MULTI DOMAIN THREAT ANALYSIS
By John Rosenberger
Although the U.S. Army's ability to dominate land warfare remains unparalleled, we face peer competitors whose capabilities match, or in some cases, exceed our own. Future conflicts will involve conflict in all five warfighting domains: land, air, maritime, space, and cyber. Therefore, it is increasingly important our nation continues to develop and deploy new weapons and technologies that will ensure we remain dominant in each domain for years to come. In short, we must transform the Army and the Joint force to meet future warfighting requirements. This transformation provides the Joint Force with the range, speed, and ability to converge cutting-edge technologies needed to provide future decision dominance. As part of this transformation, the US Army conducts Multi-Domain Operations threat analysis to inform opportunities for future capabilities and needs.
The JANUS Approach
The Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (IEW&S) Experimentation Program executes military application of the scientific method to determine cause-and-effect relationships, collect data from a controlled environment, and analyze the data to validate the relationships to inform Army modernization efforts led by PEO IEW&S. JANUS works to provide experimentation support services for the PEO IEW&S Headquarters (HQs) Integration Directorate in conduct of this program, the primary focus being on Project Convergence (PC), Multi-Domain Operations Live (MDO-L) and Army Expeditionary Warfighting Experiment (AEWE).
The JANUS Research Group team supported the U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command (JMC) on Project Convergence 21 (PC21) and 22 (PC 22) the past two years, the U.S. Army's premier force modernization experiment, to ensure the Joint and multinational force can rapidly and continuously integrate or "converge" effects across all domains through intelligence gathering, data sharing, and interoperable systems to decide and act more swiftly against adversaries in competition and conflict.
JANUS Research Group provides a host of support services to the JMC who is directly responsible for planning, executing, and assessing PC 22, involving over 50 new warfighting systems under development by the Army's Cross Functional Teams, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Intelligence, Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force, Artificial Intelligence Task Force, and the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Special Operations Command.
While Project Convergence focuses on delivering data and cloud technologies to the tactical command, it is rooted in an overarching requirement to reduce the time to make tactical and operational-level decisions. JANUS' talented team provides a multitude of support services to JMC to support its Project Convergence mission. These services include:
- Experiment planning and use case development demonstrating the processes or systems used to accomplish decision dominance
- Creation of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) network architecture design, construction, and network accreditation
- System of system integration connecting separate computer systems and software applications into a unified system, allowing each domain to functionally work together. This front-line ability will help solve real-time, tactical issues to ensure overmatch against any adversary in future conflicts.
- Modeling, simulation and new equipment training focused on creating a tactical operation fully compatible with the Multi-Domain Operations concept.
- New equipment training for soldiers employing new systems and technologies
- Assessment of new organizational concepts and system capabilities, combined with operational research and analysis
- Post-experiment analysis and reporting to assist senior Army and Joint leadership in making investment and procurement decisions for the future force.
The Result
During the initial exercise at Yuma Proving Grounds, satellites, manned platforms, and mini-drones gathered and transmitted targeting specifics to an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-capable computer system able to analyze massive volumes of incoming data in seconds and make key determinations related to the threat and the optimal weapon to use against the target.
Building on this success, the Army took Project Convergence 2022 to a new level of connectivity by demonstrating advanced applications of cross-domain networking between Army, Navy, and Air Force technologies.
The idea is to attack at the 'speed of relevance' and integrate otherwise disparate pools of data and incoming sensor information. The faster that data can be shared and analyzed across multiple domains, the sooner an attacking force can get in front of or inside of an enemy's decision-making cycle and prevail in battle.
