Could COVID-19 End the Next Generation Air Dominance Program?

Could COVID-19 End the Next Generation Air Dominance Program?

Dec. 10, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force’s top weapons buyer is worried the top-secret Next Generation Air Dominance program might become an “unintended casualty” of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The final draft of the fiscal 2021 defense policy bill cuts $70 million from the NGAD program for a total authorization of $974 million, while also calling for the Pentagon’s cost-assessment office to review NGAD and the Air Force’s Digital Century Series. Will Roper, the Air Force’s assistant secretary of acquisition, told Air Force Magazine in a recent interview the department is struggling to share the successes of NGAD as well as the effectiveness of digital engineering in part because of social distancing.

“The thing that’s the big delineator on NGAD is whether we’re able to talk with folks on the Hill in a classified level or not,” Roper said. “It’s a difficult program to say anything on without being able to get in the SCIF.”

The classified nature of future Air Force programs, to also include things such as the Advanced Battle Management System and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, has led to skepticism about the Air Force’s plans, and heightened the perception that the service does not have attainable goals. Roper attempted to alleviate some of these concerns in September by dropping the bombshell that an NGAD prototype has already flown. The prototype was built through digital engineering, which already has proven its capability through other less-classified programs such as the T-7A Red Hawk.

“It’s helped us a little bit being able to talk about digital engineering and the fact we’re using revolutionary commercial approaches on this high-end aircraft that were applied, exceptionally successfully, to the T-7,” Roper said. “It’s helped us to say that a full-scale flight demonstrator has flown. That we’re not just talking theory, but we’ve taken this to practice. But to really talk about anything that makes us excited about the program, we have to get in the SCIF. And that’s been difficult during COVID-19. I hope NGAD does not become an unintended casualty of COVID-19.”

NGAD is changing the game for the Air Force not just in the capability of the aircraft, but it has also shown it’s possible to change and accelerate acquisition. Other industries have been able to modernize their acquisitions and production approaches, and the same needs to be done for the Air Force so new combat aircraft don’t need to come from the same major companies on extended timelines, Roper said. 

“I’ll say what we’re proposing is pretty radical,” Roper said. “That’s exactly what tactical aviation needs. We’ve been stuck in a rut since the end of the Cold War and we’ve watched a commercial industry radically change in a way the defense industry hasn’t. So, with this breakthrough technology, that’s already changed the automotive industry, peeking into defense, a really valid question would be why aren’t you doing something radical with it?”

Roper asks skeptics to give the Air Force a chance.

The goal of shorter timelines and less expense means there’s less to lose. “You don’t really have to believe in the approach to approve of the program. Because if we fail, we’re going to fail in practice, and you’re going to be able to tell long before we get to that Digital Century Series. You’ll be able to tell because we’re behind on all of our deliverables and we’re not integrating as quickly as you can. You’ll know far in advance of us trying to do that alternating vendor business. So if you want to see that aircraft procurement curve bent, hopefully broken, then give us a shot.”

The rapid development of NGAD, coupled with extended use of digital engineering, open architecture systems, and agile software development for weapons systems, are needed to quickly bring to bear new capabilities needed for a new era, Roper argued.

But first, it needs to survive the pandemic.

“We’ve got to hope that things get back to normal so we can get back in SCIFs as quickly as we can and just do the best we can at an unclassified level to explain why this technology that revolutionized the automotive industry, why it is revolutionizing military programs and the handful of instances where it has found root,” Roper said. “It just happens that it has been exceptionally classified in one of those instances.”

Here Are the USAF and Space Force Jobs That’ll Qualify for Retention Bonuses Next Year

Here Are the USAF and Space Force Jobs That’ll Qualify for Retention Bonuses Next Year

Dec. 10, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The Department of the Air Force on Dec. 10 announced which Air Force Specialty Codes will be included in the fiscal 2021 Selective Retention Bonus program. 

This year’s program added nine new career fields, but dropped 40 others from eligibility, according to a release from the department. View the full list of qualifying AFSCs for the fiscal 2021 SRB program here.

“Overall retention levels are at record highs and manning within many of our career fields is healthy,” said Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly in the release. “This reduces our requirement and opportunity to utilize retention bonuses to the same extent.”

