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| McChrystal's Very Human Wired War |
| 2011-01-27 |
| McChrystal praised the "aggressive use of technology" that the rest of the conference celebrates. But "by far the hardest part" of networked warfare, he said, was "to create a culture" that gets different military and civilian units linked up by technology fighting as a team. In other words, the technical network won't work without the social one. "You don't give a senior leader a Blackberry or an iPhone and make them a digital leader," McChrystal said. Today's commanders might spend endless hours on video conferences talking to their subordinates around the world. But without a "shared consciousness and purpose" across team members who come from very different backgrounds, they might as well close their Skype windows. Reaching the height of its influence under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, net-centric war proponents like the late Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski argued that linking troops with better communications and information-tech tools would create a faster, lighter and more efficient military. But those thinkers warned that the gear wouldn't work without an internal cultural shift; some proponents even proposed junking the armed forces' hierarchy to accommodate a new, information-age military. The problem was, the networks were closed loops, and inward-facing. They neglected the need for a military to understand the distinct cultures of populations they interacted with. Without that, the best-connected troops were still hobbled by ignorance. That oversight contributed mightily to the United States' troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it allowed a new generation of military theorists to rise to prominence: the counterinsurgents, who argue that local knowledge and cultural understanding is the best asset a military can cultivate. That, and fighters and ROEs that let the locals know who the strong horse is in no uncertain terms. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #3 By the way, most of the key writings on netcentric warfare can be downloaded for free. The 1999 Network Centric Warfare book is a good place to start, but Power to the Edge (Alberts and Hayes 2003) and Understanding Command and Control (Alberts and Hayes 2006) flesh out the implications in more detail. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-01-27 19:17 |
| #2 The central idea of net-centric warfare is that information, which offers strategic and operational advantage. should flow where it's most useful, quickly. An Army War College after action review of the 2003 run up to Baghdad called the rapid collection and dissemination of battlespace info via UAVs etc. the first, albeit nascent, instance of netcentricity at work. Netcentricity has several implications beyond fielding comms and sensor capability and the ability to form a common operational picture across the services and at various echelons of command. It means platoon leaders in Iraq exchanging street level observations and lessons learned without flowing them up the hierarchy and back down 24 months later as outdated intel or doctrine. DARPA fielded an experimental capability called TIGRENet which did just that. Young Snuffy comes back from leading his first go through the neighborhood and announces that Sheikh so and so welcomed him and was most cooperative. The more experienced non-comms introduce him to reality through their comments on his report, which was uploaded from his special PDA before he hit the rack that night. But apart from that sort of lessons-learned-from-your-peers, TIGERNet also put a lot of real time info in the hands of platoon leaders. Updated maps and other info distributed as soon as it was sent in. Now there's situational awareness across AORs rapidly, so the bigger picture emerges more quickly and gets to the people who need it on the ground. McCrystal was special ops. SOCOM lives - or dies - based on their mastery of local languages, cultures etc. and in a place like Afghanistan we're fielding regular soldiers who don't have the luxury of years of training and prep for that sort of insertion. He's reminding folks that the gear and apps aren't all that helpful in counterinsurgency / asymmetrical warfare / stability ops if you don't have a bloody clue about the meaning of what's going on around you. |
| Posted by: lotp 2011-01-27 19:04 |
| #1 “You don’t give a senior leader a Blackberry or an iPhone and make them a digital leader,” McChrystal said. Today’s commanders might spend endless hours on video conferences talking to their subordinates around the world. But without a “shared consciousness and purpose” across team members who come from very different backgrounds, they might as well close their Skype windows. I wonder if today's commanders can spend too much time networking via the computer to the extent that they lose sight of the war? What's next? If you disagree with your superiors or subordinates, what do you do "unfriend" them on the social network? There is a good deal that I don't understand about modern warfare. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2011-01-27 12:06 |