By
Theresa Hitchens on May 11, 2021 at 5:02 PM
WASHINGTON: The Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), led by Joint Chiefs Vice-Chairman Gen. John Hyten, is asserting new powers to direct how the services fulfill Combatant Commanders’ needs to ensure the future Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) is not undercut by competing service imperatives and parochial rivalries.
This represents “a little bit of a different take on how the JROC has been run before,” said Brig. Gen. Rob Parker, deputy director of the Joint Staff J6 directorate for Command, Control, Communications, & Computers/Cyber. The idea, he told AFCEA today, is for the JROC to be “more prescriptive, directive to the services.”
Gen. John Murray
In March, BD’s Sydney Freedberg and Theresa Hitchens sat down for an exclusive hour-long interview with Gen. John “Mike” Murray, chief of Army Futures Command: Click here for Part I, Part II, and Part III. There was so much good material in these interviews that we decided to print this extended excerpt, edited for length and clarity, focusing on the vital issue of Joint All Domain Command and Control.
A: China is absolutely taking primacy in terms of pacing threats. It’s really an operational defense that we like to call A2/AD or anti-access/area denial, because it’s designed to keep us out. You remember [now-retired Lt. Gen.] Eric Wesley, he used to describe it as a boxer using a jab: So if you’ve got reach, you use the jab to keep your opponent at bay and at a distance.
“This is a journey to see what s possible, what can we do with today s technologies, for a relatively minor cost,” Gen. John Murray told us. “Project Convergence ’20 cost us about the same thing as one Combat Training Center rotation” $23 million.
By
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on April 05, 2021 at 2:42 PM
By
Theresa Hitchens on March 31, 2021 at 6:37 PM
A KC-46 refuels an F-35
WASHINGTON: Tankers and cargo aircraft could in future carry their own counter-air missiles or even launch missile-carrying drones to help them survive ever-more sophisticated enemy air defenses, Air Mobility Command head Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost says.
“We have hardpoints on the C-17; we have hardpoints on the KC-46. It’s not a hard stretch to think that we could put one or two missiles on there for self defense,” she told the Mitchell Institute today.
Van Ovost is keen on pushing creative ideas, including the use of “attritables” such as missiles and drones, to ensure the survivability of the air mobility fleet in future warfare with Russia and China recognizing that large, lumbering tankers and cargo jets make relatively easy and high value targets.
By
Theresa Hitchens on March 15, 2021 at 3:30 PM
Adm. Philip Davidson, INDOPACOM commander, greats former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on a visit to Hawaii.
WASHINGTON: Indo-Pacific Command has drafted a new warfighting concept for the Asian theater, designed to parallel the global Joint Warfighting Concept spearheaded by the Joint Staff, says George Ka’iliwai, INDOPACOM director for requirements.
The new INDOPACOM Warfighting Concept (IPWC) is being shepherded by the command’s J5 planning directorate, Ka’iliwai, who heads the J8 section (requirements), told reporters at the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) POST conference on Friday.
“As far as progress, the J5 has completed the concepts behind the IPWC. The J5 has also done what we call a ‘roadshow,’ and as socialized and vetted the IPWC with our component commanders,” he said. “And we still have a ways to go as far as working through the Department of Defense.”