Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan

10/22/2019

Dr Buchanan is a Research Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies where her areas of expertise are Russian foreign energy strategy and Russian polar geopolitics.

Dr Elizabeth Buchanan is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Modern War Institute at The U.S Military Academy WestPoint.

Dr Elizabeth Buchanan is co-Managing Editor of the Institute for Regional Security’s Security Challenges journal – Australia’s sole academic journal for the study of future security issues.

Dr Buchanan was recently the Visiting Maritime Fellow at the NATO Defense College, working on Alliance capabilities in the High North.

She has published widely on polar geopolitics most recently with the NATO Defence College, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, The Australian and the Lowy Institute.

Dr Buchanan is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Institute of the North, Alaska, and is a Polar Analyst for The Moscow Times.

Elizabeth has been a Visiting Scholar with The Brookings Institution and has work experience in the global oil sector.

In 2018, she was an Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) Early Career Research Awardee and in 2019 Dr Buchanan was listed as a ‘Young Woman to Watch in International Affairs’.

Dr Elizabeth Buchanan | Australian Strategic Policy Institute | ASPI

And for a recent interview with Dr. Buchanan with regard to Antarctic security,  please see the following:

 https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5wb2xhcmdlb3BvbGl0aWNzLmNvbS9mZWVkLnhtbA&episode=cG9sYXJnZW9wb2xpdGljcy5wb2RiZWFuLmNvbS9hdHMtdW5kZXItcHJlc3N1cmUtZG9tZS1hLWF1c3RyYWxpYS1hbmQtZ3JlYXQtcG93ZXItZ2VvcG9saXRpY3MtaW4tYW50YXJjdGljYS02NDc2YjI1MTYzMWFjOTYzNjNmMDYzYzgwMmQ3ZGQxNQ&hl=en-AU&ved=2ahUKEwiuw4exga_lAhVj73MBHRKCCFcQieUEegQIABAE&ep=6&at=1571717885465

 

Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett Looks Back at the Royal Australian Navy’s Seapower Conference 2019: Shaping a Way Ahead for the RAN

By Robbin Laird

It is always a pleasure to sit down and talk with Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett.  I learn a lot and have a chance to clarify and crystalize what I am learning about the evolution of the Navy and the ADF going forward.

This time we met in Canberra after the Seapower Conference which had been held in Sydney and before the Williams Foundation Conference on Fifth Generation Maneuver.

Question: What were the most positive developments which emerged from the Seapower conference from your point of view?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: The discussions at the Conference and the capabilities highlighted in the exhibitions underscored the recognition of the reality of our shipbuilding plan.

“And along with that plan, the importance of building in a sustainable fleet.

Laird Comment: That is why perhaps it might be called a “continuous shipbuilding and sustainment approach” rather than just a “continuous shipbuilding approach.”

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: That makes sense, and even more so when you expand the lens of what sustainability is for the Australian nation.

“It is about safe and secure maritime trade as well underwritten in part by our seapower and those of our allies.

“My involvement with the Maritime Industry Australia Limited has been focused on the need to have a broader understanding that a more viable Maritime Industry is part of a sustained navy capability.

“It is a national endeavor, not just a purely commercial and legal effort by industry and the workforce in the civil maritime sector.

“In other words, the Conference provided an opportunity to broaden the discussion about the role of seapower to focus on building a new fleet, how to sustain it, and integral to that, how we can provide as a nation a more secure maritime environment for our society’s needs.

“In effect, we were able to focus on the broader maritime endeavor, rather than just the recapitalization of the combat fleet.

“And we need a broader understanding of the need for greater resilience in our industry and to be able to shape a more secure society.

“Norway is an example of note.  They have leveraged their energy resources as a way to build out their society. And having had that experience as a nation, they now are committed to defending their way of life against dangers posed by their near neighbors.

“It is about total defence for the Norwegians which they understand is a whole of society challenge, not a job simply outsourced to the professional military.

“To some degree, that has to happen in Australia.

“It’s not here yet.

“The shipbuilding plan is one small element, but it can provide a catalyst to try and drive national consciousness to embrace the wider concept of defence and security.

Question: Let us focus on the shipbuilding approach which Australia is shaping for its way ahead.

Clearly, the Navy is separating the decisions about hulls from the nature of the infrastructure on the ships themselves.

