What is the global landpower network and what value might it provide?

ABSTRACT

US national security guidance, as well as the US Army’s operational experiences since 2001, emphasizes the importance of working closely with partner countries to achieve US strategic objectives. The US Army has introduced the global landpower network (GLN) concept as a means to integrate, sustain and advance the Army’s considerable ongoing efforts to meet US national security guidance. This study develops the GLN concept further, and addresses three questions. What benefits can the GLN provide the Army? What are the essential components of the GLN? What options exist for implementing the GLN concept? By developing the GLN concept, the Army has the opportunity to transition the GLN from an often ad hoc and reactive set of relationships to one that the Army more self-consciously prioritizes and leverages as a resource to meet US strategic objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• National security
• networking
• Army
• strategy
• operations
• international relations
• defense
• joint

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 See J.D. Leipold, ‘Allyn Stresses “Soldier Empowerment” as Army Moves Toward Global Land Power Network’, Army.mil, July 9, 2015, http://www.army.mil/article/152074/Allyn_stresses__Soldier_empowerment__as_Army_moves_toward_global_land_power_network/.

2 ‘CSA Whitepaper on POTUS Strategy and Global Land Power Network: Delivering National Power on Land Through the GLN’, July 23, 2014, 12.

3 The term “strategic” was subsequently removed and the concept is now generally referred to as the GLN. See Paul McLeary, ‘US Army Working with Joint Chiefs to Develop Global Landpower Network’, Defense News, March 13, 2014.

4 LTG Charles T. Cleveland and LTG Stuart L. Farris, Toward Strategic Landpower, ARMY Human Terrain System, July 2013.

5 General Stanley McCrystal, ‘It Takes a Network: The New Front Line of Modern Warfare’, Foreign Affairs, February 21, 2011. Also, his autobiographic accounts “My Share of the Task” (2014) and “Team of Teams” (2015) describe the thinking on how to move the Army away from historically hierarchical commands.

6 Jim Thomas and Chris Dougherty, Beyond the Ramparts: The Future of US Special Operations Forces (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2013).

7 While aspects of the GSN are classified, some writers have published unclassified descriptions: Thomas S. Szayna and William Welser IV, Developing and Assessing Options for the Global SOF Network (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, RR-340. 2013); the Journal of Strategic Security, Summer 2014 volume included several articles on GSN including: Keenan D. Yoho, Tess deBlanc-Knowles, and Randy Borum, ‘The Global SOF Network: Posturing Special Operations Forces to Ensure Global Security in the 21st Century’, Journal of Strategic Security 7, no. 2 (2014): 1–7, http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol7/iss2/2.

8 Ronald E. Ratcliff, ‘Building Partners’ Capacity: The Thousand-Ship Navy’, Naval War College Review 60, no. 4 (August 2007).

9 Admiral Mike Mullen, Remarks delivered for the 17th International Seapower Symposium, Naval War College, Newport, RI, September 21, 2005.

10 Distributed and Global Maritime Network, Naval Studies Board; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; National Research Council, Maritime Security Partnerships, National Research Council of the National Academies, 2008.

11 There are many papers and books on this subject, both for and against the network-centric concepts. For an earlier description, see Arthur K. Cebrowski and John J. Garstka, ‘Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future’, Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, January 1998.

12 For example, the public debate between Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman on the existence of leaderless jihadi movements. See Marc Sageman and Bruce Hoffman, ‘Does Osama Still Call the Shots? Debating the Containment of Al Qaeda's Leadership’, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2008-06-01/does-osama-still-call-shots.

13 US Army Training and Doctrine Command, The US Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World, 2020-2040, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, October 31, 2014, 22.

14 National Security Strategy, February 2015, 3.

15 For example:

Our sustained attention and engagement will be important in shaping emerging global trends, both positive and negative. Unprecedented levels of global connectedness provide common incentives for international cooperation and shared norms of behavior, and the growing capacity of some regional partners provides an opportunity for countries to play greater and even leading roles in advancing mutual security interests in their respective regions. (US Secretary of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2014, March 4, 2014)

16 See US Army Training and Doctrine Command, US Army Functional Concept for Engagement, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-8-5, February 24, 2014, 19 and 27.

17 For the purposes of this article, the authors define “networks” broadly as collections of nodes (individuals, units, organizations, etc.) and edges (the relationships and activities between those nodes).

18 John Arquilla, ‘To Build a Network’, Prism 5, no. 1 (September 2014): 23–34; John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MR-789-OSD, 1996), 82.

19 For example, see Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

20 An extensive argument has since ensued about the effectiveness of such networks, which is easily seen in the debates between academics like Bruce Hoffman and Marc Sageman and others.

21 This definition is similar in many ways to the definition of the GSN captured in JP 3-5, namely: “[GSN is] a synchronized network of people and technology (US, allies, and partner nations [PNs]) designed to support commanders through inter-operable capabilities that enable special operations.” See, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Special Operations, Joint Publication 3-05, July 16, 2014.

22 Kedar Pavgi, ‘Here's One Way the US-China Relationship Is Improving’, Defense One, August 4, 2015.

23 Christopher G. Pernin et al., Unfolding the Future of the Long War: Motivation, Prospects, and Implications for the US Army (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MG-738-A, 2008).

24 US Army, Chief of Staff, CSA White Paper on POTUS Strategy and Global Land Power Network.

25 The Roberts Amendment was attached to the FY 1999 Department of Defense Appropriations Act as Section 8115, and precluded spending on actions in certain countries thus limiting planners from building knowledge of locations. See Bruce Nardulli et al., Disjointed War: Military Operations in Kosovo, 1999 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, MR-1406-A, 2002), http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1406.html.

26 Colonel Sean McBride et al., ‘Intelligence Support to HA/DR Operations’, INTSUM Magazine XXV, no. 4 (Spring–Summer 2014).

27 As explained by Sharp, Jordan is an important “buffer” between Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and has promoted Israeli–Palestinian peace both of which service US national interests. See Jeremy M. Sharp, “Jordan: Background and US Relations,” Congressional Research Service, September 10, 2015, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33546.pdf.

28 Joe Gould, ‘Interview: US Army Europe's Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges’, Defense News, August 18, 2015.

29 US Army, Chief of Staff, CSA Whitepaper on POTUS Strategy and Global Land Power Network, 5.

30 See US Department of Defense, Operation Atlantic Resolve, web page, undated.

31 See: http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/2015/03/21/operation-dragoon-ride-kicks-off/25027691/.

32 US Army Training and Doctrine Command, The US Army Operating Concept: Win in a Complex World 2020–2040, October 30, 2014.