The scenario at this summer’s Rim of the Pacific multinational naval exercise allowed the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment to test its ability to contribute to a future fight at sea — a significant departure from the service’s land warfare focus of the past two decades.

During this test at RIMPAC, the Corps’ newest formation scattered a few task units ashore, who spread out sensors, set up the armed NMESIS truck, and established a fires and air direction element to confirm targets and authorize strikes.

As the carrier strike group approached the strait, it ordered the 3rd MLR to strike an adversary ship attempting to block the waterway. The order and the target came from the ship to the Marines ashore, who “achieved a simulated mission kill on the adversary surface vessel, enhancing the CSG’s [carrier strike group’s] ability to transit the strait unimpeded,” Maj. Oryan Lopes, 3rd MLR’s current operations officer, told Defense News.

“The CSG strait transit was an excellent opportunity to further refine how the 3d Marine Littoral Regiment could support the Combined Maritime Force Component Commander in a future fight. On many levels, the 3d MLR learned how to better communicate within and contribute to maritime operations across multiple task forces,” he added.

A lot of technical work remains before the regiment can declare itself operationally capable: It needs to continue refining the exact number of Marines and pieces of gear it requires, and it needs to reach digital interoperability with the rest of the joint and combined force.

But at RIMPAC 2022, the regiment proved its value thus far to a future maritime fight, in which it would work alongside American partners of the first island chain as a stand-in force in the Pacific. The U.S. Defense Department has previously described that area as “the islands running from the Kurils, through Taiwan, to Borneo, roughly encompassing the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea.” The regiment was designed specifically to operate inside contested areas like the South China Sea, scattering small units around islands and shorelines to conduct missions and then maneuver to a new location before being detected.

RIMPAC ran from June 29 to Aug. 4. An experimentation scheduled for this fall will work out the finer details of how to maneuver and communicate during these distributed operations.

“If you look at standing in, you’re standing in next to a constellation of allies and partners, so we’re vetting how doable this is,” Col. Stephen Fiscus, the assistant chief of staff for force development, said during an interview.

Though “other venues provide the ability to get more exquisite and detailed in how” the new stand-in forces concept will work, he said, RIMPAC proved to be a great first chance to demonstrate “the blocking and tackling level of stuff, to show that you could do this together” in real-world operations.

What is 3rd MLR?

The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment was redesignated in March to serve as a first-of-its-kind stand-in force in the Pacific. Whereas other traditional formations — Marines operating from U.S. Navy ships, or units on rotational deployments in theater — could fight their way into contested areas, the idea is that 3rd MLR as the stand-in force would already be inside that space. Rather than the joint force having to kick the door down to get in, 3rd MLR could hold the door open, the thinking goes.

Col. Tim Brady, the unit’s commander, said 3rd MLR’s very presence is expected to change the calculus for potential adversaries.

“By standing in, we are deterring the malign behavior. We’re designed to fight and operate inside the enemy’s weapons engagement zone, to conduct and support sea-denial and sea-control operations, and, ultimately, to set the conditions for those joint force follow-on actions. And we’re training and experimenting with all that here at RIMPAC,” he said in the interview.

The key to its success is the range of capabilities brought together under a single Marine colonel, he added.

In February, the Corps activated its 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion. In June, just ahead of RIMPAC, the Marines redesignated 3rd Littoral Combat Team and Combat Logistics Battalion 3. RIMPAC was the first time Brady could operate with these three subordinate commands, which provide the bulk of the capabilities the stand-in force needs: “the lethality of the littoral combat team and what it provides; the air direction, air control, early warning and air surveillance that the littoral anti-air battalion provides; the tactical logistics that the CLB provides,” Brady said.

He called his new unit light, maneuverable and, importantly, tailorable to the mission. “When we actually conduct [expeditionary advanced base operations], we take elements and pieces from each one of those subordinate battalions [and] re-task-organize into different task elements that [can] contribute to the joint and combined force,” he said, noting that he can pull the right amount of people and gear from each subordinate unit based on the mission and expected duration.

For Fiscus, who oversees force modernization for Marine Forces Pacific, the ability to create the right force package for the right mission — and do so quickly — is what makes 3rd MLR interesting.

“I can’t emphasize how novel it was to redesign [the subordinate units], so Tim can now, organic to his formation, task-organize in such a way that you can have that really deep sensing and understanding of the airspace, surface space,” all within a small unit that can either hide or defend itself as needed.

Brady said his regiment would include about 2,000 Marines, though the service’s Force Design 2030 initiative may adjust that slightly as the unit continues to experiment and identify the required capabilities. Force Design 2030 aims to prepare the Marine Corps for a potential future fight with an advanced adversary, such as Russia or China, in line with the National Defense Strategy.

The 3rd MLR is expected to reach initial operational capability by September 2023, and Fiscus called RIMPAC something of a midway point. The unit is mostly done reorganizing and has ideas for how to operate as a stand-in force, but it will still conducting experiments to refine its composition and tactics.

The eyes and ears

Fiscus and Brady agree that 3rd MLR’s greatest contribution to the joint force will be sensing inside an enemy’s weapons engagement zone, which rotational forces might be unable to access without escalating a tense situation or coming under fire.

To be an effective set of eyes and ears on the inside, Brady said Marines’ sensors, communications suites and weapons must be fully integrated with the naval, joint and combined force. Digital interoperability is a primary focus.

During the scenario in which a carrier strike group transited a strait, the 3rd MLR was asked to conduct sea control and sea denial operations from a strategic ground position, making communication between Marines ashore and ships at sea pivotal to mission success.

Maj. Adrian Solis, an action officer on Fiscus’ staff who focuses on fires modernization, said Marines observed how information moved between destroyers and the 3rd MLR, and whether that info went where it was needed or if Marines had to take data from one system and type them into another.

“That’ll be the crux of it: How do we improve our digital interoperability so we take slack out of the kill web, so we execute those kill chains and we’re not wasting time?” Solis said.

The stand-in force’s ability to be in multiple locations, understand the environment and pick out targets will make the force’s kill webs more robust, Brady said, but that kill web must also include sensors and shooters from “our allies and partners who are going to be alongside us inside the first island chain.”

“RIMPAC … really provides us an unprecedented opportunity in that multinational foundation to be able to train and experiment with that digital interoperability — those people, processes and systems — to be able to close kill webs,” he added. “Every time you add a new ally or partner or new aspect of the joint force to that [kill web], there are things that we need to overcome to improve upon the speed and the data transfer of that knowledge and battlespace awareness.”

What comes next?

The next year will be chock-full of milestones and tests for the regiment as it races toward its September 2023 declaration of initial operational capability. Though the regiment will primarily use gear already in the Marine Corps’ inventory, it will begin experimenting with two new items to help with maneuver and resupply: a stern landing vessel in lieu of the eventual Light Amphibious Warship, and a long-range unmanned surface vessel.

Brady said his regiment plans to eventually create a company to operate the unmanned vessel, but in the short term, later this summer, “we do receive 39 Marines as part of the research and development platoon. Most of that experimentation and training will happen back in Norfolk, [Virginia], but those Marines will come to us later on this summer.”

Fiscus pointed to the stern landing vessel as a highlight of the 3rd MLR’s upcoming work, saying the ship would head to Southern California and then make its way out to the regiment in Hawaii.

“That’s a lot of the experimentation of how do we continually maneuver — move, maneuver and sustain … the stand-in force,” he said.

Brady previously said the regiment might use the stern landing vessel to move from Oahu to the big island of Hawaii, then go ashore for operations at the Pohakuloa Training Area. While Marines conduct missions at the range, the vessel might practice maneuvering at sea to stay hidden, or it could retrieve spare parts, ammunition, food and other goods to resupply Marines when they return to the beach.

Later this fall, Brady told Defense News, the Marine Corps will deactivate Bravo Battery, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines and redesignate the unit as Medium Missile Battery under the 3rd Littoral Combat Team, in what the colonel called a major milestone in implementing and shaping the 3rd MLR and its lethality.

After that redesignation — the last major organizational move, other than the eventual long-range unmanned surface vessel company — Brady said he’ll be able to get into the weeds of several outstanding questions.

“What is the size of those task elements, to be able to have a sensing task element and a fires task element? And how many Marines truly is that? What is needed to lift and move those Marines, and what systems are needed to be able to incorporate the kill web for those Marines? Those are the things we’re going to be looking at here this fall,” he explained.

In February, the 3rd MLR will conduct the first-ever service-level training exercise for a Marine littoral regiment, operating around Southern California while testing tactics, techniques and procedures. The unit will then go right into the Balikatan exercise in the Philippines.

Brady said training alongside Philippine counterparts will help the Corps “get after some of the things that they are developing much like our capabilities, in the archipelagic coastal defense concept and the coastal defense regimen.”

Brig. Gen. Joseph Clearfield, the deputy commander of Marine Forces Pacific, told Defense News in a separate interview that the Philippines is one of many key allies and partners in the region that are reshaping their forces in similar ways to the 3rd MLR.

