Sections

United Kingdom

Australia

NATO

References

[This piece is in continuation to “Network Centric Warfare: An Enduring Theory of Warfighting (Part I)”, which covered implementation status in the United States]

United Kingdom

General

In the early years of this century several visionaries in the UK saw the work being undertaken in the US to develop NCW capabilities and realised that the benefits such an approach offered could significantly enhance the UK’s military effectiveness. The UK, therefore, defined its own version of NCW and termed it Network Enabled Capability (NEC) [1]. The UK Defence Plan 2009-2013 states that for developing future capabilities, command, control, and communications must be enhanced, in particular through Network Enabled Capability [2]. Another document issued in 2009 by the UK MoD provides a detailed insight into the UK notion of NEC [3]. Just like NCW in the US, while usage of the term NEC is no longer in popular usage in UK military literature, the underlying concepts of NEC are clearly adopted into its warfighting philosophy and military systems. For example, at the 2019 Network Centric Warfare Conference conducted annually by the SMi Group, the UK MoD together with UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) gave a presentation on the Morpheus NEC Programme, a £3.2 billion defence programme delivering the next generation of Tactical Communication and Information Systems [4].

NEC Concept

UK defence doctrine for NEC, enunciated vide Joint Services Publication 777 (now no longer in vogue), stated [5]:-

“NEC offers decisive advantage through the timely provision and exploitation of information and intelligence to enable effective decision-making and agile actions. NEC will be implemented through the coherent and progressive development of defence equipment, software, processes, structures and individual and collective training, underpinned by the development of a secure, robust and extensive network of networks.”

NEC Architecture

Vide the above doctrine, NEC is viewed as the cumulative result of three interlocking areas of activities or dimensions, namely, Networks, Information and People, which work together to enable Joint Action – the means to deliver effect. The concept of interconnection between the new and existing systems allows “the optimal exploitation of information”.

Joint Action. The overarching element of the UK’s approach to NEC is Joint Action, which is defined as the deliberate orchestrated use of the full range of military capability and activities to achieve the aims. In an NEC context, this is the result that the Network, Information and People dimensions would aim for. The delivery of NEC with its improvements to situational awareness, collaborative planning, and a greater mutual understanding of the operational picture because of Information Superiority achieved on the battlefield, leads to enhancement of combat potential.

Networks. The underpinning element of UK Defence’s NEC concept is the provision of a robust and secure ‘network of networks’ that allows the sharing and exploiting of data across both the business space and the battlespace, both within UK Defence and, through interoperability, with its allies. On the battlefield the communication systems at the tactical level with secure, deployable broadband voice, video, and data services in conjunction with Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) in the business space, give personnel across Defence access to the same information and common tools.

Information. Complementing a robust network are the necessary command and control, information management and exploitation procedures implemented on the network.

People. There is heavy emphasis in the UK Defence Forces on recruiting motivated and capable personnel who can exploit the benefits offered by NEC. Such individuals are required to be competent and confident with the operation of IT and comfortable working in an environment where collaborative working, and information sharing are the norms. The UK Chief of the General Staff summed up the demands that modern operations in the Information Age put on defence forces, as under [6]:-

“We are looking for soldiers/ diplomats of the old school but with a modern understanding of the ideas and technology that allow us to take the fight to the enemy both among the people on the ground and in cyberspace.”

Benefits of NEC

The ultimate benefit of NEC is the ability to generate better actions to realise better effects and thus lead to success in operations. As network capability improves, shared information becomes more readily available. Routine tasks are automated, and new standard operating procedures and working practices facilitate high-tempo operations.

The ability to reach back and across to a broad range of information sources enables a better shared understanding of the situation. This improves the quality and tempo of decision making, which in turn leads to more coherent, concurrent, and responsive actions, resulting in more timely and appropriate effects.

The visualised UK NEC benefits chain, has been depicted below:-

Australia

Background

In early 2003, the Australian Chief of the Defence Force (CDF) announced that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) would pursue NCW. The aim was to adapt to the emerging needs of Information Age warfare and enhance the ADF’s warfighting effectiveness. Subsequently, the Australian defence released three successive NCW Roadmaps and three associated ‘capstone’ documents between 2003 and 2009 [7].

The NCW Roadmaps were issued in 2003, 2005 and 2007 (updated in 2009), while the three policy documents were as under:-

• “Enabling Future Warfighting: Network Centric Warfare”, issued in 2004.
• “Joint Operations for the 21ST Century”, issued in 2007, and
• Defence White Paper, “Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030”, issued in 2009.

The 2009 Defence White Paper

The 2009 Defence White Paper was a very comprehensive statement on Defence produced by the Australian Government [8]. The White Paper identified ‘networked capability’ as a key attribute of the envisaged Force 2030. It noted that the capability would help people to work together more effectively, provide common battlespace awareness and, most crucially, achieve information superiority over an adversary, so that the forces could make critical decisions on the battlefield more quickly and with better knowledge than the adversary.

