The Mission Partner Environment: Challenges To Multinational Information Sharing
Abstract
The need for U.S. forces, and the Army in particular, to conduct operations in complex environments integrated with multinational partners is well founded both in contemporary experiences and strategic guidance. In order to synchronize with these mission partners, U.S. forces must be willing and able to share digital information at operational and tactical levels with trusted coalition forces. In spite of this widely recognized requirement, the U.S. Army still has no single interoperable allied mission network available for rapid deployment. As a result, Army organizations are unable to realize the full potential of the Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) initiative or mission command doctrine. The lack of a sustainable coalition network, or Mission Partner Environment (MPE), further prevents Army units from rapidly integrating or maintaining command and control with multinational partners as required by combatant commanders. This study reviews the history of these shortcomings and explores the Afghanistan experience to support specific recommendations for the emerging MPE. The relative success of the Afghan Mission Network (AMN) makes the case for the using common operational priorities ("mission threads") as the basis for network security architecture. This examination will show the MPE must be included and prioritized within Army network programs of record and that policy must shift to allow more flexible risk assessment with respect to information sharing in support of current and future multinational operations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 15, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1036964
Entities
People
- Robert B. Sims
Organizations
- Air War College