Cursor on Target Inspiring Innovation to Revolutionize Air Force Command and Control
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Senior Leader Perspective
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Cursor on Target
Inspiring Innovation to Revolutionize Air Force Command
and Control
Dr. Raymond A. Shulstad, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired
In this article, Ray Shulstad tells a compelling story of the power of technology inspired
by a concept of operations that puts technology to work directly for commanders—no
endless list of requirements, no overreach for impossible technology. Using a simple or-
ganizing principle of “cursor on target” allowed everyone to visualize the same goal and
focus on a comprehensive solution. There is no better example of engineers, industry,
operators, and commanders being on the same page and delivering technology that
has saved many lives on the battlefield. We need more of the same!
—Gen John P. Jumper, USAF, Retired
B ecause innovation is the key to in-
creasing organizational effectiveness,
improving efficiency to reduce cost,
and applying technology that leads to new
sionate demands that the organization re-
spond by bringing that vision alive.
This responsibility to inspire innovation
becomes especially important if the organi-
products, increased revenue, and profit, all
leaders have a responsibility to inspire in-
novation within their organization. Leaders
like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s the
late Steve Jobs have spoken extensively
about inspiring innovation as the key to the
success their companies have enjoyed.
Gates clearly recognizes the tremendous
potential of information technology, noting
that “never before in history has innovation
offered the promise of so much to so many
in so short a time.” And Jobs indicated how
strongly he felt about a leader’s responsibil-
ity in this area: “Innovation distinguishes
between a leader and a follower.” Some
leaders, such as these two individuals, can
inspire simply by coupling their vision with
comprehensive knowledge of the technol-
ogy and driving the organization toward
that vision. Others, like General Jumper,
inspire by coupling their vision with pas-
Winter 2011 | 19
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom
of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the
U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.zation’s mission focuses on research and strategy that would use standards like Inter-
development. I understood that fact first- net protocol (IP) communications and ex-
hand from my experience in the Air Force, tensible markup language (XML) to tag and
where I led engineering organizations and share data. With the support and encourage-
commanded a major research laboratory. ment of Lt Gen Leslie Kenne, then the com-
From May 2001 to April 2006, I applied that mander of the Electronic Systems Center
experience numerous times to the benefit (ESC) and our largest Air Force customer, I
of the service as the senior vice president drove the Air Force Center to bring the
and general manager of the MITRE Corpo- strategy to maturity and begin implement-
ration’s Air Force Command and Control ing it across ESC’s C3I programs. Although
Center.1 At that time, my center was one of we made progress, the initial pace was slow
three in MITRE’s Department of Defense and evolutionary.
(DOD) Command, Control, Communica-
tions, and Intelligence (C3I) Federally
Funded Research and Development Center, Inspiration
charged with providing systems engineer-
ing to the government’s programs to mod- That situation changed, and the evolu-
ernize its C3I capabilities. tion became a revolution when General
This article offers one specific example of Jumper became chief of staff of the Air
how inspiring innovation revolutionized the Force in September 2001. He was already
Air Force’s command and control (C2) capa- well known for inspiring innovation in the
bilities. It reveals how General Jumper, as service. As commander of Air Combat Com-
chief of staff of the Air Force, inspired a revo- mand in 2000, he had challenged Air Force
lution with his vision of an automated and acquisition “to demonstrate a weaponized
integrated C2 system capable of significantly [remotely piloted vehicle (RPV)] with the
reducing targeting-cycle timelines and ability to find a target [and] then eliminate
friendly-fire casualties. Furthermore, the ar- it,” which led to the fielding of a Predator
ticle shows how I responded to General RPV armed with two air-to-ground Hellfire
Jumper’s challenge by driving MITRE’s Air missiles in less than a year.2 In a well-
Force Center, in collaboration with the ser- publicized story, the acquisition commu-
vice’s acquisition and operational communi- nity responded to General Jumper’s chal-
ties, to bring such a system alive by using lenge with a “business as usual” approach
rapid prototyping and information technology requiring five years and $15 million. He
to deliver machine-to-machine targeting. gave them $3 million and three months.
