Vanguard Magazine

20 APRIL/MAY 2025 www.vanguardcanada.com S E R V I C E C H I E F S into cyber command, each with a unit tied to them, largely unchanged. There is lots of different cyber commands that you might want. Lots of different cy- ber commands that I would argue Canada needs, but we deliberately stood up the one that we could stand up as a minimum viable command with the deliberate idea that we would evolve it. Minimum vi- able is a term that I use to directly link to more agile thinking. The idea is that you move forward with small steps. The only thing that we changed on standup was I took a small team, and I built them as the Command evolution team to drive in three-month sprints and make the idea of evolving the Canadian Armed Forces Cy- ber Command a reality. I'll end my comments with a thought on advantage. We've talked about war fight- ing advantage, and the theme is about de- cision advantage, but what does advantage really mean? The easy piece is that you want the very best capabilities for decision and war fighting you can possibly have and start with that. And that's usually what dominates the conversation. What I would say is from cyber command's perspective, we are equally interested in the other as- pect of advantage, which is that it is always relative, and advantage matters over whom you have an advantage because that adver- sary is going to attempt to tilt the playing field in their favour. And two, we can also gain advantage when we take away the ad- versary's capabilities they lean on for deci- sion making and war fighting. Cmdre ARMSTRONG: I'd like to talk about our legacy fleets. First is people, second is fight time. Halifax class modernization was to keep pace with C4ISR. But the force development we're tasked with is to make sure that our sailors can go out with the best equipment we can give them. And do it in a satellite-denied environment with allies and other govern- ment departments. The second is the modernized fleet. The Harry DeWolf class vessels bring a phenomenal capability to the Navy, and to the government of Canada. And we're continuing to explore what more we can do. We've got the F-150, but what else can we do with it? We're looking again for in- dustry's ideas, what we can do to modern- ize and make it much more capable, much more part of the joint fight in the Arctic. It's not just buying assets and equipment and all the rest, it's like my colleagues have spoken about, it's the people, it's the doc- trine, it's those aspects that enable all our maritime information warfare campaign. The last thing I'll say is that we need to do a better job of getting the people as- pect out there. We need to make sure that the new sailors coming in can operate the technology. They need to understand it and understand it better than I ever will. We need to train them up so they can use it in these new environments, and to do that we must foster their development. I'll leave you with a couple of final thoughts. We know that we need to con- tinue to modernize our C4ISR capabilities. We also need to continue to enable what we're doing with artificial intelligence. We need to understand cyber warfare. Brig SANDRY: Q: Can you speak to how the Canadian Armed Forces will work together through the Pan-Domain Command and Control concept paper? And how do you see your role and vision aligning with the U.S. on Combined or Joint All-Domain Command and Control? Also, could you touch on the experi- mentation side — particularly Project Olympus? I understand you're personally invested in making it a success. Where are you focusing your energy, and how are you signaling to the organization that this is a priority based on how you're spending your time? LGen WRIGHT: I'll get into what am I doing personally to make sure we're focused on where we need to be. I want to mention the importance of Brigadier General Stéphane Masson and his team. I also want to mention that all "There is lots of different cyber commands that you might want. Lots of different cyber commands that I would argue Canada needs, but we deliberately stood up the one that we could stand up as a minimum viable command with the deliberate idea that we would evolve it. Minimum viable is a term that I use to directly link to more agile thinking." — Major-General Dave Yarker An international team is at Canadian Forces Station Alert Photo: Geisel School of Medicine website

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