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Sure and steady progress in communications in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has dramatically sped up the pace of coalition combat, security, governance and development operations throughout the country. Since 2001, telecommunications capabilities have leapt from the Stone Age into the 21st century, and military networks have been taught to talk to each other. From the tactical perspective, this progress is increasing shared situational awareness and boosting collaboration among nations.

New tactical communications technologies are giving U.S. forces in Iraq tremendous capabilities that are essential to the new warfighting doctrine that has been implemented. But in turn, these capabilities are generating a wish list for communicators as they try to extend their reach to those who need them the most.

Sometime soon, swarms of autonomous robots may help battlefield communications networks stay up and running even in the most challenging battlefield environments. Each individual machine is a mobile communications node. When grouped together, these smart relays will automatically form a network and realign themselves to maintain links in the face of jamming, radio interference or complex, radio-unfriendly terrain such as buildings.

The U.S. Army is pushing the network to the tactical edge in a viable way with the development of a new radio. The communications tool will enable individual soldiers to connect more efficiently among each other and with higher levels of leadership, employing a technology that allows troops to pass messages even without line of sight. Mass production of the core parts makes the radios affordable, and use of controlled but unclassified communications makes them applicable for uncleared personnel in infantry units.

Existing X-band commercial communications satellites with fundamental high power and bandwidth advantages enable communications-on-the-move dexterity. Spacecraft advances and state-of-the-art tracking technology with small but stable antennas facilitate a wide variety of high-data-rate communications for mobile military missions encompassing land, sea and air.

Armed forces around the world soon may deploy an integrated family of communications intelligence and electronic warfare systems. Designed for export, the hardware and software supports land and sea forces, as well as national intelligence services, by sharing data across all echelons from the tactical level up to national-level organizations. Parts of the system already are in service with the French army.

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.

The U.S. Central Command is juggling new technologies with new missions amid joint and coalition environments as it fights adversaries that change tactics quicker than the command can upgrade equipment. Many of the command’s communication and information system requirements mirror those of other U.S. commands. However, the acid test of combat is highlighting capabilities and drawbacks of many new tactical systems in ways that could change long-range planning for defensewide communications.