From the Crows' Nest

Ken Miller [00:00:09]:
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest, a podcast on electromagnetic spectrum operations or EMSO. I'm your host, Ken Miller, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Association of Old Crows. You can follow me on LinkedIn or you can email me directly at host@fromthecrowsnest.org. As always, thanks for listening. All right, we finally reached the unofficial start of summer here in the first week of June. There's a lot going on in Congress and DOD and of course around the world, but just a few things to highlight to get started in today's episode. First, I had a great visit out at Nellis Air Force Base last week to meet MSO stakeholders including the Joint center for Electromagnetic Readiness or jcer. Also had the opportunity to meet a few AOC members in the area as we try to figure out how to build our presence and in the, in and around Nellis Air Force Base. For those in attendance.

Ken Miller [00:00:59]:
I do apologize. I picked an absolutely terrible place to meet and probably wasn't the best foot forward in terms of aoc. But I'm going to blame that on not being familiar with Las Vegas. But do know that I have learned my lesson and we will have a, a much better venue next time. But it was a good time, a lot of good conversation, a lot of good, good, some, some new members and of course it was good to connect with some folks that already knew for many years here through the aoc. For those unfamiliar with the Joint center for Electromagnetic Readiness, jaser it is a mission under strategic command merely charged with evaluating the readiness of us on mso. The parent organization to JCER is the Joint MSO center up in Offutt Air Force Base. The JEC under the leadership of two star general Anne Marie Anthony.

Ken Miller [00:01:49]:
She's done a fantastic job in that role. A lot of challenges, but some of some really positive changes. The sister organization to JSER is the Joint ew center, the Juke down in San Antonio. And of course our listeners will know that I was down there in the spring as well. So these are very important centers of gravity for our community and I, I enjoy going out there, meeting the folks, having some really good talks, getting some insight into developments and so forth. So really appreciate everyone's time that makes these trips possible and especially to AOC members who help out and, and I get to see when, when I'm traveling. One of the things that did stick out to me though during the meetings was once again that the manpower challenge that we have in the MSO world, finding the right people and keeping them in the Field is, is a difficult challenge. I can't speak for other sectors, but it takes a really long time to become an expert in mso.

Ken Miller [00:02:46]:
And so a lot of our intellectual capital is, you know, has been, has been in the job or been in the area for many years. And of course, you know, we are, all are following the news, you know, with some of the, the personnel changes in terms of government employees and early retirements and so forth, and trying to kind of scale back government in some way. It has a cascading effect that is, does reach into areas like EMSO that really cannot afford any fewer people. So there's some challenges there that are exacerbated by this, by current plans to reorganize and, and, and change the workforce. But I do want to applaud the tremendous work of the people that we do have, whether they're active duty military, government officials or contractors. There's a lot of good work being done. But it's, it's an area that really showed itself during visits at Nellis. Again, it's one thing to be at capacity, it's another thing to have that capacity at the right amount.

Ken Miller [00:03:47]:
You know, sometimes you'll hear like, well, we have 100% of the people we, we have the spots for. And that sounds great. The spots they need could be two to three times more than what they have. So it's a challenge to get a hold of, but it's a, it's an area that we need to focus on as, as a community moving forward. I think the manpower issue also speaks to the uncertainty about the implementation of the 2020 MSO Superiority Strategy. EMS Superiority Strategy. We made a lot of progress in the last several years, but we are not keeping pace, in my estimation, we are not keeping pace with where we need to be today. In a very unstable global environment, we continue to waste way too much time.

Ken Miller [00:04:28]:
We know what the problems are and, and we know quite frankly, the solutions come with authorities and resources attached to them. In other words, we need those in order to address the problems. But yet we still don't have the leadership and the organizational structure necessary to connect the authorities and resources to what, to our requirements. So we're going to dig into this a little bit more as we proceed, but I think, you know, we do need to, we need to evaluate pieces of the strategy that could be adjusted now that we're five years in to the implementation. Obviously there's certain things that have changed. There are certain goals. Maybe not goals that have changed, but objectives that have changed. And the global Environment has changed.

Ken Miller [00:05:14]:
So taking a look at that to see how can we really address some of these enduring challenges that we have been talking about for decades. Other news worthy items this past weekend in the was the Asian Defense Forum in Singapore. Breaking from tradition, China did not participate, but U.S. secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was there. He gave a very direct speech which obviously upset China and they are using it for maximum propaganda. So we'll see how that plays out, I think. Hegseth also encouraged allies and partners to in the region to ramp up defense spending and he called Australia to increase funding to 3.5% GDP. GDP.

