Today, the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities (ETC) will host a closed roundtable entitled, "Improving Department of Defense Operations in the Information Environment: A Roundtable Discussion on Technology and Concepts." Witnesses will include: Rudolph Atallah of White Mountain Research, LLC; Dr. Rand Walztman of the Software Engineering Institute; Austin Branch and Elizabeth Wehr of COLSA Corporation.
Looking ahead to the roundtable session, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Chairman of the Subcommittee, said:
"The internet and other forms of media are incredibly powerful and effective tools for communication and influence with a whole host of audiences. Increasingly, terrorists and other adversaries are using the Internet and other media as a means of contacting and connecting with each other and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we all have seen the horrifying images of their savagery and read their message of viciousness and hate.
The United States must counter this dangerous and persuasive propaganda. It is a direct and dangerous threat to our security.
Today, our subcommittee is hosting a roundtable discussion with experts from industry and academia to examine how the Department of Defense conducts information operations (IO) and counter-propaganda activities.
In examining other security challenges, I am struck by the sophistication of how adversaries like ISIS and Russia use the 21st century media environment to recruit, persuade, and even dissuade U.S. actions. I am equally dumbfounded by how ponderous, and sometimes inept, our responses are. For a nation that pioneered and continues to be a global leader in technology, marketing, and communication, I find that we have been woefully lacking in our response to these challenges.
In our roundtable today, we've asked industry and academia to delve deeper into these challenges so Members can better understand what is being done now, and what more we may need to do in the future to operate in a more agile, flexible, proactive, and effective way.
For our members, we hope to address a number of areas, including:
* What are our current capabilities for IO and counter-propaganda, and how are they being integrated into larger strategies to deal with specific actors like ISIS, Russia, Iran, China and others?
* How can we bring new technologies and concepts to bear to improve our ability to sense, detect, analyze, and respond in the 21st century media environment?
* What policy challenges impair our ability to deploy these technologies and concepts?
I appreciate the time and efforts of our panel, and look forward to using this discussion to improve the understanding of our members. I also look forward to continuing this discussion with the Department and potentially other federal agency officials later this fall."
