The ANI has covered new warfighting concepts in its various publications during its 50 years. A notable one was network centric warfare (NCW), also known as Network Centric Operations (NCO), which championed by the US Department of Defense in the 1990s. Admiral Jay Johnson, the former US Chief of Naval Operations wrote, “The information revolution has fundamentally changed the nature of naval warfare. The battlefield of the 21st century will be one in which the force with mastery of the information spectrum will prevail, making information superiority critical to our warfighting success.”
The Summer 2001-2 edition of the Journal of the Australian Naval Institute contained a number of NCW articles, including one by Commander Vern Dutschke on how the USN viewed NCO.
Network-Centric Operations – Naval Operations in the Information Age
The USN is committed to adopting Network Centric Operations (NCO) as the concept for US naval operations in the future. What are NCO, and why has NCO and its supporting concepts attracted the USN to use it as a means to achieve the vision of enabling it to decisively influence future events at sea and ashore – Anytime, Anywhere? This article summarises the Navy Warfare Development Command’s – NCO concept, which articulates the USN’s shift from platform-centric operations to NCO.
Advances in Information Technology are changing the way we live, the way we do business and the way we fight. In this “Information Age”, information is increasingly becoming a source of power. In order to succeed or survive, all organisations, civilian and military alike, must successfully exploit the power of information, from rapidly gathering data through to making informed and effective decisions. Successful organisations are exploiting the new power of the information age to gain a competitive advantage. “Dominant competitors have demonstrated the ability to generate high levels of awareness of what is going on in their respective enterprises and extended business eco-systems. This high level of awareness has been key to both developing strategy and improving effectiveness at the operational level”. NCO is the way naval forces will exploit the information age to achieve a warfighting advantage.
“Network-Centric Warfare can be defined as military operations that exploit state of the art information and networking technology to integrate widely dispersed human decision makers, situational and targeting sensors, and forces and weapons into a highly adaptive, comprehensive system to achieve unprecedented mission effectiveness.”
The NCO concept is the organising principle for future Navy forces in the information age and is a new way of operating these forces. As such, they require a culture of innovation characterised by the co-evolution of dynamically developed doctrine, organisation, and educational underpinnings along with technology. The transition to NCO will not change the validity of enduring doctrine or the principles of warfare, but it will require the development of new doctrine and stronger educational underpinnings that leverage information, knowledge, and advanced technologies in the conduct of decisive, effects-based operations (EBO).
New network-centric forces and capabilities will complement the forces of today and may ultimately replace many of them. Although these emerging forces will be more dispersed, they will use strong networking among more numerous platforms and sensors to create a new synergy that will greatly increase the Navy’s ability to project power and decisively influence events at sea and ashore. At its centre, NCO are about warfighters leveraging the power of technology and new doctrine. NCO pair networking and information technology with effects based operations to achieve the full potential of NCW. EBO, executed by a sensor rich, networked force gives the Navy the ability to lock out enemy options and lock in success. NCO Supporting Concepts The USN will execute NCO using four major supporting concepts:
- Information and Knowledge Advantage.
- Assured Access.
- Effects-Based Operations.
- Forward Sea-Based Forces.
These concepts are heavily interrelated in combat and will be applied concurrently in many situations. Information and Knowledge Advantage is the centra l element that enables and connects the other concepts.
Information and Knowledge Advantage
NCO depend on gaining and retaining an Information and Knowledge Advantage. They focus on what is required to accomplish the commander’s objectives based on a total picture of the adversary and not merely a listing of his order of battle. EBO demands that warfighters understand the enemy’s culture, values, and modes of operation. Commanders can then direct actions against them that provide maximum impact for the given level of effort.
Deployed warfighters must know how the enemy operates and what he values to best know how the enemy’s will can be attacked. Building and sustaining this knowledge base will require a renewed emphasis on a historical-regional expertise that includes doctrine, language. and culture. This knowledge must then he coupled with a Real Time Battlespace Awareness to enable successful effects based planning and execution. Thousands of sensors will be seeded into the battlefield to provide this awareness. Sensors of all types, unmanned, unattended, and platform based, covering all environments will he networked to form a grid to provide battlespace awareness to the warfighter. This sensor grid will expand the existing knowledge base and build an information advantage over the adversary.
The command philosophy of NCO seeks to empower commanders at every level to focus resources on the mission and encourage the inventiveness and initiative of subordinates. To more directly connect the warfighter to the commander, the command organisation will need to be flatter. Information that traditionally has flowed linearly along command lines will flow horizontally throughout the force to provide the basis for common awareness. Operational and tactical planning will be performed collaboratively with realtime coordination, assessment, and reach-back. This flatter command structure and shared awareness will enable self-synchronisation.
