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Admiral Pushes Network Centric Warfare
Norman Polmar | June 28, 2007
“Network centric warfare,” a  term that was in vogue a few years ago, has been rehabilitated by Admiral Gary Roughead, recently appointed to the important position of Commander, Fleet Forces Command, i.e., head of the Navy’s Atlantic and Pacific ship and air type commanders.

Admiral Roughead spoke at a three-day conference in Virginia Beach on 19-21 June, sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). Roughead took over the Fleet Forces Command on 17 May. 

He said that U.S. warships need improved capabilities to detect contacts, process data, and distribute the information to other platforms. In an address at the “transformation warfare” conference, Admiral Roughead expressed concern that the fleet needs a better picture of what other ships and aircraft are at sea as well as in the underwater dimension.

“Our strike groups are challenged in persistent surveillance today. And in 2010, I believe that we’re going to be suffering even more so in the area of persistent surveillance,” he said. “Maritime domain awareness is where it all begins. We cannot conduct the operations that we must if we don’t have a good sense of what’s out there, moving on, above or under the sea.”

Admiral Roughead continued, “We must take into account a network approach that goes from the sensor to the network to the weapons platform to the weapon itself and the decisions we make in each one of those must be integrated,” he said. “The war will be won and lost on the initial battles that take place on that network battleground. That is something that we must all be mindful of and ask ourselves the question, ‘Are we prepared to fight in that environment?’”

He also said the latest in low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles, target recognition, and anomaly detection systems are needed for the future fleet.

“We have some tremendous opportunities ahead of us. We have some great technologies there,” he said. “But I would submit that we have to maintain the focus on the war fighter and also look at how we come at the network solutions that are going to be so much a part of our future.”

Some observers believe that Admiral Roughead is the most probable candidate to succeed Admiral Mike Mullen as Chief of Naval Operations. Mullen has been proposed as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Roughead previously served as Commander U.S. Pacific Fleet and before that Deputy Commander U.S. Pacific Command. Before that he held major positions in the Atlantic Fleet.

Like Admiral Mullen , Admiral Roughead is a surface warfare specialist.

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Copyright 2008 Norman Polmar. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

  
About Norman Polmar

NORMAN POLMAR has been a consultant to several senior officials in the Navy and Department of Defense, and has directed several studies for U.S. and foreign shipbuilding and aerospace firms. Mr. Polmar has been a consultant to the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Mr. Polmar also served as a consultant to three U.S. Senators and to two members of the House of Representatives, as a consultant or advisor to three Secretaries of the Navy and two Chiefs of Naval Operations, and as a consultant to the Deputy Counselor to President Reagan.
           
Mr. Polmar has written or coauthored more than 40 books and numerous articles on naval, intelligence, and aviation subjects.  His comparative analysis of U.S. and Soviet submarine design and construction, COLD WAR SUBMARINES, written in collaboration with Mr. Kenneth J. Moore and the Russian submarine design bureaus RUBIN and MALACHITE, was published in late 2003.

For the past three decades he has been author of the reference books Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and Guide to the Soviet Navy.  

Mr. Polmar’s articles and comments appear frequently in various newspapers and periodicals and he is a columnist for the Proceedings and Naval History magazines, both published by the U.S. Naval Institute.

From 1967 to 1977 Mr. Polmar was editor of the United States and several other sections of the annual Jane's Fighting Ships.

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