Enabling third offset with networking.

• Author: Louisell, Chuck
• Position: Viewpoint

The forces that shape U.S. national defense strategy have never been more distributed, dynamic, diverse and interactive.

They are distributed because of the changing international landscape in which traditionally stable nations are under stress and rogue nations are emboldened; dynamic because of the reduction in connection between borders and ideology and the increasing mobility and influence of non-state actors; diverse because the range of strategically significant events has expanded to include competitive acts such as cyber interference; and interactive because competitors and adversaries are increasingly acting in concert, generating compounding and potentially cascading negative effects.

The sum of these forces results in an increasing level of global instability that defines a new strategic landscape.

This emerging picture is dramatically different from the one that existed in the era that shaped the "second offset strategy," which capitalized on adaptive conventional force capabilities enhanced by stealth, intelligence and precision. The view at that time was that these force characteristics would provide the strategic reach, the operational agility and the tactical superiority required to address the expanding range of military operations that included competitors and adversaries acting either symmetrically or asymmetrically.

In the early 21st century, the legacy view of the range of operations was blurred as traditionally symmetric competitors and adversaries elected to operate increasingly asymmetrically. In the case of Iraq, the adversary shifted from uniformed, professional forces to operating on a mechanized battlefield to irregular forces that dispersed into difficult terrain and complex urban environments.

Technology enabled a response as unmanned aerial systems and integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance evolved in real time in the battlespace. Adaptations included deploying systems such as the family of UASs seen today, developing a new approach to processing, exploiting and disseminating finished intelligence, and deploying network environments to support a highly interactive command-and-control environment.

The networks supported interaction between defined groups of participants, addressing the emerging battlespace needs. They were the precursor to the emerging connected battlespace.

More recently, the rapidly evolving international environment, to include the reemergence of traditional adversaries...