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Communications System We Must Provide Our Warriors Today With The Information Superiority Required To Achieve Decision Superiority Tomorrow Remarks as delivered by Lieutenant General Harry D. Raduege, Jr., USAF, Director, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and Manager, National Communications System (NCS), before the Washington Chapter Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Luncheon, Washington, D. C, Thursday, January 11, 2001. Thank you for the invitation to speak today and for that generous introduction. As I look out across this audience, I see a national treasurer. You and your colleagues embody an industry that is, quite literally, the envy of the world. American technology, in fact, has fueled the longest period of sustained growth in our modem history. It has enabled revolutionary changes in business affairs. It has brought about positive social change through the creation of ubiquitous cellular phones, web-enabled Personal Digital Assistants, and a "network nation" like none other on our planet. And, of greatest significance to us here today, it has brought us a profound revolution in military affairs. It will come as no surprise for me to tell you that as this new year 2001 arrives, it brings the United States of America the most capable and well-led military the world has ever known. Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever thought "What made us different"? Have you ever pondered how it is that our Nation, above all others, could rise from a surprise entry into a world war we didn't want into the preeminent military force on the globe? I have. And it is my fervent belief that the partnership we enjoy between our IT [Information Technology] industry and military, coupled with senior leadership that has brought us the unparalleled vision embodied in Joint Vision 2020, have given us the power to leverage this miraculous IT revolution into capabilities our foes would die for. We are an electron- and bit-enabled force more capable than any in the world. Joint Vision 2020, published in June 2000, captures that notion so well. Reading from it, "Information, information processing, and communications networks are at the core of every military activity." That thought couldn't be any clearer. In unmistakable words, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [Army General Hugh Shelton] establishes that the core -- the very heart of every military operation -- is information. But I suspect that comes as no surprise to you either, because you and the partnership between Government and industry you represent have made that realization possible. But even given that, the incredibly dynamic nature of IT makes it imperative that we work together even harder to ensure that the advantage we enjoy today remains. Do you remember 1981? IBM introduced its original PC [personal computer]. It had a blazing clock speed of 4.77 megahertz. It had 64K of RAM, and external storage was accomplished with a generous 160K floppy disk drive. The display was a text-only monochrome display. And it cost--in 1981 --about $3000. Today, a computer with 200 times the speed, 100,000 times the storage, and graphics 16 million times more colorful and useful costs, according to my math, a lot less. As you know, today we can buy -- on the web, I might add -- an incredibly more capable information machine for about a tenth the cost... in constant year dollars! That's an incredible leap in 20 years, but not uncommon for the IT world we now all live in. How can our Department of Defense possibly "ride this wave"? How can we possibly adapt to this notion of warfare being centered on our IT "business", when our IT "business" is exploding like nothing before in history? The good news is there is a DOD global team that is focused on doing just that. I am privileged to lead a defense agency focused precisely on that mission: exploring, engineering, and implementing IT solutions for our Nation's warfighters and the other valued customers we serve, as we've stepped off the threshold and squarely into this bold new century. Our vision for meeting these challenges is centered on understanding our customers' needs and then meeting them, more appropriately, even exceeding expectations when possible. Let me tell you how we plan to go about that. Over the past few months, I have visited every CINC [Commander-in-Chief] headquarters, the senior C4 leaders from our military services, agency directors, and other key figures inside and outside DOD to discuss how DISA can best help them achieve their objectives. In each case, I asked three fundamental questions:
As you would guess, there was plenty of feedback from my questions! A consistent message I heard very quickly -- and in fact, even before I arrived on my visits -- was that our customers wanted and needed focused network services. They were confused by multiple entry points into our agency for network design, engineering, customer service, provisioning, and operations. They were frustrated by not having a single entity responsible for end-to-end network services and performance. We listened, and we took immediate action. On July 31st, we stood-up a new structure for DISA, refocusing a large portion of our agency into a directorate dedicated entirely to meeting our customers' Defense Information System Network needs. We named this new group "Network Services" and appointed [Air Force] Brig Gen Bernie Skoch as the Principal Director. I'm also pleased to tell you this superb team is already making great progress in improving network performance, increasing the line of services we offer our customers, and in reducing provisioning times. In a broader sense, CINCs, in particular, were more than forthcoming with abundant constructive comments. And, let me say they also personally provided me with abundant praise for the great work