A service with a long history of creative solutions to military challenges is joining forces with the unconventional warfare community. The U.S. Marine Corps has established a special operations command that will work as part of a joint special forces group.

The global war on terrorism and new technological capabilities have changed the way special operations forces fight and how they are employed in the battlefield. Nontraditional missions require nontraditional skills, and the U.S. Special Operations Command is training a new type of warrior to use skill sets vital in the war on terrorism.

The U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review and the fiscal year 2007 defense budget submission were noteworthy for their focus on special operations forces. Both documents called for increased emphasis on small, highly trained, mobile units in the ongoing global war on terrorism. Our success in ridding Afghanistan of its Taliban rulers showed how effective coalition special forces can be in the shadowy war against terrorists.

Col. Steven Spano's response to this question, on behalf of U.S. Air Forces in Europe (SIGNAL Magazine, January 2006, page 336), eloquently articulates much of the critical thinking that is taking place in the U.S. Marine Corps today. His assertion that "it is not about the technology, but how it is applied, that matters," speaks volumes about our service's approach toward emerging technologies.

The changes wrought on the U.S. military by the global war on terrorism are more far-reaching and are happening more quickly than expected, according to U.S. military and government leaders. These changes affect everything from the information infrastructure to personnel policies, and the long-term nature of that war means that even more changes are likely to emerge.

An emerging design methodology allows system designers to connect different vendor applications to share information across a network or networks and to adapt rapidly to changing technologies. With this structure, a variety of software tools can interoperate and organizations can establish metrics to monitor system use and data sharing between internal departments or external agencies.

A World Wide Web-enabled technology is on the verge of dramatically changing the way people and computers interact and share information. It provides a common architecture that permits data to be communicated and reused across application, enterprise and community boundaries. This automated context mapping capability will allow complex network-centric systems to reach their full potential and to scale beyond present systems.

Under a new joint and integrated framework, the Netherlands military is addressing its traditional fragmented satellite communications capabilities by consolidating existing commercial C- and Ku-band satellite communications. The framework involves using flexible and more cost-effective arrangements and infrastructure. A prime strategy is to extend robust X-band military satellite communications usage from a limited shipborne-only role to the air force and army by purchasing capacity on the United Kingdom's new Skynet 5 private finance initiative. In addition, the country is inserting new capabilities through participation in the U.S. Advanced Extremely High Frequency Program as an international partner. This mix of media is designed to provide flexible, available and assured beyond line-of-sight connectivity to Dutch forces.

The People's Republic of China has developed a marine corps for maritime and amphibious operations. However, instead of being designed to invade Taiwan as expected by many Western experts, China's marine corps appears to have been created for South Sea expansion. A major upgrading of weapons, structure and support is making the Chinese marines an increasingly viable threat to nearby islands.

U.S. Marine Corps units soon may be equipped with manportable electro-optic sensors that will help augment security during operations. The devices form part of a prototype suite of automated reconnaissance systems that will permit warfighters to control more territory and to have better situational awareness.