Sixty-one days and $2.9 million later, a
Predator fired Hellfire missiles in a flight
test on 21 February 2001, and in September
Background of that year, the Predator/Hellfire weapon
When I took over the Air Force Center in system deployed to support Operation En-
May 2001, I found that I had about 1,000 during Freedom in Afghanistan.
engineers deployed across hundreds of pro- General Jumper understood the force-
grams. My predecessor, Dr. Hal Sorenson, a multiplying advantages of information su-
former chief scientist of the Air Force, rec- periority and the fact that integrating and
ognized that the legacy C3I systems had automating the C2 system to take advantage
major interoperability problems and that of that superiority was the key to shrinking
the information technology revolution of- the timeline for attacking time-critical tar-
fered the promise of automating and inte- gets. Therefore, he spoke widely and pas-
grating the DOD’s C3I systems in ways that sionately of that vision, demanding that in-
could solve these problems. To do so, Hal had dustry as well as government acquisition
launched an architecture-based technical organizations like ESC and MITRE change
20 | Air & Space Power JournalSenior Leader Perspective
the paradigm and start applying informa- from the ESC program offices to fully deploy
tion technologies to attain the necessary it across all new C2ISR programs as well as
automation and integration. to upgrades of legacy systems. A second
At the Command, Control, Intelligence, team would define a system-of-systems or
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C2ISR) enterprise engineering process. A third
Summit hosted by General Kenne and ESC team would reinvigorate MITRE’s rapid-
in April 2002, General Jumper and his 12 prototyping capabilities and define specific
four-star commanders made an impas- opportunities to use that capability and in-
sioned plea to horizontally integrate C2ISR formation technology to demonstrate and
machines (i.e., sensors, air and space opera- quickly transition automated, integrated C2
tions center [AOC] targeting systems, and capabilities to war fighters.
shooters) to allow them to talk to each other Moreover in May 2002, shortly after the
and thus eliminate the time-consuming, er- summit, Lt Gen Bill Looney assumed com-
ror-prone manual translations by humans. mand of ESC, and Lieutenant General
To make sure everyone understood the de- Kenne went to the Pentagon to stand up
gree of integration he sought, the general the Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter In-
gave a specific example based on his experi- tegration, a new staff organization charged
ence as an F-15 fighter pilot. He told the au- with attaining the integrated C2 system.
dience of using his combat flying skills to After my off-site, I briefed both General
position his aircraft behind the enemy Kenne and General Looney on MITRE’s
fighter and then put his targeting cursor on strategy for realizing General Jumper’s vi-
it. That done, the machines took over. The sion via an architecture-based technical
aircraft avionics locked on the target, shared strategy, enterprise engineering, and rapid
target information with the air-to-air missile’s prototyping. Both gave me their enthusias-
avionics, and readied the missile for launch tic pledges of support.
automatically. When ready, the system gave I put Jason Providakes and Rich Byrne,
him visual and audio commands to fire, af- two of my brightest and most creative ex-
ter which he was completely certain the ecutive directors, in charge of the rapid-
missile would fly to and destroy the target prototyping team.4 Though small, Rich’s
without any further help from him. He team included several of the best engi-
closed that presentation and many others neers in the center, including Mike Butler
with a reminder that for warriors, “the sum and Doug Robbins. After two days of brain-
of all wisdom is a cursor over the target.”3 storming, they told me at the off-site out-
brief that they would initially concentrate
on automating the targeting cycle via
Listen and Respond machine-to-machine interaction, an effort
that Mike would lead. Since that proposal
Shortly after the summit, I held a man- clearly addressed one of General Jumper’s
agement off-site with the leadership of the top priorities, I gave Mike a budget (less
Air Force Center. I told my executive direc- than $100,000) to get started. The team
tors that after listening to General Jumper gave me a progress report about every two
and the other Air Force four-stars, we had an weeks and briefed me in early June on a
important responsibility to respond to their specific concept and the prototype demon-
challenges and demands. I made sure they stration plan.
