Contemporary Operational Theatre and an Old Concept for Survivable Command Posts

How does command and control survive against Russian use of force?

 An excellent article by Raido Saremat, “The issues with the command posts in modern warfare”[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/issues-command-posts-modern-warfare-raido-saremat-n5jsf/],  brought to my mind the Transferable Operation Centre (TOC) prototype project from early 2000. I was privileged to participate in the Northern Command of Defence Forces Finland. 

The challenge to have enough human competency in proximity to create viable plans, conduct complex operations, or analyse sound assessments of adversary intentions while surviving on the battlefield was our driver in those scenarios and today’s Ukrainian theatre. 

Our team used the spiral development method over three years to incrementally build-test-improve a concept for Transferable Operation Centre that would ensure human proximity while improving survivability under intense C2 warfare. 

Instead of having a single, slowly transferable headquarters (HQ), the project introduced a swarm of command post elements. Each element consisted of five staff officers and two support persons. These elements could be housed in fixed shelters, transferable containers, civilian or military vehicles or only officers carrying their computers in suitcases. 

Concept

Command post elements could be deployed together in close quarters within protective facilities or distributed anywhere over a wide area network (WAN). Each element was designed to be operable within 15 minutes from arrival and dismantled within the same time due to departure. The access connection was wireless (WLAN). If the command post element was mounted in a vehicle, the assembly and disassembly could be even quicker. 

The survivability of the transferrable operation centre is adjustable to the threat environment by varying the location, number of elements, strength of assembly, and movement of elements. Swarming TOC concept supported, for example, the following scenarios:

• In peacetime, all components can be assembled in a large shelter or industrial warehouse to maximise physical proximity.
• For task or forward post situations,  a selection of planning, C2 and Intel elements could create a forward command post either on the same site or distributed within the access network.
• The elements would be geographically distributed and divided into shifts during intense operations and under high risk. The duty shift of C2 would be online and conducting operations. The second C2 shift would be resting, and the third shift would be training and readiness to take over if the duty element is lost.

The outcome is a virtual headquarters that is not dependent on any location or computer. All information services and databases are clustered in the cloud computer infrastructure, providing operational awareness, planning tools, and analysing applications to the whole theatre of battle. 

Adversaries would not have fat HQ targets to hunt with image or signals intelligence, but tens or hundreds of small elements of 5 experts distributed in the theatre and cloud computing infrastructure that would be distributed to tens of data centres in the country and abroad.

Lessons from experimentation

Because of the spiral development method, each year of development included several live exercises. One of them provided positive feedback, although reserve officers both used and operated the TOC services for the first time: [https://c4isys.blogspot.com/2013/01/spiral-development-of-c4isr-system.html]

1. Those processes staffed with off-duty and on-duty shifts suited the virtual CP concept well and allowed the CP site to transfer every time the shift changed.
2. With online support and IT-skilled reserve officers, the technical support for each element transfer was sufficient.
3. The establishment time needed for each user to gain access and start working with the operational picture and planning process was eliminated to minutes after arrival at the CP site.
4. All information and documents must be digital and stored in the cloud to enable digital staff work.
5. The security can be adhered to while working with secure and restricted information systems over a public access network.
6. The collaboration enhanced with VoIP-telephone and virtual whiteboard enables practical virtual staff work among distributed command post elements.

It seems that the military were foreseeing a scenario that we all were forced to adapt during the COVID pandemics.

Man versus Machine at Combat Tactical Level Decision Making

The human ability to collect information, make sense of a situation, optimise action, and learn while executing has been challenged recently in games, simulators, diagnoses, and real-time analysis. How may this development reflect to future tactical combat level decision-making? Is the machine going to win the man in combat?

"This requires not only substantial investment in resources but also an open-minded and exploratory approach, in contrast to the common but sometimes exaggerated perception of military organisations as conservative entities." Meir Finkel (Finkel 2023)

"Fifth-generation warfare shifts the focus from kinetic force in physical dimension to the impact information dimension, where narratives and perceptions take centre stage, enabled by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics." Daniel Abbott (Abbott 2010)

The article reviews some recent achievements in artificial intelligence, sets the situation for the combat technical level functions, digs deeper into decision-making under stressful conditions and illustrates a possible vision for the future state. The aim is to shake the historically conservative concepts of land battle to consider future possibilities.

Artificial Intelligence Improvements in Decision Making

A view to the evolution of machine learning improvements in various strategic-tactical games and competitions in Table 1 shows that machines are catching up and dominating men in table, card and video games and creativity competitions. Furthermore, fast-learning general-purpose algorithms are beating dedicated algorithms in those same games. 

Table 1: A sample of improvements in Machine learning applications in gaming and creativity

