F.P. Report
WASHINGTON: General Glen D. VanHerck, commander, NORAD and U.S. Northern Command has said that I’m honored to serve as the commander of two distinct commands, North American Aerospace Defense Command, turned 63 year old in May, and the commander of the United States Northern Command, with two incredibly noble missions: defending North America primarily in the air domain for NORAD, also providing maritime warning; and obviously, defending our homeland, to include Alaska, for North — for United States Northern Command; and providing defense support of civil authorities on a routine basis, and the coordination we do with the nations in the NORTHCOM AOR with Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas.
Our peer competitors hold the homeland at risk in every vector and every domain. The Global Information Dominance Experiment that we’re going to talk about, and more specifically, the recent Global Information Dominance Experiment 3 was a cross-command event seeking to leap forward our ability to maintain domain awareness, achieve information dominance and provide decision superiority in competition and crisis. GIDE 3 included representatives from all 11 combatant commands, and later today, I’ll conduct an outbrief with most of the commanders and certainly, their representatives. And I can tell you, each combatant command is very excited about what we’re doing, and I look forward to that outbrief.
As the secretary of defense recently said, integrated deterrence is about using the right mix of technology, operational concepts and capabilities, all woven together in a networked way that — so — that is credible, flexible and formidable that will give any adversary pause, especially to think about attacking our homeland. So I fundamentally believe that integrated deterrence, which you’re hearing the secretary talk a lot about today, allows for the increase of decision space, and that GIDE, the Global Information Dominance Experiments, embodies a fundamental change in how we use information and data to increase decision space for leaders from the tactical level to the strategic level — not only military leaders, but also gives opportunity for our civilian leaders.
GIDE also makes a concerted effort to create global integration, shifting the department away from today’s regionally-focused plans, strategies, the way we do force management and force design paradigms, and budgetary and acquisition processes. We’re shifting our focus away from pure defeat mechanisms for homeland defense towards earlier, deter-and-deny actions well outside a conflict. GIDE spurs faster decisions and provides proactive options by making new technologies more accessible and more effective.
Right now, the threats we face and the pace of change in the geostrategic environment continues to advance at really alarming rates. We’ve entered a era of new and renewed strategic competition, and this time, we’re facing two peer competitors, both nuclear-armed, that are competing against us on a daily basis. We must outpace our competitors by accelerating our own efforts to transform our culture, including factoring in homeland defense into every strategy, every plan, force management, force design decision, as well as aspects of acquisition and budget so that we can deter in competition, de-escalate in crisis and if required, defeat in conflict.
In addition to the work we’re doing with global information dominance as we defend our homelands, United States Northern Command has been actively executing our defense support of civil authorities mission, whether supporting our whole-of-nation effort that we recently wrapped up in June with COVID support, not only medical support, but vaccinations, we’re actively engaged in fighting wildland firefighting today, supporting the Department of State with Afghan special immigrants as well.
We’re also building military-to-military partnerships, outstanding relationships with key neighbors such as Mexico, Canada and the Bahamas. And I look forward to discussing all of these important efforts and topics with you.
