The Case for Openness: A Personal Case Study

As I begin forging my online identity here, I need to begin with a bit of shameless self-promotion. Last year I designed a piece of software called PFPS Google Earth Tool that links the Department of Defense's flight planning software with Google Earth. With this program, users can convert routes, airspace regions, waypoints, threats, and other data into a .KML file viewable in Google Earth. At the most basic level, the software allows pilots to visualize their flights in 3D. Also, now that SIPRNET (the military's classified version of the Internet) has authorized Google Earth servers running, GE could potentially serve as a joint virtual battlespace, where users of myriad geospatial programs can bring their data together into one presentation.

I mention the program here because it illustrates a point I will hammer on this blog: the case for "openness." In about six months, while maintaining a full-time active duty career and a family, I was able to write a piece of software that would require millions of dollars and years of effort in the DOD acquisitions system. The program is now being used in such diverse places as NASA's support for wildfire fighting, the Air Force's search-and-rescue support for the space shuttle, airdrops in Afghanistan, and air forces in Australia and South America.

What I've done is not unique. The military is full of talented individuals who find low-level solutions to their problems using spit and duct tape. On the software side, I've seen pilot-written software for recording GPS tracks of flights and playing them back in Google Earth, spreadsheets for calculating detailed airdrop parameters, and Access databases that deconflict crowded low-level training routes. Innovative ideas take more tangible forms as well. In Iraq, innovative soldiers used silly string to detect tripwires for IEDs and built radio devices sometimes capable of remotely detonating them. My favorite example comes from Moses Lake, an auxiliary training field used by C-17s from McChord AFB. The Air Force wanted the capability to use the field for night vision goggle (NVG) operations, but the main runway has intense VASI lights at either end that can't be dimmed. The Air Force studied the problem and decided it would cost millions of dollars to rewire the field to enable dimming the lights. A local handyman at the airport--the kind of guy who drives around a pickup with a tool chest in the back--bought a couple sheets of plywood at home depot and built two boxes that can be placed over the top of each offending light fixture. Problem solved, for around $30.

Winning organizations, including the military, must create an open climate that fosters innovation and allows good ideas to "win." This is especially important in information technology, and it's especially important in the Air Force--a service that is particularly information intensive.

A Success Story for Openness

PFPS Google Earth Tool was possible because of three enabling technologies: (1) the flexible, open-ended, and public .KML data format used by Google Earth (2) a semi-public Software Development Kit (SDK) for the military's flight planning system (PFPS) and (3) PFPS's widespread use of Access databases to store information, which allows users like me to manually manipulate the data. Using these "open" technologies, it was relatively easy to write conversion code from one format to another.

The military today uses myriad geospatial and force tracking programs, most of which store data in different formats and are mutually incompatible. One of my top recommendations for these and future programs is that they support a variety of Import/Export formats that can be easily used by your average Lieutenant or Captain. Any officer today can use Excel. Many can use Access or SQL. XML has emerged as one of the most important and useful data formats in the world, because it can store anything, it's easy to parse, and you can read it as plain-text. My first version of PFPS Google Earth Tool relied on PFPS .XML exports. My point is this: every day out in the battlefield, soldiers and airman are scouring, recombining, and republishing information from myriad sources. This takes a lot of ingenuity at the unit level. If the military makes real efforts to open up data formats, it will empower soldiers at the unit level and accelerate the flow of information.

A Failure for Openness

There is a dark side to the PFPS Google Earth Tool story. Every day, the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) publishes an "Airspace Control Order" (ACO) that details every region of airspace in an entire theater: air refueling tracks, Army firing ranges, UAV orbits, etc. This vital information is viewable in PFPS, but my personal holy grail was to convert the entire thing into vivid 3D detail in Google Earth. The problem is that the ACO data format is incredibly complex and almost impossible to parse. It has so many subtle variations (giving coordinates in multiple formats, for example) that without a detailed explanation of all the standards, there was no way I could create a reliable converter. A document supposedly exists that explains the data format. It is a "USMTF", or US Message Text Format, document. The entire purpose of USMTF is to facilitate the flow of informations among the joint force. Sounds open... right?

Thus began the wild goose chase. After weeks of e-mails, I was eventually told that the ACO Format was published on a website on Army Knowledge Online (AKO)--a comprehensive portal for Army soldiers to exchange information. Never mind that this is a joint standard. The Air Force uses a different portal (titled Air Force Portal), and as an Air Force user, I am not allowed to have an AKO account without an Army sponsor. I eventually tracked down an Army officer willing to sponsor me, and after several phone calls to the AKO help center, I was able to create a limited "guest" account. Unfortunately, the guest account does not have permissions to access the documents I needed to obtain. After weeks of effort, I finally gave up. To this day, I've never been able to find a document explaining the ACO standard.

In an era when virtually infinite knowledge is a few mouseclicks away, these are the sorts of bureaucratic roadblocks that will need to change. I'm constantly amazed at how difficult it is to find information on military websites, compared to the civilian world. OPSEC requires that we have secure communities like Air Force Portal or AKO, but if nothing else, these need to be Joint. Interservice fighting may always be a problem, but it will certainly be worse if officers cannot even communicate with each other. And behind the secure walls of these portals, the military needs to vastly improve the accessibility of information.

