Combat operations have never been a simple affair—and in a peer- or near-peer conflict, speed and complexity will ratchet up the pressure on commanders trying to decipher and control the battlespace.
Jon “BigDogg” Rhone knows first-hand how that will stress the system. As director of operations at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, he directed combat operations in four theaters of operation from late 2015 through the spring of 2017, coordinating dynamic decision-making among 18 partner countries—depending on make-shift solutions to manage technical barriers to data sharing.
“A lot of it was sneaker-net,” Rhone said. “If I had some intelligence information that was pertinent, either I or somebody on the team would have to literally walk 200 to 300 yards through four or five different doors to the special technical operations cell—and only then would we nave the ability to make decisions.”
Now Rhone is the C5ISR Integration Lead at SAIC, where he’s helping to engineer the future of fast-paced information sharing and decision making for the Air Force.
“When we fight against a peer adversary … we’re going to have to get quick, reliable access to that data,” he said. “When you look at something as a coalition member, and I look at something as an American, the data has got to be the same.”
Enhanced intelligence and surveillance technologies mean ever more data flooding into decision makers. The JSTARS airborne battle management command and control ISR platform will ultimately be replaced with space-based and airborne sensors providing Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) capability. “Not only are you looking for specific military vehicles,” Rhone said, “but now you’re trying to sift through all the other moving targets that are out there.”
To ensure commanders aren’t overwhelmed by such an influx of data, next-generation battle management systems can leverage Artificial Intelligence to screen that data, identifying the most pressing threats and opportunities.
“The system has to automatically distill what you or I can see,” he said. Operating at machine speeds, AI will be able to flag indicators and offer potential decision options or courses of action at a speed greater than would be possible without it.
“If we make decisions too slow, we’re going to lose the fight,” Rhone said. “I don’t believe you can win this war without automation.”
Higher-level commanders remain skeptical about ceding any decision authority to machines, but “the men and women that are the captains, the sergeants—that are making decisions—they’re ready for automation,” Rhone said. “They’re ready for AI to help make decisions, if not make some of the decisions for them.”
As is the case today, the intensity of action is likely to determine who has decision-making authority. “I don’t think that that mindset or that culture is going to be any different with Artificial Intelligence,” he said.
To prepare for this future, Rhone said Air Force leaders must start thinking now about how this is going to work: “How are we going to test this? How do we train to that? How do we have crews, the people, and the system show that they’re ready for combat?”
As a systems integrator and strategist, Rhone said the key is “not necessarily talking about what we’re going to do in combat, but what we do leading up to that.”
“The operators and the warfighters have needs,” he explained. “We do our very best to run that through the system, and help the acquisition community turn that into requirements.” Then, as an integrator, SAIC takes an agnostic approach, neither defining its own bespoke standards nor marrying itself to one unique solution or another. “Our job is to go find best of breed,” Rhone said. “While we do have some products, we’re not necessarily wedded to those products. We are very happy to go find the best of breed and to integrate that in a manner that is digestible by decision-makers to help them speed decisions.”
AI will not be the answer for every one of those processes. “There are volumes of information out there and volumes of needs and requirements,” Rhone said. The focus now needs to be identifying which among those can be aided with AI—and which get top priority?
“What are the top two?” Rhone asks. “Let’s focus on that.”