understood that business as usual was not a
sufficient response. Over a two-day period,
we embraced the integrated C2 system as
our vision and put several teams together to
Innovation
spearhead progress. One team would finalize Their idea involved automating a very
the technical strategy and obtain support real-world-like concept of operations for en-
Winter 2011 | 21gaging time-critical targets. As depicted in manually send the target and its coordi-
figure 1, a Battlefield Airman would use a nates over the Secret Internet Protocol
laser range finder, the Global Positioning Router Network (SIPRNET) into the AOC.
System (GPS), and a compass to obtain the There, the intel cell would prosecute it, us-
target coordinates and send them over the ing tools such as Raindrop, as would the
PRC-117 radio to the Joint Special Opera- planning cells, using tools like the Auto-
tions Task Force (JSOTF), which would mated Deep Operations Coordination Sys-
F-15E
AWACS
PRC-117
LINK 16
BAO
(Special
Ops) PRC-117
JTIDS
JSOTF
(Special ADSI TCTF
Ops) (Air Force) (Air Force)
CoT CoT CoT
SIPRNET
CoT CoT CoT
ADOCS Raindrop SOLE
(Joint) (Special
(Intel)
Ops)
AOC
ADOCS = Automated Deep Operations Coordination System JSOTF = Joint Special Operations Task Force
ADSI = Air Defense Systems Integrator JTIDS = Joint Tactical Information Distribution System
AOC = Air and Space Operations Center SIPRNET = Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
AWACS = Airborne Warning and Control System SOLE = Special Operations Liaison Element
BAO = Battlefield Air Operations TCTF = Time-Critical Targeting Functionality
Figure 1. Machine-to-machine targeting using the cursor-on-target XML schema (special tactics to
F-15E). (From Rich Byrne, briefing to the MITRE Board of Trustees, subject: Making a Difference to the War
Fighters, 1 October 2003, chart no. 20.)
22 | Air & Space Power JournalSenior Leader Perspective
tem (ADOCS) and the Special Operations Operationalizing and Deploying
Liaison Element (SOLE). After approval,
the AOC would manually transmit the tar- Innovation by definition will not be
get coordinates using Link 16 to the Air-
accepted at first. It takes repeated
borne Warning and Control System (AWACS)
attempts, endless demonstrations, and
and F-15, which would then attack the tar-
monotonous rehearsals before innova-
get. The process at that time involved many
tion can be accepted and internalized
lengthy voice or typing transactions that,
by an organization. This requires
despite verification and reverification, still
“courageous patience.”
remained prone to errors. For example, in
one tragic friendly-fire accident, the coordi- —Warren Bennis
nates of the Battlefield Airman rather than During July 2002, we showed the labora-
those of the target were sent to the F-15.
tory demonstration to most of the senior
Mike’s team proposed automating this
leadership at ESC, including its new com-
entire process by putting the target’s “what
mander—General Looney—and John Gilligan,
(type), where (coordinates), and when
the Air Force’s chief information officer,
(time)” into an XML data schema and trans-
both of whom were very impressed and ex-
mitting the data directly, machine to ma-
cited about what the capability could do to
chine, without human involvement other
than decision making. This concept offers a automate and integrate Air Force C2. Gen-
good example of an enterprise data strategy eral Looney again pledged his enthusiastic
whereby various users (e.g., the intelligence support for rapid prototyping in general and
cell, planning cell, and attack fighter) sub- to CoT specifically. When he returned to
scribe to data published in XML. Each small the Pentagon, John sent a note about the
diamond in figure 1 labeled CoT (cursor on accomplishment and its potential to Gen-
target) represents a few hundred lines of eral Jumper. In late August, we performed
software at machine input and output ports the laboratory demonstration for Secretary
that can publish or subscribe to the target- of the Air Force James Roche, who urged
ing data. The final step called for automat- quick fielding of the capability.