Any Airman or Space Professional whose job has been earmarked “for a reduction or termination,” and who currently qualifies to re-up their service commitment, “must execute a qualifying contract” before those changes take effect on Feb. 4, the list said.

“We are giving members advanced notice of impacted AFSCs this year given the challenges associated with COVID-19,” Kelly added in the release. “We want to ensure our members have the right information and enough time to make informed career decisions.”

The SRB program aims to keep experienced Air Force and Space Force troops in career fields that are undermanned or that come with high training price tags, the department wrote.

The department has allocated over $55 million to cover the fiscal 2021 program, which takes effect on Jan. 5, 2021, the release said.

U.S. to ‘Focus’ Support in Afghanistan, Iraq as Drawdown Continues

U.S. to ‘Focus’ Support in Afghanistan, Iraq as Drawdown Continues

Dec. 10, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

The U.S. military is on pace to meet the Jan. 15 deadline to withdraw forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, and though the head of U.S. Central Command said American forces can still meet their main goals, the “margins will be less” because of the smaller footprint.

President Donald J. Trump ordered the Pentagon to draw down to 2,500 forces each in the two countries, and CENTCOM boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said Dec. 10 that it will be “no trouble” to reach that level.

In Afghanistan, the remaining troops will be able to conduct counter terrorism operations, if necessary, while also supporting Afghan forces with surveillance and air strikes. But because of the reduction in forces, down from about 4,000 when the order was made, the military will have to “be very careful and focused on when to do it,” McKenzie said during a virtual Defense One event.

While the Taliban “may believe they are on the cusp of a military victory, … we believe our Afghan partners … can maintain a defense against the Taliban even if we are at 2,500,” he said. Additionally, there will still be thousands of NATO and partner forces in the country.

In Iraq, the U.S. military is also on the “glideslope” to reduce to 2,500, down from about 3,000 when the order came. That number “allows us to continue our activities in Iraq much as we are doing now,” McKenzie said. NATO will also increase its presence in the country to continue the training mission.

In addition to the thousands of troops, the U.S. will need to bring out equipment so there isn’t excess in the countries, McKenzie said.

Air Mobility Command boss Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, speaking to Air Force Magazine on Dec. 9, said existing airlift capacity in the region will meet the demand, with a likely increase in operations tempo.

“We have a pretty decent presence downrange in C-17, C-130. We’re already doing missions there,” she said, adding that the upcoming drawdown will not be on the same level as previous reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’ve already stretched down the airfields out there. We’ll be doing, probably, a little more flying hours. I don’t see a massive mobilization.”

USAF airlifters have mastered the missions of flying materiel into and out of the Middle East, and “it looks like we have a very solid system for the way out. We’re going to be focused on coming out, making sure that’s done properly, securely, such that we’re not increasing the threats to anyone, either us or coalition forces, and that we do it very stepwise,” Van Ovost said. “You know, we’re planners, that’s what we do. And frankly we plan for this all the time, so I don’t see a massive mobilization necessary to do the work we need to do in Central Command.”

B-52s Fly Direct to the Persian Gulf from Barksdale

B-52s Fly Direct to the Persian Gulf from Barksdale

Dec. 10, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Two B-52s flew directly to the Persian Gulf from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., in what the military says is a message of deterrence to Iran.

The bombers, from the 2nd Bomb Wing, took off from their home base Dec. 9 and integrated with other U.S. Air Force and partner nation aircraft during the long-range mission, according to a U.S. Central Command release. The tasking came on a short notice, with the goal of proving the U.S. can send bombers anywhere, anytime.

“The ability to fly strategic bombers halfway across the world in a non-stop mission, and to rapidly integrate them with multiple regional partners, demonstrates our close working relationships and our shared commitment to regional security and stability,” U.S. Central Command boss USMC Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. said in a release.

It was the second time in less than a month that B-52s flew directly to the Middle East from the continental United States. On Nov. 21, B-52s from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., flew a long-range, short-notice mission to the region, where they integrated with KC-10s, KC-135s, F-15Es, and F-16s deployed to CENTCOM.

