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In this report, the major presentations and discussions at the Williams Foundation seminar on the requirements for fifth generation manoeuvre held on October 24, 2019 in Canberra, Australia are highlighted along with interviews conducted before, during and after the seminar as well.
What is fifth generation manoeuvre?
The definition by Air Commodore Gordon of the Air Warfare Centre:
“The ability of our forces to dynamically adapt and respond in a contested environment to achieve the desired effect through multiple redundant paths. Remove one vector of attack and we rapidly manoeuvre to bring other capabilities to bear through agile control.”
The Australians are working through how to generate more effective combat and diplomatic capabilities for crafting, building, shaping and operating an integrated force.
For an e-book version of the report, see the following:
For the PDF version of the report, see the following:
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces inaugurated EDGE on November 5th, a company set to reposition the UAE as a notable global player in advanced technology.
With the digital era creating unprecedented challenges and opportunities, EDGE is positioned to disrupt capabilities across a wide breadth of industries. Starting with break-through innovations in the high investment defence sector, and with a priority on national security, EDGE is consolidating more than 25 entities, including subsidiaries from the Emirates Defence Industries Company (EDIC), Emirates Advanced Investments Group (EAIG), Tawazun Holding, and other independent organisations.
His Excellency Faisal Al Bannai, CEO and Managing Director, EDGE said, “EDGE will invest extensively across R&D, working closely with front-line operators to design and deploy practical solutions that address real world challenges.”
He added: “The solution to address hybrid warfare, lies at the convergence of innovations from the commercial world and the military industry. Established with a core mandate to disrupt an antiquated military industry generally stifled by red tape, EDGE is set to bring products to market faster and at more cost-effective price points.”
Al Bannai has been appointed to lead EDGE, based on his start-up background and proven track record in leveraging emerging technologies to expand business opportunities at home and abroad.
In contributing to innovation and advanced technology growth, EDGE will develop deeper partnerships with world-leading industry OEMs and defence contractors, the SME sector and academia alike. Accelerating the rate of innovation, it willalso be attracting elite industry experts and talent from around the globe, to help on a wide spectrum of modern product development, ranging from ideation to building cross domain capabilities over its five core business clusters: Platforms & Systems, Missiles & Weapons, Cyber Defence, Electronic Warfare & Intelligence, and Mission Support.
The company is set to implement advanced technologies such as autonomous capabilities, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, advanced propulsion systems, robotics and smart materials, with a focus on artificial intelligence across all its products and services.
Commenting on EDGE, His Excellency Tareq Abdul Raheem Al Hosani, Chief Executive Officer of Tawazun Economic Council (the UAE’s Defence Enabler) said: “We are invested in managing the uncertainty that technology brings by adapting our focus and capabilities towards a sustainable defence and security industry. EDGE will help us transform our domestic capabilities, while growing our engagements on defence and security exports.”
In 2018, the UAE topped the Global Innovation Index for the Arab world. EDGE aims to help the UAE to retain and expand that foremost position.
This article was published by our partner India Strategic in November 2019.
The featured photo shows H.H. Shiekh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan with the CEOs of the newly announced technology company EDGE
In this report, the major presentations and discussions at the Williams Foundation seminar on the requirements for fifth generation manoeuvre held on October 24, 2019 in Canberra, Australia are highlighted along with interviews conducted before, during and after the seminar as well.
What is fifth generation manoeuvre?
The definition by Air Commodore Gordon of the Air Warfare Centre:
“The ability of our forces to dynamically adapt and respond in a contested environment to achieve the desired effect through multiple redundant paths. Remove one vector of attack and we rapidly manoeuvre to bring other capabilities to bear through agile control.”
The Australians are working through how to generate more effective combat and diplomatic capabilities for crafting, building, shaping and operating an integrated force.
And the need for an integrated force built along the lines discussed at the Williams Foundation over the past six years, was highlighted by Vice Admiral David Johnston, Deputy Chief of the ADF at the recent Chief of the Australian Navy’s Seapower Conference in held in Sydney at the beginning of October:
“It is only by being able to operate an integrated (distributed) force that we can have the kind of mass and scale able to operate with decisive effect in a crisis.”
The need for such capabilities was highlighted by the significant presentation by Brendan Sargeant at the seminar where he addressed the major strategic shift facing Australia and why the kind of force transformation which the Williams Foundation seminars have highlighted are so crucial for Australia facing its future.
