C2 Capacity is a thing

When anyone talks about capacity in C2 terms it tends to be about the electronic and signals capacity of an HQ and the devolved formations. More recently, the capacity to make more, faster decisions have been the driving factor in many commanders’ minds: the enthusiasm with which they have pursued and adopted Agentic and AI models to achieve speed has been noteworthy. Not all these decisions have been good, worthy, or correct yet pragmatists argue that they are no different to errors made by humans (albeit that the data indicates that AI is making more mistakes than humans would: to a surprising degree). In chasing more targets, more quickly, commanders have been willing to sacrifice human agency from decision-making.

The size of headquarters and command staffs are reducing. Led by the lessons from Ukraine, Russia, Iran, and Israel Counter C2 warfare (C2W as it was known during the Cold War) has re-emerged as a key consideration: and in making C2 structures harder to hit, the answer chosen by most states was to replace humans with digital systems in order to provide the same C2 capability at smaller scale. This has made HQs smaller alongside an ability to be dispersed. Such efforts presume that a smaller electrical and physical footprint will give C2 structures more resilience and greater survivability. This is the theory.

There are several associated, second and third order consequences associated with such reductions. First, a smaller staff increases the workload on those who remain – already working at capacity – and making them more dependent on automated systems, whose efficacy has started to be questioned. Anyone who has worked in a military HQ will understand that they are almost always taut, pressurized environments where people work under considerable pressure. Replacing skilled people with systems designed to assist, but for which trust has yet to be established, is a risky proposition. This has already had negative consequences in the targeting process and decision-making, for example in the 2026 Minab school attack by US forces that left 156 civilians dead, including 120 schoolchildren. In the longer term, earlier staff burnout should be expected, and a dependence on Agentic and AI systems is likely to emerge. Unless corrected, human agency in military decision-making will further wither and falter.

Second, as the understanding of how HQs and command structures work without such digital systems disappears from corporate and institutional knowledge, the resilience of command and control staffs to the loss or degradation of such systems reduces. Functionality in PACE modes will decline and command structures could soon lose the ability to conduct sound decision-making in alternate, contingency, and emergency modes. Moreover, giving fewer staff experience in headquarters roles will mean a smaller pool from which to select appropriate people for command positions, where suitable qualifications and experience in command staffs has – historically – been a prerequisite for senior roles.

Third, and a culmination of all these points, is the overall C2 capacity of states, alliances, and coalitions. While levels of command have historically become hierarchical and geographically focused, there is an emerging pattern that sees ad hoc staffs thrown together to conduct specific missions. Conversely, NATO acknowledges that a trained, ‘worked-up’, and certified staff are more effective than anything created on the hoof. NATO High Readiness Force headquarters go through a rigorous training and validation period prior to taking command responsibility. In understanding the core need for key skills and experience – and relationships – states put considerable effort and resource into building effective headquarters. Higher levels of command tend to remain focused on a single geographic area, building knowledge, expertise and experience with the theatre terrain, weather, infrastructure, partner states, and the adversary. A millennium of experiences in warfare tells us that there is no replacement for this detailed understanding of each separate battlespace.

What becomes difficult is when states start to consider that they could command a wide array of operations (geographically dispersed, against adversaries who fight in very different ways, with highly differentiated political goals), from a single HQ. The US COCOM structure acknowledges the differentiated facets and retains geographic (rather than functional) primacy as a C2 modality; there is little evidence of better ways to deliver C2 in the real world. In the UK however a different narrative has emerged. Political and military leaders appear to be hoarding new C2 responsibilities: National Command structures (PJHQ, SJFHQ, single service commands, Cyber and Special Operations Command, and a new Strategic Headquarters, as well as a myriad of subordinate commands), regularly see more people engaged in C2 at home than deployed on operations. Alliance responsibilities for NATO include HQ ARRC and rotational HQ HRF duties spread across land, sea, and air. There are coalition HQs for which the UK has volunteered including for Operation Cabrit (in Estonia and Poland), as well as overseas garrisons (in Cyprus, Belize, Gibraltar, Brunei, Belize, the Falkland Islands, and in the Middle East). The UK has also recently offered to command a potential coalition peacekeeping/peace-enforcement effort for Ukraine, to lead a coalition in the Straits of Hormuz, and – as of May 2026 – to command the new Northern Navies Initiative (an addition to an extant commitment for C2 responsibilities of the Joint Expeditionary Force). To be effective, these commitments have a very significant personnel cost: the requisite skills in, for example, targeting mean that key individuals must be shared between HQs and commanders. Detailed understanding of the theatre (or area of operations) will be lacking where people have diverse, spread, and wider responsibilities. A J2 staff officer, for example, who is required to assess an adversary’s intent and reaction to events and actions and advise the commander will be less able to do so when trying to cover two very different fighting styles. Generalisation, in this case, has been shown to be extremely dangerous. It might be that the only solution will be to replace such individuals with Agentic or AI systems, but that comes with an as yet, undefinable – but potentially lethal – risk.

Training more specialist personnel is possible. Giving those people experience in command structures is less easy when the size of HQs is under pressure to be reduced. And the UK, as a case in point, has limits on military personnel numbers in each service meaning that in sending someone to a command staff will result in one less skilled individual on the front line. There are no easy answers here except, perhaps, volunteer for less command duties.

Finally, there is likely to remain the thorny issue of which command system will be used. Since 1999, NATO and various coalitions have had their C2 systems underwritten and provided by the US military and Department of Defense. The Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIX) is a collection of classified networks that enable C2 information sharing (through email and web services, chat, common operational picture, and voice over IP). Systems support individual COCOMs, including US Indo-Pacific, Central, and European commands, as well as a myriad of individual enclaves (CENTRIX-CFE, -J, -K, -ISAF, -GCTF, -CMFC, CMFP, and now CPN). As the US moves to a new C2 system architecture in CJADC2, these systems are unlikely to be supported. C2 staffs and structures will need to determine which system they will use – and it may be different for different missions. In announcing the UK command of the Northern Navies Initiative, British naval chief (General Gwyn Jenkins) stated his intent that the UK would command using the C2 system of participants. This is usually given the UK’s predilection for US systems. Yet it is an acknowledgement that the majority of those contributing actual forces (not just a command element or an occasional aircraft carrier) will need to cross their own C2 dilemmas in the overlap of operations between this semi-NATO formation, and various other formations (whether the Nordic Naval integration, the Poland-Sweden strategic partnership, the Poland-UK Alliance, or the UK-Norway Treaty).

Finding the right C2 system, itself with sufficient capacity to deliver across a diverse array of missions, sub-systems, classifications, and national caveats, and in several different theatres simultaneously will be difficult. But it will be easier than providing the right people to staff a new HQ, no matter how ‘lean’ it is in design. Capacity lies at the heart of these dilemmas. While senior military figures, and their political masters, continue to make commitments to command without understanding the human cost, the desire to make the right choice, or even a good one, is worryingly absent from the discourse.