Efforts to counter WMD threats complicated by data challenges

Efforts to counter WMD threats complicated by data challenges

Defense


Efforts to counter WMD threats complicated by data challenges


  • By Lauren C. Williams

  • Dec 15, 2019

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    The Defense Department is aiming to create a data-fueled environment that improves everything from administrative tasks to warfighting capabilities. But when it comes to monitoring and guarding against weapons of mass destruction (WMD), current policies are getting in the way.


    Ed Lawson, director of integration for the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense said more executive authority is needed to close the intelligence gaps and better coordinate efforts when it comes to preventing and detecting WMD risks.


    "I'm looking for an executive order," Lawson said during a Dec. 11 event on the topic hosted by FCW and Noblis.


    "Catastrophic is the way WMD is characterized," he said. "Every other catastrophic event is characterized in those documents, have an executive order to follow them, to coordinate and facilitate all across government. There is no authority there."


    There's also the infrastructure issue.

    "We've got legacy systems that have decades of data available to us, but how we layer that with current data also builds on a need for better data curation because they don't have a common data architecture," Amanda Richardson, chief of operations for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Research and Development Directorate, said at the same event.


    "So I have data … you have data, we all have data, but getting it into a form that we can use in a single tool is a pipe dream at this point," she said.


    The Pentagon and the military branches are collectively working on making sen ..

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