NETWORK AND DATA POLICY CONSIDERATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE NETWORK CENTRIC OPERATIONS

The US military is undertaking an unprecedented transformation as a result of its adoption of a network centric operational philosophy. This transformation maximizes the military’s reliance upon data superiority and decision superiority, but we have yet to develop the doctrine, systems, and data insights needed to fully exploit the physical capabilities for communication being developed. To redress the problem of translating human formulated policies into machine-actionable policies that maximize the use of network and computational resources, we must understand how to translate doctrine and policy into network and computational management policies. These network and computational management policies address implementation of network-centric operational needs and, these network and computational management policies are the only mechanisms available to commanders for insuring that the right data reaches the right user at the right time. The research that we report addresses the policy issues highlighted above and is intended begin the process of uncovering the requirements for network and data policy, exploring the effects of decision-making data demands on network and data policies, and examining the effect of network and data policy on the efficiency of network-enabled operations. 1. Introduction* The US military is undertaking a