By Robbin Laird

At the March 24, 2022 Williams Foundation Seminar on the networked integrated force, six ADF officers provided insights with regard to the way ahead for the ADF in building out its networked integrated force.

The RAAF perspective was provided by Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld, Chief of the Air Force, by AVM Robert Chipman, Head of Military Strategic Commitments. MAJGEN Susan Coyle, Head of Information Warfare, BRIG Ian Langford, Director General Future Land Warfare, CDRE Darron Kavanagh, Director General Warfare Innovation Royal Austrian Navy and Tony Dalton, Deputy Secretary National Naval Shipbuilding.

Together, the speakers provided an overview on the state of the force as well as a variety of perspective on the way ahead.

In this article, I leverage all of the presentations to highlight a number of key takeaways with regard to perspectives in the ADF on shaping a way ahead for the networked integrated force.

Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld, Chief of the Air Force

Air Marshal Hupfeld, now head of the RAAF, was previously head of Force Design, and then Joint Operations, came to the Air Force position through a significant focus on joint by design efforts. He noted throughout his remarks how challenging it is to get a common culture to drive integrated force operations, but also cautioned that as the ADF works such an effort, it requires as well a wider national effort to fully deliver a common Australian defense policy optimized to defend Australia and its interests.

This is how he put it: “Across defense now, we have a defense purpose that’s clear and articulated. We have missions that they’re all nested under the one mission set. We are getting alignment on common purposes, common interest, common values. And if you get all those aligned, then can achieve that accelerated transition for a networked integrated force which we are discussing in the seminar.”

Hupfeld also noted an important point about platforms. New platforms can perform forcing function roles for the force. Air Marshal Hupfeld noted that LHD acquisition as done so for the joint force, and certainly the F-35 has been a major driver of change.

As Hupfeld noted: “The F-35 replaces nothing, but changes everything. And the term fifth-generation really started to drive more focus on integration.”

In a presentation by then head of the RAAF, Air Marshal Davies, I highlighted this important question when discussing innovation and integration.  The point is often made that to get where the integrated force needs to go, it is important to get out of stove-piped platform focus and become platform agnostic. Such a conclusion is fine as far as it goes, but platforms are the operating entities from which force viability, capability and integration are generated.

And when discussing the way ahead for platforms, Davies highlighted the importance of gaining a joint force perspective with regard to doing so, and he discussed this from the standpoint of the Air Force’s Plan Jericho approach.

As he noted in a 2017 interview which I did with him: “A key benefit from the Plan Jericho approach is reshaping the language. It is not about how does this new platform fit into the force as it is, it is about how does this new platform enable the force to fight the way we need to be able to in the future? It has to be realistic but in a sense the reality we are looking at is not just the Air Force as it has fought in the past and present, but the Air Force as it vectors towards the future fight.

If you don’t do this you will be only discussing and debating platforms in the historical combat space. And when we come to new platform decisions, we are positioning ourselves to ask the right question of the services: How does a particular platform fit how we will need to fight in 10 year’s time? Is the Navy or the Army or the Air Force entitled to that particular capability choice if it doesn’t fit that criteria?”

AVM Robert Chipman, Head of Military Strategic Commitments

The Plan Jericho reference provides a good transition to highlighting the presentation by the original co-director of Plan Jericho, AVM Chipman. This is how he put the contribution of the Plan Jericho launch and effort on the ADF: “Faced with the challenge of accelerating the transition to a network integrated force, Plan Jericho delivered an organizational change program.”

And the challenge of shaping a more lethal and effective ADF has simply grown over the past few years. As AVM Chipman underscored: “Integration was originally about connecting specific platforms to build a system. We had fighters, bombers, electronic attacking aircraft, airborne early warning and control, platforms with specific roles networked to function as a system. This delivered a decisive advantage that we continue to extend and optimize delivering system performance beyond the sum of its parts, conquering quantity with quality.

“But that technological advantage is eroding and some of the trends in technical development aren’t favorable to us. Our adversities are building capabilities that target the vulnerabilities in our system and denies the advantage of integration.

“At the same time, they have deployed technologies and weapon systems that demand even greater integration from us. We now need a network of sensors, geographically dispersed on the ground, at sea, in the air and in space, operating over a broad bandwidth just to track threats to our mainland.  In the same way we need a network of effectors with mutually supporting and reinforcing fires to provide the survivability and lethality to project, penetrate and deliver effects to our adversaries.

“We are locked in a race to integrate new technologies into these sensor and effective grids. Extending the performance of human competition through artificial intelligence and extending the boundaries of human competition to new domains. And our integration advantages are now hotly contested right across the spectrum of conflict.”

He focused on the importance of integration not just within the ADF but within the Australian defense write large, in terms of government activities and social resiliency. “The ADF contributes to national power as an integrated force. We strive to strengthen and reinforce integration within the ADF and across domains, addressing the human procedural and technical dimensions to integration, we must elevate our thinking further for to achieve our mission. Military power needs to be integrated with other elements of national power.”

