Table of Contents
The global economy continues to be more networked through information and communication technologies that are fast becoming ubiquitous. Decision-to-action cycles are reducing to cope with the increasing pace of change, which is placing a premium on innovation, information sharing and collaboration. At the same time, national security is being broadened, large quantities of information are flowing along with calls for better quality information, and connectivity is increasing, all of which leads to an increase in the strategic value of information. Ed Waltz expresses it well as:
the role of electronically collected and managed information at all levels has increased to become a major component of both commerce and warfare. The electronic transmission and processing of information content has expanded both the scope and speed of business and military processes.[1]
In June 2002, Defence released its doctrinal statement on Australia’s approach to warfare.[2] In looking at how the Australian Defence Force (ADF) would prepare itself to cope with increasing and rapid change, the focus of the document turned initially to what the Information Age heralded. Attacks on information systems were cited as potential security threats to which the ADF would need to respond.[3] Furthermore, the ADF should expect to find itself increasingly operating in ‘small, dispersed combat groups’,[4] which would be facilitated in part through technological advances in communications.
Defence also released its long-term vision statement in June 2002—known as Force 2020. In articulating a vision of a seamless force—internally with each other (the three Services) and externally with the range of providers, supporting entities and the community[5] —the ADF also highlighted the fundamental need to transform from a platform-centric force to a network-centric one.
The ADF argued that ‘the aim of Network-Enabled Operations is to obtain common and enhanced battlespace awareness, and with the application of that awareness, deliver maximum combat effect’.[6] Furthermore, the fundamental building block of networked operations would be a comprehensive ‘information network’ that linked the sensor grid (for detection), the command and control (C2) grid (offering flexible, optimised decision-making), and the engagement grid (for precision engagement).[7]
Through network-enabled operations, the ADF would be conferred with what it termed ‘decision superiority’—‘the ability to make better, faster decisions, based upon more complete information than an adversary’.[8] The ADF cited operations in Afghanistan where Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) passed real-time targeting information (via video) to aircraft, epitomising the effectiveness of Network Centric Warfare (NCW), through the direct sensor-to-shooter link that allowed rapid engagement of targets. This is what the ADF means by seamless integration of platforms through the information network.[9]
In May 2003, the Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove, noted to an NCW conference that
while it is likely that some type of crude kinetic effect will still be the ultimate expression of violence in war, it is also likely that as information and network-related war fighting techniques start to mature and to predominate, outcomes will be swifter, as dramatic and paradoxically less bloody than the classic force-on-force attritionist, paradigm of the past.[10]
Indeed, Cosgrove cited the 2003 Iraq War, from which he observed that ‘in the main, the Iraqi forces were beaten quickly, spectacularly and comprehensively by a force using what were, on balance, mostly first generation network-centric technologies and concepts’.[11]
The seamless integration called for in Force 2020 and inferred by Cosgrove has necessitated the ADF moving away from a focus on individual weapon platforms towards exploiting the effectiveness of linked, or networked, forces and capabilities. Networking will allow the sharing of a common and current relevant picture of the operational environment across all components of the joint force. This will, in turn, improve a force’s situational awareness, coordination, and importantly, decision-making ability. The joint force will exploit this as it is able to prepare for and conduct operations more smoothly and quickly.
Operations will rely on linking sensors, weapons and commanders, via an appropriate information network, to enable the timely and precise application of military force. By embracing a ‘networked’ approach to military operations, the ADF will be able to generate greater combat effectiveness than belies its relatively small size—be able to ‘punch well above its weight’.
These notions have been reinforced through the release in 2007 of Defence’s Future Joint Operating Concept (FJOC).[12] The FJOC starts with Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston’s vision for the ADF, which is to be ‘a balanced, networked and deployable force, staffed by dedicated and professional people, that operates within a culture of adaptability and excels at joint, interagency and coalition operations’.[13] The FJOC goes on to argue that the force must operate in the seamless manner described in Force 2020, not only to maximise the ADF’s collective warfighting capabilities but also its ability to operate with interagency and coalition partners. Improved networking will enhance the ADF’s capability advantage over potential adversaries as it also relies on its people to generate the underlying capability advantage and the ‘knowledge edge’ needed for the future.
Increasingly, the ADF must be capable of both executing effective combat operations and providing military support to national responses in more complex environments. The ADF must move to develop a hardened, networked, deployable joint force that is characterised by adaptability and agility to handle the full range of military operations across the full spectrum of conflicts.
In the information dimension, future adversaries will utilise informal communications technologies that are cheap, ubiquitous and difficult to trace, and increasingly secure and sophisticated networked C2 and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems, leveraging commercial satellite capabilities and improved geospatial information.
