National communications architecture: required capabilities to support a JTF, challenges to USNORTHCOM

Army Communicator, Fall, 2006 by Reginald T. Cox, Keith H. Snook

In late August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the southern shores of the United States as one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in American history. Not only did Katrina wreak havoc with city, county, and state infrastructure, the subsequent unanticipated levee breaks and flooding of New Orleans resulted in a disastrous situation for large segments of the New Orleans populace.

The situation quickly surpassed prior planning assumptions and the capability of local responders to mitigate loss of life and ease human suffering. Courageous rescue efforts on the part of Department of Defense, federal agencies, state, and local organizations significantly reduced the catastrophic potential for loss of life; however, reducing loss of life and easing human suffering for more than four hundred thousand displaced people is only part of the national challenge.

The larger challenge is how we, as a nation, will respond to catastrophic events in a timely and robust fashion. This challenge is being addressed at all levels of government.

For United States Northern Command, the challenge was not the ability to respond to national catastrophes but the necessity for detailed plans that include all aspects of operational mission support with federal, state, and industry partners.

For the first time, USNORTHCOM activated a Joint Task Force to command and control on scene DoD activities and provide Defense Support to Civil Authorities. As a result, USNORTHCOM found it necessary to overcome several challenges that had not been identified in past training evolutions. These challenges included little experience in manning and operations of a JTF staff, interagency coordination and gaps in the National Response Plan, near total destruction of the commercial communications infrastructure, and interoperability among federal, state, and local mission partners.

Crucial to the success of the JTF headquarters is the identification of prepackaged deployable communications capabilities that can be scaled to provide services to a deployed JTF headquarters. In order to effectively address this issue, USNORTHCOM has investigated and identified candidate units to source future communications capabilities.

What we do know is that the formation of a JTF in the future will likely occur in phases very similar to the evolution of JTF Katrina. The rudimentary beginnings of a JTF will include the initial deployment of situation assessment officers and liaison officers to the Joint Operations Area. The initial communications requirements in the JOA will be met through the use of rapidly deployable 'suitcase' type capabilities that can accompany those deploying personnel.

Since those first to deploy will serve as the nucleus of the JTF as well as JTF Commander's situational awareness team, they will need mobile, light-weight communications capabilities. This requirement could include assets such as handheld satellite phones, cell phones, personnel digital assistants/ Blackberry devices, a Global Positioning System capability, and some flavor of military radio.

After the arrival of the initial team, the first elements of the JTF headquarters are likely to arrive in the JOA. The JTF commander, who initially requires civilian and military satellite communications, may accompany these DoD first responders. To facilitate initial command and control, the JTF commander, JTF component commanders and key liaison officers, will all require mobile/portable communications packages to enable access to enterprise networks via national communications infrastructures. These packages would form the core of the JTF's communications package.

Initial communications capabilities for tactical command posts should be self-sustaining and interoperable with both first responders and local authorities. The Standing Joint Force Headquarters-North Deployable Communications Capability Van, or a similarly configured command and control vehicle with the appropriate interfaces could meet the requirement. Such a resource would provide basic communications and automation support for approximately 50 personnel.

The JTF should anticipate communications requirements and automation equipment to accommodate growth of the tactical command post from 50 to approximately 250 users with classified and unclassified data processing as well as voice and perhaps video services, classified and unclassified video teleconferencing services.

The fully configured JTF command post will require SATCOM backhaul, but should also be able to function in an autonomous mode if the infrastructure supports it. The JTF will also require cellular radio capabilities that support the internetworking of voice, video, and data at broadband wireless rates. Commercial telephone service and wireless/cellular capability is critical, since this is the one technology that is common to all incident responders.

This same JTF will also require force-tracking capabilities for deployed responders and vehicles. Command post systems need to support military and perhaps some civilian force tracking systems and enable integration of those data feeds into the framework of the USNORTHCOM common operational picture. As broadband services become more and more prevalent, use of broadband services via wireless devices at the incident scene and JTF headquarters will greatly enable collaboration and situational awareness with mobile access to collaborative information exchange environment.