Developing and Populating the Global Information Grid for Joint and Coalition Operations: Challenges and Opportunities

摘要

Network Centric Operations are transforming the nature of warfare. While literally countless definitions have been offered to explain what Network Centric Operations and Network Centric Warfare, recent directives by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (ASD/NII) have served to bound the problem and define the elements of the Global Information Grid (GIG) -- the foundation for Network Centric Warfare. This paper addresses a critical element of this GIG construct how will the GIG be populated and developed to ensure success in Joint and coalition operations. We assert that a GIG designed to be utilized by U.S. and coalition forces and a GIG populated by a wide array of U.S. and coalition sensors and other dynamic sources of information will be a much more powerful tool than a GIG that is designed, developed, resourced and used nearly exclusively by U.S. forces. We base this assertion on the operational realities of warfighting and the lessons learned from Operational Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. For example, in the naval context, in the spring of 2002, during Operation Enduring Freedom, 91 coalition ships were concentrated in the Central Command Area of Responsibility. While 31 of these ships were U.S. Navy ships, 60 of these ships belonged to U.S. coalition partners. Clearly, the success of this U.S.-led operation as well as others was tremendously enhanced by the warfighting capabilities provided by a robust array of coalition assets. As the United States military builds and populates the Global Information Grid as the foundation for Network Centric Warfare the value-added of building the GIG in such a way that it both supports coalition partners and accommodates sensors and systems that these partners bring to the table is clear.