The Network Is the Battlefield

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk () c4i org>

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2003/tc2003017_2464.htm

By Alex Salkever
JANUARY 7, 2003 

The Pentagon's aim is to meld weapons systems and people into a whole, 
called network-centric warfare, that's greater than the sum of its 
parts 

On Nov. 21, U.S. Air Force officials got their hands on the ultimate 
global video game. Thanks to a system upgrade by defense contractor 
Lockheed Martin, flyboys (and girls) could hop onto a special 
Air Force network from any PC equipped with a Web browser and special 
military encryption and authentication software. Once on this network, 
they could call for air strikes, direct reconaissance planes, or plot 
the movements of the most powerful flying force on Earth -- all from 
their laptop in a café (or, more likely, at a secured facility). "All 
you need is Internet Explorer," says Doug Barton, the director of 
technology for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems, based in Gaithersburg, 
Md. 

This technology has a typically clunky military name -- the TBMCS C2 
Air Combat system -- that belies its power. In fact, it isn't a game 
at all, but the latest in a series of developments that's moving the 
Air Force into the era of so-called network-centric warfare, or NCW. 
The goal is to weave weapons systems and people into a network whose 
whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. 

Among other things, the system should make it easier to track and 
attack military targets, and provide a command structure that's more 
resilient and damage-proof. "If you network a [military] force, it can 
do things at a speed that is unimaginable," says John Garstka, 
director of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation and a 
leading theorist in the area. 

BEST-CASE SCENARIO.  The military's resounding success in Afghanistan,
where units from different branches of the service worked in
unprecedented unison, has led to a consensus that NCW is the way of
the future. "If 20 years ago you had predicted to Army, Navy, and Air
Force people the degree to which they would be working together, they
would have said no," says Ivan Oelrich, a senior research associate at
the Federation of American Scientists. He calls the latest
developments "an impressive change in institutional culture."

Now comes the hard part. While the U.S. was able to flatten the 
Taliban with a minimum of casualties and less damage to civilians than 
occurred during the Vietnam War, for example, Afghanistan was in many 
ways a best-case scenario. The Taliban could muster few if any 
defenses and weren't well trained, equipped, or motivated. And the 
barren terrain of Afghanistan made communications with satellites and 
between U.S. units less complex than in a jungle or urban environment. 

Even so, many U.S. commanders bumped up against some discouraging 
limitations of NCW, 2002-style. Stories of Special Forces troopers 
calling in air strikes with laser pointers made the media, but behind 
the scenes commanders had to queue up for satellite uplinks and 
bickering broke out over who would get access to unmanned aerial 
vehicles (UAVs) with names like Global Hawks or Predators. Many 
officers complained of bandwidth limitations that crimped their 
ability to use newly networked systems. 

"The further you get out in a deployed scenario, the less bandwidth is 
available," says Jerry DeMuro, president of the command, control, 
communication, and computer system (C4) unit at defense contractor 
General Dynamics (GD ). "It's a precious commodity." 

INFORMATION WINS.  Another danger is becoming lulled into thinking 
that, despite such glitches, the U.S. military is invincible. "How 
does all this function in the future when we don't have absolute 
dominance?" wonders the FAS's Oelrich. "That's something the military 
hasn't thought through at all." Nor has it even contemplated the 
effort and time required to remake a hierarchial, hidebound 
organization so that it can function with a flat management structure, 
ad-hoc collaboration, and on-the-fly decision-making. 

Nonetheless, one way or another NCW is coming, for one simple reason: 
> From the dawn of organized conflict, military strategists have used 
communications and information to beat the enemy. The ancient Greeks 
dispatched runners over long distances to deliver military messages, 
the most fabled of whom, Phillipides died on the plain of Marathon. 
European infantries used drummers to communicate common battle orders 
to solidiers fighting together who didn't speak the same language. 

NCW sprang from a need, dramatized in World War II and Vietnam, to use 
information technology to create a more lethal fighting force, as well 
as to to avoid casualties from friendly fire. Initial efforts follow 
what has become a familiar path for new technologies: Each branch of 
the service went its own way, creating a system that was incompatible 
with that of the other branches. 

