MilDef AB, Helsingborg, Sweden, will support the Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organization (DALO) with rugged Rocky RK9 rugged computers and special electronics. The first deliveries to DALO will take place this month.

International Business Machines Corporation, Yorktown Heights, New York, is being awarded a $6,576,024 cost contract for the Broad Operational Language Technology Program. The program has a goal of creating technology capable of translating multiple foreign languages in all genres, retrieving information from the translated material, and enabling bilingual communication via speech or text. Specifically, this contractor will conduct work for activity A, “Genre-Independent Translation and Information Retrieval System,” and activity C, “Human-Human Dialogue System.” The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is the contracting activity.

BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems, Totowa, New Jersey, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract for a maximum $24,062,919 for installation of advanced radar warning receiver ship sets on C-130 aircraft. The Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity.

Georgia Tech Applied Research Corporation, Atlanta, Georgia, is being awarded a $25,135,974 cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery, requirements contract for ground-based sensors for remotely controlled aircraft. ESG/PKS, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, is the contracting activity.

Spectrum Laser and Technologies Incorporated, Colorado Springs, Colorado, is being awarded a $8,704,839 firm-fixed price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the purchase of circuit card assemblies in support of the Naval Air Systems Command. The circuit card assemblies are integrated into the MH-60R and MH-60S armed helicopter weapon system projects. The circuit cards contribute to the helicopter’s ability to perform surface warfare, force protection, maritime interdiction operations, combat search and rescue, and vertical replenishment support missions. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, Crane, Indiana, is the contracting activity.

Lt. Gen. Susan S. Lawrence, USA, chief information officer/G-6, opened LandWarNet 2011, by promising that every one of the 453 vendors at the conference will be visited by a member of her senior team. They will fill out surveys describing the technologies they saw, which she will review, and she encourage all attendees also to contribute their insights about solutions that can address the Army’s challenges by filling out the surveys.

Gen. Lawrence introduced Maj. Gen. Alan R. Lynn, USA, Chief of Signal, Fort Gordon, who described some of the changes that are on the way, including the use of avatars to track each soldier as he or she enters the Army. The avatars will have the same characteristics of the individuals from their PT score to their weapons qualifications. Change is coming, Gen. Lynn said, from equipment to training to education to the way the Army employs troops.

AFCEA International President and Chief Executive Officer Kent Schneider made one of the top announcements during the opening presentation about the future of the conference itself. In response to the need to tightened financial belts, LandWarNet 2012 will be the conglomeration of three regionally dispersed smaller events, reducing travel costs. Renamed TechNet Land Forces, the first event will take place in Tucson in March and focus on security and network operations. The second will be located in Tampa in July and concentrate on joint and coalition issues. The third will occur in Baltimore in August and focus on cyber.

Vincent Viola, West Point graduate and financial sector entrepreneur extraordinaire, emphasized that the difference technology has made in both industry and the military transcends any changes that have occurred in the past. Prior to 1997, trading pits required physical fitness to literally elbow competitors out of the way to get an edge. Ten years later, with the introduction of technology, six times the amount of trading goes on, yet it is so quiet that the sound of a pin drop means something’s not working right, he related.

The military has experienced a comparable sea change, though Viola candidly revealed that at first many commanders were not thrilled about computers replacing their push-to-talk radios. Although today command centers are quieter than in the past, he challenged the Army to hold “silent exercises,” where commanders would only be able to use a computer tablet to command and control the troops. “And if they talk, there’s a punishment,” he quipped.

The drawback to these great technological advances, Viola was quick to point out, is that the cyberthreat has increased in tandem with benefits. Both to the military and industry, the ability to disrupt communications has a lower barrier to entry as technology costs plummet; malware is proliferating at a rate that can no longer be handled; cyberspace has truly become the 5th domain of warfare; and now battles are no longer about topography but about topology, he stated.

These changes mean the military must rethink the people they seek to recruit. New soldiers not only must be physically fit but also have mental stamina as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance will be ever ubiquitous, which will require warfighters who can quickly assess incoming information. “They must be able to get ‘inside the code,’” he said.

