Stovepipe dreams: goal of a 'network-centric' military seems distant.

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ORLANDO -- "The day of stovepiped systems and proprietary systems is over," Vice Adm. Nancy Brown declared at a military communications conference.

Such proclamations have become common at industry forums during the past decade.

The stovepipes are the communications or data sharing systems built by different agencies, armed services or coalition partners that cannot link to each other.

Unblocking these barriers is necessary if the military will achieve its longtime goal of becoming a network-centric force. In a net-centric world, every soldier who needs information has it, and the information can be shared among military services and allies.

While in no way suggesting that the problem has been solved, Brown's declaration that a new day has arrived--that from now on, the Pentagon will no longer field networks, radios, or other means of communications that can't talk to each other--is still a dream, not a reality.

Brown, who serves on the Joint Staff as director of command, control, communications and computer systems, gave a succinct description of the problem.

The U.S. military is trying to make itself more lethal, faster and more survivable. "The key to doing that is the ability to share information."

However, she said, "the way we share information is stovepiped, and done piecemeal."

Brown's boss, Air Force Gen. Lance L. Smith, said before leaving his post in November that such stovepiped systems are being acquired, procured and fielded to this day, and he listed some recent examples.

The Army's "command post of the future," a three-screen tactical information system that allows general officers to distribute battle plans, did not seem to embrace the future of net-centric warfare at all.

It is a great product and works fine with the Army's command-and-control system, but couldn't connect to Navy ships at sea and other services' programs, Smith said. Five hundred units, meanwhile, have been sent to Iraq.

"This could have been done at the outset if we had standards, if we had thought about it. and if this was our goal to try to make these things all interoperable at the outset," Smith said.

The U.S. military invaded Iraq with seven different force-tracking systems, each with proprietary software. None of them was compatible with the others, Smith said.

There are other examples not mentioned by Smith that demonstrate that the Defense Department continues to acquire stovepiped systems.

The mobile user objective system, a series of multi-billion dollar satellites slated for launch beginning in 2010, still lacks ground terminals that connect to the digital joint tactical radio system.

The Navy, which oversees satellites that use narrowband communications, did not coordinate the program with the Army, which has yet to issue requirements for the terminals. The Defense Department also ordered that the satellites connect users to the "global information grid." The Defense Information Systems Agency has yet to come up with a connection into ground-based teleports to support that capability.

The satellites will be interoperable with analog radios, but the digital portion of the system may end up being a stovepipe to nowhere.

The problem, Smith said, is rooted in the services, which take their cues from combatant commanders. The generals hand over their want lists. If interoperability is required, that will be listed in the requirements, but that goal often falls by the wayside, he said. "What happens is that everybody has good intentions in the beginning ... the problem is in the year of execution, everybody loses sight of this stuff."

The requirements change, the system grows, and then there are cost overruns. One of the first items cut from the budget is interoperability, he said.

Smith was overseeing command-and-control programs when he was the head of Joint Forces Command. That included the ability to look at ongoing programs in development throughout the services, and to make decisions on whether they are meeting interoperability requirements.

This, he said, gave him some authority over funding decisions. "When they realized that we were actually moving money, then people got interested," he added.

"Somebody has to oversee the whole thing and make sure we are building systems that can operate in a future environment," he said.

During his tenure at Joint Forces Command, Smith killed off nine voice translators, he said. The services were fielding 10 different devices to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. His office chose the "best in breed" and eliminated the others.

To help streamline the acquisition of military equipment, Joint Forces Command should "use incentives rather than hammers," he said.

The dream of a truly net-centric U.S. military will not happen overnight, he suggested. But progress could be achieved within the next five to 10 years. It will be a matter of waiting for the stovepiped legacy systems to come to the end of their lifespan. If the services get onboard and stop building non-interoperable technologies now, then the new generation of net-centric communications can take over and become the norm.

Interoperability with civilian federal agencies and with foreign allies, however, are far more difficult problems, Smith said. The Defense Department cannot reach into the budgets and programs of allies and coalition partners. Or even other federal agencies.

The inability to easily communicate with allies is most apparent at U.S. Central Command, which oversees the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I can't begin to tell you when I was at Central Command how much money we spent simply trying to get communications systems" running, Smith said. He estimated the command spent $500 million to a $1 billion to set up communications lines so U.S. officials could speak with allied commanders.

NATO, for example, has no mechanism to ensure its members are interoperable with each other.

Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, at the beginning stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom, remembered having to get on a transport plane and fly across the country, just to deliver a piece of classified information to a Polish commander.

Today, the normal way to do business is to "exchange hostages," which means sending personnel from one service, agency or coalition partner to each other's command centers so they can verbally relay information.

Brig. Gen. David Warner, director of command and control at the Defense Information Systems Agency said, "Every time you bring in a new partner, you have to physically add equipment. That takes time, money, and manpower."

Army Brig. Gen. Mark Bowman, director of command, control, communications and computers at U.S. Central Command, said there are 10 different networks in his headquarters alone. The workload associated with operating, maintaining, and protecting these systems is huge. Transferring data from one to another is problematic.

"Many people do the wrong thing; stick it in a thumb drive and cause a security incident," he said.

Bowman said he wanted to see an "information sharing architect"--one whose reach extends beyond the Defense Department, and goes into other agencies. The global war on terrorism requires it, he said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Central Intelligence Agency are outside the Defense Department's purview. Interoperability with the FBI and the Departments of State and Homeland Security also would be desirable, he noted.

Local law enforcement and other emergency first-responders may also need to communicate and share data in the event of a wide scale disaster when the military is called in to assist, he said.

"In this war, information is truly our primary weapon. You can't move, you can't shoot, if you can't communicate," Bowman said.

Maj. Gen. William Rajczak, deputy director for joint capability development at Joint Forces Command, said there is a common vision for interoperability in the U.S. military.

"I think we have a pretty good idea what the problem is and where we need to be, but it's the solution where we need help."

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