Pentagon's AI-Integrated War System Ready To Roll

The CRS report says that the DOD's current C2 architecture is insufficient to meet the demands of the 2022 National Defense Strategy , which prioritizes interoperability, enhanced capabilities, new operating concepts, and combined and collaborative force planning with coalitions.

In a June 2023 article for National Defense , Chris Sax points out that US allies must be included in discourse about JACD2 to implement the concept fully and enable the US to operate in multiple theaters with peak effectiveness.

Jaspreet Gill mentions in a May 2023 Breaking Defense article that CJADC2 is effectively a rebranding of JADC2 with new emphasis on“combined” efforts with international partners and across different military commands.

Gill notes that the“combined” in CJADC2 highlights that the system's capabilities are designed to be interoperable with allies and partners from the beginning and not just about“jointness” between different US military branches.

Further dissecting the CJACD2 concept, Bryan Clark and Dan Patt mention in a September 2023 Hudson Institute article that CJACD2 has two core functions: joint command and control (C2) and integration.

The writers say that joint C2 formulates and executes plans, which against peer adversaries will depend increasingly on new concepts that orchestrate widely distributed units across domains.

Barry Rosenberg, in a December 2020 Breaking Defense article , says that CJACD2's enabling technologies will include leading communications, navigation and identification (CNI) systems; resilient, secure, software-defined, all-domain networking terminals; data fusion and processing technologies; advanced waveform offerings; and emerging communications, AI and networking capabilities.

A potential Taiwan conflict provides an interesting case study of how CJADC2 may be operationalized to mitigate US disadvantages through a technocentric approach.

In a December 2023 Defense News article , Maximilian Bremer and Kelly Grieco note that the sheer distance of the US compared to China's proximity to Taiwan, constrained basing options in the Pacific and long travel times from the US to Taiwan all work against the US and its allies in a potential Taiwan conflict.

Bremer and Grieco point out tremendous US logistical requirements regarding scale and complexity on top of those issues. Instead of addressing those logistics problems individually, they suggest the US develop an approach that simultaneously addresses the challenges.

Thane Clare mentions in a January 2024 War on the Rocks article that if US military logistics systems are linked electronically and executive-level insights are automatically extracted from them, commanders and logisticians will better understand the location and availability of important supplies.

Clare emphasizes that real-time situational awareness for logisticians at all levels will be crucial for success in a protracted war. Taiwan is most vulnerable to defeat in the first 90 days of a possible Chinese invasion and thus a US intervention would be required to repel Chinese forces within that timeframe.

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Apart from logistics, Clare says that the CJADC2 is applicable for missile defense and long-range strikes. He says that integrating US and allied civilian sensors with military shooters (i.e., a commercial aviation radar to a Patriot missile battery) can improve US missile defense far beyond legacy capabilities. However, he says the technical compatibility of systems will be a challenge.

Clare also notes that combining old and new technologies under the CJADC2 framework can mitigate vulnerabilities in using unmanned systems, noting that the US has used high-frequency radio to control the MQ-9 Reaper drone, eliminating the need for satellites that are increasingly vulnerable to China and Russia's anti-satellite capabilities.

However, CJADC2 has certain holes. Stew Magnuson notes in National Defense this month that, at the joint level, each US military branch still pursues its own tactical network project, with the lines of effort in each service varying in terms of clarity and feasibility.

Magnuson points out doctrinal challenges in implementing CJADC2, noting that information shared among the joint force was previously done at higher echelons, making it imperative to push decision-making to the lowest level possible.

He also mentioned that including allies in CJADC2 will bring new challenges, as other militaries have different ways of doing things.

Moreover, China has developed its Multi-Domain Precision Warfare (MDPW) concept in response to the US JADC2 and now the CJADC2. China's MDPW aims to employ AI and big data to quickly identify weaknesses in the US operational system, then combine forces from multiple domains to launch precision strikes on those vulnerabilities.

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