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If we are already swimming in sensors and drowning in data, what can we do to get our heads above water? Wing Commander Paul Hay argues that the key is not a new sensor, platform, or system but improving the management and integration of the information we already collect to create an Internet of ISR. Our collection management doctrine, processes and networks are based on tried and true Industrial Age concepts. But these may not be the most effective or efficient way to support our war fighters in the Information Age, much less the dynamic environment that we expect to find ourselves operating in the future. A large proportion of the world’s population can access information about anything via the Internet. Yet our systems impose obstacles that keep valuable ISR information from those people that need it the most, whether they be war fighters, analysts, or commanders. Perhaps we should reconsider the way we treat our ISR data and make it discoverable to anyone that has permission to see it. ADF collection management doctrine is centred on joint collection management processes whereby the myriad of customer collection RFIs are “racked and stacked” and apportioned to discrete collection assets. The assets collect against targets that present on the day, and pass the data to available processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) assets. Each collection target is analysed and fused with other data as per the customer requirements in the RFI as a discrete task. The end product is sent to the customer in accordance with the dissemination instructions. The system is robust and proven to work for discrete tasks, but is also proven to be ineffective and inefficient at a macro-level. The system described above is hierarchical, centrally-controlled, and generally delivers product to a limited customer base. The current model is a Soviet-style planned economy. Contrast that system with something we all understand – the Internet. If you want to know something, anything really, just “Google it”. Google will search indexed data across the entire globe and return results in order of relevance. You get the answer you want; but you have absolutely no idea where the server that stores that data is. All you care about is that it is accurate and that you received the result in less than a second. Not only that, but a million other users on the internet could have asked the same question and received the same answer from the single piece of source data. Moreover, the system can suggest other information of relevance to you based on what other people’s searches. Why can’t we do that with our ISR collection to enable many timely decisions instead of just one? The answer to that may lie in our networks, our ISR doctrine and resourcing, and our ability to trust our collected data and our people. How much of the ISR data collected over time never gets analysed by a person? How much of that data might be of use to someone? How many people out there are completely unaware that a collection mission occurred in their area of interest? Multiple studies have shown that we are already “swimming in sensors and drowning in data.” Clearly we will never make all data available to everyone, but we should at least know that the data exists and be able to make it available to those that do need it. Our ISR concept should revolve around indexing data as soon as practicable and make it discoverable as early as possible. This may include make aircraft servers accessible while still on task, immediately on landing or when necessary on return to a main operating base. The figure illustrates how such a concept might function. ISR data made discoverable as early as possible. [Image credit: author] In a previous post I made mention of how we may better enable emergency services in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities. That may be a great place for Defence to start, but we should consider extending that to our war fighting networks. They need to be defendable, the data needs to be trusted, people need the right permissions to access it, and sufficient bandwidth must exist for the customer to ‘pull’ the data. Should we not be doing everything we can to enable the people need data to access data as fast as possible to make a decision? What if a young platoon commander just needs a picture of what’s on the other side of a river or road before his platoon breaks cover to cross it, rather than a fully annotated image outlining vehicles? Perhaps he trusts his own ability to determine if a vehicle is a sedan or a tank. At the same time as the platoon commander is reviewing this graphic, the system allows an analyst using specialised tools and skills to determine that the T-72 tank in the picture is a decoy. More importantly, the system allows both users to know that the other is looking at the graphic as well, suggest other relevant information, and provides tools for the users to exchange views in real time. One example of such a system – there are many in use around the globe – is the Defence Science and Technology Group’s Evolutionary Layered ISR Integration Exemplar Architecture (ELIIXAR). This developmental system enables users to run single searches and other services across a variety of ISR data sets. ELIIXAR provides the architecture that allows services, applications, and users to exploit diverse data sets as though they are one. Unifying data sets in this fashion enables the application of automated analytics to exploit the potential of ‘big data.’ It may enable analysts and decision-makers to reverse the current 80/20 split between looking for information and looking at information. Thus, it can dramatically improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the ISR system. What if an ELIIXAR-like system was made widely available on land, maritime, and air platforms and ISR data was made discoverable as close to its collection point as possible? No person in the loop, no RFI – just rapid decision-maker access to information they may not have known existed, and certainly did not know how to find. Whilst this is no doubt a very simplistic view of what is no doubt a technically challenging proposition, the ever-diminishing decision cycles and war fighter needs may drive the solution for us. Wing Commander Paul Hay is a serving Royal Australian Air Force officer. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government.

In the final of his three-post series exploring the potential utility of podded capabilities for the Royal Australian Air Force, Squadron Leader Jimmy uses vignettes to explain how pod-augmented capabilities could be used to enhance air power’s contribution to operations. In my previous two posts I have highlighted the potential of ISR and Multi-Mission Augmentation Pods, and identified some practical options that could expand the utility of the Royal Australian Air Force’s current fleet. I close out my series by describing how I envision these capabilities could actually be employed. Conceptual Vignette One: Defence Aid to the Civil Community following a large scale natural disaster – C-27J equipped with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) and a tactical reconnaissance (TacRecce) pod There is a large and fast moving bush fire, akin to the January 2016 bush fire, that is raging between Mandurah and Bunbury in Western Australia. A C-27J is tasked to deliver emergency supplies to the airfield of a local country town that is hosting a large regional evacuation point. In addition to the required aid and supplies, the C-27J is equipped with an AESA pod and a TacRecce pod. Prior to launch the Air and Space Operations Centre (AOC) receives an update from the Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) on the situation, including the latest location of the fire front and an estimated location for the fire front when the C-27J reaches the area. Intelligence and ISR specialists in the AOC use this overview to quickly create a collection deck for the C-27J’s pods, which the pods’ on-board processors can automatically analyse and report against. The collection deck is emailed to 35 Squadron, the RAAF’s C-27J squadron, before the aircraft departs RAAF Richmond, New South Wales en route directly to the country Western Australia destination. As the C-27J comes into sensor range of the fire area the pods begin collecting against the collection deck. The AESA prioritises GMTI (Ground Moving Target Indicator) and the TacRecce pod images large swathes of the area. The GMTI collect is focussed on looking for traffic abnormalities; gaps in traffic activity on routes that were assessed to be open prior to launch, any areas of significant traffic activity within the fire zone and evacuated areas with vehicle activity. All of theses activities that are automatically identified by the pod systems, are internally cross-cued so that each report consists of MTI data and chip outs of SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), EO (Electro-Optic) and IR (Infra-Red) imagery of the activity of interest. These ‘point outs’ could identify areas or routes that have been closed by the fire that DFES are not currently aware of, or traffic jams caused by rapidly changing road conditions. The route assessment could also indicate routes still in local use, or unmarked secondary routes being used by locals that DFES may not otherwise have been aware of. The evacuated areas with vehicle activity could indicate isolated persons that are potentially at immediate risk, or looters. All of this automatically analysed and ‘flagged’ data could be data-linked off-board for human analysis and decision support. These analysts might be forward deployed with DFES or back in DGS-AUS (Distributed Ground Station-Australia) providing near real-time analysis and in direct communication with DFES. A bushfire closes a road in Western Australia in Jan 2016. Image Credit: AAP/DFES Upon landing at the isolated country airfield, whilst the supplies are unloaded, the unclassified geo-referenced and orthorectified TacRecce imagery, with an overlay of annotations based on the GMTI analysis is downloaded and disseminated along the lines suggested by Paul Hay in a previous post on this blog. Whilst on the ground, the Bush Fire Brigade (BFB) commander highlights that one of the areas of significant activity identified by the GMTI is under imminent threat from the fire front, and the fire has knocked out the telephone network in the area. After completing the unload, the C-27J heads directly to the threatened area whilst en route to Perth and changes the mode of the AESA pod from GMTI to a high powered directional Wi-Fi router. This Wi-Fi capability is used to send a message directly to any Wi-Fi enabled phones in the area, containing an imminent threat warning and route recommendation. After completing this activity, the C-27J lands in Perth and downloads all TacRecce data, with the appropriate annotations, for use by DFES at the regional level. This high resolution orthorectified imagery could be quickly added to geospatial tools on the ground to provide a post-disaster image overlay to extant imagery and mapping. It could even be added from the deployed environment or by DGS-AUS to open source geospatial tools such as Google Earth to complement open source and social media based disaster response activities such as Google Crisis Response. Conceptual Vignette Two: Operations in Iraq and Syria – SAR / GMTI Equipped KC-30 A SAR / GMTI pod is mounted via a replacement of a passenger door on a KC-30 in a tanker orbit over Iraq. The tanker orbits above northern Iraq for at least four hours. A Royal Australian Air Force KC-30A Multi Role Tanker Transport returns from a mission over Iraq. [Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia] The sensor independently collects against a pre-planned collection deck without impacting the tanker’s primary task. SAR change detection is used to monitor locations of interest for activity every 15 minutes. When it detects changes, such as the arrival of vehicles, a geo-referenced and time stamped chip out of the relevant before and after images is sent to an ISR Duty Officer (ISRDO) in the Combined Air and Space Operations Centre (CAOC) for follow up. Concurrently, once a baseline understanding of activity has been established, automated pattern analysis of the GMTI data for significant changes in pattern of activity is applied. Automatically generated indications of a change in activity could be used to internally cue a SAR image of the location of interest; a chip out of the MTI data of interest, the assessment of activity and an accompanying SAR image of the location could be sent via the KC-30’s SATCOM to the ISR Operations Duty Officer in the CAOC for intelligence fusion and further investigation. This could include activity in areas of low civilian population on routes assessed to be used by threat actors for resupply or attack preparation. The GMTI collect is also uploaded to coalition GMTI databases in real-time for retrospective analysis, which could provide significant value in understanding traffic patterns, the status of known and unknown routes and potentially curfew times in threat areas. Dare to dream; Ad Astra! Squadron Leader Jimmy is a current serving RAAF Intelligence Officer. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #AirPower #Innovation #ISR #technology

