Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/476674
evolving in a positive direction. We started with a few simple crite- ria and we have evaluated the performance of individual projects, and now we are going to evaluate how we have done with those criteria and broaden and deepen them. We are going to bring this full circle for the Chief of Force Development and the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff by coming up with criteria that align well with the Capital Investment Plan review process. We can go to the Defence Capabilities Board in the near future and say, not only have we been able to evaluate individual projects within the portfolio, now we can tell you based on identifi ed capability gaps through the Capability-Based Plan- ning process where we are doing well addressing a gap, where we may be over-addressing or under addressing a gap, and what that will allow for senior decision-makers in terms of prioritizing capability and aligning resources. Q Does the Canadian Forces Warfare Centre (CFWC) play a role identifying gaps and simulating possible solutions? The CFWC is a huge partner in everything we do, including some of the experimentation we are doing. One that comes to mind is the Data-Centric Security Service – the initiative we are bringing forward to secure the data within the network. They are assisting us with some network resources to test solutions in an enclosed environment. We also receive great support from DRDC and the ADM Science and Technology Branch. Q Do they provide a test bed to evaluate industry solutions and resolve some of those integration issues? I think that is how it is going to evolve. I can't speak for oth- er departments, but within my organization, although we have partnered with some industry leaders to ask some of those S&T questions, we are not at that stage yet. But that is an area we will probably move into in greater depth in the future. That would be consistent with the DPS. Q You currently have air task forces deployed in Iraq and Lithu- ania, the fi rst modernized frigate with more C4ISR capability in the Mediterranean, and ground forces deployed in multinational exercises in Poland, to name just a few. Are you drawing C4ISR lessons that are changing your thinking about requirements? I can't comment on the specifi cs because these are ongoing opera- tions and security is paramount, but the CAF learns from every operation. In Afghanistan, we learned important lessons about command and control (C2), ISR and computer information sys- tems. Whenever you deploy a task force around the world on short notice, the ability to exercise C2 is a signifi cant challenge. C2 is at the heart of every operation. My role as director C4ISR Requirements is to get that information to the commander in a format that he understands. Canada has been to an extent an ex- peditionary force over the last few years and I think the operations that we are involved in now play to our strengths. Keeping pace with technology is a great challenge. We are doing an excellent job of it right now, but it will continue to challenge us. C C4iSR 14 FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015 www.vanguardcanada.com pieces of data on the network within that already secure perimeter. And we are looking at network solutions. We talked about common data standards, data formats and methods of moving data; we're looking at ways of standardizing mission networks so that they can cooperate in a federated manner, bringing us together with coali- tion partners on day one of an operation. How do we exercise command and control based on all of these factors? The last piece to that puzzle is, having done all of that, how do we take that voluminous amount of information, fi lter it, triage, layer it in a way that a commander can get an intuitive and timely picture of the data and enable him to make decisions? In other words: joint battle space management. We are actively pursuing more intuitive and responsive battlespace management solutions for the future. Q Do you need new solutions for how information is presented? Or are current systems suffi cient? Yes and no. There will always be a requirement for new technolo- gies, but we are going to be making recommendations for newer technologies when there is a need for a new technology. When we can evolve existing technologies to meet our needs, we'll do that too. Q Your predecessor, Col Jeff Tasseron, was pushing for a system to better assess the merits of various projects in a systematic way, primarily to allow prioritization, but also to improve how projects are monitored once they are underway. Is that possible through the Defence Capabilities Board or are you working on additional methods? That is a very big part of our work. I have an entire governance section and we have taken Colonel Tasseron's ideas about evalu- ating projects to the next level. Over the past year, we have insti- tuted a C4ISR Stakeholder Working Group comprised of repre- sentatives from all of the services and major organizations within the CAF to collaborate on ways of proposing and assessing new C4ISR capabilities. We have reps who can bring their service's needs and agendas to the table, and we have the best and bright- est C4ISR minds who can collaborate through agreed upon crite- ria on how we are moving as an organization. I can't address the specifi cs of what we are doing well and not so well, but we are