ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 1 

S

mart security builds on actionable knowledge. The North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) Wales Summit in September 2014 

highlighted the need to build on partnerships to prepare and operate together better. Building on the successes of past partnership initiatives and capabilities, this paper proposes new ways to embrace and 

extend techniques and relationships originally developed under successful Secretary of Defense (SECDEF)-level memoranda of understanding (MOUs) within NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. The 

Global Knowledge Networking (GKN) initiative supports smart decisionmaking by educating and training tomorrow’s agile, resilient, and 

effective leaders. GKN is a network of people, ideas, and processes to 

make knowledge actionable and is focused on improving on U.S. and 

coalition interoperability through improvements in existing training and 

education capabilities. It has begun to convene strategic dialogues around 

key challenges and collectively owned opportunities. Its initial framing 

is globally relevant and focused on the Arabian Gulf region through a 

proposed test bed for collaboration with the member states of the Gulf 

Cooperation Council (GCC). This will allow new tools for interoperability to be explored and created together as enablers of joint capability. 

Drawing on the experiences of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, it will 

promote an innovative systems approach that could help cultivate and 

sustain more effective security partnerships around the globe.

Global Knowledge Networking: 

Smart Strategies for Promoting 

Innovative Learning and Leader 

Development

by Walter L. Christman, Frank C. DiGiovanni, and 

Linton Wells II

Defense Horizons

National Defense University

Center for 

T

e

chnology and 

National Se

curity Poli

c

y

About the Authors 

Walter L. Christman is Executive Chairman of the Global Challenges Forum 

Foundation and a Visiting Fellow in the 

Institute for National Strategic Studies 

(INSS) at the National Defense University. Frank C. DiGiovanni is the Director 

of Force Readiness and Training in the 

Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Readiness). Linton 

Wells II is a Visiting Distinguished 

Research Fellow in INSS and a former 

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of Defense/DOD Chief Information 

Officer.

Key Points

◆ Dealing effectively with contemporary security challenges requires 

prepared coalitions of partners that 

are able to operate together.

◆ The Global Knowledge Networking 

(GKN) initiative supports local decisionmaking and makes knowledge 

actionable. Its core is the “composable organization,” where people, 

ideas, processes, and technology 

can be brought together as needed.

◆ The GKN supports initiatives from 

NATO’s Wales Summit, focused 

especially on interoperability and 

capacity-building. A proposed Gulf 

Knowledge Center test bed also 

would support recent decisions by 

a Gulf Cooperation Council Summit 

concerning military command and 

education.

◆ Building new learning tools with 

coalition partners can improve 

common understanding and shared 

procedures. This vision is a key part 

of the next generation of training 

and readiness capability, led by the 

Office of the Under Secretary of 

Defense (Personnel & Readiness). 

The GKN initiative could be adapted 

for regions beyond the Gulf.

April 2015
2 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

Introduction

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and 

NATO recognize that today’s increasingly complex, dynamic, globalized, and evolving challenges require both 

collaborative approaches with partners and innovative 

ways of learning for leader development. NATO Summit 

communiqués, defense reviews, and other security policies reflect this. To implement them, however, the Alliance and member nations will have to integrate political, 

economic, and civil instruments in concert with military 

means, based on a greater understanding and appreciation of the operational environment. Significant changes 

in national and global security strategies and expenditures will be needed as well as, in some cases, changes in 

core security concepts. Any new approach must empower stakeholders, encouraging partners at many levels to 

contribute their solutions to shared problems. As Carol 

Dumaine observed, “the globalization of national security risks demands the globalization of cooperation.”1

This cooperation is best approached through international partnerships drawing on holistic systems-and 

effects-based thinking designed to support both global 

security and sustainable development. New platforms to 

promote global research and educational partnerships 

will be needed. This, in turn, promotes a new paradigm 

of defense and military training and education, one that 

encourages lifelong personalized learning, creativity, 

and active engagement supported by the judicious use 

of modern technology tools and networks, communitybuilding, and citizen participation. 

The synchronization of land, sea, air, space, and 

cyber campaigns will remain a cornerstone of joint 

and coalition operations. However, the diversity of 

global challenges increasingly poses an additional 

demand: the need to achieve unity of purpose and 

unity of effort among such diverse players even when 

there is no unity of command. Achieving such unity 

requires that engaged actors have sufficient common 

appreciation of the challenges being addressed, the 

current situation, and the desired endstate, as well 

as a common framework in which to address the 

problems.

To help create the necessary shared understanding and common appreciation, the GKN initiative 

is intended to enhance U.S. coalition interoperability 

through improvements to existing training and education capabilities. It would build on and incorporate 

proven achievements and capabilities developed over 

the past 15 years in a variety of areas, to include: 

NATO’s PfP, improved tools to support innovative and personalized lifelong learning supported by 

point-of-need content delivery, and the development 

of technologies to support distributed collaboration, 

analysis, and simulation. 

The primary objective of the GKN initiative is to 

provide a framework that will promote learning for 

today’s decisionmakers and their successors to help 

them become more agile, resilient, and effective leaders. The GKN framework provides for practical, crosscultural, and interagency collaboration, while cultivating and sustaining security partnerships around the 

globe. GKN builds a dynamic, collaborative federated network of people, ideas, and processes to make 

knowledge actionable. It can address current and 

emerging challenges, initially in such areas as disaster preparedness and humanitarian assistance, to build 

community resilience. Over time it could respond to 

threats to the environment, human security (including health), maritime and cyber security, and energy 

security, as well as challenges posed by terrorism and 

hybrid warfare.

GKN focuses on knowledge development for collective intelligence, enabling a better understanding of 

GKN will help develop agile, 

resilient, and effective leaders who 

can recognize, analyze, and solve 

complex “wicked problems” better
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 3 

complex problems by exploiting information and analyses from diverse sources. It will help organizations better 

prepare and operate together to confront diverse challenges by improving situational awareness, supporting 

collaborative planning,2 and helping to determine the 

most appropriate responses using both military and nonmilitary means. A unified knowledge development process, which would encompass all the involved decisionmakers and their respective staffs, would:

◆ provide more comprehensive and adaptive perspectives based on shared trust (which must be built)3

in contrast to the currently stovepiped (yet still highly 

dynamic) problem space

◆ enhance and unify existing, noncoherent knowledgedevelopment techniques in various organizational subunits, 

including the promotion of personalized learning

◆ promote communities of interest that would encourage lifelong learning and knowledge generation

◆ systematically capture knowledge in ways that support leaders and organizations in working better together

◆ support improved interoperability between actors 

across a wide spectrum of tasks using agreed-upon information formats

◆ make knowledge persistent in organizations so 

they can be less reliant on access to subject matter experts, who may not be available when needed.

A whole array of new security risks accompanies 

the problems of globalization, many of which are socalled wicked problems4

—hard to define clearly and 

highly resistant to resolution. The phrase, coined by 

Rittel and Webber in 1973, evokes a problem considered extremely difficult or impossible to solve due to incomplete, contradictory, and/or changing requirements 

that are often hard to recognize or anticipate. Multiple 

stakeholders make it hard to arrive at an agreed-on definition of any particular wicked problem, much less a 

solution. Viral global threats can intersect and combine 

into larger order problems, creating cascading effects. 

Many of these problems show a hydra-like resilience. 

