ST. LOUIS-Both leading presidential candidates in last Tuesday’s debate here reiterated plans to beef up the military with next-generation technology, positions that could conflict with President Clinton’s directive to force the Pentagon and others to surrender radio spectrum to third-generation mobile-phone carriers.
In a post-Cold War era of peacekeeping missions, humanitarian assistance and occasional combat that increasingly looks to interconnectedness, sophisticated intelligence gathering and new-age spectrum weapons, the next president will have to confront the inherent conflict of trying to bolster armed forces while taking away one of the Pentagon’s most valuable resources in the new century: radio spectrum.
The apparent disconnect suggests that whatever actions the Clinton administration takes between now and Jan. 20 on 3G spectrum could be vulnerable to change in the next administration. That would further complicate the mobile-phone industry’s aggressive campaign to seize the 1.7 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 806-960 MHz bands the United States and other nations identified for 3G at the World Administrative Radio Conference this past summer in Istanbul.
On that score, there appears to have been differences in the wireless industry about whether to press for presidential action or congressional legislation on 3G spectrum.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, unbeknownst to some in the wireless industry, lobbied for 3G spectrum study and spectrum planning time lines in Senate Commerce appropriations several months ago.
Steven Berry, top lobbyist at CTIA, said National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Gregory Rohde successfully lobbied to kill 3G spectrum legislation. Rohde, who had a big hand in the White House 3G initiative, concedes he was against legislation. But Rohde declined to say whether he voiced opposition during talks with congressional aides.
Berry argued legislation would be legally binding in the next administration, regardless of who is president. A CTIA spokesman said CTIA President Thomas Wheeler, who lavishly praised the White House’s 3G action, knew of Berry’s 3G lobbying efforts (which the administration opposed).
While military and other federal government licensees operate in the 1.7 GHz band, educational, religious and fixed broadband operators (small, medium and large operators, like WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp., which invested $1 billion each on licenses) occupy the 2.5 GHz band.
“I … support modernization of our strategic and tactical weaponry,” Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore told the town-hall audience at Washington University’s athletic center. “The governor has proposed skipping a generation of technology. I think that it would be a mistake because I think that one of the ways we’ve been able to be so successful in Kosovo and Bosnia and Haiti and in other places is by having the technological edge.”
It turns out the Pentagon uses the 1350-1850 MHz bands for mobile communications in the Balkans. The administration wants to take away spectrum at 1.7 GHz from the Pentagon and other federal agencies and put it up for auction by Sept. 30, 2002, for 3G wireless services.
The timetable for studies and other actions to determine how much, if any, of the 1.7 GHz and 2.5 GHz frequencies will be available for 3G was scheduled to be released by the administration on Friday.
In addition to preventing the American mobile-phone industry from losing the mobile Internet market to Europe and Asia, the U.S. Treasury stands to gain a windfall from 3G spectrum auctions. 3G auctions in the United Kingdom and Germany totaled $80 billion.
In addition to mobile communications, the Department of Defense uses the 1.7 GHz-1.8 GHz band to operate space telecommand tracking and control (including global positioning systems for military and civilian use), fixed microwave, radio relay training, the Air Force space ground link subsystem and aeronautical applications, such as telemetry, video and target systems.
When asked before last Tuesday’s debate whether Gore supports President Clinton’s Oct. 13 executive memorandum to study options for recovering spectrum from the Pentagon and others, in view of the Democratic presidential nominee’s pledge to keep the Pentagon on the cutting edge, William Daley-Gore campaign manager and former Commerce Secretary-replied, “I assume he does.”
The Bush-Cheney campaign did not respond to requests for comment on Clinton’s 3G spectrum directive.
During the debate, Bush said, “We have an opportunity to use our research and development capabilities, the great technology of the United States, to make our military lighter, harder to find, more lethal.”
Bush, and to a greater extent GOP running mate Dick Cheney, has made military readiness a mainstay in stump speeches around the country.
