News From USJFCOM: Noble Resolve 07-2 aims at making communication easier

Noble Resolve 07-2 aims at making communication easier

U.S. Joint Forces Command's Noble Resolve 07-2 will use modeling and simulation and long-distance virtual connections as tools to help make an experiment possible as it begins later this month to enhance homeland defense measures and military support in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

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By Robert Pursell
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SUFFOLK, Va. - Aug. 10, 2007) -- The second portion of U.S. Joint Forces Command's (USJFCOM) Noble Resolve will kick off later this month with a series of simulation-driven experiments meant to enhance homeland defense measures and military support to civil agencies during natural or man-made disasters.

Noble Resolve, sponsored by USJFCOM, is an experimentation campaign plan supporting U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) to develop solutions for U.S. agencies and organizations by providing the means to deter, prevent, and defeat threats and aggression aimed at the U.S., its territories, and interests.

Noble Resolve 07-2 will use intricate computer-based models and long distance virtual connections to provide the environment for participants to make decisions and work together as they would in the case of a real crisis.

By using the models, no troops or emergency personnel will actually have to deploy or respond to events, saving money and time.

According to Army Lt. Col. Steve Smith, the military lead for Noble Resolve 07-2, the focus of the week-long experiment, scheduled from Aug. 20 - 24, will be to improve participants' ability to work together in an experimental environment approximating real world crisis.

"The ultimate goal is for the participants that are going to be involved in Noble Resolve 07-2 to become better internally with their mission and how it applies to homeland defense and homeland security. So it's all geared towards the participants and the customers and making them better through providing them an environment to experiment inside of," he said.

"It's not only providing an environment for these participants to look inward at themselves, but also by them all participating and looking at their internal objectives, they all have a chance to peek over the fence and make contacts with additional folks in the network they would actually have to work with in real crisis situations. This makes them all better."

Noble Resolve 07-2 will bring approximately 100 people from across the United States and abroad to develop solutions to provide improved defense support to civil authorities and build upon global partnerships.

In addition to NORTHCOM, USJFCOM will partner with the state of Oregon, the U.S. Transportation Command, the Joint Task Force Homeland Defense, located in Hawaii, and other federal agencies such as the Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI and FEMA. It will also team with the Republic of Korea, as well as other foreign liaison officers from other countries.

Last April's Noble Resolve 07-1 held experimental scenarios with the commonwealth of Virginia; however with Noble Resolve 07-2, the focus will be on the state of Oregon and the Pacific theater. Smith said some of the scenarios enhancing homeland defense will be different as well. Two of the scenarios were developed with the help of participants.

"The experiment scenarios that were devised here were all based on input from the voluntary participants, so there will be an earthquake in Oregon and a tsunami in Hawaii," he said.

Smith said another difference is that Noble Resolve 07-1 worked in conjunction with a state event, while Noble Resolve 07-2 will be its own event.

"It is not in conjunction with an ongoing event, whereas Noble Resolve 07-1 was piggy-backing on top of a Virginia training exercise," he said. "This one is more of a stand-alone event with all of the participants so there's no ongoing exercise or experiment that we're overlaid on."

Bud Hay, director of the experimentation group at USJFCOM's Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate (J9), said the experiment this month has additional advantages, based off of the success of the experiment in April.

"One of the things that's different is that, although the game was distributed to the commonwealth of Virginia's fusion center last time, this is a much bigger distribution and we will integrate the modeling and simulation tools more deeply into game play. We're also working closer with Dept. of Homeland Security and OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Office of Homeland Defense than we did last time. These are wonderful developments created by the success of the first experiment," said Hay.

He said the primary USJFCOM role for the experiment, like the last one, will be to provide some of the command's unique modeling and simulation (M&S) tools to help create the scenarios. This will take place from the Joint Futures Lab located in Suffolk, Va.
Smith said participants will also be able to build upon the new partnerships that were formed.

"The networks that were formed as a result of voluntarily participating in this experiment can be leveraged in the future to keep working on homeland defense issues as they come up," he said.

With the success of Noble Resolve so far, Hay said the plan is to make it an annual event.

"Noble Resolve 07-1 was such a success in allowing state, local and international folks to talk to each other and share information and ideas that the Dept. of Homeland Security and OSD's Office of Homeland Defense, NORTHCOM and USJFCOM decided to make it into a series. This is the second game in that series," he said. "We look to have two experiments per year, one always being here with the commonwealth, and the other one broader afield. We might also move them up to regional levels as opposed to state levels."