Journal Edition 30 Editorial Our world has faced a challenging last few months in this first half of 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic influenced every area of our daily lives and did not spare the Air & Space Power Community. After celebrating our 15th Anniversary, the JAPCC is now challenged by the restrictions resulting from the…
Space: NATO’s Newest Operational Domain The JAPCC and The Transformation of Space Support to NATO 1 | Introduction The Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) is currently officially recognized as the COE ‘for the facilitation of Joint Air Power transformation within NATO’s overall transformation efforts’. The original Concept for the JAPCC, submitted by the Framework Nation (FN),…
The Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) was formally established on 1 January 2005 to provide the strategic level proponent for Joint Air and Space Power that was missing in NATO. Soon thereafter, JAPCC was accredited as NATO’s first Centre of Excellence (COE) and, as such, is charged with the development of innovative concepts and solutions required for the transformation of Joint Air and Space Power within the Alliance and the Nations.
The aim of this report is to show how ‘close support’ mission operations in the future may be drastically different than what the Alliance has conducted over the last 30 years. It addresses potential shortfalls in available assets resulting in close support coverage limitations. It also portrays the potential challenges of providing close support to troops in areas that are highly contested. The report references emerging and future joint military technologies and weapon systems to help solve both coverage gap and contested environment challenges. It concludes with considerations for Alliance transformation at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.
This read ahead material represents the largest ever submission of articles from air and space power experts worldwide to a JAPCC publication. Many of these have been specially written for this year’s Joint Air and Space Power Conference. As you read and critically appraise the articles, you will want to make notes and (perhaps furiously!) underline and highlight those parts that you take issue with. Please do this! I well remember a professor who exhorted her students (myself included) to personalise their set texts by scribbling notes in every available blank space. Her assertion was that, only by doing this, could we engage sufficiently with the material and make it our own.
This edition of the Annual Report summarizes what was a busy 2019 and provides a glimpse into the work JAPCC will be engaged in across the Air and Space domains for 2020.
The JAPCC Conference, held in Essen, Germany from 8–10 October 2019, concerned itself with Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). This paper aims to capture key messages from the conference. Rather than producing a chronological record of these discussions, it will introduce them thematically. There were several recurring key themes across the two days of the conference. These key themes were clearly ones which concerned and engaged the 344 attendees of this 2019 JAPCC Conference.
It is our pleasure to present this 29th edition of the JAPCC Journal, Transforming Joint Air and Space Power. This offering opens with an assessment by the JAPCC Director and Commander, Allied Air Command, General Jeff Harrigian, of what he considers the three main elements of Multi-Domain Operations and how the relevant evolution of Command and Control will shape our future. It is immediately followed by an interview with the Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force, General Alberto Rosso, who offers us great insights into the challenges facing the Italian Air Force, its priorities, and where Italy is leading the way in next generation evolution and integration.
A sole focus on the low, slow, and small end of the C-UAS spectrum covers only a fraction of current UAS technology and excludes most military applications. Peer competitors to NATO can be expected to employ UAS at the same level of technology, and under comparable operational principles, as in the Alliance. Consequently, NATO has to anticipate enemy use of UAS in the same mission sets as with friendly UAS, covering the spectrum from Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance to unmanned airstrikes, conducted in Line of Sight as well as Beyond Line of Sight operations, utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum and the space domain in the same way as NATO.
This white paper aims at providing a reasoned compendium about SST and multinational SST networks. In particular, it addresses the analysis of several architectural solutions for SST networks to identify and evaluate applicable C2 models. The document starts with a knowledge base about SST and its contribution to SSA. It defines the relevant terms of reference and describes its applications, both for civil and military purposes. It also illustrates the architecture of a generic SST system and provides several examples of existing national and multinational SST endeavours, with particular reference to the European Union (EU) SST framework. Finally, it provides a NATO perspective on emerging multinational SST endeavours, providing advice on why and how NATO should try to promote such agreements.