“There’s a school of thought that we don’t need robust forces out there because the bad guys have been vanquished. But the key to maintaining peace is that we may not need to be as big as we were in the Cold War, but we need to be up to the task,” Cheney, secretary of defense in the Bush administration, told an audience last Wednesday in Latrobe, Pa.
There are some indications radio spectrum and communications bandwidth are perhaps more valuable to the Pentagon today than during the Cold War. In addition, there are clear signs that inadequate spectrum could undermine military preparedness.
A June 1997 study by the General Accounting Office-the investigative arm of Congress-determined “national security and cost implications of the federal frequency losses to CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability) were not fully considered in 1995 and have still not been adequately assessed.”
In 1995, NTIA-complying with the-then Democratic Congress’ mandate to shift 200 megahertz of federal spectrum to the private sector-identified 235 megahertz for transfer to private sector. “The loss of the portion of the frequency spectrum used by CEC could reduce its capability in peacetime training operations and make it incapable of joint (multiservice) operations similar in size to Desert Storm,” the GA0 report stated. The study also warned that insufficient spectrum could lead to interference problems and jeopardize the development of new information warfare systems. GAO concluded the potential impact on the Pentagon from spectrum loss could not be calculated because “spectrum-management planning in DOD is fragmented and inadequate.”
The Navy Strategic Planning Guidance, an April 2000 report on long-term military objectives, stressed knowledge superiority and the need to recalibrate military preparedness for the Digital Age. “Improvements in networking and communications technology, matched by agile and adaptive organizations, will dramatically accelerate the operations of dispersed and maneuvering naval forces … it will provide naval forces the speed of command to operate faster than those adversaries-inside their decision time lines. Ultimately, networked operations will improve our operational tempo and provide the knowledge to maneuver or produce effects that `lock out’ an opponent’s intended actions and defeat his overall strategy,” the report stated. Admiral Jay Johnson, chief of Navy operations, said, “Forward presence and knowledge superiority are the two means upon which we will structure our Navy for the Information Age.”
In his 1998 book, “The Next World War: Computers are the Weapons & the Front Line is Everywhere,” journalist James Adams writes that information warfare is the next revolutionary technology.
In recent years, the Clinton administration and GOP-led Congress have come to realize it as well, even though there is disagreement over policy implementation and funding. A number of high-profile domestic cyber-hacking cases tend to underscore why the military and other policy makers now see information warfare as a national security vulnerability.
Quoting George Tenet at the end of a l
ong Senate confirmation hearing on Feb. 5, 1997, the would-be CIA director stated, “There’s a new threat I’ve put in this transnational threat area and that is security to information systems in the United States. The tremendous growth in communications technology is shrinking distances and weakening the barriers to the flow of information. This technology also presents us with an important transnational challenge-protecting our information systems. Recognizing this problem, we are assessing countries that have such potential, including those which appear to have instituted formal warfare programs.”
Three years later, the Navy has identified Russia, China, India and Cuba as having formal information warfare programs. The 2000 Navy report also said North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Lybia have some information warfare capability and “may covertly employ it at any time that suits their needs.” France, Japan and German also were tagged by the Navy information warfare players.
“We’d just a soon not give up spectrum. But it’s a matter of balancing national priorities,” said Linton Wells II, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the office of Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence.
The congressionally ordered surrender of spectrum of spectrum has been a sore point for the Pentagon for the past seven years. Two years ago, DOD staged a huge battle with the wireless industry on Capitol Hill to win back spectrum lost in 1993. While the Pentagon did not get everything it wanted, military top brass had drawn a line in the sand on the spectrum issue.
While military licensees relocated from the 1.7 GHz band to other frequencies are supposed to be compensated by 3G mobile-phone carriers, it appears legislation may be necessary to enable the Pentagon to be directly reimbursed.
In some respects, Clinton’s 3G spectrum directive could not have come at a worse time. The relative peace, prosperity and tranquility that has reigned during much Clinton’s two terms was shattered on Oct. 12 (the day before the White House 3G announcement) when a suicide mission killed 17 Americans on the USS Cole warship. The bomb blast occurred amid stepped-up fighting between Israelis and Palestinians and the prospect of another war in the oil-rich Mideast.
