Army Reveals New

Fighting Vehicle
PAGE 11

Navy Sets Sights on

Next-Gen Destroyer
PAGE 19

NATIONALDEFENSEMAGAZINE.ORG

NETWORK
SPECIAL REPORT ON JADC2

NIRVANA
Can the Pentagon Achieve
Seamless Command
And Control?
PAGE 26

J U LY 2 0 2 3

NDIA’S BUSINESS &

TECHNOLOGY MAGA ZINE
 CONTENTS
July 2023 | Volume CVIII, Number 836 | NationalDefenseMagazine.org
NDIA’S
BUSINESS &
TECHNOLOGY
MAGA ZINE

SPECIAL REPORT 26
• The Defense Depart-
ment’s joint all-domain
command and control,
or JADC2, concept has
become one of the driv-
ing forces of military
modernization and
transformation. National
NEXT-GEN SHIP 19 Defense explores how
• The Navy has begun development each service is contrib-
of a future guided missile destroyer uting to JADC2, and the
known as DDG(X) that will bring increased fire- challenges of building
power and efficiency to the fleet, even as the ser- resilient command and
vice is still in the midst of constructing Flight III of control across all domains
its Arleigh Burke-class large surface combatants. that can function in con-
tested environments.

GROUND POWER 11
• The Army has unveiled
COVER: Photo-illustration, Defense Dept. photos

the M-10 Booker Combat

Vehicle — an armored,
tracked platform designed to
provide a mobile, protected,
direct, offensive fire capa-
bility the service’s Infantry
Brigade Combat Teams
do not currently have.

National Defense (ISSN 0092–1491) is published monthly by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), 2101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201–3060. TEL (703)
522–1820; FAX (703) 522–1885. ADVERTISING SALES: Kathleen Kenney, 2101 Wilson Blvd., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22201–3060. TEL (703) 247–2576; FAX (703) 522–4602. The views
expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of NDIA. Membership rates in the association are $40 annually; $15.00 is allocated to National Defense for a one-
year association basic subscription and is non-deductible from dues. Annual rates for NDIA members: $40 U.S. and possessions; District of Columbia add 6 percent sales tax; $45 foreign. A six-week notice
is required for change of address. Periodical postage paid at Arlington, VA and at additional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to National Defense, 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 700, Arlington,
VA 22201–3060. The title National Defense is registered with the Library of Congress. Copyright 2023, NDIA

N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 1
 CE D
EN AN
NF IS ISS

!
ER BR
CONTENTS

CO TH M
W N ’T
NE T O DON
OU STAFF
4 5 6 7 12 17 EDITOR IN CHIEF
Stew Magnuson
(703) 247-2545
SMagnuson@NDIA.org

EMERGING
3 NDIA PERSPECTIVE 26 SPECIAL REPORT ON JADC2 CREATIVE DIRECTOR

TECHNOLOGIES
Brian Taylor
Views from the association's leadership Joint All-Domain Command, Control (703) 247-2546

FOR DEFENSE
A Journey, not a Destination BTaylor@NDIA.org
4 EDITOR’S NOTES BY SEAN CARBERRY
From the deskCof
ON theF Eeditor
R E N in
C Echief
& EXHIBITION MANAGING EDITOR
BY STEW MAGNUSON 30 PROJECT CONVERGENCE Sean Carberry
Delivering New Capabilities to the Warfighter at Speed and Scale
Army Overhauling Networks for JADC2 (703) 247-2542
5 EMERGING TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS
Explore the emerging technologies that will shape national security for the next century at ETI’s
inaugural conference! Hear directly from S&T leaders in government, industry, and academia on both BY LAURA HECKMANN SCarberry@NDIA.org
acquisition and contracting opportunities and cutting-edge developments in critical mission areas such

Looking toward the tech of the future 32 Special Operations Command Has
as counter UAS, contested logistics, and operational energy. The conference will focus on the most
innovative technologies that industry has to offer and delivering new capabilities to the warfighter at
speed and scale.
STAFF WRITER
Key Role to Play in JADC2 Success
6 DISPATCHES Josh Luckenbaugh
Register Now!
August 28 – 30, 2023 | Washington, DC | NDIA.org/EmergingTech BY STEW MAGNUSON (703) 247-2585
News from the U.S. and around the world JLuckenbaugh@NDIA.org
COMPILED BY STEW MAGNUSON 33 ADVANCED BATTLE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Air Force Reorganizes to Tackle JADC2 STAFF WRITER
12 ALGORITHMIC WARFARE Complexities BY SEAN CARBERRY Laura Heckmann
What’s coming in artificial intelligence, big (703) 247-2543
data and cybersecurity BY LAURA HECKMANN 35 Space Force Sets Sights on Putting LHeckmann@NDIA.org
JADC2 in Orbit BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
13 BUDGET MATTERS 36 PROJECT OVERMATCH
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Who’s funding what in Washington Allyson Park
Navy Testing Secret JADC2 Technologies (703) 247-0469
BY SEAN CARBERRY BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH APark@NDIA.org

14 COMMENTARY 38 China Pursues Its Own Version of JADC2 INTERN

Additive Technology Revolutionizes Defense BY STEW MAGNUSON Cambrie Eckert
Manufacturing BY LARRY (LJ) R. HOLMES JR. CEckert@NDIA.org
39 NDIA POLICY POINTS
17 VIEWPOINT Views from the association's policy division
U.S. Must Strengthen Biodefense, ADVERTISING
Reauthorize Laws BY WILLIAM KING 40 GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING INSIGHTS SVP, MEETINGS, DIVISIONS
Analysis of the newest rules and regulations & PARTNERSHIPS
18 COMMENTARY CONTRIBUTED BY COVINGTON & BURLING Christine M. Klein
Fast Track Digital Twins in (703) 247-2593
Military Supply Chains 41 LETTER TO THE EDITOR CKlein@NDIA.org
BY PAUL OTT
42 NDIA NEWS SALES DIRECTOR
19 NAVY NEWS Happenings at the association Kathleen Kenney
Navy Lays Groundwork for (703) 247-2576
KKenney@NDIA.org
Larger, More Lethal Next-Gen 43 NDIA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Destroyer BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
SALES MANAGER
44 NDIA CALENDAR Alex Mitchell
22 SPECIAL OPERATIONS A complete guide to NDIA events (703) 247-2568
Air Force Special Ops Wants AMitchell@NDIA.org
Runway Independence, More 48 NEXT MONTH
Speed BY STEW MAGNUSON Preview of our next issue National Defense
2101 Wilson Blvd.
24 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 48 INDEX OF ADVERTISERS Suite 700
NORTHCOM Confronts Cultural Barriers Arlington, VA 22201
Connect with our sponsors
To Innovation BY LAURA HECKMANN

NDIA MEMBERSHIP: The

National Defense Industrial
Association (NDIA) is the pre-
mier association representing
24 30 36 39 40 41 all facets of the defense and
technology industrial base and
serving all military services.
For more information please
call our membership depart-
ment at 703-522-1820 or visit
us on the web at NDIA.org/
2 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 WWW.NATIONALDEFENSEMAGAZINE.ORG Membership
 NDIA PERSPECTIVE BY MICHAEL J. BAYER
Training, Simulation Key to Achieving JADC2 Goals
T
his spring, hackers breached
U.S. critical infrastructure on
the strategically crucial island
of Guam.
Multiple U.S. technology compa-
nies investigated the breach. One
assessed that the hacking campaign
was designed to pursue the develop-
ment of capabilities that could disrupt
communications between the United
States and Asia during future crises.
This is yet another blunt reminder
of the People’s Republic of China
using its growing cyber capabilities
to prepare for potential conflict.
For years, the Defense Depart-
ment has asserted future great power
conflict would likely involve both
dispersed U.S. units fighting against
adversaries of roughly technical par-
ity and simultaneous asymmetric
attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure
that degrade logistics and vital com-
munications lines. That future is here.
To prevail, the U.S. military must
be able to dominate across all opera-
tional domains to present multiple
dilemmas to adversaries. It must
also prepare for persistent, sophis-
ticated and novel efforts to disrupt,
degrade, destroy or compromise
the Joint Force’s sensors, networks
and command-and-control nodes.
To address these challenges, the
Defense Department is organiz-
ing around the concept of joint
all-domain command and control,
or JADC2, which represents a new
and powerful approach to warfight-
ing. Its goal is to restore operational
competitive advantage through infor-
mation dominance and command
decision-making superiority.
Therefore, the Defense Department
and the Joint Force are undergoing
a massive digital transformation,
with the objective of connecting the
individual military services’ sensors,
shooters and communications systems
into a networked solution that can
interact across U.S. and allied systems.
The desired end state is to support
cross-domain operations, informa-
tion sharing and decision-making
under operationally relevant timelines
in degraded or dis-
rupted communica-
iStock illustration
tions environments.
JADC2 will require
a significant invest-
ment in new technological
and operational approaches
that can only be developed in
partnership with industry.
An early element essential
to operationalizing JADC2 is
the department’s investment in
U.S. industry’s creation of modeling,
simulation and training in synthetic
environments. Synthetic environments
— virtual and constructive simula-
tions — will be critically important
as they allow the Joint Force to test,
evaluate, experiment, train and sup-
port future multi-domain operations.
Due to recent advances in support-
ing technologies such as cloud com-
puting, common data standards, open
architectures and artificial intelligence,
industry can create these powerful
synthetic environments of virtual test
and evaluation for many JADC2 opera-
tional capabilities prior to live fielding.
Future JADC2 architectures could
be stress-tested in a synthetic envi-
ronment to ensure they are resilient
and can maintain mission assur-
ance even when operating in a con-
tested battlespace. In addition, by
employing model-based systems
engineering, synthetic environ-
ments can help de-risk the acquisi-
tion process and support acquisition
professionals with data-driven feed-
back on potential capabilities dur-
ing the procurement process.
These synthetic environments will
also support continuous innovations in
operational concepts, force structures,
and military training, particularly
in the context of all-domain opera-
tions. By linking virtual environments
used for kinetic mission planning
with those traditionally employed for
non-kinetic operations, warfighters
will be able to work through many of
the timing, synchronization, authori-
ties and classification challenges that
are unique to the integration of long-
range kinetic and non-kinetic fires.
For instance, the military could
leverage synthetic environments to
train non-cyber operators how to sup-
port or fight in and through complex
battlespaces saturated with adversarial
cyber and information
operations. In addition, a
synthetic environment is
also an ideal environment
where space and cyber
warfighters can train alongside
conventional warfighters.
The department and
industry will need to work
together to actively manage
and address three challenges
during JADC2’s development.
The first is getting everyone connect-
ed within an architecture that is secure
and based on common standards.
The second is to successfully
address operators’ concerns over
allowing anything either synthetic
or focused on training to reside
on their operating systems.
The third challenge is to address
current procurement processes,
which generally restrict command-
and-control systems from imbedding
training in operational software.
These three challenges are
slowly being addressed, but there
is more work to be done.
The exposure of the Chinese hacking
campaign reinforces that America’s
rivals are bent on undoing U.S. deter-
rence and threatening allies and part-
ners. That animates National Defense
Industrial Association members and
industry leaders to quickly realize
the promise and potential of JADC2
to enhance U.S. warfighting capabili-
ties and serve as a vehicle to integrate
modeling and simulation, synthetic
environments, next-generation net-
works and artificial intelligence
into our warfighting architecture.
The National Training and Simu-
lation Association, an NDIA affili-
ate, advocates for joint solutions to
translate the challenges that exist
from vision to reality. NTSA hosts the
annual Interservice/Industry Training,
Simulation and Education Conference
(I/ITSEC), which is the world’s larg-
est modeling, simulation and train-
ing event and connects government
customers with some of the most
innovative companies in industry.
The key enablers of JADC2 are at
the center of the I/ITSEC agenda for
2023, which will be held in Orlando,
Florida, Nov. 27-Dec. 1. This important
conference fills up quickly. We look
forward to seeing you there! Find more
information at: www.iitsec.org. ND
Michael Bayer is the NDIA
board chair, and the president and
CEO of Dumbarton Strategies.
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 3
EDITOR'S NOTES BY STEW MAGNUSON
Why the Coast Guard Lags When
It Comes to Unmanned Systems
I
t’s 2006, and the scene is a
nondescript office build-
ing near the Navy Yard in
Southwest Washington, D.C.
The Coast Guard’s Integrated
Deepwater System was still a
thing at the time. The two prime
contractors partnering on the 25-year
project to modernize Coast Guard
platforms — Lockheed Martin and
Northrop Grumman — had taken
over a floor in the office building a
few blocks south of the Capitol build-
ing and set up flashy looking displays
to show members of Congress, their
staffers and reporters like me about
all the upgrades and new-build ships
and aircraft in store for the service.
It was there I learned about the
Eagle Eye, a tiltrotor unmanned
aerial vehicle being developed by
Bell Helicopter to fly off the yet to
be built National Security Cutters.
The executive in charge of giv-
ing the tour explained how such a
UAV could be a big advantage for
the Coast Guard and its myriad mis-
sions. Coast Guard helicopters flying
a search pattern could cover about
9,000 nautical square miles over a
span of 24 hours as opposed to an
Eagle Eye, which could extend that to
56,000 nautical square miles and do
so at a much lower operating cost.
The plan was to acquire 45 Eagle
Eyes over the course of the 25-year
Scan Eagle
program, but it was not to be.
The Northrop-Lockheed team
got fired for performing poorly on
the program — particularly on the
fast response cutters — and the
Coast Guard eventually took over
management with all the ships
and helicopter programs intact —
but without the Deepwater name
and without the Eagle Eye.
Although Bell had begun developing
4 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
the aircraft at its own expense
in the early 1990s before find-
ing a customer at Deepwater,
that was still five years of
development and $113.7 mil-
lion charged to the service.
Flashforward some 17 years later
to May 2023. The Coast Guard released
an “Unmanned Systems Strategic
Plan” — a forward-looking docu-
ment that explains all the goodness
that could come out of the service’s
increased use of uncrewed aerial, sur-
face, subsurface and space systems.
Of that, there can be no doubt.
Almost two decades after their wide-
spread adoption in modern battle-
fields, the utility of robotic systems
is well known and hardly needs to be
repeated in the pages of this magazine.
Like most roadmaps, the docu-
ment has a short “history” sec-
tion — a chart called “Timeline
of Research And Development
And Capabilities” on page 12.
The first entry on the chart is 2007
when Coast Guard and Customs and
Border Protection began jointly fly-
ing a marinized Predator drone called
the Sea Guardian in the Caribbean.
The second entry was 2009 when the
Coast Guard began experimenting with
the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter.
Wait! What happened to the Eagle
Eye? It is not mentioned. The history
of Coast Guard unmanned aerial vehi-
cle R&D began in 2007,
according to this chart.
Where is it? Sitting
collecting dust in
Amarillo or Fort
Worth, I imagine.
But what is the
real story? The Eagle
Eagle Eye Eye had one crash
— while in develop-
ment — but so what?
That’s par for the course in R&D.
Insiders told National Defense
at the time that it was all about
the budget. While UAVs through-
out the decade were proving their
worth day in and day out in Iraq
and Afghanistan, lawmakers appar-
ently didn’t believe the Coast Guard
had an urgent need for them.
They were intended for National
Security Cutters, and they had
yet to sail. The Federal Aviation
Administration hadn’t sorted
out the rules for flying drones
in the National Airspace near
shorelines. True and true.
But the National Security Cutters
did eventually set sail. And the FAA
worked out the rules and regulations.
Bell executives at the time said the
Eagle Eye was at a high technology
readiness level and they were ready to
flip the switch back on the program
anytime. But that never happened.
Today, the Coast Guard flies
ScanEagle drones off its ships — a
very capable and no-doubt use-
ful tool. But as far as range and
endurance, it’s not what the
Eagle Eye could have been.
The 9,000 vs. 56,000-sqaure-mile
statistic quoted earlier was most
likely a bit of marketing, but the
reader should get the point after
years of comparing manned versus
unmanned operations. Who knows
how many lives could have been
saved, billions of dollars of illicit drugs
seized, illegal fishing boats spotted
while employing a medium-range,
long-endurance drone being organi-
cally flown off the cutters, especially
with today’s high-fidelity sensors?
But here is where I confess that this
article is not really about the Eagle
Eye. Sorry to say that it was all a bit
of misdirection, because this article
is really about one of the nation’s
greatest but chronically underfunded
assets: the United States Coast Guard.
National Defense since the Eagle
Eye’s cancellation has written dozens
of articles about the service’s effort to
deploy UAVs. Over and over again, the
only reason cited for the Coast Guard
being the “have-not” of the services
when it comes to drones was funding.
And for those who follow the yearly
budget battles, this is hardly surpris-
ing. We have also written dozens of
articles about the Coast Guard getting
the short shrift on other programs.
Despite the Eagle Eye’s glar-
ing omission, the “Coast Guard
Unmanned Systems Strategic Plan”
is a solid document that spells out all
the important missions that can be
carried out by not only unmanned
aerial vehicles, but by subsurface,
surface and even ground robots.
The return on investment for
Americans would be well worth it in
Coast Guard photos
lives saved alone.
Now, all the service needs is ade-
quate funding to make this vision come
true. ND

EMERGING TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS BY HEIDI SHYU AND ARUN SERAPHIN
Delivering New Capabilities
To Warfighters at Speed, Scale
T
he rate of technology develop-
ment is accelerating today, and
the Defense Department is
adapting to foster emerging technol-
ogy.
As stated in the recently released
National Defense Science and
Technology Strategy, accelerated tech-
nology advancement and innovation
are key elements to achieving depart-
ment priorities.
The upcoming 2023 National
Defense Industrial Association
Emerging Technologies Conference is
an event where we can focus on and
discuss what we’re doing and what
we need to do to accelerate technology
advancement and innovation.
The Aug. 28-30 conference will be a
venue for government and industry to
discuss how to build the partnerships
necessary to rapidly move emerging
technologies and capabilities into the
hands of our warfighters, from the
laboratory to the theater. Fostering
more direct dialogue between custom-
ers, such as operational users, and
industry innovators is a good way to
help speed up the innovation process.
We expect that this event will bring
together an exciting mix of speakers
and attendees, including program
executive officers, program manag-
ers, warfighters, technology leaders
from both the office of the undersec-
retary of defense for research and
engineering and their partners in the
office of the undersecretary of defense
for acquisition and sustainment.
There will also be key industry
program leaders, technical experts
and business development officers.
High level keynote speakers from the
Office of the Secretary of Defense,
military services, industry and aca-
demia will discuss the broader tech-
nological competition and the critical
need to deliver new capabilities.
Panels and breakout rooms that mix
industry and government techni-
cal and acquisition experts will dig
deeper into the details of what indus-
try and the department need from
each other to better identify, develop
and field emerging technologies.
NDIA graphic
We will focus on some of the high-
est priority joint mission areas, with
a strong focus on counter-unmanned
CE D
EN AN
NF IS ISS
!
ER BR
CO TH M
W N ’T
NE T O DON
OU
aerial systems, operational energy
and contested logistics. NDIA will
be accepting abstracts on tech-
nologies within these three tracks
that show results, and which can
be fielded in the next five years.
In addition to these specific mis-
sion areas, the conference will also
focus on “game-changing” emerging
technologies such as microelectron-
ics, artificial intelligence, FutureG
technologies and biotechnology.
Additionally, companies and gov- will require sustained and secure
ernment agencies will be displaying access to equipment, troop replenish-
their new technologies and show- ment, fuel and other supplies. At the
EMERGING
casing their innovative activities same time, warfighters are more vul-
in the conference exhibit hall. nerable to increasingly precise, long-
The counter-UAS track looks at the range attacks that can take the form of
challenge of countering the major pro- kinetic strikes or far-away cyber cam-
TECHNOLO
liferation of unmanned aerial systems paigns. To anticipate and counter these
in theaters across the world, includ- challenges, the conference will discuss
ing the Middle East and Ukraine. UAS the emerging technologies ranging
FOR DEFE
are inexpensive and can be deployed from artificial intelligence to advanced
against vulnerable targets, requir- manufacturing that can improve the
ing solutions that leverage emerg- military to better plan for and execute
ing technologies to detect, track and missions in contested environments.
defeat these systems cost-effectively. We are excited by the conference
CONFERENCE & E
The Defense Department needs tech- agenda and activities and invite you
nologies that can be integrated into to attend. Science-and-technology
existing air defense systems and are practitioners — from the defense
looking for ideas on rapid buying of industrial base, the commercial
smaller, software-enabled systems. Delivering Newsector,
technology Capabilities to the Warfigh
and the Defense
Given increasing power needs for Department — will have the oppor-
American capabilities and warfight-Explore tunity to discuss
the emerging their work,
technologies that willfind
shape national sec
ers, this year’s conference also focuses potential partners, and understand
inaugural conference! Hear directly from S&T leaders in govern
heavily on emerging operational how their technologies fit into key
acquisition and contracting opportunities and cutting-edge de
energy technologies, which include mission areas. Acquisition profession-
as counter UAS, contested logistics, and operational energy. T
those that increase the military’s abil- als, officials from the research and
ity to generate more power, store innovative technologies
defense that industry
community and has to offer and deliverin
uniformed
that power for longer durations speed and scale.
service members will be able to use
or use energy more efficiently. this conference to collaborate and find
Warfighters require lighter bat- Register Now! for the new technologies
opportunities
tery loads, more range and up-time that support joint warfighting plans.
for defense capabilities and reducedAugust 28 – 30,
This 2023
kind | Washington,
of collaboration DC | ND
will drive
vulnerabilities created by the need the innovation needed to achieve
to move fuel to theaters around the DoD priorities, and to ensure our
world. The exhibition will show- national security over the long term.
case next-generation, dual-use To learn more about
energy technologies that are cru- the conference, including
cial to today’s energy needs, such details on registration and
as batteries, more efficient fuel and exhibiting at the event,
engines, and electric vehicles. please scan the QR code. ND
The third track, contested logistics,
focuses on emerging technologies that Heidi Shyu is the under-
will help mitigate the logistical chal- secretary of defense for research
lenge faced by the military. Future and engineering. Dr. Arun Seraphin
operations will take place in expansive is the executive director of NDIA’s
geographic theaters, so warfighters Emerging Technologies Institute.
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 5

