Tactical Exigencies Heighten Information Sharing
In my commentary last month, I discussed information sharing, a topic that has reached virtually every organization in government and industry. This month I address command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) in the tactical environment. The two are closely related, as their symbiotic relationship virtually dictates that success in one is essential for success in the other.
The intersection of these two domains takes my thinking back to the early 1980s. The
At the same time, we were developing the AirLand Battle doctrine, having recovered from a bout with the doctrine of Active Defense. The evolution of the AirLand Battle doctrine forced those of us in the doctrine and requirements business to recognize that C4I was all about supporting the decision-making process. In Active Defense, we were reactive—we were trading space for time and hoping the enemy would wear itself out. In AirLand Battle, we were proactive—taking the battle to the enemy early at the time and place of our choosing. To do that, we needed to make decisions quickly and effectively with timely information input.
Frankly, all of this gave us a headache. No one had thought in terms of the tactical decision set—or about the information needed to support the commanders that had to make these decisions. This task was complicated by a new and untried doctrine that emphasized joint operations in a way never attempted before. We had to consider the decisions, who would make them, where they would be made on the battlefield, what information was needed to support these decisions, where that information needed to come from, how we would transfer the information to the decision maker and in what form the information would be presented.
Now, take a step back. What we were considering was information sharing in the tactical environment. And, for the first time ever, we were thinking about it before we addressed systems and network requirements. Imagine building systems and networks designed specifically to meet the needs of the tactical decision makers. We take for granted now that this is the order of things, but how close are we to our objective?
Today the threat has changed; the force structure has changed; joint and coalition warfare is a constant; and technology has changed dramatically. We want to make the shift from a systems focus to a services focus so that the decision maker can reach out for the information he or she needs when it is needed. But the transition is just beginning. We are still using systems built for another time. We add new information sources as they become available. Do we know the decision set for today’s decision makers? Do we know what information is needed to support required decisions? Do we know how to find it?
It is all about the data. When we reach objective service-oriented architectures, decision makers will have the means to reach out for the information they need. But will that information be there? Will we have made it identifiable? And, what do we do during the migration process? There will be huge technology challenges in this massive migration to service-oriented architectures. There are gaps in secure, scalable solutions to meet all services requirements. But there are bigger gaps in our grasp of the data problem. This is true globally, but nowhere more profoundly than in the tactical environment where decisions have to be made quickly and effectively or people die. Sources of information are moving and often have tenuous communications.
We need to apply more attention to providing necessary information at each stage of the technology and process migration. Some large-scale implementations of service-oriented architectures have failed on this very issue. Legacy systems are not totally visible through existing networks. Metadata often is absent or inconsistent. Authoritative data often is difficult to determine.
These issues will not resolve themselves. We owe it to the decision makers who rely on necessary information to think carefully through the requirements, identify gaps and establish a migration path that delivers what they need at each stage of the migration. And, we owe it to the warfighters who bear the brunt of daily combat in the tactical environment to empower them and their decision makers with the right information in the right format at the right time.