The FJOC adopts a national effects-based approach, which involves taking a whole-of-nation view of security to find the most appropriate tool to achieve national objectives—the military is but one of the tools. It is underpinned by the NCW Concept that will help link ADF, Australian and coalition sensors, engagement systems and decision-makers into an effective and responsive whole. NCW seeks to provide the future force with the ability to generate tempo, precision and combat power through shared situational awareness, clear procedures, and the information connectivity needed to synchronise friendly actions to meet the commander’s intent.
The ADF and Defence will work in cooperation with other government and non-government agencies (where appropriate) to develop the capability for an integrated multi-agency response capability, extending the network to other agencies as appropriate.
In the Future Warfighting Concept,[14] the ADF adopted Multidimensional Manoeuvre (MDM) as its approach to future warfare. MDM seeks to negate the adversary’s strategy through the intelligent and creative application of an effects-based approach against an adversary’s critical vulnerabilities. It uses an indirect approach to defeat the adversary’s will, seeking to apply tailored strategic responses to achieve the desired effects.
MDM operations are designed to focus on specific and achievable effects through integrating joint warfighting functions (force application, force deployment, force protection, force generation and sustainment, C2, and knowledge dominance). A fundamental of MDM is the ability to employ NCW and operate in joint task force, interagency and/or coalition arrangements to conduct effective operations. The joint operational concept underlying MDM are best described in terms of the ability to reach, know and exploit as follows:
Reach—Reach describes the future force’s ability to operate in multiple dimensions both inside and outside the operational area and across the physical, virtual and human domains in order to understand and shape the environment; deter, defeat and deny the adversary; and provide military assistance in support of national interests. Reach is best accomplished as part of an integrated whole-of-government approach across the spectrum of military, diplomatic, economic and informational actions.[15]
Know—The future force will build and sustain sufficient knowledge from national and international sources to allow it to identify required actions and assess the effects of those actions. It will understand itself and its capabilities, those of its adversaries, as well as the operating environment, which will enable the force to better carry out those actions that create decisive effects. Information is at the base of knowledge dominance, and knowing requires that the future force is able to utilise and integrate information from strategic, operational and tactical sources, both military and civilian. However, information must be turned into knowledge that is timely, relevant and accurate. This knowledge must be acquired, prioritised, refined and shared across the strategic, operational and tactical levels and within the joint force and as part of multi-agency and multinational efforts.[16]
Exploit—The future force will integrate its joint capabilities with other elements of national power in order to achieve effects in support of national strategic objectives. Effects are the outcomes of the actions taken to change unacceptable conditions and behaviours, or to create freedom of action to achieve desired objectives. The force will identify, create and exploit effects through acquiring knowledge and establishing reach. To exploit its capability to produce effects, the future force will continually assess its effects and adjust its actions to take into account the iterative interaction of military, diplomatic, economic and informational actions that are taken as part of Australia’s whole-of-government approach.[17]
The following attributes define the ADF of the future:[18]
Balanced—The future force must possess an appropriate mix of capabilities in order to mount the range of operations envisaged. It must offer a multiplicity of responses and not rely on ‘niche’ capability.
Networked—The future force will need assured access to other agency, coalition and open-source information. The ability to operate effectively will be contingent on the integrated forces’ networks and decision-making infrastructures, early warning systems, communications, environmental monitoring and positional data. Adversaries may exploit any vulnerability in the nation’s network to undermine cohesion and effectiveness.
Deployable—In the future, the ADF will need to operate at a distance from established bases in Australia, either independently or with coalition forces, potentially involving deployments with regional or global reach. Force elements will need to be configured and prepared for short-notice deployments that can be sustained with limited infrastructure support. This will require either a capability to lift forces into the contingency area or basing rights close to the contingency area. A forced-entry capability will also be critical to the ADF’s ability to respond.
Integrated and Interoperable—The ADF must continue the transition to a force (with fully integrated services) that is interoperable with other agencies of the government and its coalition partners and allies. Legacy systems should, to the extent possible, be made to function in the integrated environment until replaced. As the degree of integration and synchronisation is increased, new training and systems will need to be established. Military capabilities should be designed to be interoperable from conception, not as an afterthought in the development process.
Survivable and Robust—Each element of the future force must be able to protect itself against the range of existing and evolving threats. Timely investment in lower signatures, protection, countermeasures and redundancy to match likely threats will be required.
Ready and Responsive—The future ADF must observe, anticipate and be prepared to serve Australia’s global interest in an evolving strategic and geopolitical situation.
