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The need to extend operations beyond conventional alliance borders is driving technology development in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The alliance is embracing digital technologies to pave the way for its new command and control infrastructure, which must be flexible enough for a variety of potential missions.

The Republic of Bulgaria is tapping the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for ideas, tactics and technologies as it restructures its military to serve European security needs in the coming century. The goal of this effort is to be a functional European security partner as a full member of the Atlantic alliance, and at the center of the thrust is development of a robust command, control, communications and computers infrastructure.

A Warsaw institute that predates World War II is focusing its efforts on providing Poland with advanced technological know-how to smooth the country's entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Known as the Telecommunications Research Institute, the group of scientists and engineers is building on decades of military electronics development to supply Poland's military with radars and related components that will interoperate with their counterparts among the country's new Western allies.

New data collection technology can provide a virtual image of a crime scene to give a visual representation of the scenario in criminal cases. This technology, which uses a pen-based computer, is being developed with input from law enforcement communities to help investigators and officers in the field.

Field operatives can share the capabilities of their headquarters counterparts to access and cross-reference law enforcement data from large archives or active files. Software capable of running on commercial off-the-shelf hardware allows collection and dissemination of vital police information from diverse sources without overwhelming its user.

The Defense Department is striving to link its diverse battlefield communications through a single system based on an airborne platform. This system would be capable of providing connectivity among radio and cellular telephony users while loitering over a theater of operations, and its capabilities could also be applied to intelligence collection and dissemination.

The advent of increasingly sophisticated threat organizations as well as the need to interoperate with technologically mature militaries are impelling many nations to acquire highly capable communications systems that are available from only a few sources. One system, the PRC2100V Spectre V, is the latest in a series of tactical voice and data communications systems and was designed primarily for use by countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as in emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe.

Economic uncertainties, a rapidly changing political picture, and growing regional rivalries complicate U.S. efforts to preserve security in the Pacific region. The world's largest ocean abutting the most populous continent offers numerous challenges to U.S. forces counted on as the major font of stability in that area.

Just one year after the Defense Department launched its Defense Reform Initiative, information technology is proving to be a vital player in this effort to bring the department into the next millennium. The U.S. military's increasing reliance on information systems for operations and support has opened the door for the commercial sector both to enable change and to benefit from it.

The Defense Department is melding the expertise of the business and technology worlds to embrace electronic commerce as its primary means of transaction. To enable the services and defense agencies to conduct business with private industry more efficiently, the department is working with its contractors to adapt their own best practices and technologies to military requirements.