In my own view, the build out of more flexible distributed integrated forces allows for expanded capability to operate throughout areas of interest.

But to get the real advantage for such evolution of forces, it is crucial that the civilian side of government work their own capabilities for more effective crisis management.

This is how AVM Chipman characterized this challenge: “We compete by influencing others to our cause, by generating sufficient strategic weight to attract partners to our orbit rather than seize space to our adversaries. We compete by promoting an open, liberal, prosperous region that respects sovereignty not by bending others to our will through manipulation and coercion. We compete by contesting, demonstrating resolve at the intersections of national interest, exercising our freedoms abroad and protecting our sovereignty at home.

“And we compete by posturing and preparing forces ready to respond, should the competition heat up further.  And all the while preserving pathways for de-escalation through our discipline and ethical execution.  All ADF activities, signal capability and intent, and all our activities must be a deliberate expression of our national will. We enhance the credibility of our national resolve when all of our collective actions are aligned to it.”

From the beginning of the Williams Foundation seminars since 2014, force integration has been a key theme. What has changed since the outset is a focus on longer-range effectors and upon the resilience challenge and how to meet it.

AVM Chipman put this challenge very well in this illustration: “Air Force is close to enhance its maritime strike capability, with an integrated package of F-35s and F-18 Super Hornets armed with Long Range, Anti-Ship Missiles. Guarded by P-8s and MQ-4 Tritons, controlled by E-7 Wedgetail, and projected by KC-30s. Collectively, this package can strike with confidence against any enemy vessel in our region but what happens next?

“When the aircraft return to unprotected airfields, and are refueled, and re-armed by fragile supply chains, or when our financial system is brought to the brink of collapse, and critical infrastructure is rendered inoperative, or government services disrupted in retribution. A boxer needs a powerful right hook, but he can’t use it if he can’t protect his chin.  Integration is a force multiplier, but it also demands resilience.”

MAJGEN Susan Coyle, Head of Information Warfare

The presentation by the Head of Information Warfare built out from Chipman’s core point that integration needs to be built out from a foundation of resilience. She cautioned throughout here presentation that in the cyber and information warfare domain, that this is not only challenging but an ongoing task, notably in terms of conflict with peer competitors.

She noted that “it’s network-centricity that offers the real force multiplier effect for a fifth-generation joint force.” But that this capability requires an ongoing effort, and simply cannot be assumed by flying fifth generation platforms, for example.

She underscored the nature of the challenge as follows: “The framework and apparatus of the fifth-generation force is substantially in place.  But is it? Is that as true as we think it is? Are we resting on our laurels by not pushing even further?

“As we’ve gone from a fairly aggressive acquisition of link enabled platforms, have we made sure that our network backbone has the capacity to satisfy our demand?  As more assets come into service with wide ranging functionality and security overheads, have we put the right testing and training in place so that we know the network can be fully integrated? Are these data links resilient enough to get the job done?”

MAJGEN Coyle made a very crucial point that there is need to invest in the foundational networking capabilities of the fore proportionate to investing in the weapons and platforms which operate within such a networked force.

“We’ve definitely been investing in appropriately skilled and clear network engineers, test and evaluation equipment, and significant processes, secure facilities where this could occur, haven’t we?  Because if we don’t, we’d risk losing the force multiplier effect that our networks provide.  And so the fight wouldn’t be one for the joint force. It would be one in which every service operated independently….”

Recognizing that the ADF is building a fifth-generation force can see the F-35, for example, as a catalyst for change, but working through how to leverage those dynamics to shape a capable integrated and networked force is crucial as well.

Here is how she put it: “Air force has led the way in achieving fifth generation capabilities, but we need to be clear on the difference between leading the way and leaving the joint force behind. Much like the force projection that outpaces its logistics, a fifth-generation air force that doesn’t realize that it’s just the tip of the spear is one that fundamentally could find itself out of balance.”

How then to close the gap?  Here is what she identified as a way ahead. “Center led design of the joint forces’ backbone is critical. It needs to be deliberate, and it needs to be data-centric. Instead of bespoke systems and networks that make it harder to integrate as a joint force, look for opportunities to be more joint.”

And she had this advice for the defense industrial sector based on this requirement: “For our industry partners, the future is open architecture that let us share with partners of choice, not proprietary systems. Alternates may let you corner the market, but it’s one in which defense has a rapidly decreasing interest, and it’s worthy of making sure that your supply chains are cyber worthy because that’s increasingly becoming a discriminator as well.  The cost for defense to deal with those vulnerabilities and the fact that they may make your solutions unpalatable.”

BRIG Ian Langford, Director General Future Land Warfare

In BRIG Langford’s presentation he focused on the question of what constitutes combat success and victory when engaged in network enabled warfare. Disrupting networks, subverting networks and various forms of network disruption now become key tools shaping a path to victory, notably in limited war.

