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Opening Statements of Chairman
Jim Saxton
Hearing on "Department of Defense
Information Systems Architecture: Are We on
the Right Path to Achieving Net-Centricity and
Ensuring Interoperability??
Good
afternoon ladies and gentlemen. The
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional
Threats and Capabilities meets this afternoon
to learn more about each of the service's
information systems architecture, how they
interface with the Global Information Grid
(also known as the "GIG"), and how
they interoperate with one another. The
Subcommittee is interested to learn more about
how the GIG and each of the service's
architectures will operate in a collaborative
environment. We would like to know how the
Department of Defense (DOD) is working to
reduce redundant, non-interoperable, and
stove-pipe systems, and to eliminate parochial
interests to better support our nation's
warfighters.
As
the Department transforms itself from an
industrial-age organization to an
information-age one, it needs to identify the
critical elements of network centric warfare,
to assign roles and responsibilities for
promoting it, and to describe how it will
organize to implement transformational
capabilities. The Subcommittee will examine
Defense Transformation this year, and today's
hearing begins our effort.
We
wholeheartedly support the Department's goal
to have joint, network-centric, distributed
forces capable of rapid decision superiority
and massed effects across the battlespace.
However, there is much work to be done between
now and achieving that objective. Realizing
these capabilities will require great cultural
changes in the people, processes, and military
services, as well as a strategy to control DOD
information systems to include managing
interoperability issues among the services.
DOD's
first step in creating the GlG architecture is
a good foundation to build upon. The GIG is
commercial-based technology that integrates
legacy command, control, communications,
computers, intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance systems, and permits full
exploitation of sensor, weapon and platform
capabilities for joint fires.
While
the GIG's potential capabilities would be an
enormous boost to supporting our warfighters,
I am concerned that warfighters may not be
able to tap into these capabilities if
individual service architectures limit
interoperability. That is the focus of today's
hearing-how are DOD and the military
services designing information architectures
to build a fully functioning network that
every serviceman or woman may access and
exploit, and how will these architectures
resolve the interoperability issues that
plague the services now.
There
are several information systems issues that
should be addressed during today's hearing.
For example, how does the GIG architecture
allow for the various service architectures
such as the Air Force C2 Constellation, the
Navy's FORCEnet, the Army's Future Combat
Systems (FCS)/Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
WIN-T), and the Marine Corp's Enterprise
Network to function within the GIG? How do
these service specific architectures
interoperate with one another to provide a
seamless transfer of data and communications?
I am concerned that the lowest level of
compliance will be the result of these
endeavors, rather than maximum cooperation and
collaboration between the services because of
competing demands within each service.
These
and other fundamental issues must be addressed
as the U.S. military transforms to defeat
conventional and asymmetric threats in the 21st
Century battlespace. We cannot ask our young
men and women to put their lives on the line
if we do not provide them with the superior
means and tools to perform their duty. This is
a responsibility that the Subcommittee takes
very seriously, as do our witnesses, and we
will continue our efforts to ensure proper
oversight.
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