“I spend an awful lot of time in this job interacting with countries on the first island chain to the second island chain; that’s probably one of my primary duties. They are so excited about Force Design [2030], and they all have initiatives underway … to replicate a Marine littoral regiment-like unit,” he said. “They really want to know everything they can about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”

In the fall of 2023, Brady said, the larger Marine Forces Pacific’s capstone exercise will demonstrate a range of capabilities — including those of the 3rd MLR — paving the way for a declaration of initial operational capability.

“The MLR is a capability that exists right now today. We are ready and prepared to fight now,” Brady said. “Regardless of all those things we’re going to be continuing to train and experiment with in the future, and the future capabilities that are going to come to the MLR, we’re [a] capable unit today.”

The cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center, which SpaceLink announced Monday, allows the organizations to share facilities, intellectual property and expertise to “elevate solutions for both the warfighter and industry,” the McLean, Virginia-based company said in a statement. There is no funding connected to the agreement.

While the work isn’t tied to a specific Army program, it comes as the service is making plans for a Tactical Space Layer that would enable it to use overhead imagery to target beyond-line-of-sight threats. The Army has been partnering with commercial companies and other military services to conduct experiments and prototyping efforts aimed at reducing the amount of time it takes to collect and deliver satellite data to a weapon system.

SpaceLink is investing internal funds to develop a satellite relay system that will reside in medium Earth orbit — between 1,243 and 22,236 miles above planet’s surface — and use laser communications for faster and more secure data transfer. Anthony Colucci, the company’s chief strategy and commercial officer, told C4ISRNET in an interview that SpaceLink is in the “ready-for-production phase” and plans to launch its first constellation of four satellites by the end of 2024.

Colucci said the company views the agreement as a sign the U.S. government understands the value its system will bring once on orbit. Although its constellation isn’t operational, SpaceLink will provide modeling and simulation tools that the Army can use to better understand how the capability could fit into its architecture.

“It can take hours, and sometimes even days, between the time somebody says, ‘I need certain data, I need an impact of what’s going on,’ until they have that data back,” Colucci said. “With our system, it can be minutes to even seconds. So, you can imagine the tactical importance.”

After its first satellites arrive on orbit in 2024, SpaceLink plans to launch new capabilities every two years, increasing processing speed and capacity with each iteration.

Colucci said the company has discussed its plans with the Space Force, Space Development Agency and the Defense Innovation Unit, providing studies and white papers to show how the system could improve data delivery times. He said he expects additional partnerships to be formalized soon but declined to provide details.

Inside an unassuming office building, a few floors up and tucked into a spread of austere rooms, is Operation Cyber Dragon. The brainchild of Chief Warrant Officer Scott Bryson, the hands-on endeavor authorized by U.S. Fleet Cyber Command aims to fix virtual vulnerabilities — shoring up systems bit by bit — while also fostering a new wave of cybersecurity expertise.

“We’re doing it so that we can continue to mitigate and fortify our attack vectors and secure our networks even better,” Bryson told reporters July 22, while standing among computers, cubicles and colleagues.

Cyber Dragon kicked off in March, with the second phase of the program now underway. In its current form, the operation is focused on fortifying unclassified networks and rooting out common, widespread digital weaknesses: lax security settings, easily guessed credentials, unpatched software and more.

Doing so, officials said, makes its more difficult for hackers to break in and wreak havoc. According to the Navy, some 14,500 issues were initially identified on service networks as in need of addressing. Each could be a foothold for an adversary, especially at a time of heightened cyber conflict. Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare Vice Adm. Jeffrey Trussler in a February memo warned sailors that “cyberattacks against businesses and U.S. infrastructure are increasing in frequency and complexity.”

To tackle such a large and evolving workload, manpower was needed. So Bryson turned to the reserves, including to people not necessarily cyber fluent.

“I went to the reserve forces that we have at 10th Fleet, and I requested some bodies, and I came up with a training plan. And I said, ‘Well, if you give me X amount of sailors for X amount of days, I think that we can get after a percentage of our vulnerabilities, patching and scanning.’ The reserve force came through with the manning, they came through with the space,” Bryson said.

“When we did the posting, it wasn’t limited,” he added. “I said I’ll take anybody.”

Among the dozens of participants were, by day, a long-haul truck driver, a banker and a small-business owner. The operation offers reservists the chance to fulfill annual training requirements while also making a tangible difference.

Cyber Dragon teams have thus far identified and remediated thousands of issues — everything from several “high-profile exposures” to default usernames and passwords to discovering “data where we didn’t want data to be,” according to officials involved with the effort.

“A default username and password means that anybody could could log in and execute on here, on these particular machines. Now, they weren’t national security-related. There was no major issue directly to national security,” said Rear Adm. Steve Donald, the deputy commander of Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. 10th Fleet. “But in some cases, it could have caused harm to individuals, identity theft or something of that nature. We were able to shut that down.”

Teams have also zeroed in on potential spoofing certificates, risky software use and cloud management hiccups. Some 50 sailors have been trained on state-of-the-art attack surface management software, used to discover, classify and assess the security of an organization’s assets, with 100 more expected to undergo the same education in the coming months.

Lt. Blake Blaze, a reservist with a cyber and tech background, said the operation has improved both his understanding of the field and the cybersecurity of the Navy.

“My biggest motivation for staying in the reserves was I wanted to be close to the fight in case things get interesting with some of our near-peer adversaries,” Blaze said. “We’re not directly engaging with the enemy, so to speak, but we are trying to prevent their avenues of access to our networks.”

Both Bryson and Donald said they foresee a bright future for Cyber Dragon. As long as there are bugs to fix and the will to fix them, they said, the operation is viable. And Cyber Dragon’s format makes it mobile and replicable, appealing to workspaces and workforces of all sizes across the U.S.

All that’s really needed is floor space, network connectivity and a few tools from third-party vendors.

“The interesting thing in the IT world or the network world is what’s patched and 100% compliant today might not be patched tomorrow, because vulnerabilities ebb and flow,” Bryson said. “So do I think that this has legs to continue on? Absolutely.”

While the Mobile And Survivable Command Post project is still in the early stages of development, those closely involved are already eyeing a “significant, fully integrated” exhibition in the fiscal 2026-27 timeframe, possibly as part of the annual Project Convergence exercises.

“Project Convergence is probably in our future,” Tyler Barton, a computer scientist and MASCP project lead with the C5ISR Center, said during a July 21 roundtable with reporters. “Probably not next year.”

Project Convergence is the Army’s capstone test of cutting-edge kit and inter-service communications in furtherance of the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control vision for seamless and speedy information sharing on the battlefield. This year’s event, referred to as PC 22, will for the first time directly involve allies, Australia and the U.K. included.

MASCP is one of several Army ventures meant to modernize command posts, which can be cumbersome to move and produce noticeable amounts of heat, noise and electronic artifacts, making them targetable.

The mobile-and-survivable project digs into the science and technology realms to find solutions. They include remote antenna systems, resilient data storage, enhanced camouflage techniques and materials, and self-sufficient power generation and banking. Considerations must also be made for distance and connectivity; all the speed in the world does not matter if communications and data sharing go bust.

“The more mobile and survivable the posture of your command post, the more challenging being effective is, both from a technology and systems standpoint, and just from a human standpoint of being dispersed from the staff you’re used to working with closely,” Barton said.

“The problem we’re seeking to get after is redesigning our command posts to survive competitive threats. That’s the bottom line,” he added. “We have a good understanding now of threat capabilities, how that maps to the vulnerabilities of command posts today.”

Scientists, engineers and other experts tested several preliminary MASCP capabilities this summer at the Network Modernization Experiment, or NetModX, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

Much attention was paid to signature management and mobility. Barton said the testing at NetModX, assisted by industry, “very much benefitted our program.” MASCP will return to the weekslong experiment next year.

“They have resources up there that would be incredibly challenging for us to do without that being set up ahead of time,” he said. “The ranges, the frequency availabilty, the infrastructure, like towers for us to elevate our emitters, spectrum sensors on hand for us to utilize, the integration teams they have up there are all great.”

The importance of GPS as a military tool was underscored by Kremlin media in November as troops were massing along the Ukraine border. After Russia demonstrated it could destroy a satellite in space, a television commentator known to be an unofficial mouthpiece of President Vladimir Putin said the nation could “blind NATO” by shooting down all GPS satellites.

Despite this, Russian interference with GPS in Ukraine has not been nearly as aggressive as many observers had expected.

Experts within the GPS/positioning, navigation, and timing communities have proposed a number of possible reasons for this. Here are the most prevalent, all of which are based entirely on publicly available information:

Russia’s electronic warfare capability isn’t as good as it was thought to be. Russian forces have a fearsome reputation when it comes to electronic warfare. And they go out of their way to reinforce this. At one point, the state-owned news agency Sputnik proclaimed Russian EW capabilities “render aircraft carriers useless.”

