From the Crows' Nest

Ken Miller [00:00:00]:
Foreign.

Ken Miller [00:00:10]:
Welcome to from the Crow's Nest, a podcast on Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, or enso. I'm your host, Ken Miller, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for the association of All Crows. You can follow me on LinkedIn or email me directly at hostromthecrowsnets.org thanks for listening. We are coming to you from AOC 2024 at the Gaylord Resort in National Harbor, Maryland, just across the Potomac river from our nation's capital in Washington, dc. We are on our third and final day of the show. If you've missed the previous episodes that we've released the last two days of AOC 2024, please take some time to download them. I had some great conversations with Major General Anne Marie Anthony, General Thomas Bussier and Vice Admiral Craig Clapperton. You can also take a look at social media.

Ken Miller [00:00:59]:
We've been on Twitter and LinkedIn uploading some of our conversations on the exhibit floor. So a lot of good information there. For those who need a recap of the event or simply weren't able to attend this week and want to know what what we talked about today, I am pleased to have with me Major General Elizabeth Mickelson. She is Deputy Chief of Staff Operations at Joint Force Command Norfolk, and she provided the opening keynote presentation here on the third and final day of AOC 2024. I also have with me following General Mickelson, I also have for one last time this week, John Knowles, Editor in chief of AOC's Journal of Electromagnetic Dominance, to provide his closing thoughts and wrap up analysis of the week. So without further delay, let me introduce Major General Elizabeth Mickelson, Deputy Chief of Staff Operations, Joint Force Command Norfolk. General Mickelson, thanks so much for joining me here on from the Crows Nest. It's great to have you on the show.

Ken Miller [00:02:01]:
For our listeners who haven't been able to attend, could you share a little bit about your role as Deputy Chief of Staff at Joint Force Command Norfolk?

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:02:10]:
Yes, Joint Force Command Norfolk was established back in 2019, but it was first in 2024. NATO wanted this to be a fully Joint Force Command like Naples and Brunsome. This is a command which is orchestrating and giving effects with the military forces, combining them in operation wherever we need in peacetime crisis and conflict.

Ken Miller [00:02:45]:
So what was your key message? Because we've heard from a number of international visitors this week. Today we have quite a few coming in on stage. What was your message from an international perspective to the audience? Today.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:03:02]:
I highlighted my keynote speech asking three questions. The first one was how why do NATO need To have control in the electromagnetic spectrum and how can we do that? And then we had a question about what kind of lessons have you learned from Ukraine? And the third one was then connected to the high north and how the spectrum is a bit different, connected to the first one. NATO part. Why is this important? NATO consists of 32 nations. We are combined with the nations and the nations are NATO and we are defensive in nature. In order to take on the technology development, we need to have focus on how this spectrum has evolved from being a place where we communicate and, and use the area for just conventional things. And now we see it as an enabler for doing multi domain operations. When I sit as an operation officer also being responsible for intel, I see like the multi domain operation connecting all these domains.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:04:31]:
Land, space, the air, the maritime and the cyber. The electromagnetic spectrum is having a vital role in this. It's like the glue within multi domain operations. So the technology needs to be on our plate.

Ken Miller [00:04:50]:
Now if I may drill down a little bit, when you were talking about the first question about why you mentioned there are really two important aspects of this technology and cooperation. Could you share a little bit about how those two pieces, what you mean by when you talk about technology that you're looking at from your perspective as well as the coordination level.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:05:16]:
We need to find ways to develop weapons used in the Spectrum and also ways to protect our forces and equipment from, from the threat in the spectrum. Doing so we need to cooperate with civil industry because the technology is going so fast and that's the only way we can cope with this and having that vortex that we have today. But also then connecting this. It's not about technology alone. The people need to have skills to work in this area. They need to train and exercise. They need to be familiar with the equipment, they need to try and work in contested areas so they know how to operate when the Spectrum is contested and their equipment doesn't work. So it's developing those skills and we need doctrines saying how to do this.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:06:19]:
And as NATO we need to be interoperable because we are 32 nations working together. And if the equipment doesn't fit together, that's too bad.

Ken Miller [00:06:31]:
Yeah, I like what you said and I'll paraphrase, but it was basically the key to successful EW is harmonization and making sure that everything is working because the spectrum is an inherently joint environment. And I think future conflict, global security threats require us to work together. There's no one can go it alone. So I think that that is, it was really, I think the Spectrum really kind of represents that joint fight, the need to fight together really well.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:07:04]:
Connecting the sensor, the factors, giving the commanders, being able to give good guidance to decision making. The spectrum is crucial for command and control. It's crucial for a lot as we develop our war fighting skills.

