The case for network-centric warfare
An army's communication capabilities have become crucial to a successful military agenda, which leads governments to deploy network-centric warfare as an integral part of their military might.
The threat to today's military is real and goes beyond fighting. It's coming from the vast amounts of voice, data and video that need to be transported and shared to give decision-makers a complete picture of the battlefield in real time.
As a result, an army's communication capabilities have become crucial to a successful military agenda, which leads governments to deploy network-centric warfare (NCW) as an integral part of their military might.
With the ability to provide real-time evaluation of the battlefield, NCW infrastructure is built to handle a rapid move from routine communication activities to war time operations, requiring flexibility, scalability and redundancy.
Case in point was the Second Lebanon War, in July 2006, when the Israeli Defense Forces had to rapidly transport and gather troops to protect the country's Northern border.
It became clear that rapid and effective communication was a top priority, with two main requirements: high bandwidth and redundancy. The army's communication network had to be upgraded quickly while under constant artillery attack.
Within hours, mobile communication units – operating in exactly the same way as fixed sites – were moved to the required areas and received instant connectivity based on “point-and-click” allocations. This unique capability contributed greatly to the army's field superiority throughout the 34-day conflict.
To build a true network-centric operation, defense forces should look for the following basic infrastructure elements:
- Physical layer – Deploying fiber optics and high-capacity microwave radios between bases
- Transmission layer – Provisioning optical and electrical transmission for high-bandwidth applications
- IP layer – Creating a unified network infrastructure
- Applications – Supporting voice-over-IP, data, video and radio applications
Of course, information security is a must for government and defense forces, and high-bandwidth encryption and security measures are necessary to protect the network.
Finally, an integrated management system must control the end-to-end provisioning of services, provide a complete view of the network, analyze faults, and support NCW applications while enabling the functional and operational independence of different military branches and authorities.