Pentagon Breaks New Ground – “Information” as Top Weapon For Future War & High Speed Attack

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

Tanks, missiles, stealth fighter jets, warships and aircraft carriers are going nowhere soon, as any potential future conflict will likely require the weapons delivery “hammer” to destroy and bring “effects” on a target for victory in armed conflict. 

Yet beneath the surface of this well known and seemingly obvious reality, there is a fast-emerging new dimension to modern warfare which is expected to define which military force may prevail in a future battlefield. Information itself, while long valued in the world of intelligence and warfare, has hit paradigm-changing levels of importance when it comes to speed, targeting, data organization and information transmission. 

In a general sense, this is not knew, as former Col. John Boyd OODA Loop concept was made famous and endures to this day. The difference is domain, volume, format and speed.  Boyd Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action (OODA) cycle describing the importance of completing a targeting or attack decision cycle inside of or “ahead” of an enemy decided victory in a dogfight. In terms of basic conceptual premise, the same is true across armed conflict, meaning whichever force can see, target and destroy and enemy “faster,” “quicker,” and “before” an enemy …. prevails. 

Information is the WEAPON of WAR

The basic conceptual apparatus informing concepts of operation is arguably somewhat unchanged, what is different is the range, speed, scope and transmission of data. What may have at one time been an idea to describe the process of an individual fighter against another in air combat is now a tactical approach across all domains and branches of the military. It is the premise of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control effort, which seeks to identify, organize, translate and “transmit” time-sensitive combat information across a joint multi-domain force. 

As the Pentagon now builds upon years of progress to accelerate its Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) program through its new Implementation Plan, each of the contributing US military services are drawing upon years of developmental effort. The Army, Navy and Air Force have been pursuing joint, multi-domain connectivity for nearly decades, both as individual services and a joint force. 

Earlier this year, the Pentagon unveiled its JADC2 Implementation Plan, which continues to make progress integrating the Navy’s Project Overmatch with the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System and the Army’s Project Convergence.