In its first century, air power established itself as an indispensable component of any effective military force. In this post, Dr. Sanu Kainikara asks what the next step-change will be that will guide the development of air power into its second century. In the past few decades, air power, and its application as a weapon of war or force projection capability, has seen an enormous improvement in capabilities. In keeping with the current global ethos of avoiding excessive use of force while fighting a war, air power now has the ability to deliver extreme destructive power with precision, proportionality and discrimination. Based on this capability, air forces have also developed into deterrent and coercive forces second to none. Considering that the military employment of air power is only a century old, these are great achievements. Even so, military forces are continually looking to improve their effectiveness through fine-tuning already sharp force application capabilities. This brings out the question—how much more effective can air power become? The answer is not straight forward and the term ‘effectiveness’ needs to be understood in a nuanced manner to arrive at a reasonably argued answer. Effectiveness—the ability to serve the purpose or produce the intended or expected result—in air power terms involves not only the ability to create the necessary effect, but to do it while minimising the chances of own forces being placed in danger. Therefore, the increasing efficacy of the application of air power has to be tempered with ensuring that the safety of own forces is also assured to a minimum accepted level. This dual requirement led to the development of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have now become armed with precision strike weapons to become uninhabited combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), a misinterpretation of the word ‘combat’. The X-45A Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) technology demonstrator on its sixth flight on Dec. 19, 2002. [Image Credit: NASA] The introduction of UCAVs into the battlespace opened a hitherto unknown and un-investigated arena of military operations. Not only were there technological hurdles to overcome, but a whole plethora of moral, ethical and legal aspects of warfare also started to be questioned. At the beginning, the UAVs were considered to be purely intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, which could be employed in benign airspaces where long-term ISR collection was required. By arming them, the technologiclly advanced military forces changed the existing equation of applying lethal force. Going back to the primary reason for the introduction of UAVs, the need to safeguard one’s own combatants, there should be no argument regarding the arming of these vehicles. However, the so-called ‘drone strike’, a misnomer if ever there was one, has become an emotive issue not only with the people at the receiving end of the strike but also with the ‘politically correct’ media. Why is this so? Before analysing this, it has to be stated here that an air strike can now be carried out with equal efficiency and precision by either a manned fighter or a UCAV. The only difference is that the human in the decision-making loop that permits the release of the weapon is placed at different places in each case. In the case of the manned fighter, the human is at the sharp end of the loop whereas, in the case of a UCAV, the human is almost at the beginning of the loop. In other words, in one case the human is placed in immediate danger while in the other, there is no danger to the human from the reprecussions of the actions that are being initiated. If there is no danger to own forces in the second case then why is there such a hue and cry regarding strikes carried out by UCAVs? Here, the survivability of the UCAV in a contested air space, because of its low speed, restricted manoeuvrability and lack of self-protection measures, is not being analysed since it is extraneous to this discussion. The fundamental reason for the discomfiture with the use of UCAVs is the fact that in the majority of cases, the opposing parties do not have air power capabilities and therefore such strikes are considered unethical. When the instances of collateral damage are added to the dialogue, the pendulum of public opinion decisively swings away from the use of UCAVs and air power. The real reason, however, is that in most of the Western democratic nations, the public opinion regarding national security and the employment of defence forces has been dominated by left-wing, anti-war groups. Once again, this discussion does not need to go into political debates and is curtailed here. The Falcon HTV-2 (Hypersonic Test Vehicle) on the upper stage of the launch vehicle after jettisoning of the payload fairing [Image Credit: DARPA] So what is going to be the next breakthrough in terms of air power efficacy? Currently, the accuracy achieved by air-launched weapons, the clarity of airborne ISR and the global reach of air transportation are such that no further improvement seems possible or warranted. There can definitely be improvements in the speed with which response options can be provided and delivered. The realm of hypersonic flight is already very close to becoming reality. The next step change in the functioning of air power and related systems will take place when artificial intelligence (AI) becomes operational and is accepted as such. This statement needs clarification. AI is already a reality in many applications. However, complete autonomy has not yet been granted to AI in the case of weapon release functions. It is also true that AI has already proven to be fail-proof when tested under controlled conditions. There are many reasons for AI not being granted complete autonomy—capable of individual thought and decision-making rather than a pre-programmed response—the fundamental one being the question whether it is ethical to permit a ‘machine’ to make the decision whether or not a human being is to be ‘killed’ or eliminated. In the case of fully autonomous airborne systems, further complications arise. In combat situations would it be ethical for a manned fighter to be destroyed by a ‘machine’? Would it be possible to program the machine only to destroy another machine, and in that case, does it mean complete autonomy for the AI? The question of legality in the use of fully autonomous combat systems is another area that has not been clarified. In fact, the process of creating laws that could govern the use of AI has not even got under way and there is certainty that under the current geopolitical environment, agreement will not be reached. In these circumstances, where ethics are being questioned and there is no legal coverage for its employment, it is highly unlikely that AI will be employed to its full capacity in the near to mid-term future. In turn, it would mean that developments in air power capabilities and more importantly in its application will remain curtailed for the foreseeable future. Yes, the missiles will go further; space will become more pervasive; airborne platforms will fly faster, compute solutions at a much more rapid pace; and air power will entrench its place as the first-choice weapon in the vanguard of power projection. However, these are but refinements of what air power already does. For example, when hypersonic flight becomes a normal reality, how much more effective will air power become? A reasonable answer would be, not by very much from what it does now. The future of air power is going to be the same as it is today unless the next step-change takes place—AI is going to be the next technology that elevates air power further into being the most potent capability that the human race has yet invented. Dr Sanu Kainikara is the Air Power Strategist at the Royal Australian Air Force’s Air Power Development Centre and an Adjunct Professor at the University of New South Wales. He is a former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #artificialintelligence #UAS #drones #AirPower #technology #Innovation #UAV #CollateralDamage

‘Podded’ capabilities have the potential to significantly increase the flexibility of Air Force assets across a range of traditional and emerging roles. In this second of a three-post series, Squadron Leader Jimmy explores collection options other than full motion video (FMV) that could enhance platform utility and flexibility with minimal interference to traditional mission sets. In the previous post I discussed the potential utility of mission augmentation pods to provide the Australian Defence Force with an expanded mission capability for aircraft that are not currently ISR capable. TacRecce TacRecce has been a capability gap for the ADF since the retirement of the RF-111C in 2010. Contemporary TacRecce refers to photographic reconnaissance conducted by tactical aircraft within the operational theatre. Current TacRecce capabilities include the US Navy Super Hornet with ‘Shared Reconnaissance Pod’ (SHARP) or RAF Tornado GR4 with Reconnaissance Airborne Pod for TORnado (RAPTOR). TacRecce continues to be a high demand asset in recent and contemporary operations such as Libya, Afghanistan and the fight against Daesh, for reasons explained below. TacRecce is also regularly used in the UK to provide a rapid response imagery capability to support flood emergency response activities; Figure 1 below shows one such example from 2014. It is worth noting that despite the common perception of the ubiquity of satellite imagery, the US continues to maintain the U-2 in service with both the Senior Year Electro-optical Reconnaissance System-2 (SYERS-2) and the Optical Bar Camera (OBC), as their flexibility in tasking, coverage and resolution are still unmatched. The USAF is currently trialling a next generation SYERS sensor on the RQ-4 Global Hawk to ensure continuity of this capability. Figure 1: Electro Optical Image from RAPTOR Reconnaissance Pod on RAF Tornado Jet of UK Floods in 2014. [Image Credit: Crown Copyright, UK MOD] TacRecce provides a rapid response, wide area, high resolution Electro-optical and Infra-Red (EO/IR) imaging capability. Threat dependent, the Collection Management Authority could dictate exactly when collection is conducted, what time of day, what slant angle and azimuth and potentially re-visit the target multiple times per hour, based on the requirements of the supported commander. TacRecce can also get in under cloud in cases where satellites are unable to. Collection can be overt or discrete depending on the profile flown by the platform; the target stand off of late 1990s standard TacRecce sensors for imaging facilities could be up to 70nm. Due to the nature of the sensors, essentially large aperture cameras bolted to an aircraft, the imagery can quickly and easily be released at ‘Unclassified’ for release to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), foreign partners and the media. Multi-spectral Imaging, such as that on the U-2 SYERS-2 system provides further advantages to the TacRecce capability that I will not delve into here. Full Motion Video (FMV) sensors provide a high resolution but short ranged video of an area through a ‘drinking straw’; a good TacRecce sensor rapidly gathers a snapshot of a vast swathe of the surface at very high resolution. As a mission augmentation capability on a C-17, C-27 or C-130, a TacRecce pod could provide significant value in a number of scenarios. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) Radar has a significant advantage of range and coverage over FMV sensors, to an even greater extent than EO/IR TacRecce pods. Pods are already on the market that use SAR to provide collection deck based autonomous SAR imaging supported by image recognition and change detection technology on board. One such system designed for combat aircraft, the ELTA ELM-2060P, advertises a range of 90nm for collection; compared to around 10-20nm for FMV sensors. SAR provides a high resolution, extremely accurate, all weather and long stand off capability. SAR imagery can capture very large areas in a very short time frame; with appropriate interpretation these extremely accurate geo-referenced images can be used as a snapshot to quickly identify changes in an area from the baseline mapping; Figure 2 shows an example of SAR being put to use in support of emergency services in the UK in 2014. Figure 2: Flooded area analysis of the Thames Valley and Hampshire, UK generated by Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging provided by a Sentinel R1 sortie over Somerset. [Image Credit: Crown Copyright, UK MOD] SAR pods have an additional capability that could be of use in a broad range of ADF scenarios: GMTI. GMTI uses the radar to detect and track moving vehicles over a relatively very large area compared to the sensor. This capability has seen broad combat applications from tracking Saddam Hussein’s army in 1991 and 2003 through to identifying insurgent patterns of life and activity in Iraq and Afghanistan throughout recent and current campaigns. Figure 3 gives an idea of the area that dedicated SAR/GMTI systems collect; the image indicates an approximate coverage area of 150 x 150 km square for an operator’s screen for the USAF E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS). A SAR / GMTI capability in a mission augmentation pod on ADF air mobility and maritime platforms would be significantly smaller than on JSTARS, but could be of significant value in domestic situations, as well as those in overseas military and disaster relief scenarios. Figure 3: USAF E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System coverage in Operation Desert Storm [Image Credit: Northrop Grumman] When considering ADF employment scenarios for mission augmentation pods beyond FMV, TacRecce or SAR and GMTI offer minimal-interference capabilities to augment an aircraft’s primary role, rather than a ‘re-roling’ of the platform. Collection capabilities at range would provide a significant number of non-interference collection opportunities from the planned and actual route of an aircraft; significantly more than could be collected by shorter ranged sensors like FMV. A stand off range of 70-90nm provides vastly more opportunities for non-interference collect than one of 10-20nm. In the next post post, the final of the three-post series, I will contextualise the potential of mission augmentation pods through the use of two vignettes that describe how the introduction of such pods could support  ADF operations. Squadron Leader Jimmy is a current serving RAAF Intelligence Officer. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #AirPower #Innovation #ISR #technology

‘Podded’ capabilities have the potential to significantly increase the flexibility of Air Force assets across a range of traditional and emerging roles. In this first of a three-post series, Squadron Leader Jimmy explores the concept of ‘podded’ capabilities and how they may increase the utility of aircraft assets across the full spectrum of operations, regardless of their ‘primary’ mission role. The concept of introducing flexible additional capabilities into the battlespace, raised by Paul Hay in his post “Are we missing out on valuable ISR opportunities?” is an excellent one. A range of ‘podded’ collection and enabling capabilities have the potential to enhance the joint force tangibly. This post is the first of a three-part series that develops the discussion of the utility of modular mission augmentation capabilities beyond Full Motion Video (FMV). More specifically, this and subsequent posts will explore the idea of augmenting a platform’s existing mission set, rather than re-casting the platform in a separate air power role. These concepts could provide a significant boost to joint force capability with minimal interference to the airframe, training, operations and primary tasking of the platforms involved. I will use the term ‘pods’ throughout to collectively refer to pod, modular and roll-in/roll-off capabilities. An FMV feed into a Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster was an early initiative of Plan JERICHO [Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia] Airborne ISR with FMV has been a revelation to global militaries over the last ten to fifteen years, but it has left a legacy of commanders and warfighters that are conditioned to having this capability overhead and watching their every move. There is absolutely a time and a place for such requirements, not least in Special Operations. FMV is excellent for providing intimate support to the current engagement; it is a visible, tangible contribution to the ‘current fight’ and surveillance. Supported ground forces innately understand the basic images available through the feed and can ‘see’ themselves and the enemy. However, FMV is rarely a tool of choice for timely and predictive decision advantage; at least with current analytical tools. It lacks stand-off range and requires that the platform remains on station for extended periods. There is a range of capabilities that provide significant utility to the joint force and complement the capabilities of FMV, in particular, ISR and multi-role mission augmentation pods. In this post, I explore the potential utility of ISR and multi-role mission augmentation pods. In the second post of the series, I take a deeper look at some options that would realise this potential. The final post rounds out the series by providing vignettes on how mission augmentation pods may feature in the future battlespace. The potential of podded capabilities For ISR mission augmentation pods there are some clear candidates, the most promising of which are photographic Electro-Optical and Infra-Red Tactical Reconnaissance (TacRecce) and radars with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) capability. However, ISR is certainly not the limit for mission augmentation pods; the capabilities that show the most potential are truly multi-role, not just simply ISR augmentation. There are three core ways of making mission augmentation pods ‘multi-role’; either to pack a number of sensors or other capabilities into one ‘pod’, to include a single device that is capable of conducting a number of tasks, or to create a pod with an architecture capable of rapid reconfiguration by ‘swapping’ sensors or devices. The challenges of a future congested and contested communications environment provide significant opportunities for development in multi-role augmentation. Pods are already in service with other nations that combine a number of capabilities in one package; one area where this has already shown potential is for enhancing the communications capabilities of the joint force. Examples of useful pod communications node capabilities include relay, bridging, and data-translation across domains and dissimilar networks, including Line of Sight extension and a gateway between Beyond Line of Sight and tactical Line of Sight communications. According to open source, the US currently fields a pod called ‘TALON HATE’ that combines an Infra Red Search and Track (IRST) system with tactical communication bridging and datalink fusion. The IRST provides an instant capability enhancement to 4th-Gen fighters by giving the host platform a capability to track and target threats without using radar. The TALON HATE capability also provides a communications bridge between stealthy 5th-Gen data-links and those used by the rest of the force, including Link-16. This type of capability provides a significant force enhancement for the future fight; this allows 5th-Gen systems to combine the strengths of their sensors and stealthy penetrating capabilities with the firepower and diverse capabilities of older generation air power. Such capabilities might be as useful under the wing of a KC-30 or E-7 operating in an orbit as they might under the belly of an F-15C. Perhaps the systems that offer the greatest potential to deliver truly dynamic multi-role effects to enhance the capabilities of a 5th-Gen joint force are Active Electronically Steered Array (AESA) radars. AESAs can provide true ‘multi-role’ effects in a single radar; they have the potential to conduct a broad range of radar and communications tasks. The SAR and GMTI tasks that I have already described are within the capabilities of an appropriately designed AESA. So too are passive radio-frequency surveillance, Electronic Counter Measures or Electronic Attack roles. In a trial in 2007, an F-22 RAPTOR AESA transmitted and received at 274-megabits per second to a ground station. The demonstration included the transfer of a 72MB SAR image in 3.5 seconds; this would have taken 48 minutes using Link 16. An AESA, therefore, has the potential to deliver some of the capability of the communications node pod, and much more besides. An AESA that has the capability to conduct even a few of these capabilities would be truly multi-role and a useful and flexible capability for the joint force. Training, mission planning, communications and exploitation Before I delve into a discussion of potential ISR mission pods, I need to deal with the foundational elephants in the room, namely the training, mission planning, communications and exploitation elements of any new systems. As the comments in response to Hay’s post suggest, there is a danger of overmatching the training capacity of fleets with the distraction of additional mission sets; the emphasis should, therefore, be on finding capabilities that can complement the extant role of the platform with minimal role training requirement. The impost on aircrew, tasking authorities, communications networks and human analytical capacity would be a significant consideration for these capabilities. To mitigate these as much as possible automation and programmable prioritisation will be key. There is a spectrum of integration with the platform, from a ‘sealed box’ that simply requires power through to a system that is fully integrated with the aircraft. The ‘sealed box’, with uploaded machine-machine tasking from the Collection Management Authority and data off-boarded for exploitation, would provide the easiest capabilities for fleets to integrate into their routine operations. This type of system would be as close as possible to a ‘non-interference’ capability for the fleet. A ‘sealed box’ approach would require a mind-set change for Collection Management Authorities; there might be no ‘Priority 1’ collection requirements on a Collection Deck assigned to an ISR augmented platform because those are tasked to dedicated assets. The deck for the augmented platform might only include tasks that would otherwise not get supported; it might also cover requirements better serviced by sustained collect for seven hours rather than a single collect. At the other end of the spectrum, fully integrated systems would likely introduce complexity into mission planning, real-time sensor management needs and human analysis, either on-board or in networked direct support to the system. It is reasonable to assume that ‘sealed box’ pods would not yield the level of data or responsiveness that the fully integrated systems could, but ‘sealed box’ systems offer some capability at a much lower financial and temporal cost, allowing it to be spread more widely across Air Force. In addition to procedural considerations, there are some technical issues that would need to be addressed in the ‘sealed box’ example. As there would be no crew interactions with the equipment, sensors might need to be provided with prioritised and standardised machine-readable collection decks from the Air and Space Operations Centre (AOC) or other responsible Collection Management Authority. The sensor system would need to be able to automatically mission plan and manage the subsequent collect, adjusting and seizing opportunities based on the planned and executed flight plan, independent of mission crew input. Aircrew could simply retain the power management and safety responsibilities. This is not an aspirational technology; the Rafael RecceLite, a TacRecce variant of the popular LITENING Targeting Pod, can already do the key parts of this. Litening III Advanced Targeting pod fitted to a Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18A Hornet [Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia] In future congested and contested electromagnetic environments, militaries will not have an unlimited degree of bandwidth or intelligence analysts. The logical response could, therefore, be for the sensor system to include on-board processing, such as image recognition, automatic change detection or pattern analysis that could highlight data that corresponded to the Essential Elements of Information (EEIs) tasked in the collection deck. If the pod had an organic communications capability or access to one via the host aircraft, it could then transmit ‘chip-out’ extracts of the relevant information to analysts or even Link 16 messages with text containing EEI related information to the appropriate decision makers. Again, this technology already exists; a Canberra-based not-for-profit UAV club has successfully used this type of capability on their home-built UAVs to win major international UAV challenges since 2012. In the next post, I will look at two possible mission augmentation options that could potentially realise the capability advantages described above. Squadron Leader Jimmy is a current serving RAAF Intelligence Officer. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #SAR #technology #Innovation #EW #GMTI #ISR

The War in the Sand Pit conference was held 12-13 May 17 to examine perspectives and lessons from Australia’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2014. Hosted by Military History and Heritage Victoria and Australian National University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, the conference addressed  a range of perspectives from speakers with experience  in the political, Governmental and military dimensions of Australia’s involvement in the Middle East and South Asia. The conference was held in memoriam for Private Robert Poate, who was killed on operations in Afghanistan in 2012. The conference opened with discussion of the political decisions that led to Australia’s commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Hon. Robert Hill, Minister for Defence from 2001-2006, recalled that the initial commitment to Afghanistan was not controversial, and that while nation-building efforts are ‘costly and frustrating’, they ‘remain our business’. Former Secretary of Defence Ric Smith also spoke of the decision to contribute forces to Afghanistan, and how the original intent had been for a limited commitment – for Australian leaders the war had been about terrorism, Afghanistan was just the venue. Australian Special Forces board a C-130 Hercules, Afghanistan [Image credit: Defence] On the Iraq War, conference presenters covered controversial issues: the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the US decision to disband the Iraqi Army and Ba’ath Party, the failure to plan for ‘Phase IV’ stability operations, and poor perceptions of the Australian Army’s performance in that war. There was some debate over Australia’s contribution to Overwatch Battle Group-West (OBG-W), with Brigadier Rawlins calling the deployment ‘confusing’, ‘disappointing’ and ‘professionally disheartening’, while others responded that the Australian troops carried out the mission they were assigned, that success shouldn’t be measured in terms of casualties and that it was not the job of Australian units to impress coalition commanders. The whole-of-government nature of the Afghan war was a theme of the conference, with valuable perspectives provided by police, development and policy practitioners. Lieutenant General Peter Leahy (retd), who was Chief of Army between 2002 and 2008, indicated that diplomacy should be used as a tool of state before the military. To make diplomacy a more effective tool of first resort, more money needed to be allocated to Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT) to support shaping and developing in pre-conflict countries. Leahy’s point was reinforced by David Savage, who served as a stabilisation consultant with Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) in Afghanistan, who painted a stark picture of the challenges facing development in Afghanistan; including illiteracy, corruption, and the inability of international actors to comprehend the effects of poorly implemented aid projects. This highlights the importance of understanding the community in which coalition forces are operating. Fred Smith, a DFAT policy officer who served in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, drew attention to the need for local cultural understanding and an informed strategy for working with local forces. He traced the different approaches of coalition members to tribal elements in Afghanistan, concluding that Australia managed the local politics reasonably well. The insurgent-criminal nexus in Afghanistan was a key focus for the coalition, and Superintendent Col Speedie provided insights into the police efforts, which included counter-narcotics, kidnapping investigation and establishment of a Major Crimes Task Force. Speedie explained how the ‘rule of law path’ provides an alternate option to target insurgents – rather than being seized by special forces, an insurgent can be investigated and prosecuted under Afghan law. This approach elicits a very different reaction from the local population and provides flexibility to the battlespace owner. Superintendent Speedie also provided observations on rebuilding local security forces, arguing that the Afghan National Police should have operated as a paramilitary gendarmerie in order to assist in defeating the insurgency prior to shifting focus to community policing. Former intelligence officer Colonel Mick Lehmann (retd) spoke about the successes and limitation of intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cautioned against drawing the wrong lessons about intelligence support. He spoke of the ‘scars’ that some intelligence personnel carry due to the limitations of the intelligence they were able to provide, such as the lack of success in gaining information on a key Taliban commander and – even more devastatingly – the inability to provide warning of green-on-blue attacks, where Afghan soldiers targeted their Australian mentors. Academic Bill Maley reminded the audience that the Afghan people needed to be considered in any discussion of the war. He cited reporting from the Asia Foundation which showed that the population had been optimistic about the future of their country in the first few years after coalition operations began, but the most recent survey (2016) showed that two thirds felt that their country was moving in the wrong direction. Maley posited that this psychology would determine the outcome in Afghanistan – if the majority of the population believed that the Taliban would come back, then they would. For this reason he felt an additional deployment of troops would be useful in assuring the population that it had not been abandoned. Maley also advocated for greater study of anthropology within Defence institutions, and discussed the possibility of longer deployment rotations in order to better build and maintain local relationships. A joint perspective was provided by Air Commodore (retd) Chris Westwood and Vice Admiral Peter Jones (retd). Westwood’s talk was focused on the Control and Reporting Centre which deployed to Kandahar, but offered broader lessons about the value of niche capabilities, the need for mission rehearsal exercises and a unit culture of deployment, and the benefit of being a ‘trusted agent’ with the US through regular exercises and exchanges. The longevity of the maritime contribution in the Middle East was emphasised by Jones, who described a combination of counter-smuggling duties and more conventional maritime security operations. Moderator Ben Roberts-Smith looks on as Brigadier Dan McDaniel answers audience questions at the War in the Sand Pit conference Brigadier Dan McDaniel looked at lessons at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. McDaniel identified the US Alliance as a key strategic enabler, but warned that it cannot be taken for granted – when his Special Air Service (SAS) unit arrived in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, they didn’t receive the level of support from the US that they had been expecting. Later, he provided an example of the benefits of investing in the relationship, with contacts he had made on exchange in the US years earlier providing access to key leadership in Afghanistan. His central operational lesson related to national command and control, noting concerns related to competition with the in-country C2 structures and inconsistency in application of the national HQ’s mandate. Key tactical lessons identified by McDaniel included the requirement for self-sufficiency and modernisation of ground units, and the need for a new suite of enablers including armed and unarmed unmanned aerial vehicles. Several speakers discussed the costs of the wars, both in terms of the physical and psychological impact on personnel who served there, as well as the opportunity costs of focusing ADF efforts on the Middle East rather than on the Pacific region. The conference participants acknowledged that they had largely discussed ‘lessons identified’ rather than ‘lessons learned’, and that – with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan still ongoing – there were still more lessons to be identified in future. Members of the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan project briefed on the status of their research at the conference. If you participated in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and would like to be interviewed, please visit https://www.awm.gov.au/histories/operations-iraq-afghanistan-and-peacekeeping-operations-east-timor/information-form/. Squadron Leader Alexandra ‘Kanye’ McCubbin is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are hers alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #Iraq #operations #counterterrorism #Afghanistan #intelligence #Uruzgan #wholeofgovernment #counterinsurgency #foreignpolicy #development #lessonslearned

