Power to the Edge: Command ... Control ... in the Information Age

Book excerpt: This book begins with a discussion of the nature of command and control. It includes a distillation of the essence of command and control, providing definitions and identifying the enduring functions that must be performed in any military operation. Since there is no single approach to command and control that has yet to prove suitable for all purposes and situations, militaries throughout history have employed a variety of approaches to commanding and controlling their forces. A representative sample of the most successful of these approaches is reviewed and their implications are discussed. The authors then examine the nature of Industrial Age militaries, their inherent properties, and their inability to develop the level of interoperability and agility needed in the Information Age. The Industrial Age has had a profound effect on the nature and the conduct of warfare and on military organizations. A discussion of the characteristics of Industrial Age militaries and command and control is used to set the stage for an examination of their suitability for Information Age missions and environments. The nature of the changes associated with Information Age technologies and the desired characteristics of Information Age militaries, particularly the command and control capabilities needed to meet the full spectrum of mission challenges, are introduced and discussed in detail. Two interrelated force characteristics that transcend any mission are of particular importance in the Information Age: interoperability and agility. Each of these key topics is treated in a separate chapter. The basic concepts necessary to understand power to the edge are then introduced. Then the advantages of moving power from the center to the edge and achieving control indirectly, rather than directly, are discussed as they apply to both military organizations and the architectures and processes of the C4ISR systems that support them.