Year	Confrontation	Improvement
1997	Chess: DeepMind against Garry Kasparov	It took IBM 11 years to build and use customised chips to execute parallel searches. DeepMind was able to evaluate 200 million positions per second.
2016	Go: AlphaGo against Lee Sedol	A neural network-based algorithm first learned from game data, then played against itself, and finally, improved based on made mistakes. AlphaGo was able to create an unseen move during the game.
2017	Chess: AlphaZero against Stockfish (2016 top chess engine)	General purpose reinforcement learning algorithm that learned Chess after playing 4 hrs against itself. AlphaZero was able to assess 80 000 positions per second.
	Shogi: AlphaZero against Elmo (2017 world champion Shogi engine)	The algorithm learned the game after playing 2 hrs by itself. AlphaZero was able to assess 40 000 positions per second on a board that has more options than Chess.
	Go: AlphaZero against AlphaGo Lee (advanced Go engine)	Deep neural network with tabula rasa reinforcement learning algorithm. The algorithm learned the game within three days while playing itself.
	Poker: Liberatus against four champion poker players	The algorithm used a game theoretic approach for reasoning in an imperfect information environment while playing simultaneously against four human players with the following abilities: ·        Managing the whole poker competition in advance ·        Solving each game during the contest ·        Self-improvement after each day of the three-week competition
2019	Dota 2: Open AI Five against a Team of 5 esport players	The algorithm used proximal policy optimisation. The algorithm used 800 petaflops/s to gain about 45 000 years of experience within ten months. The short-term average decision time was 80ms.
2020	AlphaFold2 doubled the score of human competitors in Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction.[1]	The algorithm predicted 3D structures based on complicated rules faster and more holistic than a human.
2022	AI model that uses tens of terabytes of Earth system data and can predict the next two weeks of weather tens of thousands of times faster and more accurately than contemporary forecasting methods.[2]	With enormous amounts of data, ML algorithms can create forecasts of very complex phenomena.

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[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/23/1045016/ai-deepmind-demis-hassabis-alphafold/

[2] https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/05/1075865/eric-schmidt-ai-will-transform-science

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In conclusion and, in theory, a machine combined with the above features could:

1. Starts from zero knowledge and trains within months to master given battle scenario's technical, tactical, and possibly operational level features for victory.
2. Anticipates adversary moves ahead, creates picture of potential scenarios, and predicts adversary manoeuvring in 3-D space better than humans.
3. Makes short-term decisions within 80 milliseconds and optimises decisions simultaneously at technical and tactical levels.
4. Identifies lessons from the events and gains 150 years of theoretical combat experience teaching itself overnight.

 

Technical Level of Ground Combat is a Complex Military Decision-Making Environment

Probability and chance are well-recognised (Clausewitz 1984) (Fuller 2012) (Oliviero 2021) factors of battle environment. Tactics-technical level combat capability is a sum of surprise, manoeuvre, mass, firepower, and tempo (to name some essential tenets) orchestrated in variety of combinations with Command and Control to disrupt the adversary's socio-technical military system and exhaust its fighting ability. (Friedman 2017) The tactical tenets are in transformation to address the foreseeable changes on the battlefield. First, let's review the most likely changes in land warfare and, second, see what they will require from tactical tenets.

RUSI Land Warfare Conference (RUSI 2023) promoted the following tendencies of change in land warfare, which will challenge the contemporary tactics:

1. Transparent battlefield

• Civilian and military LEO satellite-based sensors provide a continuous feed of information from above the battlefield. The data can be acquired from commercial sources and fused with algorithms trained to identify especially military action on the ground.
• Unattended ground sensors improve details and add reliability to real-time event pictures.
• Cover and concealment become harder since sensors can fuse detection data from different parts of spectrum.
• Adversary will know the location and movement of blue forces as quickly as the information flows in the blue battle management system.

2. The concentration of effects vs protection

• Standoff weapons, lethal autonomous weapon systems, and precision warheads make it challenging to survive with contemporary armour. Adding armour thickness slows tactical mobility.
• Concentrated armoured units create a lucrative target for conventional artillery, attack helicopters, or massing of anti-tank UASs.
• Platforms and actors need to become more expendable and distributed but able for coordinated manoeuvres and fires.

3. Sustainment

• Logistics enables the tempo of fighting and is essential for offensive operations. Supplying distributed units require new delivery methods.
• Movement and mass of material expose logistics for continuous, wide-spectrum surveillance, so protection and endurance of logistics become a challenge.

4. Situational awareness

• An increasing amount of data and information challenges sense-making as human cognition overburdens from large amounts of information, loses focus in the stimulus-rich environment, and makes a biased conclusion.
• The organisational culture may prevent the distribution of information (need-to-know vs need-to-share; air-gap security vs zero-trust security), so situational awareness does not meet the requirements of distributed tactics. (Mansoor and Murray 2019)

5. Boundless, urban battlespaces

• People reside primarily in urban environments, and military strategies aim to "capture the will of the people and their leaders, and thereby win the trial of strength." (Smith 2005)
• Participating actors in urban battlespace may include, for example, civilians, communal authorities, law and rescue institutes, local corporates, international corporates, non-governmental organisations, insurgents, commercial military companies, interest groups, militias, criminal organisations, adversary regular forces and adversary coalition units. (Waterman 2019)
• The urban environment is more complex as these actors do not carry clear signs for identification, their intentions may transfer from day to night, and they do not follow agreements on war crimes.

In conclusion, the following Table 2 reflects the above tendencies to classical tenets of tactics and illustrates the possible impact in battle techniques and tactics and, therefore, change of tactical sense- and decision making.

Table 2: How do visible tendencies of change in land warfare affect tactical tenets of ground combat?

Tenet / Tendency	Surprise	Manoeuvre	Massing of force	Firepower	Tempo
Transparency	Surprise in land domain may be gained through other domains and dimensions.	Swarming manoeuvre of smaller, less detectable platforms.	Concentration becomes lethal, but dispersion rules.	Target acquisition is more lethal if situational awareness is achieved.	The advantage is harder to gain in a transparent battlefield.
Effect	Systems effect creates surprise and disrupts force cohesion.	A large, moving, hot, and radiating platform is an easy target.	Calls for a mass of nimble, small, and mobile warheads	The 4IR produces software-defined effectors.	Dispersed effectors will increase friction and entropy.
Sustainment	N/A	Higher mobility and wider distribution obscures logistics.	Dispersed troops increase the logistical challenge.	Smart warheads require software maintenance.	Besides live supplies, the force needs technical maintenance.
Situational awareness	Digitalised C2 creates more cognitive bottlenecks.	Becomes a core enabler and vulnerability for the swarming of distributed effectors.	Becomes a core enabler and vulnerability.	Becomes a core enabler and vulnerability.	Becomes a core enabler and vulnerability .
Urbanisation	Provides concealment in the physical dimension.	Slows manoeuvre and promotes smaller, autonomous, and agile platforms.	Constraints massing of units, but prefers small, swarming effectors.	Favours defence but constraints offence.	Slows down units and increases their entropy.