being done by "Team DISA" in their AORs throughout the world. We have compiled the CINCs needs, requests, and suggestions into a plan for action that we are calling "DISA 2002: A 500 Day Action Plan for Supporting DOD Decision Superiority." I, along with our strong leadership team at DISA, am focusing our agency's energies over the next 500 days on delivering what each of our valued customers have told us are their four or five highest priority IT needs. Some of our actions respond to requests from a broad array of CINCS, Services, and Agencies. For example, we continue to develop and enhance the execution of the Global Command and Control System, or "GCCS." We also expect to field the Global Combat Support System common operational picture and portal, by September of this year. This last enhancement incorporates logistics information like JOPES, GSORTS, and GTN into GCCS for Command and Control -- a critical sharing of information our warfighters need for Decision Superiority. Another action high on many customers' lists was a strong need for what we call the "TELEPORT" initiative. This exciting new capability -- for which DISA has been designated executive agent -- will tremendously strengthen the ability of deployed warfighters worldwide by giving them increased access to modem satellite communications systems, across all frequency bands, and global fiber into the entire global information grid. TELEPORTS will serve as the new tactical-to-strategic bridge for expeditionary forces. Some of the 111 individual actions embedded in our 54-page action plan draft are more specific. For example, EUCOM [United States European Command] asked that we assist them with command and control integration and services for their new command center. We're already fully engaged, and we expect completion by December of this year. In all cases, we will work -- and work hard -- to deliver on this 500 Day Action Plan "contract". Our customers deserve no less. I have found that 500 days is about the right amount of time to consider and plan for the long term -- as outlined in our organizational vision -- while focusing on the near term by delivering new capability, measuring progress, and remaining agile with small course corrections every 500 Days, if required. And, I know this concept works. We developed a 500 Day Plan at U.S. Central Command [USCENTCOM] five years ago. Since that time, three of their CINCs have endorsed the focused progressive efforts achieved and, today, USCENTCOM is using "500 Day Plan Number 4". That's 2000 days -- or 5 years -- of focused IT activity for one very challenging command with a complex and critical mission. I think our plan is an easy-read and we have designed it that way. We want our customers to read it and hold us accountable. It will be followed with a classified' annex for a special sub-set of our valued customers, and also should be published by the end of this month. Although I believe our new DISA action plan will carry us well over the next year and a half, a greater question begs for an answer: Where are we headed over the long term? What do we need to do, not only to address our customers’ urgent and immediate needs, but beyond the horizon we can see today? Let me turn again to Joint Vision 2020 to identify what I believe is the principal challenge before us. I quote: "Information superiority provides the joint force a competitive advantage only when it is effectively translated into superior knowledge and decisions. The joint force must be able to take advantage of superior information converted into superior knowledge to achieve 'decision superiority' -- better decisions arrived at and implemented faster than an opponent can react..." In the recently released brochure Information Superiority: Making the Joint Vision Happen, Mr. Art Money, Assistant Secretary of Defense for C3I makes an excellent point about Information Superiority. He states that current initiatives are beginning to establish the foundation for the future and emphasizes that "...this is only the beginning. We need to continue to leverage and exploit innovations to create and evolve capabilities, build and maintain a secure and interoperable “infostructure", and invest in our people." You see, all the information technology and all the near term actions won't go far enough, if our warfighters can't decide and act faster than our foes. Clearly, we at DISA need to expand our focus and reengineer what we've been doing -- we're reminded that change is constant. For many years, DISA and our predecessor organization, the Defense Communications Agency, was focused on providing communications services. That made perfect sense; we lived in a "circuit centric" world and DCA needed to provide our customers circuit-centric services. We helped people communicate by processing and facilitating things like requests for service, telecommunications service requests, and telecommunications service orders. In the end, our product was a "pipe," a channel for bits -- or, in that day, analog tones -- to move down. But things changed. People needed more than pipes. They no longer needed only to be "hooked up," they needed to process information. And so we changed, and we became the Defense Information Systems Agency as we grew into providing computing services. One of the jewels in our crown today, I believe, is our DISA-Western Hemisphere organization. The world-class support they provide an enormous number of very important users is regarded almost universally as effective and efficient in meeting data processing needs across the Department of Defense and to other customers. But I believe our world has changed even beyond computing. And, just as we continue to provide communications and circuit services as we did in our DCA days, we will continue to provide computing services as we grow into an even larger role. I believe it is now time for us to become