There has been recent news over the last several weeks related to SecDef Gates and his intention to cut $78B from the overall budget over five years and pare-down the DoD IT budgets specifically, which are currently absorbing about $37B annually. I sure hope you haven't lost any sleep over this… it amounts to well less than 3 percent. So, while I give the SECDEF high marks, these would not be considered bold cuts by anyone's definition. (I don't count the congressman or senator who may lose a single program as legitimate criticism... politics will always create disproportionate whining when it comes to cuts).

In the early 1970s, the music industry was transformed by the arrival of a practical solution to mobile music—the 8-track player. The world embraced this technology, which infected car stereos, home entertainment systems, portable players and lifestyles. While transformational, this technology soon was replaced by the cassette, followed by CDs and audio DVDs until Apple came out with the iPod—another game-changing technology. The market has created many forms of iPod docking stations for cars, clock radios, entertainment systems, airplane seats, pillows and every possible application. Uses include photos, FM radio, podcasts, videoconferencing and Wi-Fi. This technology is significantly smaller, faster, more comprehensive, more capable and inherently more user-friendly than its 8-track progenitor. The same lessons from this progression can be applied to command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) and government information technology.

Sweden is transforming its military across the board, beginning with its personnel makeup. The Northern European country, which has not been at war since 1814, is transitioning from a conscript military to a fully professional force. This change will reshape the military along different force lines with different emphases. At a time when many other Western militaries are looking at deep cuts in their defense budgets, Sweden expects at worst a flat budget for the foreseeable future. Priorities for hardware expenditures may shift depending on ongoing studies, but not because of budget pressures.

The newly created U.S. Cyber Command is starting its first year of operation in a race to secure the vital infostructure before a new generation of cyberattacks causes lasting damage to military, government and commercial information assets. This potential hazard is not theoretical; it already has been realized overseas, and it may be just a matter of time before U.S. cyber assets suffer devastating attacks.

The U.S. Army took the next big step toward deploying flexible displays to soldiers on the battlefield by evaluating prototypes of a wrist-mounted form of the technology during a recent field exercise. Users accessed video feeds and information about firing on targets during the trials of the displays, marking a major shift in the progress of developing this type of tool.

Combat operations in Iraq officially ended last year, but the troops of the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division continued contingency operations, working with Iraqis to overcome remaining challenges and to complete necessary missions. As other units left the battlespace, the division’s signal soldiers inherited responsibility for more geographic area, requiring them to adapt their methods and equipment accordingly, until the division, too, returned home last December.

Participants in a biennial U.S. Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity exercise evaluated the relevance of the U.S. national response plan in an event that featured more players than ever before. Representatives from federal and state government, the private sector and foreign countries all worked together to examine the United States’ ability to handle cybercrises. The personnel also enjoyed the privilege of being the first to employ and review a new center dedicated to coordinating actions during a serious real-world incident. Held in September 2010, Cyber Storm III was the primary vehicle to exercise the National Cyber Incident Response Plan (NCIRP)—the recently created blueprint for cybersecurity incident response. The plan examines the roles, responsibilities, authorities and other key elements of the nation’s cyberincident response and management capabilities. Evaluations by participants will help the government refine the document moving forward.

We are seeing a global trend to provide tighter coordination of defense, intelligence, and security planning and operations. In the United States, people refer to the security function as homeland security, while in other countries around the world this function is simply called security or internal security. In many nations, the law prohibits the integration of defense and security to minimize the use of military forces within the nation’s borders except under specific circumstances. But with the growth of the global terrorism threat and asymmetric warfare, the need to achieve synergies among these assets and the need to attend carefully to the seam between defense and security has become apparent to most.

The public sector and industry are collaborating to catapult Sweden into becoming one of the world’s most information technology-savvy nations in the world. Contributions to this progress have been coming from all segments of the population. New government leaders are setting substantial technology goals for the country to achieve as a whole. The armed forces not only are preparing their troops with home-grown technologies but also taking part in NATO operations, which requires them to keep up with advances in other nations. And, up-and-coming small- and mid-size businesses are creating innovations that soon-to-be-renovated law will allow them to sell to a longer list of buyers.

The convergence of threats is increasing the requirements for sharing unclassified data that address maritime domain awareness and homeland defense. The U.S. Defense Department’s Executive Agent for Maritime Domain Awareness is coordinating the requirements of combatant commands, the services and the department’s four intelligence agencies to scrutinize the gaps and seams in data-sharing capabilities and technologies. Closing these gaps and tightening these seams is crucial to protecting U.S. shores from, among other dangers, weapons of mass destruction.