'Command Posts of the Future' Readied for Afghan Surge

The marines heading to Afghanistan as part of this latest surge will keep track of friendly troops, enemy attacks and civilian infrastructure using Command Posts of the Future. Literally.

The U.S. military traditionally used separate software programs to plan artillery strikes, track aviation, document enemy actions, or map lines of attack. "Command Post of the Future" combines all of those systems into a single view -- and makes it shareable with across the military network. Drop a target on one screen, and it pops up on hundreds of connected terminals throughout Afghanistan.

Sounds simple. But the first time I got to see CPOF in action -- two years ago, with marines in Iraq -- it was one of the few times a piece of software literally took my breath away. The amount of information available was just that staggering. Here's how I saw it then:

Three screens sit on a desk, displaying a set of digital maps showing a God's-eye view of the entire country. Every American tank and truck is marked with blue icons. Every recent insurgent attack is marked in red... "There's a sea of information here. All you have to learn to do is fish in it," says Jim Kanzenbach, a tan, goateed Army contractor and trainer with a southern-accented baritone.

Kanzenbach taps the mouse a few times. Red diamonds representing all of the insurgent sigacts (military-speak for "significant activities") array themselves into a timeline. He sorts it by day of the week, then by hour of the day. White space appears during a particular hour; there don't seem to be any sigacts then. "If I was going to run a convoy, that would be the better time."

He clicks again, and the middle screen switches to a 3-D map of an Iraqi town from a driver's point of view. Kanzenbach smiles, and his mile-a-minute Texas patter goes hypersonic. "Now let's plan the route. You've got a mosque here. An IED happened over there two weeks ago. Here's the one that happened yesterday. Hey, that's too close. Let's change my route. Change the whole damn thing." He guides me through capability after capability of the command post — all kinds of charts, overlays, and animations. "But wait — there's more," he says. "You wanna see where all the Internet cafés are in Baghdad?"

The software, developed at Pentagon blue-sky research arm Darpa, was not supposed to be ready until 2011. But when Gen. Peter Chiarelli, then the head of the 1st Cavalry Division, visited Darpa in 2004, he insisted on taking CPOF with him to war in Iraq. Today, there are more than 6,000 copies in the field.

CPOF is the software component of a larger system, the "Combat Operations Center," that the Marine Corps uses to coordinate troops and gather up info on their foes. Think of is as a kind of headquarters in a box. Earlier this week, the marines gave General Dynamics a $54 million contract to put together 24 more of these centers for use in Afghanistan. The marines have so far spent $741 million on 295 of the systems.

Each one comes with different gear, depending on how many troops the headquarters is supposed to lead. According to General Dynamics, the smallest one includes eight CPOF-powered workstations, one "smart board," one projector," one generator tent to supply power and air conditioning, one operational trailer to bring in connectivity to the military's secure and unclassified data, voice, and voice-over-IP networks, and a small, six-server farm with all the appropriate switches and routers.

One thing these new centers won't have installed, according to the defense contractor: "Internet-like capabilities" like multi-chat, photo archiving -- and open protocols that let third parties develop web-like aps. Those are being built into the new model G Combat Operations Centers. The ones shipping to Afghanistan are model Fs. (For now, marines can presumably download those kind of tools on their own.) The military's Command Posts of the Future may be pretty impressive. But for some basic software, it's better to be a civilian in the present.

[Photo: General Dynamics]