How do you see this as a key part of shaping your way ahead?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: This means that we can go into the global marketplace and find the most appropriate partner to build a 21st century ship, understood as robust, viable, and modular in terms of what we want to put on it.

“Since we are focused on building a navy which can contribute to an integrated force, not simply an integrated navy, we are focused on having systems and weapons on our ships which are upgradeable and modernizable over the long haul.

“Using your turn of phrase, if we are focused on a continuous shipbuilding and sustainment process, that includes the ability to have a workforce and an acquisition process which allows for modernization over time of the systems onboard our ships.

“It also allows us to look at the exportability of Australian systems which operate onboard those platforms. We might well have exportability from our Offshore Patrol vessel class.

“But a broader consideration is working with allies as we hone our skills and generate demonstrable combat capabilities onboard our ships, and leverage that to a broader consideration of the exportability of Australian products and know-how.”

The featured photo was taken during an event to honor the French Chief of Navy while he was in Australia during the Seapower conference.

From left, Rear Admiral Greg Sammut AO, Vice Admiral Mike Noonan Christophe Prazuck and Vice Admiral Tim Barrett (retd.) at the investiture ceremony inducting Admiral Prazuck as an Officer of the Order of Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Case Study of the Evolving Integrated Distributed Force: The Australian Maritime Border Command

10/21/2019

By Robbin Laird

Canberra, Australia

I am currently in Australia supporting the next Williams Foundation Seminar on “Fifth Generation Maneuver Warfare.”

I will be leaving next to go to Bahrain for a military conference there and will do a presentation on the shift towards a new approach to warfare by the United States and its core allies, to what I call integrated distributed operations.

Here the capability for smaller force packages to provide presence but through modern C2/ISR systems to be scalable and able to be reinforced by reachback capabilities is a key element for the change.

One of the examples I will cite in the presentation is how the Australian Maritime Border command operates and how its evolving con-ops will incorporate Navy’s latest major capability, the Offshore Patrol Vessel which will be forced assigned in the future.

During my visit, I had a chance to speak with the Commander of the Maritime Border Command, Rear Admiral Lee Goddard, who was kind enough to discuss my analysis and to highlight how the Command operated in the way which I was envisaging the way ahead.

He started with the core point that in effect, the command was always operating in many ways in the so-called “Gray zone” in which events in local engagements could become crisis management flash points.

He argued that the Command was configured to do collaborative integration but that as it modernized it was working to shape an integrated effect where the force assigned units ideally become an integrated force; what some analysts call “tactical decision making at the edge” as a core capability and operational reality.

He noted that the recent meetings of the Australian security agency heads in Brisbane with Southwest Pacific partners were designed in part to build the kinds of cooperative partnerships necessary for the Command to do its job.

The Australian forces need to both understand the perspective of partners, while understanding whom they needed to work with in incident settings or crisis settings.

He argued that “we need to focus on the source of a particular challenge or problem in the region and to work with partners to resolve the challenge there as opposed to simply dealing with the effect created by that source.

“To do this, we obviously need to work with the specific partner agencies or capabilities necessary to resolve a mutual challenge, threat or problem.”

Rear Admiral Goddard noted that in the Australian Border Force headquarters, into which Maritime Border Command’s headquarters is integrated, they have an operations floor on which the various security agencies involved in dealing with the spectrum of civil security operations work together to be able to support or direct operations at a distance dealing with a challenge coming from a regional or maritime source.

“We have on the operations floor representatives of Australian Border Force, Maritime Border Command, Border Command, Customs, Immigration, the ADF, the AFP, intelligence agencies and members of five eyes, and together we work to tailor support to the particular challenge or problem.”

We then discussed how the Command was looking forward to the future of the Offshore Patrol Vessel, which as a Navy asset (not a Maritime Border Command asset) will need to fit into this paradigm and provide the kind of operational capability looked for at sea.

In effect, the evolving C2 and ISR infrastructure being built at the Command aim to be configured to operate seamlessly with the systems which will be delivered on the OPV.

This technology advantage should provide improved communications and real-time SA for the Command, improving the speed and quality of decision making for the command element onboard the OPV to make decisions at the tactical edge.

It is understood that the Navy is building in new capabilities onto the OPV which will allow it to work with a wide variety of assets, to be able to integrate capabilities for a solution on the fly, including the ability to communicate directly to partners operating ashore in their area of interest or with partner assets in the air or on the sea.

