By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior
Air Force weapons developers appear to be intensely preparing for an age of AI-driven warfare and a need to establish an emerging kind of multi-domain “collective” connectivity, according to the service’s top General. This concept, as explained by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, seems to apply to both operational plans as well as weapons development given the rapid ascent of AI, computer automation and more secure forms of transport layer data networking across formations.
Speaking at the London at the Royal Aeronautical Society, Allvin emphasized a growing need to develop warfare formations capable of addressing a new and fast-changing threat environment requiring what he called “collective agility.”
In an operational context, he was clear in his remarks that the service needs coordinated, networked “formations” able to adjust quickly to new threat information. “Collective” agility, it seems clear, would reach operational efficiency through coordinated swarms, successful data sharing, an ability to collect and analyze data at forward points of collection using AI-driven analytics and computer automation to “transmit” data across the force and, when needed, adjust autonomously to new information. In this respect, collective agility would enable groups of manned and unmanned platforms of all sizes to coordinate operations across a wide, dispersed operational envelope of connected nodes. In a conceptual sense, this pertains directly to the implementation of the Air Forces long-developing, successful Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), an effort to streamline multi-domain networking and data processing across a wide array of air, ground and surface programs. ABMS, which has shown great promise in testing by aligning fast-emerging targeting detail with effectors or shooters across domains, can be understood in terms of the Air Force contribution to the now emerging DoD Joint All Domain Command and Control effort. In recent years, for example, the Air Force has performed successful “on-ramps” with ABMS wherein air-platforms were able to cue ground artillery enabling defensive cruise missile intercepts, among other things.
“Collective Agility” For War & Weapons
Allvin stressed that this kind of operational coordination must begin in the weapons development phase so that new technology are built with “common data standards” and an ability to, as he described it, “upgrade at the speed of coding.” This means platforms need to be built at their inception for rapid, continuous upgrades and the technical infrastructure to immediately accommodate software advances and other performance enhancing innovations.
“We need to adapt industry and government to meet our own objectives, and our kit is at times not designed that way. This is an opportunity to think about how we do this and ‘bake it in rather than bolt it on’ so you can be ‘collectively agile’ and systems are talking to one another,” Allvin told the audience.
This makes great sense, as keeping pace with technological change will enable the service to integrate new algorithms and software enhancements at the lightning speeds with which they arrive. New algorithms able to quickly improve performance are arriving so quickly, Allvins emphasis upon engineering the “coding” and “standards” into new platforms aligns with the need to enable high-speed improvements and modernization.
This kind of thinking seems aligned with the rapid integration of what could be called “collective AI,” meaning efforts to perform analytics within individual systems as they gather data and simultaneously integrate otherwise disconnected points of collection. For example, a networked, multi-domain AI infrastructure could perform a kind of “collective AI,” among individual points of collections performing AI in one single position. A single platform could use AI-enabled algorithms to bounce incoming ISR data and sensor information across a vast data base to make determinations of combat relevance in milliseconds. Findings or results from this efficient processing, target identification and problem solving at individual or otherwise isolated forward points on the edge of combat, can be collected and analyzed across a large group of nodes to essential perform multi-node AI-enabled analysis upon a group of otherwise disconnected single points of AI-enabled analysis. This would generate an ability for a large formation to operate in the kind of integrated, “collective” envisioned by Allvin.
JADC2 Joint Networking
Much like the services ABMS, Allvin’s concept of “collective agility” aligns closely with the Pentagon’s multi-service networking program called JADC2 which is now being implemented under the direction of Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. Allvin’s call for Air Force collective agility synchronizes closely with the Navy’s evolving and long-standing Ghost Fleet effort designed to use autonomy and AI-empowered nodes to coordinate operations and data flow across a group of unmanned systems. Ghost Fleet, as envisioned and now functioning for the Navy, for example, enables a group of surface Unmanned Surface Vehicles to adjust course autonomously in coordination with one another and respond to new information shared across a series of nodes at one time. Perhaps a single USV discovers a mine-field, enemy submarine or weak point within the perimeter of an enemy’s coastal defenses? The Ghost Fleet concept is to enable the kind of “collective agility” described by Allvin and network time sensitive combat-relevant data across a group of unmanned systems able to adjust course and respond to new information. Extending this ‘collective agility’ thinking, the idea of JADC2 is to take this kind of processing and efficient data analysis and responsiveness at a group level within the services – and extend it across all the service in a joint, collective multi-domain theater of war.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
