Freedom and Control: Networks in Military Environments

Abstract

Since its emergence in 1998, the concept of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) has become a central driver behind America's military transformation and seems to offer the possibility of true integration between multinational military formations. Even though NCW, or variations on its themes, has been adopted by many armed services, it is a concept in operational and doctrinal development. It is shaping not only how militaries operate, but, just as importantly, what they are operating with, and potentially altering the strategic landscape.

This paper examines how the current military dominance of the US over every other state means that only it has the capacity to sustain military activity on a global scale and that other states participating in US-led coalitions must be prepared to work in an interoperable fashion. It explores the application of computer networks to military operations in conjunction with the need to secure a network's information and to assure that it accurately represents situational reality. Drawing on an examination of how networks affected naval operations in the Persian Gulf during 2002 and 2003 as conducted by America's Australian and Canadian coalition partners, the paper warns that in seeking allies with the requisite technological capabilities, but also those that it can trust with its information resources, the US may be heading into a very secure digital corner.

Notes

¹ Department of Defense, Transformation Planning Guidance, April 2003, p. 1.

² Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos (London: Frank Cass, 2002), pp. 13–17.

³ Eliot Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 27, no. 3, September 2004.

⁴ See Williamson Murray, ‘May 1940: Contingency and Fragility of the German RMA’, in MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray (eds), The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Thomas G. Mahnken, ‘Beyond Blitzkreig: Allied Responses to Combined-Arms Armoured Warfare during World War II’, in Emily O. Goldman and Leslie C. Eliason (eds), The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003); Williamson Murray, ‘Armored Warfare: The British, French, and German Experiences’, in Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millet (eds), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Barry R. Posen, ‘The Battles of 1940’, The Sources of Military Doctrine, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).

⁵ Cebrowski and Garstka, ‘Network Centric Warfare’, pp. 28–35.

⁶ In this respect one need only think of the Battle of Midway. Three-dimensional warfare presents far more complex command and control issues than the traditional naval battleline. Karl Lautenschlager, ‘Technology and the Evolution of Naval Warfare’, International Security, vol. 8, no. 2, 1983.

⁷ In 1942, Admiral Ernest J. King asked Vannevar Bush of the Office of Scientific Research and Development to examine the possible development of a system of radar relays that would permit ships to share radar information, thus increasing commanders' awareness of the tactical situation. The project later switched to a system of air-based radars, which ultimately saw the development of the first airborne early-warning aircraft in the form of modified Grumman Avengers carrying APS-20 radars. Edwin Leigh Armistead, AWACS and Hawkeyes (St Paul, MN: MBI Publishing, 2002), pp. 3–7.

⁸ In 1957, after three years of deliberation, the CANUKUS Naval Data Transmission Working Group ratified the technical standard for data exchange. Originally named the Tactical International Data Exchange (TIDE, ‘good for cleaning up messy tactical pictures’), it later became known as Link 2 (given as ‘II’ in Roman numerals) in the Royal Navy, which was already using data-sharing technology to distribute tactical information among its ships. As other NATO links became established, Link II became known as ‘Link 11’. Norman Friedman, World Naval Weapons Systems 1997–1998 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), p. 28.

⁹ Robert Burnett and P. David Marshall, Web Theory: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 25; Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics; Or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (New York: Wiley, 1948).

¹⁰ Tacticians anticipated that Soviet bombers would mass their aircraft in ‘regimental’ attacks, launching waves of missiles at naval formations in the hope of overwhelming their defences. In this type of tactical environment, it would no longer be possible to coordinate the defence of a task force through voice reporting, nor could the resources of any single ship defend against such an attack. This meant that the area that had to come under positive control by Western ships and aircraft expanded considerably. Norman Friedman, The US Maritime Strategy (London: Jane's Publishing, 1988), pp. 162–64, 174; Scott L. Nicholas, ‘Anti-carrier Warfare’, in Bruce W. Watson and Susan M. Watson (eds), The Soviet Navy: Strengths and Liabilities (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986), p. 146; Norman Friedman, US Destroyers Revised Edition, (Arlington, VA: Naval Institute Press, 2004), pp. 391–2.