In effect, the Navy’s new asset was being built fit for purpose, and in this case, it was building a capability able to deliver decision making at the tactical edge.

Thus, it is a microcosm of a broader set of changes occurring in the ADF which are often referred to as building a fifth-generation force.

Maritime Border Command is in an ideal situation to benefit this broader change within the ADF.

The featured photo shows Admiral Karambir Singh calling on Rear Admiral Lee Goddard, Commander Maritime Border Command, Australia where they held discussions on issues of cooperation between Australia and India. September 2, 2019

 

 

 

Russia as an Asia Pacific Power: The Perspective of Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan

By Robbin Laird

In the shifting narrative of Vladimir Putin as the leader of Russia, over time he has downplayed Russia’s modernization engaged with the West to shaping a Euro-Asian perspective and promoting the concept of Russia as a unique Eur-Asian power.

Although the Obama Administration referred to Russia as a “regional power,” with 11 time zones reaching from Europe to Asia, Russia is clearly geographically a unique Eur-Asian entity.

What Putin has done through his years in power has been to leverage the geography of Russia and its population’s historical memory to shape a narrative that is focused on the Russian destiny to be a great power, this time as a player shaping the next phase of the 21st century.

During my recent visit to Australia, I had a chance to sit down with Dr Elizabeth Buchanan, research fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for European Studies, and a Russian expert, to discuss Russia as a Pacific power.

We focused largely upon how Russian energy resources have been tapped to expand Russia’s reach into the Pacific.

Her work is focused upon Russia’s energy interests in the region, which she noted were focusing in particular, on the ASEAN nations.

She highlighted two key aspects of their approach.

The first involves Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and the second involves the export of modular light weight nuclear reactors.

With regard to LNG, she underscored that analysts were originally skeptical of the ability of Russia to leverage its energy deposits in the Arctic. But Russia has been successful with its LNG Arctic assets and has utilized the Northern Sea Route to be able to rapidly become a major LNG exporter to the Asia Pacific Region.

“In spite of Western sanctions, the Russians have been able to build LNG Arctic platforms, and to get significant Japanese, Chinese, Saudi and Indian funding to build out their capabilities and their market.”

She noted that this has significant impact on Australia, as Australia is a key LNG exporter, and relies on profits from this sector as a key part of their export earnings. She argued that the Russians were undercutting the Australian market in the region.

Dr. Buchanan highlighted that the Asia Pacific market was key for LNG exports, but that in addition Russia was offering nuclear reactor capabilities as well. They are working with small modular nuclear reactors which can operate off of offshore platforms in the region.

“They are offering a complete package: the reactor, servicing, and waste disposal.”

In short, what Dr. Buchanan highlighted was how the Arctic opening, and Russian ability to leverage its resources as well as the new Northern route, can add them in expanding their Pacific reach.

This is a key but largely neglected development in building out a reality underlying Putin’s focus on Russia as a Eur-Asian power.

The featured graphic above was taken from the following article:

https://www.power-eng.com/2019/04/26/russian-floating-nuclear-plant-nearly-operational/#gref

See also the following:

https://energy.anu.edu.au/news-events/russian-firm-set-challenge-future-australian-lng

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/07/27/commentary/world-commentary/russia-unrivaled-nuclear-power-plant-exports/#.XazPTi2B3jA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station

https://interestingengineering.com/russia-gives-the-green-light-to-its-floating-nuclear-power-plant-to-begin-work

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/30/607088530/russia-launches-floating-nuclear-power-plant-its-headed-to-the-arctic

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/are-we-ready-for-floating-chernobyls/news-story/b62eb6fbed7de4d51e1e2bc86220222d

And for a recent Japanese report on another aspect of Russian Pacific power, namely military power in the region of considerable interest to Japan, see the following:

ru_d-act_201909_e

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAS Lemoore and the F-35 C: The Perspective of Captain Max McCoy

10/20/2019

In an interview with VADM Miller earlier this month in San Diego, the F-35C Wing Commander joined by phone and participated in the interview. And he provided an update on the F-35C in the Carrier Air Wing and its impact.

Captain Max McCoy highlighted what one might call the forcing function of the F-35 and of the F-35 aviators upon the training dynamic.

“We are teaching F-35C pilots to be wingmen, but training them to think like mission commanders.

“F-35C provides more situational awareness than ever before and pilots must be able to influence the battlespace both kinetically and non-kinetically.

