Pentagon CIO Eyes Network-Centric Architectures

The Department of Defense will pursue network-centric technologies, its new chief information officer, John Stenbit, said Aug. 24.

"My priorities are really very clear. We need to get forward on ... network-centric architectures in warfare," Stenbit said during a reporters roundtable. "We need a different architecture. We need a different form of information exchange."

Stenbit became assistant secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, Aug. 3. In this position, considered the de facto chief information officer, Stenbit advises the secretary of Defense on information superiority, communications and intelligence policy issues.

When asked how he would pursue his predecessor's goal for the department to achieve "information superiority," Stenbit said his main objective is implementing a network-centric operation where "anybody can get any information at any time."

"Network-centric allows us to go anywhere we want, in very small groups, [and] talk to each other," he said.

Instead of different departments each running different systems, the military would operate systems that can exchange information seamlessly, allowing it greater flexibility during deployments and other operations.

"I do believe it's very important that we decentralize the decision-making," Stenbit said. He gave an example of where longer-range weapon systems can be better used by not waiting for orders from specific commands.

"Anybody in the world who's got a gun at any moment can be solving the problem of what are his 10 best targets, and it's not somebody waiting for somebody else to tell him," Stenbit said. "That means it's no longer a push system, it's a pull system."

Also during the roundtable discussion, Stenbit was asked about disagreements over the testing procedures hampering the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet project. Stenbit dismissed the differences between the Navy and the Defense Department as one where only details are left to be solved.

"As far as I'm concerned, there's an agreement on what we're going to do in the program, when it's going to get done, what the event-driven milestones are," Stenbit said.

When asked about the debate in Congress over reallocating some radio frequencies now reserved for the military to commercial use, Stenbit said the move is a "risk management issue," because military communications and commercial traffic may interfere with one another if too closely spaced.

He said that if required to free spectrum space, the department couldn't vacate the current spectrum for another 15 years due to equipment changeovers.

Stenbit retired from TRW Inc. of Cleveland in May, where he was executive vice president and general manager of its systems integration unit. There, he was involved in systems engineering and integration of strategic and tactical command and control, information processing and security systems.

Stenbit also worked for the Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif., focusing on command and control systems for missiles and satellites.