Breaking Barriers – The Tech Race for Multi-Domain Operations

Narrator  00:01

Today's geopolitical landscape is rapidly shifting under our feet. We find ourselves spectators to the resurgence of great power competition, a drama heightened by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and driven by the high stakes rivalry between the West and China. At the same time, the world's armed forces are at the cusp of transformation, marking one of the most significant changes in military history.

General Richard Barrons  00:26

We're now back in an era of great our confrontation and conflict. So that's a completely different military recipe.

Chad Haferbier  00:36

We know that our one v one physical science advantages, whether it be in air in space in cyber in all of the domains, we can no longer rely on that advantage.

General Richard Barrons  00:49

That return to great power confrontation is occurring at the same time as the digital age changes how we not just how we live and fight and work, but everything.

Narrator  01:01

The 21st century battlefield is no longer confined to land, air and sea. Military operations have evolved, extending into the realms of cyber and space. From this change emerges a new approach to warfare, multi domain operations, transforming the very way we perceive and operate on the battlefield.

James Waddington  01:21

We're in a changing world and we now have great power competition again. So the main purpose of MDO, or multidomain integration, as we call it in the UK, is to ensure that all of our allies can interoperate seamlessly with us, but also to interoperate with ourselves across government and also across domains.

Chad Haferbier  01:41

Multi domain operations is really optimizing what we've always done with our joint forces and our allies is we fight together. And so how do we deliver solutions that can break down the human in the loop and the stove pipes that we realize between our platforms between our nations between our services, to optimize the synergy and the ability to collaborate dynamically, and for the best operational advantages as we fight together,

General Richard Barrons  02:09

We are in the foothills of the most significant transformation of armed forces, or over 100 years.

Narrator  02:46

Imagine a battlefield of the future. It's not just land, air or sea anymore, but also cyberspace and information. This is the realm of multi domain operations. It breaks down traditional silos, weaving together capabilities from all domains for coordinated action. With multi domain operations, commanders can synchronize actions across all domains, making decisions at the speed of relevance, they can respond to threats and seize opportunities faster than ever before. In this complex web, the winning move isn't just about strength. It's about understanding speed and scale. multi domain operations goes by many names, including CJADC2 and multi domain integration. At its core, it's about achieving decision dominance in an increasingly complex world,

James Waddington  03:43

it's being able to integrate those five domains, which is land, sea space, and the cyber and electromagnetic to me. Now, in order to do that, you must have common standards and an open architecture so that people can come and go with capabilities as they're acquired as threats evolve and emerge. So it's really it's not one specific technology, but it's being able to blend all of them at the point of of need.

Bryan Clark  04:11

Warfare is now a transition to this very large scale, very complex set of operations that use precision and maths together to be able to achieve effects. And the challenge for militaries is if you're going to be able to succeed in both defending yourself or causing damage to the enemy, you're going to be able to work need to work across domains.

General Richard Barrons  04:33

We are in the foothills of the most significant transformation of armed forces for over 100 years in the way that the combinations of digital age technology change. Not just how we equip how we organize, and the methods and tactics are taught that that are adopted. And and this isn't something that is well understood because it's a journey of evolution, with the prospect of transformation.

Narrator  05:00

The core enabler of multi domain operations is interoperability between platforms and allies. Each operator must be an effective force multiplier, regardless of the capabilities they bring to the field.

General Richard Barrons  05:12

And all our security depends on collective security, whether that's in NATO, if you live in Europe, or it's in the binding together of like minded powers in Indo Pacific. So if collective security is the only way we can be affordably big enough, good enough and sustainable enough, then we talk about technology, collective responses, collective solutions that bind allies together has to be the first thought, not an afterthought

Randy Waldon  05:42

when we go to war, and we go to war, usually with allies, and some of our best allies. And what you find typically is we actually do quite well, even using 20th century way of command and control. We do very, very well. I think bringing in that 21st century level of command, control and bowel management extends an efficiency and resiliency that we don't typically see today.

Chad Haferbier  06:06

I think every Ally brings something to the fight. They would benefit tremendously from being plugged into the the JADC2 network, they would be optimized in in whatever mission they would be allotted to do, because they know that there's a wider force that is looking at all the information available to it. And a decision maker is far more informed to deliver that mission.

