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Agile Combat Employment Interoperability and Integration

  • Published
  • By Sandeep “FRAG” Mulgund, Ph.D.

Introduction 

The Air Force is using the term agile combat employment (ACE) to describe an approach to operations that relies less on large traditional main overseas bases as hubs for projecting airpower and more on launching, recovering, and maintaining aircraft from dispersed forward operating locations in concert with allies and partners.[1] This adoption of this approach has been motivated in part by adversarial advances capabilities that can hold at risk those bases that have traditionally been considered sanctuaries. ACE makes it possible to shift operations from centralized physical infrastructures to clusters of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning, improve resilience, and provide more power projection options for joint and combined force commanders. Aircraft are most vulnerable on the ground, and ACE offers the potential to mitigate combat losses through maneuver and dispersal. Forces may maneuver proactively between operating locations to assure allies, posture to deter aggression, or to gain advantage. They may conduct reactive maneuver in response to observed, perceived, anticipated, or realized enemy aggression to complicate enemy targeting, redistribute forces away from points of concentration, increase survivability, and reposition forces for follow-on operations.[2]

As ACE continues to mature a key step will be ensuring that it effectively integrates and interoperates with related concepts from other U.S. services as well as with the Air Forces of key allies and partners. Dialogue and collaborative efforts are ongoing to achieve such integration and interoperability.[3] While joint/combined force tactics in the delivery of fires are nothing new, ACE requires a higher degree of interoperability in the critical activities of command and control (C2), engineering and logistics, base defense, intelligence-sharing, and other functional areas that precede and follow the delivery of fires. The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has highlighted the criticality of enhancing interoperability between U.S. and partner forces for missions today and in the future as implementation of the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC) proceeds.[4] NATO’s concept for multi-domain operations emphasizes the criticality of an interconnected approach.[5] However, terms such as interoperability or integration are often used casually without clear specificity of what they may mean in relation to new operating concepts, organize/train/equip activities, or in the planning and execution of particular operations. While the focus in this paper is on airpower, the key concepts will be equally valuable in the evolution of Joint Force approaches in support of the JWC. Key terms used here are:

  • Interoperability: The ability to act together coherently, effectively, and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objectives.[6] NATO’s definition is similar, emphasizing Allied objectives.[7]
  • Integration: The arrangement of military forces and their actions to create a force that operates by engaging as a whole.[8]
  • Synchronization: The arrangement of military actions in time, space, and purpose to produce maximum relative combat power at a decisive place and time.[9]

Improving materiel and non-materiel interoperability between forces can enable better integration in planning, which in turn offers the potential to support synchronization in execution.

Characterizing Interoperability and Integration 

Interoperability has been the subject of considerable study in a wide range of disciplines. It is typically considered in the context information systems’ ability to exchange information effectively. However, broader definitions take into account organizational, social, or political factors that affect how systems interact with one another.[10] A useful model for characterizing interoperability for the purposes of this paper is NATO’s Network Enabled Capability (NNEC), which identifies five levels of maturity in the degree of integration and interoperability in the conduct of operations:[11]

  • Standalone/disjoint operations: Each participant focuses entirely on their own resources and capabilities to achieve their own objectives as though no other participants were present. Objectives, plans, and execution therefore are likely to compete with one another.
  • Deconflicted operations: Organizations avoid interfering with one another by partitioning the problem space in terms of geography, function, echelon, and/or time. Orchestration of activity is limited to avoiding adverse cross-impacts.
  • Coordinated operations: These entail combined planning informed by shared intent. Relative to deconflicted operations, there is a greater degree of mutual support and linkages between plans to reinforce or enhance effects. Individual plans are aligned in execution through coordination between subordinate elements. There may be some sharing of resources not owned by the participants.
  • Collaborative or integrated operations: These require not only common intent but a shared/common plan, pooling of resources, and synchronization of actions in execution. Combined operational pictures support collaborative and interdependent execution.
  • Coherent/transformed operations: The final level of the NNEC maturity model is characterized by rapid and agile decision-making based on transparent information-sharing. Decision-makers have access to all information needed to support their actions, with forces robustly networked to support direct interaction. This level remains aspirational to a great degree.

