Transforming War with Meshed Civil-Military Sensor Networks (I)
Ukraine and Intensified Multi Domain Operations
The war in Ukraine is an aggregation of many old ideas about war. Ground combat, the use of armoured vehicles, artillery, electronic warfare and the importance of tactical logistics are old themes in war. So too are the more human elements – the importance of individual and collective training, good doctrine and tactics and the centrality of excellent leadership.
But all wars also add a few new technologies and ideas to these many old – or even ancient elements. In the Second World War, we witnessed the birth of global, total war, the exploitation of electronic warfare, and the destruction of cities by firebombing and nuclear weapons. In the first Gulf War, the introduction of immature computerised command and control as well as stealth aircraft was new.
During the war in Ukraine, there have been at least three important developments that will transform the character of war. These are:
- The widescale integration of autonomous systems into tactical and strategic operations.
- The widespread adoption of digitised command and control systems that connect fires, recon, logistics and other battlefield functions.
- A new era meshed network of civilian and military sensors, analytical capabilities and dissemination systems.
Each of the three is a combination of new technologies, some older mechanisms as well as new and evolved concepts and organisational approaches that apply and exploit technologies in innovative ways.
This article, and the one that follows, explores this new era meshed civil-military network of sensors, analysis and distribution in Ukraine, and their wider impact on military affairs. This developing system portends massive changes in how military institutions prepare for war, how they organise, how they train and educate their people, and how they execute military operations and campaigns. This is because such a system offers an order of magnitude reduction in the time between detection and destruction of many battlefield targets.
But at the same time, the highly integrated capacity of the almost pervasive civil and military sensors that exists on the ground, in the air and in space represents a vulnerability in military systems which must be protected.
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