Conference Report

Royal United Services Institutefor Defence and Security Studies

Land Warfare Conference 2021Integrating for Operations Today and Warfighting Tomorrow

Jack Watling

Land Warfare Conference 2021 Integrating for Operations Today and Warfighting Tomorrow

Jack Watling

RUSI Conference Report, June 2021

Royal United Services Institutefor Defence and Security Studies

ii Land Warfare Conference 2021

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RUSI Conference Report, June 2021. ISSN 2397-0286 (Online).

Land Warfare Conference 2021: Integrating for Operations Today and Warfighting Tomorrow

ON 2 JUNE 2021, 180 delegates from the land forces community came together at Church House, Westminster, with 8,000 colleagues online from 46 countries, to discuss future capability priorities, emerging threats, interoperability and the land industrial strategy.

The theme of the conference, Integrating for Operations Today and Warfighting Tomorrow, spoke to three critical challenges that the delegates examined:

• How can armies be widely deployed to develop influence and deter aggression while retaining readiness for warfighting?

• How can armies maintain a coherent force structure while transitioning from the legacy platforms of mechanised warfare to the future platforms of digitised warfare?

• How can allies ensure interoperability, and the ability to integrate their platforms and formations, as they pursue technological advantage?

Views on these questions differ within NATO, and Land Warfare Conference provided an opportunity for a free and frank dialogue amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In his opening keynote address, the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, set out his vision for the British Army following the UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. CGS argued that the implications of digitisation for the conduct of land warfare are comparable in magnitude to the transition to mechanised warfare in the first half of the 20th century. He explained how the quantity of sensor data available, the speed at which it can be fused, the range and precision of munitions and the capacity for tactical actions to assume strategic consequences because of the ubiquity of information transmission from the operating environment in a context of truth decay are irreversibly changing the geometry of the battlefield for land forces. CGS set out his view that forces will be engaged throughout their operational depth, and that the decisive component of the battle will likely transpire in the deep battle area, long before close combat forces come into contact. He emphasised that this does not mean that close combat is irrelevant – it will be visceral and frenetic – but he suggested that victory will ultimately be achieved by setting the conditions for success in the deep to enable victory in the close. CGS also emphasised that not all the implications of the transformation of the battlefield are immediately knowable and that capabilities like autonomous platforms may function in ways that we have yet to anticipate. For this reason, he stressed the importance of practical experimentation as a means of ensuring that the right lessons are identified and influence how the British Army modernises over the next 15 years.

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Major General Maria Barrett, commander of US Army NETCOM, reinforced the importance of experimentation and refinement by describing the evolution of the US’s Multi-Domain Task Forces. Initially, the US identified a vulnerability in its limited electronic warfare capabilities and in the lack of awareness of these threats across the force. This prompted the creation of cyber and electromagnetic activities (CEMA) battalions and an increased presence of these capabilities during unit training. It was subsequently recognised that the US needed to deploy units with these capabilities into theatre, prompting the creation of more battalions, and their conversion to an expeditionary posture. Without an effective command and control structure for these capabilities to synchronise them with activities by the joint force, and without representation in planning at echelon, it proved difficult to employ them effectively. This resulted in the creation of Multi-Domain Task Forces, able to own CEMA capabilities but also to provide the operational layer that enables their integration into the joint force. How this functions has evolved over time, reflecting the fact that it was difficult to appreciate the complexities involved until the units were created. For this reason, Major General Barrett encouraged forces to get their hands on capabilities and to actively shape them early. She argued that there are clearly areas where AI could significantly assist in military operations and areas where it is likely not appropriate. However, once it is employed, additional use cases are likely to be identified, as well as a range of implications that had not been expected. It is, therefore, important to move away from trying to design their use across the force from first principles and to instead accelerate the acquisition, testing and use of AI where appropriate, to learn how to employ it most effectively.

