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September 17, 2020 | Information, Aerospace

The Air Force’s new information warfare command still has work before full integration

WASHINGTON — While the Air Force's new information warfare command has reached its full operational capability less than a year after it was created, leaders still have work to do to fully integrate its combined capabilities in a mature fashion.

That assessment comes from Brig. Gen. Bradley Pyburn, deputy commander of 16th Air Force, who on Tuesday laid out a three-pronged criteria — deconfliction, synchronization and integration — for assessing the command's maturity during a virtual event hosted by AFCEA's Alamo chapter.

The command combines what was previously known as 24th and 25th Air Force, placing cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and weather capabilities under a single commander.

The first category Pyburn coined is deconfliction, which essentially means “do no harm.” Pyburn described the need to have situational awareness of the battlespace and understand what friendly and enemy forces are where, what authorities exist, what targets forces are looking at and what capabilities they have.

The second phase of maturity is synchronization, which involves aligning all the capabilities and actions in the battlespace. Pyburn said if the command adds activity A to activity B and C, it will end up with a greater result, because it can change the timing and tempo of how the effects are delivered for maximum impact.

Lastly, Pyburn described integration as the most mature aspect of where 16th Air Force currently is. This involves baking in planning, assessment, command and control, all the desperate effects and operations from the beginning. This is where the command really begins to break down all the stovepipes that previously existed with all these capabilities, a key reason for integrating and creating the new organization.

“From a maturity perspective, where do I think 16th Air Force is? We're probably somewhere between deconfliction and synchronization. We've got some examples of where we approach integration but I think it's healthy we understand where we're at today and where we want to go forward in the future,” Pyburn explained.

The command has created what Pyburn called a J9 to help with assessing maturity. The J9 would be plugged into real world events and exercises to help with those self assessments.

In a generic example, Pyburn outlined what full maturity integration would look like. A mission partner requests support, which could be in the form of air domain awareness, finding particular targets or threats or ISR assistance. 16th Air Force, in turn, would be able to link that request with other needs, either in the same geographic area or in other areas of operations, pioneering what its top officials describe as a “problem-centric approach,” which aims to look at the specific problems the commands they support are looking to solve and starting from there.

“[In] our problem centric approach, as we look to generate insights across all of our 16th Air Force capabilities, what we may find is that particular problem set is linked to other problem sets and we're able to focus on the root cause of the problem,” Pyburn said.

Based on a raft of authorities from cyberspace to intelligence collection as well as the relationships built through other communities and organizations, 16th Air Force can look at the root cause of a problem and build from there.

“We can build a community of interest, we can start to put mission partners together into [an] operational planning team and we can not only generate better insights against that root cause, we can start to look at how we can layer in effects at speed and at scale across all domains of warfare and give the options to the combatant commander and the mission partner as the authorities to go after that adversary,” Pyburn said.

Pyburn also offered insight into the command structure of 16th Air Force, which has his deputy commander job along with a vice commander role. That latter job, held by Brig. Gen. David Gaedecke — who previously served as the lead for the Air Force's year long electronic warfare study — does more of the traditional operational, test and evaluation functions.

In the deputy commander role, Pyburn said his job is similar to the director of operations. He comes up with the requirements in support of combatant commanders.

“Part of it is, I may think I know what I want, but if I don't see what the art of the possible is, it's really hard to know what I want, if that makes sense. It's a little bit of a chicken and egg,” he said.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/information-warfare/2020/09/16/the-air-forces-new-information-warfare-command-still-has-work-to-go-to-fully-integrate/