Moving up this scale requires investment in materiel and non-materiel solutions to improve the ability of disparate forces to operate effectively together. NATO notes that interoperability does not necessarily require common military equipment, but that equipment can leverage common facilities and can interact, connect, communicate, and exchange data and services with other equipment.[12]

Although the highest level of integration/interoperability may seem as though it should always be the goal, considerations such as national objectives, budgetary constraints, planning timeframes, capability levels of different forces, technical/operational feasibility, and overall command structures may affect what is appropriate and achievable in practice. For example, U.S. Joint doctrine identifies three possible models for command structures in multinational operations:[13]

  • Integrated, in which a strategic commander is designated from a member nation and commanders/staffs of subordinate commands are of multinational composition.
  • Lead nation, in which all members place their forces under the control of one nation with subordinate elements retaining strict national integrity.
  • Parallel, in which there is no single force commander and coordination occurs through unity of effort.

The command structure in place among forces executing combined ACE maneuver and airpower generation will affect the extent of deconflicted, coordinated, or integrated operations that is desirable and achievable.

Dimensions of ACE Interoperability and Integration 

Models such as NNEC described above characterize the degree or extent of interoperability and integration that may exist among forces operating together. The challenge becomes how to translate such models into practice through available levers for change. This paper characterizes the elements and instruments of ACE interoperability in terms of the U.S. Department of Defense framework of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy (DOTMLPF-P).[14] It is a model that enables analysis of capabilities through a distinct set of lenses that can inform administrative changes and/or acquisition efforts needed to address gaps in the ability to meet mission requirements.

First, doctrine addresses the way forces fight. It consists of fundamental principles that military forces use to guide their actions in support of national objectives.[15] It is authoritative but not prescriptive; that is, it constitutes official guidance but requires judgment in its application. As USAF ACE approaches have matured, an initial doctrine note[16] has established key principles in terms of well-defined joint functions.[17] This is only a first step in ensuring interoperability of similar schemes of maneuver with joint and coalition partners. Key activities to better align related emerging ACE tradecraft and doctrine with that of partners include:

  • Adoption of common core language. While the DoD has an official dictionary of terms and there exist databases of common terms in alliances such as NATO,[18] it is also often the case that practical usage drifts over time or that the same terms come to have different day-to-day meanings in different organizations. As ACE matures, ensuring that foundational terms related to maneuver, dispersal, disaggregation, and the like will be a critical enabler to ensuring coherence of related concepts.
  • Cross-pollination of related operating concepts. Within the DoD, concepts such as ACE, Navy Distributed Maritime Operations,[19] Marine Corps Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations,[20] and Army Multi-Domain Operations,[21] while carrying similar themes, have evolved somewhat independently. To meet the full intent of the Joint Warfighting Concept, more deliberate and proactive co-evolution of approaches will be necessary. This should include both conceptual development and experimentation/exercise activities. Similarly, the USAF’s approach to ACE can both inform and be informed by similar concepts under development by other allied and partner nation Air Forces. A first step has occurred with the signing of a combined vision statement on ACE by the USAF and the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force.[22]

Organization pertains to how forces are structured and arranged to conduct operations. Evolving mission requirements can drive changes in organizational structure to better align to needs. The USAF has recently introduced constructs for Expeditionary Airbases (XABs),[23] Air Task Forces (ATFs),[24] and Deployable Combat Wings (DCWs)[25] to better meet the needs of the evolving global security environment. It has also added a functional “A-Staff” to existing wing staffs to better support rapid crisis response and facilitate joint/combined force integration with a structure that will be familiar to other elements of the joint and combined force.[26] These approaches must interact effectively with their counterparts in other U.S. Services and with allies and partners when conducting ACE. The level of organizational interoperability and integration that is desirable and achievable is likely to be a function of the approach to multinational operations, as described above. A key question is how far down in command echelons it is desirable and feasible to implement joint or combined force integration. Specific opportunities include:

  • Aligning functional requirements for mission generation, C2, and base operations support force elements to enable effective collaboration between them.
  • Assembling combined force elements that are built using reinforcing or complementary capabilities from different partners.

The command arrangements and relationships in place in any combined force activity will directly affect what level of organizational integration is desirable and achievable and will drive unity of command vs. unity of effort considerations.