Earlier this year, the Air Force pulled its bombers out of the region after basing them at Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar, almost continuously since 2001. Initially, a deployed group of B-52s moved from Al-Udeid to Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia before the service moved to sending the long-range flights from home bases. Air Force Global Strike Command said in April that it no longer wanted to base its “strategic assets” within Iran’s ballistic missile engagement zone.

McKenzie, speaking Dec. 10 at a Defense One virtual event, said there was no specific threat from Iran, but the U.S. recently has taken steps to reduce its footprint in the region, such as drawing down the amount of American personnel at the embassy in Baghdad, which he called a “smart judgment made based on the threats we see out there right now.”

There could be an increased threat from Iran as the one-year anniversary of the U.S. killing of Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani approaches, combined with the upcoming U.S. Presidential transition. Additionally, the lack of a coherent chain of command between Iran and its proxies creates a concern that the proxy forces would act on their own, McKenzie said.

The No. 1 priority of CENTCOM is to deter Iran, and “convince them it is not in their interest to lash out. It is not in their interest to attack us directly or indirectly,” McKenzie added.

Ray: Great Power Competition Is an ‘Infinite Game’ with Russia, China

Ray: Great Power Competition Is an ‘Infinite Game’ with Russia, China

Dec. 10, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

In order to more effectively compete with Russia and China on the great-power stage, the United States must change the way it perceives—and plays—the game, Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. Timothy M. Ray said Dec. 10.

“We’re in a long-term, strategic competition with two realist, autocratic nations with existential arsenals at their disposal, and they do not share our worldview about how things should operate,” Ray said in pre-recorded remarks that aired during the 20th Nuclear Triad Symposium, noting that this contest has “significant stakes.” AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies cohosted the symposium with the Louisiana Tech Research Institute and the Cyber Innovation Center.

Ray said Air Force Global Strike Command is “attaching” itself to bestselling author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek’s concept of “the infinite game” in order to revolutionize its approach to great-power competition.

Ray broke it down like this:

  • The world has two kinds of games: finite ones, such as baseball, which exist within pre-established dimensions (think of innings), rules (think of outs), numbers of participants (i.e. a baseball diamond and its dugouts only accommodating two teams per game), and end in a decisive manner.
  • “With an infinite game, unlike a finite game, there are known and unknown players,” Ray explained. “They come and go from this particular competition with different equities, different rules. There’s no defined end state.”
  • In these infinite games, victory lies in surviving long enough to play another day. While a finite player takes a checkers-like approach to such a challenge, aiming to best their rivals by robbing them of “resources, time, or will,” Ray said infinite players approach these paradoxes like chess.

“I believe it’s profound, and I think it’s real,” Ray said of Sinek’s theory.

Video: Simon Sinek on YouTube

Consequently, if the U.S. is truly going to play “the infinite game” in its quest to best China and Russia on the great-power battlefield, it has to think like a chess player, acknowledge the game board that exists before it—versus the one it’d prefer to see—and strategize accordingly, Ray said.

“When we consider now that we have a Russian competitor, where only a portion of their arsenal is fully … modernized and covered by a treaty. We have a Chinese competitor, where none of their arsenal is covered by a treaty and, certainly, their ambition to match us as a nuclear near peer in the future. We have to reconcile that contextual reality very differently than we’ve done,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of picking our context. And I think that’s really important.”

Ray said this paradigm shift also requires the U.S. to consider China’s burgeoning identity as “a nuclear-armed adversary” that wields “multi-domain threats” and comprehends “the full nature of the competitive space” when brainstorming how to compete with it in the Pacific.

Ray added that while he entered 2020 expecting China to stick to its minimalist approach to nuclear deterrence, he now firmly believes it’s left those reservations behind.

“You’ve heard some of our senior leaders say publicly that, you know, the Chinese will at least double their nuclear arsenal by the end of the decade,” Ray said. “Most people glean the ‘double’ as the most important word in that conversation. I will tell you the most important words are ‘at least.’”

He said the nation now needs its “brightest minds” to help it “reconcile that particular reality.”

