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Thirty miles outside Louisville, Kentucky, normally there is no noise at all, or just the occasional bird or maybe the wind, but when the curtain rises at the Zussman Urban Combat Training Center, the scene is transformed into total chaos. Explosions, fire, smoke and noise flood the senses. Telephone poles topple, cars careen out of control, and commanders test the mettle of their troops.

Forced to go its own way in technology and weapon system development because of a peacetime nonalignment policy and wartime neutrality, Sweden suddenly finds itself the focus of international business attention. Extensive changes are taking place in Sweden's defense and aerospace industries as foreign interest centers on investment, acquisition, merger and multinational consortium arrangements.

The U.S. Defense Department, with the cooperation of nations worldwide, is examining a multitude of technologies that would enhance today's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Recently created systems would allow military forces to acquire targets more accurately, collaborate remotely and share weather information to determine how conditions will affect a planned mission or the effectiveness of a weapon. Emerging technologies also would passively monitor potential targets, facilitate near-real-time access to up-to-date terrain information, provide a defense against information operations, and reduce the footprint and life-cycle cost of equipment.

Space may be the final frontier for travel, but for today's earthbound warriors it is the enabler of systems that strengthen and speed operations. Recognizing that the military's reliance on space-based assets will continue to grow, the U.S. Defense Department is seeking new ways for these resources to give its soldiers the advantage. No longer viewed as a luxury, the cosmos is now treasured as an intricate component of a successful mission.

The U.S. Army's transformation to a rapid-response fighting force is compelling its information systems experts to shift their plans for digitization. Situational awareness is increasing in importance, sensors are becoming more sophisticated, and diverse elements and activities are being linked to make the individual soldier an information-enhanced warrior.

As the U.S. Army scrambles to digitize the battlefield, an important element in the warfighter's information network is a new high-capacity line-of-sight radio. Operating with an extremely efficient waveform in minimally occupied portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, this multiband software-reprogrammable radio system significantly enhances the ability to meet burgeoning theater bandwidth requirements.

The U.S. Defense Department is turning to a family of software agents that locate, recognize and speed the delivery of critical information to where it is needed most on the battlefield. When minutes and seconds are precious commodities to a warfighter, software transfer agents help manage and expedite the dissemination of badly needed information. These robot-like software tools help leverage the power of the information age.

The drive to speed new military information system technologies to the field, coupled with an increased reliance on commercial off-the-shelf products, is posing new interoperability problems for communicators. Many of these systems must interoperate in an increasingly networked environment with legacy equipment or foreign counterparts in coalition operations.

Communications specialists are proposing that the U.S. Forces-Korea change engineering and management approaches and follow the lead of commercial Internet service providers. The plan offers wide area network transmission bandwidth between the global defense information infrastructure and command, control, communications, computers and intelligence systems users on the Korean Peninsula, and it addresses several problems with the existing data network there.

British forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo will receive a new, highly automated communications network designed to reduce staffing requirements. Part of an ambitious 28-week program by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, it will replace a manpower-intensive system currently in use, allowing roughly 260 Royal Signal Corps personnel to be reassigned. Made entirely from commercial technologies, all elements must be in place and operational by late August before the harsh Balkan winter begins.