PETER LAYTON |

For the Australian Defence Force’s ArmyNavy and Air Force Chiefs, the future is ‘fifth generation.’ That being so, I recently wrote a paper on fifth generation air warfare which, while using air force issues to explain some aspects, has relevance more broadly particularly to the concepts being explored on the Over-The-Horizon blog.

There will probably be some – like me – who are inherently wary of those who fragment the history of warfare into various periods, eras, or epochs. The ‘fifth generation’ expression, though, is not some part of a considered historical analysis. Instead, originating as a company marketing slogan, the expression has evolved into a useful, catchall term – a simple buzzword – encompassing several concepts important for how future wars might be waged.

Fifth generation war fighting ideas go back more than two decades. In the 1990s, military thinkers seized upon developments in commercial information technology, applied them to military operational concepts and then popularized the term ‘Network-Centric Warfare.’ By 1999, Joint Staff J-6 information briefings were asserting that: “the primary mechanism for generating increased combat power in 2010 will be networks of sensors, command and control, and shooters.” Today’s fifth generation air warfare concepts incorporate four generic elements:

  1. Networks
  2. Combat Cloud
  3. Multi-Domain Battle
  4. Fusion warfare

Fifth generation air warfare offers much, but its practical implementation is not easy. Considerable effort is required to create decision-quality data and then establish the robust connectivity needed to support combat cloud, multi-domain battle, and fusion warfare concepts. Fifth generation air warfare is a very complicated way of war that requires substantial focused preparation being undertaken before a conflict and significant dedicated support during it. Success in fifth generation air warfare is hard won.

Please click here to read the full “Fifth generation warfare: An evolving technical dimension of war” article published at Over the Horizon, written by Griffith Asia Institute Visiting Fellow, Dr Peter Layton.