TRIED AND TRUE SYNTAX.  "If I have 14 systems, I have to build 14 
interfaces," says Margaret Myers, deputy chief information officer for 
the Defense Dept. "Then the next guy comes along and builds a new 
system, and then he or she has to build 15 interfaces. That's 
expensive, and those interfaces don't always work." The commander of a 
joint task force comprising sea, air, and land power, and spanning 
multiple service branches -- the unit used to fight most battles today 
-- must contend with 400 combat systems, most of which are still 
incompatible, Myers says. 

In the mid 1990s Defense found a solution in the form of the Internet 
-- a slightly ironic development in that Pentagon research money 
helped fund the original Internet, ARPANET, which was a small project 
designed to create easy ways for researchers to communicate 
electronically that would be hard to disrupt. What Defense wants NCW 
to use isn't so much the public Internet itself, though a significant 
percentage of its traffic travels on the Web, but rather the 
technology behind the Net, the universal syntax called TCP-IP that 
allows Apple desktops to talk easily with Unix servers, 
Microsoft-based PCs, and Linux-powered laptops. 

Adapting specialized computer battle systems built on proprietary 
technology to work with standard Internet protocols entails a lot of 
special programming that, to take one example, ties weapon systems 
more closely into the global positioning satellite network that 
provides the coordinates of any location on earth. Add to the mix the 
growing sophistication and dependability of wireless communications, 
and the Pentagon not only can guide bombs and missiles with GPS 
tracking systems but also change their trajectory in mid-flight. 

OVERSOLD ABILITIES?  Suddenly, Navy battle groups of dozens of ships 
and aircraft can share a radar picture, plus information on everything 
from incoming low-flying cruise missles to small boats bearing suicide 
bombers. The Navy is deploying that capability as part of Raytheon's 
(RTN ) Cooperative Engagement Capability project, a $1 billion system 
that's just now being rolling out. 

The progress has been impressive, though observers sound cautionary 
notes. "The flaw in this is that none of what's being advertised can 
be done on the stated timelines," says Frank Lanza, CEO of L-3 
Communictions (LLL ), which builds a wide variety of communication and 
networking systems for the military. "The danger is that people 
believe it can be done." Lanza's fear is that a lot of the new NCW 
equipment and its capabilities are being oversold in their current 
incarnation. 

That may be the case, but the military clearly is tackling some of the 
more basic problems, such as bandwidth dearth. Sometime in 2004, 
Defense hopes to conclude a program called Global Information Grid 
Bandwidth Expansion, or, GIG-BE. The $500 million project will 
dramatically increase bandwidth at 90 locations around the world that 
the U.S. military considers to be critical. The ultimate goal is to 
create a secure global network with enough capacity to handle 
real-time image transmission and other capacity-hogging tasks, as well 
as bringing online many more soliders in battle. 

RISING BURDEN.  Sites that heretofore could transmit data at the rate 
of 1.5 megabits per second -- the equivalent of a T-1 line that powers 
a small office building -- will be boosted to 10 gigabits per second, 
thanks to new terrestrial fiber-optic links owned and operated by 
commercial companies that contract with the Pentagon. 

Just a fraction of the 1.5 million active-duty personnel in the U.S. 
military now log on to the global network simultaneously -- most of 
them from bases that remain connected to land-based phone lines. The 
data burden will surely be considerable when a higher percentage of 
troops go online, as they inevitably will. "We really don't know how 
it's going to work until we" try it in a battle situation," says the 
Pentagon's Gartska. But a thousand-fold increase in capacity can't 
hurt. 

Despite the improvements it will bring, even GIG-BE won't help much 
with the "last mile" problem -- bringing broadband access to every 
soldier in the field where they'll most likely be working far from 
fiber-optic cables common in populated areas of the developed and 
developing world. In the U.S., that problem is being alleviated on the 
civilian side to some extent with wireless data hookups -- so-called 
Wi-Fi 802.11 nodes -- that are sprinkled throughout cities. The 
military has also adopted secure versions of that technology for 
stateside communications and for near-shore ship-to-shore data 
broadcasts. 