Ken Miller [00:07:31]:
Now you mentioned a couple lessons. There are a couple lessons learned from obviously the current war in Ukraine, the threat, the technology, response capabilities, they're evolving so rapidly, especially the important role of a AI in that. What is maybe one thing that you really want to drive home to listeners in terms of what would you say would be like the top lesson that we, we've learned over the last couple years with the Ukrainian war, they have.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:08:03]:
Stepped up and developed their own industry to support their military, developing tactics and techniques, countering the Russians and doing it all the time and all this. I think it's crucial developing the armed forces and we need to take into consideration these lessons learned because we need to develop the adversaries out there.

Ken Miller [00:08:34]:
Now the Ukrainian war gets obviously a lot of attention this week, but I think another area of responsibility that is getting increasing attention and probably deserves to get even more is the Arctic North. A tremendously complex environment, unique circumstances. Could you talk a little bit about the high north environment and what challenges that presents in terms of being able to achieve and sustain an advantage in the electromagnetic spectrum?

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:09:07]:
First, some highlights about high northern Arctic. If you stand on the North Pole, this is the place where in the Peacock area, the high North European and North American part meets. And this is an area which we need to dominate and have control over. The environment is harsh. The magnetic in the earth influences our equipment. It's summertime, 247 daylight, wintertime. When I was up there earlier this week around 1 2, it was getting dark, a lot of darkness and also an area where the solar and everything is different. And if you don't have the skills to operate in these different areas and have prepared our soldiers for that, they are not able, for instance, we need to take some of the exercises up there.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:10:20]:
So they are used to this environment and prepared for that.

Ken Miller [00:10:24]:
Yeah, we talk a lot about training and even in just security threats, I just find the High north very, a very unique place because when we, particularly from the US perspective, we think, oh, we have a threat over here in Russia, we've a threat over here and in China. But when you look at, like you said, the north, that's where they all we, everyone meets. And so that is arguably one of the most strategic areas of the world and something that I think we covered a great deal at our AOC Europe show last year. I'm sure it'll be a key part of our upcoming AOC Europe show in May of this of next year. So as you, as you depart here, I know again you have a busy schedule and I want to respect your time. Just what's kind of a walk away message that you would like to leave listeners who are joining us, but also the attendees here who are here this week.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:11:17]:
NATO is consisting of 32 nations but we need to cooperate and seeing this, this world and the global threats which is more and more connected. For instance, well, US is in NATO but the US and Canada are vital for our property. We also see this as vital for having a safe North America. So cooperation, aligning plans, developing plans together, developing equipment, interoperability amongst allies also outside NATO in for instance Australia. Places like that needs to be on the plate.

Ken Miller [00:12:12]:
Right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us.

Elisabeth Michelsen [00:12:18]:
Foreign.

Ken Miller [00:12:25]:
Welcome back. I am here with John Knowles, editor in chief of AOC's Journal of Electromagnetic Dominance. The Jed John, great to have you back here on the third and final day of AOC 2024. Busy week. So thanks for taking a few minutes to join me here on this wrap up episode. Wrap up segment Wanted to just start by getting your thoughts on the experience so far this week. What has caught your attention in terms of discussions, attendees and just being here.

Ken Miller [00:13:00]:
Thanks. Thanks Ken. Thanks for having me on again. Yeah, I really enjoyed the show. I've gotten all the keynotes. I'm looking forward to the closing session today which focusing on sort of the operational challenges out there, a little more of that. But I really have this year more than ever. And I don't know if it's just me or just the way that the symposium was set up, but if you go back years, 5, 10, 15 years, the sessions were a lot more technical typically and had more just discussion of technology and what are we going to do.

Ken Miller [00:13:33]:
And we were still thinking about things like electromagnetic battle management and reprogramming. But now it's now really a question of in these sessions how are we going to do it? In some ways I think of just do it, just do it and figure it out. Don't worry about making it perfect before you go, but start doing it and fixing it along the way and making a process. But some of the sessions I've been in have been like electromagnetic battle management. I really enjoyed that because they're still talking about things like we got to figure out how to share data so we can make this amazing EMBMJ capability and which is a big electromagnetic battle management joint tool that goes into AVMs and all those. But they've got to have the data sharing sort of processes in place. Same thing with EW reprogramming, rapid reprogramming. We're getting really rapid now.