General Richard Barrons  06:35

So no more that we built this wonderful thing, but it's closed and the gateway is too complicated. All of those discussions need to be consigned to the dustbin of history, collective defense is the only way forward for nearly all of us.

Narrator  06:49

But what exactly is the geopolitical context for multi domain operations? And why is the transformation of our militaries so crucial,

Bryan Clark  06:58

Ukraine, even though it's not a World War, it still is exhibiting all of these, these kinds of some symptoms of modern warfare, the use of the cyber tools, and also electromagnetic spectrum tools to defeat enemy sensors and decision making. It's got the whole panoply of capabilities, but the only way to succeed in that environment is to be able to employ advantages you have in one domain against threats in another domain. And that's why you see multi domain operations really rising as a feature of modern warfare.

Chad Haferbier  07:32

We need to with our allies find ways to optimize our investments, our platforms, our warfighters, to bring together the synergy that can be realized through that data integration,

Bryan Clark  07:44

Ukraine's highlighting, you know, these these new domains of cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum in space. But it's also highlighting some very basic facts about the fact that combined arms warfare still requires air power and land power or surface power to be employed together to achieve gains against your enemy.

Narrator  08:01

What differentiates multidomain operations from past combined arms warfare is the flow of data and the speed of decision making. The technologies that have had such an effect on our daily lives are also transforming the way the military operates.

Chad Haferbier  08:17

Right now, it's a lot of humans speaking to each other. And that's a good thing, whether it be phone calls, or on on chat messages. But if we can optimize how that data flows, and how those decisions are made, whether it be using artificial intelligence, and machine learning, or whether it be just automatically giving situational awareness across allies, entities. To me, that is where the advantage can be gained

James Waddington  08:44

when it's fully realized and do will enable allies to integrate seamlessly together. So rather than having to go to a theater of operations and get a log on for someone else's system, your turnout with your systems and your technologies, and through the common standards of open architectures expect them to interoperate together quickly. And and easily. Perhaps not seamlessly at first, but that's the direction of travel.

Randy Waldon  09:11

All our nations are trying to move through the 21st century, a lot of folks are struggling on what that really means because they were trained in the 20th century way of battle management. And so part of the paradigm shift is not just technology. It's about getting people out of the 20th century mindset into a more 21st century way of battle management command control. That could be the hardest paradigm shift.

Chad Haferbier  09:34

How does that data going to be protected as we start to expose it to multiple entities, so that warfighters can embrace that information that they get, but also ensure that information that is shared is shared at the right levels and trusted to be exposed? And so that is extremely important.

General Richard Barrons  09:54

The winners will be the people who who can do multi domain integration at the speed of The digital age in creating effective military capability.

James Waddington  10:16

JADC2 has recently been amended by the US DOD to be called CJADC2 and the C stands for combined. And the principle there is that the US recognize that allies are an important part of being successful in multi domain operations. And they want to ensure that allies are in at the beginning. And that's the combined piece and not added at the end as an afterthought, which is refreshing to hear and will help us interoperate more positively in the future.

Chad Haferbier  10:44

So the way I look at it is JADC2 as a means to a multi domain. And so Joint All Domain Command and Control is how do we is the the department's focus on how do we stitch together those things to make them interoperable? How do we break down those stovepipes between the services in between our allies to feel the the data advantage, the synergy of the data bring the data together for decision advantage decision speed. And then multi domain operations is the result of that optimized command and control capabilities that we're looking to field in JADC2.

Narrator  11:18

multi domain operations is going to bring with it a host of operational advantages. The reaction speed of an integrated force will reduce from a matter of hours to a matter of seconds, with each ally doing their part and playing to their strengths across the chain of command and control. As a result, coalition forces will be more resilient to the complex threat environment of the modern battlefield.

James Waddington  11:42

In the UK, MDI command and control has four constituent components, which is people processes, technologies and structures. So on the people side, that's really about getting the culture and the training, right. For the technical side, it's embracing modern technologies, the open standards, the cloud digital transformation technologies that we talked about. And for processes, it's taking processes that were designed for single domain operations, and making sure they're applicable to multi domain operations. For structures, it's really the same thing as for processes that on an organizational context, so organizations that are set to be single domain now have to embrace multi domain as well.

