Digital Transformation of Military Affairs

Trying to understand the playground of digital transformation in military affairs

Over the past 25 years, consulting companies have sold military Digital Transformation as a fast track to gain dominance on the battlefield, achieve cost efficiency to meet budget cuts, or a way to annihilate the vast masses of 2nd industrial forces in current near-peer conflicts.

Nevertheless, there is more than one definition of Digital Transformation, so the military needs to recognise what it wants to achieve.

The military is evolving through five waves of emerging digital technologies. (Kale, 2020) 

1. Digitisation transferred information and content from analogue to digital format and improved military administration and office work. In the Finnish Defence Forces, this evolution started from information assets during the 1980s , and it is still ongoing, related to products and soldiers.  Some Armed Forces are still using paper-based decision-making due to tradition or the power structure.

2. Digitalization introduced enterprise-wide systems, like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)  or Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO), which enabled human, financial, material, platform life cycle, and facilities management to gain cost-efficiency. Moreover, C3I support systems and battle-space management systems were deployed for improved situational awareness. The Finnish Defence Forces underwent significant evolution during this phase, primarily between 1999 and 2007. Some Armed Forces are still transitioning from functionally specified resource management systems to enterprise platforms. Meanwhile, several functionally specific management systems remain available on the market.

3. The first-generation digital transformation has enabled revolutions in military affairs, such as Network-Centric Warfare in the US Department of Defense and network-enabled Capability in the UK Ministry of Defence.  The Finnish Defence Forces underwent changes in their operational and management approaches in 2008 and 2015.  Some other Armed Forces are struggling to transfer their organisational culture to adopt these enabling processes because military organisations are built to resist change.

4. The second-generation digital transformation can be defined as software-defined everything. In this phase, mechanical systems are migrating to cyber-physical entities, which integrate with other entities, forming structures such as a combat cloud. The US DoD is experimenting with a tactical system of systems in the Project Convergence . The European Combat Air System  (FCAS) project combines manned and unmanned platforms to form a system of systems. Furthermore, the software-driven approach also transfers the engineering and manufacturing processes of the new platforms, as seen in the Rheinmetall Modular Open Systems Approach. 

5. The third-generation digital transformation may be defined as robotic or agent automation, digital twins and autonomous effectors/sensors. The US Golden Dome  is one example of the type of capability that the military may gain from integrating sensors, AI-enabled decision-making, and shooters across all domains against masses of air- and space-borne targets. Both Ukraine and Russia are utilising remotely operated commercial and military drones for enhanced tactical mobility and effectiveness. 

On the other side of the coin, digital transformations often fail to deliver expected outcomes because (Mattila, 2020):

• Canadian Armed Forces spent from 1980 to 2000 moving from Cold War capabilities to meet post-9/11 threats. Transformation took longer, mainly because personnel lacked training to certify them in new ways of defence and behaviour.
• Swedish Försvaret created a concept for their Nätverkbaserad Försvaret in the late 90s and early 2000s, as best practice for other militaries, but failed because the Swedish Government decided to cut the defence budget and downsize the entire national defence to a peacekeeping force.
• NATO aimed for Network Enabled Capabilities through the 2000s, but found itself without a shared network until the establishment of NATO Federated Mission Network 2015.
• The US DoD launched in 2000 its Network Centric program, which improved division and higher echelon situational awareness but failed to deliver it to the tactical level. The gap appeared costly in later Iraq and Afghanistan operations.
• Finnish Puolustusvoimat made a significant reorganisation in 2008 and 2015 for cost-cutting, but remained in service stovepipes while missing the essential ability for joint operations. The digitalisation of enabling and C4ISTAR processes met opposition at the cultural level.

When a military transformation fails to provide the intended security capabilities, the transformation command wastes unique resources. The failure may also open an opportunity for an adversary to gain a strategic advantage and a temptation to exploit it. The severity of the potential inability necessitates the use of more advanced tools to comprehend and model the transformation. 

A holistic understanding becomes increasingly vital as some emerging technologies, such as unmanned autonomous systems, machine learning, nanotechnology, and human enhancement, may provide the adversary with a surprising strategic advantage. In this situation, a military enterprise needs to have the flexibility to adjust and recover from a surprise through rapid transformation.