Self-synchronisation emerges when units within a force use common information, the commander’s intent, and a common rule set or doctrine to self-organise and accomplish the commander’s objectives. Tactical units will be able to self-synchronise their actions, thus minimising the delays inherent in centralised control. Self-synchronisation enables the force, organised into combined arms tactical teams, to work as a synergistic whole, enhancing speed of manoeuvre and responsiveness.
The quality of knowledge available to the warfighter depends on timely fusion and correlation of information from a diverse range of sensors as well as accurate, responsive target identification. Because the information-know ledge network is such an important tool and weapon, it must be robust, well protected, and designed to degrade gracefully. While actively protecting this network, warfighters will simultaneously use offensive information operations to degrade the opponent’s information systems and networks. Even with an Information and Knowledge Advantage and much better battlespace awareness, the fog, friction, and uncertainty of war will remain. Warfighters on both sides will continue to be surprised and challenged by unexpected outcomes. Using the inherent adaptability of networked forces, warfighters will be able to cope with the unexpected and will be able to exploit its effect on adversary confidence and willpower.
Assured Access
Military access has two dimensions: access to overseas infrastructure (basing, airfields, and logistics support) and access to the battlespace. Current joint operations are dependent on in-theatre shore-based infrastructure to bring significant forces or combat power to bear. Losing this infrastructure access is driving the US to greater self-reliance on sea-based forces that either do not require such access or can sei/e it when needed. The latter – moving into “harm’s way” to sei/e infrastructure or to project power is the focus of Assured Access.
The scope of battlespace access in combat is tied to the mission. Control over an area of sufficient size must be sustained or secured long enough to successfully project combat power. An adversary will strive to make the projection of power as costly as possible. Adversary area-denial strategies are becoming more robust because of the rapid proliferation of increasingly sophisticated and affordable ‘spoiling’ technologies, including information operations. Potential threats include ballistic and cruise missiles, weapons of mass effects, mines, submarines and swarming small boats. Exploitation of. and threats to, the space and information arenas expand the traditional battlespace, and demand assured access in these critical new dimensions.
In order to gain access, semi to fully submersible vessels and survivable aircraft, manned or unmanned, will sow the battlespace wit h sensors, decoys, and countermeasures to prepare the way for an overwhelming effects-based attack. Sensors and unmanned vehicles (some expendable) will assess combat effects, provide target-quality tracks on new targets, and monitor adversary actions. Long-range standoff weapons will engage fixed targets as needed throughout the operation. Early conventional and information operations strikes will target enemy surveillance, information, and defence systems, creating an area to which the adversary is denied access and from which campaign objectives can be achieved.
To be effective in the close-in littoral, forces will need to be made tactically stable by dispersing combat power to enhance force survivability and increase utility. Forces that can operate effectively in the littoral will be characterised by signature control, speed, agility, blue-water endurance, and improved force and platform survivability. Deployment of a mix of forces that includes numbers of geographically dispersed smaller platforms networked to more capable multi-mission units will enable concentration of force by coordinated attacks (concentrating combat power while remaining dispersed).
Effects-Based Operations
EBO emphasise rapid manoeuvre that creates unacceptable change from the adversary’s perspective using effects directed as much against an enemy’s will and belief structure as physical targets. Overwhelming tempo is created in the eyes of the enemy; it need not require rapid manoeuvre or decisions by the warfighters. Manoeuvring network centric forces will employ EBO to rapidly shape or constrain enemy behaviour, interdict the flow and fracture the cohesiveness of his forces, and disrupt his plans. At the tactical level, warfighters will use EBO to gain battlespace depth, reduce the close or extremis battle, and create new options for achieving mission objectives.
EBO focus on actions and reactions and are not limited to the wholesale attrition of physical targets. By creating a common understanding of the battlespace. the adversary and the commander’s intent, NCO enable forces to attack in all three domains of war physical, reason, and belief – in order to alter enemy behaviour directly. The reason domain is the realm of human understanding and decision-making. The belief domain is the realm of morale, leadership, cohesion, and the willingness to risk life and limb. Historical regional knowledge is the primary source for understanding an adversary’s belief and reason domains and is a prerequisite for successful EBO.