Training has to do with how forces prepare to fight; this may encompass basic to advanced individual training, as well as joint and combined exercises. ACE training must address applicable theater and force provider concepts of employment, while providing commanders at all levels with guidance to help identify and synthesize applicable tasks, conditions, and standards for building proficiency in executing the ACE scheme of maneuver. ACE exercises have been ongoing for several years, growing in realism, sophistication, and scenario complexity over time. Specific areas of focus in exercise development include:

  • Bilateral and multilateral exercise events. Combined training events should focus on common scenarios with mutually supporting objectives that address defensive and offensive power projection requirements. Working through how combined forces with potentially varying degrees of integration execute proactive or reactive ACE together within the context of all-domain operations will illuminate materiel and non-materiel gaps to address.
  • Deliberate cross-training in mission generation, C2, and base operations support functions. The Air Force’s new force presentation model delineates force elements with responsibilities for mission generation (delivery of sortie generation), C2 (connecting, sensing, communicating, and supporting decision-making), and base operations support (including airfield operations and installation life support functions). Efforts are ongoing to establish how these force elements will enable and execute ACE. Within the framework of the level of organizational integration desired with allies and partners, training and exercise events must stress the unique challenges associated with each of them to enable combined ACE maneuver.
  • Application of combined mission command principles. The Air Force recently published its first ever doctrine on mission command,[27] which is a philosophy of leadership that empowers Airmen to operate in uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing environments through trust, shared awareness, and understanding of commander’s intent. Philosophies of decentralization and delegation have been the norm in smaller Air Forces with leaner command structures. Establishing how to align different perspectives on centralization vs decentralization must become a part of routine combined training events so that forces are ready to execute them coherently in crisis.

Materiel requirements focus on the “stuff” that forces require to execute their mission. Improving technical solution interoperability has long been a priority for NATO as a part of overall force integration of member nations. The recently announced AUKUS agreement will include cooperation on a range of advanced capabilities. The previous Chief of Staff of the Air Force and now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has emphasized integrated by design. [28] The key idea is to prioritize collaborative decisions with allies and partners on interoperability requirements, resource investment, force development, and overall strategy from the beginning of any endeavor. While traditional security cooperation has relied on foreign military sales or direct commercial sales fueled by fully developed U.S. capabilities driven by USAF requirements; integrated by design embraces bringing partners into the capability development process as early as possible, aligning interests, and promoting program co-ownership of future programs in the interest of cost-sharing. It is a mindset for how to approach capability development and acquisition in a time of increasing mutual interdependence.

As the United States’ allies incorporate fifth generation capabilities into their own forces, there are unique opportunities ahead to build high-end combined forces for countering peer threats. Specific areas of focus in relation to ACE center on identification and development of common and complementary materiel solutions and enablers. Particularly when anchored in common aircraft platforms, it will be beneficial to develop and use common enabling capabilities to support ACE in relation to supporting mission generation. In other cases, it may suffice to develop capabilities to common standards from alliances such as NATO. A challenge with focusing just on standards is that their interpretation can vary in implementation, resulting in separate solutions that are not as interoperable as originally envisioned. There may also be specialty mission requirements in which separate partner nation approaches are necessary and appropriate. Establishing which approach is most effective will be a key goal of combined experimentation and training campaigns. Areas of focus include:

  • Interoperable communications and information-sharing capabilities to support C2 requirements
  • Ability to federate heterogenous systems
  • Common support equipment for mission generation
  • Agile base defense capabilities for countering a spectrum of threats

Leadership centers on the professional preparation of those who will lead the fight. Warfighting approaches such as ACE will directly affect professional military education (PME) at all levels. Specific areas for leadership development to improve combined force effectiveness related to ACE include:

  • Regular interaction between allied/partner nation leaders on airpower agility issues. Regular cross-talk between leaders at all levels – from flying squadrons to joint headquarters – will be key to developing common perspectives and ensuring that Airmen have the commander’s intent necessary to execute combined schemes of maneuver when applicable under the appropriate authorities. It will also provide a venue for building advocacy on how best to improve combined force effectiveness.
  • Risk communication. New USAF doctrine emphasizes that risk tolerance derives from competence, and that the ability to assess and mitigate risk improves through training, mentoring, education, and experience.[29] The essential purpose of ACE is to use proactive and reactive maneuver to improve force survivability while continuing to fulfill air tasking order requirements. To do so will require balancing offensive/defensive power projection with force protection, which entails trading off one risk for another. Consideration of that balance should be an element of PME that introduces ACE and related concepts from joint and combined force partners.

