Military Forum ｜ Analyzing the Information Power of Modern War

● Support perception, enhance decision-making, penetrate command, empower lethality.

Analyzing the Information Power of Modern War

■ Yang Cunyin

introduction

Information power is supported by network, data, algorithm, computing power, etc., and the main line is to quickly form a closed loop of network information system. In modern warfare, it constantly promotes the quantitative and qualitative changes in perception, decision-making, accusation and other links, and has become the core driving force for the generation of joint combat system capabilities, continuously pushing the war form to a higher level.

Information power supports perception

At present, the development of information acquisition, processing and other technical means is promoting the change of battlefield perception from automation to autonomy, from monomer to coordination, and from center to distribution, which makes the period of combat system from "feeling" to "knowledge" continuously shortened and the judgment from "state" to "potential" continuously accelerated.

Perception is developing to multi-type sounding. With the expansion of combat space to global multi-dimensions, multiple battlefield information is intertwined and superimposed in modern warfare, and it is difficult to ensure the timeliness, integrity and accuracy of perceived information by a single sensing means. In order to adapt to the future battlefield development trend, it is necessary to construct and develop a multi-antenna and multi-modality battlefield perception system by comprehensively using various means such as network perception, electromagnetic spectrum perception and cognitive perception, so as to cover multi-dimensional battlefield spaces such as physical domain, information domain and cognitive domain, so as to achieve three-dimensional and full-spectrum battlefield situation perception.

Perception evolves to real-time perspective. In the future, the battlefield environment will become more and more complex and changeable, and the OODA cycle will be greatly compressed. It is an inevitable requirement to win the operational initiative to strive for time advantage and action speed and to change the offensive and defensive posture sensitively. The real-time change of battlefield situation urgently needs to develop holographic and visual perception means. Foreign troops believe that only when the future battlefield has near-real-time sensitive intelligence refresh rate and sharing degree can it effectively support the discovery, location, identification and crackdown on "time-sensitive targets".

Perception upgrades to intelligent supercomputing. In modern warfare, the volume of battlefield information increases exponentially. Only by accelerating the upgrading of perception ability to intelligence can the phenomenon of "data annihilation" be effectively prevented. Computing power is the basis of improving perception, and improving computing power can improve battlefield perception computing ability. Algorithm is the core of improving perception, and the improved algorithm can promote the intelligent upgrade of perception means. Examples are the fuel to improve perception. Adding examples is helpful to improve the self-learning, self-adaptation and self-optimization ability of the perception system, so as to realize rapid and efficient identification, analysis and processing of massive data, thus achieving faster time consumption and more accurate perception of the situation than opponents.

Perception is advanced to efficient overall planning. In modern warfare, due to the huge amount and variety of battlefield information and the disorderly construction of perception means, it is easy to make repeated and inefficient use of information. Facing the future battlefield, it is urgent to break down the system barrier, and unify the planning, system layout and overall construction from the all-dimensional overall situation, so as to promote the transformation of the perception system from disorder to order, the perception environment from closed to open, and the perception state from intermittent to continuous, so as to obtain the dynamic information of high-value targets in the battlefield in a wider range with higher accuracy and less delay.

Information power enhances decision-making power

The rapid development and wide application of information technologies such as big data and cloud computing are pushing the decision-making mode and method to undergo profound changes as never before. The traditional decision-making mode based on intuition and experience will gradually change to the decision-making mode based on data, which has become a new trend that will affect the victory in the future battlefield.

Information interaction and integration support the realization of global decision-making. Under the traditional combat mode, all kinds of command organizations at all levels are like "islands" of information processing, and it is difficult to share decision-making information in time, and it is difficult for commanders to reach a deep consensus in a short time. Under the support of the network information system, information interaction, integration and high-speed circulation have become the norm. Commanders and command elements at all levels simultaneously obtain decision-making information and conduct decision-making activities to support the realization of global decision-making. In future battlefield operational decision-making, commanders need to make comprehensive judgments and decisions by using relevant information to imagine operational scenarios, building a planning view based on comprehensive information, integrating data information in various fields such as intelligence, accusation, strike and support, and observing the situation of multi-domain information.