Ken Miller [00:05:54]:
This is a main point for the current administration to get other countries to increase. What I do like about these calls are it's not about holding other countries accountable, but it's about the, the value, the benefits that we can have. When other countries are investing this technology, putting their intellectual capital to work, putting their resources in it can give us a great new fresh perspective, whether it's a new capability, a new, a new technique or something that we haven't thought of. And so we create a much stronger partnership and a stronger alliance when we are all developing technologies to win the next war. And so some of these calls for additional money, while they might seem out of place or maybe inappropriate at times, I, it depends on the context. But I can say I do believe that there's a great value in Allison partners with the US to put in more money. I think for the US we obviously give a lot and we obviously have a huge defense budget. What we need to do is make defense funding more efficient.

Ken Miller [00:06:59]:
So we waste an awful lot. But we, but our, but our. As a percentage of gdp, we're doing a good job. So there's going to be a lot of discussions in Congress. You know, they've just done a reconciliation package. They're waiting for the President's budget. They have the defense budget coming up at the end of June. We're going to be talking a lot about defense budget numbers and programs here in the coming weeks.

Ken Miller [00:07:20]:
So I won't get into that. But you know, we as a country, I think from the US perspective we need to do better at how we manage our money. I think from allies and, and partners around the world, you know, just helping develop the next latest and greatest technology and breakthrough can have a tremendous impact on saving lives. And that's really the mission of ew. So at the end of the day, you know, all of this discussion is, is important for how we prepare for global security challenges that demand a sustained Advantage in ew. You hear it from me all the time. We will not win unless we have the sustained advantage in the EMS and space. Those are the two areas that we cannot cut corners on to do that.

Ken Miller [00:08:04]:
Obviously the services are responsible for manned train and equipment functions. We talk a lot about the Air Force in recent episodes because of the great work of the 350 Spectrum Warfare Wing. And we'll cover other services later in the summer. Except however, today's episode. Today we are talking about the army. And the army has a number of very unique challenges, some great opportunities, especially in the UAS and space categories or space areas of, of, of the discussion. And so I wanted to have the army on here to kind of give us insight into where they're going with their ew plans. And I really think that some of what they're doing is going to really set a trend for our community is some fascinating work.

Ken Miller [00:08:50]:
So I am pleased to have with me Colonel John Hosey. He is the Army's sixth Chief of Cyber and Commandant of the U.S. army Cyber and Electromagnetic Warfare School is headquartered in Fort Eisenhower, Georgia. I'm also pleased to have a second guest, Colonel Leslie Gorman. She is the Capability Manager for ew in the Army. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation. I had a, I had a chance to talk to Colonel Gorman at AOC 2024. Really wanted to have her back on the show for more in depth conversation.

Ken Miller [00:09:20]:
So it all worked out that I could have both Colonel Hosey and Colonel Gorman on at the same time. So without further delay, let's in listen into my conversation with them on ew and the US Army. All right. I am pleased to be here with Colonel John Hosey, Chief of Cyber and Commandant of Army Cyber School, as well as Colonel Leslie Gorman, Army Capability Manager for ew. Colonel Hosey. Colonel Gorman, thanks for taking time to join me here on from the Crows Nest. It's great to have you on the show. Really looking forward to talking with you today.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:09:49]:
Pleasure to be here. Thanks Ken. Good to see you again.

Colonel John Hosey [00:09:51]:
Thank you for having us.

Ken Miller [00:09:53]:
So Colonel Hosey, really we, we talked a few weeks ago, Colonel Gorman, we had, I had the opportunity to, to talk with you during AOC convention. So we have bit of some topics to kind of catch up on. This has been a topic to talk a little bit more about all the changes taking place in Army Cyber recently. We haven't really talked a lot about it on the show. And so it's, it's long overdue that we get to talk with you a Little bit about all the changes happening under your command. And so just to kind of get us started, just a real simple question, because I think a lot of our listeners, they might say, oh yeah, they understand Army Cyber, but they don't really know how you're organized. So could you talk to us a little bit about how everyone's organized together so we can get a kind of an idea of, of what's in your portfolio and how that flows up the chain of command.

Colonel John Hosey [00:10:39]:
So for the Army Cyber School, right? I'm, I'm outside of the operational force. You have the Army Cyber Headquarters, which is the operational contract that goes to US Cyber Command. But I belong to the Combined Arm center and the TRADOC, so training and Dr. Command. So we are the MOS producing schoolhouse for all of the 17 series that not only is cyber, but also includes, includes electromagnetic warfare. So our formations that we present to the force outside of the school, once they became a become a cyber soldier, they either go to the Cyber Mission Force through Army Cyber, or they go to Forces Command as part of electromagnetic warfare formations.