DISPATCHES
NEWS FROM THE U.S. AND AROUND THE WORLD COMPILED BY STEW MAGNUSON
Navy SEALs Seek New Tech
For Covert Missions
BY STEW MAGNUSON
T
AMPA, Florida — Whether
it is in super-fast and stealthy
boats, mini-submarines or
combat diving suits, Special Opera-
tions Command’s elite maritime
forces — better known as SEALs
— are on the lookout for technolo-
gies that make their jobs easier.
“We’re predominantly focused
on access for maritime mobil-
ity, getting into denied areas other
people can’t go — other countries
can’t go. We provide the means and
the methods for insertion,” Navy
Capt. Randy Slaff, program execu-
tive officer for maritime systems at
Special Operations Command, said
at the May SOF Week conference.
The good news to come out of the
conference was that SEALs would
soon receive the long-awaited Dry
Combat Submersible, a mini-sub
built by Lockheed Martin that can
remain underwater for 24 hours,
has a range of 60 miles and can
travel at depths of 330 feet.
Naval special operators need-
ing to travel undersea must cur-
6 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
A Navy SEAL participates in
Exercise Trident 18-4 near
Hurlburt Field, Florida.
rently don wet suits and use the
SEAL Delivery Vehicle MK 11. The
dry submersible — which can trans-
port eight SEALs, plus two crew
members — is expected to give
them more time underwater because
they are not exposed to the cold.
The concept for a dry submersible
dates back to the early 1980s with a
contract awarded to Northrop Grum-
man to build six of the Advanced
SEAL Delivery Systems in 1994. After
years of delays due to technical issues,
the Navy canceled the program in
2009 after spending some $883 mil-
lion. The current iteration was the
Navy’s third attempt at developing
a dry submersible for SOCOM.
Also helping keep SEALs dry — at
least until they arrive at their des-
tination — is the Dry Deck Shelter,
which attaches to Virginia-class attack
submarines. SEALs use the shel-
ter to don their wetsuits and leave
and return via a lockout system.
“We’re starting to look at what
the next one looks like and how
are we going to get after replac-
ing them, because they can’t
last forever,” Slaff said.
The command is currently study-
ing the requirements for the Dry
Deck Shelter Next, which will be
affixed to the top of the new models
of the Virginia-class submarines.
The program is seeking a new
shelter capable of dispersing up to
18 swimmers and their equipment,
as well as unmanned underwater or
surface vehicles, according to slides.
It should also support “dry” mis-
sions, suggesting that it connect
to the new dry submersible.
Like the Dry Combat Submersible,
the Navy will develop the new shelter
on behalf of SOCOM, which is current-
ly working through the requirements.
Once SEALs are in the water, they
rely on combat diving equipment to
do their jobs. Most of that comes from
the commercial or recreational div-
ing world, said Jim Knutson, combat
diving program manager. It takes
off-the-shelf equipment and modi-
fies it for special ops use, he said.
One area where divers need indus-
try help is underwater communica-
tion when SEALs use mixed gases
to extend their time underwater.
They need to speak “clearly with
each other so they’re not talking
like Mickey Mouse,” Knutson said.
As for the small, speedy surface
boats that deliver SEALs to their mis-
sions such as the Combatant Craft
Assault and the medium and heavy
models, the fleet is mostly built out
with boats now entering the sustain-
ment part of their lifecycle, Slaff said.
However, the command is starting
to look at “what comes next and how
do we want to keep going on the craft
and have some evolutionary upgrades.”
Conrad Lovell, next-generation
mobility team lead under the com-
mand’s Science and Technology
Office, said his program is interested
in new ways to make the watercraft
stealthier. That includes reducing
their acoustic, visual and thermal
signatures as well as high-tech coat-
ings, composites and metamaterials
that can help them evade radar.
Slaff said his office is always on the
lookout for new technology that can
assist naval special warfare. “When
you have … some new whiz bang
technology that we could use down-
range, we definitely want to hear
about that. If it’s something about
Air Force photo
reliability, maintainability, sustain-
ability, we want to hear about that,
too. The whole spectrum is ours.” ND
 IN BRIEF
Space Force,
NGA at Odds Over
Commercial Imagery
• The Space Force has been tasked
with providing space-based ser-
vices to combatant commands.
Meanwhile, the National Geospa-
tial-Intelligence Agency has big con-
tracts with commercial companies to
provide space-based imagery gath-
ered by privately owned satellites.
Gen. David Thompson, Space
Force vice chief of operations,
said commanders in the field
need that data in a timely man-
ner, and if NGA can’t do it quick
enough, the Space Force may
have to take over responsibility.
“The NGA believes — and has
stated very clearly — they believe
it’s their responsibility,” Thomp-
son said during a Mitchell Insti-
tute for Aerospace Studies talk.
“If they can demonstrate respon-
siveness and timeliness and meet
the combatant commands’ needs
through their mechanism, we’re
more than ready to say that’s
the process we’ll use,” he said.
“But let me be clear — if, in
fact, they cannot, we believe that
we are charged and prepared to
deliver directly through our own
contracting mechanisms and our
own means and can be prepared
to do that,” Thompson said. ND
From Four
Years to Four Stars
• Air Force Chief of Staff Gen.
Charles “CQ” Brown, Jr. has been
tapped to serve as the next chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But a
long career in the military wasn’t his
original goal.
Three days before his nomination
was announced, Brown was speak-
iStock photos, Air Force photo, Warner Bros. Entertainment
ing on a panel discussion with all the
U.S. military
service chiefs
hosted by
the Council
on Foreign
Relations. In
response to
a question
about recruit-
BROWN
Reporting by Josh Luckenbaugh and Stew Magnuson
ment, Brown spoke about the
importance of engaging in local
communities and working with
influencers in young people’s lives
such as relatives, coaches or teachers
to identify those who might “have
an aptitude to join our military.”
“You don’t have to serve for
long,” he said. “I’ll speak for
myself; four years was my plan.
Obviously, that screwed up.”
Almost 40 years since he was com-
missioned in 1984, Brown said the
reason he stayed in the Air Force
was “the opportunities I’ve had.”
“There’s plenty of opportuni-
ties in different skill sets, and
that’s what inspires me when I go
out and visit our bases,” he said.
“I think that’s something we col-
lectively have to focus on, really
get the word out and market a bit
more than we have in the past.” ND
‘The Fish Don’t Care’
• Climate change has opened previ-
ously impassable Arctic Sea lanes,
causing national security concerns
as commercial and military vessels
flock to the region. And it’s not just
human operators the United States
should be concerned about — it’s the
fish too, according to Coast Guard
Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan.
The Arctic is “on pace … to see
just significant increases in human
activity,” Fagan said during the
Council on Foreign Relations panel.
“Whether it’s energy exploration
or cruise ship activity, or just the
conversations around an ice-free
Northwest Passage where you could
potentially bring large commercial
vessels, all that will be a change [in]
pattern and behavior in the context
of climate change,” she said. “And
oh, by the way, the fish don’t care.”
Among its many respon-
sibilities, the Coast Guard is
tasked with enforcing com-
mercial fishing regulations.
Fish “just follow the water tem-
perature, and so they too have
migrated into different patterns
that will challenge us,” she said. ND
Sealab Cartoon May
Become Reality for China
• Speaking of life under the ocean,
one must be of a certain age to
remember the Saturday morning
cartoon “Sealab 2020,” or even Sat-
urday morning cartoons at all, which
have become a thing of the past.
In 1972, Hanna-Barbera Produc-
tions created only one season of the
animated series, which was set in a
deep-sea laboratory on an underwa-
ter mountain and centered around
the adventures of its 250 occupants.
The series was revived in the early
2000s by the Cartoon Network’s
Adult Swim as a spoof, called “Sealab
2021.”
Now, the cartoon may become a
reality.
The People’s Republic of China
is planning on building a facility
under the ocean, Margaret Leinen,
director of the Scripps Institu-
tion of Oceanography, said at a
recent Brooking Institution panel.
“There’s not a lot of informa-
tion on exactly what China consid-
ers a deep-sea station, but you can
understand the strategic importance
of being able to have something
that has a nexus of capabilities that
1972’s SEALAB 2020
is in the deep ocean,” she said.
The United States is no longer a
dominant player in the marine sci-
ence field, she said, calling China’s
rapid growth in the field “staggering.”
Over the last decade it has cre-
ated large marine research insti-
tutions and launched a research
vessel larger than anything in
the U.S. inventory, she said.
“The big challenge for us is not
the intellectual ability, but the sheer
financial tidal wave of funding that
we’re up against,” she added. ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 7
Innovation Nation
Startup Prepares to Test Hybrid-Electric Aircraft BY ALLYSON PARK

M
ANASSAS, Vir- and CEO of Electra.aero, full scale, Langford said. “You can take this com-
ginia — An said in a statement. The company displayed mercial airplane and
aviation startup The Air Force’s AFWERX the eight-motor test vehicle with some very simple
recently unveiled a new innovation arm awarded and revealed its name — modifications, make it
hybrid-electric ultra-short Electra $85 million for the the EL-2 Goldfinch — in really useful to the Air
takeoff and landing air- aircraft’s development. June at Manassas Regional Force, the Army, the
craft, which was partially In the three years since Airport in Virginia, with Marines, et cetera.”
funded by the Air Force. the company was founded, Air Force representa- Lt. Col. John Tekell, the
“We’re ready to test Electra designed the air- tives in attendance. Air Force’s Agility Prime
the entire system with craft, validated its “blown- Ben Marchionna, direc- lead, said: “We want
this technology demon- lift” distributed electric tor of technology and [Electra] to be successful
strator aircraft. We can’t propulsion system with a innovation at Electra, in on their own without the
wait to fly this plane and sub-scale demonstrator an interview said: “Hybrid DoD, and we also want to
show the world what our and ran a fully integrated is key. That is what gives be able to accelerate what-
eSTOL aircraft can do,” test of its 150-kilowatt you the long ranges that ever successes they have
John Langford, founder hybrid-electric generator at make it really relevant to with additional investment
the military applications. from the Agility program.”
“The hydroelectric sys- The Agility Prime
tem is basically recharg- program is looking at
ing the batteries in flight. developing electric verti-
. . . Not only can we go cal take-off and landing
long distances, but you vehicles for the Air Force.
can turn around and get The two-seat EL-2 Gold-
back without having to go finch in July will undergo
about refueling,” he added. an extensive flight test
The company will con- program. Electra will
tinue to work with the use the results of these
Air Force to make sure tests to help develop the
the aircraft is a dual-use design of a nine-passenger
technology, he said. electric aircraft. ND

GE Research Sets New Record for that had been kind of an impediment
to going to higher temperatures. But
Heat-Resistant Transistor BY CAMBRIE ECKERT our team has really figured out some
new innovations, new material inno-

A
RLINGTON, Virginia —
A research lab has developed a
transistor that can withstand
temperatures of up to 800 degrees
Celsius.
GE Research, a part of GE Aero-
space, has developed a silicon carbide
metal–oxide–semiconductor field-
effect transistor, which helps control
electrical power components. The abil-
ity to withstand temperatures almost
200 degrees higher than traditional
versions of the component — better
known to engineers as SiC MOSFETs
— will allow them to perform bet-
ter on hypersonic and space vehicles,
company officials said in an interview.
technology. It would allow the agency
to thoroughly study the planet’s com-
position and structure of its surface
without destroying the transistor.
Another application of interest to
the military would be hypersonic
vehicles, which must withstand high
temperatures as atmospheric fric-
tion causes them to overheat, said
Todd Alhart, innovation communi-
cations director for GE Research.
GE Aerospace has worked with
SiC technology for more
than three decades, selling
various SiC-based electri-
cal power products for
aerospace, industrial and
vation, that has helped us to kind of
move beyond that barrier and into
this 800 degrees Celsius realm.”
The lab is also looking at using it
in its engines, he said. “We’re excited
about the application space and to
see where this goes,” Alhart added.
Andarawis said the company is
exploring other applications. “We
don’t know what could be done with it.
We’re hoping that we’ll be able to keep
going forward and even beyond.” ND
Electra photo, GE Research photo

Emad Andarawis, principal engineer military applications, accord-

for GE Research, said one application ing to a press release.
for the transistor will be for plan- Alhart said: “One of the
etary exploration, specifically high key milestones that enabled
temperatures and pressures found this breakthrough were
on Venus. GE Research has been some materials that are
working with NASA to develop the used in the SiC MOSFETS

8 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
 Digitally Designed, Multi-Mission Satellite DISPATCHES
Bus Set to Launch BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH

C
OLORADO SPRINGS, Colo-
rado — The first of a new
series of digitally-born satel-
lite buses that can operate in mul-
tiple orbital regimes is set to launch
into space later this year, according
to manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
The spacecraft, named the LM
400, is a mid-sized satellite bus that
can operate in low-Earth, medium-
Earth or geosynchronous orbit,
said Dan Tenney, Lockheed Mar-
tin Space’s vice president of strat-
egy and business development.
The company announced in April
it had completed electromagnetic
interference/electromagnetic compat-
ibility testing on the satellite and is
working toward completion of thermal
vacuum testing ahead of a planned
2023 launch of a tech demonstrator.
The LM 400 was “all born digi-
tally, meaning we can move from the
laptop to the hardware seamlessly,”
Tenney said during a media brief-
ing. “So, even though it’s hardware,
we’ve used AI and other capabilities
to help us develop the LM 400.”
Having that “digital touch-
point” for the LM 400 will allow
the company to produce and
deliver satellites “faster than ever
before,” as well as “flex the design
in fascinating ways we haven’t
been able to do before,” said Lock-
heed Martin Space’s global secu-
rity senior director Paul Pelley.
“If we want to change some-
thing in the model — for
example, say I make a bigger
structure — all the models are con-
nected together,” Pelley said. “A bigger
structure means more mass,” and you
can instantly see how that impacts the
propulsion system “instead of hav-
ing to go through an endless series of
design reviews to accommodate that.
Because it’s digital, you can actually
see the impact of those changes.”
This versatility allows the LM 400
to “work across a wide spectrum of
missions,” including remote sensing
and imaging, communications, radar
and persistent surveillance, he said.
The first LM 400 tech demonstrator
will include a narrowband commu-
nications electronically steered array
payload, also produced by Lockheed
Martin, he added. Another tech dem-
onstrator, expected to launch in 2024,
will test a synthetic aperture radar-
capable electronically steered array,
according to a company release.
The Space Force selected the LM
400 as one of the satellite buses
for its medium-Earth orbit Mis-
sile Track Custody program, Tenney
said. Lockheed Martin will provide
the vehicle to Raytheon Intelli-
gence and Space, which will develop
the mission payload, with the goal
of putting the system in orbit by
2026, a Raytheon release said. ND

BY THE NUMBERS
U.S. Navy TAGOS-25 Class Ocean Surveillance Ships
CONTRACT WINNER:

Austal USA

7
NUMBER OF SHIPS:
Lockheed Martin image, Austal USA illustration

CONTRACT AMOUNT:

MISSION:
$3.195 billion
Supporting the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System by
providing anti-submarine acoustic passive and active surveillance

N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 9
 DISPATCHES the Defense Department’s power
grid vulnerabilities, he said recently
at the National Defense Industrial
Getting into Hot Association’s Science and Engi-
neering Technology conference.
Water: Good for Geothermal energy has been a
Defense Department global energy source for more than
a hundred years, but its potential
But it needs power plants, and the
Defense Department can help, Wisian
BY LAURA HECKMANN remains relatively untapped, said said. He called the department a “per-
Wisian, who is a retired Air Force fect early adopter for this technology”

S
AN ANTONIO, Texas — The
Defense Department’s reliance
on civilian power grids exposes
it to “unacceptable” strategic vulner-
abilities such as natural disasters and
cyberattacks, and the solution might
be in the ground, one expert said.
Geothermal energy generates
power from the heat in the planet’s
crust, creating an energy source
that is “on 24/7” with a supply line
“straight down to the center” of the
Earth, said Ken Wisian, associate
director of the Bureau of Economic
Geology’s Environmental Division at
the University of Texas at Austin.
It is uninterruptible, unbreakable
and once perfected, “rapidly scal-
able,” making it an ideal solution to
major general. Advances in drilling
and exploration technology, how-
ever, have put it on the “cusp of a
revolution,” and the Defense Depart-
ment needs to get in on the action.
Conventional geothermal energy
mines a naturally occurring water
or steam system deep — typically
miles — underground, Wisian said. A
relatively new approach called “Geo-
thermal Anywhere” mines the heat
in the rock using an artificial circula-
tion system to extract heat, concen-
trate it and bring it to the surface.
This method offers a “critical
break” in geothermal restriction,
expanding viable geothermal pro-
duction possibilities beyond areas
such as fault zones or volcanoes.
due to its ability to prioritize mission
success over cost effectiveness and its
comfortability with new technology.
Currently, the startup world is
leading the charge, but the Defense
Department has issued a call for pro-
totype plants at six bases. The Air
Force’s Office of Energy Assurance
now rates geothermal as the num-
ber one new energy prospect above
small modular reactors, Wisian said.
“So bottom line, geothermal
power has real potential to solve a
major vulnerability. DoD is wak-
ing up to that. They are starting to
move and really skyrocketed into the
lead worldwide by at least support-
ing the idea of, ‘Let’s develop these
new prototype plants,’” he said. ND

Hello, Goodbye tion, has been assigned to

• President Joe
Biden has
nominated Air
Force Chief
of Staff Gen.
Charles “CQ”
Brown, Jr. as
the 21st Chair- BROWN
man of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. If
confirmed, he will replace
Army Gen. Mark Milley,
who is retiring in October.
Along with Brown, the
president nominated Lt.
Gen. Donna Shipton to
become the commander
of the Air Force Life Cycle
Management Center,
and Gen. Eric Smith to
become the next Marine
Corps commandant.
Brig. Gen. Scott Cain
has assumed command
of the Air Force Research
become the deputy for
role of vice president of
fleet support programs,
acquisition and sys- replacing Gary Fuller;
tems management and Julia Jones has suc-
in the office of ceeded Ron Murray as
the assistant vice president of quality.
secretary of the Meanwhile, HII’s Mis-
Army for acqui- sion Technologies divi-
sition, logistics sion has promoted Garry
and technology. Schwartz to chief oper-
Wes Hallman, ating officer and Todd
NDIA’s former senior Gentry to president of its
vice president of strat- C5ISR business group.
egy and policy, is now In-Q-Tel president Steve
executive vice president Bowsher will assume
for business development the role of CEO, effec-
and head of Washing- tive Sept. 8. He will suc-
ton operations at Beacon ceed Chris Darby.
Interactive Systems. Viasat has closed its
Former Air Force and acquisition of Inmarsat,
Space Force chief tech- completing a merger of
nology officer Preston two of the largest satellite
Dunlap has joined SOSi operators. Viasat founder
as a strategic advisor. Mark Dankberg will lead
HII’s Newport News the combined company
Shipbuilding division as chairman and CEO,
announced several pro- with Guru Gowrappan as
Sikorsky Heliplex facility
in Coatesville, Pennsyl-
vania. The company will
transform the facility into
an advanced research-
and-development center
for next-generation VTOL
and UAS vehicles and
related enabling tech-
nologies. The company’s
forthcoming PA-890 heli-
copter, the world’s first
zero-emission hydrogen
fuel cell rotorcraft, will be
built and tested there.
Rocket Lab is finalizing
an asset purchase agree-
ment for the purchase of
aerospace production and
manufacturing assets in
Long Beach, California, as
part of Virgin Orbit’s Chap-
ter 11 bankruptcy auction,
the company announced in
May. Rocket Lab’s success-
ful bid of approximately
$16.1 million includes
iStock photo, Defense Dept. photo

Laboratory. Cain replaced motions and retirements, president. Inmarsat CEO the assumption of the
Maj. Gen. Heather Prin- effective July 1. Rob Check Rajeev Suri will step down lease to Virgin Orbit’s
gle, who has retired after has become vice president from his role and serve on headquarters and manu-
32 years of service. of in-service aircraft car- Viasat’s board of directors. facturing complex and
Maj. Gen. Robert Barrie, rier programs, replacing Piasecki Aircraft Cor- certain production assets,
Jr., the Army’s program Todd West; Thomasina poration has acquired the machinery and equip-
executive officer for avia- Wright has assumed the former Lockheed Martin ment located there. ND

