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Dr Robbin Laird, Shaping the Way Ahead for Robotic and Autonomous Systems and ADF Force Development, 1 June 2021 Link to article Shaping the Way Ahead for Robotic and Autonomous Systems and ADF Force Development | Defense.info At the April 8, 2021, Williams Foundation Seminar on Next Generation Autonomous Systems, CDRE Michael Turner, Director General of Force Exploration at the Australian Department of Defence, provided an overview on how to conceptualize the way ahead for the ADF and its force development as it adapts to remote autonomous systems. As Director General Force Exploration, CDR Turner reports to Vice Chief of the Defence Force (VCDF) Vice Admiral David Johnston, who is responsible for joint force integration, interoperability, designing the future force, preparedness and military strategy in his role as the Joint Force Authority. The Joint Force Authority is responsible for ensuring the current and future joint force meets the capability requirements directed by Government and preparedness requirements directed by Chief of the Defence Force (CDF). CDR Turner started his presentation by identifying how the force exploration office addresses future force development. “Force exploration branch shapes the future of the Australian defense force by identifying changing trends, and conditions that can become capabilities that provide us with advantage. We do this by seeking to understand the future environment and providing a concept driven pathway to compelling future force options that generate and sustain military advantage out to 2040, and beyond. It’s clear that robotics and autonomous systems will have a disruptive influence in the future operating environment.” He underscored that the force exploration branch released a report in December 2020 which identified how the ADF can “generate military power using robotics and autonomous systems.” Link to video https://youtu.be/BxfBrU8TKYY That report was built around the core concept that the autonomy and the artificial intelligence techniques that enable it should be understood from the standpoint of “the convergence of a broad range of technologies, some much more mature than others. “These technologies include, power generation and energy storage, computation, swarming technology, advanced materials, nano explosives, biometrics, additive manufacturing, sensors and perception, and common control architecture, to name the key components. These technologies need to be harnessed and integrated to provide a reliable and effective capability.” For these technologies to be considered disruptive, they need to be mastered in such a way to give the ADF an operational advantage. And to do so in a way that the adversary’s use can be countered and to do so in a way that gives the ADF an operational advantage. Or put another way, the adversary always gets a vote, and no new technology is introduced without an adversary working to counter it or to introduce new technologies which need to be countered as well. CDR Turner provided a lexicon to understand what the various categories of autonomy are and how best to understand what the different capabilities are in order to understand how they might be used by the ADF. In the chart below, he highlighted how to distinguish between remote, autonomic, autonomic and autonomous systems. He did so by placing these systems on two axis of development. The first context is the technical one or how they worked; the second was the control context or how we use them. The first category are remote systems. These systems are those operated by humans via remote methods. They are already in service or being introduced into service, such as a bomb disposal remotely operated system. The second category are automatic systems, which are preprogrammed to act in a deterministic manner. For example, “if a target is detected heading towards the ship faster than a certain speed and with a certain range, the system will engage it. A human operator may adjust the programming, but such a system will not improve its own behavior based on experience, these systems have been used by the ADF for many years.” The third category are autonomic systems, such as the Aegis combat system. “Autonomic systems achieve human defined tasks by operating with reference to a set of predefined guidelines, respond to stimuli in a probabilistic manner. For example, an image recognition system is provided with the signatures of enemy vehicles…. A human operator can monitor the system to confirm that assessments are correct and provide more signature data to knowledge base. As the data grows, the system can improve its important performance of this task.” The fourth category are “truly autonomous systems that can learn from their data and their own processing to determine the tasks necessary to achieve a human defined goal.” And he added: “An example of a fully autonomous system may not yet exist.” With regard to future force capabilities, CDR Turner argues that “the autonomic and autonomous systems that will generate the greatest disruption systems that can perform tasks not suited to deterministic behaviors and can develop novel tasks and approaches to new tasks. “Such systems will enable us to create capabilities that merge human like characteristics with machine characteristics.” If the ADF is focused on introducing such capabilities, it needs to consider whether such capabilities enhance, augment or replace current platforms and capabilities. With regard to the longer-term future for the ADF, as autonomous capabilities become available, he argued that new approaches to shaping platforms will be required. “Does this mean that we’re looking to design a future force that contains autonomous F-35s, autonomous M1s, and autonomous DDGs? Adding autonomy to these platforms will certainly be part of their lifecycle upgrades, but we will not be able to take full advantage of autonomy if we do not consider how other technologies will converge into platforms that are designed from the outset to operate with less human input. These future platforms will be fast, accurate, stealthy and persistent in applications, not currently able to achieve such characteristics.” Underlying this projected transition is the question of data and its exploitation by the fifth generation evolving force. He did not put it this way, but it makes sense to focus on how C2 and information generated by Information, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems are evolving within the context of force development now and in the mid-term. The question is about the reliability of data and information and the trust which warfighters can place on data at the tactical edge as well as in providing for accurate tactical or strategic area wide decision making. CDR Turner clearly makes the point that the question of trust in data is the most challenging for future autonomous systems. “Autonomous systems create the greatest challenge for trust.” One could argue that the priority being given to shaping effective mission command for the integration of a distributed force already being shaped with the new generation of platforms, such as F-35s, P-8s and Tritons, lays a foundation for a way ahead. As CDR Turner put it: “With the foundations of data trust and command control in place, we can design capabilities to exploit autonomy by enhancing current capabilities, augmenting planned capabilities and replacing legacy systems with RAS.” He argued as did other speakers at the seminar that for the ADF enhancing the mass of the force to be able to operate over the distances challenging ADF operations was a key advantage of crafting autonomous systems capabilities which can be integrated into ADF concepts of operations. “Autonomous systems are asked to increase their mass while even employing them in forward roles, or employing autonomy in roles that allow us to optimize our workforce. An autonomous Wingman is an example of a system that increases our mass forward, while autonomous resupply vehicles would free up personnel for other roles. “Autonomy has the potential to achieve decision advantage and increase, not just the speed, which we can complete the decision-making cycle, but also improve the quality of decisions. Autonomous surveillance, data processing and decision support will allow commanders to understand and act upon battle spaces of increasing complexity and respond to adversaries also operating at machine speed. Autonomous systems will be part of the targeting process…” But as CDR Turner put it earlier in his presentation: “An example of a fully autonomous system may not yet exist.” What does exist if the transformation underway with regard to building out a fifth-generation force, one in which distributed forces and innovative task forcing is reshaping how the ADF operates. And that force redesign being worked in the operational force can provide the foundation for shaping a way ahead within which autonomous systems can provide ways to enhance, augment or replace platforms operating within the force. And the presentation which followed that of CDR Turner, by Professor Jason Scholz provided further insight into how this transition might work. For a PDF version of the December 2020 report, see below: https://defence.gov.au/VCDF/Forceexploration/_Master/docs/ADF-Concept-Robotics.pdf

Dr Robbin Laird, The Integrated Distributed Maritime Force: The Impact of Maritime Autonomous Systems, 29 May 2021 Link to article The Integrated Distributed Maritime Force: The Impact of Maritime Autonomous Systems | Defense.info At the recent Williams Foundation seminar on Next Generation Autonomous Systems, Vice Admiral Noonan, Chief of the Royal Australian Navy, provided his perspective on the way ahead for maritime autonomous systems in the build out and evolution of the Royal Australian Navy. At the heart of his presentation was an opportunity to discuss the Navy’s new Remote Autonomous Systems-AI 2040 strategy. As he put it: “Our Navy has already begun a journey to shape the maritime environment. “To deter actions against our national interests. To respond with credible Naval power. To use robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. Employing ever more reliable, robust, and repeatable systems. “We will continue to drive our edge to help keep our people safe. “To create mass, tempo and reach at sea and in all the lanes to enhance the joint force and strengthen our coalition with human command and trusted machine control. “Our technologies, enabling our people to thrive. “Our people, using technologies, to make smarter systems and better decisions.” The RAS-AI strategy is focused on enhancing the fleet, not supplanting it. And he underscored that the Royal Australian Navy is working currently to introduce these technologies into the fleet. I have argued elsewhere that that shift in manned platforms to relying on software upgradeability as a key driver for ongoing modernization clearly becomes a central piece in understanding how to build out RAS-AI capabilities for the maritime autonomous systems platforms or assets. The Vice Admiral introduced a very useful term which covers the way ahead for thinking about integratability across the crewed and uncrewed assets in the force. As he put it: “Evergreen, I think is the new term for spiral development. “That’s the way I look at it. It’s about ensuring that we have systems that remain contemporary, and I am challenged on a daily basis about capability gaps and about deficiencies in the long lead times that require us in the shipbuilding space. “It takes about 10 years to build a submarine, or five years to build a frigate. ‘And are we incorporating old technologies? “Bottom answer is no, in that we are designing future and evergreen in growth into our platforms. “And I think that’s a very important concept that we have not always fully grasped.” I had a chance to further discuss how to think about the way ahead for maritime autonomous systems within the fleet with Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett. I have been in an ongoing discussion about maritime matters with Barrett ever since I first met him in 2015, and as a key architect for shaping the build out of the 21st century Royal Australian Navy,. I wanted to focus on the interaction between the new build strategy for the Navy’s surface and subsurface platforms and the introduction of autonomous systems into the fleet. Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett is currently on the board of a key player in shaping a way ahead for autonomous systems, both in the civil and military sector. The CEO of that organization, Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre, presented at the seminar and I am focusing on his overview of the organization and his perspectives in a separate piece. Jason Scholz, CEO of TAS, highlighted the purposes of the organization as follows: “Advance trusted autonomous systems technologies for asymmetric advantage so the ADF can fight and win; Create & foster game-changing research, of world standing, that pushes theoretical & practical boundaries of future trusted autonomous systems; Deliver autonomous systems & robotics technology with clear translation into deployable defence programs & capabilities for Australian Defence; and Build an environment in which Australian industry has the capacity & skills to deliver complex autonomous systems both to Australian Defence & as integral members of the global defence supply chain.” This means that Barrett brings to the discussion a deep understanding of the challenges of building out the RAN’s surface and subsurface fleet with the coming of new autonomous technologies. The challenge of course is to shape an approach which allows for their integration and dynamic processes of change over time. The core point which Barrett drove home in our conversation was the key challenge of building out the integrated distributed force with an open aperture to inclusion of the force enhancement capabilities which maturing autonomous systems can provide. He argued that at TAS the focus was not just on the next big thing as how what developers can bring to the party which can enhance the capabilities of the force. As he put it: “the new technologies need to be fitted into a broader operational environment. “The force has to fight tonight; how can we shape ways ahead which lead to force enhancement?” In focusing on the subsurface domain, he argued that the context for submarines was changing significantly. They are increasingly operating in a broader kill web environment and need to be able to tap into trusted data to aid their operations and focus their efforts. Clearly, autonomous systems can play an increasingly role in mapping and tracking the undersea domain, and the manned assets become much more capable as trusted data networks can be tapped into. As he noted: “Submarines are part of the undersea domain battle. “They are key contributors, but they have to work within an integrated and distributed mode, which provides them with the information and context in which they can best operate and enhance the operational outcome.” Evolving autonomous systems will be able to provide enhanced undersea domain awareness which will then enhance the capability of the force to execute their operational plans more effectively. But this leads as well to reinforcing the broader challenge facing the force: How do you manage and distribute the data being generated to provide information for tactical decision making at the edge and for broader tactical theater wide decision making? And this leads Barrett to his version of Occom’s razor when assessing what a particular autonomous system might contribute to the force: “I’m less interested in what the particular device being proposed – whether it is a swarming device, an undersea array or a sea glider — but I’m more interested in how your device obtains data, and how reliable it is and how to distribute it and how relevant it is or is not to the commander fighting the battle in operational space in which he is operating.” Notably, how do autonomous systems close gaps in the information-decision dynamic within which forces can operate as an effective kill web? Answering this question is not a one-off platform decision; it is an evolving modernization effort in which the challenge identified by Vice Admiral Noonan needs to be met of working an evergreen force. The featured graphic was taken from one of Vice Admiral Noonan’s presentation slides at the seminar. A link to the PDF of The Royal Australian Navy’s RAS-AI 2040 strategy is included in the article.