Art of Military Sense- and Decision-making

A Concept for Sense- and Decision-making

The classical military decision-making framework defined by John Boyd is simplified as Observe, Orient, Decision, and Action (OODA) (Osinga 2007). Based on this framework, Figure 2 illustrates a concept for sense- and decision-making. In this context, sense-making consisting of observation and orientation, which interprets the equivocal data. (Mattila 2016) Furthermore, decision-making is searching and selecting alternatives optimising between projected results, capabilities, and constraints. (Mattila 2016) The concept has three different situational pictures: real-time events per domain, composed operational picture, and forecasted possible/intended situations, which are referred to existing information and, finally, shared and agreed upon at the socio-cognitive level.

Figure 2: Concept for Observe, Orient and Decide at the Military tactical level

The above Command and Control (C2) concept may be established with an emphasis on creative leadership or policy compliance. These emphases are founded in the culture from which armed forces are generated. For example, German culture from 1871 – 1945 promoted officers' autonomous and aggressive action on the battlefield. (Mansoor and Murray 2019) Conversely, after the forceful manipulation of Bolshevik government, Russian culture produced obedient younger officers and relied on experienced and resourceful commanders at the operational level. (Freedman 2022)

A Team of Military Officers in Decision-making

A successful military command should be a mixture of compliance with institutional management culture and creative operational art. (Kuronen 2015) German culture before WW II reflected the war as "an art, a free and creative activity founded on scientific principles." (Condell and Zabecki 2008) The US FM 5-0 requires adaptive leaders"…who do not think linearly, but  who instead seek to understand the complexity of problems before seeking to solve them…" (Cojocar 2011) On the other hand, NATO assesses military success with five measures of merit and only one of them, measures of performance (MoP), includes some personal leadership features. (CCRP 2002) The other four enforce doctrinal and process compliance. (NATO RTO 2002) The 1/5 ratio in expectations does not indicate innovative tactical decision-making from NATO officers.

At the tactical commitment level, all efforts should focus on gaining the initiative and, eventually, victory over the adversary (reduction of adversary combat power by more than 30%). (Oliviero 2021, 51) In reality, this is not necessarily evident for all officers: 

• Training enforces drills and tactical forms, so officers prefer to use familiar concepts to solve battlefield challenges in decision-making. 
• Viewpoints may be constrained by their basic training and arms. An infantry officer aims to gain ground, an armoured forces officer aims to gain distance, or an artillery officer assesses ranges, amount of ammunition and supplies to impose a particular effect. 
• The Red Force doctrine, officers are training against, remains linear, predictable, and unimaginative adversary. 
• Since live exercises are expensive, officers train their tactical decision-making in war games, which often neglect friction, fog, chaos, and cognitive stress present on the battlefield.

Studies (Henaker 2022) (Scott and Bruce 1995) (Loo 2000) have concluded that there are five different decision-making styles categorising individuals when making important decisions: Rational, Intuitive, Dependent, Avoidant and Spontaneous.

1. Rational seeks information systematically and prefers logical assessment. However, rational has challenges in creativity and implementation of decided intent.
2. Intuitive recognises details from the information flow and matches patterns that feel right. Intuitive relates positively to creativity and difficulty-solving. 
3. Dependent seeks social conformance from others before decision-making. The decision-making process may be distracted and in need of social support.
4. Avoidant tries to postpone decision-making because of their low self-esteem. Still, avoidant is compliant with policies, doctrines, and orders. Avoidant is not suitable for creativity and tends to have high stress levels.
5. Spontaneous tries to accomplish decision-making as soon as possible. Spontaneous does not like conflict situations but perform well in rash decision and high-risk situations.

Human vs Machine Decision-making in Future Battlefield

The section fuses the tenets of tactical combat with visible transformations and tries to reflect these new situations in human-centric and machine-centric decision-making as featured in previous sections. Table 3 illustrates the outcome of the fusion from the view of two champions:

• Human is assumed as an average decision-making officer with 3-4 years of military education and about five years of professional experience with, possibly, one year of experience gained in live tactical action. 
• Machine is assumed to be a high-performance computer running a combination of continuously learning algorithms, expert algorithms, and pre-trained algorithms with real-life or synthetic data. Digital connectivity is supposed to be at combat cloud level . 

Table 3: Human vs Machine decision-making in transforming tactical combat environment

Transforming tenets of tactical combat feature decision-making challenges	Human	Machine
Transparency increases information and requires more computing power to make sense of collected data. Tactics prefer smaller, profoundly dispersed, manoeuvrable effectors, which swarm for effect, and retreat quickly.	Available data and information may overburden the cognitive ability to comprehend the situation.	A machine can recognise images, find patterns from large data mass, and forecast complicated, interdependent behaviour.
Effect calls systems understanding for system-wide impact. Dispersed effectors are harder to control and coordinate. Software-defined precision requires better target acquisition and configuration.	The adversary must be understood as multi-dimensional actor-network (Inglis and Thorpe 2019). Dispersed effectors require coordination of larger volume of details.	A machine can map the COA spectrum, model complicated, interdependent systems, and optimise the action of small effectors.
Sustainment of distributed, cyber-physical platforms requires more flexible and expert maintenance.	Rising complexity of critical paths on availability or sustainment may overwhelm cognitive capacity under stress.	With a digital-twin model and scenario-based simulation, a machine creates an overall logistics picture and can optimise sustainment.
Awareness is achieved by delegating sense-making to lower cooperative level or improving the information management ability of a steeper, hierarchical command structure.	Socio-cultural structures and beliefs handicap the application of the optimum C2 method.	Socio-cultural structures do not constrain a machine, and it can act even with partial information environment.
Urbanisation increases entropy, slows the tactical pace, increases casualties, raises the need for sustainment, and makes the environment and situation harder to understand.	The urban environment increases entropy and requires more innovative decision-making.	A machine makes sense of complicated situation even with partial information, recognises faster volatile behaviour, and optimises effort and sustainment.

