SWJED
02-12-2006, 07:49 PM
11 Feb FX-Based blog - Net-Centric Discussion: Today's Wars (http://fx-based.blogspot.com/2006/02/net-centric-discussion-todays-wars.html).
Just like our victory in the Gulf War (Desert Storm) was, in many ways, forged in the jungles of Vietnam, our potential future triumphs are being created by the next generation of our nation's military leaders in the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. What are we learning from today's wars? Many discussions, inside and outside of the military, have centered on this issue. Regardless of the discussion in many forums regarding the differences of network-centric warfare (NCW) and fourth-generation warfare (4GW), I suspect that most of our future leaders understand that this is a false dichotomy and that NCW and 4GW are but flip sides of the same coin; they both represent ways in which we are going to be fighting wars in the Information Age. In postmodern war, the old meets the new in peculiar and unpredictable ways. Witness the extraordinary convergence of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century styles of warfare in evidence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are literally thousands of lessons (that apply both to NCW and 4GW) that we have learned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, here's ten.
1. Don't count on the elusive...
2. Don't go to war by yourself...
3. IO the crap out of the battlespace...
4. An initial intense air campaign always helps at the start...
5. You need a broad range of capabilities...
6. Open armored and exposed infantry warfare will be very rare...
7. Get the OODA loop in the field...
8. Take advantage of the politization of enemy military forces...
9. Interoperability is key...
10. We need to emphasize forward leadership...
Just like our victory in the Gulf War (Desert Storm) was, in many ways, forged in the jungles of Vietnam, our potential future triumphs are being created by the next generation of our nation's military leaders in the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. What are we learning from today's wars? Many discussions, inside and outside of the military, have centered on this issue. Regardless of the discussion in many forums regarding the differences of network-centric warfare (NCW) and fourth-generation warfare (4GW), I suspect that most of our future leaders understand that this is a false dichotomy and that NCW and 4GW are but flip sides of the same coin; they both represent ways in which we are going to be fighting wars in the Information Age. In postmodern war, the old meets the new in peculiar and unpredictable ways. Witness the extraordinary convergence of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century styles of warfare in evidence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are literally thousands of lessons (that apply both to NCW and 4GW) that we have learned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, here's ten.
1. Don't count on the elusive...
2. Don't go to war by yourself...
3. IO the crap out of the battlespace...
4. An initial intense air campaign always helps at the start...
5. You need a broad range of capabilities...
6. Open armored and exposed infantry warfare will be very rare...
7. Get the OODA loop in the field...
8. Take advantage of the politization of enemy military forces...
9. Interoperability is key...
10. We need to emphasize forward leadership...