Inside the Army
The Army is working to marry competing ideas as it develops a vision for its future network capability, a cornerstone of the service’s revamped modernization program, according to a senior Army official.
On the one hand, the service views the ability to network its soldiers together as one of the most important aspects of its modernization strategy.
Speaking in June before the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said, “Simply put, the network is the centerpiece of the Army’s modernization effort and any shortfall in funding will put that effort at risk.”
At the same time, though, the Army Capstone Concept argues that in the future it will be critical for forces to be able to operate in degraded environments -- including places where there is no access to a communications network. This lesson stems directly from the Army’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it’s been proven that technology cannot replace the situational awareness gained from political, historical and cultural understanding.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command, agrees that tension exists between the service’s aspiration for technology and its recognition that soldiers need to be able to operate without it.
“In my time as a commander in the [19]90s, roughly stated from Desert Storm through the end of the century, we had a belief that the best information came from the top down,” said Dempsey, speaking with reporters at the Pentagon Dec. 9. “I think what these conflicts have reminded us is it’s equally -- and maybe even more -- important, particularly in counterinsurgency conflicts, to get information from the bottom up, because it’s from the bottom up that the real context of our actions is to be learned.”
This does not mean the concept of a networked force is no longer relevant, but the ways in which the Army views the network and the flow of information has changed.
“A satellite shot or a full-motion video shot will give you a picture of what is occurring, but it will be a picture of what is occurring from 3,000 or 4,000 feet,” said Dempsey. “The individual soldier on the ground -- the soldier as a sensor -- has to help us develop the context in which we operate, a context, by the way, that is important to be understood at every echelon. We really have to find a way to empower that edge to provide that context from the bottom up.”
In October, Inside the Army reported that the service’s revised network plans stress connectivity over capability (ITA, Oct. 12, p5). This means that providing the lower levels -- company level and below -- some network connectivity is a higher priority than creating a network robust enough to share large amounts of information.
“What you sense in our capstone concept is our aspiration for technological solutions to make us more precise, more knowledgeable, but the recognition that that will enable only to a point, but what actually has to happen at the end of the day is a soldier has to walk into a village in order to understand the village,” said Dempsey, who said he has been accused of rejecting technology and even “surrendering the future.”
He rejected those accusations, adding that he believes “technology will always be an important enabler but it will never be a substitute for the kind of close contact that has to occur in dealing with enemies on the ground.”
“We’re not surrendering or giving up on standoff precision munitions against identifiable, discreet high-value targets,” he continued. “Those kind of capabilities are enormously important. They tend to be a decided advantage for us today. I’m not suggesting we’ll have that advantage in perpetuity, but missions to stabilize land mass cannot be accomplished with precision weapons. That has to have land power and young men and women who are culturally astute and broadly developed in order to do that.”
All that said, Dempsey echoed Chiarelli’s endorsement of the network, describing it as “this century’s ‘big five’ all wrapped into one.”
In the early 1970s, the Army began work on a modernization strategy that aimed to develop the so-called “big five” equipment systems: a new tank, a new infantry combat vehicle, a new attack helicopter, a new transport helicopter and a new antiaircraft missile. The five systems became the Abrams tank, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the Patriot Air Defense Missile System, the Apache helicopter and the Black Hawk helicopter.
But even though the network could be the equivalent of this century’s big five, the Army does not yet need to know what it will look like, said Dempsey.
“I, personally, believe that of all the things we’re doing, the one that has the most potential to change dramatically, and in many ways surprisingly, is the network,” he said. “And so, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to decide what’s our baseline of requirements, so that as these applications come screaming at us, as information technology improves and increases, we’ve got to decide what we want to bring in and what we do not, because otherwise you could quickly become overwhelmed by the good ideas of technology.”
The Army also faces the challenge of communicating the thinking behind network development to the outside world, especially those making funding decisions.
Recently, it has adopted new ways to explain the way the network will operate. In materials presented to Pentagon officials last month, the service compared the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical to a cell tower and the Joint Tactical Radio System to cell phones. Additionally, the documents likened battle command capabilities to applications like those available on iPhones.
The new way of representing the network may reflect the Army’s effort to adapt after complaints that the network was too difficult to understand, according to a source with knowledge of the brigade combat team modernization program. -- Kate Brannen