“Now, when you consider the real facts in front of us, the burden of proof on whether or not we need to modernize our triad in light of the Chinese—that’s not on me anymore,” he said. “That’s actually on … those who think we can do something differently in light of all those contextual realities. And as I said, again, you don’t get to pick your context; that context is now unequivocably given to us, and we have to think accordingly.”

EMS Wing Will Exploit New Architecture, But Don’t Expect a Silver Bullet

EMS Wing Will Exploit New Architecture, But Don’t Expect a Silver Bullet

Dec. 10, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s new electromagnetic spectrum warfare wing will exploit new software-based communications and sensor grids to quickly and more broadly answer electronic warfare challenges, but operators should not expect that a single-point approach to EMS warfare is coming, the unit’s incoming commander said Dec. 9.

“We have to distance ourselves from the notion of a single wonder widget—think stealth, atomic bomb—that’s going to offer us a long-term competitive advantage” in EMS, said Col. William Young, incoming commander of USAF’s new 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, during an AFA Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies streaming panel discussion. It’s not coming, he added.

The good news, though, is that the move toward software-reconfigurable radios and sensors, paired with a defense-wide EMS architecture—which hasn’t been built yet, and standards for which are still being discussed—will enable quicker and broader responses to electronic warfare challenges.

The creation of the EMS wing “lets us … begin to get after this software-defined capability. If you imagine a world where everything is either a software-defined radio, or a reprogrammable multifunction array, and then you build an organization that can compose what you’ve already got in new ways, but not messing with the underlying [operational flight programs] or the hardware [of an aircraft], now you get the opportunity to rapidly deliver new capability,” Young said. “And if the request for the capability is coming from warfighters at the edge, then now you’re taking advantage of the beauty of software … We can fix a problem that may not be enduring; we may have a different problem tomorrow, and that’s OK, because we have the organization and the people” who can develop swift responses “really well.”

The complexity of software is expanding exponentially, however, said Brig. Gen. David W. Abba, head of the F-35 integration office.

“On the F-15, we were talking a handful of people needed to do the electronic warfare reprogramming. [There was a] large leap to the F-22, with 25-30 people. With the F-35, because of the complexity of 150,000 data fields involved in a mission data file, [there are] about 150 people in the reprogramming lab” at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

As a result, USAF has to be able to write electronic and cyber warfare software that is applicable across a wide field of users and systems at once; doing it individually will impose a manpower demand that can’t be met.

To deal with this “exponential growth and increased reliance” on EW capabilities, it’s necessary to “standardize the reprogramming enterprise, so every time we got a new mode of a surface-to air missile, we weren’t rebuilding it 25 or 30 different times, but each weapon system could go in and extract” the software needed to modify their own systems.

The keys will be “standards, interoperability, and architecture,” said U.S. Strategic Command Deputy Director for Joint Electronic Spectrum Operations Brig. Gen. AnnMarie K. Anthony.

Asked about how the Air Force can exercise such that it doesn’t expose its EW playbook, Young said a balance will have to be struck between the benefits and liabilities of practice.

“We’re going to have to accept the fact we’re occasionally going to have to show our cards, but in doing that, [if] our gain is greater than what we lose, then that might be something we’re willing to risk,” he said. “… We might elect to show it, but even if we show [an adversary] our playbook, there’s not a damn thing [he] can do about it. That needs to be our mindset.”

Spectrum operations interoperability will also be foundational for joint all-domain command and control (JADC2), Young said.

“Imagine the potential of a common, integrated reprogramming platform that services not only the Air Force but the Navy and the Army … Imagine a common integrating reprogramming platform that allows us to share data and insights, the equivalent of apps, across all our teams, and allies, and coalition partners, … that’s the future.” Enemies will have to worry about “a composite system of platforms. Now they’ve got to worry about platforms under the sea, in space, on surface. That’s JADC2.”

It will also be necessary to think creatively about a problem and “not go through a long, drawn-out acquisition process,” but compose a solution “at the edge” of contact “and then go fight with it. And this afternoon, we’re going to bring something different.”

“That’s the utopia we want to get to: an ability to work across the various programs … to get them all consolidated,” said Dave Tremper, Pentagon director of electronic warfare. The Army is doing well with its EW programs because “they’re consolidated under a single PEO,” or program executive officer, Tremper added. That’s the right level to direct EMS standards and compliance, because “if you go too high” in the chain of command, “you don’t get that clarity.”

