Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NMOC) released his command's Information Warfare Strategy Jan. 27.

"Naval oceanography is a critical component of information warfare," said Gallaudet. "The environmental information we provide allows our operational commanders to make better decisions faster than our adversaries."

This is the third strategy released by Gallaudet, and the second following the chief of naval operations' release of "A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority," which tasked the Navy to further advance and ingrain information warfare.

"This strategy advances our role within, and support to Navy information warfare, and builds on my previous strategies for naval oceanography's use of unmanned systems and contributions to electromagnetic maneuver warfare," Gallaudet said.

The major goals of Naval Oceanography's Information Warfare Strategy are:

1) Defend the command's capabilities through cyber hardening and ensure a culture of security assurance and resiliency across Naval Oceanography.

2) Deliver secure, accurate, timely and precise environmental information in support of Navy Information Warfare.

3) Develop advanced Naval Oceanography Information Warfare capabilities.

The first goal is intended to meet Department of Defense cybersecurity requirements at all NMOC commands.

"We deliver information," Gallaudet said, "and we cannot do that unless our data is assured and our networks are secure."

The second goal is intended to expand and advance naval oceanography's support to Fleet Cyber Command (FCC) and the intelligence community (IC). A notable example is precise timing information the U.S. Naval Observatory, under NMOC, provides FCC's subordinate commands. Precision timing underpins the effective operations of all Navy networks and communications. Another example is weather -- more specially cloud cover -- which the IC needs to plan overhead collection.

A further objective of this goal is to apply naval oceanography's supercomputer-powered prediction capability to advance FCC's ability to predict cyber attacks, and the IC's predictive analytic capability.

The third goal has two main elements. First, to ensure fleet decision aids have the most accurate environmental information; and second, to ensure through the warfighting development centers the fleet exploits this information for warfighting advantage. A specific objective of this is to include exploitation of the physical environment in fleet operating concepts, tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and training.

Gallaudet addressed this directly in the document.

"To stay ahead of our increasingly capable competitors, we cannot simply know the weather forecast, but we must secure the weather gauge," he said. "Our Navy must apply this age of sail concept to the 21st century battle space that extends from the sea floor to space."

Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (COMNAVMETOCCOM) directs and oversees the collection, processing, and exploitation of accurate, relevant, and timely oceanographic, meteorological, hydrographic, precise time and astrometric information. COMNAVMETOCCOM is assigned as Commander, Task Group 80.7 under U.S. Fleet Forces Command, and is part of the information warfare community.

Naval oceanography includes approximately 2,500 globally-distributed military and civilian personnel.

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