Rick Kozak / Staff Linton Wells is the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for networks and information integration.

Linton Wells has an expansive notion of networks.

Speaking in rapid-fire paragraphs laced with dry humor, Wells said the Pentagon’s philosophy of data is shifting, adapting to the need to pass immense amounts of data to and from troops and others who have traditionally been shut out of the military’s networks. “We’re moving from stovepipes to shared info…from need-to-know to need-to-share,” he said in his keynote speech today to the 6th Annual C4ISR Journal Integration Conference, “New Tools for War in Real Time,” in Arlington, Va. “You have a right to know what you need to know for your mission.”

Wells, the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for networks and information integration, asked his audience to imagine a local resident out for a stroll in his foreign town and who realizes that his street has gone strangely quiet.

“How do we get that information to the Marine driving down the street, and get him to take the right fork in the road?” Wells asked. The example was meant to stress how easy it must become to share information with — and among — U.S. troops.

This shift has taken on a vital urgency in today’s uncertain operating environments, which demand networks that can accommodate unexpected information from unexpected users.

Wells stressed the need to share information not just among cleared U.S. troops, but also with coalition partners, non-governmental organizations, and local friends. He noted that in the past year, top-level U.S. military strategy elevated peacekeeping and other operations short of war to the same priority level as warfighting. “You will not achieve the civil and political goals to which your forces are committed without this” information sharing, he said. Moreover, Wells said, the leaders who prepare for these kinds of operations must think about connectivity.

“We have got to get this into the planning checklist,” he said. Information-technology specialists and their gear and generators have to be on the first planes to go in-country on a mission.

“Food, water, shelter — those basic things we’ve always put first — information is the key enabler,” he said. “And it’s pretty tough to share in a powerless environment.”

Return to news coverage