USAF Tech Incubator Goals for 2021: What Have You Got?

USAF Tech Incubator Goals for 2021: What Have You Got?

Dec. 9, 2020 | By Shaun Waterman

The Air Force’s technology incubator, which doles out more than 1,000 small research contracts worth up to $50,000 each year, unveiled an advance look at its 2021 programs during its virtual Accelerate event, Dec. 7-11—the first organized by the newly relaunched AFWERX 2.0.

AFWERX 2.0 will emphasize larger ticket research contracts, but seek to leverage USAF dollars spent on technology to attract other investments—both from the private sector and from other government customers, officials said. A new category of funding was unveiled, the single Supplemental Funding Pilot Program, intended to help fill the gap between existing small business research contracts and the Strategic Fund Increase, or STRATFI, funding announced earlier this year.

The single Supplemental Funding Pilot Program, combines the STRATFI funding, of which 18 awards between $3 and $15 million each were announced in March, with the new Tactical Fund Increase, or TACTFI, which will provide $375,000 to $1.7 million sized awards.

Both new funding categories require the recipients to get matching funds from either government or private sector sources, said Steve Lauver, another AFVentures official.

The STRATFI awards this year—$101 million in total—had been accompanied by $102 million in non-SBIR government funding and $342 million in private sector funding, Lauver said.

Since it was founded in 2017, AFWERX has been a flagship for the procurement reforms that Air Force Acquisition Chief Will Roper has championed in the service, designed to bring cutting edge technological innovation to the warfighter at Silicon Valley speed.

AFWERX 2.0 has been moved into the Air Force Research Laboratory, and reorganized into three parts, AFWERX official Jason Rathje said during the Accelerate event, held virtually due to the new coronavirus pandemic. The reorganized effort was designed to self-consciously mimic Silicon Valley venture capital outfits, leveraging its larger, later stage investments, to generate matching funding. AFWERX 2.0, announced by Roper Sept 1, meant “really incredible changes to how we think about working with our industrial base, how we think about working with small businesses, how we scale and grow,” Rathje said.

Rathje heads up the first of three AFWERX elements: AFVentures—building on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR, for the private sector) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR, for the academic and research communities) contracts that AFWERX has doled out for three years, but adding requirements for matching funding from government or private sources for larger awards. Spark, the second element, is the inward, service-facing side of the AFWERX program, seeking to recruit USAF and government partners for AFWERX start-ups. And, Prime is the third, designed to engage with big tech partners on projects like the flying car.

SBIR phase one contracts pay a company up to $50,000 to spend up to three months essentially looking for Air Force and other customers for their technology. AFWERX issues between 1,000 and 1,500 phase one contracts a year, Rathje said. The minimum application requirement had been reduced to a 25 slide deck. Applicants have to be majority U.S. owned and employ fewer than 500 people.

His presentation was short on detail about the exact kind of technology AFWERX was seeking, but that’s by design. AFWERX has pioneered the use of so-called “open topic” SBIR and STTR solicitations, which Rathje defined as the most open of doors: “Any company with any idea can pitch in,” he said.

Conventional acquisition approaches, which outline warfighter needs and then expect tech companies to provide requisite capabilities, had led to an “increasingly small overlap between realized U.S. Air and Space Forces demand and existing commercial technology supply,” Rathje said. In the post-Cold War era, the U.S. defense establishment had become a decreasingly important player in R&D activity. “At AFVentures, we think of things differently,” Rathje explained, “We start with the supply.” It is AFWERX’s job to understand the capabilities startups can offer and entice them to develop those capabilities for Air Force customers.

“By starting with supply, we’re able to bring in new ideas, different ideas, things that are radically evolved from where we might be thinking about it, because the innovation that you’re doing is happening at such a precipitous pace, that it’s hard for us to keep up,” he told an online audience of entrepreneurs, technologists, and officials. AFWERX 2.0 will also continue to award 300-500 Phase Two SBIR awards each year, up to $750,000 each, he said.