A Company Commander Meets an Ex-Machina Battle Captain

When a Human Commander meets an Ex-Machina Captain within a tactical scenario on a future battlefield, the parties of combat may have the different abilities for decision-making. In situation with equal forces, linear doctrines, and a reasonably stable battlefield, the company commander does not have a chance against Ex-Machina. A creative human commander may gain an advantage in more chaotic conditions and with innovative tactics. Are our military institutes educating agile officers? Still, higher man-machine teaming performance indications are positive in Dota 2 strategic game, but it remains to be studied in future articles.

 

Figure 3: Man vs machine in tactical decision making

 Zero Trust Security Architecture in Military Cyber Environment

Summary

• Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is rooted in the principle of “never trust, always verify.” Zero Trust design aims to protect modern cyber environments and enable digital transformation by using strong authentication methods, leveraging network segmentation, preventing lateral movement, providing Layer 7 threat prevention, and simplifying granular, “least access” policies. 
• ZTA is replacing the previous trust on domain ownership and airgap isolation in access management as part of information security.
• The military has adopted or is adopting the new foundation for security trust as they proceed with digital transformation.

What is a Zero Trust Security Architecture?

Information security architecture is about trust. The military has a long tradition of trusting an entity if it is a part of the owned domain (SIPRNET), physically separated from others (AIR GAP), situated in a know location (Camp), the user represents a trusted organization or uses authorized terminal (Workstation in a Command Post). 

Unfortunately, the digital transformation of military enterprises is not possible based on these old trusts (Snowden , Teixeira , data breaches doubled in 2022 in DoD ) but require access from mobile terminals (no place), Adhoc networks (no domain), quickly changing roles (no organization) and via a variety of terminal (no workstation). Therefore, it is hard to establish the foundation for trust when everything can change. Hence, A zero-trust architecture (ZTA) is an enterprise cybersecurity architecture based on no-trust principles designed to prevent data breaches and limit internal lateral movement. 

The NIST SP800-207  and the CISA ZT Maturity Model v2  are the most used references for the ZTA. They also provide examples of migration roadmaps from perimeter trust towards zero trust. The following principles define the zero-trust approach:

1. Every access request starts from a position of zero trust (applies to all entities - humans, devices, services).
2. Authorization is granted based on dynamic context (risk-based), ideally per request.
3. Assume a breach - of user ID (including machine or application service ID), access device, or transport network. 

Naturally, the above level of untrust requires 24/7 monitoring and a thorough understanding of one’s information and computing assets. Therefore, a consolidated cloud computing architecture usually enables Zero Trust and helps build Digital Trust. 

The NIST SP800-207defines seven tenets for ZTA as follows:

1. All data sources and computing services are considered resources.
2. All communication is secured regardless of network location.
3. Access to individual enterprise resources is granted on a per-session basis.
4. Access to resources is determined by dynamic policy.
5. The enterprise monitors and measures the integrity and security posture of all owned and associated assets. 
6. All resource authentication and authorization are dynamic and strictly enforced before access. 
7. The enterprise collects as much information as possible about the current state of assets, network infrastructure, and communications and uses it to improve its security posture.

How are Military Organizations Proceeding with ZTA?

Typically, military organizations are found somewhere along the evolutionary path of information security. Depending on their position, they can proceed with small steps or take a revolutionary leap to enable the full features of digital transformation.  For example, Table 1 provides a view of what is going on in military information security.

Armed Force	Areas of ZTA Application	Plans for the Future
FIN	2008 secured Internet service within a Confidential domain[1] 2009 Secret session over untrusted networks with trusted terminal 2015 Any confidentiality level session over any access network on any available terminal[2]	N/A
US	2021 Executive order to USG to move to Zero Trust Architecture[3] 2022 US DoD Path to Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)[4]	FOC 2027 for cloud-based services JADC2 will be based on ZTA[5]
5 Eyes	2023 Aligning the 5 Eye Nations ZTA approaches[6]	N/A
EUMS	2022 Regulations for a high common level of cyber security, digital operational resilience, and resilience of critical entities  [7]	N/A

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[1] https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000001436589.html

[2] https://www.defmin.fi/files/1834/tietojohtaminen.pdf

[3] https://www.strongdm.com/blog/zero-trust-executive-order-14028

[4] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3229211/dod-releases-path-to-cyber-security-through-zero-trust-architecture

[5] https://defensescoop.com/2023/04/12/army-at-the-crawl-phase-in-journey-to-zero-trust

[6] https://www.cybersecurityconnect.com.au/defence/8574-five-eyes-alliance-discusses-zero-trust-cybersecurity

[7] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/

Link to original article in Adobe https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:a62996a1-24a6-3cfc-b69c-c7b5fde8088e

 Combat Cloud 

Introducing modern computing and communications technology for 

the multi-domain fighting edge

"The western Armed Forces are at the centre of an "information in war" revolution, where the speed of information and advance of technology and organisational design are merging to change the execution of military operations. The 21st century demands a new, more agile, and integrated operational framework for the employment of allied military power, and to shift away from the structure of segregated land, air, and sea warfare." 

