Meeting highlights irregular warfare challenges

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
WOBURN, Mass. --  A Hanscom AFB official drew comparisons to the recent Boston Marathon bombings to make a key point about improvised explosive devices during a presentation here April 25.

Speaking at the Military Affairs Council breakfast meeting, Donald MacMillan, Irregular Warfare/Counter-IED Project Office lead, reminded the audience that warfighters face irregular warfare threats every day.

"We're dealing with the same problem and it's something that's going to be around for a long time," he said.

MacMillan said the Boston events, including the capture of one of the suspects, shows what is currently happening in the IED world. He said there are a lot of people with a lot of complex technology.

"It's going to take a cross-complexity, cross-capability to solve the problem."

He spoke about current work the office is involved with, including ground, air and cyber technologies, adding that most are small projects or efforts. MacMillan said most work in the future will be smaller-type activities, taking a warfighter need and maturing it along to technology readiness level 9, which means mission-proven.

One specific project he mentioned was trying to miniaturize a camera and put it into a gimbal which will mount onto an unmanned air vehicle.

"The biggest part of our problem right now is taking a capability that has been developed and try to integrate that into some of the other sensors," he said. "How do we get that down to the warfighter in a useable fashion so they can make quick decisions and actions from that?"

Funding is another area of concern, as MacMillan anticipates it getting smaller in the future.

"Because of that, we need to be more flexible," he said. "We need to make our partnering with industry tighter. I need to know what capability you have, where it's at and does it work."

He added that newer technology needs to be proven, including documentation and testing.

The second speaker, Roger Morin, program manager supporting "Attack the Network" at the Joint IED Defeat Organization from Gemini Industries, said that we are leaving the information age and moving into the knowledge age.

"You need to understand the age you're in," he said. "It's not good enough to get more information; now it's how you can learn quicker than your competitor."

Morin added that there are no pure IED networks, and both speakers agreed there is not a one-stop solution to irregular warfare.

"It's an across-the-board set of tools that is going to end up solving the problem," said MacMillan.