Imperatives

The Change in the Defense Strategic Scenario
The evolution of the international geopolitical situation since the end of the Cold War has driven defense departments and ministries (hereafter referred to as MoDs) worldwide to consider the reorientation of their Strategic Policies in order to adapt them to new requirements.

Simultaneously and especially since the 9/11 attacks on the US, new kinds of multidimensional risks have emerged, posing a new asymmetrical threat and generally a remarkable change in the conditions shaping the activity of the MoDs, and essentially representing a greater degree of uncertainty in their operations.

No longer is a predictable war envisaged. MoDs are developing capabilities that need to be effective and to support the extremes of urban warfare and the close proximities of the enemy, allies, and neutrals, through to the harshest of physical environments such as those in Afghanistan.

The strategic needs now include military intervention and sustained operations in non-traditional military activities such as Homeland Security, Transition and Stabilization Operations, Rebuilding Infrastructures, Military Assistance to the Civilian Population, and Medical Assistance.

In the context of such changing missions, the concept of Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) that includes collaboration with Local Government Units and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) has gained a critical importance. This co-operation requires new interoperability and interconnection solutions that go beyond the traditional boundaries of the MoDs.

It should be recognized that there is enduring and significant commitment of many of the world’s MoDs to current operations and conflicts. This activity is a considerable draw on human and financial resources. It represents both an organization and financial constraint and a direct impact on the capacity for change.

The adoption of Intensive ICT Use and the Related New Ways of Wor king
This change in the strategic scenario has occurred in parallel with other emerging global changes. These include the proliferation of information and the development, use, and demand of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

The time-critical nature of current operations and the need to act within the decision-making cycle of the enemy has demanded MoD action to achieve their goals by taking advantage of ICT solutions.

This imperative has an impact on two significant areas of an MoD: its administrative component as a part of a government administration or international organization and its operational component derived from the military-oriented nature of the missions assigned to that MoD by its government.

Administrative Modernization and Efficiency Increase and Cross -Agency Interoperability Enhances
MoDs, as departments of the administrative structure of government and having as a target the general objectives of eGovernment Initiatives, have to proceed to the rationalization, simplification, and automation of their administrative procedures. These impact not only those of a citizen-orientation (G2C), but also, and especially assuming the special characteristics of defense institutions, those that connect it with its employees (G2E), another national, supranational, or foreign public department (G2G), and private companies or institutions (for example, NGOs) that collaborate in their activities (G2B).

It is important to consider the need to comply with the different national and supranational eGovernment Initiatives that are currently in development, such as eEurope 2005 or i2010 in the European Union.

Enhance MoD Capabilities Through the Use of Networ ks and ICT
The use of Communications Networks and Information Technologies means a competitive advantage for the accomplishment of different MoD missions—both established scenarios and those emerging from a new international situation. Such technologies will facilitate military operations by provision of real-time access to information, and dynamic collaboration and planning.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider the importance of expanding communication and information-sharing among military units and to achieve situational awareness, force synchronization, increased mobility, interoperability, and decision support.

The aim is to achieve efficient and agile interaction between systems that collect, process, and communicate information by means of sensors, computers, and telecommunication technologies, as well as technical support and other specialized services designed to improve military capabilities.

In addition, intensive ICT use has an impact also on an MoD’s organizational component that supports the development of both administrative and operational tasks. It is essential for a defense organization to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of people and processes through exploiting these new ways of working, enabled by emerging technology.

Budget and Resource Planning Driving MoDs to Operate as an Enterprise
Operating as an enterprise requires the MoDs to define and rationalize Communications and Information Systems (CIS) Policies. In light of the need for such aspirations and changes as described above, each MoD should establish a corporate CIS Policy in which information is considered as a strategic resource and CIS resources as instruments to achieve an integrated and efficient administration in the different spheres of an MoD responsibility. Such a CIS Policy should to be based upon:

Considering information as an essential resource i • n its own right for the MoD.

