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The threats facing U.S. warfighters today are as diverse as they are dangerous. In order to maintain a strategic advantage against emerging and evolving threats, ranging from unmanned aircraft to cyber warfare and multi-domain issues, delivering innovation to our warfighters is critical. The United States military should always be innovating — the question is, how? And what does that mean for government agencies?
A 2017 Government Business Council poll sought to answer these questions to understand what agencies consider when devising ways to reduce information risk. In the poll, members of the military, defense and intelligence communities were asked what security threats they were most concerned about, how important autonomous technology is to military effectiveness and what their organization’s priorities were when building a multi-domain national defense.
The findings tell us a lot about the future of innovation and military readiness, including where to dedicate resources to enhance military effectiveness, and also help put recent budgetary decisions into context. The poll found active threats like DOS, malware and phishing attacks are primary concerns. Nearly 70 percent of respondents said these types of attacks alarm them more than so-called passive attacks, such as eavesdropping and recording keystrokes.
A majority of respondents, 85 percent, said that autonomous technology such as unmanned ships, planes and drones are at least “very important” to future military readiness, with 51 percent saying it is “extremely important.” So, it is no surprise that the Department of Defense is investing $2.4 billion in unmanned technologies in 2017.
The military is also focusing heavily on multi-domain battle — aligning and coordinating technology from all military branches in the land, sea, air, space and cyber landscapes. The U.S. Pacific Command requested $49 million for multi-domain battle exercises to test new strategies. When it comes to building a multi-domain national defense, 34 percent of respondents said creating multidisciplinary teams should be the greatest priority. Other respondents highlighted moving to an open systems architecture (18 percent), enabling service personnel to acquire new skills (14 percent) and harnessing big data analytics to augment intelligence capabilities (9 percent).
Where the military is going, it is clear that innovation will be top-of-mind. Protecting our warfighters and providing them with the most advanced technology to fulfill their missions will take expertise and hard work. Leidos has a long history of devising and implementing solutions to critical and complicated problems. Learn more here.