Aerospace and Defense eNewsletter
Volume 6 Issue 1 - March 2006
Information and Decision Superiority: Transformation: Knowledge Workers Don't Grow on Trees
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Information superiority is now and always has been among the warfighter’s chief requirements for achieving success on the battlefield. For as long as armies have pursued one another, commanders have sought advantages in information that would help them understand the adversary, evaluate the situation, decide on a course of action, execute that decision, and assess its effect. Information superiority enables superior knowledge that, along with the correct tools and proper command and control, creates decision superiority—the ability to make better decisions at any time, in any place, and to disable the enemy’s ability to do so.
Joint Vision 2020 is a statement that was issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2000 as a guide for U.S. military transformation to attain global full-spectrum dominance, information and decision superiority being fundamental enablers of that goal. The document defines how U.S. forces will use information technology to support every facet of military action. As U.S. armed forces have moved along the continuum of transformation, numerous other documents, including most recently the Quandrennial Defense Review of February 6, 2006, have detailed their progress and laid out plans for the future. Especially after September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff have fought to accelerate transformation initiatives.
A primary asset in the government’s realization of this transformation is the knowledge worker. The information environment is swiftly evolving, and the joint forces must focus on developing human talent that can operate effectively in those circumstances. The success of the Joint Chiefs’ vision relies on accurate evaluation of the context into which the U.S. armed forces will be deployed, and that ability requires the nurturance of a large team of people who can successfully take advantage of technology even as it continues to change at their fingertips.
Because of the rapid worldwide flow of information, adversaries have access to much of the same information, and in much the same manner, as the United States does. Those who cannot match our level of technology adapt and engineer asymmetrical approaches. They seek out our vulnerabilities and develop techniques to exploit them. In order to prevail over these adversaries, tomorrow’s advantage must come from exacting selection of talent, enhanced training, and fostering of leaders who can use many modes of technology for singular warfare readiness.
The knowledge worker of the year 2020 will have a wide-ranging set of traits. Mental agility will be the first prerequisite in a skill set for analysis, synthesis, and application of knowledge. The knowledge worker must be adept at self-direction, eager to think in new ways, and comfortable with ambiguity and change. As a member of the U.S. military, the knowledge worker will be able to balance dedication to the unit with independent thought and innovation.
As the baby-boomers begin to retire in large numbers, the first of them turning 60 this year, they will pass on some of their expertise and experience, leaving the future to the millennial generation. Millennials are a smaller cohort whose world is shaped by the Internet, whose comfort with technology is inborn, and who are infinitely limber in adapting to the novel. They will, however, present a challenge to recruiters. Fewer of these young people, compared with generations of the past, show an interest in military careers. Civilian education and employment opportunities hold great appeal and draw down the number of candidates for service.
The transformation process offers strategies to remedy the anticipated shortfall in recruitment of knowledge workers. It proposes a more powerful focus on competitive compensation packages for active-duty personnel and reservists to attract higher numbers of desirable candidates to careers in the U.S. military. Recognizing that it may take too much time to cultivate the necessary force in-house, the office of the JCS is also developing broader reach-back networks of non-active-duty personnel and non-military experts who are willing to work with the military.
Recent statistics show that the available pool of specialists drawn from the U.S. population will continue to diminish as fewer U.S. college students pursue degrees in science and engineering. Other countries, such as China and India, see much higher rates of graduation in S&E. Globally, the competition for S&E talent is intensifying. Although at present a quarter of U.S. scientists are foreign born, other countries are doing their utmost to tempt highly qualified researchers back to their shores. Only about half of foreign born students at U.S. universities will stay to work here. Studies also show that fewer men than women are completing their studies and graduating from U.S. colleges, and that too will affect the composition of the military’s reach-back networks of experts.
Knowledge workers are the human component on which the success of the plan for transformation depends. These men and women will design, build, and operate architectures of information that will underpin every aspect of military operation in the future. As the United States moves forward into a century of uncertainty, its teams of knowledge workers will gather, process, and deliver the information product that will assure its information and decision superiority.
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