• Viewing the department as a whole.
• Re-orienting CIS support from the traditional model of organic structures to a model based on supporting the functional or operative structures through the application of a Business Process Management model (this is especially important).

The CIS Policy should aim to align Business and Technology in the organization and optimize and rationalize the use of different MoD resources including HR, financial, logistical, and operational information.

Related to the financial resource, there remains a significant challenge to invest in a balanced view across the department to deliver an economic and sustained portfolio of military capability. In this regard, the European Defence Agency’s (EDA) Capability Development Plan (CDP) is the tool that helps each MoD in the prioritization of short- and long-term defense investment.

By following this route, MoDs will be well-positioned to assure the global performance and success of the Business Defense Trends in that they will achieve an effective and affordable operational effect within each organization. This will strengthen the efficiency of logistics, good supply chain, and inventory and it will assure the operation and support of technological platforms in a sustainable way that will allow the effective inclusion of new innovations

Business trends

NATO Networ k-Enabled Capability and Networ k-Centric Warfare Initiatives
Through initiatives such as NATO Network-Enabled Capability (NNEC) and others related to Network-Centric Warfare (NCW), there is an intention to improve the ability of MoDs to succeed in their missions by letting them share and exploit information more efficiently and effectively with allies and other friendly actors involved in a defense operation (of any nature).

Amongst other considerations in the development of these initiatives could be the need to extend communications networks capabilities wherever and whenever they are needed or to support smaller and more modular multinational operational structures.

This way it is easier to identify and face new threats and to accomplish an effective typology of missions derived from new strategic scenarios defined earlier in this document.

A robustly networked force improves information-sharing that enhances the quality of information, responsiveness, decision superiority, and shared situational awareness. This way, collaboration and self-synchronization are enabled with sustainability and speed of command enhanced, thus increasing mission effectiveness.

The US Department of Defense’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) concept establishes the common Architectural Framework for warranting the correct integration of different military architectures in such a way that could ensure interoperable and cost-effective military systems.

As other NATO countries have developed similar C4ISR frameworks (sometimes referred as C3I) for their Architectural Framework activities, such as the UK’s MoDAF or NATO’s own NAF, its aim is the future interconnection of architectures and systems in the NATO environment, providing a global ‘system of systems’ that will produce unreachable results by individual solutions.

For the specific case of NATO, the NNEC Concept underlies the Networking and Information Infrastructure (NII) that implements standardized information services, including transport, storage, security, and management to support NNEC Vision and Concept.

Administrative Procedures Simplification and Automation —eGovernment Initiatives
Defense departments must play an active role in implementing local or international eGoverment Initiatives.

Such an active role not only assures a more agile operation of the MoD but also a more efficient relationship with other departments when sharing information out of the scope of the military or operational missions.

To co-ordinate the Strategic CIS Policy of every MoD, the implementation of eGovernment solutions must be considered from a structured point of view to include:

• How to adapt the Corporative Technological Infrastructure (Network and Communications Architecture and Security Infrastructure) to support the new needs derived from eGoverment solutions.
• How to integrate common solutions that will be used in the telematic development of several proceedings such as ePayment, eTender or eLearning solutions.
• How, in some cases, it will be necessary to develop ad hoc solutions for the MoD.
• Establish and execute a methodology for the simplification and automation of administrative proceedings.

eGovernment Initiatives also require the need to consolidate some lines of activity in MoDs such as Privacy and Data Protection.

Besides, the correct execution of this trend requires offering functionalities related to corporate services and proceedings to employees, citizens, government departments, or private institutions. This is necessary to assure the effectiveness of these services according to established SLAs, through the development of Business Continuity Plans.

New Connectivity and Interoperability Needs for Information Assurance —the De-Perimiteri zed Concept
New connectivity needs have to be considered in order to strengthen the agility and efficiency in the development of operations. As previously mentioned, defense units must currently interact with non-military actors who must in some controlled situations be able to use MoD systems or resources.

