The U.S. Navy is working hard to keep humans out of minefields. The service is developing a host of autonomous and air-deployed capabilities to detect and neutralize mines at sea and in littoral zones. These systems, which are now entering service, will reduce and ultimately eliminate the need for divers to disarm and destroy mines in person.

The U.S. Navy is turning over the modernization of a shipboard network system to private industry to speed the introduction of new technologies and capabilities. The upgrades currently being introduced into the system help bring ship networks into the Web 2.0 era and provide the flexibility to accommodate more communications advances as they are incorporated into the fleet.

The U.S. Navy has made great strides in the communications field in the past two years, but the work is far from over. When the position of deputy chief of naval operations for communication networks (N-6) on the staff of the chief of naval operations was reinstated in 2006, the vice admiral who moved into the spot recognized naval needs and implemented measures to move the sea service forward both through technology and policy. Now, as he prepares to retire and pass the reins to a successor in June, he can see many of his plans coming to fruition and make recommendations for the path ahead.

Pentagon officials are aggressively tackling the spectrum supportability problems that plague the U.S. military both in the United States and abroad. In response to discussions at the Defense Spectrum Summit in December, personnel in the offices of the Joint Staff and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration hammered out details and approved a long-awaited update to the department’s official instruction on management and use of electromagnetic spectrum. A number of new initiatives have been put into motion, and military leaders agree that if the momentum of the summit continues, severe problems with spectrum management could be a thing of the past.

The Defense Information Systems Agency has transformed its acquisition policy over the past several years, and the success of the new method has resulted in cost savings and faster deployments of capabilities. As new programs—both large and small—advance, the agency plans to be as open as possible with industry in an effort to create synergy that will generate the best solutions.

A major Defense Information Systems Agency program is serving as a transformational change agent for the U.S. Defense Department by blazing a path toward the much desired network-centric method of data sharing. The system, which enables military information exchange in a trusted environment with dynamic and flexible users and needs, already has begun providing capabilities to customers. It is about to enter the initial operational test and evaluation phase.

Not content with being a global service provider, the Defense Information Systems Agency is striving to extend its network to take advantage of new capabilities that it is introducing into the force. Many of these new capabilities magnify the power of the network as it reaches the tactical edge, and they may change the nature of communications and information flow.