By Pierre Tran FCAS Next Steps: May 2021 - UPDATE Second Line of Defense 19 May 2021 Paris – France, Germany and Spain have agreed to the industrial organization for development of a future combat air system, including a demonstrator for a new generation fighter to fly by 2027, the defense ministers of the partner nations said May 17 in a joint statement. Full Article in Second Line of Defense

Dr Robbin Laird The Quest for Next Generation Autonomous Systems: Impact on Reshaping Australian Defence Forces, Defense.info 25 May 2021 At the April 8, 2021, Williams Foundation Seminar on Next Generation Autonomous systems, the moderator was WGCDR Keirin Joyce. I had met Joyce at an earlier Williams Foundation presentation on unmanned systems and had a chance to follow up on his take on the issues discussed at the seminar in a phone interview on May 14, 2021. When I first met Joyce he was in the Army working on unmanned systems; now he was working Triton and Sky Guardian. He has served for 24 years in the Australian Army, where he last served as Program Manager of Unmanned Aerial Systems from December 2016-January 2020. Since then, he is serving in the Royal Australian Air Force as Chief Engineer for Royal Australian Air Force Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems / Unmanned Aerial Systems at ISR Systems Program Office, including MQ-4C Triton under Air 7000-1B and MQ-9B SkyGuardian under Air 7003. Precisely because he has been involved with two services and is knowledgeable with regard to the civilian side of artificial intelligence and robotics, he was the perfect choice to be the seminar moderator. During the seminar, he highlighted an example of how current forces can use new unmanned technologies to support the evolving kill web, in which a small team with ISR and C2 capability can inform a firing solution by a virtual task force firing solution provider. mWGCDR Joyce noted that in an Exercise Hamel held in 2018, a two-man Army team using a Black Hornet Nano UAV were able to identify a tank formation, and then with their radio able to pass that information on to the RAAF for a strike opportunity against that tank formation. This example highlights certainly one role which unmanned systems can play in providing ISR better labelled as information than intelligence surveillance reconnaissance because in this case you have the two-man team inside the weapons engagement zone (WEZ) providing input to an external provider not organic for a firing solution. WGCDR Keirin Joyce moderating the Williams Foundation Seminar on Next Generation Autonomous Systems, April 8, 2021. The first issue we discussed was the importance of understanding the challenge of generating innovation associated with autonomous systems into the operational military. The military as an organization is often described as risk averse, but since the military has to be prepared to fight tonight, disruptive change for its own purpose can degrade military capabilities rather than enhancing them. The ADF has been described through Williams Foundation seminars since 2014 as building a fifth-generation force. In my own words, I see this as shaping an integrated distributed force through which kill webs can operate to provide for a scalable combat force. With such a template, the role of next generation autonomous systems can enable either enhanced mass to modular task forces, or enhanced decision-making capability either at the tactical edge or at the wider tactical or strategic decision-making levels. As Joyce put it: “we know that we have to go to war with what we’ve got. When you go to the next big thing in defense, you proceed from what you already have.” The second issue was the key role in which Australia finds itself with regard to working next generation autonomous systems. As Joyce noted: “We are recognized as a global leader in autonomy in the mining and resource sector, both ground and aerial survey autonomy. I think a lot of that technology is able to be brought across to defense or upscaled towards defense applications.” As a key member of the five eyes community, Australian innovations have a wider market for both development and deployment. Australia also can draw upon innovations being shaped by the other five eyes members, and as Canada, the UK, and the U.S. particularly do not have the same geographical defense needs, there will clearly be different approaches to incorporating next generation autonomous systems into their forces. As Joyce underscored: “I think there is a melting pot of technology built in Australia that we’re good at and we have a lot of potential to contribute on a global scale.” The third issue is the cross between the first and second points: Australia is already building a fifth-generation force which enables further innovation as well. With regard to the fifth-generation force, the core role of software has clearly emerged as a key element of change. As forces get more used to how to manage software upgradeability in current platforms, a learning cycle is being shaped whereby systems which are built primarily around software – the next generation autonomous systems – will become key elements for force transformation. With the shift to the digital native generation of warriors, innovation processes are changing as well. WGCDR Joyce used the example of the potential impact of drone racers on military innovation. “The Drone Racing Teams of the Army, Navy, and Air Force are a key force for change. These are kids that have decided to take up drone racing in their spare time. None of them are employed to do this full-time. They have taken it off as a hobby and not through university, not through technical college, but off You Tube videos and collaborative communities that have taught themselves all the skills on how to build a UAV. They literally learn it all on You Tube, and they have this amazing skill set that sits at a peer level and in some cases in advance of our socially qualified engineers. “In Australia we’ve used these drone racing pilots in support of our weapon’s technical investigations and intelligence, in support of rapid prototyping, assisting with ground autonomy trials, and all of these soldiers and aviators are doing this in their spare time. “I think it’s something that we need to tap more and to develop deployable rapid prototyping labs, or deployable space labs. In the future it’s plausible that when we are confronted with the next asymmetric threat that our opposition force comes up with, there is absolutely the possibility that we can design, prototype and manufacture solutions, not by engineers, but by people who just know how to do it and have taught themselves how to do it because it’s fun. I think that is a real skill set that we should be focusing on and tapping: it is an opportunity that costs next to nothing. “Perhaps we should be setting up structures in our organizations where we let these people do their day job one posting, and then on the next posting their whole job is just running or contributing to innovation labs. And then they go back to their job, and then they go back to the innovation lab. We could really foster those skill sets and thought processes and innovative approaches to whatever sixth Gen is, because when we take our Fifth-Gen Force to the next battle, we go with what we’ve got. “And if we want to rapidly uptake that force to a Generation 5.1, or a Generation 6 application, then we are going to need skills to do that. Most of the skills needed are in code, in electronics, software, and in data: drone racers.” The fourth issue is the relationship between the broader ecosystem for robots, AI and autonomy and finding ways for the military to tap into that broader ecosystem. WGCDR Joyce underscored how important being able to do so was for the Australian military and he provided an example of such a case. “One case study in particular is prototyping an aircraft for the eVTOL market for unmanned aerial taxis. There’s a company out of Sydney called AMSL. “They’re doing it for the commercial market. But they have partnered with Defence to take the five-passenger seats out and design a configuration for us to do 500 to 600 kilograms worth of combat resupply. “We have asked them as well to do the design work that when that airplane is otherwise coming back empty from doing a resupply that we could also put in up to two stretchers for casualty evacuations. “They are already doing the collaborative research with telemedicine and automated monitoring of stretcher-bound patients. “All of that technology is coming in from the medical tech field, and that’s being underpinned not necessarily by defense or even the medical field, it’s by our civilian medical evacuation helicopter providers, people like CareFlight who provide some of our emergency response helicopters for our ambulance services.” The fifth point is where the quest for next generation autonomous systems fits into the evolution of the art of warfare. This can be looked at in two different ways: one the specific defense geography of Australia and secondly, the strategic shift from the Middle Eastern land wars to operating in conflict with peer competitors. This first revolves around shaping the distributed integratable force in which combat clusters can operate at the tactical edge with enough capability to achieve their tasks as allocated by mission command requirements. Distribution is about working multi-domain warfighting packages. Next generation autonomous systems can provide increased mass for each combat cluster notably with ISR payloads already on the way. The second revolves around the geography of Australia. Given the importance of Western to Northern Australia to the first island chain of the Solomon Islands, there are a number of ways next generation autonomous systems can provide for capabilities throughout the distributed operational space. For example, port security at a distance is a crucial requirement. Already, autonomous maritime USVs exist with the relevant ISR systems to provide significant inputs to meeting this mission. As the ADF works through how best to build a defense grid over this region for its operations, it makes a great deal of sense to build in new autonomous systems as players in that defense grid. This solves a key problem which is where to add new capabilities without degrading extant capabilities, for as you build out a new approach to an operational area building in new platforms and systems can be done with realism in terms of delivering a desired combat capability, rather than just building prototypes or briefing slides, more likely to put your audience asleep than building capabilities which deter an adversary. And finally, we discussed Triton. WGCDR Joyce has Triton in his portfolio, and I have visited Jax Navy several times as well as RAAF Base Edinburgh where the P-8s and Tritons will be operated from. The point can be made simply: This is a U.S. Navy led effort on manned-unmanned teaming NOW and lessons learned from such teaming clearly inform a way ahead for next generation autonomous systems. In short, next generation autonomous systems are clearly on the way. As WGCDR Joyce underscored: “All of the services see robotic autonomous systems as a significant part of the road ahead. It’s just that the services are getting after them differently.” And this was highlighted during the seminar and will be the focus of later pieces on the seminar. The featured graphic is of a MQ-4 Triton with an LHD in the rear of the graphic.