ing transmission of the target data with a In November 1982, a variant of the proto-
CoT publisher over the air defense system type underwent testing with F-15Es at Nellis
integrator (ADSI)—the AOC’s interface with AFB, Nevada, in a live-fly exercise. In
Link 16 to the F-15. March 2003, with strong support from the
After hearing the concept and plan, I secretary and Air Force Special Operations
gave the team members approval to pro- Command, ESC stood up a program office
ceed. In early July, they asked me to come and formalized a machine-to-machine tar-
to a MITRE laboratory for a prototype dem- geting program. During that same month,
onstration that included using a laser range an enhanced variant of the prototype went
finder, the GPS, a compass, and a laptop through accelerated operational test and
computer to obtain the target coordinates. evaluation at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The
Using CoT, the laptop published the coordi- results were spectacular—a threefold reduc-
nates directly onto a Raindrop display map tion in targeting timelines with a significant
where, after the Raindrop operator clicked increase in accuracy! In July 2003, ESC and
on the target on the map, the coordinates MITRE mobilized the prototype and, with
were sent directly over a laboratory Link General Kenne’s sponsorship, took it to the
16, showing up automatically on an F-15’s Pentagon to present to General Jumper.
head-up display in the laboratory. It truly Needless to say, he was impressed and ec-
was one of the most amazing things I had static. A freeze on AOC software at the be-
ever seen in the more than 35 years of my ginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom delayed
professional career. deployment until September 2003. Never-
Winter 2011 | 23theless, moving from a laboratory prototype worked collaboratively as a team with per- to fielding an operational capability in only sonnel from the ESC acquisition office, Air 14 months equates to speed of light for the Force Special Operations Command, the acquisition process! operational test and evaluation agency, and This accomplishment involved overcom- industry. That teamwork was also a critical ing a number of barriers, none of them factor in keeping the initiative on track in technical in nature. Organizations that had spite of the barriers. not responded aggressively to General Jumper’s challenge were somewhat embar- rassed and exhibited the “not invented Expansion to the C2ISR Enterprise here” syndrome by trying to slow down the initiative with “better” ideas of their own, Word quickly spread around the Air including some that were proprietary and Force and DOD about the powerful CoT not net-centric. Others expressed concern data exchanges of “what, when, and where” over their false perception that machine-to- information. The DOD adopted the CoT machine targeting would eliminate humans XML schema as a data standard for sharing from the targeting cycle. As mentioned ear- militarily significant “what, when, and lier, although CoT eliminated manual trans- where” information.5 Additionally, Mike’s actions, humans remained involved in each team continued to expand and help others step of the decision process to attack the extend the applications to such capabilities target. Others cited the lack of a validated as conducting blue force tracking; overlay- requirement and the fact that the Air Force ing blue force, RPVs, and enemy positions program objective memorandum had no on common operational picture displays budget for CoT. In fact, formally documented such as FalconView; synchronizing global requirements to automate the AOC target- combat and refueling missions; and bring- ing cycle did exist, and CoT simply repre- ing Link 16 displays on board C-130 gun- sented a solution to those requirements. ships that lacked Link 16 capability. Today, Moreover, war fighters were more than will- over 100 C2ISR systems (i.e., sensors, AOC ing to pay for the extremely small funding targeting system tools, and shooters) have associated with the capability. Others ob- incorporated CoT at an average cost of jected to fielding prototypes directly instead about $100,000 per system. Figure 2 shows of following the formal acquisition process, a small subset of these systems that, by which would have taken years. Still others means of CoT, are providing revolutionary, wanted the XML schema