In this post, Emily Chapman makes the case for increased ‘jointness’ in professional education, outlining a number of proposals to increase collaboration across the services and prevent silos of intellectual excellence. A single RAAF Officer pitched to a predominately Army audience on the need for a Joint Professional Military Education (PME) Association at the inaugural Defence Entrepreneurs Australia Forum in December 2016. As that Officer, I can attest that it was driven by a zealous quest for a joint perspective to be heard in a land-focused forum at a time when the ADF is consolidating joint capabilities, such as the Landing Helicopter Docks. With no Service deploying in isolation, our intellectual debate should be conducted similarly. DEF Aus Board, 2016 Mapping online intellectual military debate in Australia identifies Grounded Curiosity, Logistics in War, The Dead Prussian, the Australian Army’s Land Power Forum, The Cove and lastly, to my knowledge, The Central Blue. The latter is dedicated to air power, however it also publishes debate critical for land forces, including (for example) ‘A Day Without an ATO,’ which resulted in dialogue between the author, Squadron Leader Chris ‘Guiness’ McInnes, and Colonel Chris Smith. A recent Grounded Curiosity publication that resonated considerably was MAJGEN McLachlan’s article titled ‘What is Modern Military Leadership? A Primer’. Whilst Army- focused, it has a very strong and powerful message that modern military leadership is “inspirational” and “authentic,” with authority “based on ethical behaviour and professional mastery, not simply the badges of rank they wear.” This message is applicable to Navy and Air Force leaders, both within single-service and joint environments. Military leaders often find themselves building diverse teams and this primer is a key theoretical building block.  I am curious to know how many Air Force and Navy personnel read it. Without concentrated and joint effort, there is a risk that online platforms will continue to publish debate valuable for all Services but be unconnected to other Service audiences; both in terms of Service-focused debate and being on different websites. The risk of silos of intellectual excellence being raised between Services is therefore high. As an idea pitcher, Post DEF[X] 2016 I was asked ‘What does success look like for your idea in 2017’? I found it hard to respond. With considerable commitments already could I try and solve the issue I first raised of a joint PME Association? With the publication of Kelly Dunne’s reluctant professional reading journey, it became clear that there is always time to commit to joint intellectual debate and to urge others to consider the joint space. So, I remain engaged, and now turn to how I think we can achieve stronger intellectual ties between the Services. The Cove is growing considerably, with over 100,000 views in four months, but does not have any visible direct links to The Central Blue. The Central Blue has a category ‘Army’ but no direct link to any land-focused websites. A very simple solution is prominent links on both of these websites to other Service websites and resources. I understand there to be some work in both developing and connecting Service websites, so it will be good to see the visible progress. Of most intellectual benefit would be the creation of an ADF website that collates Service dialogue based on themes of air, land and naval debate, and that covers all levels of war. The viability of Vice Chief of Defence Force Group establishing such a website under the Australian Defence College should be considered. People will be able to visit one source and be able to engage across multiple domains and operational levels; thinking, discussing and writing more joint will follow. Such a website would build upon the publication of the Australian Defence Force Journal and link the intellectual debate that occurs through the joint training continuum, commencing at the Australian Defence Force Academy for some. Secondly, a Postern Association workshop is proposed that will see its vision and purpose become more widely known. The agenda for this workshop could include discussion on how to establish Air Force and Navy professional development association equivalents, and an overarching ADF PME Association as pitched to DEF 2016. This workshop can formalise the establishment of an Air Force Liaison Position and work towards engaging Navy in order to commence sharing Service knowledge, process and practices. A third joint opportunity is the annual DEF Aus Forum. DEF Aus is a platform to voice innovation and engage with decision makers on implementing this innovation within Defence, not just Army. The event needs to be more widely advertised across the Services and via Service websites. A DEF Aus symbol should be prominent on The Central Blue, linking innovate thinkers with existing opportunities to pitch their ideas. Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Leo Davies states in Air Force Strategy 2017-2027 that Air Force will “promote a commitment to ‘jointness’ in Air Force culture such that Air Force members recognise their own capabilities as operating primarily on behalf of the whole ADF.” This gives Air Force personnel guidance to intellectually start talking joint. It can very simply be done, as proposed in this article. Get passionate, get involved in DEF Aus and drive ADF intellectual dialogue and innovation. Emily Chapman is a RAAF Reservist posted to the Air Liaison Organisation. She is concurrently a PhD candidate researching civil-military interaction in disaster relief operations at UNSW Canberra. Her research interests include Defence learning processes, practices and mechanisms. #professionaldevelopment #PMET #Joint #Innovation #entrepreneur #Education

This is the third in a three-part series on the development of Western operational-level air power command and control arrangements by Wing Commander Chris McInnes. The first post outlined the impact of ideas on command and control and the second post looked at the shaping role of technology in air power command and control. In this post, he argues that people are the ultimate determinant of effective C2. Ideas guide and technology shapes air power C2 but the ultimate determinant of effective C2 – and thus effective air power – has always been people. Two key people characteristics that have consistently correlated with effective air power C2 have been depth of relationships and intellectual credibility. Depth of relationships can be the difference between success and failure: improvements in air power C2 efficacy between Afghanistan in 2001-02 and Iraq in 2003 can be attributed in large part to the efforts of USAF Lieutenant General Michael Moseley, based in Saudi Arabia, to build deeper relationships with his superiors at Central Command in Florida, and his counterpart land commander in Kuwait. Then Lieutenant General Michael Moseley, Commander United States Central Command Air Forces [Image credit: United States Air Force] I mention Moseley’s geography to illustrate the challenges posed by physical separation to building partnerships across organisations. Arguably the closest air-land partnership of the Second World War was that in South East Asia Command, principally between British Lieutenant General William Slim and several RAF officers. Slim himself described this as a ‘brotherhood‘ that was underpinned by both commanders living in the same mess. Similarly, the commander of the USAF’s air expeditionary task force in Afghanistan found that ‘people we meet in the dorm, gym, chapel, or dining hall supply the social inroads and information needed to stay abreast of rapidly changing events.’ However, a persistent belief that advanced communications negated the need for physical presence delayed the establishment and empowerment of the Afghanistan air task force for several years. Air power C2 remains fundamentally a social activity and personal links are particularly important in reducing friction between organisations. For the moment, virtual presence remains actual absence. Physical separation also has leadership implications within organisations because  it disrupts the traditional nexus between authority and responsibility by separating the commanders from the commanded. Units involved in distributed operations, such as remotely piloted aircraft squadrons, encounter ‘power struggles galore‘ as commanders around the globe seek to control scarce assets. One can be reasonably sure that those same commanders are less enthusiastic about accepting command responsibilities for the units. Problems due to distance between commanders and commanded are not new though. In 1973, the commander of the USAF’s Strategic Air Command, based in Nebraska, was essentially chased off Andersen Air Force Base in Guam by his own bomber crews after he gave a speech that appeared to confirm the crews’ perception that he was remarkably disconnected from their experience. The rise of distributed operations also challenges traditional personnel motivation that have traditionally been based on geographic and social proximity to combat, and the intrinsic attractions of flight. The challenge confronting air power C2 practitioners is that the span of control and physical separation of contemporary air power makes building deep human relationships more difficult, while the scrutiny and tempo of precision air power makes those relationships more important. Finally, while air power C2 has consistently demonstrated technical and tactical excellence, similar levels of strategic perspicacity have been less forthcoming. Precision weapons and advanced communications enable an air power deluge but, since Desert Storm, precision air power has frequently delivered an incremental drizzle. In part, this has been due to consistent weaknesses in air power thinking. An over-emphasis on achieving ‘decisive’ effects independent of surface forces has too often blinded airmen to the opportunities of joint force operations. The reverse has seen airmen narrow their thinking to what support air power can provide to others rather than developing an air-minded concept for joint operations. Slim’s experience in South East Asia Command illustrates the difference. His was not a land campaign supported by air. Instead, he and his counterparts devised and executed an air-minded approach to jointly ejecting the Japanese from Burma. Slim drove adaptation of his 14th Army so that it could maneouvre and fight reliant on aerial resupply, and prioritised capturing and opening airfields. The air forces developed specific ‘earthquake‘ bombing techniques to neutralise Japanese defensive positions and innovative air mobility practices to account for the hostile environment.  The capture of a Japanese position at Gangaw in January 1945 epitomised the partnerhip’s ethos with Slim recounting in his memoirs that ‘Gangaw was taken by the air force and occupied by the Lushai Brigade.’ Burmese bearers on a Royal Air Force airstrip in Burma sheltering from the midday sun under the wing of a Dakota. In the background are boxes of supplies brought by air and two De Havilland Mosquito photo reconnaissance aircraft belonging to No 684 Squadron, Royal Air Force. [Image credit: Imperial War Museum] The popular perception of Desert Storm is one of triumphant technology but the operation’s success owed much to sophisticated concepts masterminded by Buster Glosson and David Deptula based on John Warden’s air campaign concepts. But even Desert Storm suffered from legacy thinking.  