Now, more than ever, warfighters, operators and service members need reliable, secure access to data in order to make a myriad of critical and timely decisions in today’s rapidly evolving combatant environment.
The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 highlighted crucial shortfalls and problems in data access capabilities for troops on the ground, prompting Department of Defense officials to prioritize and accelerate its Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative.
JADC2 aims to build a centralized data environment that synchronizes information sharing, joint efforts and capabilities across defense agencies and all domains. Creating a robust mission partner environment – a platform that allows the U.S. military and its allies and industry partners to share information – is one of the key components, and one of seven minimal viable products required by the military in order to enable JADC2.
Brig. Gen. Rob Parker, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J6 and chairman of the JADC2 Cross-Functional Team, said the efforts currently underway by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command show potential and promise for the future of mission partner environments.
The INDOPACOM team is “unprecedented in their ability to bring together a mission data platform to support both experimentation exercises and eventually real world operations with mission partners in ways that we’ve only dreamed about doing before,” Parker said during a recent Potomac Officers Club event.
Click here to read highlights from Brig. Gen. Rob Parker’s keynote speech, as part of the Potomac Officers Club’s Achieve Information Dominance: Counter Gray Zone Warfare Through Unifying Data Forum.
INDOPACOM is on track to deliver a minimal viable product of its mission partner environment, Indo-PACNET, by this summer.
The command’s MPE will integrate zero trust technologies developed under the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Thunderdome project along with SABRE – short for secret and below releasable environment – software which enables easier and more efficient information sharing between U.S. and allied networks.
“The mission partner environment is our main effort in the J-6 to enable INDOPACOM as a warfighting command,” said Brig. Gen. Jacqueline “Denise” Brown, director of J6 Command, Control, Communications and Cyber for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
“We recognize the critical importance of being able to both communicate and fight alongside our allies and partners from competition through conflict in the theater,” she added.
Eventually, INDOPACOM hopes to expand its mission partner environment to mobile devices, allowing for greater accessibility while retaining security.
Brig. Gen. Brown is scheduled to speak during the Potomac Officers Club’s “The Future of Mission Partner Information Sharing” forum to share her insights into how INDOPACOM is working to build a robust mission partner environment that can meet the demands of today’s ever-changing battlespace.
Visit the Potomac Officers Club site to register now for this upcoming forum and view POC’s full calendar.