In the future there will be times when we need to act alone, or where we will need to exercise leadership.
We have not often had to do this in the past – The INTERFET operation in Timor, and RAMSI in the Solomon Islands are examples.
We are far more comfortable operating as part of a coalition led by others. It is perhaps an uncomfortable truth, but that has been a consistent feature of our strategic culture.
So I think our biggest challenge is not a technical or resource or even capability challenge – it is the enormous psychological step of recognising that in the world that we are entering we cannot assume that we have the support of others or that there will be others willing to lead when there is a crisis. We will need to exercise the leadership, and I think that is what we need to prepare for now.
To return to the title of this talk: if we want assured access for the ADF in the Asia Pacific, then we need to work towards a world that ensures that that access is useful and relevant to the sorts of crises that are likely to emerge.
I will leave one last proposition with you. Our assured access for the ADF in the Asia Pacific will be determined by our capacity to contribute to regional crisis management.
That contribution will on some occasions require that we lead.
The task now is to understand what this means and build that capacity.
In short, it is not just about the kinetic capabilities, but the ability to generate political, economic and diplomatic capabilities which could weave capabilities to do environment shaping within which the ADF could make its maximum contribution.
The 2019 edition of the International Fighter Conference is now history.
And it was held in the city of Berlin which earlier in the month was remembering the 30 year history of the Fall of the Wall.
That event ushered in the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
But this fighter conference was being held as the challenge of direct defense has returned to Europe.
The Cold War is over but the Russians are back.
And this time they are not alone.
They have core global authoritarian allies in which the 21st century authoritarian powers are challenging the liberal democracies and working to change the rules of the game rather than simply marginally modifying the “rules based” order.
But fighters are not what they once were.
They are now key players in multi-mission and multi-domain operations.
I argued several years ago that the coming of the F-35 would lead to the “renorming of airpower” in which the first generation flying combat system would be a driver of fundamental change in air combat operations.
Indeed, the broader wave of change is clearly upon us in which the United States and its allies are building a new C2 and ISR infrastructure within which fighters both generate, and benefit from in the emerging combat world of “gray zones,” “hybrid warfare,” and contested multi-domain operational space.
If one is looking for a conference which generates a single threat narrative clarifying your thoughts, the International Fighter Conference is not for you.
The strength of this conference is that several lines of thought are put into play, which by themselves may not add up to a single narrative, but spawn several narratives, and several lines of though which requires further examination.
I have come to this year’s fighter conference through a long path, quite literally.
It started in Australia where I attended and have written the report for the latest Williams Foundation seminar, this one entitled, “the requirements for fifth generation maneuver.” Here the ADF has accepted for some time that they are on the path of building a fifth generation force.
“The ability of our forces to dynamically adapt and respond in a contested environment to achieve the desired effect through multiple redundant paths. Remove one vector of attack and we rapidly manoeuvre to bring other capabilities to bear through agile control.”
Next I went to Bahrain, and participated in BIDEC-19, a conference which focused on the new technologies and technological threats affecting the GCC and its allies going forward.
A key part of the conference was to think through ways to adapt to the new context of conflict and how best to prevail against the 21st century authoritarians.
But clearly, the question being addressed: How best to shape an eco-system for defense modernization and transformation which could enable the GCC states to deal with evolving software and digital revolution?
I mention both of these conferences for the simple reason that many of the same topics were discussed at the fighter conference, something you might not expect if you expected a narrow conversation on the current future pointed nosed assets and their near term futures.
Rather, the fighter conference frames a much wider array of discussions on the overall threat and combat environment facing the current and future fighter fleets and discusses how they can contribute or better contribute to the evolving combat environment, and to be more effective in incorporating evolving technologies.
Over the next few weeks, I will write a series of articles highlighting the different presentations and the issues raised.
Given the multiplicity of issues discussed and from a wide variety of angles, I do not believe a single overview can suffice.
But some of the themes which clearly emerged from the conference, include but are not limited to the following:
An update on the Future Combat Air System program of the French, Germans and Spanish?
How the manned-unmanned teaming part of FCAS could enter the market in the next decade?
How convergent are the projected French Rafale and the German Eurofighter modernization programs? Is it more a case of parallel efforts or cross cutting ones?