“The Army of the future will be one of force power and a heart. We need to gather around the geeks. Maybe we need to find geeks who love their country. The Gestalt will be around ‘geek-dom,’” Viola stated with a smile.
The military must think of cyberwarfare in active rather than reactive ways, he added. There must be an offensive doctrine that includes identifying proactive, preemptive opportunities. “If you are not encouraging penetration tests of your systems, you’ll fail,” Viola stated. “We are at cyber war right now. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Following the triple disasters of the earthquake in Japan, the tsunami, and the continuing nuclear crisis, I interviewed Dr. Lin Wells, Director, Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University, concerning his thoughts about emergency preparedness and disaster recovery efforts in Japan. Wells is a well-known expert in emergency preparedness and disaster recovery who has provided leadership and expertise in preparing for and responding to some of the worst disasters in our recent history. His efforts to promote coordinated approaches are helping advance response and preparedness capabilities around the world. Wells has been interested in Japan since he was a teenager, is a graduate of their National Institute for Defense Studies, and still has many friends and colleagues there.

During our discussion, Wells drew upon many of his experiences with past disasters and populations under stress, noting some unique elements of the situation in Japan. The nuclear element has added an additional level of uncertainty. His first notification of what was happening in Japan was from a friend’s text message during or right after the first shocks. Thus, he has been involved on several levels from the beginning. But Wells hesitated to offer too many opinions about Japan because, while he has been deeply involved, it has been in relatively narrow channels while the U.S. government and many relief organizations have been engaged much more broadly.

It may be instructive to compare the role of open source, volunteer communities, such as the “CrisisMappers,” in Haiti and in Japan.  In Haiti, the open technology community provided near-real time information often not available through other sources (such as OpenStreetMap displays of the situation in Port au Prince).  This was partly due to the damage done to Haitian government institutions by the earthquake, as well as the low initial information baseline.  In Japan, the technological base is much higher, and the Japanese government has been more able to coordinate rescue and recovery efforts.  Nonetheless, useful outside information was made available for Japan, such as plots of radiation levels and imagery-derived maps of badly damaged areas.

The model Wells has been developing “is to complement what is going on with the official responses by making use of crowd sourced information as well as other non-traditional sources,” he says. “The crowd-sourced community has matured since Haiti, and will generate information whether governments want it or not.  Organizations need to build a bridge to what the crowd is saying.”  Crowd-sourced information won’t remain secret, and its volume and velocity can overwhelm organizations. Thus, we need to channel such information to decision-makers, turn it into situational awareness, and then complete transactions to make a difference “on the ground” (people rescued, supplies delivered, contracts fulfilled), and give people feedback.  Each geographic area is going to be different.  Open-source Geospatial Information System (GIS) products are increasingly becoming available to support emergency operations around the world. Wells and others view GIS and crowd-sourcing as inputs that can complement formal domestic and international crisis response structures. Some of this will be tested in the virtual Exercise 24 (X24) Europe happening this week; interested parties are welcome to join (x24.eushare.org).

Consequences of a disaster spread far beyond the initial event or events. To surge and sustain the emergency response model requires the participation of the private sector.  Wells said, “the long-term solution is not going to be government, the long term solution is going to be the private sector.” Private sector, non-profit and government efforts from around the world are under way to assist Japan.

The Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration 2010 (CWID 2010) final report has been released in a Consumer Reports style and includes a list of the top 11 performing technologies. The event comprised 32 interoperability trials that focused on challenges warfighters are facing in Afghanistan in the areas of exchanging information among coalition partners, military services and government agencies. Additionally, the solutions addressed issues of command, control and communications among emergency responders.

After conducting one to three assessments—interoperability, information assurance and warfighter/operator utility—of the participating interoperability trial solutions, the top technologies included the Virtual Intercom System, a ballistic missile defense system called FLEX, the Joint Airborne Network Control, an Italian air force command and control information system network, the Collaborative Alert Respond System and the ID Military Application Security Services. Top solutions could be in the hands of military forces and government agency personnel within six to 12 months.

The judging criteria for Top Performing Technologies (TPT) were developed in CWID 2009. The process includes establishing entrance/exit criteria at key CWID planning/decision points that can be mapped to U.S. Defense Department-mandated, standardized needs. In addition, the TPTs were chosen based on how well they met sponsor-defined requirements the funding programs, technology sponsors or Joint Chiefs of Staff set.

Trial sponsors provided metrics against which an interoperability trial performance’s was assessed. Trials that demonstrated more than 50 percent performance achievement when compared to these measurements achieved TPT status.
Just days after the release of the 2010 event results, planning for the CWID 2011 event began. On November 14, the initial planning conference was underway, and the next list of technologies selected. Next year’s demonstration will focus on information-sharing solutions that support the Afghanistan Mission Network construct.

The SIGNAL  staff and all of AFCEA extend our appreciation and respect to our nation’s veterans for their courage and sacrifice.

Honoring 235 years of service to the nation.

You can read or watch the commandant’s message online.