Unmanned aerial systems were the topic of the final panel session of MILCOM 2009. Although it seems UAVs have been around for a long time—and are essential in current operations—the ground truth is that a number of challenges remain to be resolved before these aircraft can be used to their full potential. Among the challenges is how to reduce weight, size and power needs.

In the area of research and development, a number of programs are underway that will increase UAVs’ effectiveness on the field. Although the U.S. Army is not purchasing all of these capabilities today, its Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) continues to develop them for future use, explained Henry Muller Jr., director, space and terrestrial communications directorate, CERDEC. Items that were being developed for the Future Combats Systems will now be folded into the focus on the Brigade Combat Team transport architecture, he added. “I believe UAVs providing communications relays are going to be absolutely critical on the battlefield,” Muller stated.

Daniel Kuderna, also a member of the CERDEC team, described some of the various radars that are being developed for UAVs. These include the Tactical Reconnaissance and Counter-Concealment Enabled Radar (TRACER), which is currently working on a manned platform to provide UHF and VHF use in the field.

A second set of panelists discussed more details about emerging capabilities that can be placed on UAVs, including the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) system, which will fly on a “substantially modified” Global Hawk UAV. Once it is up and running, BAMS will comprise UAVs persistently flying over five areas of the globe, primarily over large bodies of water. The benefits of the system will be seen in maritime awareness and control, Capt. Bob Dishman, USN, NAVAIR, explained.

The BAMS capability is scheduled to begin in late 2015, with all five maritime areas covered by 2019.

A person recognizable to anyone who has been in military information technology for a few years offered MILCOM 2009 attendees insights into where the Defense Information Systems Agency is headed. Tony Montemarano, component acquisition executive, DISA, revealed that the agency is working on a campaign plan in which the word “convergence” is used time and time again. The plan, which is in the midst of final modifications, comprises three lines of operations: enterprise infrastructure, command and control, and information sharing.

In the area of enterprise infrastructure, Montemarano explained that it is important for companies to know that DISA operates networks, computing environments and entire systems, and each of these has its own set of business processes and different cost-recovery schedules. In this way, the agency is still stovepiped, he allowed.

The focus today is on convergence so that warfighters can plug into the cloud or network to get the information they need. To this end, DISA is trying to drive anonymity out of the network so that troops as well as DOD personnel can access the network from wherever they are and that access is attribute-based. “That’s what we’re focusing on. How do you do that?” Montemarano asked. At DISA, the program is called Enterprise User, he revealed.

Today, DISA is moving toward everything over Internet protocol (EoIP). This approach causes some problems, Montemarano allowed. “In my business, technology doesn’t bother me; technology doesn’t cause me headaches. Culture causes me headaches. Getting people who have always done something one way to adapt to the way other organizations do things is critical to getting them to work together,” he stated.

The danger of EoIP is the same as putting all your eggs in one basket, Montemarano admitted. But it is exactly for this reason that information assurance and security become all that more important. This is particularly true as DISA makes the nonsecure Internet protocol router network (NIPRnet) a true intranet, he said.

Montemarano was honest and upfront about the problems the agency has faced with the Net-Enabled Command Capability. “It didn’t do what we expected it to do. The department is currently rethinking how it wants to go forward. We are going to take this rather significant effort and cut it back. We’re going to go incremental with very small incremental pieces each and every year. The objective and the requirements documents remain in place. We are going to continue to move with a service-oriented architecture, loosely coupled net-centric environment, but we’re going to do it in a more incremental fashion. That tells you something. If you’re going to do it over time, the destination is probably going to change,” he explained.

In the current environment, policy has not kept pace with technology to enable the information sharing that today’s capabilities offer. Combatant commanders still have to look at multiple screens to see all of the data streaming into their operations centers and to obtain total situational awareness.

To solve this problem, Montemarano stated that these capabilities must be brought together as an enterprise service. “We haven’t gotten there yet, but we are honing in on a solution,” he shared. Details of the solution could not be divulged because the competition to provide the capability is still underway.

MILCOM 2009 panelists discussing network centricity and coalitions explained the differences that exist in the methodology during operations that comprise more than just U.S. joint forces. Expectations as well as information must be managed, and this can be difficult in an environment that involves different languages as well as different cultures.

Malcolm Green, chief of communication services, NC3A, shared that the International Security Assurance Force’s (ISAF’s) concept of communications involves each country operating in Afghanistan using its own infrastructure. This is necessary at least in part because of the language barriers that exist in the area. The intelligence that runs across this federated network also comes from each of the coalition’s countries. “The principal point here is that it is the information we want to manage, not the technology. The technology should be transparent to the user,” he said.

