The U.S. government is taking a giant leap into the virtual realm with the creation of a parallel world intended for training, education and networking. What began as a platform to improve collaboration of emergency management personnel has evolved into a benefit for all government agencies. The project is government-owned and incorporates techniques and technologies unavailable in civilian efforts, offering a robust, powerful tool for conducting business.

Cloud computing can be a gamble, so one teaching tool uses a casino motif to help information professionals understand the best strategies for incorporating it into their organizations. Using a table and mat that resemble a craps game, teams take on tasks that relate to a real-world scenario. As the competition progresses, participants experience the benefits and risks of deploying traditional information technology, information clouds or a combination of both.

The U.S. economic stimulus package is making waves throughout government and industry. Some experts believe that it represents a sea change in government acquisition in terms of oversight, contractor accountability and transparency, which has been attempted before but never has been fully realized. Companies that wish to benefit from the stimulus package need to move—and move quickly—by positioning themselves as solutions providers and as businesses that are willing to follow the new rules.

Call it hybrid, unconventional or asymmetric warfare, the conclusion is the same: the United States and its allies must be prepared to fight a war against integrated threats posed by traditional and nontraditional adversaries. Accomplishing this task will require simultaneous improvements in almost every area of today’s forces, including training, agility, acquisition, strategy, tactics and cultural awareness. To defeat complex foes and their multifaceted attacks, the U.S. military has developed a framework that sets the course forward. However, this plan is not designed as the be-all and end-all of strategies. Instead, it is meant to address past and current challenges and to propel the military and other government agencies into an unpredictable future.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan are using a situational awareness system that alerts military patrols about mined roads and warns civilian relief convoys about traffic jams and possible insurgent activity. The capability fuses intelligence alerts and real-time tracking information to provide users with the location of civilian and NATO forces.

The Tennessee Army National Guard is using a network change and configuration management technology to monitor its networks proactively and warn administrators about potential trouble. The NetMRI system incorporates devices that integrate hardware and software to provide alerts and to allow problems to be remediated immediately. It also enables a small staff to monitor and manage a statewide network consisting of hundreds of nodes and facilities.

Estonia is the first nation in history to have experienced massive cyber attacks directed at its government and key infrastructure. The event, which took place over a three-week period in April and May 2007, marked the beginning of a new type of amorphous, hard-to-track threat to international security. Coming in successive waves, the attacks almost shut down the Baltic country’s government, which relies extensively upon online transactions and e-commerce. In the aftermath of the incident, the European Union and NATO launched a series of initiatives to strengthen national infrastructures and to improve communications between national and multinational organizations in the event of another cyber attack.

Networks no longer are a tidy complement to the work of defense agencies. As information gathering and processing have become faster and more essential to defense and security operations, those networks have evolved into essential tools. But the very barriers created in the justifiable zeal to protect these networks also are erecting significant roadblocks to information sharing, and the fallout affects the agencies’ ability to collaborate with allies, coalition partners and each other.

Some risks attend all travel in the domains of land, sea, air and outer space, but in those realms the voyager is afforded a patently acceptable measure of protection by laws, rules, sanctions against misbehavior, and social norms and comity. Aviators, firefighters, law enforcement officials, soldiers and others obliged to function in highly contested domains can seek added protection from partners who warn of danger from their rear perspective—their six o’clock.