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Find out what he’s talking about here in the current issue of SIGNAL Magazine, available online.

Lt. Gen. Robert Shea, USMC (Ret.), executive vice president, Smartronix, former J-6, the Joint Staff, pointed out that, too often, respective services build different systems for similar capabilities at the operations level. Budgetary pressures may render that approach a luxury, and thereby force military planners to do some of the things that the services and agencies haven’t been doing themselves.

Gen. Shea told the audience at a TechNet Asia-Pacific 2009 panel on defining requirements that, to ensure that the right capabilities reach the user, requirements people should be kept tightly engaged throughout the entire process. They should be part of any discussions of tradeoffs, he emphasized.

Master Sgt. Glenn A. Brown, USMC, operations chief, Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF)–Afghanistan, called for pre-deployment training on the same hardware and software that will be used in the field. Speaking at a TechNet Asia-Pacific 2009 panel on defining requirements for equipping the warfighter, the master sergeant declared that Marines are not training on the same applications.

“If we can work on networks here and deploy that way in theater, then I don’t have to worry about that when I get into theater,” he said. “I already know how to do my job.”

He also expressed a desire for a mobile modular command and control (C2) vehicle. This vehicle would require less packing and provide a C2 capability with different levels of security.

Speaking to the Thursday luncheon audience at TechNet Asia Pacific 2009, being held in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 2-5, Adm. Buskirk said that the operationalization of C2C2 is a major element of work underway in his command. He described four elements: theater sensing/intelligence; network architecture, including cyber; commander’s decision aids that compile transmitted data into useful information; and network protection.

The importance of this discipline lies in the fact that it affects virtually every communications and networking activity. The admiral said that the calling “is now about information domain and denial—ID2.”

The lack of C2C2 automation tools is a challenge, and he urged industry to remedy that shortcoming. “Command and control of command and control is an extremely fertile ground that bears harvesting,” the admiral stated.

Lt. Gen. Keith J. Stalder, USMC, commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, allowed that cyberwarfare normally is not associated with the Marines. Nonetheless, the Corps is moving into training and making investments in cyberwarfare capabilities and facilities, he told the Thursday breakfast audience at TechNet Asia-Pacific 2009 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A Marine cyber headquarters already has been established, and one company of Marines will serve there. Lt. Gen. George Flynn, USMC, will serve as a component commander to Lt. Gen. Keith G. Alexander, USA, director of the National Security Agency, who has been nominated for promotion to general and assignment as head of the U.S. Cyber Command.

Lt. Gen. Keith J. Stalder, USMC, commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, told the Thursday breakfast audience at TechNet Asia-Pacific 2009 that the Pacific is a critical part of our nation’s economic and strategic well being. Accordingly, the Marines actively engage officials with many nations in the region on behalf of PACOM. “We bridge coalition language barriers every day,” he said. Having something as simple as a translation tool for PowerPoint slides would be immensely helpful, he added.

Part of that engagement involves learning about the challenges confronting other nations; and, unfortunately, some familiar problems are extending their reach. Gen. Stalder related that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are appearing in Pacific Rim nations—he cited Southern Thailand as one problem site. He described IED defeat as his top technology requirement, noting that he loses more Marines to IEDs in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

The general also listed mine countermeasures technology as well as shallow-water intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as important technology needs.

According to Don Proctor, senior vice president, Software Group, Cisco, innovation should be a strategy for managing risk. Speaking at an industry panel on cybersecurity at TechNet Asia Pacific 2009, being held in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 2-5, he said that the threat is dynamic, not static. “We’re playing a cat and mouse game.”

We need a process based on innovation that helps us keep ahead of our adversaries, he stated. But that innovation is not reaching the security realm easily. Proctor said that the “innovation gap” must be reduced. Today’s processes mean that, by definition, we are deploying technology that is two or three years old. Our adversaries are not encumbered by that process, he added.