A competition for students age 18 and older in California, New York and Delaware seeks to turn hackers into viable assets for the nation's cybersecurity needs. The U.S. Cyber Challenge's (USCC's) Security Treasure Hunt, taking place from April 12 to May 20, aims to find 5,000 people to compete to find security flaws and vulnerabilities on a target system. The top performers from each state will receive all-expenses-paid trips to Cyber Challenge summer camps. They also could be exposed to government, industry and academia officials searching for their skills to fill critical roles.

One of NATO’s oldest and smaller member nations is vying with history and modern economics as it endeavors to tailor a modern military that can respond to any contingency coalition operation around the world. Portugal, which has been an independent nation for more than 850 years, seeks to maintain its global tradition of international cooperation amid rapid changes in the military and economic makeup of the Atlantic alliance.

Portugal’s reliance on information technologies for defense has increased the importance of the country’s private sector. A robust high-technology industry increasingly is called upon to provide advanced systems for the Portuguese military.

The U.S. Navy already is encountering unexpected changes following the consolidation of its N-2 and N-6 organizations. The effects of the merger already are leaving their mark on the organization itself along with the rest of the service. Budgetary planners effectively are defining the new organization’s campaign plan for the next few years. And, new technologies have leaped to the top of the Navy’s priority list.

The key to prevailing in a hostile cyberspace environment may lie in the ability to generate a comprehensive picture of that environment. Both the military and the public sector rely heavily on cyberspace assets that are intertwined, and effective threat detection and response will need to encompass both realms.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command has released a new Joint Operating Environment to address changes in trends and situations that will influence joint forces in their missions of domestic and world security. This release includes several topic areas such as the global economic situation not covered in the 2008 version. It also expands on areas that authors felt needed more attention such as cyberthreats.

Some U.S. troops are finding their home bases a little more diverse than in the past. Various posts around the country are transforming from geographically close but military-branch separate bases into single, larger, joint-service locations. This arrangement reflects the morphing of military missions to joint operations. It also saves the U.S. Defense Department needed funds while continuing to provide the same services to warfighters and their families.

The team that provides combatant commands with lean, agile, responsive and collaborative thinking has taken on a mission of assessment and analysis of an operational and strategic magnitude. Its goal is to integrate information and analysis into the common operational picture quickly enough to get inside a commanding officer’s decision-making cycle. To achieve this objective, the group is relying on expertise that is available not only in the military but also in industry and academia.

A joint capability technology demonstration project currently underway is literally clothing U.S. soldiers and Marines in computers and placing them in virtual scenarios. The program is upping the investment in modeling and simulation developments—traditionally focused on land and air vehicles—to better reflect current operational needs. It aims not only at augmenting traditional training methods but also at determining the most effective ways to reach and teach the newest generation of warfighters.