overlaps in capability and various enhancements to equipment connectivity. Rather, a robust NCW capability should be concentrated on enhancing interdepartmental connectivity, and forging common staff and organisational procedures. To this end, the ADF has become involved in exploring what has been termed a national effects-based approach to strategy. To date, this approach has primarily examined the procedural aspects of interdepartmental coordination as an important aspect of our NCW implementation in both the human and technical dimensions of different organisational cultures. A national effects-based strategy demands wide synchronisation of activities through a harnessing and channelling of the diversity among different departments.

Another important aspect of NCW involves examining the convergence of different types of technological innovation. The focus on networking development has been through the lens of information technology. Yet, it is clear that a range of other disciplines—such as quantum effects, nanotechnology, bio-nanotechnology biotechnology and genomics—may, in the future, influence the ADF’s capacity to develop a better-networked force. The road to an efficient networked force requires a multi-disciplinary intellectual approach.

Assumption 9: ‘Some futures are better than others’¹⁴

A neglected area of NCW endeavour is the ethical dilemmas involved in networking. Ethics and networking are related in that information overload is a hazard of information systems. Recourse to automated decision-making and artificial intelligence systems as a means of dealing with the huge quantity of data delivered raises an ethical dilemma. This dilemma concerns how much decision-making should be devolved to machines when that decision-making vitally affects military personnel in the battlespace. This is a fundamental question that may have to be addressed in the ADF’s search for better connectivity and collaboration.

Conclusion

In the past twelve months, the Chief of the Defence Force and the respective Service Chiefs have endorsed the concept of a future networked force within the ADF. The ADF’s Military Strategy Branch has developed a NCW Roadmap, and an NCW Program Office and Implementation Team has been established. A Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program is also about to begin operating in 2005. Yet our implementation of networked warfighting demands that we continue to engage in a rigorous intellectual examination of the basics of the concept. Important questions remain unanswered as we forge into a future that is uncertain and unknown. For example, what is an appropriate balance of investment in NCW as opposed to other elements of military force development?

Will NCW deliver military professionals the kind of capabilities that they anticipate? We can be sure of only one factor: futures analysis, being a human activity, is always hazardous, with great margins for error. In many ways, when examining the future, the journey is as important as the destination. A methodology of analysis and how to develop sound analytical assessment can be a valuable product of futures analysis. In this respect, the alligators are ever present and they surround the ship of the future. We can only avoid a collision with the alligators if our navigation is sure and our capacity to react and change as circumstances demand has been honed by intellectual rigour.

Endnotes

1    Wendell Bell, Foundations of Future Studies: Human Science for a New Era, vol. I, History, Purposes, and Knowledge, Transaction Publishers, Piscataway, NJ, 1997.

2    Ibid., p. 140.

3    For an in-depth examination of inter-war innovation, see Stephen Peter. Rosen, Innovation and the Modern Military: Winning the Next War, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991, ch. 3.

4    Department of Defence, Enabling Future Warfighting: Network Centric Warfare, Canberra, 2004, p. 4-2.

5    Bell, Foundations of Future Studies, p. 141.

6    Ibid., p. 142.

7    Quoted in Michael Evans, The Continental School of Strategy: The Past, Present and Future of Land Power, Study Paper no. 305, Land Warfare Studies Centre, Canberra, 2004, p. 5.

8    Bell, Foundations of Future Studies, p. 144.

9    Ibid., p. 148.

10  Ibid., p. 150.

11  Leslie M. Groves, Now it can be told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, Da Capo Press, New York, 1983.

12  Bell, Foundations of Future Studies, p. 154.

13  Ibid., p. 155.

14  Ibid., p. 157.