The popular wisdom is that they have developed and maintained this capability as a response to superior technology used by Western forces. Electronic warfare can be an inexpensive way to level the playing field.

Since Russian forces have been surprisingly less capable than expected in other aspects of the Ukraine conflict, some think this may be true with their ability to interfere with GPS.

Most observers discount this suggestion, though.

They point out that Russian forces regularly jam GPS signals in northern Norway from locations far across the border. And that in some cases this jamming has been so precise, signals in a nearby frequency band from Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system have been unaffected.

Russia has clearly demonstrated impressive abilities to spoof GPS over wide areas. Users in downtown Moscow often find their equipment falsely reporting they are at an airport. The same is true in many coastal areas, the Black Sea and other locations where senior government officials are to be found.

A 2016 Moscow Times headline read “The Kremlin eats GPS for Breakfast.” The general consensus in the community is that there has been a lot of evidence to support that claim.

The question is then, why is the Kremlin only nibbling at GPS in Ukraine?

Russian forces use and need GPS. Proponents of this idea point to downed Russian fighter jets found to have GPS receivers taped to their dashboards.

Signals from Russia’s GLONASS system and terrestrial Chayka electronic navigation system are both available for use in Ukraine. Yet it seems likely there not enough compatible receivers for these systems to equip all Russian forces. As the world’s first global navigation satellite system, GPS receivers have become both plentiful and inexpensive. Cheap GPS receivers and some duct tape seems like an interim solution for some poorly equipped Russians.

Also, GPS signals support a wide variety of infrastructure. Telecommunications, the internet, electrical grids and machine-control systems all rely on GPS for timing. Russian forces may wish to protect Ukraine’s infrastructure for their own benefit and use. Prolonged and widespread attacks on GPS signals could cause serious infrastructure problems with long-term strategic downsides greater than any temporary tactical gains.

High-power, persistent GPS jammers are easily targeted. Any strong and consistent radio frequency transmission can be easily located and attacked. Many militaries have missiles specially designed to home in on and destroy jamming transmitters. Even without such weapons, direction-finding technology can pinpoint a transmitter enabling an artillery attack or an air or ground assault. Russian commanders may be limiting transmission power and time on air to avoid attracting hostile fire.

Ukraine is less impacted. While Ukraine is increasingly receiving and using more Western weapons, many of which use GPS, it also has huge stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons. These don’t rely on GPS and are likely unaffected by most, if not all, forms of electronic warfare. Also, Ukrainian regular and irregular forces are likely less reliant upon sophisticated command, control and communications systems used by larger militaries. Thus, GPS jamming that could hamper normal operations for the U.S. and NATO may have less impact in Ukraine.

Saving the best to use against the U.S. and NATO. Despite the location of the conflict, Ukraine is not the enemy Vladimir Putin is really worried about. His concerns focus on the U.S. and NATO. Deploying Russia’s most sophisticated and powerful electronic weapons in Ukraine would enable adversaries to study technologies and tactics. This would lead to the development of countermeasures and make the weapons less effective in future conflicts.

Better for Russia to keep its best tools and tricks for interfering with GPS in reserve, for use later against larger forces and more important targets.

Dana Goward is president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and serves on the U.S. National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board.

Have an opinion?

This article is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the authors. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please email C4ISRNET Senior Managing Editor Cary O’Reilly.

Want more perspectives like this sent straight to you? Subscribe to get our Commentary & Opinion newsletter once a week.

“With regard to the Russian use of cyber and our takeaways, there are any number of theories for what we saw and what, frankly, we didn’t see,” Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said July 20 at the Aspen Security Forum.

“Some argue for the deterrence the U.S. has put in place,” she said, pointing to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. “Some argue that it was the result of the extensive cybersecurity preparations Ukraine did, supported by allies and partners. And some argue that we don’t quite know.”

While Russia did use cyberattacks to buttress its Feb. 24 invasion and continues to leverage the digital domain to aid its lurching offensives, what hasn’t been seen — and what many expected — are massive hacks that cripple power plants and other infrastructure and retaliate against those assisting Ukraine.

Russia, historically, uses cyber to project power and meddle in foreign affairs. An International Institute for Strategic Studies report in 2021 placed the country in tier two of its cyber powerhouse rankings, alongside China but behind the U.S.

Why hasn’t Russia dominated with cyberattacks?

Exactly why the cyber operations have fallen short of expectations thus far is still up for debate, according to Neuberger, who previously served as the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity chief.

Biden in March said evolving intelligence showed Russia was planning stateside cyberattacks and cautioned the magnitude was “fairly consequential.” Neuberger on Wednesday said the potential for future attacks is being monitored very closely.

“It’s something I talk about with my intelligence and cyber colleagues around the world regularly,” she said.

U.S. Cyber Command worked with Ukraine to reinforce network defenses and conducted related offensive operations, according to Gen. Paul Nakasone, who leads both the command and the NSA.

CYBERCOM also dispatched specialists to nearby Lithuania for three months to root out malign activity and inform future security efforts. Lithuanian Vice Minister of National Defense Margiris Abukevicius at the time said the “war against Ukraine has demonstrated that cyberattacks are an inseparable element of modern military campaigns” and preparations must be made “during war and peace alike.”

Should an attack reach U.S. networks, the country is better prepared to identify the intrusion and ultimately defend itself, Neuberger said, citing the administration’s “relentless focus on improving the security of critical infrastructure” and investment in alliances and information sharing.

In June, U.S. officials said “robust” resources would be provided to a newly forged NATO program known as the “virtual rapid response cyber capability.” The cooperative, the product of a summit in Madrid, will use lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war to shape its approach.

Australia is investing millions of dollars into research and development to close gaps in the country’s cyber defense apparatus, they told the Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research Summit in Sydney on June 20.

And while the talent pool for workers with for AI and machine learning in Australia is deep, Anton van den Hengel, director of the Centre for Augmented Reasoning at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, said their are simply not enough jobs and career opportunities in the country to keep them at home.

“We’ve made very little — very little — progress towards artificial intelligence,” he said.

The U.S. faces a critical cyber labor shortage, with some 700,000 cybersecurity positions open nationwide, according to estimates from the White House. More than 35,000 job openings are currently posted on the Indeed hiring wesbite using the search term “Artificial Intelligence.”

Van den Hengel, who also works as a director of applied science at Amazon, and other industry leaders at the summit pointed to the government’s inability to compete with tech companies as a major issue when expanding the country’s AI abilities. In both the U.S. and Australia, governments come up against the draw of private industry, creating high salary costs and other the hurdles to attracting and retaining talent.

“Defense no longer has the best tech,” he said, noting that private companies have committed billions of dollars to develop technologies and have the open positions to attract workers in the AI field.

The Defence Science and Technology Group, a part of the Australian defense department aimed at providing science and technology support to national security interests, hosted the summit.

Private-sector competition intensifies for AI talent

With high salaries and access to breaking-edge technologies, the private AI field has become increasingly lucrative. In recent years, many western counties, including the U.S., have turned to the private sector to compete with investments made by China.

Van den Hengel said outsourcing to the private sector only goes so far. Governments have to try and keep track of the technologies coming out of companies while also trying to understand them deeply enough to figure out their defense applications, he said.

In November, the Australian government said it would invest $10 million in innovative AI tech. The move followed the September announcement that Australia would partner with Britain and U.S. in a new working group, known by the acronym AUKUS, to share advanced technologies, including AI.

Kate Devitt, the chief scientist of Trusted Autonomous Systems, said Australia specifically needs experts in the field of deep learning and natural language processing compared to companies such as Google and Meta as well as specialists in reinforcement learning.

“We lack the digital infrastructure and investment required to enable the human capital with these skills to flourish in universities,” she said. “These gaps make Australia vulnerable and dependent on the choices of our allies and our rivals.”

Trusted Autonomous Systems is Australia’s first defense cooperative research center. It partners the country’s defense industry and research organizations with Australia’s defense department to develop autonomous and robotic technology.

While Devitt said the “obvious” answer is more investment in technical AI capabilities and infrastructure, she said that Australia needs to be decisive in its investments. As a medium-sized country, the government must use its limited resources to make “scrappy” decisions that yield outsized impacts, she said.

During the hot days of his multiple Iraq deployments between 2004 and 2008, Adams and the Marines he led ― from scout sniper teams to reconnaissance platoons ― met many local leaders and took the opportunity to hand over the squishy toys to children.

The act felt good. It helped to help. And the kind gesture balanced the rougher purpose his Marines executed each night as they hunted the enemy.

It also served a larger purpose, building a “prevailing narrative,” a way to show the population that he and his Marines cared.

That prevailing narrative term, it wasn’t a part of the discussion then, but on the ground, through multiple deployments, young leaders such as Adams saw information emerging as a critical piece of winning the fight.

