Central to those efforts is the renewed vision for creating interoperable “Mission Partner Environments” (MPEs), asserts a new Scoop News Group report sponsored by GDIT. MPEs will allow the military and its trusted partners to communicate and share sensitive information securely and in real-time with allied partners.

MPEs represent a logical extension of the DOD’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) strategy to federate, jointly access and act upon relevant situational data. However, according to the report, that strategy is also fueling a new commitment to integrate mission and coalition partners into evolving technical standards, capabilities and policies — and toward a global IT environment rather than a U.S.-centric one.

The conflicts and humanitarian crises in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere across the globe have added new urgency to the need for near real-time information exchange across multiple domains. They have also heightened how modern warfare has taken on new dimensions in contrast to previous conflicts, according to the report, including:

• Hybrid Warfare Challenges — Conventional military tactics are being fused with cyber and information warfare. This blending of domains necessitates seamless data sharing to effectively counter and respond to such multifaceted threats.
• Information Warfare and Disinformation — Adversaries in the Ukraine conflict extensively employed disinformation campaigns to shape perceptions and destabilize regions. Interoperable systems enable partner nations to collectively analyze and counter such narratives, ensuring a more comprehensive and coordinated response.
• Dynamic Battlefield Tactics — The conflict has underscored the rapid evolution of the battlefield, where situational awareness is paramount. Interoperability enables partners to share real-time intelligence, adjust strategies and respond swiftly.
• Civil-Military Coordination — The Ukraine conflict has also highlighted the importance of integrating civilian and military efforts in a comprehensive approach. Interoperable systems facilitate coordination among various agencies, ensuring a more cohesive and effective response.

While the concept of MPEs is hardly new, what’s changing is the need to collapse and improve the speed and effectiveness of an expanding array of networks to share information securely with coalition partners, says Eric Tapp, a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army, and now MPE lead at GDIT.

“MPEs are moving from this massive point-to-point connection on a standalone network to the point where eventually all warfighters working in NATO or working in a coalition environment will be able to communicate effectively and share data,” he explains in the report. What’s missing, he contends, “is the operational art and the art of deployment.” 

Tapp, who led MPE development at USCENTCOM before retiring from the Army, highlights “the path to modern MPEs” in the report, the critical need for data-centricity and why MPEs must be transport agnostic if they are to fulfill the vision for real-time data sharing with coalition partners.

Read the full report on developing modern ‘Mission Partner Environments” and how GDIT is helping enhance interoperability with global partners.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for DefenseScoop and FedScoop and sponsored by GDIT.

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A deep and longstanding intelligence-gathering and -sharing partnership between the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Five Eyes’ roots trace back to the aftermath of World War II. 

On Nov. 15, Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced the “Five AIs Act,” which would mandate a new team of officials to lead a range of activities that could help the alliance to collectively stymie their competitors’ intensifying pursuits of global, AI-driven digital dominance.

“Artificial intelligence is a transformational technology that can be harnessed for good or evil. It is imperative that we prevent our adversaries, particularly the Chinese Communist Party, from weaponizing AI to advance their military ambitions and perfect their repressive techno-totalitarian surveillance states,” Gallagher said in a statement on Tuesday.

If passed, the new 10-page legislation (provided to DefenseScoop before it was released publicly this week), would establish a “Five AIs Strategic Artificial Intelligence Working Group,” which could exist through Sept. 30, 2028.

The bill would require the U.S. secretary of defense to coordinate with the director of national intelligence to launch the new group and designate a senior civilian official from the Defense Department or a senior military officer to direct its various efforts. Members of the independent, Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council, in particular, would be encouraged to participate.

Notably, the legislation would require the working group to “identify (including by experimenting, testing, and evaluating) potential solutions to advance and accelerate the interoperability of artificial intelligence systems used for intelligence sharing, battlespace awareness, and other covered operational uses,” according to its text.

Among other responsibilities, the bill would also mandate the hub to produce a shared strategy to guide how the five nations jointly research and employ the emerging technology, and collectively leverage commercial products to advance near-term collaboration across the alliance’s militaries.  

“The Secretary of Defense shall seek to ensure that any knowledge or technical data produced by a Five Eyes country under any cooperative project carried out by the Working Group shall be controlled by that country under the export control laws and regulations of that country and shall not be subject to the jurisdiction or control of any other Five Eyes country,” the bill states.

The working group would need to be created within 90 days of the legislation’s passage — and those involved would be expected to share their official plan for it with Congress about a month before that, within 60 days of enactment.

Following its introduction, the new proposal was referred to the House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Armed Services, and Intelligence.

