WASHINGTON--San Antonio has been selected as the site for a
special two-day conference on the information operations
challenges facing the military and the nation. Sponsored by the
Air Force Association and the Eaker Institute for Aerospace
Concepts, the session on March 24-25 will bring together experts
from around the country to discuss the emerging vulnerabilities
in the "Information Age."
Today’s military operations rely heavily on technology and the
rapid flow of information to gain an asymmetrical advantage over
adversaries. These Information Operations will be the theme for
this new Defense Colloquium on national military strategy and
forces.
"This will be the first Defense Colloquium outside of
Washington," said AFA National President Thomas J. McKee.
“With the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and the Air
Force Information Warfare Battlelab located in San Antonio, this
seemed to be the best place to inaugurate these 'Outside the
Beltway' colloquia."
The Colloquium will be held at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas,
and will be open to AFA members, those in the Air Force and the
general public.
"There are a number of organizations talking about cyber
attacks and the Air Force is heavily involved in computer network
defense," said McKee. "In this forum, we hope to focus
on the strategies and resources needed to integrate these efforts
into a genuinely effective program. We are bringing together
prominent experts and defense planners who could address both the
strategic and tactical implications for information operations."
The session on Wednesday afternoon, March 24, will feature General
Lloyd W. Newton, commander of the Air Education and Training Command,
who will discuss training in the information age. Lt. Gen. Kenneth A.
Minihan, current director of the National Security Agency, will
follow with an assessment of the emerging global vulnerabilities,
and Brig. Gen. Bruce A. Wright, the deputy director for operations
(Information Operations) on the Joint Staff, will then accent the
JCS response to potential threats.
On Thursday morning, March 25, General John P. Jumper, commander
of the United States Air Forces in Europe, will give a theater
commander’s perspective. Then Maj. Gen. (Select) John R. Baker,
commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and the Joint Command and
Control Warfare Center, will address the colloquium. Lt. Gen.
Charles J. Cunningham, Jr., the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence, will close the two-day conference with
a keynote presentation on DoD organizational and resource
initiatives in the information operations arena.
“In no other area is the pace and extent of technological change
as great as in the realm of information”, said McKee. “In an
'information age,' increasingly more complex information systems
are critical to the conduct of military operations and at the
same time they open the door to a wide range of new vulnerabilities
for military commanders. However, it is not clear that the
organizational issues have been resolved to ensure that information
operations are effectively led and coherently carried out across
the wide spectrum of government and private agencies that are
involved.”
For further information about this Defense Colloquium on
Information Operations, visit AFA’s website at
http://www.aef.org/eak24mar.html or call
1-800-727-3337, extension 5805, to register.
The Eaker Institute is the public policy and research arm of
the Air Force Association’s Aerospace Education Foundation. The
Air Force Association is an independent, non-profit aerospace
organization of 150,000 members dedicated to assuring America’s
aerospace excellence.