On the same subject

  • Canada’s Combat Ship Procurement Process

    August 22, 2018 | Information, Naval

    Canada’s Combat Ship Procurement Process

    A FrontLine Report © 2018 FrontLine Defence (Vol 15, No 4) Activity on the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) procurement project, the “Crown Jewel” of the Government's National Shipbuilding Strategy, is starting to heat up as contenders submit their bids. Since FrontLine last articles detailing the CSC project, Canada's prime contractor, Irving Shipbuilding Industries (ISI) and their U.S. subcontractors have been busy reviewing the final bids submitted by the three industry teams who emerged over the past two years as serious enough in the pursuit to invest the significant amount of capital required to generate a bid. Stressing that the following list is in no particular order, the 3 bidders are: Team Alion – composed of Alion Canada (a subsidiary of American Alion Science and Technology), Atlas Elektronik (now being merged under thyssenkrupp Marine Systems), and Hensoldt Sensor, (a spin-off from Airbus Group), this group is bidding the Dutch Damen Scheld Naval Shipbuilding De Zeven Provinciën Air Defence and Command (LCF) frigate, which has 10+ years in service under its belt. Team BAE – or CSC Home Team as they like to be called, includes Lockheed Martin Canada, BAE Systems Canada, L3 Technologies Canada, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (now a component of U.S. MAXAR Technologies), Ultra Marine Systems Canada, and CAE. Their proposed design is the BAE UK-designed Type 26 Global Combat Ship (GCS). Team Navantia – consisting of Navantia SA of Spain, Saab Australia, and CEA Technologies, this team is bidding the F105 frigate design. Currently in service with the Spanish Navy, the design has also been chosen by Norway and Australia. Other team members include US Lockheed Martin (Moorestown, NJ), General Dynamic Mission Systems – Canada, DRS Technologies Limited Canada (now a Leonardo company), OSI Maritime Systems, and Rheinmetall Canada. Meanwhile, in a decision that may impact Canada's thinking, Australia has announced that it chose the T26 Global Combat Ship (GCS) as the winning design in its Sea5000 program. This announcement occurred just before Canada Day and local pundits were quick to comment on the potential impact on the CSC down-select process. Most agreed that this was good news for the CSC Home Team bidders despite its “paper ship” classification of not being a proven design. With the T26 design being developed concurrently in Canada, timelines are such that there is a possibility that in fact Canada may have a GCS completed before the UK. We now find the CSC program in the final stage of bid evaluation, which includes the ‘Cured' Technical component as well as the financials. There is speculation that the Crown will adopt a similar approach for the financial component as they did for the technical component, which is a financial “cure” opportunity. The expectation is that there will be a period of several months to accommodate the cure process and arrive at final bids from the three teams, and then a 4-week turn around for the final (amended) financial information to be submitted. Looking back, readers will recall that in 2016 we witnessed the Trudeau promise to kill the F-35 purchase and put more money into shipbuilding, and in particular the CSC Project. This was assessed as posturing as we all knew that most of the F-35 budget is money that would be spent on operations and maintenance, not capital expenditure. However, after the election, the Trudeau Government did make good (sort of) on the promise to “take a look under the hood” in terms of adjusting the CSC procurement process. Although they did not change the engine, they did more than just tinkering with the carb. In 2017 the Trudeau Government realized the dual stream selection method for a warship designer and a combat system integrator, known as the RFRE qualifier process, was a mis-step and changed the procurement process to allow teams to form and submit a combined Design and Combat systems bid. Around this time-frame, they also awarded a “shipbuilding” contract that fell outside of the NSS. An unsolicited proposal was accepted from Chantier Davie to convert a container ship into an urgently needed temporary replacement for the auxiliary oiler replenishment (AOR) capability. Given that neither Irving nor Seaspan had the capacity to execute this AOR contract in a timely manner, and notwithstanding that Irving made an intervention to try to kill the award to Chantier Davie, which caused the new Liberal Government to put the award on hold, the “pause” on the “At Sea Support” project (aka Project Resolve) was short-lived. The deal was upheld and MV Asterix was successfully