This week we welcome back Wing Commander David Hood to discuss how the Royal Australian Air Force can better engage the full spectrum of the workforce - from teeth to tail - to achieve objectives outlined in #AFSTRAT. The practical solutions Hood offers are scalable and rapidly implementable, with little risk of detrimental consequences, while also acknowledging the inherent value of the air power ‘tail’ workforce. Should we be content with the traditional workforce comprising a few ‘teeth’ and a long ‘tail’? The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Strategy 2020 (‘AFSTRAT’) signifies an important shift in air and space power thinking, focusing on the essential need for an intelligent and skilled workforce to contribute to achieving strategic objectives.[1] But how well does our current workforce structure support that intent? With people in short supply, are we making best use of our workforce ‘tail’ to maximise the potency of our ‘teeth’? The answer may lie in reconceiving the nature of our workforce, and using the ‘tail’ more effectively by better integrating it with the ‘teeth’. ‘Teeth’ and ‘Tails’ and ratios The ever-decreasing Teeth-To-Tail Ratio (T3R) associated with the relative growth of the workforce supporting military operations, compared to that which conducts them, is well documented.[2] Because the RAAF will continue to rely on complex technologies; expand into new domains such as space and cyber; and require ongoing industry support, the historic T3R trend can be expected to continue. As a result, it is essential that we make best use of our expanding ‘tail’ workforce, in both RAAF and other agencies such as the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG), where a large and disconnected air power ‘tail’ workforce exists. Reconceiving our workforce Is there untapped potential in our ‘tail’? As Chris McInnes recently suggested, while the skills necessary to lead air operations are specialised, the ‘aptitude for such skills is also likely to be found in workforces beyond those that have traditionally dominated command and leadership role[s]’. Similarly, we should not presuppose that our ‘teeth’ stem only from the workforce that delivers air power for kinetic effects. Having teeth does not mean one must always bite. Our ‘teeth’ also includes non-combatants, used to generate a variety of air power effects to shape our strategic environment and deter actions against our interests, in addition to military responses. If Air Power is as inherently strategic as Colin Gray argued, it seems reasonable to conclude that any part of our workforce could provide strategic effects.[3] Currently however, our ‘tail’ workforce is not properly engaged and enabled to allow it to fulfil its strategic potential. We must better unite our ‘teeth’ and ‘tail’.[4] Doing so will maximise our workforce’s inherent strategic potential through greater depth, diversity and resilience. Uniting ‘teeth’ and ‘tail’ But how can we realise this goal? We can engage and enable our ‘tail’ through several means. Engaging and enabling our ‘tail’ workforce can occur through various means. The proposals below are not exhaustive, nor are they the most important activities to drive change. They are, however, scalable and achievable, and allow our workforce to rapidly evolve to better shape, deter and respond to strategic events as part of the joint force. How do we post people for greatest ‘influence and effect’?[5] More should be done to manage the careers of individuals who aspire to contribute beyond their parent categorisation. While many categories now value deployments, out-of-category posts and even industry secondments, it appears the primary aim of these experiences is to support career progression within the parent category. Consequently, such opportunities are often sporadic and limited. There is a need for more deliberate planning for out-of-category postings, to ensure individuals with a desire to provide strategic—rather than specialist—influence can be developed and contribute as they rise through the ranks. Consider this: a carefully targeted O3/O4 logistics, administration or engineering officer could be posted to a vacant aircrew position in a flying Squadron or Wing to gain tactical-level exposure, followed by deliberate postings to vacant, out-of-mustering Headquarters or strategic centre positions at O5 and O6 levels. There may be a short-term cost; however, targeting vacant positions provide opportunities for long-term strategic value, without institutionalising potentially problematic alternatives such as transitioning vacant positions to ‘Any Officer’ (ANYO) and ‘Any Airperson’ (ANYA) slots. Let’s not forget the lessons of Coronavirus, which reinforced that many roles can be undertaken effectively while working remotely. With workplace restrictions unlikely to continue into the long term, the RAAF should adopt a deliberate practise of repositioning staff into different workplaces to better unite ‘teeth’ and ‘tail’ workforces. Individuals would continue to perform their primary role, but can engage and interact with another unit, and be immersed in its culture. Periods of tenure could vary from days to months, and because multiple organisations typically reside in the one geographical locality, no relocation costs would be required. Embedding staff with the right attributes in other organisations will allow those individuals to be immersed in, and contribute to, that organisation, and bring learned experiences back to their primary workplace. Improved understanding and better relationships between organisations would also result. This initiative could also be used as a low risk precursor to implementing more disruptive changes which result from the review of RAAF organisational structures, called out by AFSTRAT.[6] We also need to consider how to produce skilled air power strategists. Could a dedicated career path be created? The category would not need to be large, and could be sustained in the normal way by a mix of military and public service staff. Resourced from an opt-in mechanism, the category could fast-track selected members through professional education such as Australian War College, and other selected posts which maximise exposure and influence to strategic activities. Importantly, members should also be quarantined from postings to specialist areas of Defence which, depending on the rank of the individual, may offer fewer opportunities for strategic-level influence. Military positions should permit individuals from all categories. The ‘strategist’ category would provide an interface between academia, public think-tanks and the RAAF, and further professionalise the strategic policy and advice being provided by existing agencies in the strategic centre. Next, how can we motivate people to actively pursue their professional education? Consistent with AFSTRAT Line of Effort (LOE) 2,[7] greater emphasis should be placed on the need for continuous air power professionalisation, with individuals who invest beyond the norm being rewarded for doing so. Professionalisation can take multiple forms, including joint postings, personal study, or involvement in formal education and mentoring programs. Program Wirraway could be expanded to include an O5 level program, to fill the current void between O4 level requirements and Program Niagara. The O5 level program could include a requirement to develop and deliver periodic air power education sessions to home units or other organisations. But beyond this minimum professional education baseline, how do we increase the level of air and space power acumen in our workforce? What would be the cumulative effects? All O5 and O6 level officers should be expected to provide air power mentoring to at least one subordinate. While dedicating time to continued air power professionalisation will be challenging for most, it cannot be deferred until a clear and present need for that knowledge eventuates. Finally, the RAAF should critically review the structure of its ‘tail’ workforce. Defence’s First Principles Review (FPR) suggested trimming the number of management layers, noting that ‘[n]o more than six or seven layers of management is common practice, even in the largest organisations.’[8] Acknowledging that a great deal of post-FPR reform has occurred, many air power workforces in the RAAF and other agencies such as CASG now incorporate highly-matrixed workforces. By their nature, these constructs embed management ‘layers’ horizontally, in addition to the vertical layers of management which remain necessary. Consequently, air power workforces may, in effect, still have many more layers of management than FPR suggested was common practise. Overgrown management layers disproportionately increase the size of the ‘tail’ and make it less efficient: one study showed that every senior manager organically generates work for around three other people in the workforce. This means that additional layers of management—whether they exist in a hierarchical or matricised manner—can create a negative net benefit. Current initiatives Much is already being done to evolve our workforce for strategic purposes. The activities above can be used to compliment current initiatives such as the array of ANYA/ANYO opportunities, the already generous air power professionalisation opportunities, targeted secondments and shifting workforce culture by reconceiving all RAAF members as aviators. Conclusions If air power is what the Air Force is about, then air power must be defined inclusively – to include every person in the Air Force and every one of their diverse contributions to air power. If air power is a spear, then the point of that spear is… getting sharper… but the shaft is getting longer and more important as well. With every passing year… the point of the spear gets smaller, while the shaft of the spear gets bigger. Significantly, it is not the point of the spear that has become the measure of global reach and global power, but the shaft that carries the point.[9] The air power ‘tail’ workforce—the shaft of the spear—has great inherent value. Drawing our ‘tail’ and ‘tooth’ workforces together into a more integrated union will ensure greater opportunities exist for the ‘tail’ workforce, and enable it to bare its teeth by contributing to activities which shape our environment and deter unfriendly actors. The initiatives discussed in this paper are practicable, scalable and rapidly implementable, with little risk of detrimental consequences. Adopting them can be done as part of a broader tapestry of initiatives which together evolve the RAAF workforce under AFSTRAT’s LOE2. Breaking the traditional T3R nexus enables our ‘tail’ to bite. Wing Commander David Hood is an Aeronautical Engineer working for the Royal Australian Air Force. He holds a Master of Gas Turbine Technology (Cranfield, UK) and a Master of Military and Defence Studies (Australian National University). Wing Commander Hood is currently Commanding Officer of Air Training and Aviation Commons Systems Program Office (ATACSPO) [1] Australian Department of Defence, Air Force Strategy (Canberra: Director Strategic Design, 2020), p.26, 27. [2] See for example: Tamara Campbell and Carlos Velasco, An Analysis of the Tail to Tooth Ratio as a Measure of Operational Readiness and Military Expenditure Efficiency (California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2002); Barry Carleen (Ed.), The Parable of the Tail with No Teeth (The Center for Cryptologic History, 1996); Scott Gebicke and Samuel Magid, ‘Lessons from around the world: benchmarking performance in Defense’, in McKinsey on Government (no. 5, Spring 2010), pp. 4–13; and John McGrath, The Other End of the Spear: The Tooth-to-Tail Ratio (T3R) in Modern Military Operations, (Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007). [3] Colin Gray suggested that all military instruments (including air power) are inherently strategic. Whether or not any particular instrument delivers strategic effect is determined by the consequences of applying that instrument, in a particular time and space. See Colin S. Gray, Understanding Airpower – Bonfire of the Fallacies, Research Paper 2009-3 (Maxwell Air Force Base, Air Force Research Institute, 2009), pp.17-21; and Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect (Alabama: Air University Press, 2012), Chapter 9. [4] This conception is consistent with the One Defence model proposed by the First Principles Review, which in essence seeks to provide ‘a more unified and integrated organisation that is more consistently linked to its strategy’ and features, inter alia, ‘[e]nablers that are integrated and customer-centric’. See: David Peever et al., First Principles Review: Creating One Defence (Canberra, 2011). [5] Air Force Strategy, p.26, 27. [6] Ibid., p.18, 35, 36. [7] Ibid., p.26, 27. [8] David Peever et al., First Principles Review: Creating One Defence (Canberra, 2011). [9] Carl Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force (California: RAND, 2009), p.263.

