{"id":35077,"date":"2021-09-08T20:34:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T20:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/08\/lack-of-access-to-data-during-afghanistan-exit-shines-light-on-tech-gap\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:15:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:15:55","slug":"lack-of-access-to-data-during-afghanistan-exit-shines-light-on-tech-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/newsletters\/daily-news-roundup\/2021\/09\/08\/lack-of-access-to-data-during-afghanistan-exit-shines-light-on-tech-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Lack of access to data during Afghanistan exit shines light on tech gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan<\/a> prompted Pentagon officials working on the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept to ask: Do troops have access to data they need on the ground, absent of an adversary capable of disrupting that access?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer was \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we learned as a department and the joint force is we\u2019ve grossly underestimated the scope of this problem,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Rob Parker, deputy director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff\u2019s J6 directorate and chairman of the JADC2 Cross-Functional Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have some real work to do on some big challenges that are out there, [such as] getting access to authoritative data sources [and] having the right policy in place to allow us to share that with our partners \u2014 not just international partners, but our own federal partners,\u201d Parker said during the Defense News Conference<\/a> on Sept. 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two-week operation in which the U.S military evacuated more than 124,000 people provided the Pentagon\u2019s JADC2 leadership new lessons learned and identified areas in need of improvement. That included ensuring data is populated and easily visible on programs of record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data access is central to JADC2, which aims to provide unprecedented amounts of data to war fighters to make informed decisions in battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior leaders at the Pentagon, starting with Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, are making a major push on ensuring the department harnesses its gobs of data to make better decisions. In the last year, the department released a data strategy, and earlier this year Hicks published five \u201cdata decrees\u201d as the department sought to elevate the importance of data across the force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Afghanistan withdrawal also reinforced the Pentagon\u2019s need to ensure its workforce has the data skills to understand incoming information, produce computer code and develop algorithms. Ultimately, the withdrawal has \u201cgiven us a lot to look at,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dTwelve to 14 days to get your data all together and looking at it may sound very good by traditional bureaucratic measures in the Pentagon, but it\u2019s absolutely failure in the future fight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the department moves forward with JADC2, Parker also said the concept\u2019s implementation plan is under review by senior staff. He added that it\u2019s \u201cweeks away\u201d from being released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan, which is classified, will outline seven minimal viable products that the military needs in order to enable JADC2:<\/p>\n\n\n\n