ISSUE 176 : Jul/Aug - 2008 - Australian Defence Force Journal

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Advances in Information and Communications Technology and their Impact on Future ADF Commanders Rear Admiral Peter Jones, DSC, AM, RAN Head ICT Operations and the Strategic J6 Throughout military history commanders, be they at the strategic, operational or tactical levels, have employed their command and leadership skills in the context of the information communications technologies (ICT) of the day. Contemporary doctrine has formalised this relationship in the concept of network centric warfare (NCW). In this article I will survey the key ICT developments and their implications for Australian Defence Force (ADF ) commanders. Commanders at the three levels and in the three environments are both enabled and constrained by contemporary ICT. As an inherently practical art, command demands that commanders and their staffs work with and around these technologies to best mission effect. In recent years the rapid and pragmatic adoption of commercial (some would say domestic) technologies such as blog, 1 chat, email and wiki 2 to improved military effect reflects this approach. A specific example of the desire of operators in the field to exploit technology occurred in 2002–03. Coalition Task Group commanders and warships in the Arabian Gulf used chat as their primary command and control (C2) tool despite senior United States Navy guidance that it was only to be used for administration. The advantages of chat and ‘whisper boxes’ for sharing information between ships and different levels of command were just too compelling. In the end higher command accepted the inevitable innovation. Today we see the increasing use of wikis and blogs, particularly within the US Department of Defense. A survey of the ADF’s different ICT layers shows how rapid innovation is opening up new possibilities for ADF commanders. Even so, these layers remain products of their origin and their development is limited by organisational and process frameworks which were more suited to slower technology cycles. The ICT layers I will refer to are: • the infrastructure layer; • the enterprise services or applications layer; and • information or data layer. The infrastructure layer In aggregate, the ADF’s ICT infrastructure is third largest in national terms after Telstra and Optus. It is one that in coming years will make the leap to an IP-based network. This will allow a vastly improved data flow with greater reliability and robustness. This will require significant investment and an upskilling of our civilian and uniformed ICT specialists. Interestingly, the key driver for this is not so much the capability demands from the warfighter; rather it is the technology pull of the commercial ICT industry. 6
Defence’s ICT infrastructure layer is borne from its disparate origins. There is a mix of old copper wire and new high speed fibre-optic cable. In the tactical environment, narrow band voice is increasingly giving way to broadband data and satellite communications (SATCOM) on the move. While this technological transformation is uneven between the air, land and maritime environments, over time there will be a levelling across the battlespace. At the interface between deployed forces and the national Defence network there is a transition underway. The early generation DEFAUSSAT and other narrow band SATCOMs are being replaced by the gleaming future of the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS). Within a few short years there will be no choice but to be IP-based. Future ADF commanders will be the beneficiaries of this widened information highway to the battlefield. This will mean that a wider array of services can be accessed and greater amounts of data exchanged. Less spectacular but no less important is a growing appreciation that the physical network needs to be more robust and redundant. The key operational role of the network is leading to its redesign and grooming. Single points of failure are being removed, the heterogeneous array of routers and servers are being standardised wherever possible and the overall architecture of the network is being streamlined. This will not only lead to better network performance and reliability, it will mean the network will be easier to maintain and require fewer operators and maintainers. The impact on the Services and deployed commanders will be that more ADF personnel will be available for deployment and these personnel are more likely to be trained for the equipment they will use in theatre. The growing system commonality will further allow joint training and the fielding of joint communications units (FCU). This year’s deployment of the first FCU into the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) is a significant milestone. Much can be done in deployed joint communications. The US for example has small joint communications teams ready to deploy at short notice. This model has considerable application to our own situation. Nowhere are the changes in the physical network more dramatic than in SATCOM. The transition to WGS is a revolution the like of which the ADF has rarely experienced. Amongst other attributes WGS has over ten times the capacity of previous generation SATCOMS. In coming years the ADF will move from its dependence on commercial and loaned allied services to a SATCOM capability based around an assured segment in a global constellation of the most capable SATCOM now in space. The challenge for the ADF and its commanders is to maximise the use of WGS and adjust to the potential of much enhanced information flow. This will require more investment in ground antennae to access the X/Ka band WGS. It will also require retraining for communications specialists who have to make the transition from accessing narrowband to broadband SATCOM. But WGS will not replace all others such as SATCOMS. There will still be a place for UHF as well as some niche commercial systems. Properly exploited, WGS will provide a competitive advantage to ADF commanders. To realise this advantage, however, the Services and the various supporting groups will have to work together in a concerted manner to affect the WGS shift. In infrastructure terms interoperability has been achieved through standardisation of radios, long haul communications and cryptographic equipment. Over the last decade there has 7
Page 1 and 2: Advances in Information and Communi
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS ISSUE No. 176, 2008 CHAIRM
Page 5 and 6: Letters to the Editor Dear Editor,
Page 7: Introduction The Defence Science an
Page 11 and 12: Chief Information Officer Group (CI
Page 13 and 14: Rear Admiral Peter Jones joined the
Page 15 and 16: facing HQJOC. It discusses the inte
Page 17 and 18: company’s Board of Directors, usu
Page 19 and 20: The challenges facing HQJOC are als
Page 21 and 22: Figure 2: Extension of the Board Au
Page 23 and 24: independent analysis and review. As
Page 25 and 26: years of testing and refinement can
Page 27 and 28: Governance and analysis structure -
Page 29 and 30: The elements of the evaluation fram
Page 31 and 32: Whole-of-HQJOC analysis: Modelling
Page 33 and 34: also meeting the challenges of perf
Page 35 and 36: Kalloniatis, A. and Wong, P., Appli
Page 37 and 38: For effective information sharing a
Page 39 and 40: And this excerpt highlights how ICT
Page 41 and 42: And another: I think it’s unfortu
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Page 45 and 46: Given, then, that it is normal for
Page 47 and 48: NOTES 1. The work of Dale Lambert (
Page 49 and 50: ‘Dealing with it’: Disorder in
Page 51 and 52: was out of the bottle: the merchant
Page 53 and 54: the counter-example to my use of en
Page 55 and 56: Communication excess and link disor
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large changes in the evolution of t
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If the ADF is viewed as a CAS in it
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First, CAS experience continual Cha
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warfare (sensitivity to history). T
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three alternative courses of action
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a point in one or more feedback loo
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although possibly at the risk of th
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Acknowledgments The authors would l
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15. While related, these two concep
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An Analysis of the Command and Cont
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SOD CDF HQAST HQAC US CAOC ATOs ASN
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The Command Line Group Captain Henm
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Figure 4: Separation of Command and
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Figure 6: Alberts and Hayes Problem
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Problem Space The summary of the Pr
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unconstrained unconstrained Pattern
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If one accepts that the utility of
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Dr Mark Burnett currently works in
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Modelling of Dynamic Targeting to P
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Targeting in the Air Operations Cen
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The assessment phase involves battl
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enough time available between detec
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this study, the results indicate th
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Figure 7 shows a segment of the wor
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a race against the clock. Additiona
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NOTES 1. Anonymous. OODA Loop, 2008
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Perceptions of Operations and Comma
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In a 2006 article in this journal,
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Many interviewees felt that America
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Interestingly, the interviewees wer
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Again, the impact of this factor on
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things set up for them, you know, l
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values, military expectations, and
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Australian Department
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Most contributors aim to elucidate
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In looking for solutions to these w
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GUIDANCE FOR AUTHORS The Australian
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ISSUE 176 : Jul/Aug - 2008 - Australian Defence Force Journal

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