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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last summer's Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) change of command was bittersweet for the information technology community, as we said farewell to one friend and welcome aboard to another. It also was a reflection of how blessed our nation is that as we make changes at the highest levels in our armed forces and their agencies, we continue to provide superb leadership and management. Even when styles and methods are different, the change almost always turns out to be healthy.

The final phase of a three-stage plan has been put into place to modernize the Defense Information Systems Agency's acquisition process for getting new technologies into the hands of warfighters rapidly. Four new program executive offices will improve integration across product lines and support end-to-end engineering of the Global Information Grid. Streamlining the total acquisition process and holding these offices accountable from a budgetary standpoint are among the goals of the transformational effort.

The U.S. Defense Department's messaging initiatives have made organizational messaging faster, easier and more secure while reducing the effort and personnel needed to perform the work.