And certainly, from this standpoint, namely, a network enabled force and joint C², the color of the uniform within the joint force becomes less significant in determing the contribution of a particular warfighter. The ADF as a whole faces this challenge: “How do we provide the kind of baseline network assurance when it comes to integration?”

In a way, Lanford was highlighting the question of the network foundation as a key element for enabling the integrated force and its path to success, similar to what MAJGEN Coyle was highlighting. For example, he asked the following question: “what is the significance of an undersea cyber community in terms of our own resilience, our agility, and our integration.”

And certainly, the ADF as a force for a medium power faces the challenge of deterrence of larger powers in the region. Here he noted:” To quote a former prime minister of Singapore, “How does a small fish in a pond of big fish become a poison shrimp?” How do we provide the kind of deterrence functions in a period where we are always at risk of being out escalated and how do you provide those shaping, or pre conflict, or competition effects?  and are credible?”

BRIG Langford underscored the importance of decision superiority in shaping favorable outcomes. “It is about being able to generate relative tempo and superiority at certain points in the conflict that enable victory going forward.”

CDRE Darron Kavanagh, Director General Warfare Innovation, Royal Austrian Navy

CDRE Kavanagh provided a Royal Australian Navy perspective on the way ahead with regard to the integration of the maritime domain within an integrated warfighting force.  Cavanagh’s presentation certainly recalled a core point made by Vice Admiral Barrett at 2016 Williams Foundation seminar when he underscored the following: “we are not building an interoperable Navy; we are building an integrated force for the Australian Defence Force.”

Kavanagh highlighted the importance of the evolving role of the maritime force in the offensive-defensive enterprise which a kill web force embodies. “The proliferation of advanced technology and the associated rapid advances in offensive systems such as high-speed and sophisticated anti-ship missiles means that we, more than ever before, need to critically analyze and prioritize our capability development plans to ensure the necessary force protection measures are available while simultaneously developing offensive systems and war-fighting procedures that will contribute to our mission’s success.”

The challenge of getting operational decisions done rapidly and correctly at the point of interest is increasingly crucial, which is why decision making at the tactical edge enabled by new ISR and C2 capabilities is increasingly important for an evolving maritime force.

This is how CDRE Kavanagh framed the challenge: “The speed at which decisions must now be made and are being made by our adversaries and the need to incorporate data from a multitude of sources is key. Intelligence must be analyzed and interpreted quickly to serve the war fighter. The concepts of what are the weapons in our critical capabilities is changing.

“From the traditional platform centric views towards innovation and artificial intelligence, robotics, and sophisticated senses amongst many others, so that we can achieve cognitive superiority and decision-making advantage over an enemy by being networked and integrated across our three defense services.  Our ammunition is actually information and our success will be dependent on how accurate and relevant it is and our skill in using it. Our transition to developing this capability is critical.

“Now, the Navy sees itself as providing, not just traditional sea power with our ships and aircraft and submarines, whether they’re crude or uncrude, but through intelligent and integrated networking across defense. We are an integral part of a potential response that presents any adversary with an unacceptable level of risk to deter aggression against Australia and our national interests.”

And by building out the networked distributed but integratable force, Navy is in a good position to leverage maritime autonomous systems.

Put another way, by building the proper foundation it is possible to add new ISR capabilities, for example, which lead to enhanced decision making rather than information overload.

This is how Kavanagh framed the opportunity being opened up by maritime autonomous systems:

“In the maritime context, it’s clear that our journey towards a networked integrated force is essential to enable Navy to leverage the full capabilities that autonomous uncrewed and optionally crewed systems can give us.  There are real opportunities to leverage those systems, to deliver effects in a more asymmetric manner, using their attributes of low-cost mass. I.e., the use of the smart, the small, the many, the cheap to complement our traditional complex large, few, expensive, crude platforms.”

If we return to the point made in BRIG Langford’s presentation concerning the importance of mastering the disruption and decision-making cycle in conflict within network warfare, Kavanagh adds this nuance: “More than ever, success in warfare is likely to depend on our capability to think creatively, to manage our information as a weapon of warfare. Tactically, we must use our technology and expertise to disrupt and degrade our adversaries’ decision-making. And we must ensure that our decision-making is sound and timely, base it on the best available inputs and trust it.”

Tony Dalton, Deputy Secretary National Naval Shipbuilding

During the time in which the Williams Foundation seminars began to assess the standup and evolution of the fifth generation enabled ADF, the commitment to shape a naval shipbuilding enterprise became a key piece for shaping the sovereignty piece for the way ahead for the ADF.

The question of what exactly is sovereignty in defense is a key one, and one which was addressed in some detail in the second seminar of 2021 in terms of debating what space sovereignty for Australia might mean.

At that seminar, AVM (Retired) Chris Deeble, now CEO Northrop Grumman Australia, provided a useful perspective on the sovereignty issue.