Due to complex interdependencies, efforts to solve one 

aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other 

issues, and so the approaches often have to be iterative, 

despite our incentive structures that reward steadfastness and resolution. 

To address such wicked problems, GKN can serve 

as a catalyst for new areas of research and education. 

If knowledge is power, then restructuring the way 

knowledge is created and shared will revise power’s 

distribution, creating new opportunities for innovative solutions. Many organizations around the globe 

are engaged in research to solve technology gaps and 

social ills, but few can take full advantage of the vast 

intellectual capital now at their disposal. By taking a 

more “systems approach” to innovative learning, GKN 

can help leaders recognize, align, synchronize, and 

harmonize options and solutions across a wide set of 

dynamic variables. In turn, this can help make them 

more agile, resilient, and effective leaders and better 

able to address the challenges posed by wicked problems. Since one of the GKN initiative’s aims is empowerment—customizing cooperative associations to 

face increasingly interrelated global risks—it can help 

distribute these skills across the leaders of a coalition. 

Hybrid warfare, for example, is a growing challenge to the United States, NATO members, and potential partners, including friendly Arab states. It is a 

potent, complex blend of conventional, irregular, and 

cyber warfare through the systematic and synergistic 

incorporation of a wide array of military and paramilitary concepts. It can include nuclear, biological, 

due to complex interdependencies, 

efforts to solve one aspect of a 

wicked problem may reveal or 

create other issues
4 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

and chemical weapons, improvised explosive devices, 

and information warfare. This significantly raises the 

demand for comprehensive responses and the need 

for shared knowledge and understanding to build the 

trust necessary to prepare and operate together against 

such threats.

The GKN initiative and its processes are intended to transform traditional security exercises and 

classroom instruction by creating on-call, real-time, 

composable training events that emulate emerging crises and complex emergencies. The concept of 

composable training means that training events can 

be constructed “on the fly” because the underlying 

foundation material is granular enough to be repurposed. To achieve this, the GKN initiative is intended 

to advance (to the next-generation level of capability for multinational engagement) some of the leading elements of the DOD Combatant Commanders’ 

Exercise Engagement and Training Transformation 

(CE2T2) program5

 in concert with other activities, 

such as the DOD Regional Centers. As a network of 

people, ideas, and processes to make knowledge actionable, GKN seeks to strengthen existing policies 

and programs in order to promote the next generation 

of training transformation. 

Building Global Networking to 

Address 21st-Century Challenges

Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, one of the Arab world’s 

leading information technology advocates and a former chairman of the United Nation’s Global Alliance 

for Information and Communications Technology 

and Development, told the First Arab Conference 

on Arabizing the Internet that “[t]echnology is not 

simply additive; it is more often exponential. An invention usually triggers other inventions.”6

 The technology applications included in the GKN initiative 

are not new. They were pioneered as part of the 1999 

NATO Summit in Washington with the decision to 

establish a Training and Education Enhancement 

Program (TEEP) under NATO’s PfP program. The 

TEEP consisted of three interrelated elements: the 

PfP Training Centers; a PfP Simulation Network; and 

the PfP Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes. Promoted by then–Secretary of 

Defense William Cohen, they were expected to lay the 

foundations of a global security network for the 21st

century and came to include SECDEF-level Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Sweden and 

Switzerland.7 The GKN concept can build on more 

than 15 years of success from these initiatives, which 

have developed a global security network that employs 

regional schools, distributed learning and simulation, 

and a networking of institutions. The challenge today 

is to embrace and extend these capabilities through a 

next-generation effort—to “trigger other inventions,” 

in Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh’s words. This could start with a 

pilot project in another region of the world, such as the 

Middle East with the member nations of the GCC—

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the 

United Arab Emirates (UAE). Follow-on endeavors 

may extend to Asia, Latin America, and Africa. 

The GKN initiative supports the requirements 

stated in the NATO Wales Summit Declaration of September 4–5, 2014, in which NATO Heads of State and 

Government reaffirmed their commitment to building 

partnerships and the development of a broad cooperative security network.8

 The Summit Declaration promoted the development of an “Interoperability Platform” 

by declaring the resolve of the nations to build on the 

legacy of the Partnership for Peace at its 20th anniversary, and likewise celebrating “ten years of the Istanbul 

Cooperation Initiative, which has helped to promote understanding and security cooperation with our partners 

in the Gulf region.” The Summit Communiqué further 

affirmed, “We will . . . look to further develop relations 

with relevant regional international organizations, such 

as the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League 

. . . including in the context of regional crisis situations.” 

The Summit messages were reinforced at Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Chiefs of Transformation 

Conference in December 2014.9
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 5 

The GKN and Gulf Security: 

Establishing a Regional Test Bed 

Pilot Project

Since 1987, when the GCC member states approved a comprehensive security strategy,10 a general 

framework has existed for organizing mutual cooperation in multiple aspects of defense and security. 

Since then, and particularly in the past decade, GCC 

members have taken important steps to develop their 

defensive capabilities, strengthen their bilateral relationships with Western militaries, and integrate their 

armed forces. They have recognized the value of significant investments in relevant research and training. 

For them, a key question has become: What is needed 

to strengthen our existing capabilities beyond what 

has already been done? 

There is no doubt that the Gulf region is a particularly challenging part of the world where possibilities for 

miscalculation and misfortune abound. Iran’s emergent 

nuclear capabilities and regional ambitions, as well as 

its support of militant Shiite movements, represent but 

one example. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is another. 

The civil war in Syria provides many examples of hybrid 

warfare, not only by Bashar al-Asad’s regime, but also by 

radical extremists.11

In December 2013, these developments obliged the 

six leaders of the GCC member states to deepen preparations for mutual military assistance. They established a 

Joint Military Committee to supervise cooperation and a 

Joint Military Command to promote collaboration, in addition to joint military exercises and better coordination in 

the field of military industries.12 They also agreed to establish the Gulf Academy for Strategic and Security Studies in the UAE. The academy aims to increase knowledge 

transfer and address threats across the entire Gulf region. 

The future academy will initially focus on missile defense, 

border security, and counterterrorism. Establishment of a 

Joint Command Structure and Academy is part of an intensified construction of a regional security architecture, 

which began with the Peninsula Shield force in 1984. 

The participants at the December 2014 Summit meeting 

of the GCC in Qatar agreed to create a joint naval force 

based out of Bahrain and a UAE-based law enforcement 

agency (GCC-POL) for sharing intelligence and dealing with organized crime. The Joint Military Command, 

which would be based in Riyadh, will allow the GCC to 

deal better with outside threats, especially from Iran, while 

the GCC-POL will share information to combat regional 

crime and terrorism.

The civilian and military organizations that would 

participate in this unified endeavor are at different levels of scale, maturity, and readiness. This can have severe 

consequences in a crisis from a unity of effort perspective. To assure adequate response to a complex security 

situation—for the protection of both lives and critical 

infrastructure, for example—both common procedures 

and comprehensive training will be required. Networkconnected simulated exercise scenarios can help to build 

shared readiness and capability.

Leading figures in the Arab world are speaking 

out on the need to address these challenges. In February 2014, Dr. Nabil Elaraby, the Secretary General 

of the Arab League, addressed the Crisis and Emergency Management Conference in Abu Dhabi. Dr. 

