UP FRONT.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

Failed Wat-game Spurs Change, Hyten Says

After a disastrous wargame last October, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten issued four new directives to better prepare the military for future battles.

"Without overstating the issue, it failed miserably," he said during the launch of NDIA's Emerging Technologies Institute. "An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us. They knew exactly what we Ye going to do before we did it and they took advantage of it."

And that was just a wargame, he said. The nation's real competitors are "probably even more focused, more determined," Hyten added.

Officials are shifting toward a concept called "expanded maneuver," he said. To support the concept, Hyten recently released four new directives, or what he called "functional battles," focused on: contested logistics; joint fires; joint all-domain command and control; and information advantage. If the military embraces these functional battles, "the United States and our allies will have an information advantage over anybody that we could possibly face," he said.

Space Force Has Big Role for JADC2

The Space Force's analysis center will be crucial for the Pentagon's joint all-domain command and control efforts, said Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. David "DT" Thompson.

The Space Warfighting Analysis Center will examine how data relay and satellite communications technology can work for the JADC2 effort as part of the service's force design, he said at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.

The contribution "may be one of the most consequential activities that the U.S. Space Force will engage in for a long time," he added.

JADC2 is envisioned as an internet of things for the armed forces that will connect sensors and shooters. Because the network needs to be "data rich," space may be the only option for providing large amounts of data in access-denied areas, Thompson noted.

The network needs to be more interoperable and "path agnostic," which satcom and data relay activities will help...