How has the coming of the F-35 affected rethinking about air combat operations? How to better connect fifth generation concepts and thinking with the overall dynamics of change in what I call the shaping of an integrated distributed force?
How are countries directly threatened by the 21st century authoritarian powers addressing the role of air power in their self-defense?
How best to train a multi-domain fighter pilot?
How does the telescoping of generations of fighter aircraft shape the “next” generation fighter?
How to best address the challenge of affordable capability, remembering Secretary Wynne’s core point: You don’t win anything being the second-best air force?
Is the combat cloud the best way to think about the new C2/ISR infrastructure which is being crafted, created and shaped for the advanced air forces?
These are some of the issues which I will be dealing with in the weeks to come.
And I will connect those discussions with other interviews which I have conducted over the past few months.
In short, the fighter conference is a place to be for those who are thinking about the evolution of the multi-domain combat environment and how best to prepare those flying fighters to prevail in that environment.
U.S. Marine crew masters with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command, prepare cargo for a joint supply drop in an undisclosed location, Oct. 29, 2019.
The SPMAGTF-CR-CC is a multiple force provider designed to employ ground, logistics and air capabilities throughout the Central Command area of responsibility.
(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)
10.29.2019
Video by Sgt. David Bickel
Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response – Central Command
The Australian Minister for Defence, Senator the Honorable Linda Reynolds CSC, spoke to the Hudson Institute in Washington DC on 1 November 2019. The topic of her presentation was The US-Australia Defence Alliance in a Contested World.
Following a reaffirmation of the Australian-US relationship, a reflection on the durability and duration of this relationship, and the shared histories and culture that underpin it, the Minister directed the focus of her presentation to the future.
The discussion about this future was framed by four key themes:
A vision for the Australia-US alliance
The new and different challenges that will be faced together
How to address these challenges leveraging each others respective strengths and differences
How to capitalize on the areas of diversity and difference and balance them with the shared values to deliver regional and global peace and prosperity
While the presentation explored the Australia-US relationship, and these four themes, through the lens of military capability and hard power deterrence, there was an interesting sub-theme that related to economic security and regional stability.
It is this sub-theme that will be the focus of my discussion.
The Minister stated up-front that as a three-ocean nation, ‘Australia has a very clear and engaged view of the Indo-Pacific region…’. This geographic reality is at the heart of Australia’s regional engagement and security and economic policies.
The Minister said that the challenges for Australia ‘go well beyond’ those that could be considered traditionally ‘military’.
Today, ‘economic coercion, foreign interference … and cyber attacks are amongst the sort of tools and measures we have now seen employed to avoid direct conflict and preserve a thin veneer of deniability in pursuing strategic objectives.’
In order to constructively deal with these challenges to protect Australia’s economic sovereignty, the Minister stressed the importance of Australia actively building regional partnerships.
She observed that before the next decade is over, 4 of the world’s 5 largest economies in purchasing power parity terms are likely to be in Asia – China, India, Japan and Indonesia. Australia has benefited to date by the economic growth and prosperity of Asian nations.
And as the Minister said, Australia will continue to benefit as ‘export markets to our north continue to expand and diversify.’
An ongoing discussion in Australia amongst academics, the media and politicians, is the paradox of the Australia-China relationship.
A significant and economically vital trading partner, yet also considered a threat in many ways to Australia’s national security. Minister Reynolds addressed this matter in part by referring to Australia’s world-leading role in legislating counter foreign interference laws and the steps taken to secure critical networks and infrastructure, while at the same time ‘broadening and intensifying our partnerships … because China’s engagement is vital for strengthening institutions that underpin the free flow of trade…’.
The Minister acknowledged that ‘China’s dynamism and our trade complementarities make Australia and China natural economic partners for securing the prosperity of our respective nations.’
However, the management of this relationship required ‘very deft handling’.
While Australia would cooperate with China wherever possible to enhance the security of the region, the Minister stressed that Australia only does so ‘from a very clear position that our values are what define us as a nation and that maintenance of those values is non-negotiable.’
As Australia continues to champion the rules-based order, and work with allies and friends in the Indo-Pacific region to foster economic security and stability, the Minister sees a very real and ongoing role for Australia’s historic ally and friend, the US.