delivered to DND on time and on budget. This is a true success story in these times of amazing ineptitude in defence contracting. Regrettably, neither the RCN nor DND have had much to say about the success of Asterix – we can only surmise this is a result of the most unfortunate “Norman-Gate”. Back to CSC, the reader will undoubtedly remember the 2017 surprise of finding out that Irving would be sharing bidders' sensitive intellectual property with its subcontractors, most of them American. The most astounding of those in Irving's information pipeline for sensitive proprietary information, was Gibbs & Cox – a naval engineering firm and a competitor to many, if not all, of the potential designers. Others include AT Kearney Public Service and Defense Services (a U.S. consulting firm); Fleetway Inc. (part of the Irving Group); and Systems Planning and Analysis Inc. (another U.S. consulting firm). It was reported by David Pugliese in March that the Government approved an additional $54 million (for a total of $83 million) for project bid evaluation, and then in April, he reported that all three bidders had failed to meet some requirements. 2016 RFRE qualifiers As announced by the Government in November 2016, the RFRE qualifiers for Warship Design were (in alphabetical order): Alion-JJMA Corp. BAE Systems Surface Ships Limited DCNS SA (now Naval Group) Fincantieri Naval Vessels Navantia SA Odense Maritime Technology ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems The RFRE qualifiers for Combat Systems Integrator included: Atlas Elektronik DCNS SA (Naval Group) Lockheed Martin Canada Saab Australia Pty Ltd. Selex ES (now Leonardo) Thales Nederland B.V. ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems After the RFRE process was abandoned... Regarding the 2016 RFRE process and quest for the holy grail (officially known as the Total Ship Reference Point or TSRP), only three of those original qualifiers are now left in the race. The others dropped out (or teamed up) for one reason or another over the past 24 months – some by simply vacating the premises so to speak, while others went out with somewhat of a bang. Of the 2016 qualifiers, Naval Group (formerly DCNS), Fincantieri, and Odense Maritime Technology have walked away. Interestingly, two of the qualifiers (DCNS/Naval Group and TKMS) had been pre-qualified in both streams and had been assessed as having the upper hand, however, neither submitted a bid after examining the Irving/Government's bid conditions and recognizing the risk of sharing IP without contracted legal protection in place. We shall look at them first. DCNS – Naval Group The French FREMM (multi-mission frigate) project by Naval Group (formerly DCNS) was touted as combining the latest technologies developed by Naval Group and a design adapted to Canadian requirements. It was to be the cornerstone of French efforts to share its expertise with Canadian partners. In 2015-16, DCNS was reportedly taking the CSC Project very seriously. However, their gravitas was all for naught as it saw the sharing IP without a contract as jeopardizing its future. Possibly because of this, Naval Group failed to seriously engage Canadian Suppliers which would allow it to develop a winning strategy. Rather, what evolved into a French (Naval Group) – Italian (Fincantieri S.p.A. Naval Vessels Business Unit) FREMM lash-up, and chose to not submit a bid in accordance with the Government/Irving RFP, but instead proposed an off-the-shelf purchase for a very reasonable $30 Billion. Their rationale, as reported in the press, was they did not want to hand over sensitive proprietary data to Irving and its subcontractors. This proposal was not well received by PSPC, which publicly stated the proposal would not be considered. thyssenkrupp Marine Systems thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (tkMS) of Germany was also very forthcoming in providing information on its potential RFRE submission. Its project references were based primarily on its role as prime contractor for the F124 frigates, where it was responsible for the development of the Combat Management System software and the integration of entirely new and highly-complex sensor and weapon system technologies. tkMS saw itself as fully capable of providing complete logistics support with training facilities, operator and technician training, discrete logistics support elements, as well as the supply of spare parts for both the platform and combat systems. In early 2017, and despite having qualified as CSI and WD, tkMS had assessed the potential for winning, and particularly the requirement to submit proprietary technical data to a non-government agency (read ISI), as unpalatable and all but withdrew from the race. The local Ottawa office did not submit a bid for the final 30 