On March 24, 2022, the Williams Foundation held its first of two seminars to be held this year.

The seminar was the latest in a series of seminars which started in 2014, and have been focused on the evolution of the ADF to deal with the evolving threats and challenges facing Australia, and its core allies.

The first seminar dealt with the launch of the fifth-generation force, and then over the next few years focused on key elements and building out the force and then since 2018, there has been an increasing focus on shaping new capabilities to extend the reach and the lethality of the force in the growing threats in the Indo-Pacific region.

A key thematic approach woven throughout the assessment process is the challenge of shaping an ADF that is more capable of being built “joint by design.”

And the point of that is to get full value out of any new capability introduced into the force, and, over the past few years, this has been joined with the theme of enhancing Australian strategic resilience and sovereignty with a broader encompassing of Australian political, economic and military capabilities becoming more integrated as well.

This process is reminiscent of what I have seen in the Nordic region, where since 2014, the Norwegians, for example, have focused on “total defense,” or upon how to take a whole of society and government approach to defense. This has been driven by the global challenge posed by the 21^st century authoritarian powers whose goals are clearly to reshape the global order to their advantage as well as dealing with the consequences from the breakout of a war with global consequences and impacts, namely, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Although the title of the seminar may seem narrowly focused on force building, it was not.

We have entered a new historical era of global conflict, and the challenges posed in the seminar are really about how Australia and its allies shape an effective way ahead.

The next seminar to be held in September 2022, will leverage the most recent seminars, those in 2021 on autonomous systems and building a new space enterprise, and the March 2022 seminar focus on the next steps for joint force design, and address the broader question of force building to deal with the new strategic environment.

Two particular presentations at the seminar underscored the nature of the transition facing the ADF and Australia as a whole.

The first was by Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and the second by Air Vice-Marshal Robert Chipman, Head Military Strategic Commitments, responsible for the strategic level management and situational awareness of current and potential Australian Defence Force Commitments.

Jennings underscored the core point of the challenge we face, namely, a significant strategic shift in the global environment.

As Jennings put it: “the world’s two most powerful authoritarian regimes have made it very clear that their goal is to break the international order and to remake it under their control. Beijing and Moscow’s separate and shared interests have not been hidden and they made clear publicly for at least a decade. One thing you can say about these authoritarian systems is that they do not disguise their plans.”

And to meet this challenge on the military side, the point is about having extant capability which can meet the challenge, not building an exquisite defense force in some future point in history.

Jennings went back to his 2018 Williams Foundation seminar where he advocated that Australia add a bomber to its capabilities, in this case to join in the U.S. program to build the B-21.

And the underlying point about this is to add strike capabilities in the near term, not the long-term. He argued for the need to jump start Australian defense efforts along the lines of what he called the new German moment, when in facing the war in Ukraine, German leadership have been shocked into a reality zone on defense.

The good news in my view is that Australia has been focused on reality for far longer than Germany, and at the end of the day many of the key elements for shaping an effective way ahead.

And that point was highlighted in the presentation by the former Plan Jericho, co-head, Air Vice-Marshal Robert Chipman. In his presentation, Chipman underscored the importance of integration as a force multiplier which has been a hallmark of when the Plan Jericho effort was first introduced in 2015.

But since that time, such capabilities need to be joined with Australian strategic resilience.

As Australia works enhanced sovereignty and resilience, this effort requires skillful work on the changing nature of alliances as well.

This is how Chipman put it: “There are limits to what a middle power can achieve, that’s why alliances and partnerships are so important. Allies don’t surrender sovereignty to each other, they share it; allies and partners strengthen national power and help mitigate the risks of critical vulnerabilities.

“What does this mean for defense efforts? We need sailors, soldiers, and aviators and public servants who are masters of their domains. We need experts who can integrate across domains, and we need experts that can provide the policy advice and strategy to ensure that our military power is delivered as a coherent expression of national power.

“There’s a human dimension to this challenge, building a culture that is biased towards teaming and constantly learning. There’s a procedural dimension to this challenge, creating space for innovation and fast adaptation. Sharing information to strengthen coordination and resilience, accelerating the speeds of decision and corresponding actions.

“And there’s a technical dimension to this challenge, prioritizing integration over platform optimization, encouraging the early adoption of new technologies, introducing advanced capabilities and baking in interoperability so that we can mesh with our allies and facilitate cooperation with partners.”

In short, the March 24, 2022 seminar provides a snapshot of where the ADF along with core allies are with regard to the challenge of force integration.

But how best to shape an effective way ahead to prevail against the 21^st century authoritarian powers?

