Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter through Three World Wars

Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter through Three World Wars. By Norman Friedman. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59114-286-7. Illustrations. List of acronyms. Notes. Index. Pp. xv, 360. $32.95.

Focusing on the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy- leaders in innovation and experimentation and standard setters in network-centric warfare- Norman Friedman suggests that navies have learned to fight smarter using network-centric systems, but only when using them effectively. British and American efforts to do so, particularly post-1945, make up the bulk of this book. The efforts of other navies, especiaUy European and Japanese, are also discussed, as are Soviet efforts during the Cold War.

At the outset Friedman sets himself the task of demystifying the arcane subject of network-centric warfare, going about it with common sense language and iUuminating historical examples. Network-centric warfare, he maintains, is more easily grasped if viewed as picture-centric. It is a new form of warfare relying on coordination of information from diverse sources to provide a more-or-less realtime picture on which tactical and wide area command and control decisions can be based. Success...