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PACAF chief Gen. Ken Wilsbach discussed this plan as a key element of the command’s new official strategy to guide operations through 2030. Notably, he emphasized how his team is prioritizing security in their pursuit of these new information-sharing arrangements and efforts.  

“The discussions are pretty easy. The papers are pretty easy. It’s the protection of the information that we want to be safeguarded — that, we have to ensure. And so that’s why things go fairly slowly, but we are kind of trying to come up with additional computer networks where we can work on [those] computer networks together,” Wilsbach told DefenseScoop during a media roundtable at AFA’s annual Air, Space and Cyber conference this week. 

PACAF is charged with helping supply continuous air, space and cyberspace capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. military and its allies view China as the top threat.

“We know that [China’s military is] working on attacking our logistics. We know that they’re working on attacking our communications — because if you can take out those two things, you make agile combat deployments difficult,” Wilsbach explained. 

“The Chinese would love to have a fight that would be the China versus U.S. fight because that makes their math pretty easy. [But] when you make it China versus the U.S. — plus the other countries that will likely be with us — their math gets pretty hard to do,” he said.

In the new PACAF Strategy 2030, which Wilsbach unveiled during the roundtable, officials state that the world is moving into a “pivotal era” and any actions made in the critical region will influence the social, economic and security conditions there “for the foreseeable future.”

Competitors including “the Chinese Communist Party, the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s of Republic of Korea,” namely, are seeking to undermine international rules and order, while violent extremist organizations are posing new risks to peace in that area, according to the document.

That’s all part of the reason why, as the strategy notes, PACAF is moving to sign new intelligence-sharing agreements with international partners and allies to strengthen defense capabilities and detection tools against air and maritime threats.  

When asked by DefenseScoop what nations the command was eyeing to deepen all-domain awareness integration, he responded: “A lot of it is classified, and so I probably don’t want to reveal too much.”

Still, he shed some light on what his command is really envisioning. 

Currently, PACAF “probably has the best and most robust sharing” capacity with Australia, and then the United Kingdom, Wilsbach said. But more recently, certain European nations — like France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy — are showing increased interest in furthering information-sharing with the U.S. 

“The reason why those European countries have been interested in the Indo-Pacific is because they see some of the poor behavior that China has exhibited in our region. And those European countries have Indo-Pacific interests and they want to demonstrate that they’re willing to defend those interests, if they have to. So, I’m really thankful for our European partners that have shown interest in the Pacific,” Wilsbach noted.

His team is striving to “increase the amount of sharing” that exists within existing alliances there, which include Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. 

“With the Philippines in the recent dust-up around some of their islands with the Chinese Coast Guard — we want to be able to share more,” Wilsbach said, alluding to recent attempts by China to harass members of the Philippines’ military as they were embarking on resupply missions to their outpost at Second Thomas Shoal.

The PACAF chief also pointed to heightened tensions and military clashes in the last few years on the border between India and China. 

“We’ve shared quite a bit of intel with [India] that they’ve been appreciative of. But we want to expand it beyond just that intelligence about China vis-a-vis India, but much more broadly than just the border region,” Wilsbach said. 

In response to DefenseScoop’s questions, he also repeatedly emphasized how his team is working fervently on the front end of establishing this deeper collaboration with other nations to ensure any information and intelligence exchanged is done so with extensive security. 

“One of the conundrums on sharing is we have to make sure that that information that we share doesn’t get propagated out,” Wilsbach said. 

In that light, his command is looking to set up “additional computer networks” to connect safely with partners and allies in the region. 

“We had a chance to work with Australia and Japan this year, of course. We already have a network that’s very robust with the Republic of Korea. And we’re trying to bring more and more of those together so they can be multi-country versus bilateral countries. And so all of these things are things that we desire and are working toward. It’s slow going, but we’re making improvements,” Wilsbach told DefenseScoop.

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The Indo-Pacific region is now a priority theater for the Department of Defense. The United States currently regards China as a top military threat, and DOD and intelligence community leaders are preparing for the People’s Liberation Army to possibly attempt to annex Taiwan in the coming years.

Against that uncertain backdrop, Sherman’s tours in that area — which included visits to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command headquarters, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Pacific and the Marine Corps installation Camp Smith — also occurred around the same time that the first U.S. nuclear-armed submarine made port in South Korea in four decades — and as Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks traveled to Hawaii for briefings at Indo-Pacom and multiple other military headquarters.

“The CIO solicited the INDOPACOM Commander’s perspective and objectives for the Indo-Pacific and identified priority issues. The CIO’s visit complements that of the [deputy secretary of defense], as the region continues to present a challenge for U.S. security interests,” Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman told DefenseScoop in an email on Monday. 

