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Written by Mark Pomerleau
The military’s main contribution to the Pentagon’s new concept for fighting wars is more important than moving new systems into record programs, the service’s No. 2 said.
Project Integration is the Army’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) as the frontline for Defense Department operations, enabling warfighters to make smarter and faster decisions as sensors, missiles and networks connect the services. And their platforms – with international partners – together. The other services’ JADC2 initiatives include the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) and the Navy’s Project Overmatch, although little is known about the Navy’s efforts because officials are tight-lipped about it.
“Our project integration exercises, the main thrust, is to demonstrate interoperability with the joint force and our allies and partners,” Army Secretary Gabe Camarillo told reporters Wednesday at the Potomac Officers Club’s Army Summit. .
“Success is not necessarily a transfer of hardware or talent to a program of record. Success is really about being able to demonstrate that interaction and define the information architecture needed to make informed decisions on the battlefield. At the end of the day, that’s the goal,” he said.
While the Air Force is developing ABMS, it is not developing something called Project Convergence, primarily to improve command and control and combat management. Rather, it is a testing ground for joint and first-time international partners.
“The result is not always just one thing,” Camarillo said. “It’s a system-of-systems engineering challenge. It is an architecture that allows information flows to take place where they are needed and to achieve the missions required within the joint force. The army is part of the collective power.
In true experimental fashion, the focus of project convergence is to validate that architecture to ensure that there are the right interfaces between systems and the right data requirements.
“How do we show what kind of network requirements are relevant to the systems field so that we can adequately plan in those data architectures?” Camarillo said. “The result is not necessarily the program of record, but rather how our programs of record fit into the architecture that enables JADC2. In this sense, we are very close to the strategy of the department.
Others in the joint force have positive things to say about the work the Army is doing to facilitate experiments with Project Integration.
“It’s a great joint testing ground,” Brig. Gen. Jeff Valencia, the JADC2 cross-functional team leader for the future of the Air Force, told FedScope in a recent interview.
A goal for project integration coming in the fall is to understand what information requirements are needed for partners and partners to pass through an operational environment, Camarillo said.
“How can we do that efficiently, given the different types of sensors and weapon systems that we employ in the mission thread?” he said. “We actually do that by looking at specific mission components that are defined for the project integration exercises.”
For the office leading the JADC2 effort, a senior official noted that it’s not all about systems.
“We need to understand how we plan to move. JADC2 is not just about systems. If our thinking about JADC2 starts and ends with the system, we haven’t done our job,” said Rear Adm. Susan Breyer Joyner, J-6 deputy director for command, control, communications and computer/cyber systems, to the Joint Staff at the AFCEA Technet Augusta conference last week.
“JADC2… is about a different modus operandi. It’s about a different mindset. It’s about another way of exchanging information. If we are not looking at how we are training our people, how we are growing [tactics, techniques and procedures], how we are making decisions, then we do not really understand the JADC2 challenge in front of us. Until we understand all of that, it is very difficult to design systems that meet the operational needs,” she added.
While some officials, such as Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush and Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, have suggested there should be greater coordination within DOD on JADC2, Camarillo said the Army is closely aligned with the department’s strategy for joint all-domain command. And the control and project integration is laid out in that approach.
Hicks believes more, higher-level oversight is necessary for JADC2 coordination, explaining that she is not satisfied with the way things are.
FedScope and other reporters who accompanied her on a multi-country trip last week said, “Neither the secretary nor I are satisfied with this — the superior command and control we have in the department.” You can find examples of the speed and quality of decision-making in the department every day. [at the] At the tactical level, at the operational level, at the strategic level, it is possible to improve significantly and create the edge we need for the future. A lot of good work is being done in the department. [but] My focus right now is to take that… good work that’s going on and grow it to enterprise level.
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