In his first piece for the Central Blue, Dr. Graham Wild explores Australia’s future and outlines the need for our own Space Force. Space as a domain excites the imagination, with concepts such as space trade still feeling like fiction. Yet Dr. Wild articulates the necessity of long-term thinking in assessing the value of an Australian Space Force to the continued evolution of national development. With space becoming increasingly congested, Dr. Wild highlights why Australia cannot afford to leave space to the science fiction authors. The Royal Australian Space Force The nature of the US Space Force and its direct evolution from the USAF is very logical (Dawson, 2021); space is simply higher, crossing the Karman line (100 km high). However, the late great Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, popularised the relationship between spaceships and naval ships, which is true across much of science fiction. This analogy is important when considering the role of, and hence the need for, a future Royal Australian Space Force (RASF). Following Roddenberry’s logic if we paraphrase from the Royal Australian Navy (RAN, 2021), the role of the RASF could involve: Provision of space-based patrol and response, interdiction and strategic strike, protection of shipping and off-earth territories and resources, space-based intelligence collection and evaluation, and escort duties. Peacetime activities may include space-based surveillance and response within Australia's off-earth space zones, space-situational awareness, electromagnetic storm forecasting/reporting, and astronomy support operations, humanitarian and disaster relief, and space-based search and rescue. The great maritime strategist A. T. Mahan spent his entire career educating the American public about the importance of navies (Sumida, 1999); however, the Australian public can have a “border force” impression of RAN (Forbes, 2002). The actual role of navies is vital; duties like escort and protection of shipping/resources should not be understated. The scale of the British Empire was facilitated by maritime trade and travel, made possible through commercial shipping supported by the Royal Navy (Hamilton, 1978). The same will be true for a Space Force; it will facilitate “free” space trade and travel. If the proposed roles of the future RASF do not invoke images of potential future scenarios (even potential conflict), let us paint a more vivid picture. Neil deGrasse Tyson said that the first trillionaire will come from space mining (Kramer, 2015). The value of minable space bodies is astronomical (pun intended), with the asteroid 16 Psyche estimated by Professor Lindy Elkins-Tanton to be worth $10 quintillion (Scotti, 2017), that is $10,000,000,000,000,000,000. Consider a non-descript trillion-dollar hydrated asteroid, which could be acquired by an Australian commercial space operation. Future technology could facilitate the capability to autonomously bring this asset into an orbital “parking spot” for mining. This is illustrated in Figure 1, with a hypothetical self-fuelled retrieval system. These parking spots are called Lagrange points (Howell, 2017), and are illustrated in Figure 2; for reference, the L2 point of the earth-sun system is the home to the James Webb Space Telescope (Clampin, 2008). In this hypothetical future, Lagrange points would likely be shared, with companies bidding for their use based on guidelines as determined by a future “International Civil Space Organisation” (the space equivalent of the International Civil Aviation Organisation). Such a major asset would likely be viewed as worthy of interception by space pirates. These malign actors could be state sponsored, corporate sponsored, or as the name suggests, be independent actors seeking to collect wealth (and maybe bury). There is a need to ensure this asset gets to the Lagrange point as scheduled, given this activity would be time limited. Even the activity to mine the asteroid would require protection. While it is true that private security would need to be employed to protect against private threats, national defence would be the relevant response against state sponsored malign actors. These are space privateers. The history of maritime privateers as pirates is well known (Craze, 2016), and hence it would be very reasonable to assume, especially considering current grey-zone tactics (Bachmann, Dowse, & Gunneriusson, 2019), that state sponsored space pirates would be very likely; these would be equivalent to “little green men” (Giegerich, 2016), who were supposedly Russian sponsored operatives with advanced training, equipment, and resources in the Ukrainian Crisis of 2014. These space privateers would then analogously be “little grey men” in the space domain. Figure 1: A self-contained autonomous system to capture a hydrated (water rich) asteroid is illustrated, where the water from the asteroid would be used to produce fuel, facilitating the transportation to an alternative location such as a Lagrange point of the earth-moon system. Figure 2: As seen from “above” (viewing the north poles), the earth-moon systems, highlighting the five Lagrange points. The lines have been included to illustrate the lines of equal gravitational potential energy, with L4 and L5 at the “highest points”. The destructive potential of space mining waste materials also highlights the need for a Space Force. While these space rocks are as inert as their terrestrial equivalents, they possess significantly more potential and kinetic energy. A trillion-dollar asset such as 1996 FG3 has an effective diameter of 1.7 km, and a total mass of 3.5 billion tonnes (Wolters et al, 2011); a small fragment of this, only 140 metres across, could be used to destroy an entire city. This utilises the mass driver concept popularised in the book and then movie Starship Troopers, where a meteor was used to destroy Buenos Aires. NASA stated that a 140-metre diameter impactor would be equivalent to a 60-megaton blast (Poole, 2020). While this potential impactor is just less than 10% the diameter of 1996 FG3, it is only 0.06% the volume and mass. That is, a tiny fraction of a mining asset that could be weaponised to destroy an entire city. The risk here, and the convoluted nature of malign actors, means that both the patrol and situational awareness capabilities of a future RASF would be essential. At present, there are many that do not see a need of a Space Force, labelling it as a waste of money, administratively difficult, and even too special a place for warfare (Dolman, 2019). However, we must consider both the importance of space as a domain and the fact that any future adversary is not going to share an altruistic view of space. The commercial reality of space is upon us already, propelled by the 20-fold cost reduction from the space shuttle to SpaceX (Jones, 2018). Space is destined to become more contested, and space needs specialised knowledge and expertise to ensure adequate defence. Dr Graham Wild is a Senior Lecturer of Aviation Technology with The University of New South Wales at The Australian Defence Force Academy. He is a technologist and scientist with an educational background in physics and mathematics, specialising in photonics and acoustics. Dr Wild’s research includes multiple facets of STEM applied across aviation and aerospace with a focus on future operations and technologies; his research focuses on applications involving machine learning, mixed realities, data analytics, systems thinking, and sustainability, with further application in education, training, and safety. To date, he has authored over 150 scientific articles. Cover image credit: SpaceX (via Unsplash) Bibliography Bachmann, S. D., Dowse, A., & Gunneriusson, H. (2019). Competition Short of War–How Russia’s Hybrid and Grey-Zone Warfare are a Blueprint for China’s Global Power Ambitions. Australian Journal of Defence and Strategic Studies, 1(1). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3483981 Clampin, M. (2008). The James webb space telescope (jwst). Advances in space research, 41(12), 1983-1991. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2008.01.010 Craze, S. (2016). Prosecuting privateers for piracy: How piracy law transitioned from treason to a crime against property. International Journal of Maritime History, 28(4), 654-670. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0843871416663987 Dawson, L. (2021). The Politics and Perils of Space Exploration: Who Will Compete, Who Will Dominate? (pp. 112-124). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030568344 Dolman, E. C. (2019). Space Force Déjà Vu. Strategic Studies Quarterly, 13(2), 16-22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26639671 Forbes, A. (2002). Protecting the National Interest: Naval Constabulary Operations in Australia's Exclusive Zone. Royal Australian Navy, Sea Power Centre. https://www.navy.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/Working_Paper_11.pdf Giegerich, B. (2016). Hybrid warfare and the changing character of conflict. Connections, 15(2), 65-72. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26326440 Hamilton, W. M. (1978). The ‘New Navalism’ and the British Navy League, 1895–1914. The Mariner's Mirror, 64(1), 37-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/00253359.1978.10659063 Howell, E., (2017, Aug 22). “Lagrange Points: Parking Places in Space” Space.com https://www.space.com/30302-lagrange-points.html Jones, H. (2018, July 8-12). The recent large reduction in space launch cost. 48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, Albuquerque, New Mexico:TTU DSpace. http://hdl.handle.net/2346/74082 Kramer, K., (2015, May 3). “Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Space Ventures Will Spawn First Trillionaire” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/neil-degrasse-tyson-says-space-ventures-will-spawn-first-trillionaire-n352271 Poole, B. G. (2020). Against the Nuclear Option: Planetary Defence Under International Space Law. Air and Space Law, 45(1). https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/Air+and+Space+Law/45.1/AILA2020004 RAN (2021). “About the Royal Australian Navy” Royal Australian Navy, https://www.navy.gov.au Scotti, M. (2017, Jan 14), “NASA plans mission to a metal-rich asteroid worth quadrillions” Global News – Science, https://globalnews.ca/news/3175097/nasa-plans-mission-to-a-metal-rich-asteroid-worth-quadrillions/ Sumida, J. (1999). Alfred Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician. The Journal of Strategic Studies, 22(2-3), 39-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402399908437753 Wolters, S. D., Rozitis, B., Duddy, S. R., Lowry, S. C., Green, S. F., Snodgrass, C., ... & Weissman, P. (2011). Physical characterization of low delta-V asteroid (175706) 1996 FG3. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 418(2), 1246-1257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19575.x