In addition to meeting with Adm. John Aquilino, commander of Indo-Pacom, Sherman hosted engagements with Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Director Lt. Gen. Robert Skinner, U.S. Pacific Fleet Maritime Information Warfare Executive Director Bob Stephenson, U.S. Forces Japan Commander, Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, Commander of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command / U.S. Tenth Fleet Vice Adm. Craig “Clap” Clapperton  and other officials.

Sherman and Skinner “held an All Hands meeting with the DISA-Pacific workforce to thank them for their critical role in maintaining and modernizing digital systems and networks in the INDOPACOM area of operations,” Gorman said.  

Gorman also confirmed that Sherman hosted meetings with delegations from Japan and the Republic of Korea at the DISA-Pacific headquarters. 

Takaki Kawashima, director general for information and communications division and bureau of defense buildup planning, led a delegation from the Japanese Ministry of Defense. Kang Wan-Goo, deputy minister for planning and coordination, led a group from the ROK Ministry of National Defense. 

“The groups shared information and discussed cybersecurity, interoperability, mission partner environment, and other areas of mutual interest,” Gorman said. 

Sherman’s visit to the region came as the U.S. military is trying to become a more digitally driven force and pursuing capabilities to support Joint All-Domain Command and Control across the services and with international allies and partners. The Pentagon is also concerned that its communication systems and infrastructure around the globe could be attacked with cyber, electronic warfare or other adversary tools.

“The DOD CIO and USINDOPACOM did touch on the challenges around data and digital capabilities deployed, specifically focusing on the interoperability with partner nations. Additionally, computing at the edge was highlighted and how the CIO/INDOPACOM envisions operating in a disrupted, disconnected, intermittent and low-bandwidth (DDIL) environment,” Gorman noted.

Sherman “was also interested to see that the command is looking into new ways to use technology to protect our nation’s network infrastructure,” Gorman said — although he did not expand on specific capabilities or platforms. 

“Moving forward, DOD CIO and USINDOPACOM will work closer together in coordination efforts that impact one another and allow for better synchronization when working with partner nations in the region, so technical policy issues can be appropriately addressed,” Gorman added.  

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Unveiled in Brussels at the North Atlantic Council meeting in June 2021, DIANA marks a broad effort to speed up the alliance’s adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies by strategically strengthening technical cooperation between the member nations — and with commercial startups and other non-governmental organizations — through a novel network of research hubs and test centers across Europe and North America. The program is designed to leverage the venture capital-based NATO Innovation Fund, which is committing a total of €1 billion in investments over 15 years for “deep-tech startups” to drive breakthroughs or deployments in artificial intelligence, data, quantum computing, biotechnology, hypersonics, space and other fields.

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu named McQuiston as the U.S. representative to DIANA’s board in October 2022. Associated officials from NATO’s member nations went on to elect McQuiston to chair the initiative’s board. 

On Monday, a Defense Department spokesperson confirmed that McQuiston is no longer deputy CTO within R&E, and has pivoted to go all-in on her new position at the helm of the alliance’s pursuit. 

In her new post, there’s much room for her to make an impact, according to experts interviewed by DefenseScoop.

“DIANA is so new and such a fresh initiative that the role of the chair, I think, will largely be up to the chair. She has no predecessor and she’s the first in this position. So, a lot will depend on how she wants to structure the meetings and so forth. I would assume that she will certainly chair meetings — and I think she will have a significant opportunity to set the agenda,” said retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO between 2013 and 2017.

Challenges and opportunities

McQuiston has more than 30 years of executive management experience in high-technology companies and government service. She previously served in a number of expert advisory positions at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2011, she was nominated by President Obama for the position of assistant secretary of defense for acquisition. However, McQuiston requested for her nomination be removed after it was stalled in Congress, and then left government to pursue her culinary dreams. Eventually, she returned to the DOD, where she served most recently as the principal advisor on the entire department’s S&T portfolio, under Shyu. 

Now, as its first-ever chair, McQuiston brings to the NATO board deep experience in venture fund technology investments and technical oversight for the development of dual-use products.

“Really a lot of this role is about setting an agenda for the alliance by pulling together defense experts with the industrial base and innovators to combine assets on both sides of the Atlantic, Canada, the United States and Europe — which is something that’s lacking,” Michael Williams, a non-resident NATO expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, told DefenseScoop. 

When it comes to emerging and disruptive technologies, there’s currently very obvious disparities across NATO members’ deployments, experiences and budgets, Williams noted. To him, DIANA could prove key to facilitating interoperability and a more level playing field between the nations — in emerging tech areas and traditional ones that are rapidly evolving.