Glosson regarded Warden’s initial thinking as ‘naïve‘ because it did not account for the role, or requirements, of ground forces. Moreover, he viewed Warden’s thinking on the probable duration of the campaign as wildly optimistic. This latter point is indicative of airmen’s tendency to ignore Clausewitzian friction. Instead airmen have consistently sought to engineer victory, reducing war to a question of resource allocation and scheduling. The RAAF’s strategy acknowledges the centrality of people and joint war fighting for Australian air power as it enters a more challenging age. Effective air power C2 requires cohesive command teams with high levels of acuity, agility and adaptivity to minimise avoidable friction and overcome the unavoidable. These characteristics come from deep intellectual and social foundations that have been tested and adjusted through realistic, collective experiences. Such experiences have not been prominent in Australian military history as contributing niche capabilities means following, not leading. Australian air power’s organisation and culture reflects this history. Instilling a culture of strategic scholarship is a challenge for every air force but especially Australia’s as it confronts the complex engineering and logistics challenges of being the world’s first fifth-generation force. Plan Jericho’s program of work includes a discrete project focused on education and training for the future force, and the establishment of the Williams Scholars scheme is a positive step within the Air Force. The Central Blue is also a contribution to that effort. These are important steps but the word friction –  ‘that which distinguishes real war from war on paper‘ – does not appear in Australia’s Air Power Manual. That matters because fighting real wars is air power’s ultimate purpose and the friction that characterises war should be a focal point for the people directing and doing the fighting. As I have hopefully shown in these three posts, air power C2 is a primary source and solution to friction. Ideas guide and technology shapes but people are the fundamental determinant of effective C2 because they allow ideas and technology designed for one purpose to be adapted and applied successfully to others.  The pursuit of excellence in peacetime activities must not crowd out the RAAF’s reason-for-being: that most complex and chaotic of human activities, war. Wing Commander Chris ‘Guiness’ McInnes is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #AirPower #C2

The Air Force’s exploitation of its suite of advanced capabilities will hinge on a highly-skilled and agile workforce. In this post, Wing Commander Paul Hay argues that non-commissioned personnel will provide the majority of the needed breadth and depth, and that optimising this workforce to meet future demands requires a different approach to training and management. The recent arrival of the EA-18G Growler and P-8A Poseidon aircraft heralded the introduction into service of the Air Force’s new generation of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, electronic warfare (ISREW) and fast jet platforms. Over the next six to seven years additional ISREW capabilities such as the G550-based ISREW aircraft, MQ-4 Triton, an armed medium altitude long endurance (MALE) UAS and a land based Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) system will all enter service. We will need to ensure as an Air Force that our training and personnel structures adapt sufficiently to generate this new workforce. This work has already commenced with the development of an Aviation Academy; however, the Academy is aimed at remediating the commissioned workforce. Air Force may wish to consider undertaking a similar body of work and structured training system for the airman workforce. The bulk of Air Force’s ISREW data is currently generated by a Heron Unmanned Aerial System and AP-3C aircraft as well as from coalition partner assets, but the volume and types of data is limited. Fast forward to 2023 and the environment will have completely changed. A standard 24-hour Air Tasking Order day may include a permanent Triton orbit, a MALE UAS orbit, a G550 ISREW mission and a P-8 Increment 3 conducting a regional Operation Gateway patrol. These capabilities will all contain multiple ISREW sensors and will produce vast amounts of Full Motion Video (FMV), still images, signals intelligence product, radar imagery, radar and video moving target indicator (MTI) data and other products. These sensors will in the most part be operated by the airman workforce. The large array of the multi-sensor ISREW product will be analysed and fused at Distributed Ground Station – Australia (DGS-AUS), other networked Australian Defence Force (ADF) deployed Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) nodes, coalition partner PED nodes and by national agencies. The processing, exploitation and fusing of multiple data feeds, and ultimately the dissemination of this data to the customer will be largely conducted by the airmen workforce. In broad role based terms this highly skilled and multi-disciplined workforce will be a mix of sensor operators and analysts, relying on a common fundamental understanding of collection management and ISREW fundamentals and experts in their particular streams. Air Force’s future ISREW systems will feature an array of sensors, many of which will be operated primarily by airmen. [Image credit: Royal Australian Air Force] With commissioned ranks only flying on ISREW platforms for one or two postings before promotion, the majority of the Air Force ISREW subject matter expertise will arguably reside within this airmen workforce. If carefully managed, over the course of their ten, twenty or thirty year careers they will have the opportunity to master these highly capable platforms and their related ground segments, and analyse and fuse the generated data to support a myriad of ADF and allied joint commanders. In terms of ISREW, this workforce needs to be the focus of a long term management strategy requiring a structured training system to generate and maintain the workforce over time. It may also assist in avoiding the high loss rates experienced by the USAF with its UAS airman workforce as a result of limited pathways for development and respite. The current model for generating this workforce is largely stove-piped within individual force element groups (FEGs) through their platforms or weapon systems, with initial employment ISREW fundamentals training occurring at multiple locations within multiple FEGs. In many cases the same or similar material is being taught in multiple locations, with some operational conversion (OPCON) units conducting fundamentals training as these skills are not able to be taught elsewhere. Subsequent postings are generally also limited to within stove-piped organisational constructs, with limited opportunities for career broadening or development within the member’s core mustering. This model reduces both the Air Force’s organisational flexibility, increases overhead, dilutes focus and does not baseline quality assurance. As well, it narrows an individual’s options for role and geographic postings experience, and so their and broader personal development and the normalisation of skills across Air Force. Air Force is well down the path of designing an Aviation Academy which is due to become operational in 2019, however efforts are currently focused on the officer workforce. The impending aircraft acquisitions and associated airman workforce requirements may necessitate a similar body of work to be conducted to develop an Airman Academy to ensure the new generation of ISREW capabilities can be effectively employed from the moment they enter service. The Airman or combined Academy would generate a standardised baseline workforce with modular teaching components. The standardisation of fundamental and post-graduate knowledge and skills would enable a more flexible workforce with structured growth paths for re-streaming of workforce over time. The Airman Academy would have significant commonality with the Aviation Academy, thus being able to leverage much the same training material and equipment to teach aviation fundamentals. The Airman Academy would conduct modular training courses in ISREW fundamentals, an example being how generic electro-optics systems function and the employment of those systems. Both sensor operators and analysts would conduct this common training, with operators then streamed to learn how to operate the sensors, and analysts streamed to focus on the exploitation and reporting of the information generated by the sensors. Service needs and individual aptitude would determine streaming within the Airman Academy; however, the common baseline of skills and modular training system would greatly reduce the training delta required to re-categorise in the future and provide significant efficiencies in terms of training resources, while also providing standardised training across FEGs. Under this proposed system, an analyst who has spent two to three years analysing and reporting on electronic intelligence (ELINT) collection would arguably make an ideal candidate for aircrew and may well graduate OPCON as a Cat C operator and progress more quickly than a direct aircrew entrant. The management of individual qualifications across trades, as well as the maintenance of compliance training and ICT system access, would be an interesting area for discussion. Loadmasters and Crew Attendants would conduct the aviation fundamentals and airman aircrew basic courses with the remainder of the workforce, and then conduct OPCON on their aircraft type. Any of the musterings would be able to return in an instructional role at the Academy throughout their careers and would have the opportunity to re-muster through the same training system. This larger, commonly trained workforce could be more effectively managed across Air Force as a large system rather than a number of stove-piped workforces that exist today. An individual would have opportunities to move relatively freely between roles and capabilities over the course of a career, and Air Force would be able to more rapidly generate workforce across individual weapon systems when operational requirements dictate. It would also generate a highly professional workforce over time, with many personnel gaining a broad experience base across multiple joint domains and concepts. A nominal and very simplistic view of how an Airman Academy would generate the ISREW workforce, including the potential through life career options within a ‘life cycle’ for airmen is depicted below. Concept for an Airman Academy and an Air Force ISREW Airman Workforce “Life Cycle” Additionally, an Airman Academy would remove the need for OPCON units to be teaching fundamentals at their unit, rather they could reduce OPCON times by simply conducting weapon systems role training, platform conversion and the delta training from the academy onto the aircraft systems. In terms of finding workforce to staff the academy, some of the personnel associated with the fundamentals training in the OPCON units would be moved to the academy, with those instructional positions becoming developmental positions over time for the airmen they are training. Air Force may even wish to consider a more structured approach to education, including changing the conversion squadron construct to a common Operation Conversion Unit (OCU) construct across Air Force, such as an Air Mobility OCU (1OCU) and an ISREW OCU (3OCU) where common role training is undertaken followed by a relatively quick weapon system specific conversion, all within the OCU. Air Force could ensure the workforce is maintaining warfighting currency across the entire organisation by having personnel attend either the Air Warfare Centre or Academies every couple of years for re-training in contemporary threat systems and warfighting techniques. A broad concept for this is below; I will leave this concept hanging for future discussion. Concept for future Air Force education structure Air Force may wish to consider a broad review of airman training once the dust settles on the Aviation Academy work currently underway. The long term success of the Air Force ISREW platform may well hinge on a well managed airman workforce sustained through a structured training system. Wing Commander Paul Hay is a current serving RAAF Officer. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #Training #airman #operationalconversion #workforce #EW #ISR

