Network-centric warfare advocates believe relatively small, rapidly deployable forces can accomplish missions that would otherwise require a big, massed force. In their view, power comes from information, access, and speed, whereas in the industrial era it came from mass.

But the traditional element of combat power, specifically raw firepower and mobility, is generally much easier to quantify and assess than is the effect of knowledge. In a networked force, all the gains in combat potential and power can be considerably diminished and even eliminated by micromanagement and excessive centralization of the command-and-control process.