An early challenge for the new board, according to Williams, will likely involve puzzling out and reconciling the varying technological demands of the 30 independent countries that make up NATO, as well as their many military components, which are also having to adapt to what’s happening in the Ukraine-Russia war.

“When we look at NATO, now, there’s very different priorities,” Williams said. “And they’re all pretty valid — but it also depends on where you sit.”

For Poland and other nations in Central Europe, he noted that there’s presently “a lot of emphasis on probably more traditional, heavy military and industrial capacities,” like tanks and artillery weapons. Baltic nations likely also have interest in such capabilities, but additionally may seek innovation in digital solutions to fight cyber threats. The latter might be of interest to Western nations that are also looking to counter political interference online, Williams noted, while countries on the Mediterranean take more of a sea-based approach to the deterrence.

“So it’s going to be sort of reconciling what all the nation-states think are their main priorities with what the alliance [military components consider their] priorities,” and where startups and other partners can support those needs, Williams said, adding “it’s going to be a lot of coordination and deconfliction.”

Now an executive at BGR Group, Lute also told DefenseScoop that it’s important to note that DIANA is coming into fruition at a time when NATO members’ defense budgets are trending historically upward, partially in response to the war in Ukraine.

“So, there’s a potential here that an innovative approach like DIANA coupled to increasing defense spending can have a very meaningful effect on the alliance,” Lute said.

The former diplomat added that he is eager to observe what effect DIANA has on reforming the NATO acquisition system.

“It’s one thing to have DIANA and introduce innovative technological possibilities to the alliance, but the next question then is what does the alliance do with these possibilities, these interesting technologies and so forth?” Lute explained. “And that will, by and large, only happen if there’s a meaningful relationship between DIANA and the acquisition process, and in particular, the NATO Communications and Information Agency, which does most of the contracting on technology. So, what’s not yet determined — and the piece that I’ll be watching carefully — will be this connection between DIANA and [that NATO agency].”

A signal

Experts that spoke to DefenseScoop noted the significance that the first person elected to chair DIANA’s board is from the United States.

“I think the fact that an American was elected among the 30 allies, obviously reflected America’s role as an innovation leader among the 30 NATO allies,” Lute said. To him, McQuiston being trusted in this role reflects the reputations of both the U.S. military and commercial space as elements with “strong strains of innovation.” 

“And my suspicion is that the members of the board who selected her as chair are hoping that she’ll represent not only the U.S. Department of Defense — but also the U.S. DOD relationship with the commercial world,” Lute said.

“It’s potentially a very important role, but it’s just too soon to tell,” he added.

Williams said he doesn’t think it is a coincidence that McQuiston, an “extremely qualified” American, was tapped as the first chair of DIANA, especially because the U.S. has been a leader in defense industrial and dual-use technologies. 

“There’s lots of symbolism behind who’s in what role at NATO, right?” he said, pointing out that the NATO secretary-general is always a European, while NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is always an American.

“So this is … similar, I think,” Williams said. “This is partly a signal about where the driving force is coming from.”

Following McQuiston’s recent move, retired Air Force officer Steven Wax is filling the role of Pentagon deputy CTO in an acting capacity, DefenseScoop confirmed.

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That concept is also driving improvements to NATO’s “plans, our forces and our command and control,” he said during a virtual Center for European Policy Analysis Forum.

“We’re developing strategic, domain-specific and regional defense plans to improve our ability to respond to any contingency and to ensure timely reinforcement,” said Cavoli, who is dual-hatted as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the commander of U.S. European Command.

He added: “This new family of plans under DDA represents an unprecedented level of alliance planning for defense against threats in the post-Cold War era.”

Alliance members view air, land, sea, space and cyberspace as warfighting domains. Though Cavoli did not provide further details about the “domain-specific” plans, he confirmed that allied nations have additionally committed to further develop the full range of forces and capabilities “necessary to respond to multiple contingencies.” 

In June, NATO formally adopted a Strategic Concept to guide the alliance’s approach to modernization and readiness through 2030. 

DDA marks a core component of that overarching framework, and according to Cavoli, it is helping allies operate in a purpose-driven manner in response to modern warfare between Russia and Ukraine, and reducing the risk of the conflict widening.

The alliance has beefed up its posture on its Eastern front and its members’ forces are poised at what Cavoli called a high level of readiness in strategically advantageous positions.

“Flexible and agile forces that can be employed across the Euro-Atlantic area to strengthen deterrence, respond to crisis or defend to conflict, are central to a DDA-based modernized NATO joint force and multi-domain architecture,” he said. “Through the implementation of DDA, NATO is in a period of strategic scale adaptation of our collective defense to strengthen and secure all allies today and into the future.”

