Preparing the Instantaneous Battlespace: A Cultural Examination of Network-Centric Warfare

Abstract

The aftermath of the Cold War signalled a revision in the global position of the United States and a new emphasis on the country’s status as a military superpower. Liberated from the stand-off between rivals that existed with the Soviet Union, the United States military has been able to greatly expand its scope of operational theories and aspire toward global dominance, using such programs as the Air Force’s Global Reach, Global Strike, The Navy’s Aegis Program and the Department of Defense, Joint Vision 20/20 Full Spectrum Dominance. Each of these examples suggests the expansion of the battlefield to well beyond what had been understood as the limits of military ambition. By exploiting the strategic capabilities of information based technologies, military thinking has been reoriented in a number of fundamental ways, all of which are associated with the doctrinal conceptualization of the Revolution in Military Affairs and the development of Network-Centric Warfare. Despite a change in presidential administrations, the tendency to globalize the battlespace prevails.