Not all motivations are the same. Corporal Dylan Williamson demonstrates the importance for supervisors, and the Australian Defence Force as a whole, in understanding the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Having these motivations balanced correctly helps develop personnel, which in turn benefits the organisation. Motivation is also linked to retention, ensuring the organisation can continue forward supported by driven and experienced members. The process of selecting and nurturing personnel for the appropriate role begins at recruitment. However, as Williamson explains, it is a career long endeavour for leaders at every level to maintain a motivating environment. On the back of the release of the 2020 #AFSTRAT, there have been several posts highlighting the need for creativity within the workforce. Such posts attest that with increased creativity producing an accelerated Observe Orientate Decide Act (OODA) loop, the fighting force will likely have an intellectual and competitive edge. This presents as a plausible argument however, overlooks one of the biggest variables within our organisation: individual motivations. As any supervisor can attest to, giving the same task to two individuals with identical training and experience does not always result in the same outcome - for either efficiency or accuracy. This is common within the technical workforce, and can result in a requirement to balance the “good” technicians between teams to spread their effectiveness on exercises, or to stack efficient workers on one crew when something is high priority. For an organisation to thrive, it must fully understand why this behaviour occurs. One potential reason has to do with how the individual views their role and purpose, and what their motivations are. Someone who treats their role as ‘day job’ versus a long-term career may produce different outcomes. The ‘day job’ worker approaches their day with the mentality of needing to meet a number of tasks which are to be endured in order to go home. They have little interest in achieving anything outside of what is the minimum required. Their behaviour and output may present as inefficient as they look to stretch out a task until the end of the workday in a behaviour referred to as socially loafing. These workers may simply have different motivations, and may not desire to stretch themselves to achieve more unless the reward is worth it. The second type of worker views their role and purpose with the lens of a long-term career. These individuals approach the workday with the mentality of how much can be achieved with the time they have. These individuals are likely to be goal orientated . In order to increase both efficiency and accuracy across the workforce, Air Force should be selective when it comes to motives in recruiting and retaining people for particular roles, as people are the foundation and key to any strategic plan. Motivation types One reason for these two widely different role perspectives may be individual motivations; commonly known as intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. The individual that treats their role as a ‘day job’ may be more extrinsically motivated. Extrinsically motivated individuals are commonly motivated by money or other material objects. Intrinsically motivated individuals are motivated by internal factors. Typically the kinds of things that motivate these individuals may not seem motivating to others, but to the individual, they are significant. For example; successfully fixing an ongoing aircraft maintenance fault, running a marathon or having a piece of writing published. Recruitment and Retention Identifying the right type of individual in the recruitment phase is the first step in having a motivated, creative workforce to aid in increasing the speed of the organisation’s OODA loop. Recruiting the right people with the right type of motivation which best suit their primary role will assist this process. Specifically, identifying someone with aligned role motivations makes managing motivation easier for supervisors; whether that be intrinsic or extrinsic. While identifying motivations in recruitment may assist initially, motives for remaining within Defence can change. Therefore, our organisation needs to continue to support supervisors in understanding how they can adapt to motivating a changing workforce. The importance of recognition One example of how Air Force can retain personnel who are intrinsically motivated is through recognition – of both big and small achievements. When a supervisor, manager or commander takes the time and effort to acknowledge even the small achievements, the individual experiences the neurobiological benefits of intrinsic motivation. Having a Senior Non-commissioned Officer (SNCO) provide a meaningful compliment to their team at a progress point, it can be highly beneficial in maintaining motivation. In this case, it is important to utilise intrinsic motivation as extrinsic reward is not always possible. Another way this can occur is to have individuals create their own ‘to do’ lists and bask in their own satisfaction when they cross something off their list. Rewarding intrinsically motivated personnel needs to be tailored. This means providing something of significance to the specific individual. One such example could be to provide exercise time. If an intrinsically motivated individual wants to exercise over their lunch break, make it happen. If this means giving them a little extra time for lunch then so be it. The productivity gained by these individuals conducting their chosen activity over lunch is likely to outweigh the additional time provided to eat. Furthermore, the organisation would be aiding these individuals by providing the opportunities to chase one of their personal goals during their lunch break which, in turn, generates greater organisational satisfaction. The alternative is for the individual to perceive the organisation as preventing the progression of a personal goal. This is only an example and each case would need to be tailored to the individual by their supervisor. Provide a sense of purpose On the whole, humans live and work through creating meaning. When supervisors, managers, and commanders take the small effort to provide the ‘why’, significant outcomes will be produced. At a flying squadron, one such example may be an executive providing a detailed and specific brief to the workforce about the purpose of the exercise they are about to conduct. Such a brief needs to provide more than just the pre-deployment exercise overview – it needs to contain the purpose. Explaining ‘why’ these missions need to be flown, what they achieve for the organisation as a whole, and how these missions play a role in a real-world scenario is critical to motivation. The right people produce creativity Recruiting the right kinds of people with the right motivation, and placing them in the right role at the right time, is a key prerequisite for cultivating creativity. As the right people build greater experience and knowledge, and are supported correctly with either intrinsic or extrinsic aligned motivations, they are more likely to tackle new problems and adapt to new ideas and environments. They will further build greater confidence to offer ideas that may seem out of the ordinary or non-conventional. They will have the experience to break down ideas that didn’t work to identify why in order to come up with a way to address them. But most importantly, they will build the awareness to identify when something is a problem when it may not be obvious. This awareness directly contributes to the OODA loop of their workforce. Air Force strategy relies on people to achieve strategic goals. Therefore, recruiting and retaining the right kinds of people for the right job is essential to achieve any broader strategy. Corporal Dylan Williamson has spent 13 years in the Air Force as an Armament Technician. Having posted around Hornet Squadrons for his career, he is now posted to 77 Squadron during the first stages of standing F-35 maintenance. CPL Williamson has a Bachelor of Psychological Sciences, and has recently commenced postgraduate studies. He is motivated to strive for ways to improve his squadron’s workforce. The views expressed are his alone and do not reflect the opinion of the Royal Australian Air Force, the Department of Defence, or the Australian Government. References Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives Jointly Predict Performance: A 40-Year Meta-Analysis. Psychol Bull, 140(4), 980-1008. doi:10.1037/a0035661 Di Domenico, S. I., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research. Front Hum Neurosci, 11, 145-145. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00145 Fang, M., Gerhart, B., & Ledford Jr, G. E. (2013). Negative effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation: More smoke than fire. World at Work Quarterly, 16(2), 17-29. Lounsbury, J. W., Moffitt, L., Gibson, L. W., Drost, A. W., & Stevens, M. (2007). An investigation of personality traits in relation to job and career satisfaction of information technology professionals. Journal of information technology, 22(2), 174-183. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jit.2000094 Lounsbury, J. W., Moffitt, L., Gibson, L. W., Drost, A. W., & Stevens, M. (2007). An investigation of personality traits in relation to job and career satisfaction of information technology professionals. Journal of information technology, 22(2), 174-183. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jit.2000094 Magnus Bergendahl, Mats Magnusson & Jennie Björk (2015) Ideation High Performers: A Study of Motivational Factors, Creativity Research Journal, 27:4, 361-368, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2015.1088266 Peterson, J. B., Doidge, N., & Van, S. E. (2018). 12 rules for life: An antidote to chaos. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. The American psychologist, 55(1), 68-78. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68 Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 61, 101860. doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101860 Scott S, W., & Francis J, F. (2013). POWER, MORAL CLARITY, AND PUNISHMENT IN THE WORKPLACE. Academy of Management journal, 56(4), 1002-1023. doi:10.5465/amj.2010.0960 Weston, S. J., Cardador, M. T., Hill, P. L., Schwaba, T., Lodi-Smith, J., & Whitbourne, S. K. (2021). The Relationship Between Career Success and Sense of Purpose: Examining Linkages and Changes. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci, 76(1), 78-87. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbaa162 Wiersma, U. J. (1992). The effects of extrinsic rewards in intrinsic motivation: A meta analysis. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 65(2), 101-114. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8325.1992.tb00488.x

Call for Submissions: Robotics and Autonomous Systems 2040 – The Central Blue, The Forge, and Grounded Curiosity How will the future Australian Defence Force (ADF) exploit robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) to gain and maintain advantage across the continuum of competition and conflict? And how can the ADF counter threats to the future force posed by adversary RAS? These are the questions currently being asked by the ADF’s Force Exploration Branch as they prepare to draft the ADF’s Concept for Robotic and Autonomous Systems 2040. In a first for the Australian military blogosphere The Central Blue, The Forge, and  Grounded Curiosity are collaborating to support the development of the ADF’s Future Joint Concepts.  This will be achieved through our reader and contributor networks and using our platforms as an outlet for the resulting ideas. Our #adfras2040 series will inform debate and contribute to the Concept for Robotics and Autonomous Systems 2040, which aims to describe how the future ADF will implement RAS to achieve strategic advantage from the end of this decade RAS has been touted as a disruptive technology with the potential to usher the world into a 4th Industrial Revolution. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, swarming, alternative energy, additive manufacturing, and advanced materials are converging into RAS. Systems are already being developed with high levels of autonomy, stealth, and persistence; as systems such as the Sea Hunter and the Boeing Air Power Teaming System (Loyal Wingman) move beyond design documents into testing, they are focusing attention on how RAS can improve current military capabilities. The ADF’s future concept developers want to look beyond the immediate and consider how the ADF of the future should embrace RAS so that it can succeed in 2040. In addition to the opportunities RAS present, Force Exploration is also looking at the threats they pose. The ADF will not be the only actor seeking strategic disruption using RAS. State and non-state actors are pursuing this technology for their own advantage against our strategic interests. The adversary gets a vote. So, in addition to determining ADF requirements to employ RAS, it is vital that force designers also explore how the ADF will counter the threat of RAS? Do RAS have unique vulnerabilities that can be exploited? The Central Blue/Forge/Grounded Curiosity #adfras2040 series will explore these questions and consider how the future ADF can use RAS to pursue and assure a strategic advantage over potential adversaries. We encourage submissions from students, academics, policymakers, service personnel of all ranks, industry, and from others with an interest in these issues. We (the editors) encourage potential contributors to engage the editorial teams early in their writing process! To help get you started, we pose the following topic suggestions: Countering highly autonomous systems. How can the ADF exploit weaknesses in autonomous systems to counter the threat that they pose? Will the ADF need to adapt existing activities (like camouflage) to counter RAS, or are there new weaknesses to exploit? Meaningful human control. How does the ADF determine what is meaningful human control of RAS, and how should its current command and control