The commander’s comments on pursuits to modernize technology-based cooperation between the allied nations also come as the U.S. is beginning to carry out its vision for next-generation Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). Pentagon officials have said they want to ensure that America’s military partners are also included on the front end of development for these types of capabilities. 

“We have to be able to have an approach that allows us to both communicate with allies, but then also to synchronize fires down range with allies and partners,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks recently said during remarks at the Special Competitive Studies Project Global Emerging Technology Summit.

During a media roundtable at that summit, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges David Van Weel told DefenseScoop that NATO officials are operating deliberately to enable connectivity, meshing, and deep interoperability between allied forces.

“Interoperability is having the same doctrines, exercising together — but it’s definitely also about being able to communicate with each other and our systems being compatible. So, it’s definitely something we’re looking at,” Van Weel explained. “NATO, for example, is doing a lot of [drone and counter-drone] work, where we bring together allies with their different systems and then we let them interact for a week or two weeks, and let them come up with, for example, communication standards for these new systems. So, it doesn’t always have to be driven by us — but just by providing the platform, we can stimulate this interoperability.”

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The Pentagon has a number of 5G pilot projects underway. In the future, observers can expect a “full wave” of these next-generation capabilities to be fielded, said Neal Ziring, technical director of the cybersecurity directorate at NSA.

“We’re looking at our biggest customers, the [military] services, and saying, ‘Wow, they’re rushing headlong towards 5G,’” Ziring said Wednesday during a luncheon hosted by AFCEA.

NSA wants to help. To that end, a number of steps need to be taken to meet the security, interoperability and deployability requirements for defense applications, he noted.

One is ensuring the right standards are in place. A number of organizations are involved in setting those standards.

“Those standards bodies define how the 5G gear works together. So, NSA and other parts of the DOD and parts of the industrial base who are represented here today, especially the telecommunications carriers, are active in that environment trying to make sure that those standards have security baked into them so that all the equipment we buy from whatever vendor … have the security in it that we need, and that we can turn it on or request that our industry service providers make full use of it in providing service to defense,” Ziring said.

Another key component of the next-gen communications technology will be a concept known as network slicing, which will enable service providers to set up independent logical networks across the same 5G infrastructure.

“They sort of have it a little bit in 4G, but it’s a big feature in 5G,” Ziring said. “We think that’s going to be really important for pretty much all the defense use cases.”

Managers can designate specific network “slices” for certain users or certain devices, and then provide levels of security protection, isolation or access to only the authorized members of that slice, he explained.

NSA is working with a number of industry partners to help define what the security attributes of network slices should be so that the Pentagon can ask for those things and industry can then provide them, he said.

Cloud integration presents another challenge.

“Most 5G systems that I’ve talked to industry about have a significant cloud integration component. Some of them are completely dependent on commercial cloud services. And, of course, DOD is rolling into that space more and more,” Ziring said.

“How are we going to integrate those? How are we going to get the 5G services that we deploy or that we procure to interoperate with the cloud services that we build or that we procure?” he asked. “We at NSA are trying to focus in that area, both from a cloud strategy viewpoint and a 5G strategy viewpoint.”

Having common architectures for integrating 5G services and cloud services into U.S. military facilities and platforms, including at the tactical edge, will be key, he said.

Cloud providers, telecom companies and government agencies need to cooperate to offer secure services to DOD as well as other critical infrastructure sectors that have similar security needs, Ziring said.

Putting 5G systems in the lab

Meanwhile, NSA aims to help the Pentagon better understand the security risks of the new technology. Efforts are underway to set up labs where officials can “play with stuff.”

“It’s very important if you’re going to understand the security and operation of these systems to actually have them in a lab environment where you can test ’em out and break ’em. And so we’re working hard to set those up with industry partners,” Ziring said. “I think that’s going to be really critical for building up the expertise in our workforce that can then become a resource for the rest of DOD.”

Government agencies and industry need to understand the unique threats that 5G systems face and how they could present new attack surfaces for adversaries to exploit. Mobile edge compute is a primary example, he noted.

“Everybody wants to use that. It has tremendous potential benefits, but it could be a potential risk,” Ziring said. “Those are all issues that we’re looking at today in NSA and with our partners” across the military and industry.

Understanding how to effectively integrate 5G capabilities into the military on a large scale — and doing what’s required to enable that — will be even more crucial than the technology itself, according to Ziring.

“We’re looking forward to doing that, but it’s going to be a lot of work, I’d say, over the next two to three years to get to that point,” he said.

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