November deadline for the technical and Canadian Content Value aspects of the bid. In hindsight, the modular approach to the tkMS MEKO design concept featured in the design of Germany's F124 and F125 warship-size frigates, is still a very appealing design and may have carried the day. Their decision to withdraw was reportedly based on factors that included an intense distrust of sharing intellectual property other than Government to Government. Danish Iver Huitfeldt Frigate by Odense Maritime Technologies (OMT) – Maersk In 2015, the Danish Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate was considered one of the four serious contender designs. At 6600 GRT and 138 metres in length, the vessel appeared to be a good fit for the CSC high-level requirements as briefed by the Royal Canadian Navy in August 2014. The team that produced the ship design – Maersk Shipping, Odense and the Danish Navy – established itself as Odense Maritime Technology (OMT) to market its expertise in producing spacious, logical, efficient designs that can be procured for much less than a warship of similar tonnage built elsewhere. The Iver Huitfeldt Frigate design is powered by four diesel main engines driving two shafts in separate engine rooms, max speed 29 knots. The weapons are in modular units for ease of change-out or upgrade, and there is space for four TEU shipping containers for additional mission fits. The Danish Navy operates the ship with a crew of 105, although there are additional 60 bunks for mission fit, training staff and other requirements. The cost to build was quoted as $325M, which was considerably cheaper than expected and was certainly appealing to the bean counters in the early days of the program. Below the main deck, the ship's design is largely commercial, having been designed by Maersk, one of the world's largest shipping companies. In hindsight, perhaps the commercial below decks design was just that – too commercial. Notwithstanding, the FrontLine assessment is that OMT's lack of commitment to the program and the need to pre-commit on Canadian content was their downfall. Despite the efforts of OMT's Vice President Business Development, Mr. Kevin Pitt, from the Toronto office, and qualification through the RFRE process, the bid was destined to fail from the outset. OMT was unable to line up a dance partner in the form of a CSI in time to adapt to the new procurement strategy and the bid collapsed. FrontLine's view was, and still is, good design notwithstanding, to be competitive OMT should have invested in a larger engineering and design footprint in Canada with all the necessary security bells and whistles to support their marketing process. Selex ES – Leonardo DRS As an RFRE qualifier, Selex ES never emerged from the shadows as a contender. The Leonardo bid of an Italian FREMM seemed to wither as time went on. Eventually, as mentioned above, the French Naval Group and the Italians combined forces but never got out of the starting block after they received the results of the pre-qualifier bid review process. Thales Nederland Another multi-national, Thales Group, was also successful with their submission in response to the CSI RFRE, relying primarily on their international credentials for project references from Thales Nederland BV. Thales has significant bona fides, having integrated Combat Systems across 27 shipyards on nearly 200 naval platforms, making it one of the leading Naval Combat Systems Integration companies in the world, and Thales Canada has been the largest supplier of naval sensors to the RCN for the past 40 years. Thales is proud of its track record in integrating Above Water and Underwater Warfare suites and its extensive experience integrating communications suites. Thales Canada was seen as having good potential to emerge on a team as a strong player. However, there were not enough dance partners to go around among the designers and Thales dropped down to the category of potential Tier 2 supplier. Like many of the other potential CSI bidders, Thales is maintaining close contact with all of the potential CSIs and would likely be a supplier to the eventual CSI winner in their strong suit – Naval Combat System products in the areas of Naval Radars and Electro-optical solutions, Naval Underwater systems, Electronic Warfare systems, and Naval Communications system. Thales will continue as a Tier 1 partner with Seaspan for the delivery of all of Mission Systems solutions for the Joint Support Ships (JSS) and Coast Guard vessels. The 2017 award of the in-service support contract known as AJISS – for the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) and JSS – will keep Thales in Canada for years to come. Full article: https://defence.frontline.online/article/2018/4/10242-Canada's-Combat-Ship-Procurement-Process

