‘It is about decision superiority’: Networks fundamental to delivering impactful projection

As Australia’s strategic environment continues to deteriorate and the potential threats evolve, Australian decision makers will require access to reliable, survivable, and flexible streams of information, data analysis, and a broad spectrum of effectors drawn from across the multi-domain environment joint force — speed across acquisition, development cycles, and importantly, decision making will provide Australia and its allies with the advantages to ensure an overmatch against adversaries. 

Australia is not alone in pursuing this combination of capabilities. The United States is currently deep in the development phase of its own similar program, which will provide an AI-powered Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), aggregating the sensor and effector capabilities of platforms across the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Space Force.

The US Department of Defense’s pursuit of JADC2 capabilities is an evolution of traditional “combined arms” doctrine and capability that will provide Australia and its allies with a tactical and strategic overmatch across the domains of warfare with the US Department of Defense explaining the importance of this radically new approach to capability: “As an approach, JADC2 transcends any single capability, platform, or system; it provides an opportunity to accelerate the implementation of needed technological advancement and doctrinal change in the way the joint force conducts C2. JADC2 will enable the joint force to use increasing volumes of data, employ automation and AI, rely upon a secure and resilient infrastructure, and act inside an adversary's decision cycle.”

Fundamental to delivering these capabilities, technology, once seen as a limiter to delivering capability, will become increasingly fundamental to delivering the required agility, maturity, modularity, and flexibility across a disparate system-of-systems in the joint force — leveraging commercial models of technological development, rapid turnarounds from prototyping-to-mass production of technological solutions will enhance the capability delivery not just to the joint force ADF, but more broadly, setting an example for industry-defence collaboration that delivers outcomes. 

Decision superiority will enhance warfighting capability

While knitting together the range of platforms and technologies across the ADF’s inventory has long been identified as the core focus of building a joint force — combining the sensor/effector hybrid provided by platforms like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or the Hobart Class destroyers, with resilient, adaptable command and control infrastructure and systems is just part of the way this “system-of-systems” approach will deliver a joint force capability. 

Additional planned capabilities under programs like AIR 6500, JP 9102 and DEF 799 will go a long way to helping knit these capabilities together which will be fundamental to delivering the ADF and its allied partners with critical decision superiority — however, these larger, “platform-centric” programs are the sum of their parts and will require a more agile approach to delivering, something Terry Saunder, director at Northrop Grumman Australia, explained, stating, “You have to build resilience in from the ground up, so you sort of have that component piece, into the system piece, into the whole system and how it works, so that you’re maintaining that decision superiority for the warfighter regardless of what attack it might come under.”

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This approach echoes the US Air Force’s plans for the “Agile Combat Employment” (ACE) concept, which recognises and responds to “The changing character of war will privilege lethality, speed, agility, and resilience — acceleration matters” in order to provide the USAF with a qualitative and quantitative edge over potential adversaries.

The combination of such doctrinal approaches, combined with the development of a mesh of overlapping sensors and effectors in the form of technological neural webs, as described by ASPI senior analyst and panel contributor Malcolm Davis, will play a fundamental role in reshaping the warfighting capabilities of the ADF — in some way, making up for the pace of technological acceleration which is fundamentally reshaping the nature of contemporary warfare, with defence and industry struggling to play catch up with.

This sentiment was echoed by Boeing Australia’s chief technology officer, Hugh Webster, who explained the importance of not just rapidly developing technology and delivering it to the warfighter, but equally ensuring that industry is resilient enough and has the consistency needed to avoid dreaded “valley of death” scenarios which impact the long-term viability and capacity of industry to respond to the changing strategic environment, “Over the last decade, we have had a confluence of internal process contest, kind of things that Defence and government have overlayed on the way capability is delivered. 

“So contestability, capability life cycle, all of those kind of things don’t drive at a warfighter contest, they drive at an internal process contest — so I think for us to accelerate that, Defence and industry have to do a fairly radical rethink about how do we come up with a set of hybrid strategies, if you will, that if we’re buying something that is relatively commercial off the shelf, we want to have a quick turn on technology that there are pretty agile ways to design those, get those into service,” Webster explained. 

Roadmaps, government demand signal key to delivering timely capability in pre-war environment

Industry can’t do this on its own, particularly in what Malcolm Davis describes as a “pre-war environment” — rather, this agility, flexibility, and rapid turnaround requires a significant departure in the modus operandi for government, Defence and industry in order to deliver capability in a timely manner. The evergreen concern for defence industry is government inconsistency, indecision, and delayed decision making which impacts the workforce and capability design and development cycles, which have significant downstream impacts on the cost and delivery schedule for new capabilities. 

These factors, combined with the traditional like-for-like platform acquisition decisions, equally impact the confidence of defence industry and the workforce, as arbitrary decisions have failed historically to deliver the capability Australia actually needs versus what we have “always done”. This approach is reflected in the like-for-like replacement acquisition of the F/A-18 Classic Hornets with the F-35A Joint Strike Fighters or the Adelaide Class frigates with the Hobart Class destroyers. 

In order to avoid these valleys of death and the detrimental impact they have on capability development and delivery, Webster highlights the need for government and Defence to provide “roadmaps” and critically “demand signals” to industry to provide guidance on expectations for long-term platform and technology development through the capability life cycle, meaning platforms are increasingly resilient, future-proofed, and adaptable through concepts such as “digital prototyping”, as described by Malcolm Davis, will mean “complex technologies don’t have to take a long time to develop, if we’re smart about how we do it — the ability to use synthetic environments through simulation, digital twinning technologies and so forth, will allow us to fast track and compress the actual development time for capabilities all the way from individual weapon systems through to platforms and we need to fully exploit that”.

Saunder expanded on these comments, highlighting an increased role for government, stating, “You need demand signals, industry shouldn’t be relied on just to invest in things in the anticipation that government might need it. Defence industry is reliant on demand signals from the government in the short, medium, and long term, otherwise you’re not going to have a defence industry — so whether that is high-tech communications gear, whether it is the most basic stuff like uniforms or whether it is ships, aircraft, tanks and other things, government has to be more open about its demand signals of what it needs from industry and then work with industry collaboratively.” 

Lessons for Australia’s future strategic planning

There is no doubt that Australia’s position and responsibilities in the Indo-Pacific region will depend on the nation’s ability to sustain itself economically, strategically and politically in the face of rising regional and global competition. Despite the nation’s virtually unrivalled wealth of natural resources, agricultural and industrial potential, there is a lack of a cohesive national security strategy integrating the development of individual, yet complementary public policy strategies to support a more robust Australian role in the region. 

While contemporary Australia has been far removed from the harsh realities of conflict, with many generations never enduring the reality of rationing for food, energy, medical supplies or luxury goods, and even fewer within modern Australia understanding the socio-political and economic impact such rationing would have on the now world-leading Australian standard of living.  

Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia, this is particularly well explained by Peter Zeihan, who explains: “A deglobalised world doesn’t simply have a different economic geography, it has thousands of different and separate geographies. Economically speaking, the whole was stronger for the inclusion of all its parts. It is where we have gotten our wealth and pace of improvement and speed. Now the parts will be weaker for their separation.”

As events continue to unfold throughout the region and China continues to throw its economic, political and strategic weight around, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or does it need to embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of increasing great power competition?

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