Ken Miller [00:11:21]:
And then Colonel Gorman, you're the Army Capability Manager for ew. How does that fit in? Are you as well under TRADOC or are you under a different organization?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:11:32]:
So the ACOMs, army capability managers, our directorates fall under the FCC, the future capabilities center, which falls under the Army Futures Command. And it's interesting because John has obviously the training, the doctrine policy, the field manual, the training circular development responsibility, especially when it comes for how we operationalize things. And then on the Akram side, I'm more of the material, but then also see our relationship is very complementary because one thing I don't want to do is push out a capability that one doesn't meet the intent of the force or something that we can't get our soldiers trained to. And so it's. While it's separate parent organizations, which I don't know if we're able to say, but under recently there was from the director, the Department of the army direction to merge our headquarters in the near future. So pretty soon we'll be wearing the same patch but doing a lot of the same work.

Ken Miller [00:12:36]:
That's really interesting because you mentioned that you're complimentary and I you can see that you. So you, Colonel Hosey, you kind of have the people aspect and then Colonel Gorman, you have the technology, the capability aspect. So you do have to be talking about coming down the force, coming through the pipeline, as well as what they're going to be equipped with in the field. For the mission. So I wanted to kind of break those two pieces up a little bit more. And so Colonel Jose, I'll come to you first to talk a little bit more about the, some of the challenges with that. You're an opportunities you're facing as you're working with the Army Cyber School. We talk a lot on the show.

Ken Miller [00:13:10]:
The manpower aspect is extremely critical in each of the services. Services have to man train and equip that training aspect and, and filling the billets of all the, the operators, SMEs, everything that you need to for your force. It's a challenging effort to, to, to educate as many people as you need to get them into the force. So talk a little bit about some of your opportunities. I don't want to keep saying challenges, but it is a challenge. But in terms of your job of guiding that pipeline, what are some of the things that you're facing on a day to day basis to make sure that the army has the right people in place?

Colonel John Hosey [00:13:45]:
Well so you know, historically, I mean we could go through like a small history. Right. So we kind of didn't do much with ew for a long time since about the 90s. Right. And then around approximately 2007, 2008 we had a function area for electromagnet warfare which is the 29 series, 29 Alpha and 290. And then you know around 2017, 2018 timeframe, that's when electromagnetic warfare came into the cyber branch. And then that's when we started to further professionalize the force. So developed the coursework based off of the courses that were being taught at the Fire center of Excellence.

Colonel John Hosey [00:14:20]:
We kind of just brought it over and where that functional area was a mid career transition. This one is an initial entry training now. So we have privates that are learning electromagnetic warfare. The first AIT graduation happened in 2020 during the COVID timeframe. Right. So and because the evolution of the hardware capability and technology is just so rapidly happening and what we're seeing lessons learned, we've the schoolhouse here that I'm honored to be a part of and since 2016 has designed the coursework to be like courseware as a service so we can take operational constructs and then ingest it into the instruction here to make operational rapid ttps actually be taught here so they have more operational relevant forces that come out building that model from what I would call the critical learning path or critical knowledge path from private all the way to senior enlisted and from lieutenant all the way up to senior officer for the 17 series, the cyber and ew soldiers. That's critical for understanding for new technologies and the theories that are needed. But there's also a military occupational specialty agnostic level of awareness needs to happen across infantry, artillery, aviation, you name it.

Colonel John Hosey [00:15:35]:
So we're actually also incorporated into those other centers of excellence that train the other army leaders on aware for M awareness. Right. So those are all the components that we're going after.

Ken Miller [00:15:46]:
He mentioned the first cadre of specialists, the soldiers coming out in 2008, kind of that switch that happened. And that's about, you know, 17 years ago, which seems like a long time ago, but in army or any sort of military service reform, that's not that long ago. So you've accomplished a lot. And especially you mentioned 2016 on. Can you discuss a little bit about some of the challenges in terms of moving the army, which is the world's largest fighting force? How do you make that change so internally? Because as you're talking, I sense it's like peeling back the onion and really realizing that it's not just enough to for one schoolhouse, you have to get them earlier and earlier. And now you're talking, you know, even potentially like basic training, like the, the moment you enter in the army, you've got to learn spectrum because it's going to affect you. So once you start to pull back that training, I mean, you're going back further and further and that's touching more organizations, more people. How do you go about that? How do you go about kind of keeping your foot on the gas of change so that you can actually accomplish what you need to in the time frame you want?

Colonel John Hosey [00:16:52]:
So a couple of initiatives that are actually happening that it's already started. Right. The army just put out its ew strategy based off of the EMS superiority strategy. So that was just published here pretty recently to go concurrently with that for is we're currently working on the ew training strategy that has three lines of effort, institutional, operational, and then the resources that feed the other two. Now that is not just for the cyber ew professional, that is for the entire force. Right. So that goes training across again, all those military occupational, specialty agnostic, other branches, like the combat arms branches. And we're doing that as a follow on like once we get that training strategy published and then we have the implementation plan, which will be part of our training circulars, which we pretty much publish through the Combined Arms center from the Cyber center of Excellence, developing what, what I have called the ew gunnery strategy.