¹¹ Jacob Neufeld, George M. Watson Jr and David Chenoweth (eds), Technology and the Air Force: A Retrospective Assessment (Washington DC: USAF, 1997).

¹² See, for example, Colonel Thomas A. Cardwell (USAF), Airland Combat: An Organization for Joint Warfare (Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 1992), pp. 75–80; the concept of ‘Agility’, defined as ‘the ability of friendly forces to act faster than the enemy’ is clearly derived from Colonel John Boyd's OODA loop. Department of the Army, US Army Field Manual 100-5 Blueprint for the AirLand Battle (Washington DC: Brassey's (US) Inc., 1991), pp. 16–17.

¹³ Norman Friedman, The Fifty Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War, (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 2000), pp. 445–51.

¹⁴ Milan Vego, Operational Warfare (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2000), pp. 1–2.

¹⁵ Timothy Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern Warfare, 1900–1918 (London: Allen Unwin, 1987); Murray, ‘Armored Warfare’; Jonathan B. A. Bailey, ‘The First World War and the Birth of Modern Warfare’, in Knox and Murray (eds), The Dynamics of Military Revolution; Gray, Strategy for Chaos.

¹⁶ Bailey, ‘The First World War and the Birth of Modern Warfare’, p. 132. Emphasis added.

¹⁷ Defined by the Department of Defense as: ‘The environment, factors, and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force, or complete the mission. This includes the air, land, sea, space, and the included enemy and friendly forces; facilities; weather; terrain; the electromagnetic spectrum; and the information environment within the operational areas and areas of interest’. Department of Defense, Joint Publication 1-02, ‘DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms’, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/b/00700.html, as amended 31 August 2005.

¹⁸ Admiral William A. Owens, ‘The Emerging System of Systems’, Strategic Forum, no. 63, February 1996.

¹⁹ The three books are published by the Command and Control Research Project managed by Evidence Based Research (EBR). While EBR is an independent think tank, the presence of Dr David Alberts speaks to the authority of these works. At the time, Alberts was Director of Research and Strategic Planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. David S. Alberts, John J. Garstka and Frederick P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority, 2nd edition (Washington DC: Command and Control Research Program, 1999); David S. Alberts, John J. Garstka, Richard E. Hayes and David A. Signori, Understanding Information Age Warfare (Washington DC: Command and Control Research Program, 2001); David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes, Power to the Edge: Command and Control in the Information Age (Washington DC: Command and Control Research Program, 2003).

²⁰ Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-war: Survival at the Dawn of the 21^st Century (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1993), p. 80.

²¹ Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, p. 54.

²² Ibid., pp. 60–65.

²³ Ibid., pp. 71–2.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 41.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 90.

²⁶ Alberts et al., Understanding Information Age Warfare, pp. 14–21.

²⁷ Ibid., pp. 12–13.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 15–18.

²⁹ Department of Defense, Network Centric Warfare Report to Congress, July 2001.

³⁰ Alberts et al., Understanding Information Age Warfare, p. 26.

³¹ Ibid., p. 60.

³² Colonel George K. Gramer (USA), ‘Optimizing Intelligence Sharing in a Coalition Environment: Why US Operational Commanders Have an Intelligence Dissemination Problem’, course paper, Department of Joint Military Operations, US Naval War College, Newport, RI, 17 May 1999, pp. 2–3.

³³ Alberts et al., Understanding Information Age Warfare, pp. 57–8.

³⁴ Ibid., pp. 12–13. Emphasis added.

³⁵ Alberts and Hayes, Power to the Edge, p. 56.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 59.

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 4–5.

³⁸ Ibid., p. 187.

³⁹ Paul Wolfowitz, ‘Global Information Grid (GIG) Overarching Policy’, Department of Defense Directive 8100.1, 19 September 2002, http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html2/d81001x.htm.

