Indian Strategic Studies: 10/07/19

7 October 2019

What the private sector can do for India's economic growth

The private sector’s role in encouraging a country’s growth and economic development cannot be overstated. Private enterprises are the chief agents in creating employment, providing funds, building competitiveness and driving innovation - all essential instruments for growth.

The private sector, in particular, takes entrepreneurial risks, which is central to how it translates investments into wealth creation and income generation. This role takes on further significance in the current context, as rising uncertainties in a rapidly changing global landscape cause economic growth concerns, particularly for emerging nations.

In the past, India has shown strong resilience in the face of global volatility and has continued to grow steadily, placing it among the world’s fastest-growing economies. The Indian economy grew at a rate of 6.8% during 2018 and is projected to grow at a rate of 7% and 7.2% during 2019 and 2020, respectively. The private sector has played a huge role in India’s development and is largely responsible for the phenomenal growth registered by the country since the economy was opened up in 1991.

This is how India can become the next Silicon Valley

India has long branded itself as the world's leading outsourcing destination for global companies, particularly for those in the technology sector - but in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the time is ripe for the world's most populous country to reinvent itself.

There is a burgeoning start-up and innovation culture, as shown by the Global Innovation Index, where India has improved its ranking from 81 to 52 between 2015 and 2019. In addition, the country has improved its reputation in terms of the risk posed to foreign investments and, in 2019, ranked third in the world in terms of attracting investment for technology transactions.

To maintain this momentum, India needs to further improve government regulations to encourage support for technological innovation, train tech talent and incentivize it to stay in the country and continue to improve its risk profile by attracting significant foreign and domestic investment in technology. Provided these favourable conditions can be met, India has unmatched potential to become the world's next Silicon Valley.

Global protectionism - the fuel for innovation in India?

India's record-breaking diaspora in numbers

India has the largest diaspora in the world, with around 18 million of its citizens living in other countries. The US is their top destination: in 2017, people of Indian descent made up 1.3% of the American population, and they are the most successful immigrants in the country.

As economist Nirvikar Singh says in an interview with the University of California Santa Cruz, “Indian entrepreneurship is a very important engine of economic growth." The co-author of a book on the Indian diaspora in the US notes that 8% of the founders of high-tech companies are Indian. With Sundar Pichai running Google and Satya Nadella the CEO of Microsoft, Indians play a prominent role in some of America’s biggest tech firms.

The Case Against Weakening India's No First Use Policy

Aditya Ramanathan
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Last month defence minister Rajnath Singh chose Pokhran – the site of India’s nuclear tests – to suggest that the future of the country’s nuclear no first use policy would depend on changing “circumstances”. Singh’s surprise statement was apparently aimed at Pakistan after tensions escalated following the Indian government’s decision to bifurcate the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories.

The statement also comes amid dissatisfaction with the no first use policy, with one critic calling it a “formula for disaster”. Opponents cite Pakistan’s battlefield nuclear weapons, which they believe offer a shield for Pakistan-based terrorism. The way out, according to this logic, would be for India to threaten pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Pakistan’s arsenal.

However, the critics’ diagnosis of the disease is faulty, and their proposed cure will only make matters worse. Pakistan cannot credibly threaten to use battlefield nuclear weapons early in a conflict. On the other hand, an Indian threat to disarm Pakistan will backfire, creating more problems than it solves.

Understanding Pakistan’s nuclear threats

Indian economy needs structural reforms & behavioural change, not macroeconomic jargon

NITIN PAI

Okay, the Indian economy is in a slowdown and it is absolutely important for us to quickly get back onto the path of high growth. The $5 trillion-dollar question is “how”? Unfortunately, the public discourse over finding answers to this question has become mired in macroeconomic jargon, bureaucratic grammar and stock market clichés that are confusing even when they make sense.

Informed, educated citizens — like their political leaders — can be forgiven for being confounded when told that we have a twin balance sheet problem, banks stuck with NPAs and that transmission channels have to be strengthened and aggregate demand has to pick up. Sure, there is a need — and an important one — for technical discussion among macroeconomists, financial analysts, business journalists and policymakers, but it cannot be the only show in town.

