M c H A

 R ]PA]P  

lluminating 

Tomorrow's 

War 

Martin C. L
security community. 

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GeorRe C. Marshall Hall 
g 

Tomorrow's 

War 

Martin C Libicki 

McNair Paper 61 

October 1999 

INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC STUDIES 

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY 

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ISSN 1071-7552 
Precision-Guided Munitions ........................ 

Precision Location ................................ 

A World of Sensors ............................... 

The Potential Proliferation of the 

Revolution in Military Affairs .................... 1

Conclusions .................................... 2

2. IMPLICATIONS ................................. 3

Standoff Warfare ................................ 3

Coalition Structures .............................. 4

Mud Warfare ................................... 4

Conclusions .................................... 5

3. ALTERNATIVES ................................. 5

Prospects for the Grid ............................ 5

The Linear Grid ................................. 6

4. CHARACTERISTICS .............................. 7

Defining the Grid ................................ 7

Issues ......................................... 7

Knowledge Maintenance .......................... 7

Presentation .................................. .. 8

Access ........................................ 8

Security ....................................... 8

Conclusions .................................... 8

S. CONSTRUCTION ............................... 9

Some Difficulties of Top-Down Integration ............ 9

Cutting to the Core ............................... 9

Opportunities for Bottom-Up Integration ............. 1 0

°°, 

Ill 
ACRONYMS ..................................... 127 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ............................. 129 

iv 
David Alberts 

Kirstie Bellman 

Alvin Bernstein 

James Blaker 

Richard Casey 

Patrick Cronin 

Bruce Deal 

John Evanoff 

Jerry Faber 

Edward Feighenbaum 

Howard Frank 

Frederick Giessler 

Jeffrey Gerold 

Seymour Goodman 

James Graham 

Mary Hammond 

Delonnie Henry 

Ryan Henry 

Sam Hubbard 

Jeremy Kaplan 

Michael Martus 

Ray Michael 

Ronald Montaperto 

Lindy Moran 

Anthony Oettinger 

John Reed 

George Ruptier 

Ellin Sarot 

Alan Sears 

Howard Shrobe 

Jerry Smith 

Shukri Wakid 

Tom Welch 

/2 
In the weeks leading up to Desert Storm, anxious analysts tried 

forecast the course of war by counting what the coalition and Ira

each brought to the battlefield: they have this many men, we hav

that many men; they have this much armor, we have that muc

armor; their air fleet is this big; ours is that big. Few doubted whic

side would prevail in battle, but many analysts were not so sure th

war could be won swiftly and with acceptable casualties. 

Looking back, their worries seem baseless and their correlation 

force calculations almost quaint. Indeed, the coalition may ha

carried the day almost as well with only half the forces. By the tim

the planes came back from Baghdad, Iraq was blind, but the coalitio

could see. That, plus precision weapons (and people trained to u

them) determined the outcome. All else was detail. 2 

The Gulf War suggested that the ability to see the battlespace 

key to prevailing in conventional conflict when technology perm

forces to hit and kill what they can see. This close relationsh

between seeing and striking may affect everything about c~nvention

warfare: how it is fought, what forces and equipment it is fought wit

and the role of the United States and others in fighting it. 

To illuminate the battlespace, the Department of Defense (DOD

uses sensors (to yield ISR: intelligence surveillance, an

reconnaissance) and networks (to support C4: command, contro

communications, and computers). With precision weapons adde

they collectively make up a "System of Systems. "3 Indeed, DOD is 

System of Systems: its people deploy sensors, examine return

maintain databases, create reports and maps, respond to orders an

assignments, and designate targets for weapons. Rising complexity, 

growing aversion to risk, the need for speed, constant cost pressure

and technological opportunities" all impel automatic integration 

components at all levels from bits to knowledge. Otherwise, t

vision of the battlespace remains a patchwork. 

vii 
internally consistent across the Grid. Users on the Grid could b

electronically connected to other warfighters and collaborate wit

them, can see a real-time map of the battlefield, annotate this map fo

others, find out where parts are in their repair cycle, participate in 

simulation or exercise, assess the state of the network (and perhap

defend it from attack), diagnose remote equipment, and even perhap

call for fire support from certain weapons. Indeed, being continuousl

and intimately connected to the Grid may be second nature fo

tomorrow's forces. 

This monograph explores some implications of and requirement

for achieving battlespace illumination. Laced through this monograp

are several themes: the ascendancy of light over power in arbitratin

conflict, the sunset of platform-centric warfare in favor of Grid-centri

warfare based on distributed sensors and weapons, the tensio

between the war that we would fight (e.g., standoff warfare) and th

war our enemies may prefer, the need for a good mix betwee

mission-oriented and user-oriented applications, and the need to kee

the Grid open to change, and perhaps opened to others. 

Those familiar with the debate over the revolution in militar

affairs (RMA) may find concepts in chapters 1 through 3 familiar, 7 an

those thinking about information systems may respond similarly t

chapters 4 and 5. Consolidating these strands of thought (and addin

a few others) may broaden both the readership and the discussion o

these issues. 

viii 
Tomorrows 

War 

lo 

Foundations 

[The United States is] converging very rapidly.., to see all highvalue targets on the battlefield at any time.., to make a direct hit 

on any target we can see, and.., to destroy any target we can hit 

•.. to make the battlefield untenable for most modern forces. 8 

Under Secretary of Defense William J. Perry (1978) 

The United States is midway through what may be called 

revolution in military affairs (RMA). 9 This revolution opened in th

1970s with the development and refinement of precision-guided 

munitions 1° (PGMs), which can hit anything that can be located. It 

likely to culminate with the multiplication and integration of th

DOD C41SR assets, thereby creating a well-populated Grid. In th

process, the physical battlespace will become illuminated better tha

ever. As this occurs, conventional warfare will change from force o

force to hide-and-seek. Hence the need for a Grid capable o

illuminating the battlespace, a case that rests on five tenets: 

• With precision weaponry, seeing a target is tantamount t

being able to kill it. The guidance for such weaponry 
pg g

GPS can be defended and can also be denied to adversaries. 

• The growing power and variety of sensors mean things will 

easier to see, data fusion (in the Grid) will become mo

important, and an architecture of distributed sensors may perfor

better (and survive longer) than one that concentrates on a fe

expensive sensors. 

• The underlying technology, however, is available to all, whic

means the shift from force-on-force warfare to hide-and-se

conflict is not just a possibility, but a necessity. 

Precision-Guided Munitions 

Before the development of PGMs (especially long-range PGM

knowing what was where was helpful, but such information was on

one step toward defeating adversaries. Waging war required massi

shooters and ordnance, coordinating platforms and their suppo

putting them in harm's way, and getting them to work right in the f

and friction of war. 

Precision weapons promise greater effect (missed shots t

adversaries to hide, flee, or shoot back) from fewer shots, as well 

fewer unwanted side-effects (such as hitting the innocent). 

precision weapons increase the probability of destroying what can 

found and tracked, so military outcomes are becoming a matter 

who can see (and how quickly) and who can hide. Knowing wha

where is primary and raw firepower secondary,. Whether comple

expensive platforms are the best way to illuminate the battlespace a

get firepower on revealed targets is not clear. What is clear is th

platforms are far more visible and costly than the munitions requir

to destroy them (even if fired as clusters in a saturation attack) or t

sensors required to find them. 11 

A target can be found if its general location is known and 

movement can be tracked either manually or automatically (whi

2 
wire-guided missile (TOW) and fiber-optic-guided antiarmor missile

(FOG M), as well as those steered indirectly by laser. These PGM

tend to be cheap but do not fly far (the targeter needs to see th

target). Targeters (such as those who hold the laser beam on th

target) may be attacked; even if they survive, they may take their eye

or beams off the target and thereby break a lock. Given this limitation

these PGMs offer only a modest advantage over very accurat

conventional direct-fire weapons (such as an M-1 tank, which can h

a target at 3,000 meters). 12 

Seeker-guided PGMs home in on a target's signature. Example

include PGMs that are heat seeking (the Sidewinder and Stinger shor

range antiaircraft missiles and the infrared Maverick), acousti

(torpedoes), and radar-guided (against aircraft and ships). Newer kind

would recognize a target as an infrared (IR) image in a focal-plan

array by using light detection and ranging (LIDAR). Future PGMs wi

use a combination of signatures (the Brilliant Antitank submunitio

weapon, for example, looks for both heat and sound). The mor

elaborate the guidance package, the more expensive the PGM, an

a single missile in this class usually costs between $100,000 an

$1,000,000. 

Point-guided PGMs include ballistic missiles that use inertia

navigational systems (INS) to determine where they are in real space

cruise missiles that fly according to internal maps; and new munition

that supplement INS 13 with GPS updates. These last can b

inexpensive; one type, the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) cos

$14,000 per kit TM (compared with the planning estimate of $60,000

Today's point-guided PGMs are trained on immobile points, b

tomorrow's might use real-time updates to home in on moving targe

(if the time required to get data from a sensor, through the Grid, an

to the PGM is short enough for the missile to outmaneuver th

target), is They justify building a real-time tableau of the battlespac

from which PGMs draw their aimpoints. 

3 
sensors, navigation aids, and the PGM. But guidance can b

generated by fusing the data from a large population of sensors, man

times more capable than what a PGM can carry. The more powerfu

the sensing, the more easily a PGM can find and lock onto a targe

whose signatures are intermittent and ambiguous. Rather than bein

diverted to the last known location of the target, the PGM can follow 

predicted tracks. Because point-guided PGMs will not need to carr

complex sensors, they will be cheaper and can therefore be bough

in larger numbers. Attacks by volleys of PGMs can succeed b

saturating a target's defenses. 

If the DOD favors seeker-guided PGMs, it will have less need o

(and less money to spend on) very sophisticated C'IISR systems tha

provide external targeting. Favoring point-guided PGMs woul

require building such systems. Supplying only point-guided PGMs t

temporary friends (such as Afghan mujahideen) limits the mischie

such friends can do on their own after U.S. support ends. 

In practice, external sensors could be used to localize a targe

The PGM flies to a given point, and then uses its own sensors fo

terminal guidance. Such short-range sensors need not be so sensitiv

as long-range sensors and thus may cost far less. Alternatively, a loca

unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), carrying more or better sensors tha

the PGM, can lase the target for the munition. 

A target that has been detected may still try to escape destructio

by spoofing, exploiting range or armor, or counterattacking. Despit

these defenses, the odds still favor PGMs. Spoofing includes th

ejection of flares (used against IR missiles), chaff and jammers (agains

radar missiles), and off-board sound generators (against acousti

PGMs, such as torpedoes). The efficiency of such defenses depend

on the quality of warning systems potential targets carry. Althoug

spoofing technology continues to advance, given the growing variet

of signals a PGM can use for homing, the likelihood that a PGM wi

find its way is increasing. A PGM with an aimpoint determined b

4 
operate beyond the range of most missiles today. With enough head 

start, some targets (one example being submarines) may outrun th

PGM long enough for its fuel to be used up; others may outmaneuve

the PGM. Future PGMs will fly farther and faster, so ultimately, th

cost of making platforms faster or more agile is higher than that o

improving PGMs. 16 

Armor will improve, but barring a breakthrough in materials

armor is no guarantee and adds cost and weight. Both Russia and th

United States are working on a tank that collects information (speed

bearing, type) on an incoming round and, in response, reshapes it

skin to a geometry that can blunt the impact of a missile, but suc

skins will be vulnerable to heavy weapons, fast penetrators, an

saturation attacks. Like armor, burial provides a primitive but effective 

technology for command posts and high-value stores, but it canno

protect assets that must move. Meanwhile, bunker-busting bombs ar

getting better at penetration. 

Shooting back is an option. The Army is working on lasers tha

can blind IR missiles, and the Navy on antitorpedo torpedoes, bu

both remain to be fully tested, particularly against swarm 

engagements. DOD has spent billions to learn how to shoot down 

Scuds, but so far results are mixed. ~7 The Patriot missile was les

successful in the Gulf War than initially believed. Upgrades and new 

missiles seem impressive in one-on-one test engagements, but the

are not proof against saturation attacks. 1~ Meanwhile, PGMs ar

becoming stealthier. European missile manufacturers reportedly ar

applying radar-reducing finishes to tactical missiles (such as th

Penguin or the FOG-M). 

Electromagnetic pulses or microwave bursts could be used t

cripple the electronics on incoming missiles (although it is hard t

time the burst just as the missile comes into range). Switching t

PGMs with older technologies (such as mechanical fuses or termina

5 
PGMs, but time favors the PGM. A valuable target would be difficu

to defend against a swarm of stealthy missiles. 

Precision Location 

Many PGMs can track and hit targets without knowing the absolut

location of either. Yet, absolute location lets PGMs get their guidanc

from a real-time map built by fusing a wide variety of external sensor

Precise mapping allows a target that lacks a real-time signature to b

hit. Some perfectly camouflaged structures may be discovered b

looking for elevation differences between a newly taken picture an

baseline three-dimensional imagery of an area. 

Absolute location requires good maps of the battlefield, which a

being improved to multimeter level accuracy (Digital Terra

Elevation Data Level 4+ capability), thanks to satellites with electro

optimal imaging and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (SAR

GPS, though, is the key to exploiting maps. Originally designe

for guiding nuclear missiles, it proved itself for tactical purposes b

permitting coalition forces to carry out complex maneuvers on 

featureless terrain. Saddam Hussein was so confident that U.S. force

could not operate in trackless desert that he set up few defense

against the coalition's Left Hook attack, which outflanked his force

on the west. 

GPS is now being used to guide U.S. tactical missiles

Unfortunately, it can also guide missiles of others. By 2010, Syria

Iran, India, and China may all have hard-to-see missiles guided by 

combination of GPSand inertial navigation. 19 The trick is to den

GPS to enemies, retain it for friends, and minimize the impact o

global transportation systems grown dependent on it. Originally

designers thought that the signal available to the public, accurate on

to a 100 meters, was not good enough to guide enemy missiles. On

the military signal, accurate to within 18 meters, was. The

differential GPS (DGPS) was invented in early 1990s. Broadcastin

6 
GPS readings can be degraded by having satellites distort their own 

signals, but this could corrupt readings for every point visible from 

each satellite (a third of the earth's surface). Such distortion does no

defeat DGPS but requires only that corrections be broadcast mor

frequently (every few seconds rather than every minute). 

Another way to limit an adversary's use of GPS is to jam th

public signal locally. Under the best conditions, a 1 -watt jammer ca

incapacitate a civil GPS receiver within 20 kilometers. U.S. force

could pick up the encrypted military signal (broadcast on jam

resistant spread spectrum) using military equipment 21 wit

sophisticated antennas (that focus on where individual GPS satellite

are 22) and nulling devices (that block signals coming from othe

locations). The combination would be a million to a billion time

harder to jam than a public signal acquired by commercia

equipment. But access to the public signal is necessary to calibrat

timing so that the military signal can be picked up; if gone, units ma

need to access precise clocks, which cost several thousands of dollar

each. Jamming can also be defeated by using accurately place

pseudo-lites (that use spread spectrum or frequency-hopping to ge

through) to substitute for GPS signals. 

All in all, GPS is valuable, but access to its signals must b

carefully managed. U.S. forces will have to find ways to deny th

public signal to enemies and still exploit the military one. 

A World of Sensors 

The ability to destroy any object that can be located or that has 

trackable signature establishes the value of seeing the battlespac

(without being seen). Sensors--which range from cameras an

microphones to radar, passive receivers, and biochemica

detectors--are the foundation for illumination because they can b

placed in harm's way, can be used flexibly, 23 and create digita

information that can be transmitted, manipulated, and fused. 
found through painstaking search. The more bits collected from th

environment, the finer the weave that can be thrown over th

battlespace. Eventually, what can be sensed, will be. 

As a result, the United States can enjoy growing confidence in i

ability to see opposing forces and their platforms. The burgeonin

number and variety of sensors suggest the scope and value of dat

fusion, the wisdom of networking sensors rather than seeking som

super sensor, and the joint nature of battlespace illumination. 

Opportunities for shifting from stand-alone sensors to sensor Grid

abound in all media. 

Space-Based Sensors 

Today's powerful space sensors were designed for strategic rathe

than operational purposes. Those that fly in low-earth orbit (LEO) tak

detailed pictures in the visible, IR, and microwave bands (includin

synthetic aperture radar, SAR, and inverse SAR). Coverage 

discontinuous: enough for a few shots, then nothing until they retur

a few days later. Because LEO satellites travel in predictable orbits, a

adversary can hide or halt activity while they are overhead

Geosynchronous satellites provide continuous observation of specifi

spots but operate at a distance of 36,000 kilometers and so have ver

low resolution. Generally, they are used for electronic intelligence

early warnings of missile launches (by IR detection), and meteorology

Satellites that constantly look over a battlefield, even with lowe

resolution than today's surveillance satellites, could monito

movement, frustrate hiding when the satellite is overhead, 2~ an

thereby serve tactical purposes. The planned DOD space-base

infrared satellite constellation would combine four geosynchronou

satellites for broad surveillance with a constellation of LEO satellite

for precision cuing and tracking. In early 1997, the Defens

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) proposed Starlite (now 

called Discoverer 2), a constellation of 24 satellites flying at 70

8 
integration (MSTI) satellite and Clementine spacecraft suggests t

fleets of hundreds of inexpensive satellites ($30 million and $

million, respectively, plus launch costs) could provide adequ

resolution in LEO. Both MSTI and Clementine had multiple sens

(each weighing roughly a kilogram), some capable of imaging to 

meters (one Clementine sensor could see down to a few meters). T

National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) C

satellite and planned private surveillance satellites (such as the 

from CTA, Inc.) confirm that a $50 million satellite can take pictu

that are accurate to 2 or 3 meters. ~7 

Rapid dissemination of imagery to the field is crucial if milita

are to respond to transient data. In 1995, U.S. forces advanced tow

receiving real-time data from French satellites. With this a

harbinger, military use of third-party satellites, even those configu

for environmental purposes, is likely to rise substantially. 

Airborne Sensors 

ISTARS (which uses radar to track ground targets), AWACS (wh

monitors the air picture), Rivet Joint (which collects electro

intelligence), and Cobra Ball (which uses IR sensors to track missi

aircraft all carry extremely capable sensors. Yet their airframes (Boe

707s, RC-135s) are hardly stealthy, and both JSTARS and AWA

must emit energy to generate the echoes they read. As more count

acquire missiles of sufficient range, DOD will be required to repl

such aircraft with constellations of UAVs, each with similar if 

powerful sensors. 

UAVs offer several advantages over satellites. They can loiter o

a target and operate up to a hundred times closer to it, often un

cloud cover. The same optical sensor package that yields a 10-m

resolution from spac e can yield a 0.3-meter resolution from S to 

km high. They can identify objects that can only be spotted f

space. 

9 
requires they be used in daylight (which makes them more visible) as 

well as at night. Because most UAV communication is through 

imagery, it must use high-bandwidth channels, increasing the risk of 

detection (if enemy detectors stand between the UAV and the 

receiver--an argument for space-based relays). 

DOD is developing several types of UAVs, many of them setting 

standards for performance of sensor packages, systems integration, 

range, loitering time, stealth--and cost. These include the Predator 

and the Gnat (relatively inexpensive and capable but vulnerable 

when flying under ],200 meters), the Dark Star (a stealthy bird flying 

at 20 kilometers, capable of carrying payloads of several hundred 

kilograms), the Global Hawk (which can carry a ton of payload but 

costs more than $10 million), and tactical UAVs, such as the 

Outrider, the Hunter, and the Israeli-built Pioneer. A constellation of 

many, cheap, short-loiter UAVs may be useful when clouds are thick 

and SAR resolution is too poor to differentiate among potential 

targets. A UAV that can do useful chores but costs less than $5,000 

apiece would be at least 10 times less expensive than the cheapest 

missile that could shoot it down. 2~ Rotary-powered UAVs have been 

proposed for urban missions. 

Tethered aerostats--modern-day dirigibles that float as high as 20 

kilometers and can see air and ground targets as far away as 500 

kilometers -can be used for early warning. One is already up over the 

Persian Gulf. Because, unlike UAVs, they do not have to be launched 

and recovered periodically, they should cost less to operate. Once 

shooting begins, however, their immobility makes them easy targets. 

Ground-Based Sensors and Soldiers 

Improved ground-based sensors 29 can supplement more familiar 

spectral sensors in finding targets. Densely placed microphones might 

prove valuable in finding aircraft (such as a B-1 ) or cruise missiles that 

fly below radar but leave a distinct trail of noise. Small cameras 

10 
presence. Metal objects in motion may be detected because th

disturb magnetic fields (much as stop lights are cued by 

movement of vehicles). Gravimetric sensors differentiate amo

empty, lightly loaded, or densely packed trucks. Seismic or acous

sensors can find otherwise undetectable underground structures 

pick up the vibrations caused by the surface movement of la

vehicles. Reliance on any single ground-based sensor for accur

identification is liable to result in missing much traffic and generat

false alarms. Yet a combination of many ground-based sensors u

with standoff sensors could improve overall detection. 

The deployment doctrine of sensors varies with range a

endurance (which are correlated attributes). Because short-ran

sensors provide wide-area coverage only if used in large numbe

they must be cheap. For adequate triangulation of signature sourc

they must also be networked. Short-range sensors could be used 

adjuncts to long-range sensors, for confirmation and to complicate 

opponent's efforts to diminish its equipment's signatures. Tempor

sensors (to monitor a possible event or sown over terrain liable to 

disturbed) can be cheap battery hogs; quasi-permanent ones must 

rugged energy-misers. 

Tomorrow's soldiers, themselves intelligent mobile sensors, m

go armed with devices 20 to 50 times more powerful than toda

laptops, digital radio-based communications capable of exchang

video data, and electronic image-quality maps updated in near 

time by UAVs and other sensors. 

Naval Sensors 

Shipboard sensors operating from international waters can pick 

electronic signatures, listen to port operations, oversee the fli

operations of coastal cities, peer into mountainous terrain, and fr

some locations, pick up radar signatures that hug the earth. But m

that ships can sense requires they sail within 20 kilometers of a hos

I1 
the Gulf War than any of the more highly publicized systems. Future 

shallow-water mines (plastic mines, for example) will be harder to 

detect (if they resemble littoral clutter) and defeat (if they can be cued 

by external sensors). 3° Once fired, they could take on the 

characteristics of torpedoes, capable when used in concentration of 

sinking even the largest ships. Naval aircraft extend the effective range 

of ships, but carriers are few and expensive, and on peacetime 

rotation they average only 4 months a year on station (usually 2 to 3 

months for remote sites such as the Indian Ocean). 

A series of buoys, especially if complemented by ship-launched 

UAVs, may prove useful for collecting signatures. Buoys are 

individually less capable than ships but, in sufficient number, could 

offer a radar "dish" strong enough to simulate today's land-based, 

over-the-horizon backscatter radars. Distributed buoys would need to 

pass an enormous amount of data back and forth to form a coherent 

picture, presenting a challenge that computers of 2015 should be able 

to handle. 

Using Scnsors 

The potential for communications among sensors is likely to influence 

the architecture of sensor Grids. Precision targeting ordinarily occurs 

in three steps. Sensors scan for a few interesting objects within a large 

area. Filters discard most data and leave selected patches for further 

machine or human analysis, then targets are pinpointed and tracked, 

often by other sensors so that they may be struck. The relationship 

between cuing and pinpointing sensors can be complex. A spacecraft 

that has surveyed a target area and detected phenomena that merit 

attention can ask a UAV to alter its search pattern. The UAV then 

takes a closer look and cues ground sensors to turn on acoustic and 

biochemical capabilities for confirmation. Or UAVs monitor ground 

sensors and react to the data they send. 

12 
8 bits of data each) constitutes a quadrillion bits of data that need 

be transmitted--enough to overwhelm any reasonably large slice 

spectrum. Even 10:1 image compression (more risks the loss 

considerable detail) leaves 12 terabytes of data to be handled. St

tiered sensing remains a compromise. U.S. automatic targ

recognition systems are the best in the world, yet even they tend 

find only what they are looking for only where they are programm

to look. 

A Mesh of Sensors 

A single sensor capable of finding and classifying targets on its ow

would be the most straightforward way to survey the battlespace) 1 

general, as a medium grows denser, the opportunities for hidi

increase, and sensing thus grows harder (density also reduces t

distance a ground-based weapon can see and fly without running in

something). Oceans, deserts, plains, and farms are the easi

environment in which to sense objects. Dry mountains and chapar

offer modest difficulty; forests and jungles more; and intact cit

probably present the greatest challenge. With greater dens

maintaining adequate cover calls for more airborne sens

complemented by ground sensors. As hiding becomes mo

important, adversaries will increasingly resort to cover, concealme

deception, and masking themselves as civilians. Distinguishing targ

from everything else will take advantage of differences in factors su

as weight, magnetic flux, radio frequency (RF), and chemic

emissions, even habits and tracks. A target capable of fooling o

type of sensor may not fool others that rely on different principles

A mesh of heterogeneous, abundant, and overlapping sens

offers other advantages that data fusion can exploit. An object spott

by one sensor may disappear; its reappearance to another sen

operating in the same or a different spectrum is the beginning 

integrated target tracking. Distributed sensors permit tracking targ

13 
another; using several at once can pinpoint a source. Certain 

ambiguous formations may be detected only if they match a 

predetermined template; again, with more sensors, each relying on a 

variety of methods, the probability increases that indications will be 

correctly identified or rejected as targets. Many sensors can defeat 

single-dimension decoy and stealth strategies. Coupling many lasers 

and optical sensors, for instance, can weave a fabric of light paths so 

dense that even the stealthiest platform cannot avoid cutting a few 

and so revealing itself. As sensors proliferate and targets grow more 

complex, data fusion and robust connectivity become more 

important. 

