The commanders of U.S. Special
Operations Command and U.S. Strategic Command discussed the influence of data
and technology on warfighting during the first day of the 2018 Department of
Defense Intelligence Information System Worldwide Conference Aug. 13, 2018.
U.S. Army Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, commander of Special Operations Command, discussed
the role of data in special operations warfighting, the technological advances
needed to maintain dominance on the battlefield, and the potential risks to
that technology.
“The ability to effectively and quickly digest, analyze, and most importantly
disseminate relevant and accurate information, determines the success or
failure of current and future missions—it is mission critical business,” said
Thomas. “We experience daily the effects of emerging information technologies
in both positive and negative ways. On the positive side, we enjoy the
advantages of new tools and services that help us cope with ever larger, more
dynamic fields of data in which we operate. On the negative side, our
adversaries benefit from the proliferation of advanced capabilities...Most of
our adversaries are also not burdened by bureaucratic and political challenges
that thwart our ability to leverage emerging technology at the speed of
change.”
According to Thomas, the recent development of social media and other
internet-based sharing capabilities have exponentially increased the amount of
publically available information, and may lead to a paradigm shift in how
intelligence analysts do their job. Instead of focusing almost entirely on
classified information, unclassified information should be the new starting point
Thomas explained.
“The time has come to flip the current model on its head,” said Thomas. “The
time has come to develop and field tools and tradecraft in analysis that will
allow us to begin our effort by understanding what we can from data that is readily
and cheaply available. Then we will take our findings and enrich it with
information from our classified sensors, sources and methods to provide timely,
accurate and actionable intelligence to our warfighters and decision makers.”
Thomas also noted the future potential of machine learning and artificial
intelligence to improve and speed the intelligence cycle by allowing analyst to
focus less on the rote tasks of gathering and reading reports, and spend more
time understanding the information.
U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of
U.S. Strategic Command, explained the similarities between USSOCOM and
USSTRATCOM, describing both as global warfighting commands and critically
dependent on information and intelligence.
“If we don’t have intelligence information, all the capabilities [both commands
have] are pretty much useless,” Hyten stated. “And when you talk about
[Strategic Command’s] capabilities—especially the nuclear and space
capabilities—if you don’t have the right information in the right place at the
right time, that’s when potential adversaries could take a misstep and we could
miss that step. And when you talk about nuclear missteps, that’s when the
really bad day happens.”
The speed of technological advances and adversarial gains have caused Strategic
Command to change the way it fights war and thinks about deterrence, explained
Hyten. Today’s strategic capabilities are built in a stove piped
infrastructure, but Hyten emphasized the need for a more flexible force.
“Success in the future is going to be when we apply capabilities through
whatever domain we have to, through whatever means we have to, and we don’t
care where it comes from or where it goes to as long as it dominates the
adversary,” Hyten stated. “That will be the next step of greatness for the next
great military in the world, and I believe that will be the United States of
America. But in order for that to happen, we have to achieve that vision
because we have adversaries who have stated similar things.”