Elaraby spoke on the issue of “The Future of Collective Arab Action,”13 and he asked League members 

to develop common policies to deal with economic, 

political, social, and security problems. The region is 

facing growing challenges, and the “nature of these 

challenges imposes on the Arab states the necessity 

to work jointly. . . . We are capable, if we have the 

GCC members have taken important 

steps to develop their defensive 

capabilities, strengthen their bilateral 

relationships with Western militaries, 

and integrate their armed forces
6 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

vision and will and if we work on developing Arab 

policies, to achieve a lot, like the European Union 

and the African Union.”

These statements supported the December 2013 

GCC leadership decisions. To that end, Arab states have 

begun working on a regional emergency network to coordinate their responses to crises, ranging from political 

upheaval to armed revolt and from natural disasters to 

disease pandemics. The Arab League has already set up 

an early intervention center to strengthen the capabilities of countries facing risks and emergencies. The second phase of the project now foresees a network for all 

Arab states to communicate in a crisis in order to pool 

efforts and ensure swift political response and action. As 

Dr. Elaraby stated, “Complex events require an ability to 

read and analyze all the information and to give decision-makers proper knowledge to make good decisions 

at good times. . . . That requires a rapid ability to gather 

information . . . to guarantee effective response and provide good recovery.” 

The need for the United States and NATO 

to strengthen their own knowledge-development 

processes to meet emerging challenges creates precisely the opportunity that Dr. Abu-Ghazaleh suggested. A GKN-like pilot program embraced by 

the GCC states could enable the collection, analysis and distribution of information in the Gulf area 

that would contribute to a shared understanding of 

the crisis/operational environment in this strategic 

region. The development of a “Gulf Knowledge 

Center” could help identify, build, and develop an 

important knowledge base in the Gulf region—and 

also beyond—as a continuous, adaptive, networked 

activity carried out at the strategic, operational, and 

tactical levels. It could provide:

◆ local horizon scanning and monitoring

◆ assessment of crisis situations

◆ development of response options

◆ operations planning and/or civil emergency planning

◆ crisis management

◆ return to stability/normality.

Within the different phases of any GCC Crisis 

Management Process, four key functions—Sensing/

Framing, Planning, Implementation, and Assessment—must rely on knowledge development. Switching from traditional reactive approaches to a more proactive knowledge-development approach would reduce 

barriers to collaboration within respective national and 

regional crisis management organizations and increase 

the effectiveness of collaborative responses. This would 

also provide a more coherent understanding at all decisionmaking levels. 

It is worth noting that the NATO Wales Summit 

“Partnership Interoperability Initiative” identified the 

UAE as an “Interoperability Platform” partner among 

the Arab nations and Jordan as a “Defense and Related 

Security Capacity Building” (DCB) partner. As these 

two nations have agreed to these roles and designations 

with NATO, it would appear that the GKN initiative 

encompassing both could be within reason. To promote 

rapid knowledge development, a pilot project called 

“Gulf Knowledge Center”—to be established at an 

appropriate location in the Gulf region or possibly by 

common agreement in another country such as Jordan—could enhance coalition responses through a 

global, network-enabled environment. A placeholder 

title for such a prototype endeavor could be “Gulf 

Knowledge Online.”14

In whatever manner a pilot project might be developed, it is important to draw from both regional 

a GKN-like pilot program embraced 

by the GCC states could contribute 

to a shared understanding of the 

crisis/operational environment in 

this strategic region
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 7 

sources and the knowledge base of the GCC’s international partners, such as the United States and 

its NATO Allies, to form a more collaborative information-sharing environment. The goal would be 

to leverage existing and emerging technologies in a 

“smart-pull” fashion and co-develop next-generation 

applications. The proposed GKN learning environment could become a continuously available education resource that could help guide the planning and 

execution of disaster and crisis preparedness as well as 

joint operations in the execution of a crisis response. 

Were this to be joined with a curriculum, degreegranting and certification initiatives for defense and 

military professionals from throughout the region, 

and the development of online strategic wargaming capabilities, then the eventual establishment of a 

GCC Virtual Security University might be possible, 

which would be a significant achievement.

GKN: Key Concepts and a 

Strategic Roadmap

The GKN initiative is intended to promote coalition interoperability worldwide. In U.S. military training 

and education it would be a key component in next-generation capability, using advanced distributed learning 

(ADL) and simulation networks. Initial concepts already 

are being explored in collaboration with NATO and 

GCC members. These can build on relationships and 

methods from the successful SECDEF-level MOUs under NATO’s PfP program noted earlier, forging partnerships of nations that can prepare and operate together. 

It can be followed by appropriately tailored networking 

initiatives and consortium approaches in Asia, Latin 

America, and Africa.

A concept of operations and a strategic roadmap for 

the Global Knowledge Network initiative will need to be 

developed to inform the creation of a “GKN Learning 

Environment.” These can identify effective pathways for 

both individual and collective education and training opportunities for U.S. and coalition military forces as they 

prepare to operate together, very often in collaboration 

with host-nation governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations. A central issue is the collaboration strategy necessary to achieve 

unity of effort.

15 In this regard, Joint Publication 1-02 provides the following useful definitions:16

◆ Unity of effort: Coordination and cooperation toward common objectives, even if the participants are not 

necessarily part of the same command or organization—

the product of successful unified action.

◆ Unified action: The synchronization, coordination, 

and/or integration of the activities of governmental and 

nongovernmental entities with military operations to 

achieve unity of effort.

The remainder of this paper advances the C5 (command, control, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration) concept as an integrating strategy for a “composable organization” model as the core feature of the 

GKN initiative. Composable means that organizational 

elements can be brought together as needed. Together 

with the C5 concept, this approach is well suited to 

pursuing unified action and enabling unity of effort. An 

important reference is the 4th edition of the Insights and 

Best Practices Focus Paper: Interorganizational Coordination, written by the Deployable Training Division of the 

Joint Staff J7 and published by the Joint Staff J7.17

The GKN initiative, as it fosters the next generation of training transformation capabilities to empower 

C5 thinking, globally proposes to build on three existing foundations. First are U.S. DOD components that 

support online learning as part of individual training. 

Second are collective-training components with prior 

direct experience with NATO-PfP education and 

training initiatives. The third capability is represented 

by the DOD Regional Centers managed by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The GKN initiative, therefore, is not just another communications 

pipeline. Rather, it is a powerful catalyst to enable global knowledge development for collective understanding that may ride on any chosen network, whether it 
8 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

is classified, unclassified, or the Internet. This concept 

should be further refined and developed in the spirit 

of emerging concepts for Multinational Information 

Sharing networks. There is a need to integrate all potential contributions across all communications channels into a more holistic interoperability platform for 

worldwide application, which will allow qualified users 

anywhere to create the composable organization in a 

“smart-pull” fashion. The composable organization is, in 

essence, a fusion center in the hands of users to employ 

worldwide collective intelligence for collaboration and 

decisionmaking, even to address local problems.

1. Individual (Personalized) Learning. Wisdom for 

action emerges from the collective intelligence and situational awareness formed through experience. The U.S. 

military typically groups “learning” into the stovepipes of 

training, experiential learning, and education. Yet capabilities are available today to support continuous lifelong 

learning, from recruitment to retirement, with point-ofneed content delivery. One of the key elements of personalized learning is big data and the granularity of the 

knowledge database, which can include curricula, performance indicators, and organizational goals. Personalized learning could be a course, document, or doctrine. 

