2017-04-26 By Robbin Laird

Shifting from a primary focus on the counterinsurgency focused land wars of the last 15 years to shaping a high intensity combat force, which can prevail against peer competitors, is a significant challenge for the United States and its closest allies.

A key dynamic within this effort is the crucial opportunity the US and its closest allies have from cross learning because a number of the core systems being stood up to achieve the kinds of combat effects which is needed are being procured at the same time.

Key allies have also put in play concepts of operation in advance of the United States; ironically, often with systems derived from the efforts of key US defense firms.

The F-35, P-8, Triton and Growler are all being stood up by the United States and by our closest allies, notably Australia.

Norway is also drawing upon this interactive modernization process to stand up its own 21^st century combat force.

At the same time, the Wedgetail and the KC-30A have been deployed for some time and are cutting edge systems NOT to be found in the US inventory.

Additionally, the RAF is modernizing its Typhoons with long range strike systems complementary to their F-35s prior to the US having made similar adjustments to its own legacy aircraft.

Air Marshal (Retired) Brown, Chairman of the Williams Foundation, April 11, 2017.

There is no ambiguity in the UK or Australian minds about the shift to fifth generation warfare as opposed to having lingering debates about remaining mired in a last generation mentality.

There is little question that key elements of the USMC, USN, USAF and US Army are working to drive a transition; and they are aided and abetted in this process by core allies.

It is not a question of selling systems to these allies AFTER the US has shaped a new strategy and a new capability; it is about reshaping in an interactive transformation process.

The problem for the United States is that a legacy defense acquisition system and barriers to effective transformation remain in being.

For example, we are still pursuing AWACS modernization when Wedgetail has demonstrated a clear 21^st century alternative; and the global fleet of Airbus 330MRTT tankers are reality; with NO new tankers flying in the USAF and flying the second choice for the USAF is a limiting factor.

It is crucial for the United States to tap the new systems and develop new concepts of operation to capitalize on the new force; yet the legacy acquisition and stove piped service dominated systems limits the potential for the United States.

How has this happened?

During my latest visit to Australia I participated in a Williams Foundation seminar that was debating in public (and without doing so it will be difficult to gain the broad support necessary for transformation) how best to build an integrated joint force from the ground up.

No one is deluded that this will be difficult; but if you don’t set the objective when you are buying software upgradeable systems, which have an inherent potential for interactive modernization, and force transformation you are not going to get there.

When you are left with things like a 2030 AWACS modernization focus, or a Super Hornet versus F-35 conversation, or keeping a A-10 tank killer designed 40 years ago, it is difficult to boldly lead a transformation effort.

Air Marshall Brown speaking at the Fort Worth based event July 24, 2014. Credit Photo; Lockheed Martin

After the seminar, I had a chance to discuss the challenge with Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown and to get his thoughts on the challenge facing the United States.

To be clear, the crucial working role between cutting edge professional military and the Aussies is crucial to the Aussie transformation effort.

That is not in question; what is in question is the capability of the United States to make the leap forward with the service dominated and legacy acquisition system and the constant constraints which Congress has placed upon the dramatic change which the US military needs to make to defend the United States and to compete effectively with peer competitors.

According to Brown, “the systems are all there in the United States. The shoots are there for fundamental change. But the legacy approach is like a giant tree blocking out the sun for the shoots to grow.”

He pointed out that the notion that one would modernize AWACS is “simply amazing to me. With the fuel savings alone from replacing the AWACS fleet with Wedgetails a new fleet could be paid for in a few years. But that in the US system it is difficult to get a tradeoff from keeping the old legacy systems running and simply shutting them down; putting the new systems into the force; and leveraging them rapidly.

The new systems require new sustainment approaches.

“The F-35 provides a great opportunity for a very different sustainment system but with the Congressional mandated depots the opportunities for an innovative industrial-government partnership are severely constrained.”

As the Trump Administration looks to rebuild the force if the fundamental barriers are not addressed, “even 50-60 billion dollars more won’t correct the kinds of logistical shortfalls which the United States faces.

“I’m a little frightened for the future if the US forces keep going down the path they’re on at the moment.

“Just wishing that additional money will be available to operate the legacy force structure isn’t going to solve the problem.

“The current funding issues and congressional limitations placed on the Services will drive the US towards and increasingly hollow force.”

He sees a significant opportunity to unlock potential by shaping new logistical approaches such as evident in the C-17 support model.

“There are green shoots all over the United States.

“The United States is the most innovative society in the world, without a doubt.

“One green shoot is the C-17 support model.

“By using a very innovative industrial working relationship with the deployed force, support costs are going down, not up.

“So why not adopt this model for the new force being built.

“We certainly are going to focus on that with P-8 and F-35.

“The US logistical support system and the congressional mandated Title 10, 50:50 requirement to protect government depots severely hampers and constrains the services and has a significant impact on their force readiness.”

KC30A Over Iraq from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.

He added “You’ve just got to invest in the new systems and follow their logic and prioritize it above everything else and be prepared to cut away things that don’t make sense in the future.

“You should cut away half the stuff that you needed for Iraq in Afghanistan because you’re not going to fight like that in a world of peer competitors. It is like the Nike slogan: Just do it.”

Other core allies have noted what Brown is talking about, and I have heard that from those allied militaries in my global travels.

To take one example, a senior RAF officer who flew in Red Flag 17-1 noted “he would never wish to fly with an AWACS if he had a Wedgetail. The AWAC constrains; the Wedgetail supports of fifth generation force.”

And the Aussie tanker has had dispatch rates and performance metrics off the charts compared to the current crop of USAF tankers.