There is also safety in numbers. A blinding strategy that attacks a 

military's eyes fails if there are so many eyes that no strategy to locate 

and remove them can substantially affect what the Grid sees. The few 

really good eyes in the U.S. space inventory may be vulnerable to 

attack. A constellation built from small satellites can be replenished 

by launching them from small rockets lofted under the wings of 

aircraft that take off from thousands of locations. Clearing an area of 

ground sensors (by using densely placed barrages or even nuclear 

explosions) may temporarily blur what one can see of the battlespace, 

as can an attack on the communications between sensors and 

operational forces. Maintaining an overlapping combination of closein and standoff sensors along with a robust capability to reseed areas 

with follow-on sensors can negate the long-term effects of that tactic. 

Although the technology of cheap sensors is not new, the 

difficulty of managing so many items and fusing the data they 

produce used to discourage their use. Correlating the readings of 

separated emitters and sensors (such as bistatic radars and laser-sensor 

grids) is particularly difficult. Sufficiently powerful computers can 

solve both problems. 

14 
the location and rough identification of military events, such as sm

platform movements, missile firings, artillery rounds, even so

gunfire in real time and with enough accuracy for counterfire) 3 

Most forms of stealth probably will not work against U.S. sen

systems (except perhaps stealthy missiles over a short trajectory)) 4 

passive sensors and weapons silently awaiting a signal befo

activation will be hard to detect, particularly if sufficiently small 

indistinguishable from background objects and if not concentrated 

expected locations. And as soldiers and their equipment look m

civilian, differentiating between them from afar becomes harder. 

The transparency of the battlefield a decade or two hence sho

be far greater than during the Gulf War (even with 6 mont

preparation and in open terrain). Just before ground combat beg

U.S. forces were able to identify, locate, and destroy almost 

relevant conventional infrastructure targets (although it was 

possible to know which housed WMD facilities), including ma

emitters, and roughly one-third of the tanks and artillery piec

Despite the resources dedicated to hunting Scuds (at one point a th

of the total F-1 5 fleet), no mobile launchers were sighted well enou

to be confirmed as destroyed. Better tactical intelligence (and const

surveillance by UAVs may be key) may increase real-time sightings 

Scuds 3~ greatly (unless and until they start to look like regular truck

moving targets considerably, and stationary targets only modestly

The Potential Proliferation of 

the Revolution in Military Affairs 

Today's PGMs and tomorrow's sensor networks are reasons enou

for the DOD to shift from force-on-force to hide and-seek warfare. 

as the sophistication of U.S. forces increases, so, too, will that 

potential enemies. The capability for hide-and-seek warfare will 

be an option but an imperative. 

15 
the effects of modern information technology. The assumption that 

the United States will again face an equally clueless adversary may 

prove costly. 

The global electronics bazaar 37 may supply most components for 

a decent C41SR system: computers, communications, GPS receivers 

(which already fit into pocket pagers), satellite receivers, and 

cryptographic software, all of which get less expensive every year. By 

2005, digital video disks, introduced in 1997, may hold 17 

gigabytes--enough for a compressed color image of the Korean 

peninsula accurate to a meter. The sophisticated know-how--for 

installing and maintaining local area networks (LANs), high-speed 

switches, such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), computer 

operating systems (Unix or Linux), cellular telephones that resist 

jamming (thanks to spread spectrum), and videoconferencing 

equipment--is available everywhere in the world. Most potential 

Third World foes can field an information system comparable to one 

in a modern U.S. office building--maybe better in some respects than 

one in a typical U.S. command center (even if hardened against the 

hazards of war). DOD has equipment individually better than what 

is available in the open market but, by this point, not much better and 

a good deal more expensive. 

Even sensors are commercially available. Digital video cameras 

mounted on UAVs--and more than 20 countries can make t JAVs and 

30 more may own some--may be a great source of battlefield pictures 

and video) 8 The resolution of today's consumer cameras, at roughly 

500 lines, is imprecise, but high-definition digital television may 

create a market for high-resolution cameras with almost double the 

line density. Digital still cameras are already widely available) 9 IR 

detectors are common in home and office security systems, and 

personal radar devices, 4° laser pointers and rangefinders, and nightvision goggles are or soon will be commercially available. 

16 
could be reported as they occur. Mexicos Zapatistas haveshown tha

even an irregular force on the run can have a Web presence. Range

finders, digital cameras, GPS, and cellular telephony combine into 

handy, do-it-yourself targeting system,41add Web access, and such 

military movements can be communicated to the world. 

Finally, a vigorous international market in PGMs exists, fueled b

formerly Russian equipment, newly manufactured European devices

and leftovers from U.S. stockpiles. Of course, being able to buy th

parts is not the same as being able to put them together. U.S

capabilities in the field of systems integration are unmatched, bu

many so-called underdeveloped countries have huge pools o

technical talent: mathematicians from Eastern Europe, Ph.Ds from 

South Korea, electronics engineers from Malaysia, aircraft designer

in Brazil and Indonesia, and millions of technically trained worker

in China and India. Ultimately, any public information abou

technology will be available to anyone with an Internet link

Countries can also buy turnkey integrated systems such as highl

sophisticated process-control machinery or air-traffic control system

(similar in many respects to military command-and-control systems

Deliberate technology transfer, maintenance experience, and revers

engineering may allow others to discover the essential techniques o

systems integration. 

The Proliferation of Space Capabilities 

The United States is likely to enjoy superior access to space fo

decades to come. But others will use space in ways that make U.S

forces more visible. 

Supplementing GPS, Russia's global navigation satellite system 

(GLONASS) came on line in 1995, and navigation signal add-ons a

being mulled for other communication constellations. Europe ma

even launch its own fleet. 

17 
U.S. 1-meter imagery satellites, considerable real-time intelligence 

for sale. 42 The advantages that U.S. imagery gave coalition forces 

the Gulf War prompted many countries to consider obtaining bett

surveillance satellites, in particular France 4~ and Japan (the latt

ostensibly to monitor natural disasters). Exporting such satellites h

enabled many countries to buy and transmit imagery in nearly re

time. 44 Japanese satellites, using SAR, already resolve to 3 meters, an

an Indian satellite can resolve to 6 meters using panchromat

sensors. The coupling of GPS, sufficiently good surveillance data, an

long range PGMs could put almost every fixed facility at risk. 

Third World nations can expect easier access to space. Man

already own and run geosynchronous communications satellites

Early in the next century, television from direct broadcast satellite

(DBS) may become ubiquitous in most of the world; milita

command-and-control signals could ride piggyback on som

commercial channel. Because broadcasts of DBS satellites can reac

several countries at the same time, jamming any one channel mig

be infeasible. 

The increasing popularity of commercial space applications ma

limit what the United States can do to deny an enemy access 

space. In the Gulf War, agreement with Russia was enough to prote

the U.S. Left Hook maneuver into Iraq from being reported 

Baghdad. As satellites proliferate, maintaining embargoes will b

more difficult, perhaps impossible. Future foes may not be the pariah

Iraq was. Similarly, unless the owner of every communication

satellite transponder--and there are more than a thousand withi

sight of any point on the globe--puts embargoes on the foes of th

United States, transmission is inevitable. The United States cou

demand proof that the owners of all space sysLems are cooperatin

and could disable satellites of any that refuse, but would it be willin

to enforce this rule short of global war? There are similar problem

with jamming: it denies service to neutrals. Jamming a satellite 

18 
attempts to monitor and regulate commercial air traffic. 

What to Look For 

Military intelligence assesses the progress of other countries toward 

the RMA by examining their doctrine as well as their current and in

the-pipeline equipment, most of it acquired and developed by 

established methods. Were these assessments reliable, othe

countries' RMAs could be seen coming years away, and the U.S. lead 

would remain intact. Given that RMA technologies are largely 

civilian, might RMAs be generated outside military organizations 

instead? A very effective military can be built from rummaging 

through the global electronic bazaars, something Third World 

strategists--military or not---can figure out. A large chunk of the RMA 

consists of superior intelligence and understanding of the control and 

use of land and immediate airspace. Dominating the battlespace ca

be seen as similar to other tasks of national space management, suc

as internal security, transportation management, urban and regiona

planning, even public health. Defense firms eager for customers ma

generate some notions of an RMA. Although these firms may not se

to rogue states, today's permitted customer may turn into tomorrow'

enemy (as did Iran in the late 1970s). The tendency of U.S

intelligence to view standing armies and their equipment as indicators 

of military strength may be confounded by Third World strategists

who can develop new techniques for C*ISR and other aspects o

warfighting that will not show up in normal defense acquisition 

channels. 

A civilian-based RMA would also confound the acquisition o

templates. Battlespace knowledge is, to a large extent, about finding 

weapons of war (or their supporting infrastructure). If the weapon

cannot be clearly seen, the next best approach is to build template

of emanations produced by weapons--sight, sound, smell, spectrum 

use--to generate probable identifications. This method works onl

19 
Civilian-based equipment, organizations, and operational template

all may differ from what the United States traditionally expects. 

Replaying the Gulf War 

To illustrate what facing a moresophisticated foe can mean, conside

the GulfWaras if fought in 2015. Ihe United States did three thing

to win in 1991: it shipped in an enormous quantity of material, c

Iraq's ability to talk, and ran free over the battlefield, first in bomber

then in tanks. Circumstances will not favor repetition. 

To fight overseas, the United States must lift forces ther

Adequacy of the lift aside, would those forces survive the ride? Mo

countries now understand that Iraq was mistaken in allowing th

United States tO deploy unimpeded for 5 months, and ftJture foe

would probably contest such mobilization, making the littoral mo

hazardous. Surface ships are almost impossible to hide against mo

Third World and third-party surveillance assets. Very smart mines an

torpedoes and saturation type cruise or ballistic missile attacks will b

able to destroy ships within 200 kilometers of shore. Fast aircraft w

be more elusive than slow ships but will not be able either to tak

many hits or to carry much on each trip. Ports and airfields also a

vulnerable. The survival of logistics and command centers ma

require distributing their functions among subcenters and combinin

distribution with an agile information regime (to track supplies an

messages, for example) as compensation for the effects of dispersio

If U.S. forces could be spread out widely enough, they might ride o

WMD attacks, unless this strategy were obviated b

geography--passes, isthmuses, valleys, and islands. 

As communications options increase, cutting talk becomes harde

A wireline system can be disabled by bombing central office switche

A distributed wireless system may be less vulnerable, particularly 

the size of circuitry were reduced so it could be carried on trucks 

in briefcases. 4~ Cellular systems leak telltale signatures, but usef

20 
Network or could use third-party accounts on tomorrows 

communications satellites (Globalstar, for example). Compression 

might be used to shrink the volume of message traffic; with many 

transmissions, at least one copy of every high-priority message might 

get through. Although communications systems can be attacked by 

knocking out power, if alternative power sources (fuel cells or 

photovoltaic power from holographic films, among other possibilities) 

become sufficiently inexpensive (maybe 6 cents per kilowatt hour), 

future power Grids may be built from sources too dispersed to target. 

Maneuver has advantages: moving forces are more difficult to hit 

than immobile forces, can occupy superior firing positions, and by 

showing up where least expected, can disorient opponents and 

fragment their plans. Can these advantages persist against a foe armed 

with a deeply redundant sensor background and long-range precision 

weaponry? First, movement generates a larger signature than sitting 

still, and few moving platforms can outrun precision weaponry. 

Rather than break the lock that a shooter has on a target, movement 

creates disturbances--in earth, air, water, and spectrum--that confirm 

the lock. Second, range may cease to be a reason to move. A mesh of 

sensors controlled from afar may provide sufficient illumination, and 

medium-range PGMs (20 to 200 kilometers) may prove cost-effective 

ways for engaging most ground targets. Third, even though the shock 

of a massed attack can panic people, silicon, if intact, is not 

disoriented by shock. 

U.S. forces will probably retain overall superiority and, i

necessary, could probably operate and win, even against a well-dugin force, by using better information systems, superior range and 

firepower, and operational innovations that would permit the greates

advantage to be wrung from the other side's mistakes. But, in anything 

other than a must-win scenario, a classic victory may be irrelevant. 

Until the United States faces a hostile country that credibly threatens 

it and its closest allies--not likely soon--it is limited by the casualties 

21 
trades equipment dollar for dollar (even at favorable ratios) is mo

likely to be regarded by the public as a victory. 

Conclusions 

Knowledge has always been useful in preparing operations. Knowin

how and where enemy forces are arrayed for attack suggests whethe

and how to engage them for the best outcome. But once confli

began, other factors--morale, equipment, command, luck--becam

more important. 

The Grid can change the role of intelligence from preparing th

battlefield to fighting on it. There is a big difference between spottin

armor concentrations and knowing the precise latitude and longitud

of each tank, information that can be relayed to PGMs near and fa

Intelligence would be able to go directly to operators and, mo

directly, also to their weapons. The usefulness of detailed illuminatio

would accelerate the shift from local to global information loops. 

the Gulf War, the U.S. Army used local loops to find tanks--tan

drivers received basic intelligence on enemy dispositions, whic

helped them find and destroy targets on their own, supplementin

their own eyes with tank sensors. In a global loop, enemies are foun

by combining data from many varied sensors (from space to air an

ground, including sensors of the armored group) whose informatio

flows are fused to determine probable targets. Since the Gulf Wa

shooting at only what an operator sees has started to give way 

shooting to coordinates provided to the operator (which, if nothin

else, allows the shooter to hide or operate beyond the range at whic

the target can hit back). This change shifts who gets what informatio

and why. 

In this way, the Grid can claim title to the new fulcrum 

tomorrow's militaries, as they make the transition (figure 1

Information used to be thought of as support--one more nee

supplied to warfighters, along with food, fuel, medical services, an

22 
makes hideandseek warfare both more possible and necessary. The 

tasks of coordinating sensors, fusing their information, distributing it 

widely, and supporting joint strike operations illustrate the value of 

the Grid and suggest its essential characteristics. Although institutions, 

even the U.S. military, adapt innovations to their own purposes, 47 

designing the Grid for new possibilities rather than old doctrine 

ultimately offers the best path to superiority. 

FIGURE 1. From platform- to Grid-centric 

Q 

From tightly integrated v, eapons 

with loose connections between 

them to loosely integrated sensors 

wi~h rich connections among them, 

to the (]rid, and, ultimately, to 

w~, ip,'3n~ 

t..---\ ::._i-... 

"..'5 % ~ / / / / 

23 
(I 0 cents lower than before Kuwait was invaded). The price fell only sligh

more, to $18.86, by the time Iraq surrendered. 

3. The current definition comes from Admiral Owens, former Vic

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. See William Owens, "The Emergin

System of Systems," Naval Institute Proceedings 121, 5 (May 1995), 35-3

In his conception, C ~ networks, sensors, and weapons were equal partner

A Grid that results from CqSR integration alone relegates weapons to t

outside, consistent with their listening to the Grid but not contributing ve

much. As weapons develop to have more to tell the Grid, the distinction m

vanish. The phrase was used earlier by, among others, General Gordo

Sullivan, in U.5. Army Tech Base Master Plan (Washington: Department 

Defense,1 990), and Vice-Admiral Jerry Tuttle. 

4. If processor times are indicative (600-megahertz Pentium III of 19

runs just over 1,000 times faster than the IBM PC of 1981 ), then performan

doubles every 22 months or so. Comparable increases characterize standa

desktop PC memories (from 64 kilobytes to 64 megabytes), modem spee

(from 300 to 56,000 bits per second), and hard drives (from 10 megabytes 

1984 to 6 gigabytes in 1999). Some increases are faster: in late 1993, a doll

purchased one megabyte of hard-disk memory; by 1999, it bought 100. 

5. The term, invented by Dr. Lee Hammerstrom (Naval Resear

Laboratory), achieved currency with the 1992 JASON Global Grid Study. T

term "Grid" tends, unfortunately, to connote networking (C 4) more th

information (ISR) ("building the Grid" suggests connecting everyone rath

than building an engine to provide a common operational picture). In DOD

the C" and ISR communities speak a different language. To make the G

work, they will need to learn a common language. 

6. A database might include not only a data table but also a knowled

base (a database with rules), text, maps, a real-time video file, or a hum

analyst accessible through the Grid. 

7. Chapter 1 is largely an update of "Technology and Warfare," whic

appeared in 2015: Power and Progress (Washington: National Defen

University [NDU] Press, 1996). Chapter 2 draws on "DBK and 

Consequences," in Dominant Battlespace Knowledge, eds. Stuart Johns

and Martin C. Libicki (Washington: National Defense University Pre

1995), and on "Emerging Military Instruments," in Strategic Assessment 19

(Washington: Institute for National Strategic Studies, Government Printi

24 
9. The RMA has been variously defined as a great change in th

effectiveness of warfighting that (1) makes the outcome of wars almo

independent of the quantity of military systems in opposing hands; (2) trump

the previous RMA; (3) begins military competition anew, irrespective 

advantages gained in the prior era; (4) changes basic understandings of th

battlespace; or (5) alters relationships among states (suggested by Dani

Gour~ of the Center for Strategic and International Studies). 

10. PGMs include tactical missiles, torpedoes (and torpedo-base

mines), and steerable munitions powered by gravity or momentum (such 

laser-guided bombs). 

11. Do these technologies favor offense or defense? If offense is th

ability to destroy things, then they favor offense. If offense is the ability 

occupy another's land, then they favor defense in that the instruments 

forcible occupation are visible while moving. 

12. A sufficiently stable air platform whose location, bearing, an

atmospheric environment is known can often deliver an unguided bomb 

within a few meters of a point. 

13. Within a few years, fiber-optic gyroscopes used in inerti

navigational systems may cost less than $15,000--a third the cost of th

predecessor technology, the ring-laser gyro. Current versions are accurate 

only 1 degree per hour of flight; they can put a PGM travelling at Mach 

(640 meters per second) within 6 meters of its programmed destination aft

flying 40 kilometers. A drift rate of 0.01 degrees per hour may 

technologically feasible and would allow a Mach 1 PGM (320 meters p

second) the same accuracy after a ride of 280 kilometers. See Philip Klas

"Fiber-Optic Gyros Now Challenging Laser Gyros," Aviation Week an

Space Technology, July 1, 1996, 62-64. 

14. Another $15,000, as the cost of the Navy's Skipper miss

demonstrates, can buy sufficient rocket propulsion for a 10- to 20-k

standoff boost. 

15. Robert Holzer, "U.S. Eyes Rapid-Strike Tomahawk," Defense New

April 21, 1997, 1. The Block IV upgrade of the Tomahawk cruise missile 

being engineered for in-flight (but not necessarily real-time) retargeti ng. 

16. Even so, designers are looking at UAVs that can withstan

acceleration of 15 to 20 g's and so can outmaneuver many PGMs. See Dav

Fulghum, "Pilots to Leave Cockpit in Future Air Force," Aviation Week a

25 
Missile, the Armys Theater High Altitude Area Defense missile, which failed 

its first six tests before succeeding and scored 0-for-4 in tests through early 

1998, and the well-tested but immobile U.S.-Israeli Arrow. Low-altitude 

intercepts would be conducted by other missiles: the Patriot PAC-3, the 

Navy's Lower Tier Standard Missile, the U.S.-European Medium Extended Air 

Defense System, or the Marine Corps's Improved Hawk. The advantage of 

complexity is robustness against a threat that can elude one defense. 

Successive handoffs of the battlespace picture and engagement 

responsibilities among Air Force, Navy, and Army systems will test joint 

interoperability. Missile-defense issues are the subject of IEEE Spectrum 

(September 1997) and Aviation Week and Space Technology (February 24 

and March 3, 1997). 

18. Scuds are relatively easy targets because the warhead stays with the 

body. A Chinese DF-15 warhead, which separates from the body, presents 

a smaller radar signature, putting it beyond the capabilities of the Patriot. 

Hua Di, quoted in Michael Dorheim, "DF-15 Sophisticated, Hard to 

Intercept," Aviation Week and Space Technology, March 18, 1996, 22. 

19. David Fulghum, "Cruise Missiles Becoming Top Proliferation 

Threat," Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 1, 1993, 26-27. 

20. Roughly half the location error derives from local atmospheric and 

ionospheric distortions between the satellite and user. DGPS can correct for 

this difference, but the value of the correction decreases as the distance 

between the user and the DGPS transmitter increases. 

21. the cost of antijam capabilities for the JDAM has been estimated at 

$10,000 per unit. Pat Cooper and Theresa Hitchens, "GPS Jamming Dulls 

U.S. Smart Bombs," Defense News, June 19, 1995, 1. 

22. This method will not defeat a jammer that sits between the receiver 

and satellite, but the GPS constellation is highly redundant (four to six 

satellites are always available from any point on the ground). 

23. Some sensors, for instance, can be used in the same way in war or 

peace, while others intrude into another country's airspace or territory and 

must be used with care lest their discovery put their owners in trouble. 

24. A sea of devices--sensing, emitting, communicating, redirecting, 

cuing, filtering, pinpointing, classifying, and determining targets each 

segregated as an Air Force, Navy, USMC, or Army asset, each reporting up 

the separate chain of command, is not the best architecture for data fusion, 

26 
26. See David Fulghum and Joseph Anselmo, DARPA Pitches Sm

Satellites for Tactical Reconnaissance," Aviation Week and Spa

Technology, June 9, 1997, 39. 

27. A handheld imager carried by a shuttle astronaut flying at 35

kilometers above the earth (higher than surveillance satellites usually trave

has photographed the earth at a 10-meter resolution in relatively low ligh

Cheri Privor, "Army Imager Flashes in Test from Space," Defense News, Ju

24, 1995, 6. 

28. The Sender, a UAV built by the Naval Research Laboratory, h

flown a 1-kilogram payload for 2 hours at 80 kilometers/hour. Potenti

bidders have priced it at $4,000 (payload excluded, unit quantity in t

thousands). If forthcoming engineering work on lithium-peroxide batteries 

successful, 10-hour flights may become possible. Smaller UAVs are in t

works. One UAV (yet to fly far) is the size of a paperback book and can ca

a 15-gram load--enough for a miniature camcorder-quality, black-and-wh

television camera. See Warren E. Leafy, "Tiny Spies to Take off for War a

Rescue," New York Times, November 18, 1997, C1. 

29. The Army's Remotely Monitored Battlefield Sensor System can dete

a nearby object's passage by u~ing acoustic/seismic, IR, and magnetic mean

Human analysis permits estimates of, for instance, a column's speed a

vehicle count. Such devices may be more useful if they cost far less (so th

they would not be restricted to obvious l i nes of entry), were better integrat

with other sensors (such as UAVs), could be distributed from afar (today

versions require people to place them), communicated more (a precise

timed acoustic signal could support location and identification analysis), a

fed generic systems, rather than specialized receivers incapable of furth

processing. U R L:www.atsc-a rmy.org/cgi-bi n/atdl.dl I/fm/34-10-1. 

30. One idea for clearing mines is to use a constellation of "robocrab

(roughly the size and cost of a desktop computer) to clear pathways 

shallow waters. See Pat Cooper, "Robotic Crab Offers DoD New Advanta

over Surf Mines," Defense News, April 24, 1995, 12. 

31. The greater the coverage by any one sensor, the more informatio

it has to transmit. With more information, more energy must be generate

risking an increased IR and radio-frequency signature and, thus, a grea

chance of detection. 

27 
Week and Space Fechnology, December 9, 1996, 23. 

33. The U.S. Army brought equipment to Bosnia that could, by tracking 

the heat of bullets, supposedly detect the source of sniper fire. Earlie

equipment could detect quickly and accurately the source of ballistic rounds

such as mortars or artillery shells. William Scott, "Sniper Detector Revived 

for Airborne Use," Aviation Week and Space Technology, August 26, 1996

64-65. 

34. Does stealth have a future? Some officials argue that new composite

and coatings can make aircraft almost invisible to radar, eyes, and I

detectors. David Fulghum, "Cruise Missiles Becoming Top Proliferation 

Threat," Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 1, 1993, 26-27

Others contend that the proliferation of Russian-built SA-10 surface-to-ai

missiles (SAMs) spells the end of stealth. James Asker, "Washington 

Outlook," Aviation Week and Space Technology, August 12, 1996, 23. 

35. The Air Force thinks it can speed up finding Scuds by adding I

capabilities to reconnaissance aircraft (see Frank Oliveri, "AF Analysi

Targets Missile Launchers," Defense New~., January 8, 1996, 6. 

36. Even if Saddam Hussein had been aware of the uses and effect o

information technology, he may also have been aware he could not exploi

it without giving lower echelons and experimenters a freedom incompatible 

with his brand of top-down command. 

37. As electronic commerce moves onto the Web, any country (eve

one under blockade) can get its software cast into a chip in any silicon 

foundry. 

38. Since the mid-1980s, a U.S. company has exported digital-imaging 

systems that can collect high-resolution imagery 50 miles to each side with 

real-time data links to ground locations. 

39. A 35-mm digital camera that can produce a 3000 x 2000 imag

costs less than $30,000. See Otis Port, "Digital Finds Its Photo Op," Busines

Week, April 15, 1996, 71-72. Cameras that produces an 1800 x 1200 imag

had a street price of $700 in late 1999. 

40. Larry Armstrong, "Not Just a Blip on the Screen," Business Week

February 19, 1996, 64-65. 

41. Remotely detonated mines caused a few U.S. casualties in Somalia

A remotely controlled videoscoped rifle, for instance, may make tomorrow'

urban battlegrounds even more dangerous. 

26 
(with electro-optical imaging to 1 meter). 

44. Vipin Gupta, "New Satellite Images for Sale," International Securi

20, 1 (1995): 94-125. 

45. Matching an item's signature to its template is important t

identifying targets, interpreting electronic intelligence, and defeating cove

concealment, and deception. David Fulghum, "DARPA Looks Anew 

Hidden Targets," Aviation Week and Space Technology, January 6, 1997, 56

Visual (what a target looks like) and electronic templates (what signals 

sends out) are well understood and can be built from readings acquired b

long-range sensors in peacetime. Heat, noise, and chemical emissions ma

be hard to sense from far away, and corresponding sensors may not be ab

to approach adversary equipment in peacetime. Thus, equipment template

may lack short-range components. In war, such restrictions do not hold

Short-range sensors can be scattered near the suspected locations of a

adversary's equipment. As they acquire readings correlated by mor

traditional sensors or direct human observation, the templates can be refined

This refinement increases the value of the short-range sensors. 

46. In "From Wires to Waves," Forbes ASAP, June 5, ]995) Georg

Gilder describes the Steinbrecher MiniCell, a cellular base station that ca

fit into a briefcase. 

47. And never so quickly as technologists advocate. Because many il

conceived and unproved notions jostle for attention, a certain conservatis

is to be expected, especially with mistakes often fatal to warfighters and

sometimes, to civilizations. See Eliot Cohen, '% Revolution in Warfare

Foreign Affairs 75, 2 (March-April 1996): 3744. 

29 
p

The advent of the Grid and its role in supporting new methods o

warfighting have implications for the use and organization of militar

power. Three are worth noting: 

• The development of standoff warfare, which focuses not o

controlling territory but on destroying adversaries (particularl

their heavy equipment) through a cycle of scan, sort, sift, an

strike, conducted from long range or very quickly and with litt

trace 

• The exploration of two new types of coalitions, one built o

a common Grid melded from each country's C~ISR assets, an

another that uses illumination from the Grid to multiply th

defense capabilities of a besieged friend 

• The attractiveness of mud warfare (low-intensity conflict in 

dense environment) to potential adversaries as a response to th

difficulty of undertaking conventional aggression in a

illuminated world. 

These possibilities ought to shape the Grid: if organize

knowledge is the military's new fulcrum, the Grid must be ubiquitous

integrated, and widely accessible. Standoff warfare requires detailed

real-time information about the battlespace along with robu

connectivity. U.S. support for new coalitions requires the Grid to b

scalable, interoperable, and adaptable to non-U.S, users. Mud warfar

calls for a Grid capable of discriminating the "what" in the "what

where?" 

3/ 
force to hide-and-seek. If sensors let warfighters "see" well enough 

and far more safely from a distance, then why go close? The extent to 

which operations from standoff distance can substitute for close-in 

warfare 1 depends on whether long-range strike can be substituted fo

direct fire weapons. 

Some Cost Considerations 

Even over an illuminated battlefield, the superior efficacy of standoff 

strike depends on how fast and cheaply things can be struck from a 

distance. If weapons are costly, few are made and those few are 

reserved for the most critical targets. Weapons with long flight times 

fare poorly against fleeting targets (aircraft, anything taken down o

moved after being fired, vehicles that hop from cover to cover). 

Most methods of standoff strike are expensive. An F-117A stealth 

attack aircraft costs $50 million and can deliver, at best, only fou

bombs a day in two nighttime flights (the aircraft are visible in 

daylight). The B-2 has 10 times the Ioadout but at 10 times the cost

The F-22 will cost $100 million. The Joint Advanced Strike 

Technology aircraft is touted as cheaper than the F-1 17A but has ye

to be built in quantity. Between runs, considerable work is needed to 

maintain the stealthiness of the aircraft. Advocates of stealth argue 

that aircraft need not be invisible, merely that they be unseen unti

close to their targets. But weapons equipped with faster sensors and 

fire-control computers may hit such aircraft even if given less time to 

do so. 

Cruise missiles can be launched with less preparation time than 

aircraft need; the newest model (the Tomahawk Block IV) has a unit 

cost of $575,000, but its warheads are limited and cruise missiles are 

vulnerable to look-down, shoot-down systems. The ships that fire 

them are not stealthy, and submarines, which are stealthy, are 

expensive and cannot carry many. 

32 
anywhere on earth but will be expensive ($10,000 per kilometer a

least), unless and until reusable launch vehicles prove feasible and 

economical .2 

Electromagnetic guns have been mooted as ways to strike target

repeatedly at long ranges without incurring outrageous costs. But gun

need projectiles with electronics that can withstand the shock o

being fired and barrels that can be fired many times between 

overhauls. 

Space-based lasers used against ground targets offer the advantage 

of nearly instantaneous response, but their deployment may infringe 

on treaties and their beam strength attenuates rapidly in the 

atmosphere) Targets can be protected with smoke and othe

obscurants as well as with mirrors. Large guns and powerful laser

tend to be immobile and difficult to hide and are therefore themselve

vulnerable. Whether either will be ready within 20 years is anothe

issue. 

Striking from medium standoff ranges (20 to 60 kilometers) offer

more alternatives and quicker sensor-to-shooter-to-kill cycles. Th

Raptor missile, an AGM-]30 lofted from aircraft, and the Join

Standoff Weapon all boast 60- to 80-kilometer ranges. 4 In the future

it may be possible to mount a missile on a UAV and fly both t

medium standoff range. Because UAVs are small to begin with, the

can get past air defenses without being so stealthy. If UAVs survive 

the return trip, fine, but if they are cheap enough, they can be easil

replaced. Loitering missiles or weaponized UAVs must both get pas

difficult engineering problems. Tacit Rainbow, a loitering antirada

missile, was canceled in 1991 after several years of development (and 

persistent software difficulties). Remotely controlled ground-based 

missiles offer the advantages of rapid delivery from short distances

thus the destruction of fleeting targets, and little risk to shooters, bu

their use requires either initial control of the terrain or a surreptitiou

method of delivery and emplacement. 

33 
ordnance at a reasonable cost, though, requires survivable in-theate

delivery systems. B-52s will remain useful only if L;.S. forces can 

target enemy radars and adversaries cannot come up with other ways 

to track such bombers with other ways such as bistatic radars o

networked microphones. Keeping U.S. artillery hidden will mean a 

close contest between U.S. operational stealth and an opponent's 

UAVs and other sensors. 

Even in a world of continually cheaper electronics, long-range 

strike will probably remain expensive and of limited use agains

evanescent targets because of the limits of mechanical systems and 

chemical fuels. The United States is rich and can throw expensive 

munitions after cheaper targets--but only up to a point. Long-range 

precision strike is cost effective against military platforms; shorte

range weapons (below 60 kilometers, and preferably below 20 

kilometers) are for attacking transport vehicles and infantry. 

Standoff warfare should be seen as a way to limit the exposure o

shooters to conventional weapons and reduce their vulnerability to 

WMD, but it does not obviate tile need to operate near the theater o

conflict, if not necessarily in it. 

What Standoff Warfare Can Do 

In the Gulf War and again in Bosnia, U.S. forces demonstrated tha

standoff weapons can eliminate key fixed facilities. U.S. forces are 

developing the ability to use such weapons also to strike moving 

targets. Standoff warfare may make it harder to push obviously 

military platforms across clearly forbidden and well-monitored terrain 

(if enough PGMs were at or sufficiently near the front to destroy 

them). An obvious invasion would rapidly light up the defenders

screens with targeting information that could be fed to a variety o

potential shooters. Were attrition high, the invader might be turned 

back. Even if invading forces were to push on, defenders (those from 

the country under attack) would be aided by extremely detailed 

34 
q, gg, y ppy

U.S. forces, such as ground units, brown-water naval contingents, o

close air support, might be called on. In other cases, local defenders 

may profit from U.S. information flows and the inevitable assistanc

of special forces. 6 

Key to this strategy is the need to engage enemy units as quickly 

as possible, before they can secure initial objectives, blend into th

background, or dig in against counterattack. For this reason, the Grid 

(and supporting weaponry) needs to be extended to threatened zone

quickly with the goal of striking within the first few hours of a

aggressor's violating a border. The threat of effective rapid respons

could frustrate and thus deter a conventional snatch-and-grab 

invasion, such as Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait or North Korea'

1 950 move south). 

In some cases, the United States may not intervene at the outse

of the invasionZ; in others, the initial standoff strikes may not b

enough to turn the invasion back. Standoff warfare must then wor

against dug-in enemies. Once lines harden, enemy progress may b

slow; bursting forth with armor and other platforms is risky

particularly if they can be attacked by volleys of hidden missiles wired 

into the Grid. In face of an initial attack, the Grid needs to suppo

many simultaneous counterstrikes. Once lines harden, the number o

strikes declines (so coordinating them is less work), but the Gri

would then need to sift through data even more finely to differentiate 

dug-in enemy assets from civilian or neutral assets and would need t

inform shooters speedily of anything that must be engaged. 

The empty, quiet battlespace--the slow chess game betwee

competing information systems--may be more typical of futur

conventional combat than mass melees, particularly 

communications permit adversaries to concentrate firepower withou

massing forces. For both sides, survival depends on knowing exactl

what the other side sees and what is unseen and thus might ge

through. Barring direct observation (having spies inside computer o
it find that the PGMs it must evade use other signatures, which then 

must be in the decoy? Will such a weapon be fired against individua

tanks, or does it wait for a tank column? Would some tanks be 

allowed to advance unimpeded, in hope that the enemy migh

believe it has fooled the Grid? Both sides would want to suppress 

equipment signatures so that nothing could be identified or located

Most successful engagements would then arise from occasional bu

fatal mistakes that revealed live targets. 8 

Both the Defense Science Board e and the Marine Corps (through 

its Sea Dragon concept) have explored the battlefield potential o

small, highly mobile, lethal units. Marines, for instance, would 

"infest" enemy territory (rather than storm ashore), assess enemy 

terrain, find and rank targets, and call for fire from offshore. Yet in an 

increasingly wired world, especially outside large cities, the 

movement of any American, particularly one dressed for combat, i

likely to be noticed--and thus reported. Furtiler, although forces can 

be inserted at a choice of time and place, they must be extracted (a

a specified place) before supplies (typically, 2 weeks' worth) run out

How will U.S. forces end conflicts? That depends on how urgen

victory is. A siege strategy might be sustainable if U.S. forces had the 

time to thin opposing forces through precision attrition. Adversaries 

that could neither break out nor be supplied might do mischief bu

would slowly have to give in. Partitioning a battlespace into smalle

and smaller cells might permit local or ground forces to contro

successive areas by sweeping through with overwhelming force. Ye

controlling each cell would require dense surveillance of interstices

If the threat of adversarial forces crossing from one cell to anothe

were noticed within minutes, those forces could be confronted by 

forces in large numbers. Legitimate traffic must be identified so it may 

pass. A ground presence without precise ground knowledge and the 

ability to respond and move quickly will leave thin forces exposed

a recipe for casualties (or excessive collateral damage). 

36 
incompetent, this move works well, but it can also produce man

casualties (as in search-and-destroy operations in Vietnam). U.S

forces might also define a series of limited objectives that ca

reinforce one another, seize them quickly, and burrow into the terrai

or hide against the background of a friendly or at least, neutra

population. The techniques of information warfare, in particular good 

assessment of the speed of an adversary's reaction cycles and th

quality of its communications, will play a large role in offensive 

operations. 1° U.S. forces will prosecute moving and fixed target

differently: moving targets are visible because they move; what 

fixed may be searched for in detail. Scouring for weaponry (short

range missiles and mines buried in clutter, for example) will remai

difficult. Within 20 or 30 years, LJ.S. forces may be able to use smal

somewhat mobile sensors to detect suspicious objects for inspection

Standoff Warfare as Deterrence 

A capability for standoff warfare poses a dilemma for potential bullies

Units and assets heavy enough to coerce and conquer neighbors ma

be easy targets for U.S. forces, because they are more easily identified

Light forces can use infiltration and subversion to slip by unnoticed 

and thereby preempt or, failing that, at least tax a U.S. intervention 

with a constant rain of casualties. But units and assets so light may b

not be able to outgun the bully's neighbors. 11 As the difficulty o

choosing between the two structures increases, so, too, will regiona

stability. The need to fund two forces aside, the command, contro

and culture of a heavy military that works through shock may mes

poorly with that of a light military that works through stealth. 

Van Creveld argues 1~ that conventional warfare among established 

countries has not mattered much during the past 50 years and wi

matter less in the future. Bullies unable to use invading forces wi

find other ways to intimidate neighbors. Even if true, the ability t

thwart direct aggression remains worthwhile. The argument tha

37 
g p

The imminence of destruction can be more convincing than its 

eventuality. An Iraqi tank force, having just picked off Kuwait, may 

strike enough fear into Saudi Arabia to influence its oil marketing to 

Iraq's liking. Were Iraq to rely on slower means (such as Iovv-intensity 

combat) to make its point, coercion would lose much of its 

psychological power. Because war may be used to make coercion 

believable, anything that reduces the credibility of coercion could 

limit the motive for conflict. 

Standoff warfare may offer greater deterrence in tomorrow's 

putative Asian conflicts than in European scenarios. Many Asian 

countries either are islands or sit at the end of peninsulas. Seaborne 

invasions are far harder to hide than ground invasions. A nava

blockade, one alternative to invasion, cannot bring quick victoD,, and 

its impact on civilians may generate a flow of refugees and bad press

Success requires a large, expensive blue-water submarine force (o

very-long-range rocket and missile bombardment). Asian countries 

may be ripe for rivalry among themselves, 1~ but because they lack the 

means to convert rivalry into successful warfare (such as taking and 

holding land), the United States may never need to assume the same 

broad goal-line defense role against a potential Asian hegemon as i

did in Europe during the Cold War. 

Versus ~MD 

While the United States is building its Grid, adversaries (like Iraq

Iran, Syria, and North Korea) are busy catching up with an earlie

RMA, nuclear weapons and its poor cousins, biological and chemica

weapons. The Grid cannot trump WMD (nor is it a good argument fo

unilateral nuclear disarmament), but by removing tempting targets 

from the battlefield and permitting force to be used more 

discriminately, the Grid can reduce the impetus or the temptation to 

use WMD. 

38 
WMD. Smuggling nuclear bombs on trucks is no sure thing. Thos

forced to use less reliable delivery methods may calculate that

although the odds of success decline, a failure discovered might sti

induce devastating retaliation. Ultimately, nuclear deterrence ma

have to be used. 

The Grid may do better at forestalling WMD usage on th

battlefield. The effect of enemy use of WMD to back up conventiona

forces would decrease if standoff warfare permitted putting fewer U.S

forces at risk. Its political effect as blackmail also might be diluted

perhaps below the point where its use is worthwhile. 

If an adversary held back WMD to protect its core areas, good 

illumination might permit U.S. forces to win without enterin

sensitive areas. Typically, seeing enemy supplies is hit or miss, and 

hunting for them must take place along the length of the enemy'

supply lines and deep into its territory. Were supply lines seen mor

reliably, the United States could wait until supplies were closer to th

battlefield, confident that they could be destroyed. 

In general, good illumination may dampen a potential action

reaction cycle that culminates in the use of WMD. 14 If the Grid keep

neighbors focused on facts rather than on fears of what is brewing jus

beyond their borders, the neighbors could choose to wait fo

incontrovertible evidence of aggression, rather than jump the gun

Where evidence is ambiguous, nonlethal weapons can be used (to ta

weapons, for example, or disable their electronics) against forces th

Grid could see in detail (for targeting and damage assessment). Instan

response with nonlethal weapons would carry less risk than the us

of lethal weapons alone offer. If the assessment is incorrect (fo

instance, what looked like preparations for an invasion were jus

normal redeployment), both sides could back down and still sav

face. 

39 
p 

(QDR) in 1997. The credibility of an MTW threat may fade (for 

example, North Korea may implode). If so, the need to justify forces 

more than enough to meet the residual threat introduces the issue of 

against whom else might the United States be arming--Russia? 

China?--and whether such planning becomes a self-fulfilling 

prophecy, all of which constitute a hazard of threat-based force 

calculation. 

Hide-and-seek warfare suggests another way to assess the 

adequacy of the U.S. military, one largely unrelated to the size of the 

enemy's forces (so no specific enemy need be named). Combat, 

especially standoff combat, consists of three elements: seeing, striking, 

and moving sensors and weapons to where they are needed (which 

is what platforms do). 

The cost of illuminating a battlefield is only modestly related to its 

size and even less related to how large the other side's force may be 

(requirements for space assets, for example, are unrelated to the size 

or location of the area to be viewed). The cost of establishing a 

worldwide Grid may be large, but the cost of a working inventory to 

resupply sensors, emitters, and other nodes in war may be cheap. 

Only weapons requirements are related to the size of the enemy, but 

weapons account for only 1 percent of today's defense budget (having 

peaked at 3 percent in the mid-1980s). Finally, the cost of hauling 

sensors and weapons near to but not into harm's way is modest 

compared with the cost of most of today's platform-based forces. 

An adversary's sophistication at hiding or disguising its assets

rather than the number of those assets, drives up density of 

placement, power, and discrimination of sensors used to detect and 

classify them and thereby drives the cost of C41SR. In the face of 

information warfare, the United States must reinforce its network 

architecture: take pains with computer and other information security, 

use encryption and antispoofing techniques all the time, use jamresistant and overlapping radio communications, harden and multiply 

40 
UAVs capable of a several thousand-mile round trip cost more th

those that need go only a few hundred miles. The delivery of sens

from afar (whether by aircraft or artillery) is more problematic, a

longer transit times to the theater lengthen the odds of accident 

interception. Aerostats cannot see beyond a few hundred kilomete

Radio networks are even more difficult to maintain over lo

distances. 

Distance also raises the cost of strike. A nearby target can 

engaged with short-range missiles, lofted glide bombs, or ev

artillery (such as land-or sea-based ATACMS), but distant targ

require medium-range missiles, which in turn require large engines 

rockets, or both, and more expensive flight-guidance systems. T

longer the flight times, the harder it is to attack evanescent targets a

the more opportunities there are to be shot down. Many U.S. airc

lack the range to attack targets more than 500 kilometers away. 

Holding distant targets under constant observation and at risk m

require platforms that can get sensors and weapons close to 

targets. The ability to control and operate in international water

very important, as is a sufficient complement of long-range aircr

whether or not they operate from standoff ranges or close-in rang

Table ] summarizes these considerations. 

Coalition Structures 

A Grid that can be extended to allies of both comparable and les

capabilities offers new types of coalitions to meet U.S. needs. 

instance, countries allied with the United States are concerned t

the effect of the Grid will be to make the U.S. military so high-te

that its allies will no longer be able to fight alongside (much a

battle group cannot easily combine slow and fast ships), is The valid

of this fear depends on how alliances work. In Cold War Euro

nations had their own sectors to guard. In May 1996, the No

American Treaty Organization (NATO) recognized the U

41 
TABLE 1. How threats affect force requirements 

(XX = strong, X = modest, blank = nil) 

Force 

Requirement 

Characteristics of Threat 

Number 

or Size* 

Acreage** Sophistication 

Global C41SR X X 

Local C41SR XX XX 

Weapons 

Lift X 

XX X 

Remoteness 

X 

X 

X× 

NtJmber of opponents and size of their armed ~orces 

** Size of monitored battlespace 

Another way to envision future coalitions is to consider the Grid 

as a utility 17 to be used by any alliance member with ever less 

expensive plug-compatible appliances: receivers, workstations, firecontrol systems, targeting modules, and software in general. Many 

allies already own digital hardware, and some have the rudiments of 

a Grid in place or under construction. 

Allied capabilities can be melded to the U.S. Grid in two ways. 

Each ally with its own Grid might forge system-to-system links with 

the U.S. Grid, creating, in effect, a larger Grid (just as the union of 

two Internets is a larger Internet). Alternatively, allies could connect 

their sensors, databanks, processors, and fire-control units to the U.S. 

Grid much as U.S. components 1~ are connected. Systems designed by 

allies to work with their own Grids may need updated software to 

work with the U.S. Grid, to take advantage of the Grid's information 

and services, and to meet the Grid's expectations for connectivity. In 

42 
ougt to atteess tasuceatues as eabty, accessb

interoperability, and security. Data from a British UAV electro-optic

sensor can be linked through a U.S. network to readings from Dut

microphones, so that the data flows can be fused with the help o

French-hosted software agent and compared to a German-provid

database of marine templates to provide targeting guidance to 

topside gun on an Italian Frigate. A NATO Grid could conceiva

include civilian elements and commercial elements. Although oth

may believe their own assets first (assuming they know w

information comes from where), the Crid can be designed so t

technology will not foreclose using the assets of others. 

Bytes versus Bombs 

When alliance commitments are not at issue, the U.S. public tends 

shy away from military operations that risk many casualties. ~° As 

back as the French Indochina War, U.S. strategists pondered 

strikes to influence conflicts with little risk to forces. But the Vietn

War showed the U.S. public is very sensitive to tile capture of U

airmen. Extended use of aircraft requires near-theater presence a

large overseas deployments. Air strikes also put the onus of conf

on the United States and raise the risk of terrorist counterstrikes. 

Illuminating the battlespace for others could avoid these proble

while deterring conflicts or influencing outcomes in accord with U

values (ensuring aggression does not pay) or interests (preventing 

establishment of a rogue state). Illumination could be offered with f

fingerprints (important when overt involvement might cause trou

or lead others to ascribe an implicit commitment of U.S. prestige). T

United States already offers data collected from satellites. To thi

could also add data collected from UAVs, over-the-horizon rada

standoff naval sensors, and ground sensors, delivered as imagery 

populated battlespace maps (showing targets in real time). 21 To br

allies' information systems and operators up to U.S. standards, furt

support might include simulation packages, systems managem

43 
, gp, , 

weapons. 

In theory, the United States could never show up at all; in 

practice, it would probably provide special operations and liaison 

support] 2 if not air cover and arms transfers, fable 2 suggests parallels 

between the transfers of arms and information that increasingly favor 

information. 

Applications 

Four hypothetical cases show how information support can be useful: 

preparing nations for alliance membership, helping friends conduct 

their own standoff warfare, exercising covert leverage, and keeping 

friends on their side of a border. 

Candidates for NATO membership, for instance, are already 

receiving help with their C41SR systems to enhance their capabilities 

and to facilitate their ultimate integration into NATO systems. 2~ 

Giving them real-time information flows on top of such help would 

let them see potential trouble more easily. Although alliance 

membership is binary (one is either in or out), information assistance 

is continual and can be offered piecemeal to specific countries. To 

achieve interoperability, the United States might, for instance, reveal 

more of the Grid (its contents and capabilities) to the Slovenians than 

to the Russians. If a crisis were to demand that new countries be 

brought into alliances quickly, early preparations would ease their 

integration into appropriate military structures. 

U.S.-supplied illumination could reduce the pressure for 

immediate direct U.S. intervention. A Kuwait could defend itself by 

installing medium-range, point-guided PGMs (perhaps hidden in 10 

times as many desert holes). The invader's assault forces would be 

identified as targets with precise, real-time locations that could be 

passed on to individual weapons. When Iraq threatened to return to 

Kuwait in 1 994, the United States mounted Exercise Vigilant Warrior 

in response, which cost almost a billion dollars. Such an investment 

44 
Arms 

Add to ally's arms 

Can be interdicted in war; 

hazardous to protect 

Can be misused 

Information 

Multiply effect of ally's arms 

Can be protected by redundancy, 

encryption, and spread spectrum 

Can be shut off if misused 2' 

Can be diverted Can be shut off if diverted 

Reduce provider's assets when Can be copied 

transferred 

Difficult to ship in secret 

Value-neutral 

If encrypted, can be decrypted 

only by insiders 

Suggests what provider thinks is 

worth looking at 

Illumination can help one side (an example would be the Bosni

Muslims) without impelling powerful countries to intervene on beh

of the other. The effect of friendly artillery would be enhanced if t

exact location and track of opposing artillery were revealed. A ma

power friendly to the other side may suspect its friends are being h

by the United States but, because the support is covert rather th

overt, may feel less political pressure to respond. 

Information may help allies to protect themselves against hos

infiltration without crossing into another country (such as Turke

1995 pursuit of Kurdish rebels into Iraq). Data collected remotely c

substitute for costly and risky border patrols--and, unlike patrols, 

cost effectiveness of such surveillance rises every year w

improvements to digital systems. 

4_5 
the expected enemy. What DOD would give should fit how others 

fight, not only how U.S. forces might. 

Consider the ability to identify and lock onto a truck equipped 

with a Bushmaster-class machine gun. Ordinarily, real-time tracks are 

flashed to U.S. forces, which then strike from standoff range. Would 

these data suffice for allies? If their weapons were precise but lacked 

range, allies would need to fire from close up; they would need to 

know where other enemy assets lay in order to operate from protected 

spots. If the allies' weapons also were imprecise, then allies would 

need reliable, real-time battle damage assessment for subsequent 

reengagement (preferably before fire was returned). If allies used 

ground forces to smoke out adversaries, they would need the Grid to 

find the best way in and out quickly in order to shoot at the vehicle 

without being trapped in the chaos of small-arms exchange. By 

contrast, some forces shoot once provided with what they consider 

sufficient evidence that the vehicle is hostile, rather than wait for 

certainty beyond the reasonable shadow of a doubt that U.S. forces 

may require. 

Sometimes information is not enough. Friends too small or too 

weak (the Caribbean or Persian Gulf states come to mind) to maintain 

serious forces will probably be too small or weak to face serious foes, 

even when the United States bolsters their forces with detailed 

illumination of the potential battlespace. 

Policymakers may assume falsely that they can intervene in distant 

conflicts without risk to U.S. citizens because their soldiers are safe. 

But U.S. citizens are everywhere; once the pot is stirred they may 

need to be evacuated, an operation that may require forces to 

descend into the chaos. Inevitably, some people stay and later 

demand extraction when the hazards of it are even greater. Even if 

information excites less anti-Americanism than bombs do, adversaries 

may still retaliate with terrorism. 

46 
bully or deflecting its wrath toward a neighbor, a U.S. commitment 

that country might make a great difference to collective region

security. 

Illumination offers great power and little risk, so there is t

possibility the United States may intervene too readily. A pow

unchained by even a small threat of the consequences may ma

close friends nervous. Secret assistance provided through intelligen

agencies can escalate into a deeper entanglement, and the Unite

States could find itself involved in a conflict it might have avoid

had it taken the time to reflect. Promiscuous access to precisi

information can fuel arms races for compatible weaponry] 5 

Others also may offer information, particularly if they do not wa

to leave evidence of a confrontation, even an indirect one, with t

United States. A sophisticated and powerful country that can emula

U.S. C41SR capabilities can help its friends practice hide-and-seek 

information warfare and so learn what may work against the Unit

States. The possibility of such help is one more reason not 

underestimate the sophistication of Third World militaries. 

Mud Warfare 

Standoff warfare can, at times, assume a Nintendo-like quality: a rap

succession of scan (surveying the battlespace), sift (comparing fus

sensor input to signature templates), sort (prioritizing targets), a

strike. 

Unfortunately, the great U.S. desire to make war only in this w

and no other could push foes to find other ways to defeat 

particularly with methods and equipment previously unseen. Fo

could try to change the rules of the game by showing up where n

expected, mixing in with innocents and friendlies, taking hostag

dragging in third parties, and so on. Foes can seek to work as clos

as possible to the shadows (subject, of course, to their ow

operational requirements), where terrain is densest and illuminati

47 
integration skills may decide the outcome. 

An aggressor may seek to achieve rapid conventional effects by 

methods of low-intensity warfare, acts that may pass unnoticed: 

infiltrating troops into commercial traffic, organizing crime and 

terrorism to look like ordinary urban chaos, gathering military 

intelligence by methods associated with commercial intelligence, 

exploiting the target's own information-collection systems, and 

placing real bombs in a country's physical infrastructure and logic 

bombs in its information infrastructure. At some propitious point, 

distributed communications (from cellular telephones to tom-toms) 

may be used to concentrate forces against government targets through 

devices (pickup trucks and construction equipment), devices that, 

until used, look and are civilian. U.S. forces alert to such possibilities 

will need to look for information from the Grid. 

Could the ability to illuminate the battlespace alter the outcome 

of something like the Vietnam War--and, by extension, of tomorrow's 

low-intensity conflicts and peace operations? A fine-toothed ability to 

survey even a low-density battlespace and to act quickly against 

anomalies can inhibit the formation of massed units, cut supply 

movements, and take rapid advantage of the inevitable mistakes that 

reveal obvious targets. 

Mud warfare is necessarily close-in combat whenever the 

intelligence required to differentiate signal from background is hard 

to read without direct contact. Key nodes in Third World cities may 

not be obvious from standoff inspection. The expertise necessary, to 

distinguish hostile from neutral sites, and the trust required for others 

to volunteer the right hints, often are impossible to have without also 

being on scene long enough to learn the territory. Distinguishing 

civilian assets--such as pickup trucks--from military ones--such as 

"technicals" like pickup trucks carrying mounted machine guns--is 

difficult without putting sensors very close to the target or using 

soldiers to make determinations] c' In standoff warfare, things are 

48 
risk day-to-day patrols, even if occasionally warranted; locals can do 

that job. U.S. forces can operate covertly or selectively to drop in a

the right place and time to counter emergent force concentrations

such as local militias. This strategy requires an exquisite combination 

of situational awareness and fast decision times. Situational awareness 

is important for sensing and understanding the rhythms and cycles o

a volatile environment and for adept, small-unit response. Fas

decision times are important when potentially opposing forces can 

cohere into action quickly. Control requires repeated demonstration 

that coalescing opposition can be engaged and neutralized quickly

Close-in combat is called for when the goal of U.S. operations i

to immobilize or neutralize hostile forces rattler tllan kill them. I

Operation Just Cause (1989), the United States sought to remove 

General Noriega from power (and from Panama) but did no

necessarily want to punish Panama or destroy its ability to defend 

itself. Widespread casualties would have complicated subsequen

relations with the country. Although military assets such as armored 

personnel carriers were targeted for destruction, soldiers generally 

were not. Success in such endeavors often requires physica

occupation of military facilities, something standoff strikes cannot do

Peace operations resemble mud warfare by calling on military 

forces to operate against a background of day-to-day life. By seekin

to suppress the use of force, rather than suppress forces, peac

operations differ from war. Usually, visible presence (or its threat) ca

inhibit violence. Mud warfare happens when the expectation fails

Thus, much of what the Grid illuminates in support of mud warfar

must be equally well illuminated for peace operations. 

The homelands of United States and its allies are not liable to b

threatened by mud warfare. Marly key interests, such as freedom o

the seas and the security of many oilfields, can be defended withou

mastering its tactics, and fear of casualties will inhibit the U.S. interes

in such combat--yet a Grid built on the assumption that U.S. force

49 
often goes to the side that can outlast its opponents, a Grid tha

permits things rather than lives to be expended month after month ha

advantages. 

Conclusions 

The ability to illuminate the battlespace permits the use of standof

warfare as an instrument of power with relatively light U.S. casualties

The further ability of the United States to illuminate the world fo

others also can be influential, whether or not U.S. forces are engaged

An agile Grid that provides illumination can help either U.S. forces o

its friends prosecute mud warfare somewhat more effectively tha

today. That noted, the Grid must have enough play in its structure t

accommodate a future grown bleaker or foes grown more clever tha

today. 

Notes 

1. Even the Marines are seeking to increase the typical engagemen

distance from 1,000 to 10,000 meters. See Robert Holzer, "U.S. Marine Tes

May Reshape Corps," Defense News 11, 12 (25 March 1996), 37. 

2. The ultimate model of rapid response would be a large rocket alway

on the launch pad, filled with antiarmor projectiles, each with termina

guidance and its own virtual channel to receive updated aimpoints. If a 20

kilogram warhead, reentering the atmosphere at Mach 25, can kill armo

then a single heavy booster (with its 10-ton payload) could disable 50

targets at once. 

Whether this is affordable is another issue. The NASA administrator talk

of getting to LEO for $2,000/kilogram by using reusable boosters. Jame

Asker, "Washington Outlook," Aviation Week and Space Technology 144

7, February 12, 1996, 19. In support of that goal, in 1996, NASA awarde

Lockheed Martin a large contract to produce its wedge-shaped spacecra

(beating out Boeing's shuttle derivative and the McDonnell Douglas DC-X

which launches and lands vertically) for a March 1999 launch. The awar

will test the claims of some aerospace engineers that reusable launc

50 
drop costs to near $5,000/kilogram. Two start-ups are pursuing a goal o

$4,500/kilogram to LEO: Pioneer RocketPlane William B. Scott, "McPeak

Hecker Head 'Space-Plane' Project," Aviation Week and Space Technology 

March 10, 1997, 22, and Kistler--Joseph Anselmo, "Launchers see Nothing 

but Blue Sky Ahead," Aviation Week and Space Technology, April 7, 1997

41. A skeptic might recall that the Space Shuttle promised low costs and 

frequent launches yet, compared with older technologies, yielded few 

economies. 

3. Israel is nevertheless exploring the TRW Nautilus laser for defense 

against short-range Kytusha missiles after a similar midinfrared advanced 

chemical laser (Miracl) successfully engaged one at White Sands. 

4. DOD is developing two PGMs that reach Mach 6 (2 

kilometers/second), one for the F-22, and another to succeed the 1.5 

kilometers/second line-of-sight anti-tank missile. With no air resistance, such 

a missile could fly 400 kilometers. 

5. At $575,000 each, a cruise missile seems a preposterous weapon to 

use against individual soldiers, but the United States fought Vietnam as a wa

of personnel attrition and, its own casualties aside, spent $1.0 to $1.5 million 

for every enemy slain. Manufacturing cruise missiles today at the rate a

which enemy soldiers were killed then could drop unit costs to $200,000 (an 

aerospace rule of thumb associates every doubling in quantity with a 20

percent cut in unit costs). 

6. The great vulnerability of anything that becomes visible permits 

defenders to find advantages in retreat (if time and space permit). Armies 

moving forward must often mass or otherwise reveal themselves while 

overcoming impediments; their visibility increases if they must advance into 

well-wired terrain. Armies moving backward encounter less resistance and 

can move more stealthily. Because they are more visible, attackers take more 

casualties than defenders. As attack formations are thinned while moving 

forward, they can become overextended. The Korean War may be read a

three advances (North Korean forces in mid-1950, U.N. forces in late 1950

and Chinese forces in early 1951), each followed by total or partial collapse

7. Why would the United States hesitate? Interest in a particula

outcome, or in an end to conflict, may not be sufficient at first. Aggression 

may also be ambiguous: Are the Viet Cong proxies for a North Vietnamese 

invasion or armed dissidents? Who held the U.S. embassy hostage, the 

51 
of the Gulf War have been misread. Had the Iraqis made fewer specif

mistakes, both sides might have suffered similar casualties. The character 

modern warfare means that the Iraqi mistakes were severely punished. Bidd

concluded (1) that training, not technology, made the difference and (2) tha

those who master constantly rising levels of complexity will be tomorrow

winners. Biddle declared himself skeptical of the RMA, but making the Gr

(which would reify the RMA) work would be an exercise in the managemen

of complexity, particularly in helping forces quickly take advantage of a

enemy's mistakes. 

9. The Defense Science Board 1996 Summer Study Task Force o

Tactics and Technology for 21st Century Military Superiority (October 3

1996) offers a good treatment of how individual warriors could exploit 

dense infrastructure of sensors and processors to raise their situationa

awareness. 

10. When operations depend on networks, operators may be stymied 

even defeated when networks fail. The blitzkrieg was invented largely 

attack relatively soft targets--mainly the logistics support network--behin

the lines. Communications networks are now needed to provide C41S

support to modern militaries. Information warfare, by analogy, could attac

C41SR networks to isolate units from both their data flows and one anothe

If warriors can understand opposing networks, find weak spots in thos

networks, and crunch them, they may engineer a collapse. Weak spots th

occur each time a network has to adjust to a crisis or opportunity may b

created or exacerbated by the other side. Detecting and attacking the

before they can be strengthened can lead a network to collapse. This strateg

requires the Grid be alert, flexible, and fast. 

11. Andrew Krepenevich, who heads the Center for Strategic an

Budgetary, Alternatives (Washington), has argued that Third World countrie

have given up trying to replicate the U.S. military with its planes and tank

Countries like Iran buy cruise missiles, command and control system

transport, mines, diesel submarines, and in some cases, WMD. See h

interview in Defense News, October 25, 1993, 30; and George Seffers, "U.S

Army Study: Reduce Force Logistics, Improve Mobility," Defense New

December 1 6, 1996, 8. Such countries seek not to defeat the United Stat

but ward off its intervention. But would the United States intervene in th

first place unless Iran, for example, was taking land, presumably wit

52 
14. Similarly, the competition of adversaries, each convinced that 

hesitation would put it at a permanent disadvantage in mobilizing forces, 

made the descent into World War I impossible to stop. 

15. German General Klaus Naumann, who chaired the NATO military 

committee, fretted that the U.S. military is becoming high-tech with sucil 

"unparalleled velocity [that] one day we will see a disconnect between the 

United States and European Allies" (quoted in James Asker, "Washington 

Outlook," Aviation Week and Space Technology, October 6, 1997, 23. 

European countries can afford an RMA but they prefer to spend only 60 

percent per capita of what the United States does on defense (and even less 

on defense hardware). In the U.S. view, they lack the will to buy the requisite 

hardware and software (although size, not just affluence, is needed to afford 

space assets or a complete system of systems). European governments, for 

their part, fear that the U.S. lacks the will to shed blood alongside its allies. 

A military particularly good at standoff warfare may be expected to insist on 

contributing to a common effort from beyond or above the battlefield, while 

the Europeans suffer the casualties. But the United States did supply ground 

forces in Bosnia. 

16. The desire to concentrate on CqSR and lift while others do the 

fighting is not a U.S. monopoly. Similar hopes are offered by officials in 

Australia (see David Fulghum, "Australia's New Defense Strategy

Surveillance, Comm Links Dominate Upgrade Plan," Aviation Week and 

Space Technology, August 25, 1997, 50. To some extent, this hold fo

Germany (see Jack Hoschouer, "Germany's New Roles Expose Needs," 

Defense News, February 3, 1997, 4. 

17. Some now urge the United States to work systematically with 

European allies in the emerging infrastructure of data dissemination, fusion, 

and collaborative planning. Dennis Gormley, "Make Information Dominance 

NATO's Military Glue," Defense News, July 8, 1996, 21. In early 1997

eleven NATO nations launched a feasibility study of how they might share 

command of and battlespace data from their UAVs. Brooks Tigner, "Allies 

Aim to Share Reconnaissance," Defense News, February 17, 1997, 1. 

18. Physical and syntactic connectivity need not mean unrestricted 

access (for example, just because the U.S. Grid is connected to Dutch 

artillery fire-control systems does not mean that U.S. commanders can fire 

Dutch weapons). Multilevel security software is designed for such tasks as 

53 
even a major conflict, perhaps faster than technology can satisfy the

expectations. Eighteen dead were too many in Somalia; three suicides amo

U.S. servicemen in Haiti sufficed to draw hostile congressional attentio

Imagine a presidential call for a war to save, say, the Philippines from fallin

to radical forces waging a Vietnam-style guerilla campaign. Our technolog

the President continues, can reduce casualties to a tenth of what they we

in Vietnam--only 5,800 dead. Few Americans would respond favorably 

such a "deal." U.S. forces have become quite careful in places like Bosn

where standard practice now is to venture forth only in heavily guarded fou

vehicle convoys. Casualties are reduced at the expense of a high

operational tempo whose long-run sustainability is untested. This attitud

may change if the United States were to face a country big enough to pla

it in jeopardy. Yet such threats do not clearly proclaim their intentions a

capabilities, at least not at first. To dissuade countries from peer-lev

competition, the U.S. may have to impede their march to power (perhaps 

influencing the outcome or inhibiting the outbreak of proxy conflicts th

they sponsor) years before the U.S. public will for direct intervention (a

thus tolerance of casualties) can be mustered. 

21. When a DBS receiver a foot ,,vide can pick up a gigabit per secon

raw bandwidth into theater is unlikely to be a major constraint. 

22. In 1993, a decorated armor general unexpectedly opined to t

author that Desert Storm circa 2015 would require a force of 101,00

100,000 from the Space Command, and 1,000 from the Special Operatio

Command. 

23. Eastern European countries reportedly are using peacekeeping a

search-and-rescue operations to determine what to do for compatibili

(Brooks Tigner, "East Nations see Peacekeeping as Key Entree into NATO

Defense News, January 30, 1995, 20. Jan Sitek, the Slovakian Minister 

Defense (interviewed in Defense News, June 26, 1995, 54) noted that t

nation seeks an information system fully compatible with NATO. Ja

Trpans, his Latvian counterpart (interviewed in Defense News, March 1

1995, 30), admitted that Latvia still has large stores of Bloc equipment to 

maintained ("buy East") but now wants to "talk West". 

24. For instance, NATO was harder on Serbs than on Bosnian Muslim

because Serbs were judged to be aggressors. If NATO were to help Bosnia 

order to even the playing field, tile Bosrlians might then be tempted 

54 
incentive to acquire them rises. A country so stocked would still want 

alternative sources of battlespace information. That need would prod other 

suppliers to improve their battlespace surveillance capabilities to support 

point-guided PGMs. Many European companies, for example, would not 

develop a system if they did not expect foreign sales. The result could be an 

arms race that would vitiate the initial U.S. advantage in the sensor-toshooter cycle. One way to ensure that a recipient uses only information 

supplied by the U.S. DOD is to sell missiles that could respond only to data 

encrypted by the Grid. 

26. General Fogelman, the former Air Force Chief of Staff, maintained 

that "air occupation" is now a feasible and worthwhile low-casualty 

substitute for ground occupation. Patrick Cooper,"U.S. Stealth Enhancements 

are Key to 'Air Occupation,'" Defense News, September 16, 1996, 1. 

55 
Nearly everyone pays lip service to the goal of C41SR integratio

Some within DOD even accord it first among DOD progra

priorities. 1 Yet integration, however necessary, is not enough to bui

the Grid. The depth of integration, the breadth of things to b

integrated, and the shape of the result define the Grid--that is, th

challenges faced in its construction, and the services and knowledg

it provides. 

If the progress and the plans made since the Gulf War a

considered, then circa 2015, DOD ought to be well on its way to th

Grid. Most sensors, weapons, and networks will be interconnecte

and largely interoperable. Commanders will have a reasonably goo

picture of a conventional battlespace (if not yet an unconventiona

one). Standoff warfare will work better (in the right environment

than in the Gulf War or Bosnia. But the Grid DOD may settle for go

only part way toward what it could and, more important, what 

ought to field by then. 

Such a Grid may be sufficient if the worst problem the milita

faces is repeating such operations as Desert Storm (Persian Gulf), Ju

Cause (Panama), or Deliberate Force (Bosnia) against hapless foe

Whether it can illuminate the battlespace for hide-and-seek warfa

or help prosecute mud warfare is less clear. Indeed, the different kind

of warfare--conventional force-on-force, hide-and-seek, an

mud--will have fundamentally different requirements of the Grid. 

making this point, this chapter reviews work toward the Grid, projec

a linear Grid on the basis of current trends, examines broad

requirements of other types of conflict, and concludes by calling f

a truly open Grid. 

57 
gppy

aircraft had the guidance equipment they lacked earlier, such as laser

and IR-targeting pods] Interoperability, another problem in the Gul

War, was better. According to Lieutenant General Van Riper, USMC

the greatest advances in command and control came through 

integrating the many diverse C31 systems. Integration is facilitating 

joint communications. Institutional barriers that separate intelligence 

from operations are dissolving) Imagery from the Predator UAV wen

directly into military headquarters without being routed through 

cumbersome intelligence links. 

Experiments 

One focus of the DOD is on experiments to develop and demonstrate 

new operational concepts linked to efficiencies from widespread 

networking. Two experiments in particular, the Army's Task Force 

(TF) XXl and the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability, testify to 

the U.S. military's eagerness to adapt to the opportunities tha

technology offers. They also illustrate the conceptual limitations 

within which adaptiveness is pursued. 

The purpose of TF XXI is to get tactical information into the hands 

of the soldier by automatically generating and distributing battlefield 

information, orders, and related message traffic. Its heart is the 

Appliqu6, a computer terminal put in every vehicle (dismounted 

versions are being explored) that offers soldiers a constantly 

populated map of the battlefield and periodic updates of assignments

logistics, and ambient factors (such as the weather). The Appliqu~ and 

its servers are linked by a tactical lnternet capable of covering a 

thousand-plus users (per brigade) in constantly shifting topologies 

(there are roughly three routers for every foLlr terminals). In March 

1997, tile Army's Experimental Force (the 1st Brigade of the 4th 

Infantry Division) went to the National Training Center to see wha

difference its new configuration might make. It lost (as everyone does 

there), but its performance demonstrated that internetting can cut the 

58 
from cruise missiles), especially when ships are operating in littor

waters. Previously, each ship's radar would build incoming missi

tracks on the basis of what it alone saw. CEC lets each radar provid

semiprocessed data to every other ship, supports a common da

fusion algorithm, and creates a consolidated track. Data exchang

permits a reduction in dimensional inaccuracies; more frequent da

acquisition; sharper beam focusing; earlier alerting; and commo

ways to identify friends and foes. Passing tracks around to other ship

permits one ship to engage a target on the basis of what other ship

see. Undergirding CEC is a robust communications system wit

improvement of several orders of magnitude in bandwidth an

electronic countermeasures. 

The similarities between CEC and TF XXl are telling. Bo

programs were accelerated after impressive demonstrations to th

Defense Secretary. Both seek operational improvements throug

improved command and control. Both exist, in part, to systematiz

advantages offered by GPS. And both cost in the low billions--wit

the bulk of the money used for better communications hardware. Bo

TF XXl and CEC reinforce the command paradigm of their owner

The Army widened its net but still gives soldiers what they supposed

need to know. s The Navy deepened its net by reinforcing the positio

of the capital ship---to support the conduct of the battle by tradition

means. 

The Air Force is examining prospects for global mission plannin

In the Gulf War it took 2 full days to rewrite an air tasking ord

(ATO); the goal is to rewrite it even after aircraft have taken of

Other experiments are under way to deliver satellite informatio

directly to the cockpit of an F-16 and to fuse information gathered 

its four tactical intelligence aircraft--AWACS, JSTARS (which on

had trouble talking to any unit without a special trailer), Rivet Join

and Cobra Ball. The Air Force claims that it could then see everythin

within 400 kilometers of the front line/ 

59 
of applications known as the Global Command and Control System 

(GCCS) and its logistics counterpart, the Global Combat Suppo

System. A key GCCS application is to build the COP. Feed come

from reporting units and sensors using TADIL (a cornrnon tactica

digital information link), and a universal communications processo

formats these data in standard (Navy-derived) ways. After some simpl

correlation tests, 8 the data are posted to a track-management system 

(TMS) that a joint mapping toolkit (JMTK) draws from to fill a map fo

users. In some cases, track data are linked to static or real-tim

imagery (automatic association of Blue units with their logistics dat

is still to come). The GCCS common operational picture (COP) ma

come to provide warfighters with the illumination they need to figh

from, but the current system serves only commanders in chief (CINCs

and major reporting commands. The system still lacks the real-tim

features, resolution, 9 or sensor-processing capability to suppo

operators, much less automatic weaponeering. 

As bandwidth widens, aircraft pilots and ship commanders wi

get more information. In Bosnia, headquarters are richly supplied wit

data, 1° but information available below the division level to groun

units is not appreciably greater than 20 years ago. ~1 Much of the bes

equipment is either too expensive or too heavy 1~ for mobile field use

The United States continues to give allies ever more information. 

The Army is taking pains to ensure that its battlefield digitization wi

not leave advanced NATO partners and Japan too far behind. DOD 

has found that if allies are to cooperate on theater missile defense

they must get immediate data on missile firings from early-warnin

satellites that once were overly sensitive. Apart from NATO systems

intelligence sharing with allies and coalition partners is ad hoc an

piecemeal. 

60 
q

has also sought and won tactical control of all UAVs in the theater

Even though Bosnia is more overcast than the Persian Gulf, UAV

were used more aggressively there. Their number and roles will onl

increase. 

As noted, the U.S. Marine Corps and the Army are investigatin

ways to generate the same firepower from smaller forces supported b

standoff fire support. Army officers now talk of "massing fires rathe

than forces" on tomorrow's nonlinear battlefield. ~4 

Consensus is building on the importance of completing militar

operations quickly (or forgoing them). The ability to transmit plans

assessments, and orders more rapidly has proved valuable i

shortening the cycles of planning and operations. To defeat Scuds

which take 4 minutes to set up and fire, at their source, the t;nite

States must operate within that cycle; thus, the "2-minute" drill take

on literal meaning. Some see rapid reaction as just as important t

future warfighting as the machine gun was to World War I. 15 

The DOD image of conventional conflict 20 years hence can b

described as follows: 

In support of AWACS and JSTARS, high-flying and stealthy 

UAVs oversee the battlefield, relaying interesting imagery 

(optical or SAR) to the command center. Bolstered by IR and 

electronic intelligence, analysts in fusion centers translate 

readings into targets. Moving targets are posted to long-range 

attack aircraft, and others to long-range missiles. Where 

discrimination is difficult or the risk of collateral damage is 

high, small mobile teams supply the final go~no-go decision. 

After standoff strikes disorient and decimate foes, larger 

maneuver teams rush in to put foes to flight and occupy 

important terrain. In this way, an RMA would emerge from a 

combination of information dominance, 16 precision strike, and 

maneuver warfare, all supported by the Grid. 

61 
problem. Large, complex systems often contain assumptions about the 

nature of and responses to the challenges they were built for, rathe

than see today's circumstances as just one among many possibilities 

that must be considered. As designed today, the Grid would reinforce 

the existing breakdown of defense problems into a set of specific tasks 

and a bounded requirement for data to feed these tasks. Strategy-totask breakdowns are popular, because they help cope with 

complexity, facilitate operational testing, and reflect how today's 

military subcommunities define themselves. 

A Grid that supports rather than transforms the way conventional 

war is fought would reflect such breakdowns. COP would reflect data 

collected by complex, unitary 17 sensors either tasked by commanders 

or set on a preplanned course. The data could be laid atop a common 

map but are not likely to be fused further; users would see it displayed 

one way, regardless of context. Whatever further data processing takes 

place will come from data table manipulations or complex algorithms 

engineered in advance. Only command centers, not field units, would 

have access to large flows of information. Coordination across 

echelons, the services or allies would probably be ad hoc rather than 

automatic. This would hold also for the flow of news. Information 

would be there for those who know where to look. 

The use of commercial sensors, processors, and nodes in quantity 

(to perform better in the aggregate and to overcome enemy-induced 

failures) and networked by software (to realize synergies from 

numbers) is less likely. 18 Warriors and supplies may be dispersed to 

reduce vulnerability to WMD. Techniques to disperse ground 

command centers (which have copious electronic emanations) lag

Few weapons will be able to fly to a moving spot on the map, unti

image-acquired targets can be geolocated in real time better. 

Intelligence will continue to prepare the battlespace but not rule 

it. Continual 1~' coverage and sensor-to-weapon intelligence are 

needed before the U.S. cycle (to spot, identify, and classify a target

assign it to a platform, engage the weapon, and hit the target) can 

62 
(which tightly couple sensors, processing, and displays into a tailore

package). Jointness has benefitted from verbal support, ostensibl

progress, and occasional triumphs (an example is truly joint system

for airborne reconnaissance and theater missile defense). But so lon

as the services train, buy, and supply things as services, a truly join

Grid will be a long time coming. 

A linear Grid would be better than what exists today or what othe

nations enjoy, but whether it is good enough depends on who it mu

be used against. ~° It will do if putative foes resemble the Iraq of Dese

Storm, 2~ field assets and use doctrines handed down from the Sovie

Union (and are thus easy to recognize), fight wars as organize

engagements 22 in fairly open terrain (plains, woods, dry mountains

lack the long-range sensors and weapons to strike assets at a 200

kilometer remove (JS1ARS, Aegis, LEO satellites), or lack enoug

medium-range weapons to saturate U.S. ground defenses. 

But as chapter ] argues, new, sophisticated foes may make goo

use of the information revolution. They could disperse military force

move without leaving footprints, learn to operate effectively in dens

environments, and use commercial items (as is or slightly modified

instead of military items (and develop software to do so intelligently

If so, LJ.S. forces might acquire information but might not understan

what they see. If adversaries can hit expensive sensor platforms, th

United States might be unexpectedly blinded. An adversary th

brandishes WMD may inhibit U.S. forces from showing up at all. 

So what world ~3 should the Grid be designed for? At the leas

some placeholder should be kept for the possibility that the Unite

States may face a foe as large as what a rich China, 24 a resurge

revanchist Russia, or a lucky and obstreperous India might represen

It should also be designed against foes who master nasty technologie

(cheap RMAs, WMD, or challenges to air, sea, information, or spac

lines of communication), or for messy chaos such as from glob

warming, bioenvironmental collapse, or a new anti-Wester

63 
Beneath Asias prosperity lies the sort of rising powers an

nationalism seen in peaceful Europe 1 00 years ago. 

Little of this matters if the Grid can be adapted in time, but th

unexpected may be overlooked or misunderstood as it builds or eve

emerges. Features engineered into a system decades back can resi

easy eradication, such as the Year 2000 problem. If nothing else, th

Grid's designers must take into account the contrarian nature of wa

Rigidity in its construction will create weaknesses against which foe

can concentrate efforts. 

And for what war? One way of illustrating how wide theGrid'

span should be is to note some key distinctions among traditiona

combat, standoff operations, and mud warfare: 

• In traditional combat, targets and their locations are general

known, and the problem is effective application of force. Stando

operations deal with known unknowns: targets are known but no

their locations. In mud warfare, neither the target nor its locatio

is known; at best, one can sense what is normal but not a

emerging threat to what is normal. Often, enemy operations mus

be inferred from anomalies in an environment. 

• In traditional combat, an ideal is to deliver imagery data from 

complex sensors to waffighters. Standoff operations call for th

ability to scan large areas and find and identify targets, a need tha

puts a premium on quick conversion of data to information tha

will inform action. (As an example, once a Scud launcher is seen

it becomes a target; immediate intention is irrelevant.) Mu

warfare requires warfighters to understand their environmen

intimately; it stresses the recognition of patterns and simila

epiphenomena. 

• In traditional combat, complexity arises from the imperativ

to coordinate large agglomerations (such as the Army's ability t

maneuver in full corps, or the Air Force's ability to generate a fu

64 
 What faster speed can buy will vary with the environment 

a conflict. Traditionally, fast response times mean being able 

act faster than foes can respond] 7 In standoff operations, th

ability to strike evanescent targets is what matters. In the mu

environment, a faster cycle time permits forces to control 

situation just prior to its descent into chaos or dissipation. -~8 

The Grid helps commanders to see and grasp a complicated m

of friendly and hostile forces, in part by using the celebrated "directe

telescope" to focus on key features of the battlespace. The class

crowded battlefield, however, is obsolete ~'j if both sides have sensor

staying hidden is rnore important. Engagements are intermittent (ofte

a result of mistakes), and any one of them could grab a commander

attention; command authority comes from having the big pictu

(often literally so). In mud warfare, where power is concentrate

against congealing chaos, it makes sense to organize in squads (1

warriors) for patrol and companies (20 squads) for concentration, wit

only a thin hierarchy above (much as modern factories are organized

These distinctions are summarized in table 3. 

The United States may just as well build a Grid that can, amon

other things, master standoff war and thereby put to bed just th

thought of provoking conventional warfare. But designing a Grid th

cannot cope with mud warfare would be an invitation to engage th

United States where it is least prepared. U.S. forces may not spen

all that much time in the mud (at least, not en masse) but it would b

useful to develop C41SR systems that would allow those so engage

to do so effectively and safely. One need not believe in the efficac

of guerrilla warfare to argue that the conflict the United States need

to be prepared to fight could rage over a wide area, amongst clutt

and confusion, against unpredictable foes, and under a heavy barrag

of information warfare (broadly defined). 

65 
Goal 

Complexity 

Why Speed 

Command 

Data Information 

Operations 

Faster cycle 

time 

Mixed 

Finding things 

Fleeting targets 

Moves up 

Understanding 

Sensing 

patterns 

Fleeting 

control 

Moves down 

Victory often goes to the side that learns--thus, learns t

change--fastest. Hammers are counterproductive if they persuad

their users to see the world as nails. 3° Even in peace, threats and too

evolve, and so does much of how militaries organize themselves t

respond. Assumptions buried in systems architectures becom

increasingly impervious to change. The Grid must be flexible to begi

with, and its architecture must be as free as possible of unnecessar

assumptions. It is difficult to build systems that are flexible agains

unknown-unknowns, whether these come from the environment o

wily foes. But a serious military has no alternative. 

Notes 

1. Jacques Gansler, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition an

Technology, labeled an "integrated, secure, and 'smart' C41SR infrastructure

as "the critical element of an effective 21st century warfighting capability

speech before the Aerospace Industry Association, November 21, 1997. 

2. Robert Holzer, "Allies Use Carrot-and-Stick Tactic in Bosnia

Defense News, September 4, 1994, 1. 

3. During the Gulf War, it took 3 days to translate intelligence repor

of suspicious activity, through channels, into mission assignments for aircraf

Direct phone talks between Rear Admiral McConnell of the Joint Staff an

Brigadier General Glosson in Saudi Arabia were required to short-circuit th

66 
, 

5. The Army's Force XXI is scheduled to be completed in 2010, whic

suggests that major changes in its architecture are unlikely until afterwar

It envisions battalion tactical operations centers richly provided wi

information: the All-Source Analysis System for intelligence, the Maneuv

Control System for force planning, the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Da

System for force application, and the Warfighter's Associate for tapping in

the Battlefield Awareness and Data Dissemination system. But the Appliqu

is a passive device useful only for maps and a handful of preformatte

messages. The dropoff in capability--thus, the capacity f

initiative--between the battalion and the company level is enormous. B

hard-wiring into its architecture certain assumptions about where comman

takes place, the Army may limit its flexibility for pushing initiative downwa

or interoperating with Marines, who do. 

6. During the Gulf War, Air Force air tasking orders were routine

passed manually to Navy aircraft carriers. Rome Laboratories now has a

experimental planning system that measures cycles in minutes. 

7. See David Fulghum, "Electronic Recon Sparks Battlefie

Dominance," Aviation Week and ,Space Technology, June 24, 1996, 53-5

8. The correlator ensures only that every reference to an item (f

example, a unit) with the same name is linked to form a continuous track

9. Except insofar as contributing sensors, such as those carried b

JSTARS or AWACS, generate operationally useful data on their own. 

10. Richard Rapaport, "World War 3.1 : The Shape of Things to Come

Forbes ASAP, October 7, 1996, 125-132. 

11. Kenneth Allard, "Bosnia End-of-Tour Report," memorandum to th

President, National Defense University, Washington, August 5, 1996. 

12. BADD terminals can weigh 250 kilograms in part because the

contain hardened boxes that quickly decrypt individual 53-byte cells in bu

before passing them to recipients. 

13. French peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, for instance, used real-tim

airborne video surveillance to monitor Mostar's polling places, which p

them in a position to concentrate their forces against potential disturbance

without needing to patrol polls directly. Improved Application of Intelligen

to the Battlefield (Washington: Department of Defense, Defense Scienc

Board, February 24, 1997), 46. 

67 
need for information differs greatly. The real issue is who needs wha

information to do which tasks and how much of that information it ca

obtain. The ability to illuminate the physical battlespace, which may predic

an enemy's operational moves, offers little insight into what the other sid

thinks, believes, and wants (and how badly), thus what its strategic plans ar

Knowing the enemy remains a quintessentially human act and require

knowing how to think as the enemy does. Paradoxically, the more the U.S

way of war is influenced by its access to technology, the harder it may be fo

warfighters to understand adversaries that lack such access, but fortunately

adversaries also will have a harder time understanding us. 

17. Emitters (which generate the signal, echoes of which are the

analyzed) are what make radars visible. Separating cheap emitters from 

expensive receivers would help protect the latter were the former found an

hit. Where a large dish might be spotted, substituting many small ones linke

by sophisticated software could provide comparable power. Separated lase

and laser detectors are another example. 

18. The defense industry's consolidation into three large firms (Boeing

Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon) has sharply reduced the odds that on

company would break ranks and undermine conventional complex system

with unconventional cheap ones. As Mickey Blackwell, head of Lockhee

Martin's Aeronautical Sector, argued (in an interview in Defense New

February 12, 1996, 38), his company saw little future in a drone "cost[ing

$10,000 apiece. Now when you add sophistication to it, when you ad

stealth, you add a lot of advanced software imagery and optics; now that 

our line of business." If his comments are indicative, networks of chea

devices are more likely to come from beyond the defense sector--later an

more disruptively. 

19. Although continual coverage does not reduce Blue's cycle time, 

permits Blue to respond earlier in Red's cycle. 

20. Because "against" implies conflict, this may be the wrong issue fo

a military designed mainly for peace operations. Such a military, howeve

is unlikely. Peace operations are little more than a muscular version 

foreign aid, a budget item the U.S. public consistently places highest on 

"cut" list. How popular would the 1992 Somalia operation have been 

President Bush had asked for a 2-c~ents-per-gailon tax on gasoline to pay fo

its marginal costs (which assume the forces over there would have been pa

68 
foot in the war zone, and the Marines are playing with complexity theory f

urban conflicts~but the assumed superiority of U.S. forces in force-on-forc

engagements pervades planning. 

22. For an analysis of the canonical invasion (e.g., with 15,000 separa

pieces of equipment), see Fred Frostic et al., The New Calculus (San

Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1993). 

23. There is no shortage of potential futures from which to choose: Fra

Fukuyama, The End of History (NY: Free Press, 1992); Samuel P. Huntingto

"The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, 3 (1993), 22-49; Robert 

Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy," The Atlantic Monthly 273, 2 (Februa

1994), 44-76; Matthew Connelly and Paul Kennedy, "Must It Be the We

Against the Rest?" The Atlantic Monthly, December 1994, 61-91; and J

Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (NY: Times Books, 1996). Technology-oriente

futures range from the pessimistic musings of cyberpunks to the optimist

ravings of extropians. Ed Regis, "Meet the Extropians," Wired, October 199

102-108, 149. 

24. China as a hostile great power is one--but only one--outcome 

Asian economic growth. But China has far to go. Its Army must make prof

to cover half its budget. Its published military thought is derivative. S

Michael Pillsbury, Chinese Views of Future Warfare (Washington: ND

Press, 1997). As of the end of 1996, the Chinese Army had lost three of 

last six heavy rocket launches through preventable malfunctions. Even 

aspirations are modest: China's military sees the 1991 U.S. military as its go

for 2015. Jason Glashow, "DOD Sees China Molding Doctrine Based on Gu

War," Defense News, April 29, 1996, 3. India is in many ways mo

impressive. 

25. With birth rates in underdeveloped countries dropping, the ye

2015 is more likely to see an unusually large cohort of hard-to-emplo

youths rather than a Malthusian disaster. See Patrick Clawson, "Demograph

Stresses," in Project 2015, ed. Patrick Cronin (Washington: NDU Pre

1996), 55-56. As recently as 1978, the 700 million of Europe were four tim

as many as their counterparts in the Middle East (Iran plus Arab countries

By 2015, Europe will have just over eight million 22-year-olds; the Midd

East, close to nine million. 

26. Standoff PGM strikes, for example, usually need less planning tha

the use of platforms, which require coordination (e.g., for logistics

69 
right time and place (for example, by dropping the bridge just when th

adversary's forces are about to cross it). This theory justifies both noda

warfare and the military relevance of v,,eaponry with temporary effect

(nonlethal weapons, antielectronic devices). Or see Doug McGregor

Breaking the Phalanx (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 37: "Armed force

execute dominating maneuver when they successfully exploit technology

organization, training, and leadership to attain qualitatively superior fighting 

power as well as dramatic positional advantages in time and space which th

enemy's countermeasures cannot defeat." 

28. U.S. forces in Vietnam and Soviet forces in Afghanistan both found 

it difficult to destroy more than 10 to 20 percent of the guerrillas the

encountered before the rest disappeared into the terrain. 

29. A large army in action--even coordinated action--may not imply 

crowded battlefield if only a few units are fighting at any one time. Hide

and-seek warfare turns bloody only when targets slip up and appear visible

30. If the Grid were to help U.S. forces engage armor efficiently

antiarmor actions might be considered the essence of combat and everything 

else peripheral. It is natural to pay attention to easily collectible indicator

and disregard those more difficult to obtain. The Vietnam War was a roug

lesson in both. 

70 
The Internet is only an agglomeration of networks, but it ha

attributes not necessarily present in any one network. Similarly, th

Grid will have attributes that go beyond those of its components

How knowledge is discovered and reconciled, how heterogenous 

data streams are viewed together, how systems work securely and i

synchrony--all are issues that might be solved for each component

but remain unresolved for the Grid as a whole. System issues--at bot

policy and technological levels--must be considered. Some concer

the depth and breadth of C41SR integration. Others concern key Gri

functions: knowledge management, presentation, networking, an

security. 

Defining the Grid 

Almost every node ] in DOD will be connected directly or indirectly

But how deeply they will be linked is another issue. There are fou

levels of integration: physical, syntactic, semantic, and services. At th

physical level, nodes exchange bits, much as fax machines do

adequate enough if people are on both ends of the communication

At the syntactic level, the bits are formatted according to som

standard or meta-standard. 2 Nodes can be programmed to respond t

other nodes on the basis of formatted bits (such as through databas

manipulation). At the semantic level, bits are organized into mutuall

understood referents--words, as it were. This level permits knowledg

processing. Integration to the services level permits nodes to expres

requirements, intentions, capabilities, and ways to negotiate them

The deeper the integration, the more each node can say to on

another. 3 

The Grid is both a network and knowledge base, much as light 

both wave and particle. As a network, it lets users communicate

71 
defined). 

Why Integrate? 

Integration is not free; it takes time to settle on funding, security, and 

standards. Costs include hardware (an example is $5 million for 

connection to the Navy's CEC) and network software (which ma

embody potential faults that may compromise the performance o

equipment so connected). Security problems often arise from linkin

systems with different risk profiles and thus habits. Networkin

requires communications; doing so over the air, however, generate

RF energy, which creates a detectable signature. Fights over standard

seem petty, but standards often reflect fundamentally different way

of looking at things. 4 The use of standards requires that data flow

efficiently expressed in a native tongue be inefficiently expressed fo

more general communication. But the benefits of integration are rea

the ability to illuminate battlespace, exercise all-points command an

control, conduct comprehensive planning, and learn lesson

collectively. 

A battlespace is illuminated by having sensor data fused

processed, and presented to warfighters. Sensor integration can revea

objects that individual sensors neither see nor distinguish

Connectivity permits the automatic provision of real-time information

which, in turn, means sensor data go to shooters in time for them t

find and strike fleeting targets. Integration could provide allies with 

stream of consolidated illumination. Integration is required when th

number of sensors increases beyond what can be managed by hand 

and so must be managed automatically: each sensor needs to know 

where to move or point, which frequencies to use, how to report, an

what to tell the others sensors to do. A battlespace illuminated fo

U.S. forces would enable both precision engagement (because target

can be precisely located) and full-dimensional protection (becaus

72 
commander reach everyone. Standards and other software hooks 

let commanders read the various devices within their purview. 

control from afar requires exchanging a large amount of data 

support security, continuous reliability, and feedback (for safety s 

effectiveness). With systemwide connectivity, a battalion ashore co

command firepower from ships offshore. An Aegis system on a N

cruiser could control a battery of Patriot missiles. As the range 

weapons lengthens, the number that can strike a target increases

that more potential actions have to be coordinated and deconflic

from the top down or by mutual give and take. 6 

Comprehensive planning--including scheduling, model

rehearsal, simulation, and testing--works best when based o

complete picture of the battlespace (such as Red's dispositions 

Blue's plans). Knowledge of what's where is helpful in sending 

right stuff (only the right stuff) to the right people. This is focu

logistics, the fourth pillar of Joint Vision 2010. 

Community learning allows the experience of one to improve 

understanding of many. The Grid should gather, process, organ

and archive lessons learned. As more facts (notably, results f

individual engagements) are gathered into a common anal

perspective, the experience base for reaching conclusions 

disseminating them broadens. Correlations, for instance, of electro

emanations and events not initially obvious may become clear 

further analysis. For instance, American commanders could not be

to end the threat posed by German submarines to Atlantic c

shipping in early 1942 until they found a systematic way to tell 

another what they had discovered through contact with the enem

The Grid could support real-time learning. Warfighters, looking o

one another's shoulders as each taps into the Grid can sense 

others' needs and deduce what each may be thinking and plann

Practice can lead to the sort of group knowledge Admiral Nels

"Band of Brothers" exploited at the Battle of Trafalgar, when e

73 
ought to be integrated in real time ~ and stay connected. Some nodes 

need to pass information automatically to other nodes for knowledge 

processing; others can or ought to pass information through people. 

Beyond that lies everything else-sensors, weapons, and junctions to 

platforms--that may need some real-time linkage; but how much? 

Consider an Aegis cruiser. Its radar, subsurface, and helicopter sensors 

could feasibly be linked to the Grid. So could its fire control systems 

(such as for guns and missiles), if these were tasked remotely (CEC 

permits one ship to inform but not task another ship's fire control 

systems). 

It may be easier to ask what should not be connected. Battlespace 

illumination allows shooters to select targets from an integrated 

picture of the battlespace. In some cases, routing sensor data through 

the Grid and then to a shooter may add too much lead time. 9 A 

Phalanx gun spots, tracks, and shoots at incoming antiship missiles 

without human, much less off-ship, intervention (although it may 

report radar tracks in real time). Air warriors in Colorado cannot win 

UAV dogfights in the Persian Gulf without farfetched assumptions 

about the connectivity the Grid supports. 

Real-time global connectivity sometimes may not be worth the 

trouble. A ship's power plant may be wired into its bridge and, in 

turn, wired into the Grid, but the need for real-time data on power 

plant performance is scarcely obvious. 1° Focused logistics suggest that 

equipment may be networked so that off-board experts or expert 

systems Call help maintain it. Although inventories of the ship's 

contents should enter the Grid, they need not be entered in real time; 

after all, the ship cannot be resupplied immediately. 

Other links may be harmful. Special operations forces or 

submarines work silently and cannot afford to feed the Grid in real 

time or depend on its availability. Some operations are so highly 

classified or sensitive that the slightest risk of compromise outweighs 

any advantage of automatic connectivity. Barriers between the 

74 
Although the Grid will reflect the characteristics of its components

will also possess attributes that result from solving bro

technological and policy issues. Some policy issues echo questio

of how integrated DOD wants to become--and how badly. Sho

differences in perceptions among component commands 

suppressed or reconciled to form a single ground truth or should th

be many ground truths? The answer determines how information 

discovered and made internally consistent. How common sho

situational awareness be? Ideally, those who log on to 

Grid--whether from from a tank, a ship, an aircraft, an instrumen

weapon, a command staff, or the White House Situat

Room--should be able to get the same newsfeeds, services, 

answers. Where data, algorithms, agents, or procedures actually 

should not matter--but it will. Classified data will be restricted 

some. Networking constraints may abound. The selective highlight

or filtering of data by users (or their commanders) may cause them 

perceive situations in a variety of ways. 

The Internet, in particular the World Wide Web, is one model 

the Grid. It has many virtues: it exists, it works, and it adds us

information, and services easily. But the Internet has few real-t

guarantees, poor security, inadequate discovery tools, haphaz

organization, and no obvious way to separate the wheat from 

chaff. 

The 1996 Advanced Battlespace Information System 11 (ABIS) st

offers another model. The ABIS would be a globally access

knowledge base that can be extended quickly from the continen

United States to any global theater to support any joint or combin

force package, to respond to planned and unexpected demands 

users (who can "craft their O~'VII information environments"). It wo

work with anything else brought to battle securely, constantly, in 

face of information warfare, and with a small footprint. It would 

tailored for distributed collaborative planning that spans na

heterogeneous systems and presents information in many ways--a

75 
mission, lie at the edge of technology. 

The study was essentially a collection of desiderata, some more 

plausible than others. 13 Many inspired Advanced Concept 

Technology Demonstrations for various purposes: enhancing 

situational assessment, modeling and simulation, and robust 

networking. But ABIS was not a policy document and did not address 

issues, other than research and development, that had to be resolved 

to build the Grid. 

With this and other TM studies as a baseline, the interplay of policy 

and technology can be seen in the consideration of several broad 

issues: knowledge maintenance, presentation, access, and security. 

Knowledge Maintenance 

If the Grid is to illuminate the battlespace, at some level it must have 

methods to organize, update, validate, reconcile, discover, and 

annotate knowledge. 

To illuminate the battlespace the Grid must hold a great deal of 

knowledge: targets recognized and tracked, estimates (the likelihood 

that a tract may be mined or that certain reports may be trusted), 

short-term forecasts (traffic patterns five minutes hence), and rules 

(that enemy doctrine puts three tanks together before a village attack). 

Targets and tracks laid on a map may be equivalent to a real-time 

picture of a battlespace, but information can also be laid on 

dependency charts, trading flows, data tables, simulations, and so on. 

Exactly what servers hold which knowledge ought to be irrelevant for 

users but transparent to applications that construct the many tableaux 

that users may need. 

The most obvious organization of information, notably "what's 

where" information, is a geographical information system, or map. 

Maps may portray raw sensor output 1~ (such as UAV imagery, spacebased SAR, F-15 forward-looking IR tracks) and translated symbols 

(such as Blue and Red forces) placed on quasi-permanent features. 16 

76 
interaction patterns, dependence relationships, financial flows, a

almost anything in cyberspace. Perishable or uncertain 17 informat

can be difficult to represent clearly. Geographical data need to 

converted to support certain applications. 

Information can also be organized by linking estimates 

operational plans with their objectives, subtasks, milestones, a

contingencies. Map- and plan-based schemas could be u

together--as long as how the organization of knowledge may aff

its perception TM is understood. 

Whatever structure holds knowledge must also be able to han

unexpected requirements for tracking new indicators. A quiet a

may suddenly burst into crisis. At first, sensors in space are tasked 

keep the area under increasing surveillance; human agents 

debriefed more frequently. If the crisis grows, UAVs and naval sens

may be added; ground sensors may then be dropped in. Local al

may be put on the Grid. Information previously judged too periphe

to be tracked by the Grid (such as signals intelligence) may 

shunted into data-fusion nodes and into more user-alert lists. 

contrast, links that keep the battlespace map current may go do

(because of destruction, the need for radio silence, or netw

congestion). When connectivity is restored, requests 

resynchronization will surface. 

The Grid needs good paths between data and knowledge. So

paths are well understood (images from a meteorological satellite 

be fed to a weather database or from a sensor to an earmarked da

fusion engine). Other paths must be built on demand, especially 

new estimates ("hey, let's track this"). Sensors working together m

for instance, discover fresh jeep tracks; somewhere in the G

connections would need to be found between this new observat

and the estimates that might be affected by it. Data could be sho

one of several globally interconnected switchboards and then rou

by content. Because estimates lead to inferences, themselv

77 
shuttle raw data to other estimates they may affect] ° Other agents 

may generate alerts 21 and newsfeeds. 

Agents may play other roles. One type could review formal plans 

and informal intentions ("I'm going to check this out") to see whether 

they conform to a commander's intent, the plans of potentially 

parallel units, or rules of engagement. A user may want several agents, 

each with a different point of view. With time, experience may 

determine which advisor is worth listening to. At the global level, 

successful agents could replicate themselves (or use genetic 

algorithms to build new agents from parents). Failures would wither. 

Global agents could test the Grid's rules and assumptions for broad 

internal consistency and conformance with changing circumstances. 

Other agents may advertise a new service or database. 

The need to find needles of fact in haystacks of data suggests the 

value of search tools. Users may find random facts in the Grid more 

easily if their queries, expressed in natural language, were mapped to 

standard queries to which there are standard responses or links. 2~ 

Global validation is another concern. A single incident may give 

rise to many indicators: several people hear a sound, several see a 

flash, shards are widely distributed. The Grid could collect all inputs; 

if not forced to compare facts, it could conclude that several incidents 

have taken place. In a distributed system, facts must be reconciled 

with one another. One part of the Grid may indicate 100 enemy in a 

given district, another may indicate 50. Both numbers cannot be right 

at the same time. 23 Sometimes a single forced estimate is needed; 

sometimes a user is better off being aware of many estimates. 24 

Because data may be useful but less precise, timely, or reliable 

than desirable, they ought to come with information on their 

reliability and methods (facts or algorithms) for authentication. 2s After 

all, sensors err; analysts, human or automated, may be illogical, selfserving, premature, or simply wrong. Source-based pedigree is one 

option for both raw and processed estimates. Some estimates may be 

78 
is often skimpy and spotty, but clarifying and classifying its conte

can make it less ambiguous, more systematic, and easier to genera

from, and correlate to extant estimates. Reports could be reviewed 

certain phenomena and authors could be queried about informat

that is absent, inadequately addressed, or ambiguous. A sufficien

sophisticated service could help reports become explicit 

complete before being entered into the Grid. Authors would come 

understand what they do and do not know. 

This example illustrates an important principle of design. The G

could simply refuse to ingest improperly prepared after-action repo

or it could accept but not certify them, or several certificat

services, each with different criteria, could each stamp reports 

validate one another's stamps). Other applications (such 

reconciling different versions of the same event) could take 

different certifications into account when preparing estimates

commander could call on one or another application when prepa

"official" battlefield maps. Greater freedom will bring a gre

number of choices but perhaps at the expense of interoperability

useful compromise might be to let content vary but keep label

consistent. 

Knowledge processing, organization, and access are all proble

to which artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied, with vary

degrees of success. As AI advances, the sophistication of the Grid 

grow, but the Grid should not ride on the hopes of Al's early matu

Good networking can substitute for AI. Making expertise easier to 

and making information easier to grasp can help users apply t

own intelligence to raw and semiprocessed data. 

These desiderata may make building the Grid seem unnecessa

difficult, but it should be seen as a long project. Early success is lik

in making information accessible through networks and, later, thro

common formats and common descriptors. Over time, informat

will become organized. Links among estimates, for updates 

79 
for the right context and the right user at the right time. The Grid 

should be able to carry on a mission-oriented dialogue with users, let 

them display information in ways that best support how they think, 

and help them summon experts supported by formatted information 

tableaux. These capabilities arise from a combination of global 

services (which govern data flows) and local applications (which 

display them). 

A platoon on city patrol, for example, might need to be aware of 

the character of the neighborhood it patrols, recent events there, those 

in the crowd likely to threaten the platoon (and under what 

circumstances), and so on. The platoon may need to unite with 

counterparts on short notice to present dissuasive force at disputed 

points. Supporting'the platoon might be global information 

(situational background, commander's intent, weather) and local 

information (infrastructure conditions, crime reports, the status of 

local disputes). The natural tendency to ask for everything may lead 

to overwhelmed users. Some messages should be filtered out and 

others, such as position location reports, should be converted into 

database entries. What remains can be sorted by using labels, 

headers, key words, word clusters, or such criteria as what the unit 

wants to hear about, what it has been told to watch for, and what its 

counterparts are doing. 

The Grid can, in effect, be an expert. Suppose the platoon sees 

smoke rising from a building: is it accident, random crime, or hostile 

activity? Can the platoon handle the situation alone or does it need 

help? The platoon may report using voice (with audio backup of the 

sound of the fire), video-clip, or IR image. If the platoon is downwind 

it could assay the smoke using portable chemical sensors. The Grid 

would review the building's ownership, potential residents, reports of 

recent fires, and compensation claims. It may ask the platoon leader 

to clarify the report by answering questions or having sensors pinged 

80 
tableau ( a grouping of information onscreen that combines stat

data and real-time feeds), and perhaps tools to simulate the effects 

alternative choices. Responses might include the probable sourc

cause, and course of the fire, and, with knowledge of mission orde

and local rules of engagement, su?~estions for action and messag

for other units to stand by to help, if warranted. Similar tableau

would permit commanders to give go/no-go decisions on urge

actions. 

To maintain a tableau, -~7 users could select from a well-rehearse

menu of data, types of maps, or both, explicitly or, as the technolog

develops, implicitly. Maps with key elements grouped could 

continually updated. If all relevant logistics points need to 

highlighted, such as warehouses, roads, and chokepoints, the da

may already have been generated. Information on the enemy's ord

of battle--formations, weapons and their ranges, and comman

nodes---could be displayed along with potential amphibious and a

assault sites, etc. Today's modern information displays let users "dr

down" from amalgamated surface data to underlaying details and ra

information. The trick may be to create a drill-down menu at the sam

time surface data are requested. Displayed data could be linked 

advance to formatted databases: a map of enemy concentration

might be linked to databases of enemy weaponry, which would 

linked to intelligence estimates of weapons capability. 

Better displays are possible. Heads-up displays may overlay wh

someone sees (perhaps brightened or polarized) with synthetic input

IR, ultraviolet, and millimeter-wave auras, radar reflections, electron

intelligence, perturbations in gravitational and magnetic fields, odor

and pressure gradients. Users could be taught to recognize patterns 

such arrangements. 

Users ought also to be able to display information as best su

them. Fresh insights may be generated by exploiting rather tha

overriding a person's tendency to see things differently or ha

81 
East, the Grid could know how that user defines Middle East, the 

level of detail wanted, currency and certainty, the features to present

and the data elements linked to those features. As databases change

the Grid might know when to alert each user, distinguishing what i

new from what is really new (which each user can redefine for every 

context). 

Each user could have a display-preference profile. One way to 

build a profile is by having users select among alternative tableaux o

specific features) ° But users may not know the way they wan

information arrayed, or their wants may not reflect what they actually 

need in order to grasp a situation. Alternatively, users may be (1

given simulated situations 31 with alternative information flows and 

displays, (2) asked to form assessments or make decisions based on 

that input, (3) graded for performance, and (4) offered a series of flows 

and displays that lead to progressively better scores. The Grid could 

play coach 3-~ by determining whether the users were aware of the 

relevant information, understood it in their own context, and 

appreciated its relevance. Practice may even help users construct thei

own mental trees and test them to learn which ones best reflec

battlespace realities (and, often as useful, what information flows 

users can afford to ignore). The Grid might find that the bes

presentation varies with each type of problem 33 and each user. 

Four notes of caution. First, militaries work as teams whose 

members must share a situational awareness. If adjusting 

presentations to each user leads to vastly diverse perceptions

communications within a military might prove difficult ("Did you se

that? .... No, that arrangement is not apparent"), and mission planning 

might be complicated by misinterpretation. Should there be 

common presentation style into which individual styles (especially 

those that permit users to annotate material) can be mapped? Can 

individual orientations be melded to increase the collective insigh

while achieving sufficient commonality for effective cooperation? 

82 
combat coordinator mandate one? If the Marine Corps is serious 

about devolving power down to the squad level, is that where th

format will be standardized? These questions go to the heart of th

way the services organize themselves. 

Second, an unlimited ability to obtain and tailor information ma

allow users to avoid thinking about what data matter most. I

Vietnam, General Donn Starry (a developer of the 1 980s Air-Land 

doctrine) initially thought he needed data on 120 different indicator

of conflict. Only 60 could be supported. Deprivation led him t

conclude that he got more useful insight from fewer data items. I

dealing with intelligence units not under his command, General Starr

had to be parsimonious and so had those units report significan

changes in only six parameters; this worked even better. 34 A system 

that allows users to achieve their greatest comfort levels may bloc

information that may test their assumptions) s Learning is often 

matter of knowing how to drop one mental construct and take u

another one. 

Third, good displays can be seductive. DARPA is developing way

to generate a three-dimensional "sand table" of cities and other ter.ai

to support operational decisions. Consider its use in evacuatin

people from a city. The operation may seem easy because planner

can imagine having a bird's eye view of the terrain. Then someon

walks into the command center with a list of local people who migh

volunteer to smooth the evacuation. Will this offer be buried b

seemingly hard data or get the attention it deserves? 

Fourth, the more options a user has, the more complex an

presentation software will appear. Tools will be used, maintained

and fed only when understood (a tight link between what the han

does and what the eye sees helps). The Grid has to give users at lea

an illusion of transparency, but not necessarily invisibility. Knowin

why a Grid does what it does is helpful. 

83 
of priority, : or combinations thereof. 37 

Access to applications and local services can be expected to var

by location. Users in the continental United States, thanks to optica

fiber, will probably get fatter and faster links. Users remote from fibe

particularly those at sea or in austere locations overseas, will hav

thinner links to the Grid--but perhaps greater connectivity to nearb

sensors and nodes. Although spectrum will constrain throughput (a

will limited battery power and the need to limit telltale emissions)

DARPA programs such as Global Mobile ought to stretch the limits o

reasonable expectations for bandwidth to the field. Emerging AT&

cellular services suggest the feasibility of achieving 128,000 bits pe

second (bps) to an anterlna tile size of a mousepad--enough for som

image processing and whiteboarding. Metricom's Ricochet system 

promises 30 to 100,000 bps from very small microcells to lapto

computer cards. 

Maintaining network performance levels at the tactical level (suc

as radio communications) under conditions of shot, shell, an

electromagnetic interference mandates careful use of bandwidth. 

entails network management (rapid reconfiguration, real-tim

guarantees, bandwidth on demand, intelligent routing) and messag

management (prioritization and duplication). The Grid ought to offe

real-time guarantees to applications that need them or tell them whe

they cannot get them. Congestion may be managed by having router

ask messages what should be done if they are stuck in traffic) 

Applications should also have ways to accommodate variations 

bandwidth. 

At the policy level, managers need tools to distribute privileges s

that scarce resources can be applied effectively and help predict how 

well their part of the Grid handles bit flows and service requirement

as it accommodates military users from other domains or, worse

civilian users untrained in how to use the Grid responsibly. 

84 
y, pp

points, continually improved operating systems, the continual testin

of nodes, active defenses against intrusions, 39 and vigilance. 4° 

As the information environment of the Grid grows more comple

(with more and more commercial code), providing security b

patching known holes or using firewalls and intrusion detectors wi

be more difficult. A semantic security model may be needed. After al

although human beings are very complex information-processin

systems, most communications among them will not cause them t

seize up, cycle endlessly, or flood others with pointless chatte

because people process information at the semantic level, not the b

level, often judge new information in relation to themselves or t

particular indicators, and sometimes deduce a speaker's motives fo

saying it. By analogy to a hedgerow defense, the nodes of the Gri

could evaluate everything they ingest (even from other Grid nodes) 

terms of how they are expected to respond. Nodes could determin

whether requests were consistent with former tasking, whether the

were inherently reasonable, what the negative consequences o

obeying instructions might be (say, cycling or thrashing), whethe

further guidance or validation should be requested, or whethe

enough has changed in the world to justify new instructions/1 Suc

self-knowledge presupposes that the nodes will work by exchangin

information, rather than only in response to commands. 

The Grid must be able to cope not only with illicit access but als

with licit access gone bad. What if someone in a field unit 42 wer

given full access to the Grid and was then captured with equipmen

intact? Data may be encrypted and the equipment may go dead if no

reinitialized periodically, but forcing even one prisoner to log ont

the Grid could reveal information about all friendly forces. Althoug

the location of Blue forces could be blurred, data on adversary force

would suggest their own visibility and let adversaries test hidin

strategies, read what the Grid sees of them, and thereby determin

what works. Adversaries inside the system could feed it misleadin

85 
Grid could grow less accurate over time. Face-to-face authorizatio

could be required for recalibration (but it would increase the risk 

remotely operating units). A user under pressure could use a speci

password (or the Grid could look for patterns of suspicious use th

suggest a compromise). Thus alerted, the Grid could withho

sensitive infornlation, introduce errors into data points, and genera

new information that looked real but was misleading. It mig

routinely present information that authorized users are likely to igno

but adversaries might respond to in a tell-tale manner and thus hi

at a leak (and if the disinformation were different for each authorize

user, locating the source of the leak would be made easier). 

Other security problems arise from extending access 

untrustworthy partners (e.g., Syrians in the Gulf War, Sou

Vietnamese regulars who proved to be Viet Cong, or otherwis

trustworthy Bosnian Muslims with Iranian friends). The inability 

transfer information in real time once offered an excuse sufficient 

keep partners outside the loop. If the Grid works, that excuse wou

lose force. At a minimum, certain details can be omitted 44 (f

example, maps with lower resolution can be circulated), but existenc

of omitted details often can be inferred from derived data. 

Conclusions 

Militaries have historically relied on waffighters to follow order

enlightened militaries have encouraged them to take initiative 

figuring out how. Too often, the information systems that hav

supported warfighters have made their own assumptions about wh

they needed to know. The Grid should, instead, let warfighters tak

the initiative in knowledge as well as action. This entails: 

• Maintaining a base of knowledge, which calls for ways 

organize existing content, generate derived data from raw dat

86 
understand of a complex reality 

• Keeping users informed through broadcasting, newsfeeds

alerts, and answered questions, supported by networking good 

enough to keep users blissfully unaware of the chaos at the b

level while their services proceed transparently 

• Ensuring the security of a widely accessible Grid by usin

tools such as anti-intrusion devices, semantic barriers, node-base

anomaly detectors, and ways to handle suspect recipients. 

Notes 

1. At the graphical level, Grids are made of links and nodes--sensors

processors, knowledge bases, devices and so on. As a logical construct, 

node can consist of many items. Or, many nodes, each logically but no

physically separate, can be found on a single item. 

2. A meta-standard is a standard way to describe a format. Standar

generalized markup language, the grammar behind the more familia

hypertext markup language, is a meta-standard. 

3. Cor~sider an analogy to human development. Babies are bor

knowing how to make sounds (physical connectivity). In the first few months

they learn how sounds do things (syntactic connectivity). Toddlers lear

speech (semantic connectivity). As children mature they learn the socia

context of conversation (services connectivity). 

4. As an example, C++ and Ada seem merely two different ways t

write the same thoughts in computer code, but each reflects assumption

about power. C++ makes programs easy to write so that programmers ca

sleep with the muses. Ada makes bad programs hard to write in order to lim

errors and let managers sleep at night. For these and other examples, se

Martin C. I ibicki, Information Technology Standards: Quest for the Commo

Byte (Boston, MA: Digital Press, 1995). Ken Allard, Command, Control an

the Common Defense (Washington: NDU Press, 1996), shows tha

differences in the ways the Navy and the Air Force used aircraft complicate

setting standards for the Joint Tactical Information Display System. 

5. Safety is an important consideration if weapons can fire suddenly

without adequate precaution, especially if no one anticipates their going of

87 
Warfare in 1942," 59-94. 

8. "Real time" varies by mission. For automated operations, feedba

and intelligence may have to be current to within fractions of second

Operations with people (such as a covering action on a city street) have re

time requirements measurable in seconds. Real time for planning functio

may be measured in minutes; for learning, hours may be enough. 

9. Packet switching slows messages. Every switch must copy, verif

schedule, and retransmit every packet it receives, and some switches becom

congested. If the inevitable ATM fabric for the Internet is built, a voice-grad

connection may be established for urgent messages. Until terrestrial fiber 

low-earth relay communications satellites are ubiquitous near war zone

most messages to the continental United States must be bounced 

geosynchronous satellites, adding at least a quarter-second to the trip. 

10. There may actually be good reasons to connect norma

autonomous systems to the Grid. The engine's designers ashore may want 

quick analysis of its performance in order to tweak the next power plant. T

Navy's community of power plant operators may learn from one anothe

experience or want to be wired into expert advice on shore. The controll

of an automatic power plant may require real-time access to extern

software to assay its fuel (external software can be updated automatically a

frequently). 

11. Co-sponsored by the Director, Defense Research and Engineerin

and the Directorate for C"I (J-6), Joint Staff. See www.dtic.mil/dstp/DSTP/abi

directory. 

12. All systems, including ABIS and the Grid, face a tradeoff between t

latest features and the reliability that comes from maturity and experienc

13. Many desiderata--the ability to anticipate enemy mov

automatically, find "critical nodes in the adversary's war plans," interpr

context, correlate events across domains, resolve ambiguity--require hero

advances in artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, some authors felt impelle

to devise benchmarks for their desiderata, many of which cannot 

measured or vary greatly from one context to another. 

14. See the National Research Council's Computer Science a

Telecommunications Board, Computing and Communications in the Extrem

(Washington: National Academy Press, 1996), especially chapter one and t

88 
time (for example, to track a target by reference to absolute coordinate

needs work. 

16. DARPA officials envision a Dynamic Database that will orie

various sensor inputs atop one geospatial background. David Fulghu

"DARPA Looks Anew at Hidden Targets," Aviation Week and Spa

Technology, January 6, 1997, 56. 

17. Some doubtful information can easily be presented (a gray rath

than black icon, a blob rather than a point) but not all--particularly wh

two doubtful statements are linked: this is either here or it is there. 

18. For instance, map-based organization makes it easy to be reacti

enemy pops up here, and must be dealt with. Time-based organization mak

it easy to be active: the enemy is perceived as an obstacle to completing 

task on time. Which view is right depends on how conflict is fought. 

19. An agent is a guest-generated code that runs on a host mach

(often to access its information). A "travel agent" could circulate among 

Web sites of airlines, hotels, and restaurants to look for fleeting bargains a

building a package to fit its owner's itinerary. 

In theory, anything an agent can do (in a public system) can also be do

by passing information back to the guest machine, but the use of agents c

reduce the load on the network. Any sufficiently large or open Grid 

unfortunately liable to contain rogue or dumb agents. A host machine sho

be able to be able to partition resources to an agent and, if the need aro

shut down errant agents. Alternatively, the Grid could maintain a list 

authorized procedures; to pass an agent to a host machine would be to g

it structured data (such as the user's destination, resources, preferences, tra

partners) plus pointers to authorized, and thus safe, programs with which 

manipulate them. 

20. To use a metaphor from biology, an agent may wander among nod

that have receptors for various kinds of data (names of engineers with 

particular specialty, requests by them for certain compounds, evidence 

their travel). A match stimulates the agent to emit signals that stimulate ot

agents to activity (reducing certainty thresholds for drawl ng conclusions 

for using a particular variable as a predictive factor) or inhibit th

(increasing the thresholds). 

89 
g 

teams substances to which the pilot is allergic). 

22. S. Whitehead, "Auto-FAQ: An Experiment in Population 

Leveraging," proceedings of the 2nd International WWW Conference (1994)

25-38. 

23. If the separate estimates of 50 and 100 enemy were made at differen

times, the reconciliation process would have to judge whether such a large 

shift were possible in such a short time (in which case both estimates could 

be correct). Reconciliation could be automated, but until AI works a

advertised, a more feasible goal is to bring all data together for human 

evaluation. Such tasks underscore the value of keeping analysts wired into 

the Grid to make rapid determinations when necessary. 

24. A Grid built by federating military service subsystems may hos

separately derived estimates of the same phenomenon. Even when a single

authorized consolidation method to reconcile estimates is impolitic, user

based applications or agents may form judgments and reconcile estimates on 

their own. Nevertheless, to do this they must know what estimates lie in the 

Grid. 

25. Nodes conceivably could rate their own validity if there were a 

single knowledge engine, because data would lead to the same conclusion

regardless of who held it (every CEC node, for instance, uses the same 

Kalman filter for the same data). In practice, one may want agents to view 

data differently. In a federated system (especially if supplied by data from 

many national systems) not every node is equally reliable. Receiving node

with information that can confirm or contradict what they are sent migh

ascertain the quality of the information faster than it would take to forward 

the entire information base to the sender node for similar analysis. 

26. There are many ways to process uncertain information: the Polya 

method, used by George Polya, Patterns of Plausible Inference (Princeton

Princeton University Press, 1954); the Dempster-Shafer method, used by 

George Shafer, A Mathematical Theory of Evidence (Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1978); fuzzy logic, used by Lotfi Zadeh et al., Fuzzy Set

and Their Applications to Cognitive and Decision Processes (New York

Academic Press, 1975; and Bayesian logic, to name four. Uncertainty comes 

in many forms: an estimate that is accurate to 5 percent is not the same as a 

estimate likely to be precise if true but otherwise completely false. 

9O 
8o cte aaa ao et a, cteactote gtaba

Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 38, 4 (Mar

1995): 33: "People working in an office make use of a rich set of visual a

physical cues when arranging and seeking information . . . represent

information about collections and their contained items--so-called me

information--is needed not just to support integration across dispar

sources and services, but just as importantly, to support a number of oth

activities.., including selecting, understanding, utilizing, and rememberi

sources and their contents." 

29. Presentation is a matter of the Grid supplying the right data and 

user's access device displaying them in the right way but the division of lab

between the Grid and an access device may vary. Ample bandwidth allo

everything to be sent while the device filters what is important. Or the G

could maintain a user presentation profile and forward it to an access dev

on Iogin. 

30. Flow variables include the messages called or the hyperlin

traversed. Display variables to fiddle with could include how to repres

maps (orientation, dimension), time, dependency relationships, and inferr

values; how to highlight critical detail; and how to integrate sound and sig

31. A display that emphasizes certain features in normal times may ne

to emphasize other features in crisis (for example, in a fire, it is important 

know what materials flow in adjacent pipes). Critical as well as comm

scenarios will need to be tested. Some users may need to be tested wh

stressed, rather than when relaxed. 

32. Of course, if the service is pointless and annoying (such as, toda

word processing grammar checkers) users may just turn it off. 

33. Consider a beach that rises into the hills behind which lie ene

forces; how risky would a landing be there? A two-dimensional map (ev

with topographic lines) suggests the enemy is close, so landing appears ris

a three-dimensional map portrays the enemy over the hill, thus l

dangerous. The value of the assessment depends on the enemy's sensors a

weaponry. If the enemy must see the beach to oppose the landing, then 

three-dimensional map will indicate the risks better; if the enemy can 

and shoot over the hill, then the two-dimensional map is more useful. 

34. Jean-Philippe Dauvin, chief economist for chipmaker SGS-Thoms

Microelectronics and reportedly the best forecaster of semiconduc

91 
Center, has argued that knowing everything about the battlefield is a hopeles

quest. Marines, he believes, should be trained to make correct decisions with 

as little information as possible. 

36. How (and by whom) are message priorities determined? Some ma

automatically flash high. Others will be rated by senders or third-party 

raters. Yet when everyone shouts, no one is heard. Users ought to be able t

adjust these ratings (and filter messages accordingly) by rating the rater'

credibility. 

37. A guided-tour presentation may have tile user ask for a genera

subject area and then given the equivalent of a Web site, with content filled 

in as the Grid perceives the implicit focus of the user. 

38. Consider what happens when an e-mail stating the recipient is o

vacation is received by someone that automatically responds with simila

news. 

39. Analogies to the human immune system ought to be treated with 

caution. Even though tomorrow's information environment may be infected 

with hostile agents, knock-knock bots, and virus-laden sirens, relying o

automatic responses to specific invasions might push foes to find ways t

induce a cyber equivalent of anaphylactic shock. 

40. A well-secured system invariably includes human checks an

balances and is manned by those who can spot anomalies and have 

practiced recovery schemes for systemic, accidental, and induced faults. A 

security regime for the Grid may resemble today's network managemen

monitors: it would scan itself periodically and filter strange events up to 

experts looking at a rich tableau of system parameters. 

41. Compare this to the three rules found in Isaac Asimov, Robot (New 

York: Doubleday, 1950), 11: (1) A robot may not injure a human being, or

through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. (2) A robot mus

obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would 

conflict with the First Law. (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long 

as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

42. The Grid can leak because of traitors. Discovering them and 

neutralizing their effects is more difficult than controlling the damag

wreaked by suborned prisoners. Preventing the contents of a display from 

being retransmitted can limit how badly the Grid leaks but will not preven

leaks. Searching for suspicious access patterns (e.g., queries that sugges

92 
signals. 

44. An example is the Multi-Level Secure Releasability Server from DE

Planning Research Corporation, and Oracle. See Pat Cooper, "Military to T

Intelligence Delivery System," Defense News, August 28, 1995, 12. 

93 
If DOD managed the Grid's creation as it does other defense 

programs, the path from concept to implementation would be a series 

of steps: designating a program office, establishing requirements, 

selecting contractors to do the work, writing and testing code, 

evaluating the final product, then fielding it. 

Creating the Grid calls for different steps if only because of the 

Grid's size and complexity, and because integration is not 

construction. DOD needs consensus on a broad vision for the Grid 

(see chapter 4). It must establish core services, standards for 

interconnection and interoperability, and methods that let nodes 

integrate themselves quickly under both normal and wartime 

conditions, and then hang new nodes and services on the structure so 

created. In the process of creation, the Grid could become the world's 

largest testbed for new information technologies. 

To address issues involved in its creation, this chapter points out 

some difficulties of top-down integration: a process that encompasses 

a requirements definition, a hierarchical decomposition of tasks, and 

the specification of hardware and software to meet these tasks under 

central control. Next are examined some prospects for bottom-up 

integration: where systems, subsystems, and components are given 

much more leeway in meeting broad goals through their own 

resources and help negotiated with their peers. Then the role of 

architecture is discussed, and guidelines for planning, 

experimentation and R&D suggested. 

Some Difficulties of Top-Down Integration 

As a top-down project, the creation of the Grid could be the single 

largest software project ever attempted. Great size makes any project 

difficult to manage and may lead to results too fragile to field. 

95 
service, database definition, and interface specification entailed in 

complete C41SR system. It may, at the outside, require a billion line

of code costing $5 to $10 billion a year for a decade or two. 

Software accounts for a growing share of a defense system's costs, and 

integration is a growing share of the cost of software. A large program

such as the F-22 fighter, may include $5 to $10 billion worth o

systems integration (some of that is to ensure that hardware can fit i

tight spaces and work together reliably). The next-generation A

traffic control system had, by mid-1997, absorbed $7.6 billion, mostl

for software. ~ Although increasing the connectivity of DOD 

equipment may not be expensive, 3 a top-down tightly coupled Grid 

may be. Is something so large doable? 

Finding money may be a problem. Only the services can raise s

much money and only if working together. Dividing the Grid into 

modules, tasking each to a service, and reintegrating their result

could take whatever time was required to build the modules, plu

years of politics to the front for apportionment and years of politics to 

the back for reintegration. Even then, the services might not want t

spend billions on a top-down design not of their own making. No 

service would relinquish its oversight over the Grid's developmen

once it sees how much design decisions will influence its own 

acquisitions. Many are already building their own version of the Grid

the Army Force XXl, the Navy CEC, 4 the DISA GCCS, various ACTD

under DARPA, and the emerging Total Asset Visibility program fo

logistics, all of which offer the prospect of partial integration at th

risk of making complete integration more difficult (with domain-leve

stovepipes replacing service stovepipes). 

Meeting objectives on time and under budget is always 

challenge for such a large software project. The difficulty and thu

cost of integrating a system grows more quickly than its size. Just a

large organizations have many levels from top to bottom, so larg

integration projects require great coordination between constructs a

96 
concisely. 7 DOD has many constituencies,  authority is qui

dispersed, and great interests are at stake. The Grid's creation wou

influence nearly all subsequent defense programs. In-fighting 

inevitable, unless a new threat forces everyone to close ranks. T

need to test any system against its promises tends to drive contracto

to build one that does only what is asked of it and nothing more. 

warriors are empowered by information, they will develo

operational concepts to change what they need, thus changing wh

the Grid should provide. 9 The Grid must adapt to every piece of ne

equipment (especially the putative shift from a few complex senso

to many simple ones); software capability; concept; threat; and ev

a change in allies. Thousands of adjustments will be asked for, bu

flood of change orders in today's acquisition environment drives cos

and litigation. 

Selecting builders could prove vexing. Perhaps an in-hou

integrator (a national laboratory or a federally funded research a

development center 1°) could oversee the Grid's creation, but th

choice is unlikely in the face of today's outsourcing rhetoric. Any o

company selected as integrator would thereby gain an incredible ed

over all others for all future DOD work. Expecting a team 

contractors to work together without each trying to design the Gr

that would be to its own later advantage may be wishful thinking. 

Models of Systems Integration 

Confidence that large systems can be built from the top down by U

firms stems from their expertise in solving a particular class 

complex integration problems. The Grid, however, will differ fro

conventional integration problems in both kind and size. 1~ 

Figure 2 illustrates four systems integration problems 

concentric rectangles. The farther out the rectangle, the less discretio

an integrator has and the more indirection is needed. 

97 
Boeing 777 i 

Boeing Factory 

Internet 

System of 

Systems 

relar, ionshJps , 

speotied..';n*.~%~ated 

trOn? top d~;~,~'n 

,,~ Designed 

~[~ent r aliz~d 

do~e~ oot 

design parzs 

Intl~ratlo~ by" 

n~,,otiation 

~_ ~lnamic Parts in flux with respe~ 

~, to one anther 

Designed Systems Integration characterizes the Boeing 777, the Space 

Shuttle, and similar projects that gave U.S. contractors a reputation fo

being able to integrate large systems. Such integration occurs when 

a single integrator connects components that are specified from the 

top down and related to one another in fixed or predictable ways 

(e.g., in real space on a ship). 1~ 

Assembled systems integration involves components built, at best

to standards rather than design. Examples include the relatively 

straightforward problems of office or factory integration. Integration 

rests on communications through standard interfaces and results in 

looser coupling than systems produced through designed systems 

interface. 

Decentralized systems integration el imi nares the single integrator

Each subsystem or group of subsystems has its owner. Each owne

negotiates with one another over how tasks are allocated or how one 

subsystem may respond to requirements levied by another subsystem. 

Examples include the C 2 system cobbled together for Bosnia and, to 

a certain extent, the Internet itself. 

These three models all assume that the relationships among a 

system's components are static or change slowly--but relationships 

98 
laydown of sensors, processors, and users, a Grid will need 

reconfigure itself to catch the fleeting opportunities of the battlespac

This capability calls for dynamic systems integration. 

Cutting to the Core 

Integrating the Grid will be easier by isolating domains that can 

dealt with without reference to the whole (on the theory that a sing

billion-dollar problem is less tractable then 10 hundred-million-doll

problems). Three such domains may be information presentatio

individual algorithms, and the networking infrastructure. They can 

worked independently only if the Grid is open in the sense that 

one portion will be able to make blithe assumptions about any oth

portion (information presentation, network infrastructure). 

The way information is presented should reflect what informati

the Grid holds, but the coupling between information a

presentation should be loose enough to permit change in eith

without also requiring the other to. Because Web mania is an impet

for the development and fielding of user interfaces, DOD can b

most of what it otherwise would need to build. 13 

Many, perhaps most, of the algorithms needed by the Grid addre

specific military problems: planning deployments, finding speci

targets in images, fusing intelligence, optimizing logistics flows, a

so on. If algorithms can express their input and output in common

understood ways, TM each algorithm (or algorithm domain) could 

engineered off-line. Some key applications may place a hea

analytical load on nodes of the Grid. A good user-oriented newsfe

may interact with literally thousands of knowledge bases every tim

a key piece of information in them changes. Maintaining a detail

real-time map influences what data are collected and how they 

organized. 

Network infrastructure~evices and protocols--must 

considered as a whole. Many challenges in networking the Gri

99 
The core problem of creating the Grid is how to organize and 

transport data for known algorithms and unknown problems. The 

process of marshalling data cannot easily be decomposed into 

modules is that can be written and tested separately, because 

interfaces must cross subsystems and only work if the data transferred 

are understood by both subsystems. Determining and establishing 

central services and then getting maximum work from bottom-up 

integration may be a way to manage the problems of marshalling 

data. Standards help, but their development takes work, 16 and they 

alone cannot complete the job. 

Opportunities for Bottom-Up Integration 

The difference between top-down and bottom-up approaches is 

where information is processed. In a top-down approach, information 

flows to a central source, and decisions reflect a global optimum for 

a particular problem. In a bottom-up approach, individual 

components reach decisions by using broad rules, detailed 

knowledge of their own situation, and information they can gathe

from their environs as well as from negotiations with their neighbors. 

In theory, a top-down approach can do what a bottom-up algorithm 

does, if each component sends up all it knows and each reques

down is expressed by task commands. But for each component to 

communicate all it knows can be a burden, and the optimization 

process at the top may be computationally impractical. Such 

processes may be so difficult to describe algorithmically that once 

they work, designers or users might hesitate to change them fo

unexpected circumstances. Although top-down processes tend to be 

more deterministic, bottom-up approaches are often more robust, 

especially if situations can be abstracted in generic rather than 

specific terms to allow components to respond appropriately to 

possibilities. 

100 
ppg

intercity routes through coordination with one another rather tha

instruction from control towers. Similar choices can be made in r

transport if boxcars can schedule themselves and use bidding an

negotiation to manage the contention for railyard space, rather tha

have the railyards undergo global allocation. Complexity theoris

argue that it is easier to model a flock of birds in flight 

programming each bird to adjust its flight path according to whe

other birds are flying than to generate an individually predetermine

flight curve for each bird. 

A bottom-up approach relies on coordination of the vario

pieces, each possessing partial knowledge. A component (a senso

node, database, controller) recognizes top-down constraints, the

uses its understanding of its context (howsoever acquired) and dutie

and its rules for responding to contingencies (requests, events) to ca

on information from other components. In some cases, particular

when many applications compete for the same resources, negotiation

among components determine which get what. Similar negotiatio

mediate the difference between what a task needs and wh

components can give. Presumably, nodes ask themselves questio

similar to what people would in forming organizations: What am I 

do? Can I do it on my own? Do I need help? What kind? From whom

How can I contend for resources consistent with expectations for m

behavior? Bottom-up approaches make particular sense because t

Grid must do the following: 

• Absorb the old--the huge DOD investment in existi

sensors, weapons systems, networks, and databases). 17 Attachin

a translator to the input-output stream of a legacy system may 

easier (and more acceptable) than rewriting the software, but 

would require stating the demands of the Grid on lega

equipment in sufficiently generic terms to correspond 

categories the legacy equipment already uses to process data. 

I01 
chunks allows more contributors, less program management 

overhead, and faster feedback. When one component is upgraded 

in a top-down system, every component that must deal with it 

must upgrade its software to match. In a bottom-up system, each 

change would add, at most, only a few words to the common 

lexicon each node supports. 

• Operate in the field despite constraints of spectrum and 

power. Top-down approaches need more information (sent 

farther) than bottom-up approaches do. Constant high-power 

communications make components visible. TM Bottom-up solutions 

degrade more gracefully when pieces become disconnected 

(because of physical destruction and electronic jamming or as a 

defense against corrupted neighbors). Nodes can remain roughly 

right even as information input declines. 

• Diagnose itself. A bottom-up approach permits administrators 

to understand the source of a system's (mis)behavior by figuring 

out how each node (mis)perceived its environment or reacted 

(poorly) to it. A top-down approach forces the entire process to be 

examined as a whole. 19 

A Common Tongue 

Bottom-up integration requires dialogue so that nodes can negotiate 

the exchange of needs and data. Dialogue rests on a lexicon for the 

following: 

• Health and status data for network management] ° including 

node-specific data 

• Messaging plus support for compression, flash status, alerts, 

and newsfeed filtering 

• Addressing and directories that reflect planned as well as past 

movement and accommodate circuit-switched and continuous 

links 

102 
• Security, including access, encryption, and authentication 

• Meta-standards that indicate what standards a node support

Nodes also need words for need-toknow assertions (plus prior

and urgency), format negotiations, dialogue markers, and resourc

constraints. Respondents, as they become more sophisticated, shou

be able to express and describe the certainty, quality, authenticit

and, perhaps, the rationale for their estimates; contexts in which t

answer makes sense; 21 when further clarification would help; a

where alternative or complementary sources of data could be found

Respondents should also be able to state intentions, responses 

them, assignments, tasking authority, tasking justification, and wa

to measure how to complete the task. Nodes should have words 

clarify a task and negotiate alternatives to, or variations on, the ta

if it cannot be completed. 

Integrating a Sensor Mesh 

A bottom-up approach may help integrate a heterogenous mesh 

ground and airborne sensors (see "A World of Sensors," chapter 1 

Coordinating sensors fosters good spatial, spectral, and tempor

coverage (lest vision sensors, for example, clump here and acous

sensors clump there), as well as data fusion. Local coordination 

needed whenever bandwidth (even after compression) limits sendi

everything back to a central source. Processing and in-the-fie

integration may have to precede out-of-area reporting. To reduce t

data flow, sensor readings may have to be preprocessed in

microchunks or symbols, that is, by data fusion or by several senso

acting together (just as it takes two eyes to perceive depth). Whe

high-bandwidth devices that receive and transmit are expensive a

power-hungry, only a few specially designated sensors need 

function also as data nodes. 

103 
UAVs. Each sensor might announce its location, where it is looking 

and over what spectral bands, and its putative assignment (collectors, 

relays, fusion nodes), and then negotiate for bandwidth. As the 

battlespace changes, so should the sensor hierarchy. Each sensor may 

ping others periodically to determine whether and when reassignment 

is necessary, to elicit the capabilities of its neighbors, and to correlate 

what neighbors see against what it sees (and inquire further if 

anomalies are found). Some sensors could be equipped with several 

capabilities that could be turned on as needed. One pattern of sensors 

may detect certain phenomena well, while another may be optimized 

for others. When cued, some sensors might switch parameters or turn 

certain receptors on and others off. Some sensors may need to turn 

other sensors on for a closer look and may need to be told when to be 

silent or when to switch frequencies. 

Integrating Knowledge Bases 

Ideally, the Grid should allow users to mix and match databases and 

applications at will. In practice, doing so manually, much less 

automatically, has long been a problem. 23 A user may know, for 

instance, that a powerful application (such as a tactical terrain 

analyzer) is available, but exploiting it requires understanding 

syntactic conditions. In knowledge bases, similar categories often 

refer to different definitions, attributes, or assumptions. The term, 

"production capacity" may presume peacetime or it may presume 

wargme; it may assume optimized scheduling across factories or just 

within factories. 24 Databases can routinely trip over spelling. 

Assumptions useful for understanding what the information implies 

may be unstated. 

Merging models and databases can be slippery. In a shipping 

model, rates of offloading may assume port space is allocated in order 

to move the most tonnage per day. A logistics model recognizes that 

certain equipment can be repaired at, and therefore must be moved 

104 
requisite data. 2s 

The persistence of such problems over decades suggests 

confidence in quick answers. Standard definitions of specific 

elements or general categories of similar characteristics may 

integrate models and knowledge bases. Nevertheless, comm

schema for particular domains may have to be enforced for crit

models and databases. Some analytical tools or databases may b

widespread that their interfaces become de facto standards and 

incorporated into the knowledge base of software agents. As a n

best solution, models and knowledge bases may have standard w

to describe themselves by mapping their categories onto gen

schemas. 

To make matters worse, real knowledge bases con

unorganized facts and rules :'6 and random expertise, all of m

reliability. Languages, such as knowledge query manipula

language may be needed to turn such chaos into usable informat

especially if they let a requestor indicate what constitutes "g

enough" and a respondent describe how much it knows. 

Combining heterogenous models and knowledge bases 

become more tractable if they can somehow be mapped onto a l

global generic knowledge base. To bridge language barriers, pe

often point to and name objects or pantomime actions] 7 Com

reference material, like the Web, with its uniform resource Ioca

can create contexts for certain word and phrases, convey analog

and provide a basis for testing whether meanings are corre

understood. Language barriers could be bridged by black

translation: one system sends input to another and then infers 

respondent's characteristics by reading what comes back. The 

may some day interwork with its overseas analogues by exchan

and understanding knowledge bases and applications (suc

models, simulations, and agents). International standards will h

but they are not enough. 28 

105 
services (authentication of nodes and agents, infrastructure of public 

keys, authorization lists). Beyond that, the Grid should be able to do 

the following: 

• Simulate how well it passes bits around to assess its own 

topology, the readiness of subsections for deployment, and how 

well specific missions and operational concepts can be supported 

• Monitor its own performance at the semantic level (the flow 

of logic, not just bits) to help detect and delete unwanted 

behavior (which may emerge from unpredicted interactions, bugs, 

or security intrusions), manage congestion and contention for 

cornmon resources, 3° and indicate obsolescent data, rules, and 

sockets 31 

• Host at least one global content-based discovery service to 

locate information, determine its currency, and support 

reconciliation procedures 

• Authenticate and prioritize new services and capabilities so 

that sockets for new tools, tests, and probes can be developed for 

various knowledge bases 

• Manage (and perhaps consolidate) the inevitable proliferation 

of each user's filter, or alert requests, new services (each 

advertising itself to user applications), and process-driven flash 

inflation. 

In addition, some services, such as testing the adequacy of 

battlespace illumination or of operational planning, are so important 

to warfighting, so joint, and call on so many nodes that they are 

tantamount to central services. 

106 
The value of systems architecture may be exaggerated. Doct

(plus the expected load from random user requests, algorithms, 

management overhead) can suggest how much of the data need f

where, and this estimate can inform the mechanisms that mars

data, but a guess is sufficient. New technology, challenges, 

opportunities make the half-life of even a perfect answer short. T

coupling of doctrine, operational architecture, systems architect

and software all could make the Grid difficult to change and imp

the adaptation of doctrine to varying circumstances. 

Ideally, the Grid should let anyone say anything to anyone els

any time. Users scarcely need to get everything at once. But a u

oriented architecture would let users figure out what they need. T

applications would draw from and meld information from whate

servers contain the relevant knowledge bases. 

Who the "user" is---every warfighter, only the national comm

authority, or those in between--will be determined by doctrine

noted in chapter 3, the Grid can have a centralizing or decentrali

effect, depending on where and how it is used. But doctrine sho

not fix the Grid, if for no other reason than the Grid will cr

operational possibilities that lead to new doctrine. Nor should 

Grid's architecture make it impossible for any user to enjoy 

privilege; restrictions are the job of doctrine. Conversely, the G

architecture should not constrain doctrine. DOD needs 

architecture that can be easily extended to other nations or other u

(civilian agencies, state or local governments, nongovernme

organizations, private voluntary organizations, and sup

co nt racto rs). 

The Grid's architecture should let applications determine w

they fetch information from, mixing and matching as needed) 3 No

should be built in the expectation that they may be tasked f

anywhere. Their data structures should be transparent (standard, 

least reasonably self-descriptive) within constraints dictated by 

can write to them, and who can read from them. 

107 
qy

applications cannot realistically mix and match sensors and weapons 

on the fly, trusting to systemic mechanisms to marshall resources. In 

some cases, critical information must be pushed to users, regardless 

of what the users themselves think they need. All these requirements 

can be addressed by overlaying applications on generic Grid 

capabilities. 

Nevertheless, an open system needs to be consciously sought. A 

highly adaptive Grid puts a premium on expanding bandwidth, 

proliferating sensors, establishing a structure of user-oriented 

newsfeeds and software agents, and transparent knowledge bases. 

An Open Grid 

If the Grid were open to new data, new uses, and new users, the 

United States might be able to illuminate the world not just for its 

own forces but for all. Everyone may profit from knowing that 

everyone else is being watched. Nasty surprises would be more 

difficult to hide. Everyone may even come to have a stake in 

illumination. Alone, the United States (and its friends) could see 

much. With the complicity of those being watched, much more may 

be visible. 

In essence, respectable nations 34 that make themselves transparent 

or, better yet, contribute information from their own sensors and 

monitors, would enjoy access to an opened Grid's services 3~ and 

data. The data would include feeds--video on global flashpoints, the 

tracks of moving vehicles, the volume of electromagnetic chatter, 

ambient environmental conditions--indicators--crime reports in a 

certain neighborhood, local business activity, status updates on 

humanitarian crises--and monitors--traffic, pollution, network switch 

activity). 36 

Access to the Grid need not mean sharing all of it with everyone. 

Data on surface activity would be shared more quickly than data on 

activity in space (primarily useful for targeting or evading satellites) or 

108 
A Rationale for Opening the Grid 

Information superiority is now the strong suit of the U.S. milita

Giving it away hardly seems an obvious way to maintain power, 

doing so wisely may make more sense than pointlessly husbandin

temporary tactical advantage at the expense of a permanent strate

position. 

The United States can be aggressively generous with

exhausting itself or gaining enmity. As inventor of the Grid, it is lik

to take the lead in bringing out successive versions and t

controlling its makeup. Once a structure exists for getting, processi

and transmitting data, other nations--first allies, later unalign

nations--will have a foundation on which they can add their o

data and services. They may even work on problems germane to 

Grid's functionality. An opened Grid would help the United Sta

offer information to help its friends because compatibility iss

would have been worked out beforehand. Everyone's defense syste

would work with that of the United States more easily than e

would work with those of others. 

An opened Grid would still be optimized for what the Uni

States fears most, pass over irrelevances, and look away from U

abundance. Buying into the Grid implies buying into these priorit

The easy availability of certain analytical tools, the availability 

presentation templates, the differential opportunities for col laborati

and the way knowledge is organized and indexed all influence 

way the world is perceived. Others can more easily look for what 

United States is looking for and may be frustrated looking for what 

United States would avoid highlighting. The Grid would rem

others of what can be seen. 37 Although determined countries co

work around these tendencies, 3~ many would follow the path of l

resistance and, over time, willy-nilly acquire more and more of 

U.S. orientation. 

109 
py g

An information umbrella can replace the nuclear umbrella in keeping 

alliances together. Although international broadcasters may provide 

a universal perspective, and neutrality adds to their credibility, their 

data lack validating detail or the broad scope that the Grid could 

provide. Providing that detail as it is collected limits the criticism that 

the United States is presenting only a selective or outdated 

perspective to make a point. With more information about the United 

States, other nations could feel more assured of its good intentions. 

Visibility can be considered a valuable instrument of all major 

powers. A rogue whose misdeeds are broadcast by a Grid fed by 

everyone would have difficulty directing its ire against the tJnited 

States alone--or doing so convincingly. 

An opened Grid would support peacekeeping. The disengagement 

and peace agreements of the 1970s that dealt with the Sinai, for 

example, were reinforced by U.S. sensor systems, which allowed each 

side to monitor for signs of potential attack. By comparison, wiring 

the Golan Heights with sensors that feed the Grid could indicate not 

only impending attack but targeting information--putting trespassers 

at direct risk. 

Global visibility could reduce the tensions that feed arms races. 

If the opened Grid let every nation clearly see what is coming at 

them, their confidence in their defenses would be justified. Stability 

might be further enhanced if all understood that access to such 

information favored well-behaved nations whose forces were 

designed for defense. For example, in Asia, where countries formally 

aligned with the United States still eye one another with suspicion 

(South Korea and Japan, or Indonesia and Australia), transparency 

might put old fears to rest without generating new ones. 4° 

Consider, as a model, the Incorporated Research Institutions for 

Seismology coordinated by the U.S. Geophysical Service. A network 

of thousands of portable instruments run by hundreds of digital 

stations worldwide monitors seismic events, among them nuclear 

110 
[This] showed that a world worried about covert nuclear testing 

need not rely exclusively on whatever reports the major nuclear 

nations chose to issue (or not) based on their own, closely held 

information derived from classified technologies, al 

Some nations will be wary of growing dependent on an op

Grid. Most will want to retain systems of their own. But, in time

confidence builds in the open Grid, take-or-build decisions would 

toward taking. Making systems is hard: building and filling them 

work, and integrating them is yet more work. Allies will take (ra

than make) with grace; others will integrate more slowly and 

completely, but given time they may well accede. As they do, t

ability or desire to disrupt information flows will diminish. Eve

nation with great power ambitions may risk the downside of lo

term interdependence for short-term gains in order to: 

• Adhere to emerging international norms 

• Foster confidence and reassurance 

• Support peace operations or other coalitions 

• Access tools and databases for managing a nation's sp

(e.g., environmental, national resources, transportation, 

enforcement, and disaster operations) 

• Ease entry into the global information infrastructure 

• Keep channels open. < 

The bargain needs to be struck while potential powers are 

speaking terms and while the United States enjoys a lead 

information technology it can leverage to long-term advanta

Technology may foster global visibility, but international secu

would be more assured if the United States rather than another po

or a private concern 43 should be the one to bring it about. 

111 
terms of trade that bind components. They should cover physical 

connectivity, syntactic connectivity, and, ultimately, semantic 

connectivity. Metrics are needed to assess the Grid's performance, to 

determine whether subsystems are ready to be linked to the Grid and 

to guide decisions on whether to develop or buy technology. 

Detailed implementation planning should determine what each 

component system must do to adapt to the Grid (as the Grid adapts 

to the load of its populated objects) and in some cases what must be 

done to make their sensor readings, files, data flows, processes, and 

output streams globally accessible. 4S Acquisition programs, if young 

enough, should ensure their products can be linked into the Grid 

upon fielding. As technology and resources mature, new Grid-wide 

services can added. 

Experimentation 

As noted in chapter 3, the services, prompted by the Quadrennial 

Defense Review and encouraged by the National Defense Panel, 46 are 

experimenting with how to best exploit information technology for 

wartighting. 

Experimentation is important if there is something to be 

experimented with (or on) to learn whether and where it is useful. 4z 

A squadron of F-22s may be built, used in simulated combat, altered 

as necessary, evaluated, and if sufficiently useful, bought in quantity 

and integrated into the Air Force. For the Grid, "quantity" has little 

meaning. The Grid must cross some threshold of sophistication to be 

useful, and growing bigger is less important than growing denser (with 

sensors, weapons, communications nodes, or workstations). 

Adaptation of the Grid to waffighting will probably be continual. 

No one knows what arrangement of sensors will provide the best 

battlespace illumination, particularly in the face of cover, 

concealment, and deception. How widespread networking affects 

command and control in wartime is still a matter of debate. The 

112 
teams, whether through their own efforts or through contracting, w

be able to adapt it to their own needs. They can plug their ow

sensors and weapons into the Grid and find ways to mix their ow

information flows with global ones--they need not be organized fro

the top to do so. 

The Grid should accelerate experimentation. If every, unit h

access to the same data flows, each can compete with others to ma

the best use of them (and with precision long-range weapons, ma

can engage any one target). The Grid should allow even milita

innovation at a pace known as "internet time." Indeed, there is 

reason why allies, once plugged into the Grid, cannot compete wi

U.S. forces in coming up with new ideas, in ways hard to imagi

with earlier technologies. 

Technology Development 

The act of creating the Grid will pose tough engineering problem

resolution of which will yield new technology. Because the bas

technologies of the Grid already exist (assuming 10 years of expect

advances in electronics), it is not science fiction. Accelerating som

information technologies 4e would yield a better Grid faster--b

which ones? 

More power--processing speed, network throughput, memo

capacity--always helps, but DOD will largely be a buyer, not 

leader. Illumination and exploitation depend on the coordination 

many small things, which means DOD needs improved ways 

distribute power, rather than concentrate it. The importance of havi

more powerful personal systems (laptops and cellular phone

depends on how they are used. A twentyfold to fiftyfold improveme

over today's systems, likely by 201.5, may suffice if personal syste

merely manage input to and output from the Grid. If personal syste

process information off-line, there is no limit to what can be usefu

wrung from technology. 

113 
reducing a data flood to a data stream and finding ways for people to 

work with successively larger streams. Automatic target recognition 

(ATR) may be best, but it may be enough if the Grid can take an 

image, eliminate most of it from further consideration, archive the rest 

for later analysis, and highlight what is essential for immediate human 

observation. Generating data and getting them into the right hands 

can be improved by knowing how to sift and sort efficiently, 

manipulating large data tables, thorough bookkeeping (tracking 

information and its changes), and fuzzy logic. The ability to translate 

human speech and text (especially with its author's help) into 

logically organized information and knowledge 49 could be used to sift 

through text, convert some of it into logic strings, s° and help prepare 

and classify after-action reports. Displaying information is a matter of 

visualization, abstraction, semiotics, synthetic mapping superimposed 

on real maps, or ways to represent abstract data in two- and threedimensional space to make intuitive sense. 

Other technologies help a Grid's reliability, maintainability, 

flexibility, scalability, interoperability, and security. A Grid composed 

of interacting objects (nodes, sensors, weapons) is better managed as 

ecology than as machine; correctness is helpful, but so is a robust 

ability to adapt, protect, and expand itself easily. Security 

technologies may allow the Grid to diagnose and fix or dispose of 

compromised segments. Interoperability technologies may include 

methods a component can use to describe itself, test-and-probe 

techniques so that one system can assess the features of another, or 

ways to express goals, constraints, and tradeoffs. Whatever helps the 

Grid absorb innovation quickly, without reducing overall systems 

coherence, would yield a better Grid. 

Many in the technology community see the RMA as validating 

their instinct to push technology vigorously. Left to themselves, 

however, the community will push technology everywhere. A clear 

vision of future warfare can focus efforts, s+ 

114 
Developing a Grid by incorporating legacy systems and engineerin

bottom-up features into its architecture should work better, but t

process is not spontaneous. -~-~ A lexicon for communication amo

nodes needs to be developed, legacy systems disaggregation has to 

negotiated, and central services must be planned. Roles for t

services must be carefully negotiated so that they can become acti

and willing partners in the Grid's construction. 

Notes 

1. Some costs are difficult to pin down. Should the cost of adapting t

data stream from a legacy sensor to the Grid's standards 

included--especially if standards make sense even without a Grid? 

2. See Tekla Perry,"ln Search of the Future of Air Traffic Control," IE

Spectrum 34, 8 (August 1997): 18-35. Hardware also played a role in t

program's failure. 

3. A dollop of dollars spent on connectivity can yield substant

improvements. The Army used off-the-shelf components and $6 million 

jack together existing systems in order to cut the time to coordinate an atta

on an enemy target from hours to seconds. Pat Cooper,"U.S. Army Officia

say Data Systenl Provides Rapid Attack," Defense News, February 20, 199

22. With comparable funding, the Air Force created a Combat Integrati

Capability that can locate a ballistic missile launch, warn troops of incomi

missiles, and scramble fighters in less than 4 minutes. Frank Oliveri, "US

Finds Low-Cost Key to Scud Fight," Defense News, November 27, 1995, 

The Navy's Third Fleet assembled a real-time control center for a simila

low investment. DOD spent only $10.8 million (first release costs) for Hi

Desert Tracon, a miniature version of the Federal Aviation Administratio

new air traffic control system. Perry, 20-22. Unfortunately, getting the

interoperability improvements to interoperate with one another and the G

adds further costs. 

4. The erstwhile arsenal ship was portrayed by the Navy as yet anot

fulcrum for interoperability. Pat Cooper and Robert Holzer, "U.S. Navy S

Arsenal Ship as Catalyst for Interoperability," Defense News, September 

1996, 13. 

115 
programmer still takes work. 

7. The Navy took 1,500 pages to spell out its requirements for 

computer-aided design workstations, computers that were highly 

standardized even in the late 1980s. Specifications for the Army's Reserve 

Component Automation System were roughly 10 times larger. 

8. Many large service-initiated projects, such as the Army's TF XXl or 

Navy's acquisition of CAD systems, ought to be but are not born joint, in part 

because coordinating many constituencies within a single service is difficult 

enough without adding others from outside. 

9. The Internet was designed so that researchers could share expensive 

equipment, such as mainframe computers, but its creators soon discovered 

that its main use was e-mail. 

10. MITRE served as an integrator for the Army's TF XXI project; it 

developed the simulations and tests to validate overall functionality but 

wrote little code. 

11. Peter Wegner, "Why Interaction Is More Important than Algorithms," 

Communications of the ACM 40 (May 5, 1997): 86, likened a sufficiently 

complex system to an elephant and observed: "Since a complete elephant 

cannot be specified, the focus shifts to specifying its parts and forms of 

behavior (such as its trunk or its mode of eating peanuts). Complete 

specification must be replaced by partial specification of the interfaces, 

views, and modes of use." 

12. Microsoft has its own version of systems integration, according to 

Michael Cusumano and Richard Selby, Microsoft Secrets (New York: Free 

Press, ] 995). The company relies on the synchronize-and-stabilize approach: 

the prototype finished code--the daily build--grows incrementally as a new 

list of features is added and integrated. Features are characterized as 

essential, important, and nice to have; projects meet their deadlines by 

shedding features in reverse order of priority. By defense standards, Microsoft 

projects are middle size. As of 1995, its most complex application, Excel®, 

ran just over a million lines of code, and its most complex product, Windows 

NT®, just under five million. 

13. DOD may need to strengthen geospatial or security features. Maybe 

by the time the Grid is operational, commercial interfaces would permit the 

extensive user customization described in chapter 4. 

116 
medical support), but crossdomain integration has value. Running theat

simulations or testing alternative options for resupply may require usi

information from both intelligence and logistics databases. Data-discove

applications, which convert a user's queries into correct database format

should not presume that the user knows into which domain a question fal

16. Developing standards and writing tests for them remain costly a

slow. The Open Systems Interconnection suite of data communicatio

standards cost $1 to $2 billion to build--and data communications rema

but a small subset of the standards the Grid needs. Counterpart Intern

standards are less complex, but, at perhaps $100 million a year, n

necessarily cheaper to develop (1,500 people attend binannual meetings 

the Internet Engineering Task Force). Today's content standards ensure 

most that well-formatted bytes can be passed and pigeonholed. Standards 

handle software objects are limited to ensuring correct syntax: applicatio

can call objects and use network services correctly. Semantic standards a

needed to ensure that concepts can be transferred and mutually understoo

DOD is working on a database dictionary, but the project has a long way 

go, and many useful concepts do not lend themselves to databases. Althou

most of the DOD Common Operating Environment is necessary to G

integration, it is certainly not sufficient. 

17. In some cases, the software of a legacy system will need to 

reworked to provide information that the Grid wants or whenever its data a

insufficiently precise or too infrequently collected. Some legacy systems m

be discarded if reworking them costs too much (just as some financ

systems are retired because of the cost of fixing the year 2000 problem). 

18. The advantage of sensors that can be externally queried and re

passively (imagine a page that rewrites itself and reflects visible light) is th

they are hard to detect and do not need large power sources. Whether th

offer sufficient bandwidth is another issue. 

19. By analogy, in object-oriented programming, code is written so th

the actions a component can perform are listed in one place (a cla

definition) and thereby limited. Such code is more easily debugged than co

in which commands to components are found everywhere in the progra

20. The Internet's simple network management protocol would probab

be a good base if supplemented to accommodate the heterogeneity 

defense systems (compared with LANs), higher equipmerlt fault rates, a

117 
raining.~ Why do you ask? So I know whether to wear a jacket. We are no

going anywhere. Don't we need groceries? No, I picked them up yesterday

Or, the question "Is it raining?" may be posed because plants may need 

watering. 

22. Primary sources can be killed, cut off, compromised, made otherwise 

unreliable, or just unsatisfactory. Requesters will need to know second-best 

ways to acquire knowledge, which will vary by task: less responsive, les

trustworthy, less detailed, collecting similar but not identical data, or know 

a broker who can point to second-best sources. 

23. The logistics community, in particular, has wrestled with this 

problem for eons--one reason that the director for logistics for the JCS has 

been given such a key role in C41SR integration--but these problems also 

arise with battlespace illumination. An image of something sticking up could 

be a Scud launcher or a telephone pole. A database of phone lines and poles 

might help differentiate them, but it may be only 99 percent complete 

(leaving far more uncounted poles then Scud launchers) or ignore 

information about the pole's height and thickness that may help distinguish 

one from the other. 

24. A program from Lockheed (Simulation Assessment Validation 

Environment) knits together CAD software, modeling programs, scheduling 

and work-flow simulations, and risk analysis algorithms (see William Scott

"Integrated Software to Cut JSF, F-22 Costs," Aviation Week and Spac

Technology, May 13, 1996, 64-65. 

25. For instance, a form used to plan projects, can, with mino

modification, help schedule project-related conferences and, with othe

minor modification, help project expenses and, with yet other mino

modification, help forecast requirements for new hires. The more 

constituencies that need the information, the greater the burden on the 

project planer. 

26. Doug Lenat created CyC, a million-fact common-sense knowledge 

base, by using one unified way to organize knowledge (ontology), one 

vocabulary of relationships, and one processing engine. I-ven so, CyC runs 

slowly. Were the Grid to use a single way of stating knowledge and a single 

way of asking about it, it would still be necessary to separate knowledge by 

domain (e.g., guerilla tactics, street crime) and then find experts in each. 

118 
29. As an example, the Internets Domain Name Service, whic

translates common names into address bytecodes, is an integrate

mechanism, but the translation is actually performed in numerous countr

specific and domain-specific servers. 

30. With chips, fiber, and disk drives cheaper by the day, there may 

no scarce resources and thus nothing to allocate. So far, informatio

demands and technology have risen in tandem, and sometimes improvin

everything shifts but does not fix problems. For example, if both 

computer's processor speed and its disk capacity are doubled, searchin

through its hard memory takes just as long. Without management, lega

systems (particularly those hard-wired into long-lived weapons systems) m

be flooded. Poorly written software or information warfare may genera

unlimited traffic. 

31. A socket is the way a node interacts with a service; if the service 

removed, the socket can be discarded, which eases node management. 

32. The DOD C"ISR Integration Support Activity, C41SR Architectu

Framework: Version 1.0, of June 7, 1996. 

33. The Grid needs a good mix of top-down and bottom-u

programming. In a top-down approach, each task would result in progra

statements inserted into every supporting node. Nodes that support ma

tasks would have to host code for each single task, a need that could lead 

overly complex software and risk unanticipated interactions among co

elements. Alternatively, each node would be engineered for only one tas

leaving it inflexible in meeting new requirements. A bottom-up approac

would translate tasks (below some level) into requests or statements for ea

node and written in a standard lexicon. Every node would come equippe

with code to let it respond to standard requests, so that every new task wou

specify what but not necessarily how. 

34. Formal allies clearly qualify. Rogue states do not. Potential powe

such as Russia, Ukraine, China, India, and Indonesia, could qualify if th

renounced force (including terrorism) to settle international disputes and d

not use the Grid's information to violate human rights. 

35. Examples include security authentication, procedures for numb

crunching, formats to display data, alert lists, logic algorithms, software f

pattern recognition, event-based learning, and intelligent agents. 

119 
their profits, not by selling software, but on adapting generic software to 

specific customers, serving their individual needs, and providing 

consultation. 

37. Establishing and demonstrating a long lead over probable challengers 

may dissuade them from competing in the first place. See Seymou

Goodman, "War, Information Technologies, and International Asymmetries," 

Communications of the ACM 39 (December 12, 1996): 11-15. 

38. Yet opening the Grid means accepting its use for purposes that the 

U.S. may not condone, much less authorize, and finding ways to frustrate 

others from copying what it sees (especially the standards that embody wha

U.S. firms know about how to integrate systems). 

39. James Blaker, private communication. See also William Owens and 

Joseph Nye, "America's Information Edge," Foreign Affairs 75, 2 (March-April 

1996): 20-36. 

40. Fear of China is currently the major but not sole impetus for arms 

acquisition. Steve Glain, "Fearing China's Plans and a U.S. Departure, Asians 

Rebuild Forces," The Wall Street Journal, November 13, 1997, A1. 

41. William Sweet, "Better Networks for Test Ban Monitoring," IEE

Spectrum 33, 2 (February 1996), 26. A key part of the system is provided by 

the Group of Scientific Experts Technical Test, proposed by the Swedes and 

supported by DARPA's Center for Monitoring Research. 

42. In a limited war, the goal is not annihilation but settlement. One 

party could use the open Grid to demonstrate what it can see (thus, what i

can hit) and so negotiate the surrender or withdrawal of the other

Simulations, were they more credible and transparent than now possible

could show what one side could do to the other in a particular scenario. 

Signalling could be used locally, so that particular positions could be settled 

without their fate being determined by blood. A military that wanted to find 

an honorable way to withdraw from an untenable position could use 

information from the Grid to argue before its political masters that it had no 

good alternative. 

Conversely, a military (particularly the underdog's) could publicly yank 

its Grid connections as a refusal to enter into games (much as diplomats are 

withdrawn immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities). In private, a few 

circuits could stay up. Each side could have patrons, themselves interlinked

Neither would wish itself voluntarily cut off from tile global network. Each 

120 
than the use of organized force can be. Contractors, whose role was alm

nonexistent during the Korean War, were modestly important in the Vietn

conflict, critical in the Gulf War (JSTARS needed Grumman employees 

board), and essential to the Haiti operation. Whether Croatia could h

recaptured Krajina from Serb forces in 1995 without the help of Milit

Professional Resources International, Inc., is not clear. The line betwe

military and civilian information has become fuzzy. Raytheon, wh

developed the System for the Vigilance of the Amazon, an environmen

surveillance network, has offered something similar to support peacekeep

in the Golan and Bosnia. 

44. By starting from the future and working back, designers can leav

placeholder for features technology allows or that growth dictates. Cons

how many times Army's Force XXI project may need to be rewritten in 

next few years. When bandwidth to the field rises (from the current 9,6

bps), limitations on querying or logging onto the very capable systems fou

in battalion tactical operation centers will seem pointless. Getting close 

support from the Air Force requires the Army to extend its tactical inter

across service lines. As the Army realizes the intelligence advantages 

internetted sensors, it will want to digitize its platforms, which means hos

a wide range of data flows from platform sensors and to platform cont

through the bandwidth-limited Applique. Finally, meeting the challenge 

information warfare could require an intensive security layer atop ex

software. 

45. A software version of the Official Airline Guide tells users ab

flights. It rests upon a database (flight number, carrier, city pair, equipme

cost, etc.) inaccessible except through the application. Ordinarily, 

application gives travelers what they need, but without direct access to 

data-base, one cannot ask new questions: where does the flight f

Cleveland to Chicago originate, what airports handle Boeing 747s? 

ability to ask new questions of data leads to innovations in perception. 

46. Report of the National Defense Panel, Transforming Defen

National Security in the 21st Century (December 1, 1997), 6;6-70, 

www.dtic.mil/ndp. 

47. Do experiments need to use world-scale forces to be valid? In 

] 997, the Army Chief of Staff advocated a joint experimental force of 50,0

the Joint Staff's Vanguard Force envisioned 300,000. The need for scale is 

121 
enemy mistakes using minimal force packages. 

48. The Grid can use better technologies for, say, sensors (including 

nanotechnologies such as microeletromechanical systems, radioelectronics), 

compact power, and smart weaponry. 

49. Semantic processing works better in microworlds. The military 

domain seems to be in between, in that its training standardizes action, 

including speech acts. Error rates on a restricted vocabulary Naval Battle 

Management corpora are a tenth of normal conversational speech. Even if 

military speech were sufficiently routinized to be recognized, can it can be 

processed as symbolic knowledge? 

50. Jim Cowie and Wendy Lenhert, "Extracting Information," 

Communications of the ACM 39, (January 1, 1996): 80-91, have argued that 

today's technology is good enough to allow users to extract certain types of 

information from textual material. 

51. Vision helps, but no vision should have more than a limited 

influence on overall DOD information technology research agenda for the 

following reasons: 

• Information technologies that improve production tools (e.g., CAD, 

testing, or training) logistics characteristics may be worthwhile regardless 

of scenario 

• Visions may err. A military consumed by peace operations or WMD 

countermeasures may need technologies different from those called for 

by standoff warfare, and really good armor or ways to engage swarms of 

weapons may prolong the era of platforms). 

• Serendipity matters. 

52. Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of the Ethernet, has argued that a 

system as complex as the Internet needs to be managed, engineered, and 

financed as a network of computers, rather than as an unfathomable 

biological organism; see George Gilder, "Feasting on the Giant Peach," 

ASAP I-orbes, August 16, 1996, 86. 

122 
Conclusions 

Successively deeper infusions of information technology into DO

military equipment would, in and of itself, help it fight better, b

information technology can also transform the capabilities of the U

military in two fundamental ways: 

• Illuminating the battlespace will permit DOD to see a

therefore defeat foes by striking from standoff range or 

supporting local warfighters with information. Thus DOD c

cope with foes nastier than today's canonical opponents. 

• A sufficiently adaptive Grid may help warfighters see patter

of conflict in complex and chaotic situations enabling the DO

to cope with messier situations better. 

To see well, DOD must have a vision for its Grid. Otherwis

what it calls the Grid will be merely the clutter of point solutions 

point problems, incapable of integration and inflexible against a f

with a talent for the unexpected. Let bits be bits. If they are accessib

and the tools for their exploitation exist, knowledge can be draw

from them. An adaptive Grid is more difficult to build and, in ma

ways, control (although not necessarily harder to manage). But it is 

important ideal with these features: 

• Input. Complex sensors would be supplemented with a me

of distributed commercial-grade sensors (and some bistatic one

Automatic coordination of sensors would be the rule, especia

for ground sensors or cheap UAVs. 

• Connectivity. Nodes would not only transfer messages but, 

many cases, also understand them. Bandwidth to the field wou

suffice for visual exchange and whiteboarding. Messages wou

123 
g

rules that can be developed as needed. Particular sensor readings, 

events, and agent-initiated actions could spur further data 

processing. To respond to complex questions, the Grid could 

summon experts and present them with complex tableaux for 

evaluation. 

• Geoprocessing. l he link among image acquisition, object 

identification, and object location would be automatic or nearly 

so. Broadcasting data would allow weapons to track moving 

targets by reference to location. 

• Integrity. Flexibility in design and sufficient systems 

abstraction, among other tools, would help users merge disparate 

systems in nearly real time. Any unexpected condition that 

generates incorrect behavior would be scrutinized. New 

capabilities, once resident and cleared, could announce 

themselves. 

• Output. Users could manipulate data flow and presentation 

to raise their intuitive understanding of what they were looking at. 

They could use many tools to search for information. 

Because great change without great challenge is perilous, the 

argument for the Grid must be explicit. 1 Technology is not the issue;-' 

the United States will always lead with its strongest suit. The issue is 

what technology where. Platforms are starting to look like the 

mainframe computers of war, :~ at once too big (compared with 

individual commercial-grade sensors and weapons) and too small 

(compared with the knowledge base of a fully networked 

establishment). Monolithic information systems are both too complex 

and too narrow. When material purchased between the 1960s and 

the 1980s wears out, decisions on how to recapitalize the military, if 

made in the context of today's force structure, may ensure that 

tomorrow's military will have the look and feel of yesterday's. 

124 
Notes 

1. Germany's Blitzkrieg, France's LevOe on Masse, and the LJ

Navy-USMC carrier operations and amphibious warfare all suggest that 

RMA needs not only technology but also a pressing problem (avoidi ng tren

warfare, taking on every ancien regime at once, and operating across t

Pacific, respectively). This theme runs through several essays in Williams

Murray and Allan Millett, Military Innovation in the Interwar Per

(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996): Geoffrey T

"Adopting the Aircraft Carrier: the British, American, and Japanese Ca

Studies," 22: "The ability to predict who [the British] would be fighting a

when was especially uncertain and this shortcoming had a direct bearing 

the capabilities the Royal Navy needed to produce. Having more spec

incentives, the Americans and Japanese were better placed... [to] create 

climate more conducive to innovation." Alan Beyerchen's "From Radio 

Radar: Interwar Military Adaptation to Technological Change in Germa

the United Kingdom, and the United States," 298: "Although technic

developments ran roughly parallel in time in Germany, Britain, and 

United States, the British jumped ahead operationally and technologica

because they perceived a need to adapt to a situation they had not caus

and could not control. The Germans thought that they could control eve

and the Americans saw no need to." 

2. RMA advocates argue that it promotes more capability for l

money. See James Blaker, Understanding the Revolution in Military Affa

A Guide to America's 21st Century Defense (Wash i ngton: Progressive Pol

Institute, January 1997), 20. 

3. Those who recall what nuclear strategists wrote-for examp

Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: 

Martin's, 1981, 1989) may be forgiven for remembering earlier predictio

that conventional forces would be obsolete in the face of nuclear weapo

Complete battle groups were expected to be vaporized by any H-bo

within 10 kilometers. It was believed a nation's airfields would quic

become useless after being hit by an initial nuclear strike. Armies trained 

concentrate force would find their concentrations excel lent targets for m

annihilation and would need to disperse to survive (hence the ill-fat

Pentomic division of the late 1950s). Conventional forces are still here 

125 
returned to contemplating conventional defense against the Soviets because 

that could be sustained without all-out nuclear warfare, preferably without 

any nuclear weapons whatsoever. In contrast to nuclear weapons, the Grid 

could be eminently usable. 

126 
ABIS 

ACTD 

AI 

ATACMS 

ATM 

ATO 

A-I-R 

AWACS 

BADD 

bps 

C41SR 

CAD 

COP 

DARPA 

DBS 

DGPS 

DISA 

DOD 

FOG-M 

GCCS 

GLONASS 

GPS 

INS 

IR 

JDAM 

JSTARS 

LAN 

LEO 

MEMS 

MTW 

NASA 

advanced battlespace information system 

advanced concept technology demonstrations 

artificial intelligence 

army tactical missile system 

asynchronous transfer mode 

air tasking order 

automatic target recognition 

airborne warning and control system 

battlefield awareness and data dissemination 

bits per second 

command, control, communications, compute

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

computer-aided design 

common operational picture 

Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency 

direct broadcast satellite 

differential GPS 

Defense Information Systems Agency 

Department of Defense 

fiber-optic guided missile 

global command and control system 

global navigation satellite system 

global positioning system 

inertial navigational system 

infrared 

joint direct attack munition 

joint surveillance, target attack radar system 

local area network 

low-earth orbit 

micro-electromechanical system 

major theater war 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

127 
TADIL 

TF 

UAV 

USMC 

WMD 

WWW 

tactical digital information link 

task force 

unmanned aerial vehicle 

LJ.S. Marine Corps 

weapons of mass destruction 

World Wide Web 

128 
Martin C. Libicki is a senior policy analyst with The RAN

Corporation in Washington. Previously, he was a senior fellow at t

Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense Universi

where he specialized in the application of information technologi

to national security issues, information warfare, informati

technology standards, and the revolution in military affairs. 

Dr. Libicki is the author of What Is Information Warfar

Standards: The Rough Road to the Common Byte, and The Mesh a

the Net, and co-editor of Dominant Battlespace Knowledge. Mo

recently, he co-authored Mind the Gap: Promoting a Transatlan

Revolution in Military Affairs (Washington: National Defen

University Press, 1999). 

129 
Allied Ground Forces in Europe under General Eisenhower, when he 

was killed in combat in Normandy on July 25, 1944. 

The following is a complete list of McNair Papers. For 

information on availability of specific titles, contact the NDU Press. 

1. Joseph P. Lorenz, Egypt and the New Arab Coafition, February 

1989. 

2. John E. Endicott, Grand Strategy and the Pacific Region, May 

1989. 

3. Eugene V. Rostow, President, Prime Minister, or Constitutional 

Monarch? October 1989. 

4. Howard G. DeWolf, SDI and Arms Control, November 1989. 

5. Martin C. Libicki, What Makes Industries Strategic, November 

1989. 

6. Melvin A. Goodman, Gorbachev and Soviet Policy in the 

Third World, February 1990. 

7. John Van Oudenaren, "The Tradition of Change in Soviet 

Foreign Policy," and Francis Conte, "Two Schools of Soviet 

Diplomacy," in Understanding Soviet Foreign Policy, April 

1990. 

8. Max G. Manwaring and Court Prisk, A Strategic View of 

Insurgencies: Insights from El Salvador, May 1990. 

9. Steven R. Linke, Managing Crises in Defense Industry: The 

PEPCON and Avtex Cases, June 1990. 

10. Christine M. Helms, Arabism and Islam: Stateless Nations and 

Nationless States, September 1990. 

11. Ralph A. Cossa, Iran: Soviet Interests, US Concerns, July 1990. 

12. Ewan Jamieson, Friend or Ally? A Question for New Zealand, 

May 1991. 

13. Richard J. Dunn III, From Gettysburg to the Gulf and Beyond: 

Coping with Revolutionary Technological Change in Land 

Warfare, March 1992. 

14. Ted Greenwood, U.S. and NATO Force Structure and Military 

Operations in the Mediterranean, June 1993. 

15. Oscar W. Clyatt, Jr., Bulgaria's Quest for Security After the 

Cold War, February 1993. 

16. William C. Bodie, Moscow's "Near Abroad": Security Policy 

in Post-Soviet Europe, June 1993. 
European Security Toward the Year 2000, August 1993. 

21. Edwin R. Carlisle, ed., Developing Battlefield Technologies in 

the 1990s, August 1993. 

22. Patrick Clawson, How Has Saddam Hussein Survived? 

Economic Sanctions, 1990-93, August 1993. 

23. Jeffrey Simon, Czechoslovakia'.~ "VPlvet Divorce," Visegrad 

Cohesion, and European Fault Lines, October 1993. 

24. Eugene V. Rostow, The Future of Palestine, November 1993. 

25. William H. Lewis, John Mackinlay, John G. Ruggie, and Sir 

Brian Urquhart, Peacekeeping: The Way Ahead? November 

1993. 

26. Edward Marks and William Lewis, Triage for Failing States, 

January 1994. 

27. Gregory D. Foster, In Search of a Post-Cold War Security 

Structure, February 1994. 

28. Martin C. Libicki, The Mesh and the Net: Speculations on 

Armed Conflict in a Time of Free Silicon, March 1994. 

29. Patrick Clawson, ed., Iran's Strategic Intentions and 

Capabilities, April 1994. 

30. James W. Morrison, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy: An Assessment of 

a Russian Ultra-Nationalist, April 1994. 

31. Patrick M. Cronin and Michael J. Green, Redefining the U.S.- 

Japan Alliance: Tokyo's National Defense Program, November 

1994. 

32. Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert Storm and 

Beyond, December 1994. 

33. John N. Petrie, American Neutrality in the 20th Century: The 

Impossible Dream, January 1995. 

34. James H. Brusstar and Ellen Jones, The Russian Military's Role 

in Politics, January 1995. 

35. S. Nelson Drew, NATO from Berlin to Bosnia: Trans-Atlantic 

Security in Transition, January 1995. 

36. Karl W. Eikenberry, Explaining and Influencing Chinese Arms 

Transfers, February 1995. 

37. William W. Mendel and David G. Bradford, Interagency 

Cooperation: A Regional Model for Overseas Operations, 

March 1995. 
Evaluating Preemptive CounterProliferation, May 1995. 

42. John Jaworsky, Ukraine: Stability and Instability, July 1995. 

43. Ronald Tiersky, The Mitterrand Legacy and the Future of 

French Security Policy, August 1995. 

44. John A. Cope, International Military Education and Training: 

An Assessment, October 1995. 

45. Elli Lieberman, Deterrence Theory: Success or Failure in ArabIsraeli Wars? October 1995. 

46. Stanley R. Sloan, NATO's Future: Beyond Collective Defense, 

December 1995. 

47. M. E. Ahrari, The New Great Game in Muslim Central Asia, 

January 1996. 

48. Mark J. Roberts, Khomeini's Incorporation of the Iranian 

Miilitary, January 1996. 

49. Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos, Trouble in 

Paradise? Europe in the 21st Century, March 1996. 

50. Alan [. Gropman, Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War I1: 

Myth and Reality, August 1996. 

51. Ralph A. Cossa, The Major Powers in Northeast Asian 

Security, September 1996. 

52. Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, 

October 1996. 

53. Donna Lee Van Cott, Defiant Again: Indigenous Peoples and 

Latin American Security, October 1996. 

54. Ivelaw L. Griffith, Caribbean Security on the Eve of the 21st 

Century, September 1996. 

55. Roman Popadiuk, American-Ukrainian Nuclear Relations, 

October 1996. 

56. Simon V. Mayall, Turkey: Thwarted Ambition, January 1997. 

57. David E. Johnson, Modern U.S. Civil-Military Relations: 

Wielding the Terrible Swift Sword, July 1997. 

58. William H. Lewis and Edward Marks, Searching for Partners: 

Regional Organizations and Peace Operations, June 1998. 

59. David C. Gompert, Right Makes Might: Freedom and Power 

in the Information Age, May 1998. 

60. Robbin F. Laird and Holger H. Mey, The Revolution in Military 

Affairs: Allied Perspectives, April 1999. 
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