The air forces of Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden are separately introducing network-centric warfare capabilities. But there are concerns about cost, information access and keeping pace with the USA
T he USA has stolen a clear lead over its NATO allies in the development and operational implementation of network-centric warfare (NCW) concepts. But among the smaller air forces of northern Europe there is a growing consensus that alternate approaches are needed to ensure the benefits of transformation remain affordable to them.
The need for change is no longer debated. The air forces of Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway were exposed to the potential of networked combat through their combined deployment of Lockheed Martin F-16s to Kyrgyzstan between October 2002 and October 2003 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Sweden, meanwhile, has been extensively experimenting with what it terms network-enabled operations since early 2002, with further demonstrations planned over the next two years. Belgium is also exploring networked operations as part of its contribution to NATO.
All five air forces regard the USA as the benchmark for implementing networking capability, but share concerns that the cost of the US approach will remain permanently beyond their reach. There are worries that the pace of US Air Force transformation will mean the existing hard-won levels of interoperability between NATO air forces will be jeopardised, with smaller air forces unable to field compatible technology in complementary timeframes. In turn, that translates into a concern that the rapid pace of network-centric evolution undermines alliance-wide common standards.
There is also a feeling that US domination of networking concepts and technologies is translating into a less than equitable sharing of information in coalitions, with this having considerable potential for political effect on future operations.
While NATO has a variety of working groups addressing the requirements of networked operations and the development of a common set of standards and protocols, those efforts are acknowledged as lagging behind similar work being undertaken and implemented in the USA. That gap is having a direct impact on NATO members, which are simultaneously attempting to develop their own national concepts and requirement, and being pressured to adopt networking capabilities for multinational operations.
These pressures are leading to a diversification of strategic direction among NATO members. While Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway are pegging their transformation processes and interoperability baseline to the evolving NATO architecture, Denmark and Sweden look directly to the USA. That difference of approach, warns Gen Leif Simonsen, chief of staff of the Royal Danish Air Force, means "we need leadership. Somehow we have to agree on some leadership to make us all interoperable in this. Where we get it from I do not know."
Speaking at the IQPC Network Centric Warfare Europe 2004 conference in Stockholm earlier this month, Simonsen justified his air force's decision to peg itself to the USAF interoperability baseline as "our initial path. But the Netherlands air force has selected the NATO architecture as their way. We agree with them, but still we are modifying our platforms to interoperate with the USA. That is the only way that I see that we have any chance to be interoperable in the near future with as many [NATO air forces] as possible."
Sweden's approach has a similar justification, despite it being a non-NATO member state. Ake Svensson, president and chief executive of Saab, says US leadership - and therefore the definition of architecture standards - is a direct result of the scale of its financial commitment to transformation. He told the conference: "I think that the US will put a lot of investment into building a network-centric joint defence force eventually and of course the way that we will do it will have to be in conjunction with what the USA does. We will have to use the same standards. We could not invent any Swedish special standards - that would not be viable."
Saab is a prime contractor on Sweden's ongoing networking experimentation programme. Svensson told the conference that "Swedish forces will have to be interoperable with all the other forces in the future and therefore of course, the standards will have to be international standards".
Underlying the divergence, says Maj Gen Arnvid Lovbukten, commander air forces with the Royal Norwegian Air Force, is that while there is a general definition of what networked warfare is expected to achieve, a higher level of multinational co-ordination is yet to be developed. He says: "It seems to me like we are actually agreeing upon most of what direction to go, but still there is no master plan for how we want to implement network-based operations in the future; how we transform in NATO".
That master plan needs to address some of the most fundamental issues involved in network warfare, including settling basic definitions with key conceptual differences existing in the approaches being taken.
The USA uses the term "network-centric warfare" to describe both the capability and its application. In contrast, NATO's European members tend to use the variation "network-enabled warfare", referring to the same general principle, but appreciating that implementation will necessarily be scaled and may have different objectives.
Crisis management
For example, Lovbukten told the conference that he expected "the future for NCW advancement lies in crisis management - that is the low end of the scale compared to high-intensity warfare - at least in small countries like Norway."
Sweden has its own variation in terminology - "network-based defence" - to emphasise both the desire to use military transformation as a tool for strengthening homeland security and as an explicit contrast to the use of networking as an enabler for expeditionary warfare.
Belgium, meanwhile, uses the term "network-enabled capabilities" (NEC). Col Albert Husinaux, former head of capability planning on the Belgium defence staff, told the conference that "to us the capability enhancement is the focal point, not the network. We...are not in favour at all of the term network-centric warfare, warfare not being the final issue of our armed forces."
The differences in national interpretations and expectations, according to Simonsen, mean that any eventual NATO master plan "must recognise a number of ways to employ the concept at different levels of technological maturity and integration between the smaller countries".