NATO forces in the region have both static as well as deployable communications assets. In addition, the forces have crisis response operations capabilities.

Green shared that network centricity at the ISAF can be best understood by examining the what, the why and the how. The “what” is merely having an Internet capability, but while this is simple in developed nations, it is not as easy in regions such as Afghanistan where no infrastructure or technology of any kind exists. Communications capabilities used in this theater must be robust and agile, he added.

The “why”—or benefit of network centricity—is not new, Green pointed out. One of the best examples is Wal-Mart, a company that has a network that enables an extremely efficient logistics chain. It is this same type of responsiveness that coalitions must emulate.

ISAF has been able to bring network centricity to operation Enduring Freedom through funding on the national, multinational and NATO levels. This approach not only ensures that no single nation is left holding the bill but also allows forces from each member country to use the systems they are accustomed to, Green explained.

Three Thales employees also participated in the panel. They shared information about the phenomenal success of the Full Operational Capability Plus (FOC+), which the company was contracted by NATO to bring to the Afghan theater of operations. Because of prior work with the company, NATO officials were able to bring their concept to Thales, and the capability was up and running within approximately 90 days.

The FOC+ is now the communications backbone in Afghanistan. It is an open architecture with systems approved by the NC3A, and it is security accredited. It integrates legacy and new systems and has been operating with 99.8 percent service availability. The FOC+ offers videoconferencing, VoIP, data, e-mail, Web and full-motion video access. More than 150 Thales personnel went to Afghanistan to install the system and remain there to support it.

Thales’ contract with NATO to provide FOC+ equipment, support and services will expire in October 2010, at which time the contract is likely to be re-bid, Green explained.

The commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard is simply enthralled with the opportunities social networking platforms offer. Adm. Thad W. Allen, USCG, opened the final day of MILCOM 2009 by explaining that it took some time for him to move into the Web 2.0 realm, but now that he’s there, he understands that it is a domain that all military leaders must learn to use.

“We have to understand that the changes in technology, computation and so forth have created what I call a fundamental change in our social atmosphere. If you think about social media—Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it—I have said on many occasions that this is not just a change in technology; this is not a new product line; this is not a new way of marketing technology. This is a fundamental change in our social atmosphere that is as fundamental as climate change is to our environment,” he stated.

Once military leaders accept this fact, they will realize that their only choice is to adapt and understand what the technology presents in terms of both risks and opportunities. They can then manage it and move forward, he added.

As in climate change, only three options are available: suffer, adapt or manage. It was congressional hearings based on information on blogs that prompted Adm. Allen to change how the Coast Guard was dealing with social media. “The Internet is forever. A blog post is like non-biodegradable plastic. You cannot change it, and you cannot control the entry into that environment. What you can do is adapt and manage,” he stated. This is the tack that Adm. Allen decided to take for his service.

The permanence of information on the Web and the ability for adversaries to use the Internet to disseminate misinformation means that the military must find new ways to manage these problems. Referring to “Where’s Waldo?”—a series of books that challenge readers to find a single character hidden in an extremely cluttered background—the admiral suggested that while the military can’t change Waldo—in this case the misinformation on the Web—it can at least increase the background clutter with correct information to make it harder to find, he suggested.

“You have to proactively make information available to your people,” Adm. Allen stated. “The more you can make information transparent, the more you’re going to breed self-correcting behavior into your organizations.”

While he is sometimes criticized for this viewpoint because it can sound as if he endorses opening the floodgates on all information, most people understand that this is not possible because of both security and privacy issues. “In spite of some criticisms that have been leveled at me in the Internet world regarding transparency, I subscribe to it, I maintain it and we try to move in that direction, understanding that there will always be limits to how much you can make any organization transparent,” Adm. Allen stated.

When information is readily available, an organization’s members understand what the leaders want and are more likely to head in the right direction. “And I will just tell you that is the ultimate in convergence,” he added.

The final session at MILCOM 2009 today focused on the science and technology of communications and networking for current operations. Dr. Cynthia Dion-Schwarz of the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) organization led panel members in a discussion that centered on existing capabilities as well as those that are on the not-too-distant horizon.

Dion-Schwarz pointed out that many of the technologies currently in use on the battlefield began as research and development programs that seemed incredible when they began. These include the Global Positioning System, night-vision devices and networks. Additional capabilities also are ready for prime time in the field, but they await final accreditation and certification, she said.

Despite these accomplishments, Dion-Schwarz noted that several challenges exist today in the theaters of operation that must be solved–and the sooner the better. These include network operations, persistent and robust beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) communications, tactical communications to the edge and interoperability among systems, especially in Afghanistan.