Indeed, she emphasized that the US has been ‘key to the Indo-Pacific success story of both peace but also for prosperity, and the future of both hinge on sustaining and deepening US engagement.’
She went on to say that this engagement ‘is about more than committing military strength, as crucial as this has been and will continue to be … it is also about fostering economic growth and strengthening democratic institutions … US soft power plays a vital role to this end.’
Australia as always, will partner and support US endeavours as necessary and appropriate.
The shared history and values, and past cooperation, make Australia and the US an obvious partnership to address the future challenges of the Indo-Pacific region.
The Minister said that ‘Australia makes no apology for its relentless advocacy of deep, broad-based and ongoing US regional engagement’.
She emphasized this point with the following unambiguous statement about Australia’s expectation from the US:
‘It is squarely in Australia’s interests for our great friend and our closest ally to remain partner of choice in the region, a partner who remains deeply invested in the region and in an open global economy and a rules-based trading system no less than in a security presence with potent deterrent capability.’
Australia’s Minister for Defence has clearly articulated an intersection between economic security and the security of Australia and the nations of the region.
She highlighted that the free flow of trade and an open global economy increases the security of Australians. She has identified that critical Australian networks and infrastructure need legislative protection from foreign interference.
And that military capability in and of itself is but one way in which national security is ensured.
During the Q&A section of her presentation, Minister Reynolds noted that in supporting regional stability and security, Australia has taken a whole-of-government approach, because the challenges in the region cannot be addressed by the Department of Defence alone.
And she makes a very good point with this observation. The world has become more challenging, and the threats to security and sovereignty have become more pervasive and pernicious.
The interconnected global economy is delivering prosperity, but it also makes nations more vulnerable.
Notably, Australia, at the end of a very long global supply chain, is perhaps even more vulnerable than most.
It is therefore unfortunate that the whole-of-government approach taken to assist Australia’s regional allies and friends as they navigate future challenges, has not been adopted in delivering national security for Australia.
How can the Australian government understand and manage the interconnected elements of national security (for example the economy, infrastructure, maritime trade, energy, environment, defence) without a whole-of-government approach?
This whole of government approach should be integrated under a National Security Strategy. Australia does not have one.
The last time Australia had a national security strategy was 2013 but this was lost in the transition to the Abbott Government.
The world has changed, and as Minister Reynolds highlighted in her presentation, the world is continuing to change and the challenges to be faced are mounting.
Australia has stated its expectations of the US in the region – perhaps the time has come for Australia to develop its own national security strategy as well.
Anne Borzycki is Director of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research – Australia and a former Air Force Group Captain.
The concept of a ‘wingman’ is as old as military aviation itself. Providing mutual support within a formation, the purpose of a wingman was established to protect the flight lead and provide him or her with the additional mental capacity to manage the formation, operate the aircraft, and make decisions.
As the role developed, the most important tasks for the wingman were to help avoid an attack by an unseen enemy, contribute to the formation’s situational awareness, and watch out for obvious signs the leader had either missed something or made an error. At the very heart of the idea was an acceptance that the human is fallible and, in the heat of battle, task saturation was likely to result in mistakes and errors in tactical decision-making.
In the early years of aviation, a wingman would be positioned slightly behind the lead aircraft in close visual proximity to the wings of the leader. But as advances in technology introduced new inter and intra-flight data links, such as Link 16, and increased levels of integration with airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) systems such as the E-7 Wedgetail, formations became invariably separated beyond visual range of each other and able to benefit from the ‘god’s eye view’ of the world and shared situational awareness.
There are, of course, still times when a wingman is required to be in close visual range, but these are becoming more suited to non-tactical reasons such as transits through controlled airspace or through poor weather conditions.
So what started out as a role providing visual lookout support has now been transformed by the introduction of multi-sensor fusion displays and data links, with mutual support by proximity now measured in miles rather than metres. The fundamental purpose of a wingman has changed over the years from supporting and protecting the leader, to one which is focused on the greater concentration of firepower and more effective application and multiplication of force.
GAME CHANGER
Yet perhaps the most transformational aspect of the evolving wingman role is that of the unmanned ‘Loyal Wingman’, a wingman that does as it is told and does not get distracted by the fear and chaos of battle.