And as Jennings cautioned, answers to such a question go beyond simply shaping an exquisite networked force, but requires a broader whole of society and whole of government effort.

Featured Photo: General Kenneth Wilsbach, Commander Pacific Air Forces, speaking at the Williams Foundation March 24, 2022 seminar.

By Robbin Laird

I recently finished my latest report for The Williams Foundation on their March 24, 2022, seminar which focused on shaping a way ahead for the integrated networked force. The moderator for the seminar was John Conway, a noted Australian defense analyst and former RAF officer.

In his comments during an interview which I did with him he underscored the growing importance of training to enhance the capability of the ADF in the art of warfare. This is how he put it:

““And we’ve now got an adversary, who is making us spend more and more money on survivability. We’d rather spend money on lethality, but they’re making us spend money on survivability because they’re becoming increasingly sophisticated, because it’s coming harder and harder to survive. And this is driving up the cost of survivability. But one way of mitigating that risk is getting your training systems right. And being able to fight the best fight with what you’ve got and invest in warfare rather than just war fighting.”

My recent visit to MAWTS-1 in Yuma Arizona reinforced Conway’s point. Here the Marines are focused on shaping ways ahead for their networked integrated but distributed force to enhance survivability and lethality.  I have been posting a number of videos and slideshows from the most recent WTI or weapons and tactics instructor course which certainly underscore the focus on force distribution for survivability and force integration for lethality.

In my follow up interview with the outgoing CO of MAWTS-1, Colonel Gillette, he underscored their core focus on enhanced lethality. This is how Colonel Gillette put it:

“The Commandant has issued guidance with regard to the direction he would like to move the USMC from an operational point of view. Over the course of the last two years, I would say, that there’s been a iterative processes that have been generated on not only to enhance what do we want to do today with the equipment and with the capabilities that we have, but that also better informs what we want for tomorrow and then, goes back into the feedback loop to CD&I, and the different organizations under that deputy commandant to determine what we need, two, three, four years from now, to better implement new operational concepts.”

“When I say iterative, I am also referring to the relationships that we have with all the different organizations, whether it’s the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab with different technologies, CDD for different operational concepts and equipment and technology that support those concepts, trying them in the environment at WTI, given the assets and the expertise that we have at MAWTS-1, and then, providing feedback as to how either pieces of this puzzle work, or in the grander operational environment, how we need to do things differently.

“I think that feedback loop is hugely important because it’s informed by doing, instead of the theory of the case on PowerPoint or in war games. I think that you have to go out and actually try it, create a contested environment as much as you can in training, and then, try these concepts and then provide that feedback, which inevitably makes the outcome two or three or four years more realistic, as opposed to just the theory of the case.”

For Gillette, any focus on force design needs to be driving the enhanced lethality of the USMC in operations. “I think that the underlying focus that we must never forget is that we’re out there for one reason and one reason only, and that’s for lethality when our country asks us to deploy on their behalf. How you do so and how do you survive and continue to be lethal in any combat environment? How do you best disperse, what types of command and control do you need from ship to land, land to ship, island, and these capabilities facilitate you being more lethal and effective.

“At WTI we have been and continue to be focused on enhanced lethality. We just need to figure out how to do that in this new environment that’s not what we’ve lived for the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Col. Gillette has been intimately involved in the introduction of the F-35 into the USMC and has worked closely in the joint force through those efforts as well. I asked him to look back at that experience and what conclusions he draws from that experience for the joint force going forward.

He started by discussing the early days of operating the F-35 and the relevance of that experience to bringing the latest aviation platform to the USMC, the CH-53K.

“For the initial guys that started flying the F-35,  you would think that we were just flying a better upgraded F18. Why? Because that’s what they had experienced. What wasn’t considered initially, was all of the new operational concepts and differences that, that airplane brought to the force. And it took us, several years of talking with the Air Force, talking with other agencies, and individuals to figure out how to best operate the airplane and to leverage what makes it most lethal.

“And I think that we’ll see the same evolution with the Kilo. The initial reaction will be to say, “it looks just like an Echo. So why don’t we just fly it and employ it like an Echo?” It will take time of people getting their hands on it, seeing the capabilities, and then leverage it as part of USMC transformation. The key is to ensure that we don’t let the inertia of what one knows so well in the past and impede the ability to use the new platform differently.”

We then discussed how the Marines operating the F-35 opened new joint and coalition integration capabilities.

Col. Gillette: “When we flew common platforms in the past, we wrote our own tactics manuals. We set up our data links differently. We called the same thing different names.

