Martin Libicki
A popular Government, without popular information or the means of
acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both. Knowledge will
forever govern ignorance; And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm
themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
JAMES MADISON to W. T. BARRY
August 4, 1822
Prologue
[The] information revolution is creating a Revolution in Military Affairs that will
fundamentally change the way U.S. forces fight . . . [supported by a] "system of
systems" that will give [United States forces] superior battlespace awareness.1
In the weeks leading up to Desert Storm, anxious analysts tried to forecast the
course of war by counting what the coalition and Iraq each brought to the battlefield:
they have this many men, we have that many men; they have this much armor, we have that
much armor; their air fleet is this big; ours is that big. Few doubted which side would
prevail in battle, but many analysts were not so sure the war could be won swiftly and
with acceptable casualties.
Looking back, their worries seem baseless and their correlation of force calculations
almost quaint. Indeed, the coalition may have carried the day almost as well with only
half the forces. By the time the planes came back from Baghdad, Iraq was blind, but the
coalition could see. That, plus precision weapons (and people trained to use them)
determined the outcome. All else was detail.2
The Gulf War suggested that the ability to see the battlespace is key to prevailing in
conventional conflict when technology permits forces to hit and kill what they can see.
This close relationship between seeing and striking may affect everything about
conventional warfare: how it is fought, what forces and equipment it is fought with, and
the role of the United States and others in fighting it.
To illuminate the battlespace, the Department of Defense (DOD) uses sensors (to yield
ISR: intelligence surveillance, and reconnaissance) and networks (to support C4: command,
control, communications, and computers). With precision weapons added, they collectively
make up a "System of Systems."3 Indeed, DOD is
a System of Systems: its people deploy sensors, examine returns, maintain databases,
create reports and maps, respond to orders and assignments, and designate targets for
weapons. Rising complexity, a growing aversion to risk, the need for speed, constant cost
pressures, and technological opportunities4 all impel automatic
integration of components at all levels from bits to knowledge. Otherwise, the vision of
the battlespace remains a patchwork.
Integration offers the possibility of creating what has been called a Global Grid,
referred to in this volume as the Grid.5 It would be the glue
of the "System of Systems," the means by which systems are linked and accessed,
and a knowledge base -- at a minimum, the common operational picture (COP) -- built over
and by a network. The Grid would "know" things in the sense that information (1)
existed in some database,6
(2) could be retrieved by content, and (3) was internally consistent across the Grid.
Users on the Grid could be electronically connected to other warfighters and collaborate
with them, can see a real-time map of the battlefield, annotate this map for others, find
out where parts are in their repair cycle, participate in a simulation or exercise, assess
the state of the network (and perhaps defend it from attack), diagnose remote equipment,
and even perhaps call for fire support from certain weapons. Indeed, being continuously
and intimately connected to the Grid may be second nature for tomorrow's forces.
This monograph explores some implications of and requirements for achieving battlespace
illumination. Laced through this monograph are several themes: the ascendancy of light
over power in arbitrating conflict, the sunset of platform-centric warfare in favor of
Grid-centric warfare based on distributed sensors and weapons, the tension between the war
that we would fight (e.g., standoff warfare) and the war our enemies may prefer, the need
for a good mix between mission-oriented and user-oriented applications, and the need to
keep the Grid open to change, and perhaps opened to others.
Those familiar with the debate over the revolution in military affairs (RMA) may find
concepts in chapters 1 through 3 familiar,7 and those thinking
about information systems may respond similarly to chapters 4 and 5. Consolidating these
strands of thought (and adding a few others) may broaden both the readership and the
discussion of these issues.
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