Joint All-Domain Command, Control Framework Belongs To Warfighters by Jim Garamone, DOD News
December 7, 2020
The Joint All-Domain Command and Control framework is not just
the bailiwick of communications personnel ... it is warfighting
business, said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Dennis A. Crall.
Crall
is the Joint Staff's director of command, control, communications
and computers – commonly called the J-6. He is also the chief
information officer for the Joint Staff.
He emphasizes that the Joint All-Domain Command and Control
framework– the JADC2 – belongs to warfighters. "This is warfighting
business. It's not J-6 business. It's not CIO's business. It belongs
with the warfighter," the general said during an interview about
what is DoD's strategic approach to fighting the wars of the future.
The framework is DOD's effort to amalgamate sensors with
shooters across all domains, commands and services. It sounds like
simply a communications effort that will take decades to happen. Crall
insists it will not. "This is about fires, and speedy engagement,"
he said. "If you think of it in those terms, we need to set aside
for a minute what we own and what we do and look at where the
department needs to be. We can then look at where we need to be
based on time."
The services each have a system looking to
tie sensors to shooters. The JADC2 will gather all sensor
information and connect all warfighters. A threat could be sensed by
an Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle but the best weapon against it
could be a Navy missile fired from offshore.
Airmen monitor battlespace movements at a simulated
austere base during the Advanced Battle Management System
exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada on Sept. 3, 2020.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Cory D. Payne)
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A call for fire
from an infantry battalion could be answered by tube artillery,
rocket artillery, naval gunfire, close-air support from any service
or something else.
This is warfighting business. It's not J-6
business. It's not CIO's business. It belongs with the warfighter.''
Lt. Gen. Dennis A. Crall, Joint Staff Chief Information Officer
Some of this is already happening, and Crall sees the program
growing and evolving. "There are things we can do immediately," he
said. "We might onboard some of these things, because they're
available. You fight with what you have, not with what you want. But
eventually, you will fight with what you want. So, the idea of
looking at short, medium, and long range is very critical. We can't
take our eye off the horizon of what we need."
Crall wants
to ensure that requirements for the JADC2 framework are stated very
clearly. "We will drive the JADC2 strategy to the need, and then
examine what we have, and find out which pieces fit well and which
pieces don't," he said.
Like every other aspect of the
department, JADC2 must contribute to the national defense strategy's
lines of effort. "Does it increase lethality," Crall asked. "The
answer should be yes. [JADC2] makes us more lethal. We're a
warfighting organization. That's what this is designed to do.''
The framework will strengthen partnerships, another line of
effort in the JADC2 strategy, which is currently in the works and
being drafted by Crall's staff. Allies and other mission partners
are being brought to the program now and not as "a bolt on" after
the framework is fielded. He noted that it is very unlikely the
United States would do anything without allies and partners, and
they will have their own sensors and systems that need to be
accommodated. Bringing in the Five-Eye allies early in the "build"
of JADC2, just makes sense, he said.
"We're never going to fight alone,
we're going to fight with partners," he said. "So [JADC2] has got to
mean the same thing to them as it does to us."
The third
line of effort is reform and the JADC2 framework is all about
changing the paradigm. "It's not a good thing to have everyone run
off and develop something on their own. You end up with this idea
that if it doesn't work well, at least it's expensive," he said. "We
have to spend the money wisely."
The JADC2 strategy consists
of lines of effort and milestones. The lines of effort have
objectives and tasks and there is a plan of attack. "We have to make
sure that we are working together rather than potentially at cross
purposes," he said.
He said the services are working
together. The service systems are "not quite integrated" but they
all show promise as Crall's folks try to determine what it "looks
like for the department."
Different people look at JADC2 from
different perspectives. Some see descriptions of it and only
concentrate on the adjectives, he said. Speed, resilient, persistent
are just some and they form the "commandments" officials would
compare these actions against.
Other people look at JADC2 and
just see the verbs: Sense and act. "There's a lot of sensors on the
battlefield," Crall said.
Soldiers with the Indiana Army National Guard conduct a field artillery fire mission during Exercise Bold Quest 20.2 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana
on Oct. 31, 2020. Led by the Joint Staff, Bold Quest is a multinational exercise that demonstrates a joint capability to link sensors to shooters across air, land, sea, space and cyberspace.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joel Pfiester)
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The growing Internet of Things has
produced information that exceeds the ability to process it
casually. "It comes at us in torrents, and every month, it seems we
have a new sensor and a new feed," the general said. "And all this
will wind up on the cutting room floor, if we don't automate and
speed this up."
The military has no problem acting, he said. "We can make
decisions at speed if that information is refined," he said. This
will require some level of artificial intelligence.
Finally,
to others who read the requirements they will only see the nouns.
"What radio, what antenna?" Crall said. "What's the next thing you
can touch and buy?"
All of these parts of speech need to be reconciled. All are
important. All contribute to the framework. All have to be in sync
for JADC2to work.
"In my experience, most things that are
labeled interoperable, don't work together," Crall said. "It's an
interface. [The system] is working, but it's not native."
Making systems interoperable is not easy, it is not cheap and most
systems resist change, Crall said. "When you change one end, you've
got to change a long laundry list of things to make them work
together. We've got to get out of that business."
Crall's
office, in concert with the DOD chief information officer, is
bringing this together by working the different parts but using the
same approach.
Looking to the future of JADC2, there are
exercises and demonstrations, such as Bold Quest, that display
capability right now. "If you view this as a puzzle, there are
aspects to this capability we can employ today," the general said.
"We don't have to wait for five years."
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