Electronic systems that are proprietary and cannot be used with other suppliers’ networks or computer applications won’t help the Air Force reach its cyberspace goals of being able to attack enemies and defend key U.S. networks.
“One thing industry can do is bring us integrated solutions,” Gen. C. Robert Kehler told the opening session of Infotech 2009, an annual conference that brings together top Air Force officials and technology companies eager to obtain or extend military supply contracts.
“Otherwise, we’re where we’ve been for 50 years, buying stovepipe systems that don’t talk to anybody else,” he said. “We don’t have enough money for that, and we don’t have the time for it.”
The speed of changes in the cyberspace world will force the Air Force, and the Defense Department in general, to find new ways to obtain technology to stay ahead of — or at least keep up with — cyber enemies, Kehler said.
The government’s current budget, planning and acquisition cycles are too slow, said Kehler, whose command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., oversees cyberspace operations, missiles and space satellite-based reconnaisance systems. The Space Command’s responsibilities include providing real-time information to battlefield commanders so that would-be ambushers can be identified and attacked before they can surprise U.S. or coalition forces.
The government will need the ideas of business and academia to find solutions, Kehler said.
“I think small business has got a huge role to play,” he said. “We’ve got to figure out how to unlock it — and not stifle it.”
He acknowledged the challenges of getting competing companies to work together in providing “open architecture” electronic systems that could communicate with each other.
Elsewhere in the Dayton Convention Center, vendors occupying booths at InfoTech displayed competing systems for information technology and other services.
An official who helped organize this year’s InfoTech event addressed Kehler’s concern, in a welcoming statement to conference participants.
“It is vitally important that we collectively engage in a useful dialogue of how we must drive the necessary change in our programs and organizations so that we can deliver the information that is truly integral to the joint fight,” wrote David L. Judson Jr., president of the Dayton-Wright chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
The AFCEA is an association of command, control, communications, computer, and intelligence professionals with more than 130 chapters worldwide. The local Dayton AFCEA chapter organizes the annual InfoTech conference.
