TwitterX: A Secure Social Media Application for Naval Special Warfare

According to retired Army General Martin Dempsey, the ability of the U.S. military to adapt and succeed in future conflicts will depend on its capacity to execute mission command, defined in Joint Publication 3-0 as “the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based on mission-type orders.” Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal expands on the concept by stating that adaptable organizations promote decentralized execution and foster shared consciousness.^[1] While decentralized execution can be enabled through mission-type orders, shared consciousness requires collaborative communications technology to build context for subordinates. The U.S. military has adopted every communications medium up to and including email and video teleconference. It has not, however, adopted social media, and this has given a comparative advantage to our opponents.^[2] Naval Special Warfare could leverage a secure social media application to build shared consciousness and provide context for decentralized execution.

Mission Command Pitfalls

In “Mission Command: Addressing Challenges and Sharing Insights,” the authors highlight the importance of shared understanding and operational context to empower subordinates.^[3] Building shared consciousness with traditional communications such as email distribution lists, conference calls, and teleconferences, however, can lead to information overload. This, in turn, “may preclude commanders from taking valuable time to reflect on the problem, develop an operational approach, and craft clear guidance and intent. In these cases, the commands often default to a centralized control philosophy as they react to emerging challenges with no clear overarching approach.”^[4] The supply-push communication modalities can nullify some benefits of mission command.

A Solution

Social media, on the other hand, provides a demand-pull method of information consumption. While emails can come in a (theoretically) unlimited quantity from a seemingly unlimited number of people, information consumed from social media is digested at the rate and quantity the user desires. In addition, assuming no access restrictions, users can easily connect in ways they may not have over email or phone because of the point-to-point nature of those media. In short, if shared consciousness without information overload is a key ingredient to enabling decentralized execution espoused by mission command, social media could present a viable alternative.

Consider first a platoon commander deployed to Iraq. By tagging adjacent units in secure social media posts from his smartphone, he can rapidly and frequently share intelligence horizontally instead of relying on centralized control.

Next, consider a commanding officer leading a distributed SEAL Team. Instead of receiving infrequent, dense storyboards and situation reports, he sees a continuous, bite-sized flow of “what’s happening” in his secure social media feed. Similarly, individual operators could monitor communitywide events and trends, informing career decisions such as transferring between SEAL, Special Reconnaissance, SEAL Delivery Vehicle, and Special Boat Teams.

Finally, consider a SEAL Delivery Vehicle platoon commander preparing for a dive trip to Maui. By searching for hashtags and geotags, he can quickly aggregate key pieces of information and best practices instead of slogging through lengthy, hard-to-find after-action reports.

Addressing Risks

Although a secure social media application could provide a viable alternative to the information overload of traditional communications, some may argue that the risk of leaks or oversharing outweigh the benefits. However, as McChrystal notes, “Massive leaks are not an inevitable consequence of . . . information sharing, but even if they were, the benefits vastly outweigh the potential costs.”^[5] In addition, security protocol embedded within the proposed application could curtail spillage.

Current Solutions

There currently is a desire among special operators for such an information-sharing platform. In lieu of a secure social media application, multiple innovation networks share unclassified ideas over Slack, a free online collaboration tool. In spite of the fact that Slack is not hosted on a secure platform, it has proven a valuable medium for information sharing among both junior and senior officers.

In addition, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has developed a mobile application called Tearline that was custom built to allow users to read and create unclassified intelligence products on their mobile devices. The Tearline mobile application sits on top of a secure server hosted by NGA and requires that users authenticate using GEOAxIS, their enterprise identity and access management system. While the NGA has clearly shown that mobile solutions are a viable option for geospatial intelligence sharing, imagine how valuable a similar platform could be when applied to the dynamic environment of special operations.

Developing a secure social media application should be a component of Naval Special Warfare’s plan to dominate complex environments in the future. General McChrystal writes that “the amount of nonlinear change that once took months to play out can now happen in the time that it takes to type 140 characters.”^[6] While issuing mission-type orders is a simple matter of practice by commanders, the development of collaborative technology requires time and resources by senior leaders. The real test of Naval Special Warfare’s ability to adapt and succeed in future conflicts may be its willingness to try something new.

Lieutenant Commander Kitchen was a student at the Naval Postgraduate School when he wrote this article.