Zero Trust and Agility at the Tactical Edge

Original broadcast 9/17/25

Presented by Zscaler & Carahsoft

For centuries, armies have relied on logistics—what Napoleon famously summarized as “an army marches on its stomach.” Today, the essentials are not just beans and bullets but also bytes. Hansang Bae, Public Sector CTO at Zscaler Gov Solutions, argues that information agility is now as critical to mission success as food and ammunition. At TechNet Augusta, he explained how zero trust, edge computing, and a new mindset about networks are transforming how the Army fights.

Bae begins by challenging long-standing assumptions about military communications. Traditionally, building a network meant deploying circuits, routers, and secure infrastructure to the battlefield. But in modern contingencies, time is the most precious resource, and by the time a network is established, the fight may already have shifted. Instead, Bae proposes a fundamentally different approach: treat the network as commodity transport and secure the data itself through zero trust.

In a zero trust model, the network—whether it’s a dedicated military circuit, a commercial 5G link, or even an adversary’s infrastructure—is simply the transport layer. Security is enforced at the data and application level, ensuring that only authenticated, authorized users and devices gain access. This approach allows the Army to use whatever connectivity is available—Starlink, a coffee shop’s Wi-Fi, or a local mobile provider—while still maintaining security. The network becomes flexible, ubiquitous, and instantly usable, rather than a bottleneck.

Speed is the central driver of this approach. Soldiers at the tactical edge cannot wait days for communications infrastructure to be set up. They need immediate, secure access to data and collaboration tools. Bae explains that by shifting from network-centric security to data-centric zero trust, the Army can dramatically compress timelines and ensure that commanders and units have the information they need when they need it.

Edge computing further enhances this agility. In contested environments, continuous connectivity to higher headquarters cannot be assumed. Networks may be jammed, disrupted, or unavailable. To function effectively, units must be able to process and act on data locally. That means pre-positioning mission-critical data at the edge before operations begin, ensuring it is available to platoon leaders, company commanders, and soldiers in the fight. Afterward, data can be exfiltrated as soon as connections are restored, giving higher echelons a common operating picture.

This approach also enables edge-to-edge data sharing, bypassing the need for all traffic to flow back through centralized hubs. Soldiers in the field can exchange information directly with one another, accelerating decision-making and improving resilience. In practice, this means a rifleman with a handheld device can share intelligence with a squad leader without waiting for connectivity to a distant base, keeping operations fluid even in degraded conditions.

Bae also addressed the role of artificial intelligence in this new environment. AI can accelerate decision-making, analyze massive data streams, and support soldiers at the edge. But he warns of a growing risk: AI systems increasingly consume content generated by other AI systems, creating a recursive loop of “AI learning from AI.” Without safeguards, this can degrade the quality of models and introduce serious vulnerabilities. To counter this, Bae proposes mandatory metadata tagging for AI-generated content, allowing future AI systems to skip over synthetic data and prioritize human-created information. Without such measures, he warns, the military could face a “garbage in, garbage out” problem at machine speed.

Cultural change may be the hardest part of this transformation. Many in the Department of Defense are comfortable with legacy networks, firewalls, and routers. Shifting to a model where any network can be used securely under zero trust requires breaking habits and building confidence. But Bae insists that the alternative—slow, inflexible communications infrastructure—is unsustainable in modern contested environments. The Army must embrace agility, not infrastructure, as its guiding principle.

The implications of Bae’s vision are profound. In a world where every operation is contested, and time is always limited, soldiers cannot afford to wait for networks. They need secure access to data at the speed of relevance, wherever they are and with whatever connectivity is available. Zero trust, edge computing, and forward-thinking AI safeguards provide the foundation to make this possible.

For Bae, the formula is simple: treat networks as disposable transport, secure the data itself, empower the edge, and keep humans in control of AI. With this mindset, the Army can fight faster, smarter, and more securely—even in the most contested environments.