Colonel John Hosey [00:17:49]:
So it's nested with combat formation so when a maneuver brigade goes out there and actually executes their table certification, the ew platform and people and resources that are supporting that brigade level organization or higher as they go up, they'll have a nested architecture on certification for each one of those events. And that that's going to happen across the force.

Ken Miller [00:18:10]:
Can you share with us some of the numbers that you deal with in terms of the people coming through the pipeline and what you're trying to fill or how, what you want the force to look like at a period of time in the future?

Colonel John Hosey [00:18:21]:
So right now I can't necessarily talk to that one because don't know if you're familiar with the transformation in contact from the chief staff in the Army. They are actually playing with force structure and what the support to those maneuver formations are actually going to look like. And as that experimentation goes through, that's when they'll do a force design update. But currently the plan prior to the experimentation was ew platoons for every brigade formation out there, ew companies for every division, and then initially it was ew companies for the cores as well. So you'd have each one of these formations at echelons nested with the SEMA cell, the cyber Electromagnetic Activity cell at each brigade, division and corps to help nest and synchronize all those effects.

Ken Miller [00:19:04]:
One of the topics that we've discussed in the past was, I call it democratizing ew down to the boots on the ground, the warfighters on the ground. That's something that's we've never done historically in the past. You know, we've kind of kept it up the higher echelon of command, but the Army's really been leading over the years of really driving, driving ew down to the ground because you need the war fighter that's looking around the corner to understand the environment that they're fighting in. How has that effort changed your thinking or affected your thinking in terms of training army soldiers in new that it's you. How can you ensure that you get the training at the tactical edge that you need in a way that's really never been done before with the army or any force? You are setting a course that is taking a new look at ew in a way that we haven't in the past. So how do you go about kind of making sure that you stay on track in, in this kind of new world of driving ew down to, to.

Colonel John Hosey [00:20:06]:
The edge, driving home station training? We just had a Center for Army Lessons Learned publication that went out. It's the Multi domain operations range guide for company to field grade officers which kind of gives you the walk, the walk on who to talk to for clearances, Spectrum requests getting equipment approval so that that starts the initial drive for home station training to allow all those formations that are synergistic to be able to operate at home station and how they've been able to talk to you as far as like taking in lessons learned and new ttps that formations like the four most forward tactical level formations out there. Right now there's a ew knowledge management site that we have on Microsoft Teams that we're going to be rehoming to the basically the enterprise level Cyber School office Chief of Cyber SharePoint page which will also become the repository for all this knowledge management knowledge that's happening. We also send out from the center, the Cyber center of Excellence lessons learned teams to go observe these other exercise formations that are currently going through experimentation and what they do at the National Training center and or the combat training centers. Right. So those are the, the Super Bowls of the armed forces on actually executing new ttps and combat formations. So there's still a lot of work. Right? Because right now we don't have a virtualized training platform.

Colonel John Hosey [00:21:28]:
We have walk based simulation or stimulation based training platforms that'll stimulate our systems of record that Colonel Gorman will talk to you here pretty soon. But we're getting after it I think at a more rapid clip than we have historically especially within the past three years. So those are some, some of the initiatives that we're getting after.