More than a decade later, the Marine Corps has defined “information” as a war-fighting function, built the Marine expeditionary force information group, or MIG, and established a deputy commandant of information, a three-star general position.

In June, the Corps released its Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 8, Information, setting down the fundamentals of how the service wants its Marines to include information in all planning, exercises and operations.

Though the language is new, some of what Adams and thousands of other Marines saw in the most recent wars echoes what’s become a priority for the Corps: information used to enable maneuver warfare or even deterring a fight before it erupts.

“Information was not part of that conversation,” Adams told Marine Corps Times. “We were focused on this idea, find then capture or kill or eliminate the enemy in some way, shape or form.”

But the beginnings, such as the Beanie Baby example, were surfacing, and in troubling ways.

Adams remembers when he first started seeing terrorist and insurgent groups staging attacks on Marine positions almost purely so that they could video record them and post them as online propaganda.

“As I progressed in my time, I saw that as a technique the enemy was using again and again and again to get out their prevailing narrative,” Adams said. “It became real for me in that timeframe.”

Adams describes leaving the theater in 2009 after those deployments as a “Eureka!” moment when he saw just how much the enemy was using information to its advantage.

ISIS elevated the information warfare game, making high-production-value online videos and stretching their message across the globe.

At the same time, Adams was tracking information sources as part of the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force across all of U.S. Central Command. He experienced the proactive and reactive or offensive and defensive evolution of information, as it played out in the region.

“It was not just getting information, but prioritizing information from other sources to tap into that to build a sight picture for a commander on where a crisis might emerge,” Adams said.

His scout sniper and recon experience led to adviser training in Iraq and later intelligence work with the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response combatting the Islamic State in 2017. Most recently, the now-Lt. Col. Adams, commanded 2nd Radio Battalion, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Now a mid-career officer, Adams can offer deployment-earned guidance as his Marines learn how information affects everything they do. Though they likely already know some of it.

He said that many young Marines now are “digital natives” living much of their lives online. Explaining the landscape isn’t necessarily the focus.

Instead, Adams said, leaders can help define what a Marine’s new responsibilities are in this environment where Marines are always being watched, on the home front and on deployment.

Actions that lance corporals took in small Iraqi villages did have impacts that spread across the globe.

The 1990s-era vision of the “strategic corporal” formulated by then-Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak came into stark relief in those settings.

The environment has only grown more saturated with eyes watching and ways to blast that message out more rapidly and widely.

“Realize what the weight of your actions can carry, they have tremendous impact and therefore we need to act judiciously, and you need to understand and be aware of what those implications might be,” Adams said.

The Corps sees a training need there too.

Marine Corps Times sister publication C4ISRNET reported in June that MCDP 8, Information calls for media literacy training across the ranks.

U.S. forces have been complacent, Deputy Commandant of Information Lt. Gen. Matthew Glavy told reporters in a June 28 interview session, assuming that information is “like the air we breathe” and will always be available and there are no consequences to using it incorrectly.

From collecting to verifying preserving and using information, Marines at every rank need a reframed focus on the vital importance of information.

That’s because it’s not only the decisions Marines make in far-off combat outposts but what they’re doing online from their barracks rooms. They’re being watched by adversaries online, too.

The new doctrinal publication specifically cites ongoing events in Ukraine and how that conflict is being fought with information at a scale not previously seen.

Glavy told Marine Corps Times that as Marine leaders drafted the new publication, they paused to edit and add in specifics from the ongoing conflict at Commandant Gen. David Berger’s direction.

“When we are complacent with understanding the power of information, we will lose, we will lose,” Glavy said. “We see it time and time again: those who are slow on the uptake of messaging, and how important their narrative is … will have problems.”

The other transaction authority agreement, announced July 13 by the U.S. Army, runs through October 2023. Lockheed will provide prototypes mounted into Stryker combat vehicles ready for operational assessment and issuance to an initial unit.

The TLS-BCT is considered a next-generation platform for the Army that brings the service one step closer to satisfying the joint all-domain operations philosophy, a holistic approach to planning and fighting. The system is designed to boost awareness and offer troops more offensive options that can deny or degrade enemy systems.

Officials have said the TLS-BCT will help defeat contemporary threats on an increasingly digital battlefield. Modern warfare often revolves around control of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is relied upon to communicate with allies and identify and suppress adversaries.

“The new integrated suite of signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and cyberspace operations provides the warfighter with critical situational awareness of the enemy through detection, identification, location, exploitation, and disruption of enemy signals of interest,” said Ken Strayer, the project manager for electronic warfare and cyber at the Army’s Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors.

The deal announced Wednesday is the latest advancement in the effort, and marks another win for Lockheed.

The Maryland-based aerospace and defense company in September won a $9.6 million second-round contract, beating out Boeing subsidiary Digital Receiver Technology and allowing it to continue development.

At the time, Lockheed said it would spend a few months finalizing hardware and software designs based on previous experience and soldier feedback.

Deon Viergutz, vice president of Lockheed’s spectrum convergence division, on July 14 said he and his team were “pleased to continue” their partnership with the Army and its program “that will help soldiers operate effectively within the electromagnetic spectrum.”

“TLS-BCT is an example of Lockheed Martin’s 21st century security vision in action, taking a cutting-edge program from concept to fully fielded prototype under an aggressive schedule to put this important capability into the hands of the warfighter, helping them be ready for future mission needs,” Viergutz said.

The Army this year identified a power problem associated with new networking tools and older Strykers during a live-fire exercise in Germany. Officials on June 23 told reporters the matter was under investigation and would be fixed, and that a solution may already exist with newer variants.

The Program Executive Office for Ground Combat Systems, which works with Strykers, was looped in to help.

The advanced M-code GPS receivers will be used for ground-based missions, BAE said in a statement. Germany placed the order for an undisclosed number of receivers in 2020, and the order was processed as a Foreign Military Sale (FMS), via a contract managed by U.S. Space Systems Command (SSC).

“Germany is the first country to receive M-Code GPS capabilities via FMS, leading the way among our allies,” Greg Wild, director of Navigation and Sensor Systems at BAE Systems, said in the release. “Accelerating the delivery of M-Code capabilities to allied warfighters around the globe is critical to ensuring trusted PNT in the face of modern threats from our adversaries.”

The Miniature Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver Engine – M-Code (MPE-M) can provide assured position, navigation, and timing for equipment such as handheld devices, ground vehicles, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS), BAE said.

The company declined to share how many systems were delivered to Berlin. In an email to Defense News, a spokesperson said that “a number of international customers” have expressed interest in the M-code technology, but would not provide further details on which countries.

“Any orders for our M-Code receivers will be processed by the U.S. FMS Office,” the spokesperson added.

Twenty-four of the GPS satellites currently in orbit broadcast the M-code signal, including the five GPS III satellites that have been launched to date. Last December, BAE Systems received a new order from the Defense Logistics Agency to procure new M-code receivers for the U.S. military, bringing the total contract value up to $641 million.

In March 2021, the U.S. Space Force launched a three-year program during which allies can borrow receiver cards for M-Code-ready Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) technology for their own laboratory and field testing.

This year’s $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package includes an unprecedented budget increase for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, as well as tightened cyber incident reporting requirements for sectors like transportation and energy.

To build cyber resilience in this heightened threat environment, agencies must work closely with both international counterparts and industry to align on a proactive, global approach to all cyber threats –– not just state-sponsored attacks. That means understanding the threat landscape, shoring up critical infrastructure and developing a plan to coordinate well before attacks happen.

Understanding an increasingly turbulent cyber threat landscape

In general, the massive state-sponsored cyberattacks many analysts expected on critical infrastructure in Ukraine and elsewhere have yet to materialize. Still, the conflict has given rise to a complex and shadowy landscape of citizen cyber hacktivists, vigilantes and criminal groups taking advantage of the crisis to steal money and working as potential proxies for state actors.

Chatter within ransomware groups indicates some threat actors are siding with Russia, some with the West and some are simply using the theater of war as a smokescreen to facilitate cybercrime. FortiGuard Labs researchers also identified email phishing scams perpetrated by opportunistic criminals posing as trusted organizations like the United Nations to fraudulently solicit donations and potentially infect devices.

History shows the potential for outsized impact when the tools of cyber conflict inevitably proliferate. In 2017, for example, the NotPetya ransomware initially was launched in the update servers for accounting software in Ukraine but quickly and predictably spread worldwide, affecting even large and well-prepared firms and causing an estimated $10 billion in damage.

Many analysts believe that despite having some of the surface charactaristics of ransomware, NotPetya was intended from the outset to be destructive, rather than a tool for criminal profit. And as the conflict in Ukraine continues, threat researchers are encountering increasing amounts of “wiperware”––malicious software designed to disrupt operations or delete data.

Shoring up critical infrastructure

Within the United States, new investments in cybersecurity from both the omnibus bill and the Infrastructure Investment and Job Act offer a unique opportunity to help mitigate the risk of both state-sponsored and criminal cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.