This promotes both organizational and personal learning 

goals.18 Today, several diverse U.S. and NATO initiatives 

must be enhanced to achieve such an endstate. 

The GKN challenge is to make these tools more 

relevant and accessible. Both U.S. and coalition military 

forces should be able to access the same learning events, 

in the native languages of students and organizations, 

through a learning management system via their local 

duty stations, their homes, or when deployed. “Anytime, 

anywhere” availability currently allows U.S. military 

personnel to study at their own pace and arrive better 

prepared. An Interactive Learning Library for Training 

and Exercise Environments can further enhance preemployment preparation for foreign military personnel. 

The National Defense University’s “Innovative Learning” initiative should be engaged, along with NATO elearning innovations. Supporting concepts and capabilities developed under the U.S.-Swiss MOU for PfP ADL 

should be investigated and considered for incorporation 

into the GKN approach. The initial cadre of learning 

events for a “Gulf Knowledge Online” pilot project will 

likely emerge from U.S. online learning repositories and 

may be augmented by the curriculum of leading DOD, 

NATO, and PfP education and training centers as well 

as input from leading regional research centers. 

2. Collective Learning. Organizations as well as 

individuals must learn and adapt. Based on U.S. capabilities and NATO’s PfP Simulation Network (PfP 

SIMNET), the GKN roadmap and concept of operations should investigate options to develop distributed 

computer-assisted exercises (CAX) using realistic, regionally relevant, and appropriate scenarios and also 

invite coalition military forces and civilian agencies to 

participate in developing the framework. NATO training installations, including the U.S. Joint Multinational 

Training Center (JMTC) and the NATO Joint Force 

Training Center in Bydgoszcz, Poland, would be natural partners to engage. In particular, JMTC’s robust 

and dynamic expeditionary training teams, who bring 

efficient and effective training solutions anywhere they 

are needed, could set excellent examples of what to 

achieve. The Naval Postgraduate School’s Massively 

Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI) is a particularly notable way to address “wicked problems”—indeed, doing so in an environment of trust created by allowing players anonymity 

in game play. MMOWGLI could also be the launching point for communities of interest in which lifelong 

learning could be promoted.

the GKN initiative is intended to 

promote coalition interoperability 

worldwide and enable global 

knowledge development for 

collective understanding
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 9 

Coalition military forces and their counterpart national civilian organizations in an (eventual) GKN learning environment system should be able to participate in 

an exercise from their national simulation facilities, defense academies, or regional training centers as appropriate. For more universal application, the GKN should 

explore the PfP SIMNET implemented by Sweden in 

the Viking series of exercises (see figure 1). Adding practical experience to the knowledge gained from GKN advanced distributed learning courses in conjunction with 

such events would enhance effective performance in the 

field. Additionally, exposure to the civilian organizations 

that support stability operations, but in a training environment, would reduce cross-cultural barriers and foster 

mutual trust and confidence.

In due course, a U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) exercise for the Gulf and GCC could 

build on these experiences and best practices developed 

elsewhere. The goal should be to enable the GCC nations to improve their interoperability by building a 

learning organization that adapts to a continuously 

changing environment. In other words, the objective 

should be to develop adequate capabilities and capacity in mission command training, incorporating technical innovations to provide service, joint, interagency, 

and multinational capabilities at home and across the 

GCC area of responsibility. In principle, the challenge 

is to “win in a complex world.” To this end, collaboration partners need to detect the specifics in their lack of 

interoperability—nationally, within the GCC, and with 

U.S. and NATO partners.

3. The DOD Regional Centers. The five DOD Regional Centers provide unique academic forums for 

building strong, sustainable international networks of 

security leaders. These networks promote enhanced policy understanding and mutually supporting approaches 

Figure 1. Viking Exercise Example Distributed Simulation Architecture

Niinisalo (FI)

Kiev (UP)

Curragh (El)

Lucerne (SZ)

Ljubljana (SI) Zagreb (HR)

Limoges (FR)

Stockholm

Enköping Kungsängen

Sweden (SW)

4 Sites

Skövde
10 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

to security challenges, effective security communities 

that support collective and collaborative action, and 

improved sustainable partner institutional capacity and 

capabilities. The Regional Centers  accomplish their 

mission primarily through resident and in-region programs, including conferences, seminars, and courses, as 

well as through bilateral workshops, alumni outreach 

events, and research publications. The center locations 

and dates established are as follows:19

◆ George C. Marshall European Center for Security 

Studies, Garmisch, Germany, established 1993 

◆ Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii, established 1995

◆ William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense 

Studies, Washington, DC, established 1997

◆ Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Washington, 

DC, established 1999

◆ Near East-South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies, Washington, DC, established 2000.

The particular DOD Regional Center most closely 

associated with the Gulf region is NESA, which is presently assisting in the development of a National Defense 

Academy for the UAE.

4. The Composable Organization. The development of the GKN roadmap for implementation 

should include examination of the composable organization capability based upon the C5 principles 

described earlier. The composable organization is a 

propositional concept: it loosely represents the idea 

of a global, on-call, community-oriented knowledge 

development process that fosters collective awareness 

in order to empower the leaders of organizations who 

see the need to compose team-oriented responses using global assets. It implies the development of “fusion center” capabilities empowering participants to 

choose and invite collaboration partners to help establish and manage “unity of effort” to address local or 

regional challenges, threats, and risks.

The goal is to enable user-driven, point-of-need C5 

to inform individual and coalition information security 

needs. This paper cannot address all possible constellations of partnerships envisioned under GKN, but they 

will likely cover the spectrum from open access to highly 

classified enclaves. In another dimension, the possibilities range from organizing small communities of practice 

to the establishment of a robust fusion center that integrates the streams of information necessary to inform 

collective intelligence. In addition to internal military 

networks, a more open information-sharing environment is required that will allow GCC network-enabled 

militaries to reach outside the boundaries of their “.mil” 

domains to work with coalition partners and nontraditional mission participants, such as NGOs.20

This means that the governance, policy, and supporting technical framework of GKN must allow for and 

enable composable organizations. The use of distributed 

scenario-based simulations in the development of shared 

knowledge offers a means to test specific aspects of organizational security architectures, both technical and 

policy, in a collaborative arena. 

The first such use of a composable organization

will likely be to address disaster preparedness and 

humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) requirements. As the GKN capability matures, it should 

be able to address challenges in other domains such as 

maritime security, heath security, cyber security, and 

energy security as well as hybrid warfare.

U.S. forces are growing accustomed to the fact 

that the battlespace in contemporary conflict is both 

nonlinear and without borders. Success or failure 

in battlespaces without definable boundaries means 

that joint, coalition, and interagency operations must 

increasingly rely on rapid and responsive knowledge 

development for collective awareness. GKN must 

support the rapid integration of lessons from current 

events into education and training to help maintain 

decision-cycle dominance. This also is true across the 

C5 realm for virtual and composable collaboration. 