10 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
 Best of the Web Read NationalDefenseMagazine.org for daily updates and news
Army Mobile Protected Firepower Gets
New Name, New Delivery Goal BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
A
RLINGTON,
Virginia — The
Army’s Mobile Pro-
tected Firepower is now
the M-10 Booker Combat
Vehicle, and the first sys-
tem is scheduled to arrive
earlier than expected,
service officials said.
The system is an
armored, tracked vehicle
designed to provide a
mobile, protected, direct,
offensive fire capability
Army Infantry Brigade
Combat Teams do not cur-
rently have. The vehicle
will “bring a new level of
lethality to our ground
forces,” allowing soldiers
“to move at a faster pace
with greater protection,”
said Doug Bush, the assis-
tant secretary of the Army
for acquisition, logistics
and technology, during a
media roundtable June 8.
Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean,
the program executive
officer for ground combat
systems, said the system
will support Army Infantry
Brigade Combat Teams “by
suppressing and destroy-
ing fortifications, gun
systems, entrenchments
and secondarily then pro-
viding protection against
enemy armored vehicles.”
The M-10 Booker Com-
bat Vehicle gets its name
from two servicemembers,
Bush said: Staff Sgt. Ste-
von Booker — who was
killed in action in Iraq in
2003 and posthumously
awarded a Distinguished
Service Cross — and
Pvt. Robert Booker — a
Medal of Honor recipient
who was killed in action
during World War II.
“The stories of these two
heroic soldiers articulate
the Army’s exact needs for
the M-10 Booker Combat
Army photo
Vehicle,” Bush said. Ste-
von Booker was a tanker
and Robert Booker was
an infantryman — “so
[bringing] both com-
munities together, that
was the idea,” he said.
The Army awarded
General Dynamics Land
Systems a $1.14 billion
contract for low-rate initial
production of the system
in June 2022. The vehicle
“employs a four-person
crew and features an
enhanced thermal viewer,
a large-caliber cannon, a
lightweight hull and tur-
ret and a modern diesel
engine, transmission and
suspension system,” a
company release said.
Dean said the Army had
anticipated receiving the
first production vehicle in
19 months from contract
award, but now “Gen-
eral Dynamics is work-
ing toward a November
delivery, so they may yet
achieve ahead of schedule.”
In its fiscal year 2022
report on the program,
the Defense Department’s
Director, Operational Test
and Evaluation said the
vehicle’s “progress toward
achieving operational effec-
tiveness is satisfactory,” but
noted testing had found
the vehicle “had high levels
of toxic fumes when firing
the main gun, requiring
modifications to crew pro-
cedures during gunnery
to mitigate the build-up
of fumes in the turret.”
Dean said the toxic
fumes were a concern
for the Army at the time
of the production deci-
sion, but after subsequent
engineering and testing
the service is confident
the “issue is behind us.”
Another technical issue
the service found was the
vehicle overheating “under
hot performance condi-
tions,” he said. The issue
“turned out to be an airflow
problem with the cooling at
the rear of the vehicle,” and
General Dynamics made
design revisions to ensure
the system “can meet its
performance requirements
[at] high temperatures.”
Bush noted the suc-
cess of those revisions
will be “proven out” dur-
ing operational testing.
“We’re on process there,”
Bush said. “So, we never
spike the football [until] we
get all the way through”
test and evaluation.
The service plans to
perform an initial opera-
tional test of the M-10
Booker Combat Vehicle in
late 2024 or early 2025,
with the goal to have the
first unit equipped in
late 2025, Dean said.
For fiscal year 2023, the
Army received $355 mil-
lion in procurement funds
to acquire 29 systems,
and for fiscal year 2024
is requesting $395 mil-
lion to acquire 33 vehicles,
according to service
budget documents. The
service ultimately wants
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
to acquire 504 vehicles,
according to a Congres-
sional Research Service
report on the program.
The vehicle is one of 24
technologies Army Chief
of Staff Gen. James McCo-
nville promised to have in
soldiers’ hands — as pro-
totypes or fielded systems
— by fiscal year 2023.
Bush said the vehicle is a
“benchmark moderniza-
tion program, as the acqui-
sition and requirements
communities worked
closely together to move
the system into production
in just under four years.”
Dean echoed Bush’s
remarks, saying the
vehicle will “become an
enduring Army capability.”
“It’s been a tremen-
dously successful program
… on schedule, on budget,
and performing well in
testing,” including a year-
long soldier assessment
of prototypes, he said.
“It’s very exciting for
us to name a new com-
bat vehicle — this hasn’t
happened, at least in my
portfolio, since we fielded
the Stryker — and to
name it after two great
American heroes … it’s
just a fantastic thing to
be a part of,” he said. ND
— Posted at NationalDe-
fenseMagazine.org on June
10.
11
ALGORITHMIC WARFARE BY LAURA HECKMANN
New Tech Brings Data to ‘Tactical Edge’
S
ituational awareness once
depended on outdated maps,
phone tag and spotty internet
connections. Today, edge computing
technology is providing situational
awareness to the warfighter in min-
utes.
Delayed information in a con-
tested environment literally wea-
ponizes time, said Ki Lee, chief
technology officer at Booz Allen
Hamilton’s global defense sector.
Booz Allen invested in small busi-
ness Reveal Technology to fight time
with decentralized data. Reveal cre-
ated a platform called Farsight — a
software application that receives
images from drones or surveillance
platforms and rapidly creates three-
dimensional, situational awareness
products for mission planning.
While Defense Department opera-
tions have become “much more decen-
tralized” over the past decade, “from a
data perspective, the prevalent pattern
is to centralize data — bring that data
from the sensor to the ground station,
copied over numerous times to every
single operation center,” Lee said.
The time lag created in the data’s
slog through a centralized model
is “huge,” Lee said. “Our technol-
ogy, and what we wanted to do, was
actually extend from the centralized
pattern to a decentralized pattern
through a data mesh.” Booz Allen
modeled the internet, he said.
Booz Allen’s internet model and
data mesh concept allow data dis-
covery and access “where it exists
without having to move it,” he
said. “You’re accessing it where
it persists, and it’s resilient. It’s
available wherever you’re at.”
Reveal’s CEO Garrett Smith
defined the “edge” as the point at
which tactical decisions are being
made and executed. And that’s exactly
where he’s bringing the data.
Farsight’s AI-powered capabilities
include real-time 2D and 3D mapping,
line-of-sight analysis and route plan-
ning. A tour of the website reveals red
and green-blotched layouts of thermal
imaging, vertical measurement tools
and detailed 3D models equipped
with drag-and-rotate features that
allow clicking through city streets
and swirling around aerial views.
The software allows for rapid cre-
12 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
ation of geospatial intelligence by
operators at the point of decision,
Smith said. Untethered from distant
headquarters, the software is organi-
cally controlled and owned “right
there on the edge.” Historically, enti-
ties operating in tactical environments
were reliant on higher headquarters
or remote processing and exploita-
tion intelligence cells for situational
awareness, Smith said. “They were
kind of left to their own devices.”
Unencumbered by network
requirements and higher headquar-
ters, “they’re in control of their own
destiny,” he said. “They know their
problem better than some remote
location. They need to be driving
the bus on answering their own
questions whenever possible.”
The software lives on mobile
handsets being carried by tacti-
cal operators, such as a Samsung
Galaxy smartphone. The app can
ingest streaming videos or images
from a drone platform and rapidly
create scenes in 3D for situational
awareness and sharing, Smith said.
In Ukraine, soldiers used the
software to navigate the urban envi-
ronment of Zhytomyr last sum-
mer and gain awareness of Russian
positions around the city, he said.
Real-time video information col-
lected from drones and streamed
down to mobile devices was converted
within one to three minutes into a full
3D scene, which was used to plan a
safe route across the city, Smith said.
In a hypothetical vignette, the
software could be used for advanced
reconnaissance in the Indo-Pacific.
Operators on a poorly mapped
island could rapidly assess ter-
rain viability for helicopter and
airplane landings on the island or
detect a Chinese anti-air battery and
call in an air or naval strike from
“somewhere over the horizon.”
Having access to real-time situ-
ational awareness is significant in
environments such as Ukraine and
the Indo-Pacific because they are often
GPS or communications-denied envi-
ronments, Smith said. In the Ukraine
scenario, nearly all communications
were blanket jammed within 15 to 20
kilometers of the threat, he added.
“They need to execute on organi-
cally generated intelligence,” he said.
The benefits of increased situational
awareness go beyond the operator,
Lee said. The decentralized internet
model also opens up new possibilities
for data sharing. He described creat-
ing “data containers” akin to HTML
pages and registering products in
a data domain naming system.
“If you register that data product
into our data DNS, then it becomes
globally discoverable and accessible,”
he said. He predicted that three to
five years down the road, tech will
allow space-based communications
and data being collected at the edge
to be shared “not only across that
tactical edge, but back to a forward
operating base, and then all the way
back into an operation center.”
Better data sharing and “full situ-
ation awareness” lends itself to the
military’s broader goals of joint
all-domain capabilities, Lee said.
“Full situational awareness across
the entire joint all-domain area … it’s
all the ends. This is kind of the end-
to-end, multi-echelon ecosystem that
we’re trying to connect,” he said.
Further contributing to the “joint-
ness” concept, Reveal is hardware
and platform agnostic, meaning
the software can be deployed on
to and make use of “any system
that our customers or users have
or want to adopt,” Smith said.
This idea is in “stark contrast” to
the way the defense industrial base
has operated over the past several
decades, where “things were very
highly proprietary, vertically inte-
grated, where you have aircraft that
can’t talk to other aircraft,” he added.
Company personnel are evange-
lists for edge technology, Smith said.
“We’re just trying to help adapt
the technology to the operations and
Reveal Technology image
updated tactics, techniques and pro-
cedures,” Lee added. “So, I think that’s
why this decentralized model … is
evolving, and we believe it’s going to
be critical as we move forward.” ND
 BUDGET MATTERS BY SEAN CARBERRY
Taking Measure of Science and Technology Funding
W
hile Defense Department
budgets have ebbed and
flowed this century, there has
been relative consistency in one cat-
egory: science-and-technology funding.
According to a June white
paper from the National Defense
Industrial Association’s Emerging
Technologies Institute, Defense
Department science-and-technology
funding requests averaged $14.6
billion in real terms between fis-
cal years 2003 through 2015.
The report, “Investing in the Future:
Trends in the Defense Department’s
Science and Technology Funding,”
stated that funding for science and
technology has climbed steadily in
recent years, corresponding with the
department’s Third Offset strategy,
the end of the Budget Control Act and
the 2022 National Defense Strategy.
“Because the purpose of the [sci-
ence-and-technology] portfolio is to
lay the groundwork now to counter
threats in the very long-term, this
increase in funding indicates that
DoD foresees long-term competition
with great powers who are deeply
invested in their own science and
technology,” the report stated.
In other words, China has been
making strides in developing new
weapons, systems and materials,
and the United States needs to keep
pace with basic research, applied
research and advanced technology
development, collectively referred
to as science and technology.
The Defense Department requested
$16.5 billion in science-and-technol-
ogy funding for fiscal year 2023, and
Congress appropriated $22.4 billion.
That is another trend highlighted in the
report, which stated that since 2014,
bipartisan majorities in Congress have
plussed up the science-and-technology
request from presidents of each party.
In fact, it’s a wink-and-nod rou-
tine. The Defense Department
underfunds science and technol-
ogy in its annual request because
Congress will add more — typically
after berating department officials
in hearings for underfunding it.
The department’s 2024 request is
$17.8 billion. While far from official or
iStock illustration
final, a June 12 House Armed Services
Committee’s chairman’s mark of the
2024 National Defense Authorization
Act included $18.2 billion for
science and technology.
While that is more than the
department’s request, it is
$4.2 billion less than Congress
appropriated for 2023. That could
be a function of the debt ceiling
deal, which capped defense spend-
ing at $886 billion. That is $6 billion
more than the department requested,
meaning Congress has less loose
change to spread around in 2024.
Still, the committee’s proposal
— should it survive the legisla-
tive process — would be an 18 per-
cent cut to science-and-technology
funding, which is a lot for labs and
research institutions to absorb.
The ETI report tees up several
questions for which there are no
easy answers. What is the “right”
level of science-and-technology
funding? What’s the best way to
measure the impact of S&T fund-
ing to determine future funding?
What can or should be done to end
the dynamic of Congress boosting
the Pentagon’s request each year?
Historically, defense experts argued
that science-and-technology funding
should be 3 percent of the Defense
Department’s topline budget. But
with the soaring costs of big-ticket
acquisition programs and near-term
needs, the topline has been growing
at a faster rate than science and tech-
nology, which has therefore been a
decreasing percentage of the budget.
Thus, that indexing method might
not be of much value anymore.
So, how to proceed?
Budgeting for F-35 or Columbia-
class submarine procurement is
relatively easy: multiply the num-
ber desired by the per-unit cost.
But in the case of early-stage
research into developing new chemi-
cals for missile propulsion or next-
generation materials for stealth
bomber coating, how much funding
is enough? What is the minimum
level needed to keep government and
university labs busy experimenting
with the technologies of tomorrow?
Is there a funding saturation point?
Ultimately, the department and
Congress need to establish metrics
to track the outputs of science-and-
technology inputs to guide funding
levels. Language in the subcommit-
tee on cyber, information
technologies and innovation
mark indicates that House
Armed Services Committee
members want metrics.
The proposed language
directs the department to provide a
report “detailing quantitative measures
of effectiveness and performance to
assess and track transition of science
and technology projects from the initial
stages of research and development to
fielded technologies or capabilities.”
While that data could be used to
support efforts to reduce the difficulty
of transitioning technologies across
the so-called valley of death, the data
could also be a stalking horse to cut
science-and-technology funding.
The implication is that poor tran-
sition rates mean science and tech-
nology is a poor investment. While
transition is certainly a metric, it
is hardly a definitive measure of
the value of early-stage research.
Failure is a critical part of the
innovation process. Not every dol-
lar invested should lead to a fielded
capability. Sometimes failures are
necessary to course correct.
That makes the task of deter-
mining useful metrics for sci-
ence-and-technology funding
that much more complicated.
In the meantime, funding stabil-
ity is critical, according to the ETI
report. “Research institutions cannot
easily absorb large injections of fund-
ing that may not be sustained due to
the need to hire more researchers,
patiently pursue technical achieve-
ments and build more laboratory
and test infrastructure,” it said.
“They also cannot adapt to rap-
idly falling funding, which leads to
project cancellations and an envi-
ronment where research teams
cannot take risks,” it added.
An 18 percent drop in funding for
2024 doesn’t sound like stability. ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 13

COMMENTARY
Additive Technology
Revolutionizes Defense
Manufacturing
BY LARRY (LJ) R. HOLMES JR.
F
rom printing one-of-a-kind
parts to enabling rapid, on-
site repairs, additive man-
ufacturing is disrupting
the industrial base. Inno-
vations in material and process have
opened new possibilities, which are in
turn fueling interest in the technology.
As markets such as automotive,
aerospace and healthcare embrace
additive capabilities, the opportunities
will only increase. According to data
from Grand View Research Inc., the
global additive manufacturing indus-
try could balloon to $76.16 billion by
2030. This represents a compound
annual growth rate of 20.8 percent
— far outpacing the trajectory of
the broader manufacturing sector.
For the military, additive manu-
facturing has the capacity to address
design vulnerabilities such as physi-
cal weaknesses in products that use
traditional manufacturing methods.
Meanwhile, federal and industry bod-
ies are betting on its potential to solve
long-standing supply chain issues.
Yet, despite promising advances, the
defense sector still has a significant
hurdle to overcome. To achieve wide-
spread implementation, manufactur-
ers at every tier of the distribution
14 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
network must be willing
to invest. But at present,
large-scale corporations
make up the majority of adopters.
While additive manufacturing is
often considered an emerging tech-
nology, the earliest military uses date
back to the late 1980s, when engineers
began developing additive technology.
However, the early use of terminology
varied. It wasn’t until the 2000s that
industry commentators popularized
the term “additive manufacturing.”
Deploying a new technology —
especially one lacking in industry-
wide standards — is an arduous task.
The U.S. military branches are some
of the world’s most extensive and
complex organizations. The Army
alone accounts for more than two
million personnel. With no consis-
tent language and limited knowledge
of the technology, few working in
the industry in the 1980s and 1990s
understood additive manufactur-
ing’s potential. As a result, defense
lagged other sectors in its acceptance.
That said, over the past three
decades, the military has worked
consistently to integrate it into its
research-and-development func-
tions. As each branch explored new
ways to incorporate additive tech-
nology into its processes, research-
ers and engineers identified spaces
where additive manufacturing could
fill gaps and address challenges. At
first, these were primarily use cases
where the technology could comple-
ment conventional manufacturing
techniques — for instance, printing
tooling guides, jigs and fixtures.
A turning point came in early
2016 when the Defense Depart-
ment initiated a series of workshops
exploring the use of 3D printing in
the military. Those findings grew
into a report that provided a road-
map for the military’s widespread
utilization of the techniques.
Today, every branch of the mili-
tary has additive manufacturing
represented in its research-and-
development portfolios — from the
Army Research Laboratory’s advanced
manufacturing community of practice
to the Navy Additive Manufacturing
Technical Interchange. Over the past
decade, these organizational branches
have increasingly leaned on additive
manufacturing to enhance production
efforts on the base and in the field.
In November 2022, the Navy for
the first time permanently installed
a metal 3D printer aboard one
of its ships. The machine, which
prints stainless steel, will equip the
crew with industrial-level manufac-
turing capabilities, allowing them to
produce on-demand pieces that were
previously unavailable. In reduc-
ing reliance on third-party provid-
ers, the technology will enable new
self-sufficiency in ships and crews,
helping the Navy to overcome lead
time delays and obsolescence issues.
Metal is not the only material that
the military is experimenting with.
Since 2015, engineers from the Army
Corps of Engineers, the Engineer
Research and Development Center
and the Construction Engineer-
ing Research Laboratory have been
working to develop technology that
can print construction-scale struc-
tures such as buildings and bridges.
Through the Additive Construc-
tion program, now in its sixth year,
these engineers have developed
more than five large-scale machines
capable of printing concrete. So far,
the team behind it has successfully
produced two 512-square-foot build-
Defense Dept. photo
ings alongside smaller-scale construc-
tions, including guard shelters and
barriers. This construction method
can save labor costs and reduce
planning time while improving a
structure’s strength and stability.
Additive technology can solve
problems posed by the limitations of
conventional production methods,
too. Announced in 2020, the Joint-
less Hull Project aims to do just that.
Analysts estimate that, since the
Vietnam War, approximately 73
percent of vehicle losses resulted
from underbody blasts. In fact,
they were the leading cause of
death for U.S. troops deployed
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Because manufacturers produce
vehicle hulls by welding together
multiple parts, vehicle underbodies
have joints — and these weak points
make them vulnerable to roadside
bombs. The Jointless Hull Project
will use additive technology to print
single, seamless combat hulls, elimi-
nating weaknesses in vehicle bodies.
This will improve ground vehicle
resilience and reduce the damage
caused by these attacks — ulti-
mately increasing survivability.
Engineers working on the Joint-
less Hull Project have produced
several metal hybrid manufacturing
systems, one of which has a build
volume of almost 30x20x12 feet,
making it the world’s largest hybrid
metal 3D printer. Thanks to the flex-
ibility of additive technology, the
machines can also undertake other
tasks, including repairing other large
metal components. This gives addi-
tive manufacturing a substantial edge
over methods like casting, where
molds can only produce one product.
With its broad applicability, additive
manufacturing could markedly boost
the pace, agility and capacity of U.S.
suppliers, providing a much-needed
antidote to recent supply chain dif-
ficulties. To do so, though, manufac-
turers must implement it at scale.
Even before the pandemic, the
Defense Department was grap-
pling with supply chain vulnerabili-
ties, especially for microelectronics
like semiconductors. As COVID-19
spread, lockdowns and labor short-
ages ground the production of mate-
rials and finished goods to a halt.
Without enough workers available
to transport products, delivery times
slowed. And with no staff avail-
able to receive cargo, ships clogged
ports. Meanwhile, geopolitical con-
flict only exacerbated the situation.
Like most sectors of industry,
defense manufacturing felt the impact.
COMMENTARY
From the steel and aluminum used to
build boats and aircraft to small parts
like brakes and gears, the sector’s
reliance on foreign-made parts and
materials was suddenly unsustainable.
The Aerospace Industries Associa-
tion found that in 2020, the aerospace
and defense sector lost more than
87,000 jobs. The association estimated
that supply chain difficulties were
responsible for 64 percent of those
losses, with small and medium-sized
businesses bearing most of the burden.
The shortages hit small and mid-size
suppliers specializing in low volume
high mix parts particularly hard.
The ramifications, however, go far
beyond the health of the economy.
Within defense manufacturing, the
absence of critical materials, parts
and products that drive inflation and
eat away at profits in other sectors
can quickly rise to an issue of national
security.
It was with this challenge in mind
that, in May 2022, the Biden adminis-
tration partnered with several major
manufacturers to launch AM Forward.
Through this multi-pronged initia-

Need a Contract Vehicle?

Our pre-competed DLA contracts allow
us to rapidly deliver your products and

DARLEY
services to your Federal customers.

Audrey Darley
Vice President, Defense
4th Generation Darley
audreydarley@darley.com
Partner With Us
Through supplier partnerships, we ensure
government customers have rapid access
to commercial-off-the-shelf solutions
and navigate straight through the federal
procurement process. Contact us to see
how we can work together.
darley.com/defense-partner-program

630.735.3500 | Trusted Worldwide Since 1908 You Serve Others. We Serve You.™
 COMMENTARY
tive, the government hopes to tap
into the ability of additive technolo-
gies to boost domestic production and
enhance supply chain readiness.
Supported by the Applied Science
and Technology Research Organi-
zation of America, or ASTRO, AM
Forward will aid U.S. companies
in bridging the gap to adoption
by helping them to secure deals,
purchase equipment and train
workers. This voluntary program
pairs leading manufacturers with
smaller U.S.-based businesses.
The participants include GE Avia-
tion, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin,
Raytheon and Siemens Energy.
Each will commit to sourcing a per-
centage of additively produced parts
from domestic suppliers, thereby
incentivizing the adoption of addi-
tive manufacturing on shop floors
across the country. Participants will
also commit resources to training
and education, including through
university and technical college pro-
grams and workforce development.
AM Forward intends to tackle
another pervasive problem, too.
Despite the growing popularity of
3D printing, the industry still lacks
consistent guidelines for additive
manufacturing technologies and
products. Through AM Forward,
research by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology aims to
change this by developing and distrib-
uting new high-priority standards.
Agile, nimble and flexible, the
advanced capabilities of additive
technology could change the face of
manufacturing. Data from ASTRO
America estimates that additive
technology could reduce part lead
times by as much as 90 percent
when used in place of lengthy meth-
ods such as forging and casting.
The benefits don’t end there.
The technology — which typi-
cally produces far less waste than
traditional production methods
— could cut material costs by 90
percent while reducing energy
consumption by 50 percent.
Despite clear evidence that additive
manufacturing can augment produc-
tivity, trim costs and bolster readi-
ness, the defense sector’s embrace of
additive technology has been relatively
slow. Many manufacturers are only
beginning to understand the vast
possibility of additive manufactur-
ing. Smaller manufacturers, who
are often most exposed to supply
chain disruptions, have been par-
ticularly late to realize the potential.
Fortunately, the community is
growing. As it does, those working
outside the field are becoming more
aware of the resources available to
them. SME — an association for
professionals in the manufacturing
industry — offers events, training
and certification for those work-
ing with additive technology tools
that could help domestic manufac-
turers upskill their workforces.
As an industry, it is crucial that we
continue to invest in efforts to acceler-
ate awareness and adoption. In doing
so, we can increase the capacity of
U.S. manufacturing, usher in new
innovations and enhance the sys-
tems that support the military. ND
Larry (LJ) R. Holmes Jr. is the execu-
tive director of research and engineering
at Harrisburg University of Science and
Technology, where he leads the devel-
opment and operation of an Advanced
Manufacturing Research Institute. He
also serves as the director of govern-
ment relations at nScrypt in Orlando,
Florida, and the chief of manufacturing
at the Applied Science and Technology
Research Organization of America.