Recent CISA guidance emphasizes the vital importance of including cybersecurity in the design of new infrastructure projects, regardless of the sector or the size of the organization. This is where national cybersecurity becomes a state and local issue as well. This summer, CISA is expected to issue guidelines to help mayors and governors utilize the law’s $1 billion cyber grant program dedicated to building cyber maturity at the state and local level. However, if we spent only $1 billion on cybersecurity out of a $1.2 trillion total, we would be woefully underinvesting in cybersecurity and resilience.

For those state and local governments, it’s better to build in cyber protocols now as the infrastructure upgrades are being planned and implemented than trying to chase down vulnerabilities as they’re being exploited.

Coordinating across borders and sectors

In addition to fortifying our defenses domestically, slowing the success of malicious cyber actors will require robust cooperation beyond our borders, as well collaboration with the private sector.

That means more information sharing before, during and after attacks. President Biden even went so far as to write guidelines into his 2021 cyber executive order, ensuring that IT services providers be able to share information with the government as a whole and require them to share certain breach information. And the recently enacted Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act requires that critical infrastructure providers notify CISA of any significant cyber incident within 72 hours or any ransomware payment within 24 hours.

Internationally, governments and the private sector should be aligning cyber defense and mitigation playbooks among NATO allies—a critical first step to mitigate the risk of burgeoning threats. Beyond that, multilateral organizations such as the World Economic Forum Centre for Cybersecurity could convene global public-private partnerships to encourage information-sharing and the development of cyber norms.

This is just a taste of what we’ll need to do in the coming months and years, but it’s a good start.

Delivering more effective cybersecurity to protect our nation’s networks is a complex challenge –– one that will require governments and industry to work together effectively to confront. Progress is necessary and it will take an effort of allies. No single government or organization or cybersecurity vendor can take this on alone.

Jim Richberg is public sector field CISO at Fortinet. He formerly served as the national intelligence manager for cyber in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where he set national cyber intelligence priorities.

Understanding exactly how dated technologies will interact with newer ones and what must be carried forward in favor of what must be left behind is “where some of the tension” resides when developing the next of generation of command and control, Brown said at a Hudson Institute event June 22.

“You look at some of our weapon systems, they were all developed at different times. Some of them were developed before the internet was a thing. So how do you then make something backward compatible? And in that lies part of our challenge,” Brown said. “And then how much do you invest? If it’s a radio or piece of hardware, if you’ve got to buy one for every single airplane, that gets pretty expensive.”

ABMS is the Air Force’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, the Department of Defense’s vision of seamless information sharing across land, air, sea, space and cyber.

Using cloud environments, artificial intelligence, updated communications gear and more, the Air Force hopes to quickly dispatch more and more-tailored information to forces on the battlefield.

“You don’t want to be all the way back at the headquarters directing traffic or having the puppet strings. You need to allow the airmen to go out and execute, and that’s the key part. You’ve got to push the information forward,” Brown said. “ABMS is not just one system. What we find is we have a number of communication systems.”

Realizing those systems, though, has proven tricky. Congress dinged the endeavor before — slashing millions in funding — and watchdogs questioned its fitness.

In describing ABMS as one of his seven “operational imperatives,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has called for spending discipline and tangible success.

“We can’t invest in everything and we shouldn’t invest in improvements that don’t have clear operational benefit,” he said at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium in March. “We must be more focused on specific improvements with measurable value and operational impact.”

Moving forward, the Air Force is focusing on what systems can breeze ahead and what needs tinkering to remain effective and compatible with key information streams, according to Brown.

In some cases, a data translator is needed. In others, it’s not so simple.

“Those who have followed this ABMS journey, they’ve probably seen that it’s evolved over time as we learn more,” Brown said. “I think, in some cases, we were very visionary about what we wanted to do, starting out.”

WASHINGTON — Carey Smith took over as chief executive of Parsons in July 2021. Since then, the defense and infrastructure company has kept up a busy pace of acquisitions, most recently picking up Xator, which specializes in cybersecurity, counter-drone technology, biometrics and more.

The $400 million deal this month added more than 1,000 new employees to Parsons, primarily in its engineered systems unit. Smith said Parsons prides itself on a stable retention rate, even as acquisitions typically generate a wave of departures and the COVID-19 pandemic has driven significant turnover across industries.

Defense News sat down with Smith to discuss her tenure and what’s ahead. This interview was edited for clarity and space.

Looking back, what were your top priorities coming in as CEO a year ago?

I had three, which is we’re a people-first company. How do we make sure that everybody who comes to work every day wants to be very engaged and involved, and how do we ensure we have a unique culture here?

The second one is something I call “get to yes,” which is really: How do we support the [profit and loss] functions to be able to execute business and win more business by having agile processes?

Then the third one is having top positions in high-growth markets. It would be, in federal, focused on cyberspace, missile defense, C5ISR; and now, with the addition of Xator, critical infrastructure protection.

You’ve talked about how the war in Ukraine could lead to new business. What could that open up in terms of opportunities?

Russia and China are fighting as near-peer threats an information war. And if you’re fighting information warfare, it’s a consolidation of cyber, electromagnetic spectrum and information operations. If you look at where our investment’s been, we’ve been enabling the company to be able to position against near-peer threats by fighting an information war. So that would be one area.

Another one would be post conflict. When Ukrainians try and move back in, there’s going to be unexploded ordnance that’s going to have to be eliminated. We perform that type of work. There’s going to be a lot of contamination in the environment that’s going to have to be remediated. The big one will be the rebuild of Ukraine. So we see opportunities both on the federal side as well as on the critical infrastructure side.

How are you feeling about the federal budget?

We’re very positive on the budget. [The fiscal 2023 budget] at 4% uptick is good; it will probably end up being more than 4% at the end of the day. And then within there, [it includes a] 9% [increase] for the research and development budget, which is largely where we play.

Again, the budget’s going to go toward China being the No. 1 threat, with Russia being second. But areas like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, missile defense, hypersonic defense, all the areas [in which we participate] are still very, very well supported within the budget. Areas that are being cut are more on the procurement side, and we don’t really play there as much, not being an [original equipment manufacturer].

You’ve been busy with acquisitions. Where else are you looking for potential deals?

We’ve bought eight companies over five years. We have a very deliberate strategy. Every month we go through a refresh. We’re not about buying for scale — we’re about buying for technology differentiation. Our focus largely to date has been on cyberspace and critical infrastructure protection. Going forward, you can expect to see us continue in those areas. But I would add to that, potentially, an acquisition on the critical infrastructure side that would have a technology component.

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking May 18 on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, confirmed electronic warfare instruction was underway. No details were provided on the curriculum or the gear itself.

“We told you that we were going to give the Ukrainians some electronic jamming equipment,” the official said. “There is training going on with a very small number of Ukrainian soldiers on that equipment. That’s ongoing, as well. So that’s happening.”

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have either completed or are undergoing training on Western artillery, air defense radar systems, loitering drones armed with explosives, and more, Defense News reported May 9, citing Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby.

The comments come roughly two weeks after the Department of Defense announced it would send EW kit to Eastern Europe as part of a $150 million security assistance package. Also included in that drawdown, the ninth for Ukraine since August, were 25,000 artillery rounds, radar systems and field equipment and spares.

It’s the first time the U.S. gave electronic jamming equipment to Ukraine since Russia rolled into the country Feb. 24. A senior defense official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, on May 9 said the gear would allow the Ukrainians to operate more effectively in a “very condensed geographic area.”

Modern warfare often centers on the fight for control of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is relied upon to communicate and coordinate with allies and monitor and suppress adversaries. As the digital footprints of militaries grow, so does the appeal of EW.

The U.S. years ago began supplying Ukraine with more-modern radios to shield communications and beat back jamming attempts. The Pentagon in early April said a $300 million batch of aid bound for Ukraine would include secure communications systems and similar equipment.

The U.S. has provided more than $6.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014, with a bulk of that made since Russia kicked off its latest invasion. The training programs, Kirby said last month, complement the stream of materiel.

“These soldiers are eager to learn these new skills, but they’re also eager to apply those new skills in the conflict,” he said.

Those were some of the priorities laid out by program managers for various portfolios of U.S. Special Operations Command this week at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference, hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association in Florida.

In a session with reporters Monday, David Breede, program executive officer for the command’s special reconnaissance office, said SOCOM wants to untether itself from radio frequencies. That move will allow systems to operate on their own in contested communications environments.

“From GPS satellites to command and control, how do I operate completely in an untethered way?” Breede said.

For the past two decades, radio frequencies were open, and it was uncommon for those deployed to encounter extensive jamming or interception. That’s not the case when facing more advanced adversaries like Russia or China, as opposed to terrorist organizations.

Media reports and official statements in recent years noted extensive jamming in Syria near Russian forces.

“It’s tough, it’s hard, it’s not something we can do right now,” Breede said of the untethered concept.

