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Data Holds the Key to Force Superiority

Top technologies buttress decisive actions to maintain the global rules-based order.
By Robert K. Ackerman
Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, USN, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, describes the solution to the ongoing threat to the international rules-based order at TechNet Indo-Pacific. Credit: Tony Grillo photo
Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, USN, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, describes the solution to the ongoing threat to the international rules-based order at TechNet Indo-Pacific. Credit: Tony Grillo photo

Decision superiority is the key to defeating two serious attempts to overturn the international rules-based order, said a U.S. fleet commander. Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, USN, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, described how the threat is coming from two directions in two different timelines, but both are serious and must be answered with a large-scale approach.

Adm. Paparo’s remarks came in the opening keynote address at TechNet Indo-Pacific, being held in Honolulu April 11-13. With its theme of “From Data to Dominance,” the event emphasized the importance of digital operations in the highly dynamic and challenging Indo-Pacific region.

Adm. Paparo pointed out that two serious threats to the international rules-based order abut the region, although they are posing different challenges to peace and security. Russia is currently waging an active war in Ukraine that violates many different norms of international behavior and is a serious threat to global security. By violating Ukraine’s sovereignty so openly and violently, Russia is disregarding the international rules of order that have brought peace and prosperity to billions of people around the world.

“The international rules-based order begins with sovereignty,” the admiral pointed out.

And, this challenge on European soil threatens the Indo-Pacific region as well. “The Indo-Pacific is the locus of the international rules-based order,” Adm. Paparo declared.

But the long-term threat to the international rules-based order comes from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), he charged. The United States recognizes that China is hard at work overturning this international order both militarily and economically.

“We see in the PRC a long-range threat to the international order,” he stated.

International deterrence will be needed to prevent China from realizing these goals, he offered. The first way to compete with China in its outreach to small island countries is with the values themselves, the admiral continued. By emphasizing the rewards of standing firm on the international rule-based order, the United States can turn countries away from Chinese attempts to lure them with endeavors such as the Belt and Road Initiative, which has proven to be contra-indicatory for many small nations.

“The way we compete with the cycle of seduction being offered by the PRC is by being there in that space with our values,” he emphasized.

But credible military moves also are necessary. The U.S. presence in the Indo-Pacific region “must be supported by a real and profound combat capability,” the admiral said. It takes all-domain power to operate in the battlespace, and the Indo-Pacific Command has built that combat power.

And at the core of it is digital capabilities. As military analysts discuss the third offset strategy—nuclear weapons and precision munitions were the first two—Adm. Paparo emphasized the root of the third offset. “The most important capability we are pursuing is decision superiority,” he declared. This will allow U.S. forces to outdo any capabilities an adversary might bring to bear in a conflict while also defeating them in the decision arena.

And Adm. Paparo stressed that the very theme of the conference defines the key to that decision superiority. “The AFCEA [portfolio] is the pillar, the community of consequence, to fight and win in the battlespace,” he warranted.

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