the Application Service Provider of choice within the Department of Defense, and I believe we are uniquely positioned to do that. Our superb corps of information technology professionals, coupled with our fine WESTHEM computing facilities and global networks is the natural starting point for a Joint DOD Enterprise that can deliver responsive, effective, and efficient application services. Does it really make sense for elements in the Department of Defense to replicate what can be done by one Joint agency? Can we continue to spend more money than what my intuition tells me we could be spending on obtaining, operating, and maintaining a family of joint applications for our warfighters and support activities? I believe this is the continuing mission for DISA: To deliver a synchronized, harmonized, and coherent capability that gives jointly interoperable, secure, and best value information services to our valued customers. And, we know we won't be able to do that alone. We'll do it in partnership with others. Many of you have likely visited one of my favorite places: Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center. I can't go there without getting excited about the future. In 1999, Disney set up a special exhibit as they prepared to celebrate the new millennium. It represented a global "village" linked not by the past, but by the future. Their theme "Celebrate the Future Hand-in-Hand" speaks well to our vision for DISA. As we move into this exciting future, we can't -- and we won't try to -- do it alone. Ours is a vision of partnerships, and we too, intend to move into the future "hand-in-hand" with our strategic partners: the Joint Staff, the CINCs, the Services, other Agencies, our other customers, and industry. And we're already well underway. Many of you are aware of the Department of the Navy's recent award of the Navy Marine Corps Internet contract. We are excited to be partners with the Navy and Marine Corps, as they rely on our networks for the preponderance of their connectivity, as we have agreed. We've worked closely with .the Air Force to help them develop and implement their Air Force portal, a brilliant initiative to improve information access for the Expeditionary Air Force. As I already mentioned, we've been designated executive agent for the TELEPORT program, and we're excited about the opportunities that initiative gives us in providing deployed warfighters of all military Services access to our global networks through the effective and efficient Joint TELEPORT program we are leading. Our goal is one TELEPORT, replicated as best as possible at 6 locations -- joint interoperability is critical in building a global enterprise. We want to build it in from the start. I would submit that our partnership agreement with the Ballistic Missile Defense Office is a model of cooperation, ensuring secure, interoperable, and best value IT solutions for the National Missile Defense program. Each of these, I believe, is a great example of how we intend to transform the Defense Information Systems Network into the Department's Global Information Grid that gives every American, allied, and coalition partner the information needed, on time, every time. We plan to build this GIG by moving into the future hand-in-hand with our strategic partners. And, we'll need those partners, as we face what I see as a large set of challenges. First, let me mention the spectrum or "wireless technologies" challenge. Commercial wireless technology is becoming mainstream and available, and it has an appetite for a limited resource: Spectrum. We must extend our joint interoperability, assured security, and best-value practices to the new-wireless environment that is far more than cellular and mobile satellite services. Local and wide area wireless networks, wireless email, and wireless appliances are exploding onto the marketplace. In fact, third generation devices are just around the comer. Today, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association already reported a total of 97 million wireless subscribers for June 2000 -- an increase of 27.2 percent over June of 1999 -- and, we expect that figure to rise to 2 billion users by 2010. With such increases, we must pay special attention to the vital spectrum interests of DOD to ensure that -- as our Nation rushes into the wireless revolution--we don't do irreparable harm to our warfighters' needs for the precious commodity of spectrum. In March, our Office of Spectrum Analysis and Management will release "DOD’s IMT-2000 Impact Study" to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The study looks at a single frequency band of interest -- across all Military Services -- for possible frequency relocation options, cost benefits, and operations impact. The second long term challenge I believe we face is information assurance. Our customers deserve assured security in their information transactions. Richard Clarke, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism within the National Security Council, reminded us in a speech last month that hostile or potentially hostile organizations "are doing reconnaissance today on our networks, mapping them, looking for vulnerabilities". Just this week we recorded one organization that attempted to access one of our networks over 4 million times in one day. That's not an uncommon practice, I'm told, by our network professionals, and attempts like this should serve as a stark reminder that our information networks must be controlled, protected, and managed as effectively as w.eapons systems. As Mr. Money emphasizes in the Information Superiority brochure I referenced earlier, DISA is also committed to "ensuring the right people, and only the right people, have access to the right information at the right times in the right forms." Protecting our networks is a partnership: a partnership among DOD, Industry, and the rest of the Federal