Smart targeting will focus on critical nodes and link s at the heart of an enemy’s force. Such selective attacks have the potential to break enemy resistance by striking at the root sources of his combat power. In some cases, decisive rates of attrition may be required to render enemy objectives unachievable. More often, a combination of fires, manoeuvre, information operations, and other techniques will be needed. Information and Knowledge Advantage with its correlated sensors, sensor-target links, and local deconfliction will enable warfighters to identify and interdict targets sooner, often before they become time critical. Aircraft and weapons, loitering or on-call in proximity to expected target areas, will perform armed reconnaissance against mobile or pop-up targets. In dealing with time-critical targets, these highly responsive assets may use onboard sensors to designate, attack, or dynamically re-designate, targets for other air-, surface-, or submarine delivered fires. Stand-off weapons will continue to be used against fixed, area, and moveable targets. They may also be used for suppression of enemy air defences in order to free additional responsive airborne assets for operations against mobile targets.
NCO are focused more on crushing the adversary’s will and undermining his essential warfighting capabilities rather than attrition warfare. Therefore, traditional battle damage assessment will be augmented by other measures of effects. Accurate assessment of EBO will demand new measures and will create new challenges within this evolving concept for warfare. Determining the effectiveness of attacks on an adversary’s systems, pursuant to follow-up actions, will impose new analytical requirements and unique demands on sensors.
Forward Sea-Based Forces
The Forward Sea-Based Forces concept recognises the inherent agility of naval forces and the advantages of operating from the sea. Forward sea based forces are relatively unconstrained, operationally mobile, and capable of sustaining selectable levels of influence and combat power indefinitely. Sea based logistics, fires (including missile defence), sensing, and command, reduce the vulnerability of assets to area denial threats. Naval sensing, fires, defence, and command capabilities are, as never before, being controlled and projected from the sea farther and farther ashore to shape the land battle. The forward posture of naval forces, supported by historical and regional knowledge, enables early sensor operations and surveillance during presence and crisis.
Applying military power from the mobile sea based force frees the ground commander from the constraints of defending and maintaining infrastructure in the face of conventional and asymmetric threats, particularly ballistic missile threats. Sea based forces provide a more secure area from which the joint force commander can conduct reconnaissance, surveillance, and engagement. This does not, however, imply a single large floating support base. Instead, sea based forces are part of the mobile naval combat force and can shift as needed to support land operations including manoeuvre across the extended battlespace.
Naval logistics in a network-centric environment will be more fully integrated into operational planning and execution. The network will be used to anticipate demand and reduce unneeded logistics How. For sustained power projection operations of any considerable scale, prepositioning and strategic sealift, coupled with strategic airlift, remain essential. At the leading edge of combat, however, particularly in the face of an adversary’s area denial strategy, sea based military forces will provide the leverage to establish combat power ashore and prepare for the arrival of traditional propositioned, sealift. and airlift assets. A critical aspect of sea basing forces and capabilities is the network or hardware backplane of information handling tools the vehicle through which information is exploited. A global information grid will complement a variety of information-handling tools in multiple integrated local networks. The seams between these networks will be transparent, and transitioning from one to the next should not require significant action by the warfighter. This hardware backplane will enable shared awareness, synchronised action, and dissemination of orders.
NCO – Advantages and Challenges
NCO will allow coherent operations by forces that were previously not possible. These operations will be characterised by an increased knowledge of the adversary, both historical and real time, to facilitate successful effects based planning and focused execution. This will be achieved through pervasive sensor operations commencing on early indications of conflict and continuing throughout the operation, including new methods of sensing that can measure accomplishment of effects. The information and knowledge advantage coupled wit h a widely promulgated and comprehensive commanders intent, will enable decentralised execution by situation aware tactical forces that can use their shared awareness to self synchronise. These tactical forces will come from all services, they will be widely dispersed, and exchange mission essential data to increase reaction speed. This will create an environment in which the enemy’s behaviour can be shaped and constrained for the successful accomplishment of desired effects.
Implementing NCO will have an impact on every area of the Navy. It will demand significant changes in naval forces and the way they are employed. Doctrine will need to become more dynamic as the effect of the information age continues to evolve. Organisational changes to enable flatter command structures, execution of effects directives and self-synchronisation will require cultural changes and innovation. Producing a new type of warrior with the optimum skill sets will generate training and education challenges. Perhaps the most difficult of all. will be implementing the necessary changes to equipment and force structure needed to exploit the full potential of NCO. Understanding and acquiring the capabilities required, the platforms, sensors and weapons and their linkages that enable these capabilities, and moving from current legacy platforms to these new capabilities, is perhaps the biggest challenge facing the USN.
About the Author
Commander Vern Dutschke DSM RAN wrote this article while serving on exchange at the US Navy Warfare Development Command, Newport, Rhode Island, in the Concept Development Department. He later commanded the frigate HMAS Melbourne, which deployed to the middle East for Operation Catalyst, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He retired from the RAN in 2005 and became an analyst for what is now the Defence Science Technology Group.
