Decades of parochialism within the U.S. military fostered isolated digital networks that force the user to serve as integrator, squandering organizational energy and intellect. For the past 18 years, the U.S. and our partners have been fighting counterinsurgency and counterterrorism wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these theaters, arcane methods of digital collaboration with complicated workarounds became the norm, but our ability to set favorable conditions for operations mitigated the egregious distraction of outdated networks. In other words, we got away with it. We are unlikely to be so fortunate against adversaries like Russia or China that can match or exceed our capabilities. The ability to rapidly synthesize data to inform decision-making across all echelons and domains is necessary to achieve victory.

The services lack the ability to effectively communicate – whether internally, amongst one another, with the intelligence community, or with multinational partners. The DoD needs to establish joint data standards with the goal of creating commonly-accessible data. Without commonly-accessible data, the U.S. military will not realize the potential of 21^st-century technologies. We remain too reactive and slow to mitigate risk and seize opportunities,[1] and our function- and service-centric infrastructure prevents digital collaboration. Read More

#dod