Network Analysis and the Warrior

Alberto Lazlo Barabasi, a physics professor at Notre Dame, has put forward some interesting hypothesis about networks, and how they relate to the world. What constitutes a network? A system of links and nodes. What are links? Anything that connects nodes. What are nodes? A node can be a computer, a person, an insect.......

Network analysis and the associated rules, theories and laws, apply to the world of combat. Most persons in the military have heard of the buzz word NETWORK CENTRIC. This term means that a system should pass information to all nodes, in order to ensure that the right information has made it to the right person at the right time. This concept is great, however we have to remember that we are not the only ones employing it. Terrorists, China....just about everyone else in the world who uses a telephone, the internet or other forms of passing information, are network centric.