VIEWPOINT
U.S. Must
Strengthen Biodefense,
Reauthorize Laws BY WILLIAM KING
M
any Americans are
tired of the trauma,
life challenges and
losses of COVID-19
and the scare of con-
tinued pandemics and catastrophic
weapon of mass destruction events.
Over the past three years of liv-
ing through this pandemic, more
than 1.1 million Americans lost
their lives, costing more than $30
trillion of national treasure.
Despite this, the nation is still drag-
ging its feet and — in some cases
— reversing efforts already made
to prepare for the next pandemic.
One critical resource on prepared-
ness is the Bipartisan Commission
on Biological Defense report, “The
Athena Agenda: Advancing the Apollo
Program for Biodefense,” released in
April 2022. The commission recently
issued its 2.0 version of the report and
continues to provide an online status
tracker of the actions taken — and
more importantly — not taken.
As of last year, of the 87 recommen-
dations, only three were completed,
four were in action, 34 were in partial
action and 46 were not actioned. Today
that has improved slightly with the
same three completed, six in action, 56
in partial action, and 22 with no action.
The Government Accountabil-
ity Office published in March their
snapshot report, “Biodefense: Actions
Needed to Address Long Standing
Challenges.” The GAO’s original report
published in 2021 had 29 recom-
mendations, but 21 remain unimple-
mented. Most GAO recommendations
match those in the commission report.
In fact, since Jan. 21, 2021, when
the Biden administration started its
first day releasing National Security
Memorandum Number 1 and its 199-
page “National Strategy for Covid-19
Response and Pandemic Prepared-
ness,” there have been numerous strat-
egies and assessments released that
iStock illustration
document the threats and extensive
listings of recommendations — many
of them repeated from one report to
the next — of what should be done
to address those gaps.
The National Defense
Industrial Association’s
National Defense and other
news outlets have reported
extensively and had the same
conclusions. These articles,
reports, assessments and strategies
are not only released at the U.S. fed-
eral level — the European Union and
NATO have published similar material.
Nearly two decades ago, Con-
gress passed the Pandemic and All-
Hazards Preparedness Act to protect
the country and prepare for natural
disasters and biological, chemical
and radiological threats. Since then,
the provisions enacted in that legis-
lation and subsequent reauthoriza-
tions have proven critical to shoring
up public health infrastructure and
protecting national health security.
With the act up for reauthoriza-
tion again this year, we applaud the
bipartisan leadership of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
and House Energy and Commerce
Committees for beginning the criti-
cal work of ensuring that the nation’s
preparedness programs are properly
funded, sustained and improved.
Since the act’s inception and
subsequent reauthorizations,
both Republicans and Democrats
showed overwhelming support for
strengthening the nation’s prepared-
ness for the full range of natural
or manmade threats and hazards.
Protecting the nation’s health and
well-being should not be a parti-
san issue, and we call on leaders to
continue that bipartisan tradition.
This year will mark the first time
Congress will be tasked with reautho-
rizing the act following the pandemic.
Congress must take the lessons learned
over the past three years to enhance
the nation’s preparedness ahead of the
next pandemic — as it’s not a question
of if, but when, the next one will occur.
Congress should avoid distractions
of past partisan fights or tangential
policy issues. The nation’s prepared-
ness is too important to jeopardize,
and these programs must not lapse.
Congress has taken meaningful
steps to improve public health pre-
paredness throughout the COVID-19
pandemic, including the enactment
of the bipartisan PREVENT Pan-
demics Act in last year’s omnibus
appropriations package. Congress has
shown that it recognizes the funda-
mental importance of fortifying
defenses against disasters and
public health crises. However,
much remains to be done.
We urge Congress to capitalize
on this momentum to bolster nation-
al security and enhance public health
preparedness by reauthorizing the
Pandemic and All-Hazards Prepared-
ness Act before its expiration Oct. 1.
Now some of you are thinking, why
is he making these very sensational
comments? Well, we know the threats
now and can somewhat confidently
predict what is in the realm of the pos-
sible, and we know what needs to be
done to better prepare and respond.
What we clearly lack is the will to
make the necessary changes in: leader-
ship and management; authorities and
policies; measurable and accountable
implementation; plans and opera-
tions; technology and material acqui-
sition and development; and hiring
qualified people to make it happen.
This is not to imply that the per-
sonnel in the key roles and positions
are not capable. The challenge is to
proactively participate, ask the right
questions, deduce what can and
should be done to help and to learn
from the past so we do not have to
pay such a high cost for the next
weapon of mass destruction event.
The NDIA CBRN conference July
24-26 in Baltimore, Maryland, will
bring together many of the senior gov-
ernment leaders to hear what is being
done today and in the near future —
and more importantly — hear from
industry and academia representatives
on what they think should be accom-
plished. This year’s theme is “Biode-
fense and Pandemic Preparedness
in an Era of Persistent Conflict.” ND
Retired Brig. Gen. William King
served as the commanding general
of the 20th CBRNE Command before
retiring in 2017 with 30 plus years
of active-duty Army service. He is
chair of the NDIA CBRN Division,
and a senior fellow and principal/
director at Booz Allen Hamilton.
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 17
COMMENTARY
Fast Track Digital Twins
In Military Supply Chains
BY PAUL OTT
N
ow more than
ever, digital
transforma-
tion presents
tremendous
opportunities to improve
U.S. military supply chains.
Digital twins have been part of
the technology landscape for years.
Starting out as virtual replicas of
physical objects, digital twins have
now expanded to include end-to-
end supply chain networks as well
as digitally mapping and simulat-
ing internal processes and policies.
What makes the current generation
of digital twins more than a modern
buzzword for “simulation?” It is the
ability to incorporate operational
reality from the physical world —
manufacturing, warehousing and
transportation — with business
planning, monitoring and report-
ing. And the enablers bringing all
this together are the confluence of
technology acceleration, affordabil-
ity and widespread awareness and
adoption throughout the workforce.
Defense organizations recognize
they have an abundance of data, of
varying levels of quality, that exist
in modern enterprise systems, plat-
forms and legacy applications. Indus-
trial infrastructure and technology,
which is at the heart of maintaining
military readiness, is generations
old and in need of investment and
recapitalization. Challenges with
recruiting and retention drive a short-
age of material handlers in Defense
Department distribution centers and
artisans in organic repair depots.
While not a panacea, digital twins
realistically offer the opportunity to
leapfrog ahead in an accelerated man-
ner that coordinates previously dispa-
18 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
rate segments of the supply chain.
The challenge is getting started.
Creating a digital representa-
tion of the current supply chain
network is foundational for the
application of digital twins. While
this sounds simple, there are few
defense organizations with a compre-
hensive understanding of inventory
positioning, replenishment flows,
infrastructure, labor and storage,
repair and processing capacities.
At this point, they can delineate what
data is systemically available and of
good quality, what data doesn’t exist
anywhere and all points in between.
This is critical to target technology
application at segments of the busi-
ness to fill these gaps or elevate data
quality to where it is acceptable.
Generally speaking, supply chain
planning, procurement and fulfill-
ment data is systemically available,
but admittedly with some data quality
issues where standard commercial and
military processes diverge. However,
data-driven visibility into mainte-
nance, warehousing and transporta-
tion is often fragmented due to the lack
of historical technology investment
that perpetuates the use of legacy sys-
tems and offline, manual processes.
The rapid advancement of the indus-
trial internet of things, or IIoT, and
cloud computing, along with decreases
in hardware costs such as sensors
and asset tracking infrastructure has
made visibility at forward supply
and maintenance points more acces-
sible than ever. Further, sensor and
device-agnostic ingestion software has
the potential to integrate stand-alone
point solutions and legacy applications
into a common operating picture.
This real-time visibility, enabled
by technology at the edge, trans-
forms what were previously assump-
tions about production rates,
operating capacity and fulfillment
volume into data-driven facts that
can be gathered in real time, ana-
lyzed, visualized and simulated.
Data ingestion through IIoT at the
edge provides supply chain leaders
with information on production rates,
machinery and processing capacity
that can inform the ability to surge.
Moving forward, the Defense Depart-
ment has the opportunity to recapital-
ize equipment so that the human is
no longer the limiting factor of get-
ting materials out to the field faster.
For example, modern production
and distribution center equipment
is engineered to run at speeds that
exceed previous war time volumes. A
smart supply chain strategy that syn-
chronizes infrastructure, equipment
and inventory can deliver the effec-
tiveness demanded at war time with
the efficiency desired at peace time.
While IIoT and modern machinery
and automation can speed the flow
of supplies out to operating units, the
department’s ability to surge can be
impacted by the robustness of the sup-
plier base. Multitier supplier mapping
— along with simulation and analyt-
ics on susceptibility to disruption and
recovery time — can be stress tested
within a digital twin construct across
the supplier base to improve resiliency.
Similarly, the Defense Department is
exploring what challenges might occur
in future conflicts where large unit and
equipment deployments that move
freely through points of embarkation
to large forward-operating bases can
no longer be taken for granted. While
it is efficient to have large suppliers,
concentrated inventories and central-
ized maintenance capacity, it also pres-
ents risk in a peer adversary conflict.
Multi-variable simulation through
digital twins can provide alterna-
tives to diversify the supplier base,
transportation and port options,
location recommendations for mul-
tiple stockage points that still have
accessible lanes to the point of need
and broaden maintenance capabili-
ties through augmented reality.
With supply chains powered by
real-time data insights, human inge-
nuity and machine intelligence, deci-
sionmakers will be better equipped
to synchronize suppliers, invento-
ries, maintenance and distribution
capacities to build a higher-performing
and more resilient supply chain.
Military readiness in the digital
age requires a strong digital core,
and the ability to act with speed and
precision. Digital twins are a key
enabler to delivering the logistics
capability our nation requires. ND
iStock illustration
Paul Ott is the federal supply
chain and operations practice lead
for Accenture Federal Services.
 Future
Firepower
Navy Lays Groundwork for Larger, More
Lethal Next-Gen Destroyer BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
T
he Navy has begun devel-
opment of a future guided
missile destroyer that will
bring increased firepower
and efficiency to the fleet,
even as the service is still in the midst
of constructing Flight III of its Arleigh
Burke-class large surface combatants.
While the Navy considers the
Arleigh Burke-class Flight III destroy-
er the world’s most capable surface
combatant platform, the service “has
maximized the space, weight, power
and cooling capabilities” through 30
years of upgrades to the hull form.
Hence, the need for the Navy’s Next-
Generation Large Surface Combat-
ant program, or DDG(X), said a
Navy spokesperson in an email.
The first of the Arleigh Burke-
class ships was commissioned on
July 4, 1991, and the destroyer since
then has gone through several evolu-
Navy, iStock illustration
tions. The latest, Flight III, is cen-
tered around the Raytheon-made
SPY-6 air and missile defense radar,
which enables the ship to “simulta-
neously perform” anti-air warfare
and ballistic missile defense and
“satisfies the Navy’s critical need
for an enhanced surface combatant
Integrated Air and Missile Defense
capability,” a service fact file said.
The service plans to deliver the
first of the Flight III Arleigh Burke-
class ships, the USS Jack H. Lucas,
this year, Secretary of the Navy
Carlos del Toro said during a key-
note address at the Surface Navy
Association’s annual conference in
January. In its 2024 budget request,
the Navy is seeking $5 billion to
acquire two Flight III destroyers.
In that same budget proposal,
the Navy is requesting $187.4 mil-
lion in research-and-development
funding for DDG(X), the follow-
on to the Arleigh Burke class.
According to a Congressional Bud-
get Office analysis of the Navy’s fiscal
year 2023 shipbuilding plan published
in November, the service has indicat-
ed DDG(X)’s “initial design prescribes
a displacement of 13,500 tons,” nearly
40 percent greater than the 9,700-ton
displacement of the Arleigh Burke
class. This increased capacity will give
DDG(X) immense flexibility for the
future, the Navy spokesperson said.
Initially, DDG(X) will have the
same combat system elements as the
Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroy-
ers — including the Aegis Weapons
System “that provides area coverage
and command/control focus in all
dimensions of Naval Warfighting and
Joint Military Operations” — plus
two 21-cell Rolling Airframe Missile
launchers, the spokesperson said.
“DDG(X) will be built following an
evolutionary, or incremental, process
with the introduction of minimal
developmental technologies on initial
ships … providing the flexibility and
the necessary space and weight mar-
gins to succeed” the Flight III Arleigh
Burke class “as technology advances.”
The motivation behind DDG(X) is
simple: “So we can have a stick that
beats that of our adversaries,” said
Rear Adm. Fred Pyle, the director of
the Navy’s surface warfare division.
DDG(X) is “going to bring us
the opportunity to use larger mis-
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 19
Ribbon cutting ceremony for the DDG(X) land-based test site
sile launchers,” Pyle said during
a panel discussion at the Surface
Navy Association conference. “It’s
going to bring us the opportunity
to use … higher power lasers and
long-range strike hypersonic weap-
ons — as well as sensor growth
— as we go into the future.”
Directed energy weapons in particu-
lar are a technology the Navy would
like to integrate onto DDG(X), he
added.
“Shipbuilding is a long game,
right? So, when we achieve the
directed energy power that we’re
looking for … we want to have a
platform to land it on,” he said.
In a potential Indo-Pacific conflict,
onboard directed energy weapons
could play a key role defending air-
craft carriers, said Bryan McGrath,
managing director of the Fer-
ryBridge Group consultancy.
“Aircraft carriers are going to be
among the most important things
in our arsenal, because they may
be the only way we can apply tacti-
cal air power,” McGrath said dur-
ing a panel discussion at the Navy
League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in
April. “At the end of the day, having
a destroyer close by that can lase for
seven to 12 seconds on a target that
is in flight and destroy it at a cost of
like $112 rather than $50 million or
whatever, that’s where we need to go.”
A directed energy weapon “cannot
go” on the Flight III Arleigh Burke-
class ship given its limited capacity,
making the transition to DDG(X)
all the more important, he said.
The Navy is developing a number
of directed energy systems, but the
service has “not consistently taken
20 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
key steps to support” the expected
transition of these prototypes to full-
fledged acquisition programs, accord-
ing to a Government Accountability
Office report published in April.
“While the Navy fielded several
directed energy weapon prototypes
and identified a potential transition
partner, it does not have documented
transition agreements for the directed
energy programs that GAO reviewed,”
the report said. Without these agree-
ments, the Navy risks “developing
directed energy weapons that may be
misaligned with operational needs.”
And without a proven directed ener-
gy weapon, the Navy also risks losing
out on funding for DDG(X), McGrath
said.
Every time the Navy has previ-
ously changed the size and shape of
its destroyers, “it was in response
to technology that existed,” he said.
“The problem that the Navy has
right now is that it doesn’t have that
600-kilowatt to 1-megawatt maritime
laser out on a ship or a barge, show-
ing the world that we have it, and we
can do it. If that laser existed, a lot
more people would be willing to say,
‘Let’s make the jump’” to DDG(X).
The Navy spokesperson said:
“Rather than tying the success of
DDG(X) to developmental technol-
ogy, the Navy is using known, mature
technologies on a flexible platform
that can be upgraded for decades to
come, as the technology of tomorrow
becomes more proven and mature.”
One new capability the DDG(X)
will have is an Integrated Power
System, which will provide central-
ized power that operators can allo-
cate to either propulsion or combat
systems depending on “real-time
needs,” the spokesperson said. “This
allows for the power generation sys-
tem to operate in the most efficient
manner as possible,” giving DDG(X)
increased fuel efficiency, range
and time-on station, as well as the
“flexibility to accommodate future
combat capability power needs.”
In March, the Navy opened a
DDG(X) land-based test site at the
Naval Surface Warfare Center in
Philadelphia, where the service will
“mature and test” the Integrated
Power System, the spokesperson said.
“DDG(X) development places
a heavy emphasis on land-based
testing to reduce critical integra-
tion risks informing detail design
and minimize discovery during
shipboard activation on the water-
front,” the spokesperson said.
Along with the land-based test
site, the service is employing mod-
eling and simulation capabilities
to inform the system’s design and
reduce future risk, the spokesper-
son said. The test site will utilize
“legacy test equipment” to validate
the modeling and simulation results,
allowing testing to begin this year
and “proving the capability to paral-
lel gas turbine and diesel genera-
tors on a single distribution bus.”
The service this year also began
procurement of Integrated Power
System equipment to install and
test at the site, the spokesperson
added. The Defense Department
announced on March 30 a $16,748,330
contract award to GE Aerospace for
an LM2500+G4 gas turbine engine
Navy photo
and auxiliary systems in support
of the DDG(X) land-based test site.
The engine and auxiliary systems
are expected to be completed by
March 2025, the release said.
Following the work at the test site,
the Navy will transition to a land-
based engineering site for DDG(X)
using the same hardware from the
test site that will be “updated into tac-
tical shipboard form based on [land-
based test site] findings and final ship
design,” the service spokesperson said.
The engineering site “will enable
integration testing prior to ship-
board activation, ultimately sup-
porting crew training and in service
engineering while DDG(X) is in
service,” the spokesperson said.
Despite the Navy and industry get-
ting to work on DDG(X), the date
the Navy plans to procure the first
ship “just keeps going further to the
right, and eventually it will wan-
der into the window for building”
SSN(X), the service’s next-generation
attack submarine, McGrath said.
According to the Congressional
Budget Office report, the Navy’s fis-
cal year 2023 shipbuilding plan has
DDG(X) production starting in 2030,
“two years later than envisioned in
the December 2020 plan and five
years later than in the fiscal year 2020
plan.” The 2023 shipbuilding plan has
the service beginning construction
of SSN(X) in 2034, the report said.
CBO estimated DDG(X) would
have an average cost of between $3.1
billion and $3.4 billion, in 2022 dol-
lars, while the Navy’s estimate was
between $2.3 billion and $2.4 billion in
the 2023 shipbuilding plan, the report
said. According to a Congressional
Research Service report, Arleigh
Burke-class ships currently cost about
$2.2 billion each. They are built by
General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works
and Huntington Ingalls Industries’
Ingalls Shipbuilding division, which
have built every large surface combat-
ant for the Navy since fiscal year 1985.
The CBO report said the Navy
doesn’t expect DDG(X) to cost sig-
nificantly more than the Arleigh
Burke class because the combat sys-
tem and radar of the former will be
“substantially similar” to those of
the latter, with DDG(X) only requir-
ing a new hull and power system.
The report added: “The uncertainty
about the ultimate size and capabili-
ties of the next-generation destroyer
suggests that its final cost could
differ substantially from both the
Navy’s and CBO’s estimates.”
NAVY NEWS
In addition to questions about
the actual cost, there are questions
about how the transition to the pro-
duction of DDG(X) will play out.
The Navy spokesperson acknowl-
edged the transition from producing
Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to
DDG(X) will be a “years-long effort.”
“Were DDG(X) development efforts
not worked in parallel with [Arleigh
Burke class] production, there would
be a nine-plus year gap between [the
Arleigh Burke class] and DDG(X),
resulting in an unacceptable pro-
duction gap for our industrial base
partners and unacceptably delay-
ing the delivery of DDG(X) to the
fleet,” the spokesperson said.
McGrath said the Navy has experi-
ence handling transitions such as
these.
“We moved from two yards building
cruisers to two yards building destroy-
ers over the course of about five years
in the late 80s and early 90s,” he said.
“Presumably there are people around
who can remember that far back, and
there are lessons that can be put to
work. But we need to get on that.” ND

Get More
National PODCAST
Defense • Listen to
summaries
EXCLUSIVE of top stories
ONLINE CONTENT each month.
• Read daily
breaking news
stories as well as
full-length features
on our website. DIGITAL ISSUE
AWARD-
WINNING • View the
WEEKLY CONTENT latest issues
INSIDER online, anytime.
• Sign up
for our
weekly @NATIONALDEFENSE @NATIONALDEFENSEMAGAZINE
newsletter highlight-
ing top stories. NationalDefenseMagazine.org
Float
Plane
Air Force
Special Ops
Wants Runway
Independence,
More Speed
BY STEW MAGNUSON
T
AMPA, Florida — Air
Force Special Operations
Command has a long
technology wish list.
The command is tasked
with transporting commandos covert-
ly, quickly and across long distances
and to penetrate where other aircraft
can’t normally go. Naturally, it wants
to improve its performance in all
these categories, especially the latter,
taking personnel to locations where
there are no runways — a job best
carried out by rotary-wing aircraft.
But what if almost three-fourths
of the planet could serve as a run-
way by allowing fixed-wing aircraft
to land on water? The entire Indo-
Pacific could be considered a run-
way, SOCOM Acquisitions Executive
James Smith told reporters recently.
That’s the reasoning behind the
idea to bolt pontoons onto a MC-130J
airlifter to convert it into a float plane,
a concept the command has been
studying for more than two years.
Air Force Col. Ken Kuebler, pro-
gram executive officer for fixed-
wing aircraft at SOCOM, said: “We
continue to push forward with
some of that technology [but] it’s
a really hard engineering prob-
lem,” he said during a presenta-
tion at the SOF Week conference.
The office is carrying out hydro-
and sub-scale testing, studying
how it would perform in various
sea states, and is moving toward
a critical design review, he said.
In addition, the command is look-
ing at more mundane day-to-day
operations such as maintenance and
support, equipment needs, train-
ing and “how do we go with this
22 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
whole systems of systems approach
to be able to do that,” he said.
The command is working with
several organizations to carry out the
studies and tests. “We are looking at
two to three years to go do a demon-
stration of the full capability,” he said.
Kuebler was asked if the com-
mand would consider acquiring
the ShinMaywa US-2 fixed-wing
amphibious aircraft — which is
flown by the Japan Self-Defense
Force — as a stopgap solution.
Nothing has been ruled out,
Kuebler said. The program execu-
tive office has had talks with Japan
about its float plane capabilities,
especially as it works out concepts
of operation and training, he said.
“We are looking across the globe at
these capabilities,” he said. “I think
everything in the acquisition strategy
is still on the table as we look at differ-
ent lines of efforts to make sure that
we can have a runway independent
and amphibious capability,” he said.
The ShinMaywa US-2 can land on
runways or water and is primarily
used for search-and-rescue mis-
sions. It can carry a crew of 11 plus
20 passengers, or 12 on stretchers. It
is driven by six Rolls-Royce AE 2100
engines, has a 108-foot wingspan and
cruises at about 300 miles per hour. It
can operate in sea states of up to nine
feet and on land only requires about
one-quarter of the distance of a typi-
cal commercial airliner to take off and
land, making it practical for many of
Japan’s remote and austere runways.
It has a range of 2,980 miles,
which is roughly five and a half
times farther than a typical search-
and-rescue helicopter, according
to information from its manufac-
turer ShinMaywa Industries Ltd.
Japan currently has eight of the air-
craft with plans to build six more. The
company said the aircraft has saved
more than 1,000 lives so far. Shin-
Maywa Industries is actively seeking
export opportunities but has yet to
find an overseas buyer for the aircraft.
Former AFSOC deputy com-
mander Maj. Gen. Eric Hill before
he retired visited Marine Corps Air
Station Iwakuni in Japan in April
2022 to check out the US-2 and flew
in it to observe the crew carrying
out exercises, according to Stars and
Stripes. The amphibious aircraft is
“an incredible platform,” he said.
“Flying an airplane that can land on
water isn’t a new concept, but few avi-
ators have the experience of amphibi-
ous aviation,” Hill told the newspaper.
“Gaining lessons from our partners
will help us learn what to anticipate
as we begin to build our own tactics
and techniques moving forward.”
The purpose of the visit was to
gather facts as SOCOM explores
its own amphib program, he said.
“We think partnering with our allies
here and learning from them, see-
Air Force photo
ing that they’re on their second
variant of a seaplane, and I think
there is a lot of education we can