The special reconnaissance group also focuses on adding autonomy to its systems, especially its aerial drones. Those systems are small in order to avoid detection. Breede and his team are looking to at “portable autonomy” to give operators software and control algorithms for a variety of devices; that way, even if jammed through traditional radio frequency channels, they can still function.

But there are trade-offs on small drones.

“It becomes tougher and tougher when you get down to the really small stuff,” Breede said. If designers add more capability on top of what’s already on the platform, he added, then something else usually has to go.

“Whether that’s time on station, whether that’s speed or the other payload onboard,” he explained.

And that’s a major initiative of the head of SOCOM, Gen. Richard Clarke, who said in a separate event Tuesday that the command will divest single-use drones.

The force needed drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions throughout the past two decades. But the next generation of drones must do more, he said.

Getting artificial intelligence on platforms will help, Breede noted, which is in line with Clark’s other major goal: a SOCOM data strategy.

“This absolutely goes back to data,” Clark said. “The No. 1 thing. [Artificial intelligence] is great, but if we don’t get the data and pull that in and [are] able to search it, it’s not worthwhile.”

That goes a long way in helping battlefield commanders see, sense and shoot with the right information, he added.

Certainly the sensing and shooting is key, but what about operators on the ground?

Army Col. Joseph Blanton, program executive officer for the command’s support activity office, echoed Breede’s untethered theme while talking to reporter, saying his team is looking at untethered logistics.

And they’re not reinventing the wheel. While Blanton did not specify specific communications, he did say providing key gear, equipment, materials and resupply in austere locations has been done before.

“So historically you think you have a rucksack, some days of supply on your back; and in some days when that’s gone, you have to get resupplied,” Blanton said.

And that resupply has to come from somewhere. “How do you extend that initial period of time so operators stay forward, untethered from a larger resupply network?” Blanton said.

The colonel said looking at outer space and operations that other agencies do could provide lessons.

“We’re trying to understand that space, untethered logistics, a limited class of supply at the tactical edge,” Blanton said.

That’s what Special Operations Command officials said Tuesday at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference, hosted in Florida by the National Defense Industrial Association. A lieutenant colonel who serves as the command’s program manager for counterproliferation said SOCOM is seeking a next-generation multimission electronic countermeasure device. (Under rules of the conference, individuals at the paygrade of O-5 and below were not to be identified in press reports.)

But an O-6, Army Col. Anh Ha, who leads the command’s warrior-focused office, said a major initiative is ensuring an operator working in an isolated area — far from command infrastructure and with limited resources and power — can still have a shared, common operating picture with higher headquarters.

“Contested comms, this one always scares everyone,” Ha said. “What happens when we can’t talk?”

For its part, the Army’s research budget last year emphasized tactical architecture for electronic warfare, C4ISRNET reported. That included a request to increase spending for the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare effort, the Terrestrial Layer System—Brigade Combat Team program, the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool, and the Terrestrial Layer System—Echelons Above Brigade effort.

Big Army also pumped up its budget request last year to nearly triple its EW personnel.

The counterproliferation Army lieutenant colonel at SOFIC is focused on a smaller package. “Counter-unmanned systems: This consumes the bulk of our energy in the program office,” the O5 said.

The office stood up the counter-UAS program this past fall, he noted, and although the current focus is on aerial threats, the office is looking for ground and maritime counter-drone options, too.

His team wants to find portable, dismounted and fixed expeditionary site options for the next-generation multimission electronic countermeasure gear. The Marine Corps and SOCOM have an existing system called Modi, made by the Sierra Nevada Corporation and used by the Army and Marines.

The next-gen version needs to hit those other domains and be more portable. The current dismounted system weighs 40 pounds.

The program manager said “ideally” the office expects to select a system by fiscal 2024 and begin production in fiscal 2025. And SOCOM would like to run these systems as smoothly as they can in order to “reduce burden to our operators and incentivize autonomy as much as possible,” the O5 said.

The Defense Department on May 6 said a $150 million security package bound for Eastern Europe includes the jamming gear, as well as 25,000 artillery rounds, radar systems, and other field equipment and spares.

The Pentagon would not comment publicly on specific details about the electronic warfare kit, which Ukrainian forces requested as Russia continues its offensive in the east part of the country. A senior defense official said Monday it was the first time the U.S. gave EW equipment to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began Feb. 24.

“This is all of a piece of allowing the Ukrainians to operate more effectively, in a very condensed geographic area, where we know the Russians routinely tried to use electronic jamming as a way of their own ability to defend themselves against attack,” the official said.

The equipment will be siphoned from American defense stocks, marking the ninth drawdown for Ukraine since August. The U.S. has committed more than $6.5 billion in security assistance to the country since 2014, with nearly $4 billion of that total made since Russia launched its latest invasion.

“The United States has provided a historic amount of security assistance to Ukraine at rapid speed,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “U.S. support, together with the contributions of our allies and partners, has been critical in helping Ukraine win the battle of Kyiv and hinder Putin’s war aims in Ukraine.”

Electronic warfare is a battle for control of the electromagnetic spectrum, relied upon for situational awareness and communications. While EW, as it’s known, lacks the spectacle or bombast of missiles meeting targets and tanks thundering through towns, it can be decisive, considering the digital portfolio of modern militaries.

The U.S. years ago began providing Ukraine with upgraded radios to protect communications and combat jamming efforts. In early April, the Pentagon announced a potentially $300 million batch of aid would include communications systems and similar gear.

“There’s a quite extensive, detailed list of what some of these capabilities are, including unmanned aerial systems and some tactical, secure communications, and other like capabilities,” John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said during an April 4 briefing.

Days prior, he told reporters Ukrainian leaders “still have good command and control over their forces in the field,” despite Russian harassment.

Joe Gould contributed to this report.

In the Army’s most recent budget, it eliminated its plan to spend $12 million to purchase the Multifunction Electronic Warfare-Air Large system, an electronic attack pod also capable of cyber effects mounted to a MQ-1C Gray Eagle. It was designed to be the first brigade-organic airborne electronic attack asset.

Despite cutting procurement, the Army did ask for $12 million in Fiscal 2022 for research and development funds for the pod.

“We have proposed a course of action for consideration to Army senior leaders to add a limited amount of procurement back to the line. That’s pending,” Col. Daniel Holland, capability manager for electronic warfare, said during a virtual presentation hosted by AFCEA’s Northern Virginia chapter Jan. 13.

Holland said they are updating the capability development document for MFEW to “tighten up some key performance parameters for multidomain operations against near peer threats.”

Following the zeroing out for procurement dollars, the Army’s top acquisition official for the EW portfolio described a “prove it” phase for MFEW.

“We’ve got to show that the MFEW capability can operate in a robust environment and potentially on platforms, not just the Gray Eagle, but looking at diversified platform set … and looking for how MFEW will operate before we make a commitment on how we’ll necessarily go after a capability like MFEW in the future,” said Mark Kitz, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors. “I think over the next year the Army is going to get some data and learn how this MFEW capability will enable how we want to operate in the future, and I think that data will then inform how we go forward with an MFEW-like capability.”

While acknowledging challenges in the budgeting cycle, Holland believes the Army is on “solid footing” for a developmental test and a limited user test in 2022, for which the updated document will be necessary to inform.

“We think that the [capability development document] update includes feedback from the operational force, particularly the division, which is particularly important as the Army pivots from a [brigade combat team]-centric Army to a division-centric Army, since MFEW is intended to be fielded to division combat aviation brigades, the detailed performance improvements that we’re going to specify in the [capability development document] update are particularly relevant for this pivot,” he said. “I’ll say that we’re constantly looking to pace the threat and the [capability development document] does just that.”

Despite the challenges, Holland said the Army’s electronic warfare community believes MFEW is an important component of the service’s portfolio. In fact, other service officials have noted that MFEW is an integral part of the Army’s family of electronic warfare systems.

“All of our capabilities … when used in tandem — [Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team], [Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade], MFEW Air Large — are all integrated to provide that EW and those cyber effects,” said Deputy Project Manager for Electronic Warfare and Cyber Willie Utroska in August.

“We’re also looking at opportunities to scale down the system for smaller ship classes — frigates and smaller — and looking at ways to make a scaled-down version of SEWIP that can be effectively employed and rapidly installed on the smaller ship classes,” Mike Meaney, vice president of land and maritime sensors at Northrop, told C4ISRNET.

SEWIP is the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program Block 3. This version provides ships with a non-kinetic, electronic attack capability, enabling them an “unlimited volley of bullets” to knock down incoming missiles.

Meaney previously stated the company was working on a contract to develop a technology data package based on SEWIP technology for larger-deck ships such as aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.

The design activity for that effort is expected to wrap up this year. Once done, the U.S. Navy will have the opportunity to buy them, but Meaney wasn’t sure what the Navy has planned.

Now, Northrop is working on its own to adapt the system based on inklings the Navy would like this type of soft-kill capability on smaller ships.

