America’s push to develop an information-centered military force, the so-called network-centric warfare approach, eventually will find acceptance among the world’s major militaries, said Ronald Sugar, chairman and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp.

“I fully expect that, over time, network-centric capabilities will proliferate globally,” Sugar said Feb. 23 during opening remarks at the Asia Pacific Security Conference 2004 here. “Every country will want as much of this capability as it can acquire and can afford.”

While many of the U.S. systems in development are expensive, they “will become more affordable,” just as commercial satellite imagery available over the Internet has become cheaper over time, Sugar said.

“U.S. friends and allies will need network-centric capabilities to ensure interoperability” with the U.S. military, Sugar said.

Sugar said advances in technologies such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR), high-speed data links, computational capacities and the increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles have allowed U.S. military commanders unprecedented knowledge of the battlefield.

“It is in the national security interest of all nations that the network-centric concept of linking [weapon] systems to realize their full potential matures as quickly as possible,” he said.

The Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a think-tank affiliated with Singapore’s Nayang Technological University, and Asian Aerospace Pte. Ltd. jointly produced the conference. Defense News is the official media partner for the event.

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