⁴⁰ Committee on Network-Centric Naval Forces, Naval Studies Board, Network Centric Naval Forces: A Transition Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2000), p. 31.

⁴¹ Statement by John P. Stenbit before the Committee on Armed Services, United States House of Representatives, Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, 11 February 2004.

⁴² Robert E. Levin, The Global Information Grid and Challenges Facing Its Implementation, GAO 84-858 (Washington DC: Government Accounting Office, July 2004), p. 1.

⁴³ The GIG-BE is a worldwide ground-based fibre-optic network, using IP protocols, to expand the connectivity and interoperability of DOD installations. Six sites achieved initial operating capability on 30 September 2004. ‘Global Information Grid (GIG) Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE)’, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/gig-be.htm. See also Statement by John P. Stenbit.

⁴⁴ The TCS comprises space-based and ground-based segments. Space-based segments include the Transformation Satellite and Advanced Polar System satellites, a laser-based SATCOM constellation allowing global IP routing and addressing of information, even in areas with no pre-existing communications infrastructure. The ground-based segment comprises the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), a software-based radio that will be programmable to imitate other types of radios thus enhancing overall communications interoperability within the US military. Able to transmit voice, data and video, it is hoped that JTRS will enable seamless communication, hypothetically between fighter pilots, soldiers and sailors. See Jefferson Morris and Rich Tuttle, ‘Contractors Lining Up To Compete for Transformational Communications Network’, Aerospace Daily, vol. 207, no. 38, p. 1; Robert E. Levin, The Global Information Grid, pp. 11–12; Johnny Kegler, ‘Pathways to Enlightenment’, Armada International, vol. 29, no. 5, October–November 2005, pp. 10–14; Johnathon Karp and Andy Pasztor, ‘Pentagon Week: High Tech Has High Risk’, Wall Street Journal, 2 May 2005, p. B2; ‘Transformational Communications Architecture’, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/tca.htm; ‘Transformational SATCOM (TSAT) Advanced Wideband System’, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/tsat.htm.

⁴⁵ NCES are the integrated series of applications that will reside on the GIG permitting the military to access, send, store and protect information. In effect, this will create the software ‘nervous system’ that will operate the GIG. By establishing IP protocols on the GIG, NCES will enable US forces to forego the typical ‘point to point’ interfaces between systems, ending duplication of effort and the multiplication of incompatible systems. Levin, The Global Information Grid, p. 11; ‘Global Information Grid (GIG)’, http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/gig.htm.

⁴⁶ Network Centric Naval Forces, p. 3.

⁴⁷ Committee to Review DOD C4I Plans and Programs, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, Realizing the Potential of C4I (Washington DC: National Research Council, 1999), p. 70.

⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 27, Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, pp. 60–65.

⁴⁹ Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs’, p. 395; Alberts and Hayes, Power to the Edge, p. 88.

⁵⁰ General Charles C. Krulak (USMC), ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’, Marines Magazine, January 1999.

⁵¹ Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, pp. 20–21; Network Centric Naval Forces, p. 3.

⁵² Manuel Castells, ‘Informationalism, Networks and the Network Society: A Theoretical Blueprint’, in Manuel Castells (ed.), The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar, 2004), pp. 3, 5–6.

⁵³ Statement by John P. Stenbit.

⁵⁴ ‘Global Information Grid (GIG)’. Alberts and Hayes point out in Power to the Edge that expanding access to information eliminates ‘unnecessary constraints previously needed to deconflict elements of the force in the absence of quality information’ (p. 5).

⁵⁵ Transformation Planning Guidance, p. 3; Cohen, ‘Change and Transformation in Military Affairs’, p. 1.

⁵⁶ Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, p. 71.

⁵⁷ ‘A process that shapes the changing nature of military competition and cooperation through new combinations and concepts, capabilities, people, and organisations that exploit our nation's advantages, protect against our asymmetric vulnerabilities to sustain our strategic position which helps underpin peace and stability in the world.’ Transformation Planning Guidance, p. 3.