A ShinMaywa US-2 assigned to the Japanese Maritime
Self-Defense Force’s Air Patrol Squadron 71 idles in the sea.
share back and forth,” Hill added. forms, an agency statement said.
Smith, while not specifically The announcement said runway
addressing the US-2, said not every independence was “envisioned as
country has what it takes to part- the ability to operate and hover near
ner with SOCOM when it comes to unprepared surfaces, such as sections
developing new technologies, but of damaged runways, remote high-
Japan does check off all the boxes. ways/roadways, unprepared fields
“We’re always looking for what I with dry grass, parking lots, etc.”
refer to as the ‘Goldilocks partner- The broad agency announcement
ship,’” he said. released March 9 did not mention
First, Japan has invested heavily whether the aircraft should be crewed,
in its own special operations forces. uncrewed, or optionally piloted. The
Not every nation does, Smith noted. announcement also did not men-
A potential partner should also have tion whether it should use conven-
a robust industrial base capable of tional or hybrid engines, only that
producing advanced technology. Obvi- it “must demonstrate the ability to
ously, Japan fits that description. generate and distribute power in all
Finally, they must have strong modes of flight and during transi-
cybersecurity protocols in place to tion between these modes of flight.”
protect any information SOCOM The announcement did, however,
shares with them, he said. specify that the aircraft be scal-
“When we find a country that hits able, cruise at speeds from 400 to
all three of those marks, we are inter- 450 knots and at relevant altitudes
ested in working with them,” he said. between 15,000 and 30,000 feet.
Meanwhile, Kuebler shared details It should carry a payload of 5,000
on another new program being devel- pounds, with a substantial 30-foot-
oped in partnership with the Defense long, eight-foot-wide cargo bay capa-
Advanced Research Projects Agency ble of carrying a small vehicle or two
that has “runway independence” and a half pallets, it said. The initial
near the top of its requirements list. requirement for endurance is one and
The agency in March revealed the a half hours and 200 nautical miles.
Speed and Runway Independent While the announcement stressed
Technologies, or SPRINT, X-plane runway independence, the most
demonstration project. Its Tactical important capability AFSOC is look-
Technology Office is soliciting pro- ing for in the new X-plane is high
posals to design, build, certify and speed, Kuebler said. What is the defi-
fly an X-plane to demonstrate speed nition of “high-speed?” It’s whatever
and runway independence for a the program can provide, he said.
next generation of air mobility plat- “If I tell you 400 knots, then
SPECIAL OPERATIONS
tomorrow I’ll be asking for 450
knots and the next day I’ll ask
for 500, but we’re really trying to
get after that win,” he added.
It will be a three-phase project,
with the first phase seeking propos-
als. The entities selected will share
$15 million to refine their con-
cepts. The second part includes a
downselect with $75 million for risk
reduction work and air certification
approvals, then a further downse-
lect to build and fly the aircraft.
That amount was undisclosed.
“The goal of SPRINT is to reach
first flight of the demonstrator no
more than 42 months from contract
award,” the announcement said.
The artist’s concept that accompa-
nied the post portrayed an aircraft
that looked much like the next-gen-
eration, autonomous hybrid-electric
commuter aircraft that several com-
panies are currently developing.
Geoffrey Downer, SOCOM’s pro-
gram executive officer for rotary
wing, said a host of established air-
craft makers and startups are offer-
ing so-called “flying cars” — all
electric or electric-hybrid, runway
independent vertical takeoff and land-
ing vehicles that may appear to be a
perfect fit for special operations mis-
sions — but so far, none impress.
The PEO has studied many of the
nascent industry’s commuter air-
craft offerings but found that they
are all lacking the requirements
needed for special ops missions.
“All these electric configurations
don’t meet our helicopter missions
based on the studies that we’re look-
ing at,” he said.
Special operations helicopters need
to hover for long periods of time,
and the new wave of electric aircraft
don’t do that, he said. The amount
of downwash is also problematic, as
is the ability to get the crew in and
out of the aircraft quickly, he said.
PEO Rotary Wing will also start
a program in 2024 with DARPA
to look at hybrid-electric aircraft
with the goal of increasing speed.
“The studies that we’ve done
[have] shown that you can get any-
where from 25 percent to 100 per-
cent increase in speed,” he said. That
could take it from 90 knots to 170 to
180 knots, he said. Or it could result
in a 25 to 75 percent increase in
range. “That’s huge,” he added. ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 23
Digital Transformation
NORTHCOM Confronts Cultural Barriers
To Innovation BY LAURA HECKMANN
S
AN ANTONIO, Texas —
Distance has long been one
of the best weapons the
Pentagon has to protect the
homeland, but new threats
are emerging that chip away at the
notion that the United States can see
an attack coming in plenty of time.
But generational barriers are
preventing the adoption of new
technologies at Northern Com-
mand, its leaders say.
Increasingly sophisticated long-
range missiles in the hands of Rus-
sia and China, including hypersonic
weapons and fractional orbital bom-
bardment systems, have shattered
the notion of the homeland as a
sanctuary, said Brig. Gen. Paul Mur-
ray, North American Aerospace
Defense Command’s (NORAD)
deputy director of operations.
“[The threat] is not one that we
thought of, and it’s not one that our
nation has had to deal with for a very
long time,” Murray said at the National
Defense Industrial Association’s
Science and Engineering Technol-
ogy conference in May. Both Rus-
sia and China have “very quiet, very
sophisticated stuff,” capable of firing
into the homeland “relatively close”
from both sea and air, he added.
Northern Command and NORAD’s
strategic approaches to these advanced
threats range from restructured
deterrence models down to the
digital realm, where a campaign of
experimentation and transforma-
tion has been launched with one
simple objective: move faster.
The challenge is overcoming cultural
inertia, officials say. Meeting objectives
requires addressing generational ten-
sions, policy barriers, the legacy acqui-
sitions bureaucracy and the growing
volume and complexity of data.
NORAD and NORTHCOM Com-
mander Gen. Glen VanHerck recently
testified before the Senate Armed
Services Subcommittee on Strategic
Forces that the greatest risk for the
United States “stems from our inabil-
ity to change at the pace required by
the changing strategic environment.”
24 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
er Program, which offers training on
technology and lost skill sets such
as coding. Another is an initiative
called “The Forge,” described in slides
as a campaign of science, tech and
Keeping up with that pace is not a experimentation to align, or “forge,”
thinking or innovation problem, said priorities and efforts in time, space
James Rizzo, chief data officer for the and purpose and accelerate the deliv-
commands. It’s a transition problem. ery of joint capabilities, Rizzo said.
“From the digital transformation “What we’re going to try to do
perspective, the goal of our program is leverage technology to improve
really is not wrapped around tech- efficiency and effectiveness. But it
nology,” Rizzo said. “It’s more about has to be done by the people that
generating an environment of inno- are in that individual work center
vation within the headquarters.” or that place. So, if we do [a science-
Trying “four or five, maybe six and-technology] thing that transi-
different ways” to get at innova- tions over to an experiment, and it
tion has revealed more through fail- gets to the right … level, then it’s my
ures than successes, Rizzo said. responsibility to [transfer] whatever
One source of failure was the that is into operations,” Rizzo said.
infamous “Valley of Death,” which The process exists and is “kind of
Rizzo preferred to call the “trough forming on its own,” he said. They
of disillusionment” — a phe- are still learning how to get opera-
nomenon that swallows innova- tors to accept new technology. In
tive technology in bureaucracy some instances, it’s like handing
between prototype and fielding. an F-22 to the Wright Brothers.
“We tried to implement technology “When the Wright brothers go to
and it just doesn’t work,” he said. sleep at night, they think about the
Within the test community, Rizzo newest principle and how things work
said “everybody thinks the and how I can fly in other theaters,”
same. Everybody’s trying he said. “We give them the F-22
to get the next thing done. and we wish all of those things
Everybody is operating with
a sense of urgency.” That’s
not true at headquarters, he said.
The test community’s drive for
innovation is met with “antibodies to
using something different than they’ve
been doing for the last 20 years” at
headquarters, Rizzo said. There’s a cul-
tural divide that is “so hard to bridge.”
He has seen a cultural sweet
spot thrive in pockets within head-
quarters, however, and it could be
a model for the way forward.
“If I can bring technology in,
provide an engineer and provide a
contractor and give them to highly
motivated subject matter experts and
have them start iterating on some-
thing, that seed starts to form and it
starts to build a cell of people that are
more willing to accept the outcome
of a change in … processes,” he said.
The goal is to bring performa-
tive technology that “actually gets
stuff done,” earning support from
leadership who in turn would
support change, he added.
One effort is the Digital Warfight-
 away, and now they have something
that’s highly performant … but they
don’t know what to do with it. So,
there’s a lot of education that needs
to be done to help operators under-
stand how to leverage technology.”
Col. Derrick Franck, chief of
NORTHCOM’s experimenta-
tion and strategic analysis divi-
sion, said the commander’s remit
is to move faster — to “break out
of the mold” and the “traditional
way of how we acquire things.”
“The [Planning, Program-
ming, Budgeting and Execution]
and Joint Planning system [are]
truly designed to build industrial
things — ships, planes and tanks”
— not software, Franck said.
“So, where we’re trying to move
faster is … how do we create all-
domain awareness from subsurface
all the way to on-orbit and make
it a data problem that we can seek
software solutions toward … col-
laborative sense making and infor-
mation dominance,” he said.
“Nobody ever accused the Depart-
ment of Defense of being innovative,”
Franck said. “We’re a combatant
command without acquisitions
authorities and without a whole lot
of money.” So NORAD and NORTH-
iStock illustration
COM need to advocate, he said.
“Advocacy is how we find
people who do have those acquisi-
tions authorities and money to
spend to care about the things
that we care about,” he added.
And everybody must care, he
said. He called Murray’s drum-
beat that the homeland is no lon-
ger a sanctuary a warning. “Based
on that message, the thing we’re
trying to do is build the data.”
What that means is using experi-
mentation and prototyping to develop
data “that then we turn to the depart-
ment and say, ‘This is the data-driven
app. This is the compelling narra-
tive of why you need to care about
it,’” he said. “Because when it comes
to operating inside of the Pentagon
in the budgeting process, you can
have an emotional argument that
goes nowhere. You need the data in
the form of advocacy to say, ‘This is
what we think the future looks like.’”
Traditionally, within headquar-
ters, they have not operated in that
space, he said. He referenced over-
the-horizon radar as an example of
technology “we did a good job of” that
took too long. “That took us 15 years to
make that case. It’s already too late.”
Part of the challenge in field-
ing technology faster is a cultural
divide thwarting transformation.
In a digital age with a proliferation
of sensors that collect troves of data,
trying to make sense of all the infor-
mation has sparked discussions about
the use of artificial intelligence and
exposed generational bias, Rizzo said.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
The younger generation is gener-
ally more trusting of how data is pre-
sented, whereas the older generation
has a distrust of data, he said. Data
presented from AI, or curated prior
to receiving it, may not be trusted.
With so much data coming
from so many places, some may
not even need to see the data —
just trends, because “the num-
bers become moot,” Rizzo said.
“It’s more about the analyt-
ics of the data rather than the data
itself,” he said. “There’s an issue
that needs to be resolved here. I
don’t really have a good answer for
how we’re going to resolve it.”
Murray called it a “frozen middle,”
where the younger generation sees
eye to eye with leadership on technol-
ogy and data yet they are separated
by “people in the middle who keep
that connection from being made.”
“There’s more to this problem
than just acceptance of technol-
ogy,” said Rizzo. “How do you bring
young, smart people … and keep
them motivated, and how do you get
them to come into work every day?”
The “frozen middle” is a cultural
bind that may be demotivational
to the younger generation, he said.
“They can build out a product that
presents information in a manner
that’s easily digestible in a day or two,
and then provide real-time informa-
tion to the seniors for decision, but
there’s that frozen middleman there
that’s like, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t
know how to answer the question
because the numbers have changed.’”
As NORAD and NORTHCOM aim
to align thinking across industry,
generations and headquarters, Rizzo
encouraged everybody to “think … a
little bit differently,” driving home
a theme of the transformation and
experimentation campaigns.
“Instead of building bespoke sys-
tems with sensors that are a mono-
lithic capability to do a thing, maybe
there’s a better way to do that,” he
said. “Maybe if we solved the domain
awareness problem and put that
data into a massive data analytics
and geospatial visualization system,
maybe we can short cycle that to be
a year or less, rather than go through
this massive [Program Objective
Memorandum] process, and get back
in with the rest of the bureaucrats
and try to get something done.” ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 25
 SPECIAL REPORT
ONE
NETWORK
TO RULE
THEM ALL
Joint All-Domain Command, Control
A Journey, Not a Destination
M
BY SEAN CARBERRY
uch of the movie “Pulp
Fiction” centers around a
briefcase and its mysteri-
ous contents — an item
or items of incredible
value and importance never
revealed to the audience.
It’s a classic MacGuf-
fin, an object in a film that matters only insofar as
it motivates the characters and propels the action.
And in some ways, the joint all-domain command
and control, or JADC2, concept is the Defense Depart-
ment’s MacGuffin — it’s not clear what it is or what
it looks like, but it has become one of the driving
forces of military modernization and transformation.
The bumper sticker for JADC2 is straight for-
ward: sense, make sense, act. The idea is to link
sensor data to command centers to “shooters” —
destroyers, jet fighters, missile batteries or ground
troops — to take quick action against a target.
But JADC2 is far more than a bumper sticker,
and things quickly grow complicated when it comes
to building resilient command and control across
domains that can function in contested environ-
ments — something the military did not face dur-
ing 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.
According to the Defense Department’s March
2022 unclassified summary of the JADC2 strategy:
“JADC2 provides a coherent approach for shaping
26 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
future Joint Force [command-and-control] capabilities
and is intended to produce the warfighting capability
to sense, make sense and act at all levels and phases
of war, across all domains and with partners, to deliv-
er information advantage at the speed of relevance.”
No small task. The description continues:
“As an approach, JADC2 transcends any single
capability, platform or system; it provides an oppor-
tunity to accelerate the implementation of needed
technological advancement and doctrinal change
in the way the Joint Force conducts [command and
control]. JADC2 will enable the Joint Force to use
increasing volumes of data, employ automation
and AI, rely upon a secure and resilient infrastruc-
ture and act inside an adversary’s decision cycle.”
Thus, JADC2 is a concept, almost a philosophy, as
opposed to a single technology, platform or system.
In fact, part of the effort is building connectivity
Photo-illustration, iStock, Defense Dept. images
among all the disparate platforms and systems in
use today that were not designed to communicate
with each other and to develop requirements and
standards for future systems to be interoperable.
In that regard, JADC2 is not an end state. There
won’t be a moment when the system is complete
and pulled out of a box like a birthday present.
That has been one of the challenges with the con-
cept: it’s not easy to explain or visualize, said Cynthia
Cook, director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives
Group and a senior fellow at the Center for Stra-
SPECIAL
REPORT
ON JADC2
Army 30
Special Operations
Command 32
Air Force 33
Space Force 35
Navy 36
China’s JADC2 38
CJADC2 39
tegic and International Studies.
“Since it’s such a big and com-
plicated set of programs, and it’s
technology, it’s not that people don’t
understand it, it just doesn’t have the
same visceral connection to people’s
lives as an airplane program,” she said.
“Since it’s a bunch of intercon-
nected capabilities that span across
different systems, it’s sort of harder
for there to be a clear mental pic-
ture of what it is,” she added.
Heather Penney, senior fellow at
the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace
Studies, said getting to a shared under-
standing of the problem is critical.
“The main challenge that we face is
developing the coordination, doctrinal
processes and command authorities to
execute control over nodes or capabili-
ties that belong to another service,”
she said in an interview. “That will be
one of the major challenges of mov-
ing from this nirvana of everything
is connected to everything else.”
She emphasized the need to
work out the authorities “to make
operations under a JADC2 con-
struct effective and non-chaotic.
“Especially so when we’re talk-
ing about real-time targeting or
real-time re-targeting, the need to
real-time reach into another ser-
vice to be able to control or task
one of their assets,” she added.
“We could self-induce friction in the
battle space and de-synchronize other
service operations if we don’t have the
right insight, awareness, processes
and doctrine for doing that,” she said.
So, while the “what it is” of JADC2
might not be clear, how it’s supposed
to proceed is clear, at least on paper.
Turning the simple three-function
bumper sticker — sense, make sense
and act — into reality will be achieved
through five lines of effort, according
to the strategy: establish the JADC2
data enterprise; establish its human
enterprise; establish its technical
enterprise; integrate nuclear com-
mand, control and communications
with JADC2; and modernize mis-
sion partner information sharing.
The JADC2 implementation plan is
classified, which adds to the difficulty
of assessing the level of progress of
the initiative. In addition, the depart-
ment has struggled with defining
requirements and figuring out who
should own and oversee its initiatives.
According to a January 2023 Gov-
ernment Accountability Office report,
“Battle Management: DoD and Air
Force Continue to Define Joint Com-
28 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
mand and Control Efforts,” the Defense
Department and services are still in
the early stages of developing JADC2.
“While DoD has made progress in
JADC2 planning, it has not yet identi-
fied which existing systems will con-
tribute to JADC2 goals or what future
capabilities need to be developed,”
the report stated. “In addition, DoD
is in the process of identifying chal-
lenges to implementing JADC2.”
One decision the department
made several years ago was to have
the Army, Navy and Air Force each
move out with its own program to
develop the capabilities relevant to a
service’s functions and missions.
The Army has Project Convergence,
the Navy Project Overmatch and the
Air Force the Advanced Battle Man-
agement System. The GAO noted
that parallel approaches risked the
creation of individual JADC2-related
capabilities, “which do not necessarily
align with DoD’s highest priorities.”
For example, “the Air Force set initial
requirements for ABMS in 2018, which
is three years before the JADC2 Strat-
egy was approved,” the GAO stated.
CSIS stated in its September
2022 brief, “Pathways to Imple-
menting Comprehensive and Col-
laborative JADC2” that despite the
unifying vision of linking sensors
to shooters, the separate “programs
vary in approach, due to the differ-
ent capabilities of each service.
“Project Convergence, the Army’s
effort, focuses far more on exercises
and experimentation as opposed to
engineering enablers for existing
capabilities. Project Overmatch and
ABMS have a strong engineering
emphasis with a focus on technol-
ogy development, although there are
fewer publicly available specifics on
Project Overmatch,” the brief stated.
Penney said it is important for there
to be some degree of heterogeneity
and parallel work to ensure each ser-
vice gets something it finds useful.
“But then ensure that there’s enough
alignment in their efforts, and frankly
enough sharing of what they’re doing
and involvement with their develop-
ment of partners and allies, to make
sure that partners and allies are
involved in the development of these
technologies and capabilities and so
forth as we move forward,” she said.
Deciding who should oversee and
integrate the disparate efforts has
been its own challenge, and owner-
ship of JADC2 has changed hands a
few times since it was launched.
As of fall 2022, the deputy secretary
of defense and vice chair of the Joint
Chiefs oversee the Defense Depart-
ment-wide JADC2 effort. A cross-
functional team, component offices
under the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, military services and com-
batant commands contribute to the
effort, according to the department.
The Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office led by Craig Mar-
tell reached full operating capability
in June 2022 and is responsible for
the data integration layer, which is
intended to improve the quality of,
access to and interoperability of data
required for command and control.
In January, Martell’s office took
over the Global Information Domi-
nance Experiments, the first four
of which had been run by the North
American Aerospace Defense Com-
mand and Northern Command.
“The intended outcome of these
experiments is two-fold,” Martell said
in a Jan. 30 press release about GIDE
V. “First, we want to identify where we
may have barriers in policy, security,
connectivity, user-interface or other
areas that prohibit data sharing across
the Joint Force. Second, we want to
show how data, analytics and AI can
improve joint workflows in a variety of
missions from global integrated deter-
rence through targeting and fires.”
The sixth iteration of these
experiments began June 5 and
will continue through July 28.
According to background infor-
mation provided by the Defense
Department, military and civilian
participants from each of the services
and multiple combatant commands
are participating virtually and in per-
son to conduct experiments to test,
measure, optimize and field JADC2
solutions using artificial intelligence
and machine learning technology.
The Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office has three lines
of effort in the experiment. A data
Nortthrop Grumman illustration
integration layer technical team
is examining the current techni-
cal baseline for data integration in
the department and the technical
needs of the combatant commands.
An experimentation team is testing
hypotheses for the data integration
layer within realistic strategic and
operational joint command-and-con-
trol constructs. The team is focusing
on common operating and intelligence
pictures and testing secure networking
and communications, cross-domain
information sharing and AI tools.
Lastly, a program management team
is developing acquisition strategies in
support of the data integration layer.
While early concepts of JADC2
focused on common and open
standards and making sure that
new systems and technologies
play together out of the box, that is
now the longer-term focus. In the
short term, the new efforts need
to work with legacy systems.
Marine Corps Commandant
Gen. David Berger noted that dur-
ing a discussion at the Brook-
ings Institution in May.
“Early on, two or three years ago,
there was a notion that we needed to
come together on a common set of
hardware,” he said. “Now, the notion
is keep the hardware that you’ve got.
We have to find ways where
we can move information
between existing programs.
This is more software than
it is hardware in many
cases, not completely.”
Moving to software-defined
communications and network-
ing is critical to shrinking
command-and-control infra-
structure, Berger noted, which
is one of the JADC2 goals.
“We have three air wings. We
have three pretty large foot-
print aviation command-and-
control systems that govern
that,” he said. “All that’s been
shrunk down into the back
of one or two KC-130s — all
domains, aviation, space, cyber, all in a
very small form footprint … and we’re
driving ourselves down into a much
more expeditionary, small version”
that can interface with anything from
higher levels down to the tactical level.
“So, it’s driving that all into a small-
er, more portable, more supportable
form factor with a lower signature.
That’s where we’re headed,” he added.
Cook noted the change of near-term
focus to developing gateways and
interfaces that connect existing sys-
tems was a necessary, pragmatic shift.
“It’s really hard to get away from
legacy systems, in part because as
enormous as the defense budget is, it
is top-line limited and there’s a lot of
hungry mouths to feed,” Cook said.
The department simply can’t
invest in a sweeping replace-
ment of all systems and capabili-
ties related to command and control
when there is an immediate need to
invest in munitions, for example.
Gregory Sanders, deputy direc-
tor and fellow with the Defense-
Industrial Initiatives Group at
CSIS, said the JADC2 effort needs
an “appetite suppressant.”
“Every sensor, every shooter is bold,
inherently, and you have a risk that
you’re repeating the Future Com-
bat Systems experience,” he said.
The Future Combat Systems was
the failed Army modernization pro-
gram to develop a networked suite
of manned and unmanned systems
to replace the M-1 Abrams and
M-2 Bradley and other vehicles.
“I think we [need to] focus on what
actually needs to work together, and
an acknowledgement of legacy is
vital there,” Sanders said. “One of
the big questions, and I think one of
the key things about whether a joint
approach really will add a good deal
of value, is whether you can incre-
mentally introduce open systems
when you’re adding something new.”
Cook said a role for the Chief Digital
and Artificial Intelligence Office is to
highlight that JADC2 is a journey, not
a destination, and that incremental
improvements are part of the process.
“So, as the Marines — or whatever
other services — have small success
along the way to the vision of every
shooter and every sensor, celebrate
those and don’t say, ‘Well, this is what
they’ve done, it’s inadequate,’” she
said. “Have the perspective of this is
a journey that the services are mov-
ing along on, and this is something
that works. So, let’s see if we can build
SPECIAL REPORT
on this, [see] if we can get other ser-
vices to consider it and use this as a
springboard for our next success.”
And as if JADC2 isn’t complicated
enough as a concept or acronym,
another letter is creeping into the mix.
Some in the department have been
adding “combined,” which reflects
the need for partners and allies to
be linked in under “CJADC2.”
Bringing allies into the CJADC2 fold
will require determining “triggers for
sharing data, triggers for sharing data
at different levels of classification,
working with them so that our systems
can share necessary data at different
levels of classification,” Cook said.
Then, there is the matter of
acquiring joint systems and tech-
nologies. The F-35 program pro-
vides a cautionary tale about joint
acquisition programs, Cook said.
The original concept for the F-35
program was to make a common plat-
form with slight differences for each
service. The result was three models
with low commonality, she said. And
JADC2 requires solutions from the
defense industry and the commercial
sector, adding to the complexity of
the acquisition process, she added.
“The rate of technical development
and the source of technical innova-
tion, moving towards non-defense
industries, has just shifted,” Cook said.
“It’s really going to be a moving tar-
get,” which requires a process focus.
“How can the government manage
highly complicated, interrelated sys-
tems where aspects of it are coming
from commercial development?” she
continued. “That’s really the sociology
problem that needs to be solved.” ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 29
Project Convergence
Army Overhauling Networks for JADC2 BY LAURA HECKMANN