“What is sovereignty? The pursuit of sovereignty shouldn’t be an excuse for wanting to do everything. Sovereignty and resilience go hand in glove from my perspective and how we build that strategy. When we think about space, we often think about the things that make for great photo opportunities. A launch, a satellite, those great pictures of a satellite orbiting around. They make the great photo opportunities. These are going to be important that supply chains that underpin that, will remain important for us. But we must prioritize our effort and investments.

“We must ensure that from the get-go, we create that viable, scalable, innovative, and sustainable space ecosystem. And it must be underpinned by business cases that can goes to the viability and sustain sustainability at the end of the day

“This will be a significant challenge for us as we move forward. Defining things in requirements terms is going to be difficult. We will have to be thinking about that in outcomes terms. As a space nation, we must have a clear strategy that articulates our sovereign security and resilient space capability outcomes. We must develop a cohesive and aligned national strategy that meets both the civil and defense needs now and into the future.

“We must ensure that we prioritize and align our investments. We cannot lose sight of the underlying business cases. We can’t do it all. We have to create a sustainable viable outcome for us as we’re moving forward. The lexicon is changing, it’s a great first start.

“But if we want to be a space nation, if we want to create space ecosystems for the nation, if we want to have a viable, enduring, sustainable, scalable industry, from now and into the future, we have to turn that rhetoric into reality.”

And that the March 24, 2022 seminar, AVM Chipman provided an additional way to define sovereignty among allies.  This is how he put it: “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.”

So what does sovereignty mean with regard to a national shipbuilding enterprise in Australia?

Dalton asks: “What is a sovereign capability? How do you define what a sovereign capability is? And how does that come together in what we do and what we deliver to generate out sovereign capability?”

The first part of his answer with regard to shipbuilding is the importance of having within Australia the know-how and know why with regard to modern shipbuilding.

The second part of his answer is the importance of having that core knowledge capability in order to sustain, maintain and evolve the force.

The third part of his answer revolves around the core need for resilient supply chains, and by building ships in Australia, the supply chain piece is crucial not just for the build phase but the sustainability phase as well.

And the ability to integrate new ships into the ADF requires as well significant domain knowledge with regard to the ongoing upgrade process, notably with a software upgradeable force. This is how Dalton put it: “We need to be able to use the knowhow and the know why we get out of our building programs to be able to then upgrade it and take it into the next level of operations. We need to understand the design assumptions.”

He provided an example with regard to the upgrade process on the venerable Collins class submarines. And this is how he highlighted the relationship between understanding design assumptions and the ability to update a class of ships.

“With regard to our Collins class submarines, we really are going all the way back to what were the original designs to build that class. How do we actually insert a new main motor in that boat? How do we insert new diesel generators in that boat? And that raises some really interesting questions. To insert a new diesel jet generator which weigh a lot less than the 1980s diesel generators, that raises design challenges.

“If you take 12 tons out of the back of the boat, the balance of the boat changes. The other really interesting thing around diesel generators is that on a conventional submarine, how we refresh the atmosphere inside the boat is by running the diesel generators. And it sucks air in through the snort and it refreshes the atmosphere. New diesel generators are much, much more efficient than 1980s diesel generators. And in fact, they use 50% less air, which is a good thing unless you’re in a submarine and you’re trying to change the atmosphere over in a very short period of time.

“Understanding design assumptions and design principles that you get from building is a really important aspect that you then can take into upgrades into the future. And the Navy is committed to an evergreen process which revolves around positioning for a lifetime of upgrades,”

At the first 2021 seminar last year, Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Noonan, highlighted the impact of an evergreen process for naval modernization and in doing so underscored the importance of the made in Australia piece at the center of Dalton’s presentation.

“The joint integration piece is critical. I cannot stress that highly enough in terms of we must ensure that these systems are integrated. Not just integrated into the platforms or their parent platforms but integrated into the force.

“And they are capable of being evergreen. This is the new term for spiral development. It’s about ensuring that we have systems that remain contemporary, and I am challenged on a daily basis about capability gaps and about deficiencies in the long lead times that require us in the shipbuilding space. It takes about 10 years to build a submarine, or five years to build a frigate.

“And are we incorporating old technologies? Bottom answer is no, in that we are designing future and evergreen in growth into our platforms. And I think that’s a very important concept that we have not always fully grasped.

“Finally, is the importance of made in Australia. Our systems must be designed for the very unique circumstances that we operate in, particularly in the maritime environment.”

The featured graphic is taken from a slide from MAGEN Coyle’s presentation at the seminar. 

By Robbin Laird

General Kenneth Wilsbach, Commander, Pacific Air Forces, is no stranger to the Williams Foundation.

When the seminars held by the foundation began in 2018 focusing directly on the strategic shift from the land wars to building the resilient and longer range force for deterrence in the 21^st century, General Wilsbach, then Commander of the 11^th Air Force, provided his assessment of the challenges facing the U.S. and the allies in the Pacific region moving forward.

At that seminar, he highlighted a key element for the way ahead, namely, force distribution of airpower, and he introduced what he would later call agile combat employment.

