The Henry and the helicopter
Joe Mariani and Adam Routh
Convergence is one of the central concepts that is expected to shape how the U.S. military fights future wars. But what is it? While the doctrinal definition of convergence is a potpourri of terms, the core idea is relatively simple: convergence works across all domains to “enable any shooter, with any sensor, through any headquarters, in near real time.†That vision is far from anything that today’s military can deliver. It takes not just new technologies, but new ways of buying and using those technologies, as well, which can challenge deeply ingrained cultures within the military.
New tech and new doctrine can feed each other…
The concept of “Every sensor, every shooter†is different. Really different. To put it in context, if taken literally, that concept would require about 100,000 times as many connections as the entire internet to connect every sensor to every shooter. Clearly to achieve convergence would require a completely new communications architecture, one that is distributed, resilient, and upgradeable. It’s simple enough on paper, yet those capabilities would come at the cost of significant changes to how the military buys and operates systems.
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/30/the-henry-and-the-helicopter/
