War In The Information Age

We are on the eve of a new era in the business of warfighting and combined arms. This is the information age of warfare and advantage will be achieved through the speed and integration of information. 

If we follow the right path, tomorrow’s commanders will seamlessly direct joint and coalition forces in a way that simultaneously capitalizes on the advantages on land; at sea; and in the air, space, and cyberspace. 

The primary warfighting attributes will be decision speed and operational agility. In short, our asymmetric advantage in future battles depends on harnessing the vast amount of information our sensors can generate, fusing it quickly into decision-quality information, and creating effects simultaneously from all domains and all functional components anywhere in the world.

Before discussing what must change as we evolve in the information age of warfare, we should acknowledge what never changes: trust and confidence. Joint and coalition warfare has and always will rely on trust and confidence at all levels, tactical, operational, and strategic.

At the tactical level, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsman must trust each other to achieve mission success. From Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers embedded with and coordinating airpower for Army and Marine maneuver units to Navy and Coast Guard integrated maritime operations around the globe, today’s military has established an unprecedented level of trust and confidence from 25 years of fighting together.

At the operational level, component commanders from each service understand the supporting and supported relationships required to employ joint and coalition forces in support of a Joint Force commander. 

At the strategic level, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joe Dunford continues to strengthen the partnership between combatant commanders and the Joint Chiefs as we think through campaign design at the strategic level of conflict. 

Today, we look at current and future global security challenges through the lens of a “4+1” framework. From China’s actions to militarize the South China Sea, to Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, to Iran’s continued malicious activity, to nuclear aspirations of an increasingly unstable North Korea, we have returned to the era of state-on-state competition even as we counter violent extremism in the Middle East, prevent its spread to other regions, and disrupt attacks worldwide. The 4+1 challenges, all transregional in nature, require a sophisticated approach that often spans beyond existing COCOM geographic boundaries.

With this level of trust and confidence established, the table is set for a revolutionary approach to warfare in the information age. To achieve the key attributes of decision speed and operational agility, we must focus on two levels of integration.

The future of combined arms

The first is a vertical integration of all operating domains (air, land, sea, space, cyber, and sub-surface). In each of these domains, we simultaneously sense the globe and create effects. Both the challenge and the opportunity is to better stitch these domains together in ways that allow the massive volume of data we collect to enter a common operating system that can store, share, and compare at machine speed. 

In the information age of warfare, relying on mostly human analysis is far too slow and the volume of data collected is far too great to achieve the decision speed required. This is where many of the Third Offset technological concepts of machine-to-machine dialogue, human-machine teaming, artificial intelligence, and autonomy come into play. As the data is quickly turned into decision-quality information, we must then create simultaneous effects from these same domains that can be rapidly choreographed into an attack plan that overwhelms any adversary’s ability to counter and respond.

Integrate across domains and components

The second level of integration is the horizontal connection of the various functional communities that must coordinate and integrate their activities so the sum of our operations is always greater than merely adding together the individual parts. This begins across components when a combatant commander demands vicious harmony in order to ensure the joint force hits on all cylinders. But it is far more than a military challenge. Much as we must stitch together domains vertically to sense the globe, provide decision-quality information, and create multi-domain effects, we must also stitch together the variety of stakeholders horizontally who offer the ability to contribute to creating multiple dilemmas for our adversaries.

This is going to require us to find creative ways to better share information with our international teammates as we prosecute campaigns “by, with, and through allies and partners.” As improved technology fosters mission growth (think no further than the current cyber and ISR enterprise that didn’t exist 15 years ago), there has been a corresponding increase in the security levels of information. 

War in the information age will continue to rely on a foundation of trust and confidence across the joint and combined team. The relationships we have built over the past quarter-century of conflict at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels set the table now for a revolutionary approach to future combined arms. 

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