Definitions

Original concept created by David A. Deptula (ret Gen USAF) defines combat cloud  as an operating paradigm where information, data management, connectivity, and command and control (C2) are core mission priorities. According to Deptula, Combat cloud:

• Treats every platform as a sensor and an "effector," and require a C2 paradigm that enables automatic linking, seamless data transfer capabilities, while being reliable, secure, and jam-proof. 
• Inverts the paradigm of combined arms warfare— making information the focal point, not operational domains. 
• Represents an evolution where individually networked platforms—in any domain—transform into a "system of systems" enterprise, integrated by domain and mission-agnostic linkages.

USDOD 2016 approach is to extend their Joint Information Environment (JIE) to tactical edge and platforms with combat cloud which is "an overarching meshed network for data distribution and information sharing within a battlespace, where each authorised user, platform or node transparently contributes and receives essential information and can utilise it across the full range of military operations." 

European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) concept seeks information control in theatres of operations.  It "requires a significant transformation of our operational architectures to place data at the heart of the future combat cloud. Expertise in the end-to-end architectures of functional chains should ensure interoperability, resilience and digital security of all systems and the sharing of information between all military personnel." 

Cloud computing "is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e. g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction." 

Fog/Edge computing "is a horizontal, physical or virtual resource paradigm that resides between smart end-devices and traditional Cloud or data centres. This paradigm supports vertically-isolated, latency-sensitive applications by providing ubiquitous, scalable, layered, federated, and distributed computing, storage, and network connectivity." 

New technology enables improved tactical effects

Evolution of commercial technology

Evolution of smartphone-based digital services, shortly:

1. First smartphones integrated mobile phone and more computing performance. They were able to run applications on the phone and present information on-screen like calendar, notes, games, email, fax reader, etc. as in 1995 Nokia Communicator 9000 . These phones downloaded ringtones over a slow data connection.
2. With better data transfer capabilities, smartphones were connected to the Internet with a higher speed network on 2.5 G mobile communications . This opened the mobile Internet and lead to specific smartphone applications to browse and utilise Internet services. Around 2000, the first sensor – camera – was integrated into a smartphone which made more than a terminal.
3. Around 2007, the iPhone debuted and provided downloadable music services. Application store enabled users to download a wider variety of applications to their smartphones. Cloud-based social media applications like Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006) emerged and accelerated social content sharing.  
4. Introduction of 4G mobile network, integration of sensors in smartphone (proximity, gravity, gyro, compass, barometer, fingerprint, camera, posture, etc.), more sophisticated cloud-based services and improved computer performance in smartphones have brought us to a realm where you go to a foreign country, speak to the phone your order, application in phone uses a cloud-based translator to convey your speech into the required language. Audio generator in phone speaks out your order in the local language.
5. Introduction of smart (home, car, city) with 4G connectivity enables collecting a broad spectrum of sensor data fused with information from cloud databases. Your references by Facebook provide your phone screen or AR goggles a 3D presentation of information.
6. Introduction of Internet of Things, Remote controlled devices, Autonomous devices, and 5G connectivity enable machines to exchange data, influence each other, learn from each other's (machine learning) and conduct complex functions semi-autonomic manner. All Things on Internet have sensors collecting information from their environment, 5G connectivity transfers the data with less than 50 ms delay, edge computers fuse and process data and feed it back to effector interfaces, AR/VR interfaces present events to human decision-makers within conceivable context, machine effectors take a predefined action.

In summary, advanced computer performance, robust and fast network connections, standard protocols, and interfaces, learning machines, and better user interfaces for humans promote new man-machine cooperation for private and public life. Military do adopt these technologies but with slower pace. The legacy Tactical Datalink (TDL 11, 16, or 22) anchors tactical communications at the level of first generation of smart phones enabling man-to-man communications over voice and message. With more remote and automated platforms, the battlefield needs advanced means for communications and computing.

Evolution of tactical military communications and computing

When studying the evolution of US DoD tactical data communications (TADIL), one can conclude that they have had challenges to migrate to newer technologies once the common interface has been established. For example, their intent to update or replace the legacy TADILs (L11 and L16) may look like the illustration in Figure:

• US faces challenges in changing their existing TDL baseline quickly (challenges in JTRS program, freezing MADL). Thus, they adopt a strategy first to host many existing datalinks and their waveforms on the same HW platforms and achieve complex but sufficient interoperability. It may be the unmanned vehicles that have more flexible IP network applications over high-speed Mobile Access Networks.
• Since Link 22 is compatible with L11 versions, it may become a parallel link. Still, it may be possible that the unmanned vessels and Intranet of Military Things will accelerate new IP MANET networks to bypass both (L11 and L22) old fashioned, TDMA based systems.
• Seemingly US prefers the L16 based interoperability higher than other, more capacity providing TDL formats. They might have MIDS JTRS onboarded gradually delivering more waveforms in constrained space available in aircraft. New aircraft F-35 etc. may also open some existing constraints, but tactical interoperability may be preferred more than technical advantage. This may change only if RUS or CHI releases their ability to suppress L16 waveform and encryption.
• However, an L16 network remains very complex to plan for each engagement and requires meticulous management by the Joint Data Link Management Cell. It is therefore not a Mobile Ad Hoc Network like our telephone networks, for example. Its bandwidth is also minimal and its latency high. The exchange capacities offered by these TDL messaging systems are also limited.  
• Land forces have their WIN-T base station network in place. Next, they are planning to constellate LEO communications satellites to support the ground connectivity and connect soldiers to that trunk network with Handheld, Manpack and Small form fit (HMS) radios of JTRS family.
• Modern US military networks and datalinks are an excellent example of sub-optimised systems designed for a particular task within a specific weapon system. Not a generic databus between a variety of sensor and shooter platforms. These stand-alone links include Link-16, Intra-Flight Data Link (IFDL), Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT), Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), and the Joint Aerial Layer Network (JALN) concept.  
• From a technical viewpoint, TCP is not applicable in distorted channels of communications. Thus, a middleware-based Data Distribution Service may be discovered as a solution for future control and data transfer applications.  Furthermore, the data fusion requirements of fifth-generation aircraft (fusion warfare being the hallmark of the F-35) or the architectures being implemented step by step as of today by the US Navy (Cooperative Engagement Capability, then Naval Fire Control - Counter Air, then its extension to other missions) may accelerate the migration.  