“The pilot must interpret cockpit information and determine the best means to ensure mission success either through his own actions or by networking to a distributed force.”

They need to think like mission commanders, in which they are operating in terms of both leveraging and contributing to the networked force.

Captain Max McCoy

This means that the skill sets being learned are not the classic TTPs for a combat pilot but are focused on learning how to empower and leverage an integrated force.

“Training can no longer focus solely on T/M/S capabilities.

“Training has to develop young aviators who appreciate their role within a larger maneuver/combat element.

“Specifically, how does F-35C complement 4th generation capabilities within the Carrier Air Wing and surface combatants distributed within the Carrier Strike Group?

“It is no longer about fighting as a section or division of fighter aircraft.

“We only win if we fight as an interoperable, networked, and distributed force.

“We are still learning and incorporating 5th generation capability into the Navy.

“Our efforts must be calculated and measured but push beyond historical comfort zones.

“We must embrace what is new and redefine what is basic warfighting capability.

“This starts with the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) and Air Combat Training Continuum (ACTC) syllabi.

“We must make integrated training a key component of a pilot’s progression from FRS graduate to mission commander.    F-35C is an enabler, if and only if, we train our pilots to think well beyond the limits of their cockpit and reach of an individual aircraft’s weapons system”.

They are learning how to operate as distributed force packages.

The slideshow highlights photos from Nov. 16, 2018 of F-35C Lightning II fighter jets, attached to the “Argonauts” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 147, flying .

VFA-147 is the first U.S. Navy Operational F-35C squadron based out of Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore. Commander, Joint Strike Fighter Wing, headquartered at NAS Lemoore, ensures that each F-35C squadron is fully combat-ready to conduct carrier-based, all-weather, attack, fighter and support missions for Commander, Naval Air Forces.

With its stealth technology, advanced sensors, weapons capacity and range, the F-35C will be the first 5th generation aircraft operated from an aircraft carrier.

(U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon E. Renfroe/Released)

Shaping the C2/ISR Infrastructure for an Integrated Distributed Force

10/19/2019

By Robbin Laird

Over the past thirty years, the United States and its core allies have gone through three phases of innovation with regard to conventional forces.

The first was air-land battle designed for the European theater and executed in the 1991 Iraqi War.

The second was the innovations associated with the land wars and the joint force support for COIN operations.

The third which is unfolding now is designed to deal with 21st century high intensity operations which can be conducted by peer competitors.

This new phase might be called shaping, exercising and building an integrated distributed force.

This entails interactive technological, force structure and geographical deployment dynamics.  We have argued that a new basing structure combined with a capability to deploy and operate an integrated distributed force is at the heart of the strategic shift, and not only in the Pacific.

This is a key part of the effort to shape a full spectrum crisis management capability whose con-ops is shaped to deal with adversary operations within what some call the “gray zone” or within the “hybrid warfare” area.

The nature of the threat facing the liberal democracies was well put by a senior Finnish official: “The timeline for early warning is shorter; the threshold for the use of force is lower.”

What is unfolding is that capabilities traditionally associated with high end warfare are being drawn upon for lower threshold conflicts, designed to achieve political effect without firing a shot.

Higher end capabilities being developed by China and Russia are becoming tools to achieve political-military objectives throughout the diplomatic engagement spectrum.

This means that not only do the liberal democracies need to shape more effective higher end capabilities but they need to learn how to use force packages which are making up a higher end, higher tempo or higher intensity capability as part of a range of both military operations but proactive engagement to shape peer adversary behavior.

In today’s world, this is what full spectrum crisis management is all about.  It is not simply about escalation ladders; it is about the capability to operate tailored task forces within a crisis setting – to dominate and prevail within a diversity of crises which might not be located on what one might consider an escalation ladder.

This means that a core legacy from the land wars and COIN efforts needs to be jettisoned if we are to succeed – namely, the OODLA loop. The OODA loop is changing with the new technologies which allow distributed operators to become empowered to decide in the tactical decision-making situation.

But the legacy approach to hierarchical approval to distributed decisions simply will take away the advantages of the new distributed approach and give the advantage to our authoritarian adversaries.

What is changing is that the force we are shaping to operate in the littorals has expansive reach beyond the presence force in the littorals themselves.  If you are not present; you are not present. We have to start by having enough platforms to be able to operate in areas of interest.

