Unmanned ground systems have become a vital tool for warfighters operating in Southwest Asia. Initially deploying a handful of machines, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps now deploy thousands of robots into the theater. Ranging from tiny scouts designed to be thrown into windows to remote control mine clearance vehicles, these platforms have saved many lives by replacing soldiers in dangerous jobs, including ordnance disposal and reconnaissance.

The U.S. Defense Department is developing an information sharing implementation plan based heavily on current need and impending reality. One foundational element of the department’s approach is that everyone agrees on the need to share information, but differences lie in how that goal is to be accomplished. The other factor is that new technologies and capabilities are changing the very nature of information access, and users ignore them at their own risk.

The dream of zapping incoming missiles traveling at supersonic speeds into nonexistence is becoming closer to reality as laser science transitions from the laboratory to the field. Research into several different laser technologies is bearing fruit, and soon warfighters and civilians may be protected from threats as simple as mortar rounds or as complex as nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.

A key Pacific ally of the United States has become the first foreign nation to field a sea-based ballistic missile interception system. The technology is a modification of the Aegis air defense weapons system designed to track and destroy short- and intermediate-range missiles. This capability permits Japanese warships to defend their island nation from attack by neighboring states.

Antimissile capabilities have advanced far beyond the brute-force systems of the 1960s or the science-fictionesque concepts of the 1980s. Decades of research are paying off as effective systems are moving into the field. Once-exotic technologies are poised to change the balance of power between rogue nations exploiting ballistic missile proliferation and the democracies they threaten with missile attack.

A unique exchange program permits government and private sector organizations to exchange high-tech workers. The goal of the Information Technology Exchange Program (ITEP) is to provide both sectors with an opportunity to share best practices and to better understand each other’s operating practices and hurdles.

New capability provides security from hostile states, but challenges remain for coalition operations.

Web 2.0 technologies broaden participation in association’s first of four events of its new conference series.