The social networks that evolve in the composable 
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 11 

organization environment should link participants 

in an information-sharing framework. This would 

enhance ongoing operations and provide essential 

feedback to an Interactive Courseware Library and 

Training and Exercise Environment—enhancing 

both predeployment preparation and engaged response from a “user-driven” perspective. Dr. David 

Alberts has described these possibilities as an application of “power to the edge” principles, which enable “an 

enterprise to bring all of its available information and 

its brain power to bear by allowing information to be 

recombined in untold ways and by allowing individuals 

to interact in unplanned ways to create understandings 

and options not previously possible.”21 When the relationship between knowledge and power is changed, 

most especially in relation to factors such as time and 

space, a world of new possibilities is created. 

Regional differences, technology levels, and comparative education and training will all affect how 

technology and people work together in GKN, but 

the development of sharable local best practices can 

be a major contribution to the global storehouse of 

knowledge in addressing shared 21st-century global 

challenges. 

At endstate, the Global Knowledge Networking 

initiative should provide a full-spectrum capability to 

support C5 distributed learning requirements throughout NATO and the entire global community of nations 

friendly to the United States. For USCENTCOM and, 

eventually, all other geographic combatant commands, 

the return on investment of a GKN pilot project with 

the GCC would be the development of a better educated 

and trained cadre of coalition officers and civilians in the 

United States and abroad who trust each other and are 

more confident in each other’s capabilities and processes. 

“Where We Are Going”: Scoping 

the Effort and Defining the Task

The GKN learning environment addresses what 

might be called “cognitive interoperability.” Effective 

integration of C5 is a core competency and task, both 

among and between foreign militaries, in addressing this 

Figure 2. Composable Organizations

SYNCHRONIZATION

Military Sta

DOD

Interagency

NGOs

Corporations

Multinational

Coalition

Individuals

Academia
12 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

challenge. The GKN learning environment will specifically address the problem of how to provide ADL capabilities (right time/right place educational opportunities, 

with on-demand potential) to a multinational audience. 

Primary audiences include U.S. and coalition civilian and 

military personnel engaged in operational-level multinational command and staff tasks (for example, in a combined joint task force [CJTF]). Secondary audiences for 

the GKN learning environment include all those concerned with operational and strategic level C5 cooperation in a wide array of complex contingencies. 

The GKN learning environment should, at a minimum, provide the essential familiarization of C5 planning skills necessary to integrate information technologies and command and control processes among and 

between coalition partners. To define the effort further, 

the initial GKN learning environment program planning 

process has adopted the following project goals:

◆ Develop with the C5 community of NATO and PfP 

nations an Internet-based online repository of e-learning 

content/materials, communities of interest structures, and 

ADL tools to further C5 education opportunities and to 

support enhanced coalition interoperability planning and 

exercises, embracing and extending it to the GCC organization and its member states.

◆ Develop planning competencies in support of disaster preparedness and U.S. military support to coalition 

partners based on experiences learned from the CJTF 

concept and through establishment of a Viking-type exercise experience developed by Sweden.

Phase I: Gap Analysis

Building capability in the C5 domain is a technical 

challenge, where leaders face seemingly infinite choices 

when they contemplate strategies based on incorporating emerging technologies. Like their counterparts in 

the private sector, they may choose inappropriate paths 

if they do not know their destination. It is essential then 

that U.S. and coalition leaders are clear where there is in 

the C5 world. By knowing the desired endstate, leaders 

can compare that to the current state, identify the size 

and nature of the “gap” between the two, and take action 

to close the gap.

This first stage of the gap analysis for the GKN 

learning environment should be to evaluate how 

existing content—developed for U.S. and NATO 

purposes—can be adapted to robust multinational 

applications. Intellipedia offers one environment for 

exploration at various classification levels. This approach requires that content factors be identified systematically via interdisciplinary approaches across the 

range of political, military, economic, security, infrastructure, and information (PMESII) domains. The 

resulting GKN learning environment analysis can 

provide a baseline for coalition C5 learning outcomes 

worldwide by addressing the challenges from the 

broadest context possible. It should provide a foundation for further study in C5 that should allow future 

learners from the coalition partners to be able to:

◆ understand and create partner capacity-building 

strategies and policies

◆ understand and create agile organizational structures and decision processes responsive to real-time 

mission and situation requirements

◆ understand information technology and systems as a 

provider of opportunities to gain information and knowledge superiority and perform information operations

◆ integrate technology, organization, policy, and 

strategy into a partner capacity-building framework and 

use it in crisis planning and execution across the range of 

military operations.

Regarding the “learning continuum,” this gap 

analysis should determine not only the present needs 

but also help anticipate future learning needs based on 

emerging technologies or operational contingencies. At 

the same time, U.S. and coalition militaries have often 

tried to impose their own solutions on host countries 

without first inventorying partner strengths, weaknesses, and needs.22 Numerous reports and observations of 
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 13 

recent stability operations highlight that pre-deployment training programs are nonstandard, uncoordinated, and create the following gaps.

A Capability Gap. Multinational military forces 

may not have defined their capability framework comprehensively to include doctrine, organization, training, 

material, leadership, personnel, facilities, and interoperability (DOTMLPFI). Without such a framework 

they cannot readily develop integrated capabilities for 

effective joint and coalition operations.

An Education Content and Training Delivery Gap. 

Multinational military forces are not receiving essential training because relevant educational material is not 

readily available to the individual and because the investment—time and funding—necessary to participate in 

learning events or exercise activities at training venues is 

prohibitive. Yet blended learning has been proven to be 

more effective than just classroom or online approaches 

alone. The network could create a set of interoperable 

tools that could be a leader across education and training 

venues. There is truly a gap between how we “teach” now 

and where learning is going in the future. For example, 

gaming, communities of interest, and 21st-century literacies, among others, will all increase in importance and 

should be factored into the GKN. 

A Discipline Gap. The different disciplines of security, governance, and development must be mutually 

reinforcing, but too often are not. Each is addressed individually by different organizations with their own cultures 

and approaches. The lack of understanding among military, civilian, and nongovernmental actors regarding each 

other’s perspectives of stability operations, disaster relief, 

and related activities creates friction and dysfunction.

An Institutional Process Gap. An institutionalized process is lacking for analysis and assessments 

of documented activities, operation reports, and unit 

debriefs from the multidisciplinary perspective (security, governance, and development). Lessons that 

can assist foreign militaries in future stability operations continue to be lost or not considered due to 

mere lack of awareness.

An Operational Picture Gap. Civilian and military 

actors need a shared understanding of their environment to develop and execute coherent strategies. The 

lack of interoperable communication protocols and information technologies makes it hard for foreign militaries to share information among themselves and with 

the nonmilitary agencies involved in stability and other 

peace support operations.

The education content and training delivery gap 

is a practical problem that consists fundamentally 

of inadequate resources, both technical and financial, and can be overcome with an appropriate application of technology and funding. However, the 

discipline, institutional processes, and operational 

picture gaps are more social in nature and require an 

approach that blends technology with an effort that 

builds social networks that reduce the barriers to 

communication and cooperation between military 

and civilian organizations.

Determining how best to create necessary learning 

environments and associated opportunities will necessarily be a process of trial and error. In addition to the 

training of practical skills for partners, the education of 

defense leaders and decision makers must also be addressed. Traditional methods, simple analysis, and intuition are no longer sufficient for addressing the critical 

and complex challenges facing the United States and its 

global network of partners. Borderless actions, hybrid 

borderless actions, hybrid threats, 

and nonstate actors create an 

immediate need for the right sharing 

of knowledge and the development 

of leaders who can quickly formulate 

decisions based on new and 

changing information
14 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

threats, and nonstate actors create an immediate need 

for the right sharing of knowledge and the development 

of agile, resilient, and effective leaders who have data 

immediately accessible, who understand how to assimilate new knowledge quickly, and who can formulate decisions rapidly based on new and changing information. 

