“We are streamlining the secure exchange of information between unclassified and classified networks via the Amazon Web Services Cross-Domain Solution. By eliminating ‘sneaker-net’ methods of data transfer, we’re boosting collaboration and empowering Warfighters with faster decision-making.”
— Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)
Let’s stop right there.
That statement, issued today by DISA, reads like something spit out by an AI trained exclusively on PowerPoint slides and defense contractor jargon. You can practically feel the bullet points smacking your head.
Look, I’ve been around long enough to know when someone’s taking a victory lap over something they should’ve done ten years ago. That quote isn’t news. It’s bureaucracy patting itself on the back for catching up to what the private sector figured out during the Obama administration: that manually moving sensitive data with a flash drive isn’t secure, efficient, or even tolerable in a networked world.
The fact that this was ever standard practice—sneaker-netting files between classified and unclassified systems—isn’t a charming throwback to simpler times. It’s an indictment of the plodding, risk-averse, and self-congratulatory culture that defines too much of the military’s information infrastructure. If you’ve never heard the term sneaker-net, it refers to the physical act of walking a disc or thumb drive with data from one computer to another. With your sneakers. Welcome to modern warfare.
Now DISA wants to tell us—with straight faces—that using Amazon Web Services to securely bridge classified and unclassified networks is somehow innovative. It’s not. It’s overdue.
And this gets to a deeper problem: milspeak.
Like its cursed cousins—techspeak and corporate-speak—milspeak exists to obscure, not clarify. It’s a language where verbs are murdered, nouns are padded, and meaning goes to die. It turns common-sense progress into “capability enhancement initiatives” and simple decisions into “stakeholder-aligned operational directives.”
Nobody talks like this in the real world.
A civilian tech team upgrading a system would say, “We’re finally linking the secure network to the public one through the cloud.” Boom. Done. But put a few colonels, contractors, and an alphabet agency in the same room, and suddenly it becomes a “cross-domain cloud-enabled zero-trust interoperability solution.” What does that even mean? Don’t worry—you’ll see it on a $12 million procurement document next quarter.
Let’s zoom out. What DISA is describing isn’t a revolution. It’s a fix. A long-overdue one. And it doesn’t take 50 words and a trademarked solution name to say that.
Here’s the real headline: “Military Finally Stops Walking USB Drives Across Base to Share Intel.”
That’s the story. And it’s not a good look.
Now, I’m not saying DISA’s job is easy. Balancing cybersecurity, classified networks, and information flow at scale is a monster of a challenge. But the way they talk about it—the fog of milspeak—suggests a disconnect from the people actually affected by their work: analysts in the trenches, pilots flying missions, Marines setting up comms in some forward AO. You think any of them care about “streamlining cross-domain data integration”? No. They care about whether they can see the drone feed in real time and whether the last set of coordinates was updated correctly.
Language matters. Especially in national security. When the people making decisions speak in buzzwords, they lose clarity—and trust. Warfighters don’t want empowerment through optimized collaboration. They want tools that work and information that arrives before it’s too late.
Here’s a thought experiment: what if firefighters talked like this?
“We are facilitating real-time deployment of aqueous suppressant materials via a hydraulically-optimized pressurized delivery system.”
Or—hear me out—they could just say, “We’re spraying water on the damn fire.”
And if they are Marines, every other word starts with an F.
This is the same problem. Only now, it’s not just ridiculous—it’s dangerous. Every time a government agency swaps out clear, plain English for some jargon-laced abstraction, they create room for confusion, misinterpretation, and ultimately, failure. If you don’t believe me, ask the Marines who tried syncing with Army systems in a contested environment. Or the intel teams who missed a window because their feeds didn’t align across domains. Ask the guy still plugging in a floppy disc because the new system isn’t “authorized for use” in his AO.
This isn’t just a matter of semantics. The way we talk about military technology reflects how we think about it. If every advancement gets wrapped in a cloud of empty phrasing, we stop scrutinizing whether the advancement actually works. We get hypnotized by form instead of function.
That’s how boondoggles happen. That’s how half-baked systems end up costing billions. Because nobody wants to raise a hand and ask, “Wait—what exactly are we doing or saying here?”
So here’s a modest proposal for DISA and any other agency tempted to fall back on acronym soup and contractor babble:
Say what you mean. Say it like a person. Say it like someone whose decisions matter.
Tell the truth about what’s broken. Be honest about what’s just catching up. And for the love of all things mission-critical, stop pretending that obvious fixes are groundbreaking breakthroughs.
Because war doesn’t care about buzzwords. The enemy doesn’t care about your cloud certification. And a drone strike doesn’t pause while you “empower cross-functional teams.”
It just hits.