But what changes with the integrated distributed ops approach is what a presence force can now mean.

Historically, a presence force is about what is organically included within that presence force; now we are looking at reach or scalability of force.  We are looking at economy of force whereby what is operating directly in the area of interest is part of distributed force.

The presence force however small needs to be well integrated but not just in terms of itself but its ability to operate via C2 or ISR connectors to an enhanced capability.  But that enhanced capability needs to be deployed in order to be tailorable to the presence force and to provide enhanced lethality and effectiveness appropriate to the political action needed to be taken.

This rests really on a significant rework of C2 in order for a distributed force to have the flexibility to operate not just within a limited geographical area but to expand its ability to operate by reaching beyond the geographical boundaries of what the organic presence force is capable of doing by itself.

This requires multi-domain SA. This is not about the intelligence community running its space- based assets and developing reports. This is about looking for the coming confrontation which could trigger a crisis and the SA capabilities airborne, at sea and on the ground that would provide the most usable SA monitoring. This is not “actionable intelligence.”

This is about shaping force domain knowledge in anticipation of events.

This also requires tailored force packaging to take advantage of what the new military technologies and platforms can provide in terms of multi-domain delivery by a small force rather than a large air-sea enterprise which can only fully function if unleashed in sequential waves.

This is not classic deterrence – it is about pre-crisis and crisis engagement.

The force we are building will have five key capabilities:

  • Enough platforms with allied and US forces in mind to provide significant presence;
  • A capability to maximize economy of force with that presence;
  • Scalability whereby the presence force can reach back if necessary at the speed of light and receive combat reinforcements;
  • Be able to tap into variable lethality capabilities appropriate to the mission or the threat in order to exercise dominance.
  • And to have the situational awareness relevant to proactive crisis management at the point of interest and an ability to link the fluidity of local knowledge to appropriate tactical and strategic decisions.

The new approach is one which can be expressed in terms of a kill web, that is a US and allied force so scalable that if an ally goes on a presence mission and is threatened by a ramp up of force from a Russia or China, that that presence force can reach back to relevant allies as well as their own force structure.

A shift to a kill web approach to force building, training and operations is a foundation from which the US and its allies can best leverage the force we have and the upgrade paths to follow.

For this approach to work, there is a clear need for a different kind of C2 and ISR infrastructure to enable the shift in concepts of operations.

Indeed, when describing C2 and ISR or various mutations like C4ISR, the early notions of C2 and ISR seen in both air-land battle and in joint support to the land wars, tend to be extended into the discussions of the C2 and ISR infrastructure for the kill web or for force building of the integrated distributed force.

But the technology associated with C2 and ISR has changed significantly throughout this thirty year period, and the technology to shape a very different kind of C2 and ISR infrastructure is at hand to build enablement for distributed operations.

Recently, I had a chance to talk with an industry leader with regard to the evolution of C2 and ISR infrastructure. 

Marja Phipps currently is business development director for Cubic Mission Solutions (CMS), a business division of Cubic Corporation.

She has more than thirty year’s experience in the C2 and ISR areas and has lived through the thirty-year development of C2 and ISR with the cycles of innovation changing dramatically to create the new technological situation in which we find ourselves.

She has focused on providing C4ISR system offerings to military services, defense agencies, intelligence community and multinational partners. Her domain expertise includes communications and networking, knowledge-based systems, multi-INT Processing Exploitation and Dissemination tradecraft, and enterprise interoperability.

What she explained is that the earlier concepts of networking relied on hardwired networks, and single point networking solutions.  This meant that the network required careful planning and coordination with the particular platforms which were using the networks to get the combat or joint effect from a networked capability.

“Earlier we built a dedicated single network connection for a specific task, such as providing targeting information to the platforms involved in a specific operation.”

The “networked” force was built around platforms that would use networked information to create desired and often scripted events.

But the C2 and ISR revolution we are now facing is reversing the logic of platforms to infrastructure; it is now about how flexible C2 and ISR interactive systems can inform the force elements to shape interactive combat operations on the fly.

That is, the new capabilities are enabling tactical decision making at the edge and posing real challenges to traditional understandings of how information interacts with decision making.

It is about learning how to fight effectively at the speed of light in order to achieve combat dominance.

And these new capabilities are providing a real impact on force development, concepts of operations and force training as well.