Martin Faulkner  12:24

We think that multi domain operations also holds the promise or the lag that it's sharing between partners. Now, that's a combination of technology and policy, because oftentimes, the technology is there. But if the policy settings aren't right, to allow information sharing that some of the potential is lost.

Narrator  12:45

The formation of like minded nations and to military coalition's has a range of benefits. This particularly applies to the crucial Indo Pacific region, which the Pentagon has labeled its priority theater. Earlier this year, the head of the US Army revealed an ambitious plan to deploy not one but three multi domain Task Force units into the Indo Pacific region. This follows the signing of a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in 2021. That's been dubbed AUKUS

Martin Faulkner  13:20

AUKUS has obviously been a major announcement. And much of the attention is centered on the proposal to build nuclear powered conventionally armed submarines for Australia under pillar one. But under pillar two is a range of technologies which hold great promise to improve our ability to work together as nations and to embrace new technology. It specifically calls out artificial intelligence and autonomy, talks about cyber and Quantum. It talks about generally information sharing, all of those things are important to coalition operations and to be out partner more effectively. For the range of scenarios that might confront as overcoming decades,

Chad Haferbier  14:04

let's say, a collaboration effort between the UK, Australia and the US, you would want to understand the intelligence apparatus between all three of those countries to get the best information possible.

Martin Faulkner  14:17

One of the challenges in the North Pacific is you've got a lot of small nation states, some of them relatively technically, unsophisticated, simply because they've got small economies. And I think that's where MDO and solid new technologies can help through allowing better information sharing

James Waddington  14:43

if the UK is to be deployed on operations, it will be with our allies. And so we need to make sure the mechanisms to interoperate with those allies are in place and MDI gives us those mechanisms do

Chad Haferbier  14:57

when all three of those countries work together, it can be extremely powerful in terms of deterrence to know that, for an enemy to know that we're all on the same page, and we all are working very tightly together, to me that that is a strong has a strong element of deterrence that that maybe we we haven't seen before, in a dynamic way.

James Waddington  15:21

And with that, the US in particular, and Australia, the AUKUS partnership, as well as NATO, that will give us the mass required to meet any adversities.

Narrator  15:32

The intersection of technology and politics creates a fascinating challenge, a complex tapestry, where industry takes center stage, many of the enabling technologies behind multi domain operations have been developed in the commercial sector,

Bryan Clark  15:47

what we're seeing is a commercial space is making a huge difference. It's leveled the playing field so that a lot of countries that maybe are allies of the United States but were dependent upon the US for their intelligence can now go directly to a commercial provider.

Chad Haferbier  16:05

So future technologies would include artificial intelligence and machine learning. But really, it's about how do you integrate data? How do you expose and amalgamate data from multiple entities? How do you bring information from that data to those decision makers,

Narrator  16:23

future multidomain operations will be enabled by key technological developments. The most critical include cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. These technologies work together to enable platform integration, open architecture, Mission software, and modernized mission infrastructure, creating a dynamic synthetic environment that will form the digital backbone of our modern armed forces. The principle of zero trust will make sure that no hostile cyber attack has the chance to move further beyond a point of failure. tasking orders that once took hours or even days will be shortened to milliseconds, aided by artificial intelligence. This synthetic environment is designed to harness vast amounts of Battlefield data, order it, prioritize it and distributed, ensuring that the right people have the right information at the right time.

General Richard Barrons  17:21

The one of the other inversions of this age is in addition to we used to have a platform sticker radio in it and try and connect it up. Now we're going to buy a digital backbone and plug capability into it. And secondly, we can focus on the weapon in the sensor, and then attach it to much cheaper, more disposable, either simpler or autonomous things in order to put in the right place, or just network. So at the heart of this is this combination of secure data in the cloud, the only way you can manage the volumes and speed of data is to use Cloud technology. And to use it securely. The only way to do that is to harness the power of artificial intelligence. And the only way to harness the power of artificial intelligence effectively, is to combine it with high capacity resilient networks. And that comprises essentially the digital backbone on which military forces will be built.

Narrator  18:23

The technologies required to integrate multiple domains are categorized into three distinct buckets, platform integration, open architecture, Mission software, and modernized mission infrastructure. The interaction of these three technologies is crucial for success.