Perhaps one of the more surprising synergies in the approach outlined was its similarities with that pursued by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Elsa B Kania, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, explained how the PLA is making a deliberate drive to acquire, experiment with and field AI-supported systems, and has a range of fighting concepts that employ them. The PLA is also acquiring a wide set of capabilities at pace. But the Chinese military remains deeply aware of its lack of operational experience. It is attempting to address this deficiency through robust wargaming and experimentation. Nevertheless, the scale of the country’s acquisitions should not mask the uncertainty that underpins their employment. In spite of clear principles articulated in the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy, it should not be assumed that Chinese concepts will remain static or rigid when they come into contact; instead they will adapt and change in response to the challenges encountered.

The most substantive challenge to CGS’s vision was an enduring question over critical mass. As regards experimentation, it was noted that the British Army is proposing to use a reinforced company group as its experimental force, which is unlikely to comprise a sufficient breadth of combined arms functions to properly test the implications of new capabilities. There was also a strong belief that in any major conflict the ability to take successive objectives will require resilience and that this requires traditional close combat capabilities at a sufficient scale. Dr Lester Grau highlighted how in Russian concepts ‘reconnaissance strike complexes’ supplement but do not replace the use of large quantities of conventional artillery, given that precision comes with significant cost and enablement implications. Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, discussing the German Army’s modernisation plan, outlined how he felt the Bundeswehr needs to field a conventional armoured division with all appropriate enablers at echelon by

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2027, including 350 modernised main battle tanks, 350 infantry fighting vehicles and 100 self-propelled howitzers. Additionally, he argued that while there are advantages to digitisation, it also introduces vulnerabilities into the force that could undermine readiness. This highlighted a clear division in views between the German and British armies. Whether this divergence can lead to complementary systems of fighting will be an important priority for ensuring interoperability.

Another area of debate among delegates centred on deterrence, readiness and the nature of competition. Dr Sean McFate made the case that a properly formed force has little value if it is not present to contest the vital ground. He argued that Western forces need to use a mixture of contractors and more responsive conventional forces to continuously shape the operating environment. This was complementary to the vision set out by Major General James Bowder, the commander of 6 (UK) Division, who explained that the UK wishes to use its security force assistance brigade as a means to expand partner capacity, but also as a bridgehead through which the UK can conduct special operations, information operations, irregular warfare, electronic warfare and standoff digital effects to compete with adversaries continuously. Major General Bowder argued that if the conditions in an environment can be shaped to make war unattractive as a policy option, this could mitigate the need to deploy large conventional forces consistently. The importance of competition in determining the terms under which great power war takes place was emphasised by Major General Barrett, who described how activities in the cyber domain and electromagnetic spectrum continue in peacetime and generate the information baseline necessary to transition to competitive warfighting.

In some respects, Lieutenant General Sir Edward Smyth-Osbourne, commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, set out a more constrained perspective on what is realistic in the ‘compete’ space. While acknowledging that working collaboratively and closely with partners and allies who are on the frontline is important, he emphasised that there is a significant deterrent value in NATO maintaining a credible second-echelon capability. The resilience this provides is the Alliance’s insurance policy. However, to deliver that effect, higher echelon headquarters need to be able to form up and project their forces, as well as conduct deep effects to shape the conditions for success in the close. There is also a need for the requisite capabilities to be held at echelon across NATO. The importance of alliances and exercises was similarly emphasised by General (Ret’d) Robert Brown, executive vice president of the Association of the US Army, who described how technical and systems integration among allies ultimately depends on the interoperability of personnel, achieved through working together and understanding the key points of friction. Allies, General Brown noted, are vital in enabling theatre access and providing the forward base to compete effectively. Similarly, allies require a second echelon to credibly deter their adversaries.

The emphasis on human relationships was also stressed in the discussion on ensuring the interoperability and effectiveness of the next generation of capabilities. Major General Simon Hamilton, director of support for the British Army, outlined the basis of the UK’s Land Industrial Strategy. He described how there is a need to escape from the ‘feast and famine’ cycle of British Army procurement, the lack of iterative upgrades to platforms and the need to be able to nurture key technologies that could contribute to securing a UK stake in multinational programmes. The

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suggested approach involves a much earlier and collaborative relationship with industry, with smaller contracts supporting the refinement of requirements prior to fixing on an acquisition. Acquisition should be spread out over a longer period to allow industry to adjust and refine in the early phases, and to maintain consistent manufacturing outputs to secure skills and infrastructure. He also suggested that a more collaborative approach necessitates moving away from open competition underpinning the procurement process.

