Network-Centric

Warfare

Creating a Decisive 

Warfighting Advantage
The powerful combination of network-centric capabilities in the

form of an effects-based approach to planning and execution

provides U.S. forces with the potential to achieve the desired

effects on an adversary’s behavior.

The Joint Operations Concepts (JOpsC) and their subordinate Joint

Operating Concepts (JOCs) reflect the vision of a transforming,

network-centric joint force. The required capabilities of this force

are expressed in terms of the four domains of warfare:

physical, information, cognitive, and social.

The domain intersections represent dynamic and vital areas of

information age warfare.

• The precision force vital to the conduct of successful joint 

operations is created at the intersection of the information and

physical domains.

• Shared awareness and tactical innovation occur at the intersection between the information and cognitive domains.

• The intersection between the physical and cognitive domains 

is where the time compression and lock-out phenomena occur,

where tactics achieve operational and even strategic effects,

and where high rates of change are developed.

NCW exists at the intersection of the four domains of warfare.

Force Transformation and

Network-Centric Warfare

Transformation lies at the heart of U.S. defense strategy. As one of

the seven interconnected tenets of the strategy, it supports the four

major defense policy goals:

• Assuring allies and friends;

• Dissuading future military competition;

• Deterring threats and coercion against U.S. interests; 

• If deterrence fails, decisively defeating any adversary.

The concepts of network-centric warfare (NCW) and the growing

network-centric capabilities of U.S. forces, evident during

Operation Iraqi Freedom, are transforming how we fight.

Clearly, NCW is at the very heart of force transformation and

the emerging way of war.

The development of network-centric organizations and the growing

capability of U.S. forces to conduct network-centric operations are not

ends in themselves. Instead, they provide an essential means to an

end, the conduct of effects-based operations (EBO). Unless U.S. forces

can apply their network-centric capabilities to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objectives, these capabilities will be of little value.

“U.S. forces must leverage information technology and innovative

network-centric concepts of operations to develop increasingly

capable joint forces. New information and communications 

technologies hold promise for networking highly distributed joint 

and multinational forces. . . .”

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld 

Cognitive Domain

Information

Domain

Physical

Domain

Shared

Awareness

Compressed

Operations

Precision

Force

NCW

Conveyed

Commanders

Intent

Plan, Organize,

Deploy, Employ,

and Sustain

Cycle

Speed and Access

Social Domain Information Age

Warfare

The New Rules

O Fight first for information superiority

O Speed of command

O Access to information: shared awareness

O Dispersed forces: noncontiguous operations

O Demassification

O Self-synchronization

O Deep sensor reach

O Alter initial conditions at higher rates of change

O Compression of levels of war

Network-Centric Warfare

High Rates of Change

Closely Coupled Events

Lock In/Out

Speed of Command

Self Synchronization

Whats Valued

Networking

Sensing

Envelope Management

Speed/Endurance

Numbers

Risk Tolerance

Staying Power
What is Network-Centric

Warfare?

The term “network-centric warfare” broadly describes the combination of emerging tactics, techniques, and procedures that a fully

or even partially networked force can employ to create a decisive

warfighting advantage.

• NCW is an information superiority-enabled concept of operations

that describes the way U.S. forces organize and fight in the 

information age.

• NCW generates increased combat power by networking 

sensors, decision makers, and shooters to achieve shared

awareness, increased speed of command, high tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and a degree of

self-synchronization.

• NCW translates information superiority into combat power by

effectively linking friendly forces within the battlespace, providing a much improved shared awareness of the situation,

and enabling more rapid, effective decision making.

As a new source of power, NCW has a profound impact on the planning and conduct of war by allowing U.S. forces to get inside an

adversary’s decision cycle, changing the rules of warfare, and dictating the pace of military operations. NCW provides an edge at all

three levels of military operations:

• Strategy: Selects a competitive space and determines the

scope, pace, and intensity of the competition.

• Operations: Determines the key competitive attributes and

applies / masters them.

• Tactics: Executes in the battlespace (as described above).

Benefits of Network-Centric

Warfare?

Forces that are networked outfight forces that are not, everything else being equal. Evidence of the power of NCW, collected

from a wide range of U.S. military activities (combat operations,

training events, tests, exercises, demonstrations), strengthens and

reinforces the four major tenets of NCW.

• A robustly networked force improves information sharing

• Information sharing enhances the quality of information and

shared situational awareness

• Shared situational awareness enables collaboration and 

self-synchronization, and enhances sustainability and speed 

of command

• These, in turn, dramatically increase mission effectiveness

Recent operational experience has repeatedly shown that only forces

that are truly joint, with comprehensively integrated capabilities and

operating according to the principles of NCW, can fully exploit the 

highly path-dependent nature of information age warfare. They do so

by altering initial conditions, developing and sustaining high rates of

change, and repeatedly creating new operational realities that “lock

out” an opponent’s ability to cope effectively.

Speed is critical to the successful execution of the “deter forward”

concept – speed of deployment, speed of organization, speed of

employment, speed of sustainment. The ability to decide and act

faster than our opponent allows us to define or alter the initial 

conditions on terms favorable to our interests. Networking is the key

enabler of the battlespace transparency necessary for speed.

Exploits Order of Magnitude Improvement in Information Sharing

Translates an Information Advantage into a decisive Warfighting Advantage

Information Advantageenabled by the

robust networking of well informed

geographically dispersed forces

Characterized by:

O Information sharing

O Shared situational awareness

O Knowledge of commanders intent

Warfighting Advantageexploits behavioral

change and new doctrine to enable:

O Self-synchronization

O Speed of command

O Increased combat power

DURATION

Assure, Dissuade, Deter

Compel

Restore

Influence Initial

Conditions

WHAT'S VALUED NETWORKING

SENSING

ENVELOPE MANAGEMENT

SPEED / ENDURANCE

NUMBERS

RISK TOLERANCE

STAYING POWER

Legend

INTENSITY

ALTER INITIAL

CONDITIONS

Transforming Military Forces 

Employing Network-Centric 

Operations

Traditional Military Forces 

Conducting Industrial Age 

Warfare
Source of NCW Warfighting

Advantage?

Forces that are networked enjoy dramatically improved capabilities for sharing, accessing, and exchanging information

compared to those that are not. This improved capability for

operating in the information domain provides warfighters with a significant advantage over forces that are not networked, or are less

networked than U.S. forces.

The implementation of NCW is providing a warfighting advantage for

U.S. forces. For example, the combination of digitization and networking can be employed to develop a common operational picture that

reduces the ambiguity and confusion of combat to clearly identify the

positions of friendly forces and the known positions of the enemy.

Evidence collected to date across a broad spectrum of mission

areas indicates that the development of a common operational

picture significantly increases the warfighter’s awareness and

understanding of tactical and operational situations.

The ability to develop a higher level of situational awareness, in less

time than an adversary, combined with an ability to act on it, is a

source of significant warfighting advantage.

In the conduct of information age warfare by networked forces, the

relative information advantage of U.S. forces, as compared to our

opponents, will be a key to deterring threats and coercion against U.S.

interests, or if deterrence fails, to decisively defeating the enemy.

Implementation of NetworkCentric Warfare.

Key elements of the strategy for implementing NCW in the

Department of Defense (DoD):

• Refine the new rules of information age warfare and the theory

of NCW through simulation, testing, experimentation, and actual

combat experience.

• Apply the NCW theory enterprise-wide in DoD.

• Accelerate networking of the joint force at the tactical level, as

well as at the strategic and operational levels.

• Accelerate deployment and employment of new network-centric

concepts and capabilities.

• Experiment with network-centric concepts and capabilities 

to develop new and better ways to conduct network-centric

operations (NCO).

• Address challenges of allied and coalition NCO.

• Develop doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures 

for NCO.

The new rules of information age warfare and NCW are impacting

on key force development and investment decisions by the

Department of Defense.

Maneuver

Counter Anti Access

Counter SOF

Counter Air

Networked Force

Information Advantage

Shared Awareness

Tactics-Techniques-Procedures

Missions Enablers

Technology Innovation

Process Innovation

Organizational Innovation

Networking the Force

Decision

Makers

Regardless

of Location

Warfighting Effects

Forces Applied

Sensors

Regardless

of Platform

Effectors

Regardless

of Service Mission Area "A"

Mission Area "B"

Mission Area "C" Information

Advantage

Combat

Power

Information

Richness

Information

Reach

Shared

Awareness

(Cognitive)

Lethality

(Value)

Operational

Tempo

(Value)

Survivability

(Value)

Degree of

Collaboration 

(Process)

Degree of

Synchronization

(Process)

Platform-Centric

Network-Centric Platform-Centric

Network-Centric
Director, Force Transformation,

Office of the Secretary of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, DC 20301-1000

www.oft.osd.mil

Cleared for public release by

Department of Defense Directorate for

Freedom of Information and Security Review,

04-S-1418.

Revised, Spring 2004