In the areas of practical skills training and the teaching 

of critical thinking skills, more focus is needed to identify where current training and education gaps exist and 

understand how those impede knowledge development 

and sharing. 

Phase II: Content Development 

and Establishing a Community of 

Learners

Today’s global security environment demands effective multinational technical and “human” interoperability. 

Theater commanders are finding that the inability of coalition partners to plan and coordinate rapidly with each 

other puts an added burden on U.S. forces to become 

the lead responder to ensure success. As coalition partners often have not developed interoperable concepts of 

operation and a respective doctrinal framework, they are 

not in a position to cooperate with U.S. forces. The GKN 

learning environment can certify the professional accomplishment of a strong cadre of both civilian officials and 

foreign military officers in acquiring the capacity-building skills to interoperate with U.S. forces. This implies the 

need for a comprehensive educational curriculum at the 

highest standards possible.

The creation of a variety of learning modules/courses 

leading to professional development and certificate programs could be a valuable contribution. These could be 

based on a tightly knit set of coalition “learning domains” 

and result in the award of a Master in International Public Administration (I-MPA). Shorter certificates could 

be offered as well, keyed to specialty areas of emphasis. 

National Defense University’s iCollege has both degrees 

and certificates, which gives its program more agility. 

Development of the I-MPA modules would be an innovative educational initiative, leveraging graduate degree program-level content already being implemented 

at multiple universities in the United States, Europe, the 

Middle East, and elsewhere throughout the world. This 

Defense Training and Education Gaps GKN Enabling Training Transformation

GOVERNMENTS

MILITARY

FORCES

PRACTITIONERS

PARTNER

GOVERNMENTS

JOINT

COMMAND

ACADEMICS

OPS SPACE

Education and Training Gap

Non-aligned eort

Preparedness to respond

Discipline Interoperability Gap

Dierent organizational cultures, 

approaches

Institutional Gap

Processes to capture and analyze

data/lessons learned

Operational Picture Gap

Lack of standardized, integrated

information

PARTNER

GOVERNMENTS

ACADEMICS PRACTITIONERS

MILITARY

FORCES

JOINT

COMMAND

GOVERNMENTS

COLLABORATION

INTEROPERABILITY ENGAGEMENT

Figure 3. Analyzing the Gaps and Achieving Mutual Support 
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 15 

model has the potential to cross many boundaries and 

with a consortium be the evaluator and broker for degrees. 

Combining practitioner interaction with skills 

honed through an intensive, blended combination of 

virtual and classroom experiences, simulations and 

capstone projects will enable GKN participants to examine the real-world challenges faced by their nations 

and organizations in their respective regions. GKN 

learning environment members would join peer-level 

professionals from governments and militaries around 

the world to develop and share new skills and perspectives and improve their ability to respond to the challenges they face. 

Additional knowledge domains could include:

◆ planning and execution processes, including improving coordination among distributed staffs23

◆ battle staff decision processes

◆ psychological operations and civil affairs

◆ electronic warfare

◆ computer network attack and defense

◆ sociopolitical issues

◆ media and public affairs

◆ diplomacy and negotiation.

Phase III: Designing the GKN

Learning Environment to Support 

the Composable Organization

The GKN learning environment must be supported 

by a coherent technology vision and strategy. Higher order capabilities are achieved by combining basic user capabilities and content into interoperable and interacting 

systems. Examples of such higher order capabilities and 

systems follow.

Executive Education Workshop. In addition to developing a core body of future leader education in the form of 

an I-MPA degree, the GKN learning environment could 

be tailored to support workshops that help to address the 

gap analysis issue identified in Phase I. These workshops, 

conducted in collaboration with the GKN, can be an 

open-ended inquiry into the ways and means of achieving 

unity of effort among and between multi-stakeholder partnerships, where unity of command cannot be foreseen, or 

perhaps even be desirable to achieve. Workshops can also 

help to define the parameters of prototyping efforts and 

experimentation for further application and evaluation. 

Distributed Simulation. Since the GKN learning 

environment would be a Web-based system of capabilities, it would be possible for users to access and execute 

distributed simulations through the GKN portal itself 

in support of workshops and exercises. A properly integrated application interconnection from the portal to the 

distributed simulation system would be required. The users could then use the GKN’s communication and collaboration functions to contact each other and establish 

their parameters for a distributed simulation event. This 

endeavor would help to test and validate the possible parameters of a composable organization to enable “power 

to the edge” responses to an emerging humanitarian disaster, nontraditional threat (for example, terrorist, cyber, 

maritime, or border domain violations of sovereignty), or 

hybrid warfare.

Cooperative Security Community. The GKN concept 

lends itself well to establishing “communities of interest.” Users could use the communication and collaboration functions to identify interest in a cooperative security 

community, developing content to stimulate and facilitate 

discussions. The users could establish online seminars and 

use the GKN portal knowledge pool to facilitate face-toface events. This would become a community of people 

who could share ideas and concepts across many political 

today’s global security environment 

demands effective multinational 

technical and “human” 

interoperability
16 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

borders, while allowing for multilevel security. There is no 

inherent reason why this environment cannot handle classified or sensitive information if adequate safeguards are 

built in. Intellipedia has learned how to do this well.

It is clear from these examples that many of the functions proposed for the GKN learning environment, such as 

learning management systems and digital libraries, already 

exist—indeed some have existed for decades. They can be 

expanded, developed, and networked together. The process 

of applying them in a composable fashion then becomes 

primarily an organizational rather than a technical question. A properly linked and managed GKN environment 

would provide a catalyst for developing a wide variety of 

higher order capabilities limited only by imagination and 

bandwidth. These would fuel further development of online 

communities and provide more opportunities for qualified 

users across the globe to interact with, exchange, and create 

knowledge. The development of human interfaces and expanded functionality (for example, multilingual, multisensory interface) greatly facilitates the use and accessibility of 

higher order systems. In sum, this approach provides a key 

enabler for the next generation of training transformation 

to support multinational interoperability in addressing the 

global challenges of the 21st century.

Principles for Establishing a GCC 

Prototype

The suggested “Gulf Knowledge Center” or “GCC 

Virtual Security University” to be explored in collaboration with organizations and member states of the GCC 

is an exploratory test bed for compelling coalition education and training approaches for the region. As previously 

noted, “Gulf Knowledge Online” could be the first pilot 

project endeavor. Any such endeavor should be aligned 

and implemented in accord with five basic principles.24

Focus on Coalition-Based Interoperability. U.S. allies and partners need to shift their interoperability focus 

from one devoted almost exclusively to technical interoperability, in favor of a balanced treatment of the technical, 

cognitive, organizational, doctrinal, and “human” aspects 

of interoperability and multinational cooperation.

Incorporate an Interagency, Multinational, and NGO 

Perspective. Operations today almost always require interagency cooperation by many contributing and hostnation actors, including international organizations and 

nongovernmental and private sector entities.