NETWORKS ON THE GO.  While the military is also relying on wireless, 
it faces a far more complex job in making an untethered network 
function properly. Afghanistan offered no cell towers or Wi-Fi nodes. 
Network gear of any type has to be flown, floated, or humped in. And 
once the infrastructure is set up, it doesn't stop moving: It will 
likely be mounted on vehicles, planes, and ships. 

Building software to power and manage such a complex network is 
tricky, much akin to what Verizon (VZ ) would have to do if cell 
towers were mounted on trucks, ferries, and taxi-cabs instead of in 
fixed locations on buildings. "You have mobile infrastructure as well 
as mobile users," says Jim Quinn, a manager at Lockheed Martin who 
works on mobile networking for the company's WIN-T (Warfighter 
Information Network-Tactical) program, a multicompany effort 
commissioned by the U.S. Army. Mobile everything greatly adds to the 
complexity of a system, he adds. 

The military is working on several ways to tackle the last-mile 
problem. Using powerful lasers to transmit data from satellites to the 
ground and from mountain to mountain is one option for extending the 
broadband pipe. Another is creating technologies that turn every 
military vehicle into a wireless node, from UAVs to Humvees to 
helicopters. Such nodes would create a dense mesh that could encompass 
a battle zone and provide troops with far more reliable connectivity 
than anything that's available today. 

UNTIMELY CRASHES.  Ultimately, these mesh systems could resemble the 
peer-to-peer networks that music lovers use to download tunes (most 
often in violation of copyrights). "We're developing the informatoin 
grid so that every platform will have the same information, and if one 
or two platforms fail, their functions are automatically taken over by 
other platforms. Every platform will be able to be the command 
center," explains L3's Lanza. 

Sounds impressive, except that no one is quite sure how the military 
will keep such a network from crashing every now and then -- at just 
the wrong time. "Companies can't keep commercial networks up and 
running, and we have been in that business for 50 years," says Lanza. 
For that reason, the services have to engineer such systems with a 
fall-back option that maintains significant capabilities outside of 
the network. Lanza explains that the communications systems his 
company builds for the Global Hawk UAV can be controlled via multiple 
modes that use UHF, VHF, and other signal ranges. 

And to be reliable, these systems can't all operate via the same 
communications backbone. "You have to be able to create graceful 
failure modes," says Oelrich. "If everything goes through some central 
network without which I'm helpless, then what happens if some key node 
fails?" 

GPS-BLOCKER.  Perhaps the biggest potential problem is that no one 
thoroughly understands what might happen if a determined enemy 
attacked these networks. To date, the military has reported that no 
cyber-attacks, which occur daily, have disrupted operations. "A lot of 
what [Defense] is using are dedicated networks. They aren't vulnerable 
to attack," says Jim Lewis, director of technology policy at the 
Center for Strategic & International Studies, an influential 
Washington think tank. "In Kosovo, there were lots of attacks on U.S. 
computer networks. Not a single sortie [of a U.S. warplane] was 
stopped." 

Though Lewis discounts the danger of hacker attacks, he believes an 
innovative opponent could throw up countermeasures that might make 
U.S. military networks far less effective. He points to a device from 
a Russian company designed to block GPS signals over a radius of 
thousands of feet. The tiny box sells for several thousand dollars 
(prices vary depending upon availability) -- but that's still a great 
deal for any enemy, considering that GPS is a linchpin of NCW 
strategy. 

Worse, Lewis thinks it's possible to make much cheaper versions of the 
device. Naturally, the military is working on countermeasures to the 
jamming technology, says L-3's Lanza. But other points of 
vulnerability exist. The commercial satellite fleet carries a 
significant amount of military traffic, and "it isn't clear, if we go 
up against a first-rate opponent, that these satellites will be 
absolutely secure," says the FAS's Oelrich. 