Chad Haferbier  18:41

It's the amalgamation of those three buckets that I think is the key to do nonproprietary open architecture means bringing those solutions and a rapid, dynamic way to warfighters hands so that they can realize those operational advantages. You know, how do you across heterogeneous environments, whether they be bare metal compute to hyper elastic clouds, whether they be b 50, twos to the new B 21, to under C entities? And then how do you bring in artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities through our software deliveries that can optimize the human decision makers ability to achieve that operational advantage,

James Waddington  19:27

At the tactical edge one of the key ones will be resilient communications and high bandwidths. So we can mitigate that to an extent by having edge processing, particularly cloud edge processing. And so that less will have to go back and forth over what a fairly thin pipes we're also will have security challenges, particularly from cyber threats that we need to mitigate against

Chad Haferbier  19:50

Resilience can be built through redundancy as well. So how do you have backup systems and backup networks and backup comms or how do you have some have healing capabilities within those networks and communications, that that is, you know, widely software driven capabilities. And if a node goes down, the network automatically heals itself so that it finds an alternate route to pass the information to where it needs to go.

Narrator  20:15

Military processes are becoming increasingly digital, driven in large part by advancements coming from the commercial sector, as daily life is transformed by such technologies as artificial intelligence, our military is undertaking a comparable journey, they are constructing what could be termed as the military Internet of Things,

General Richard Barrons  20:35

We need to recognize that the military is embarked on a parallel of any to create the military Internet of Things. And this is based on the application of technology that has been developed at the expense of billions of dollars in the civil sector for civil purposes, talking about how a span of things like data in the cloud and AI, and robotics and autonomy, and cyber resilient networks and synthetics, all combined to change out the military, right.

James Waddington  21:10

And so Cloud has a huge role to play that provides some elements of standardization. But it's also ubiquitous, everybody has access to it. And also it's easily extensible, and it's flexible as well. So if you need more cloud in a theater of operations, that's easy to provide. Whereas in the old days, you would have had to have flown over another rack of servers.

Chad Haferbier  21:33

Fundamental to all of this MDO and JADC2 business is, is open architecture, non proprietary frameworks, there needs to be the ability to horizontally integrate across the domains, the services, the nation's as well as OEMs. And so if there can be a delivery of open architecture, non proprietary frameworks that can rapidly integrate new capabilities to advance beyond threats, that to me is extremely important.

James Waddington  22:05

And also software development to be able to integrate things that are ready to integrate purchased new plugging up on the flight. So if there's a new sense of heat available, they are able to quickly integrate that into your systems in that theater of operations, rather than have to wait several months for it to be integrated.

Narrator  22:25

These systems operate on a principle known as zero trust. The zero trust approach introduces a new paradigm, we almost assume a potential breach and design our defenses accordingly. Imagine a castle where not only the gates but every door within has a lock. This model aims to minimize the potential damage of any intrusion, restricting the scope of compromise.

Chad Haferbier  22:50

Zero trust is a principle that we use when it comes to information technology, you almost have to assume that an adversary can penetrate that computer. And so then, if they're in that computer, how do you ensure that the ability for them to affect things is minimized. So as opposed to gate scars and guns around your castle, each door within your castle has a lock on it, that's zero trust is you almost assume that an adversary will be within your system, and then you prepare accordingly.

Martin Faulkner  23:43

It's easy to focus on technology as a silver bullet. However, a lot of the promise and realization of multi domain operations comes from if you like the human factors or soft skills. So we need to firstly build trust, where possible, we need to break down information sharing barriers.

Narrator  24:05

Today's Military operations are fueled by vast quantities of data. The speed scale, and variety of this information can be overwhelming, even for the most seasoned decision makers. As we step into a new age of warfare, a critical Ally has emerged from the realm of technology, artificial intelligence.

James Waddington  24:26

So we have huge amounts of data. And it's only increasing and we need to be able to analyze that quickly using machine learning algorithms, and then AI as well, to provide insights on that data. When you see the machine speed. We won't have time to read it all or analyze it all with humans.

Martin Faulkner  24:44

I think the promise of AI you can remove some of the drudgery, some of the routine work that has to happen within military organizations particularly think the headquarter staff there. They're getting a lot of information from different sources and trying to make sense of it. If you can use AI and create the tools to separate out the key information from a lot of background noise that's critical to the staff. And in particular, tomorrow, you're getting those crucial pieces of information that allow them to make the best decision they can at the time,

Chad Haferbier  25:19

AI ml has been, has been resident for a while, there's many capabilities resident in our force today that that use, you know, machine learning capabilities to, to optimize how decisions are made the ability to, to lessen that cognitive burden, rely on the technology that's available to us today, and have that dial, based on whatever stage of conflict or whatever requirement that decision maker has to be able to lean on that on those computing capabilities in a more dynamic way is extremely important.