“From a USAF standpoint, we are organized for efficiency, and in the high intensity conflict that we might find ourselves in, in the Pacific, that efficiency might be actually our Achilles heel, because it requires us to put massive amounts of equipment on a few bases. Those bases, as we most know, are within the weapons engagement zone of potential adversaries.

“So, the United States Air Force, along with the Australian Air Force, has been working on a concept called, Agile Combat Employment, which seeks to disperse the force, and make it difficult for the enemy to know where you are at, when are you going to be there, and how long are you are going to be there.

“We’re at the very preliminary stages of being able to do this but the organization is part of the problem for us, because we are very used to, over the last several decades, of being in very large bases, very large organizations, and we stove pipe the various career fields, and one commander is not in charge of the force that you need to disperse. We’re taking a look at this, of how we might reorganize, to be able to employ this concept in the Pacific, and other places.”

Now as PACAF Commander, Wilsbach has made this a core effort for the command.

When visiting Hawaii this past summer, I had a chance to talk with the PACAF key strategist about how the command was addressing this key way ahead. And this is how BG Winkler, then Director of Strategic Plans, Requirements and Programs at the Pacific Air Force, underscored the effort:

“PACAF has done a pretty decent job over the last three years of getting the Air Force to embrace this idea of agile combat operations and to export it to Europe as well. The whole idea, if you rewind the clock to the mid 80s, early 90s, was that  every single base in the United States Air Force that was training for conflict would do an exercise where you’d run around in chemical gear.

“At that point in time, there was a large chemical biological threat, and the Air Force recognized that it needed to be able to survive and operate in that chemical threat. So, we trained to it.

“I think the new version of that chemical biological threat is the anti-access area denial umbrella. The idea of agile combat employment is our capability to survive and operate and keep combat momentum underneath the adversary’s anti-access area denial umbrella.

“Basically, we are focusing on our ability to survive and operate in a contested environment. PACAF has taken a realistic approach that is fiscally informed because it would be very difficult for us to go try to build multiple bases with 10,000-foot runways, and dorms, and ammunition storage all over the Pacific.  ”

“What we’ve done instead is concentrated on a hub and spoke mentality, where you build a base cluster. That cluster has got a hub that provides quite a bit of logistic support to these different spoke airfields. The spokes are more expeditionary than most folks in the Air Force are used to.

“The expeditionary airfield is a spoke or a place that we operate from. It’s not 10,000 feet of runway, it’s maybe 7,000 feet. We’re probably not going to have big munitions storage areas, there’s probably going to be weapons carts that have missiles on them inside of sandbags bunkers. And we’re going to look a lot more like a Marine Expeditionary base than your traditional big Air Force base. It’ll be fairly expeditionary.”

What General Wilsbach highlighted in his presentation to the Williams Foundation seminar on March 24, 2022, was the challenge of building the networks to provide for both force distribution and integration.

By shaping a distributed but integrated force, one can create what Wilsbach called the “stacking of effects.”

“Let me explain a little bit about what I mean by stacking of effects, because we found that when going after a highly defended target, it requires that the effects arrive simultaneously from multiple domains to greatly complicate the target’s ability to defend itself.

“A stacked effort might be a space effect happening concurrent with electronic or cyber effects while decoys are being deployed with a submarine prosecuting the attack simultaneously with long range, precision fires that arrive simultaneously on the target.

“To do this at the speed of war, we have to have a network that’s agnostic who detects, engages, assesses or targets takes the shot, whether it’s kinetic or non-kinetic, doesn’t really matter what matters is the speed with which we share information across the platforms and between allies and partners to enable the creation of the overall effect like I just described.”

From my perspective, what the General is describing is reshaping the force from a legacy sequential strike and defense force to becoming a kill web force, able to operate at the point of interest and to be able to reach back to joint or coalition assets to create the desired combat or crisis management effect.

How is the USAF focusing on how to do so?

This is how General Wilsbach put it:

“How do we intend to create such a capability?

“First of all, the U.S. intends to create a more networked force by reinvesting funding from legacy retirements, to into advanced military technologies through continued development of a robust and resilient command and control system and by ensuring joint and coalition interoperability across all domains….

“Additionally, we shouldn’t be flying fit generation platforms with third or fourth generation weapons. I believe we should be investing in directed energy as well as fifth generation munitions and beyond.

“And I’ve not been quiet about my advocacy of the E7, I believe this is essential for us. And as the original customer for the E7,  Australia fully understands the long-range surveillance communications and C2 capability E7 provides.

“Adding this additional platform to the U.S. fleet would increase our interoperability with the Royal Australian Air Force and we know the Australian teammates will be able to accelerate our learning curve on the E7….

“Our air force must focus on using information and technologies such as advanced computing and technologies, as well as artificial intelligence, integrating these into future military capabilities. Our next generation air dominance program is applying this methodology to the development of six generation aircraft that will possess the ability to survive, persist, and deliver lethal effects within the most challenging threat environments.”