to cover all mili- net-centric capabilities to our war fighters. tarily useful information rather than just The fielding of CoT dramatically illustrates “what, when, and where,” which would have the power of a common, net-centric, infor- added significant complexity and demanded mation-sharing strategy. prohibitive bandwidth. Finally, some ob- jected to combining developmental test and evaluation and operational test and evalua- Benefits tion, which also became a nonissue because of the simplicity and low risk of the concept Unlike Microsoft and Apple, MITRE and because war fighters supported this ap- and our government sponsor—ESC—were proach to accelerate fielding of the concept. not driven by the promise of increased We overcame all of these obstacles due to revenue and profit. Nevertheless, we the support we had from the top leadership reaped many benefits from the CoT rapid- of the Air Force, including not only General prototyping effort. The MITRE team and Jumper, our champion, but also the senior its ESC partners have won numerous leadership of the acquisition and opera- awards, including a highly coveted Armed tional commands. At the working level, we Forces Communications and Electronics 24 | Air & Space Power Journal
Senior Leader Perspective
Net-Centric Approach Dramatically Expands Possible Concept of Operations
AC-130 F-15E JSTARS B-52
RPVs FalconView FalconView
Predator
Shadow
Scan Eagle AWACS F/A-18 KC-135
PRC-117
LINK 16
Ground- BAO
Control (Special ACARS
Stations Ops) PRC-117 PRC-117
ARC-231 JTIDS DCS
PRC-117 TACC
CTII
CoT
(Air Force/
JSOTF
Internet
(Special ADSI RAIDER TCTF Air Mobility
Command)
ARC-210 Ops) (Air Force) (Navy) (Air Force)
CoT CoT CoT CoT
CoT
CoT WOC
SIPRNET
FAA
CoT CoT CoT CoT CoT CoT
NIPRNET
JMSM FBCB2 ADOCS GCCS-J Raindrop SOLE
(RPV Cell) (Army) (Joint) (Joint) (Intel) (Special Ops)
FalconView
ACARS = Aircraft Communications Addressing JSOTF = Joint Special Operations Task Force
and Reporting System JSTARS = Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System
ADOCS = Automated Deep Operations Coordination System JTIDS = Joint Tactical Information Distribution System
ADSI = Air Defense Systems Integrator NIPRNET = Nonsecure Internet Protocol Router Network
AWACS = Airborne Warning and Control System RAIDER = Rapid Attack Information Dissemination
BAO = Battlefield Air Operations Execution Relay
CTII = Combat Track II RPV = Remotely Piloted Vehicle
DCS = Defense Communications System SIPRNET = Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
FAA = Federal Aviation Administration SOLE = Special Operations Liaison Element
FBCB2 = Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below TACC = Tactical Air Control Center
GCCS-J = Global Command and Control System-Joint TCTF = Time-Critical Targeting Functionality
JMSM = Joint Mission Support Module WOC = Wing Operations Center
Figure 2. Expansion of the CoT application. (From Rich Byrne, briefing to the MITRE Board of Trustees,
subject: Making a Difference to the War Fighters, 1 October 2003, chart no. 22.)
Association Golden Link Award in 2004 rec- ings soared to new heights. Furthermore,
ognizing innovative applications of tech- MITRE’s stature within the technical com-
nology in government operations. Many munity grew significantly. Finally and
articles on the achievement have appeared most importantly, our initiative gave our
in technical journals.6 From a business war fighters improved operational capa-
standpoint, MITRE and ESC’s image with bilities that reduced the targeting-cycle
war fighters and customer-satisfaction rat- timeline enabling attacks on time-critical
Winter 2011 | 25targets and diminished the potential of at relatively little cost. Having a champion
casualties from friendly fire. like General Jumper who has an important,
urgent need and who demands innovation
probably represents the most critical ele-
Additional Spin-Off Benefits ment for this inspiration. My role as leader
of an engineering organization was also sig-
At least as significant as these direct nificant, starting with my insistence that
benefits is the fact that the CoT initiative led the organization not simply listen to the
to reinvigorating MITRE’s rapid-prototyping passionate demands of champions like the
capability and to ESC’s embracing rapid general but respond to those demands with
prototyping as a key part of its acquisition innovative solutions.