Incorporate a “Transformational” Perspective. A 

“transformational” perspective seeks not only incremental improvement but also an order of magnitude 

improvement from current baseline characteristics. One 

GKN contribution could be to help to establish the 

point of departure for national efforts to improve coalition interoperability. At the same time, the initiatives 

should start by addressing real world problems.

Foster Cooperation in Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Infrastructure. Fostering cooperation 

in C4ISR research, development, and acquisition of systems, doctrine, and procedures for multinational operations 

should help ensure the genuine transfer of “lessons learned” 

into the coalition partner’s actual military capability.

Promote the Fielding of Prototype Pilot Programs.

Using different levels of complexity and reality (collaboration, war games, simulations, command post 

exercises, and lessons learned), the development of 

prototyping efforts will enable the GKN to ensure a 

process to build systematic and empirical knowledge 

about what actually works in multinational operations 

while reducing the risk of investing in solutions that 

do not deliver required results. Development of these 

prototypes would typically be linked as the result of 

experiments and/or the application of other legitimate 

research and development efforts. GKN can help build 

a properly linked and managed GKN 

environment would provide more 

opportunities for qualified users 

across the globe to interact with, 

exchange, and create knowledge
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 17 

a highway to the operational use of the most effective 

partnership collaboration capabilities.

The GKN learning environment can provide 

participating nations with tangible measures and 

evidence of the benefits to be expected from investments in coalition interoperability. It must help 

develop a common methodology, which requires 

agreement with the participants on the relevant 

representative mission areas (for example, HA/

DR, regional conflict, peacekeeping, peace support 

operations, and others), as well as the appropriate 

C5 interoperability learning objectives. The focus 

should be on the integration of technology development efforts, organizational concepts, doctrine 

development, and—above all—leader development. 

It should build on existing efforts, which requires 

the application of Web-based, Internet e-learning 

technologies necessary to help counterpart foreign 

military organizations to “co-evolve” with U.S. 

forces. By taking advantage of existing laboratories, 

networks, and currently planned experiments, the 

GKN learning environment may catalyze the initiation of a broadened interoperability effort with 

relatively few added infrastructure costs to the participating nations. 

Even while building on existing architectures, the 

future architecture must be tailored to the needs of the 

nation or region and the contributing partners. Specific 

technical solutions that could be facilitated through 

the GKN learning environment include:

◆ conducting multinational distributed CAX using 

high-fidelity simulations

◆ sharing lessons learned and knowledge resources 

through interconnected repositories of digital technical 

information

◆ increasing interoperability through real-time application of distributed learning

◆ conducting a thorough examination of the C4ISR 

modifications necessary to accomplish the above while 

producing integration and synergy with other global platforms.

Summary

The Global Knowledge Networking initiative is 

intended to enhance U.S. and coalition interoperability 

through improvements to existing training and education capabilities. The GKN initiative promotes C5 capabilities, thereby supporting U.S. needs, the NATO Wales 

Summit Communiqué decision to establish a partnership Interoperability Platform, and a recent GCC Summit decision to establish a Joint Military Command. The 

GKN concept starts by bringing together NATO and 

PfP members in collaboration with organizations and 

member states of the GCC, as well as educators, researchers, developers, and military professionals from 

around the world. They will jointly develop commonly 

agreed-on educational approaches/content leading 

to both practical applications and academic certification. The GKN seeks to integrate—on a coalition and 

multinational basis—several essential components: 

knowledge-centric people; adaptive organizations and 

architectures; and doctrine, standards, and networks to 

empower innovative learning and leader development 

for security cooperation on a global basis. This network-enabled approach to distributed simulations will 

enable the discovery, exploration, testing, assessment, 

and demonstration of transformational approaches 

that have been co-developed with coalition partners.

The GKN framework (including its learning 

environment) at initial operating capability will be 

a Web-based, cooperative security capability that 

GKN can help build a highway to 

the operational use of the most 

effective partnership collaboration 

capabilities
18 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

links knowledge centers of excellence within regions 

and around the world. At full operational capability, a strong global network of regional fusion centers would provide robust intellectual and instructive paths to international cooperation to address 

global challenges and regional threats. Knowledge 

development centers focused on concept development, experimentation, and battle laboratories will 

feed “smart” command centers and virtual security 

universities to support complex system adaptation to 

carry out joint, interagency, and coalition operations 

better. It will be based primarily on an open system of knowledge to allow for wider participation in 

concept development and experimentation, leading 

to prototype applications and research-led education and training. Promising approaches to international security cooperation can be examined through 

simulations, gaming, exercises, and other forms of 

interaction. This methodology facilitates the use of 

“test laboratories” and related approaches to promote coalition interoperability and political-military 

cooperation. These efforts will integrate technology 

development efforts, organizational concepts, and 

doctrine development to address the most difficult 

global, regional, and local security challenges.

This paper advances a new composable organization model. It is a “power to the edge” vision of userdriven security cooperation emanating from the local 

level, reaching outward and upward, collecting and 

embracing collaborative capability and power to act 

in response to any threat. GKN promotes coalition 

interoperability from both “top down” and “bottom 

up” perspectives, empowering a democratization of 

education for security collaboration with potential 

friends and partners across the entire world. At the 

same time it focuses on point-of-need personalized 

learning, as well as collective learning through massive multiplayer gaming. 

Providing requisite knowledge for coalition 

leaders to manage a volatile, rapidly changing C5 

landscape in a joint environment—without losing 

sight of the commander’s intent or coalition objectives—is a challenge of the first magnitude. Such 

challenges can be addressed one step at time, but 

we must begin. The Global Knowledge Networking 

concept provides a framework to promote cooperative development in multinational education and 

training to address a new generation of threats and 

risks posed by globalization. It seeks to achieve the 

next generation of capability in training transformation for coalition interoperability by moving from 

challenges to opportunities to solutions.

Notes

1Carol Dumaine, “On a Global Foresight Commons,” SEED

Magazine, November 23, 2010, available at <http://seedmagazine.

com/content/article/on_a_global_foresight_commons/>. 

2 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), NATO Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive, December 17, 2010, 

available at <https://publicintelligence.net/nato-copd/>.

3 Paul T. Bartone and Albert Sciarretta, “Human Dimension 

Issues in Distributed and Virtual Teams,” Small Wars Journal, January 20, 2015, available at <http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/

human-dimension-issues-in-distributed-and-virtual-teams>.

4 Horst Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General 

Theory of Planning,” Policy Sciences 4 (Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific 

Publishing Company, Inc., 1973), 155–169.

5 The purpose of the Combatant Commanders’ Exercise Engagement and Training Transformation program is to exercise and 

train for joint operations (tactical through strategic), improve the 

realism and robustness of the training environment, improve joint 

enabling capabilities, and directly support combatant commander 

theater engagement activities in order to achieve joint readiness of 

the total force and theater campaign plan objectives.

6 Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, First Arab Conference on Arabizing 

the Internet, Amman, Jordan, April 1, 2001; see <http://izquotes.

com/quote/205214>.