Lt Gen (Ret) David A. Deptula, who has a been a proponent of rapidly moving toward new concepts of operation enabled by fifth generation aircraft, supports Brown’s points.

“We have all the capabilities necessary to dramatically improve our warfighting capacity, we just have to gather the will to apply them in new ways unencumbered by paradigms of the past.”

In short, we can learn from allies.

If we want to make America great again, ironically the path goes through working on an across the board transformation of US force interacting with cutting edge allies.

Editor’s Note: This piece was first published on Breaking Defense.

Allies Can Help US Lower Weapons Costs, Build New Force

2017-04-25 By Robbin Laird

The discussion of something like integrated force design can seem to be abstract and metaphysical and more of a seminar topic than an actual strategic effort by the ADF.

But it is not.

It is about ensuring that your warfighters are more lethal and survivable.

One is working to reduce fratricide, and a more capable and comprehensive use of combat resources at the point of attack.

At the Williams Foundation Seminar held on April 11, 2017, no presenter more effectively drove home the point than Brigadier General David Wainwright. He is Director General of Land Warfare in the Australian Army.

In his concluding slide he provided a series of caveats on force design and brought the audience back to the core point: “We can not forget that our young men and women will one day be stuck with our conclusions.”

Slide from presentation by BG Wainwright, Williams Foundation, April 11, 2017

In an interview held later in that week at his office, it was clear why he focused so strongly on this point.

His own combat experiences in the Middle East and elsewhere underscored that getting your concept of operations right was crucial to combat success.

In particular, his experience in Afghanistan, which required evolving the concept of operations, was directly correlated with combat success. Having the right approach and the right command structure was an inherent part of success or failure.

This means for the future land force, that shaping an effective concept of operations as as part of an integrated joint force was not a word game, or a bureaucratic game, but fundamental to the combat success of the ADF.

As BG Wainwright put it during the interview: “Joint effect through integration by action is crucial.

“We need to frame any design the future force to achieve greater joint integrated effects respectfully across all warfighting domains.

“For me the key to this challenge rests in our people.

“Moreover I see that the younger generation are an critical component to this design, because they are pretty well joint educated, enabled and experienced.

“The questions is how can we maximize the future force to be built around those instincts and experiences?”

And the kind of joint effect he was focused upon was not only the ability to share common resources but to funnel those resources in terms of the kinds of decisions, which had to be made in the different warfighting domains.

“I don’t want a joint ISR program being developed in isolation at the operational level without a clear understanding of the ground force considerations.

“It’s dangerous for this to even be conceived as a notion. .”

He emphasized that the changing strategic environment was driving the need to reconsider some of our traditional models as we strive to design a capable responsive and empowered effective future integrated force.

“In the past decades, we have in many ways predominately fought wars of choice.

“Arguably, this luxury of choice will not necessarily continue.

“Increasingly, we see a higher probability of facing the possibility of wars of necessity and National Interests at threat.

“Moreover, the force must be response to new challenges that are not simple to define.

“From the impact of exploding urbanisation, severe demographic shifts, population growth and resource scarcity; to the barely glimpsed consequences of hyper connectivity and climate change.

“The way warfare will manifest in the future, the adversaries we may face and the means we will employ are impossible to fully prepare for

Brigadier David Wainwright, Director General Land Warfare during a panel discussion at the Williams Foundation seminar on integrated force design, April 11, 2017.

“The land Force component will continue to play a vital role in response to these challenges.

“As such Australia must continue to invest in a highly capable ground force integrated into the joint force.

“We need to get this design right; as failure to adequately prepare the force is not an option.”

The fluid nature of the 21^st century battlespace means as well that operations in one domain need to be informed by and to inform the other warfighting domains.

In effect, either you integrate or get in each others ways with very negative perhaps even disastrous effects.

In other words, joint warfighting is necessary not just to enhance combat effectiveness but to avoid the kind of entropy which conflicting elements of a network force could create by cross-cutting each other in quite a literal sense.

He argued that with the new technologies, more combat power can be concentrated on smaller combat units.

And C2 combined with empowering the way we will fight needs to be pushed to those units enabling them to be more lethal and survivable.

There can be little doubt that technology is changing the character of the contemporary military problem, suggesting not simply technological solutions but the need for innovative operational concepts across all the domains – simultaneously.

The force designers of today must navigate this complexity to provide tomorrow’s policy makers and joint task force commander’s robust, capable and responsive options for a tomorrow of contested domains, increased lethality and irreducible complexity.

And it is crucial as well to train for the future with significant uncertainty as a training framework.

Training with networks and without; training with GPS enabled systems and without; these are important training venues to ensure the kind of combat flexibility and skill sets which the Australian Army would need to exercise in 21^st combat situations.

He had a healthy disregard for our capabilities to actually know in detail future war situations and conditions and argued for shaping solders to fight with confidence in uncertain combat situations.

In effect, he was arguing that the design of the integrated force needed to built around training of the soldiers, sailors and air men to be able to deal with disruptive change and combat learning on the fly in very dynamic combat situations.

His core sense of joint force design from the Army’s perspective was to deliver a set of outcomes for the ground maneuver forces.

These key outcomes were summarized in the following slide:

Slide from presentation by BG Wainwright, Williams Foundation, April 11, 2017

Obviously, this is a very challenging set of outcomes to achieve.

But without setting out these targets, the point of joint force design would simply be lost and become a powerpoint bureaucratic exercise.

And for this senior officer, force design is not a word game; it is about ensuring the safety, survival and combat effectiveness of the Australian Defence Force.

And without integrated force design these objectives will be sub-optimized.

Put bluntly, if you do not design a force with joint effect as a key objective, you are putting your people at unnecessary risk and you will not train your people for success in the evolving 21^st century context of combat operations.