Page 54 - Williams Foundation Air-Sea Integration Seminar

Shaping an Integrated Force in the Extended Battlespace

“How will your capability affect the other parts of the defense force, and what could you do in your area to
make sure that your capability is more effective supporting other elements of the force or becoming more
integrated with them in operations?”
“The general answer I got when I asked this question was, “Listen, I’m just too busy managing the acquisition of
the new platform, we will worry about that once we have it … we have to make sure we get our project
right.”
“What I saw was a work pressure and cultural issue: there is no imperative in people’s mind to say, “We’re
spending billions of dollars on this capability; how do I talk to my peers who are looking at other projects and
make sure collectively we achieve the best results?”
Question: The next Williams seminar is being crafted to deal with this challenge.
How are you going to go about it at Williams?
Blackburn: “What the integrated force design seminar is intended to do is to explore with Defence and
Industry people the reality that the technology will enable a very different way of building and fighting the
future force.
“By “designing” a capability as a team, we will have a far more effective integrated war fighting capability.
This is about war fighting and reducing operational risk, and that is a mental change, it’s not just a technology
change.
“My premise is that part of the problem of the integrated force design is a cultural and behavioral one.

FIGURE 21 SLIDE FROM AIR VICE MARSHAL (RETIRED) JOHN BLACKBURN PRESENTATION TO THE SEMINAR.

“We want to explore this opportunity by selecting a capability such as IAMD, a capability that requires Army,
Navy and Air Force and the Joint Staff to sit down together with industry and with academia to explore how
we can shape a new capability for Australia.
“The Americans have been there for a while, but this is going to a new space for us.
“What it requires us to do is to sit down and say collectively, “How we’re going to take all the assets that we
have, and those that are coming in the future, and make sure we’re going to produce an integrated force with
a superior war fighting capability in the extended battle space that will result in lower operational risk.”
Second Line of Defense

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