The personnel dimension has to do with the availability of suitably qualified people to execute the spectrum of day-to-day through contingency response operations. It is both a capability (qualitative) and capacity (quantitative) issue that may span uniformed military, civilian, and contractor forces to ensure that they have the right set of individual and collective skills.[30] The USAF has identified the criticality of what it now calls mission-ready airmen with advanced expeditionary skills to operate effectively in contested, degraded, or operationally limited environments within minimal support.[31] Airmen trained in such skills and with specific competencies outside their core Air Force Specialty Code can reduce the number of Airmen put into harm’s way to generate airpower.[32] Specific areas for improving combined force interoperability through personnel considerations include:

  • Mutually informed accreditation standards. As efforts like mission-ready airmen mature, they provide a basis for cross-pollinating training standards with partners to level set mutual expectations and enable assembling effective combined teams. While different Air Forces will want to maintain their own standards based on their own national and Service guidance, sharing training criteria and guidelines can make it easier to develop “best of breed” training approaches and combined teams whose strengths both reinforce and complement one another.
  • Development of ACE-ready Airmen effective at operating with allies and partners. While training for ACE generally focuses primarily on the development of technical/functional skills, another critical dimension is that of cultivating language, cultural, and other skills that can enable effective force integration. As an example, the USAF offers the Language Enabled Airmen Program to build proficiency in language, regional expertise, and culture of key partners.[33]

The facilities dimension of DOTMLPF-P pertains to the physical installations that enable operations and support the force. The USAF already has over 30 overseas bases of its own and operating out of allied/partner nation airfields is commonplace. Beyond the already high level of integration, combined approaches to ACE introduce some additional planning and execution considerations for maintaining the required operations tempo to include:

  • Airfield use. Combined ACE maneuver might entail different forces generating airpower from the same airfields in some cases. Preparatory work in day-to-day campaigning and training should ensure that the physical arrangement of forces and support equipment provides enough ramp and hangar space and can support turning jets at the speed required by the operational scenario.
  • Support equipment. Mission generation depends on support equipment for weapons loading, maintenance, damage repair, emergency equipment, and others. Ensuring that it is available in sufficient capacity at anticipated airfields and operable by integrated forces will be key to combined ACE planning.
  • Defensive capabilities. The more active defense capabilities that forces must carry between operating locations, the less agile they are likely to be amid rapidly shifting threats. The level of passive and active defenses either resident at a potential operating location or relocatable to it should scale to meet anticipated combined operating requirements and acceptable risk levels.

Lastly, while often overlooked, policy considerations – the rules and regulations that forces must follow in executing the mission – can facilitate or hinder effective force integration and interoperability. As with materiel solution interoperability, promoting adoption of policies that enable better interoperability has long been a priority for NATO. Specific considerations related to ACE include:

  • Expanded information sharing related to status of bases and forces supporting and executing combined schemes of maneuver.
  • Cross-servicing and reciprocal use agreements that enable mission generation and base operations support personnel to support one another and use each other’s capabilities at both main bases and dispersed operating locations.

Levels of ACE Interoperability

The NNEC model provides a useful generalized way of expressing the degree of integration and interoperability between forces, while a DOTMLFP-P decomposition frames the different aspects of ACE that require deliberate effort to drive change. Figure 1 below illustrates how they can come together to provide a framework for progressively increasing levels of interoperable ACE. Based on the NNEC model above, three progressive levels of ACE integration are:

  • Deconflicted ACE: This is the lowest desirable of interoperability, characterized by independent maneuver of each participant’s forces from separate bases. Essentially, forces stay out of each other’s way when maneuvering proactively or reactively by operating out of separate airfields. There is no meaningful sharing of resources, and the extent of force integration is sufficient only to ensure deconfliction of ACE activity. This level of interoperability may be the only thing possible in a hastily assembled coalition of forces with limited mutual familiarity operating under a parallel command structure.
  • Coordinated ACE: A higher level of integration beyond just deconfliction would be for participating forces to coordinate the use of common clusters of airfields while still largely conducting ACE maneuver independently in accordance with their respective command guidance and risk tolerances. Resource sharing might be limited to the most basic physical infrastructure and base operations support such as hangar and ramp space, runways, air traffic control, base defense, and emergency/rescue capabilities. Coordination would focus on ensuring access to desired operating locations. Actual mission generation would remain largely independent. This level of ACE interoperability might be associated with parallel or lead nation command structures, but below what is achievable or desirable in an integrated command structure.
  • Integrated ACE: The highest level of ACE integration would be combined maneuver from common airfields with extensive sharing of personnel and supporting equipment for mission generation and airfield operations. Integration would occur across C2, mission generation, and base operating support functions. All forces execute proactive or reactive maneuver in a synchronized way based on a common plan as well as shared understanding of the operating environment and agreed-upon risk thresholds. A high degree of mutual support would be the norm through applicable cross-servicing agreements. Achieving this level of integration would require deliberate and sustained effort across all DOTMLPF-P dimensions to ensure that participating forces work together effectively. It is most likely to be feasible in integrated command structures. Overall integrated ACE may include elements of coordinated or deconflicted ACE, depending on individual national priorities and guidance.

