Vanguard Magazine

18 DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 www.vanguardcanada.com INTERVIEW operational and institutional effects that are credible to our strategic and national leadership, our Allies, the Canadian peo- ple, and indeed our own people within the Defence Team? The digital revolution, powered by the strategic lever that aggregated data rep- resents, will continue around us, whether we embark upon our own digital journey or not. Our adversaries and competitors will continue to improve their capabilities, and our Allies will continue to evolve and change. The Digital FVEY will be based on the language of data, and the culture of digital. If we don't learn the language, and we don't adopt the culture, we may well find ourselves on the outside looking in. We must stay apace with our Allies, and ahead of our adversaries. Failure to undergo a Digital Transforma- tion will entail existential risk to the CAF, and substantial programmatic and reputa- tional risk to the Department. From the institutional perspective, the imperative is about delivering our corporate require- ments in an accurate and transparent man- ner, allowing us to improve the reinvest- ment of resources through data informed strategic decision making. Operationally, the digital imperative is about gaining a de- cision advantage over our adversaries. We gain that advantage with a C2 system that is integrated, trusted, aggressively decen- tralised, and enables holistic risk awareness through complete integration with and access to institutional data and informa- tion. That C2 system must be completely interoperable with our Allies, while serving institutional requirements for transparency and openness. We cannot achieve that un- less we transform. As the CDS has said, "the CAF must transform. And transform we shall. We will not simply incorporate Digital – we will become Digital". Q How has the changing character of warfare influenced the need to achieve true Joint Integration within the CAF? Much of the discussion of the evolving character of warfare has focused on the re- sponse to below the threshold conflict. Our foundational documents that discuss oper- ating in a pan-domain environment, clearly identify that we are in an era of dangerous competition, and that Canada's adversaries offer a concerted and sustained challenge to the international rules-based order. We face a continued state of competition, confron- tation and, potentially, conflict. This means that we must adapt to these changes, and see the world as it is, and view it through the lens of matrix of completion rather than a linear spectrum of conflict. Our adversaries are challenging us in the cyber and space domains as well as in the traditional land, maritime, and air do- mains. Therefore, we must be able to meet this challenge across all domains simulta- neously. Recent conflicts in Syria and Ukraine have clearly demonstrated that large scale and above the threshold conflict is still a threat, and moreover have shown how even a modest overlay of digital capabili- ties can disrupt decades-old operational concepts and change the character of war. The prevalence of cyber activities, drone technology, sensor-to-effectors linkages and autonomous systems has changed the battlefield into a more digital space. In all cases, the ability to exploit a technological advantage exposed the critical vulnerabili- ties of forces that were static, massed, or lacked defensive countermeasures. These changes to the character of war mean that we must review our own capabil- ities and consider how the CAF can achieve an operational advantage over our adversar- ies. We must update our concepts of conflict to effectively compete, contest, confront, or if necessary, combat a range of opponents that are diverse, dispersed, digitally enabled, and increasingly sophisticated. Key then to evolving our response to the changing character of warfare will be to le- verage the digital to improve our ability to sense, make sense, decide, and act. It will allow greater integration of operational ef- fects, even as the complexity of the operat- ing environment is increasing dramatically. We will do that through the develop- ment of the PDC2 concept, which is es- sentially the Canadian version of the US Joint All Defense Command and Control project, or the UK Multi-Domain Integra- tion Program. This highlights the importance of main- taining interoperability within NORAD, FVEYs, and NATO. Our key drivers to ensure this interoperability will be a full embrace of the NATO Federated Mission Networking (FMN) program. All that we do must be FMN compliant. Full FMN adoption will not only ensure alignment but will also provide the impetus to evolve our technology and processes at the speed of our key Allies. This pragmatic approach of leveraging in-flight programs that are firmly rooted in interoperability at the data and technologi- cal layer will drive greater integration across the Joint Team within the CAF and main- tain our interoperability with our Allies. Q Any final closing thoughts? We are at a historical inflection point, where operational digital capabilities will directly influence success or failure on the battlefield. As the CDS indicated, the CAF cannot undertake digital transformation alone, and we will rely on support from the dedicated teams of uniformed members, public servants, contractors, academia, and industry that compromise the broader Defence Team in order to deliver, when required, the operational success that Ca- nadians expect and deserve. Canadian Army soldiers assigned to 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment conduct surveillance and overwatch of a defensive position during a ground battle exercise at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright during Exercise Maple Resolve 2022, May 13, 2022. Photo: DND

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