strategies.7 With Rich’s leadership and sup- I also take credit for putting a small but
port, more than 50 other rapid prototypes world-class team on the project and giving
were developed and demonstrated in ESC it very talented and creative leaders like
programs. For example, we showed how Jason Providakes, Rich Byrne, and Mike
easily we could use legacy radios to bring Butler. Additionally, empowering the team
IP communications and the Internet onto and providing it with resources to be suc-
platforms like the Joint Surveillance Target cessful proved important. Initial laboratory
Attack Radar System (Joint STARS). In an- demonstrations of the prototype, from
other case, we automated production of working levels to senior levels of the gov-
the air tasking order briefing and reduced ernment acquisition and operational user
the time required from more than 12 hours communities, played an essential role in
to just a few hours. An additional rapid- obtaining their support and shaping the
prototyping effort with industry demon- prototype prior to operational testing. Be-
strated a way of synchronizing force-level cause engineers tend to want to tinker with
and unit-level planning. prototypes in the laboratory and not show
By means of rapid prototyping, we them to anyone until they are perfect, such
showed the possibilities to war fighters and early demonstrations are something of an
a means of lessening the fielding risk. The unnatural act for them; however, user expo-
urgent needs of war fighters directly drove sure and feedback at the beginning is in-
the swift fielding of prototypes like CoT; valuable to prototyping initiatives. As I
others transitioned into upgrade plans for mentioned earlier, collaborative teamwork
the systems of record and were fielded as with the acquisition, operational and test
part of the upgrades. Some did not receive communities, and industry proved instru-
war-fighter support and were not fielded, mental in overcoming a number of barriers.
but in these cases, we refocused our efforts
after a few months without expending
much money or time—something quite dif- Golden Nuggets
ferent on both accounts from the normal
acquisition process. The keys to the success of the CoT initia-
tive in generic form have broad applicability
to inspiring innovation in general. Other
leaders can use the following “golden nug-
Keys to Success gets” or takeaways to inspire innovation in
As I look back on the CoT rapid-prototyping their organizations:
initiative, I see that a number of keys
1. Find a champion with a pressing, im-
proved important to its success—keys that
portant need.
have wide-ranging applicability to other in-
novation initiatives. First, inspiring innova- 2. Demand that the organization respond
tion allows us to derive tremendous benefits to the champion with innovation.
26 | Air & Space Power JournalSenior Leader Perspective
3. Establish, empower, and support a tal- Summary
ented, creative team to develop the
innovation. This article has examined how a senior
leader’s vision and demand for innovation
4. Demonstrate the innovation to cap- can inspire his organization and others to
ture advocacy. respond to that vision with innovative solu-
tions. It used a specific example involving
5. Anticipate and eliminate obstacles. the use of rapid prototyping and informa-
6. Operationalize the innovation in a col- tion technology to automate and integrate
laborative team effort with acquirers, the Air Force’s C2 system. However, the ap-
proach and strategy as embodied in the
users, testers, and industry.
“golden nugget” takeaways have broad ap-
7. Transition the innovation into prod- plicability to inspire innovation of other
ucts, services, or capabilities types and in other organizations. Therefore,
I hope that future leaders will find this ar-
8. Seek opportunities to expand and ap- ticle useful in meeting one of their basic
ply the innovation to other needs. responsibilities—inspiring innovation!
