COMMAND in a NETWORK-CENTRIC WAR EDUCATION LEADERSHIP and MILITARY by Colonel Pierre Forgues

Base Photox Halifax by: Cpl Stephane Gervais, HSD19998201-001 The operations room of HMCS Athabaskan during a STANAVFORLANT exercise. COMMAND IN A NETWORK-CENTRIC WAR EDUCATION LEADERSHIP AND MILITARY by Colonel Pierre Forgues Far from determining the essence of command, INFORMATION SUPERIORITY then, communication and information processing technology merely constitutes one part of the n the industrialized world, the second half of the 20th general environment in which command operates. I century saw exponential growth in reliance on Information Technology (IT). Sophisticated computer Martin van Creveld and communication systems are now at the core of every Command in War, 1985 aspect of traditional military operations, most notably command and control, intelligence, transport and logis- normous advances in information technology tics. Driven by a progression of startling advances in the have in recent years enabled the development civilian sector, the rate of development and integration of increasingly capable and sophisticated mili- of IT systems into military affairs is not likely to dimin- tary command and control systems. In the ish. The relatively low cost of computers and software United States, a concept known as ‘Network- makes it possible to extend the capabilities to users at ECentric Warfare’ has been advanced as a means of trans- all levels of the organization, with the result that all forming information superiority into an advantage on the functions, regardless of significance, can be served by physical battlefield. The concept has been fully endorsed and depend on this technology. The result of this heavy by the United States Navy, and is recognized by the dependence on IT by military and civilian organizations Canadian Navy as a capability that must be achieved.1 has, however, led to new vulnerabilities that can be exploited in conflict and, thus, to the concept of What, then, is Network-Centric Warfare (NCW), and ‘Information Warfare’ (IW). how is it likely to affect the operational commander? Our examination of this concept begins with an expla- The term ‘Information Warfare’ was first used in the nation of what is meant by ‘information superiority’, 1970s, but it was not until the 1990s that the US and is followed by a description of the essential charac- Department of Defense (DoD) revealed the existence of teristics of an NCW environment. The impact of this command and control warfare concepts as a subset of highly automated environment is then analyzed by the broader field of IW.2 Since that time, defence agen- means of its effects on the underlying principles and cies and the information security industry have studied functions of command. This paper concludes that a network-centric environment cannot alter the essential Colonel Pierre Forgues is Headquarters Commanding Officer/A5 Review human attributes of command in war. and Corporate Services in 1 Canadian Air Division Headquarters. Summer 2001 G Canadian Military Journal 23 the impact of information warfare on military and civil- inant across the full spectrum of military operations — ian organizations with a view to determining how best persuasive in peace, decisive in war, pre-eminent in any to protect critical infrastructure. The US concern over form of conflict.”5 the threat posed by the vulnerability of IT systems led to a plan for the protection of vital information infrastruc- The role of information technology as the catalyst ture which was promulgated by a Presidential executive of the transformation is stressed in the JCS document. It order in 1996. asserts that the end goal of ‘full spectrum dominance’ — which will be achieved through the application of “dom- Military doctrine has recently delineated how offen- inant maneuver, precision engagement, focused logis- sive and defensive military operations might be con- tics, and full dimensional protection” — can be ducted in the new environment of cyberspace. In achieved only by realizing the full potential of the infor- Canada, the CF Information Operations manual was mation revolution. published in April 1998, followed by the American manual, Doctrine for Joint Information Operations, in Information superiority, touted by Joint Vision 2020 October 1998. The two national doctrines are very sim- as a key ‘enabler’ of the future joint force, is defined as ilar, and the definition of terms is consistent between “the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s ability to do the same.”6 This capability, it is suggested, will provide the joint force a competitive advantage that will allow the force to operate freely in a ‘global information grid’. The development of this information grid will provide the network-centric environment required to achieve the goal of a fully synchronized information campaign. Information superiority is therefore analogous to air superiority. One seeks control of airspace, while the other aims to dominate cyberspace. Both are a means to an end, and both are valued for their ability to affect the accomplishment of military