Battle of Cognition
The Future Information-Rich Warfare and the Mind of the Commander
- 272 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
What if the true weak link of the Information Age force is not the hardware of machines, but the software of the human mind? And if so, could it be that the entire conceptual structure of the Information Revolution theorists, at least as it applies to military affairs, is built on sand, on the notorious fickleness of human cognition? These are the questions this book strives to examine. Looking at the command and control of information-rich warfare, the contributors explore its potential new processes, techniques, and organizational structures. As they do so, they find reasons for both optimism and concerns about the limitations of human cognition and supporting technologies in commanding battles in the Information Age. Since the beginning of the Information Revolution, the military in the United States and elsewhere has been analyzing and implementing the changes driven by the rapidly advancing information technologies. Among military theorists and practitioners, many focus on the Information Revolution's impact on matters of military equipment. Far fewer, however, seem to worry about the gray matter—the mind of the commander, the place where all the information power of the new age is supposed to converge and to yield its mighty dividends. Consider that it is the human mind, particularly the minds of military commanders and their staffs that remain the pinnacle and the ultimate consumer of the rapidly growing information flows. What if the true weak link of the Information Age force is not the hardware of machines, but the software of the human mind? And if so, could it be that the entire conceptual structure of the Information Revolution theorists, at least as it applies to military affairs, is built on sand, on the notorious fickleness of human cognition? These are the questions this book strives to examine. Looking at the command and control of information-rich warfare, the authors explore its potential new processes, techniques, and organizational structures. As they do so, they find reasons for both optimism and concerns about the limitations of human cognition and supporting technologies in commanding Information Age battles.
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Table of contents
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 Variables and Constants: How the Battle Command of Tomorrow Will Differ (or Not) from Today's
- 2 A Journey into the Mind of Command: How DARPA and the Army Experimented with Command in Future Warfare
- 3 New Tools of Command: A Detailed Look at the Technology That Helps Manage the Fog of War
- 4 Situation Awareness: A Key Cognitive Factor in Effectiveness of Battle Command
- 5 The Hunt for Clues: How to Collect and Analyze Situation Awareness Data
- 6 Making Sense of the Battlefield: Even with Powerful Tools, the Task Remains Difficult
- 7 Enabling Collaboration: Realizing the Collaborative Potential of Network-Enabled Command
- 8 The Time to Decide: How Awareness and Collaboration Affect the Command Decision Making
- Concluding Thoughts
- Appendix: Terms, Acronyms, and Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index
- About the Contributors