Networked Warfare
By Seth Cropsey
September 28, 2022Michael Förtsch
The U.S. Must Invest in 5G for the Future Force
The U.S. military stands at an intellectual and structural crossroads. It seeks to field new, transformative capabilities while maximizing the current force, optimizing itself for high-end combat against a peer adversary. In this quest for lethality, the U.S. can embrace a truly networked, distributed force – but only if it makes the necessary investments in connectivity and information security. 5G development must therefore be a military priority, conducted with defense needs in mind.
We rarely get a clear look at the future of combat. A twenty-year gulf separated the Great War and World War. The conflicts between were either too small to provide a real window into future war or spilled over into the World War. The same was true of the gap between 1870 and 1914: there was little recognition of the way space, time, and mass had been refracted through the railroad and long-range artillery piece, modifying operational calculations.
The interstices give us the adage about fighting the “last war,” focusing on the wrong systems, and misunderstanding or incorrectly anticipating a variety of operational demands. France’s Maginot Line is the most notorious example. The French Army staff tightly controlled military innovation and determined that concentrated fires and methodical advances were the only way to win wars. A different technical-tactical combination, German bewegungskrieg, (maneuver warfare based on deep penetration of the enemy) was more effective, albeit also luckier. The U.S. is equally guilty of fighting the last war. It never conceived of operational theory to the same degree of sophistication as the Soviets. The classic trope that the Soviet Union relied on mass, while the U.S. looked to technology, is only half-right. Both sides depended on mass, but the Americans relied on technologically induced mass, while the Soviets coupled mass with a sophisticated understanding of operational art. It was not until the 1970s that the U.S. “caught on”, and developed a doctrine based on the intellectual demands of modern combined-arms large-scale combat.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/09/28/networked_warfare_855978.html