Information reveals the law and supports the realization of ad hoc decision-making War is a field full of "probability", certainty and uncertainty interweave on the battlefield, and all kinds of uncertain events are more common. According to information theory, information can significantly reduce uncertainty. In the future battlefield, by accumulating historical data information, mining and summarizing the regular knowledge from it, and quickly capturing and identifying the key information of precursors and trends, it will help to do a good job in forecasting and analyzing, improve all kinds of unexpected scene ideas and emergency response plans, and effectively improve the ability to cope with uncertain events in the battlefield.

Convenient information flow, support to achieve rapid decision-making. In the future war, all kinds of new fast killing weapons will further push the pace of war to "seconds kill", and "discover and destroy" will become a reality. Accelerating the circulation rate and refresh frequency of operational information, and then supporting rapid decision-making has become an urgent need in the battlefield. Under the blessing of "intelligent cloud Brain+Wisdom System", commanders converge information with network thinking, manage information with matrix method and use information with simple concept, so that information flows quickly and efficiently, and rapid decision-making will become possible, and command and decision-making will no longer be the "stuck" link in the closed loop of the killing chain.

Equal sharing of information supports scientific decision-making. In the future battlefield, with the support of the network information system, command organizations at all levels can obtain decision-making information synchronously, and commanders at all levels have more effective information. On this basis, giving play to military democratic collective decision-making can make up for the cognitive limitations of individual decision-makers and avoid information blind spots. In addition, we can give full play to the complementary advantages of human brain and machine, establish an efficient and intelligent man-machine collaborative command and decision-making system, innovate decision-making methods, and improve the scientific decision-making level.

Information power runs through accusation power.

The formation of accusation is highly dependent on information. Information determines the object, timeliness and scope of command, and the automatic, real-time and accurate flow of information can support the formation of a polymorphic and flexible command and control structure.

Control section based on time information. In the information age, the value of military time is increasing, and timeliness is an important evaluation index of battlefield accusation. In the future war, we will be in a state of standing command, and accurately control the daily combat readiness and duty tasks with a "day" large granularity cycle to ensure the normal and stable operation of combat mission troops and weapon platforms. In the state of crisis command, the crisis events with great influence and wide coverage should be properly handled according to the principle of reducing influence and controlling in time. In wartime command state, the operational command link is constructed with a small granularity cycle of "second" level, which realizes synchronous judgment, evaluation and decision-making, and effectively shortens the command cycle.

Domain control based on entity information. No matter how the war forms evolve, the physical domain will be the basic space for the confrontation of military forces. In the future information-based and intelligent war, the physical domain is not only a wrestling field for the application of tangible energy such as machinery and chemistry, but also an arena for the application of energy by intangible forces such as information and cognition. Taking control of key domains based on physical information is still an important choice to achieve military goals. For example, facing the land battlefield, the key is to control the border. By gathering important information such as the geographical space, electromagnetic environment, troop deployment, social conditions and people’s feelings along the border, we can control the border of the battlefield, the perception of the battlefield environment, and the deployment of important positions, so as to control the border and control the surface.

Network control based on virtual information. Judging from recent local wars and regional conflicts, virtual space plays an increasingly prominent role in expanding information acquisition channels, winning public opinion advantages and supporting combat operations. It is not difficult to predict that cyberspace will become a new highland for both sides of the war. Therefore, we should pay attention to the control of military cyberspace, vigorously strengthen the construction of military cyberspace situational awareness, monitoring and early warning, traceability and counter-measures, and improve the security baseline of military cyberspace. For example, improve the ability of topic setting and narrative construction, so as to firmly grasp the right to speak and the initiative of the Internet social networking platform.

