USA TODAY March 23, 2003
Warfare enters the digital age
By Byron Acohido
SEATTLE - During Operation Desert Storm 12 years ago, there was little U.S. commanders could do to knock out a mobile missile launcher when one was spotted.
It took hours, if not days, to relay intelligence across the chain of command and order a retaliatory strike, giving the enemy plenty of time to move somewhere else for the next attack.
That's not likely to happen again. U.S. forces now have the ability to detect, positively identify and destroy within minutes an enemy weapon that moves on the ground or in the sky.
Thanks to advances in digital technology - the same improvements in computing processing power and high-speed data transmission tapped by the corporate world - the U.S. military has a clear, continuous picture of the battlefield and the ability to carry out snap tactical decisions.
The concept of waging a "netcentric war" has driven Department of Defense planning and spending since Desert Storm. The goal: to link sensors, communication devices and weapons in a seamless digital network that boosts military effectiveness.
While still early in pursuit of that goal, the Defense Department has made giant leaps in its use of digital technology since the last war with Iraq.
"What America is fielding in the Persian Gulf today is the most closely connected, carefully coordinated military force in the history of warfare," says Loren Thompson, military analyst at Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank. "There is no time in human history when warriors have had so clear an idea of where their friends were, where their enemies were and what they needed to do to exploit the situation."
Elements of netcentric warfare can be found in:
Early surveillance. Digital images from surveillance satellites, U-2 spy planes and Global Hawk unmanned aircraft have been correlated with intercepted radar and telephone emissions to identify the locations of some 7,000 anti-aircraft bunkers, government buildings and military facilities targeted for initial airstrikes.
Airborne vigilance. An array of manned and unmanned aircraft continuously sweep the ground and sky, streaming data to command headquarters in Qatar. AWACS, a Boeing 707 with an odd saucer atop its fuselage and a cabin brimming with computer servers, circles 35,000 feet above the combat arena, scanning the sky for enemy aircraft or missiles.
Meanwhile, Joint STARS, a 707 with canoe-like radar dangling from its belly, scours the ground for moving vehicles. Several Predator unmanned aerial vehicles circle at 15,000 feet, ahead of U.S. troops, ready to train digital cameras on anything Joint STARS planes spot moving. Together, they provide commanders with more complete intelligence about a target's identity and location.
Weapons links. Tank commanders use "situational awareness" computers to transmit position, fuel and ammunition data back to the command post - and receive back data that allow them to digitally identify nearby vehicles as friends or foes. Fighter jets and bombers carry laser- and GPS-guided bombs and missiles that were unavailable in the Gulf War. Pilots can wait for last-minute instructions to program a bomb or missile to home in on a target.
Real-time access to richer intelligence should help reduce friendly fire accidents such as the 1999 tragedy in Kosovo in which four Canadian soldiers were killed by an F-16 airstrike.
Supply chains. Imitating UPS and Federal Express, logistics crews have set up a networked tracking system built around wide use of WiFi bar code scanners and handheld computing devices beefed up to withstand rough usage. "In a highly mobile, dynamic environment, they make sure everything from butter to bullets gets to the soldiers on time," says Richard Bravman, CEO of Symbol Technologies, which supplies tracking systems for the military.
It took an epiphany for the military to embrace so much cutting-edge technology so fast. The Defense Department used to insist on custom equipment painstakingly designed to military specifications. After the 1991 Gulf War, it began accepting equipment built with commercial-grade components. That has let contractors like Boeing, maker of the AWACS data center, Northrop Grumman, which supplies Joint STARS, and General Atomics, maker of the Predator, accelerate development and upgrades and keep costs down, says Glenn Goodman, editor of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Journal.
Boeing, for example, uses a GPS receiver, similar to one a yachtsman might use to navigate a sloop, to help steer JDAM smart bombs. GPS position coordinates feed into the same Motorola processing chip found in 1995 Apple Macintosh computers to trigger adjustments of the JDAM's tail fins.
By upgrading to the latest commercial-grade Hewlett-Packard computer servers, Joint STARS increased its computing power tenfold while cutting the price of its electronic gear to $4.5 million a plane, down from $19.5 million. "Anybody can buy the computers on the back of Joint STARS today with a credit card," says Dale Burton, Northrop Grumman's vice president.
Accepting off-the-shelf technology was the only way the military could hope to keep pace with Moore's Law, the tech industry maxim about computing speed doubling every 18 months, says John Pike, military specialist at think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
"There was a fundamental change in their philosophy from build to buy," says Pike.
Falling prices and improved durability are behind digital technology's large role in the 2003 Gulf war.
"Computer processing used to be expensive and delicate, and now it's battlefield hardened and cheap," says Steve Zaloga, senior analyst at The Teal Group.
Copyright © 2003, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