In this context, the de-perimeterization strategy allows protection of MoD systems and information by using encryption, secure computer protocols and systems, and data-level authentication rather than depending on its network boundary to the Internet. This way, the access to MoD network resources is easier, more agile, and is guaranteed the related security.

Organizational Coherence for New Ways of Working and Exploitation of Technology
Organizational changes and exploitation of new technologies are required to ensure competitive and military advantage in the current socio-political environment. However, the investment in technologies needs to be married with a development in new enabling capabilities of those individuals and organizations expected to carry out ‘traditional functions’.

MoDs are restructuring and reorganizing to become leaner, flatter organizations, representative of merger and acquisition programs. Whether this is done for operational or financial efficiency, organizational and system integration opportunities will present themselves.

Closer Coupling with Private Companies and Industrial Suppliers for Capability and Equipment Availability , Contracts , and Sourcing Arrangements
In order to guarantee agility in adapting MoDs to new conditions and technological solutions that will shape the development of missions in their various forms, the integrated use of mixed teams of military, government, and private employees in the planning and development of projects (administrative or operative ones) must be considered, especially to deliver equipment and capability availability.

In this way, a wide range of views is available that allows the analysis of solutions and their conditions in a holistic way. It is imperative to maintain the core of work and decision-making within the organization to ensure MoD independence.

In many cases, the terms of traditional negotiations have changed significantly and the commercial landscape itself is very different. MoDs want a guaranteed service level from their equipment / capability—pushing much of the industry risk well beyond the acceptance date. Significantly, many MoDs are investing significant amounts in Military Logistic Information Systems, not to store inventory and equipment building bigger warehouses, but to manage supply / support chain effectiveness to deliver more affordable and agile support to military capability. Through-life costs and the management of through-life capability present new challenges both for buyer and supplier. New supplier relationships and associated Performance Management and Business Intelligence components are required to report, predict, and optimize the cost of delivering competing military capabilities.

Collaboration for Research — Spin -Offs Toward the Civil Industry
The MoDs should raise the possibility of reusing, where feasible, existent technological solutions developed by other government departments or even private companies.

In this way, a more efficient use of financial resources will be achieved in a manner similar to the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) concept rather than with specifically new developments. This trend will place MoDs in a better position to become genuinely more interoperable with other departments and actors.

Nevertheless, research in the Defense sector is continuing to be promoted through local initiatives and also in the scope of supranational institutions such as the European Defence Agency (EDA), which promotes defense research and technologies in Europe.

Impact technologies

The New Busines Model
As mentioned in previous sections of this document, there are two global needs transforming the way in which governmental departments (and particularly MoDs) function: on the one hand, a new business model based on interoperability and, on the other, the necessity to improve the operational efficiency.

This section summarizes the main technological solutions to be considered in the development of the Business Trends Initiatives that allow MoDs to establish a solution for those interoperability and efficiency needs and align their activity and guidelines with the Business Imperatives for the Defense sector.

Cross-Agency Case Management, Mash-ups, and Shared Services will play an important transformational role and will change the way government services are used and information is accessed, by redefining existing processes and service delivery models.

For this reason, Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, as relevant technological enablers for eGovernment, will be important. Organizations rarely store and use identity information in only one place. Therefore, an effective IAM strategy requires a sound understanding of the approaches and technologies used to address multiple digital identities: Personal Identity Frameworks (PIFs, such as OpenID, Liberty, CardSpace, Higgins), Password Management, Enterprise SSO, Digital Certificates, Authentication Tokens (USB tokens and smartcards), and biometrics.

This new scenario needs common rules and specifications to assist recognition and interoperability of electronic identities across domains, organizations, and national borders:

• Interoperability across multi-PKI digital certificates: Digital Validation Platforms.
• Interoperability across identity protocols and frameworks in use today (Concordia Project: OpenID, SAML, WS-Fed, CardSpace, WS-Trust, ID-WSF...).
• Interoperability across electronic identities (eID) and authentication businesses, citizens, and government employees cards / tokens (Stork Project: European eIDs).