This is the second in a three-part series on the development of Western operational-level air power command and control arrangements by Wing Commander Chris McInnes. The first post outlined the impact of ideas on command and control, while this post looks at the shaping role of technology in air power command and control. Technology – particularly precision weapons and advanced communications – have redefined the meaning of mass and shifted the air power paradigm from sorties per target to targets per sortie. The impacts on the C2 system have been an increase in commanders’ span of control and a reorientation of the central C2 challenge – from massing aircraft to massing information. From sorties per target to targets per sortie. [Image credit: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments] Individual precision weapons require more information to guide them to their target than dumb weapons, while attacking individual targets requires more detailed information than striking area targets. The capacity to hold multiple targets at risk simultaneously compounds the demand because information must be generated to support each option. The increased reach and speed of contemporary air power means executable options may be available across a vast – global for the United States – area. Improvements in communications and the normalisation of precision air power has amplified these effects through higher expectations and greater scrutiny over individual targeting decisions. Improvements in remote awareness and capacity to intervene in mission execution have enabled the rise of tactical generals who feel compelled to intervene because of the scrutiny and expectations. Peter Singer describes a tactical general who: . . . proudly recounts how he spent ‘two hours watching footage’… [and] having personally checked the situation, he gave the order to strike [and] even decided what size bomb his pilots should drop on the compound. The tactical general – or politician – wielding a thousand-mile screwdriver is a reality that can, and must, be managed by leaders who can build trust with their superiors, but also trust their own personnel to get on with the job at hand. Combined Air Operations Center [Image credit: United States Air Force] The more pernicious impact of the lack of trust inherent in the tactical general phenomenon is the erosion of the division of labour within C2. Senior officers can impose themselves on junior tasks but junior officers cannot substitute for senior personnel. Moreover, the junior officers are denied valuable experience that would serve them well in future. NATO’s air war for Kosovo in 1999 exemplified the problems caused by an eroding division of labour. Senior leaders – military and civilian – substituted individual target approvals for building a coherent strategy. This focus on small decisions meant that the larger issues that only senior leaders could resolve, such as the proscription of strikes against Serbia proper, were neglected. Meanwhile, the junior personnel who could have made small decisions more rapidly if given strategic guidance felt so dis-empowered they appeared to lose the capacity to coordinate with others. But it does not have to be this way. Danish and Norwegian contributions to NATO’s operations over Libya in 2011 were particularly useful at critical times because they could ‘act rapidly and decisively’ as authority had been delegated based on a clear understanding of their national rules of engagement and sovereign interests. These examples highlight that the eroding division of C2 labour results from a choice and that reinforcing traditional roles can enhance C2. The shape and function of the C2 system has also been shaped to support tactical generals. Where once aircraft crews alone has the awareness to find targets and deliver weapons, they may now simply transport a weapon as part of a networked engagement chain. The real-time coordination of diverse actors and inputs necessary for networked execution management has so far only been possible in an AOC. Consequently, the AOC has become increasingly automated and more focused on execution management – further eroding the division of C2 labour. Moreover, the automation of C2 processes can over-simplify complex choices and make qualitative evaluation of decisions and plans more difficult. The emphasis can become one of turning all the traffic lights green rather than understanding specific circumstances, particularly in time-sensitive situations. Procedural automation can also intensify the lure of execution management by outwardly reducing it to an engineering process, and thus appealing to the cultural bias of air forces for technical solutions. This impact is apparent in the frequent use of quantitative measures, such as the number of hours flown or weapons employed, in assessments of operational effectiveness. Improved communications certainly increase the granularity of information in the C2 system, but in so doing they can reduce clarity. Giving commanders a better view of the trees may mean they cannot see the forest. Processing masses of information has so far required masses of people. In 2014, the USAF chief of staff stated that 53,000 of his personnel were directly involved in C2. At the same time, the combined total strength of the RAF and RAAF was approximately 51,000. In 2011, NATO’s C2 of air operations over Libya were underpinned by American enablers, including ‘by the far the largest contingent of strategists, targeteers, and other directors and managers of the campaign.’ In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, American commanders allocated British ground forces a 60-person USMC air liaison element to supplement the UK’s ‘handful of air liaison officers‘ that had already proven ‘completely inadequate’ for high tempo operations. The distinction between first and second tier air power is no longer precision weapons, it is the C2 capabilities to employ them. The RAAF is on the path to becoming the world’s first fifth-generation air force so technology is clearly at the heart of its capability. The Service, and the broader ADF, has experienced some of the C2 implications of precision air power through operations in the Middle East since 2003 but this experience has been as a small element within a US-led coalition. Thus, the RAAF has not yet encountered the full implications of providing precision air power C2 leadership, particularly in terms of resources and the challenges of serving as the central hub of a joint and multi-national operation. Europe’s NATO members learned the hard lesson during Libya that such leadership can be thrust upon you unexpectedly. Australia would do well to learn from their experience. Wing Commander Chris ‘Guiness’ McInnes is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #commandandcontrol #information #tacticalgenerals #C2 #leadership

In this post Squadron Leader Ryan Ashen argues that the changing workforce requirements of the Royal Australian Air Force as it transitions to a ‘Fifth Generation Air Force’ presents an opportunity to review its employment standards. The physical and medical standards of a Fifth Generation Air Force personnel may be quite different. I believe that a Fifth Generation Air Force provides Air Force with a once in a lifetime chance to modify our current cookie-cutter approach to recruitment and retention. To do so, one area that must be considered is employment standards. Much like we are reforming our culture and modernising our strategy to exploit those material capabilities and meet the future requirements of Australia, we must adapt the mandatory physical and medical criteria for service. As a result, we have the potential to harvest wide-sweeping benefits. Over the coming years, Air Force will acquire a multitude of new weapon systems, capitalising on technological evolution and exploitation of the ‘Information Age’. While technological advancement has increased the agility and efficiency of our systems, it presents new challenges with respect to our methods to generate the air power effects vital to our national interests. In order to realise the full capability of those weapons systems enabling a ‘Fifth Generation Air Force’ the Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Leo Davies identified the need for a consistent approach for air power practitioners to know, communicate and understand what Air Force is doing and why we are doing so. Outlining Air Force’s 10 year strategic plan, Air Marshal Davies detailed five vectors, critical to future success – one of which is People. In my opinion, the greatest challenge facing our future workforce and therefore the opportunity for the greatest rewards exists in correctly identifying those essential, desirable, and relevant qualities of fifth generation airmen. The workforce challenge is complex. First and foremost, we must understand and appreciate our goal and our needs; then we must identify, attract, recruit, train, educate, challenge and retain a workforce with the character, aptitude and values vital to employing our future platforms. There is no doubt that our future personnel will require different skills and abilities than those critical to our 20th century successes. I question whether our current model, particularly the physical and medical standards of a ‘deployable warfighter’, are relevant for all weapon system manning requirements. Furthermore, does maintaining our current ‘one-size-fits-all’ criterion based on yesterday’s needs, preclude a number of otherwise highly suitable candidates from tomorrow’s service? MQ-4 Triton [Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia] Implied by Air Marshal Davies at his unveiling of ‘Air Force Strategy 2017-2027’, air power practitioners are well versed on the abilities, definition and intended quantities of a fifth generation fighter aircraft – the F-35 Lightning II. A Fifth Generation Air Force is, however, a fully networked force, not just a force that acquired a fifth generation fighter. Outlined in the Defence White Paper 2016 are a number of other material acquisitions to enable a fifth generation force – the MQ-4C Triton multi-intelligence mission remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS); a medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) combat RPAS (for example MQ-9 Reaper, MQ-1 Predator); a Distributed Ground Station (DGS) charged with providing Commanders with both time-sensitive and deeper-level fused intelligence analysis to add context and understanding to the relatively narrow tactical situational awareness provided by onboard sensors and processing. These assets, combined in an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) enterprise capable of exploiting sensor product external to the collection asset in as near to real time as communications systems and bandwidth permit will achieve the dispersed exploitation and dissemination needed by all modern Air Force weapon systems in a genuine Fifth Generation architecture. To quote outgoing Deputy Chief of Air Force (DCAF), Air Vice Marshal Warren McDonald, ‘The systems we use are changing. The threats to our national security are changing. And of course society is changing. We simply have to adapt and embrace any opportunities that will make us stronger’. The weapons systems touched upon above challenge the design of the modern warfighter, and as a result allow Air Force to optimise their standards for those personnel required to best resource the delivery of