Page 52 - Williams Foundation Air-Sea Integration Seminar
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Shaping an Integrated Force in the Extended Battlespace
The latest seminar of the Williams Foundation really brought out into the open the core challenges understood
from a maritime warfare perspective. The senior Navy leadership – US, UK and Australian – all focused on a
21st century concept of task forces, modular capabilities, and shaping the network as a weapon system.
We have successfully connected key platforms in shaping a more effective “joint” force in which air, sea and
land capabilities can be mutually supportable.
But the fifth generation perspective is not that; it is about operating key force structure elements in terms of
interactive, interconnected, and integrated operations.
It is about C2 built into the force, which allows the force elements closest the area of interest to provide lethal
effect and for the strategic leadership to assess that effect and reconfigure force up against strategic
objectives.
Put in other terms, we can assume we can connect platforms and operate as a “joint” force. But that simply
gives us layers of connected support to lead forces or platforms.
That is not enough for where information rich platforms such as the F-35 are headed – it is about taking a first
generation information dominant platform and welding it into a broader transformation which the US Navy
calls the kill web, that is how interactive and integrated task force elements can be welded into survivable
clusters of capabilities which can deliver lethal effect.
FIGURE 20 PLATFORMS IN THE EVOLVING INFORMATION AGE MILITARY
It is what Chief of Navy in Australia called creating a sovereign Australian Defence Force capability for lethal
effect executed in coalition in terms of distributed lethality.
It is what Commander of the Fleet calls enhancing the vulnerabilities of the adversary whilst reducing our own.
In the last formal presentation of the Williams Seminar on air-sea integration, John Blackburn, the former
Deputy Chair of the Williams Foundation and a past Deputy Chief of the RAAF, addressed the challenge of
building from the ground up a truly integrated force.
Second Line of Defense
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