The Strategic Shift and Dynamic Targeting: Meeting the Challenge

05/28/2020
By Robbin Laird With the strategic shift from the land wars to the more fluid battlespace involving peer competitors engaged in full spectrum crisis management with the United States and its allies, one aspect of the change for military forces is how to use lethal force effectively. This comes down…

Blue Water and Blue Skies: Working Air-Maritime Integration

05/22/2020
It is clear that when either looking at the North Atlantic or the Pacific theater of operations, neither the USAF nor the USN are in a position to dominate as stove-piped services or without integrated operations with core allies. In building out the integrated distributed force, a core challenge facing…

Training for Force Integration: The Perspective from the Air Warfare Center, Nellis AFB

05/21/2020
By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake We visited the USAF Warfare Center in 2015, when Major General Jay Silveria, was the commanding officer. A visit last month was postponed due to the COVID-19 impacts, but, hopefully, we can return later this year. But we did have the opportunity to have…

What is Triton’s Contribution to the Maritime Kill Web?

05/20/2020
By Robbin Laird The US Navy has deployed Triton to Guam and has begun its operational history. According to an article on USNI News by Gidget Fuentes published on May 12, 2020, a pair of MQ-4C Tritons operating from Guam has been integrated into fleet operations and provide reach across…

Extending the Reach of the Kill Web: The US Navy Works with Allies on the Maritime Patrol Enterprise

05/13/2020
By Robbin Laird In our last interview with Rear Admiral Garvin, we focused on how the P-8 / Triton dyad was reshaping the approach of the airborne element of the anti-submarine network. We spoke at length about how the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force (MPRF) could be recast into interactive…

Shaping a Way Ahead with Regard to Electronic Warfare: The Perspective from HAVOC

05/12/2020
By Robbin Laird With the strategic shift from the land wars to engaging in higher end conflict situations with peer competitors, electronic warfare and its role is changing as well. When Ed Timperlake and I visited Fallon in 2017, we met with members of HAVOC, the US Navy’s Airborne Electronic…

The Evolving Role of the Fighter in the Integratable Air Wing: The View from TOPGUN

05/10/2020
With the developing relationship between sensors and shooters in the maritime kill web, what is the evolving role of the fighter? I had a chance to talk about these changes with the CO of TOPGUN, CDR Tim Myers. We started by discussing how he would compare and contrast his experience…

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Airborne Search and Rescue

05/07/2020
By Ms Samara Kitchener Airborne search and rescue is an expensive and demanding task, but what if there was a better way? AI-Search, Defence’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) prototype to transform airborne search and rescue, is now in its second phase of development. The prototype is a collaboration between the Royal…