fifth generation air power. Jarrod Pendlebury, recently challenged the traditional capability-centric argument for an inclusive workforce in his post on this blog. While I agree with his argument, people are a critical Fundamental Input to Capability (FIC) and we must therefore not lose sight of the capability aspect of personnel policy. When you are purchasing a new personal item, you do not shop at one establishment, or consider a single brand; rather, you explore the entire market place, in order to identify a product that best meets all of your individual needs. In the same light, Air Force must exploit the entire supply of available people to position itself for optimisation as a fifth generation organisation. To quote a previous Director of Personnel – Air Force when questioned about Project WINTER (Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles) ‘It’s not about political correctness, it’s not about tokenism, it’s about smart business’. Does a remote pilot of a MALE RPA need to be able to first fly a manned platform? Does a sensor operator of an MQ-4C need to prove that they are able to cope with the physiological effects of the airborne environment to optimise a sensor from a desktop computer? Does an analyst scrutinising imagery from a number of complementary but largely different sources need to be able to deploy to the front line? And, does an ICT specialist, responsible for protecting our sensitive future cyber networks need to be a physically and medically fit for trench warfare? The US Marines certainly think so; however, in the same light that the Commander of the Marine Corps Cyberspace Command suggests that a cyber warrior must ‘first be a Marine, then a rifleman’ one might argue that a sniper must first be a qualified and accomplished coder. The later concept is unrealistic, and would lead to significant fiscal and time inefficiency, not to mention the significant risk of wastage. HERON RPA Ground Mission Station crew and instructors prepare for another day’s mission. [Image Credit: Commonwealth of Australia] A future workforce shortage resulting from an aging population and low reproduction rates has been well documented and analysed. A Google search of the benefits of workforce diversity detail the dividends for the broadest possible construct of our workforces. However, while both of these concepts are complementary to my reasoning that Air Force must adapt their standards, they are in large part not relevant to my argument. Rather, Air Force needs the best available cognitive abilities to optimise our ability to meet our future challenges. Defined by the Australian Network on Disability as ‘any condition that restricts a person’s mental, sensory or mobility functions’, approximately 12.5% of Australian’s aged under 65 are living with a ‘disability’. I do not suggest that all 2.1 million Australian’s of working age who are living with a disability would be suitable for uniformed Service; however, our future strategy, challenges and capabilities would suggest that some conditions that have previously prevented military service are no longer relevant. Distributed operations facilitated by RPAs and DGS capabilities (not to mention those elements charged with maintaining the vital datalinks and communications networks) can support medical and physical conditions that have traditionally precluded warlike service – such capabilities are wholly, or at least in part controlled and interfaced from within an office environment. Thus they can be operated, supported and maintained by personnel who are less able bodied (wheel chair bound/have prosthetic limbs) than has traditionally been the case; or, suffer heart, respiratory or circulatory disease. Additionally, those same technologies that allow fifth generation platforms can negate the challenges caused by colour blindness, poor eyesight, hearing limitations and allow Air Force to target what we need – cognitive aptitude and personnel who adhere to Air Force values .The additional benefits that may result are unknown; however, consider as an example, a person who is ‘colour blind’ or rather, perceive the colour spectrum differently to a majority of the population – does this allow us the opportunity to identify something in a black and white image that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. In recent years, Air Force, and the military as a whole has grappled with a number of reforms and concepts – First Principles Review, Pathway to Change, New Horizon, Plan Jericho to name a few. At the heart of all of these reviews is the necessity to challenge culturally entrenched beliefs about the way we have always done business, to a more contemporary approach – an organisation optimally positioned to meet the needs of defending Australia’s interests, be they social, economic, or political interests. Social media recruitment campaigns run by the ADF in the wake of the 2017 Avalon International Airshow were riddled with comments from Australians wanting to serve, but unable to pass recruitment battery based upon inconsequential ailments. To truly become a Fifth Generation Air Force is it time that we challenge the entrenched belief that everyone must be able bodied and a physical warrior? Squadron Leader Ryan Ashen is a serving Royal Australian Air Force officer. The opinions expressed above are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, Australian Defence Force or the Australian Government. #AirForce #Personnel #RAAF

In a three-part series on the development of Western operational-level air power command and control arrangements, Wing Commander Chris McInnes looks at the interplay of ideas, technology, and people, as well as making some observations on the implications for Australian air power. In this first post, he looks at the ideas of air power unity, equivalency with surface forces, and the pursuit of responsive air power. I recently finished drafting a chapter examining the development of Western operational-level air power command and control (C2) into its contemporary form. In this post, I’ll summarise some of my conclusions about the impact of ideas these developments and make some observations about Australian air power. In later posts, I will look at the roles of technology and people in shaping C2. I found that the quests for air power unity, equivalency in status to surface forces, and responsiveness have been central, but often contested and competing, ideas in air power C2. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, the principal architect of unified Allied air power during WWII [Public domain] The pursuit of unity has been the single biggest influence on the development of air power C2. As Sir Arthur Tedder said in 1946, “Air power in penny packets is worse than useless. It fritters away and achieves nothing. The old fable of the bundle of faggots compared with the individual stick is abundantly true of air power. Its strength lies in unity.” Tedder pioneered Western forces’ adoption of a single controller for air power in the North African desert during 1942 but although the model was widely adopted, resistance to unification continued throughout the war – particularly from strategic bombing advocates. But Western air power unity diminished between the Second World War and Desert Storm in 1991, principally due to recurring disputes between America’s several air forces and the absence of a compelling air threat. These disputes reached their nadir in Vietnam where dizzyingly complicated C2 arrangements – epitomised by the infamous route packages over North Vietnam – ensured each branch and area essentially fought its own air war.  However, lessons were learned and Tedder’s single controller model was revived and rejuvenated for Desert Storm and has served as the template for Western air operations ever since. US route packages during Operation Rolling Thunder. [Image credit: United States Military Academy] This single controller is usually called a combined or joint force air component commander (C/JFACC) but that is a misnomer. In fact, the C/JFACC usually only has command of a selection of the assets that they control. For example, most American JFACC are USAF officers. Thus, they have command – ownership – and control – authority to direct within agreed parameters – of USAF units but only control of USN and USMC that remain under command of their parent Services. The same applies to multi-national operations. Even NATO adheres to a philosophy of “national command, Alliance control.” The single controller provides unity of effort without unity of command. The focus on control rather than command is a pragmatic realisation that unifying command of air power is abrasive from an inter-Service perspective and untenable from a multi-national perspective. Airmen have successfully sought to establish unified C2 of air power at a level equivalent to surface forces. Equivalency ensured that air power’s needs were afforded due consideration and not simply subordinated to surface force requirements. The first half of the Second World War is littered with stories of Allied catastrophes in the air – from France in 1940 to Kasserine in 1942 – that were at least partially attributable to subordinating air power to surface force requirements. From these experiences came an acknowledgement that air and surface power were, in the words of the US Army in 1943: “co-equal and interdependent.” But equivalency is contextual and air power C2 must apply this principle flexibly. Much friction between US Central Command’s air component and surface forces in Afghanistan, particularly, over the last fifteen years has been due to the USAF’s adherence to a theatre-level JFACC construct when operations in Afghanistan and Iraq were being run by discrete multi-national forces. After experimenting with various forms of liaison arrangements, the USAF ultimately established an empowered command echelon in Afghanistan in 2010. Airmen have always sought to be responsive but this has often been in tension with pursuits of unity and equivalency. A particular challenge in this regard is the legacy 72-hour air operations cycle. In 1990, the USAF chief of staff felt that using this cycle for air operations was akin to “hitching a fast jet to a hot air balloon” because it “forfeits much of the combat edge we know accrues to air power due to its flexibility and speed of response.” Even during Desert Storm in 1991, the 72-hour tasking cycle’s utility was highly questionable, with “brute force” necessary to overcome procedural shortfalls. Initiatives to enhance responsiveness, such as dynamic targeting processes, have improved the situation but these circumvent rather than reform the basic process. Almost 30 years later, the fast jet has not escaped the balloon. As an advanced Western air force, the RAAF’s contemporary C2 system is a product of these developments. The single AOC within JOC supports the unified control of air power but is analogous to the USAF’s theatre-level JFACC construct that was found to be insufficiently flexible for recent operations. Moreover, the 72-hour ATO cycle remains central to the RAAF’s thinking on C2 even though adherence to the 72-hour process is typically the exception rather than the norm. RAAF doctrine acknowledges the need for adaptable C2 arrangements but it is not apparent how this flexibility, particularly for expeditionary operations, might be achieved from within limited resources. Plan Jericho’s program of work highlights the need for C2 concepts to evolve as part of the RAAF’s transformation into the world’s first fifth-generation air force. Wing Commander Chris ‘Guiness’ McInnes is an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. The opinions expressed are his alone and do not reflect those of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Australian Defence Force, or the Australian Government. #commandandcontrol #ATO #Doctrine #technology #CFACC #C2