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Military spending is being reduced. We need only consider how the UK's once-revered Trident programme is now being funded within the existing military budget to understand how tight post-recession budgets are. Militaries around the world need more for less.
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By Giles Peeters, Defence Sector Director, Track 24
Introduction
As the global economy emerges from deep recession, militaries across the world are feeling the pinch. In June, Britain's new defence secretary, Liam Fox, warned of ruthless cuts following a strategic review to be published by December, while his American counterpart, Robert Gates, disclosed planned savings of $100bn over the next 5 years. The wave of austerity sweeping across Europe has hit the continent's defence budgets hard, but it is not alone; further afield the Canadian government has this year implemented a defence spending freeze.
At the same time, governments need to stem public anxiety that reduced budgets will leave front line forces vulnerable, particularly when the war in Afghanistan is at a crucial stage. This represents an opportunity for militaries accustomed to operating within their own closed markets, defined by procurement protocols and bespoke requirements, to turn to the commercial sphere where resources are developed for multi-million pound service level agreements (SLAs) and product standards are exceptionally high.
19 years in the military as an operations and communications specialist provided me with a broad overview of military requirements in modern warfare zones, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the solution at hand. My final three years as the joint communications, subject matter expert, at Joint Helicopter Command (JHC) included communications and command and control responsibility for all UK MOD helicopters entering Afghan and Iraqi airspace - an operation that required the use of the first home-grown blue force tracking equipment engaged by the British military.
A history of Blue Force Tracking
Only a decade ago, situational awareness was mainly the domain of the navy and air force through bespoke, expensive and complex systems. Solutions for the aircraft and maritime communities such as the Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) and Automatic Identification System (AIS), enabled them to manage high-level assets and make informed decisions based on situational awareness.
Due to increased operations in Iraq, the American army was the first to solve the problem of land situational awareness in order to reduce blue on blue incidents (friendly fire). It introduced FBCB2 in time for the land campaign of the second Iraq war in 2003, a radio and satellite Blue Force Tracking (BFT) system capable of operating in extreme conditions. Currently over 85,000 vehicles have been equipped with these systems offering a unified operating picture to the front line tactical commander and strategic HQ.
Later that year, the UK committed troops to join the NATO led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The MoD had limited BFT systems, borrowed from the US, that were employed by the British military in Iraq. However, it soon became apparent that the UK MoD needed to develop its own capability. Firstly, it realised that previous radio-based line-of-sight solutions deployed in the Gulf, were not going to work in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Secondly, assets including Apache, Chinook and Lynx helicopters operating some 200 miles from their Forward Operating Area (FOA), also needed to be tracked, and the US system could not provide this capability over such a wide area.
With British troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the MoD needed land and air BFT capabilities quickly. Whitehall provided the appropriate funds under an Urgent Operational Requirement (UOR) to develop solutions, and HeATS and GrATS (Helicopter/Ground Asset Tracking Systems) were introduced in time for the UK's first deployment to Afghanistan. The systems have remained fundamentally the same ever since, but the environment in which they are deployed is constantly changing, necessitating resources that can evolve and adapt.
Modern day situational command and control system requirements
All militaries have similar requirements from BFT technology:
Security: data is highly sensitive and requires point-to-point high-level encryption (no un-encrypted data outside the military domain). If this information is intercepted then your asset locations are compromised and the system becomes a weapon against you.
Interoperability: in ever-increasing combined military operations (there are over 40 nations contributing to ISAF), it is essential to share information with other situational awareness systems. New BFT gateway technology allows varying systems to converge in near time.
Low data latency: in 2006, information position report latency was around five minutes - by the time instruction was relayed to the operator a situation could have changed entirely. Old or stale information can be more harmful than no information at all, as you base your reasoning on an incorrect and outdated scenario. Latency of less than a minute is now standard, with critical information usually processed in seconds.
Accessibility Beyond Line Of Sight (BLOS): with modern warfare evolving and the ever-increasing need to operate at short notice, in austere conditions, hundreds of miles from headquarters or forward operating bases, traditional line of sight radio communications are struggling to offer the required capability. Furthermore, military satellite bandwidth is both expensive and limited for the tactical user community, so commercial satellite services are fast becoming more accepted and often essential in offering BLOS capability.
Ease of use: combat and peacekeeping operations are becoming more complex as new technology is introduced to aid missions. Technical solutions can be highly sophisticated, but this can pose new problems for frontline troops who need to focus on their core mission objectives. It is also difficult to train personnel adequately, as combat priorities impact on available training hours. Therefore systems need to be simple and intuitive, utilising familiar user-friendly graphical interfaces in order to increase accessibility for frontline troops.
Robustness and readiness: Commanders require high levels of system mobility and reliability, as they need to re-deploy quickly and easily, and often at short notice. Many proprietary BFT systems that boast military specifications still rely on commercial network connectivity; this is because it is both flexible and reliable.
The future role of the private sector
Military spending is being reduced. We need only consider how the UK's once-revered Trident programme is now being funded within the existing military budget to understand how tight post-recession budgets are. Militaries around the world need more for less. In the case of BFT this equals low-cost systems designed for instant deployment that exceed security expectations, have their own dedicated bandwidth, and are easily configured and understood. These are not unrealistic requirements, although governments are naturally cautious. AES256 encryption (now extensively used by NATO militaries) for example, took a long time to be tested and accepted as a standard; now most NATO military and government communities rely on it for data security. AES benefits from multi-key encryption as opposed to a single key for all ciphers. On capture, the key is simply deactivated. Pre-AES systems required the retrieval or destruction of the unit in order to ensure network security. Commercial solutions however can now take this one step further, due to extensive SLAs, and wipe the invalid key from the device over the air (remotely), adding an extra layer of security.
We have already seen western militaries (Germany, France, Italy and Britain) following the US model and adopting BFT systems. But situational command and control is only in its infancy and will soon expand to everything in a land commander's remit. Advances in affordable technology are allowing military commanders to implement soldier systems such as Blue Personnel Tracking (each soldier carries a light-weight satellite tracking device with secure two-way messaging ability) and in the foreseeable future will see a convergence of information as logistics ID tagging is added to all equipment, from weapons down to the very bullets they fire. This culmination of real-time asset data will provide a comprehensive overview of the battlefield allowing for total situational command and control. The development of existing military C2 solutions will be expensive, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for national defence organisations to consider the best-in-breed solutions already available in the commercial market.
Contact Information
Emma Hanson
TopLine Communications
5 Percy Street
London
W1T 1DG
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