Page 66 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

Such a kill web would be empowered by a force at sea which can reach back and forward to air assets
deployed throughout the region.

With the Russians deploying tactical weapons – notably cruise missiles – with reach deep into what the UK
would consider strategic space, the need to deter, and defeat such threats will be increasingly important.

With the Eurofighters flying both from the UK over the North Sea, and forward deployed, and with the F-
35Bs deployed off of the Queen Elizabeth, such an integrated force can be built as part of both homeland
defense and an extended kill web extending into Northern Europe.

And such integration can lay the foundation for the further modernization of the UK surface fleet, as the new
destroyers can deploy combat systems, which can co-evolve with those of the F-35.

Rather than thinking of the kill chain, the kill web is about engagement forces in an area of interest, which can
operate throughout the distributed battlespace and defeat an adversary throughout the kill area.

The sensor-shooter relationship is within the distributed battlespace and not attributed to the strike platform
itself.

The idea of shift from a linear kill chain and hub-and-spoke operations to one of an distributed force
contributing to capabilities across the integrated battlespace was highlighted by a key Australian RAAF
leader:

According to Air Commodore Roberton, the CO of the Air Combat Group, the RAAF is going through a three-
phase process and “we are only at the first step.

“We need to be in the position where our maritime surface combatants are able to receive the information
that we’ve got airborne in the RAAF assets. Once they’ve got that, they’re going to actually be trying to be
able to do something with it.

That is the second level, namely where they can integrate with the C2 and ISR flowing from our air fleet.

But we need to get to the third level, where they too can provide information and weapons for us in the air
domain.

That is how you will turn a kill chain into a kill web. That’s something that we want in our fifth generation
integrated force.

And in a fifth generation world, it’s less about who is the trigger shooter but actually making sure that
everybody’s contributing effectively to the right decisions made as soon as possible at the lowest possible
level.

And that is why I see the F-35 as an information age aircraft.

I’m less concerned about the load outs on the F-35. You can give it another ten weapon stations and you
would miss the core point.

What’s actually important is how the F-35 makes other weapon providers or effect providers out there far
better and shape faster reaction times.
Second Line of Defense

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