“On smaller ships sizes, we know it’s of great interest to the Navy to put this soft-kill capability with unlimited bullets on almost every ship that they have because the incredible protection electronic warfare offers you,” Meaney said. “We know that they’re interested in doing that, so we’re off on our own trying to develop what we think would make sense to go do in anticipation of the Navy having a requirement to do a scaled-down version of it.”

Meaney said the hope is the Navy will release a requirement for this capability in the coming year. He couldn’t offer specifics regarding how they are looking to scale the system, given Northrop is in the middle of that effort, but he did note that smaller ships don’t have as much cooling or power available and don’t need as much radio-frequency energy to effectively jam. The company, he added, is trying to find the right balance of radio frequency versus available power and cooling.

Northrop is focused on frigates for this smaller capability, but Meaney said the firm is taking a broad approach to figure out an easy configuration for installation on a wide variety of ships.

Block 3 integration

Meaney also said Northrop has ongoing production contracts for the SEWIP Block 3 system with a limited-rate initial production contract to complete two systems.

The company has shipped one and is beginning installation aboard an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer on the West Coast, although due to sensitivities, he declined to name a specific ship.

There also isn’t an exact date set for competition of the installation or sea trials. The second ship planned for integration won’t happen for some time due to when the ship will be available for retrofit activity.

There are three systems under contract for follow-on production.

Moreover, Meaney said, Northrop is anticipating an order for about four more systems in the current fiscal year, bringing the total number of Block 3 systems under contract to nine in the next few months.

“I would argue, in this 21st-century battlespace that we’re preparing for, infusing that doubt, hesitation, that confusion is winning for us,” Brig. Gen. Tad Clark, director of the electromagnetic spectrum superiority directorate at the Air Force, or A2/6L, said during a presentation at the Association of Old Crows Symposium Nov. 30. “If we get the adversary … to stop for a moment, reassess if the odds are in their favor, try to determine if they can make a move or not and if it’s an advantageous time for them to do so or not, we’re slowing their decision matrix down.”

Achieving this type of confusion, however, is critically dependent upon superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum, Clark said, adding that superiority in the spectrum underpins every core mission within the military.

Non-kinetic capabilities will be crucial in realizing this type of confusion among adversaries and may even prevent shooting wars from occurring in the future.

Clark’s organization is helping the Air Force understand what capabilities could be available now and what investments to make, which will prove important as the military is facing tighter budgets going forward.

Created a couple of years ago, the directorate aims to provide unified oversight of electromagnetic spectrum issues from the headquarters Air Force level.

Gen. Charles Brown, chief of staff of the Air Force, has previously said, “In some aspects, an electron is much cheaper than a very expensive missile,” meaning the Air Force could realize some actual cost savings in non-kinetic capabilities.

He also explained at a conference earlier this year that such non-kinetic capabilities could “reign supreme,” according to Breaking Defense, adding , “Now we’re somewhere stuck in the thinking that mass needs to be physical. What if we did not have to produce sorties to achieve the same effect? What if a future small diameter bomb looks like ones and zeros?”

Clark noted that given the finite amount of funds, the service has to make sure it invests its money wisely.

“That’s what our directorate is trying to do. At the end of the day, winning for us is going to be when we see our Department of Air Force make investments in Air Force and Space Force types of capabilities that allow us to further technology, capability to get after where we need to be in the future,” he said.

To do this, Clark said his organization is trying to communicate to senior leaders what is in the art of the possible today, noting there are some great capabilities that currently exist.

One such capability set lies in the convergence between cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum.

“The connective tissue between cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum is amazing. There are tremendous capabilities that we can achieve now that allow us to get the desired end state, the desired effects, non-kinetic effects, for something that is pennies on the dollar,” he said. “It is something that we were wrestling with for a while trying to get our arms around all the things that fit in that line of effort and as we peel that onion back, there are a lot of examples of things that we can do both with cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum that are, again, are repeatable, sustainable and affordable.”

While initially created within the A5 strategy section of the Air Staff, the directorate has now moved to the A2/6 section, which encompasses cyber and electromagnetic spectrum operations.

LEGOs and the future of spectrum warfare

Officials have consistently noted that they regard capabilities as a networked system of systems aboard several platforms that need to have the right concept behind them in order to be truly effective.

For the newly established 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, connecting disparate capabilities spread across various platforms will be a key undertaking going forward.

Created in June, the wing will enable, equip and optimize the fielding of electromagnetic spectrum capabilities with the aim of providing a sustainable and competitive advantage in the non-kinetic realm.

As part of its role, its commander used the analogy of LEGO blocks as a means of connecting platforms and capabilities to make the most of resources in the inventory.

“The idea of where we’re going is really how can you put those LEGOs that exist on different aircraft together into on-demand, ad-hoc kill webs,” Col. William Young, commander of the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing, said during the same conference.

Young explained that during a meeting, one group commander threw a box of LEGOs on a table and used the mobile application Brickit, which looks at all the different combinations of LEGOs on the table and provides a list of all the different things that can potentially be built.

“Put yourself in the position of an adversary who now thinks they have deep insight United States Air Force or entire Department of Defense but now has to face this,” Young said, referring to a futuristic state in which capabilities aboard platforms are LEGO pieces that can be reassembled and reconfigured in a number of different fashions. “We traditionally package our things at the platform level. What we’re talking about here with this is type of warfare is the ability to package at the subsystem level.”

“The system is able to target a range of threats, including: UAVs, ships, missiles, communication links, low probability of interception (LPOI) radars, and more. Scorpius effectively disrupts the operation of their electromagnetic systems, including radar and electronic sensors, navigation, and data communications,” IAI said in a statement.

Added Elta Systems, an IAI subsidiary that also makes the radar for the Iron Dome air defense system: “With AESA’s multi-beam capability, Scorpius can simultaneously scan the entire surrounding region for targets, and deploy narrowly focused beams to interfere with multiple threats across the electromagnetic spectrum.”

The transition from focusing on a single threat to now multiple threats at once meshes with the modern battlefield that hosts drones and other advanced platforms, said Gideon Fostick, a marketing director at Elta.

“Everything is vulnerable to attack, confusion and deception, so this system covers the whole sky and simultaneously detects these threats. This is a new tool in air defense systems for soft-kill capability,” Fostick said. “So in times of peace or tensions, using this soft defense system offers you an option when you wouldn’t dare to use hard kill.”

“The EW system is designed to prevent [enemies] from using their systems. In the past, a focused beam would take out an enemy system. But a single beam is limited to specific roles and systems,” he added. “It offers greatly increased sensitivity to detect and jam threats even if they are hundreds of kilometers away.”

He noted that the Scorpius can add to a multilayered air defense system. Israel has in recent years increased integration of its multilayered air defense systems through work on the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow as well as their respective radars.

Elta would not say whether the Israel Defense Forces use Scorpius, although the company says it’s in use by three countries without naming the clients. Fostick told Defense News that the U.S. is a potential customer and is “very aware of the technology.”

The system, which comes in land, naval and air variants, was used during Israel’s recent Blue Flag exercise. The October drill in Israel included air forces from the U.K., Germany, Italy, Greece, the United States, Italy and India. Fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft were present.

The range for Scorpius depends on which version is used, with the pod version mounted on an aircraft having a shorter range than a larger ground-based system.

The naval version, known as Scorpius, can be used on military vessels such as frigates and corvettes. The system essentially projects a defensive EW dome over a maritime task force, Fostick said. The training version of the system, Scorpius T, was used during the Blue Flag drill.

The result was a new spectrum convergence business, which set out to break down the barriers between similar technologies linking intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber systems together.

Vice president of spectrum convergence, Deon Viergutz addressed how the business has been performing and some recent progress the company has made since its inception.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

How has the spectrum convergence business grown over the last year or so?

Spectrum convergence is continuing to grow and expand to support customers in the electromagnetic battlespace. We see that outlook continuing with significant cyber electronic warfare (CEW) market growth because of our customer’s high ops tempo and the high mission demand for our products and capabilities to support joint, all-domain missions.

Recent awards for Advanced Off-Board Electronic Warfare (AOEW) low-rate initial production and Multi-Functional Electronic Warfare Air Large (MFEW-AL) present new growth opportunities. Concurrently, we have continued to sustain and celebrate significant contract accomplishments in maritime EW with the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) 100th delivery and continued deliveries of the Submarine BLQ 10 system and award of the various airborne electronic warfare contracts including CRH, B2, MH 60R. We also deliver significant products and capabilities in the classified domain

How has the covid pandemic affected business?

There have been significant challenges during the pandemic and we, as with many companies, have had to adjust our workplace to ensure the safety of our employees.

This team has responded to these challenges remarkably. We were able to innovate our way through this pandemic, learning new ways to operate and increase our efficiency and effectiveness for engaging with our customers, employees and supply chain. Every element of our business has transformed to the new Normal.

