Information Sufficiency and the Operational Commander: A Cautionary Tale

摘要

The rapid military victory of U.S. and Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) is already being hailed as evidence for the validation of the Secretary of Defense's vision of a transformed military: a force that is lighter, more mobile, more agile, more precise, more joint, more interoperable, and more lethal. A military heavily empowered by 'information superiority' and 'dominant battlespace awareness.' The emergence of network- centric warfare as the United States' preferred style of war, together with the associated quest for information superiority, is fueling a growing demand for an ever-increasing amount of detailed, real-time, data by theater and national level commanders. While superior battlespace awareness is arguably better than inferior battlespace awareness, there are potential hazards in operational concepts and command schemes that depend too heavily on the reliable flow of immense quantities of timely, complete, accurate, relevant, and actionable information. Already the U.S. military collects, processes, and disseminates a greater quantity of data than any other military, friend or foe. It relies heavily on a small number of low-density, high-demand assets for the collection of intelligence, and regularly saturates its analysts, communications links, and commanders attempting to process, move, and absorb that data. Further, the U.S. military is totally dependent on a fragile space-based network, the Global Positioning System (GPS), for vital precision navigation and timing data. As it transforms itself into a leaner, smarter force these challenges will likely grow worse unless it manages its information expectations, tailors information appropriately for each level of command, develops backups to the existing information architecture, and continues its traditional focus on fault-tolerant, flexible, operational planning. (64 refs.).