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The Army in the Information Age

Authored by General Gordon R. Sullivan, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony M. Coroalles.

March 31, 1995

29 Pages

Brief Synopsis

Two earlier monographs in this series by General Gordon R. Sullivan and Colonel James M. Dubik, Land Warfare in the 21st Century and War in the Information Age, provided a general concept of what land warfare might portend in the post-Cold War and post-Information Age environment. This monograph, by General Sullivan and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony M. Coroalles, brings into focus several areas where the future will differ most from the past. They provide insights into three critical areas: the operational environment; the emergence of simultaneity as a unifying concept in Information Age warfare; and, changes that must take place in the planning environment.

When history is at a watershed, people, institutions, and nations have three choices. One choice is to live in the past; relishing triumphs, elaborating on myths, and eventually becoming a part of the past. The second choice is to fight change. Indeed, all change is not for the better. In times of uncertainty, like those the Army faces today, individuals, institutions, and nations are susceptible to what can be facile, transitory, and faddish. The Army would do well to recall the "pentomic divisions" plan of 1956. The third alternative is for individuals, institutions and nations to embrace the future with all of its uncertainties. It is better to transform rather than to be transformed by the future.

Uncertainty will be the norm as the Army moves into the 21st century. During the Cold War, the Army was ready to fight a particular kind of conflict. Today, when conditions are less certain and the threats more ambiguous, unpredictable, and in a sense more likely to be translated into acts of force to achieve political, economic, or terroristic objectives, the Army must be structured, trained, equipped, and prepared for maximum flexibility. The authors suggest that the challenge today is to determine what array of capabilities may be needed to perform a broader range of requirements and to decide how much of each capability Force XXI will need.

Introduction.

Times of change, times of turbulence, and times of uncertainty are inherently "interesting" periods. The element that makes them so is unpredictability. Unpredictability also compels many people, including military professionals, to fear and to want to avoid such times. Certainty, stability, and calm are conditions that we find much easier to deal with in our daily lives. Given a choice, these are also the conditions that most nations and institutions would prefer as characteristic of their strategic environment. Yet neither the Army nor the nation seem to have a choice in the rapid pace of change that is swirling around us as the 20th century draws to a close. Indeed we live in interesting times.

Two powerful conditions define the environment in which the United States Army operates today: the collapse of the Cold War strategic environment and the dawning of what futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler have described as the "Information Age."1 In November 1989 the Berlin Wall came down, and with it tumbled the central strategic focus of the United States. From the end of the Second World War until the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, our world view had been filtered through the lens of the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union; a stable and certain strategic focus. From 1948, when American and Allied forces stood firm during the Soviet blockade of Berlin, and simultaneously showed their determination over Greece, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a worldwide, political, economic, military, and ideological struggle; a struggle we correctly perceived as a life-or-death contest between diametrically opposed socio-political, economic, and ideological systems. The U.S. Army went to war in Korea in 1950 and American troops faced off with Soviet and East German soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie during the Berlin crisis in the summer of 1961. The armed forces of this nation stood ready for what might have been the final conflagration as the John F. Kennedy administration stared down Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines fought a long and bitter war against communist insurgents and North Vietnamese aggression in Indochina in the 1960s and into the 1970s.2 In the 1980s, Washington supported resistance forces in Nicaragua and Afghanistan while standing by our traditional allies in NATO and our friends in the Middle East. All of this was done under the rubric of containment with one goal in mind: to stop the spread of Soviet communism. The Cold War was America's third most costly war; 100,000 Americans gave their lives in this effort.

Ultimately, we prevailed. Not only was Soviet communism contained, but Germany and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe were freed from the yoke of communism. Today freedom is growing in these countries and, however delicately and precariously, growing in a democratic Russia.

Throughout this 40-year conflict, our Army trained and prepared for global war against the Soviet Union. Army doctrine, organizations, and equipment reflected this reality. Physically and psychologically the Army was oriented to our biggest threat–a Soviet and Warsaw Pact attack into Western Europe. By November of 1989, the Army had 28 Divisions, 18 in the Active Component and 10 in the Reserves. Of these, 24 were committed, in one way or another, to fighting a war in Europe. The others were apportioned to the fight in other theaters against the Soviets or their surrogates and allies. Thus in November of 1989, after years of preparation for a war that never happened–precisely because we were prepared for it–we found ourselves the victors in Europe and the heirs to a new strategic environment which we are just now beginning to understand.

Today, as we articulate a vision for the Army of the 21st century, Force XXI, rapid technological developments in information management and processing are ushering in what many believe to be the beginning of a post-industrial age; the Information Age. The microprocessor is revolutionizing the way that we live our lives as individuals, the way that society functions, and the way that we are likely to fight our future wars. Just as coal and steam, and petroleum and electricity made possible the mass production of goods and the emergence of industrial society by supplementing muscle power with machine power, the microprocessor is revolutionizing industrial society today by supplementing brain power with the near instantaneous power of electronic computation. The results are already apparent. Electronic banking, barcode scanning, personal organizers, cellular car phones, telephones and modems on airline seats, electronic town hall meetings, and teleconferencing are among the developments that mark new ways in which people work, govern, transact business, and teach. These powerful developments are leading society toward an uncertain but interesting future; a future which it is just beginning to explore. These same forces acting on society are acting on our Army as well.

As exciting as all this may be, interesting times are difficult times precisely because, unlike more stable periods, the very uncertainty and turbulence that makes these periods interesting also makes planning for the future very difficult. Assumptions are less secure, objectives less well defined, and the future utility of current means decidedly less certain. By themselves, either the collapse of the Cold War strategic paradigm, or the coming of the Information Age would have presented the Army with a formidable task. As we contemplate not only new missions but also new means, these events present us with both an unprecedented challenge and an unparalleled opportunity.

The two previous monographs in this series, War in the Information Age and Land Warfare in the 21st Century, aimed at identifying in general terms what future war and land combat in this new environment is likely to portend. We are continuing to gain insights into the conduct of operations in this new environment. As we have conducted additional military operations, continued to think about the challenges facing us, and engaged in experimentation to test our ideas, several areas where we believe the future will differ most from the past have come into focus. This monograph will provide insights into three critical areas: the operational environment; the emergence of simultaneity as the unifying concept in Information Age warfare; and, changes in the planning environment. The intent of this discussion is to further the dialogue necessary for moving our profession into the 21st century.

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