October 30, 2020 | International, C4ISR
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense released its highly anticipated electromagnetic spectrum superiority strategy Thursday, aimed at guiding how the department will develop capabilities as well as partner on and pursue readiness within the spectrum to gain an edge on sophisticated adversaries.
In recent years, U.S. adversaries have sought high-tech methods to deny the electromagnetic spectrum, on which American forces often rely. These methods include jamming or spoofing communications, radars and munitions.
“The Nation has entered an age of warfighting wherein U.S. dominance in air, land, sea, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) is challenged by peer and near peer adversaries,” the strategy stated. “These challenges have exposed the cross-cutting reliance of U.S. Forces on the EMS, and are driving a change in how the DoD approaches activities in the EMS to maintain an all-domain advantage."
"This jeopardizes the U.S. military's ability to sense, command, control, communicate, test, train, protect, and project force effectively. Without the capabilities to assert EMS superiority, the nation's economic and national security will be exposed to undue and significant risk.”
The strategy lists five strategic goals, each delving deeper into subordinate objectives. They include:
“The new strategy will have wide-ranging impacts across the DoD. It will shape the future of the department, influencing how the DoD makes decisions on how best to design, resource and implement EMS concepts as a new foundation for multidomain war fighting,” a defense official said Oct. 29 during a briefing to reporters on the strategy on background because the DoD would not let them speak on-the-record.
The strategy pulls from previous concepts and initiatives such as the 2013 Electromagnetic Spectrum Strategy and the 2017 electronic warfare strategy. However, since those documents were devised, the operational environment has become more complex.
“The primary focus is a holistic approach to electromagnetic spectrum management and electromagnetic warfare,” the official said regarding departures from previous strategies.
In the past, the official said, some of those activities were siloed while the new strategy articulates freedom of action within the spectrum through a more holistic approach.
The strategy also noted that the DoD is transitioning from its definition that electronic warfare is separate from spectrum management to a more unified approach of electromagnetic spectrum operations, or EMSO.
The Joint Staff updated its doctrine document in May governing electronic warfare, shifting to EMSO.
The official said some of the particular technologies the department is looking for include dynamic spectrum-sharing technologies that need to incorporate sensing, accessing, sharing and maneuvers, frequency agility, frequency diversity, tools that minimize an EMS footprint, tools to reduce vulnerability detection, and resiliency against radio frequency-enabled cyberattacks.
“We're also emphasizing modular, open-systems approaches, software designed systems, [a] more platform-agnostic approach instead of defined platforms as well as being multifunction,” the official said.
The strategy paints broad strokes for what's desired and required beneath each strategic goal. However, the Pentagon is still working on a formal implementation plan to ingrain them within the department and armed services.
Within 180 days of being officially signed, the senior designated official, who is currently the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will create a road map and implementation plan alongside the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross-Functional Team. A defense official said the way forward should be finalized by March 2021.
That plan will have a series of tasks aligned to the five goals. What's more, the implementation team will identify risks to the department and outline trade-offs that must be made against other priorities within the Pentagon, the official said.
“As part of the implementation plan, we are trying to set the conditions to make the appropriate trades that are going to be necessary with all the different priorities and the modernization efforts that are going to be required as part of this strategy execution,” the official said.
June 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace
The reason why the Air Force decided to cancel an entire aircraft recapitalization program for a new effort to connect new existing sensors and shooters across the U.S. military is becoming clear, as the first round of industry contracts related to the Advanced... https://www.defensedaily.com/first-round-advanced-battle-management-system-contracts-top-nearly-27-billion/air-force/
March 5, 2021 | International, C4ISR, Security
Cybersecurity requirements in weapon system contracts still aren't clear, but the Pentagon has made progress in the last three years, the Government Accountability Office found.
February 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace
The U.S. Air Force's acquisition chief said Feb. 18 that he expects a congressional backlash over how a recent revamp of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) procurement strategy could drive up the average procurement unit cost (APUC) of a sixth-generation fighter. But the Air Force remains committed to an acquisition strategy for an F-22 replacement that accepts higher upfront costs in order to save money during the sustainment phase of the program, said Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force, speaking during an “Ask Me Anything” webinar for the service's acquisition workforce. The Pentagon calculates APUC by dividing total procurement costs, including recurring and nonrecurring bills, by the number of units purchased. “I already see that being the big discussion with Congress. [They would ask:] ‘The APUC is WHAT?' And we're going to have to have a really good analysis to show that by operating this way the total cost of ownership is better,” Roper said. The Air Force initially planned to structure the NGAD program using a conventional procurement process, in which a contractor typically loses money during the design phase, breaks even at a program level during development and reaps profits over an exclusive, multidecade sustainment period. But Roper, who was appointed in 2017, said in early 2019 that the strategy had changed. The details of the highly secretive NGAD program are murky, but Roper has compared the new acquisition strategy to the business model for the Apple iPhone. Apple does not sustain the iPhone beyond a few years, so it makes profits by charging a premium on the design at the point of sale. Although the upfront cost is higher, Apple's business model incentivizes an external community of software developers to create applications for the iPhone at little to no cost. Roper wants to apply a similar philosophy to the development of the next generation of combat aircraft. He wants traditional defense prime contractors to transition away from a sustainment model for profits and incentivize them to focus on design by offering them a premium. “The next generation air dominance [program] is thinking what's the new business model that really reward the companies that use the [design] tools well, but not the sustainment, locked-in paradigm,” Roper said. Roper did not specify how much a sixth-generation fighter will cost to procure under the new acquisition approach. The Congressional Budget Office, which assumed a conventional acquisition process, estimated the average flyaway cost of a sixth-generation fighter in late 2018 to be about $300 million, based on a program of record for 414 penetrating counter-air aircraft. The Air Force's new acquisition takes a different approach to quantities compared to the “program of record” format, such as the one used for the Lockheed Martin F-35. Roper said he expects production quantities to fall somewhere between numbers generally associated with one-off X-planes and F-35-like production. The new approach is currently applied to the NGAD program, but Roper said he intends to stay in his position as the approach becomes institutionalized in Air Force acquisition. “I am not planning to go anywhere, anytime soon,” he told the roughly 1,000-member audience of the webinar, “because I learned so much working with all of you.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/usaf-braces-ngad-sticker-shock-capitol-hill