The problem

Afghan election a cautious success story

By BINAIFER NOWROJEE

As millions of Afghans went to the polls last weekend to elect a new president, international headlines were dominated by doom and gloom. The elections have largely been defined by the collapsed US-led peace talks with the Taliban, threats by the insurgents against anyone daring to enter a polling station, and a historically low turnout.

But scratch the surface just a bit, and there were actually some encouraging signs. Across the country, Afghan women and men braved the threat of violence to show that they want to build a democratic future for their country, free of a seemingly never-ending war.

Against expectations, the vote passed relatively peacefully. The Taliban had threatened serious violence on election day, but the expected carnage never came to pass. While there were several hundred small-scale attacks according to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the security forces appeared to have prevented any mass-casualty events. The government claimed that about 68 attacks had led to 37 civilian deaths on election day, although some media reporting put the number higher. These are, of course, grim figures that speak to the harrowing human cost of war in Afghanistan, but they do not represent an increase on the conflict’s average casualty rates.

Policy Roundtable: The Future of South Asia

By Debak Das

1. Introduction: A Changed Status Quo: Key Dynamics in the India-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship

Political relations in South Asia have hit rough weather. In 2019 alone, the Line of Control in Kashmir has seen continuous ceasefire violations by both India and Pakistan; there have been two crises (one military and one political) between the two countries; both neighbors have reminded the other, using veiled threats, that they possess nuclear weapons; and each has implied that the threshold for using such weapons could change. So where does the nuclear relationship between India and Pakistan stand? Where do the key threats to peace in the region come from?

Three key dynamics currently mark the nuclear relationship between India and Pakistan. The first is a possible change to India’s nuclear no-first-use policy — something the Indian government has signaled through political statements and actions in the last few years. The second is Pakistan’s and India’s development of new tactical and strategic nuclear delivery systems. And the third is the lowering of the threshold for conventional military engagement. Each of these dynamics points to a change in the erstwhile nuclear status quo in South Asia and represents serious challenges to the security and stability of the region.

The No-First-Use Debate

Why China is Setting its Sights on Ukraine

By Valbona Zeneli and Nataliia Haluhan

As China continues to assert itself as an emerging world power, Europe remains a very important target. While Chinese investment has significantly increased, by 50 times in the last decade, the current figures underestimate the true scope of Beijing’s ambitions in the old continent. To achieve its goals, every European country is important for China: economically, geographically, or politically. Ukraine is no exclusion from the rule.

Beijing’s multifaceted interests in Ukraine mainly relate to its strategic geographic location. It is highly attractive as a logistic transit hub within the Belt and Road (BRI) initiative that links China with European Union (EU) markets. Other attractive factors are its rich natural resources, opportunities for new infrastructure projects and its agricultural industry.

These factors are all in line with the Chinese expansionist agenda in Europe. A member of OBOR since 2017, the business community and political leaders in Ukraine have shown increased interest in deepening cooperation with China. To serve this purpose, the “Belt and Road” Trade and Investment Promotion Center was established in Kyiv, seeing BRI as a tool to improve infrastructure, attract foreign investment from China, invest in energy projects and modernize agricultural technology.

How Military Spending Has Changed Since 2009 [Infographic]

Niall McCarthy

China has celebrated 70 years of Communist Party rule by holding a massive military parade in central Beijing. Even though the events have been overshadowed by months of protests in Hong Kong, the parade enabled the authorities to showcase the country's technological achievements and its steady rise to superpower status. At least 15,000 troops marched through Tiananmen Square, observed by leaders from China's past and present. They were accompanied by nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles and lines of rumbling main battle tanks along with flyovers by fighter jets and helicopters.

BEIJING, CHINA - OCTOBER 01: Chinese soldiers sit atop tanks as they drive in a parade to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, at Tiananmen Square on October 1, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo byGETTY IMAGES

In recent years, China has ratcheted up investment in its armed forces, aiming to replace its Soviet-era equipment and transform it into a state-of-the-art military by 2049. That push for modernization occurred during a period when the United States was mired in two bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though no country comes close to matching America's $649 billion outlay on defence in 2018 (China spent $250 billion), Beijing had the highest increase in military expenditure by far over the past decade, according to Sipri data.

