LEASE OR BUY?
THE PATH FORWARD OPERATION PATHWAYS LEADS TO INTEROPERABLE MULTINATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
From Hawaii to Southeast Asia to Australia, the multinational exercise Operation Pathways is providing far-reach- ing opportunities to strengthen joint capabilities while preparing for emerging near-peer threats in the Pacific area of operations.
The annual exercise is the ideal backdrop to assist the Army with its current path to make the division the unit of action as part of the Army of 2030, which will reduce complexity at brigade and below echelons and free up maneuver forces to operate unencumbered and conduct on-the-move operations. As with all exercises and ongo- ing operations, the Army will use Soldier feedback garnered from Operation Pathways to also inform the network of 2030 design.
The 25th Infantry Division (25th ID) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, is serving as the division unit of action for Operation Pathways and is operating the Integrated Tactical Network (ITN) suite of capabilities as the network transport for the event.
Since its introduction to Soldiers in 2019, the ITN has been providing secure but unclassified and encrypted mobile network communications that increase communications mobility, flexibility and resilience. The ITN is comprised of both military and commercial technologies and includes several varieties of software-defined tactical radios, commercial phone technology and small satellite terminals. ITN radios deliver applications through the Nett Warrior user device to consolidate the air, ground and fires pictures into a single common operating picture.
In a multinational exercise, it is critical to ease communications restrictions among coalition partners while still protecting sensitive information, which is why the Army is considering operationalizing a secure but unclassified- encrypted (SBU-E) environment.
“The SBU-E addresses the need to cut the line between having a secret, Type 1 encrypted network to a network that is still encrypted, still very safe, but will allow us to better interoperate with our mission partners,” said Col. Shermoan Daiyaan, Project Manager for Tactical Radios (PM TR). “In the Pacific and EUCOM [European Command] theaters, this is absolutely vital because we will never fight alone.”
PM TR, under the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications – Tactical, is the program of record for the ITN suite of capabilities.
Operating SBU-E allows for data transmission from Soldiers at the edge with radios up to division headquarters, even in a disconnected, intermittent, limited environment, because the ITN allows for communications to trans- mit on multiple commercial pathways—critical for Soldiers’ primary, alternate, contingency and emergency plan.
The 25th ID is also employing cross-domain solutions to exchange sensitive data between various levels of classifications. This is a proof of concept that has been operationalized by the 25th ID, allowing the division to pull SBU-E position location information from subordinate units in the Philippines throughout Salaknib, the Philip- pine Army-led, U.S. Army Pacific-sponsored bilateral exercise portion.
Furthermore, while experimenting with the tactical cross-domain solution during the exercise, engineers with PM TR developed an innovative solution that allowed for a two-way common operating picture versus the one-way common operating picture currently employed by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of 25th ID. With this solution, the higher headquarters within the exercise, I Corps and U.S. Army Pacific, have visibility of the 25th ID headquarters common operating picture down to the tactical edge.
88
Army AL&T Magazine
Summer 2023
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