Warfare will increasingly involve orchestrating cooperative efforts.
We all have frames of reference that describe our work, abstract boxes that are useful for defining and ordering our activities. The notion of thinking outside the box has also come to be valued. But if we think across the boxes, this concept can serve as a guiding principle for individuals as well as for entire organizations that operate within larger entities.
Networks and data are at our fingertips in this information age, and the means to coordinate are continually improving. We now see most events as occurring as part of a continuum, and we are increasingly aware of connections between them. Collective or "holistic" approaches to problems are widespread, as are attempts to understand the impact and linkage of tactical actions on operational and strategic levels. For all these reasons, our approach to most organizational challenges should now accommodate the horizontal-as a routine matter. We need flat grids so that information flow reaches many nodes simultaneously.
The Maritime Strategy: A Horizontal Approach
Signed in October 2007 by the Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Commandant of the Coast Guard, the new maritime strategy (the first to be issued by all three leaders of our maritime forces) opens with what is essentially a call for increasing horizontal coordination. "This strategy stresses an approach that integrates seapower with other elements of national power, as well as those of our friends and allies."
The six core capabilities outlined are forward presence, deterrence, sea control, power projection, maritime security, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response. This expanded set of capabilities seeks to build security and prevent war, in addition to fighting and winning wars when necessary. From authorship to content and intended execution, the 2007 strategy consistently advocates an across-the-boxes approach.
The 2006 standup of the Naval Mine and Antisubmarine Warfare Command as a warfare center of excellence is another example of movement in the right direction. Its mission is to fully integrate ASW and mine warfare specialties into a single, consolidated warfighting center. During the previous century, these warfare areas were viewed as discrete entities to be treated uniquely. This was a logical boundary at the time. But in the 21st century, acknowledging commonalties between disciplines (the physics of acoustic search and the sea environment) and the technological advances that have brought the threats more closely together (smaller, quieter submarines and mines that act more like submarines) fuses them into undersea warfare.
The approach meets common challenges by adapting, and the warfare center's charter reflects this. Within the disciplines, we also see newer ways of defining the mission. There are both phases and multiple threads in these warfare areas, as there are in any campaign. Because they are both complementary and sequential, a horizontal definition of the mission and ways to meet its challenges is appropriate.
Irregular Warfare, N2 and N6
The CNO's establishment of an Irregular Warfare Office operating astride the N2, N3-5, N6, and N8 organizations is a prime illustration of horizontal thinking. Qualities that distinguish irregular warfare will increasingly become the norm, as we seek to generate effects that cannot be wholly achieved through the singular efforts of discrete units or disciplines. As our adversaries' knowledge, capabilities, and challenges to our platforms and missions grow, our solutions will more frequently involve horizontal approaches. The net effect will be to overmatch their efforts.
Similarly, the recent joining of N2 and N6 responsibilities under one Deputy CNO organization further illustrates this growing trend. Intelligence (N2) and the means to command and control (N6), by virtue of their functional scope, operate astride multiple disciplines. Combining them organizationally recognizes their horizontal applicability and contribution to nearly every naval endeavor. It is equally sound that policy management in the growing field of unmanned vehicles (air, surface, and subsurface) will now fall under N2/N6 cognizance. Full realization of their potential contributions to a broad array of missions is best approached in a horizontal manner. This management will necessarily come with significant warfare-sponsor coordination, but a newly constituted N2/N6 organization affords a broader, across-the-boxes view.
Scalability
The utility of thinking across boxes is valid between individuals, divisions, and departments, intra- as well as inter-organizationally. The relevance of thinking horizontally endures from work centers in shipboard divisions to department heads, from ship and squadron commanding officers to strike groups, components, and combatant commanders coordinating operations and theater support.
Effective work-center supervisors, division officers, and department heads understand what each element in their organization is doing and why. At higher organizational levels, implications are both enterprise-wide and cross-enterprise. Failure to think horizontally results in redundancy of effort and waste or, worse, incompatibility. These are results of negative energy; they are the antithesis of pulling in a common constructive direction.
Ultimately, if those in an organization aren't thinking horizontally, their goals become impossible to execute or, at best, only partially realized. This is because the constituent parts never receive all the information. The willingness to share information brings self-righting tendencies to an organization. Knowledge viewed from numerous angles and perspectives can reveal flaws or roadblocks to which individuals may be blind.
The net effect keeps the organization on track. Good leaders think both horizontally and vertically. This helps to define where each organizational entity fits in, why, and how it can better leverage what others are doing around them. Couple this awareness with a well-articulated leadership vision or clearly defined mission objective, and the conditions are set to drive self-synchronizing effort toward the common goal.
Warfare will increasingly be waged in a way that defeats adversaries through the orchestration of cumulative effects. No longer will we rely exclusively on platforms or the efforts of singular warfare disciplines. In a sense, we will continuously use campaign-like tactics on a scalable basis. As warfare becomes more complex, winning solutions will take on horizontal characteristics.
Point solutions will see counters based on the observations that a savvy enemy has been able to accumulate, in an effect-counter-effect spiral. In this context, concepts such as strategic communications and effects-based operations show what defines an organization and what it is trying to achieve at any particular time.
To execute these concepts fully, an organization and its discrete entities need to know the direction in which they're supposed to be moving. They must understand how they fit into the ultimate collective objective. Well-tuned organizations know what they're doing and why, at all levels.
Self-Imposed Boundaries
Good leaders should study the seams in their organization. In many cases, they-as well as boundaries-are self-imposed. Where boundaries exist by law, there is rarely a prohibition against coordination and liaison to ensure continuity (or deconfliction) of effort.
We describe the boundaries of our organizations through our procedures, policies, and business practices. They may not appear as logical to those operating on the outside, and we should be constantly aware of this and adapt. Working the seams is our problem if the solution lies across it.
In this new era of threats originated trans-regionally, trans-nationally, and by non-states, the need for coordination grows continuously. Boundaries have been blurred, and laws have changed to permit an increased confluence of effort. Cooperation at the inter-agency, nongovernmental organization, and commercial levels is no longer unique. It is becoming the hallmark of effective effort. Homeland defense missions in the post-9/11 world have put a premium on collaboration between agencies that were once intentionally stove-piped by legal convention.
To prevail in conflicts, speed and agility are essential. This applies not only to the systems and concepts of operation we craft, but to the organizations that generate them as well. In an operational sense, when we hear of asymmetric warfare we should acknowledge that it is only asymmetric if we are not responsive to it; that is, unable to recognize and adapt to it with agility.
If we are not thinking across boxes, we are losing the essential situational awareness that signals when it's time to adapt. Our boundaries must be flexible enough to shift to meet ever-changing challenges.
We need to teach all personnel to think across boxes as they plan and execute in an increasingly networked world. The next generation must be encouraged to think this way all the time, not just episodically. We know that to be bound by rigid lines inside the box confines creativity and limits solutions. That is why we encourage thinking outside the box as a source of inspiration and problem-solving. But thinking across the boxes is seldom stressed as a model for systematic, ongoing work practice. This is part of the new normal as baud rates, information pipes, and networks continue to grow. We should be reinforcing this regularly to our reliefs.