Ken Miller [00:14:25]:
We're trying to do this from what used to be done in weeks and days down to minutes and hours. And so again you need a process for that. You need to have the, the command and control network and the pipes to actually move it and make sure it's reliable. So we're getting further down the road of solving some of these. It's not just an ideas discussion, it's really a practical application discussion. So I love going into those sessions and hearing the keynote speakers I think again at the beginning of the week. General Anthony was great because she talked more about really what the implementation plan is starting to look like. We're getting a better sense of what's going on in there and what's not also.

Ken Miller [00:15:06]:
So we talked about that in the earlier podcast, but. But I love going into that. And then that main stage is, you know, right on the edge of the exhibit hall. You come to the exhibit hall and there's the technology, there's the companies working it. So if there's a session on AI, you come out here and there's a bunch of new AI companies. And I think that's fantastic to see this, this industry floor, this. Sorry, this industry and the show floor has evolved. There's so many more companies at the of, you know, maybe they're not pure W companies, but they're working in ew.

Ken Miller [00:15:35]:
So AI, some of the antenna companies that maybe are Satcom company, you know, Satcom antennas, but they're really looking at the space piece.

Ken Miller [00:15:42]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:15:42]:
So I really enjoyed that holistic view.

Ken Miller [00:15:45]:
And it seems like from an exhibitor standpoint there's far more representation of like those involved in the mid tier acquisition versus even just some of the. When you, when you go to some of these shows, like it's the. It's dominated by a handful of companies here. It feels much more distributed and with companies vying for access at that level.

Ken Miller [00:16:06]:
Yeah, I think one of the things I'm seeing is the thing I keep my eye really on is what's the future force sort of structure going to look like. It's going to be a lot. We always talk, right. A lot of drones, a lot of swarms, a lot of decoy payloads, things like that and what they're going to go on are going to be small, expendable. But the engineering challenges are very high because, you know, it's to be running on a battery. So it's got to be super efficient in power use. It's got to be small, it's got to be cheap because you got to throw it away. It's not going to necessarily come back, you know, something that might sink at the bottom of the ocean floor or wherever, you know.

Ken Miller [00:16:43]:
And so, and so that's really diversified the industry and, and this is something you and I have talked about and I see especially at ims, which is another show, but the government I don't think quite has a mechanism for dealing with that tier of the industry. So they've got DUI and, or DIU and stuff like that. But I think what's interesting about.

Ken Miller [00:17:10]:
Would you say that because it was a recurring theme when we talk, we talk a lot on the show as well as in some of the sessions. Collaboration, integration and just kind of working together and commonality and so forth. And then when you start to drill down it's like, well, we can do that in the fight, but we still have the services, man trained and equipped and trying to get the services aligned and then realizing that a lot of times the Air Force is really focused on reprogramming. They're doing some really great things. But then you have the Navy and then you have the army and they're all kind of, we're talking about the commonality with. But that conversation stays almost sometimes felt like within the services. So like what can we do? Or what was your impression in terms of that cross service coordination? Because the DIU and some of these things that are driven from like Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense on down that can, that that they can require the services to get into line and to kind of work together. But from the operational perspective, the CO comms, that's not their mission to do this.

Ken Miller [00:18:17]:
So what was that exchange this week? What did you see this week in terms of the progress that the services are making in the US to integrate together and in a way that makes collaboration internationally more efficient and more effective.

Ken Miller [00:18:38]:
I think that's one of the biggest gaps that we. It's there, but it's invisible to the services. Right. So if you think about the man trained equipped side and then there's the warfighter side, right. The cocoms where they. So the man trained equipped is creating capabilities which are all over the show floor. And then the cocon, the warfighter integrates those capabilities to create effects. So they want as many different tools that they can get to combine them, to integrate them, to create the effects that they want.

Ken Miller [00:19:07]:
Right. We've always thought that way. That's been structured in our, you know, since, since the, you know, 80s. Right. We've been moving toward that. But what's interesting is the conversation about the joint MSO is really not happening fast enough on the service side. So they talk jointness, they talk allies and coalition, and they're each doing their own thing. But there's basically one question I always ask and we don't think about, but I'm starting to think more about just let's think about ENSO or EW as a service.