J
OINT BASE MYER-
HENDERSON HALL,
Virginia — Unifying net-
works across all services
is central to the Defense
Department’s joint all-domain com-
mand and control effort known as
JADC2, and it’s the driving force
behind one of the Army’s key modern-
ization priorities.
Officially launched in 2020 with
oversight from Army Futures Com-
mand, Project Convergence is the
service’s contribution to the JADC2
campaign, which seeks to seam-
lessly link sensors and shooters
and speed up the decision time
using artificial intelligence.
Since 2020, the Army has led yearly
said: “When you’re brigade cen-
tric, a lot of that capability resided
organic to the brigade and that’s
how they could fight. … They
were able to self-sustain.”
The idea behind the “division as a
unit of action” concept is to “lean out
the brigades,” he said. “That’s where
we start talking about the simplicity.”
While the goal is simplicity, com-
plexity is inevitable, Potts said. Capa-
bilities are evaluated from “less to
more capable, and ‘less capable’ is
not necessarily a bad thing. If the
brigade does not need that func-
tion, it’s okay that we remove some
of it and move it to a higher level.”
One avenue the Army is explor-
ing to cut out complexity is to use
leaders before the concept enters a
design review phase, Potts said.
If the Army transmits “sensitive
but unclassified” data on the NIPRNet,
it has to think differently about how it
executes fires, he added. Technically,
the Army knows how to carry out
fires using sensitive-but-unclassified
data, he said. The question is whether
the simpler and faster approach of
using sensitive-but-unclassified data
at the battalion level and below cre-
ates too much operational risk.
Then there is the challenge of mov-
ing data between the classified and
unclassified domains, which requires
a cross-domain solution, he said.
“When we talk about simplify-
ing the network across the domain,

large-scale experiments to assess new
JADC2-related technologies across
the Joint Force. Its latest experiment
in 2022 evaluated approximately
300 technologies and their ability
to connect as a kill chain, including
long-range fires, unmanned aerial
systems, autonomous fighting vehi-
cles and next-generation sensors.
As Project Convergence continues
to drive modernization, one of the
Army’s key priorities is a network
overhaul called “division as a unit of
action” that seeks to simplify opera-
tions for fighting brigades by push-
ing data up the chain of command.
For the past 20 years, the Army has
been fighting in a brigade-centric for-
mation, said Maj. Gen. Jeth Rey, direc-
tor of the Network Cross Functional
Team at Army Futures Command.
“As we move to large-scale com-
bat operations, it’s going to require
us to do a fundamental shift into
the division as a unit of action,”
he said during a media event in
May at Joint Base Myer-Hender-
son Hall, Arlington, Virginia.
Current operations in Ukraine
have shown “we can’t halt,” Rey said.
“We need to be on the move, and then
removing complexity because those
[brigade combat teams] are going to be
actually in the fight. We have to move
complexity up to the division level.”
Maj. Gen. Tony Potts, program
executive officer for Command,
Control, Communications-Tactical,
Army photos
secure but unclassified and encrypt- it has to go through the [National
ed data at the battalion level and Security Agency], it has to be certi-
below rather than using secret-level fied months in advance.” Working in
data that needs to be on the Secure
Internet Protocol Router Network,
or SIPRNet, Rey said. “That will
improve mobility, and hopefully
survivability on the battlespace that
will take us on the fundamental
rebalance that we’re looking at.”
While unclassified, the network’s
encryption means they’re “not just
transmitting out in the open,” Potts
said. They are taking advantage of
the commercial standard encryption
for its simplicity and cost effective-
ness. Higher levels of encryption add
levels of complexity and expense and
slow command and control, he said.
“Even though there’s data out there,
I’m moving so fast that by the time
anybody could get through the encryp-
tion, it’s really not valid,” he said.
“It’s not useful for them anymore.”
The Army’s default position
is to use SIPRNet for transmit-
ting sensitive data, but the network
requires proprietary hardware
and is notoriously slow and buggy.
Having battalions operate only on
the Non-Secure Internet Protocol
Router Network, or NIPRNet, is not
without controversy, Potts said.
Due to the “friction” and opera-
tional risks associated with transmit-
ting data on a non-secure network,
the concept remains a matter of
ongoing discussions among Army

30 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
a single enclave eliminates the need
for that complex solution, he said.
The Army of the future is “not
really about the shiny objects any-
more,” Potts said. “It is now about
how do you architect the net-
work for the ‘division as a unit of
action.’ And we realized we had
to think differently about it.”
Building a data-centric Army is
one of the goals of the “division as a
unit of action” concept, “and one of
the biggest changes that we’re mak-
ing,” Potts said. “It’s about the unit
telling us what they need, us finding
the data sources, being able to pull
Soldiers train
with technology
during Project
Convergence 22.
SPECIAL REPORT
them in and being able to visualize
it in a way that they want to see it.”
“It’s too critical — what happens
out on the battlefield — not to test
our software, not to make sure it’s
safe, not to make sure it’s interop-
erable. We’re starting our journey
on how to speed that up,” he said.
As the Army presses forward,
Project Convergence — and
its role in JADC2 — remains a
“forcing function” of the uni-
fied network efforts, Potts said.
“Every capability that we’re
designing has to incorporate into
the JADC2 environment,” he said.
The data fabric the Army is creating
is “one step toward capturing not only
our sensor data, but all the services’
sensor data and making sense of that,
and then displaying it,” Rey said.
Security is paramount, he added.
“We have to have a zero trust envi-
ronment … to get across service
security boundaries, so that we can
all collaborate with one another.”
“Zero trust” is the term for an
“evolving set of cybersecurity para-
digms that move defenses from
static, network-based perimeters to
focus on users, assets and resources,”
according to the Defense Depart-
ment’s Zero Trust Strategy published
in November 2022. At its core, zero
trust essentially assumes all users are
potential threats that must be con-
tinuously authenticated, and depart-
ment officials have stressed that
the concept is essential to JADC2.
“If we all don’t do it together, it
doesn’t work,” Potts added. “There
is no such thing as this [unified
network] unless it’s … JADC2.”
Joint All-Domain Command and
Control is not a thing, he said. It’s a
series of standards and protocols that
allow the services to talk to each other.
Without a JADC2 focus, “nothing we
do as the network guys” works, he
said. “So, we’re building this to work.”
The Army is currently work-
ing on its next iteration of the net-
work design for fiscal year 2025
and 2026. At the forefront of field-
ing has been the Integrated Tacti-
cal Network, which provides secure
but unclassified and encrypted
mobile network communications,
an Army fact sheet stated. The 82nd
Airborne Division will be the first
full division equipped with ITN.
The path forward will move
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 31
 SPECIAL REPORT
through capability and integra-
tion experimentation with interim
design review expected in July
2023 to “discuss results of lab and
operation-based experimentation to
date” with review focused on net-
work architecture design, according
to an Army fact sheet. Critical design
review and operational touchpoints
in 2024 will serve as an operational
assessment of the network design.
Successfully aligning moderniza-
tion efforts with JADC2 will require
not just continuous exercises and
experimentation, but learning from
them, said Cynthia Cook, director
of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives
Special Operations Command Has
Key Role to Play in JADC2 Success
BY STEW MAGNUSON
T
AMPA, Florida — While
the Army, Navy and Air
Force all have different
programs and separate fund-
ing streams to develop joint all-
domain command and control,
the three services are expected
to one day operate a truly
seamless “joint” system with
no communication barriers.
Special Operations Command
can play a key role in ensuring
that this goal comes to frui-
tion, a senior executive said.
The command has a seat at
the table and attends all the key meet-
ings of the JADC2 working group,
James Smith, SOCOM acquisition
executive, told reporters recently.
The overall goal for the three ser-
vices is to deploy a network connecting
sensors and shooters, relying on arti-
ficial intelligence to quickly identify
targets and then locate a weapon to
destroy them. That choice of “shooter”
should be the best available solution,
whether it is an Air Force jet fighter,
an Army Howitzer or a Navy destroyer.
“There’s a strong defini-
tion of what we will need to do to
ensure that outcome for JADC2
is truly joint,” Smith said.
The Army has Project Conver-
gence, the Navy Project Overmatch
and the Air Force the Advanced
32 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
Group with the Center for Strate-
gic and International Studies.
“It’s not how many exercises that
I had, but what were the outcomes of
those exercises and were they incor-
porated into the program itself?”
Cook said. The metrics for success on
such a project are difficult to quantify,
“but when they do learn technical les-
sons, they get incorporated into the
program, and when they do learn les-
sons from exercising with partners
and allies, that changes … policies to
ensure that the U.S. as partners and
allies are better able to fight together.”
The Army announced in early 2023
it would not be conducting a Project
Convergence exercise this year, with
plans to introduce a restructured 2024
blueprint focused on striking a bal-
Battle Management System.
Despite the three different pro-
grams, “we believe that JADC2 has to
result in a joint solution,” he said.
And if it is not truly joint and
interoperable, SOCOM will be
the first to know, he added.
Army Green Berets will have to plug
into the Army’s JADC2 system, Navy
SEALs and Marine Corps special oper-
ators will have to plug into the Navy’s
system and Air Force Special Opera-
tions Command personnel will have
to connect to the Air Force, he noted.
And all these special operations
forces fight together, he added.
“USSOCOM is going to be a canary
in the coal mine on whether or not
JADC2 is truly joint,” he said.
The command must make sure
ance between “expensive large-scale
exercises versus conducting smaller,
more frequent events,” Cook said.
“It’s not necessarily a sign that
anything is going wrong. It’s just a
sign that … the decision was made
that they would like to wait a year
until they make sure that they
get value for money,” she said.
The Army possesses a unique
attribute when it comes to carrying
out Project Convergence: “They are
very deliberate about their goal of
partnering and of having exercises
with allies and partners,” she said.
“I think that gets at the Army’s less
platform centric, more human focused
culture,” Cook said. “And I think it’s
a great strength that the Army brings
to this overarching ecosystem.” ND
that there’s an architecture that
enables its operators to plug into
the three major programs, he said.
“We personally are invested in an
open architecture and are
working across all the ser-
vices for that,” Smith said.
“But I think we’re going
to maybe potentially be one
of the first identifiers of
mismatches,” he added.
There must be a strong
definition of what needs to
be accomplished for JADC2
to become truly joint, he said,
noting that now there is a “C”
in front of the acronym that
stands for “combined,” which
makes the goal more difficult.
“We’re still looking for
some definitions there,” he
said.
As for specific programs and capa-
bilities special operators are bringing
to the table, Smith declined to go into
details.
Meanwhile, one of the command’s
key offices that will help it feed into
the three larger JADC2 programs is the
two-year-old Program Executive Office
for Software.
Chad Raaymakers, acting program
manager for mission command sys-
tem/common operating picture at the
PEO, said at an industry conference
panel discussion, “I think we were
called the doorway to JADC2. I like to
say we’re a doorway to JADC2 — we’re
not solving that whole problem. But
Defense Dept. photo
we are looking through our capabilities
to enable JADC2 with the joint force.”
ND
 Advanced Battle
Management System
Air Force Reorganizes to Tackle JADC2 Complexities
W
BY SEAN CARBERRY
hile the Advanced
Battle Management
System has been
the Air Force’s main
program to realize
the Defense Department’s joint all-
domain command and control vision,
the service is aiming higher, seek-
ing to build a battle network to unify
JADC2 efforts within the service.
The Air Force launched the ABMS
program to build a resilient com-
mand-and-control infrastructure
to connect and integrate sensors,
move and manage data and enable
commanders to make operational
decisions quickly, according to descrip-
tions of the program in Government
Accountability Office reports.
Over time, the service determined
the Advanced Battle Management
System does not capture the entirety
of Air Force JADC2 efforts. Last fall,
the Air Force established the Pro-
gram Executive Office for Command,
Control, Communications and Battle
Management, or C3BM, which took
ownership of the Advanced Battle
Management System. This spring,
the service announced an overarch-
ing initiative: the Department of the
Air Force concept
Air Force, or DAF, Battle Network,
according to Assistant Secretary of
the Air Force for Acquisition, Technol-
ogy and Logistics Andrew Hunter.
“While we still have ABMS, we
have added some additional terms
to the discussion,” Hunter said at a
May 18 discussion at George Mason
University’s Greg and Camille Baroni
Center for Government Contract-
ing. “As we’ve really gotten into this,
what we’ve started to understand is
there [are] a lot of levels to success-
ful JADC2, and ABMS is really a set
of programs the Air Force is working
on to ensure that we can do com-
mand and control” for different mis-
sions across the Air Force and Joint
Force in the near and long term.
“ABMS continues to have programs
that are off doing things and actu-
ally making a lot of progress in the
near term to deliver those capabili-
ties,” he added. “What we also under-
stand, though, is we can’t just look
at ABMS and say, ‘Okay, go fix com-
mand and control for the Air Force.’”
The entire Air Force must change
its approach to command and con-
trol, and that involves partnering with
the Space Force, he said. “You liter-
ally cannot even begin to succeed in
this without Space Force capabilities,
some of which are fielded and some
of which are fielding in the near term.
So, it is the entire enterprise that has
to be able to deliver this capability.”
Last fall, the Air Force tapped Brig.
Gen. Luke Cropsey to serve as the
new PEO’s leader. That move rolled
up the Advanced Battle Management
System acquisition authorities from
the Rapid Capabilities Office and Chief
Architect Authorities under Cropsey.
“ABMS is in his portfolio, but his
portfolio is broader because he has to
be able to enable the entire enterprise
to integrate for successful command,
control, communications, battle man-
agement,” Hunter said. “And then
the other kind of new-ish term that
we brought to the table with our [fis-
cal year 2024] budget request is what
we’re calling the DAF Battle Network.”
That was a recognition that
the Advanced Battle Manage-
ment System is not broad enough
to address the JADC2 command-
and-control needs, he said.
“We have capabilities built into all
of our aircraft that are for command,
control, battle management, com-
munications capabilities and situ-
ational awareness capabilities that are
fundamental to successful command
and control,” Hunter said. “It’s not
all on the ABMS program to deliver
this, the battle network is something
that spans the entire enterprise.”
Adding DAF Battle Network and
C3BM has created challenges, he said.
“Because then people are like, ‘Wait,
I don’t understand what you’re talk-
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 33
 SPECIAL REPORT
ing about, and what happened to
ABMS?’ Well, we still have it. And
it’s necessary but not sufficient.”
The new structure will help the
service conceptualize and integrate
into the Defense Department’s
larger joint all-domain command
and control effort, he said.
For example, the Defense Depart-
ment’s Chief Digital and Artificial
Intelligence Office is tasked with
creating a data layer for the Joint
Force, and the DAF Battle Net-
work will contribute to and be a
part of the data layer, he said.
Heather Penney, senior fellow
at the Mitchell Institute for Aero-
space Studies, said the creation of
the C3BM PEO was a crucial step
to give elements of ABMS a cham-
pion and program of record.
“Rather than having to find and
maneuver their way into already
defined modernization programs, hav-
ing a C3BM PEO allows them to focus
on the development as a program of
record and then mature to the point
where other major weapon systems
can then pull that in, as opposed to
bearing the burden of the development
on their own,” she said in an interview.
“And frankly, it’s also the other
reason why C3BM is going to be
really important is because if we
want to have this kind of machine-
to-machine connectivity, that’s really
where you’re going to make that hap-
pen,” she said. “Because the focus in
that PEO is going to be that connec-
tive tissue rather than simply hoping
that the different weapon systems
will bear the burden on their own
of trying to connect with others.”
While the creation of the new PEO
might have been a crucial step, there
are still many questions about how
the Air Force will proceed with its
JADC2 efforts. Cropsey moderated a
panel discussion on ABMS during the
Air and Space Forces Association’s
Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo-
rado, in March. His framing of the
conversation indicated the service is
still working to define the problem.
“… if we can identify, clearly articu-
late the operational problem that we’re
trying to get after and do that in a way
that allows us to all share the same
vision of what that problem looks
like, then we can figure out how we
back our way through the rest of that
kill chain and the rest of the mission
34 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
ABMS
demonstration
threads that are going to be required
in order for us to solve this,” he said.
Industry members on the panel
noted that traditionally vendors have
been platform centered — they build
aircraft or satellites — but ABMS and
JADC2 require integrating platforms
into a kill chain, and those platforms
were built by different companies.
That means industry must rethink
its approach, said Dan Markham,
director for Lockheed Martin joint
all-domain operations and Advanced
Battle Management System efforts.
“That collaboration is criti-
cal, and making sure that we are
enabling that and partnering with
both industry and the government
is a unique experience that we’re
all working through,” he said.
While there are still challenges with
defining the problem and developing
the coordination mechanisms, the Air
Force has made progress on C3BM by
working with the Navy to solve similar
operational problems, Hunter said.
“And in many cases, we bring some-
thing to the table — we bring space
data transport, we bring a lot of capa-
bility with our aircraft to transmit
information,” he continued. “The Navy
brings a lot to the table. They bring
a lot of great work they’ve done over
many years on networking and wave-
forms. So, we’ve actually found a lot of
benefit from working closely together.”
In addition, the Air Force has
participated in the Army’s Project
Convergence experiments to test net-
works in realistic scenarios, he said.
“And we’ve gained a lot of knowl-
edge doing that,” he added. “So,
there [are] a lot of pockets where
we’re starting to show, I think, real
progress and real success at doing
joint command and control.”
Penney said it has been hearten-
ing to see the rigor with which the
Air Force has been decomposing its
mission threads and mission ele-
ments during ABMS experiments.
“[That] is giving them a better
understanding of the nuts and bolts
of how you build kill chains and what
are the dependencies of each capa-
bility as it goes into the battlespace
and tries to accomplish its particular
piece of that mission element and
how they’re connected,” she said.
“At the same time, it’s been at least
three years that the Air Force has
been really seriously pursuing ABMS,
and … it seems like we’re still doing
the experimentation piece, and it’s
time for us to begin fielding capabil-
ity, even if it’s a minimum viable
product, even if it’s just a small step
in the right direction,” she added.
“Having that incremental delivery
gives us something to move for-
ward on” even if it isn’t perfect.
“You may field that and go, ‘Oh, OK,
initial fielding — we’ve got a lot of
bugs we need to work out.’ Or it might
actually give you insight, … you need to
pivot a little bit or make some adjust-
ments,” she said. “It may prove that
some of your initial concepts need to be
revised, but we’re not going to find that
out until we actually try to field some-
thing in a minimum viable product.”
Penney said a bottom-up focus
is needed to avoid being paralyzed
by the search for a grand unified
theory of battle management.
“That’s one of the things that I like
about the Advanced Battle Manage-
ment System and how they shifted
and pivoted,” she said. “They’re like,
‘OK, let’s just start with some basic
blocking and tackling. Let’s look at a
mission thread. What are the things
that we need to do within that mis-
sion thread? And you know, what’s
the combination of sensors, plat-
forms, data links, etc. that we have
right now? And then how could we
potentially connect across them to
then build more novel kill chains?’”
It is important for the Air Force
to recognize kill chains are physical
things that operate in a physical world,
and not all sensors, data links, weap-
ons and platforms are equal, she said.
“That’s another thing that I like
about the advanced battle manage-
ment approach is because they
are taking where are we today and
they’re baselining that on current
capabilities and platforms,” she said.
“It allows them to look at the capa-
bilities and limitations of our cur-
rent force as they build kill chains
that have that scale, scope, speed and
survivability and allows them to see
where they need to bias those kill
chains in that competitive context.
“Because again, it is a competition,”
she said. “That decision doesn’t matter
Air Force photo
if you can’t take action, it just means
that you die with high situational
awareness and good intentions.” ND

