By Maryann Lawlor
The U.S. Army is marching forward double time on several fronts to bring the power of networking to bear on the global war on terrorism. A number of efforts—some technological, others structural—aim at creating an information-based Army that can respond to threats quicker and effectively fight asymmetric enemies. Improved networking capabilities will affect how the service fights—from the individual soldier to logistical support.
Changes taking place today are built on 17 focus areas identified by the Army’s senior leadership as key to winning today’s wars. The issues range from developing flexible, adaptive and competent soldiers to leveraging and enabling interdependent network-centric warfare to creating modular capabilities-based units. These efforts will transform the service from a traditional structure designed for fighting effectively during the Cold War to one that produces a force that is adept at fighting an adversary who has access to the same technological advances that it has.
Lt. Gen. Steven W. Boutelle, USA, chief information officer/G-6, U.S. Army, explains that the service’s emphasis on increasing network centricity is part of the overall U.S. Defense Department’s mission to share information within and between all the armed forces. Each service has developed its own comprehensive network. The Army’s version, called LandWarNet, mirrors the U.S. Air Force’s C
2 ConstellationNet and the U.S. Navy’s FORCEnet. Together, the three networks are referred to as the Joint Enterprise, which consists of the Defense Information Systems Network, the Global Information Grid–Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program, the Global Broadcasting System and the Standard Tactical Entry Point (STEP) sites that are being converted into teleports.
Satellite communications is one of the general’s key concerns. During recent operations in southwest Asia, 80 percent of the communications capability was facilitated by commercial satellites, while the other 20 percent involved military satellites. Gen. Boutelle would like to see these percentages reversed.
The Defense Department and federal government agencies recognized this issue too, and new satellite constellations will be launched. These will have a tremendous wideband capacity beginning in 2005.
Gen. Boutelle notes that work on each of the focus areas has been assigned to either the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command or the Army staff, and action has been taken in each area. For example, work on the active component and Reserve component rebalance is nearly complete; however, the general allows that some decisions remain about the proper mix.
In another transformational initiative, the Army is moving forward with what the service calls modularity, the general relates. The 3rd Infantry Division (3rd ID) is the first division undergoing this transformation. Three brigades are being restructured into five rapidly deployable brigade units of action (UAs). Each one will be capable of being a joint task force or could be task-organized and integrated into another service to form a joint task force.
In terms of network-centric operations, this modularity will standardize the mix of communications systems, and UAs will be nested within the Joint Enterprise.
Gen. Boutelle emphasizes that the changes occurring in the Army are happening at an accelerated pace. He explains that, in a peaceful environment, new equipment purchases that support transformational efforts like the move to a modular force would be part of the Program Objective Memorandum (POM). Currently, the Army is working on the 2006 POM, which means that many of the changes could not occur until fiscal year 2006. Because of the current state of emergency, the Army is leveraging supplemental funds to accomplish tasks quicker.
“For instance, the 3rd Infantry Division is going back to Iraq, and most of the contracts for the networks for the 3rd ID were awarded in April. Equipment will start being delivered in August, and we will complete equipment delivery by November, do the training, do an operational assessment, and when they return to Iraq, they will have the new systems.
“So as long as we have rotations, we will continue to use supplemental [funding] for units rotating into Iraq to upgrade those systems en route to the WIN-T [Warfighter Information Network–Tactical] program. And when WIN-T comes in, it will build upon the experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and the work in the 3rd ID, the 101st and the other divisions,” the general explains.
WIN-T, a major Army program, currently is undergoing a substantial transformation. The general allows that he had several concerns about WIN-T primarily because the acquisition strategy was designed well before September 11, 2001.
Two contractor teams currently are competing for the final contract. However, today’s high operational tempo requires a change. Gen. Boutelle says that the Army leaders decided to re-examine WIN-T to determine whether the stated requirements address the Army’s focus areas and new modular structure. They also believed that the service needed to evaluate the technology being used in southwest Asia and compare it to what the two contract teams are proposing. As a result, the service’s leaders have decided to choose a single lead contractor and bring in technologies much sooner and faster. The details are still being worked out; however, the general predicts that a decision will be made in the next six to 12 months.
In addition to improving battlefield operations, network centricity will provide reach-back capabilities that will affect force structure, the general allows.
Gen. Boutelle allows that the biggest impediment to changes in the Army is cultural, not technical.
“The culture generally lags the technology by several years. The technology can be pushed to the field, and you can train young soldiers on what it is. The issue we really have that’s always hard to address in any technology shift—and some people call it the law of disruption—is the culture. You put the technology out there, and first of all, it obviates other systems or ways of doing business. And what we need to do and what senior leaders need to do is adjust the way we do business—the processes that are out there—to align them with this new technology. That’s much harder in some cases than pushing the technology into the field. Change the way we do business. Change the way we think about doing business,” he says. Addressing this challenge is a continuous process, he adds.
The full version of this article is in the July 2004 issue of
SIGNAL, in the mail to
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