Washington Pulse

November 2005

By Sandra I. Erwin

Fuel Efficiency Unlikely in Military Vehicles

With U.S. forces in Iraq no longer getting free fuel from Kuwait, the Defense Department may have to get serious about cutting back on consumption. It may take many years, however, for the military services to acquire more fuel-efficient hybrid-electric vehicles.

U.S. troops in Iraq consume one-and-a-half million gallons of fuel a day, but all that fuel came free from Kuwait until earlier this year, when the deal ended, said Army Lt. Gen. Claude V. Christianson, director of logistics on the Joint Staff.

The Defense Logistics Agency is negotiating a fuel contract with suppliers in Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey. Meanwhile, the services have yet to set a strategy for how to make their vehicles more efficient. Hydrogen fuel cells pose safety problems, and hybrid-electric engines are too fragile for the battlefield, Christianson said. The biggest logistic challenge for the military in the next five to eight years, he said, will continue to be transporting and storing massive quantities of fuel, ammunition and water.

Cyber-Crimes Mostly Inside Jobs?

Government agencies and corporations spend billions of dollars protecting their computer systems to keep hackers from breaking into their networks. But they often fail to identify cyber-criminals operating from the inside, says Robert G. “Tad” Elmer, president and chief executive officer of BBN Technologies. “Most of the mischief is not from hackers in their basements but from insiders in organizations,” he says. “People are looking at files they shouldn’t look at, snooping around. You really want to know who they are.” Most security systems are designed to guard the “front gate” of a network, not to look inside, Elmer says. “There are thousands of people behind the gate. All you need is one.”

Spectrum Allocation Key to Disaster Response

At a recent meeting in Camp Shelby, Miss., military and homeland defense officials pondered the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. Particularly, they debated how to improve the communications and “interoperability” between the military, National Guard and local first responders. They concluded that the technology works just fine, but that the problem is the “process,” says Lt. Gen. Steven G. Boutelle, the Army’s chief information officer.

Part of the process of coordinating the response to a natural disaster is to allocate the frequency spectrum so agencies can effectively operate their communications systems. Several states have dealt with that problem so that, if disaster strikes, the emergency responders will be unencumbered by bureaucratic hurdles. Among the states that have done that most effectively are Alaska and Hawaii, says Brig. Gen. Randolph P. Strong, head of the Army Signal Center. “Alaska and Hawaii are good models for frequency spectrum sharing.”

Military Radios Get Security at a Steep Price

To protect their radio communications from being intercepted by the enemy, the military services equip their devices with expensive encryption systems. The most secure form of encryption is called “Type 1,” and has been certified by the National Security Agency. But the cost of Type 1 encryption—which can add $4,000 to $5,000 to the price of each radio—is frustrating some industry executives who believe that the military is overpaying for radios because there is such limited supply of Type 1 encryption engines.

Only two vendors have been certified by NSA as authorized suppliers of Type 1 encryption for military radios. That is hardly a competitive marketplace, laments Larry J. Williams, director of business development at ITT Industries. “It’s very difficult to get products certified, and they manage to keep prices extremely high, if they will sell to you at all.” The government could save millions of dollars if they had real competition in the marketplace, he adds.

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