Here is link to a great YouTube video about Trident Warrior 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_CjJs-1PEc
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Maritime Domain Awareness
LT Munson makes some good points in his Proceedings article, namely that reliance on identifying anomalous behavior should not be the critical element in developing actionable MDA. Countering the wide range of threats from traditional adversary militaries to non-traditional threats like terrorism, WMD proliferation, drug smuggling, weapon smuggling, low intensity conflict, and piracy requires a wide range of information. Although this is not a new problem, no one nation has the resources required to go it alone. There are both policy and technical challenges. The first is about trust building, the latter focuses on MDA data fusion and analysis.
Clearly the creation of an interagency and international MDA network composed of analysis centers, operators, information repositories, and sensors that continuously monitor the globe searching for burgeoning maritime threats makes sense. This concept aligns well with the Navy's Strategy for Maritime Security for expanded cooperative relationships with other nations who putatively contribute to the rising tide of maritime security for the benefit of the global maritime common. Although as LT Munson points out the current emphasis is on ship positions, this is more because of the technological advent of AIS and the astonishing success of the Maritime Safety and Security Information System (MSSIS) where participating countries freely share unclassified, near real-time AIS data. A collaborative network of coalition partners that will be eventually be able to monitor vessels, cargo, people, finance, and infrastructure, requires establishing relationships and trust in addition to the creation of a physical network. MSSIS and similar efforts are recognition that trust and cooperation cannot be surged, they must be built over time. Recognition that international and interagency partners require access to and the ability to collaboratively process, analyze, and disseminate information on maritime threats has led to the development of a blueprint for a net-centric information environment in which data from disparate sources and security domains will be discoverable, accessible, understandable, fused, and usable, with appropriate information assurance, to enable user defined and common operational pictures. This blueprint is described in the Maritime Domain Awareness Architecture Management Hub Plan.
The technology challenge is related to the explosive growth in the generation and collection of data associated with vessels, cargo and people which will potentially require a new generation of techniques and tools that can assist in transforming these data into actionable intelligence. These tools include preprocessing large amounts of data, data reduction, mining and fusion. Data fusion is generally defined as the use of techniques that combine data from multiple sources and gather that information in order to achieve inferences, which will be more efficient and potentially more accurate than if they were achieved by means of a single source. The well recognized data fusion model developed by the Joint Directors of Laboratories Data Fusion Group provides a common frame of reference for fusion discussions. The point being that while anomaly detection is a component of Level 3, the objective of fusing the combined activity and capability of vessels, cargo, people, finance, and infrastructure is to infer intentions and assess threats.
The vision for a global network-centric environment where users can access, analyze, and exchange a wide range of maritime information and collaborate on maritime problems with others is absolutely consistent with the argument made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that "the most important military component in the war on terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern themselves."
Clearly the creation of an interagency and international MDA network composed of analysis centers, operators, information repositories, and sensors that continuously monitor the globe searching for burgeoning maritime threats makes sense. This concept aligns well with the Navy's Strategy for Maritime Security for expanded cooperative relationships with other nations who putatively contribute to the rising tide of maritime security for the benefit of the global maritime common. Although as LT Munson points out the current emphasis is on ship positions, this is more because of the technological advent of AIS and the astonishing success of the Maritime Safety and Security Information System (MSSIS) where participating countries freely share unclassified, near real-time AIS data. A collaborative network of coalition partners that will be eventually be able to monitor vessels, cargo, people, finance, and infrastructure, requires establishing relationships and trust in addition to the creation of a physical network. MSSIS and similar efforts are recognition that trust and cooperation cannot be surged, they must be built over time. Recognition that international and interagency partners require access to and the ability to collaboratively process, analyze, and disseminate information on maritime threats has led to the development of a blueprint for a net-centric information environment in which data from disparate sources and security domains will be discoverable, accessible, understandable, fused, and usable, with appropriate information assurance, to enable user defined and common operational pictures. This blueprint is described in the Maritime Domain Awareness Architecture Management Hub Plan.
The technology challenge is related to the explosive growth in the generation and collection of data associated with vessels, cargo and people which will potentially require a new generation of techniques and tools that can assist in transforming these data into actionable intelligence. These tools include preprocessing large amounts of data, data reduction, mining and fusion. Data fusion is generally defined as the use of techniques that combine data from multiple sources and gather that information in order to achieve inferences, which will be more efficient and potentially more accurate than if they were achieved by means of a single source. The well recognized data fusion model developed by the Joint Directors of Laboratories Data Fusion Group provides a common frame of reference for fusion discussions. The point being that while anomaly detection is a component of Level 3, the objective of fusing the combined activity and capability of vessels, cargo, people, finance, and infrastructure is to infer intentions and assess threats.
The vision for a global network-centric environment where users can access, analyze, and exchange a wide range of maritime information and collaborate on maritime problems with others is absolutely consistent with the argument made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that "the most important military component in the war on terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern themselves."
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