Ken Miller [00:21:50]:
That's a great segue. Colonel Gorman, I want to bring you in, you know to talk a little bit about getting the capabilities into the hands of these trained soldiers new Tell us a little bit about kind of what is in your portfolio, kind of what is driving army's investment in ew through your office.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:22:07]:
Yeah, that's a good question Ken. I think what was really driving a lot of our requirements. There's been several army senior leaders have recognized our need to actually come out last AUSA in October where one of the tire general officer made the comment hey we need to own the EMS like we used to own the night back in I want to say back in the 80s and when you think about that that's like a Herculean lift, right? Because to your point it's not. I mean John kind of described what he deals with as a commandant but it's. He can't effectively train his soldiers to be operationalized in the environment if he doesn't have the equipment to Train them on. And so you know, John described you know to you kind of the historical background and where we were gapped on ew capability for, for decades. And we take that to heart in the acom. We do have want to say probably we have a couple of carpets going through the Piper line right now, going through the acids process to head onto the aroc.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:23:09]:
You probably have heard of the terrestrial layer system Manpack which is probably the bigger. I would have to say it's a success story for this year. This is our first terrestrial system. It is man packable which we're filling that into the units. I want to say we issued out the capability to I think seven brigades up to this point. So we'll have a. Probably the PMO have issued out almost 70 systems by end of FY25. And what we're doing is obviously taking these systems, receiving the feedback from soldiers in the field on tactics techniques that they're used.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:23:45]:
I see that as one that informs our requirement and also feeds into our future requirements. Right. Then also helps John on the schoolhouse side develop the pois and be more responsive. So we had the transfer layer system Manpack. We also have a couple of other systems coming up through the line. We're also, we're going everything really from air, I'm going to say space mode, right. Because space we kind of get infringed on Air Force or space Space force assets or Spacecom assets. But really that layer that around 50,000ft and below aerial down to ground is what we're looking at for electromagnetic warfare capability.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:24:25]:
We do have an aerial payload called NISO which is your navigation electromagnetic system overhead. And it is really one of our first requirements. Where I see it, we're shifting our the requirements in the ACM to more of a platform agnostic payload centric capabilities. Meaning ew is a cross cutting enabler for all warfighting functions. But in that, in that sense we don't have to have a combat vehicle or major platform or witchet sensor to ride on. Right. It really is truly about how we integrate those ew sensors, whether they be for electromagnetic support or electromagnetic attack or in some cases we have a capability. I'll talk, I'll describe here about EM shortly.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:25:13]:
For electromagnetic protection. Well NISO would be a aerial platform which could certainly ride on any type of high altitude platform, whether it be from a high altitude balloon or even a solar fixed wing to be able to provide that persistent deep stare well across a forward line of troops to help kind of penetrate the adversary's A2AD bubbles, if you will. So we have multiple. So I kind of described MANPAC and they kind of touched on NISO as well. But I really see that as we're moving along, we're really trying to identify those platforms as the army is going down this path of transformation and contact. You know, take some of that critical feedback on things like the Telos, manpac, hopefully also when we get the NISO filled in any type of feedback from those soldiers of hey, we like the way this sensor works or hey, this capability was we were able to feasibly get it integrated into, you know, Platform X for a viable ew solution that helps us get after that EMS superiority that we're trying to get to.

Colonel John Hosey [00:26:22]:
What you're trying to do is like a systems of systems architecture, right. So each one of these capabilities should be able to sense, attack, protect. Those might be the same devices, they might be different devices that reach different distances, but you also need the capability to see to all those sensors across the battlefield. So some of the other pieces right, that are feeding into that is we currently have. So the Army Cyber Command actually has a radio frequency data pilot that's happening that they are doing research on what it would be the standardized data types that would be needed to share to have a, like a shared data layer across each one of these systems as well as a capability to share that information across potentially partners and allies and joint. Right.

Ken Miller [00:27:04]:
So I wanted to follow up on something Colonel Gorman. You mentioned about the integration challenges or integration going on ACR with the capabilities that you're, you mentioned tls and actually before I do that, verify on for our listeners the acronym that you were talking is it miso?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:27:24]:
Miso Navigation Electromagnetic System Overhead.

Ken Miller [00:27:29]:
One thing I've learned is that the acronyms we, we don't have as much common knowledge on acronyms as we probably should. But going, going into the integration challenge seems to be obviously it's a lot more intense these days than it was 30 years ago where you could kind of put a system out there, let it work for a while, kick it into O and M and then you know, make changes if you need to. But capabilities today have to be constantly updated, adapted to everchanging systems. And of course you're trying to do more in one system, a multi function system that can do radar detection, signals collection, everything all in one. And that obviously often times across any force, it causes a lot of interference challenges and trying to figure out that, making sure that that system can do everything it needs to, when it needs to and not interfere with itself or cause any sort of blue, blue on blue challenges. So can you share a little bit about that integration challenge and how that's changed over the, the recent years in terms of the, you know, getting the ew into the field?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:28:39]:
Certainly. So I think a lot of it. So as you know you, I think you kind of described one aspect that certainly come to light is in the EMR path towards EMSIP superiority is electromagnetic protection or emissions control. That posture of the blue force our communications. Right. And how we can certainly. What were those countermeasures that a commander can put in place? There are aspects of spectrum management that come into play that kind of goes along that thread that we have to take in consideration. We come into smart systems fielding right and ensuring that we have that kind of measure, that kind of measures in place, whether it be a, a commercial solution or rather a tactic.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:29:25]:
I have to say that also with our capabilities, other challenges we've had to work through is. I know you, you sent us an article on NexGen C2 and I'm certainly gonna share some of that as well. You know, the army right now is, is working to define what that next gen command and control architecture looks like. Recognizing that we will, it will have to be a combination of everything from hybrid cloud potential synthetic aperture radar, line of sight communications, beyond line of sight communications, tactical mesh net up at the, you know, the denied area communications area. That transport, that communications architecture is a big concern when it comes to EMS payload integration. Right. Because if we don't Understand how we can 1 receive data from the sensors on the battlefield, then that just complicates how we bring that data back in not only for further target development, but for time sensitive non kinetic effects delivery which we want to be able to achieve in a dynamic cross domain fires situation. We've been asked as an army to figure out how do we close that gap between the air and ground littoral.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:30:43]:
Right. That I was kind of describing with our terrestrial layered assets and our aerial assets. There's going to be some critical shaping moments I can foresee with that non kinetic effects as how we integrate that into fires. We have to take in consideration and a lot of that hinges on that next gen C2 architecture that the army's trying to get after.