China’s National Day Grand Military Parade

The PRC celebrated its 70th anniversary today, with much pomp and pageantry in Beijing. President Xi Jinping delivered a brief and rather underwhelming speech, emphasising the unity, development and strength of the PRC. "There is no force that can shake the foundation of this great nation. Socialist China is standing in front of the world. No force can stop the Chinese people and the Chinese nation forging ahead,” he said. Xi also mentioned the importance of the “one country two systems” formulation and the policy of “peaceful reunification.”

None of this has, of course, means that there’s going to a change in the tough policy towards Taiwan or that the protests in Hong Kong are stemming anytime soon. Today has been one of the most violent days of protests in Hong Kong, with a protester being shot.

After Xi’s speech, it was time for the PLA to take centre-stage. The parade was interesting not just for the weaponry on display but also because there were some larger themes that it echoed.

There were some 15,000 personnel, more than 160 aircraft and 580 pieces of weaponry and equipment marching down Chang’an Avenue. But here’s what was most noteworthy:

CHINA'S HYPERSONIC MISSILES, AKA 'CARRIER KILLERS,' ARE A 'HOLY S**T MOMENT' FOR US MILITARY

BY BILL POWELL

On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, President Xi Jinping was categorical about his country's future. "No force can stop the Chinese nation and the Chinese people from forging ahead," he said in front of thousands of people in Beijing. It's widely recognized that China intends to supplant the United States as the world's biggest and most technologically advanced country: that's part of why Donald Trump is, for better or worse, waging a trade war with China. Less well understood, but no less true, is that China seeks to become the world's dominant military power as well—and has made significant strides toward that end. In a speech last week, retired Admiral William McRaven, the former head of U.S. special forces, called China's intensifying military build-up "a holy shit moment for the United States."

The most visible and, for U.S. defense planners, most troubling evidence of China's military advance comes in the form of hypersonic missiles, commonly known as "carrier killers." Beijing claims the weapons can hit surface vessels like aircraft carriers, and though that hasn't been proved, Pentagon planners worry. Hypersonics are much faster than cruise missiles and fly at different trajectories than ballistic missiles. They glide. That makes current U.S. missile defense systems, aimed at identifying and knocking down ballistic missiles during their parabolic flight paths, useless.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Is One Despot Trump Might Not Win Over

BY KARIM SADJADPOUR
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Iran’s President arrived in New York City in September and left, as usual, without meeting the American one. Both Hassan Rouhani and Donald Trump professed an appetite for sitting down and talking over the ever more treacherous rift between their nations. But as Rouhani has pointed out in private, Iran’s top elected official “has no authority in foreign policy.” That authority–and nearly every other strand of power in the Islamic Republic–resides with the elderly cleric who remained 6,000 miles away, in the country he has not left for decades.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 80 years of age, disabled by a saboteur’s bomb blast and lit by a righteous certainty, holds the title of Supreme Leader of Iran. But he has quietly emerged as the most powerful person in the Middle East, with uniformed military fighting in Syria and loyal proxies dominant in Lebanon, Yemen and (despite a U.S. investment of $1 trillion and thousands of lives) Iraq. Since the spring, behind a thin veil of denials, he has also presided over an audacious and escalating campaign to raise uncertainty and global oil prices, shooting down a $176 million U.S. drone, blowing holes in tankers and bombing the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil production, all without drawing a U.S. military response.

The “Drone” Lexicon

JOSEPH CHAPA

The literature on the ethics of remote warfare—some might say “drones”—has suffered from an unfortunate lexicon. Many of the terms that repeatedly arise in the literature are often misunderstood. I have addressed some of these, namely “bugsplat,” “squirter,” and “Hellfire” elsewhere (Chapa 2017, 2018). Conceptions of “distance,” “courage,” “combat,” and “precision” have also undergone some evaluation and revision in the literature (Fitzsimmons and Sangha 2013, Kirkpatrick 2015a, 202-219, Sparrow 2015, 220-227, Kirkpatrick 2015b, 228-231, Swarts 2016, Kaag and Kreps 2014, 12). Here I have a concern about even more fundamental nomenclature. The very term, “drone,” might have outlived its usefulness. Here I argue that “drone” is often unhelpful and is useful only to the degree that those who use it clarify the sub-categories within it that are actually at stake in any given claim. These subcategories should be understood in terms of a number of axes along which the set of drones extends: (1) function, (2) cost—as a proxy for technological sophistication—and (3) as a techno-social system.

