By the end of the Desert Storm the capability of quick targeting was about four days.  Now, with the advances in technology the average quick strike during Operation Iraqi Freedom was around 45 minutes.  The Afghanistan conflict brought about a whole new aspect of war fighting.  In the article written By Ben Moores, The Dawn of Network Centric Warfare, discusses some of the ‘first’ that were experienced because of the use of centric warfare.  Information superiority through the application of network centric warfare allowed US forces to prevail in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  Services were used together and commanders were able to see what was going on with real time, or near real time, feed from GCCS systems.  The GCCS systems provided combatant commanders with one source for gathering and generating information as well as a way to provide surveillance and reconnaissance.  It helps depict where enemy and friendly troops were in both conflicts and provided precise locations.  

    It was the first time UAV's were utilized with troops for other then reconnaissance.  The Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) arena has increased dramatically over the past decade and with increase and push for network centric will continue to increase the capabilities in planning and executing strategies.  For more information click  here.

              What has emerged is networking between various American platforms in support of both operations.  It is was becoming increasingly apparent that the 'prophets' of network centric warfare would allow troops on the ground, in the air or at sea rule in all aspects of war.  As military experts analyze the network-centric warfare lessons learned from the Iraqi conflict, the consensus is that there is a lot of good news, but the U.S. armed services still have a long way to go.

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