“With the new technologies and capabilities, we are now reusing networks for multiple purposes and making sure that they can adapt to the changing con-ops as well.”

“We are seeing integration of the networks and the integration of the information management services and then the dual nature of the applications on top of those integrations.

“Rather than building a single purpose intel common operating picture, we are now capable of building an integrated intelligence and battlespace management common operating picture for the use of the combat forces engaged in operations.”

Chaos Theory Enabled C2

She argued that there are significant changes at each layer of the C2 and ISR systems becoming increasingly integrated for a distributed force.

“At each layer, we are making the technology more robust. For example, at the communications layer, the connections are more redundant and protected and are data agnostic.

“You don’t have a dedicated network for one piece of data or between specific platforms, you’ve got the ability to network anything essentially.”

In other words, “we are building an adaptable network of networks. In traditional networks, when data is brought in from a dedicated system, it needs to be repurposed for other tasks as needed.”

What the technology is allowing us to do, is to think about C2 and ISR in a very different fashion, and to think in terms of enabling a small force operations or Lego block approach to the buildup of forces.

The new C2 and ISR infrastructure allows one to think about force development differently.

Phipps noted: “Access data points are becoming ubiquitous and operating in conjunction with processing data services which are scalable across a highly redundant protected communications network.”

“We are putting communications capabilities understood in terms of being able to operate with scalable processing and data services at the tactical edge.

“The edge players are becoming key players in the decision making involving the distributed force.

“They are not just sending data back but they are making decisions at the tactical edge.

“The network gives you the access to not only the ISR data, but the C2 processes as well. The targeting data can be repurposed as well for additional decision-making, not just at the edge but back into the larger combat enterprise.”

This obviously requires rethinking considerably the nature of decision making and the viability of the classic notion of the OODA loop.

If the machines are fusing data or doing the OO function, then the DA part of the equation becomes transformed, notably if done in terms of decision making at the tactical edge.

The decisions at the edge will drive a reshaping of the information about the battlespace because actors at the tactical edge are recreating the information environment itself.

In effect, chaos theory becomes a key element of understanding of what C2 at the tactical edge means in terms of the nature of the fleeting information in a distributed combat space itself.

“With the new technologies, what you are calling the new C2 and ISR infrastructure enables new warfighting approaches which need to be shaped, exercised and executed, and in turn affect how our forces train for the high-end fight.”

She underscored a key difference from the earlier phase of network centric warfare.

“I think of net-centric as a hardwired con-ops. I think it’s preplanned. You can do it, but there’s no adaptability, there’s no protection, there’s no scalability as far as those architectures were concerned.

“Now we’re going to the next step where we’re making networks adaptable and scalable so that you can essentially re-plan on the fly and make decisions differently, in a distributed manner.

“It’s not a preplanned or scripted way of operating anymore.”

She went on to argue that the focus needed to be going forward on what she called “smart network management.”

What she highlighted is the importance of what might call information parsimony, or getting the right information, to the right person, at the right time.

One of the challenges facing analysts discussing networks is that assumption that too much information is being collected and data is overwhelming the human decision maker.  If that is the case, then we are talking about bad network architecture and information management.

She focused on how the key layers in the modern approach to networking interact with one another.

“In an adaptive network of networks, there are several layers interacting dynamically with one another, from a comms layer, to a data processing layer, to a data distribution layer with a network management layer able to dynamically provide for information parsimony.”

On the technology side, it is about both hardware and software solutions which are allowing new capabilities to emerge which allow for a smart networking capability to emerge.

“We’re talking about adaptability and upgradeability here. It’s not just about software upgradeability, it’s about hardware changes that allow for more flexible software solutions and more flexible cross-engagement solutions.”

With the new C2 and ISR infrastructure the opportunity to enhance the capabilities of the legacy force are significant.

“One can add information management and decision processes on an airborne platform with a small processing footprintt.

“You could make good decisions on what you do as far as control on that platform versus what you’re doing as far as control on another platform.

“And it’s across domains as well. We should not think of just a certain processing or information management activity taking place on the ground or in the air.

“We’re also talking space as well and figuring out how to basically connect across all those layers and the assets across those layers as well.”

And going forward we will look at new platforms quite differently. 

Rather than discussing generations of platforms, with the information and decision-making infrastructure building out an integrated distributed force, we will look at platforms in terms of what they contribute to the overall capability to such a force, rather than simply becoming autistic injections into the force.

