Have you ever seen a movie called the hitchhikers guide to the rest of the galaxy? If you have, then you might recall a race of people who put policy and paper work over operations. As a result, their units performed poorly. This is do to the long waits for the paper work to come in. I liken this wait to the encrypt/decrypt time secure communication requires. Now to go in the clear is a mission by mission and case by case decision.I assume not every drone mission is unencrypted. All and all, as CPU power increases, the benefits of going in the clear will decrease. Until that day, one must have a balance of security and operations.

The views expressed in this posts are the authors and do not represent the views of the United States Navy or the United States Department of Defense.