Responding to General Hamilton, Alex Cresswell, CEO and chairman of Thales UK, emphasised that having trust between military and industry, enabling collaborative working as partners, and building goodwill and a shared understanding of success is critical. Although industry has different interests to the military, that does not mean that collective definitions of success can not be highly compatible. He also stressed how significant economies of scale could be achieved with many of the component technologies in modern military systems through the integration of military and civilian approaches. Appreciating how this could make working more efficient is important. For instance, the military still ties security to physical locations. But the multiple ways in which a person’s identity can now be verified should enable teams to work while geographically mobile, so that military units can maintain relationships with industry supporting them even as they move around. This assurance of continuity in relationships would help to build a team across the whole force.

Closing the conference, Jeremy Quin, minister for defence procurement, outlined three areas in which the UK will try to make acquisitions faster and more assured. He noted that the Ministry of Defence’s track record in terms of land acquisitions is poor. Nevertheless, there will now be a concerted effort to change how the department does business. The first line of effort is an increase in funding to be able to invest in and ensure the delivery of new systems. The second line of effort will be the refinement of processes through the Land Industrial Strategy. Here, the minister argued that the British Army must move away from perpetual refinement of requirements that inevitably slow down programmes while increasing cost. Instead, it should accept 80% solutions that can be brought into service and subsequently upgraded through spiral development. This would ensure a long tail in acquisitions for industrial partners and flexibility to optimise for changes in the operating environment. The third line of effort is to prioritise asymmetric advantage in what is procured. Rather than replacing existing systems on a like-for-like basis or acquiring systems to counter specific identified threats as they emerge, the department should identify capabilities that threaten cornerstones of the adversary system of fighting and disproportionately invest in them. While stressing the importance of the relationship with industry, however, the minister made clear that the department has a responsibility not just to the UK economy, but also to safeguarding a strong industrial base with the right skills, and that for this reason there will be a heavy emphasis in acquisitions towards onshore industrial partners.

In pursuing the questions suggested by the conference theme, there were many outstanding points of debate: between the asymmetric deep battle approach articulated by CGS and the need for resilient conventional close battle formations; between the need to focus acquisitions on the components of a coherent system of fighting that deliver asymmetric advantage and the

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need to accelerate experimentation to field and test systems where their implications remain unknown or uncertain; and between the need to accelerate the pace of change and the need to remain able to integrate with allies. While these questions should remain as key points of discussion, there were some consistent answers across the presentations.

First, robust multinational exercises are critical for making progress in almost all the identified areas of challenge. The need to ensure that personnel are familiar with one another’s systems, that deterrence activity is maintained, that interoperability is tested, and that new capabilities are experimented with and refined all call for deliberate use in the field. While synthetic environments might enable some drills to be honed, this does not detract from the need to explore real-world frictions.

Second, a more even tempo of distributed activity – rather than gearing up for one-off major acquisitions or deployments – is important for demonstrating to adversaries that the force maintains readiness and to enable industry and allies to avoid a famine period between bursts of activity.

Third, there was a persistent recognition that adaptability is a critical enabler for integration. As forces modernise, they will invariably diverge in ways that threaten interoperability, and leaving working room to link systems will therefore be important. Navigating a transformation in battlefield geometry is likely to lead to mistakes, dead ends and unexpected discoveries, so that while the direction of travel may be clear, the ability to adapt is essential. An 80% solution that can be refined is undoubtedly better than a 100% solution that turns out to be based on false assumptions.

Given the proximity to the UK’s Integrated Review and the restrictions on international travel, Land Warfare Conference was heavily focused on the British Army this year. However, it will be critical to hear from a wider range of partners and allies next year, as land forces continue to grapple with the challenges of meeting the new threats that pervade the future operating environment.

Jack Watling is a Research Fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI.