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

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: IN FOCUS: DEFENSE AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS

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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.

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