Assured Connectivity on Today’s Battlefield is a Myth
By Michael Canna
Vice President for Growth, Enterprise Modernization Solutions
Modern military operations are entering an era where uninterrupted communications can no longer be assumed. Advanced adversaries now possess sophisticated cyber, electronic warfare, anti-satellite, and precision strike capabilities specifically designed to disrupt command-and-control architectures and challenge U.S. operational advantages. The future fight will increasingly occur in contested, degraded, intermittent, and limited (DDIL) communications environments where resilience—not perfect connectivity—determines operational effectiveness.
After 9/11, our U.S. military transitioned to focus on non-state sponsored adversaries who lacked the capability to resource or sustain prolonged, complex cybersecurity attacks to degrade our military’s ability to communicate. During this period, our assured connectivity shaped operations, and reliable networks became the foundation for how we planned, how we directed and coordinated, and how we expected units to fight. Over time, command and control became increasingly centralized. Decision-making moved upward as higher headquarters gained access to real-time data and persistent communications. Subordinate units, enabled by that connectivity, grew accustomed to continuous guidance and immediate feedback. In permissive environments, this model functioned well and reinforced confidence in the system.
This confidence began to erode whenever communications degraded. It slowed decisions, complicated coordination, and forced workarounds under pressure. The operational reality is that you can never foresee—or eliminate—every potential item that could impact the ability to communicate and share data. This reality must be treated as a foundational planning assumption for every operational plan and every exercise, not as a contingency reserved for worst‑case scenarios.
This challenge is especially pronounced across the Pacific theater. Vast geographic distances, dependence on space-based communications, multinational coordination requirements, and contested electromagnetic spectrum conditions create an operational environment where communications degradation is not an exception, but an expectation. The assumption that higher headquarters will always maintain persistent reach-back connectivity is becoming increasingly unrealistic. Organizations must prepare to operate effectively despite intermittent access to information, reduced bandwidth, delayed reporting, and periods of complete communications denial.
Operational Impact
Degraded communications create immediate operational consequences. Decision cycles slow, situational awareness deteriorates, and headquarters often become bottlenecks as subordinate units wait for guidance that may never arrive. When organizations become overly dependent on centralized communications and constant connectivity, they lose agility precisely when speed and adaptability matter most.
When that happens, the effects compound quickly. Decision-making slows as headquarters becomes saturated with uncertainty. Centralization turns into a bottleneck rather than an advantage. Subordinate units hesitate when guidance is delayed or absent. Operational tempo drops precisely when initiative and speed are most critical. That is a dangerous position to be in.
The early phases of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offered a harsh lesson in what can happen when forces are unprepared for such conditions. When Russian military communications broke down, some Russian units were forced to improvise. Some resorted to commercial cell phones. Others relied on couriers. In one extreme case, an Air Force officer flew by helicopter to deliver paper orders in person. These workarounds were inefficient and dangerous. The Ukrainian military intercepted unsecured communications, geolocated users, and targeted them.
The failure was not simply technical. When communications systems failed, improvisation without preparation became a major operational vulnerability.
Engineering Resilience into the Network
Effective response to degraded environments starts with accepting that no network is invulnerable. Even the most advanced architectures remain susceptible to cyber-attack, infrastructure disruption, spectrum interference, environmental disasters, insider threats, and operational friction. Rather than solely pursue the objective of eliminating all points of failure, organizations must also focus on building systems, processes, and organizations capable of absorbing disruption while maintaining mission effectiveness.
This requires a layered and resilient architectural approach. Modern operational environments demand redundant communications pathways, distributed processing capabilities, dynamic traffic routing, and resilient cloud and edge computing architectures. Software-defined networking enables traffic to be rerouted around compromised segments of the network, while edge computing allows tactical units to process and act on information locally instead of relying entirely on centralized processing at higher headquarters. These capabilities improve survivability and reduce operational dependence on fragile long-haul communications links.
Diversifying Communications Pathways
Equally important is the diversification of communications capabilities. Organizations that rely on a single transport method or technology stack remain vulnerable to targeted disruption. Resilient operational architectures integrate multiple communications layers, including satellite systems, terrestrial networks, line-of-sight radios, expeditionary communications packages, and low-bandwidth or analog fallback methods. This diversity creates operational flexibility and ensures that the loss of one capability does not immediately result in mission failure.
Layered communications also support operational adaptability. When primary systems fail, forces must be able to transition rapidly to alternate and contingency communications methods without disrupting mission execution. These transitions require more than technical capability; they demand disciplined planning, rehearsals, and operator familiarity with degraded-mode operations.
