The U.S. fiscal year 2011 budget submission is in the hands of Congress, and information on defense budgets internationally provides clarity in the wake of the global economic crisis. At the same time, dialogue with government and industry has given us some insight into near- and mid-term direction. I want to share some of that information because the more we all understand probable trends and direction, the better we will be able to work together to provide the solutions needed going forward.

Actionable knowledge will be available to commanders at lightning speed as the U.S. military and industry institute more adept methods to sift through terabytes of raw intelligence data. With the help of language-crunching software, intelligence analysts will be privy not only to crucial data about people, organizations, locations and weapons but also to the relationships among them. The key that unlocks the door to this obscure information is technology that enables computers to recognize and collate words and their meanings. In a matter of minutes, it then organizes the data in a way that would take weeks for a human analyst to accomplish.

The attire may be different and the swashbuckling kept to a minimum, but for today’s pirates the aim is the same as in centuries past: loot and lawlessness. Piracy is a lucrative alternative for starving people who live in regions with no civil authority to provide economic or political stability. As a result, the populace in countries surrounding the Gulf of Aden—particularly Somalia—are turning to barons of corruption who now have a multitude of impressionable young men willing to fight extraordinary odds even to their deaths. Unfortunately, the solution to this problem is as complex as the cause.

An emerging virtual training solution will mitigate the challenge many small-unit joint operators face when preparing for deployment from various locations. The Tactical Joint Training and Experimentation Network addresses live-asset training gaps by extending a strategic joint training network. This network links disparate aircrews located in a simulator with live, small-unit ground forces to rehearse joint tasks.

Last Fall, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate asked a radical question: “How can we restore Internet connectivity to American citizens after a disaster?” Too often, he noted, the government treats citizens after disasters as victims instead of as sentient creatures who could solve many of their own problems if given the tools.

While extensive work has been published on the U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons programs, very little has been said about Soviet electronics and its related espionage until author Steven T. Usdin’s book, Engineering Communism: How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley. Usdin has brought readers into this intriguing world in a thorough and insightful way by revealing how the two U.S.-born spies nearly created a Soviet version of Silicon Valley.

A prototype virtual operating system will allow researchers to load experiments into supercomputers quickly without having to modify their programs substantially to operate on a specific platform. The software uses a technique called virtualization to enable a machine to run multiple operating systems, something current supercomputers cannot do. This capability would allow high-performance computers to operate a wider range of software, from highly specialized modeling and simulation programs to commercial applications.

The French army soon will deploy a tactical battlefield communications and data network that aims to provide battalion command posts with on-the-halt satellite and line-of-sight connectivity. The system is part of France’s ongoing efforts to convert its military into a fully network-centric force. In addition to extending high-bandwidth networking down to mobile command posts, the program also lays the foundations for a future fully mobile communications capability.

A U.S. Army organization is changing the way information is protected by embedding personnel and assessment processes into research and development programs. The center works with researchers to put security procedures in place by helping program managers identify and safeguard vital data. But protecting that information is challenging because it often is difficult to determine what is and is not sensitive material.

The U.S. Defense Department has developed an information assurance policy chart in an attempt to pull together the department’s diverse information assurance policies under a single umbrella document. The web-based chart provides hyperlinks directly to policies so that a user can identify and trace their origins as well as track changes that occur.