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Revolutionary changes are taking place in military tactical equipment that promise to eliminate many of today's interoperability issues. A next-generation system that is backward compatible with legacy systems as well as capable of hosting new advanced waveforms could dramatically enhance communications among military units and resolve many of the vexing issues that have plagued past military operations.

German engineers have combined modular hardware components with the flexibility of software-driven operation to produce a new line of radios for military and civil applications. These units can operate across a range of different frequencies while maintaining interoperability with similar equipment on varied platforms.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is developing standards for products that will be incorporated into a tactical communications system to unify forces and encourage interoperability on tomorrow's battlefield in international missions. The alliance must guarantee that the systems it employs in the next century will function with other technologies developed by a plethora of multinational companies. To do this, a major effort is underway to create technical guidelines for the organization's communications architecture.

Researchers are developing a programming language that enables different computer intrusion detection and response applications to communicate with each other, offering users a more complete defense against cyberattacks. The goal of the common intrusion detection framework is to allow interoperability among the variety of security components that reside on a single network.

New data storage and retrieval techniques are allowing theater air mission planners to call up detailed imagery and mapping data from a laptop computer. Using commercial hardware and software, U.S. forces directed attack and rescue missions during the recent Kosovo conflict by accessing continentwide data contained in a single box.

The U.S. intelligence community must take the initiative in developing a broad, cohesive plan for national intelligence. This effort must encompass specific funding requirements, new sensor and collection systems, information architectures and centralized authority over the intelligence community.

The National Security Agency is reorganizing its structure and activities to serve as a full-fledged participant in military operations. This break from its traditional role of providing support to decision makers and warfighters reflects the growing magnitude of information in military operations.

Intelligence-gathering techniques perfected by the government have made their way from the battlefield to the boardroom and now to corporate war rooms. These distinctively designed facilities are headquarters to a company's team of specialists who provide decision makers with knowledge that is critical to corporate survival and growth in today's highly competitive environment.

The former Warsaw Pact nation of Bulgaria is battling fiscal restraints and holdover communists as it strives to achieve its primary defense goal of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The country is wrestling with cultural changes in its transition to a Western-style democracy with civilian control of its defense establishment. Military leaders once trained to operate in possible Warsaw Pact actions against the West now see the nation's civilian leadership providing full support to alliance operations against its former allies.

A multilayer, multinational research and development network is coming online as a result of recent coalition-focused joint operational demonstrations held in the virtual environment. The combined wide area network, which acted as the conduit for sharing information during the exercise, has been transformed into the combined federated battle laboratories network. The year-round, plug-and-play virtual center will allow international combined and U.S. joint service forces to operate with allied national command and control systems over the U.S. Defense Department's global command and control system.