Shaping the joint fight in air, space, and cyberspace

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by C. Robert Kehler

One way for the Air Force to do this is to take a hard look at the attributes afforded by operating in the air, space, and cyberspace domains and to leverage them accordingly. The figure depicts a conceptual model for exploiting common domain attributes and provides a helpful way to think about how attributes interact across joint warfighting domains. The goals should be to integrate where appropriate and to synchronize where integration is not feasible.

For example, common attributes shared by the air, space, and cyberspace domains include real-time situational awareness (SA), command and control ([C.sup.2]), and enhanced target-tracking capabilities. Properly integrated and exploited, these common attributes can help build interdependent networks and inform planning decisions that can produce data for joint forces. At the end of the day, it is all about the data, which are independent of the domains from which they originate. A thorough analysis of each domain will likely yield higher-order attributes that contribute relatively little to a particular weapons system and yet are useful in an interconnected weapons network. Those attributes that are not common (that is, those that are unique to a particular operating domain) should be synchronized. (9) Modern technology increasingly blurs the lines between domains and may offer tremendous opportunities to better leverage joint capabilities. (10)

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities present an opportunity to begin this effort toward enhancing integration and maximizing joint operational capabilities. ISR already cuts across every joint warfighting domain. Traditional platforms such as reconnaissance aircraft, ISR satellites, and ground-based elements have one thing in common: they all collect data. Nontraditional ISR sources such as fighter aircraft targeting pods, Aegis cruisers, air- and ground-based radars, and cyber platforms also collect and produce data. Unfortunately, these discrete systems develop and operate within individual Service or domain stovepipes. This approach produces data with incompatible formats that flow within insulated networks and noncommon link architectures. Information from these systems presents "low hanging fruit" that can be leveraged, integrated, and disseminated within an ISR web of interconnected data. If Google can consolidate the world's Internet data into one access portal, the world's most capable military should be able to do the same with ISR data.

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Properly executed, a refocus on ISR may push a joint targeting approach from a linear, find-fix-track-target-engage-assess-kill chain to a multidimensional influence web. Within this web, data are no longer relegated to a command-oriented architecture, but are transformed to a demand-oriented network available to all authorized users (for example, commanders, analysts, targeteers, and execution assets) to help them see and engage. The challenge to this vision is that no organization currently funds the influence web, and no one owns its effects. Organizations need to focus on the whole picture from the start of developmental processes with an influence web as the integration goal, not simply an artifact of disparate capability stovepipes.