Mission Command as the Decisive Advantage
Technology alone cannot solve the DDIL challenge. The most sophisticated communications architecture will eventually degrade under sustained operational pressure. Success ultimately depends on people, leadership, and organizational adaptability.
In a 2022 article titled ‘The Atrophy of Mission Command’, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley stated that in the future, “leaders on the battlefield could expect to be out of contact with their own leadership for significant periods of time. Those officers would still need to accomplish their commander’s objectives, even when the conditions on the battlefield change and they are unable to send word up the chain of command.” He noted that we have to “empower [and] decentralize leadership to make decisions and achieve battlefield effects in a widely dispersed environment.”
Mission command therefore becomes the defining operational capability in degraded environments. Organizations capable of decentralized execution and disciplined initiative are significantly more resilient than those dependent on constant oversight and centralized control. Effective mission command requires commanders to communicate clear intent while empowering subordinate leaders to act independently when disconnected from higher headquarters. Trust, initiative, and adaptability become operational necessities rather than doctrinal concepts.
These capabilities cannot simply be assumed during crisis; they must be cultivated through realistic training. Units must routinely exercise in environments where communications are disrupted, delayed, or denied entirely. Training scenarios should intentionally force leaders to make decisions with incomplete information and limited guidance. Exercises that assume perfect connectivity fail to prepare forces for the realities of modern conflict. Organizations that train under degraded conditions develop the confidence, flexibility, and decision-making discipline necessary to sustain operations when networks inevitably fail.
For instance, during the Pacific Keen Edge command exercise early this year, more than half of the end‑user terminals providing secure access to mission systems were degraded, leaving only 11 of 30 operational. Connection attempts looped and froze during startup. The response combined immediate adaptation and continued troubleshooting. A Primary-Alternate-Contingency-Emergency (PACE) plan was implemented, hot‑seating priority users on operational terminals while secure voice and video tools provided additional depth. In parallel, technicians isolated the issue to a router configuration on commercial transport.
Experiences like this underscore the gap between assuming connectivity and being prepared to operate without it. Exercises must deliberately introduce degraded or denied communications conditions, rather than assume perfect connectivity. Units need repeated opportunities to operate without real‑time guidance, adjust to partial system failures, and execute preplanned alternatives under stress. Training environments that assume flawless networks risk reinforcing habits that will not survive first contact in a contested environment.
Operational Preparation and Real-World Application
Recent operational examples demonstrate the value of preparation and adaptability. Leading up to a command post exercise in Japan, a contractor field service engineer supporting the U.S. Pacific Command recognized the risk of communications disruption and proactively preconfigured a set of fly‑away kits for communications redundancy. He ensured multiple transport options were available and tested all associated network equipment. When a communications outage occurred during the exercise, those kits enabled immediate continuity of operations rather than a delayed response. The value was not in the equipment itself, but in the understanding of mission partner environment needs and the foresight to prepare viable options before they were needed.
This example reinforces a broader operational principle: resilience is achieved before the crisis occurs. Organizations that invest in preparation, redundancy, training, and adaptable operational design are significantly better positioned to sustain mission execution when conditions deteriorate.
Adaptability as Combat Power
As warfare becomes increasingly dependent on interconnected digital systems, operational resilience will define strategic advantage. Future conflicts will not be won by organizations that assume uninterrupted connectivity. They will be won by organizations capable of fighting through disruption, adapting under pressure, and sustaining decision superiority despite uncertainty.
While modern command and control systems have significantly enhanced connectivity, situational awareness, and the speed of information sharing, they have also contributed to an overreliance on centralized decision-making. This trend has gradually eroded the military’s traditional practice of mission command, in which subordinate leaders are empowered to act independently based on a commander’s intent. The decline of this decentralized approach creates a critical vulnerability in environments where communications are most fragile.
Technology will remain an essential enabler, but it will not be the decisive factor. The decisive advantage will belong to organizations that combine resilient architectures, diversified communications capabilities, disciplined operational preparation, and empowered leadership. In degraded environments, adaptability becomes combat power.
Author Bio
Michael “Mike” Canna is a Vice President for Growth of the Enterprise Modernization Solutions business unit.
Canna served as Commander of the 607th Air Intelligence Group, U.S. Air Force, at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea. After retiring from uniformed Air Force service, he became a Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service (DISES) civilian, serving as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). During his tenure at INSCOM, he was tasked with establishing the Ground Intelligence Support Activity (GISA), which provided centralized network and infrastructure management of global military intelligence (MI) communications.
