.Network-centric warfare.

Byline: Mubeen Ashraf

The technological advancements and innovations have fast-tracked after the 1970s. These advancements not only took place in the defence and aerospace departments but have also fuelled developments in the civilian sector and vice versa. These innovations have drastically changed the world and are supported by examples such as cassette tapes being transformed to CDs and DVDs, fixed telephones to mobile phones and later to smartphones along with many other examples in line. In the same way, the military also expanded its canvas: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), driverless vehicles, Wearable technologies, Internet of Things (IoT) and most importantly Cyber technology. The way the internet was widely adopted for several major tasks in every sector portrayed that major technological advancements were incomplete without the use of the internet. Realising the importance of the internet in different tasks eventually gave birth to a new concept called Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) or Network-Centric Operations (NCO). This is a military doctrine initiated in the 1990s by the United States Department of Defence (DoD). According to RAND, NCW is the linking of platforms into one shared awareness network in order to obtain information superiority, get inside the opponent's decision cycle, and end the conflict quickly. This means that by the advent of NCW, one can exchange information, create situational awareness and can also help in making quick decisions in a short span and with that it makes them able to take quick actions in response to any attack.

Now that certain important innovations have managed to spread their wings worldwide. The new paradigm as mentioned earlier not only helped in data collection and its transmission but also the extraction of useful information for Intelligence purpose is made easy and trendy. Not only this but the decision making, and dissemination of information were all relied upon this newly emerged concept known as network-centric warfare, by using advanced weaponry which was appropriate in the respective platforms. NCW was required for the tight integration and networking of different sensors, command, and control (C2), failsafe transverse communication media and in the tactical units as well as platforms such as air, naval and land, quite akin to Metcalfe's Law, which is applicable to any network. This networking is required to achieve certain important information such as situational awareness in...