Learning from Darfur. Building a Net-Capable African Force to Stop Mass Killing

摘要

In its report on The Power to Protect, Refugees International, an independent nongovernmental organization dedicated to helping embattled and uprooted peoples like those of Darfur, examined what sorts of intervention forces could stop such mass killing and displacement. Noting recent advances in Western military concepts and capabilities that exploit information technology, The Power to Protect sought to determine whether and how these advances can enhance the military's ability to be deployed quickly, capably and with fewer soldiers and therefore with fewer risks and costs to prevent mass killings of civilian populations and, to the degree that this type of force is available, whether leaders will be more likely to decide in favor of combat interventions to stop mass killings. The new factor in considering how to stop mass killing is the advent of net-centric (also called network-centric and net-capable) military forces, endowed with information networks that offer unprecedented battle-space knowledge and permit flexible and distributed yet integrated operations. According to the U.S. Defense Department: Network-centric warfare is an emerging theory of war in the Information Age. It is also a concept that, at the highest level, constitutes the military's response to the Information Age. The term network-centric warfare broadly describes the combination of strategies, emerging tactics, techniques, and procedures, and organizations that a fully or even a partially networked force can employ to create a decisive warfighting advantage.