March 11, 2024 | International, Land
Drones, tanks and ships: Takeaways from Turkey’s annual defense report
The government listed 49 ongoing modernization and acquisition projects across the various armed forces. Here are some that stood out.
January 22, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
What new documents reveal about Cyber Command’s biggest operation
Mark Pomerleau
New documents provide insight into the growing pains U.S. Cyber Command faced in building a force while simultaneously conducting operations.
The documents, which were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Archive at George Washington University and later shared with journalists, are a series of internal briefings and lessons from the Defense Department's most complex cyber operation at the time, Operation Glowing Symphony.
That operation was part of the larger counter-ISIS operations — Joint Task Force-Ares — but specifically targeted ISIS's media and online operations, taking out infrastructure and preventing ISIS members from communicating and posting propaganda.
While Cyber Command described the operation, which took place in November of 2016, as a victory in the sense that it “successfully contested [ISIS] in the information domain,” the documents demonstrate the extent to which the command was still learning how to conduct operations and the exact steps to follow.
“Process maturation is something they pull out a lot. Obviously, as CYBERCOM was standing up, it was pulling together plans for how they were going to operate. They actually hadn't operated that much,” Michael Martelle, cyber vault fellow at the National Security Archive, told reporters. “A lot of these frameworks were formed in theory. Now they go to try them out in practice.”
Cyber Command leaders have stressed in public remarks for years that the command was building its force while operating. But the extent of those operations has been limited. Officials in recent years have explained that the command didn't undertake many offensive operations. One official said last year he could count on less than two fingers the number of operations, Cyber Command conducted in the last decade or so. One member of Congress said DoD didn't conduct an offensive cyber operation in five years.
But when they were in action, in this case with Operation Glowing Symphony, Martelle said the documents show cyber leaders did not anticipate the amount of data they would access.
“They actually weren't prepared for the amount of data they were pulling off of ISIS servers ... CYBERCOM was not set up for an operation of this magnitude from day one,” he said. “They had to learn on the fly, they had to acquire on the fly, they had to grow on the fly.”
The documents note that Cyber Command's capability development group, is “developing USCYBERCOM data storage solutions.”
The capabilities develop group, now known as the J9, serves as the advanced concepts and technology directorate and worked to plan and synchronizing cyber capability development and developed capabilities to meet urgent operational needs.
Experts had noted that in the past the CDG/J9 had been stressed in recent years by a limited staff and burdened by developing tools for operational needs, namely Joint Task Force-Ares.
Another example of potential growing pains the documents point to was the fact that updates to operations checklists were not made available readily to the team.
Finally, the documents note that authorities and processes the command was operating under that the time were restrictive in some cases.
“Absent of significant policy changes from [the office of the secretary of defense], USCYBERCOM is limited in its ability to challenge ISIS [redacted]. As a result, USCYBERCOM has [redacted] to achieve our objectives,” the executive summary of a 120-day assessment of Operation Glowing Symphony says.
Those authorities and processes have been streamlined by the executive branch and Congress in recent years.
Commanders now follow a process that defaults toward action, Maj. Gen. Dennis Crall, deputy principal cyber adviser and senior military adviser for cyber policy, said during an event Jan. 9. He explained the updated process provides continuity, tempo, pace and timing.
Ultimately, Martelle noted that the real importance behind Operation Glowing Symphony is that Cyber Command used the experience from those events and Joint Task Force-Ares more broadly as a template for future operations.
Cyber Command's top official, Gen. Paul Nakasone, who was also led Joint Task Force-Ares, has noted that the task force laid the foundation for the Russia Small Group, which was created to combat election interference in the 2018 midterms.
“This concept of a task force lives on. A lot of that thinking came from what we were doing in 2016,” he told NPR.
That task force has now evolved to be more all encompassing covering election threats more broadly.
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January 7, 2019 | International, Naval, Land, C4ISR
New in 2019: The Army’s new way of warfighting will continue to evolve
By: Todd South Each of the past three years has seen the Army build and upgrade its newest warfighting concept, one that leaders look to transform the service in an era of greater competitionand multi-faceted threats. That concept, while improved, will continue to evolve in the coming year as well, with more experimentation and feedback from soldiers at all levels. The Army will fight its future battles through formations geared toward multi-domain operations and guided by real-world threats to global military superiority, according to an updated version of Army warfighting called Multi-Domain Operations 2028. “U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028” is both a revision to ongoing warfighting plans and an invitation for input from across the force. “The American way of war must evolve and adapt,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley wrote. “It describes how U.S. Army forces, as part of the Joint Force, will militarily compete, penetrate, dis-integrate, and exploit our adversaries in the future.” And while it has been formed by commanders at Army Training and Doctrine Command, Army leaders know it needs more. “Every one of you is part of our evolution and the construction of our future force,” Milley wrote, addressing soldiers, “and we want your critical feedback.” The main task of this new battle concept is to get after “layered stand-off,” in which adversaries have created ways to deny historical U.S. dominance of domains such as air-land-sea, and new ones such as information and electromagnetic spectrums to keep U.S. and allied military units at bay. In the newly released document's preface, Gen. Stephen Townsend, TRADOC commander, focused on how the Army will operate and enable the joint force in future conflicts. “If deterrence fails, Army formations, operating as part of the Joint Force, penetrate and dis-integrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems; exploit the resulting freedom of maneuver to defeat enemy systems, formations and objectives and to achieve our own strategic objectives; and consolidate gains to force a return to competition on terms more favorable to the U.S., our allies and partners,” he wrote. To reach those goals, the Army will need some new functions, new equipment and advanced processes to select, train and retain capable soldiers. Some of that was evident this past summer in the Pacific, where fires soldiers found novel approaches to integrating traditionally land-focused Army assets and networks to link up with partner forces and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps teams to share information and strike ships at sea in simulated, contested environments. The director of the Army's Capabilities Integration Center, Brig. Gen. Mark Odom, in an Army release, highlighted key factors in the new concept's importance. The concept focuses on operational problems with competitors such as Russia and China, as opposed to the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism focus in recent decades. This means it returns the Army to a focus on threats rather than capabilities-based approaches, he wrote. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/01/04/new-in-2019-the-armys-new-way-of-warfighting-will-continue-to-evolve
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July 7, 2024 | International, Naval
Denmark pulls troubled frigate as lead ship for NATO force
The Iver Huitfeldt was supposed to be an alliance flagship, but air-defense problems encountered by the crew during a Red Sea deployment remain unresolved.