To its credit, the Defense Department was able to address the BLOS issue to some degree by using the Iridium satellite constellation in a new way. The DDR&E employed the existing constellation and turned it into a BLOS tactical voice and data network by bouncing signals off the satellites to form the network. The “secret sauce” is in the gateway, and the solution now can provide up to 100 nautical miles of BLOS voice and data networking and is a completely unique capability. This is not an end-state solution, Dion-Schwarz pointed out, but fills a need until the Mobile User Objective System is fielded.

Dr. Peter Camara of ViaSat Incorporated described how getting new technologies into programs of record can be like pushing a wet noodle. It requires much coordination and collaboration to get it into the field because there are more people who can say “no” to a technology than can say “yes.” This is primarily because new capabilities must pass a number of information assurance milestones as well as other criteria.

Camara noted that the typical acquisition process today first involves either identifying a new requirement or the need to fix problems of an existing system. Although several major impediments can stand in the way of capabilities moving into the field, these can be addressed readily if users and technologists express the need for a capability in terms of the benefits early in the process.

Kim Watkins, DISA, shared information about capabilities that have been fielded as the result of building on current capabilities. One success story is the UHF SATCOM Integrated Waveform. Work to increase bandwidth capacity that began approximately seven years ago has resulted in nearly quadrupling bandwidth capacity today. This was achieved at a cost of approximately of $67 million; if a new system had been developed to provide the same results, Watkins says it would have cost upwards of $500 million.

Members of the audience brought up some interesting points during the Q&A section of the panel. One small business owner asked how small companies can get their solutions into programs of record. Panelists agreed that it isn’t an easy process but suggested that small businesses team with larger companies to get their foot in the door. Watkins pointed out that DISA is interested in innovative technologies and would be willing to hear ideas or see prototypes to consider for additional research.

Another audience member pointed out that government agencies often are not willing to pay for the intellectual property (IP) rights as part of a purchase from a company, but they are very willing to demand the IP rights when a solution is turned over to them. Panelists agreed that this is the case and is an issue that needs to be addressed.

The Honorable Michael Chertoff, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense, said that strategic convergence will distinguish the 21st from the 20th century in both threats and solutions. Speaking at the MILCOM 2009 luncheon today, Chertoff used the binary versus the quantum approach as an analogy to describe national security threats as well as the changes that must occur to deal with them.

“In the 1990s, we had the tendency to view the world through a binary lens. On one side of the lens we had traditional military warfighting issues where we were dealing largely with nation-states as the adversary and where our capabilities were lodged in the military services and to some degree in the intelligence services,” he stated. This state is what Chertoff called the “1” of the binary view; the law enforcement issues could be considered the “0.”

Each side of this digital divide included unique sets of capabilities, processes and authorities that governed how the military and law enforcement officials operated. “In reality, the neat division between war, national security and the military on the one hand and crime and law enforcement and police on the other was being overtaken by events, by reality. The facts were beginning to change,” he offered.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were the result of those changes. Many lessons were learned that day, and chief among them was that process structures had made it very difficult to share information and tactics across that digital divide. “It was a rude awakening about the need to avoid this kind of distinction,” Chertoff stated. But in addition to this lesson, the terrorist attacks “ripped the cover off” the sea change that was occurring in the security of the nation, he added.

Chertoff says that these events changed the nation’s leaders from looking at security through a binary lens and resulted in what he calls a quantum view of security. Quantum physics proposes that something such as a molecule can exist in a number of areas simultaneously. This is a good metaphor for where the U.S. is in security; threats the country faces not only exist in the two primary points of the military or police but also at many points in between.

The challenges this situation poses are even more difficult to tackle than simply introducing a single architecture, he pointed out. “You have a whole series of legal, bureaucratic and technical structures that were erected under the old regime that are outmoded in dealing with this era quantum events,” Chertoff stated.

“When I look at our adversaries around the world, what I see is that we can no longer kid ourselves into believing that we face challenges that will be easily boxed based on regions and categories. We have got to tear the categories down and recognize that every threat we face can appear simultaneously as a military threat, a terrorism threat, a criminal threat and a community threat that directly impacts our civilian governments,” he states.

This means that communications capabilities must be retooled for the 21st century, Chertoff said. Military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies must be able to integrate their strengths, and this can be done—at least in part—by working through the private sector for solutions, he stated.