Martin Faulkner  25:56

The stuff promised there that over time, we can free up the limited brain space, if you like of the humans in the headquarters and the commander by allowing them to focus in on the really important information to make the optimal decision.

Narrator  26:13

With the advent of artificial intelligence and its integration into military strategy. A pivotal question arises, what becomes of the human role in decision making. As we usher in the era of AI, we find ourselves shifting to the idea of having a person on the loop. It's a conceptual shift that allows AI and machine learning to take the lead in processing and analyzing vast volumes of data. But crucially, humans are still involved, not sidelined.

Randy Waldon  26:44

All too often in the 20th century, we had a man in the loop, so to speak. And I think where we should go and we see this today, even our personal lives, you want to be a man or person on the loop.

Chad Haferbier  26:55

To some extent, there's always going to be humans making decisions, certainly. And then how they're carried out can be can be dialed on that AI ml application. But there's always you know, there's going to be developers developing the rules that that AI observes as it does its mission. So yes, there will always be humans involved.

Randy Waldon  27:15

And so the idea is you don't take the person out, you want to have that human intervention. But imagine this, this this instead of that poor human AVEN, to crunch the data themselves manually, and sort through a lot of complex data and complex scenarios. You allow the data to be crunched with the right applications. And you apply a little bit of AI and ML required to actually help that individual make decisions and offer that individual which in most cases, the commander and offer them solutions across a vast variety, if you will, of options.

Narrator  27:50

The aim of these technologies is to reduce the cognitive load that will inevitably prevent operators from doing their jobs effectively. Picture a military commander who has to process an avalanche of data from intelligence to operational and logistical data. The sheer volume and complexity can be daunting, even paralyzing.

Randy Waldon  28:10

So imagine this, you've got a little bit of machine learning and artificial intelligence on all of the data that's coming in. So now all they have to really do is choose and make a decision. That to me is really going to enable folks to actually do 21st century conflicts.

Chad Haferbier  28:25

And especially as we start to expand the aperture again, to include information coming from multiple entities, how do you filter that out and provide to that decision maker at the tactical edge, the information that is most important for their decisions. And so there's going to be a lot of development necessary to optimize our ability to give the information that the decision maker wants and filter out what they don't necessarily want to see at that time.

Narrator  28:51

As we stand on the cusp of this digital revolution, we find ourselves asking, what comes next? How will these advancements in multi domain operations continue to shape and redefine the battlefield?

James Waddington  29:05

I think for the government, it's really breaking down those stovepipes between different government departments. And it's the same actually within the military. And it's all about breaking down silos and stovepipes so that everyone thinks to integrate first.

General Richard Barrons  29:21

So one of the paths to restoring military competitors for most Western nations, which spend a lot of money but money is tight, is to evolve a manned unmanned autonomous network, mix the military Internet of Things in order to restore mass and effectives and all of that grounded on a digital backbone

Martin Faulkner  29:40

We can take advantage or capabilities that we'll bring to the fight so that we can make better use of the limited resources we have. NDO offers that promise to make better smarter decisions to use the resources we had more effectively

General Richard Barrons  30:00

This is a technological race. So we could feel comfortable if we thought we were on top of AI, cyber at the speed of AI, the evolution of manned unmanned autonomous capability in a way that overmatch what our actual and potential opponents in the world are capable of doing. And neither of those things are proven

James Waddington  30:24

Unless we can integrate those technologies to meet that threat. And by that, I mean digital transformation, and cloud and machine learning and AI, then we'll be on the backfoot. And we'll still be plugging things together. When the threats arrived,

Chad Haferbier  30:40

How quickly can you make that decision? And then how quickly can those decisions be carried out? With all of that data?

James Waddington  30:46

I think we're in the beginning of the journey to making it fully digital on that machine speed.

Chad Haferbier  30:51

And that's the way we will do it with our allies is work together as a team and deliver the digital solutions that will enable that optimized team to work