A R M Y N AT I O N A L G U A R D
TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE LEARNS FROM LT COL WOODY GROTON, CIO OF THE NH ARMY NATIONAL GUARD, ABOUT INTERSTATE COLLABORATION AND THE ANNUAL CYBER YANKEE EXERCISE
I
t hardly needs to be said that human conflict has over the last couple of decades shifted from military confrontation
of the kind seen in the wars of the last century to 04
more complex and subtle platforms. Nations still spend significant proportions of GDP on defence hardware, but have woken up in the present century to the fact that more can be done to destabilise, weaken, threaten or confuse other nations or groups of nations by targeting the core systems and communications everyone relies on today. In the United States, the Army National Guard is, with the Regular army and the Reserves, a key branch of the armed services, with 337,000 personnel on call nationally. Community-based, units report to the governor of their respective states unless called to protect US domestic or national interests at times of conflict or natural disaster. “Always ready, always there.� The Guard has, like the rest of the U.S. military (not to mention business and the rest of society), had to evolve rapidly into