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The large hexagonal building's Tidewater architecture blends well with its placid Hampton Roads surroundings. Indeed, this bucolic Virginia setting belies the beehive of combat-related activity inside-experiments that are profoundly transforming the way this nation fights wars and protects its citizens.

Pictures may indeed be worth a thousand words when applied to visualization aids for warfighters and first responders. A university-based facility is using state-of-the-art computers and software to convert large data files into maps for a variety of organizations. This free material is made available to government agencies, academic research groups and companies that require high-resolution terrain imagery.

Analysts in the U.S. Navy will soon be able to examine new ship systems and military tactics from the beginning to the end of the kill chain without ever leaving shore. A modeling and simulation tool will enable them to assess capabilities quickly at their desktop with a level of fidelity that allows them to make better informed acquisition recommendations as well as to explore adversaries' responses to new devices and strategies. The capability capitalizes on advances made by the video game industry.

Playing games may do more than simply train an operator in a particular skill. Experts are using games to discover how participants behave in certain situations that only recently defied analysis.

The U.S. Defense Department is migrating to an updated version of the Internet protocol that will efficiently connect warfighters and their equipment to theater and global data networks. Internet protocol version 6, or IPv6, can support an unlimited number of site addresses for wireless communications devices, remote sensors, vehicles and precision-guided munitions while offering enhanced security and administrative features.

Flattening a network instead of a city may be the key to successful urban combat operations. U.S. Army intelligence is restructuring its information architecture both to suit the ongoing force transformation and with an eye on the joint arena. The Army's goal is to create a network that extends the reach of vital information across the breadth of the force and down to the individual warfighter.

Although centuries old, information operations is fast becoming the newest strategic weapon in the U.S. military's arsenal. The reformation has come about more by evolution than revolution, bringing individual specialties such as electronic warfare, operations security, military deception, psychological operations and computer network operations under one umbrella. But the result of this synthesis is a military capability that can be a force multiplier when integrated early, often and continuously throughout mission planning and execution.

From large strategic reconnaissance platforms to squad-level hand-launched planes, unmanned aircraft are moving into new operational niches such as hunter-killer and strike missions across all echelons of the U.S. military. As these systems continue to develop, sophisticated networking technologies will permit them to interoperate with manned aircraft and a variety of remotely operated ground and sea vehicles.

A knowledge-sharing effort is helping the U.S. Defense Department's information operations community overcome complex operational challenges. Administered by the U.S. Air Force, this information exchange mechanism permits analysts and warfighters to access relevant data from government, academic and corporate experts. The undertaking also gathers subject matter experts together to discuss and to solve specific issues then stores their findings in an online repository.

Accredited, tested solutions could allow military decision makers and intelligence analysts to access information and make decisions simultaneously using information that resides in multiple security classifications. However, although the U.S. Defense Department is moving forward to address information-sharing challenges, it has encountered difficulties in proving and certifying these technologies in a testbed environment.