Visual depiction of JADC2 concept. (Lockheed Martin)
WASHINGTON: The Defense Department has increased spending on Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2)-related technologies significantly from fiscal year 2017 to 2020, which reflects DoD’s progress in fielding the critical tech. But a deeper dive into the spending trends reveals ongoing hurdles to fully integrating Joint All Domain Operations as DoD envisions, according to a new research report by decision science company Govini.
At issue is the fact that across all JADC2-related programs, spending on “large and stovepiped” service-specific command, control, communications, computers, and information (C4I) programs has “dwarfed” spending on a singular joint system. Many of these C4I programs have already been partially or fully deployed, which means it will be “difficult, if not impossible” to scrap them, researchers note in the new report titled Department of Defense Investments in Joint All-Domain Command & Control Taxonomy.
“Without one joint C4I system to rule them all […] JADC2 will depend on creating interoperability across numerous existing and planned service C4I capabilities,” the report notes. This means that rather than building integrated systems from the beginning, the services have been focused on building their own JADC2 pieces and now will have to get these independent systems and networks to talk to each other.
“DoD is betting on JADC2 to provide it with a decision advantage in future conflicts,” Billy Fabian, VP of Strategy at Govini, told Breaking Defense. “But implementing the concept in practice will force DoD to grapple with significant interoperability challenges. Some of these challenges will require maturing emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to solve. For others, however, DoD has a closing window to establish common data standards and protocols before the next generation of capabilities are too far along in development. Otherwise, it risks making its interoperability challenges even worse.”
Realizing the ground to make up on interoperability, the report says DoD’s spending on networks (up 34%) is now outpacing spending in other enabling JADC2 sub-components, including computers and AI (up 21%), communications (up 12.7%), and satellite communications (up 4.2%). 5G to bolster network speed as well as networks and systems integration are driving DoD’s overall networks investment. Combined, the networks and computers and AI segments alone — two JADC2 areas critical to enabling interoperability — experienced growth in FY19-FY20 of 26.6% and 41.3%, respectively. Interestingly, spending on command and control (C2) systems has fallen in recent years.
Looking deeper still, the report reveals how services are approaching JADC2-specific programs differently. For instance, a good chunk of overall spending from FY19 to FY22 comes from the Air Force ramping up its Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which the report notes is still nonetheless a single-service versus a joint program. Meanwhile, the JADC2-specific initiatives of the Army’s Project Convergence and the Navy’s Project Overmatch “have been focused on enabling existing systems to talk to one another,” the report notes.
Since FY19, DoD has shifted funding from procurement of C4I to focus on research, development, testing, and evaluation, “potentially indicating that the Defense Department has refocused on developing the next generation of C4I capabilities rather than procuring existing systems,” the report notes.
Likewise, DoD basic research into JADC2-enabling tech — excepting computers and AI — has dropped off in recent years, which “could signal that the Defense Department is increasingly reliant on the private sector to lead the way on early R&D of information technologies.” The researchers add, “The Department could also look to leverage early R&D efforts funded by other parts of the US Government, such as the National Science Foundation.”
Who, exactly, is DoD partnering with in the private sector? The report observes “DoD is engaging with a more diverse and innovative set of companies,” noting that the top three vendors in the AI and machine learning subsegment captured just 7.2% of total spending. In addition to diversifying its vendor base, DoD is also pulling in more partners, with “the vendor count for the computers and AI segment increas[ing] by 44.8%, from 460 vendors in FY17 to 666 vendors in FY20,” the report notes.
