ISSUE 182 : Jul/Aug - 2010 - Australian Defence Force Journal

Moreover, while often intuitive, users are forced to learn and navigate a range of foreignapplications and tools such as email, office programs, web-based tools and IP chat services.Technical awareness is not common across the range of service providers and response timesare generally not prioritised. As it stands, administrator rights also vary considerably. Forexample, Australia’s largest footprint in Afghanistan is in Tarin Kowt. While Australia considersthis site a key node for communications services, coalition service providers do not and notone of the three coalition information systems available in Tarin Kowt is currently administeredlocally.As a result, Australian forces employing these systems for coalition ISTAR (intelligence,surveillance, targeting acquisition and reconnaissance), situational awareness and mandatoryreporting rely on these services remaining serviceable. From an Australian perspective, theseservices should be considered critical capabilities. However, Australia is not represented inmaintenance schedules, outage reporting or network architecture change management. Thisoften results in service outages without warning. When this occurs, Australian personnelhave limited ability to contact the service providers to rectify services because the technicalcontrolling authorities are not in location.The coalition community uses multiple means to communicate operational information andintelligence product, including direct secure communications. When direct interoperabilitycannot be achieved because of security caveats, commanders rely heavily on the placement ofliaison officers. These personnel are invariably granted limited access to the respective nationalnetworks within the headquarters where they are working. Connectivity is maintained withparent Australian units through tactical radio or, more commonly in established headquarters,tactically deployable systems such as the ‘liaison officer’s briefcase’ system.These arrangements are also replicated by other government agencies. They maintain theirown independent systems but also have a requirement to share information in various forms.It is therefore reasonable to assert that the theme of commonality should be considered forreplication across the range of government agency systems. System commonality at this levelwould provide response forces with multiple options and a level of integration that has so fareluded the ADF. It is conceded that considerable planning and liaison would be required toachieve integration across the government spectrum. However, emphasis should be placed onthe strengths of ‘synchronisation’ and the benefits this system would generate, rather than thework required to implement it.For fixed infrastructure liaison, the GRIFFIN gateway was established to provide a rudimentarynetwork gateway bridging some national networks in the coalition community. 5 This network iseffective but, given the associated security procedures, it is not a timely or responsive system.Intelligence/SIGINT communities have developed strong coalition networks that are leveragedby coalition units. The ADF employs these strategic information networks to communicateoperational information and intelligence but they rely on ‘reach back’ to Australia to facilitateliaison and the official transfer of data. When considered holistically, there are a number ofcapability gaps evident.83