7 On November 18, 1998, at the NATO Summit in Washington, DC, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Swedish 

Minister of Defense Björn von Sydow signed a memorandum 

of understanding (MOU) in support of the PfP [Partnership for 

Peace] Simulation Network. They thereby established what has 

become the world’s leading multinational civil-military exercise to 

address complex emergencies. The MOU enabled long-term joint 

planning that placed Sweden at the forefront in developing computer simulations and distributed command post exercises to support Commander and Staff training in peace support operations 

through the Viking series of PfP exercises. Success enlarged to 

include the South East European Simulation Network under the 

auspices of the South East European Defense Ministerials. The 

subsequent signing of the Swiss-U.S. MOU on April 25, 1999, by 

Secretary Cohen and Swiss Defense Minister Adolf Ogi, was the 

inauguration of a collaborative multinational effort to develop and 

facilitate the development of open-source Advanced Distributed 

Learning among PfP nations. This multinational effort has since 

expanded to include contributions and participants from many 

other countries. The successes of the Swiss-U.S. and Swedish-
ctnsp.dodlive.mil dh No. 80 19 

U.S. efforts are well documented, and the demand for the quality 

products and services provided by these European nations have 

grown beyond PfP and NATO, with calls for similar efforts with 

partners in other regions of the world.

8 NATO, Wales Summit Declaration, available at <www.nato.int/

cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm>.

9 NATO Allied Command Transformation, “Preparing for Future 

Challenges: NATO Transformation Chiefs Meet for 2014 Chiefs of 

Transformation Conference,” Public Affairs Office, December 19, 

2014, available at <www.act.nato.int/preparing-for-future-challengesnato-transformation-chiefs-meet-for-cotc-2014>.

10 For details, see the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of 

the Gulf (GCC) Secretariat Web site, available at <www.gcc-sg.org/

eng/index142e.html>.

11 See “Report: ISIS Steals $429 Million from Central Bank 

After Capturing Mosul,” Al Arabiya News, June 13, 2014, available 

at <http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/06/13/

Report-ISIS-steals-429mn-in-Mosul-capture.html>; and Hubbard, 

Krauss, and Schmitt, “Rebels in Syria Claim Control of Resources,” 

The New York Times, January 28, 2014, available at <www.nytimes.

com/2014/01/29/world/middleeast/rebels-in-syria-claim-control-ofresources.html?_r=0>.

12 Awad Mustafa, “GCC Announces a Joint Military Command,” DefenseNews, December 11, 2013, available at <http://archive.

defensenews.com/article/20131211/DEFREG04/312110011/GCCAnnounces-Joint-Military-Command>.

13 Caline Malek, “Arab League Nations ‘Need to Work More 

Closely on Common Problems,’” The National (Abu Dhabi), February 

27, 2014, available at <www.thenational.ae/uae/government/arableague-nations-need-to-work-more-closely-on-common-problems>.

14 Program development should incorporate lessons, both 

positive and negative, learned from Army Knowledge Online and 

Defense Knowledge Online.

15 See DOD, Unity of Effort Framework Solution Guide, Joint Staff 

J7, Future Joint Force Development, August 31, 2013, available at 

<www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/jwfc/uef_solution_guide.pdf>.

16 Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Washington, DC, The Joint Staff, November 

8, 2010, as amended through January 15, 2015), available at <www.dtic.

mil/doctrine/DOD_dictionary/>.

17 “Insights and Best Practices Focus Paper: Interorganizational 

Coordination,” 4th ed., Deployable Training Division, Joint Staff J7, 

July 2013, available at <www.dtic.mil/doctrine/fp/fp_ia_coord.pdf>.

18 The authors would like to thank Dr. Paulette Robinson for 

these insights. 

19 Drawn from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency 

Web site, available at <www.dsca.mil/programs/DOD-regionalcenters>.

20 Global Knowledge Networking will also need to reference data exchange standards, like NIEM (National Information 

Exchange Model), available at <www.niem.gov/Pages/default.

aspx>; and HXL (Humanitarian eXchange Language), available at 

<http://hxl.humanitarianresponse.info/ns/index.html>.

21 David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes, Power to the Edge: 

Command and Control in the Information Age (Washington, DC: 

Command and Control Research Program, 2003), 90.

22 Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional 

Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam, R-967-ARPA (Santa 

Monica: RAND, 1973). This is a very sad memo in that many of the 

mistakes he cites from Vietnam were repeated in Iraq and Afghanistan.

23 Bartone and Sciarretta.

24 These operational principles were developed in accordance 

with the recommendations outlined in the Report of a FrenchGerman-UK-U.S. Working Group: Coalition Military Operations: 

The Way Ahead Through Cooperability (Arlington, VA: U.S.-CREST, 

2000).

The Center for Technology and National Security Policy 

(CTNSP) within the Institute for National Strategic Studies 

helps national security decisionmakers and their staffs understand emerging impacts of technology and integrate 

them effectively into policies through research, teaching, 

and outreach. CTNSP supports the Department of Defense 

leadership and Congress while also encouraging wholeof-government and public-private collaboration.

The Defense Horizons series presents original research 

by members of NDU as well as other scholars and 

specialists in national security affairs from the United 

States and abroad. The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are those of the 

contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the 

Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal 

Government. Visit NDU Press online at ndupress.ndu.edu.

Phil Stockdale

Acting Director

CTNSP

R.D. Hooker, Jr. 

Director of Research

and Strategic Support

Institute for National Strategic Studies

William T. Eliason 

Director

NDU Press
20 dh No. 80 ctnsp.dodlive.mil

Responding to Russia after the 

NATO Summit: Unmanned Aerial 

Systems Overmatch in the Black 

Sea

by Conor Sullivan, Schuyler Standley, and 

James M. Keagle 

(Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 

Defense Horizons 79, April 2015)

Defense Partnerships: 

Documenting Trends and 

Emerging Topics for Action

by Samuel Bendett

(Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 

Defense Horizons 78, March 2015)

China Moves Out: Stepping 

Stones Toward a New Maritime 

Strategy

by Christopher H. Sharman

(Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, China 

Strategic Perspectives 9, March 2015)

The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Review 

of the Guidelines for Defense 

Cooperation

by James J. Przystup

(Center for Strategic Research, Strategic Perspectives 18, 

March 2015)

Red China’s “Capitalist Bomb”: 

Inside the Chinese Neutron 

Bomb Program

by Jonathan Ray

(Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, China 

Strategic Perspectives 8, January 2015)

A Time to Tweet, as Well as a 

Time to Kill: ISIS’s Projection of 

Power in Iraq and Syria

by Heather Marie Vitale and James M. Keagle

(Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 

Defense Horizons 77, October 2014)

The Rising Terrorist Threat in 

Tanzania: Domestic Islamist 

Militancy and Regional Threats

by Andre LeSage

(Center for Strategic Research, Strategic Forum 288, 

October 2014)

“Not an Idea We Have to 

Shun”: Chinese Overseas Basing 

Requirements in the 21st Century

by Christopher D. Yung and Ross Rustici 

with Scott Devary and Jenny Lin

(Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, China 

Strategic Perspectives 7, October 2014)

The Indian Jihadist Movement: 

Evolution and Dynamics

by Stephen Tankel

(Center for Strategic Research, Strategic Perspectives 17, 

July 2014)

The U.S. “Rebalance” and 

Europe: Convergent Strategies 

Open Doors to Improved 

Cooperation

by Leo G. Michel and James J. Przystup

(Center for Strategic Research, Strategic Forum 275, 

February 2012)

Other titles from 

NDU Press For online access to NDU Press 

publications, go to: ndupress.ndu.edu