As per the document, Australian Defence was to build a networked ADF, in which modern technology would be used to link sensors, weapons systems, and commanders and their personnel in a networked environment. This would be achieved by progressively delivering networked capability in the maritime, land, air and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance domains. Success would depend on establishing a secure, high-capacity information network that allows personnel in different places to collaborate in real time and to synchronize their operational actions precisely and effectively.

Another crucial characteristic of Force 2030 would be a joint approach that binds single-service capabilities and systems into an operationally seamless whole. The ADF’s standard mode of operating would be joint operations involving the three services, other Defence agencies and, in some cases, other government agencies.

ADF NCW Concept

The NCW Roadmaps were developed in line with the Australian defence plans. As per the 2006 Australian DoD document, “Explaining NCW” [9]:-

“NCW is a means of organizing the force by using modern information technology to link sensors, decision-makers and weapon systems to help people work more effectively together to achieve the commander’s intent.”

Although NCW is not itself considered as a warfighting concept, it is envisaged as a method of strengthening the warfighting capability of the ADF by linking sensor, command and control and engagement systems. At the centre, connecting those systems, is a network, as depicted below [10]:-

The Network and Human Dimensions

The Network Dimension. Linking systems across organisational and geographical boundaries through robust networking allows better sharing of information that is timely, relevant and, most importantly, trusted. Sharing information enhances force collaboration and synchronisation across the force which increases situational awareness. Ultimately, NCW would allow a force to act before an adversary acts, and to reach out to the right place at the right time with the right force for the right effect.

The Human Dimension. Implementing NCW to enhance a force’s warfighting capability is also based on the human dimension of warfighting. Developing the human dimension is as important as building the network. For achieving this, it is necessary to build on high standards of leadership, training, education, and doctrine, while adapting its structures and organisational relationships to foster new ways of sharing information, building trust, and expanding collaboration across the force.

Interlinking between the Network and Human Dimensions. The network and human dimensions of NCW are not mutually exclusive, although each has its own distinctive characteristics. Because trust and information sharing (and the influences they have on shared situational awareness, collaboration, and decision-making) are interlinked, the network and human dimensions of NCW must be connected to each other, or ‘networked’. These networking requirements are evident in the relationships between three warfighting ‘realms’, ie, the Information, Cognitive and Physical Realms. The networks developed within these realms, and across the network and human dimensions, results in a force that can generate tempo, be agile and fight asymmetrically [11].

Current Status

Although usage of the term NCW is not prevalent even in the ADF, good progress has been made by all the three Services to take forward the implementation on NCW concepts after ADF last issued its NCW Roadmap in 2009. The Army is well on its way to field its LAND 200 tactical battle management system as well as military broadband network (JP 2072 and JP 2008); the NCW components in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) include the F-35’s networking capabilities and its Airborne Early Warning and Control System; while the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has embraced the powerful active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, principally in the form of the Australian-developed CEAFAR. However, based on new military concepts, usage of the term NCW has been replaced with alternative terminologies such as information superiority, cyber warfare, and multi-dimension manoeuvre, all aimed at harnessing the enormous technological and intellectual power of emerging technologies for military objectives [12].

NATO

Background

Over a decade ago, NATO had identified Network Enabled Capability (NEC) as a high priority alliance goal. NATO worked on developing a maturity model related to improving force capability and transformation, which is an interesting model to take note of as an application of NCW concepts in a coalition setting [13]. It is highlighted at the outset that the NATO NEC (NNEC) has now been merged into the Federated Mission Networking paradigm [14, 15, 16].

The challenges faced by NATO and its member nations in the 21st Century require the creation of a coalition, a collection of disparate entities who pursue related but not identical goals. This collective is composed of several contributing entities, both military and non-military (interagency or whole of government) from the various NATO nations. The heterogeneous make-up of the enterprise implies that no single element oversees the entire endeavour. The interactions between and among these contributing elements has been in the NNEC maturity model, an overview of which is given out in succeeding paragraphs.

NATO Network Enabled Capability Levels

NATO is committed to developing the capability to conduct network enabled operations. The ability to conduct such operations, referred to as Network Enabled Capability (NEC, a term also used by UK), is considered critical for mission success in the challenging complex civil-military operations that have been described above and will challenge NATO in the 21st Century.

NATO has defined five such levels of operational capability. Each succeeding level is related to increasing the coherence of the operation or endeavour. These five levels (NNEC Capability Levels), in increasing degrees of capability, are: Stand-alone (Disjointed) operations, De-Conflicted operations, Coordinated operations, Integrated operations and Transformed (coherent) operations.