Agile and Versatile—The future ADF must be able to respond rapidly to a diverse range of missions and tasks. This will require versatile forces that are tailored and scalable for deployment. They will need an ability, the extent of which will be dictated by force structure, to re-form, reconstitute, regroup and re-engage, especially during periods of concurrent operations.
Precise and Discriminating—The goal for future operations is to achieve precise effects, with minimum planning and response time, from a distance if required. For the future ADF, precision must not be limited to the application of kinetic force, but also be incorporated into executing information operations (IOs) and minimising unintended consequences. While traditional technology will initially provide the potential to improve precision, emergent technology must be used to support widespread cross-platform responses that ensure maximum flexibility and discrimination. Enhanced discrimination capabilities will permit high-value targets to be struck with greater certainty.
Lethal and Non-lethal—The ADF must increase its capability to produce desired effects through the considered and coordinated use of both lethal and non-lethal methods, using both kinetic and non-kinetic means. These effects will be enhanced by leveraging technology advances which improve precision and discrimination, and by employing a whole-of-nation approach.
Persistent and Poised—Persistence ensures that the joint force has the required endurance at all levels to generate and deploy forces for long periods, while poise ensures that critical fighting elements are within range of a potential target area. Persistence incorporates force protection, logistics, infrastructure development and sustaining the capacity of ADF people to work and fight. The persistence of the future ADF may necessitate a greater level of force dispersal, leading to a requirement to generate effects from dispersed locations, while at the same time being poised to project force at short notice. Poise is achieved through either expanding deployability or securing basing rights close to likely contingency areas.
Sustainable—The increasing mobility, tempo and changeability of future force operations will require an adaptive, modular, network-enabled logistic system operating in a contiguous and non-contiguous mission space.
Capable of Concurrency—The future force must be able to conduct operations in more than one location simultaneously. The Defence Planning Guidance provides guidance on the number and nature of deployed operations across the maritime, land, air and space environments. The major capabilities underpinning these operations will be the effective use of information to C2 forces, the ability to conduct strike operations, and the ability to generate and sustain military forces.
Legal and Ethical—In accordance with ADF core values, the ADF operates within the Australian legal framework and the international Law of Armed Conflict. The future ADF must continue to take pride in operating within an ethical framework, derived from a strong warfighting tradition.
Armed with those insights into where the ADF is headed, this chapter discusses the ADF’s NCW Concept, NCW Roadmap, and Information Superiority and Support (IS&S) Concept in more detail to set the ensuing discussion in subsequent chapters on the ‘cyber’ dimension, Information Warfare (IW), how information infrastructures can be targeted, how they can be protected, and how both offensive and defensive IOs can best be brought together via an Australian cyber-warfare centre.
[1] Edward Waltz, Information Warfare: Principles and Operations, Artech House Publications, Boston and London, 1998, p. 2.
[2] Department of Defence, The Australian Approach to Warfare, Department of Defence, Canberra, June 2002, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/ publications/taatw.pdf>, accessed 4 March 2008.
[3] Department of Defence, The Australian Approach to Warfare, p. 12.
[4] Department of Defence, The Australian Approach to Warfare, p. 26.
[5] Department of Defence, Force 2020, Department of Defence, Canberra, June 2002, p. 17, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/f2020.pdf>, accessed 25 February 2008.
[6] Department of Defence, Force 2020, p. 19.
[7] Department of Defence, Force 2020, p. 19.
[8] Department of Defence, Force 2020, p. 20.
[9] Department of Defence, Force 2020, p. 20.
[10] Speech by General Peter Cosgrove to the Network Centric Warfare Conference on 20 May 2003, entitled ‘Innovation, People, Partnerships: Continuous Modernisation in the ADF’, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/cdf/speeches/past/speech20030520.htm>, accessed 25 February 2008.
[11] General Peter Cosgrove, speech entitled ‘Innovation, People, Partnerships: Continuous Modernisation in the ADF’, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/cdf/speeches/past/speech20030520.htm>, accessed 25 February 2008.
[12] Released as Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, Department of Defence, Canberra, May 2007, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/FJOC.pdf>, accessed 25 February 2008.
[13] Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, p. iii.
[14] Department of Defence, Future Warfighting Concept, Australian Defence Doctrine Publication (ADDP)-D.02, Department of Defence, Canberra, 2003, available at <http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/fwc.pdf>, accessed 25 February 2008.
[15] Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, p. 15.
[16] Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, pp. 15–16.
[17] Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, p. 16.
[18] Department of Defence, Joint Operations for the 21st Century, pp. 20–22.