Mari K. Eder
Recently, the Pentagon released its 2022 budget, which provided Americans a look into what the Biden administration plans to prioritize and the steps we are taking to bolster our nation’s defense.
A crucial part of the budget and the Department of Defense’s strategy to modernize is Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), a revolutionary program that aims to increase communication between the Armed Forces by connecting sensors from all the military services – Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Space Force – into a single network. This promise of greater interconnectivity between the branches of the military will revolutionize how the Department of Defense manages, secures, and leverages data as a strategic defense asset and help create a “smart” military.
Discussions of the JADC2 have been incremental over the last couple of years, but now we have our first look into some concrete details. As Lieutenant General Crall said in a June 4 press conference, “It's now implementation time. Planning is good. Talk is good. Now it's delivery time. And we've been given the clear signal to begin pushing these outcomes to the people who need them.”
While I applaud the prioritization of JADC2 and the importance being given to it, I worry that the Pentagon will overlook necessary aspects of the program that will make it successful and overall operatable in the field.
To start, it is crucial that the program is centered around secure and centralized communications. While it may sound simple, the number one focus of the program is to get the right information to the right people at the right time. Without secure and centralized communications, it will not be nearly as effective. As Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown put it, “the real challenge facing commanders in the next war will be sorting through the overflow of information coming at them as they struggle to act faster than the enemy.”
While many companies are vying for the contract to work on JADC2, including Silicon Valley giants Amazon and SpaceX, I, for one, am placing my trust in legacy contractors that have been leading programs like this for decades. This program is too important and involves too many life-or-death situations to entrust a company outside of the defense industry. These companies are skilled and experienced in dealing with consumer products, but this is a matter of national security. While an internet outage or Amazon delay may be an inconvenience, a communication outage on the battlefield would put the lives of Americans and our troops at risk.
While researching my recently published book surveying the global cyberscape, it became clear that our nation’s adversaries are ramping up their cyber capabilities to wage information warfare on the civilian populace. They are also bolstering their military capabilities, and JADC2 will be key to the future of America’s defense systems. The importance of JADC2 was laid out in a recent C4ISRNET article, saying: “With the JADC2 strategy in place, the Pentagon and its military services can focus on building the network of networks it believes it needs to fight highly capable adversaries such as Russia and China, a fight powered by high-bandwidth, resilient communications networks that pass mass amounts of data to help commanders make fast decisions.”
Russia and China are not slowing down, nor should we. While we may have fallen as much as a decade behind China regarding the rollout of 5G, another transformative technology for the military, by focusing efforts on implementing JADC2, we can help ensure America's continued military superiority. In fact, according to a report by Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), "China has the potential to lead in all internet-based industries aided by discriminatory domestic policies such as data localization requirements.
The Pentagon has rightfully included a sizeable investment in JADC2, but that is only the first step. It is critical we make the right investments now to ensure we have a functioning system for the future instead of a disjointed low functioning program. It is understood across the military that a successful and effective JADC2 program is paramount to a strong, connected, and efficient defense system. Because of that, I encourage our military leaders and Congress to continue to focus on developing JADC2, and even more importantly, entrust the development of this important technology to those that can handle it who will deliver a product worthy of our country’s needs.
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