Figure: One approach to US TADIL evolution

The Combat Cloud initiative and FCAS programme both provide strong need to lay off the constrained legacy connectivity and seek more man-machine teaming networks provided on ground, air, and space-based communications nodes.

Different approaches to combat cloud

Network Centric Warfare (NCW) or Network Enabled Capabilities (NEC)

Both US and NATO have been building network-centric or enabled warfare capabilities since the 1990s. The original idea was to break the platform centricity and connect sensors, decision-makers, and shooters to enable combined tactics. Therefore, the Combat Cloud concept reawakens the old principles but at a tactical level enabled with new technology.

The Network-Centric Warfare doctrine presented a fundamental shift in military culture, away from compartmentalised war machines and towards interconnected units operating cohesively. The tenets  of Network Centric Warfare were: 

• A robustly networked force improves information sharing.
• Information sharing enhances the quality of information and shared situational awareness.
• Shared situational awareness enables collaboration and self-synchronisation and enhances sustainability and speed of command.
• Speed of command, in turn, dramatically increases mission effectiveness.

The vision is much the same, and is an evolution of networking in US Armed Forces:

• Global Information Grid (GIG) from the mid-1990's providing connectivity and computing for strategic and operational levels, 
• 2014's Joint Information Environment was trying to introduce a single source of truth and present it on a standard pane of glass to all users:

- a 'single' or joint environment to all support operations. 

- to utilise modern cloud technologies

- supporting concepts of mobility (access anywhere, any place, any device).

• 2020's JEDI initiative which seeks to consolidate all DoD computing on private Cloud and extend its services to soldiers from home garrison to abroad areas of operation, and 
• 2030's Combat Cloud will connect combined sensors, effectors and decision-makers at a tactical edge with remarkably more computing power to make sense of the information flow.  

US DoD Combat Cloud

• 2014 Gen(ret) David A Deptula's Combat Cloud "would integrate both manned and unmanned systems and utilise advances in stealth, precision weapons, and advanced command and control tools, ensuring that no single point of attack would cripple US combat operations. Such an effort would also present an opportunity to create modular, scalable combat capabilities, rather than force individual aircraft or other assets to take on more and more tasks." 
• In 2016 the USAF published its vision for a future network of data distribution and information sharing known as the combat cloud. It defined it as "an overarching meshed network for data distribution and information sharing within a battlespace, where each authorised user, platform or node transparently contributes and receives essential information and can utilise it across the full range of military operations."   It should also be noted that recent news articles indicate that USAF is planning to increase funding for their Combat Cloud in FY 2021.
• Rockwell Collins has developed the Ground Early Warning and Control System (GEWaCS)  utilising and modifying proven C2 systems.   The GEWaCS is comprised of hundreds of data processing engines connected by a virtualised network. The engines are hosted on Virtual Machines (VM) and are used to process, distribute, correlate, and store a cloud of a sensor, radar, and datalink tracks. Recently video tagging data has become available to the data link, enabling the display of sensor coverage in Link-16. Reaction times of days and hours are no longer viable – and this system allows for a commander to assign assets to a mission in real-time.

Other NATO countries

NATO's cloud-based operational network is called the Federated Mission Network (FMN) since 2015. The FMN is an evolution of the Afghanistan Mission Network. Furthermore, the European side of NATO is aiming to transform as follows:

• NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation: "It is a C4ISR [system] with the cloud ID and platforms that are either piloted or unpiloted…This is what we have to be able to build for the future, but we have to start it now." 
• The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is the critical project for French, German and Spanish air combat power from the 2040s onwards. In FCAS, the keyword is a 'system'. Because it will not be a manned aircraft or a drone, but a system of systems integrating, within a real cloud, sensors and effectors of various types and different generations."  

A NGF, future FCAS combat aircraft, a node of the Cloud at the extreme tactical edge, would thus comprise:  

• Various applications designed for its different operational functions.
• Automated analysis tools, possibly shared with other systems, implemented through its applications.
• Common services also shared with other systems, operating transparently for the pilot.
• Storage of large amounts of data.
• Connection to the communication network with other platforms and units, a "self-forming & self-healing" MANET network.

Following the award of the Phase 1A Demonstrators contract for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) earlier in the month, Airbus and Thales announced on 20 February that the two companies have agreed on co-development of the Air Combat Cloud (ACC) – a key enabler for the FCAS system of systems. 

France

Information control in theatres of operations requires "a significant transformation of our operational architectures to place data at the heart of the future combat cloud. Expertise in the end-to-end architectures of functional chains should ensure interoperability, resilience and digital security (cybersecurity) of all systems and the sharing of information between all military personnel."  The vision is illustrated in Figure.

