Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4758-1023200495-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Tue, 04 Jun 2002 07:25:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 9057 invoked by uid 510); 4 Jun 2002 14:21:07 -0000 Received: from n32.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.100) by all.net with SMTP; 4 Jun 2002 14:21:07 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4758-1023200495-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.199] by n32.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 04 Jun 2002 14:21:35 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_3_2); 4 Jun 2002 14:21:34 -0000 Received: (qmail 38853 invoked from network); 4 Jun 2002 14:21:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Jun 2002 14:21:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Jun 2002 14:21:34 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g54EOPB06279 for iwar@onelist.com; Tue, 4 Jun 2002 07:24:25 -0700 Message-Id: <200206041424.g54EOPB06279@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 07:24:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] [fc:Agile.Innovation.Critical] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: Army Times June 10, 2002 Agile Innovation Critical Despite billions of dollars in investment and years of effort, senior U.S. commanders still complain that communicating across the Pentagon, much less with allies, remains a problem. Warfare today is all about information. But information is worthless if you can't get it to the right people quickly enough. If there's one thing the current Afghanistan campaign has demonstrated, it's that by better linking existing systems, capabilities can be dramatically improved. B-52 bombers, now half a century old, have been used with devastating effect because their pilots have been linked to Special Forces troops on the ground and and data from new surveillance systems in the air, such as the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle. This concept of interconnectedness is at the heart both of what the Pentagon likes to call "jointness" and a still-newer buzzword, "transformation." Transformation's broader aim is to adopt new doctrine, training and structures to make the U.S. military more agile, more flexible and, as a result, more powerful. But without a communications infrastructure to harness and coordinate all that capability, the concept can't possibly succeed. Commanders' warnings that the networks that fuel their voracious appetite for bandwidth are not adequately integrated are cause for alarm. It's bad enough that NATO allies and others supporting the U.S. military's war on terrorism don't have consistent secure communications links. That the U.S. military can't always get the information it has to the people who need it most, in real time, suggests a much more dire situation. This should be especially worrisome to the Pentagon now, as leaders contemplate a war with Iraq, a much more challenging foe than the Taliban and al-Qaida. Over the past half-century, the U.S. military has evolved into the most powerful fighting force in history through the steady introduction of advanced weaponry, sophisticated information gathering techniques, communication technology and management systems, along with the doctrine and training to make them work. Progress, however, has come at a cost. Systems have been piled one atop another, resulting in a Gordian knot, tightened by unique service requirements and, frequently, the services' refusal to cede control of their systems to those who might be able to do a better job of building them. Major corporations, realizing that time and information are money, have invested heavily in the same problems. Many have successfully retooled their information infrastructure, so that leading banks today can handle trillions of dollars in annual transactions worldwide, all electronically, and yet still in a secure fashion. "We have a lot to learn from commercial industry about getting connected," one senior Pentagon official says. "We know battlefield systems, but the problem is largely with the systems that support the battlefield. We wouldn't want Sun Microsystems trying to figure out how to invade Iraq, so why are we trying to tell Sun how to do their job?" Whether the solution is wholesale outsourcing of communications and information systems or some subset of that is not clear. Several years ago, former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak ordered his service to stop piecemeal computer and software upgrades that were doing more harm than good. By improving something in one place, leaders were creating incompatibility problems elsewhere. That was a good start. The Pentagon leadership should develop an overall information and communications architecture, and institute a system of incentives to drive progress. Career advancement - military and civilian alike - must be tied to demonstrated improvements in interconnectivity. Future contracts must demand that suppliers ditch proprietary architectures that make it difficult to improve systems. And acquisition cycles must be accelerated. A system that buys new products over the span of a decade is ill suited to stay current in a world where technologies can become obsolete in months. This job will take time, and be fantastically costly. The consolidation of financial systems alone is expected to take many years and cost billions of dollars. But the cost of improvment pales when compared with the consequences of suffering defeat at the hands of a more agile adversary. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tied to your PC? Cut Loose and Stay connected with Yahoo! Mobile http://us.click.yahoo.com/QBCcSD/o1CEAA/sXBHAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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