Space Force Sets Sights on Putting
JADC2 in Orbit BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
C
OLORADO SPRINGS, Colo-
rado — Space-based sys-
tems will play a critical role
in the Defense Department’s joint
all-domain command control con-
cept, and the services and com-
mercial industry are working to
send new capabilities into orbit.
The goal of the JADC2 initiative is
to connect sensors to shooters and
ensure warfighters get the right infor-
mation at the right place and time.
JADC2 “can only be achieved with
foundational space-based capabili-
ties,” according to “The Indispens-
able Domain: The Critical Role of
Space in JADC2,” an October 2022
policy paper published by the Mitch-
ell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“Only the space domain can move
information at the speed, size and
range required of an effective JADC2
architecture,” the paper said.
The Space Force is “working
closely” with the Air Force team that
is developing the Advanced Battle
Management System — the Depart-
ment of the Air Force’s contribution
to the JADC2 initiative — to clearly
define what space capabilities are
needed, said Brig. Gen. Timothy
Sejba, the program executive offi-
cer for battle management, com-
mand, control and communications
at Space Systems Command.
“There are a number of different
programs that we believe are core to
the overall battle network,” Sejba said
during a media briefing at the Space
Foundation’s Space Symposium in
April. “We look at the [command and
control] needed, the
sensors that are needed
on the space side, and
then the effectors that
will be fed by all that
information. We’re
really making sure that
we look at it as an end-
to-end capability.”
The two “founda-
tional” capabilities for
the space component of
Northrop Grumman image
JADC2 will be a strong
data fabric that allows
the services to “under-
stand how we’re going
to utilize” the informa-
tion and “where the
data needs to go to from across the
department,” and resilient networks
to ensure “we can connect across the
larger Air and Space Forces,” he said.
In March, Space Systems Command
awarded a $900 million indefinite
delivery/indefinite quantity contract
to 18 vendors to provide data software
services for the Space Force’s Space
C2 program, a command release said.
These services will support war-
fighters “by serving as a data layer
to efficiently integrate and manage
escalating amounts of data from vari-
ous disparate data sources to enable
application delivery, in-depth analy-
sis and data-driven decision mak-
ing across echelons and functional
communities,” the release said.
On the networking side, the Space
Development Agency has begun
soliciting industry for Tranche 2 of
its Proliferated Warfighter Space
Architecture, the organization’s
director Derek Tournear said. The
agency’s goal is to launch a “tranche”
of satellites every two years to build
a low-Earth constellation that can
continually deliver space-based
capabilities to the Joint Force.
SDA launched its first set of
Tranche 0 satellites this spring,
with the rest to follow in June,
and Tranche 1 will launch “in 18
months,” Tournear said during a
media briefing at the symposium.
“That’s when we’re actually going
to have a warfighting capability is
Tranche 1,” he said. “Tranche 0 was all
about being able to participate in exer-
cises with the warfighter. Tranche 1 is
all about providing an operational sys-
tem that provides low latency [commu-
nications] directly to the warfighter.”
The system can support tactical
needs and provide “global cover-
age for advanced missile tracking
to be able to detect and track mis-
siles” like hypersonic glide vehicles
and transmit the tracking data
directly to the warfighter, he added.
With Tranche 2, set to launch
in 2026, the agency is breaking up
acquisition of its communication
satellites, known as the Transport
Layer, into three pieces called Beta,
Alpha and Gamma, Tournear said.
The Beta satellites “will provide the
mesh network with laser communi-
cation,” he said. The “main mission”
for those satellites will be ultra-high
frequency and S-band transmission
for tactical satellite communication
“that goes directly to the warfighter
using existing radios,” he said. The
agency plans to acquire 72 Beta satel-
lites from three vendors, he added.
The solicitation for Alpha satel-
lites will be for 100 systems, likely
from two vendors, Tournear said.
Those satellites will provide very
similar capabilities to the Tranche
1 Transport Layer, including a Link
16 mission payload, he said.
“Link 16 is the radio that is used in
theater now by the U.S. warfighters
and our allies. It’s been around for a
long time, and it will continue to be
around for a long time,” Tournear said.
The Gamma satellites, which the
agency will begin solicitation for in
early 2024, will also have ultra-high
frequency and S-band capabilities
and will introduce “advanced wave-
forms to help with anti-jamming in
a contested environment,” he said.
The Transport Layer will be
what ties JADC2 together for the
Defense Department,
Tournear said dur-
ing a keynote address
at the symposium.
“The mesh network …
allows you to get the data
in real time directly to the
warfighter in theater,” he
said. “The tactical data
centers — the folks that
are actually doing the bat-
tle management — they
take a target, they pair it
to a weapon, and then how
do they get that where it
needs to go? It goes up
to our Transport Layer
— that is JADC2.” ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 35
Project Overmatch
Navy Testing Secret JADC2 Technologies BY JOSH LUCKENBAUGH
N
ATIONAL HARBOR,
Maryland — The Navy
has revealed little about its
contribution to the Defense
Department’s joint all-
domain command and control initia-
tive but has started experimenting with
systems that will bring the concept
to life at sea, service leaders say.
The Army has held annual Proj-
ect Convergence experiments and
Air Force leadership has openly dis-
cussed its plans for the Advanced
Battle Management System, but
the Navy has remained tight-lipped
about Project Overmatch, the ser-
vice’s component of the JADC2 initia-
tive to connect sensors to shooters
across all warfighting domains.
The aim of Project Overmatch is to
“create a more interoperable force,
allowing more pieces of the Navy
— more ships, more aircraft, more
unmanned systems later on — to be
able to connect with one another and
talk to one another, using the Navy’s
wildly diverse collection of commu-
nication systems,” said Bryan Clark,
a senior fellow at Hudson Institute.
Like the other services, the Navy has
a variety of communication systems
that are not necessarily interoper-
able, “and you have to create gate-
ways that connect them together, or
you’ve got to put multiple radios on
everything in the force to be able to
allow them to communicate,” Clark
said in an interview. “What Proj-
ect Overmatch is designed to do
is” use software to translate “auto-
matically between different com-
munication systems,” he said.
Once operational, Project Over-
match will ultimately flow into a “joint
command structure,” said Rear Adm.
Doug Small, the commander of Naval
Information Warfare Systems Com-
mand and the program manager for
Project Overmatch. But while the
“joint” part of JADC2 is important,
each service faces different command-
and-control challenges, he said.
“The operational architecture that
we’re developing … is all about naval
power on behalf of the Joint Force,”
Small said during a panel discussion
at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space
36 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
conference in April. “That’s what the be introduced that day, he said.
project is about. I can’t get into spe- When speaking to industry about
cifics — only thing I can say is that what is needed for Project Over-
each service has unique needs for match, the message is simple: “We
how to command and control forces” just want your software,” Small said.
in the operating environment. Clark said operators have previously
“It still comes down to the art of used physical gateways carried by
command and control, and what it is aircraft where one radio is essentially
that we provide architecturally to allow bolted to another radio, “and you basi-
those commanders at all levels to be cally have the output of one go in to
able to exercise” that capability, he said. become the input of the other,” he said.
“It’s joint, it’s all-domain, but it comes “It’s a very kind of rudimentary way of
down to … command and control.” allowing two different communication
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. systems to connect to one another,”
Michael Gilday said the Navy is test- and for Project Overmatch the Navy
ing technologies related to the project is trying to use software instead.
on the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike “You can have one software-defined
Group off the coast of California. radio that has multiple card slots in
The experiment currently involves it that allows [you to] use different
“about eight ships, across many
different networks and many dif-
ferent types of data,” Gilday said
during a panel discussion hosted by
the Brookings Institution in June.
For fiscal year 2023, the Navy
received $226 million in research-
and-development funding for Project
Overmatch, and the service is request-
ing $192 million for fiscal year 2024,
according to service budget documents.
The testing with the Vinson strike
group is the “starting gun” for Project
Overmatch, Small said. “What we’re
learning, without getting into specif-
ics on the technologies and things, it’s
hard,” Small said at the conference. No
matter the system, introducing new
capabilities across the entire service is
one of the hardest things to do, he said.
The Navy is taking an “incremental
approach” with Project Overmatch, he
said. “You can’t create a whole new job
series in the Navy to be able to oper-
ate the system and expect to do that”
all at once. “So, you got to figure out,
how are we going to do this … and do
it inside of the cycles that the Navy
has for how we build readiness?”
One capability that the service has
transitioned to that will play a key role
in Project Overmatch is “over-the-
air software delivery,” he said. That
is preferable to waiting for a ship to
come in to port to make upgrades.
“So, now it’s no longer, ‘Hey, in
two years we’ll be back’” with soft-
ware updates; those upgrades can
 waveforms,” he said. “The radio is
able to handle the different waveforms
of the different communication sys-
tems, and then software inside the
radio translates the message from
one format into the other format.
“From the operator’s perspective,
it’s kind of transparent: you’re con-
necting with the guy you needed to
connect with and the message is
being routed in a way that you both
understand, but in reality, you’re both
on two completely different com-
munication networks,” he said.
The technology works simi-
larly to civilian communication
networks today, Clark said.
“When I pick up my [Voice over
Internet Protocol] phone … to call
you, when I talk into the phone that’s
analog, and then it turns immedi-
ately into a digital signal, and then
when it leaves my phone, it’s ones
and zeros,” he said. “And then when
it goes to the phone network, to the
Navy photo
mobile phone via the cell tower, then
it gets re-turned into a waveform that
USS Carl Vinson
you then receive as electromagnetic
energy. … So, what the Navy is doing
is simply adopting that same technol-
ogy to say, ‘Well if everything once
it gets past the antenna is ones and
zeros, well then I can use software
to manage that instead of having to
wire two radios physically together.’”
Small said for software-defined
missions such as Project Overmatch,
the Navy has “all the authorities
we need to move at speed and scale
within the structure that we have.”
“There are so many different tools
out there … that fit the bill,” he said.
“It’s just a matter of finding the right
one.”
A major concern for defense contrac-
tors is the so-called “Valley of Death,”
in which innovative technologies never
make the jump from a prototype to
an actual fielded product. However,
when it comes to Project Overmatch,
Small said: “If it’s software, there is
no Valley of Death.” If the Navy finds
an application it likes, the service
“will put it in production tomorrow.”
To enable the Navy’s software-
defined network management system,
the service will need to install addition-
al processing power on ships and air-
craft that was not necessarily built into
the platforms, Clark said. And some
platforms simply won’t have the space.
“You really can’t necessarily do
this level of highly interoperable,
multi-network, software-defined
network management on a really
small platform,” he said. For example,
small drones that simply don’t have
enough processing power will prob-
ably just have one or two commu-
nication systems, “and they’re not
going to be necessarily translating
between multiple network signals.”
Those smaller platforms can talk
to the rest of the network, but it’s up
to other nodes elsewhere to translate
their communications back and forth,
he said. “So, they’re going to basically
be dumb nodes at the end of the chain.”
That said, Project Overmatch should
provide the overall Navy network
with greater resiliency, Clark said.
“If you’ve got the ability to seamless-
ly shift between different communica-
tion networks, and you’re much more
interoperable — meaning any individ-
ual node in your force can use multiple
different communication networks
without having to fuss with it too much
— then you’re more likely to keep your
comms up,” he said. Jamming sys-
tems operate at a particular frequency
or waveform, making it difficult for
SPECIAL REPORT
adversaries to jam every single com-
munication network at the same time.
“The idea of that is that you would
want to have as many [communication
systems] available to you as possible,
so that you can shift from one that’s
jammed into one that’s not jammed,”
he said. “And with the software-
defined networking, that happens a lot
more seamlessly … and you can coordi-
nate between different participants so
that you can all shift simultaneously.”
To make Project Overmatch com-
patible with the other services’
command-and-control efforts, there
is a JADC2 reference architecture
the Navy uses “to flow through all of
our requirements,” Small said. The
reference architecture is Defense
Department-issued guidance that
“should ensure that JADC2 capa-
bilities are synchronized, integrated,
and interoperable,” according to a
Government Accountability Office
report published in January.
During a panel discussion at Sea-Air-
Space, Gilday said the Marine Corps, as
well as allies and partners, are “tied in”
with the Navy on Project Overmatch.
In particular, Australia, France and the
United Kingdom are working closely
with the service on the project, he said
during the Brookings Institution panel.
Going forward, Project Over-
match efforts will “likely focus in the
Pacific first then expand globally into
other fleets,” Gilday said. “It’s going
well, but we still have more work
to do. We’re learning every day.”
Clark said the Navy has made
great progress, and the next phase of
Project Overmatch will likely involve
introducing more unmanned sys-
tems and artificial intelligence.
Ideally, “instead of having to have
a person figure out, ‘Oh, this node
is going down or this comms net-
work is jammed, [we] need to shift
to another one’ … you’d want it to be
automated in such a way that if the
system detects that it’s being jammed,”
it shifts everyone to a different net-
work seamlessly without an opera-
tor having to be involved, he said.
“Project Overmatch’s goal is to start
bringing in elements of artificial intel-
ligence for network management,
start bringing in unmanned systems
as participants in the network and
kind of just continue to expand how
this networking approach is applied
throughout the Navy,” he added. ND
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 37