Seven panelists discussed whether the GIG is a fad or reality during MILCOM’s first session this morning. At the conclusion of the session, all concurred that not only is the GIG a reality but it has moved beyond its initial objectives and has become the epitome of convergence. Each panelist described the activities of his own organization, which demonstrated that the GIG has indeed diverged from the original intent and now is converging additional capabilities as they become available.

“The reality is that the world has already converged out from under us and gone in this direction,” stated David Mihelcic, CTO, DISA. The benefits of converging are many, he added, and include the opportunities to save money, gain efficiencies, improve interoperability and increase information sharing. The issues that must be resolved to bring this about involve quality of service, prioritization of services, reliability and information assurance, he admitted. To address these issues, DISA is now in the process of updating its GIG Convergence Master Plan, a plan that was born four years ago, Mihelcic added.

Michael Redgraves from the NSA chimed in that not only is the GIG a reality but the military has moved on to what he termed GIG 2.0. Emerging capabilities are creating a unity of command, but one of his agency’s primary concerns is the information assurance piece of the grid. “One of the changes in the DOD and the intelligence community is that people are starting to recognize that information assurance is really important. It’s become more important as a command cross-over requirement. If a commander comes in and says he needs to move this information through this environment to these people, we can help him do that,” Redgraves noted.

Representing the work at the U.S. Army Research and Development Command, Henry J. Muller Jr. pointed out that the service used to focus on the Future Combat Systems program and the future but now must concentrate more on spending funds wisely. Among the issues that must be addressed are spectrum efficiency, information assurance in terms of getting out in front of the threats, and network management. The command’s Communications and Networks Technology Roadmap describes its goals in the areas of wireless transportation of data, mobile networking, cybersecurity, antennas and network operations, he shared. “It is a system of systems engineering strategy,” Muller explained.

At the Naval Network Warfare Command, the GIG is not only a reality it is essential, said Capt. Douglas Swanson, USN. It is critical to the quality of decision making and information assurance and saves the service money. Today, the Navy enjoys the benefits that the NMCI has brought about, but the next step is NGEN—the next generation network, Capt. Swanson allowed. As the service moves further into the future, it will flatten this network even more and will use common tools and processes, he stated.

The stars were out this morning as Lt. Gen. Dennis Via, USA, director, C4 systems, J-6, the Joint Staff, kicked off today’s MILCOM activities. In addition to Gen. Via, a panel of four high-ranking military officials responsible for solving some of the most difficult problems the U.S. faces today explained what their organizations are doing to address the concerns surrounding the theme of the event “The Challenge of Convergence.” Panel members agreed that these challenges are going to change drastically as the U.S. military draws down the number of its troops in Iraq while ramping up the troop count in Afghanistan.

Gen. Via opened the session with insights he gained from his chats with the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Both Adm. Mike Mullen, USN, and Gen. James E. Cartwright, USMC, understand the value of communications and the power of the network. As evidence of this understanding, Gen. Via quoted the vice chairman as saying, “I don’t want the chain of command to inhibit the chain of information.”

This quote struck a chord with the other panelists. Brig. Gen. (P) Mark S. Bowman, USA, director of architecture, operations, networks and space, office of the chief information officer/G-6, U.S. Army, stated that the military must now perform a balancing act. Until this past year, 80 percent of the resources—people, equipment, money—went to Iraq, leaving less than 20 percent for Afghanistan. Some success has been achieved in Iraq, but it is a “fragile peace,” and to sustain peace in the country, the U.S. must build strategic over-watch bases that must be smaller because the Pentagon’s appetite to spend more money on activity in Iraq is low, but the needs are still there, he stated. These bases will continue to require communication systems, and while new systems can be risky, they are absolutely worth the risks, Gen. Bowman added.

Rear Adm. Diane E.H. Webber, USN, director, command control systems, J-6, NORAD/NORTHCOM, says her organization is looking for applications that help the staff share information. There are some persistent themes in the shortfalls in the commands’ ability to provide the JCS with the information it needs, the admiral noted. These include the lack of a common operational picture, the inability to share information, the multiple levels of security information issues, and command and control technology that is not interoperable with other technology sets, Adm. Webber stated. The unique mission sets of NORAD/NORTHCOM forces her to look for creative solutions to problems, she admitted, including turning to commercial products directly from retail outlets to grab and share information from different places.

Brig. Gen. LaWarren V. Patterson, USA, deputy commander, U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Signal Command, says that the Army is currently reviewing and overhauling its doctrine on how it buys IT across warfighting. During this review, the service is facing the same challenges as the rest of DOD: the immediate requirements from Iraq and Afghanistan; the threats in cyberspace; fragmented networks; and increasing constrained resources. The primary tool the service is using to meet these challenges is the Global Network Enterprise Construct to operationalize the LandWarNet.

