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<\/p>\nEn la guerra del futuro, las tropas terrestres necesitar\u00e1n cada vez mas informaci\u00f3n para la toma de decisiones. Pero estar conectado para enviar requerimientos y recibir informaci\u00f3n implica estar expuesto a la guerra electr\u00f3nica del enemigo, y a la reducida capacidad para procesarlas con los medios disponibles.<\/p>\n
ARLINGTON: To see through the fog of war on future battlefields, ground troops will need near-real-time access to huge amounts of information from a host of sensors \u2014 from\u00a0satellites\u00a0to\u00a0F-35s\u00a0to\u00a0mini-drones\u00a0to\u00a0targeting goggles, all\u00a0sharing data\u00a0through a\u00a0joint combat cloud. But to evade the enemy\u2019s own swarms of sensors, soldiers will also need to know when to disconnect from the network and go dark.<\/p>\n
Switching quickly from being hyperconnected to being cut off \u2014 whether as a tactical choice or as the result of\u00a0enemy jamming and hacking\u00a0\u2014 will put a new kind of strain on future frontline commanders. The capability to cope is central both to the Army\u2019s evolving combat concept,\u00a0Multi-Domain Operations, the Pentagon\u2019s\u00a0controversial\u00a0Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, the\u00a0JEDI cloud computing program.<\/p>\n
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The Case For Cloud<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we want to go to the cloud? Because you get better synthesized data,\u201d said the Army\u2019s senior futurist,\u00a0Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, in a\u00a0recent\u00a0conversation\u00a0with reporters. \u201cSensors are going to be ubiquitous on the battlefield,\u201d he said. They\u2019ll provide such masses of data that unaided human brains and traditional staff processes can\u2019t collect it all in one place, let alone make sense of it: \u201cIt\u2019s got to be synchronized by tools such as\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0and cloud-based computing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf I am a warfighter, I want as much data as you could possibly give me,\u201d said the head of the\u00a0Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, at a separate roundtable. \u201cLet me use my algorithms to sort through it \u2026 at machine speeds\u2026It\u2019s really hard for me to do that without an enterprise cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you won\u2019t necessarily have access to that all the time,\u201d Wesley warned. \u201cYou can imagine where a given [unit] will be off the net for a period \u2014 maybe go dark, not unlike the way submarines operate now. \u201d<\/p>\n While disconnected, troops will have to make do with whatever data they\u2019ve already downloaded, perhaps to a\u00a0backpack mini-server\u00a0with built-in AI. Then, Wesley continued, \u201cwhen you\u2019re back up on the net, you might need to do a download, adjust your algorithms, adjust your data.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to have balance both cloud computing and computing at the edge,\u201d Wesley said. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely a form of maneuver.\u201d Transmitting and going silent, uploading and downloading, will need to be as well-practiced and intuitive as digging in a hasty defense or laying an ambush.<\/p>\n Wesley, who works for\u00a0Army Futures Command, didn\u2019t mention the all-service JEDI program by name. But Shanahan, who reports to the\u00a0Pentagon CIO, made the link explicit.<\/p>\n \u201cJEDI will include cloud capabilities that are able to operate out of standalone, portable hardware even in the absence of communications links,\u201d Shanahan said. \u201cIt will re-synch with the rest of the JEDI cloud as soon as communications are restored.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have the central JEDI cloud, then you have, maybe, portable data centers that are downrange,\u201d Shanahan explained. \u201cThe beauty of that is not only are you getting access to all the benefits of the cloud down to\u00a0the very edge of the battlefield: As you\u2019re collecting data, that data can then go back into [the central cloud], so everybody is benefiting from that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you get disconnected, as is going to happen in combat, especially in a high-end fight, you still have what you had at the point it was disconnected,\u201d Shanahan said. Your latest downloads will be saved at the closest local server, which might be in a CONEX shipping container carried by truck to a forward command post or in a pair of soldiers\u2019 backpacks, accessible even when long-range communications fail. Then, he continued, \u201cwhen it suddenly comes back, you have all of this \u2026 connected across the entire enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n Multi-Domain Command & Control<\/strong><\/p>\n While JEDI plays a central role in this vision of future warfare, it\u2019s just one part of a much larger push, an\u00a0Air Force system for communicating and combining all this information, the Multi Domain Command and Control System (MDC2). The goal is to move data from any part of the force, anywhere in the world, in any of the five recognized domains \u2014 land, sea, air, space and cyberspace \u2014 to any other part, quickly and in useful form. In essence, the Air Force and JEDI are attacking the multi-domain problem from the top down, starting with central servers, higher headquarters, and satellites, while the Army is coming from the ground up, grunt-first.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine a scout on the reverse side of a tactical slope,\u201d Wesley said. \u201cImagine an F-35 may have just flown over that slope, that space, in the previous 60 minutes. Those aircraft are going to be taking in all sorts of data. How is the scout going to get access to that data without waiting for a direct point-to-point communication with that aircraft?\u201d The solution, he said, is for all sensors to share their data in a common \u201ccombat cloud,\u201d a term which he noted comes from in the Air Force.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just intelligence, Wesley went on: It\u2019s targeting data. The ultimate goal is some AI algorithm \u2014 carefully monitored and directed by human commanders \u2014 that can match a target with the weapon best suited to destroy it, whether that weapon is a strike fighter, a land-based missile launcher, or a warship. A future commander could call for fire support the way today\u2019s urbanites call an Uber<\/p>\n To experiment with how this might work in real life, the Army has already created a brigade-sized\u00a0Multi-Domain Task Force, whose collective eyes are a battalion-sized\u00a0Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare, & Space\u00a0(I2CEWS) detachment. The original MDTF has been holding wargames and field exercises in the Pacific with the other services and with\u00a0allies like Australia; a second task force is planned for Europe, and a third will join the first in Asia. After that, Wesley said, the Army plans to develop new organizations like a Theater Fires Command to coordinate long-range strikes by its\u00a0new thousand-mile missiles.<\/p>\n But this cannot be only an Army effort, Wesley emphasized, and it isn\u2019t. \u201cThe Air Force and Army are well aligned in that this future design is going to have to be increasingly joint,\u201d he said. \u201cHeadquarters are going to be increasingly purple in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u00a0must<\/em>\u00a0have a joint concept going forward,\u201d Wesley said. \u201cThe former acting secretary of defense,\u00a0[Patrick] Shanahan, directed joint wargames that will ensue this fall. I think that\u2019s the next big moment where you\u2019re going to\u00a0see the services come together.\u201c<\/p>\n![\"AIr](\"https:\/\/sites.breakingmedia.com\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/08\/Shanahan-Jack-USAF-180808-F-KN215-0045-214x300.jpeg\")
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