Navy unveils its network command

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.pilotonline.com/military/ml0712inf.html

By MATTHEW DOLAN
The Virginian-Pilot
July 12, 2002 

VIRGINIA BEACH -- In future wars, the military hopes to integrate its
battlefield information so seamlessly that sailors, Marines, airmen
and soldiers will be able to watch events unfold as they happen.

To that end, a top-level naval command officially opened Thursday to
oversee the development and maintenance of critical information
networks throughout the fleet.

With the Naval Network Warfare Command at Little Creek Naval
Amphibious Base, the Navy gives a high profile to a concept that calls
for linking ships, aircraft and ground forces in elaborate electronic
networks that allow them to share information about the enemy
instantly.

Adm. Robert J. Natter, commander of both U.S. Fleet Forces Command and
the Atlantic Fleet, said in a speech Thursday that the command would
be charged with providing ``reliable, fast and secure information'' to
the nation's warfighters in battle.

Vice Adm. Richard W. Mayo will serve as the command's first leader. He
previously served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations as
director of the Navy's Space and Information Warfare Command and
Control operation in Washington, D.C.

In its charge, the new network warfare command will direct the Fleet
Information Warfare Center, the Naval Network and Space Operations
Command in Dahlgren and the Navy Component Task Force Computer Network
Defense in Washington, D.C.

NETWARCOM, as the new command will be called, will also become the
naval component of U.S. Space Command.

It will coordinate information operations and technology, as well as
space requirements and operations within the Navy.

The staff at the command will not exceed 60 people, Mayo said. But
other reports indicate that the command will direct approximately
7,000 personnel worldwide.

Mayo refused to say how much the annual budget for the command would
be, but earlier reports to Congress said that command's starting
budget will be $5.5 million. The total will increase to $14.8 million
per year by 2004, according to a fact sheet the Navy distributed to
members of Congress.

The figure, though, pales in comparison to the billion-dollar budgets
of the Navy's other type commands over air and ship operations.

Mayo said that network warfare in Operation Enduring Freedom ``worked,
but it's fragile.''

Other analysts have agreed, applauding technological advances that
enabled almost instantaneous information from sensors manned by
special forces on the ground to carrier-based jet fighters in the
skies.

``But the conflict in Afghanistan only proves that the integration
``technically works in a nonhostile or low-threat environment,'' Milan
Vego wrote in this month's edition of the Naval Institute magazine,
Proceedings.

``It does not tell us,'' wrote Vego, a professor of operations at the
Naval War College in Rhode Island, ``whether U.S. systems are robust
enough to operate smoothly in the face of a determined physical and
electronic attack by a resourceful and skillful enemy.''

Reach Matthew Dolan at mdolan () pilotonline com or 446-2322.



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