Credit for the Graphic: Second Line of Defense

See also the following:

Combat Today: Kill Webs, and Fighting at the Speed of Light

Re-Shaping Australian Policy Towards China

10/18/2019

By Michael Shoebridge

The post mortems on Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s US visit and speech in Chicago on Chinese state trade distortions didn’t wait for the trip to finish. We’ve had the line from opposition leader Anthony Albanese that the big issue was that the speech was delivered in the US. And another from the Chinese Communist Party paper the China Daily that ‘Australia still needs to fine tune its perceptions of China’, which was echoed by some strident visiting Chinese university folk.

We’ve even seen a repackaging of the much loved ‘Australia needs to reset its relationship with Beijing by changing the tone and language’ mantra. It now appears to be necessary for a new reason—because, apparently, Australia has joined the US–China trade war.

The visit had its hokey moments and lots of Trumpian theatrics, certainly. It was an important demonstration that the Australia–US relationship is deep and as much an economic as a strategic one. But the big outcome of the trip is a further articulation of Australia’s emerging China policy.

On the Albanese call: there are two tests for any Australian prime minister speaking on a critical issue like China policy. The first is whether the same speech could have been given anywhere—in Beijing, Canberra, Delhi, Brussels, Jakarta, Port Moresby, Washington or Rockhampton. This one could have.

To focus on its being delivered in the US as an indicator of Australia’s alignment in the trade war is superficial and tactically political. Before rushing to such a judgement, it’s worth actually reading the speech, because Morrison did not endorse US President Donald Trump’s deficit-focused trade war. Instead, he called for international action on underlying issues. The more important question is whether Morrison will be consistent if and when he visits Beijing.

That brings us to the substance. Morrison’s speech sketched out the changes to China’s economy since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The case is well founded and consistent, with analysis from organisations like the OECD and the European Commission, as well as reports of the US Trade Representative. It also aligns with the views of almost all G20 leaders and finance ministers, and sits well with APEC’s unreleased communiqué of 2018 that all leaders agreed to except Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It’s based on some simple big things. Since 2001, the combination of China’s new wealth, the leadership’s prioritisation of trade and high-end economic development, and a comprehensive set of structural policies—including intellectual property theft at scale, forced intellectual property transfers, state subsidies and market protections—has distorted world trade to the disadvantage of many economies that engage with China’s. That’s because their own firms have been put at a competitive disadvantage by the Chinese state’s policies and practices.

China’s fabulous growth in recent decades has been enabled by other economies, including Australia’s, engaging with it on these terms. However, now China’s wealth, and its use of that wealth in its distorted international economic engagement, is a global problem that must be addressed.

It has resulted, for example, in Chinese ‘national champions’—like Huawei—using their home market protections and advantages to compete against firms that haven’t been given these state-derived boosts when bidding for work—such as building others’ national 5G networks.

The fact that per capita GDP in China is still well below that of other countries possessing large, highly developed economies like much of China’s is as much about how Xi and previous leaders have used China’s new wealth. They have chosen not to spread it broadly, but instead created a large middle class and a sizeable luxury class of ultra-wealthy individuals—the China Daily boasted last October that China had produced the most billionaires globally in 2017. Those decisions have resulted in a two-track economy: the developed bit is deeply engaged with the international economy, and the undeveloped portion is lagging behind.

Priority has also been given to increasing the capacity of the Chinese state’s internal security forces to confront and control their own citizens, and strengthening China’s external military, cyber, space and intelligence power.

Xi’s three signature programs—the Belt and Road Initiative, ‘Made in China 2025’ and military–civil fusion—continue his focus on growing strategic, technological and economic power to be used by the state. At the same time, the BRI will attempt to spread the economic largesse from China’s highly developed coastal regions inland along its spines, although not at the expense of internal security or the People’s Liberation Army.

The visiting Chinese university team, accompanied by embassy minders, reacted to Morrison’s Chicago speech by claiming Australia is the pioneer of a global anti-China campaign.

That statement contains a truth hidden in an obscuration: there is a global anti-China campaign—but it’s being led by Xi, not Australia.

Former CCP leaders, from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao, were subtle enough to grow China’s economic and state power quietly and well. Xi, by contrast, is a man in a hurry, and since 2012 he has switched the national agenda to a much more aggressive, assertive and confident use of China’s newly built military, economic, technological and cyber power in pursuit of his ‘China Dream’ of a Sino-centred world.