arrangements change for RAS? RAS For Information Warfare. How can the ADF utilise non-physical systems to challenge the information environment? Innovative Capabilities. Current RAS strategies use the ‘enhance/augment/replace’ mentality for implementing RAS into military forces. Could RAS provide the opportunity for entirely new capabilities, not just the replacement of existing capabilities? Trusting autonomy. How does the ADF develop trust in autonomous systems? How does it adapt its current engineering processes to understand how RAS perform and generate trust in systems that may not perform as predictably as deterministic systems? Training RAS. How does the ADF develop collective training so that it trains with RAS to gain trust in their capabilities? As well as training a human audience, how does the ADF provide training and experience to RAS in future exercises? Personnel. What skills will the future workforce need to operate RAS? How could RAS change the structure of the ADF workforce? Data. What does the ADF need to do now to ensure that we have relevant datasets that RAS can utilise in 20 years? This series is the first of what we hope will be more collaborative efforts to support the ADF’s concept developers. Although #adfras2040 is a collaborative series, there is no plan to cross-post submissions between sites. However, collaboration will be occurring behind the scenes, and on social media. Submissions close 17 July 2020. We encourage you to take the chance to have your voice heard by submitting your ideas to: The Central Blue (thecentralblue@gmail.com) The Forge (https://theforge.defence.gov.au/contribution_hub), or Grounded Curiosity (groundedcuriosity@gmail.com). The Concept for Robotic and Autonomous Systems 2040 author’s brief can be found here. Articles should be between 500 to 1500 words. Writing guidelines can be found here. #Robotics #RoyalAustralianNavy #artificialintelligence #AutonomousWarfare #futurewarfare #AustralianArmy #RoyalAustralianAirForce #AustralianDefenceForce #CallforSubmissions

In the second half of his series on NASA’s remote piloted aircraft, join Squadron Leader Michael Spencer as he deep dives into the Martian Air and Land operating environments, the unique difficulties these pose to the mission, and how success in disruptive technologies is increasingly becoming a collaborative effort. Understanding the complexities of this mission gives greater appreciation for NASA’s recent success on 22 April with the first flight of Ingenuity, while also inspiring ways that innovations such as Ingenuity can reimagine traditional mission methods both on Earth and beyond. The Martian Air and Land Operating Environment NASA’s "Ingenuity" helicopter was designed as an experimental technology demonstration with humankind's first powered and controlled flight on another planet. The designs for the mission and mission system have critically relied on years of scientific observations of Mars, the Martian air and land operating environments, and the Sun-Earth-Mars integrated operating environment. The Ingenuity mission follows design principles that can be important considerations for remotely piloted air power on Earth. Remote Pilots displaced in Space and Time One Earth day is 23 hours 54 minutes while one Mars sol is 24 hours 40 minutes. The different lengths of day on each planet impact the cyclic predictions for when the communications network can connect and transfer signals between the Earth ground station and the Perseverance base station. Furthermore, NASA requires that its Earthbound Mars mission workforce synchronise with the Martian sol cycle to be agile and responsive to any unexpected issues arising during the mission. The Earthbound workforce needs to cumulatively add 40 minutes to their daily routine, displacing their body clocks. Working to Mars time enables NASA mission planners, operators, and support crews to respond more quickly to the daily downlinked mission results, fault-finding, replanning, and timely uplink of commands for the next day's mission on Mars. Mars Air and Land Operating Environment The Martian surface features a mix of terrain with canyons, dry lake beds, craters, and volcanoes covered in fine dust and rocks. Fine red dust covers most of the Martian terrain, giving it a similar appearance to the red dust of the Australian Outback. Ingenuity's vertical lift capability provides an advantage for take-off and landing options; most powered fixed-wing aircraft need a prepared runway to function. The Martian atmosphere is a thin sheet of mixed gases surrounding the planet and comprises mainly carbon dioxide (95%) and oxygen (1%). Like Earth’s atmosphere, gravity holds the atmosphere to the Martian surface and atmospheric density, pressure, and temperature all decrease with altitude. The air density on the Martian surface is equivalent to about 1% of the air density at the Earth's surface where conventional helicopters operate. Ingenuity will demonstrate flight in similar flying conditions found in Earth's upper atmosphere above 100,000 feet. Currently, no helicopter has ever flown above 40,000 feet in Earth's atmosphere. Martian gravity is equivalent to about one-third of the gravity on Earth. Ingenuity has a mass of 18 kg on Earth and only weighs the equivalent of 6 kg on Mars. The thinner atmosphere and lower gravity on Mars enable Ingenuity to aerodynamically generate a greater lifting force than would be possible on Earth with the same vertical thrust. The air temperature at the Martian surface varies between minus 140 degrees Celsius overnight to plus 30 degrees Celsius during the day. The cold temperatures can cause damage to material components, joints, and coupling. Moving parts can also be susceptible to damage from both the freezing cold temperatures and the daily thermal changes as temperatures vary between the minimum and maximum temperature. Sun-Earth-Mars Integrated Operating Environment Mars is the fourth planet away from the Sun and the next planet beyond Earth. Newtonian physics describes how the planets orbiting further away from the Sun take longer to complete their orbit around the Sun (i.e. Earth-365 days; Mars 687 Earth days). Consequently, the direction and distance between Earth and Mars are changing non-linearly. The closest point of approach between Earth and Mars is about 62 million kilometres (5-minute radio signal transit), and the maximum separation is about 401 million kilometres (20-minute radio signal transit). The planets' relative positions are significant for keeping Earth ground station antennas pointing at Mars and realising the transmission time needed for signals to arrive at Mars and vice versa. The changing relative positions of the Earth ground station on the rotating Earth, a Mars-orbiting communications satellite (i.e. relay station), and the Perseverance rover (i.e. base station) sitting on the surface of a rotating planet, all together complicate the determination of the antenna pointing angles and duty cycles for the workforce on Earth. Moreover, radio blackouts naturally occur when the Mars orbiting relay satellite is either below the Martian horizon and not visible to Perseverance or the satellite is passing over the far side of Mars which blocks its transmissions to Earth. Figure 4. Artist rendering of commercial Mars satellites providing communications back to Earth (NASA image). Additionally, Earth and Mars will occasionally be positioned directly in line but on opposite sides of the Sun when solar flux disrupts radio transmissions, which causes a radio blackout between the two planets for about two weeks. The blackout period requires that mission planners use accurate simulation prediction models of the planetary orbits and planet rotations to precisely determine the antenna pointing angles and predictions of radio blackout periods. A remotely piloted system will need to rely on automation to continue functioning with a planned extended-duration mission or contingency actions when line-of-communication is broken. Space is a complex environment for understanding natural disruption risks to radio signals travelling between Earth and Mars, up to approximately 401 million kilometres one-way. Significant threats can be attributed to radiation effects from space weather, solar winds, and solar storms that can disrupt radio signals and unprotected electrical systems. Cosmic background radiation noise and unpredictable cosmic radio bursts can also disrupt radio transmissions. It is essential to understand the natural environment to understand the risks to mission activities and correctly attribute causes and effects that may drive better system designs for damage prevention or functional designs for more straightforward repairs and remediation. An Australian Connection is Critical to Mission Success Australian technical staff employed by CSIRO operate the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN), during Australian daylight hours, from the NASA Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) Tidbinbilla. CDSCC Tidbinbilla is one of three ground stations strategically located around the world (i.e. Madrid, Spain; California, USA; Tidbinbilla, Australia) to assure continuous communications links with interplanetary and deep space missions as the Earth rotates. The DSN must be operated 24/7, requiring the ground crews in each station to transfer the line-of-sight communications link to the next DSN station with Mars in its field-of-view as the Earth rotates. Management responsibility for operating the DSN is also rotated between the three separate DSN crews as the daylight operating hours shift across the globe. Australians operate CDSCC Tidbinbilla, and the DSN under an Australia-US agreed treaty being executed by CSIRO and NASA. Figure 5. Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex Tidbinbilla (NASA image). Conclusion Ingenuity is a remotely piloted rotary aircraft displaced in space and time. NASA uses Ingenuity to innovate ways for using off-the-shelf materials and engineering to develop a helicopter to disrupt the established means and missions traditionally used for interplanetary exploration. The first powered, controlled flight in the air sets a milestone for the first use of air power by humankind on another planet. Reviewing and understanding the details of NASA's achievements with Ingenuity helps understand design risks for RPAS missions and mission systems on Earth. About the Author Squadron Leader Michael Spencer is a Maritime Patrol & Response Officer in the Air Force Reserve. He started his Air Force career as a Navigator in P-3C Orions, conducting long-range maritime patrols. During an extensive and diverse Air Force career, he completed postgraduate studies in space science at the Royal Military College of Canada for duties back in Australia in the Defence Space Coordination Office and Defence acquisitions of ground-based space surveillance systems. Currently, he is employed in the Defence COVID-19 Task Force and the Air Force Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Team. He also promotes space interests and opportunities through volunteering with the Space Law Council –Australia & New Zealand and the American Institute for Aeronautics & Astronautics. Bibliography Open-source intelligence available online from NASA for Mars, Perseverance, and Ingenuity. Air Force (2013). AAP1000-D The Air Power Manual. Sixth Edition. Air and Space Power Centre. Online at https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/media/PDF-Files/Doctrine/AAP1000-D-The-Air-Power-Manual-6th-Edition.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2021. Air Force (2019). AFDN 1-19 Air-Space Integration. Air and Space Power Centre. Online at https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/media/PDF-Files/Doctrine/AFDN-1-19-Air-Space-Integration.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2021. Associated Press (2021). NASA unveils details of Mars helicopter Ingenuity, containing piece of Wright brothers' first plane, ABC News. Online at https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100025168. Accessed 25 March 2021. NASA (2021). Deep Space Network – Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. Online at https://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/. Accessed 27 March 2021. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2021). Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Landing Press Kit. Online at www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/ingenuity/landing/. Accessed 25 March 2021.

