Close×

The imperative in future warfare to dominate and fully exploit the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum and the challenges faced by the ADF in achieving this were recurring themes at what was billed as Australia’s only combined EW/IO/EMS/Cyber Operations convention.

There was no indication forthcoming of any significant new work for Australian industry’s depleted EW (electronic warfare) sector - although this would not necessarily be discussed in an open forum.

Indeed, Mike Holmes of BAE Systems Australia suggested that EW would disappear as an industry capability in Australia if it was limited to the support of EW equipment purchased from abroad.

Other references were made in the course of the convention to mistrust between Defence and industry, and the need for the role and vital importance of EW to be explained to decision-makers in simple terms.

Air Vice Marshal Neil Hart, Head Force Structure Review at Headquarters ADF, disclosed that work was underway to confirm that major projects now under discussion as part of the review were affordable and could be integrated, fused and coordinated to reach their potential.

Ensuring the appropriate support for Growler was essential. The aircraft was a national asset, “one of those game-changing capabilities that is crucial right across the spectrum of operations, from humanitarian and disaster relief operations right through to major conflicts”.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was already a far better fighter than the RAAF’s in-service fleet, but with a potential that could be best compared to a smart phone without and with apps. Selling EW was very difficult, and needed to be explained in a simple way – “making sure we’re understood is key to our endeavour; I don’t know how many times I’ve had to revise submissions, and when you get into written Cabinet submissions, the need to get the whole strategy into five pages, no more and no less, is challenging”.

Major-General Fergus McLachlan, Head of Joint Capability Coordination Division within the Vice Chief of Defence Force Group, warned that an adversary such as the Taliban, a non-state actor from a relatively underdeveloped part of the world, was becoming increasing sophisticated in its use of encryption, geo-location and basic cyber capabilities.

“And in my experience is perhaps more agile than we are in harnessing the EM domain to its advantage in the IO and strategic communications area,” said MAJGEN McLachlan, citing the example of Taliban propaganda on mobile phone memory cards being accessed by young Afghan soldiers.

The challenge facing the Future Joint Force Commander was to match the increasing capability to gather, process, and display battlespace awareness information with a corresponding increase in the ability to use that information.

“I believe that reversing our command approach from information push to enabling subordinate reach back and search and enabling cross-domain search between our three levels of secure networks will be key to future domain awareness,” he said.

Future Force Joint EW assets needed to be modular, scalable and networked, utilising an open architecture that was rapidly adaptable and remotely reprogrammable at the tactical level.

Defence continued to develop its cyber strategies and capabilities while learning from the respective journeys of its “Five Eyes” partners the US, UK, Canada and NZ, while ensuring that Australian decisions were appropriate within the Australian content.

“At the moment in many cases our services are more interoperable with the US than with each other,” he added.

The forthcoming Defence White Paper and the First Principles Review needed to look closely at how joint capabilities would be generated and commanded in the future, MAJGEN McLachlan stated.

“We may be approaching the pivotal time when capabilities can no longer be raised, trained and sustained within one service. EW and cyber are two capabilities that now extend across all three services and the Intelligence and Security Groups,” he said.

Cyber and EW
Awareness of the cyber threat was emerging as part of the federal bureaucracy psyche although cyber security awareness in State governments was more patchy, Major General Stephen Day, Deputy Director Cyber and Information Security at the Australian Signals Directorate, told the convention.

Across industry the scene was one of islands of excellence – “banks, telcos, some resource companies…. in a sea of comfortable ignorance”.

Canada and the US had some impressive cyber security technical solutions, the Northern European countries had a good grasp of the threat from Eastern Europe and the UK had a very good outreach to industry.

However, Australia was at the leading edge – though not on its own – in thinking about and acting on cyber security, a situation in which the recently-formed Australian Cyber Security Centre would play an ongoing key leadership role.

The task of drawing EW, intelligence and cyber together into Intelligence Mission Data (IMD) that will link, enable and enhance a number of future RAAF and RAN platforms and systems was outlined by Group Captain Richard Trotman-Dickenson, Officer Commanding the RAAF’s Information Warfare Wing.

Giving probably his last public presentation before retiring after 38 years with the RAAF, Air Vice Marshal Kym Osley, Head of Capability Transition at Air Force Headquarters, envisaged a system by which every coalition sensor is linked to provide actionable intelligence to a common intelligence database in near real time, thus feeding the IMD requirements of future weapons systems.

He also noted that EW/Information Operations (IO) assets designed for high end conflict must also be able to be applied effectively in lower-end conflicts. As director of Air Operations for the Coalition air forces over Iraq and Afghanistan in 2006/07, the invariable cry was for more ISR/EW/IO rather than strike capability.

UK perspective
UK EW expert Dr Bob Andrews described pressure in Europe to bring down the cost of EW equipment via open architecture, modularity, and industrial cooperation, but warned of the impact of distrust between the military and industry, and problems over sovereignty.

“The UK is having some big fights about being able to control the EW data going into new platforms. If you want to protect your sovereignty, your EW database, JEWOSU (Joint Electronic Warfare Operational Support Unit), you don’t want to give it to anyone else, that’s your data,” he commented.

Ken Crowe, Director of Strategy and Business Development at Northrop Grumman Australia – whose US parent company manufactures the Triton high-level long endurance Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) – suggested that Australian industry focus on EW/ISR payload development and integration to suit Australia’s unique conditions.

“Australia must be very careful that there is a clear demarcation between the way the payload operates and the way the air vehicle operates,” he said. “You’ve got to be tough. You’ve got to be able to put whatever you want on it and not be beholden to another external organisation to do that. If you don’t grab the integration IP before you sign that contract you’re screwed for the rest of the life of the system.”

This broadly fell in line with Mike Holmes, Manager Strategic Development, Land and Integrated Systems at BAE Systems Australia, who suggested that EW would disappear as a domestic industry capability if the only work available was to support EW equipment purchased from abroad.

Healthy PIC?
Holmes queried the accuracy of the DMO’s 2012 health check of the EW Priority Industry Capability (PIC), which found it to be “reasonably health”.

“I don’t wish to labour the point, but (neither) I, nor anyone I have spoken to in the recent past across industry and parts of Defence, can fathom what this is supposed to mean….. I can tell you this PIC does not feel healthy to be in.”

Holmes said there was no visible Defence advocate for EW. Although Defence had done some work to reposition EW in their own operational sense, in particular Navy, this did not translate into an industry outcome.

He added that industry at some levels was treated with distrust, at least to the point where Defence planners actively kept distance between themselves and industry for fear of upsetting the “laser-like” level playing field maintained by Australia.

“Who is this room has had exposure to a Defence EW plan?” he asked, suggesting that the cooperative Defence-industry relationship in the JORN over-the-horizon radar system could provide a model for the way ahead.  

comments powered by Disqus