DISA Pacific commander urges network resilience and outlines strategic priorities at AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific

By Marco A. Villasana Jr., DISA Office of Strategic Communication and Public Affairs

Distance, evolving threats and the need for robust partnerships are among the challenges the Defense Information Systems Agency is facing to support joint and coalition operations in the Indo-Pacific theater.

United States Marine Corps Col. Jared C. Voneida, DISA Pacific commander, emphasized the importance of building resilient, adaptable communications networks across the region during a breakout session at the AFCEA International TechNet Indo-Pacific 2024 conference.

“From the DISA standpoint, when I look at resiliency across the Indo-Pacific, I’m mainly looking at our transport layer,” Voneida said. “We’ve been getting after this at DISA and DISA PAC by first understanding the joint and coalition forces’ schema maneuver.”

DISA Pacific works closely with service components and coalition partners to understand deployment needs, ensuring that critical infrastructure and bandwidth are available to support operations.

“Right now, we have persistent presence in all the locations that we want to be at during conflict,” Voneida explained. “The only thing that’s going to change is the size of that persistent presence — it’s going to grow during crisis and conflict.”

Adapting to new operational models

DISA is moving away from large command and control nodes in favor of smaller, dispersed sites to enhance security and resilience.

“Big nodes are worthy of being attacked. Small dispersion is what we’re looking for, not only for security but also to cover down on the threat,” Voneida noted. This shift ensures that services can remain connected, even in a high-tech conflict, by distributing nodes across a wider area.

He also highlighted the importance of “agnostic transport,” which involves leveraging a mix of terrestrial fiber, military and commercial SATCOM, and other mediums to maintain reliable communications.

“How do we get our signal out, no matter where we are in this theater, and build it in such a robust and reliable way that it can survive contact with the enemy?” he asked.

Voneida acknowledged the complexity of defending communications infrastructure, which can be targeted through cyberattacks, physical sabotage or disruptions to undersea cables.

“What we’re doing is looking at spreading out our capability to make sure the joint coalition force can connect, making it exceedingly difficult to be completely denied,” he added.

Partnering to enhance cybersecurity and Zero Trust

Voneida discussed DISA’s collaborative efforts with industry and intelligence agencies, including National Security Agency , to monitor networks for potential threats.

“You just can’t be an intel officer and hop on the [Department of Defense Information Network] and understand the net,” Voneida said. “We need personnel who understand the architecture to determine if what we’re seeing is a threat.”

DISA’s zero-trust network access and application security architecture, Thunderdome, is a key part of future network security.

“If we can get Zero Trust right, it provides tremendous advantage in this theater, with all these disparate countries that we have to work with,” Voneida explained. However, he noted challenges in ensuring users correctly tag and share information, saying, “We’ve been tasked by INDOPACOM to stop with the Secret//NOFORN, because we’re killing ourselves and our releasability with our allies and partners.”

Integrated deterrence and strategic readiness

Looking toward the future, Voneida said DISA aims to enhance its network by January 2027, ensuring support for integrated deterrence across the region.

“We’ll continue to build that network, improve it, and push that fight further and further down the road,” he said. “The [People's Republic of China] have capability. They do. We need to recognize that and respect it, but they’re not 10 feet tall.”

He went on, “In partnership with industry, we need to continue to make this a very, very unfair fight … Ideally, we’re improving our position to the point where they don’t even want to fight. That’s what we’re doing — integrated deterrence.”

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