Figure: View of combat air system by the French Air Force

General Breton, who heads the FCAS programme, explains that "an important aspect of innovation in FCAS will be networking: currently on the Rafale [in its present configuration] the pilot mainly uses own sensors and some information provided by the network". Thus, much of the data obtained by the aircraft is not shared, such as data from the Spectra system or the optronics sensor.  On FCAS [...] the transfer of data will be performed independently of the pilot, who will see the fused data. Nevertheless, he supervises the overall process. 

The French Air Force has also adopted an incremental approach to developing this Cloud, with milestones in 2025 and 2030, designed to prepare for the arrival of FCAS. This is the Connect@aero programme that goes hand in hand with the deployment of the F4 standard on the Rafale:

• introduction of a higher-speed communication system and additional connectivity ramifications, including munitions
• "detect enemy air defence systems with greater precision."
• "collaboratively adapt the trajectories and manoeuvres" of effectors and their munitions, in a degraded positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) environment. 

France aims to implement a "global air combat system" within the next decade.  

Requirements for the connectivity of multi-domain combined weapons effect and joint tactical engagement

The communications and computing infrastructure for multi-domain combined weapons effect shall treat every platform as a sensor, as well as an "effector." It will require a C2 paradigm that enables automatic linking and seamless data transfer capabilities while being reliable, secure, and jam-proof. The new infrastructure shall destroy the boundaries of current domains and make promoting information on the focal point.  The following tactical requirements need to be addressed.

Sensors and Target Acquisition

• Platforms that have longer-ranged weapons than their onboard sensors can acquire targets need hard quality target data from other platforms  
• The future battlefield is multi-domain and requires multi-sensor integration. Strategic fires require multi-sensor, stealthy, long-endurance aircraft, "redundant and resilient" information networks, and "self-learning, self-protection capabilities."
• New platforms like the F-22 and F-35 are information machines far above and beyond being killing assets.  
• Multi-function assets and aircraft, capable of performing a strike, ISR, and other tasks, will steadily replace mission-specific assets. Target engagement based around the need to "destroy" a given aim point will give way to effects-focused engagement, driven by improving capabilities such as cyber warfare tools.   
• As sensor fusion has evolved through artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies, it has become possible to fuse what appears to be seemingly disparate data. These advanced fusion engines need data - which may be stove-piped in 5th generation fighter aircraft, advanced electronic warfare systems, or within video streaming systems. Benefitting from this information requires combining sensor data and creating IDs, intent, and patterns of attack. 

Command and Control

• In an A2/AD warfare, a decision-maker can be in more places than before. The Recognised Operational Picture is available to everybody, enabling distributions of legacy command posts and cooperation beyond current line organisations. "We must prepare for an era of warfare requiring new levels of cross-domain collaboration, operational level command and control, and the dynamic integration of national, theatre, and tactical capabilities across the full range of military operations," 
• Data, information, and ISR gathering and analysis will evolve as knowledge management becomes even more critical, as will predictive instead of reactive analysis.

Fires

• Individual precision weapons will give way to "volumetric weapons," such as directed energy. 
• Massed, non-stealthy strike packages of manned aircraft will evolve into more distributed force packages, with greater low observable (LO) characteristics, and more use of automated systems.   

Concept of operations for combat cloud in a generic Armed Forces

In a scenario where the adversary is launching a full force amphibious attack to the shores of a nation, Armed Forces, together with other national security agencies, must have the seamless use of information as illustrated in Figure. 

Nature of the conflict

The attack takes place in all dimensions parallelly and aims to utilise the strategic surprise as long as possible. The strike may include, for example:

• Information operation trying to divide people from government officials, the cyber operation to shut down all government and local authorities web services, and electronic jamming to interfere TV and radio broadcastings.
• The cyber-electronic operation aims to suppress authorities' decision-making and transactions of key financial institutes by launching earlier injected malicious software attacks within the systems and assassinating VIP authorities.
• Kinetic amphibious attack to gain bridgeheads and foothold strategic targets like governmental offices, broadcasting stations, main transportation hubs, etc. The strike may include:

- Ballistic missile strikes against main command posts and government installations

- Suppression of coastal and air sensor systems by missiles or special forces

- Mining the flanks of the sea avenues for the incoming forces

- Blocking the junctions leading out from the garrisons and central depots

• Besides the above, the adversary has infiltrated unidentified troops within the nation in preparation. The distributed cells aim to create chaos and terror as much as possible to overwhelm the authority's decision making and create confusion among the population.

Requirements for cooperation

• As fixed sensor stations will be mostly destroyed, there is a need to use fused sensor information from space, air, mobile ground, and navy platforms to understand the main launch and bridgehead areas better.
• Getting and sustaining a situational awareness among the chaotic situation requires a fusion of event data simultaneously from the information/cognitive, electromagnetic, cyber environment, space, air, maritime and land domains. 
• The fused situational picture needs to be shared between all important tactical and operational decision-makers allowing the decision cooperation between different speciality agencies of each dimension.
• Target acquisition becomes essential, for example, for Air Force assets which are the fastest deployable assets. The available sensors need to cooperate in creating targeting information for the incoming fighter-attackers.
• As the theatre becomes rich in small tactical targets, the effect prioritisation becomes essential to focus on the most impacting adversary assets. Otherwise, the enemy tactics will quickly consume the operational ammunition and air assets dry up too fast.
• Cost-efficient and continuous impact with combined weapons is essential in a distributed target scenario. Therefore, the defence needs to assign fire missions to best suitable arms without friction caused by organisational boundaries.
• As tactical-level command and control are occupied in countering the ongoing attack, the operational level C2 should be seeing further and above the current situation. This requires cooperation over all the national defence actors in making sense of the enemy intent and their incoming second wave efforts.

