Defence and security are safeguarded by winning the battle against saturation

The principle is intuitive: a defence architecture can absorb a certain number of attacks without losing its effectiveness. But when these attacks increase in number, variety and simultaneity, an ever-greater proportion of the architecture’s resources is taken up by dealing with the situation in the moment, and the time available to truly understand what is happening and decide how to respond becomes increasingly limited.

Saturation does not necessarily mean deploying large numbers of missiles and drones. It means pushing the entire architecture to the limits of what it can handle, even over prolonged periods, thereby increasing the risk of a threat penetrating the system.

Something similar is happening in cyberspace. In May 2026, the Cyber Security Council of the United Arab Emirates reported that, in the preceding months, over 800,000 cyberattacks per day had been recorded against the country’s infrastructure. This figure illustrates the pressure that the UAE’s digital ecosystem has had to withstand whilst continuing to keep civilian and military networks operational.

The domain may change, but the question remains the same: how much pressure can a defence architecture withstand before performance begins to deteriorate and exposure to threats increases? In modern conflicts, this pressure manifests itself primarily in the volume of attacks and the ability to sustain them over time. If a defence system handles only a few attacks at a time, it has time and resources on its side. But when the number of attacks rises rapidly – and swarms of relatively simple, low-cost drones join ballistic and cruise missiles – the pressure on the entire architecture increases.

But the number alone does not tell the whole story. Time also matters. Ten attacks spread over the course of an hour pose a different problem to the same ten concentrated within a few minutes. Similarly, pressure coming from a single direction is different from that coming from multiple directions and different operational areas.

But this is only the beginning. The real multiplier is complexity. The more attacks occur simultaneously, the less time there is to understand what is happening, set priorities and make decisions. This is precisely where command and control (C2) becomes essential: integrating information from different systems and sources and transforming it into a coherent picture on which to base decisions.

In the Middle Eastern countries, this has long been recognised. The United Arab Emirates has been investing for years in the integration of sensors, weapon systems and information networks into a single C2 architecture, whilst Saudi Arabia has embarked on a wide-ranging process of modernising its C4I capabilities (Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence).

The Allied Command Transformation of NATO recently described one of the key aspects of this scenario using the concept of information-to-decision latency, that is, the time required to transform what is observed into a decision and that decision into action. In an environment characterised by scale, speed and complexity, even a few seconds can make all the difference.

Then there is a less visible form of pressure: that of information. Sensors, radar, satellites and networks can generate extraordinary quantities of data. But more data does not necessarily mean a better understanding. A hundred pieces of information can help build a clear picture of the situation, but when they number in the thousands, finding the information that really matters can become very difficult. The paradox of the digital age is that one can be so well-informed that one can no longer understand what is happening.

To this we must add a further consideration: how long can a system withstand the pressure? Every response to an attack consumes resources and requires industrial capacity capable of replenishing what has been consumed over time. Saturation therefore has two timescales: the short-term one, in which one must absorb what is happening at that moment, and the long-term one, in which one must replenish what has been consumed.

At the end of this whole chain lies a resource that is even more difficult to enhance: a person’s ability to process what is happening under pressure. A decision-maker, a commander, may find themselves having to assess ten important pieces of information, relate them to one another and set priorities. But when there are a hundred of them, arriving all at once – perhaps incomplete or contradictory – and they all seem urgent, the nature of the problem changes.

This is where saturation also becomes a cognitive issue. A network under pressure can continue to function because it is designed to withstand it. But the human capacity to interpret information, understand its meaning and make decisions can reach its limit much sooner. At that point, the problem is not necessarily the machine or the system, but the human element: the ability of the decision-maker to make sense of what they see.

A study by the U.S. Army War College, published in August this year, notes that artificial intelligence is redistributing cognitive work amongst people, data, tools and processes: the value of AI lies not only in processing more information, but in helping to transform data into understanding, particularly under pressure.

Ultimately, saturation boils down to a very simple question: which part of the system will reach its limit first? A sensor, a network, the available resources, or people’s ability to understand and make decisions? The same principle applies in sport. In tennis, it is not necessarily the player who hits the ball with the greatest force or speed who wins. When facing an opponent who constantly varies their rhythm, angles and depth, the player who manages to absorb the pressure without losing the ability to read the game, adapt and maintain control often comes out on top.

This is perhaps the most interesting lesson to be learnt from recent conflicts. The battle against saturation cannot be won simply by having more or better capabilities than the opponent. It is won by building an architecture capable of absorbing the complexity created by the adversary without losing understanding, coherence and the ability to make decisions. Ultimately, the winner is the one who governs complexity without allowing it to govern them.

Luigi Piantadosi – Regional Executive, RMS Middle East, United Arab Emirates

Lockheed Martin