Government. Few know this better than the leaders of our National Communications System [NCS]. The NCS was born out of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and continues today to build on its rich history while working with industry partners and member agencies to make and keep the Nation's emergency communications effective, secure, and interoperable. Our President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee [NSTAC] remains strong with 30 senior executives representing major IT providers. Our telecommunications Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or "ISAC", was not only the first of its kind to stand-up, but is also lauded as a model for others to follow. We are also participating in White House Critical Infrastructure Protection initiatives that address the proposal for creation of a cyber warning network -- a future look at National Security and Emergency Preparedness voice and data communications networks. And third, let me address another enduring challenge: Interoperability. We have learned a hard lesson, and regrettably we seem inclined to learn it over arid over. C4 interoperability is essential as Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Haiti, DESERT STORM, Kosovo, and countless other wars and contingencies have taught us. I am convinced that our Department needs, and our customers deserve, genuinely interoperable solutions. There is a temptation to acquire IT services based solely on near-term "price." We can't. Instead, we must adopt a greater view and a business strategy that pursues best VALUE for our enterprise, and I believe DISA is well postured to be the broker of interoperable solutions. Our warfighters can no longer afford stove-pipe or stand-alone solutions that are cheap when they're bought, but expensive when we are forced to modify them to meet the joint interoperability needs of our warfighters. Let me close with a story told to me by one of our satellite technicians. Our DISA technician, while deployed to a mountain top in support of an operation, left his warm cabin to clean up some of the snow that had accumulated on the satellite dish and wave guides. While he was gone, three friends who got lost in the woods found our technician's cabin. The friends -- a philosopher, an engineer, and an architect -- had been lost for hours. Cold, wet, and tired, they decided to enter the shelter and wait for our technician inside. The cabin was warm and dry because our technician had left the stove burning. Much to their surprise the stove was hanging from the ceiling, suspended on a network of wires, a good five feet above the cabin floor. The three friends started to wonder why the stove was hanging from the ceiling. The philosopher was the first to offer an explanation: Obviously the person that is staying here is very spiritual; he elevated the stove as a representation of the divine -- higher than us and giving warmth and, thus, life to this cabin. The engineer disagreed and quickly offered his theory. This person is obviously very logical and an expert in thermodynamics. The stove is exactly five feet off the ground. If we calculate the distance between the walls and the ceiling, the current location provides the most efficient thermal flow. The architect, not to be pushed aside by his friends, offered his theory to the group. This person is a load bearing expert; he calculated the floor weight bearing design and discovered that the ceiling beam structure is better suited to support the heavy weight of the cast iron stove. At that point, our technician walked in the cabin and found the three friends arguing with each other as to why the stove was suspended from the ceiling. The three friends turned to the technician and promptly asked him... "Why did you suspend the stove from the ceiling?" The DISA technician simply smiled and replied... "plenty of wire, but I was told to reduce stovepipe.” All three friends had misconceptions. They attempted to quickly understand, what was for them a new and different environment. At DISA, we operate at the practical edge, with proven technologies, not the bleeding edge. We understand that the digital future is full of distinct and hybrid technologies. We have plenty of wire -- we call it connectivity -- and, we are working to rid DOD of stovepipes. But, we offer more than just wire and fewer stovepipes, we offer customers our three core competencies of joint interoperability, assured security, and best value. Joint interoperability... tested, proven, and delivered as the systems are delivered, not when our warfighters are under fire and deploying to a remote location. Assured security, as an integrated built-in feature from the beginning, not "bolted on" as an afterthought. And of course, best value. We're good at this. Consider what we've been able to do with our CONUS-to-CONUS voice services which we offer today for 2.6 cents per minute. But the best value we talk about is more than just lowest cost. DISA “best value” includes C4 access to low volume telecommunications points of the globe, where we often serve daily and deploy to infrequently; reliability; responsiveness; joint interoperability, and assured security. DISA understands these principles, and we're excited about delivering them to our customers. We are at the doorstep of a new century and we will face our awaiting challenges with a renewed spirit of cooperation with all of our partners-- military, Government, allies, coalitions, and industry. We have great hope for world peace and stability. But the 20th century should serve as a remainder that if we are to continue to fight and win our Nation's wars and maintain the peace, we must provide our warriors today with the information superiority required to achieve decision superiority tomorrow. May God continue to bless the USA. Thank you for your kind attention.
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