⁵⁸ Levin, The Global Information Grid, p. 1.

⁵⁹ Alberts et al., Network Centric Warfare, p. 54.

⁶⁰ Network Centric Naval Forces, p. 59.

⁶¹ Charlotte Adams, ‘Network Centric Rush To Connect’, Aviation Today, 1 September 2004.

⁶² Realizing the Potential of C4I, p. 135.

⁶³ Ibid., p. 143. See also Duane P. Andrews (chairman), Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare Defense (Washington DC: Defense Science Board, November 1996), pp. 37–45, http://cryptome.org/iwdmain.htm.

⁶⁴ One is tempted to argue against the possibility of establishing a digital identity. Human beings are essentially analogue entities – unique and discrete. Digital entities, through their ordinal precision and endlessly replicable nature, mean such a fundamental identification will prove elusive in its very essence.

⁶⁵ Major Joshua Reitz (USA), Untangling the Web: Balancing Security, Prosperity, and Freedom in the Information Age, MDS dissertation (Toronto: Canadian Forces College, May 2005), pp. 11–14.

⁶⁶ According to the GAO, draft readiness metrics went untested, and organisational policies and procedures for managing information assurance were not fully defined across the DOD. See Robert F. Dacey, Progress and Challenges to an Effective Defense-wide Information Assurance Program, GAO-01-307 (Washington DC: GAO, March 2001), p. 4.

⁶⁷ Levin, The Global Information Grid, p. 19.

⁶⁸ Adams, ‘Network Centric Rush to Connect’. Reportedly, JTRS radios would be able to ‘firewall’ information within transmissions. In this way, information would be double-encrypted in terms of both data and transmission.

⁶⁹ Wolfowitz, ‘Information Assurance’, p. 20.

⁷⁰ Dacey, Progress and Challenges, p. 6.

⁷¹ As one study examining the impact of networks on naval forces argues: ‘Strict controls will be necessary at the connection points between tactical and non-tactical portions of the Naval Command and Information Infrastructure. These controls will ensure that only authorised types of traffic are allowed onto the tactical networks, and hence they will provide continued guarantees that the tactical networks can provide highly reliable, low latency data services. These controls will also aid in providing security boundaries’. Network Centric Naval Forces, p. 33.

⁷² Levin, The Global Information Grid, pp. 28–9.

⁷³ Joe Pappalardo, ‘Protecting GIG Requires a New Strategy’, National Defence, October 2005.

⁷⁴ Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: MacMillan, 1977).

⁷⁵ This is not strictly true in some parts of Asia, where the state has retained a degree of control over internet communications.

⁷⁶ Robert Burnett and P. David Marshall, Web Theory: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 32–33; ‘Wikipedia Study “Fatally Flawed”’, BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4840340.stm.

⁷⁷ Brock Read, ‘Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?’, Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 October 2006, http://chronicle.com/tem/reprint.php?%20id=z6xht2rj60kqmsl8tlq5ltqcshc5y93y; see also ‘Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head’, Nature, 15 December 2005, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html.

⁷⁸ For example http://www.911truth.org, http://www.aliensthetruth.com and http://www.anomalies.net/area51/faq.

⁷⁹ As Morgenthau puts it: ‘Where the insecurity of human existence challenges the wisdom of man, there is the meeting point of fate and freedom, of necessity and chance. Here, then, is the battlefield where man takes up the challenge and joins battle with the forces of nature, his fellow-men's lust for power, and the corruption of his own soul’. Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 223. See also E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis 1919–1939 (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), pp. 63–88; Michael Howard, ‘Morality and Force in International Politics’, in Studies in War and Peace (London: Temple Smith, 1970), pp. 235–50.

⁸⁰ Castells, ‘Informationalism, Networks and the Network Society’, pp. 17–21.

