C2 at the Edge of Chaos

The United States Army, along with the Department of Defense, has been undergoing a transformation that has focused on technologies and structures instead of the personnel and education policies that will enable networks. Network-Centric Warfare is one more silver bullet promised to revolutionize warfare and a key element in the Department of Defense's ongoing transformation. Network-centric theories, depending on perspectives, emphasize technological change, structure change, doctrine change and social interactions. The emphasis depends on the lens through which a service executes warfare. United States theorists tend to emphasize the technology and the network itself as most important and thus the term in the United States Department of Defense of Network-Centric Warfare or Network-Centric Operations. The British Ministry of Defense, being less wedded to silver bullets than their American counterparts, adopted Network Enabled Capabilities that emphasizes the network as a tool for commanders. The United States Army recently adopted the same emphasis with the term Network-Enabled Battle Command.