There has been no slowdown in work, while meeting our customer commitments and enabling the warfighter with exceptional CEW unmatched capabilities on the battlefield.

What new or developing internal research efforts are underway?

We are constantly investing in advanced state-of-the-art technologies to leverage our 50-year heritage of CEW expertise to better address near-peer threats in the electromagnetic spectrum. These investments range from advanced miniaturized RF electronics, 3-D additive manufacturing RF antennas, Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) based systems, to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

We have embraced an agile delivery model that has enabled us to innovate at the speed of necessity and move much faster as a company to meet the demands of our customers.

How do you see cyber and electromagnetic spectrum operations continuing and progressing to converge on the battlefield?

Over the last three decades, our near-peer adversaries have learned from the U.S. how to exploit the electromagnetic spectrum and made significant strides in closing the technology gap. Cyber and electronic warfare capabilities will continue to be critical tools for U.S. and its allies’ commanders to ensure freedom of maneuver in the battlefield against evolving threats.

We believe CEW operations will be proliferated across the DoD and joint forces, becoming integrated into their Concept of Operations for the future fight. The electromagnetic spectrum is a physical battlespace for our warfighters, and it is increasingly paramount that we understand it and bolster our ability to operate, own, dominate, and defend against adversaries.

As part of our 21st Century Warfare vision, we’re leveraging emerging technologies to continue to grow in the all-domain environment, everything from electromagnetic spectrum defensive tools, battlespace awareness, command and control across spectrum, to long-range effectors and sensors.

As we look ahead, there will be sustained requirements for systems to be able to conduct multiple missions while delivering a variety of effects in partnership with our allies.

Where are you in terms of MFEW Air Large?

We are excited about the program. MFEW-AL is not only the Army’s longest-range effector but also the first Army program of record to conform to the DoD C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) and Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) standards. Earlier this year, MFEW-AL performed extremely well during the US Army’s Experimental Demonstration Gateway Exercise (EDGE) 21 events, important in validating performance and capability.

Currently, we are continuing to progress with the RDT&E phase of the program. Continued RDT&E funding was in the President’s Budget Request for FY 22. We look forward to receiving that funding to continue our demonstrations validating the long-range sensing, Electronic Warfare Support (ES) & Electronic Attack (EA) capabilities of this one-of-a-kind capability. Specifically, we are working towards two major capstone events in the first half of next year. These events will validate the performance of the MFEW-AL phase two systems against operational requirements.

Near term, the team is preparing to support flight experiments this fall during the upcoming Project Convergence 21 and Position, Navigation, and Timing Assessment Exercise (PNTAX) events. Our objective for each is to show how the MFEW-AL systems can support critical U.S. Army missions in operational, tactical environments.

What are some of the major trends and themes you’ve noticed within the last two years as it applies to cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum convergence?

There have been several developments and trends in the electromagnetic spectrum domain over recent years, including technology advancement enabling size, weight and power – cooling (SWAP-C) reduction as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), market shifts and growing demand for CEW capabilities to support joint, all-domain warfighting.

There is the continual need to reduce the SWAP-C of RF electronics and the desire to enable as much capability as possible in a smaller footprint. Technology is now available to support those SWAP-C reductions and deliver increased performance at a lower cost.

Another major trend would be the increased use of AI/ML capabilities to enable “Cognitive Electronics Warfare” where systems can process vast amounts of data to assist operators in increasingly complex and congested electromagnetic battlefields.

Lastly, there is the concept of an Open Systems Architecture—ensuring we are building systems that are avoiding vendor lock and enabling fewer and fewer proprietary systems. This is an area where Spectrum Convergence is leading the way with systems like MFEW, AOEW, BLQ-10 and SEWIP being compliant with SOSA and CMOSS open system standards. This is key for enabling fast CEW technique development and deployment; interoperability of hardware and software across airborne and ground platforms; prompt insertion of new hardware technology; and significant reduction of total ownership costs. Ultimately this results in systems able to rapidly adapt to a continuously evolving threat that optimizes support for warfighters.

The other transaction authority agreement for phase two on the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team, or TLS-BCT, follows a 16-month prototyping period that involved Lockheed and Boeing subsidiary Digital Receiver Technology. During those months, each company was charged with developing prototypes and working with soldiers, after which point the Army would pick one solution to move forward.

TLS-BCT will be mounted on a Stryker vehicle, and officials have said it will be critical to modernizing the force to defeat modern and sophisticated threats on the battlefield.

“When fielded, TLS will be assigned to the Multi-functional Platoon and the EW Platoon organic to the Military Intelligence (MI) Company (MICO) in the BCTs. TLS will provide the warfighter at multiple echelons critical situational awareness of the enemy through detection, identification, location, exploitation, and disruption of enemy signals of interest,” said Ken Strayer, the project manager for electronic warfare and cyber within Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors.

In the most recent budget request, the Army asked for $39.7 million for the program from research and development funds. The first unit is to receive the system in fiscal 2022.

Lockheed’s award will provide prototypes for manufacturing proof of concept.

Soldiers with 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, recently tested software that runs the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool at Fort Carson, Colorado, according to an Army release.

The EWPMT pulls together battlefield data and manages electronic warfare and spectrum management.

It is a command-and-control planning tool that lets allows users to “visualize the potential effects of electronic warfare in the field and chart courses of action to prevent jammed capabilities,” according to Army Times’ sister publication, C4ISRNET.

What that means for the soldiers is a way to see the invisible threats of EW and also put out their own “non-kinetic” effects on the enemy.

“As a planner, EWPMT enabled me to visualize my effects in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS),” said brigade CEMA head, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brandon Cruz, in the release. “The modeling and simulation tools EWPMT provides enabled me to position Electromagnetic Warfare (EW) systems onto the optimal piece of terrain on the battlefield.”

When the unit moved from planning to operations soldiers transferred from non-lethal to lethal fires, Cruz said.

The tool is expected to see an Army decision that would distribute it across the force by early next year.

C4ISRNET previously reported that the Army was the first to demonstrate, “the ability to remotely control electronic warfare sensors through an over-the-air data link and feed the information back to a central battle management tool.”

Earlier test versions of the EWPMT were wired to the device, making for difficult field operations when compared to remote abilities.

During the Northern Lightning Air Force exercise, which took place in August at Volk Field Air National Guard Base, aboard a Canadair Regional Jet, the company says it tested using the APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar, which the company is providing to the Air Force, and what it is calling the Next Generation Electronic Warfare System, an ultrawideband system that detects the radio frequency environment to decide which signals to jam.

Company officials said it’s critical both aircraft subsystems — the active electronically scanned array radar, which is nearly identical to those aboard F-35s and F-22s, and the EW system — can perform their roles without interfering or degrading each other.

“You needed it to be interoperable with the other subsystems and one of those other key subsystems is the advanced AESA. Because you don’t want electronic warfare to have a negative impact on AESA, you don’t want AESA to have a negative impact on electronic warfare,” James Conroy, Northrop’s vice president for navigation, targeting and survivability, told C4ISRNET. The EW system is “a survivability function. AESAs aren’t typically only doing survivability, they’re doing other situational awareness as well as targeting capabilities. You have subsystems that are doing different functions, and you need both those functions to be able to operate simultaneously.”

Northrop representatives also noted the company built the EW system to be compatible with the radar.

The system flew against over 170 test points and against Joint Threat Emitters on the ground, which simulate advanced radars.

Conroy said the test was the first demonstration of the EW system outside a lab environment. During the exercise, the company took the system to an airborne platform and flew it against simulated threats while also having to operate with other aircraft and radars in the same airspace.

“During Northern Lightning, we gained valuable insight on NGEW capabilities,” Lt Col. Stephen Graham, F-16 electronic warfare test director of the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force, said in a news release. “We are one step closer to installing the first NGEW suite on an Eglin F-16 in less than one year.”

While the Next Generation Electronic Warfare System is not in production for the Air Force, Northrop did win an other transaction authority award last year to develop the system using existing technology. Since the award, Northrop has been working with the Air Force to showcase how it can interact with the F-16, its subsystems and other critical capabilities.

This work is part of the F-16 modernization efforts the Air Force has undertaken. Because the aircraft has been flying for decades — long before modern technological threats on the battlefield — the Air Force must implement upgrades to make the system more survivable against sophisticated adversaries.

“There is a strong push to improve electronic protection for the F-16 against modern adversaries,” Graham said. “NL21 allowed for both an RF-dense environment while permitting targeted testing before, during and after LFE [Large Force Exercise] fights.”

Conroy said the F-16 is still capable.

“We really need the electronic warfare on these platforms to really make them survivable in that next generation or the next type of conflict that these platforms may be engaged in,” he said. “The RF threat environment has got so congested, meaning that there are so many other signals that are out there and being able to find the right signals really requires a lot of advanced processing.”

Northrop officials said they view the demonstration as a stepping stone. Next spring, Conroy said, they’ll begin developmental test on actual F-16s.