The Defense Department’s upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is an opportunity for the United States to start integrating cross domain capability into future strategies, which could be a “game changer” for the services, according to head of the Air Force’s QDR effort.
Air Force QDR Director Maj. Gen. Steven Kwast said Friday the military’s new Air-Sea Battle concept is an example of a concept that has cross domain capability “baked in.” Air-Sea Battle, a Navy-Air Force effort, calls for the battlefield coordination of all platforms, sensors, cyber and jamming capabilities in responding to, or taking out, a threat (Defense Daily, Nov. 2).
Kwast explained an example of cross domain capability as a submarine talking to a satellite that is helping a soldier on the ground. A missile that is shot off an F/A-18 intended for a certain target, but 20 seconds into the flight, a Marine on a beach discovers a higher priority target and re-directs the missile to hit the higher-priority target.
“That kind of cross domain capability is a place we need to go in this strategic environment, in my humble opinion, and it’s a place no other nation in the world can go to,” Kwast said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.
Kwast said previous military methodology was “stovepiped,” in which the services never really integrated with each other. He said this was successful for the last 60 years, but times have forced military leaders to get creative.
“I think the strategic environment has changed strategically enough where we have to change this model,” Kwast said. “I think we have more room to grow, to understate it significantly, with regard to across the main integration.”
Kwast said though it is important for each of the services to have their unique identity, if he had the choice, he’d incentivize the services to begin thinking about cross domain capability earlier.
“I would build incentives into the system that this cross domain integration starts happening from the inception in industry to the continuum of battlespace,” Kwast said. “I think this is something we need to come to grips with and get better at.”
The QDR is a legislatively-mandated review of DoD strategy and priorities that takes place every four years. The Pentagon is reviewing the new Defense Strategic Guidance it released last year in light of fiscal constraints, but said it has not gone as far as to end the so-called pivot to Asia that is central to that strategy (Defense Daily, March 19).