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Air Force Maj. Gen. Kevin Kennedy

Recent Capability Development News

Empire Challenge 11 now underway EC11, an annual intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance demonstration that showcases emerging capabilities and provides lessons learned to improve joint and combined intelligence support to operations, begins at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and other locations. • Comment on this article at USJFCOMLive

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Command capability development director discusses leader-centric, net-enabled C4ISR

U.S. Joint Forces Command's (USJFCOM) senior joint capability development leader discussed how command and control is improving decision making at the the third annual Distributed Common Ground System conference.

• Comment on this article at USJFCOMLive

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By MC2 (AW) Nikki Carter
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va., Nov. 4, 2009) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command's (USJFCOM) senior joint capability development leader discussed how command and control is improving decision making last week at the the third annual Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) conference.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Kevin Kennedy, USJFCOM's Joint Capability Development director, gave a keynote speech to an audience of approximately 1,100 members, telling the attendees that DCGS is about making "tighter" decision cycles to enhance the warfighters capability.

The DCGS mission is to collect, process and disseminate intelligence and imagery from manned and unmanned reconnaissance sources. The USJFCOM-sponsored conference, which ran Oct. 27-29, gathered program offices, developers and users to focus on establishing a fully-integrated, seamless enterprise to support warfighters.

"The purpose of DCGS is to enhance our fighting capabilities at the tactical edge. Every aspect of decision cycles is enhanced by DCGS," Kennedy said, emphasizing the rigorous conditions on the ground for warfighters in Afghanistan and their need for good command and control. DCGS enables collection and exploitation of intelligence.

Kennedy said DCGS is about leader-centric, net-enabled command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR).

"Net-enabling [C4ISR] makes it as easy as possible for that warfighter. It [leaders] helps make rapid decisions so they can act on commander's intent," said Kennedy.

Kennedy outlined the permissive, contested and hostile environments faced by warfighters as they engage in full spectrum operations. Kennedy stressed the need for redundancy and described how DCGS supports the variety of payloads required for today's complex operations.

Various panel discussions occurred throughout the conference on topics like: "DCGS Acquisition - Challenges and Innovations"; "Services and Combatant Command Perspectives"; "Defense Intelligence CIO"; "Coalition Perspectives - Partners in Information Sharing"; "Amplifying ISR: Bringing Proven Advanced Video Processing Technologies to the Warfighter Now."