Joint Air & Space Power Conference 2022 Read Ahead

Moderator’s Foreword

Published:
 June 2022

Esteemed Colleagues,

There is little doubt today that we live in a time of renewed global competition between major state powers. This also means that we live in what is, potentially, an extremely hazardous age. In recent times, we have little to be thankful for from some of the so-called ‘Great Powers’. China (albeit most likely by accident) has brought us pestilence in the form of the Covid-19 virus. Russia (most definitely, by design) has brought us war in Ukraine. Not even one-quarter of the way into the 21st Century, and already we seem to have endured (and may continue to endure) two of the Biblical ‘four horsemen of the Apocalypse’. It is against this forbidding backdrop that the 2022 JAPCC Conference will take place.

On the first day of last year’s JAPCC Conference, we heard that in the more than seventy years since the end of WWII and more than thirty since the end of the Cold War, NATO needed to find a ‘forcing function’ to make national governments realise that threats to our democratic way of life had not gone away. One of the main speakers expressed his (and everyone else’s) sincere hope that it would not be another war that provided this ‘forcing function’. Sadly, war on the European continent once more proves to be a powerful motivator for governments to take robust action in deterrence and defence.

Individual NATO nations, along with the EU and the UN, have to a greater or lesser degree, begun to give the Ukrainians the help they so desperately need. However, in our dealings with and perceptions of Russia prior to the invasion of Ukraine, many of us, including many of our political leaders, have been exposed as – at best – naive. At worst, some might even say complicit.

It is exceptionally timely that the JAPCC Conference plans to bring some of our greatest minds and senior decision-makers together to consider how NATO might enhance its air and space power in this age of global competition. Along with our keynote speakers, the four conference panels will consider the broader geopolitical situation and the impli­cations this has for our security. The speakers and panel members will analyse the consequences this new environment brings for deterrence and defence and what it means for defence and operational planning, and for agile, cross-domain command, from both defence and industry perspectives.

The traditional DIME model – diplomatic, informational, military and economic – reminds us that military power does not sit apart from the other instruments of power. We have only to think of Europe’s reliance on Russian oil and gas supplies to realise the complexity of miscalculations that may have emboldened Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. The comprehensive requirements for defence and security must not be ignored. If deterrence fails, the effective defence of NATO territory will depend on our military forces, their effective command and control, along with comprehensive resiliency in the domains of Space and Cyber. Additionally, NATO is well aware that a comprehensive resiliency must also include the ensured availability of vital state and economic functions and continued use of the EMS. Warfare in collective defence will need to include other instruments of power alongside the military.

The articles you are about to read are the result of a ‘call for papers’ that was put out shortly after last year’s conference. Not all of them refer directly to Joint Air and Space Power. However, they are all relevant to a discussion about the future security environment and its consequences for NATO’s posture, operational preparedness and the role of Air and Space Power in this environment. The two introductory articles explain the term ‘global competition’ chosen for this conference and explore the principles of Great Power competition. Subsequent articles analyse the links and interdependencies between the space and cyberspace domains, refer to some interesting similarities between thresholds in these domains, and propose how deterrence might be ensured in space through a responsive space architecture.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the dangers of seeing it as a panacea to overcome information and data overload was already touched on at the 2021 Conference. One of our articles will therefore provide a perspective on ‘humanly enhanced’ AI to enable understanding and achieve decision advantage. Another author makes us aware that we have to expect Adversarial Machine Learning and delivers a very well-argued note of caution. Managing operational data in a ‘combat cloud’ can offer effective support in scenarios where forces and capabilities operate across domains. Finding principles for the safe sharing of cyber weapons and capabilities needs urgent consideration in response to the particular challenges we find in and through this domain. The JAPCC thanks all the authors that have contributed articles – what you will read in the following pages is a carefully curated subset of those contributions.

The success of the 2021 JAPCC Conference was, in no small part, due to the perseverance of all those who attended in some challenging circumstances. We live in difficult times, but the efforts of everyone in coming together to discuss, analyse and formulate courses of action for the future will ensure that the 2022 Conference is just as rewarding.

I look forward to meeting you all in October!

Bruce Hargrave BSc MBA
Independent Air and Space Power Advisor

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Author
Wing Commander (ret.)
 Bruce
 Hargrave

Bruce Hargrave is a senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln in the UK where he leads the Military Education Group within the School of Computer Science. He retired from the RAF in 2013 after 28 years’ service. During a varied military career, he spent eight years as a tactical navigator and aircraft captain on Nimrod MR2 maritime patrol aircraft and also served, on exchange, with the Royal Navy as an ASW Observer on Sea King helicopters as part of the carrier air group onboard HMS Ark Royal. He has developed and taught on a variety of courses at the RAF’s Air Warfare School, including the Air Battle Staff Course, the Higher Air Warfare Course and the Senior Officers’ Study Programme. He gained his MBA from the Open University Business School in 2000 and taught on their Financial Strategy elective for several years. He is currently researching for a Doctorate, studying a combined model of team role and culture within multinational military teams.

Information provided is current as of September 2014

Essays in this Read Ahead

Global Competition

The Origin of the Term and its Use in Policy Statements

The New Era of Great Power Competition

Emerging Patterns and Principles

The Cyber and Information Domain and the Space Domain: Links and Interdependencies

Thresholds in Cyber and in Space

Lessons Learned from State Positions on the Application of International Law to Cyber for the Evolving Space Domain

Deterrence in the Space Domain

Increasing Deterrence in Space by Gaining a Mindset for Agile Space Operations

Developing an Operational Framework to Enable Interoperable Allied NATO Responsive Space Activities

Space Capabilities that are Allied by Design

Terabytes of Unprocessed Data or Superior Pieces of Info

Turning Airborne ISR into Multi-Domain Operations

Adversarial Machine Learning

A Threat to NATO Missions

The Multi-Domain Combat Cloud in Light of Future Air Operations

An Enabler for Multi-Domain Operations

Sharing Cyber Capabilities within the Alliance

Interoperability Through Structured Pre-Authorization Cyber

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