PHILADELPHIA (June 1, 2023) – Sharing critical battlefield information with coalition partners involves more than new technology; it relies on human, organizational, and policy factors, according to a panel of senior Chief Warrant Officers.
“While many people like to talk about interoperability, they dive into protocols, data formats and the bytes and the bits, but I look to look at it a little differently,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 (CW5) Danny Burns, Chief Technology Officer for the Headquarters, Department of the Army G-6. “I think it's fair to say that the technical challenge is not our main problem, nor are mission partner networks or coalition mission environments. When it comes to establishing interoperability within the Army network and with other networks, the main challenge for us involves the human dimension.”
CW5 Burns and the other panelists spoke as part of the Army’s Technical Exchange Meeting (TEM) X with industry, held May 24-25 in Philadelphia, PA, where they provided insights gained from serving alongside mission partners during operations around the globe. The Warrant Officers serve as Chief Technology Officers or Senior Technical Advisors, and represented Combatant Commands, Army Service Component Commands, and Army Corps, as well as Department of the Army headquarters and research, development, and acquisition organizations.
Their panel was one of several at TEM X to address the Army’s ability to communicate and share data with coalition partners. Long accustomed to asymmetrical warfare involving terrorist groups or terror-supporting states, the United States is now preparing for potential conflict with sophisticated near-peer adversaries who have larger militaries and more advanced weapons. Such a conflict would require the Army to conduct operations over varied and, in some cases, widely separated terrain, and to conduct joint and combined operations with sister services and the armed forces of allied and friendly nations who have different equipment.
The panel, led by CW5 Jeramy Cosner, the Chief Technology Officer of the Army Futures Command’s Network Cross-Functional Team, addressed two major questions: the biggest challenges to conducting joint and combined missions with maximum mobility and survivability, and how the network will manage complexity at each echelon level to reduce the workload on Soldiers at the edge of battle. The Warrant Officers agreed that it will be important to move more complex network operations up to the Division level where more personnel and resources are available.
Technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning can help streamline data operations, reduce system complexity, and automate establishing and maintaining networks for lower echelon units, said CW5 Shannon Garrett, Senior Technical Advisor, Program Executive Office Command Control Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T).
Additionally, Soldiers need to have sufficient training and undergo frequent repetitions with mission partners to ensure they understand the technology, as well as the various procedural requirements the Army has put in place regarding network operations, said CW5 Mike Brooks, Senior Technical Advisor, V Corps. Every participant on the panel emphasized the need for continuous training to ensure Soldiers have the experience, knowledge, and confidence to set up and maintain network operations. Likewise, collaborative training and planning with coalition partners can identify and resolve interoperability issues before they occur, and cultural awareness can mitigate potential misunderstandings and lead to better working relationships.
“Standardization, training, collaborative planning, and cultural awareness can make a big difference,” CW5 Burns said. “Standardizing is not limited to equipment – it must include the overall communication system, how it is organized and how it establishes its operating procedures. Joint training and exercises will build familiarity and trust and improve communication and coordination.”
CW5 Jon Stanley, Chief Technology Officer, J6, INDOPACOM, said these consistent engagements lead to payoffs in both the human and technical dimension.
“Persistent operations allow us to perform continuous evaluation of capabilities to improve mission command systems,” he said. “Operating the network on a persistent instead of episodic basis allows us to better operationalize the network.”
CW5 Donald Overton Jr., Senior Technical Advisor, G6, USAEUR-AF, said the Army also must continuously evaluate procedures and policy to share information with mission partners.
“Policies have not always kept pace with our capabilities,” he said.
The Army’s transition from a network-centric approach to a data-centric approach, in which information is classified at the data level, will also improve information-sharing with coalition partners, CW5 Garrett said.
“Technology today can support a federated environment that determines where you can get to in the network, what applications you can run, and what data you are allowed access to in the future,” she said. “In a fully implemented data centric environment, we could potentially move the needle.”
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