This is not to say a human wingman is fundamentally disloyal, nor does it undermine the importance of a human in dealing with the complexities of highly dynamic, multi-dimensional fights in the air. But it does unlock what the incoming Commandant of the US Marine Corps calls, “the game-changing opportunities with manned and unmanned teaming”.
The concept of the Unmanned Air System (UAS), or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), is nothing new nor is their use in missions which traditionally challenge human performance, fragility, and endurance. Often described as the dull, dirty, and dangerous missions, unmanned systems have provided the commander with a far broader range of options for the application of force against even the most challenging target sets. However, ongoing operational experience confirms unmanned systems on their own are not the panacea.
When Boeing Defence Australia announced its Loyal Wingman project at Avalon earlier this year it sparked significant discussion and, not least, progressed the argument for greater numbers of unmanned platforms in a far more mature and balanced way than hitherto.
The manned-unmanned narrative is now sensibly shifting towards “and” rather than “or”. Manned and unmanned teaming – the US Army coined the term MUM-T – is a powerful concept which leverages the strengths and mitigates the weakness of each platform and concentrates the mind on the important operational aspects, such as imaginative new roles and the challenges of integration.
It should come as no surprise, then, to see the expansion of the loyal wingman concept in recent times into the other warfighting domains.
The ADF formally recognises five warfighting domains, sometimes referred to as environments: Air (to include Space), Land, Sea, Information and Human. The applications of unmanned systems in the land environment are moving beyond tactical flying drones, with BAE Systems Australia recently awarded a contract to support Australian Army plans to modify two M113AS4 armoured personnel carriers at the company’s Edinburgh Parks facility in Adelaide, using autonomous technologies developed in Australia.
Moreover, reports are now emerging from the US about recent developments in unmanned surface and sub-surface combatants, which are opening new ways of warfighting and creating opportunities to reconceptualise joint operations and move away from the platform-on-platform engagements which have traditionally characterised the battlespace.
Yet these ideas cannot get too far ahead of policy and the dollars, with manned and unmanned teaming driving a wholesale reconsideration of the US Navy budget. Despite an increasingly complex threat and the rapid developments in autonomous technologies, there is still much to be done to build consensus that the future lies in MUM-T.
ORCA
The Boeing Company was recently awarded a US$43m (A$63m) contract for the fabrication, test, and delivery of four Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) and associated support elements. The Orca XLUUV is described in open sources as a modular, open architecture, reconfigurable UUV with its own guidance and control, navigation, situational awareness, communications, power, propulsion and mission sensors.
Taking a closer look, this project appears to be the proverbial tip of the iceberg, with the US Navy in pursuit of a much broader family of unmanned surface and undersea vehicles based upon three core variants: Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles (LUSVs), Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicles (MUSVs), and Extra-Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) such as the Orca. Reports suggest the USN is seeking to invest over US$600m (A$873m) in near term research and development for these programs and their enabling technologies.
While the platforms themselves are fascinating from a technology perspective, what is more significant is their wider employment in a distributed architecture when teamed with the manned surface and sub-surface fleets containing a greater proportion of smaller, agile platforms.
The new unmanned platforms are expected to carry a range of sensors and weapon systems almost certainly configured for anti-surface warfare and maritime strike. Yet the potential for broader counter-air missions set within the co-operative engagement framework opens up new possibilities and significantly leverages existing manned surface fleet capability as well as providing a means of enabling integrated fire control, with the air layer containing E-2D Hawkeye, F-35C, F/A-18F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers.
But as ever, the platforms are only half the story.
The distributed architecture alluded to earlier will require a complex web of advanced datalinks and communication systems to make it operate as a combat system. Designing and building this ‘kill web’ so that it can enable the delivery of manned-unmanned firepower across domains will be a huge challenge not least due to the laws of physics.
And then the ability to train, test, evaluate and validate tactics and procedures will add a whole new level of complexity to generate the ‘trusted autonomy’ required for warfighting. And that is exactly why we should do it.
It will be interesting to see whether the Commonwealth’s policy settings and budget profiles for the Australian warship continuous build program allows the headroom for the RAN and the broader ADF to explore the full potential for manned and unmanned teaming in the context of future joint operations alongside the US Navy, and indeed the USAF and US Army.
From its humble origins at the platform level, the opportunities and potential of the wingman concept can now be realised at the enterprise level, which will fundamentally transform Joint and Coalition operations.