⁸¹ Himanen uses the term Hacker Ethic, although he notes that the negative connotations that come with the term ‘hacker’ have distorted its original meaning as an informal society of technologically savvy and creative individuals intent on the propagation of truth through the free sharing of information. See Pekka Himanen, ‘The Hacker Ethic as the Culture of the Information Age’, in Castells (ed.), The Network Society, p. 424.

⁸² Ibid., p. 423.

⁸³ See, for example, http://www.opensource.org and http://www.linux.org/lininfo/index.html.

⁸⁴ See Vincent Moscoe, The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004).

⁸⁵ See http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/secrets.php, for example. The limitation on secrecy and knowledge is reached when many similar products are circulating performing similar services; at that point, it is argued, it makes more sense to open up research in order that products and services can be improved through information sharing.

⁸⁶ As described by Richard Hunter, Open Source development is guided by ‘extraordinary talent, clear vision of the goal, a deadly enemy, extraordinary tools, and autonomy and responsibility’. Richard Hunter, World Without Secrets: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002), p. 97. Aufträgstaktik's decentralised approach to operations devolves a significant amount of creative freedom all down the command hierarchy, even into the ranks of non-commissioned officers. Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and AirLand Battle (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1991), pp. 50–51.

⁸⁷ Burnett and Marshall, Web Theory, pp. 27–8. A classic example of this problem is the misinterpretation of sensor data by CIC operators aboard the USS Vincennes in 1988 during operations in the Persian Gulf, when a civilian airliner was portrayed by the system as an F-14 fighter jet. See Marita Turpin and Niek du Plooy, ‘Decision-Making Biases and Information Systems’, Decision Support in an Uncertain and Complex World: The IFIP TC8/WG8.3 International Conference, http://vishnu.sims.monash.edu.au:16080/dss2004/proceedings/pdf/77_Turpin_Plooy.pdf. Similar issues can occur with respect to trust and digital identies.

⁸⁸ See, for example, Sayaka Kawakami and Sarah C. McCartney, ‘Government Information Collection: Privacy Year in Review: Privacy Impact Assessments, Airline Passenger Pre-Screening, and Government Data Mining’, I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, vol. 1, nos 2–3, Spring/Summer 2005, pp. 245–56; Michael J. Sniffen, ‘Controversial Government Data Mining Research Lives On’, 23 February 2004, http://www.kdnuggets.com/news/2004/n05/20i.html; Max Blumenthal, ‘Data Debase’, American Prospect, 19 December 2003, http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/12/blumenthal-m-12-19.html.

⁸⁹ Castells, ‘Informationalism, Networks and the Network Society’, p. 12.

⁹⁰ Peter Howard, ‘The USN's Designer of Concepts’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 3 October 2001.

⁹¹ Castells ‘Informationalism, Networks and the Network Society’, p. 23.

⁹² Ibid., p. 29.

⁹³ See, for example, David A. Powner and Eileen Laurence, Information Sharing: The Federal Government Needs to Establish Policies and Processes for Sharing Terrorism-Related and Sensitive but Unclassified Information, GAO-06-385 (Washington DC: GAO, March 2006).

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Paul T. Mitchell

Paul T. Mitchell is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, where he was Director of Academics between 2000 and 2004. His research interests are in US military policy and operations, especially in the area of transformation and emerging operational concepts. In 2003 he was awarded the United States Naval Institute's Literary Award for the best article on surface naval warfare for ‘Network Centric Warfare and Small Navies, is there a role?’ published in Naval War College Review. He has published in Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces and Society, US Naval Institute Proceedings, US Naval War College Review and the Canadian Military Journal. In 1997 he co-edited Multinational Naval Cooperation and Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (Ashgate). He has taught at Queen's University, Ontario, Dalhousie University, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, Canada's Royal Military College and the SAFTI Military Institute, Singapore. He has a PhD from Queen's University in political studies and a masters from King's College London in war studies. This work is dedicated to his friend and mentor, Joel Sokolsky: J'espère que cela en valait la peine.