KANSAS CITY, Mo. (June 21,2013) -- Key players in the Army's efforts to build a common structure to the Army's networks and Mission Command enabling systems led a panel discussion Tuesday, June 18, to discuss the way ahead for modernization in an era of fiscal uncertainty.
Retired Maj. Gen. Fred D. Robinson moderated a panel that included the Lt. Gen. Susan S. Lawrence, Army chief information officer/G6; Lt. Gen. William N. Phillips, military deputy/director, Army Acquisition Corps, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology; Brig. Gen. John W. Charlton, commander of the Brigade Modernization Command; Kirby R. Brown, the Combined Arms Center deputy to the commanding general; and Daniel L. Janes, director of CSC.
The Association of the United States Army hosted a professional development forum on the topic of Integration of Mission Command into the Army, which included the modernization panel, for an audience of more than 200 of the Army's and industry's top experts in the fields of system modernization and network capabilities. The event takes place in Kansas City because of its proximity to the Mission Command Center of Excellence at Fort Leavenworth which has responsibility for the integration of all of the warfighting functions.
Panel members discussed the importance of modernizing the future Army to remain the premier land power in the world, enabled to dominate in unified land operations and able to leverage technology to build a common structure to the Army's network and building a blueprint for a common operating environment that will cross cohorts and be equally accessible to all Soldiers at every post, camp and station.
"We are not talking about modernizing mission command, because mission command is timeless," said Charlton, whose command is responsible for the Network Integration Exercises that help validate emerging technologies on the battlefield. "Rather what we are looking at is how systems can best enable mission command."
Lawrence further articulated the aim of modernizing mission command enablers, saying, "our goal and our vision is to provide a single enterprise providing standardized services Army wide for every Soldier that touches the network."
She further explained that if executed correctly the future systems will build capacity, improve cyber security and extend enterprise services, and that standardization can also bring significant cost savings in the future.
"A modernized LANDWARNET 2020 is essential to a smaller, more capable, better trained expeditionary Army, and we have had some huge wins," Lawrence said. "We have already saved the Army over $350 million annually because we are doing things in an enterprise manner."
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