“But as we introduced the F35, very quickly we realized how important it would be for us to come together and understand common tactics for this airplane, based on its strengths, and how we would employ the airplane.

“You can see this kind of integration when we go to different exercises, whether it’s up on the Nellis range, whether we go up to Alaska, whether we participate in other exercises, but the reality is that whether the plane has Air Force, Navy, or Marine Corps markings on the side, it really doesn’t matter. We all speak the same language, the data that’s going across the airplanes is exactly the same and so I think from a Joint Force perspective, has wildly increased our lethality. Because when you take that interoperability into an operational context or environment, airplanes can come from wherever and they show up to do a mission together. It’s just like you’re flying with your squadron mate. There’s no difference.

“And now, if you take that same concept and scale it across a coalition with our allies and partners that have that same technical and aircraft capability, you can see how quickly that becomes very significant and I think that, that idea of not only how do we fight the airplane in an integrated way and in a common way, but now, you take that to supply parts or parts in the supply system.

“You can take that capability to enhance integration on ships. It applies as well to integration with regard to base operations where we have common requirements to ervice an airplane.

“Very quickly you can see that the F-35 global enterprise is a quite the force multiplier. And I think that, to use your words, we’re just scratching the surface on that. And I think that over the next five to 10 years, we will see that aspect of it become extremely important when we start talking, again, about these operational vignettes or these operational areas of where it’s going to take a combined and joint effort to achieve our national objectives, as opposed to a service inside the United States or a country outside the United States.

“It’s one thing to just profess the theory of the case, but when you have these different venues of joint or integrated exercises, combined exercises, you can actually experience a new level of integration. What we did on the Queen Elizabeth is another great example that you have to go out and do it in order to have a reasonable assurance that if you need to do it, operationally, it will work.

“That needs to be the fundamental question that each service asks, what is your contribution to the Joint Force? And if it’s a contribution of the Joint Force, how does that piece fit into the larger picture? And then, how do you integrate with it?

“Services tend to look inward as to how to do that inside of their own service. Countries look inward on how they operate inside of your own country, but if we’re truly going to realize the benefit of what we’re talking about, it’s A, it’s very hard and B, you have to practice it. If you don’t, on game day it’s not going to work.

“Any weapon system that you bring online, whether it’s the Kilo, whether it’s the continued acquisition of F35, command and control systems, whatever the fact may be, you have to look at it in that light. How does it fit into the larger piece of the puzzle and then, how do you contribute and not only pull information, but push it out so that you are benefiting the entire team as opposed to your own little niche piece of it.”

And to conclude, what I have seen over the past few years at MAWTS-1 is a clear focus on what Col. Gillette emphasized in his interview. And this is really the function and key role of advanced training as opposed to war games, and death by briefing charts.

Featured Photo: An F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter flown by the commanding officer of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 211 “The Wake Island Avengers” after becoming the first USMC F-35 to land onboard HMS Queen Elizabeth on 22 September, 2020, off the coast of the United Kingdom (UK). VMFA-211 joined the UK’s 617 Squadron onboard the 65,000 ton carrier as she sailed for exercises with NATO allies in the North Sea, forming the largest 5th generation Carrier Air Wing in the world. “The Wake Island Avengers” are proud to represent the United States Marine Corps and United States of America while they serve as part of the UK’s Carrier Strike Group.

By Robbin Laird

During my recent visit to MAWTS-1 in April 2022, I had a chance to talk with SSgt Kyle Coutts, a specialist on fuels and providing fuel to an expeditionary force. As the Marines focus on expanding and extending their capabilities to distribute their forces to operate from a variety of basing options, at sea and from land, the question of how to sustain such a distributed force obviously becomes a growing challenge and concern.

My discussion with SSgt Coutts highlighted how the fuel side of the USMC is working ways ahead to ensure that the core capabilities to deliver energy to the force can be effectively maintained in austere conditions.

During my last visit to MAWTS-1 in 2020, I spent a good deal of time talking with MARPs about mobile basing and forward armed refueling points. And in those discussions, the recognition of the challenge of dealing with peer competitors was highlighted in terms of the needs to distribute the force, and move with speed throughout the battlespace.

My discussion with Coutts highlighted some additional insight into how they were working this challenge. One way has been based on his training with the U.S. Army to be able to work with fuel worldwide and to ensure that fuel held by allied nations can be ensured to work within the specific USMC platforms.

A second way is to prepare for the coming of the CH-53K which can lift significant amounts of fuel and move those to distributed locations even before Marines have arrived at a proactive FARP from the standpoint of the emplacement of refueling points in advance of the force.

