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Q&a
and analysis, what is the unique
testing that the Navy is doing with
Finland’s Global Command Control
System (GCCS)?
GAteau: this year, commander, u.s.
naval forces europe is deploying its
maritime Ashore support team (cnemAst)
from sigonella, sicily, to grafenwoehr,
germany, to simulate a noncombatant
evacuation operation scenario.
due to the long timelines involved, both
in planning ce and re-tasking an operational
capability, cne-mAst wasn’t quite
ready to be fully integrated into ce12.
It is exactly the kind of operational unit
we want to bring to ce, but ce is hard
to integrate into real-world operations.
Instead, we hosted them at ce to test interoperability
between gccs-m and the
organic finnish navy sea surveillance
system (meVAt) — its own gccs-m —
and, point-to-point [network topology],
we proved it does, in fact, work.
this test included the sort of cryptographic
devices you would see in complicated,
real-world operations using
type 1 encryption over a link. we can’t
generally require crypto at ce, as it is not
available to all participants. In this case,
the test was very successful. we expect
they [finland] will come again next year
and demonstrate [meVAt] on the coalition
network.
Q:
So in the planning conferences,
one network is built
— or each nation brings its own
network?
Mclean: A bit of both, actually. each
nation has its own network of computers,
phones, radios and so on that
they use in national operations. for ce,
the nations are formed into coherent
multinational military units and formations
within a simulated cJtf to respond
to the humanitarian and security crisis
described in the scenario. this results in
a number of multinational brigade headquarters
with subordinate battalions,
companies and platoons that connect
with each other and with air and maritime
components within the cJtf to
create the coalition network (cnet).
34 CHIPS • OCtOber - DeCember 2012
that’s where the complexity lies:
interconnecting the various national
networks to form the international
network over which coalition command
and control is exercised. A simple
telephone call, for example, might pass
through five different national networks;
computers routinely exchange operational
data across four or more networks
within the federation.
GAteau: we are also encouraging more
countries to participate from home
stations and to link ce exercise play
and testing into real-world operations
centers. this reduces costs and has the
added benefits of increasing participation
and linking in real-world systems
that nations would ultimately use in
response to a crisis.
Q:
Do nations come to Combined
Endeavor with
their own objectives or do they
focus on the overall objective of
interoperability?
GAteau: ce has overall goals and
objectives, but each nation comes with
their own that determine which systems
they will bring, which echelon of the
cJtf they will play [in] and which tests
they will conduct.
Mclean: I can speak to how it works
for canada. we come to combined endeavor
to test our equipment and procedures
to ensure they are interoperable
with coalition partners such as those
with whom we are currently operating
in the International security Assistance
force (IsAf) in Afghanistan.
we do not want to spend money and
time on equipment that is not going to
be able to operate effectively within a
coalition force. we not only need to be
able to work within a coalition — we
need to be capable of responding with
our allies and coalition partners on short
notice. combined endeavor lets us work
out interoperability issues before we
need to really employ them, so that our
c4 systems stand ready for short notice
coalition operations.
this year in combined endeavor, the
coalition is simulating the provision of
humanitarian aid and disaster relief to
a troubled nation in an unstable part of
the world that just experienced a serious
earthquake. International aid convoys
are ambushed by local gangs and the instability
of the country’s internal security
situation is affecting neighboring countries.
the coalition must conduct an operation
to evacuate international civilians
from the region (i.e., a noncombatant
evacuation operation). finally, on top of
all that, the country located immediately
to the north attempts to take advantage
of the chaos by invading under the guise
of providing relief and assistance. these
are evocative of the types of real-world
events in which we all now routinely
operate. It is within the framework of
this overall scenario and the c4 systems
that each nation would bring to such an
operation that the individual nations express
their national goals and objectives
for interoperability testing at ce.
At this point, we should probably talk
a bit about the future mission network
(fmn). It is the attempt to codify the lessons
learned from IsAf and the Afghan
mission network (Amn). cOmIsAf
(commander IsAf) needed all of his
subordinate units within IsAf to communicate
on a single coalition network.
Instead of doing what we usually do in
such situations – that is, simply putting
everyone on the combined enterprise
regional Information exchange system-
International security Assistance force
(centrIXs IsAf) network or, perhaps,
a single mission secret network for
Afghanistan provided by nAtO — the
nations agreed to federate their own
systems into a single security domain
on a common network. that federated
network is the Amn.
GAteau: In the centrIXs model that
ts mentioned, the united states would
effectively provide the entire network
and pay for all the equipment. It was to
our advantage to do that because we
wanted to work with the coalition. but
now we simply can’t afford it, and as
multiple nations have developed their
own command and control systems
and processes, it doesn’t make sense to