The Russia-Ukraine War makes it clear that
the electromagnetic signature emitted from the command posts of the past
20 years cannot survive against the pace and precision of an adversary
who possesses sensor-based technologies, electronic warfare, and unmanned
aerial systems or has access to satellite imagery; this includes nearly every
state or nonstate actor the United States might find itself fighting in the near
future. The Army must focus on developing command-and-control systems
and mobile command posts that enable continuous movement, allow distributed
collaboration, and synchronize across all warfighting functions to minimize
electronic signature. Ukrainian battalion command posts reportedly consist
of seven soldiers who dig in and jump twice daily; while that standard will
be hard for the US Army to achieve, it points in a very different direction than
the one we have been following for two decades of hardened command posts
The Russia-Ukraine War makes it clear that the electromagnetic signature emitted from the command posts of the past 20 years cannot survive against the pace and precision of an adversary who possesses sensor-based technologies, electronic warfare, and unmanned aerial systems or has access to satellite imagery; this includes nearly every state or nonstate actor the United States might find itself fighting in the near future. The Army must focus on developing command-and-control systems and mobile command posts that enable continuous movement, allow distributed collaboration, and synchronize across all warfighting functions to minimize electronic signature. Ukrainian battalion command posts reportedly consist of seven soldiers who dig in and jump twice daily; while that standard will be hard for the US Army to achieve, it points in a very different direction than the one we have been following for two decades of hardened command posts