The Defense Department isn’t doing enough to prepare for scenarios in which it won’t have full access to critical systems like its networks, information-gathering assets, navigation aids, and electronic warfare functions, said Paul Kaminski, Defense Science Board chairman, Wednesday. “We think we are falling way short in what we need to be doing to look at degraded operations,” he told reporters during a meeting in Washington, D.C. He added, “We are not doing nearly enough.” This warning is one of the principal findings of the DSB’s newly released study Enhancing Adaptability of US Military Forces. Kaminski said the Marine Corps does a good job of training individual marines how to operate under degraded conditions. Special operations forces also receive “some pretty good training” at the individual and tactical levels in this regard, he said. However, “As you move up that chain to the operational and strategic level [across DOD], the farther up the chain you go, the worse it gets in terms of the amount of time or training that we do,” he asserted. (DSB report; caution, large-sized file)
While the Pentagon is halfway through its review of the Air Force’s new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program in the wake of “critical” cost and schedule overruns, the service has declared a similar issue for the helicopters meant to provide security and transport across those ICBM fields. The Air Force recently…