Figure: A scenario of amphibious attack

The above scenario requires cooperation and therefore, interoperability between all domains and organisations. The basic idea for multi-domain collaboration is simple:

• Collect all event data from available sensors and sources
• Store it (so we can see the short and long term trends)
• Make sense of it (with the help of analytics/machine learning/AI)
• Pass it directly back to the decision-makers / soldiers who need the information.
• Further analyse the data at the operational level, make sense of an operational situation, and prepare for the next phases.

The multi-domain interoperability requires data sharing, joint fusion, and sense-making at tactical and operational levels detailed in Table.

Table: Interoperability requirements in multi-domain operations

Concept of technology for combat cloud

Technical characters

The US DoD aspires that a distributed, self-forming, all-domain combat cloud that is self-healing and difficult to attack effectively significantly complicates an enemy's planning and will compel them to dedicate more resources toward defence and offence. In its ultimate manifestation, the combat cloud will be strategically dislocating to any military challenger. A mature combat cloud will provide superior conventional deterrence to a degree previously only achieved by nuclear deterrence and enable operational dominance in multiple domains. 

The above end state requires significant changes within the entire air defence systems and takes longer to transform. The human competencies will especially face significant transfer from current platform-based capabilities and behaviour towards more system-oriented qualifications that require different trust and cooperation between distributed actors. The following assessment does not address the human or organisational changes but explains the main technological features that enable the Combat Cloud capability in communications, computing and security.

Communications

Joint Aerial Layer Network (JALN) is augmentation and extension of tactical networks using a variety of communications capabilities that will support operations in challenging or degraded communications environments within a joint operations area (JOA). Its primary purpose is to connect/reconnect combatants, executing specific missions and tasks. 

The JALN will:

• Integrate with space and surface layers
• Increase communications access for the joint force at all levels
• Enable on-the-move (OTM) and over-the-horizon (OTH) / beyond line of sight (BLOS) communications 
• Provide modular, scalable, and flexible operational capabilities
• Provide "mission persistent" connectivity as specified by the commander

 

Figure: Concept for Joint Aerial Layer Network

Computing

Computing is essential in processing big data within the digitalised air defence system. Computing is based on processors, storage, and software applications. They will have different life-cycles, which will challenge the current logistics and maintenance:

• With doubling the computing performance every 18 months, the standard processor becomes exponentially better but chip design and production more complicated. Specialised processors become rarer as the performance of standard processors improves much faster. The features become more software-defined than before, even within sophisticated platforms like fighter-attacker. Countries with processor design and manufacturing abilities will constraint their distribution during crises.
• Software-defined functions and features become more relevant, which means that systems are updated more frequently without changing the hardware. The whole length of the software supply chain will become a primary target for an attacker.  

Military computing may be distributed in the Joint Information Environment between platforms (fighter, sensor, soldier, tank) and global computing clouds: 

1. Platform computing - autonomy will increase the volume of computing required onboard. Embedded sensors and weapons on each platform will increase. Swarming tactics with fleets of platforms will improve the firepower. Civilian terminology calls this edge computing or embedded computing. Maintenance and configuration of these computerised systems require different competencies from support personnel. Example: F-35
2. Unit-based computing – all vehicles and platforms in a unit will onboard processors for their use and the use of the system. The system computing enhances information between the computing nodes and provides information services to soldiers and other machines. Civilian terminology refers to fog computing. For example, an infantry company becomes a cloud by itself and in connection to mission cloud. The company's computing nodes provide data storage and processing power to fuse sensor information and provide expert support for decision-makers even if it loses connections to mission cloud. Example: Finnish infantry company
3. Mission computing – computing network for a mission is based on fixed military data centres within national borders and deployed nodes in the area of operation. This private military Cloud is the backbone for data management in all military operational actions. Example: NATO Federated Mission Network
4. Hybrid computing – a computing network that combines onsite military data centres and public, global cloud service providers' infrastructure to a hybrid cloud infrastructure where military applications can support both military entities and their partners and vendors. Examples: US DoD JEDI hosting both NIPRNET and SIPRNET

Security and survivability

Communications security includes crypto security [i.e., encryption or decryption], transmission security, emission security [i.e., intercept and analysis of emanations from equipment], and physical security of COMSEC material.

Figure: Example of security applications on different OSI layers

The physical layer defines the physical connection between a computer and a network. Physical layer security is the cornerstone of all security controls. While security controls at other layers may fail without catastrophic results, the loss of physical security usually results in total exposure. In addition to physical security, transmission security is implemented on the physical layer. The physical layer implements, for example, frequency hopping (FH), spread Spectrum (SST), Automatic Power Control (APC)

The Datalink layer defines the protocol that computers must follow to access the network for transmitting and receiving messages.  The data link layer implements Authentication, Key management, Encryption.

• Why is Data Link layer security not enough? The reason is that Data Link encryption will change hop-by-hop in the network. Each layer three device adds their own layer two header to the data packets when transferring them to the other hop. Therefore, sole encryption on the Data Link layer would not be a safe solution. To fill these security issues, we need to use different technologies like IP-Sec (at Network Layer) which dedicates a private tunnel between the sending and receiving machines.

The Network Layer defines how the small packets of data are routed and relayed between end systems on the same network or interconnected networks. At this layer, message routing, error detection, and control of node data traffic are managed. Network layer security controls have been used Frequently for securing communications, especially over shared networks such as the Internet because they can protect many applications at once without modifying them. The network layer implements confidentiality, authentication and data integrity, key management, encryption. IPsec is implemented at the network layer.