The command and control piece of all of this is crucial to how one can distribute force, understood as the distribution of a nation’s assets or working with core allies as part of an overall kill web enabled force, and yet integrate those forces to deliver the desired strategic or tactical results.

How to do this is at the heart of shaping a way ahead.

How centralized?

How distributed?

And how best to find ways to empower operations at the tactical edge, yet have effective strategic understanding of what the distributed force is actually delivering?

Much of last year, my colleague Ed Timerplake and I spent considerable time with the 2^nd Fleet and Allied Joint Force Command, where Vice Admiral Woody Lewis and his team were standing up a new command capability for the North Atlantic.

At the heart of their efforts was shaping new ways to deliver mission command to a distributed force. They exercised several times throughout his command tour ways to execute mission command through mobile command posts.

That is the Atlantic region, but of course, the Pacific is far vaster, and in one of the great name change mistakes in human history, as my colleague Ed Timperlake has noted, it was called the Pacific.

How then can both mission command and decision making at the tactical edge be done for a distributed but integrated force?

This is how General Wilsbach highlighted how he saw the way ahead in this critical concept of operations and technological domain.

“We’re working as a joint force to develop our C2 concepts and multi domain operations approach. We are continuing the development of a robust and resilient command and control system that can quickly sense, synchronize, decide, and rapidly act with our allies and partners across all domains.

“With the help of Australians on our staff, we’ll continue to address the problem set. The joint, all domain command and control strategy that we are developing known as JADC2 recognizes our need to connect, communicate, and synchronize across all domains, as well as the need to share information at the speed of relevance. In fact, it should probably be called C JADC2 because it needs to extend to our coalition partners as well.

“A vital requirement of JADC2 is the ability to make current and future systems interoperable with systems employed by our joint and coalition partners. And once realized the JADC2 network advantage will be at seamless transfer of the right information at the right time to the right decision maker.

“And at a speed, our adversary cannot match. To realize and operationalize JADC2, the air force is focused on developing advanced battle management system or ABMS. And what ABMS is a system of systems that enables that meshed dynamic flow of data from centralized command and control points to decentralized execution points without being affected by loss of individual networks or nodes, or even a sensor.

“It’ll allow us to collect and process vast amounts of data from all domains and shared in a way that enables faster and better decision making. Imagine commanders at all echelons being able to pull in and synthesize information, and then leverage it in a way that achieves layered effects like it described earlier that shape the battle space faster than an adversary can react to it. That’s true dominance.

“In the Indo-Pacific, an integrated war fighting network is crucial to overcoming the tyranny of distance and the lack of an infrastructure connecting war fighters. In real time, we need a meshed, self-healing artificial intelligence enabled network that is not easily disconnected or vulnerable to attack. It must be user friendly, ensuring operators aren’t distracted by troubleshooting the communication systems when they should be effortlessly executing their work time tasks.

“Much like how your cell phone works, when you go to a new place, it figures out what’s up, you can tell the time you can make a telephone call, check your email, check your social media, and you don’t have to do anything, that’s how this network needs to work.

“PACAF is currently working to deliver this unified network architecture for our upcoming exercise, Valid shield, and teaming with the air staff and industry partners.

“We’re continuously experimenting with machine-to-machine interfaces and connecting military services using multiple network pass. Similar to how SpaceX Starlink terminals are being used to provide redundant internet connections in Ukraine, we intend to test commercial satellite communications as an alternative data transport method during an upcoming Valiant Shield exercise.”

The challenge still remains between empowering decision making at the tactical edge and how strategic direction is shaped.

With the presence forces or the joint task forces at the point of interest able to deploy their own ISR capabilities, their span of effective decision making expands, and with the need for speed they cannot wait for a centralized commander to make a decision not operating in their area of interest.

This is a core challenge which needs to be met, and I mentioned earlier the innovations generated under VADM Lewis are solid beginnings to figure out how to rework mission command in conjunction with decision-making at the tactical edge empowered by the kinds of ISR innovations which are empowering the distributed presence force.

This is how BG Winkler put the challenge when we met at PACAF headquarters in August 2021:

“Our allies and partners are a huge part of everything that we’re going to end up doing out here in the theater. We like to think that they are an asymmetric advantage, and the more that we can get the coalition plugged in the more effective we can be. It’s not just U.S. sensors that are out there feeding the rest of the joint coalition force, but it is important to tap into the allied and partner sensors.

“I do think that we’re at a precipice for information warfare, and the fact that some of the forward based sensors that we have, like the F-35, can generate way more intelligence data than our traditional ISR fleet, like the E3. Australia’s flying the E7—fairly modernized, very robust ISR capabilities on those. I think there’s been some discussion within the United States Air Force about whether we need to up the game and maybe make an E7 purchase, as well.

“But we are getting to that point where the forward base fighters are so much more technologically advanced than our ISR fleet, that it makes you question where the ISR node should be. I agree it doesn’t necessarily need to be all the way back in Hawaii. It could be somewhere else in the theater.

