The Drive:

The U.S. Air Force recently led a major exercise in and around Europe that also included elements from other branches of the U.S. military and various NATO allies. The event included F-15E Strike Eagle crews going through the tactics, techniques, and procedures that would be involved in carrying out cruise missile strikes in the strategic Baltic Sea region, home to a major Russian military outpost, using AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, or JASSMs. There was also a base defense scenario centered on protecting against incoming missile and drone strikes, in which F-35 Joint Strike Fighters helped move important data between personnel at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and U.S. Army air and missile defense units.

U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) led the exercise, which was described as a test of the U.S. military’s new Combined, Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) concept. CJADC2 is an extension of the service’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a multi-faceted over-arching effort focused on improving networking and associated capabilities. The Department of the Air Force’s Chief Architect’s Office, which directly supported this recent USAFE event, is in charge of managing ABMS together with the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). This demonstration in Europe also served as the fourth so-called “on-ramp” event for the ABMS program, previous examples of which have been intended to showcase various new and improved technologies working together within this broader architecture, according to Air Force Magazine.

“Conducting a complex and real-world focused CJADC2 demonstration allowed our joint and allied team to find areas where we can innovate with systems we already have and also to identify areas where our warfighters need assistance from the Air and Space Forces’ Chief Architect’s Office,” Air Force General Jeff Harrigian, head of USAFE, said in a statement. “There are areas where we can continue to improve and where technology can help us streamline our network systems to ensure all of our disparate networks can communicate and ease the workload on our Airmen.”

“Future conflicts will be with technologically advanced adversaries – and will be contested – so a distributed but integrated system of command and control is critical if we’re to compete and win,” Preston Dunlap, the Department of the Air Force’s Chief Architect, added. “Our USAFE counterparts working with our allies and partners during this CJADC2 event was extremely productive and helped us push the ball down the field on digitally connecting the joint force”…

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