Figure 1: DOTMLPF-P framework for interoperable ACE

The assumption in each of the three levels is that forces are operating together towards some common defensive or offensive purpose, but their use of ACE-like schemes of maneuver have varying degrees of integration and interdependence. Advancing from deconflicted to coordinated to integrated ACE will require deliberate effort and investment across all DOTMLPF-P dimensions as discussed earlier. Integration may be designed to be reinforcing by providing additional capacity, or complementary through the integration of each participant’s potentially unique assets (one partner provides airlift while the other provides delivery of fires, for example). Experimentation and exercise campaigns will enable development of the necessary proficiencies and mutual familiarity, as well as resolving identified materiel and non-materiel limitations. Understanding and meeting the minimum requirements across each of the DOTMLPF-P elements that enable a given level of ACE interoperability will enable maturation of combined airpower approaches. As ACE concept development and evaluation continues in the USAF and in its allies and partners, the framework presented here can provide an approach for improving the cohesiveness of combined airpower across the spectrum of conflict.

Dr. Mulgund (BASC, University of Toronto; PhD, Princeton University) is a highly qualified expert senior advisor to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (AF/A3). He is leading an Air Force-wide effort to develop and synchronize the implementation of an enterprise strategy for agile combat employment.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official guidance or position of the United States Government, the Department of Defense the United States Air Force or the United States Space Force.

 

[1] Mulgund, S. “Command and Control for Agile Combat Employment,” Wild Blue Yonder, Aug 2021.

[2] Air Force Doctrine Note (AFDN) 1-21, Agile Combat Employment, Aug 2022. https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Operational-Level-Doctrine/AFDN-1-21-Agile-Combat-Employment/

[3] “Air Force holds multinational ACE conference,” 28 Feb 2024. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3689861/air-force-holds-multinational-ace-conference/ ; “UK, U.S. air forces strengthen interoperability at ACE exercise Agile Shield,” 6 Sept 2024. https://www.lakenheath.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3897405/uk-us-air-forces-strengthen-interoperability-at-ace-exercise-agile-shield/

[4] Grady, C. “Sharpening our Competitive Edge,” Joint Force Quarterly 111, 4th Quarter 2023.

[6] Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Campaigns and Operations, June 2022.

[9] DoD Dictionary.

[11] NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA555717.pdf; Tolk, A., Blair, L. and Diallo, S. “Supporting Network Enabled Capability by extending the Levels of Conceptual Interoperability Model to an interoperability maturity model,” Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, 10(2), 2012.

[13] Joint Publication 3-16, Multinational Operations, Feb. 2021. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_16.pdf

[14] CJCS Instruction 3030.01A, Implementing Joint Force Development and Design, Oct 2022. https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/ Library/Instructions/CJCSI%203030.01A.pdf

[16] Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21.

[17] Joint Publication 3-0.

[26] Auger, C. and Witherspoon, J. “Why the A-Staff?,” Wild Blue Yonder, June 2023. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Wild-Blue-Yonder/Article-Display/Article/3406122/why-the-a-staff/

[27] Air Force Doctrine Publication (AFDP) 1-1, Mission Command, Aug 2023. https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Operational-Level-Doctrine/AFDP-1-The-Air-Force/AFDP-1-1-Mission-Command/  

[29] AFDP 1-1, Mission Command.

[30] CJCS Instruction 3030.01A, Implementing Joint Force Development and Design.

[31] AFDN 1-21, Agile Combat Employment.

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