Global competition is heating up, and complex geopolitical developments have been a catalyst for United States government leaders to strengthen ties with allied nations and coalition partners.
Within the intelligence community, global partnerships have become a major area of focus. The U.S. is part of a global intelligence alliance called Five Eyes, which also comprises Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
To get a glimpse into the future of working with partners like Five Eyes, Executive Mosaic spoke with Doug Cossa, chief information officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, in a new video interview.
“Really since the beginning of time, when we think about our international systems, they were developed as separate and disparate from what we would use in our native environment,” he said, explaining the systems the IC has had in place for decades.
Today, the DIA is the community service provider for a capability called Stone Ghost, which is a separate system that the Five Eye partners use together. Though this customized system is important for global collaboration with allies, Cossa said he wants to move away from using a system that is “separate and distinct” and toward a system that’s more interconnected.
“As we move into the future, we want to get rid of point-to-point systems and work from our native environments, meaning the system we log in to the U.S. to do our day-to-day work seamlessly interfaces with the systems that other countries have — particularly the Five Eyes that we share intelligence with — in their native environment,” Cossa said.
The DIA currently has a group of employees testing out how to work on the same systems as global partners in a secure way, and Cossa said the agency is really focusing on data standards and data strategies for securely sharing information.
“The future looks like extending that to other partners, international partners,” Cossa explained.
Watch Doug Cossa’s full video interview here to learn more about his vision for the future of information sharing with partners.