In this two part series, Squadron Leader Michael Spencer details the significance of NASA’s remote piloted aircraft, the Ingenuity helicopter. In this first installment, Spencer outlines NASA’s mission concept and system designed to integrate the air domain into space exploration. This disruptive technology showcases the innovation of NASA engineers and how accessible off-the shelf technologies can be all that’s needed to challenge traditional methods and missions. The Ingenuity helicopter’s importance goes beyond space exploration, with the mission providing understanding of design risks for remote piloted aircraft systems missions and mission systems on Earth. NASA is preparing to test fly its "Ingenuity" helicopter deployed on Mars in mid- April 2021 in an experimental technology demonstration of humankind's first powered and controlled flight on another planet. The test flight and mission systems' designs have followed fundamental principles that can be important considerations to make effective designs for remotely piloted air power on Earth. Figure 1. NASA illustration depicting the Ingenuity Mars helicopter standing on Mars next to the Perseverance rover (NASA image). Ingenuity & Perseverance – NASA Effort to Integrate Air and Space Power Air power theorists and practitioners should be keenly monitoring the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission. NASA configured the Perseverance rover to carry the "Ingenuity" helicopter to demonstrate the first remotely piloted air vehicle operated by humankind on another planet as a potential disruptive technology to include in future space missions. NASA specifically designed the vertical lift air vehicle for autonomous, powered, and controlled flight in thin Martian air. NASA's mission objective for Ingenuity is not part of the primary science mission for the Perseverance rover but a separate and discrete engineering target to "demonstrate the viability of rotorcraft flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars." NASA hopes the Ingenuity flight test will demonstrate a disruptive technology that may expand options available for future NASA interplanetary exploration missions to planets with an atmosphere. Mission complexity has increased with each successful NASA mission to Mars. In early missions, NASA landed sensors on the Martian surface that directly observed the landing site area and periodically exchanged data when Earth appeared in view. The latest NASA exploratory program relies on increasing the rover's size with each mission to mobilise increasingly larger sensor payloads to cover a greater surface area. Most recently, NASA successfully landed its Mars 2020 Perseverance mission on Mars with the largest-sized rover ever launched from Earth. Perseverance can carry more sensors with a greater capacity for mission roles and functions. The Perseverance rover will autonomously follow its daily uplinked mission plans to gather scientific data for NASA to study different types of Martian terrain. It also collects rock and dust samples where a future NASA recovery mission will return them to Earth and seek out microbial signs of ancient life on Mars. However, ground features on the Martian surface can pose risks and constraints to the rover missions' daily plans. Rough terrain, steep slopes and soft soil can adversely affect the stability, manoeuvrability, routing options, and maximum daily endurance and operating range. Figure 2. The Mars Helicopter Delivery System (centre) holds Ingenuity aboard the Perseverance rover (NASA image). Ingenuity, a solar-powered, electric motor driven and autonomously controlled helicopter was stowed on board the Perseverance rover. NASA is using Ingenuity to explore the feasibility and advantages of exploiting the Martian air domain to aerodynamically stabilise, manoeuvre, and mobilise an airborne sensor with greater freedom of manoeuvre than is possible with a ground vehicle. Ingenuity is a test asset and is not carrying sensors to support the Perseverance rover's science mission. NASA designed Ingenuity to demonstrate autonomous operations, follow remotely planned missions, and exchange data and command signals with its base station configured in the Perseverance rover to communicate with Earth. An air vehicle can more easily and readily reach new vantage points over and beyond ground features that might generally limit or deny routes for the rover, constraining the reach of groundborne sensors. Accessing and exploiting the Martian air domain will improve future NASA exploration missions to deploy sensors with increased speed, reach, flexibility, and responsiveness and with improved sensor coverage over the ground. More importantly, the air power advantage provides a perspective that will enable the airborne deployed sensor to see further in range, see more within the same field-of-view, and cover greater ground area more quickly. Vertical lift negates the constraints and additional design burdens needed to enable fixed-wing aircraft flight. The ability to reach an altitude above the ground will improve the search capabilities by elevating a sensor to extend the surface range and expand the coverage area using the same sensor field-of-view. Additionally, the hover capability will enable the airborne placement and steering of a sensor to look at surface phenomena from above and make observations where the ground terrain denies access to the rover. The vertical lift capability enables Ingenuity to take-off and land without needing a prepared runway to transition between zero and flight speed, unlike fixed-wing aircraft. Ingenuity's vertical-lift capability allows it to descend vertically over the edge of steep terrain or into a naturally formed cavernous hole (e.g. fissure, crater, lava tube, etc.) and recover, using a vertical trajectory to reach a point in time and space more efficiently than is possible for a rover navigating through the varying conditions on the ground. Mission Concept Perseverance will travel to a previously surveyed area assessed by NASA as suitable for supporting the flight trials. The first mission outcome is to validate that the Perseverance mission successfully delivered a functioning helicopter to Mars. Ingenuity needs a test area that is level with stable solid ground and with low risks of foreign object damage from the dust and debris blown up from its rotor-wash. For similar safety reasons, plus compliance with planetary protection protocols, Perseverance will depart to maintain a safe standoff distance from the flight test area for the flight trial duration. NASA did not intend for Ingenuity to operate organically with Perseverance. Still, it will maintain line-of-sight communications with the Perseverance base station to receive downlinked mission plans from the remote pilots on Earth and uplink flight test results back to Earth. Figure 3. The flight test programmed planned by NASA for Ingenuity (NASA image). Ingenuity will be programmed to ascend only to a height of three-metres for its first test flight. The test flight program will incrementally increase the flight duration, operating altitude, and travel distance over each of five test flights planned on separate days over a month. After the end of the month-long flight trial, Perseverance will depart to continue on its intended science mission without Ingenuity. Mission System NASA JPL engineers challenged themselves to develop a design for the air vehicle, preferably using off-the-shelf software, system components, and manufacturing techniques where possible. The final design needed to be lightweight, radiation-resistant, ruggedised to survive a space lift, transit, and descent to Mars, and then perform powered controlled flight in the thin Mars air. The result is the 1.8 kg Ingenuity helicopter appearing similar in physical size to a box of tissues configured with an electrically powered motor to drive two contra-rotating composite carbon-fibre rotor blades. The made-for-Mars helicopter design uses two stacked contra-rotating blades spinning at 2,400 revolutions per minute, creating a spinning disc measuring about 1.2 metres in diameter. The Ingenuity power subsystem is configured with a battery in the payload and solar panels optimised to harvest the reduced solar flux arriving at Mars and mounted above the rotors. The battery can be recharged within one Mars day. Approximately one-third of the power budget is needed to heat the onboard systems to survive the freezing temperatures at night; the electronic payload uses one-third of its power for navigation (feature imaging camera, point-to-point mission guidance software, laser altimeter, inertial measurement system), flight management, and communications (to the Perseverance base station); and one-third of the power drives the rotor blades on each daily mission. The remote operation of both the Mars rovers and the Ingenuity helicopter incurs a significant time delay needed for the control and data signals, travelling at the speed of light to transit between Earth and Mars. On average, the one-way transmission time is about 20 minutes, depending on the planets' relative positions. The average 40-minute delay in receiving feedback signals means that the mission cannot rely on remote pilots to control the helicopter manually. Ingenuity needs to rely on a flight management system to autonomously follow a downlinked mission plan with a digitised representation of the flight trajectory prepared during the previous Martian day by the remote pilots on Earth. Operating during Martian daylight hours, Ingenuity will use its laser-altimeter, inertial measurement unit, and a downwards looking feature camera. The camera captures distinctive ground features that can be autonomously identified to track relative position, speed and direction from sequential images to navigate Ingenuity around the flight test area. The designs for the mission and mission system have critically relied on years of scientific observations of Mars, the Martian air and land operating environments, and the Sun-Earth-Mars integrated operating environment that will be described in Part 2 of this article. Squadron Leader Michael Spencer is a Maritime Patrol & Response Officer in the Air Force Reserve. He started his Air Force career as a Navigator in P-3C Orions, conducting long-range maritime patrols. During an extensive and diverse Air Force career, he completed postgraduate studies in space science at the Royal Military College of Canada for duties back in Australia in the Defence Space Coordination Office and Defence acquisitions of ground-based space surveillance systems. Currently, he is employed in the Defence COVID-19 Task Force and the Air Force Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems(RPAS) Team. He also promotes space interests and opportunities through volunteering with the Space Law Council –Australia & New Zealand and the American Institute for Aeronautics & Astronautics. Bibliography Open-source intelligence available online from NASA for Mars, Perseverance, and Ingenuity. Air Force (2013). AAP1000-D The Air Power Manual. Sixth Edition. Air and Space Power Centre. Online at https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/media/PDF-Files/Doctrine/AAP1000-D-The-Air-Power-Manual-6th-Edition.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2021. Air Force (2019). AFDN 1-19 Air-Space Integration. Air and Space Power Centre. Online at https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/APDC/media/PDF-Files/Doctrine/AFDN-1-19-Air-Space-Integration.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2021. Associated Press (2021). NASA unveils details of Mars helicopter Ingenuity, containing piece of Wright brothers' first plane, ABC News. Online at https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100025168. Accessed 25 March 2021. NASA (2021). Deep Space Network – Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. Online at https://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/. Accessed 27 March 2021. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2021). Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Landing Press Kit. Online at www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/ingenuity/landing/. Accessed 25 March 2021.