The incubator also released new data about its awards during Fiscal Year 20, which ended Sept. 30, demonstrating the financial and innovation value proposition that its activities represent.

Biden Calls for Swift Confirmation of Defense Secretary Pick

Biden Calls for Swift Confirmation of Defense Secretary Pick

Dec. 9, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

President-elect Joe Biden called on Congress to “swiftly” confirm Lloyd J. Austin III as the next Defense Secretary, rebutting concerns that his plan to nominate the recently retired Army general chips away at civilian control of the military.

Introducing Austin at a Dec. 9 event in Delaware, Biden said the civilian-military dynamic has been under great stress during the Trump administration, during which multiple former uniformed personnel have served in top posts.

Civilian-military tensions were particularly on display over the summer, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley apologized for joining President Donald J. Trump at Lafayette Square outside the White House shortly after authorities dispersed peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets.

“Secretary-designate Austin is going to work tirelessly to get it back on track,” Biden said. “There is no doubt in my mind whether this nominee will honor, respect, and on a day-to-day breathe life into the preeminent principle of civilian leadership over military matters in our nation.”

The President-elect announced Austin as his pick on Dec. 8.

Austin, a former U.S. Central Command boss who would become the first Black Defense Secretary, needs to earn a waiver from Congress to be considered for Senate confirmation. He would be only the third nominee in American history to receive that pass, which is required for candidates who have been retired from the military for less than seven years. He left after four decades of service in 2016.

Austin said he deeply appreciates that foundational American tenet of civilian control of troops, and plans to surround himself with “experienced, capable civilian appointees and career civil servants who will enable healthy civil-military relations grounded in meaningful civilian oversight.”

“When I concluded my military service four years ago, I hung up my uniform for the last time, and I went from being Gen. Lloyd Austin, to Lloyd Austin,” he said. “It is an important distinction, and one that I make with utmost seriousness and sincerity.”

Defense News reported Dec. 9 that Austin will testify before the House Armed Services Committee ahead of the chamber’s vote on a waiver. HASC Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) secured a commitment from the Biden team that Austin will appear in order to assuage their skepticism about having a former general in the top civilian post for the second time in four years.

Austin will also speak to House leadership and the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

During the Dec. 9 event, Austin acknowledged other Black military trailblazers like Army Lt. Henry Flipper, the first Black man to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy in 1877; the Tuskegee Airmen; the Montford Point Marines; and retired Army four-stars Johnnie E. Wilson, who ran Army Materiel Command in the 1990s, and Colin L. Powell, the first Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff as well as Secretary of State. He also named retired Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, another former Joint Chiefs Chairman, among his mentors.

If he is confirmed, the top tier of Defense Department leadership will include two Black men for the first time: Austin as Secretary and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who became the first Black officer to lead a military service this summer and is the only Black member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Biden touted Austin’s experience running logistics as the U.S. moved personnel and equipment out of Iraq during the Obama administration, calling it the “largest logistics operations undertaken by the Army in 60 years.” The Biden team is betting that work has prepared Austin for the daunting task of supporting a nationwide coronavirus vaccine rollout.

They also spoke of diplomacy as a tool to strengthen American military alliances around the world, signaling a revitalization of the partnership between the Defense and State Departments.

“I’ve worked hand-in-hand with our diplomatic colleagues and our partners around the globe, and witnessed firsthand what we’re able to accomplish together,” Austin said. “I look forward to resuming this important work.”

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris noted the challenges ahead transcend the traditional battlefield as well as the pandemic, from cyberattacks to the effects of climate change.

“A seasoned, highly-decorated, and trailblazing commander, Gen. Austin reflects the very best of our nation,” she said. “President-elect Biden and I will work closely with him and our entire team of national security and foreign policy leaders to make sure the United States of America is safer and more secure than ever before.”

Editor’s note: This story was corrected Dec. 16 to accurately reflect the demographics of Pentagon leadership.

Extending Human Performance Through Technology: The Promise of JADC2

Extending Human Performance Through Technology: The Promise of JADC2

Dec. 9, 2020

The Air Force’s vision for the seamless, networked warfighting concept known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, is all about using information to dominate the battlespace: By interconnecting systems across every domain, U.S. forces would seek to increase the operational decision space for all U.S. commanders, overwhelming adversary commanders and shortening decision-making cycles for any opponent that must react.

