On September 28, 2022, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation held its latest seminar. The title of the seminar was “enhancing the lethality and survivability of the integrated force.” At the seminar, the three service chiefs as well as the head of defence design provided key contributions to framing answers to…

By Robbin Laird At first blush, some readers would expect a title that focused on maritime autonomous systems to focus primarily upon their role within the Royal Australian Navy, rather than looking at the role within the overall ADF. But because these systems are entering the force as it works…

By Robbin Laird I have known Wing Commander Keirin Joyce for a number of years, and last spoke with him at length after he chaired last year’s Williams Foundation Seminar on Next Generation Autonomous Systems. During the seminar, he highlighted an example of how current forces can use new uncrewed…

By Robbin Laird Enhancing C2 capabilities for the ADF in the near to midterm is a critical part of being able to deliver the kind of defense capabilities which Australia needs for its renewed focus on direct defense of Australia. During my current visit to Australia, I had a chance…

A great place to go to approach ways to answer that question is to visit The Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center or NAWDC which is best known to the public as “Top Gun.” When I last visited NAWDC in 2020 which I did twice in that year, it was very…

By Robbin Laird Recently, the U.S. navy's CNO Gilday underscored that fleet numbers are limited by the relatively limited defense industrial capacity in the United States. A clear challenge is to rebuild and enhance the "arsenal of democracy." “We have an industrial capacity that’s limited. In other words, we can…

By Robbin Laird A key difference between legacy 20th century military platforms and 21st century platforms revolve around software upgradeability. With the legacy platforms, integration on the platform has been done by additive change, with then having to modify the platform in various ways to incorporate the additive change. With…

By Robbin Laird When I worked for Secretary Wynne when he was head of defense acquisition and then Secretary of the USAF, I had a chance to focus on the coming of the F-35 global enterprise. What I argued at the time was that a global force of F-35s would…