As part of the digital transformation, the operational environment has changed and will continue to change. A collaborative and functional multi-domain “Combat Cloud” is required to fight and win the battle of future military operations.
Future military operations will demand higher flexibility and mobility, increased operational tempo and seamless collaboration within and across all domains. Therefore, “air Command & Control (C2) and warfighting in a multi-domain battlespace” is a topic that will have an impact on concept development, as well as on the development of weapon systems as part of the C2 regime to come. In this article, some thoughts are highlighted from an operational point of view, as well as from an industrial perspective.
The Air Force Perspective: Introduction
Dealing with ideas on combat clouds, a number of challenges and different points of view become obvious. For those who are responsible for digitisation and data processing, a fantastic new world opens up in the military sphere. For those who are active or former flying personnel, it is somewhat suspicious that somebody somewhere might be responsible for your own essential flying, possibly avionic or warfighting data. For those who are capability planners, there is no longer some kind of IT system in an airframe, instead the airframe is integrated into a complex air combat managment system. For those who are responsible for interoperability, coalition warfighting and NATO’s operational coherence and functioning, they might feel like being pulled back to a starting block, from where they started when we first began to talk about link management, operational interoperability and weapon tactics.
Four preliminary remarks should serve as a baseline for better understanding and evaluation:
(1) New threats are emerging; new challenges by the enemy are forcing us to develop new strategies and concepts; new technologies and an overwhelming availability of data lead us to a process of permanent adaptation to keep data, information and effect-based superiority. This evolution of the operating environment makes a spiral development of military capabilities necessary.
(2) We are not striving for a modern and digitised air warfighting with all its effects and elements having in mind shiny and attractive air forces. It is obviously the key to success against a sophisticated enemy in a new challenging environment. A combat cloud is not ”something in the air like a cumulus cloud”. There are in the end ”computers with massive computing power and data storage somewhere in the basement”. It can be more than one basement, it might be a system of basements, and possibly, a minor part of the computers is located in aircraft or remote carriers. However, we need to transfer and link data from the basements to the system, mostly beyond line of sight in a contested and congested electronic and frequency and cyber environment.
(3) A combat cloud is a very operational issue. It is not only necessary to guarantee its enduring existence in combat and war, but also to “implement” operational tactics and procedures. combat clouds will be the backbone of air warfighting, and they might be the backbone for the other domains too.
(4) The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is so far a German-French-Spanish programme, which will produce a community of FCAS cloud users. There are other communities, such as the F35 community or, possibly, a TEMPEST community. Do we plan a joint and combined warfighting in a JADO C2 world with separated clouds, exclusively working for their communities?
So, the question is, and it is an essential question for NATO, how do we want to exclude parallel air warfighting, separated possibly by “distance” from each other, for sure separated by their different and system classified Combat Clouds.
Where do we come from and what is the current state?
Today, joint and combined teams of experts plan and execute air operations within the complex air C2 cycle. To ensure the safety of NATO airspace, every 24 hours a new air-tasking order is distributed. The variety of assets communicate through tactical data links. Link management supervises these to guarantee the efficient flow of data. That happens right now, every day. However, is this the way we will be able to counter future challenges?
Data is key. Without it, no asset will take off, no effect will be achieved, and no decision will be made. That is why the architecture of our organisation has to be data-oriented. Quality-controlled data will be the baseline for big data analytics as well as proper implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Adequate data management including data fusion and the build-up of a “Unified Data Library” is a key characteristic of such a development, which of course requires resilient structures and procedures to sustain operations in conflict.
In times of digital transformation – and discussing combat cloud issues is definitely part of it – ethical issues must also be taken into consideration. Technology is fascinating and unstoppable. There is a saying, that at some point, technology looks for its inventors. If they are found, the genius has left the bottle. In a political and ethical, especially in a legal discussion, the view is different: Who bears the responsibility when we are putting people and our soldiers in harm’s way? How do we keep the human in the loop? And how are we guided by a probably non-deterministic AI which is the core of a combat cloud? To deal with these questions, industry working on FCAS has established a working group. This group of experts might prevent us from delaying questions and indefinite debates when FCAS and its combat cloud become operational.
Consequences for Air and Joint Warfighting
Discussions about digitisation and its success and development in the military focus on better communications, enhanced picture recognition, some automation of boring manual processes or better and secure data transfer on the battlefield. Digitisation brings all these advantages for our capability and operational development. In other words, talking about combat clouds and the FCAS programme, we are really at the sharp end of digitisation and capability management.
The current state of technology allows conceptual approaches to enhance warfighting in the air domain. Today’s fighters combine elements like sensors and effectors in one platform. In a System-of-Systems, like the “Next Generation Weapon System” (NGWS), these elements are physically isolated from each other and interconnect during flight. This offers a broad spectrum of new techniques, tactics and procedures that is scalable from a single platform/system up to multiple platforms that include legacy systems as well. This “Future Air Combat System” needs to collaborate in a cross-domain environment. Therefore, principles of C2 need to evolve – beginning with the question: “How much ‘command’ should/has to be delegated to the edge?”