“But the Air Force, as you’re aware, has traditionally operated with AOC as the central node for command and control in the Pacific. We’re trying to figure out as an Air Force what the future looks like. But I don’t think that future is going to be five years from now. I think it might be 10 years from now.

“And in the short term, what you’ll probably see is a something that allows us to operate from the AOC, protect our capabilities to operate from the air operation center, to be able to help synchronize fighters throughout the entire AOR, but then set up subordinate nodes that are probably forward of the AOC. If the AOC does get cut off or shut down, for some reason, you do still have subordinate C2 nodes in the theater that can keep the continuity of operations, and keep some battlefield momentum up, to continue to take the fight to the enemy.”

And PACAF is not waiting around for some future optimal system.

As he underscored about the recent COPE NORTH 22 exercise:

“We also focused on network integration during our recent Cope North 22 dynamic force employment exercise alongside Australia and Japan. Cope North allowed us to build our tactics, techniques and procedures in support of agile combat employment, an operational concept that projects air power via network of distributed operating locations throughout the Indo-Pacific.

“The Australian air force, as well as the Japanese air force were both experimented with ACE, like concepts themselves as many other countries around the world are doing these days.

“During the exercise, we executed 2000 sorties across seven islands and 10 airfields demonstrating operational unpredictability and redundant C² that enabled rapid employment of fourth and fifth generation air power.”

General Kenneth Wilsbach, Commander, Pacific Air Forces

Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach is the Commander, Pacific Air Forces; Air Component Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; and Executive Director, Pacific Air Combat Operations Staff, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. PACAF is responsible for Air Force activities spread over half the globe in a command that supports more than 46,000 Airmen serving principally in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.

Gen. Wilsbach was commissioned in 1985 as a distinguished graduate of the University of Florida’s ROTC program and earned his pilot wings in 1986 as a distinguished graduate from Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas.

He has commanded a fighter squadron, operations group, two wings, two Numbered Air Forces, and held various staff assignments including Director of Operations, Combined Air Operations Center and Director of Operations, U.S. Central Command.

Prior to his current assignment, General Wilsbach was the Deputy Commander, U.S. Forces Korea; Commander, Air Component Command, United Nations Command; Commander, Air Component Command, Combined Forces Command; and Commander, Seventh Air Force, Pacific Air Forces, Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea.

Gen. Wilsbach is a command pilot with more than 5,000 hours in multiple aircraft, primarily in the F-15C, F-16C, MC-12, and F-22A, and has flown 71 combat missions in operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch and Enduring Freedom.

The interview with Winkler along with all the interviews we did with commanders during 2021 can be found in our new book, Defense XXI: Shaping a Way Ahead for the U.S. and its Allies to be published in paperback in June 2022 and available shortly in e-book worldwide.

And we directly focus on the kill web concept in our forthcoming book, A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making: Deterrence and Warfighting in the XXIst Century.

The featured photo: Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to No. 77 Squadron taxi into position on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Jan. 29, 2022. The aircraft flew in to participate in exercise Cope North 22. Fighter aircraft from the U.S. Air Force, Japan Air Self Defense Force and Royal Australian Air Force are projected to conduct aerial refueling, close air support and counter air-missions during the exercise. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Micaiah Anthony)

By Robbin Laird

In my article on meeting the challenge of contested operations and C², I laid out the nature of the challenge and why meeting the challenge is crucial to combat effectiveness in conflict with peer competitors.

I concluded that article with this characterization of the challenge: “How might we accelerate the strategic innovation we need to deliver the force connectivity and C² for a distributed but integratable force?

“And to do so in the face of engaging in conflict with nuclear-armed authoritarian powers?”

One approach to providing a near term solution which lays down a solid foundation for further development is Cubic Corporation’s Halo^TM system. Halo has been developed with the USAF as its initial customer to provide capabilities for the USAF’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control or JADC2 effort. The initial Halo^TM system is being tested on the USAF High-Capacity Backbone (HCB) program and is projected to deploy on various aircraft and platforms.

The fact sheet for the system provides a description of the system which is a bit complicated:

“Halo solves a critical communications challenge for warfighters at the edge: delivering reliable, high data rate service in a scalable, heterogenous network. Its robust, software-defined, digital beam-forming antenna system delivers secure video, voice, and data, transporting data through a joint, all-domain mesh network. The result is revolutionary: providing our warfighters with a demonstrable battlespace advantage.”

But hidden in that language is a solution to the problem which I framed in the article on contested operations and C².  To clarify the nature of the system, and how it worked to solve this key challenge, I talked with David Harris, Cubic’s VP and General Manager of Secure Communications, about the Halo system and its capabilities and how it provides an answer to this challenge by providing a reliable internet-like experience for warfighters in all environments.

Harris has an interesting background which certainly has prepared him to work the secure communications challenge for a distributed but integratable force. He started as a U.S. Navy officer and his first job in industry was with Northrop Grumman where he was program manager talking the problem of how to get information off a fifth-generation fighter to legacy fighters and the joint force.