Brain control based on cognitive information. "Use the way of fighting, attack the heart for the top and attack the city for the bottom". By comprehensively using multiple cognitive information and influencing means such as thought, public opinion, psychology, etc., seizing the dominant position in the cognitive domain can influence the enemy’s decision-making and behavior, and achieve maximum operational effectiveness at the least cost. In the future battlefield, it is urgent to strengthen propaganda, interpretation and ideological guidance, break cognitive infiltration in early warning, strengthen our own psychological defense line and shape our favorable cognitive situation. It is necessary to unite people’s hearts with positive information, rely on various information dissemination platforms, strengthen positive information propaganda, screen and filter negative public opinions, and guide people to support and identify, thus stimulating people’s will to fight.

Information power empowers lethality

In the future war, information flow will dominate material flow and energy flow. To win a war, we should give full play to the role of information in promoting coordination, break through the constraints of the domain of operational elements, the qualitative domain of operational forces and the domain of operational actions, and build a kill loop agilely, so as to realize the transformation of operational actions into task-based autonomous coordination, and thus achieve the rapid convergence of heterogeneous operational energy.

Accurate description of information, empowering killing elements. With all kinds of information systems and intelligent platforms being embedded in weapons and equipment, the killing efficiency of combat units is increasing exponentially. In the future war, through the intelligent analysis and processing of massive battlefield information, the target can be accurately selected, the firepower energy can be accurately released, and the cost-effectiveness ratio can be greatly improved. In terms of speed efficiency and quick release of energy, through the rapid flow of information, automatic target identification, intelligent path decision-making and accurate effect evaluation are completed, so as to achieve the suddenness of combat operations and realize the discovery of all kinds of time-sensitive targets.

Heterogeneous hinge of information, empowering killing chain. Thanks to the permeability and connectivity of network information technology, all kinds of battlefield information can be coupled, which drives the construction and operation mode of kill chain to be iteratively upgraded, thus providing the possibility for implementing precise operations. Accurately empowering the point-to-point unidirectional killing chain, based on the pre-constructed "sense-strike" information link, can realize the unidirectional precise killing of small-scale and single-platform systems. One-to-many radiation kill chain, with high-end and high-value combat platform as the core, gathers the combat forces, combat units and combat elements related to the battlefield space, forms a central radiation kill chain structure, and realizes multi-platform and multi-system parallel killing in the same direction.

Information is interconnected and overlapping, empowering the killing network. With the increasing mobility of information in the combat system, the "connectability" of kill chain elements has also been greatly improved, and the original single-type kill chain information flow is developing towards a complex and multi-dimensional structure. The star-shaped killing net built around the core weapon platform and combat unit can be dynamically changed based on the real-time adjustment of combat tasks. Relying on all kinds of intelligent "transformed" combat resources deployed in a wide area and flexibly interconnected, a self-organizing, adaptive and self-recovery killing net can be dynamically built as needed, which can meet the needs of decentralized distributed operations and better adapt to the future battlefield.

Information is ubiquitous in a wide area, empowering the killer. In the future war, with the support of swarm intelligence, the combat system will break the previous preset static killing chain construction mode and construct dynamic relationships such as coupling, interaction, parallelism and synchronization. The killing chain structure will expand from chain and network to more complex higher-order topological architecture, which will also bring profound changes to the combat system. From attacking the platform to attacking the elements, we will promote the transformation of the operational focus from attacking the operational platform and eliminating the effective forces to attacking key elements and paralyzing the hub nodes. From attacking elements to attacking systems, in view of the fact that it is difficult to achieve operational results by destroying a single element, we strive to select the targets and means of attack from the perspective of functional damage to the enemy system in order to suppress the enemy system. From hitting the system to hitting the system, select the right system to break the paralyzed hinge joints, and comprehensively use various means such as breaking the net, breaking the chain and hitting the point to interfere, delay, destroy, weaken or even paralyze the effective operation of the opposing combat system, thus causing the enemy combat system to collapse.