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Saved by 1 people (0 private), first by anonymouse user on 2008-10-04


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The network metaphor dominates current thinking about national security. Network centricity carried to its logical conclusion, however, portends an environment that becomes increasingly biological over time. Biological environments lend themselves to nonlinear effects and outcomes. The path toward biological transformation in defense may express itself in a number of ways. It may impact the nature of system development, the operational concepts that leverage these systems and the business models that will be used by industry and government to field these new capabilities.

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on 2008-10-04 by TransTracker

I've read more of this kind of stuff that I can even mention. But this is one of the more incoherent pieces I've seen, substituting buzzwords and catch phrases for real thought more often than most other, similar pieces. The "environment" will become "increasingly biological over time"? What does that even mean? The "environment" is not "biological" now? And biological systems are more prone to nonlinearity than nonbiological ones, huh? But doesn't that undercut the dominant argument that nonlinearity is a universal phenonmemon? Or, is there circular reasoning at work here? If it's biological, then it will have nonlinearity; and, it's biological because it has nonlinearity?

The exponential growth patterns of foundational technologies (processing power, bandwidth and storage) and the interconnectivity of nodes availing themselves of this growth is what drives emergent effects.

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on 2008-10-04 by TransTracker

Certainly, these are important phenomena with profound impacts. But exponential growth is not an example of mathematical nonlinearity. Just because the plot on a graph is a curve and not a straight line, that doesn't make it a nonlinear equation.

The geometrically expansive profile of processors, bandwidth and storage are the explosive ingredients resident in or available to every node in the network, be it a weapon, platform, sensor, software code module or human being. More importantly, the nodes themselves are also exponentially multiplying in number and in connectivity with each other. Taken together, the combinatorial inflation of these different dimensions of growth creates the makings of a biological transformation that will impact the defense industry in ways not fully understood or appreciated.

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on 2008-10-04 by TransTracker

Again, very important phenomena, but not nonlinearity. And yet again, "biological transformation" is not explained.

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