QDR to focus on Defense networks, transformation
02/03/06
By Dawn S. Onley and William Jackson,
GCN Staff
The state of future warfare was debated quite a bit in
the run up to the Quadrennial Defense Review, a senior
official said, but in the end networks and information
security scored big as key areas of focus.
The review, which will be presented to Congress Feb. 6,
concurrently with the 2007 Defense budget request, will
challenge the status quo by examining whether Defense
capabilities, organizations and missions are adequate to
counter 21st-century threats, according to John Grimes,
Defense CIO.
“This is a QDR of ideas, not just programs,” said
Grimes, who said he has spent the past six weeks working
on the review. “Keep in mind that the QDR reflects a
continuum of change that has gathered significant
momentum since 2001. This change is reflected in the
shift away from size, predictability and mass toward
agility, speed and precision that continues to
characterize the overall operations of the Department of
Defense and our programs will keep pace.”
The QDR is a report DOD produces every four years that
lays out their 20-year projection for transformation. In
the 2001 QDR, Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called
for increased spending on technology and a bigger focus
on space and cyberspace programs.
Former Defense officials have said the new QDR would
most likely draw on lessons learned from the war against
terrorism, seeking to identify new technologies that
will be instrumental in aiding warfighters. They added
that the review would stress the need to prepare for
conventional, irregular, disruptive and catastrophic
threats.
Linton Wells II, principal deputy assistant secretary of
Defense for network and information integration, said
the review went beyond the program and budget level to
address new strategic needs for the nation’s military.
In the future, DOD will depend more on speed and agility
than on brute force to address emerging threats, Wells
said during his opening keynote address at the Black Hat
Federal Briefings in Arlington, Va., last month.
“That is why the network, which allows you to use your
forces in nonconventional ways, is one of the keys to
change in the quadrennial review,” Wells said.
But he warned that today’s DOD networks are vulnerable
and under attack. Some of the attackers are believed to
be nations.
“We know our adversaries have the networks in their
sights,” Wells said. “We have to assume we are facing a
patient, skilled and well-financed adversary.”
To boost security, the DOD budgeted $77 million for six
years beginning in 2007 to fund new training and
certification requirements for systems administrators,
said Rick Aldrich, who works in network defense in the
Defense Department. An additional $500 million has been
requested for IT security initiatives resulting from the
department’s most recent quadrennial review.
This money is in addition to the $2 billion now being
spent annually on information assurance from the DOD’s
$30 billion IT budget.
Recently, Rumsfeld explained that the idea of the 2006
QDR is to build on the changes and momentum since the
last report.
“The Quadrennial Defense Review, in particular, should
be seen as the next step in a long line of significant
changes, many of which have been accomplished in the
last five years, others of which are in process,”
Rumsfeld said during a Pentagon briefing. “It should not
be seen as some sort of a new menu for program
adjustments. The overriding goal is to keep our country
safe and to support the missions of the dedicated men
and women in uniform.”
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