First, I take for granted that “drone” refers to an aircraft that does not have a human pilot or operator on board. To show just how crowded the category of “drones” has become, I appeal to the wide array of remote warfare systems employed in the conflict in Yemen. Then I develop a positive argument for how the broad category of “drones” might be structured to enable a more fruitful and less confused discussion going forward. I argue that we should categorize these systems (1) according to their operational function—for example, there is an important difference between intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) functions and strike functions. (2) We should also look at systems’ monetary cost, which often correlates with technological sophistication. A $650 quadcopter and a $100 million Global Hawk (2014, 36) are worlds apart in this regard. (3) Finally, we should evaluate these remote weapons as techno-social systems—we should ask about the degree of interaction between the human pilot or operator and the technology.

Drones in Yemen

Trump’s Close-Call Diplomacy with Iran’s President

By Robin Wright

On the evening of Tuesday, September 24th, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, went to see his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, at the Millennium Hilton Hotel, across the street from the U.N. headquarters, in New York. The hotel is one of only three places that the Iranian leader could go in the city, because of U.S. sanctions. Macron intended to set up a three-way telephone conversation with Rouhani and President Trump. A team of technicians arrived to set up a secure line, in a meeting room on Rouhani’s floor, for the call at 9:30 p.m. The telephone conversation was supposed to cap twenty-four hours of frenetic diplomacy—including personal appeals to Rouhani by the British, Japanese, and Pakistani Prime Ministers and the German Chancellor—after months of quiet French diplomacy.

Earlier in the day, Macron, alongside the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had urged Rouhani to talk with Trump. Their exchange was caught on video. “If he leaves the country without meeting President Trump, honestly, this is a lost opportunity,” Macron directed an interpreter to tell Rouhani, amid a scrum of diplomats and photographers. “Because he will not come back in a few months and President Trump will not go to Tehran.” Rouhani threw his head back and laughed. “So they have to meet now!” Macron insisted. Johnson chimed in, as cameras flashed, “You need to be on the side of the swimming pool—and jump at the same time.”

The U.S. Army Plans to Deploy Super-Charged Lasers to Shootdown Cruise Missiles

by Sebastien Roblin

Lasers focus beams of light to produce intense heat. They have virtually inexhaustible “ammunition” and are very cheap per shot compared to a missile or even a cannon shell. They are also extremely quick and precise, though they tend to lose coherence over distance. The more powerful the laser, the further it can go and the quicker it burns through its target—but the larger its power supply and cooling system have to be.

The Army hopes that ground-based lasers will provide an effective and cost-efficient means to defend against two major new threats which threaten to overwhelm existing air defenses: drones and surface-skimming cruise missiles. Both are proliferating rapidly around the globe, and both were employed in a recent attack that knocked out half of Saudi Arabia’s daily oil production—despite the facilities being covered by both short- and long-range air defense systems.

Why Europe Won't Combat Huawei's Trojan Tech

by Carisa Nietsche Bolton Smith
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The United States has been unsuccessful at getting European countries to ban Huawei from building their fifth-generation wireless (5G) networks. It’s not for a lack of trying. Washington has used a variety of approaches to attempt to win Europe’s support on this issue. Washington has tried leading by example, hoping its decision to ban Huawei from U.S. networks would prompt Europe to do the same. U.S. officials have discussed providing subsidies to those countries that purchase 5G equipment from Huawei’s competitors. They have threatened to reduce intelligence sharing if Europe integrates Huawei into its telecommunications infrastructure. They have also highlighted the risks of espionage and threat to critical infrastructure that arise from the use of Huawei equipment. But there is a tactic that the United States hasn’t yet tried—data privacy. Talking to Europe about data privacy and pointing out the risks that Huawei would pose to Europe’s data privacy standards could resonate and help peel Europe away from the technology company.