The steps from a system-of-systems in theory into real “Joint All-Domain Operations” (JADO), including C2, are complex and at this point not yet thought through in detail, but it is necessary to discuss this within the air force community to be able to gain and keep air superiority in future conflicts.
Cyber – the Winner Takes it all…
A few thoughts about the cyber environment: anti-access/aerial denial is also an electronic challenge on a digitised battlefield. A modern cyber threat, moreover, is different from our jamming electronic combat environment, which we are used to. In a world of cyber operations, where spoofing, phishing and other changes of data and information take place, it is a huge challenge to bring the results of a protected combat cloud to the edge, meaning the aircraft, the remote carriers, the system-of-systems or even to a JADO battlefield.
Key issues for implementig a combat cloud are therefore, inter alia, which kinds of cyber scenarios we have to assume and how to use technology and/or cyber redundant links between the basements and the air assets. The slider control is to be put between two basic positions and approaches:
– cyber will not allow any successful data link, so everything has to be put to the edge, into the aircraft
– Data links are not the problem to worry about, it is more an issue of data processing
Thus, stick 100 per cent with the cloud idea. A command fighter does not need any computing power. As in most cases, the truth lies somewhere between these extreme positions. The question is where and how!
Important Questions
For the Alliance, as well for the nations and their armed forces, we are at the start line. And we determine the future: We want to be able to deter and defeat a sophisticated enemy in a digitised data world! We should do that among the Allies, even with different weapon systems communities! We have to work out ways to interlink ourselves! And while developing together or in parallel, we have to avoid different air warfighting and battle management systems with no chance of cohesion!
Beyond these strategic and political questions, there are also some key questions for combat clouds and their use in a JADO approach. Recognising that combat clouds are a “conditio sine qua non” for a JADO warfighting and its successful implementation, the following key questions arise:
- Who is driving the developments just described?
- Is it technology itself?
- Is it the enemy threat?
- Is it the capability planner?
- Is it maybe all of them or none?
What about the JADO commander? Is he or she a real person or is it going to be an AI system in the near future? Will there be an entity? Personnel operating in a JADO environment is an important issue as well:
- What requirements do they need to fulfill to be “JADO ready”?
- Who is responsible to ensure resilience in a JADO network as well to analyze cyber threats from the air perspective?
It is necessary to develop some kind of master plan or concept that addresses all these issues to create a mutual understanding for the complexity to make JADO become a reality. Key issue and basis is the interconnectivity through a combat cloud. It is the major enabler for JADO and JADC2.
The Industrial Perspective: Future Military Operations
The operational environment has changed and will continue to change. Future military operations call for collaborative, more efficient and a digitised secure, cyber-resilient battlespace across all domains. This is key for future mission management and smart decision support. Future military operations will require higher flexibility and mobility, increased operational tempo and seamless collaboration within and across all domains. They will be carried out in a complex environment requiring agile and fast decision-making and coordinated interactions across all domains in order to achieve common mission goals and effects.
Multi-domain superiority will only be achieved through complete situational awareness based on data and advanced analytics. Milliseconds will make the decisive difference between survival and destruction in a contested military environment. Therefore, future warfighting requires a far higher degree of automation and integration throughout the mission cycle.
Looking at the tactical edge, let us discuss the challenges along a generic picture and role of a multi of joint all-domain task group element. In order to act successfully in such a role in a collaborative environment at the lowest tactical level, it is critical to have a joint mindset. This does not mean replicating the joint command. This means through transparency enabling the lowest tactical edge in a cockpit or a tank, or in a vehicle or on a ship, or in a submarine, to understand and pursue joint commanders’ intentions. The aim is to act and decide at the speed of relevance based on a single set of information that is used in various role-defined applications at various levels of command across and within all domains.
The Multi-Domain Combat Cloud Is Accelerating the Mission Cycle
To tackle these challenges, industry is working on a Multi-Domain Combat Cloud (MDCC). What is a Multi-Domain Combat Cloud and what will the operational benefit be?
It is a dot connectivity, a dot-based elaboration of a cloud environment and therefore far more than what we just see for a network-attached cloud environment for storage of valuable data. We strive for connecting all the actors, from human to machine.
Western forces need to accelerate the operational tempo by completing Observe Orient Decide Act or OODA loops better and faster than the opponent and take control of the situation. Agility can overcome an opponent whose forces constitute a complex adaptive system. The objective is to get inside an opponent’s OODA loop to force the opponent to respond to a situation that is no longer relevant. At the same time, it must be prevented from forming a target for the opponent. This requires rapid aggregation and disaggregation of forces. The situation perceived by the opponent must constantly change.
