The U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command may be taking on its greatest challenge to date with the implementation of the service’s FORCEnet effort. The complex endeavor, which is designed to be the lynchpin of the Navy’s network-centric warfare thrust, will transform information into decisive effect.
Experts at the San Diego-based command, which is known as SPAWAR, are working on the road map for FORCEnet, which will require the establishment of standards that will be as important as building codes are to a neighborhood development. Yet, the command must concurrently implement FORCEnet capabilities urgently requested by forces in Southwest Asia as well as support those forces employing their new capabilities.
SPAWAR’s organization is positioned to sustain this type of effort. Separate program executive officers, or PEOs, focus on products. This permits headquarters to concentrate on engineering and overall integration. The PEOs are Space Systems, C
4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) and Space, and Information Technology (IT). They report directly to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, which in turn pulls all of the programs together. Organizationally, they fall under SPAWAR for acquisition. The Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) office, which resides under PEO IT, is treated as if it were a PEO.
Rear Adm. Kenneth D. Slaght, USN, SPAWAR commander, declares that FORCEnet is SPAWAR’s key program. “Simply stated, our most important tasking is to deliver FORCEnet—every aspect of FORCEnet from a technical and an acquisition point of view,” he emphasizes. “It’s simple to state, but I don’t think that everybody understands the full scope of FORCEnet, or at least what I think is the CNO’s [chief naval officer’s] vision of FORCEnet—that it truly is from the sensor through the network to the weapon.
“That is the [main] challenge. We need to tie all of that together,” he asserts.
The next challenges will involve integration into the joint world. The CNO’s direction is for FORCEnet to be “born joint,” and this effort is well underway. SPAWAR is working with the other services to ensure that becomes a reality, the admiral notes. This work includes leveraging off of U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force efforts to build common architectures. The Navy also is engaged with the Joint Forces Command and the Strategic Command to map the alignment of FORCEnet programs to the joint level.
One reason that FORCEnet is challenging is because standard industrial-age approaches cannot work in the information technology arena, the admiral offers. The traditional blueprint of a single group owning and engineering a system is not viable with this type of technology.
“We have been pushing the envelope on the construct of network-centric warfare, and now we are starting to evolve to a network-centric organization,” he continues. This network-centric organization consists of SPAWAR, the Navy’s other acquisition organizations, the Naval Network Warfare Command (NETWARCOM) and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
Further development of FORCEnet will require the establishment of “building codes,” Adm. Slaght offers. However, these codes will not necessarily be created or identified by just the Navy. The service is working closely with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, Joint Forces Command and Strategic Command to develop these architectures. SPAWAR has begun using these architectures to measure the programs’ technical compliance and their alignment for building FORCEnet.
An associated challenge is to support the true missions of FORCEnet. NETWARCOM has developed the first detailed concept of operations for FORCEnet, the admiral says. SPAWAR is using that document to align and link the technical compliance of programs with their ability to actually perform the mission. “That is where the rubber really meets the road,” Adm. Slaght emphasizes. “We will be able to take missions such as time-critical strike and be able to start to measure how all of the programs are able to support that, identify where the gaps are, determine where we need to accelerate a certain capability and ensure that we are able to fill that gap as quickly as possible.”
Ultimately, that will lead to an evolving definition of FORCEnet. Naval command and control (C
2) may be one of the early recipients of a new definition. Adm. Slaght offers that the Navy needs to return to the fundamentals and basics of C
2 to overcome the complexity that has permeated it with the addition of various new technologies and systems.
A more difficult task—but one that may be even more important—is to identify overlaps. The plethora of stovepipe programs developed in the past is straining resources as these legacy systems are connected to the network. Adm. Slaght questions whether this many systems are needed to perform a particular mission in the future.
For example, mission planning within time-critical strike efforts may involve as many as 80 systems—and that is within just the Navy. About 70 percent of those systems are or will be technically compliant with FORCEnet. The admiral offers that the next step will be to determine the best mix of those systems for the user.
The major FORCEnet Sea Trial is the annual
TRIDENT WARRIOR exercise. Sponsored by NETWARCOM with SPAWAR serving as chief engineer, trident warrior actually is a part of the Navy’s overall Sea Power 21 vision. FORCEnet pulls together all of those diverse elements in this event. In addition to exploring aspects of FORCEnet during sea trials, the process focuses on helping planners determine areas of emphasis.
“We always will have a two-year gap between when we roll something out in trident warrior and when it actually can get into the POM [program objective memorandum] process, but we will be able to transition that gap much easier under the Sea Trial focus and, in our world, the trident warrior focus in the future,” the admiral offers.
FORCEnet is a significant part of the GIG, and SPAWAR is deep into several of its areas. The admiral notes that the command is working with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the other services on the GIG Bandwidth–Expansion effort. Moving data down the last tactical mile is a major challenge with the GIG, and the Navy has some unique requirements with its shipboard environments.
Above all, Adm. Slaght says, observers must not lose sight of the fact that FORCEnet is about business systems as much as it is about warfighting systems. “I want to emphasize this because many people do not put this aspect into the FORCEnet bin,” he points out. “In the most powerful sense, FORCEnet has to transcend all of these issues, so our ability to deliver it is without a doubt the most important thing we do.”
The full version of this article is published in the December 2004 issue of
SIGNAL Magazine, in the mail to AFCEA members and subscribers December 1, 2004. For information about purchasing this issue, joining
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