China Pursues
Its Own Version of
JADC2 BY STEW MAGNUSON
T
he U.S. military wants to
seamlessly integrate its sen-
sors and weapons and tie
them all together with artificial
intelligence and a robust network
in a concept it calls joint all-domain
command and control, or JADC2.
And so does China.
The People’s Liberation Army
is working on its own version of
JADC2 while simultaneously seek-
ing ways to disrupt or destroy the
U.S. system, China watchers said.
“PLA writings state that a key con-
cept of seizing information dominance
is to preempt the enemy by conduct-
ing operations to paralyze adversary
information systems. As the conflict
progresses, the PLA will continue to
use cyberspace and kinetic attacks to
suppress and jam enemy information
systems,” according to “Military and
Security Developments Concerning
the People’s Republic of China 2022,”
an annual report produced by the
Defense Department for Congress.
Kim Lehn, a senior fellow at the
Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments and a senior associate at
the Center for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies, said the fact that China
38 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
is developing its own JADC2 — trans-
lated as “multi-domain precision war-
fare” — should come as no surprise.
“China closely watches everything
that the United States is doing, includ-
ing our military operations and plans
… China tries to quickly emulate them,
advance them, use them for their
own capabilities,” said Lehn, who for-
merly served in the U.S. intelligence
community and as a staffer on the
House Armed Services Committee.
And in the event of conflict, as China
deploys its own JADC2 system, it will
be doing everything possible to disrupt
and disable the U.S. system, she noted.
Heather Penney, senior fellow
at the Mitchell Institute for Aero-
space Studies, said the U.S. ver-
sion of joint all-domain command
and control grew out of analyses
of China’s capabilities to threaten
the U.S. military’s kill chains.
Leaders realized that they
needed to more quickly pass and
exploit information, she said in
the institute’s May 20 podcast.
Ultimately, it could all come down to
a kill chain-versus-kill chain scenario.
“We don’t have a theory of vic-
tory in this competition against
China. China has a theory of vic-
tory. Their theory of victory is that
if they can target our operational
systems and our kill chains, they can
paralyze us and collapse our opera-
tions and win that way,” she said.
“If we’re looking at this as a kill
chain competition that provides us
a theory of victory that we can pur-
sue — and it will help us under-
stand and begin to evaluate and
measure our systems — we can
begin to bring these operational
concepts forward,” she added.
China will seek to dismantle and
destroy JADC2’s kill chain in four ways,
she said.
First, they’re going to target nodes.
Those are aircraft, sensors or satel-
lites. JADC2 is a kill chain, which com-
prise real, physical things, she noted.
Next, they will target networks
— how information is shared. They
will jam airwaves, destroy gateways
and obstruct communications.
“They will also seek to disrupt
our relationships. They know the
dependencies that we have on each
other because we operate as a sys-
tem in combined arms,” she said.
They will go after joint aircraft or
satellites that connect the services.
Finally, they will seek to extend or
defeat operational tempos either pas-
sively or by “shoot and scoot” methods.
“They fire a weapon and then they
move quickly before we can find
and target them is one way they can
defensively be inside of our tempo,”
Penney said. Or they can also make
U.S. forces extend tempos. “They
can exploit rules of engagement
using deception or other techniques
that force us to go back to an earlier
step in the kill chain,” she said.
Lehn said it is difficult to dis-
cern how far along China is in its
quest to create its own JADC2.
However, unlike the U.S. military, it
doesn’t have three different programs
under three different services and
has a more top-down bureaucracy.
“I would say they have prob-
ably an easier ability to have a com-
prehensive system,” she said.
But the United States has experi-
ence: “We’ve been in wars; we’ve
Wiki commons photo via Igor Rudenko
been in conflicts. We’ve done dif-
ferent types of operations and
conflicts in the gray zone area to
the high kinetic area,” she said.
“I think the advantage that the
United States [has] … is the people
part of it — and the leadership and
the training,” Lehn noted. ND
 NDIA POLICY POINTS BY CHRIS SAX
Allies Need to Take Part in Services’ JADC2 Goals
A
dm. Christopher Grady in
April highlighted the three
axes he integrates in his job
to be successful as the vice chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He visualizes integration “from
the Pentagon down to where
our servicemembers operate” as
the ‘y-axis.’ He defines integra-
tion across the ‘x-axis’ as cover-
ing all domains — cyber, space,
air, land, surface and subsurface.
Finally, he emphasizes the
‘z-axis’ is to “integrate across
all of our partners.”
Like Grady, the U.S. military is
most effective when it integrates
its military planning and opera-
tions across all three axes. This is
the underlying truth driving the
need for joint all-domain command
and control, also known as JADC2.
In its current conceptual phase,
JADC2 aims to unite sensor informa-
tion across the services in a cloud-like
architecture, transmitting combined
military service data within a geo-
graphic combatant command — the
y-axis — out across all operational
domains and functional commands
with global missions — the x-axis.
Achieving this vision will enable
greater visibility of the battlefield
and logistics lines across all domains
and shorten the time needed for
informed command decisions.
Until now, however, discussions
about JADC2 often stopped with
these two axes. However, the optimal
approach is not limited to the U.S.
Joint Force. America’s allies must be
included in the conversation to fully
implement a JADC2 solution that
enables the United States to oper-
ate in multiple theaters and across
operational domains with peak effec-
tiveness. Incorporating allies into
the framework is an essential step to
incorporating the missing z-axis.
But there is significant work in front
of us to realizing a Combined JADC2,
or CJADC2. To date, the individual
military services have focused
on developing their own con-
cepts. One industry partner
identified these separate
approaches as form-
iStock illustration
ing an environment of
“limited commonal-
ity or interoperability
across the defense enterprise.”
To be effective in the
future, the military ser-
vices will need to integrate
their separate approaches
to JADC2 under a common
data fabric with common data
formatting and rule sets to properly
develop and implement a two-axis
JADC2, let alone a three-axis CJADC2.
One of the challenges is the Defense
Department needs to identify a joint
operational lead to ensure the con-
cept’s ongoing developmental suc-
cess. A combatant command is the
proper joint pathfinder for JADC2
development and implementation. As
the nation looks to counter increas-
ing aggression from the People’s
Republic of China, U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command is a logical choice.
Congress seems to agree. The 2023
National Defense Authorization Act
specifically highlights INDOPACOM as
the first recipient for any JADC2 devel-
opment and implementation plans
among the combatant commands.
This builds off the 2022 National
Security Strategy and National
Defense Strategy documents, which
center on the Indo-Pacific as a criti-
cally important region and identify
the need for the United States to “act
in common purpose” with our allies
to build a “robust deterrence” against
great-power threats. In other words,
future command-and-control architec-
ture needs to be built with the ability
to integrate allies from the beginning.
With the current challenges, it is
reasonable to ask why we would want
to grow the tent now to include allies
when the U.S. military’s internal
house is not yet in order. The answer
is straightforward. JADC2 interoper-
ability is more than shared capabil-
ity and the creation of a networked
system. It also includes addressing
ongoing operability, training, intel-
lectual property rights, proprietary
systems and data challenges.
Problems surrounding these
aspects will be magnified if
allies are brought into the
network as an afterthought,
and thus it is imperative that
we include them early in devel-
opment and implementation.
Specifically, a CJADC2 architecture
cannot work if allied units, platforms
and weapons do not have the ability
to connect to a common data fabric
with U.S. platforms and systems.
Integrating allies to the framework
that is intentionally designed for com-
bined interoperability will be quicker,
more effective, less expensive and
more enduring than attempting to
incorporate incompatible systems
into an inflexible architecture.
Additionally, planning for CJADC2
now necessitates the U.S. govern-
ment proactively preparing for how
to share classified sensor data trans-
mitted within the network at levels
that can be shared with allies.
Cyber Command’s Persistent Cyber
Training Environment stands out
as a laudable win for the develop-
ment and implementation of CJADC2.
Within the Joint Cyber Warfighting
Architecture, it acts as a virtual train-
ing range that enables joint training
and exercises. As an additional posi-
tive step, its adoption by allies began
with several of the Five Eyes nations,
which will serve as a model that can
be expanded to include other key
allies, especially in the Indo-Pacific.
With the Persistent Cyber Training
Environment, the command can cre-
ate the standards, guidelines and
training a coalition JADC2 will need.
Joint all-domain command and con-
trol presents an opportunity for the
United States to prepare for an opera-
tional environment defined by modern
great power conflict and to incorporate
transformational technologies and
emerging operational domains that
will define the future character of war.
Going beyond a “two-axis” JADC2
and building Combined JADC2 will
be a game-changer for the U.S.
military and its allies. ND
Chris Sax is the National
Defense Industrial
Association’s associate
director for strategy.
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 39
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING INSIGHTS BY ANDREW GUY AND KAYLEIGH SCALZO
Federal Circuit Weighs In on Bid Protest Standing
T
he United States Court of
Appeals for the Federal Cir-
cuit May 10 issued a decision
regarding bid protest standing in
CACI, Inc.-Federal v. United States et
al. In that decision, the court declared
previous decisions to no longer be
good law and held that the United
States Court of Federal Claims erred in
finding the protester to lack standing.
The impact of the decision remains
to be seen, but the decision merits
careful consideration by the defense
industry and legal practitioners alike.
An agency’s actions during a fed-
eral government contract procure-
ment may be challenged in a bid
protest. For example, an offeror
who is not awarded a contract may
file a “post-award protest” chal-
lenging the award decision. To take
another example, an offeror who
intends to submit a proposal — but
is concerned about the terms of the
solicitation — can file a “pre-award
protest” challenging those terms.
With some exceptions, protests
involving federal government con-
tract procurements are typically filed
at the Court of Federal Claims, the
Government Accountability Office or
directly with the procuring agency. To
file a protest at the Court of Federal
Claims, a contractor must show that
it has standing, also known as “inter-
ested party” status. In the context of
40 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
post-award protests, this generally
means that the contractor must show
it would have a “substantial chance” of
receiving the award but for the alleged
error in the procurement process.
Contractors must be vigilant about
demonstrating standing, as an adverse
ruling on standing can prevent a
protest from reaching the merits.
The protester in CACI faced such
an adverse ruling. The CACI decision
involved the Army’s procurement
for a Next Generation Load Device
Medium that would be
used for encryption
and decryption on the
battlefield. During the
procurement, the con-
tracting officer found
the protester’s pro-
posal to be technically
unacceptable and thus
ineligible for award.
The protester chal-
lenged the Army’s
finding at the Court
of Federal Claims.
However, the court
determined that the
protester was ineli-
gible for a separate
reason. According to
the court, the protester
had an unmitigable
organizational conflict
of interest. Based on
that determination, the
court dismissed the protest for lack of
standing. The protester then appealed
the decision to the Federal Circuit.
The Federal Circuit disagreed with
the court’s conclusion. We highlight
below three of the Federal Circuit’s
findings: interested party status is
not jurisdictional; the court’s abil-
ity to make de novo findings about
interested party status is limited;
and the same is true for prejudice.
First, the Federal Circuit stated that
the issue of whether a protester is an
interested party is a “question of statu-
tory standing rather than Article III
standing,” and the court’s “prior case-
law treating the interested party issue
as a jurisdictional issue . . . is no lon-
ger good law in this respect.” Because
statutory standing is not jurisdictional,
an “initial determination” that the
protester is an interested party “is not
required before addressing the merits.”
Second, the Federal Circuit stated
that the ability of the Court of Federal
Claims to make de novo findings
regarding interested party status
— that is, “new” findings that the
agency itself did not make during the
procurement — is limited. Because
judicial review of agency action is
generally limited to the grounds the
agency invoked when it took the
action, a court is generally unable to
make de novo findings regarding a
protester’s interested party status.
The Federal Circuit observed that
there are exceptions to this general
rule — for example, where the ques-
tion is purely a legal one. But under
the particular facts of this case, the
Federal Circuit determined that the
Court of Federal Claims was not in
a position to make a de novo deter-
mination concerning whether the
protester had an organizational
conflict of interest and thus was
not an interested party, because
“the statutory standing issue and
the merits issue are overlapping.”
Third, the Federal Circuit observed
that its findings regarding stand-
ing also apply to prejudice. When
resolving a bid protest, the Court of
Federal Claims generally requires
that a protester demonstrate not
just that the agency made an error,
but that the agency’s error preju-
diced the protester. This inquiry is
similar to the standing inquiry but
occurs after the record has closed
and an error has been found.
In CACI, the Federal Circuit
explained that, like interested party
status, “the issue of prejudice is no
longer jurisdictional unless it impli-
cates Article III considerations,”
and the court’s “cases to the con-
trary are no longer good law.”
Despite finding that the Court of
Federal Claims erred on the stand-
ing question, the Federal Circuit ulti-
mately affirmed on the merits and
upheld the contracting officer’s find-
ing of the protester’s technical unac-
ceptability. The impact of the Federal
Circuit’s findings on standing, how-
ever, will be important to watch. ND
Andrew Guy is an associate
iStock illustration
and Kayleigh Scalzo is a partner
in the government contracts prac-
tice of Covington & Burling LLP.
 LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Look Forward,
Not Backward
On F-35 Engines
BY SCOTT VADNAIS
E
arlier this year, Air Force Secre-
tary Frank Kendall announced
that the service would not pur-
sue development of a new replacement
engine for the F-35 stealth fighter but
rather upgrade the current Pratt &
Whitney-made F135 engines. That is
the right decision. It is up to Congress
now to close that door and move on.
The secretary, a few days after mak-
ing the decision, said the move to
upgrade the fighters’ current engines
instead of developing a new adaptive
engine “was the right decision, given
the constraints that we have, but [a
choice] that I worry about a little bit.”
Kendall shouldn’t worry about his
decision. It was the right call. In fact,
it’s in keeping with predecessors and
every major aircraft the military has
bought since the dawn of aviation.
Since the Wright brothers, air-
craft designers and builders have
consistently upgraded and improved
the existing engine the aircraft was
designed around as the most afford-
able and risk-averse option available.
In 1903, the Wright Flyer, the air-
craft that made the historic first
manned flight, was powered by
a four-cylinder, 12-horsepower
engine. By the time the Army’s Sig-
nal Corps bought their first aircraft,
the Wright Military Flyer in 1907, it
was sporting an improved engine
with an impressive 35 horsepower.
During World War II, the famed
P-51 Mustang began life with a
Packard-built Merlin 61 engine that
cranked out 1,570 horsepower. By
the time the P-51Ds rolled off the
production lines a couple of years
later, the upgraded Merlin engine
was producing 1,695 horsepower.
When the first operational F-16A
was delivered in January 1979 to the
388th Tactical Fighter Wing at Hill
Air Force Base, Utah, it was powered
by a single Pratt & Whitney F100-
PW-200 turbofan, rated at 23,830
pounds thrust with afterburner.
Air Force photo
Since then, more than 4,500 Falcons
have been delivered to 26 countries.
During the production of the Fal-
con, the program has progressively
improved the engine. With Pratt &
Whitney and later GE building nearly
identical engines in a competition
to improve reliability and perfor-
mance, the jet has had five major
engine upgrades with the latest ver-
sion producing nearly 30,000 pounds
of thrust with full afterburner.
One of the key selling points for the
F-35 fighter program is that the three
U.S. users and well over a dozen allies
all operate advanced fighters with
very similar capabilities and logis-
tics requirements. The F135 engine
powers all three U.S. variants, as
well as every F-35 sold to our allies.
Additionally, neither the Navy nor
the Marines Corps — nor any of our
allies flying the F-35 — are inter-
ested in changing to a new engine
since it’s costly and unnecessary.
A few years ago, when I first worked
in an organization led by Kendall —
then the undersecretary of defense
for acquisition, technology and logis-
tics — key to his leadership were
the principles espoused in his Better
Buying Power initiative. Twenty-four
acquisition experts, working with
the Defense Acquisition Univer-
sity, researched and provided the 10
principles of Better Buying Power.
Let me share the first prin-
ciple: “Continuous improvement
will be more effective than radi-
cal change.” All of Better Buying
Power is based on this concept.
It’s the reason it has gone through
three editions. We make incremental
change focused on the biggest prob-
lems we see. Then we monitor the
results and evaluate progress. We drop
or modify ideas that aren’t working,
and we attack the next set of prob-
lems in order of importance, priority
or expected impact. Those ideas and
policies that work are not abandoned
for the next shiny object we see.
Kendall’s misgivings about kill-
ing a replacement engine should be
put to bed. Looking backward, we
see only a $6 billion, high-risk effort
that would waste money, see at least
70 fewer F-35s made and slow pro-
duction of a fifth-generation fighter
just as world tensions are at or near
their highest point in recent history.
Looking forward, we will see a
stable, robust F135 engine with a great
deal of built-in room to improve capa-
bility and performance. “Continuous
improvement will be more effective
than radical change.” This principle
was correct then and is correct now.
Look forward, not backward. ND
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott
Vadnais supported the Air Force
engine system program office and
is a former senior strategic plan-
ner at General Dynamics. He has
no family or financial ties to any
company involved in this issue.
N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 41
NDIA NEWS COMPILED BY LAURA HECKMANN

National Defense
Magazine Creative
Director Wins
SPJ Award

N ational Defense magazine

Creative Director Brian Tay-
lor took home the Society of
Professional Journalists’ Front Page
Design award in the Newsletter/
October and November issues and
featured topics on kamikaze drones,
the Army and the metaverse.
Taylor

Trade Publication category June 13 Winners were announced at the

at the Washington, D.C., Pro Chap-
ter’s annual Dateline Awards.
Nominated for the fourth year in
a row, Taylor’s winning designs fea-
tured covers from the 2022 August,
annual Dateline Awards and Hall of
Fame Dinner, held at the National
Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Winners received recognition at the
dinner and award certificates. ND

Nominations Open for Excellence Awards in Engineering, Service

Engineering Excellence significant cost savings due Division’s overall goal and
Award recognizes an to new or enhanced pro- tactical progression while
individual or group that cesses procedures and/or reflecting NDIA’s mis-
demonstrates outstanding concepts, increased mission sion and vision from the

T
he National Defense achievement in the practi- capabilities or substantially volunteer community.
Industrial Associa- cal application of systems increased performance. The awards will be pre-
tion is now accept- engineering principles, The Bob Rassa sented at the 26th Annual
ing nominations for the Lt. promotion of robust sys- Exceptional Service Award Systems and Mission
Gen. Thomas R. Ferguson, tems engineering principles is given to an individual Engineering conference Oct.
Jr. Systems Engineer- throughout the organiza- who has gone above and 16-19 in Norfolk, Virginia.
ing Excellence Award and tion or effective engineer- beyond by demonstrating The deadline to submit
the Bob Rassa Excep- ing process development. outstanding leadership, nominations is Friday,
tional Service Award. Recipients, through their strategic impact and sig- July 14. Nominations can
The Lt. Gen. Thomas systems engineering con- nificant contribution to be submitted through
R. Ferguson, Jr. Systems tributions, helped achieve the Systems Engineering the NDIA website. ND

NTSA Modeling and Simulation Award Nominations Accepted

N
DIA affiliate the National learning and/or focus on ognizes a candidate’s significant
Training and Simulation the human dimension. and substantial contributions to
Association is accepting Training Systems establishing modeling and simula-
nominations for the 2023 Mod- Acquisition — seeks nom- tion as a discipline in academia,
eling and Simulation Awards. inations related to issues industry and/or the government.
Each year, NTSA presents the associated with the acqui- A full category description can be
M&S Awards for outstanding sition of training devices, found on the NTSA website. The dead-
achievement in the modeling, training simulations, line for nomination submissions is
simulation and training fields. and training services. Friday, August 25. The awards will be
Submissions may be made Simulation / Training presented at the annual NTSA M&S
NDIA photo, iStock illustrations

in the following categories: — seeks nominations Awards Dinner to be held November

Education / Human that discuss the applica- 28 during I/ITSEC in Orlando, Florida.
Performance — seeks nominations tion of innovative concepts, methods For more information, includ-
that discuss the development and and technologies to create effective ing submission information and
application of instructional strate- simulation solutions, whether for schedule, please visit NTSA.org/
gies, methods, theories and best training or non-training applications. MSAward or contact Carol Dwyer
practices that promote or advance Lifetime Achievement – rec- at cdwyer@NTSA.org. ND

42 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
 Board of Directors

Hon. Michael J. Bayer - Board Chair Paula Edwards Dr. Theresa Mayer
Hon. Lisa S. Disbrow - Board Vice Chair Alan Faver Laura McAleer
Maj Gen Arnold L. Punaro, USMC LTG Richard P. Formica, USA (Ret) Kris McGuire
(Ret) - Immediate Past Board Chair Robert A. Geckle, Jr. Terrance J. McKearney
Dr. Joseph Bravman - Emeritus Bruce Gjovig Andrew McKenna
Edward M. Fortunato - Emeritus Peter D. Green Megan Milam
John D. Illgen - Emeritus LTG David D. Halverson, USA (Ret) Kevin “Morty” Mortensen
Joanna T. Lau - Emeritus Deirdre Hanford Mara A. Motherway
James McAleese, Jr. - Emeritus David Hathaway Jana Weir Murphy
Hon. Michael Wynne - Emeritus Hon. Stephen C. Hedger Michael Niggel
COL William Glenn Yarborough, Jr., USA LTG Thomas A. Horlander, USA (Ret) Fola Ojumu
(Ret) - Emeritus Raanan I. Horowitz Gen Terrence “Shags” O’Shaughnessy,
Harold L. Yoh III - Emeritus VADM Richard W. Hunt, USN (Ret) USAF (Ret)
Angela M. Ambrose Gretchen Larsen Idsinga Brian E. Perry
Maj Gen Thomas Andersen, USAF (Ret) Tamara Jack Hon. Stephen W. Preston
Col John Armellino, USMC (Ret) Logan Jones Col Reginald O. Robinson, USAF (Ret)
Hon. Valerie L. Baldwin Jim Kelly Betsy Schmid
Lt Gen William J. Bender, USAF (Ret) John M. Kelly John D. Schumacher
Lt Gen Chris Bogdan, USAF (Ret) Dr. Richard “Doc” H. Klodnicki Raj Shah
Jeffrey W. Bohling Matthew J. Kuta Edward J. Sheehan, Jr.
John A. Bonsell Brett B. Lambert Lt Gen Jay B. Silveria, USAF (Ret)
Rodney D. Bullard Col Anthony “Lazer” Lazarski, USAF (Ret) Robert Simmons
Maj Gen Timothy Byers, USAF (Ret) Daniel A. Lerner Kraig M. Siracuse
Dr. David Caswell Maj Gen Lee K. Levy II, USAF (Ret) Mary N. Springer
Dale W. Church John Lindsay Dr. J. Mitch Stevison
Christina Cook Meagan S. Linn Dr. Robert H. Sues
Lt Gen John B. Cooper, USAF (Ret) COL Armando “Mandy” Lopez, Jr., Sue Tellier
Col Kenny Cushing, USAFR USA (Ret) MG Omer Clifton Tooley, Jr., ARNG (Ret)
Paul DellaNeve ML Mackey Col Pete Trainer, USAF (Ret)
Dr. Tomás Díaz de la Rubia  Leigh Madden Dr. Brett Ulander
Michael P. Dietz William Mahan Maj Gen Martin Whelan, USAF (Ret)
Hon. Matthew Donovan Kenneth Masson Brent Wildasin
Jaymie A. Durnan Anthony L. Mathis

National Defense
Now Available at
Walmart and AAFES
NATIONAL NEWSSTAND
PRESENCE SHARE
• Walmart PHOTOS
D
• Barnes & Noble WHERE YOU FINE
THE MAGA ZIN
• Army & Air Force Exchange AND TAG US ON
Service (AAFES) SOCIAL MEDIAG ENSEMA
• Books-A-Million #NATIONALDEF
@NATIONALDEFENSE @NATIONALDEFENSEMAGAZINE

NDIA MEMBERSHIP: The National Defense industrial base and serving all military services. For more infor-
Industrial Association (NDIA) is the premier asso- mation please call our membership department at 703-522-1820
ciation representing all facets of the defense and technology or visit us on the web at NDIA.org/Membership

N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3 43
NDIA CALENDAR September
18-20 Undersea
Warfare Fall Conference
July August Groton, CT
Classified
18-19 JADC2: All Domain 8-10 Space and Missile NDIA.org/USW
Warfare Symposium Defense Symposium
Huntsville, AL 25-28 Fuze/FFC/Demil
Alexandria, VA
NDIA.org/JADC2 smdsymposium.org Co-located Events:
• 66th Annual Fuze
24-26 CBRN Defense 16-18 Space Warfighting Conference
Conference and Forum (SWF) • Future Force
Exhibition Colorado Springs, CO Capabilities Conference
Baltimore, MD NDIA.org/SWF
& Exhibition
NDIA.org/CBRN
• 23rd Global
15-17 15th Annual
26-28 Department of Demilitarization
Ground Vehicle Systems
the Navy Gold Coast Symposium & Exhibition
Engineering & Huntsville, AL
Small Business Technology Symposium NDIA.org/FFC
Procurement Event Novi, MI
San Diego, CA www.ndia-mich.org/events/gvsets 26 WID National
navygoldcoast.org
28-30 Emerging Conference
Arlington, VA
Technologies for Defense WomenInDefense.net
Conference & Exhibition
Washington, DC
NDIA.org/EmergingTech

JADC2: ALL DOMAIN

WARFARE SYMPOSIUM
Register Today!
Make plans to attend this year’s Joint All Domain Warfare Symposium! This event
will ignite purposeful innovations and future solutions to equip and serve US and
coalition warfighters in the best ways possible.

July 18 – 19, 2023 | Alexandria, VA | NDIA.org/JADC2

44 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
 CE D
EN AN
NF IS ISS

!
ER BR
CO TH M
W N ’T
NE T O DON
OU

EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES
FOR DEFENSE
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION
Delivering New Capabilities to the Warfighter at Speed and Scale
Explore the emerging technologies that will shape national security for the next century at ETI’s
inaugural conference! Hear directly from S&T leaders in government, industry, and academia on both
acquisition and contracting opportunities and cutting-edge developments in critical mission areas such
as counter UAS, contested logistics, and operational energy. The conference will focus on the most
innovative technologies that industry has to offer and delivering new capabilities to the warfighter at
speed and scale.

Register Now!
August 28 – 30, 2023 | Washington, DC | NDIA.org/EmergingTech
 20 23
CBRN DEFENSE
CONFERENC E & EX H I B I T I ON
Biodefense and Pandemic Preparedness in an Era of Persistent Conflict
This year, NDIA’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense Division’s landmark event
is set to meet in Baltimore, MD. The conference will focus on the theme of Biodefense and Pandemic
Preparedness in an Era of Persistent Conflict.

This highly-anticipated conference will provide a venue to promote education, awareness, and
collaboration across the CBRN community to foster innovation and rapid development of CBRN
capabilities. Panels and events will provide insight and information concerning national strategies,
program priorities, and execution plans across policy and RDTE.

It’s more timely than ever. Hear industry experts and leaders discuss critical topics and exchange
information on the challenges, trends, and capability gaps facing our forces. Come with your questions,
suggestions, and innovative ideas, and make time to check out the exhibition hall and poster sessions.

Register Today!
July 24 – 26, 2023 | Baltimore, MD | NDIA.org/CBRN

46 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
NEXT
MONTH
Hypersonics
• A global hypersonic arms race has
made the development and deployment
of the technology one of the Defense
Department’s top priorities. National
Defense checks in on what programs
the U.S. is pursuing to take the lead.

Accelerator Overload
• The Defense Department con-
tinues to stand up new innovation
offices and funding mechanisms
to accelerate the adoption of new
technology, which is raising ques-
tions whether it has reached the
point of saturation and duplication.

Air Force R&D

• As demand signals from contested
environments continue to drive
the use of electronics, the Air Force
Research Lab is exploring new ways
to utilize digital engineering and
uphold the Defense Department’s
Wearables
• Commercial companies are develop-
ing fabrics and sensors embedded in
fabrics that can monitor an athlete’s
performance. Can this technology
Space Propulsion
• Industry and the Defense Department
are exploring alternative fuels and
propulsion systems to move vehicles
more efficiently, and space platforms

quest for zero trust technology.
be adapted to help warfighters?
DARPA illustration
are no exception. One such effort
is a NASA and DARPA team-up to
develop a nuclear thermal rocket
engine for future crewed missions.

INDEX OF ADVERTISERS Interact with the companies whose products and services are advertised in National Defense
ADVERTISER INTERACT PAGE NO.

Coalfire Federal ......................................CoalfireFederal.com ........................................................... Back cover

Darley Defense .......................................darley.com/defense-partner-program .......................................... 15

NPI Services Inc. ....................................npiservices.com ...................................................... Inside back cover

SourceAmerica .......................................SourceAmerica.org ................................................ Inside front cover

For information on advertising in National Defense or one of NDIA’s electronic offerings contact: NDIA MEMBERSHIP:
The National Defense
Industrial Association
(NDIA) is the premier
ADVERTISING association represent-
ing all facets of the
defense and technology
SVP, MEETINGS, SALES DIRECTOR SALES MANAGER
NDIA’S industrial base and
DIVISIONS & PARTNERSHIPS Kathleen Kenney Alex Mitchell serving all military
BUSINESS & (703) 247-2576 (703) 247-2568 services. For more
TECHNOLOGY Christine M. Klein
information please
(703) 247-2593 KKenney@NDIA.org AMitchell@NDIA.org
MAGA ZINE call our membership
CKlein@NDIA.org department at 703-
522-1820 or visit us on
the web at NDIA.org/
National Defense | 2101 Wilson Blvd. | Suite 700 | Arlington, VA 22201 | NationalDefenseMagazine.org Membership

48 N A T I O N A L D E F E N S E | J U LY 2 0 2 3
 NAVWAR MAC Approved Vendor
WOSB | AS9100 | ITAR | ISO 13485 | ISO 9001 | NIST/CMMC

When Quick Turn Matters!

Turn to NPI Services
The experts in managing the entire front-end process
for prototyping, low-volume PCB assemblies
and box builds since 1998.
Turnkey Project Management ● Supply Chain Management
PCB Fabrication ● Kitting ● Assembly

Scan here
to request a quote

npiservices.com
714-850-0550 | Costa Mesa, California