"WARFARE IS NOT NETCENTRIC" - from a commander who knows a thing or two about warfare

First of all, if I could, just with respect, correct a term that I have never felt was accurate. Warfare is not network centric. It's commander centric. And that commander is enabled by networks.

And we went through - this is actually a hugely important concept that you approach it that way. And in fact we've had to work - in fact I came home from Iraq the second time and went out to Fort Leavenworth, I was also in charge of our combat training centers and the simulations centers and all the rest of us that do the very high level exercises.

We did some major overhauls because we actually were a bit too networked and too staff centric. And anyone who had actually commanded in real combat, which we hadn't done for several decades, actually, realized that it's actually about the commander who's enabled by this network. And it is a very, very powerful tool. . . . . . . .

The big idea with this stuff is that you need to start out with a concept of need to share rather than need to know. If you actually - if the intelligence analyst actually writes the report in the beginning with a sense of sharing it as widely as possible, as opposed to making it the perfect document that can only be released to one or five partners or what have you, you have a breakthrough.

And so we have to do that conceptually in addition. Now with respect to how do you spread that to other countries, I think that other countries have really seen the power of what it is that we have. The challenge is obviously their procurement accounts are nothing like ours. I think it is true now that the United States spends more than all the other countries put together win that regard in defense. So that's the challenge that they have.

General David Petraeus
Warfighter