Information Technologies are the key elements here that can address such change, process, and organizational initiatives.

Hence, Defense Business Transformation aims to produce a change in business capabilities, by using Information Technologies support for dynamic, time-sensitive, end-to-end business processes.

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA), Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBAs), and Service-Oriented Development of Applications (SODA) are gaining importance in business transformation activities, helping to obtain agility in internal and external interaction (linking all the functionalities, content, data, analytics, and training needed to react to a customer request, an employee task, an industry partner-initiated collaboration, or some other complex event).

SOA deployment will allow MoDs to achieve a more responsive IT organization and will provide new opportunities for collaboration and integration among different departments and tiers of government, as well as with third parties.

SOA will shift the development focus from software functions to mission / business functions, enabling installed software to change as rapidly as defense missions do.

In this SOA environment, identity management will be delivered as a service, so that it can be used by any of the applications across the organization. Service-based Identity and Access Management provides a centralized framework for security policies across business applications, custom developed applications, and SOA-based Web Services.

As SOA adoption grows, Enterprise Metadata Taxonomy and Ontology Management will become increasingly relevant, granting business analysts a reliable and more effective degree of knowledge about the value of assets, and improving the understanding between Business and Technological units.

For this business model for distinct national systems to be interoperable, scalable, and allow fast deployment and interoperability, technical systems, data interoperability, and Semantic Interoperability must be considered.

The emergence of Web 2.0 and Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA) and the growing use of Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) are inspiring governments to use more SOA. BPM and BAM are more effective and can be developed more quickly when used with SOA thanks to the interdependency of technical and business considerations.

Information-sharing and real-time access to content derive from Network-centric Initiatives for MoDs. Aligned with this, Enterprise Content Management can ensure the integrity of information collected from different systems and sensors and can quickly lead to real situational awareness improvement.

Business Intelligence technology makes information collection, integration, and analysis processes for Decision Support Systems regarding Network-centric Initiatives.

To meet these changing business demands, the underlying Defense Information Infrastructure (as support layer) and operations management architectures will evolve into an IT infrastructure shared across users, organizations, or applications. Moreover, business policies and SLAs will drive IT infrastructure in order to obtain a dynamic and automatic optimization (IT Utility—an open and virtualized IT infrastructure, along with SOA and Web-based application architectures).

There will be an increase of information storage needs, originating from different sources and available through multiple channels (such as video, audio, text, or 3D data from Joint Operational Picture Solutions). This implies the need for high computing capacity to cope with the level of real-time treatment and decision support (data acquisition and storage, data movement and interpretation). In this environment, High Computational Capacity Techniques (Grid Computing) will play an important role.

Furthermore, migration to an all-IP environment and convergence of voice and data networks within an all-IP backbone would offer quality, security, and consistency as its essential features. The main implications are the transition to IPv6 for subsequent operation of the network. This would ensure best use of all protocol capabilities—integration of voice, IM, email, conferencing, audio, video, and the Web (Unified Communications)—with a single architecture that allows users to move seamlessly and securely between the different forms of communication, wherever they may be.

Generally, in the near future, the need for interconnecting people and systems securely, independent of time or location, with convergence of wire, wireless, and mobile networks (such as WLAN, Bluetooth, 3G / 4G), will become an issue for Defense Enterprise Transformation.

Moreover, Enterprise Asset Management technologies, including remote sensors, RFID, and Location Services, will provide automated information capture and better situational awareness, improving response agility and operational efficiency, allowing collaborative communities to focus on their goals.

As a complementary technological solution, Simulation and Training in artificial or virtualized environments are being increasingly exploited by MoDs and Industry alike to help accomplish the efficient operation of NNEC and any other Network-centric Operations Initiatives. Such changes will necessitate a change in the way military staff prepare themselves for Warfare Situation Analysis and Decision-Making related to operations derived from the new Defense Strategic Scenario.