Notes
1. MITRE is a nonprofit company that manages Signal Connections: AFCEA’s Official E-Newsletter 1,
federally funded research and development centers no. 4 (15 January 2004), http://www.imakenews
for the government. .com/signal/e_article000214973.cfm; Byrne, “‘Cursor
2. “Predator Hellfire Missile Tests ‘Totally Suc- on Target’ Improves Efficiency,” Edge: MITRE’s Ad-
cessful,’ ” CheckPoint, 12 May 2001, http://www vanced Technology Newsletter 8, no. 2 (Fall 2004),
.checkpoint-online.ch/CheckPoint/J4/J4-0003 http://www.mitre.org/news/the_edge/fall_04/byrne
-PredatorHellfireMissileTests.html. .html; Byrne, “Managing Complexity: An Approach
3. “Cursor on Target: The ‘Sum of All Wisdom’ to Net-Centric Ops,” Association of Old Crows Sym-
Comes of Age,” MITRE Digest, December 2010, [1], posium, Burlington, MA, 26 September 2005,
http://www.mitre.org/news/digest/pdf/MITRE https://www.myaoc.org/EWEB/images/aoc_library
_Digest_10_4266.pdf. /patriotsroost/AOC_Briefs/Managing_Complexity
4. At that time, Jason was my executive director _An_Approach_to_Netcentric_Ops_Rich_Byrne.pdf;
for Air Force communication programs, and Rich Elizabeth Harding, Leo Obrst, and Arnon Rosenthal,
was my executive director for human resources and
“Creating Standards for Multiway Data Sharing,”
for our research program. Today Jason is the senior
Edge: MITRE’s Advanced Technology Newsletter 8, no. 1
vice president and general manager of MITRE’s Cen-
(Summer 2004): 16–17, 20, http://www.mitre.org
ter for Connected Government, and Rich is the senior
/news/the_edge/summer_04/edge_summer_04.pdf;
vice president and general manager for MITRE’s
and Dino Konstantopoulos and Jeffery Johnston,
Command and Control Center.
“Data Schemas for Net-Centric Situational Aware-
5. For the DOD CoT data standard reference, see
the Defense Information Technology Standards ness” (presentation at the 2006 Command and Con-
Registry at https://disronline.csd@disa.mil. (Ac- trol Research and Technology Symposium, San Di-
cess to this site requires a government common ego, CA, June 2006), http://www.dodccrp.org/events
access card [CAC].) /2006_CCRTS/html/papers/073.pdf?q=cot.
6. See Rich Byrne, “The What Where and When 7. Although this point is not related to our rapid-
of Making Net-Centric Warfare Real Today,” MITRE prototyping initiative, it is interesting to note that
Corporation, n.d., http://www.mitre.org/work/tech DOD Instruction 5000.02, Operation of the Defense
_papers/tech_papers_05/03_0948/03_0948.pdf; Byrne, Acquisition System, 8 December 2008, http://www
“Cursor on Target: A Case Study on Deploying What, .dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/500002p.pdf,
When and Where in the Battlefield,” MITRE Corpora- now mandates competitive prototyping to demon-
tion, December 2004; Byrne, “A Few Choice Words strate technology readiness before entering engi-
Can Make Network Centric Warfare a Reality Today,” neering development.
Winter 2011 | 27Dr. Raymond A. Shulstad, Brigadier General, USAF, Retired
Dr. Shulstad (BS, University of Alabama; MS, PhD, Air Force Institute of Technology)
is an independent consultant to industry and government for a broad range of
topics, including organizational management and leadership, research and devel-
opment, and systems engineering and acquisition. In 2006 he retired as the senior
vice president and general manager of MITRE’s Center for Air Force Command and
Control Systems. Prior to joining MITRE in 1999, he was the director of Strategic
Planning for Surveillance and Battle Management Systems for Northrop Grumman
Corporation. General Shulstad retired from the Air Force in 1994 after a distin-
guished 28-year career. His final assignments included vice-commander of the
Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio (1993–94), and vice-
commander of the Electronic Systems Division, Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts
(1991–93). His publications include Peace Is My Profession (National Defense Uni-
versity Press, 1986), a book that deals with the moral dimensions of US nuclear
policy. More recently, he has published several landmark articles on leadership and
management in Air and Space Power Journal.
28 | Air & Space Power JournalYou can also read
