{"id":13736,"date":"2021-05-24T18:48:12","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T18:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2021\/05\/24\/national-security-through-telework-remote-collaboration-to-protect-the-joint-force\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:50:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:50:33","slug":"national-security-through-telework-remote-collaboration-to-protect-the-joint-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/thought-leadership\/2021\/05\/24\/national-security-through-telework-remote-collaboration-to-protect-the-joint-force\/","title":{"rendered":"National security through telework: remote collaboration to protect the joint force"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Department of Defense\u2019s new \u201cnuclear bunkers\u201d could be a series of dining room tables across the world, linked together by internet companies and cellular data networks. After the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) exposed the U.S. national security community\u2019s unpreparedness for the gambit of potential global threats to its traditional structures, the need to use telework to protect defense may change the DoD\u2019s approach to remote collaboration. Still, it is unclear if the Department of Defense is poised to modernize the military workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put the situation in context, the military took eight weeks to fully stop troop movement because of COVID-19. This timeline began on Jan. 31, 2020, when U.S. Health and Human Services first elevated the virus to a national health emergency<\/a>. On Feb. 25, DoD conducted discretionary preparations<\/a> at the organizational level to insulate its personnel from the virus, 16 days before President Donald Trump declared the virus a national emergency<\/a> <\/u>on March 13. Finally, on March 24, the DoD implemented a departmentwide order to stop movement to protect the force (later canceled and replaced with new guidance on April 20<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This eight-week delay in force posturing is disconcerting, considering it should take less than a couple of weeks to deploy joint forces globally by air or sea. Senior leaders\u2019 skepticism of a telework culture<\/a> and a lack of confidence in military hardware, software and management procedures played a key role in inhibiting the DoD from rapidly transitioning to a geographically distributed force. Additionally, the near frantic deployment of off-the-shelf remote collaboration systems exacerbated existing national security cyber threats as an ad hoc information technology network, tethered to each employee\u2019s unvetted commercial internet service provider, spawned across the federal government. Candidly, the DoD struggled to integrate, synchronize and direct<\/a> telework as part of its crisis response, which illustrated its vulnerabilities in safeguarding key U.S. national security capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctrinally, DoD contingency planning<\/a> requires leaders and staffs to maintain situational awareness to forecast hypothetical scenarios to uncover problems before a crisis arises, develop viable plans to quickly preempt them, and execute those plans through close, continuous interagency coordination and cooperation<\/a>. Unfortunately, the military seemed unprepared by the chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear or explosive (CBRNE) requirements associated with COVID-19, despite having responded to pandemics<\/a> as national security threats in the past, including with HIV starting in 1981, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, and Ebola in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notwithstanding several attempts since 2010, bureaucratic structures and guidelines indicative of Industrial Age management concepts limited teleworked<\/a> to only 5 percent of the federal workforce before COVID-19. The lag in the federal government\u2019s response indicates that agencies did not adequately incorporate telework into its continuity of operations plans as prescribed by the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010<\/a>. Government leaders also seemed to disregard the requirement to \u201cprepare for, respond to, and recover from biological threats,\u201d specifically using \u201cinformation-sharing and networking and coordinated response operations\u201d to limit the impacts of bio-incidents, as outlined in the 2018 U.S. National Biodefense Strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To reduce these vulnerabilities in the future, first, the DoD should issue unclassified, government-funded laptops to each employee and provide them with a suite of collaboration software for use on government and personal equipment. Looking beyond COVID-19, bases and installations normally restrict nonessential workers\u2019 access during elevated force or health protection conditions. Providing portable computers for use in either in office or telework environments would reduce disruptions to service and support activities when garrison commanders limit admittance to facilities and mitigate several risks associated with returning to an office space<\/a> during a CBRNE event.<\/p>\n\n\n\t