The Navy is moving from a Network-Centric warfare philosophy to an Information-Centric one. “It (Information Warfare) acknowledges that information itself, not its technology architecture or the Navy’s command and control structure, is the key to enabling effective maritime superiority (Signal Magazine, December 2009)”. The infrastructure is still important – don’t dump one for the other.
Military Commanders will always want more information for decision-making, not less and information that is closer to real time. The increasing urbanization of conflict means battle closer to population centers and the chance for involving non-combatants. There is a very real reluctance to engage when collateral damage is a possibility, a reluctance felt mainly by the United States and other allied nations. (A distinct, but necessary disadvantage that requires mitigation) Information that is timely, relevant and actionable will aid decision-making and allow commanders to take appropriate action, while there is an opportunity for greater success and less risk.
“The Navy must be more focused on how information is derived, developed and moved to the right customer at the right time in the right way, states Admiral Gary Roughead. This is the key to providing the Navy with an information dominance advantage that will be extraordinarily important in the future (Signal Magazine, December 2009)”.
Certainly information is important – vitally important and a distinct advantage over an adversary. However, the types of information needed for informed decision making often contain large amounts of data, a high series of high-resolution still photographs will utilize on level of transmission, and streaming video from a submarine periscope will require another. This means more bandwidth then currently available or better data compression technology (or both) – all infrastructure concerns that should keep the net-centric philosophy current. Admiral Roughead also has other concerns.
“Antennas may hold the key, Adm. Roughead offers, we in the Navy can talk about a bandwidth problem, but I don’t believe we cannot say it is not an antenna problem. Issues such as bandwidth usage may be explored, but antenna solutions also can be helpful—and that is the path the Navy will be taking, he says.”
The Navy is hopefully on the right path – they cannot afford to shelve the net-centric philosophy, but should expand it to recognize the importance of what travels over the network – and why. One philosophy is no more important than the other. A network is useless without information, likewise efficiently collected information is no good if unused because of an inefficient network.
Comments