The U.S. Government recently announced that the strategy of readiness to fight and win two major conventional wars is outdated, along with current global military Operations Plans (OPLANs), fighting force structure and intelligence focus.

The Pentagon now theorizes the global shift in information sharing, regional hotspots and multiple localized and smaller threats to U.S. Security calls for a more targeted mobile force. This force should be adept at rapid response, self sufficient and highly effective at smaller Special Operations and Intelligence driven missions.

According to U.S. press releases, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will ask for $708 billion in 2010 to fund our current conflict and to provide for the imminent force and capabilities restructuring.

This new strategy focuses heavily on cyber threats, intelligence effectiveness and a rapid deployable smaller modular force ready to respond to fast developing threats around the globe. This is already translated into a call for more autonomous unmanned surveillance platforms, persistent collection and surveillance platforms and a re-energizing of space based collection and defense platforms.  The next proposed step is to create an enhanced intelligence collection, production and predictive intelligence force and functionality, capable of identifying and predicting threats to enable a counter before the threat can materialize a successful attack against any U.S. equity.

The remaining priority is to create a force that can deploy rapidly, anywhere on the globe. It can deploy as a small self sufficient surgical force, part of a larger Battle Command, or as part of a tradition force-on-force Major Combatant Command.  Current forces have successfully performed in all these roles, but the command, logistical and functional stress of operating in a role the unit was not designed, trained, and equipped to do has limited the success of our current operations.

Taking this into perspective, and anticipating the future needs of this new strategy and future force can allow service providers, contract solution providers, and technology providers to be prepared for the imminent needs of the Department of Defense.

As partners to the U.S. Military, we can react or we can anticipate and prepare to provide the next generation the command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities this country needs for the next future force.

About the author: Jason Wilson, the SGIS Division Manager of the Intelligence and Training Division, is a recently retired US Army Warrant Officer with 21 years of military experience. Wilson has strong relevant operational and institutional credentials and subject matter expertise as well as 19 years of experience in leadership and contract supervision positions.

Specific accolades for Jason Wilson include:
Certified Project Manager (CPM)
5 years supporting DoD and US Army level acquisition programs
6 years supporting and participating in Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations and Joint Capability Technology Demonstrations
6 years supervising a theater wide contract for Oracle and MS SharePoint development.

If you are interested in reaching out to the author via discussion, visit SGIS on LinkedIn.