One of my students brought up the military uses of big data. Here's my response.
Warning: major oversimplifications ahead!
In the mid-2000s, the Army toyed with the idea of what they called the "every soldier a sensor" (ES2) initiative as part of the network-centric warfare paradigm. ES2 involved, among other things, equipping warfighters with cameras and other equipment that would feed live data to battlefield commanders for analysis. The Army has since rolled ES2 into Large-Scale Combat Operations and Multi-Domain Operations, their current paradigms.
Apparently, many Rangers believed that ES2 was just used for battlefield micromanagement, and commanders faced information overload. The goal of the "transparent battlespace" even allowed for high-ranking leaders to bypass the chain of command, cutting out actual battlefield commanders. One colonel went so far as to call the whole approach "nanomanagement!"
Meanwhile, the USMC mostly bypassed ES2 in favor of Fourth Generation Warfare, which is small-unit maneuver warfare combined with decentralized command, and using traditional scouting techniques to gather intel.
The USMC has adapted sensors more selectively, especially with their small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Their intentions are different, however: the info is for use at the squad/platoon levels in support of local decision-making, rather than feed higher commanders. If what those Rangers said was true, it is easy to see why the Marines never tried ES2!
References
Jacobs, J. (2008, 22 April). "Troops shouldn't become reliant on technology". NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24259712
Sowers, T. (2008, April). "Nanomanagement: A Challenge to Those Combating Terrorism." CTC Sentinel, Volume 1, Issue 5 https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Vol1Iss5-Art6.pdf
Stas, Krupenia & Cuizinaud, Mathilde & Muller, Tijmen & Hulst, Anja. (2012). "Identifying Battlefield Information Collection Strategies to Support ‘Every Soldier is a Sensor’ Training." Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. 56. 2402-2406. DOI:10.1177/1071181312561518
USMC. (2025, October). Force Design Update. https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Docs/Force_Design_Update-October_2025.pdf
