Network Centric Warfare: Recent Developments

             The information age is upon us.  It is primarily how information-enabled organizations are emerging as dominant forces in their respective domains.  Today, most anticipate that future conflicts will be much shorter in duration than they have in the past, thus not providing as good an opportunity for coevolution.

We are beginning to see the broad impact of network-centric warfare throughout the fleet, as key technology building blocks are deployed. In early 1997, a single aircraft carrier in the western Pacific sent 54,000 e-mails in one month--about half the amount of all of the traditional message traffic that was sent in Western Pacific during the same time.  That is an example of a very complex outfit organizing itself from the bottom up. Now it is the norm.  Such capabilities enable a move into the realm of speed of command.  Questions decrease because ambiguity decreases, collegiality increases, and timelines shorten.

The Emerging Logical Model

The structural or logical model for network-centric warfare has emerged.  The entry fee is a high-performance information grid that provides a backplane for computing and communications.  The information grid enables the operational architectures of sensor grids and engagement grids.  Sensor grids rapidly generate high levels of battlespace awareness and synchronize awareness with military operations.  Engagement grids exploit this awareness and translate it into increased combat power.  Many key elements of these grids are in place or available.  For example, at the planning level, the elements of a DoD-wide intranet are emerging.  To assure interoperability, all elements of the grids must be compliant with the Joint Technical Architecture and the Defense Information Infrastructure common operating environment.  However, their full integration into a more powerful warfighting ecosystem is only partially complete.    

This is not theory--it is happening now.  For example, new classes of threats have required increased defensive combat power for joint forces.  The combat power that has emerged--the cooperative engagement capability (CEC)--was enabled by a shift to network-centric operations.  CEC combines a high-performance sensor grid with a high-performance engagement grid.  The sensor grid rapidly generates engagement quality awareness, and the engagement grid translates this awareness into increased combat power.  This power is manifested by high probability engagements against threats capable of defeating a platform-centric defense.  The CEC sensor grid fuses data from multiple sensors to develop a composite track with engagement quality, creating a level of battlespace awareness that surpasses whatever can be created with stand-alone sensors.  The whole clearly is greater than the sum of the parts.

Because a network-centric force operates under a different, more modern rule set than a platform-centric force, we must make fundamental choices in at least three areas: intellectual capital, financial capital, and process.

The Navy's umbrella strategy for enabling the IT elements of network-centric warfare is Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT-21).  It provides for accelerated implementation of customer-led command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) innovations and existing C2 systems/capabilities (programs of record). The Navy's commitment to funding IT began in fiscal year 1997.  For the fiscal year 1999 budget request and the Future Years Defense Program, Navy funding for IT-21-related programs exceeds $2.5 billion.  Battle groups and amphibious ready groups are deploying with increasing network capabilities.

All elements of the network-centric warfare model must move forward if the promise of the revolution is to be realized. Delays will mean higher costs, reduced combat power, and, in the joint arena, failure to achieve the concepts of Joint Vision 2010.¹

READ FULL REPORT: Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future

Key NCW Programs

 The Navy’s effort to implement NCW involves several IT procurement efforts.  Key among these are the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) program, the Naval Fires Network (NFN), the IT-21 investment strategy, and the ForceNet program.  A related program is the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI).  In addition to these programs, the Navy in March 2002 announced that it was establishing a new Naval Network Warfare Command (NETWARCOM).

CEC.  The Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) system uses antennas and data processors to link U.S. Navy ships and aircraft operating in a particular area into a single, integrated air-defense network in which radar data collected by each platform is transmitted on a real-time (i.e., instantaneous) basis to the other units in the network.  Each unit in the CEC network fuses its own radar data with data received from the other units.  As a result, units in the network share a common, composite, real-time air-defense picture.  CEC will permit a ship to shoot air-defense missiles at incoming anti-ship missiles that the ship itself cannot see, using radar-targeting data gathered by other ships and aircraft.  It will also permit air-defense missiles fired by one ship to be guided by other ships or aircraft.  The Navy wants to install the system on its aircraft carriers, Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers, selected amphibious ships, and E-2C Hawkeye carrier-based airborne early warning aircraft over the next several years. 2  The system has potential for being extended to include Army and Air Force systems.

Tests of CEC aboard Navy ships in 1998 revealed significant interoperability (i.e., compatibility) problems between the CEC system’s software and the software of the air defense systems on some ships, particularly surface combatants equipped with the Baseline 6 version (then the most recent version) of the Navy’s Aegis air defense system.  In response, the Navy undertook a major two-year effort to identify, understand, and fix the problems.  The CEC system, with the new fixes, passed its technical evaluation (TECHEVAL) testing in February and March 2001 and final operational evaluation (OPEVAL) testing in April and May 2001. 

 NFN.  The Naval Fires Network uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) IT technology to link naval forces operating in an area into a single real-time targeting network for coordinating gun and missile fire to attack surface and land targets, particularly time-critical targets, in support of friendly forces ashore. The Navy has been experimenting with NFN in numerous exercises and is working to accelerate the introduction of the system into the fleet. In March 2002, the Navy announced that the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln would be the first warship to conduct operations with a full NFN capability.

IT-21.  IT-21, which stands for IT for the 21st Century, is the Navy’s investment strategy for procuring the desktop computers, data links, and networking software needed to establish an intranet for transmitting tactical and administrative data within and between Navy ships. The IT-21 network uses COTS desktop computers and networking software and will provide a multimedia (text, data, graphics, images, voice, and video) organizational intranet similar to the Capitol Hill intranet or corporate intranets. The IT- 21 concept originated in the Pacific Fleet in 1995-1996. The Navy plans to link most of the fleet into the IT-21 intranet within the next few years. The Navy believes IT-21 will significantly improve U.S. naval warfighting capability and achieve substantial cost reductions by significantly reducing the time and number of people required to carry out various tactical and administrative functions.  

For more information click here.

ForceNet.  ForceNet is the Navy’s new program for linking various networks that contribute to naval NCW – including one or more of those described above – into a single capstone information network for U.S. naval forces.

NMCI.  The Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) is a corporate-style intranet that will link together Navy and Marine Corps shore installations in much the same way that the IT-21 effort will link together Navy ships.  When completed in 2003, the NMCI will include a total of about 411,000 computer workstations, or “seats,” at scores of Navy and Marine Corps installations in the continental United States, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, Guantanamo Bay (Cuba), and Iceland

READ FULL REPORT: CRS Report for Congress, June 6, 2001

JOINT VISION 2010

The Vision for Future Joint Warfighting is described in Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010). JV2010 introduces the emerging operational concepts of Dominant Maneuver, Precision Engagement, Focused Logistics, and Full-Dimensional Protection, as well as the enabling capability of Information Superiority. This concept is portrayed below in Figure 1. The Joint Staff and the Services are currently developing strategies for moving towards JV2010.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: JOINT VISION 2010

1  Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, U.S. Navy, and John J. Garstka, “Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future,” Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1998.

2  Ronald O’Rourke, Specialist in National Defense Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, “Navy Network-Centric Warfare Concept: Key Programs and Issues for Congress,” CRS Report for Congress, June 2001.

Home   History   Navy Policy   Recent Uses   Shortcomings  Library