The Network Battlefield

The concept of network-centric warfare isn't immune from problems which are endemic to the "information society"

Precision bombs, networked army units, special forces -- these are just some of the terms associated with hi-tech warfare. But to what extent does the vision of a networked battlefield suffer from the same illusions and problems that plagued the hi-tech industrial boom of the late 1990s?

As part of its strategy for world domination, the US military is looking into novel ways in which military control can be exerted on a global scale. Consequently, the concept of "network-centric warfare" has been formulated which would give, if the pundits are correct, commanders the ability to launch air strikes or plot troop movements from the convenience of their laptops. In essence, it would flatten the military command structure. "All you need is Internet Explorer," says Doug Barton, the director of technology for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, based in Gaithersburg, Md. In a way, it would be like a sophisticated version of the strategy game RISK on a computer, except that the countries destroyed are real countries, populated by real people.

The Achilles Heel of NCW

In a Business Week article entitled The Network is the Battlefield, Alex Salkever delves into the details of this ultimate global video game. The technology -- known as the TBMCS C2 Air Combat system -- is the latest in a series of developments that's moving the Air Force into the era of so-called network-centric warfare, or NCW. As Salkever notes, "the goal is to weave weapons systems and people into a network whose whole is far greater than the sum of its parts."

According to experts, the system should make it easier to track and attack military targets, and provide a command structure that's more resilient and damage-proof. The concept of NCW revolves around specialized computer battle systems built on proprietary technology to work with standard Internet protocols such as XML, which would allow the most relevant information to be distributed amongst fighting units. For example, weapon systems would be tied more closely into the global positioning satellite (GPS) network. It would also rely on wireless hookups that would resemble the peer-to-peer networks used nowadays to swap audio and video files.

The military's so-called "resounding success" in Afghanistan, where "the US was able to flatten the Taliban" with minimum casualties and less "damage to civilians" is supposed to be a sneek preview of NCW. Yet it mustn't be forgotten that what happened in Afghanistan had little to do with the technology employed: as Salkever admits, the Taliban could muster few if any defenses and weren't well trained, equipped, or motivated. And the barren terrain of Afghanistan made communications with satellites and between US units less complex than in a jungle or urban environment.

Moreover, although the US has claimed victory in Afghanistan, the truth of the matter is that the war isn't over just yet -- it has merely shifted in nature. The asymmetric, low-intensity warfare (known elsewhere simply as partisan warfare) that is now going on has a tendency to wear down superior opponents, as the Soviets found out 15 years earlier and the Israelis realised in South Lebanon a few years ago. Indeed, the US had experienced a similar situation Somalia in the 1990s, not to mention the most infamous example of them all: Vietnam.

Hence, the Achilles Heel of NCW is the danger is of thinking that the US military is invincible just because it has superior technology. And even here, the technology thus far employed hasn't been without problems. As Salkever pointed out, despite the seeming success of the campaign in Afghanistan, commanders had to queue up for satellite uplinks and bickering broke out over who would get access to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Also, many officers complained of bandwidth limitations that crimped their ability to use newly networked systems. Hence, the concept of NCW isn't immune from problems which are endemic to the "information society" in general, be it civilian, business, or military.

Frank Lanza, CEO of L-3 Communications, which builds a wide variety of communication and networking systems for the military, echoes some of these concerns. "The danger is that people believe it can be done." His fear is that a lot of the new NCW equipment and its capabilities are being oversold in their current incarnation. In fact, during the first Gulf War in the early nineties the technology employed was hyped beyond its abilities, as was the case with the Patriot missiles which failed to prevent scud missile attacks over Israel.

Remote-control war-fighting

Even though technology limitations and bugs haven't been worked out yet, Salkever mentions how, like it or not, NCW will be the way of future military conflicts, not in the least because "from the dawn of organized conflict, military strategists have used communications and information to beat the enemy." What is more, World War II and Vietnam dramatized the need to "use information technology to create a more lethal fighting force, as well as to to avoid casualties from friendly fire." Yet trying telling this to the Canadians who served in Afghanistan, in where four were killed as a result of such "friendly fire".

Interestingly enough, Salkever doesn't fall into the same mistake most people make when putting together modern technology and the military; that is, the origin and evolution of the Internet. It's an urban legend that the Internet was "designed by the military to withstand a nuclear attack". He treads closer to the truth where he writes:

Yet information flows on the Internet can be disrupted, as we have seen over the years through computer worms and DDos attacks. Not only this, but all technology -- no matter how complex -- has some sort of vulnerability built into it. Thus, the American military isn't invincible if a determined enemy attacked these networks. Already there are ways and means to disrupt a NCW system. For instance, a Russian company has developed a device which can block GPS signals over a radius of thousands of feet.

Perhaps the biggest vulnerability is in the commercial satellite fleet, which carries a significant amount of military traffic. China witnessed the havoc that a technologically determined enemy can wreak when members of the Falun Gong sect commandeered a key Chinese telecommunications satellite in July 2002.

There is a dark side to all of this which is dismissed by Salkever and supporters for NCW, but which carries with it enormous ethical questions. It is best summed up by Jim Lewis, director of technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an influential Washington think tank: