But for the defense executives and military officers who gathered for the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference, the real question lies in how the world changed.

Some attendees at the annual defense technologies meeting said they expect dramatic increases in military spending as the country presses ahead with its war on terrorism.

But they also voiced uncertainty about how that money will be spent, and whether their business is positioned to benefit as the military retools for a fundamentally different kind of war.

"Ninety percent of this business is engineers. They like problems," said William Kincaid, director of corporate development for Orincon Defense, a San Diego military contractor. "So there's a way higher level of energy. We're at war. There are some problems that seem unsolvable, and so a lot of people are excited about that."

Kincaid added, "The other 10 percent are businessmen, and they're saying, where's the money?"

One person who is both laying out the problems and allocating money is Rear Adm. Ken Slaght.

As commander of SPAWAR, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, Slaght is responsible for developing the Navy's command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.

Some priorities emerged in the military's response to Sept. 11 and as the war in Afghanistan unfolded, Slaght said.

For example, SPAWAR has rushed to deploy a number of embryonic technologies urgently needed by U.S. forces:

In anticipation of Afghanistan's harsh winter, new meteorological and oceanographic systems were installed aboard U.S. aircraft carriers and amphibious ships in a matter of days. Slaght said the process usually takes 30 months.

The Navy's global command and control system was updated in record time with Web-based software that enables Naval fleet commanders to track hundreds of ships and provide "total battle space situational awareness." The software was developed in part by Polexis, a small software company in San Diego.

SPAWAR also launched the urgent development of what Slaght called the "Naval Fires Network" to provide time-critical target information to bombers and other aircraft. The challenge is to get information to a pilot within minutes after a target is identified.

SPAWAR funnels about 80 percent of its $4.6 billion budget to industry, with about $342 million flowing each year to more than 50 companies in the San Diego area.

The naval procurement and development agency spends an additional $303 million in San Diego on salaries and other expenses related to maintaining its headquarters near Old Town.

"People might be looking for new challenges," Slaght said, "but bandwidth continues to be the critical area for us."

By bandwidth, Slaght means the capability to move huge amounts of information through a "battle space," using satellite-based information technologies.

A key challenge has been integrating different systems to ensure that data can be shared among various U.S. forces (and U.S. allies) without compromising security.

In this regard, Slaght placed a priority on deploying a "digital modular radio" that was developed under SPAWAR's auspices by General Dynamics' decision systems business.

By using software to control different radio functions, the new modular radio can replace different types of radios now used by U.S. forces, said Richard Williamson, a SPAWAR spokesman. That will save weight, power and space aboard Navy ships and aircraft.

Bruce Bigelow: (619) 293-1314; bruce.bigelow@uniontrib.com