Ken Miller [00:31:04]:
In your estimation in terms of how the services are working together, how you work with your compatriots over in know, Air Force and Navy Space Force especially. We just had AOC Europe a couple weeks ago. The conversation was heavily on multi domain operations and one of the questions that we asked on our show when we were out there was you know in, in the past it was about you establish air superiority for and then you, then the army comes in and, and you, you have the ground and you know obviously Navy has a sea. But those domains are not exclusive domains. They everything that happens in one domain impacts the other. And you even look at like Space Force and you know, obviously they need ground stations for a lot of their capabilities and that falls right into Army's effort. So how do you work with the other services to ensure that while you each have your area of responsibility, you recognize that no one can accomplish an advantage in that domain without the work of the other services involved in that. And how does that collaboration work from your within your portfolio?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:32:15]:
So we are looking at right now potential options that are got solutions that the Navy and the Marine Corps have in place. For some aerial assets in the Army. I think it's going to be very important one, we have to ensure that we are all adhering across all our services to the common baseline requirements for our systems. Right. So that way we can ensure not only system interoperability and to your point we make sure that we're able to deconflict any type of emissions right Emi on the battlefield whether that, I mean we often suffer from our fracture side from our own systems. And to your point, I think when we're looking at large scale or multi domain task force enabled operations as well as we're going to have to be very careful and very deliberate in how we cross cue and tip cue our targets between Army Air Force and Navy on the battlefield. And so I think that that's one thing we are very open to. And I have to say the Air Force and I think the Air Force and the Navy are pretty good about working together especially since they you know both services have a lot of aerial assets.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:33:26]:
And so I, I feel optimistic that the army is going to be able to step up to table and go hey you know what? You guys own, you know the air and sea domain as you described Ken, but Army holds ground. It's going to be very important in how we do that in a synchronized and orchestrated manner with our sister services. I don't think we can just be unilateral in any of our efforts.

Ken Miller [00:33:50]:
And so Jose, I want to bring you in on that comment. Talk about it from the personnel perspective because obviously how you train army personnel is has to be influenced or has to influence how the other services are also training. Are you cross pollinating? Hey, this is how we do it, you know, there are certain things that you can do or differently or that you can encourage your colleagues and other services to do so that, that that train is a little bit more aligned. And because it's a complicated domain to understand in terms of the ems, there's a lot of different elements to it and making sure that everyone's on the same page in training and talk a little bit about the integration on the.

Colonel John Hosey [00:34:32]:
Personnel side more for the personnel and like organization side. Right. Is that each one of at Echelon. So let me go back a little bit. So there was a. The brand new FM3O was just published in March. Right. And it kind of breaks down generally whatever formation is designated as the to be designated as a joint task force headquarters, which would be division, Corps, ascc.

Colonel John Hosey [00:34:54]:
So now we have to think when we get captains in, because we have captains at asccs, we have captains of division captains that I only use captain like arbitrarily because it's captains, majors, lieutenant colonels. And as they go through their professional military education, we kind of have those touch points to be able to show them the integration at each one of those levels to where you potentially could be working with joint forces. Now we are very nascent right now working with StratCom, who is the joint training owner. Right. The joint training standard owner, on how that's going to incorporate at least far as like training and certification for ew professionals across each one of those forces that will integrate with the sister services, Navy, Air Force, Marines. But also, I mean, we could end up publishing here because for each one of those formations out there, we actually own the team here, owns the ability to publish training circulars as well as center for Army Lessons Learned manuals that some of the stewards out there in the profession, the professional stewards at each one of those formation echelons that can read those and make it more effective at each one of those organizations.

Ken Miller [00:35:58]:
So I wanted to kind of switch gears a little bit. You mentioned the ew strategy that came out from the army in line with the 2020 EMS superiority strategy. Can you talk a little bit about how that strategy specifically is charging your organization moving forward? I know there's probably some elements that might are outside of the your lane, but what are some of the things from that strategy that you wake up, you get to work in the morning? Like, okay, we. We've got this charge now because of what, you know, the, the direction the Army's moving in.