Ken Miller [00:19:39]:
Right. Not because we have to do it, but what do you gain from thinking like that? So what you do is you gain jointness on the man trained, equipped side if you do that. And the services have basically each got their major operating concepts, they've each got a MSO piece of that, but integrating that into a joint interoperable piece that an ally can latch onto. Right. I still don't think it's this sort of invisible piece that if you created it just in your mind, you would probably realize the gap, how big it is. But we don't have anybody on the service side that has basically some sort of operational responsibility for the ems. I mean, normally COCOM has operational responsibility for it, but somebody's got to, got to get those. Who's going to man the gem sock? Who's creating that? Isn't somebody already developed for some weapon system in the Army? The Air Force, The Navy.

Ken Miller [00:20:40]:
And so I don't know if that pipeline's there in people. I don't think the concepts are there. And I think that's our weak underbelly in great power competency.

Ken Miller [00:20:46]:
Yeah. So today in day three, we have a little bit more. It's been sprinkled throughout the week, but a little bit more of an international focus. We start off the day with Major General Mickelson from Joint Force Command, NATO. We end the show with Sir Stuart Peach, who is former military chair of NATO, retired, and then also Colonel from Ukraine. Sorry, hang on.

Ken Miller [00:21:17]:
I can't pull his name up off top of my head.

Ken Miller [00:21:19]:
I know. And, and then, and then. Okay, and, and so we close out today's. We close out AOC 2024 this afternoon with a session featuring Lord Stuart Peach, who is the former Air Chief Marshal and military chair of NATO, along with Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, who is. Who basically runs EW for Ukraine there's also a couple international technical briefs this afternoon. What do you expect? What do you think are a couple questions that we need to, as a community, focus on from an international perspective? Because I think a lot of times when we get into the technology development and some of the stuff you're talking about, we go from lessons learned or successes and transition to assumptions very quickly. And those assumptions are like, oh, well, that will be there. We expect to be there.

Ken Miller [00:22:20]:
But we have to.

Ken Miller [00:22:20]:
But we gotta go build it.

Ken Miller [00:22:21]:
But we have to. We're not there yet. When we get into international discussions today, like, where are we at in terms of kind of minimizing the assumptions we have to make, what when we're in spectrum operations?

Ken Miller [00:22:35]:
So I think put yourself in the mind of an ally. And if they're trying to buy materiel, right, EW capability, they have a pathway in. They go through fms, they'll find a service, one of the services that already uses that piece usually. And so they find a way in, right from the materiel side. When you get into the operational, where's that system, single ems belly button that you're gonna work with that you can not after a conflict starts, but beforehand, who can you train with? And so your pathway in is much more complicated because maybe you go to the army and you do a joint exercise with them, or maybe you do it, you know, but there's no, there's no EMS like central, you know, hub inside the dod. That's this place that you can go. That's your starting point. You've got to go in through some much more stovepipe pathway through one of the services because you bought a growler or you bought Compass Call or you bought some piece of SIGINT equipment.

Ken Miller [00:23:39]:
And so you're stuck with your material solution pathway. And that's probably not super helpful in a coalition war fighting concept always. You know what I mean? It's slow. And the US just doesn't have that. That again, that service or whatever, whether it's the Jack or whoever, who's going to do that in a robust way across everything you need to think about as an ally. It's not just your data sharing and your ability to get into embm, is that going to come through your platforms and your pathways is that way, because how many things are going to get on EMBM that way? And then you're stovepiped on your end because you're dealing with five different places in the US instead of one, five different offices that you're like, how am I going to fight this way, I got to glue myself together in the EMS on this side. So integration's been a big word that I've heard on the international panels.

Ken Miller [00:24:37]:
And it usually comes with. In peacetime or times of not fighting, you have the time to really pursue the tactics, procedures, regulatory changes, ethic considerations, all that. But as we're seeing over in Ukraine, you don't have time.

Ken Miller [00:24:55]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:24:56]:
So technology in war is moving faster than any sort of regulatory initiative can track.

Ken Miller [00:25:03]:
Yes.

Ken Miller [00:25:04]:
And so on one side, we're trying to tackle a host of issues, and we're trying to do it as though we're at peace, but yet technology, the threat, and global security is changing at the speed of fighting right now. That's a huge tension to kind of work out between the allies and international partners.

Ken Miller [00:25:28]:
It's an empty space. They have to come in and find a way in, and there's no easy way. And the problem is this. If, like, it's inherently joined. Yeah. EMS is inherently jointed. It's the metadomain that touches all the others, supports all the others. And it's just so I'm sure if we got a panel of impatient people like me up there that were international, you know, allies of the U.S.

