The current "airland battle" military doctrine is characterized by four key ingredients depth, initiative, agility, and synchronization. The term synchronization implies bringing to bear, at one time and place, the combined power of maneuver, artillery, air, deception, and other systems to strike the enemy repeatedly with an impact that exceeds the sum of all the parts. Throughout military history, in general, synchronization has been achieved through centralized command, control, and communication ( C 3), i.e., one where all intelligence is collected and decisions generated at a centralized, sequentially executing entity. While the military synchronization is laid down by a higher command and must be obeyed, the lower-level units are granted military initiative as to how to achieve the requirements of synchronization. However, at any given level in the military hierarchy, the synchronization requirement is logically inconsistent with the three other directives, particularly initiative. Evidence from World War II and Operations Just Cause and Desert Storm indicate that excessive synchronization, realized through centralized C 3, may have caused (1) unnecessary mission failure, (2) fratricide, and (3) failure to take advantage of the maximal distributed and concurrent intelligence from the different combat units.
This section presents a novel asynchronous, decentralized decision-making algorithm for military command and control. Unlike centralized command and control, in the proposed approach, all entities infantry, tanks, and aircraft of the system are granted significant autonomy, subject to strict guidelines and directives, and are provided with...
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