Colonel John Hosey [00:36:30]:
A lot of it that we've kind of already talked to. I mean Most of it is building a couple of lines of effort, building the electromagnetic professional workforce, which was already started right. Once we incorporated the 2018. Now we're professionalizing blocks of instruction across every cohort, whether it's enlisted, warrant officer, officer, and then we're doing that at certain ranks as far as like when they natural touch points with their career transitions. Right. So then as they get more ranked and they're learning more integration across each one of those, building professionalize the force. I think one of the biggest components that are coming out of the ew strategies, the ability of us internal to the army being able to reprogram our kit and having a reprogramming enterprise because you know, you see lessons learned from Ukraine and Russia. I mean they're consistently changing ttps.

Colonel John Hosey [00:37:22]:
So we need the ability to be able to, you know, rapidly change whether it's ttps or the through software defined radios, the ability to counter the new ttps from the adversary. So that's a big, I guess, difference from the earlier electromagnet warfare capability that was in the army because we were more worried about, you know, it was crew systems in like the 2008 OIF OEF time frame. And now we're becoming more dynamic. It's not just push button, high power barrage jamming. There's a, a spectrum ability of effects from one side to the other. Right. So we, we are building the professionals that know how to do that and we're informing combat maneuver commanders on that capability to be able to incorporate in that their maneuver on land.

Ken Miller [00:38:04]:
So Colonel Gorman, with what Colonel H mentioned, with the ew strategy and the lines of effort from a capability standpoint, what are some of the technologies? Obviously what you were talking about earlier, a lot of it had to do with networking and communications, command and control. In terms of kind of technology driving your portfolio, obviously AI is very big machine learning adaptive intelligence systems that can take a look at what's in the battlefield and analyze it and get that right out to a user in seconds. Can you share a little bit about kind of how some of that technology is driving your investment decisions in your portfolio?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:38:45]:
Everything we're doing now we are setting the conditions within the EMS electromagnetic spectrum to usher in advanced machine learning and analytics and the algorithmic based analytics. We're going to need to be able to go forward recognizing, as John described, we are going to have to get at machine speed to be able to dynamically determine what effect we need to deliver against a specific adversary's signal of interest in the battle, in battle space Recognizing we can no longer have someone, you know, quickly move it to a platform on the battlefield and change out a connector or change out a card to be able to deliver effect. Everything has to be done at machine speed. So a lot of our requirements are certainly addressing just that. We had to set the conditions to be able to usher in machine learning analytics. 1, 2. I think developing those effects at a rapid pace is going to be a critical aspect. And as you're probably very aware of, Ken, software developers and RF engineers are not a proliferated profession.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:39:59]:
And so being able to leverage that brain power, that brain trust to be able to help deliver those effects at machine speed is where we're headed. And we're excited because as I think as that technology matures and, and as industry is getting into in that space, especially in support of a DoD efforts, I think we're going to hopefully get some good traction in those areas, especially when it comes to non ew payloads.

Ken Miller [00:40:27]:
So in the early 2000s, the army made a huge pivot to asymmetric warfare. Obviously with the challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan, that was, that was the, the threat you were facing. It was a, we had a decided military advantage. It was just a different type of war and a different type of threat. But it was still, we still had a very clear advantage against those adversaries at that time. Today it's a little bit different. There's a lot of talk and I'm not going to get asked about your take on the adv. The overall advantage, but what you hear a lot in the news is that our advantage is eroding.

Ken Miller [00:40:59]:
Obviously some adversaries are bringing up their capabilities. The world is a much more complicated, dynamic place. How has the change that the army has been undergoing over these years. Talk to me within each of your portfolios. Things that I would imagine is a lot harder for the army to understand its role in today's world than maybe 30 years ago because of your role is changing. The traditional ground conflict is not, does not have the same prognosis in today's global environment. It's more or less, you know, you're going to have major theater wars, proxy wars, different environments, anywhere from Arctic down to Africa. In every place you fight, there's a difference.

Ken Miller [00:41:41]:
The, the, the, the environment makes the spectrum behave differently. So there's no way that you can actually. This is a force we need for this threat. Each service has that challenge. How has that affected the army within your portfolios?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:41:56]:
So I think when they, I think there's a couple things we are going to see that across. No matter to your point, whether it be from Arctic to Africa. Ken. One, we will be facing a busy, contentious and raised noise floor with our. That's going to impact our capabilities. Two, I think we can expect to see disparate and disaggregated adversarial signals of interest. Perhaps we may think that we will see, you know, adversary X in this certain region, however we may be operating in region Bravo and see that signal and then go, holy cow, you know, what is this? I think that we are. That these factors just reinforce how we build the reprogramming enterprise that, that John alluded to build up that repository of not only a strong electro, you know, electromagnetic enemy order of battle, but be able to have a diverse set of effects that we can deliver against an adversary.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:43:01]:
That one underpins our efficacy of our capability, but also can. Can slice through a very congested EMS environment going forward. I think that's going to be some of the key pieces. And I don't know. Jen, did you.

