Big Interop Exercise of Asia-Pacific Militaries to Center on Internet

Internet technologies will take center stage as a U.S.-led program to tie together international military communications in Asia and the Pacific is extended to enabling data-sharing and to cooperation with technology companies and private, U.N. and relief organizations, organizers said. Military organizations of 22 foreign countries are scheduled to take part Aug. 16-27 in the fourth edition of an exercise called Pacific Endeavor, to be held at Singapore’s Changi Command and Control Centre.

The shift to data sharing is “a very big deal, and we're just at the early stage of that process,” said Ken Zita, a consultant to the effort. Much of the benefit of this Pacific Endeavor will be working to close gaps among representatives of organizations from spheres that run and handle information very differently to convey their needs to each other, he said. “People have to understand each other’s problems. The technology is always there to solve the problem when you know what it is.” Zita, of Network Dynamics Associates, said Wednesday he and Patrick Lanthier of Rivera/Lanthier & Associates had been hired to help broaden the scope of the effort. They said the names of specific private participants aren’t available yet. Pacific Endeavor is the largest project of its kind in the world, Lanthier said.

The Internet “will serve as the backbone of our communications connectivity assessments,” Scott Griffin, technical director of the Multinational Communications Interoperability Program, which organizes the Pacific Endeavor exercises, told us by e-mail. “We recognize the importance of the Internet as an easily accessible medium for all responders” in humanitarian assistance and disaster response.

Services are “to include web collaboration using the All Partners Access Network (APAN), and e-mail services,” Griffin said. In the August exercise, “a simulated event in the Philippines” affects “all organic” communications system infrastructures, he said. “A U.S. tactical system will be brought in, providing initial entry communications to include Internet services so that information can be sent. As the event builds, other services will be added, all to include Internet.” At the end, moving easily to “host nation capabilities” will require “the planners to develop transition plan of services to ensure the information push is not affected."

The three previous exercises in the series centered on working out protocols and procedures for interoperable voice communications among military organizations, and they succeeded, Zita said. “They know all that now.” A new goal is synthesizing the information available to give all participants “situational awareness” and “a common operational picture” in a crisis, he said. Data exchange between APAN and a large “humanitarian portal” would be one step, Zita said. The military forces also need to improve their understanding of the connectivity and information needs of private relief agencies so they can help as much as possible, he said. The interoperability program was started by the U.S., and as a practical matter its military is the most important player, Zita said. But the U.S. strives to make the effort truly collaborative, he said.

China hasn’t been invited to the previous Pacific Endeavor exercises, Zita said. He said he doesn’t know whether Chinese representatives are welcome this time but added, “I doubt it” will take part. Chinese involvement “makes a lot of sense” but involves “a relatively complex discussion,” including about U.S.-Chinese military relations, Zita said.

Pacific Endeavor is open to Asia-Pacific members of the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team program, Griffin said. A December list of 31 members posted online didn’t include China. That country would be understanding if it was excluded from a project such as Pacific Endeavor that includes the U.S. and its allies, said Felix Chang of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A press officer at China’s embassy in the U.S. didn’t reply right away to an inquiry.

Pacific Endeavor reflects efforts to improve the humanitarian response to disasters, in line with broader recent Pentagon directives, Zita said. “That is the mission of the program. Full stop.” The effort is the Asia-Pacific counterpart to an older program in Europe called Combined Endeavor, and a spinoff from it, Zita said. Official documents posted online concerning Combined Endeavor don’t emphasize humanitarian disaster relief so narrowly, and the Multinational Forces Standing Operating Procedures under which Pacific Endeavor runs has a broader scope including “peacekeeping.” Zita acknowledged: “You can always use a technology for something else."

Organizers mention the response to the December 2004 tsunami as an impetus to improving communications through Pacific Endeavor. The Multinational Communications Interoperability Program started in June 2003 as the Coalition Communications Interoperability Guide, said Ricardo Layne, the program director. The effort is “led by a Corporate Board made up of Communication System officers from the participating countries,” he said by e-mail.