Ken Miller [00:25:56]:
they would say, you do not have a way to help me. I bought your equipment. I am sharing. I'm ready to share data with you on a network. I'm ready to do that. But you have made it this. This crazy Byzantine bureaucracy called the DOD that is missing this piece, this operational. Like, I am not going to be able to fight alongside of you very effectively because I have to go.

Ken Miller [00:26:19]:
I'm not a big force. If it's, you know, most NATO countries right there. You know, I was. Australians always joke to me like, you have more people in the Pentagon than we have in the entire, you know, Australian Defense Force. And so, so, so, so for our big bureaucracy, where's the payoff, Right? You know, where's that DoD bureaucracy? So we're going to. We're going to stitch that together in. In a conflict, in the middle of a conflict. I mean, we will, but that's not a good going in plan.

Ken Miller [00:26:44]:
And then, you know, of course, from the US Perspective, and we talked about this a little bit of the podcast, the live episode last night, which will air sometime in early January, you throw in, you talk about the bureaucracy, then you talk about the changes that are going to happen in the US come January 20th when the Trump administration starts, you're going to see a lot of. We'll just say, you know, controversial or eye opening initiatives to reduce government, reduce. Some of them will succeed, some of them won't. But you're going to have some political turmoil going on.

Ken Miller [00:27:20]:
It's very distracting from what we're trying to do.

Ken Miller [00:27:22]:
It's one more element that seems to provide you kind of slow that effort down a little bit. And as we're seeing this week, we just don't have the time. So it's really a lot of progress has been made. But every time you make progress, you realize there's two more steps, three more steps you have to take. And it's just your line of sight and your visibility of it starts to expand. You realize how much more you have to go.

John Knowles [00:27:53]:
Yeah, I mean who's. So we keep hearing these words, right? Integration, coordination, synchronization, everybody's ready, everybody talks it, but there's no body like in the US or NATO's going to try to do that. But again, it's just this missing piece and it's becoming more apparent to me because we're going further down this road and we're getting closer and closer to probably getting into a conflict not with just one great power, but probably two or you know, maybe more. But, but you know, if my theory is you should prepare that if you get into an, into a conflict with China, Russia is going to do something too. Just, just, just because you're distracted in the US So NATO is going to have a bigger burden. The Europeans have a bigger burden on them. And then Iran, if they go, decide at the same time to shut off the, you know, the Persian Gulf or whatever they want to do to maximize the chaos that they, the US and its allies are experiencing. You just have to bet on that because if you don't prepare for that, it becomes reality.

Ken Miller [00:28:51]:
Well, I think you see a spectrum of conflict where US is kind of in the center there and you have Russia, the Russian threat on the far right and Indo Pacom on the far left. And the reality is that's not the way that we should be thinking about it, but it's more probably like a period where a pyramid where that bottom layer is all the asymmetric fighting and instability that's out there. Then you have the middle conflict of proxy wars and then that top, I think we talked about a little bit this morning, strategic geographic locations like the high north and the Arctic regions where all three actors, major powers, China, Russia and the US Converge into one area. So and that provides almost, it seems to be the smallest or the least threatening right now, but it arguably is the most strategic because it's going to inform all those other conflicts and threats all the way down that pyramid is how I'm thinking of it through this week.

Ken Miller [00:29:52]:
Yeah, it's something we need to mentally understand that there's a, there's this empty space that is called the Joint EW Force, whatever. But it can't just be on the COCOM side, it's got to be on the man train equipped side because that's where your allies are coming in. They're not just interfacing with CO comms. They need a service level command or something that says, okay, before we start fighting, this is how we're thinking about it.

Ken Miller [00:30:23]:
Yeah. I really appreciate you taking time to join me here at the beginning and the end of AOC 2024. It's been a great show and I really appreciate your time this afternoon.

Ken Miller [00:30:34]:
Thanks for having me on and we'll be doing this again, I hope soon.

Ken Miller [00:30:37]:
Sounds good. Thank you very much. Well, that will conclude this episode of from the Crow's Nest. And this will conclude our podcast coming to you from AOC 2024. Please take some time to listen to all the episodes. Again, some great conversations. We have one more regular from the Crow's Nest episode coming out next week, which is part two of my conversation on PPBE Reform. And that will be the last episode of 2024, but we will be back.

Ken Miller [00:31:08]:
We have a full slate of episodes to release in 2025. Again, please take some time to review, share and subscribe to this podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners. You can also email me directly@hostromthecrowsnest.org that's it for today. Thanks for listening.