Information dominance is not just about connecting sensors to shooters. It also means using those sensors to create pervasive, all-domain situational awareness and to use that to cut through the fog of war.

“The part [of JADC2] that I think is going to be so incredibly game-changing is the ability for us to really use predictive analysis and inform our decisions going into the future,” said Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the Air Force general who was formerly in charge of U.S. Northern Command, in a video conversation with the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, retired USAF Lt. Gen. David Deptula. JADC2 will provide decision advantage, he said, helping commanders “make decisions that, like playing chess, are thinking about two or three moves downstream…It’s going to give the decision-makers—at the speed of relevance—the ability to make really complex decisions.”

Video: Mitchell Institute on YouTube

However, achieving the speed of relevance requires changes and means thinking anew about how platforms are built and sustained.

Dr. Bill Conley, former director of electronic warfare at the Pentagon and now chief technology officer at Mercury Systems, says the conventional model locks in requirements early and takes years to develop. By the time systems are fielded, the once cutting-edge technology inside is obsolete. By contrast, commercial technologies and standards are continuously evolving. The Pentagon, he says, needs to leverage that speed.

“We need continuous improvement, continuous delivery, and continuous development of capabilities,” he says. “Having the ability to continuously integrate state-of-the-art commercially available technical solutions into evolving systems is the only way to keep up with the speed of change in the technologies JADC2 will employ.”

Sentry at sunset
Maintenance Airmen prepare an E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control systems aircraft for takeoff while an F-15C Eagle flies by Jan. 5, 2012. Photo: Tech. Sgt. Arian Nead

Enabling JADC2

Whether deployed on the ground or in the air, evolving technologies cannot be limited to command centers. Military personnel at the tactical edge need both high-end computing and connectivity to enable JADC2, Conley says.

“Air Force AWACS aircraft operate like orchestra conductors,” Conley says. “They assign targets to different fighters, and those fighters go out and execute their assigned mission. But in this model, only the AWACS is responsible for understanding the big picture.”

That won’t fly in an era of great power competition. In the future, peer competitors who spent the past 20 years watching the U.S. military at war will seek to break down U.S. strategic advantages in command and control, communications and intelligence gathering. In response, the U.S. must up its game.

It’s not enough to have one centralized command center making all the decisions; if it fails, there’s no recourse. Rather, the entire network must be resilient enough to overcome such a loss, with every aircraft in the operation able to operate both singly and as part of a team.

“The enemy always gets a vote,” Conley points out. “Part of this is thinking about the problem locally — I have to make a good decision with the information I have.”

Modern warplanes are bristling with sensors, but they also need the ability to process that data and use it to help pilots make decisions. Pilots are already operating under information overload. What they need isn’t more information, but better information, made more accessible through intelligent display.

Two technologies are critical to making human performance a force multiplier, rather than a bottleneck, Conley says:

  • Visualizations and displays to communicate data to the pilot in more intuitive, digestible ways.
  • Artificial intelligence, to contextualize and help interpret data so systems offer options and solutions, rather than data to be analyzed.
Pilots at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., use Full Mission Simulators as part of their training with F-35s. The F-35 Full Mission Simulator accurately replicates all sensors and weapons to provide a realistic mission rehearsal and training environment. Photo: Lockheed Martin/ courtesy, via DOD

Advanced Displays for Advanced Missions

Displays must be flexible and reconfigurable so a pilot can get information in the best possible form depending on where they are in each mission. “As you’re taking off, you care about a different set of things than once you’re in level flight going toward a target, and also versus when you are engaging that target,” Conley said. “How do we reconfigure a display? How do we optimize the display of information to convey awareness to a pilot? And how do we provide the information to ensure pilots have what they need at each point in time?”

Just as important to Conley as reconfigurable displays is the ability to refresh technology without having to reset every training and sustainment regimen. “We need to get comfortable with the concept that we want to drop in a new generation of display technology that allows a human to fully interact with that system,” Conley says. “And we need to be able to do that on a timescale measured in years not decades. That requires an evolution in how we think about the defense acquisition system.”

