McRaven: Technology Will Help Special Operations Command Fight At ‘Speed of War’

Posted Aug 25, 2011 by Howard Altman

Updated Aug 25, 2011 at 09:39 AM

Adm. William McRaven, in his first public appearance since taking the helm of U.S. Special Operations Command, showed that in addition to knowing how to run special ops, he also knows how to grab an audience.

Speaking at the LandWarNet conference being held this week in Tampa, McRaven, the journalism major who engineered the plan to get Osama bin Laden, showed not just a commanding presence, but a sense of humor and stagecraft as well, joking with the audience about running a four-minute mile on a treadmill in Afghanistan and learning the importance of technological advancements from a sales clerk at Best Buy who informed him the huge screen television he wanted to purchase was way better because it got “yellow.”

I wrote about McRaven’s talk, which focused mostly on Socom’s technical needs, yesterday, but a computer snafu killed the final version.

So here it is:

As a military leader who travels frequently to the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with nearly 60,000 troops spread across more than 70 countries, Adm. William McRaven needs secure communications.

Speaking publicly for the first time since taking command of U.S. Special Operations Command on Aug. 8, McRaven – who engineered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden - told a packed room of military personnel and communications contractors at the LandWarNet conference what special operations require to better fight “at the speed of war.”

The job of special forces “will surprise you,” McRaven told the audience, using a slide, developed by his predecessor Adm. Eric Olson, depicting the “yin and yang” of special operations – both war fighting and engaging with diverse cultures. McRaven said the harder part of the job was not killing people, but maintaining strong communications with the people in the countries where special forces operate.

Improved technology, he said, is imperative to everything special forces do.

On any given day, special operations forces send 321,000 emails and engage in 210 video teleconferences.

To illustrate a point about gaps between military and civilian technology, McRaven talked about being on a treadmill in a gym in Afghanistan “doing my four-minute mile” and watching Wolf Blitzer.

The gym was noisy, he said, and the volume was turned down low.

But he knew what Blitzer was talking about, because of the closed captioning.

A secure version of that, said McRaven, would be extremely helpful to someone who has to deal with diverse languages and cultures.

Among other tops needs, said McRaven, is a “universal domain” that will allow special forces operators to communicate across top secret, secret and unclassified networks at the same time.

That will increase the speed and effectiveness of both the fighting and engagement tasks special forces must perform.

McRaven also asked for improved broadcast reception.

“When I was at Joint Special Operations Command, I did six video teleconferences a day,” he said. “Each one lasted an hour.”

But a lot of information, including body language, was lost, said McRaven. Improving reception is critical, he said, when dealing with people who come from other cultures and speak different languages.

McRaven also urged the audience to develop full spectrum search engines that, like the universal domains, will speed up the ability to access information – a critical function on the battlefield.

And everything special forces use to communicate, he said, must be enshrouded in “ironclad protection,” security that is essential in a world where governments, jihadi groups and rogue private citizens are hacking into government data bases, stealing information and threatening critical infrastructure.

But not everything McRaven talked about centered on technology.

Special ops forces deliver a great return on investment, he said.

Special Operations Command’s annual budget of $9.8 billion is 1.4 percent of the entire Department of Defense budget, he said

He also shared a view of the typical special operator that offered some surprises and countered pop culture depictions.

The average special operations force member, he said, is 34, college educated, married with two children and played sports.

And one more thing research found, McRaven said.

“Most of them play chess,” he said. “They are not the lone wolf living in an apartment by himself.

The remarks, at the LandWarNet conference being held at Tampa’s Convention Center, came during McRaven’s first public speaking engagement since taking over U.S. Special Operations Command on Aug. 8.

Before that, McRaven was commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.

LandWarNet, which runs through Friday, is the U.S. Army’s main cyber conference, bringing together military, academics and contractors to talk about the future of the service’s technology.

Cyber warfare is a major part of the conference, say organizers.

More than 9,000 people are attending.

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