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The United States is not in decline, but it must clean up its act across the board to come out of its current fiscal and geopolitical crisis.

While potential enemies gear up to attack the U.S. military in cyberspace, additional massive budget cuts mandated by the federal government may have as devastating an effect on the force.

The good news for special operations forces is that they will constitute a larger portion of deployed U.S. forces. The bad news is that they will miss some of the support provided by the joint forces that are withdrawn from theater.

The evolution of new special operations force missions is not as great an influence as the changing nature of supporting military forces.

All politics is local as U.S. Navy special forces seek to deny the Taliban influence village by village.

Sophisticated tracking and communications capabilities rapidly installed on military platforms in the Middle East helped U.S. and coalition commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq slice through the fog of war with near-real-time situational awareness. Blue force tracking technology provides information about the location of friendly and enemy forces as well as terrain and danger zones such as mine fields. Equipment installed on a variety of platforms continues to allow mission leaders, commanders and warfighters in locations from the Pentagon to the battlefield to see the same picture of and elements in the battlespace like pieces on a chessboard.

Engineering Services Network Incorporated, Arlington, Virginia, has named Douglas R. Lopez director of Fleet Support Services.

SRC Incorporated, Syracuse, New York, has named Gary Sauer vice president of Business Development.

The Navy must make do with fewer submarines, but new designs may help mitigate the effects of those reductions.

Smaller and faster with proper support are the means for delivering new systems that will support the fleet for long-term uses.