RQ-4 Global Hawk's first take off from Yokota
Capt. Mark, 69th Reconnaissance Group Detachment 1, performs preflight checks on an RQ-4 Global Hawk for its first take off from Yokota Air Base, Japan, on May 5, 2017. Photo: Airman 1st Class Donald Hudson

Artificial Intelligence

Better displays and increased sensor data will be accompanied by intelligent systems that can help pilots make better decisions more quickly. But proving those systems work won’t be instantaneous, Conley says. For artificial intelligence to take hold in practice, pilots have to trust the AI will help complete the mission.

Just as it took time for drivers to become confident that algorithms could help them navigate the highways, pilots will need to learn to trust whatever algorithmic decision-making enters their cockpits. Pilots won’t surrender their judgment unless they can see with confidence that the system is trustworthy. That might mean providing confidence estimates when threats are identified, for example, or in determining if another aircraft is a friend or foe.

Figuring out how to reflect both that broad confidence level and that kind of ambiguous context in a way that users can rapidly absorb will be key to the JADC2 concept. And it’s something the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) started working on this year, according to the Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy.

The “operations cognitive assistant capability” JAIC is developing will use predictive analytics and optimized human-machine interaction “to drive faster and more efficient decision-making,” he told a media roundtable at the end of July.

“Right now, it’s all about, how do you take streams of information in and allow the machine and human to interact together to make better decisions?” Deasy said.

Incorporating AI capabilities into JADC2 technologies will pave the way for the teaming of manned and unmanned systems, as envisioned with the so-called loyal wingman concept. The autonomous wingman is flying itself, based only on the high-level goals communicated by the manned aircraft’s pilot.

High-throughput, low-latency localized data links make this kind of teaming possible. The links form a local network that shuttles command and control data between the human pilot and the autonomous sidekick.

But autonomy is the key, says Conley. “Today, we send pilots into air-to-air combat with live wingmen,” he explained. “Both of you have been trained so you know how you work together. But with manned-unmanned teaming, we have to do that without becoming so scripted that it is predictable, or it won’t really work—every adversary will figure it out.”  Conley continued on this thought, “I have to deny an adversary the ability to understand what I’m doing and why—because if the enemy doesn’t know why I did something, they can’t build a model. They can’t anticipate what I’m going to do.” 

This is the driving reason for developing systems that can be rapidly upgraded over time. According to data from Open.ai, machine-learning capability is doubling every three and a half months. So a state-of-the-art solution developed in January will be effectively obsolete one year later—only 10 percent as effective as a system rolling out the following year. Such an extraordinary pace of development demands agile development and rapid deployment of new technology into existing systems, Conley says.

“You need the ability to upgrade those systems during the conflict, while it’s deployed at a forward operating base,” Conley says. Such concepts are anathema to conventional thinking – but fully in keeping with themes advanced by current Air Force leadership, including Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who released his “Accelerate Change or Lose” challenge shortly after becoming chief, and Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Dr. Will Roper, a driving force behind the Air Force’s modernization push.  

“We need an evolution in how we think about logistics, how we think about sustaining a weapon system,” Conley says. “For AI and machine-learning technologies, we need to start thinking about upgrades as an element of routine maintenance — something that has to be done while you’re deployed—not after your deployment is over and you’re back at your home base.”

The Smart Future

Perhaps the most profound changes that JADC2 and AI will bring are to human performance, Conley said. With greater intelligence in the systems comes an opportunity to personalize the relationship between human and machine. The smarter the systems, the less generic they need to be.

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to human-machine interaction, intelligent systems can learn user preferences. “We should not be surprised that different pilots, different operators, consume data in different ways, just as different people learn in different ways,” Conley said. Indeed, the Air Force is already changing pilot training to reflect those different learning styles. Smart systems could allow that personalized approach to extend into the mission space.

“We can optimize performance if we can configure interfaces to best suit each operator,” Conley predicts. The key to that capability, though, is to enable more rapid technology refreshes, built around open standards that embrace the best available commercial technologies, hardened, protected, and secured to meet the most demanding military requirements. “This is why I’m at Mercury,” Conley said. “It’s what this company is about.”