Yes, the US military is too dependent on networked warfare

Australian national security writer Gray Connolly offered a necessary rebuke to U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein on Tuesday, pointing out the obvious flaw in the Air Force’s ongoing fetish for networked warfare.

Connolly’s point is well-made. Although there are obvious benefits to providing war fighters with easy access to real-time intelligence and other instruments of military power, over-reliance on networked warfare is a mistake. It creates space and incentive for an enemy to destabilize a defined U.S. military center of gravity.

Networked warfare suggests advantage in enabling a soldier in one location to near simultaneously relay targeting information to a bomber pilot in another location. But what happens if the network collapses? What happens, for example, if an enemy hacks the network and crashes the intelligence platforms that are empowering war fighters? Or worse, what happens if an enemy takes control over elements of the network and turns them against U.S. forces?

While the Pentagon says its encryption protocols mitigate the risks here, I’m not so sure. Iran has shown competence hacking into U.S. drone feeds. And if Iran can do that, China and Russia can surely do it in the fog of war.

Moreover, although there is more opportunity for battlefield speed of action in networked warfare, there is also more reliance on networked action beyond small unit action. That reliance worries me because it raises the prospect of U.S. forces being cut off from the basics of combat operations: maneuver warfare in the relentless pursuit of the initiative. If the network dies, momentum dies with it. It’s not simply the Air Force that deserves blame here. The easy comfort of big ticket items extends to Navy procurement and deployment.

Unfortunately, big, powerful ideas and capabilities do not necessarily translate into strategic effect.

China and Russia have responded adeptly to U.S. aircraft carriers, for example, by developing long-range missiles that can sink those carriers long before they can launch jets at targets. Russia has also sidestepped U.S. air superiority with advanced air defense networks to protect Russian ground forces from air strikes. And in cyberspace, Russia has overcome U.S. attack capabilities by spreading across various lines of effort ranging from troll farms to dedicated intelligence service attack teams.

Does the U.S. have the warfighting flexibility to outpace and outmaneuver these efforts? And does the U.S. have the redundant capability to keep fighting, even if key elements of its network are taken offline?

The answer: only partly.

In turn, U.S. forces need more flexibility at operating as part of large groups, small groups, and alone. U.S. forces need to be able to fight effectively, both as part of hypersensitive, high-speed networks, and also blindly. U.S. leadership in the 21st century requires such flexibility and a loss of our arrogant self-confidence.