Military communications [Guest editorial]

Interoperability and security between allies are the key challenges in military communications. In spite of standardization efforts and independent national purchase policies, it is hard to make the communication systems in coalition forces share information. Since the forces?? operations involve lethal decisions, the demand for trust, secrecy, and authentication is extremely high. The need for quick decisions based on complete and up-to-date information, makes these challenges tricky. The good news on military research programs is that they are long term and involve considerable funding.