PASSWORDS IN WRONG HANDS.  In an August, 2002, report, the U.S. 
General Accounting Office singled out this satellite network as a 
possible security problem. Indeed, China witnessed the havoc that a 
technologically determined enemy can wreak when members of the Falun 
Gong sect commandeered a key Chinese telecommunications satellite in 
July, 2002, to broadcast so-called propaganda and images of Falun Gong 
leaders, according to the Chinese government. 

Security of the NCW system itself would be an enormous concern. How 
can Defense be sure that everyone who logs onto the network is who 
they say they are? Today, if a Special Forces operative is captured 
with a data device that's logged into the network -- or that has 
passwords and credentials stored in it -- not much can stop the bad 
guys from logging on and getting a look at what Uncle Sam is up to. 
L-3's Lanza says within a few years, continuous biometric 
authentication will make it harder for unauthorized people to use a 
stolen machine. For now, though, the problem could be serious, says 
Defense Deputy CIO Myers. 

Using information efficiently will also be a daunting task. The amount 
of data on the U.S. military's global grid is huge. So how does 
someone in the field find the right info at the right moment? The 
solution lies in new network protocols such as XML (extensible markup 
language), which can tag data with key information that allows 
software itself to distribute the most relevant information to 
foxholes. 

"One of the biggest challenges will be the greater the connectivity, 
the more information flows to soldiers. The challenge will be not to 
overwhelm them," says General Dynamics' DeMuro. That's a vexing 
problem, though, and one the private sector has yet to solve -- 
witness the abject failure of most personalization technologies on the 
Internet. "We will need something like Google on steroids," 
acknowledges Myers. 

INCOMPLETE VIEW.  Finally, the military will have to deal with the 
seismic cultural shift that would result from ubiquitous connectivity 
and data. During the Afghanistan war, a group of top-level commanders 
was able to watch a UAV lock in on a target via streaming video. 
Sitting inside the Pentagon, the brass gave the order to fire the 
missile that destroyed the target -- on the other side of the globe. 
This capability has a dark side, however. "It's easier for the command 
to micromanage," says CSIS's Lewis. "There is this impression that 
instant communications lets us do remote-control war-fighting. And 
that's a danger." 

Why? Often commanders sitting far from the field miss key pieces of 
local information. And critics call the view from the UAVs, for 
example, the equivalent of a fish-eye lens on the battlefield. 

Perhaps a greater danger could be a temptation for Pentagon mandarins 
to fall back into old patterns of betting their careers on complex 
weapons systems. Witness the latest military budget, which contains 
several big-ticket items, such as the $200 million-per-plane F-22 
fighter. Critics contend that the new jet is more suitable for a Cold 
War battlefield than for modern conflicts where the difference between 
a plane that flies at mach 2 vs. mach 1 has little to do with flushing 
insurgents from jungles or caves. 

INFO INNOVATIONS.  With the federal budget under increasing pressure 
as the deficit grows and Republicans push for bigger tax cuts, defense 
insiders fear that the generals may let info-tech upgrades wither at 
the expense of nifty new toys. 

That isn't to say the projects now on the table won't make a big 
difference. Aside from the Navy's CEC program, the military stands 
poised to roll out the first so-called tactical radio that connects 
with legacy radio systems from all three branches. The Pentagon's 
Gartska believes that the benefits of flattening the military command 
structure and increasing its networking capabilities will ultimately 
prove irresistible. 

On the battlefield, where improvisation has always been a necessity, 
GIs and pilots already are using info tech in ways their commanders 
never imagined -- and sometimes, didn't authorize. Lewis cites 
instances where forward air controllers and target specialists on 
bombers have set up instant-message chat sessions to communicate 
target information in real time using minimal bandwidth. "We're 
talking about more than just technology," says Gartska. "Wal-Mart and 
Dell leveraged information technology to change processes and gain 
competitive advantage. We're trying to do the equivalent in the 
military." 

So it is that in an institution normally immune from change, where 
decades pass between the initial vision and the implementation of new 
ideas, Gartska and other gurus of network-centered warfare are making 
more headway than even they might have dreamed. 



*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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