FOG, FRICTION, AND TECHNOLOGY
MAPPING LOCATIONS FBCB2 enables Soldiers to see their location on a satellite image background, as well as the locations of all other friendly forces. (U.S. Army photo.)
Examples include more accurate and timely directing of indirect mortar fire; no need to orient oneself immediately after an air assault landing; the coordina- tion of direct fires to avoid fratricide; and coordination through a digital common operational picture that reduces the need for verbal radio communications.
The net results were the ability to act much faster than the enemy and a greatly reduced risk of fratricide.
By fielding networked, platform-level, digital, C2/SA capabilities to U.S. forces, we will enhance SA and, hence, situ- ational understanding at all echelons of command. In particular, subordinate leaders on the ground will be empowered as never before to take the initiative and accomplish the commander’s intent. In the acquisition community, we have an
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obligation to mitigate the fog and fric- tion of the acquisition process in order to deliver these capabilities and maintain a military advantage over our adversaries.
OVERCOMING THE OBSTACLES The struggle between the deliberate Army acquisition process and the urgent imper- ative to field emerging IT capabilities has been well-documented. The argu- ments are familiar: Security certification requires a painstakingly long wait; testing can be overly rigid, redundant, or poorly timed in the development cycle; contracts are not always designed to evolve with technological progress; and too often the choices are between an unproven up-and- comer and a costly tried-and-true vendor.
However, recently there has been signifi- cant progress in each of these areas as the
Army made the network its top modern- ization priority. The National Security Agency (NSA), which previously took 18 to 24 months to certify a device to handle secret-classified data, has created com- mercial solutions for classified leveraging common standards—such as Federal Information Processing and National Information Assurance Partnership—to securely protect the data on emerging devices while slicing almost a year off the certification time.
On the Army side, Project Director Com- munications Security (PD COMSEC) within Program Executive Office Command, Control, and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) has become a much-needed hub for system developers and integrators seeking encryption expertise. For exam- ple, many system engineers deem Type 1 encryption necessary on capabilities that
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