In 1996, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a conceptual framework for the Department of Defense's (DOD) war fighting called Joint Vision 2010.1 The document identifies information superiority over the enemy as a key element for the success of this vision. DOD defines information superiority as "the capability to collect, process, and disseminate an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary's ability to do the same." DOD believes that information superiority can provide significant advantages over the enemy during a conflict and increase the efficiency of peacetime and wartime operations. However, greater reliance on information systems may also make DOD vulnerable to intrusion and attack on those systems, damaging its war-fighting capability.2

As requested, we evaluated DOD's progress in implementing certain key information superiority activities to provide an indication of how well DOD is progressing toward its information superiority goals. Specifically, you asked us to evaluate DOD's progress in establishing a DOD-wide architecture for the information systems known as Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4), Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems; developing and implementing the Global Command and Control System (GCCS); and establishing the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS).

'Joint Vision 2010 recognizes the need to modernize DOD's war-fighting concepts and respond to advancing technologies for the 21st century. It translates information superiority and the technological advances that are changing traditional war-fighting concepts into new concepts through changes in weapon systems, doctrine, culture, and organization. It also describes the improved intelligence and improved command and control available in the information age as the basis of four operational concepts-dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full dimensional protection, and focused

logistics.

2Information Security: Computer Attacks at Department of Defense Pose Increasing Risks
(GAO/AIMD-96-84, May 22, 1996) and Critical Foundations: Protecting America's Infrastructures,
Report of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (Washington, D.C.:
Oct. 1997).

In addition, you asked us to evaluate DOD's progress in implementing recommendations of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare-Defense.3 At your request, we reported on DOD'S implementation of these recommendations and other activities to protect its C4ISR systems in a separate letter to the Subcommittee for a June 11, 1998, joint hearing with the Military Procurement Subcommittee on the fiscal year 1999 national defense authorization request on Critical Infrastructure Protection-Information Assurance.1

Background

Achieving information superiority will be expensive and complex. Based
on its analysis of the fiscal year 1999 through 2003 Future Years Defense
Plan, DOD estimates it will budget an average of $43 billion a year (nearly
17 percent of the $257 billion budget request for fiscal year 1999) for C4ISR
systems and activities during the plan period. Achieving information
superiority is complex because it involves thousands of decentralized C4ISR
systems and information networks. Furthermore, the systems, networks,
and information superiority activities are managed by many different
offices of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, services, unified
commands, and defense agencies throughout DOD.

One of DOD's key activities to achieve information superiority is the
development of a Department-wide C4ISR information systems architecture.
An information systems architecture is a blueprint that guides and controls
the development and maintenance of many related systems. Another key
activity is the development and deployment of a Department-wide Defense
Information Infrastructure that features GCCS as DOD's principal worldwide
command and control system. GCCS has more capabilities and functions
(such as almost real-time knowledge of battlefield conditions, or
situational awareness) than the system it replaced. DOD is also trying to
consolidate the services' programmable, modular tactical radio
development and acquisition programs into a single JTRS program to

The recommendations were presented in Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare-Defense (IW-D), Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1996). The task force determined that DOD's information systems were highly vulnerable to intrusions and attacks and made over 50 recommendations for improving their protection.

'DOD's Information Assurance Efforts (GAO/NSIAD-98-132R, June 11, 1998).

5DOD describes this infrastructure as all of the information systems and networks used to support the war fighter.

"DOD defines situational awareness as knowledge of one's location, the location of friendly and hostile forces, and external factors such as terrain and weather that may affect one's capability to perform a mission.