The quantitative difference in the US and northern European approaches to development of network-centric warfare becomes clearly visible when considered in dollar terms. Simonsen told the conference that "the USAF budget for 2004 is a little bit more than three-quarters of the total Danish gross national product. We are in different leagues here."
By definition, Simonsen said, networking is both "very complex and we believe possibly a very expensive philosophy to implement, so we all have to choose the evolutionary approach. I believe nobody can tell me where it all ends. It is a proven fact that IT systems become obsolete after a few years, so we have to do it evolutionarily, keep doing it better and better."
Small air forces have no choice but to network, said Simonsen: "I believe we must join the net or face oblivion."
High risk, high cost
The absence of a clearly defined end state, says Col Peter Wijninga, assistant chief of staff for policy and planning in the Royal Netherlands Air Force, means the development of NCW capabilities will necessarily remain high risk and therefore high cost. Air forces have little choice other than to "to walk down that line".
Wijninga argues that "within Europe and within NATO there are leaders, early adopters, followers and stragglers when it comes to network-centric warfare. We [the Netherlands] tend to see ourselves as followers, but we have the ambition to become early adopters and in fact in some aspects we may be leaders already." He told the conference that there was no doubt that "in the USA they are spending billions to get this done. We can only afford millions in Europe. But probably that is a good thing because that way we are really forced to prioritise. In our air force we can probably spend couples of millions on this."
Similarly, Svensson says: "One of the challenges that we have is that we will have to do our transformation within the limited budget that we have. I think it can be done and I think that we have set up a roadmap for Sweden where this can be done."
Smaller air forces have traditionally had to cope with fewer resources, Simonsen argues, and this may have its own contribution to play through increased innovation. "We have often discovered in my air force that we can find easier solutions to complex problems because we are small."
But a clear NATO master plan remains central to ensuring investments are well directed. "Our resources are scarce andour leadership does not want to take a big risk in spending money on things of which the outcome is not clear yet," says Husinaux. He also argues that the dollar differential with the USA means that any spending will be carefully evaluated, regardless of nation.
In Belgium's case, he says, this means "a pragmatic approach will be necessary. In the short term, legacy systems will have to be integrated, while in the long term, built-in network enabling might be expected in new systems we procure. For the effectors already [in service] today, an open - meaning a 'provisions for' approach - will be taken." For example, all of Belgium's mid-life update F-16s are equipped to accept Link 16 hardware. However, only a limited number of aircraft carry that equipment at one time.
Belgium's maintenance of relative parity with the USA, Husinaux says, will be capability specific and depend on the platform concerned. "Differentiation will have to be made with regard to the network intent and the means involved. How will you be interoperable with the USA, [which is] progressing at a very fast pace? Well, you will be for those components that need to be. This is the meaning of a differentiated approach."
The general principles of networked operations are largely familiar to NATO's air forces because of the development of a common command and control capability for the western European theatre during the Cold War. That system provided co-ordination down to the level of individual aircraft regardless of country of origin. In networked warfare, such command and control capability stands to be increased exponentially for all participants.
A well-developed coalition network, according to Simonsen, can be expected to comprise sensors, sensor fusion and datalink systems. "For smaller countries to attach to a coalition only a fraction of these elements will be nationally available, so access to the net is our opportunity to utilise all coalition methods to a degree."
Unlimited exchange
In theory, Simonsen says, such a network supports unlimited information exchange between sensors, decision makers and shooters. "Without the information and knowledge and the plan of the current operation, the full portion of interaction is not established. If they need it there, but it is unavailable in the net, the revolution in military affairs could turn into a fight with the blind and the deaf as allies, he says.
"The smaller nations would be reliant on availability of information from the major and leading nations in the coalition."
Simonsen's comments to the Stockholm conference hint that Denmark's experience over Afghanistan may well have illustrated that the smaller nation's fears were at least partially fulfilled. "My air force makes all the necessary efforts to be a competent player when we join and we are accepted and hopefully welcomed in a coalition. We must expect, maybe demand, to be a fully integrated partner with access to the whole infrastructure. We cannot safely and effectively join the battle with less than the full picture. We will not demand full insight into the most secret technologies and we will not demand oversight of all sources when we make it, but we will need at least some convincing of the quality of the data when we have to use it for direct [application of] military power."
Networked operations are necessarily about "information sharing or what we call knowledge sharing, of the battlefield picture and plan of current events between all the actors. Sometimes I get the feeling that you are welcome to participate but you are not always welcome to all the relevant information."
There is a real danger, he says, thatthe coalition leader in some future operation may expect smaller participating air forces "to just do it". That, he says, "won't work. We need to know why we are doing it and where the information comes from."
PETER LA FRANCHI / STOCKHOLM
Source: Flight International
