As the Army becomes a leaner force dispersed in smaller units across large swaths of the globe, a common operating network will become increasingly essential, the service’s vice chief of staff said July 9.
“As for whether or not a better network compensates for a smaller force, I would offer that no set of equipment compensates for a smaller force, because capacity matters,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Daniel Allyn said at a meeting hosted by the Association of the United States Army outside Washington, D.C. “But, if you have a smaller force, it must be effectively networked. I must have situational understanding. It must be able to make critical decisions ahead of the enemy’s decision cycle.”
The Army plans to take a page from the Marine Corps playbook in coming years in becoming more expeditionary, meaning globally deployed in relatively small units to respond to low-level contingencies.
Allyn offered a recent exercise in Djibouti as an example of how a small unit relies on secure tactical communications in the field. A small team of soldiers led by a platoon sergeant was deployed there, then into Burundi where it was tasked with training snipers to fight against Al Shabaab in Somalia.
For six weeks, the training unit operated in the field with no company, battalion or brigade headquarters within 2,000 miles, Allyn said. The entire time, the unit was connected to higher echelons of command in Djibouti and elsewhere through a secure tactical communications network without having to deploy any heavy communications equipment to the field.
“This is the global landpower network in action,” he said. “Small units, led by trusted professionals, empowered by world-class equipment and training, working shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners, delivering strategic effects.”
The Army has about 140,000 soldiers deployed to 150 locations worldwide, Allyn said. With such a dispersed force, the service is focused on streamlining communication and mission command, both in the field and from home stations.
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines had the benefit of a relatively uninterrupted bandwidth of information flow from command echelons to tactical units in the field. In a fight with a peer or near-peer nation like Iran or China, the network will be targeted for disruption. The proliferation of technology will likely mean that even low-level non-state actors will have to ability to disrupt tactical networks, said Lt. Gen. Michael Williamson, Principal Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.
Therefore, in the Army’s global network, two elements are “non-negotiable”, he said. It must first be robust and “adaptable and agile enough to deal with the changing demands that a commander has to deal with.”
It must also be resilient, which is tied to the prevalence of information sharing and the increasing prevalence of advanced cyber threats with which the U.S. military has not had to deal with over the last 14 years of combat fighting technologically inferior enemies.
“Commanders and U.S. soldiers have had a lot of freedom of maneuver because of the capability provided by the network,” he said. “That’s going to be challenged because access to technology by peer and near-peer competitors has grown in leaps and bounds…The reality is our enemies have access to technology now that they’ve never had before.”
“Imagine…a soldier now in Afghanistan who is wounded, would no longer have the ability to call in a Medevac,” Williamson said. “The network provides you more than the ability to get beans and bullets and know where your next location is. That power, that’s going to be threatened.”
Brig. Gen. John A. George, director of capabilities development at the Army Capabilities Integration Center, said the ease with which soldiers have been able to communicate in recent conflicts has lulled the service into a “sense of security and freedom of action based on living in a mature theater and having robust, fixed support for our communications.”
“One of the shifts we are really trying to work on is…the idea of expeditionary, the idea of working in an environment where it’s contested,” George said. The network “is going to have to operate differently to enable the freedom of movement that we’d like to have.”
To achieve that desired network capability, the Army will need industry to focus on delivering relevant command and control capability and situational awareness information perhaps all the way down to individual soldiers, Allyn said.
“These systems must be interoperable, improve situational understanding and contribute to enhance decision making,” he said.
Essential to the Army’s future are advanced data analytics and fusion tools, and simplified networks that are simultaneously resistant to spoofing, hacking and cyber attacks, he said.
“I guarantee you our enemies are doing just this,” he said.
Interoperability with other services and international partners and allies is also essential for battlefield and global networks, Allyn said. Development of the Army’s network must therefore be done in collaboration with NATO and other allies. Much of that work will be done during upcoming international military exercises where commanders can identify interoperability issues and iron them out before the next coalition fight.
“We cannot afford to work alone, nor will we, across this increasingly unstable globe,” he said.