Colonel John Hosey [00:43:17]:
As. As far as the, the training side of the house, right. Is like, so what may. What we potentially could end up doing is like rewriting some of the, the doctrine, especially for like, you know, you've got ATP 3 tac 12.3, I believe, which is ew platoon. So if you have ew platoon formations, there may need to be appendixes or chapters that discuss, you know, these different theaters and impacts of the geographic region that they're. That they're going against. Because at the schoolhouse I can. And you know, an army in itself operationally and training the force, there's a certain level of abstraction that we teach as far as like mos producing.

Colonel John Hosey [00:43:55]:
But then, you know, that goes to. When soldiers go to their formations actually in forces command in each, each one of the division brigades and cores, what have you that they're going to understand and know their theater of interaction a lot more inherently and more discreetly. What also feeds into that is the home station training that each one of these formations will have to end up incorporating into their getting ready to fight tonight. Right. So they'll have to understand as they build live virtual and constructive training and how to nest all those together to be able to, you know, replicate whatever adversary they may be going against with whatever weather or other atmospheric conditions that may affect, you know, the radio frequency propagation. And also going in, understanding that the battlefield is now almost completely transparent. Right. That you, the enemy and adversary, and potentially even the non combatants can see clearly where everybody else is now in both the ems and potentially even in the actual physical world.

Colonel John Hosey [00:44:57]:
Right.

Ken Miller [00:44:59]:
So I want to respect your time. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Just to wrap up to discussion, the aoc, obviously we're an organization that covers military, industry, academia here in the US Global presence as well. From, from an outsider perspective, from a community perspective, what can our community, whether that you're an AOC member or not, but you're in industry or academia, what are some of the things that we can do to help you in your efforts, both in terms of subject matter expertise for technology, but also, you know, helping help training, help making sure that everyone kind of is on the same page of what are some of the things that we can do from the outside to help you in your job in there?

Colonel John Hosey [00:45:43]:
So as far as the, the owning or the team here, you know, working with doctrine, training, leadership education is just the initial step, right? Is this is the first, initial step to try to socialize what the army has actually been doing since about 2008 and trying to professionalize a force and, and bringing MSO awareness to the force. Even though we use SEMA as a amplifier to MSO that we are getting after the problem and we are an adaptive and learning organization, we're trying to get after more virtualized gamified training for individual soldiers, which then will feed into collective training for each crew, platoon, company formation, and even the SEMA cells at Echelon to ensure that we have a fully trained, professionalized force with the equipment that's being fielded to us to be a full component and efficient for multi domain operations.

Ken Miller [00:46:33]:
Colonel Gorman, do you have anything to share on that, on that front in terms of collaborating with outside organizations or communities to help with everything that's happening in the technology front these days?

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:46:44]:
I'll have to say, Ken, I know that AOC has a lot of fantastic engineers and I know if I was a student, and heck, I'm always a student, right, forever learning if there was an engineer or someone that had some great techniques or ideas that they would like, be willing to share, I would, I would open and go, hey, Colonel Hosey, can we have these guys join us for a brown bag lunch? Do a virtual brown bag lunch and hear from some of the AOC engineers, some of the graybeards that are in the aoc, you know, to be able to bring that expertise back to the ew community, Because electromagnetic warfare, which used to be electronic warfare right back in World War II, has been around for ages and I think there's so much history and expertise and knowledge that the AOC crows can certainly bring to the Army ew community.

Ken Miller [00:47:38]:
Well, thank you, Colonel Hoseyng, Colonel Gorman, for taking time out and joining me. I really appreciate it. That's all the time we have for today, but I do appreciate you taking time to share with me a little bit about all the changes happening in the Army. And I hope that I can have a continuing conversation with you on the show, either together or individually as we move forward, because it's definitely something that we want to keep track of and help any way we can get your, your message out to, to our listeners. So thank you so much for joining me.

Colonel John Hosey [00:48:05]:
Hey, thank you very much for having us honored.

Colonel Leslie Gorman [00:48:07]:
Thank you, Ken. Good to see you again. Thanks.

Ken Miller [00:48:09]:
That will conclude this episode of From the Crows' Nest. I'd like to thank my guest, Colonel John Hosey and Colonel Leslie Gorman from the US army for joining me to talk about army ew. As as always, don't forget to review, share and subscribe to this podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners, so take a moment to let us know how you're doing. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.