The Sin That Will Sink the Strategy

Yesterday Thomas Barnett reviewed his thinking regarding Network Centric Warfare. In January of 1999, Dr. Barnett published an article in Proceedings called "The Seven Deadly Sins of Network-Centric Warfare", one of the first major articles with a devil's advocate take on Vice Admiral Art Cebrowski and John Garstka Network-Centric Warfare theory. His opinion was expressed in regards to his own writings on the deadly sin of Sloth within that context.

But here's the point I'd make on Cebrowski: this article started my SysAdmin conversation with him. Two years later, after 9/11, it finally blossomed into his support for the idea within the Office of Force Transformation. He never saw that shift as a retreat from his sense of what NCW could do in war. He simply recognized that it needed to expand its thinking to include what NCW could provide in the postwar.

Barnett highlights an important missing element, a peacemaker theory of warfare developed for the peacemaker roles as desired in objective by the Navy's new strategy. As we evaluate the prevailing strategic peacemaker theories of naval warfare today and the tactical ideas being applied to meet the peacemaker challenges, we believe this peacemaker theory of war can be clearly identified. We observe the two primary prevailing theories of naval warfare today includes Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) for the warfighter, but also Social Network-Centric Warfare (SNCW) for the peacemaker, and the strategic objectives desired are outlined within the context of the Cooperative Maritime Strategy for the 21st Century.

Julian Corbett believed the object of naval warfare "must always be directly or indirectly either to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it." In that spirit we observe Social Network-Centric Warfare to be the cooperative processes that mitigates the disruption of cooperative command of the sea to promote peacetime commerce. As part of a circular theory. Social Network-Centric Warfare responsibilities for the Navy exist both prior to warfare (cooperative partnerships) and after warfare (reconstitution of commerce and security), also described as the periods of time absent warfare. We observe that Social Network-Centric Warfare relies upon the application of Network-Centric Warfare to regain command of the sea when command is lost.

In a retrospective review of the seven deadly sins put forth by Thomas Barnett, we see them not as the devil's advocate position he initially portrayed them as, rather as an antipodal point in the circular theory of warfare that the Navy is being asked to execute in strategy. We acknowledge up front that warfighting and peacemaking are not diametrically opposite, however we also observe the methods and/or intentions often are.

For example, the tactical application of Maritime Security Operations and Maritime Domain Awareness require quite different metrics. Maritime Security Operations is a very manpower intensive operation, requiring the dispersal and sustainment of sailors within a regional theater. It is desired this process will be enabled by Maritime Domain Awareness, a regional information process driven by technology for detection and classification of vessels in a regional theater. These two mutually exclusive but mutual supporting tactics require a combination of manpower and unmanned systems for information collection. We observe Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is a Network-Centric Warfare tactic for information dominance of a regional theater, while Maritime Security Operations (MSO) is a Social Network-Centric Warfare tactic for human engagement of security within that theater.

As outlined in the maritime strategy, the tactical ideas of our time for naval Social Network-Centric Warfare includes military operations other than war, cooperative relationships built on security and stability, cultural awareness, and Maritime Security Operations (MSO)..

As we go down the list, we find that the application of these tactics can be applied to address the concerns Thomas Barnett highlighted with NCW for six of the deadly sins. In our opinion, the deadly sin of Avarice remains unckecked, and remains the primary challenge that prevents the Navy from making progress in the application of its maritime strategy.