Trust, System Consolidation Vital for Future C3I
Achieving two goals will exponentially advance the power of the network.
The next decade will see fundamental changes in the way that command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) is implemented and operated, if a British Army communicator has his way. Brig. Andy Bristow, former chief G-6 and director of command and battlespace management, Headquarters U.K. Land Forces, hopes that the future will see new basic developments in C3I systems. Brig. Bristow listed consolidation and trust as the two areas where he hopes significant change will occur to the benefit of the warfighter. When discussing consolidation, he noted that U.S. and U.K. militaries have invested billions of dollars and pounds, but the systems that have been built haven't been exploited fully. Forces must learn how to use their new systems effectively, and planners must incorporate spiral development to improve their capabilities. He called for establishing electronic trust in which people are treated as individuals instead of on the basis of their nationality or unit. "When we do, we have a perfect world in which we encrypt our information instead of our hardware," he pointed out. This will enable the ability to encrypt information for an individual concurrent with its transmission. "We should look forward to the day when everyone can exploit the network," he declared.