Command & Control (C2) Approaches

C2 approaches can be grouped into five classes. The objectives of each of these C2 approaches and their implications for information sharing, collaboration, and delegation of decision rights are briefly discussed below:-

• Conflicted C2. There is no collective objective. The only C2 that exists is that exercised by the individual contributors over their own forces or organisations.
• De-Conflicted C2. The objective of De-Conflicted C2 is the avoidance of adverse cross-impacts between and among the participants by partitioning the problem space. For entities to de-conflict their intents, plans, or actions, they need to be able to recognize potential conflicts and attempt to resolve them by partitioning across geography, function, echelon, and/ or time.
• Coordinated C2. The objective of Coordinated C2 is to increase overall effectiveness by seeking mutual support for intent, developing relationships and linkages between and among entity plans and actions to reinforce or enhance effects, some initial pooling of non-organic resources, and increased sharing in the Information Domain to improve the quality of information.
• Collaborative C2. The objective of Collaborative C2 is to develop significant synergies by negotiating and establishing collective intent and a shared plan, establishing, or reconfiguring roles, coupling actions, rich sharing of non-organic resources, some pooling of organic resources, and increasing interactions in the Social Domain to increase shared awareness.
• Edge C2. The objective of Edge C2 is to enable the collective to self-synchronize. The ability to self-synchronize requires that a rich, shared understanding exists across the contributing elements. This, in turn, requires a robustly networked collection of entities with widespread and easy access to information, extensive sharing of information, rich and continuous interactions, and the broadest possible distribution of decision rights. An Edge approach to C2 distinguishes itself from the other C2 approaches by replacing deliberate and formal coordination and collaboration mechanisms with the dynamics of self-synchronization.

C2 Maturity Levels

C2 maturity levels are defined in terms of the specific approaches to C2 that an entity or collection of entities can implement and the ability to recognize which approach is appropriate and thus adopt the most appropriate approach given the situation. Thus, each C2 maturity level is associated with a specific set of C2 capabilities. Furthermore, each higher level of C2 maturity subsumes the capabilities associated with the lower levels. From the collective or coalition perspective there are thus five possible levels of C2 maturity, as shown in the figure below.

Relationship between C2 Maturity Levels and NNEC Capability Levels

These C2 Maturity Levels can now be mapped to the NNEC Capability Levels discussed above, which is depicted in the figure below:-

The NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model (N2C2M2)

The N2C2M2 facilitates the exploration of network enabled C2 approaches and capabilities in a coalition context. Each C2 maturity level is associated with a specific set of C2 capabilities. Furthermore, each higher level of C2 maturity subsumes the capabilities associated with the lower levels. These NNEC C2 maturity levels are mapped to NNEC transformation maturity levels. This NATO Model is designed to enable coalition forces to orient themselves and measure their current capabilities more specifically, in relation to the C2 aspects of the NNEC vision.

Although the above NNEC Model gave a good insight into how NCW concepts might be adopted in a coalition environment, the NNEC paradigm was merged into the Federated Mission Networking initiative, which is currently in vogue.

[Continued in “Network Centric Warfare: An Enduring Theory of Warfighting (Part III)”]

References

(1)        Colonel Standen I, Network Enabled Capability: a UK Perspective, RUSI Defence Systems Publication, Jun 2010, pp 78-81.

(2)        Defence Plan 2009-2013, UK Ministry of Defence, Sep 2009, pp. 45, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(3)        NEC: Understanding Network Enabled Capability, UK MoD, Pub. Newsdesk Communications, ISBN 978-1-905435-94-4, 2009 [No longer available online].

(4)        UK MoD and DSTL to Present on UK’s Morpheus NEC Programme at Network Centric Warfare 2019, RealWire, 21 Nov 2018, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(5)        Network Centric Warfare: Concept, Status and Way Forward for the Indian Army [Restricted], Monograph, Dec 2015, Military College of Telecommunication Engineering, Mhow, India, pp. 31.

(6)        Gen Sir David Richards, Future Conflict and Its Prevention: People and the Information Age, 15 Mar 2010, Intellibriefs, Accessed 03 May 2021.

(7)        NCW Roadmap 2009, Australian Department of Defence, Oct 2009, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(8)        Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, Australia Ministry of Defence, 2009, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(9)        Explaining NCW, Australian Department of Defence, Feb 2006, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(10)      NCW Roadmap 2009, Australian Department of Defence, Oct 2009, pp. 9, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(11)      Ibid. pp. 12.

(12)      The ADF and Network Centric Warfare – On Target to Meet Objectives, 23 Oct 2018, Asia Pacific Defence Reporter, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(13)      Alberts, D S, NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model, SAS-065 Research Task Group, US DoD CCRP Publication, Feb 2010, pp 39-40, 44-67.

(14)      Federated Mission Networking, NATO Allied Command Transformation, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(15)      NATO Network Enabled Capability (Archived), NATO, Accessed 04 May 2021.

(16)      Federated Mission Networking, Wikipedia, Accessed 04 May 2021.