Putin Welcomes Stalin Back to the Pantheon

By Andrei Kolesnikov

On November 10, 1982, the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died. The editors of Pravda, the country’s main newspaper, confronted something of a dilemma. A black frame would surround the front page to indicate mourning. But how thick should it be—the same size as for mere mortals, or special in some way? Eventually, someone thought to look in the newspaper’s archives to see what size had been used when Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died, in 1953. The paper used precisely the same frame to announce Brezhnev’s death.

This thick black quadrangle continues to hold Russian and Soviet history captive, bounding current understanding with myths about the past. The country’s politicians are obsessed by Soviet glories. They have declared themselves heirs to all the victories of their socialist predecessors—whether on the battlefield, in space, or in feats of engineering. This history is really that of the state and its war machine, rather than that of the nation.

Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate

The IPCC approved and accepted Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate at its 51st Session held on 20 – 23 September 2019. The approved Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was presented at a press conference on 25 September 2019.

Download the Report

The World’s Oceans Are in Danger, Major Climate Change Report Warns

By Brad Plumer

WASHINGTON — Climate change is heating the oceans and altering their chemistry so dramatically that it is threatening seafood supplies, fueling cyclones and floods and posing profound risks to the hundreds of millions of people living along the coasts, according to a sweeping United Nations report issued Wednesday.

The report concludes that the world’s oceans and ice sheets are under such severe stress that the fallout could prove difficult for humans to contain without steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Fish populations are already declining in many regions as warming waters throw marine ecosystems into disarray, according to the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders in policymaking.

“The oceans are sending us so many warning signals that we need to get emissions under control,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and a lead author of the report. “Ecosystems are changing, food webs are changing, fish stocks are changing, and this turmoil is affecting humans.”

FBI Issues ‘High-Impact’ Cyber Attack Warning—What You Need To Know

Davey Winder

Be it the prohibition-era gangsters of the 1920s or the global war on terrorism, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been the primary U.S. investigative agency of the federal government with a responsibility to protect the nation. As part of what the FBI describes as being "a unique dual responsibility, to prevent harm to national security as the nation’s domestic intelligence agency and to enforce federal laws as the nation’s principal law enforcement agency," it has increasingly had to deal with the cyber threat. One "high impact" and ongoing cyber threat has become such a critical concern that on October 2, the FBI issued a warning to U.S businesses and organizations.

What is the high-impact threat to U.S. business?

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last posted a warning about ransomware on September 15, 2016. Then it was urging victims to report ransomware incidents to federal law enforcement to help paint a detailed picture of the threat. The threat landscape revealed has been a constantly changing one. The frequency of attacks has remained relatively consistent, but the nature of them has not. The FBI reports that the incidence of indiscriminate ransomware campaigns, such as evidenced by WannaCry on May 2017, has "sharply declined." However, losses from ransomware have increased significantly as the attacks become "more targeted, sophisticated and costly."

Can cyber warfare be regulated?

By Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

CAMBRIDGE – Whether or not a conflict spirals out of control depends on the ability to understand and communicate about the scale of hostility. Unfortunately, when it comes to cyber conflict, there is no agreement on scale or how it relates to traditional military measures. What some regard as an agreed game or battle may not look the same to the other side.

A decade ago, the United States used cyber sabotage instead of bombs to destroy Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities. Iran responded with cyber attacks that destroyed 30,000 Saudi Aramco computers and disrupted American banks. This summer, following the imposition of crippling sanctions by US President Donald Trump’s administration, Iran shot down an unmanned American surveillance drone. There were no casualties. Trump initially planned a missile strike in response, but canceled it at the last moment in favor of a cyber attack that destroyed a key database used by the Iranian military to target oil tankers. Again, there were costs but not casualties. Iran then carried out, directly or indirectly, a sophisticated drone and cruise missile strike against two major Saudi oil facilities. While it appears there were no or only light casualties, the attack represented a significant increase in costs and risks.