The Multi-Domain Combat Cloud will speed up the OODA loop by providing common situational awareness through the instantaneous capturing, sharing, merging and processing of massive amounts of data from all connected manned and unmanned platforms, by supplying predictive intelligence, by allowing mission planning/re-planning and by enabling distributed decision-making and collaborative combat. It is about merging data from various sources in a trusted way and turning that data into actionable information thanks to the latest analytical and learning technologies. When the forces are able to share the right information, and at the right time in the right place, it provides them with decisional superiority.
In order to achieve these operational capabilities from a technical point of view, the Multi-Domain Combat Cloud is an enabler for the actors on the battlefield by forming a mesh of various systems with the ability to share data/information and thus enable collaboration by providing services to each other. A service is understood in its broadest sense as a discrete unit of work/functionality through which a provider delivers a useful result to a requesting consumer. In the future, these interconnected and collaborative systems based on the combat cloud concept set the pace to deliver credible military actions across and within all domains.
Seamless exchange of validated information is key. It is about improving the OODA loop by orchestrating the functions and core services, based on cloud technologies in the sense of a mission system. The MDCC shall be the enabler for joint all domain operations within each command level, meaning the strategic, operational and tactical level. The aim is to achieve a seamless exchange of validated information.
From Cloud to Edge – Delegation of C2
The Cloud Layer contains all systems which deal with a large amount of data. In general, these systems are only a few and the location of the systems is not relevant in the context of the operation and will be in a fixed installation. The cloud layer will enable data driven collaboration across assets and domains, including for example: Predictive analytics and scenario calculation, and increased post-mission awareness. The cloud level comprises the broadest scope of data processing independent of platforms and domains.
The Fog Layer contains all systems which deal with a large amount of data. In general, these systems can be only a few to many, and are deployable. This layer supports smarter information sharing and dynamical reallocation of C2 roles between assets based on real-time changes.
The Edge Layer contains highly mobile platforms including effectors, sensors and C2 nodes.
A characteristic of that level is the collaboration of manned and unmanned assets, including a high level of automation. Taking FCAS as an example: Functional capabilities, such as radar, jammers and missiles, formally hosted on a specific platform like a fighter aircraft, can now be broken down into sensing, effecting and C2 elements forming actionable nodes.
Such actionable nodes can be categorised using the OODA loop construct. In such a construct, observation nodes collaborate to cross share information with orientation nodes, which then create an actionable picture of the operational area. Based on this orientation, decision nodes with humans in or on the loop activate multiple, simultaneous effect paths using the action nodes to create the desired effects on a designated target. Creating large numbers of redundant functional nodes across a network will dramatically increase the resiliency of information flows and effect paths.
The multi-domain combat cloud will allow the OODA loop to be distributed across actionable nodes allowing to dynamically combine sensing, effecting and C2 capabilities. Such a distributed OODA loop will provide better, faster and more resilient effect paths. With many possible effect paths running concurrently, C2 is of the essence.
Placing decision nodes at the forward edge of the combat zone will be key to increasing the speed and accuracy of actions, whilst creating a more resilient force. As a principle, delegation to the lowest possible level of subsidiarity, as often as possible, is the key to reactivity. Such self-coordinated execution will lead to less predictable behaviour, more effectiveness, efficiency and resilience. In FCAS, the manned New Generation Fighter is the lowest possible level of subsidiarity.
When delegation occurs, responsibility remains at the higher level with a clear delegation of decision expressed by the command authority. Due to the complexity of such a “catalogue of possibilities”, the multi-domain combat cloud’s distributed control enabled by a multi-nodal C2 capability will propose to the authority the appropriate level of delegation in line with sensitivity of the situation, which is based on the following parameters:
• Risk for own crews
• Risk of collateral damages
• Risk on the rest of the air campaign
Delegation subsidiarity will always be temporary. The right to decide can be given and taken back according to situational changes. Agility is essential for MDCC: During the mission, Mission Execution monitors the course of the mission based on the real-time Common Operational Picture (COP) derived from MDCC connectivity and C2 Structure. In case of an unforeseen (“unplanned”) situation/enemy reaction, the mission commander will receive a proposal from the system/C2 for the mission plan update, based on the current COP. In highly complex missions, this decision-making must be assisted by collaborative mission planning up to the edge.
Enabled by the multi-domain combat cloud, FCAS will provide the needed reactivity for decisional superiority if the required C2 doctrinal changes are made.
Conclusion
We are convinced that modern weapon systems as “Systems-of-Systems” based on combat clouds with their mighty data storage and processing capabilities, including AI and other new digitisation features, are the key to success. And of course, the idea was not invented here. However, it is a “must” in a world of collective defence with modern and sophisticated enemies.
It requires an integrative and incremental approach with full transparency to achieve this vision of fighting in a multi-domain or joint domain environment with cutting edge technology.
Besides future technologies, we have to accept the fact that legacy systems will continue to be the operational backbone of NATO for years to come. Innovative technology will therefore require an inherent backward compatibility as well.
