The issues with command posts in modern warfare.

I have been involved in applying military decision-making process or troop leading procedures for more than 20 years during my service in various positions, deployments or as a teacher for staff officers’ course. If there is anything the military leadership excels at, it is planning or being able to plan almost in any environment and no matter the time pressure. This standardisation of processes and common approach applies to all NATO countries while details might differ, but the principles remain the same. However, the current war in Ukraine has started to challenge this approach of command stations as the hearts and hubs for this cyclic procedure. As we see the lack of invisibility on the battlefield and being constantly in reach for the adversary, we must also adopt this principle of collective planning.

Military decision-making process is a systematic approach for planning operations at tactical level. It is commonly applied in battalion, brigade and even division level. It mostly involves a series of problem statements about understanding the mission, environment, own forces, enemy, time and other factors that influence the situation. Seasoned staff officers instantly will come up with acronyms like OCOKA, METT-TC, PMESII, ASCOPE etc. So one aspect of the planning is the model and the process itself that guides the people through it.

Another factor is that mostly planning is done by a group of people that either work in the same room, proximity or have the option to link up at critical meetings to make decisions and coordinate. Of course, from certain levels it is not possible to do it face to face anymore but then modern tech with video calls or radio links come to the rescue. On average you would have 10-80 people involved in one planning cycle depending on the level you are operating at. This number will normally also be reduced to 2-10 people specialist teams involved in analyses, planning fires, logistics or other factors for the operation. There is also a thing called parallel planning what means that the command post will command and control current operation (mostly 24hrs) and another group of people are planning the future operation (up to 96 hrs). These groups of people could physically be all in one location or they could be hundreds of kilometres apart.

So, what is actually the problem with military command posts as such. When we think of a command post it normally means barbed wire, power generators, access control positions with rotating guard duty, sandbag bunkers, antennas, parking lots and big chunks of camouflage nets mask all that pattern. At least that is the intention. Reality is that by creating this collaboration and command locations we build a structure of vulnerabilities that can be detected and engaged. Remember the disappearance of the invisible and the all mighty reach on the battlefield. Placing a communications relay 500m away from the command post to act as a comms relay is not fooling anyone today. We need to see how we mask the elements in all spectrums. And as we have seen in Ukraine, failing to do so will give an opportunity to the adversary. Command posts that have more than 4 vehicles (regular civilian vehicles not ISO container hauling trucks) or any other special equipment or pattern attached to it will be destroyed by the enemy. The Ukrainians are using decoy command post locations and completely mask the actual ones. They use cellars, destroyed buildings, civilian vehicles, and vans etc. Anything that will look insignificant enough. And here we come into two bigger domains that need to be solved to win the next war.

First is the issue with connectivity and comms. The military forces must use all possible means of communications including cellular, landline, tactical, satellite and other networks that will enable data connectivity. It is hard o imagine a command element without possibility to exchange data, especially if we talk about above battalion level. We must have solutions that will encrypt and relay all different connectivity solutions into one system that will have grate redundancy in the time of war. If you find any means of communication, you must be able to exploit it to your advantage. Operational security and peace time requirements will not make this a trivial task.

Another issue is the dispersed and remote working elements physical environment. By today’s standards you would have either data projectors or 50+ inch screens available on most command station setups and enough laptops to establish a troll factory. People can all gather and meet in person or at a big screen and communicate the data. Some units are so heavily relying on the peace time infrastructure and have the illusion that they will do the same during war time. This is one domain the company I work in will help to solve.

The company Vegvisir is mainly making mixed reality based situational awareness systems for manned and unmanned platforms. This means that we are visualising data that is timely and relevant for the specific user. We integrate different digital layers into one system that is acting like a digital hub to consume all that information. A similar approach can be used for the command and control station problems. What if we disperse the command and control elements into small 2-8 people teams that will have the connectivity layer solved (not an expert in that nor does Vegvisir try to solve that part). Then we can help with augmenting the digital interface that will have minimalistic footprint but still have the usability the current solution is offering. We can take the big screens and projectors and reproduce them in virtual space. The virtual space can have collaborative layers and features where for example you could see precisely what monitor and what specific place the other person is looking at. We have already introduced this feature to the vehicle situational awareness systems and we continue to expand the product line to include the command and control station as one part of the situational awareness solution.

Just imagine this scenario: Two regular civilian vehicles stop next to a partially destroyed apartment building. 4 men exit the vehicles and enter the cellar of that building. There they have a still operational landline internet connection. The group connects a crypto-modem-server device to the network and is able to plug each user into the system. The people do not need any special hardware, just a laptop and some head mounted displays. They are able to have multiple large screens displays to monitor the forces placement, intelligence picture etc. They can collaboratively plan and interact with the virtual environment and contribute to current or future operational activities. In case of a threat warning they could pack up the laptops and headsets within minutes and leave the area.

Yes, I understand this is a favourable and simplistic scenario. We can develop many “what ifs” based on it. The idea is not only about the one single company or solution. It is more about hoping to start to disrupt the mindset of peace time command post based leadership structure. We should collectively be thinking about how we can use defence technology innovation mindset to rapidly integrate and iterate through development cycle and end up with a solution that is more feasible than tens of people behind barbwire, sandbags and big antennas. Just his time let us all try not to prepare for the previous war.