In this role, he spent a lot of time with F-22 pilots and as they worked the data transfer challenge, a key role of a data rich aircraft for the air combat force became evident to the F-22 community.

As Harris put it: “I spent a lot of time with F-22 pilots, and they never really gave any credence to wanting any help. Because the F-22 is stealthy, they don’t want to do anything where anyone knows where they’re at or what they’re doing. And through the course of my engagement with them, it really opened their eyes to just how much help they could get if they could share the data in a real-time protected fashion.”

He continued working in the fifth-generation world at Northrop where he worked on F-35 CNI and MADL. The focus was upon how to meet the challenge of taking what the F-35 does as a wolfpack and how it can expand its support to the rest of the aerospace platforms working in the contested battlespace.

He then moved into the world of working black program multi-domain communications where, in his words, “we focused on building out a multi-layered network capability to support multi-domain functions on these platforms, and be able to provide high bandwidth, secure, resilient capabilities for them.”

With this background, clearly his experience provided a nice entrance into the JADC-2 world, where Halo is initially positioned.

What then is Halo? 

Halo as a system can be seen in the Cubic graphic below:

The Halo system consists of two packages working together: the processing system and the aperture system which are fully integrated with one another. The aperture is a software defined digital beam forming system.

This is how CUBIC has described the two packages and how they work together:

“Halo eliminates the need for crowded antenna farms with its one low-profile antenna. This single aperture delivers many links and yields a significant SWaP-C per link advantage. Halo can “copy/paste” multiple beams in software, providing individual directional beams to each network node, thereby suppressing an adversary’s ability to intercept communications and detect platforms.

“Halo’s powerful digital processing capabilities enable automated discovery and spatial networking. This capability establishes a resilient GPS independent network that provides adaptive link management and dynamic network routing. Its pure digital beam technology processes faster and more effectively than analog or hybrid beam-formers.”

This is how Harris described Halo^TM and its approach.

Halo^TM is built upon established military waveforms, open standard wave forms. If the military users have an existing radio that speaks one of those waveforms, such as CDL, or BE-CDL (including the new protected mode of BE-CDL), they’ll be able to connect to Halo and leverage those services within the constraints of their end point.

“You’ve probably seen JADC2 pictures, where you’ve got the tankers and other large aircraft that have multiple connections coming out of a single aircraft.  The power of Halo is really revolutionary in that you can have five, six, seven, eight, essentially an unlimited, number of connections from this single system, this single aperture.

“But you don’t need that capability throughout the entire fleet. The guy on the ground with his handheld radio or system doesn’t need to connect to everything around him. If he can reliably and assuredly connect to a single point, and leverage the whole network through that single connection, you don’t have to have the resources dedicated to have a Halo at that point.

“It really is about the open waveforms and leveraging those so that we don’t have to rebuild the entire infrastructure to take advantage of this.”

One way of understanding the nature of Halo as a system is to compare it with legacy capabilities. Here is how Harris explained the differences. “Within a single aperture, we can have n links established. Although we’re not the only ones doing digital beam forming, we are doing it in a new and transformational way.

“There are other digital beam forming technologies out there. But with the Halo system, we have the ability to be able to cover the entirety of the airspace with one device. And in the upcoming USAF High-Capacity Backbone demo, we’re going to do eight simultaneous high bandwidth, resilient, secure links out of the single device.

“That is to say, the modified legacy approach is to stack four modems on each other and carving out space for each link. It’s taking old school technology and trying to apply it to work in today’s problem. Halo is all about focusing on today’s problem with capabilities which build out to the future.

“Halo was built from the ground up to be able to do something that’s never been done before. And it does it in a resilient capacity. It’s not reliant on other layers and other capabilities to be able to build up this network. It’s automated. It happens without user intervention. It doesn’t rely on other signals or capabilities to be able to build up the network and find other connections out there.

“One doesn’t have to be another Halo in the battlespace to do this. One needs to have a system that’s speaking the right language, the right waveform.

“And Halo autonomously builds a network.  When the network is built, it then has the smarts to figure out how to optimally use that network.

“Halo is looking at all the various connections it has to every point of the network and figuring out, “How do I get the data there in the most optimal fashion? And if a plane on which the Halo system resides turns and you get blockage, how do I reroute it through other things? How do we keep this going without any kind of user intervention?”

“Halo has been built around embracing an open standard so that we can leverage the capabilities of everyone and be able to keep it that way for a long time. The system delivers really low SWaP per dollar of capability.

“The capability you get out of a singular device is leaps and bounds, an order of magnitude from both a cost, a size, and a weight, and a power perspective lower than anything else out there right now.”

In the next article, I will look at the broader implications of how Halo^TM is not simply a node in a network but can deliver networks to the deployed force at the tactical edge.

This technology provides distributed force integration through C² innovations and needs to get out to the force sooner rather than later.

Contested Operations and C2: Meeting the Challenge