A New Era for Command & Control

of Aerospace Operations

Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF (Ret.) Dean, The Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies

International Conference On Air And Space Power; Istanbul, Turkey 2 Apr 2015

n  Evolution of Command & Control of Aerospace Operations

n  Major Trends Influencing Command & Control n  Emerging Threats n  New Technologies n  Information Velocity

n  Elements of a New Architecture for Aerospace C2: n New Concepts of Operation n Organizational Change

n  Way Ahead

Overview

•  Early C2 of air operations

•  Segregated C2 of air ops due to doctrine and immature technology •  WWII—mostly segregated, but early stages of multi-service C2 •  Korean War—service air components function autonomously •  Vietnam—Five separate air wars

•  Modern C2 of air operations •  Greater integration of service component ops •  Desert Storm—first true integrated CFACC •  OAF/OEF/OIF/OUA/OUP/OIR—Still tendencies to use air weapons as

organic assets vice elements of integrated force application •  Evolution of fire support coordination measures

Time to Move to a Post-Modern Approach to Aerospace C2

Evolution Of C2 Of Air Operations

Emerging Threats

•  For over two decades we have not been contested in air and space…that era is rapidly changing

•  Potential adversaries have studied the Coalition way of war—now base their strategy on keeping us out of their neighborhood

•  Adopting—and proliferating—new cruise, ballistic, air-to-air, and surface-to-air missiles, anti-satellite and cyberspace capabilities intended to deny friendly forces freedom of action

•  These developments threaten our C2 air and space ability in three ways:

-  Kinetic and non-kinetic weapons to deny our space-based assets ISR and communications capabilities thereby isolating our forces and blinding our leadership.

-  Cyber attacks to intentionally disrupt operations at AOCs -  Accurate long-range missiles that threaten large, fixed, and exposed AOCs.

Threat developments present a fundamental challenge to the current Coalition command and control construct

Major Trends Influencing C2

Scenario

New Technologies •  New technologies enabling new capabilities, will require new ways

of command and control to optimize desired effects

•  Need to think beyond constraints traditional culture imposes on new technology -  5th generation aircraft are termed “fighters,” but technologically they

are flying “sensor-strikers” that will allow us to conduct information age warfare inside contested battlespace whenever we desire—if we fully exploit their “non-traditional” capabilities

•  Requires leading-edge networking capabilities, and different approaches to solving our data bandwidth challenges.

•  New capabilities will require a new way of designing our force. -  As new long-range sensor-shooter aircraft (formerly called bombers)

enter the USAF we can amplify their effects through integration with other forces by linking sensor/shooter capability from seabed to space

Exploiting New Technologies Requires New Ways of C2

Major Trends Influencing C2

Information Velocity •  Rapid advances in telecommunications, sensors, data storage, and processing

•  Targeting cycle from months to weeks to days to minutes, and from multiple, specialized, separate aircraft to the ability to “find, fix, and finish” from one aircraft

•  The increase in information velocity is enabling increases in the effectiveness of combat operations, but there is also a downside -  Tactical execution can be micro-managed by operational and strategic levels

•  This devolution of the construct of centralized control—decentralized execution to one of centralized control—centralized execution can reduce mission effectiveness

•  Information synthesis and execution authority must be shifted to the lowest possible levels while senior commanders and staffs must discipline themselves to stay at the appropriate level of war

Information Velocity Driving Changes in C2 Capabilities

Major Trends Influencing C2

New Concepts of Operation

•  Velocity of information, advances in stealth, precision engagement, and sensors are permitting a shift from “combined arms warfare” to “combined effects power”

•  The combined effects approach is about integrating air, space, and cyber capabilities within an agile operational framework to creating an ISR, strike, maneuver, and sustainment enabled by interconnected, distributed operations

-  Potential to link aerospace capabilities with sea and land-based means to create an omni-present defense complex that is self-forming, and self-healing

-  Enabling idea is cross-domain synergy -  The complementary employment of capabilities such that each enhances the

effectiveness—and compensates for the vulnerabilities—of the others

•  Will require a command and control paradigm that enables automatic linking transparent to the user, as well as seamless data transfer, without the need for deliberate human interaction within and/or between the combat cloud nodes.

The ‘Combat Cloud’ Will Drive A Different Architecture for the Conduct of Warfare

Elements of New C2 Architecture

Organization

•  Innovation can be applied to organization as well as from technology

•  “Falconer” AOCs were the outcome of C2 lessons learned from Desert Storm

•  Facing a much different future—C2 architectures, processes, and organizations need to evolve and advance at the same pace as threats, information, and tech

•  Current AOC organization built around separate tasking for ISR (Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management (PRISM)) and force application (Theater Battle Management Core Systems (TBMCS)) -  Now operating in an era where the platforms PRISM and TBMCS were designed to

manage can now perform either mission or both

•  Centralized control and decentralized execution has been a fundamental C2 tenet

•  While still fundamentally sound, threats, information, and tech driving us to consider “centralized command, distributed control, and decentralized execution”

Network-centric, interdependent, and functionally integrated operations are the keys to future warfighting success

Elements of New C2 Architecture

•  The challenges of new threats, information velocity, and advanced technologies demand more than linear evolution of current C2ISR paradigms

•  Significant new approach or evolution of current C2 architecture?

•  Future success will not occur through incremental enhancements -  Industrial-age approaches to warfare have lost currency -  Information age warfare demands not “spiral development,”

but a distributed technological capability that optimizes operational agility

•  Will not be achievable without dramatic changes to: -  Current C2 CONOPS -  Organizational paradigms for planning, processing & execution -  Acquisition processes for C2 capabilities -  A determined effort to match new C2 paradigms to the three critical trends

Time to think beyond the organizational constructs that history

has etched into our collective psyche

The Way Ahead