Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said national security leaders should evaluate risks and capabilities of the joint force in order to counter threats from state and non-state actors, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Jim Garamone writes Dunford on Tuesday told class 2017 members at the National Defense University in Washington that leaders should also build up and maintain equipment, staff and strategies amid threats posed by Russia, North Korea, China, Iran and violent extremism associated with the Islamic State militant organization.

He also cited the implications of the risk assessments for the joint force, such as the need for the U.S. to integrate all government aspects, allies and partners into strategic plans as well as develop and maintain nuclear and special operations capabilities.

Dunford also discussed how NDU works to develop future national security and military leaders through a one-year joint professional military education program, according to a second report by Garamone.

He said the university seeks to provide the students an opportunity to read, think, write and consider about their profession as well as learn from international students and counterparts from other U.S. civilian agencies.

Dunford also shared his experience at the Army War College in Pennsylvania and urged NDU students to leverage the university’s faculty and staff as they take the year-long course.

U.S. Army Secretary Eric Fanning has discussed his priorities for the service branch with soldiers, staff members and civilian employees at his inaugural town hall meeting, the Army reported Thursday.

Fanning told event attendees on Tuesday at the Pentagon that he expects the newly established “rapid capability office” to help advance Army readiness in the areas of electronic and cyber warfare, survivability and position navigation timing as well as give the service branch a technological edge over potential adversaries.

“We’re not going to use this office to build a new helicopter,” Fanning said.

“We’re going to use this office because some technology on the helicopter isn’t giving us the edge over the adversary we thought it was going to be.”

He said he also aims for the military branch to address behavioral health and sexual assault issues among uniformed personnel.

Fanning also mentioned the Keris Strike joint exercise in Malaysia and his plans to work with Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Mark Milley to streamline communications in order to facilitate the decision-making process within the Army headquarters.

Fanning was inducted into office in May six months after he was nominated by President Barack Obama for the post.

The U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence has hosted the 2016 edition of the Cyber Quest event to host experiments designed to address a warfighting challenge to conduct space, cyber electromagnetic operations and maintain communications.

The Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center said Aug. 16 the experiment held throughout June to July brought together industry, academia and other Army organizations that worked to help provide CEMA situational understanding to commanders.

“As the Army has looked at this space, they have identified cyber electromagnetic requirements and expeditionary mission command requirements as two of the eight top priorities,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, CCoE commanding general.

CERDEC noted that each of the different battle staff elements have visualized respective particular warfighting function under a “User Defined Operational Picture” to provide commanders a holistic view of the CEMA environment.

Col. Timothy Presby, training and doctrine command capability manager, added cyber situational understanding was revealed by a capability-based assessment as the number one gap of the Army’s mission command and cyberspace operational needs.

The Defense Science Board has conducted a 2016 summer study on autonomy that suggests autonomous technology can provide various operational advantages to a wide array of Defense Department missions.

DSB outlined in a June 2016 report three sets of recommendations to help DoD expand the use of self-operating platforms for the military, increase the operational pull for such technology and mature underlying systems for autonomy.

DoD should work to identify methods to address autonomous system engineering, design, acquisition and security challenges as well as establish an autonomy-literate workforce and create new test, modeling and simulation frameworks, according to the board.

The board also recommended that DoD consider deployment of autonomous agents to gather cyber threat intelligence, unmanned undersea vehicles that can function as sea mine countermeasures and organic tactical unmanned aircraft designed to support ground forces.

The department should also adopt an early warning system to study global social movements, intrusion detection tools to secure Internet of Things and autonomous cyber resilience technology for integration into military vehicle systems, the report added.

DSB identified two potential key benefits of autonomy for DoD.

“First, autonomy can increase decision speed, enabling the U.S. to act inside an adversary’s operations cycle.”

“Secondly, ongoing rapid transition of autonomy into warfighting capabilities is vital if the U.S. is to sustain military advantage.”