Think of the military’s takeover under Xi of chunks of the South China Sea. And of the Chinese state’s aggressive cyber hacking, including into Australia’s parliament and our three major political parties. And of its large-scale foreign interference in other countries’ politics. And of the steps it has taken to establish military bases and a presence beyond the PLA’s first overseas base in Djibouti—for example, in Cambodia.

Xi is also galvanising international opposition over his increasingly repressive use of state security forces and technology against China’s own people. Xinjiang and Hong Kong are two obvious examples.

As Isaac Newton told us, for every action there’s a reaction. Xi’s actions have been the catalyst for a broad and growing international reaction to Chinese structural economic policies and practices and the Chinese state’s use of its power domestically and internationally. Again, 5G and Huawei are a prime example; the Indian, Japanese and EU nations’ considerations about their various national networks are being informed by this reaction. Who can tell what strategic adjustments are being urged on Xi or what pressures are developing within the CCP leadership?

Regardless, this is bad news, obviously, for China and the world.

But it also means that Australia is not alone in needing to manage this new kind of China. Morrison is in good company with the directions he set out in Chicago.

For the future, he will need to continue to centre his public policy engagement with Australians and with every other leader as he has to date—on Australia’s national interests.

That will become increasingly important if Albanese continues with his Chicago sound bite about Morrison’s China policy being an endorsement of the US in the Trump–Xi trade dispute. It’s more likely that Albanese is smart enough to see that any tactical political advantage to him from driving a bipartisan divide into Australia’s China policy isn’t worth the damage it would do to our national interests.

And he’ll have to get past shadow defence minister Richard Marles’s odd line that ‘ultimately, we have made a decision to engage. We made that decision back in 1972. We continue with that decision now’—as if we are somehow powerless to adjust how we engage in the face of the fundamental changes that have occurred since 1972 in China’s power and the way the CCP uses it.

Albanese has a ready solution to hand here, given his Labor colleague Penny Wong’s speech on the international economy, China and the US. As with Morrison’s speech, the shadow foreign minister’s remarks align pretty closely with the broader concerns expressed by G20 leaders, the OECD and the EU and so provide a continued basis for bipartisanship on this crucial set of issues.

All the handwringing from pro-CCP advocates about Australia needing to reset the relationship—which seems to involve apologising for and reversing decisions made in our national interest—needs to be seen in this broader context. No prime minister should apologise for acting in Australia’s national interests. And no political leader should fall into the trap of characterising tension in the relationship as attributable to the ‘vibe’ of Australian language rather than the facts of Chinese state actions.

There’s also the comforting and practical observation that fears of Xi’s state taking large punitive economic actions against Australia have simply not materialised, because our trade relationship with Beijing is one of interdependence. In fact, our two-way trade relationship has continued to grow and is now worth some $215 billion. The Chinese economy needs our resources and services, arguably even more at a time of growing economic challenges.

The Chicago speech put Australia’s approach to Chinese economic policies and actions right in the middle of the crystallising consensus in OECD and G20 nations. Australia is similarly in good company in pushing back on Chinese state conduct in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. None of this will make it any easier to deal with Xi’s strategic, technological and economic agenda, but it’s a good place to be.

Beyond economics, the prime minister and the opposition are both yet to craft a clear approach to domestic China policy. The Gladys Liu affair shows the problems in seeking to distill the diverse Australian Chinese communities of 1.2 million people into a single individual. And the government has yet to articulate a way to empower these diverse voices, so that public debate on China is informed by more than the ‘curated garden’ of groups and voices the Chinese embassy and its consulates manage.

Morrison also has yet to confront intrusive Chinese state interference—either by attributing the hacks on the parliament and political parties to the Chinese Ministry of State Security now that Australian agencies will have done the forensic work to allow this, or through prosecution when presented with the first case of an individual with undisclosed financial links to Beijing under Australia’s new foreign influence transparency scheme.

Unless those around Xi convince him to change course, the hard times for many states engaging with his China, for the 1.4 billion people living under party rule, and for Xi and the CCP in return, are yet to come. Australia has at least begun to build a framework for this new difficult era.

Michael Shoebridge is director of the defence, strategy and national security program at ASPI. Image: Feng Li/Getty Images.

This article was first published by ASPI on September 30, 2019.