CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

his chapter introduces the basic concepts associated with power to the edge, an inher- ently Information Age approach to organization. When power to the edge concepts are applied to command and control and its sup- porting infostructure,1 _{military organizations} will be able to overcome the shortcomings of their Industrial Age predecessors and develop the interoperability and agility necessary for suc- cess. We begin by looking at what constitutes

power in an organization and how power is dis- tributed in traditional hierarchies. The concept of the edge of an organization is introduced and related to an organization’s topology of power. With both power and the edge defined in the con- text of military organizations, the basic building blocks for a new approach to military command and control, suitable for the challenges of the 21st century, will have been introduced.

P

The word power has one of the longest definitions in the dictio- nary.2 _{This is because power has an instantiation in many} domains. Power has meaning in the physical, information, social, political, economic, and, of course, the military domains. Power is a concept that applies to people, teams, organizations, coalitions, countries, machines, and objects of wealth such as fuels and information.

In physics, power is about moving objects. In electricity, power is about moving current. In the social and political domains, power is about influence. Power in economics involves wealth creation, while in the military domain it often involves selec- tive destruction. All concepts of power involve the extent of an accomplishment in the face of some measure of resistance. Power has also been defined as “the ability to influence others to believe, behave, or to value as those in power desire.”3 Power, in the social domain, is a force that allows those “in power” to organize and motivate others to accomplish desired tasks. In organizations, individuals or groups of individuals manifest many different aspects of power, including the power to influence, to organize, to reward, and to accomplish a task. To first order, power is the ability to make something happen. The amount of power is expressed as a vector. Its components include (1) the magnitude of the accomplishment, (2) the amount of opposition, and (3) the time required.

Power derives from a number of different sources. These include wealth, expertise, delegation (e.g., the power of elected representatives) and, of course, information.

Exercising power requires two fundamental prerequisites: means and opportunity. Available means are not necessarily available for everyone in an organization. In fact, functional specialization is the distribution of means. Access to means is usually the result of an allocation of resources. Often the means required involve an orchestration of multiple individu- als and/or organizations. In the case of information, it is access that needs to be provided. Information from multiple sources and/or analyses involving multiple perspectives and/ or expertise is often required. Opportunity is a function of (1) the authority to act and (2) circumstances. Circumstances often involve opportunities that are fleeting and one must be able to act individually or in concert with others by a given point in time. Power is therefore something that can, in part, be delegated.

The way that an organization exercises power, indeed the power of an organization, depends as much upon the way it is organized as the totality of its means and the information that is available.

Military Power in the Industrial Age

Military platforms have come to symbolize military power. This Industrial Age association persists despite the fact that the relative value of platforms is rapidly diminishing. The NCW Report to Congress concluded that, “in the future, the net- work will be the single most important contributor to combat power.”4 _{This conclusion follows from both the fundamental} changes that are associated with the ongoing Revolutions in Security Affairs (RSA) and Military Affairs (RMA).5

The RSA means that there will be fewer occasions when the ability to kill large numbers of people or cause massive destruction will be useful, particularly when there is significant collateral damage. However, it will always be important to be able to apply force with precision to destroy or disable an adversary capability and disrupt that adversary’s plans. In addition, there will be a host of capabilities that have nothing to do with kinetic force that will be needed to conduct military operations. Our current symbols of power are platforms, which are large, costly affairs, optimized for firepower, surviv- ability, and maneuverability and designed to attrit the capabilities of a symmetric adversary. They are also very blunt instruments. Their effects can be quite indiscriminate, making them politically unusable in many situations. Being large and being manned also makes it important that they there are well protected. This creates a large footprint and increases the risks involved. This also sometimes makes us reluctant to employ them in situations where (a) they are at risk or (b) collateral damage is expected to undermine our efforts. In other situa- tions, it dictates that we must first act to significantly reduce the risks by “preparing the battlefield.” For example, in order to reduce the risk associated with using certain air assets, we conduct SEAD6 _{missions. This takes time and involves some} expenditure, and also results in some lost opportunities. These facts have not escaped the attention of our adversaries. The net result is that over time we can expect that the value of these Industrial Age artifacts will continue to diminish.

Platforms in the Information Age

Fortunately, both the purpose and the physical attributes of platforms are already in the early stages of a profound trans-

formation. These platforms once relied solely upon their organic information assets. Today, they increasingly rely heavily on the network for targeting priorities and informa- tion. In Gulf War I (1991), target assignments for planes were made in advance of takeoff. In Gulf War II (2003), many planes received their target information “just in time.” This increases agility.

In the future, platforms will evolve from being networked enti- ties to being nodes in the network, to organizing efforts resembling “packs”7 _{and “swarms.” This transformation will} be so complete that the packs and swarms that evolve from existing platforms will bear no resemblance to their distant (in generations, not time) predecessors. Hence, in the process, the very notion of a platform will evaporate; their raison d’etre will be satisfied by a new approach as a result of a series of trans- formations consisting of ever-larger numbers of smaller, dumber, and cheaper components. These collections of enti- ties will ultimately become dynamically reconfigurable packs, swarms, or other organizations of highly specialized compo- nents that work together like the cells of our bodies. As such, they will be able to be far more discriminating and precise in the effects they cause. They will become less mechanical and more organic, less engineered and more “grown.”

For years now, the symbolic value of platforms has served to divert our attention from a much-needed fundamental re- examination of power in military organizations. NCW is a break with this Industrial Age past. In asserting the fundamen- tal power of the network rather than its constituent nodes, NCW began a re-examination of the concept of power in mili- tary organizations. Early manifestations of NCW capabilities have marked the beginning of power moving to the edge,

which is necessary for NCW to become fully mature. Thus,

power to the edge is the principle that needs to be applied to enable NCW to reach its full potential.

New Means and New Opportunities

The power (firepower) that has been associated with platforms is an expression of means, while its maneuverability has been an expression of opportunity. Until very recently, consider- ation of both was limited mainly to the physical domain. However, power has meaning in each of the other three domains (information, cognitive, and social) of the NCW Con- ceptual Framework. Figure 23 identifies the sources of power and maps them to the four domains.