Vanguard Magazine

"Forward units do not have the capacity to carry heavy computing equipment to their operations. they need a reliable link to command in order to receive accurate and timely information." – Maj. Gen. Omer Lavoie www.vanguardcanada.com FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017 23 also discussed the C4ISR direction in the context of the ongoing Defence Policy Re- view. They also gave attendees some idea of what the particular C4ISR needs are for each of their respective services. The first panel was moderated by Maj. Gen. (Ret'd) Steve Noonan, partner with CFN Consultants, and the panelists were Cdr. David Anderson, director of naval requirements, communications and in- formation systems for the Royal Canadian Navy; Col. Steve Chuinard, director of air requirements, Department of National Defence; Lt. Col. (Ret'd) Greg Jensen, J2 capability integration, Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters; and Col. Nicolas Pilon, director of land re- quirements, DND. The military needs reliable and effec- tive tools that provide commanders and troops situation awareness. These tools also need to enable soldiers to rapidly alert command of what they need to ac- complish their mission. "We need systems that are able to work together," said Pi- lon. "…we need interoperability, and we need to shorten the link." The Panel 2 was titled Space: The un- seen enabler. This panel discussed force multipliers and the essentials of modern defence, cost effective services for com- munication and weather surveillance, and how to capitalise on the growth of satel- lite bandwidth. The panel was moderated by Col. (Ret'd) David Neil, of satellite company MDA. The panelists were Col. Jeff Dooling, director of space require- ments; Brent Perrott, president of Hunter Communications; John Weaver, section head of space and ISR applications, De- fence Research and Development Canada. Perrott talked about recent technological developments in the industry, which cco- ntinue to bring down the cost of satellite communications. Dooling raised the need for further military and commercial in- dustry partnership, so that the CAF can have more access to satellite use. Perhaps one of the most interesting mo- ments of the conference was the luncheon keynote by Maj. Gen. David Wheeler, chief of the CAF's Targeting Capability Implementation Team. His presentation was on the challenges presented by the increasing use of social media by terrorists and some state-backed actors. Wheeler said that, traditionally, the military's tar- geting capabilities were focused on hard targets such as enemy formations, infra- structure, installations, vehicles or ma- chinery. "But now we are working in an entirely new and complex environment where our enemy uses terrorism, social media and cybercrime," he said. Wheeler showed on the screen what appeared to be a music video featuring a mashup of Western and Russian military images and scenes of poverty and war. "It doesn't say anything, but it is trying to influence a large population with the view that benefits Russia to the detriment of de- mocracy," Wheeler said. "We don't know exactly where it came from, but it has had millions of views on the Internet…this is part of what we are up against." The Panel 3 for the day took on the top- ics of science and technology and adap- tive dispersed operations. This panel, moderated by Brig. Gen. (Ret'd) James Simms, strategic advisor to Thales Canada Defence and Security, provided a joint commander's point of view of C4ISR. The panelists were Cdr. (Ret'd) Daniel Landry, program manager, Joint Target- ing; Maj. Gen. Omer Lavoie, commander of the 1st Canadian Division; and Col. Darrell Russel, director of the Canadian Army Land Warfare Centre. Lavoie made a case for upgrading C4ISR systems so that elements in the field have adequate capacity to reach back to the command centre for pertinent data when the need arises. "Forward units do not have the capacity to carry heavy com- puting equipment to their operations. They need a reliable link to command in order to receive accurate and timely infor- mation," he said. The Panel 4 of the conference was ti- tled "Digital Age force multipliers: Cy- ber, situation awareness, network and the cloud". This panel discussed identi- fying capability gaps and opportunities and how to build Canada's C4ISR resil- ience. The panel was moderated by Jamie O'Hare, director of channel and client re- lations for the security firm Cytelligence. The panelists were Sophie Martel, senior director of the DND's Directorate Infor- mation Management Engineering and Integration; John Proctor, vice-president of technology consulting firm CGI; and Nicholas Scheurkogel, director of cyber intelligence for Cytelligence. The importance of keeping ahead of cy- ber threats was discussed during this panel. "We can't just think about serving the cur- rent need and addressing today's threats. We also need to think about countering future threats," said Martel. "We need to avoid a capability gap." The group agreed that this can be accomplished by revamp- ing traditional procurement practices. For instance, focusing on desired outcome rather dogged adherence to established processes can help in ensuring that C4ISR programs are targeting towards the actual needs of the military. Calibrating time- tables towards shorter development cycles and delivery times will also ensure that C4ISR systems are constantly upgraded and refreshed when needed, so as to not become obsolete. c c4Isr

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