  • New features on SDQuébec

    November 17, 2024 | Information, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

    New features on SDQuébec

    We are pleased to announce the latest changes on SDQuébec in order to better serve you. The daily animation now includes NATO opportunities and opportunities in the American market, which are added to opportunities in the Canadian market. Also, the business directory has been updated. Finally, an artificial intelligence module has been added, allowing us to improve the daily opportunity monitoring service. No action is required on your part.

  • Defense Innovation Board Adopts AI Testing, Digital Workforce Recruitment Resolutions

    September 17, 2020 | Information, Other Defence

    Defense Innovation Board Adopts AI Testing, Digital Workforce Recruitment Resolutions

    Mila Jasper The Defense Innovation Board convened for its fall public meeting Tuesday and approved resolutions for two key federal technology issues in addition to broadening its work on space. The board, which is comprised of national security technology innovators, formed a new space subcommittee to support the Space Force and heard from Michael Kratsios, acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, and U.S. chief technology officer. But the need for better testing protocols for artificial intelligence systems and strategies the Defense Department could adopt in order to attract digital talent took center stage at the meeting. The board adopted resolutions after robust discussions for both issues. Challenges in AI Testing No proven methods for testing and evaluating nondeterministic AI systems—meaning less predictable, more adaptable AI systems—exist. Daniela Rus, a roboticist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it is critical to have strong procedures for testing, evaluation, verification, and validation, or TEV/V, of artificial intelligence in order to create enough confidence in the technology to deploy it. “The department has been articulating the importance of accelerating the deployment of these systems,” Rus said, citing DOD's adoption of the board's AI ethics principles. “We have seen a lot of efforts in developing AI accelerator programs that will take the latest and greatest advancements in AI from research organizations and map them into processes and procedures for the department. We hope to have these in place, but in order to get there we need to have rigorous, robust procedures for testing.” The main reason testing for these types of autonomous systems is so challenging is uncertainty. Board member Danny Hillis, a pioneer in parallel computing, said uncertainty comes in three directions: from the function, the inputs and the outputs. Hillis suggested the board should use these three areas of uncertainty to guide its thinking when it comes to providing recommendations for TEV/V. The resolution adopted by the board argues DOD must develop its own TEV/V solutions as soon as possible, rather than wait for external solutions, in order to be ready to deploy AI systems in the short term. The board's science and technology subcommittee hopes to have two reports—one for a backgrounder and another for recommendations—on TEV/V for AI by December of this year. “Without a strong push for education and training on this topic and a diverse range of testing programs at the developmental and operational levels, DoD will have difficulty assessing its current TEV/V processes and determining next steps to improve its AI TEV/V capability,” the resolution reads. Competing for Digital Talent Later in the meeting, the DIB turned its attention to workforce issues. Jennifer Pahlka, a founder of the U.S. Digital Service and Code For America, led the group's discussion on competing for digital talent. Pahlka said the coronavirus pandemic and remote work trends could help the department attract talent if it develops new strategies to help it compete with the private sector. “As private sector remote work trends are changing how employers compete for digital talent, DOD has the opportunity to take advantage of these trends and be more competitive for civilian talent in this new environment,” Pahlka said. DOD and the federal government in general struggles to fill talent gaps for several reasons, including long hiring timelines. A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service found the average hiring timeline for the federal workforce is 98 days, or more than twice the private sector average. The paper DIB released to accompany the discussion detailed five recommendations for what to do to attract digital talent. Overall, DOD should develop strategies to maintain a remote and distributed workforce even beyond the pandemic. Pahlka added that though the recommendations focus on attracting digital talent, she hopes the same principles outlined can be expanded across the workforce. In the past, common wisdom said the Pentagon couldn't do mass telework. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, DOD had to adapt, and fast. Lisa Hershman, the chief management officer for the Defense Department, said in July the pandemic “shattered the myth” DOD couldn't support remote work. According to the DIB's report, DOD should now focus on expanding its IT infrastructure and make sure it has the tools it needs to maintain remote work as well as expand the agency's capabilities to do classified work remotely. The report also recommends DOD work on improvements to the remote hiring process, prioritize changing the agency's culture around remote work and “consider dedicated remote work pilot programs to recruit and fill critical civilian technical talent gaps at priority organizations.” “The subcommittee believes the DOD is really at an inflection point for talent management,” Pahlka said. Pahlka and three other members of the DIB including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt ended their terms on the board. Member terms last four years. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2020/09/defense-innovation-board-adopts-ai-testing-digital-workforce-recruitment-resolutions

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