A Military Blogging Fan We Should Listen To

My research on military blogging has uncovered some great articles. Props to Noah Shachtman at Wired: Danger Room for a number of great posts about the military blogging debate.

In mid-2007 the issue turned hot when the Army published stringent new regulations requiring soldiers to screen every public posting on the Internet through their chain of command. Danger Room posted an article about a soldier with the 82nd Airborne who nearly received an Article 15 for running a blog about his experiences in Iraq (although he also received encouragement from the 82nd's Public Affairs office to keep the blog running). The issue hit headlines again in early 2008, when the Air Force decided to firewall all blogs from its network. Farewell to half the foreign affairs reading I rely on as a military officer.

In the midst of all this, Danger Room posted an e-mail sent to the famous military blogger Blackfive from none other than General Petraeus. Maybe this is a guy worth listening to.

...I wanted to offer my thanks to you for what you've done and also to thank, via you, the bloggers who have worked to provide accurate descriptions of the situation on the ground here in Iraq and elsewhere. Milbloggers have become increasingly important, of course, given the enormous growth in individuals who get their news online in the virtual world instead of through newspapers and television. So please extend my appreciation to them for performing this task -- and, of course, for doing it in ways that does not violate legitimate operational security guidelines. Best from Baghdad

-- General Dave Petraeus

The last line is key. The solution for preserving OPSEC is not to ban blogging; such draconian measures are counterproductive, and besides, they're not enforceable. Rather, senior leaders should establish sound guidance on how soldiers can publicly communicate without violating OPSEC.

On Military Blogging

Building Peace is my third attempt at a blog. In each instance, I've created a blog because I have a strong desire to write and feel that I have insights worth communicating. In each case I've eventually stopped writing. Why? Largely because the military is so hostile to blogging and so concerned with protecting sensitive information. A military officer is also obligated to obey the policies of his military and civilian leaders. Officers and scholars debate the extent to which a good officer should express his or her opinions, but according to one school of thought, officers simply should not express their opinions in public. As a result, the military generally views blogging as a threat.

That may be changing.

Mark Grimsley wrote an excellent post called Strategic Blogging about the Army's developing interest in blogging as a tool of strategic communication. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, Commanding General of the U.S. Combined Arms Center and Commandant of the US Army Command and General Staff College, is pushing officer blogs hard. His initiatives have sparked a lot of discussion.

Blogging has already emerged as an important communication tool in the military. Small Wars Journal, for example, is one of the most important think tanks in the military and draws some of the top thinkers from all four services. It is one of the chief intellectual battlegrounds in the debate about balancing the military for conventional and counterinsurgency operations.

By endorsing blogging, the military will gain two things:

First, the world today is so dynamic, complex, and fast-changing that traditional top-down hierarchies can no longer compete successfully. This is just as true of the military as it is of the business world, which is rapidly transforming to embrace principles like "wikinomics" and "crowdsourcing." By its nature the military will always require a strong hierarchy and clear lines of top-down authority, but it needs to simultaneously embrace the collaborative power and ideas of its mid-level officers. The transformation of our strategy in Iraq is a credit to this kind of organizational model. Senior Army and Marine leadership created a genuine "learning organization", drawing on the combined expertise of military officers, lawyers, human rights activists, anthropologists, and many others to develop a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. General Petraeus is now undertaking a similar process to review CENTCOM from top-to-bottom. He surrounds himself with "designated thinkers" like Rhodes scholars and counterinsurgency specialists. One of Petraeus' greatest accomplishments is pushing an organizational model that draws on the best talent at his disposal.

In this kind of dynamic learning environment, blogs are powerful tools to exchange and review ideas. In the past few years, mid-level officers like Lt. Col. Paul Yingling and Lt. Col. Gian Gentile have emerged as prominent voices in the military's internal debates. The US military needs to encourage this kind of vigorous intellectual exchange among its officers. At the end of the day commanders will issue their orders and subordinates will follow them, but these commanders will need to harness the innovation and talent of their best officers. That is the only way the military will adapt to a changing world as quickly as our enemies.

Second, blogging can be an important too for strategic communication. The US is failing to communicate a convincing vision to the rest of the world. Expensive government-operated information campaigns have failed to take off; they are viewed as propaganda by much of the world (including within America) and are, frankly, seldom interesting. In such a world, what better way to communicate an American vision than giving voice to the hundreds of thousands of men and women who wear the uniform? There is no putting the genie back in the bottle; a vast number of young servicemembers are already on Facebook and MySpace, despite the official objections of their services. Why not legitimize this innovative technology, and encourage soldiers, sailors and airmen to really show their friends and family what being an American warrior is all about? Opening up this technology is frightening for senior leaders, but the gains far outweigh the risks. Military leaders will need to craft policies that balance legitimate OPSEC needs with openness, but this can be done.

With all that said, I'm hoping to begin blogging more regularly.