Two fundamental concepts for command and control of future military operations

The Swedish Armed Forces need the capability to operate within the Total defence (swe. Totalförsvaret) and in collaboration with other military actors, manage a changed security situation, adopt novel military approaches and address the challenges as well as the opportunities that modern technology offers. This highly affects the command and control (C2) realm. Military concepts describe possible approaches to address military problems. The current report describes and motivates two C2 concepts: (1) Situational C2 and (2) C2 of situational effect. The two concepts have been developed to illustrate two fundamental approaches to manage the C2 challenges with regard to the future operating environment, and represent two sides of an approach space. In order to design, describe and validate the concepts, points of departure have been defined. The points of departure include C2 functions, C2 principles, warfare principles, future operating environment and C2 needs. The two concepts are primarily distinguished by capability span. The concept of situational C2 is based on a wide capability span, where a commander commands compound military units that are largely self-sufficient. The concept provides considerable freedom of action within the scope of the unit. The concept of C2 of situational effect is based on specialized entities with a high degree of expertise, which are flexibly composed depending on the situation. The capabilities different resources provide are seen as services, which are activated on demand in order to produce a specific effect. The Swedish Armed Forces' future C2 concept will need to encompass the full spectrum, i.e., different levels of centralization as well as commanding units with various capability span. The future C2 concept will therefore need to use parts of the two baseline concepts described in this report. The next step is to develop one concept, describing how and when C2 is executed within the approach space.