dun agree that technology behind NCW is developed by the
civilian sector also.
Since, internet is developed and used by the military before
opening to the civilian sector, i would say the idea behind NCW is
made possible by harnessing today's or future technology.
Hmmm...
Lets see:
This capability may seem to be decades away from reality with
hundreds of millions of dollars of research being needed before the
NCW is ready for prime time.The reality is that systems such as the
ones described here are only several years off (see Figure
3).Given the current strategy that
seeks to leverage commercial off-the-shelf software and
hardware, the time to develop and deploy advanced NCW
capabilities in the not so distant future is realistic.Many
operational components required for a system such as this are in
commercially
available and in use today. Supply Chain software in use today by most
corporations can serve as the basis for the logistics support and
modeling.Commercially
available computer aided dispatching (CAD) systems in use by police
departments, emergency medical services and fire departments could
also serve to accelerate the custom application components that
specifically address the unique challenges faced by the
military.The conceptual systems hardware
requirements pose a bit more of a challenge.Hardened and tamper
proof packaging technology must advances to protect the integrity
of fielded systems in the event some of this equipment would fall
into enemy hands.
And what does our own Mindef's report on NCW?
NETWORK-CENTRIC ARCHITECTURE
Use of
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Technologies (COTS)
The emphasis will also be
on adapting commercial components and processes to reduce combat
system space and weight, minimise ship impact and reduce life-cycle
costs. COTS integration has the bonus of
increasing combat system capability over the long - term. As
commercial technologies mature, COTS systems (processors, displays,
LANs) can be expected to exhibit greater functionality over those
they supercede. The result could be by way of an
increase in processing power, disk space or networking capacity
within the existing combat system architecture that can then be
applied to future combat system upgrades. The challenge remains one
of enabling improvements by adopting a learning systems-of-systems
approach that culls new employment concepts and tactics, training,
logistics support to derive optimum performance benefit from the
COTS advancements.
Just in case you thought that I was making it up as I went
along...
