Joint Air: Don’t Let Knowledge Slip Away
Nine years after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Navy stands at the edge of losing capital it has slowly accumulated over the years. Strike groups are trained to integrate into the joint air command and control (C2) environment throughout the Fleet Response Plan from the classroom through joint task force exercise. Yet when they enter the theater, they may as well be speaking a foreign language.
It seems as though we continually let knowledge slip away too easily when it will be very difficult to recover as combat operations commence in the next major theater operation. The Navy needs to clarify its course and game-plan.
Is joint air C2 a core mission? It is unclear whether or not we have prioritized giving the joint force maritime component commander (JFMCC) and strike groups the capability to collaboratively plan and execute at the joint operational and tactical levels. Critical parts of Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS) funding have been and continue to be targeted across the Future Years Defense Programs. This may be because of budgetary expediency, and yet Headquarters Marine Corps for Aviation has made air C2 a core priority. Is naval aviation leadership willing to do the same?
The concept and doctrine for JFMCC/maritime operations center/maritime headquarters have been documented. The numbered fleet commanders need to adapt and execute. The service must apply the composite warfare commander concept and define JFMCC relationship(s) with other components more in terms of C2 nodes with full C2 capabilities.
Our Joint Background
It has been more than 20 years since Operation Desert Storm when, by necessity, the air tasking order (ATO) was flown out by carrier-based antisubmarine warfare aircraft—Lockheed S-3 Vikings—from the combined air operations center (CAOC) to the carrier strike group. Since then our service has slowly but surely come into the world of distributive planning and real-time collaborative execution with respect to joint air operations. We have migrated to the joint system of record for air C2; we have created classes at the Fleet concentration centers, establishing a joint working relationship with the Air Force’s C2 Warrior School to ensure that selected Fleet air C2 billet holders get a critical basic understanding of joint air operations interrelationships. Finally, we now understand that manning the air operations center is a process that requires thought and preparation. We cannot show up on day one of the war saying, “Here are my targeting priorities Joint Force Air Component Commander.”
Our high-water mark occurred in the latter stages of major combat operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Over the course of that campaign, the Navy had a plan to fully integrate personnel into the combined air operations center ashore as augmentees and liaisons. Afloat, our aircraft carrier strike operations planning teams built planning shells for strike group direct support missions, forwarding them to CAOC combat plans where those sorties would appear on the ATO along with common use Navy missions planned by multiservice planners at the combined air operations center. Carrier air wing personnel stood the current operations watch-reporting air tasking order execution to CAOC combat ops. The process worked, though it wasn’t easy; and we came to realize that it was complex. The resultant product was a near-real-time status of missions available for reference laterally and vertically by all C2 levels, from Commander, Joint Task Force, to unit level.
Some think the Navy does not need to be an active planning participant in the joint air C2 process, but that is incorrect. As the combined air operations center shrinks in size, the components will be required to pick up more of the planning burden for both common-use and direct-support missions. The tools that enable collaboration and interoperability across these lines must be preserved and improved.
Preserve and Improve Tools
Service leadership must assess and formulate a recommendation for Fleet approval as to the scalability in level of effort required to execute and manage air C2 within the Navy based on the nature of operations. The capability to meet this requirement must take into account the number of organizations that possess an ability to execute C2 of air operations and those organizations’ capacity to function for any given level of operational intensity.
The Bureau of Personnel must ensure all identified Fleet air C2 billets are funded and filled with personnel who are properly trained to assume the roles and responsibilities in the process. En route, permanent change-of-station to schools is essential and must be funded.
United States Fleet Forces Command and commanders, Strike Force Training, Atlantic and Pacific, must ensure there remains a naval command and control of air operations (NC2AO) staff billet to deal with service and joint air C2 issues. The Fleet Forces Command NC2AO community manager must be empowered by leadership to represent the service and carry out air C2 requirements for the Navy. Under the NC2AO community manager, a comprehensive list of air C2 specialists must be available for contingency planning. This available manpower pool would be sent forward to the CAOC, maritime operations center, or ship to augment and relieve functional and manning burdens.
Commander Naval Strike Air Warfare Center, as the Navy’s lead on strike issues, should be designated Deputy–Combined/Joint Force Air Component Commander in the event of emerging theater contingencies. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Naval Strike Air Warfare Center commander served as Deputy Combined Force Air Component Commander, bringing forward many staff strike experts and overseeing a significant Navy augmentation/liaison presence at the Prince Sultan Air Base (Saudi Arabia) combined air operations center. This lesson cannot be lost in the shuffle of passing time.
The Theater Battle Management Core System (TBMCS) is the only capability we field that enables true joint planning, collaboration, and execution monitoring. The capability must be preserved to plan, collaborate, monitor, and execute within the joint air C2 command structure, ensured by the Naval Network Warfare Command as the command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR)/force-net type commander; and by Space Warfare Systems Command as the technical implementer. Distributive and collaborative strike/fires planning and execution management among C2 nodes is a tenet of Sea Strike and would be a naturally assumed capability within a net-centric environment. Space Warfare Systems Command must ensure strike groups have all the tools (all software service packs and maintenance releases) that will enable interoperability with the combined air operations center. The Fleet must have significant operational support to answer the call when needed.
The lack of a cohesive C4ISR/information-technology development and fielding strategy is crippling the service. As maintenance releases are fielded in the Theater Battle Management Core System, the Fleet falls further behind in implementing much-needed technology and capabilities. It may come to a point where there will be no targeting capabilities fielded afloat, with all Fleet targeting being done in the maritime operations center (ashore or on the afloat command ship). Where does this leave the joint partners?
TBMCS is an Air Force program, but joint partners use it extensively. The Air Force has unilaterally made acquisition decisions placing it into sustainment, lowering priorities for a program used by the joint partners in favor of the light blue air operations center weapon system. The Air Force must stay attuned to the joint perspective and not be allowed to wander astray. Independent service testing (recurring events) of new technologies/functionality through the air operations center weapons system test team/force rather than the TBMCS team (where the Navy and Marine Corps are signatories) cannot continue. Air Combat Command and the TBMCS systems program office cannot make unilateral program decisions that will affect fielding within the Navy and Marine Corps. TBMCS supposedly is the “engine” of the air operations center weapon system. It should not lag behind the joint partners in fielding capability.
Adhere to Doctrine
“If it flies in the area of responsibility, it will be on the ATO.” These are words lost in translation over the years. Currently joint-partner direct-support sorties are not included on the ATO in an area of responsibility not to be named. Instead, all flights and alerts need to be on the ATO because you never know when a shooting war may begin, and you don’t want to be the one at the end of a long table explaining why we didn’t follow doctrine and ended up shooting down friendlies.
The Navy’s future in the air C2 arena must be shaped by commitment to a clear strategy and a willingness to execute when directed. There can be no shortcuts, no looking down the road as to what future systems capabilities could bring. This is the path to success.
The Air Force cannot leave the service and alliance partners behind to chase technology for its own sake. Version 1.1.3, with a large portion of functionality web-enabled, was the first logical step in moving to net-centric functionality across components. If a C2 air operation suite is indeed the path to service-oriented architecture, we must declare that intention and work toward that goal rather than through a series of TBMCS 1.1.3 maintenance releases that complicate the air C2 architecture and impose a series of ridiculous interoperability requirements that makes the technical system views look like spaghetti.