September 23, 2015
This press release was originally posted by Foreign Affairs
An estimated $65 billion was spent in 2014 on Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR), reflecting a significant and growing component of U.S. defense spending. Driving spending: the need to update infrastructure to address emerging threats and incompatible systems acquired out of immediate wartime need rather than strategy.
With the defense acquisition reform debate taking on an even more critical role in the current budget environment, Foreign Affairs and technical partner and underwriter Booz Allen Hamilton, will convene leading experts and practitioners for a high-level examination of the challenges, misconceptions, and opportunities related to finding the best approach to achieving real defense acquisition reform and improving performance of large scale defense acquisition programs with an emphasis on C4ISR integration.
The event, Modernizing the Military, will take place on Wednesday, October 7, 2015, beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.
The evening’s program will feature a keynote address from the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work, followed by a panel discussion, Modernizing the Warfighting Network for the Future Force, moderated by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Janine Davidson.
An efficient and effective approach to networking the military for tactical communication in preparing for and executing global operations is essential to national security. How can the U.S. maintain technological superiority despite operating a patchwork of coexisting warfighting infrastructures? Participants will share their visions for an efficient and effective approach to networking the military in the face of constrained budgets and more sophisticated adversaries.
Joining Davidson will be General Mark Milley, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Michele Flournoy, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, and Greg Wenzel, executive vice president and lead of Digital Solutions/C4ISR within Booz Allen’s Strategic Innovation Group.
This meeting is an On-The-Record event and will be streamed live for remote viewing.
Registrants to the live stream receive a complimentary copy of the Integrated C4ISR viewpoint from consulting and engineering services firm Booz Allen, the event’s technical partner and underwriter.
Contact: To schedule an interview with attending leaders or executives, RSVPs to the event, and all other media inquiries, please contact Andrew Palladino, Media Relations, Foreign Affairs, apalladino@cfr.org, 212.434.9541.
Follow on twitter | @ForeignAffairs | @BoozAllen | @FALiveEvents
Join the Conversation | #FALive
