Although the problem he attempts to focus is worthy of concern (Commanders with a 'God's Eye' view of the battlefield trying to micromanage units), it would be well wrong for one to surmise that it is not an issue of which the Army is unaware. See for example, a quote from this article in 2003 in the Armor Branch's professional periodical:
https://www.knox.army.mil/center/oco...3drebus03c.pdf
Quote:
Unfortunately, massive amounts of digital transmissions could replace the fog of war with a swamp of data. As bandwidth and transmission speeds increase, the temptation is to use the entire capacity. However, just because data are available does not mean that they are useful.
Senior leaders (staff and line) may be tempted to deviate from their primary tasks, such as establishing the operations plan, providing logistics and fire support, and directing the overall battle, and instead become involved in micromanaging subordinate units. A division commander and his staff should not usurp the initiative of the platoon leader in the detailed placement of his forces simply because they can observe his symbols on a computer screen. The symbols are merely digital representations of reality. The platoon leader’s analog senses more directly perceive that reality.
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There was an earlier article, dating from somewhere around 2000 but I've not found it in the archives yet, which entirely focuses on the requirement to restrain higher-level commanders from micromanaging units simply because they can. What a lot of people don't understand is that the new technologies such as FBCB2 do not actually add any new capabilities: Anything you can do in FBCB2 you could do using old-fashioned analogue techniques, but it allows it to be done much more easily and quickly.
The specific problem referred to in the OP's linked article, however, is not the best example of the problem. Such questioning and information collection is not a result of the technology as much as the situation. Especially back in the 2004 period he was around Iraq, a lot of battalion staffs were frankly at a bit of a loss for something to do and hadn't yet quite figured out their roles in the new battlefield. They're not co-ordinating sweeping battlefield assaults doing combined arms breaches of obstacle belts, after all. I occasionally suffered the same sort of questioning, but usually in the form of radio, or in-person debriefs. He is making the mistake of confusing the medium used to transmit the data/questionings with the actual content, the latter of which should be sorted out by a disciplined staff.
NTM
The battlefield of the 21st century
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