The problem of perceptions and controlling escalation is not new. In August 1914, the major European powers expected a short and sharp “Third Balkan War.” The troops were expected to be home by Christmas. After the assassination of the Austrian archduke in June, Austria-Hungary wanted to give Serbia a bloody nose, and Germany gave its Austrian ally a blank check rather than see it humiliated. But when the Kaiser returned from vacation at the end of July and discovered how Austria had filled in the check, his efforts to de-escalate were too late. Nonetheless, he expected to prevail and almost did.

Even If You Hate Zuckerberg Now, You’ll Love Him Later

Alexis C. Madrigal

A certain distaste for Facebook’s chief Mark Zuckerberg underlies much of the recent reaction to the company’s annus horribilis. Just last week, the company announced a data breach affecting 50 million people, right on the heels of Instagram’s prominent founders leaving Facebook. Whether it’s a hack or a corporate battle, Zuckerberg does not get the benefit of the doubt, let alone the awe and reverence afforded to comparable company-creating CEOs like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t mention Zuckerberg’s 14-year-old messages about his first 4,000 users: “they ‘trust me’” as proof of his venality.

In opposition to Zuckerberg, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and WhatsApp’s Brian Acton and Jan Koum, who left before them, somehow become deeply sympathetic characters in their struggles to protect their beloved products. This is despite all of them having made at least hundreds of millions of dollars selling to and working for Facebook.

In this narrative, Facebook comes across as rapacious, growth-obsessed, greedy. Acton gave Forbes this anecdote about his plan to charge people money instead of showing them ads. Sheryl Sandberg, he says, shot it down, saying that wouldn’t scale.

New U.N. Debate on Cybersecurity in the Context of International Security

By Nele Achten

In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish two separate groups to study international law and norms in relation to cyberspace. Resolution 73/27—proposed by a number of countries, including Russia—created an open-ended working group (OEWG) on the subject. Another group of countries—including Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States—supported a resolution advocating continuing the debate within the framework of a group of governmental experts (GGE) reporting to the secretary-general.

A GGE on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security has convened since 2004 and failed to produce a consensus report in 2017. The GGE has yet to convene this year, but the OEWG gathered for its first substantive meeting from Sept. 11 to Sept. 12. This is the first time that all U.N. member states were invited to discuss developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of international security.

SOCOM ramps up efforts to develop ‘cutting-edge data techniques,’ opens new data engineering lab

By: Diana Stancy Correll

The U.S. Special Operations Command Data Engineering Lab grand opening ceremony took place in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 25, 2019. The lab is an open-concept work environment and is the Command’s outpost of a larger DoD modernization eco-system, whose goal is to foster collaboration between Special Operations Forces professionals, data scientists, data architects, software developers, systems integrators and technologists. (Photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Barry Loo)

U.S. Special Operations Command is ramping up its efforts to develop “cutting-edge data techniques” like artificial intelligence to boost readiness and minimize costs.

As part of that initiative, the command unveiled its new Data Engineering Lab located at the SOFWERX facility in Tampa, Florida, on Wednesday. SOFWERX was established under a partnership intermediary agreement with SOCOM and DEFENSEWERX, formerly known as the Doolittle Institute, to help address war fighter problems for the command.

The Army hopes less software leads to better results

By: Mark Pomerleau

The Army has completed a two-year effort to shrink the number of software programs it uses, a move that would allow service leaders to buy, maintain and field systems easier and to bolster network security.

The Army wants to reduce software costs and improve ability to update systems.

The project sought to modernize the tactical network capability of over 425 Army, Army Reserve and National Guard units and removed 86 versions of old software and hardware from battalion to corps, a Sept. 30 Army release said. The consolidation creates interoperability between formations, eases the ability to provide cyber protection patches and reduces sustainment costs, the Army said.

The consolidation shrunk the number of servers and applications, which the Army said not only reduces the time it takes to bring up network applications and to set up and tear down command posts, but it also sets the stage for fielding the Command Post Computing Environment, which will go to units with Tactical Server Infrastructure hardware.