U.S. Air Forces Central Command commander Lt. Gen. John Hesterman III looks on as Gulf Cooperation Council liaison officers participate in an exercise at the Combined Air Operations Center, Nov. 26, 2014, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.

U.S. Air Forces Central Command commander Lt. Gen. John Hesterman III looks on as Gulf Cooperation Council liaison officers participate in an exercise at the Combined Air Operations Center, Nov. 26, 2014, at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Chelsea Browning

US Military Dominance Requires Better Command-and-Control Tools

Commanders need an AI-infused infrastructure to keep tabs on friendly and hostile forces, suggest actions, and help carry out orders.

To maintain its position as the world’s dominant military, the U.S. needs new command-and-control technologies that can fully connect and put to use the capabilities of every asset available, regardless of service or domain. These new tools will need to be quickly upgradeable – often on the fly – and resilient enough so commanders can trust the data as it comes in and goes out to individual platforms and units.

Forward-thinking leaders are starting to get serious about this need. In a speech to the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida in February, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said, “If we are going to fight and win in wars of cognition, we’ve got to ask a different series of questions before starting an acquisition program on any platform, any sensor or any weapon. Does it connect? Good. Does it share? Better. Does it learn? Perfect.”

The services have long experimented with the ability to integrate and command platforms from across the services. The post-Vietnam AirLand Battle doctrine and changes in joint operations forced by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act broke domain stovepipes and prompted commanders to fuse the individual services into a single, warfighting whole.

But in an era when potential adversaries are catching up with and finding ways to nullify U.S. military capability, our current methods of combining air, land, and sea power — to say nothing of the electronic domain — are no longer good enough.

In order to fully connect and integrate the future force, the U.S. military must accelerate the adoption of autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence to increase the speed at which data is processed, information distributed and warfighting decisions made.

Fortunately, recent breakthroughs in these technologies promise to dramatically improve the ability to connect platforms and shrink the data-to-decision timeline. We are reaching a point where commercial software companies can develop tools and algorithms that allow commanders to make warfighting decisions nearly instantaneously, across every domain, and using whichever platforms can be networked into a battle management system, regardless of service or manufacturer. These software tools won’t remove commanders from the decision-making process; they will simply help them collect and make sense of data in a way that allows for fully informed decisions quicker than a room full of human planners ever could.

The wide-spread adoption of these technologies – already prevalent in the worlds of commercial manufacturing, logistics and consumer products – will require military leaders to change their mindset and develop new training and warfighting doctrine. And the adoption of any new technology always comes with obstacles.

Perhaps the largest is the current acquisition system, which more or less works as designed when the military needs to buy a missile, but not when they need to rapidly build, test, and upgrade software and algorithms as new capabilities are developed. The Department already has broad authorities to rapidly prototype and acquire cutting-edge technologies, but they’re not broadly used across the force today.

Cyber-resiliency will also need to be a key consideration when deploying networked technologies. It can’t be an after-thought; security must be built in at the earliest design phase and easily upgraded as threats mature.  

The challenges don’t only lie with the military; industry, too, will need to reconsider how we develop truly open systems. In a future in which every platform needs to communicate quickly with every other platform, industry must be willing to develop fully open systems that can be upgraded or modified by the user as needs dictate, without needing to work through the original manufacturer. And we will need to redefine the way we share proprietary data and software.

Finally, success will require increased outreach, either directly or through traditional defense contractors, to the experts in Silicon Valley. Defense companies and the Department’s own DIUx office are already making great inroads into established tech companies to leverage their expertise, but both government and industry should increase the pace of this knowledge sharing by doing the things that have made American tech companies so successful, like hiring from outside traditional pathways and developing and sharing open-source software.

The military and industry must work side-by-side to overcome these obstacles and deploy these new technologies quickly in order to maintain our battlefield dominance. America’s adversaries are employing strategies to counter America’s technological edge. The most successful military commanders of the future will be the ones who can hone that edge by deploying the modern tools needed to speed decision times and break down the stovepipes between the services.

NEXT STORY: Neither Precise Nor Proportionate

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.