objectives. Without air superiority, all elements of a joint force are vulnerable to air attack. Similarly, without information superiority, all elements of a joint force are subject to DND Photo by: Sgt. Stephen Roy, ISD01-4069 DND Photo by: Sgt. Stephen Roy, interference, with the added vulnerabil- The operations room of HMCS Charlottetown: ready for network-centric command and control. ity that the theatre of operation in cyberspace is not constrained by geog- the two publications. ‘Information operations’ has been raphy. If the global information grid envisioned in defined as actions taken across the full spectrum, from Joint Vision 2020 is penetrated, attacks in cyberspace peace to war, to affect adversary information and infor- will be able to reach civilian and military targets mation systems while defending one’s own information across the globe, and at the speed of light. systems. ‘Information warfare’ is information operations conducted during time of crisis or conflict. NETWORK-CENTRIC WARFARE ‘Information superiority’ is the outcome of successful information operations where the flow of information is etwork-Centric Warfare (NCW) represents the next enabled for friendly forces and denied to the enemy.3 Nstep in the evolution of military thinking about IT and its impact on the conduct of operations. Information In 1996, prior to the publication of the doctrine Operations doctrine has thus far been limited to a manuals noted above, the concept of information superi- description of how to conduct offensive and defensive ority was identified in the US Joint Chiefs of Staff doc- action in cyberspace so as to gain information superior- ument, Joint Vision 2010, as a factor of “emerging ity. The emerging concept of NCW is likely to lead to importance”.4 Since then, the concept of information the development of doctrine that describes how the mil- superiority has continued to evolve and grow in impor- itary should organize itself to capitalize on the advan- tance, and figures prominently in the sequel document, tage provided by information superiority to conduct Joint Vision 2020, published in June 2000. In this latest operations in the physical space. document, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs describes his outlook on the nature and capability of the US Vice-Admiral Arthur Cebrowski of the US Navy armed forces in twenty years, and the transformation described the NCW concept in his seminal article, that will be necessary to bring about the new capabili- “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future”7, ties. The end state he envisions is a force “that is dom- where he argues that advances in information technolo- 24 Canadian Military Journal G Summer 2001 gy are causing military operations to shift from plat- access to mission-critical information (such as weather form-centric warfare to network-centric warfare. and intelligence). They will be able to communicate with widely-dispersed forces using secure e-mail and The NCW concept has already been fully embraced video teleconferencing. by the US Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations is quot- ed in the January 2000 edition of the Navy public affairs Two other interoperable networks will provide the journal as stating that “NCW will be the US Navy’s NCW sensor and engagement grid capability. The organizing principle in the next century”.8 The literature secure Link 16 Joint Tactical Information Distribution is now replete with endorsements of the novel concept System (JTIDS) or the Multifunction Information where “mutually shared information and a common tac- Distribution System (MIDS) digital data radios now tical picture will permit coherent employment of the being deployed on ships and aircraft will fulfill the entire naval force as a single synergistic entity.”9 While requirements of the sensor grid. The JTIDS and MIDS very little has been written about NCW outside of naval terminals will automatically report friendly positional circles, the applicability of the concept to all military data, as well as known locations of enemy platforms for operations seems obvious. display over the network. The Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) will combine high-performance sen- In his article, Admiral Cebrowski describes the sor and engagement grids. CEC-equipped ships and air- structural model required to carry out NCW, consisting craft will operate as a single distributed air-defense sys- of information, sensor and engagement grids. The infor- tem, passing target data across the entire force in real mation grid — the computer and communications tech- time. The CEC will ‘fuse’ the data from the various plat- nology that enables the passing of large amounts of data forms to develop a target track with much greater accu- through interconnected and interoperable networks — racy than would be possible using any one sensor. Initial provides the backbone for the sensor and engagement operational capability was achieved in 1996 in a test grids. Sensor grids collect data from dispersed sensors with the USS Eisenhower carrier battle group.

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