Brig. Gen. David B. Warner, USAF, director, communications and information, and CIO of Headquarters, Air Force Space Command (AFSC), related that a year ago, Air Force leaders met and made several monumental decisions. One was to stand up a command to focus on the nuclear mission; in August 2009, the Global Strike Command was stood up.

The service also has been working for some time to stand up a cyber command. At the same October 2008 meeting, leaders decided to assign that mission to AFSC, and the Air Force has been designated as the lead major command “for all things cyber,” Gen. Warner stated. To support this mission, the Air Force stood up a combatant numbered Air Force for cyber, which has three wings: the Net Warfare Wing, which focuses on the network today; the Combat Communications Wing, which the general called the “tomorrow force;” and the Information Operations Wing, which focuses on what’s next in as little as a couple of hours or a couple of minutes as the military is fighting, the general explained.

Richard J. Byrne, vice president, command and control center, The MITRE Corporation, wrapped up the unclassified discussion on the first day of MILCOM 2009 by proposing that today’s acquisition problems should be viewed in a different manner. Rather than thinking about how to improve what the U.S. government is doing, perhaps agencies—the U.S. Defense Department included—need to come at the problems from an entirely new direction—a very complex direction.

Complexity theory can be applied in a number of areas—from acquisition to cyberthreats, Byrne explained. Emergent behavior is one of the unique aspects of complexity theory and refers to what happens when many different yet related individual items are combined. These complex systems adapt by cooperating, repeating and responding, and this results in emergent behavior, which is unpredictable. Referring to Stephen Wolfram from his book A New Kind of Science, Byrne said this means that every major complex system that exists exhibits emergent behavior; consequently, those working on complex problems or with complex networks must start thinking about them in new ways.

In terms of acquisition of new systems, procurement officials must be willing to accept less than 100 percent solutions confident that products will be constantly evolving. “If you look at any of the major programs, many of them come from places such as Skunk Works. In fact, 60 percent or more of what the U.S. Army is using today in the theater of operations is not from programs of record. And yet, the dollars of the programs of record are not going into these projects. Most of the things that we’re fighting the war with today are built with a fraction of the funding spent on programs of record,” he related.

Many contend that while these products—such as the Predator—are good individually, they do not integrate well into the systems of systems the military is trying to create. Byrnes contends, however, that once again this problem must be approached differently. Instead of looking at innovations as different, the integration issue should be looked at as different segments that reach out to each other and bleed into each other to some extent.

The difference between how products from programs of record and how innovative products are built is a matter of different assumptions, Byrne explained. Innovators take into account the environment when in the design phase; if the environment the product will be deployed in is not considered from the beginning, the system will fail, he added.

Lt. Gen. Ted F. Bowlds, USAF, commander, Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, delivered the luncheon speech at MILCOM 2009. Gen. Bowlds stated that the world is changing so fast that it is impossible to predict what innovations will develop as well as threats the U.S. will face in the next 10 to 15 years. “Five years out is about all we can go,” he said.

Although irregular warfare is the buzzword today, in the spectrum of conflict, it doesn’t represent any more than 10 percent to 15 percent of the threat today, he said. Despite this low percentage, it is consuming a lot of the U.S. military’s time. “I tell people if you get three individuals with an attitude and an explosive, you’ve got a problem on your hands. They can go anywhere they want to and take that problem and make it your problem these days,” he stated.

Adding to the challenges are budget realities. The way the U.S. Defense Department does business with industry is going to start to change very drastically, he said. The top priorities for the fiscal year 2012 budget will be influenced by “a lack of appetite for spending for DOD” and other pressures, such as the economy and health care. As a result, the military budget is going to come down, the general noted. “The spending spree that we all got to enjoy for the past five or six years is going to evaporate away from us. So, we’re going to have to be smarter in doing what we can with what we’ve got, or we’re going to have to be very, very smart in buying what we need,” he added.

At the heart of the next generation in the military is creation of data, systems and ideas, the general noted. Gen. Bowlds noted that if the military is not careful, its acquisition process is going to go the “way of the dinosaur” because technology is moving so quickly. About 90 percent of what is used at ESC rides on commercial technology today. “So over the years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to tighten up our acquisition,” he stated. The goal at ESC is to get solutions into the hands of the warfighter within 12 months.

In terms of fighting threats in the cyberspace, virtualization of networks may hold the key, the general allowed. By creating a number of virtual networks, data can be stored in different locations, so it is a constantly moving target. “It’s like being a chameleon in the cyber domain,” he stated.