A third way was to look at new ways to use JPADS or Joint Precision Airdrop Systems to support forward movement of a distributed force as that force moves towards an objective area.

And this would then combine perspectives on how to shape various logistical fuel support alternatives ranging from seabase support to CH-53K support, to JPAD support.

Put in other terms, the Marines are looking at shaping a range of fuel support options for a distributed force working on mobile and expeditionary bases throughout an extended battlespace.

As the U.S. Navy works a new class of sea-basing ships, these ships can work as “mother ships” as well from which the Marines can fly fuel to austere locations. And the Pentagon has funded an autonomous sea barge to provide a sea-based FARP to support rotorcraft which could be part of the Navy-USMC future as well.

We discussed this development in terms of a focus on Resilient Expeditionary Agile Littoral Logistics or REALL. Here the effort is upon working through a variety of ways to leverage a range of shipping to deliver the kinds of “FARP” support that the Marines need when aviation is supporting basing in austere locations. One way to do so is to use commercial shipping containers but configured to handle USMC supplies and then be able to move those containers from the ship, in effect, as a mother logistics ship, to the area of interest.

In short, the Marines at MAWTS-1 are working innovative ways to support the USMC as a distributed but integrated force.

Editor’s Note: This July 20, 2020 article published by the U.S. Navy highlighted REALL technology.

Naval Facilities (NAVFAC) Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (EXWC), U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and the U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) successfully demonstrated a joint capability vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) technology to refuel from a forward-deployed barge as part of the Resilient Expeditionary Agile Littoral Logistics (REALL) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) at the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek – Fort Story on 13 July 2020. Funded by OSD Research & Engineering, the JCTD Program addresses Combatant Command (CCMD) and Joint warfighting gaps through prototyping and demonstration of innovative and game-changing technologies.

The REALL JCTD Team completed its first successful technical demonstration, with NAVFAC EXWC at the helm as the demonstration technical lead; USCENTCOM, USTRANSOM and USMC War Fighting Lab (MCWL) serving as the operational leads providing operational and development inputs.

The VTOL demonstration determined whether a VTOL aircraft can land and refuel from a forward-deployed barge. The demonstration also determined if REALL could provide a low-cost logistics solution for the Department of Defense (DOD), as an alternative to placing high-value logistics supply platforms in contested environments. This successful demonstration marks the first of numerous planned technology and operational demonstrations aimed at eventually arriving at an end state where a military utility determination can be established, with the goal of transitioning REALL capability technology sets to the warfighter

“This demonstration is another example of what the great people of NAVFAC EXWC provides for our American warfighters,” said Mr. Kail Macias, NAVFAC EXWC Technical Director. “Speed and agility enable our forces to win the fight. The success of REALL is a tribute to the hard work and collaboration across DOD.”

The VTOL demonstration consisted of one MH-60M Blackhawk helicopter—provided by the U.S. Special Operations Aviation Command, Systems Integration Management Office—which landed on the Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS). The INLS is designed to simulate a refueling evolution; INLS systems were provided by Amphibious Construction Battalion Two.

The INLS Roll-on/Roll-off Discharge Facility (RRDF) is a modular system and is traditionally designed to facilitate movement of rolling stock from ship to shore platforms,” said Lt. Cmdr. Robert Leftwich, Bravo Company Commander, Amphibious Construction Battalion 2. “It is a robust and highly capable platform suitable for other uses. Incorporating this legacy system into emergent needs enables more resiliency and responsiveness.”

“As the lead Combatant Command sponsor and warfighter representative for the REALL project, USCENTCOM’s goal was to demonstrate a littoral logistics sustainment capability for fuel distribution and logistics nodes in support of emerging operational concepts,” said Thomas Smith, CENTCOM J8-ST Chief Science Advisor for Advanced Concepts.” He added, “This Technical Demonstration was a success and advances the National Defense Strategy’s modernization priority on forward force maneuver and posture resilience.”

Looking onward, REALL will be further vetted, with the end goal of providing fuel, water, food and other supplies to vertical take-off and landing aircraft and seaborne vessels for logistics operations required by the Naval Concept of Expeditionary Base Operations.

Featured Photo: A SH-60 helicopter approaches a Roll-On Roll-Off Discharge Facility platform during a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) demonstration at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, VA. on July 13, 2020. The VTOL was part of a multi-service logistics exercise, surveying new methods of amphibious warfare operations.

JOINT EXPEDITIONARY BASE LITTLE CREEK, VA

07.13.2020

Photo by Palmer Pinckney II 

Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center