In our fourth instalment in our series on how can you help make the #AFSTRAT a reality, Flying Officer Patrick Helsing raises important questions about potential disconnects between the values of Air Force and broader Australian society. AFSTRAT 2020 LOE 4 outlines Air Force’s intent to evolve its culture to reflect that of Australia’s demographics in order to deliver air and space power. Australian society’s perception of Air Force culture directly impacts the willingness for underrepresented groups to consider military service. For the Air Force to be viewed by these groups as an attractive employer of choice, it needs to better understand and address the values of the younger generation of people who will be joining the Air Force of tomorrow. LOE 4 states that understanding cultural norms and questioning the status quo is a necessary element to recruiting and sustaining an inclusive Air Force. Two widely different examples illustrate that we may not currently be reflecting the culture of many young Australians. Many high schools across Australia are abandoning stringent grooming standards. Meanwhile, the Royal Air Force has allowed its members to grow beards. This leads us to question whether current Air Force grooming standards are really value adding to air and space power, or aligns with the values of young Australians across society. Similarly, while the Roulettes provide a means for recruitment; their target is an environmentally mindful generation also concerned about the real effects of global warming. Therefore, the use of superfluous pollutants such as smoke to make their displays more entertaining may not be culturally aligned to the values of many young Australians. To achieve the AFSTRAT LOE 4 goal of evolving the Air Force’s culture so it reflects the values of the Australian people, we must be proactive in our approach. Our goal must be to better understand and address the values of young Australians – the Air Force members of tomorrow. Flying Officer Patrick Helsing is an Aeronautical Engineer in the Royal Australian Air Force. He joined the Air Force in 2018 after working in private industry and is currently studying a Masters of Space Engineering at UNSW Canberra while working in a System Safety role at Air Training and Aviation Commons Systems Program Office. Follow him on LinkedIn @Patrick Helsing

Dr Robbin Laird The Strategic Shift and the Role of Airpower: A Discussion with Ben Lambeth Second Line of Defense, 10 April 2021 I have been focused for several years on what I see as a clear and dramatic shift from how civilians and the military have looked at the land wars in the Middle East to now dealing with adversaries who have built forces for contested operations across the spectrum of operations. We have a generation of civilian and military leaders who have not lived in the context of dealing with peer nuclear powers with significant conventional capability. It is not surprising that understanding of escalation management has atrophied. The strategic shift has a very dramatic impact on maritime and airpower, which clearly should be the ascendent services in the Pentagon to sort through the way ahead. And integration of air and maritime power is the key to meeting the strategic interests of the United States. But the U.S. Army still predominates with a Sec Def from the Army, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from the Army and two 4 Army Four Stars in a theater where the U.S. Army does not have the central, perhaps even a central role to play, namely in the Pacific. So how do we make the transition? How do we shape a relevant concept of operations? And how do we stop ground pounders from thinking that they can put missiles into the first island chain or on allied soil ringing China without even considering their impact on escalation management with nuclear powers? It is useful to remember that the Russians face three nuclear powers in the Atlantic; and the United States and its Pacific allies face three nuclear powers in the Pacific. Recently, I reviewed the new book by Ben Lambeth which provide his assessment of the shift from the pure dominance over airpower of counterinsurgency operations to the fight against ISIS, a fight which required airpower to remove the Army’s shackles on its proper use against a state-like competitor. I followed up from that review to talk with the author about how he came to write the book and his sense of the challenges moving forward beyond the land wars. Question: Why did you write the book? Lambeth: “Looking back on my collected work over the past two decades, I’ve made a productive career of writing in-depth air campaign assessments, starting out with my chapters that revisited both the Vietnam air war and Operation Desert Storm in a book of mine published in 2000 called The Transformation of American Air Power. “In the years since then, I went on to produce even more detailed studies of NATO’s air war for Kosovo in 1999, of Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan that followed the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, and of the air contribution to the three-week major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003 that finally toppled Saddam Hussein. “In light of that background, it seemed only natural that once our initially anemic response to the rise of ISIS in August 2014 eventually expanded into a more effective and sustained air effort, that I should take on a critical assessment of that campaign as well.” Question: I was working for Mike Wynne at the time when the Sec Def and the Bush and then the Obama Administrations clearly cut back on the role of airpower and reduced it to support for the ground operations. Was this legacy finally being shed in Operation Inherent Resolve? Lambeth: “Clearly, as counterinsurgency operations became the predominant American way of war after 2003, the USAF lost a lot of muscle memory for doing much of anything else by way of higher-end force employment. “And the predominant Army leadership at U.S. Central Command continued to apply its long-habituated Army thinking going forward into an entirely different situation that was presented by the rise of ISIS. A more assertive leadership in CENTCOM’s air component at the time would have pressed for a different response to the challenge it was handed in 2014 by arguing for targeting ISIS not as an insurgency, but rather as a self-avowed state in the making. “However, CENTCOM’s commander, U.S. Army General Lloyd Austin III, simply assumed ISIS to be a regenerated Islamist insurgency of the sort that he was most familiar with, which it was not at all, and accordingly proceeded to engage it as just another counterinsurgency challenge. “Eventually, his air component’s second successive commander, then-Lieutenant General C. Q. Brown, finally prevailed in arguing for deliberate strategic air attacks against critical ISIS infrastructure targets in both Iraq and Syria, not just for on-call air “support” to be used as flying artillery for the ground fight. “One must remember that the vast majority of today’s serving U.S. Air Force airmen are only familiar with Operation Desert Storm from their book reading. “And even much of the USAF’s more senior leadership today has never really been exposed to higher-end aerial warfare as we last experienced it over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003. Only now are we slowly coming to realize the opportunity costs that were inflicted by this neglect for nearly two decades, during which time we fixated solely on less-intense counterinsurgency warfare..” Question: Then how do you see the challenge of transition posed by the strategic shift? Lambeth: “It is clearly a significant one. “And the continued absence of proper understanding where it matters most is suggested by the recent Army bid to deploy long-range missiles into the Pacific as one of their contributions. “This is simply a crass attempted roles-and-missions grab in order to stay operationally relevant, yet in a theater in which airpower – both land- and sea-based –clearly offers the only cost-effective tool for addressing the challenges presented in that arena. “In a way, we find ourselves today much like where we were at the end of the Vietnam War. “While we were consumed then by the eight-year distraction of that self-inflicted experience, the Soviet Union enjoyed essentially a free ride for modernizing its nuclear and conventional force postures without significant offsetting measures by us. “It took nearly two decades of hard work in the force development and training arenas for us to compensate in full for that failure to hold up our end of the strategic competition with Moscow. “Fortunately, we succeeded just in time to pave the way for our eventual success in Desert Storm and for the collapse of Soviet communism that followed shortly thereafter. “I believe we face a similar challenge today looking into the third decade of the 21st Century, with a rising China and a resurgent Russia now dominating tomorrow’s threat horizon. “We need to recognize this and wake up to the fact that the challenges we’re now facing are totally unlike the challenge we faced in fighting yesterday’s land wars in Southwest Asia. “But in order for that to happen, the country needs an amalgam of leadership that sees and understands this newly-emerging big picture correctly. “I have long felt, indeed ever since Desert Storm, that CENTCOM is organized incorrectly. CENTCOM’s area of responsibility has long been air-centric, in my opinion. And yet that organization has been consistently commanded by a succession of Army and Marine Corps four-stars. “That, to my mind, has repeatedly entailed putting a square peg into a round hole. “I’ve often felt that it would have been truly an inspired move after Desert Storm if its commander who largely swung that war’s successful outcome, U.S. Air Force General Chuck Horner, had been appointed CENTCOM’s next commander to replace U.S. Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. Or, that failing, had the successful air commander for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, U.S. Air Force General Buzz Moseley, been tapped to become the next commander of CENTCOM. “Either move would have finally broken the mold of the ground services’ long-held but increasingly anachronistic monopoly on that key position in today’s world. “That, in turn, might have made a fundamental difference in our subsequent combat experience in that part of the world for the better.” Lambeth’s Mitchell Forum overview on his book is included in the Second Line of Defense article