LONDON \u2014 The British Ministry of Defence is taking steps this fall to better integrate its capabilities across multiple domains. But despite laying out its ambitions, the agency still needs a true concept of operations to move forward, according to a top official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United Kingdom\u2019s defense apparatus has identified multidomain integration, or MDI, as a critical means to maintain advantage over threats that are becoming more and more dissipated and asymmetrical across domains and battlefields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the concept of operations still needs to be fleshed out, the MoD has identified several capability themes to be developed \u201cover this autumn period to Christmas,\u201d to be culminated in a new management strategy and implementation plan, said Lt. Gen. Rob Magowan, commandant general to the Royal Marines, and deputy commander of U.K. Strategic Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first of these capability themes involves data and simulation systems, including building digital twin software and new decision support tools, while another theme encompasses operational command and control, he said Tuesday during a panel discussion at the biennial DSEI conference in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MoD officials just signed off on a new study regarding operational C2 several days ago, with the hope of figuring out, \u201chow are we going to become more dispersed, more agile, more redundant and more resilient across our operational command and control network?\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.K. Strategic Command also recently tapped a one-star military official to deliver an operating concept for the electromagnetic activities and cyber domains, Magowan said. And several high-ranking officials are developing a strategy that envisions a new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) enterprise, \u201cone that\u2019s much more agile, and much less stovepiped,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in order for MDI to be realized, the problem of ownership \u2014 who owns the data at the end of the day \u2014 needs to be fleshed out, Magowan acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we don\u2019t want to be doing is \u2014 come the day of the crisis \u2014 renegotiating contracts and code with a third-party supplier,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to be able to do that from a sovereign perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That conversation remains \u201cimmature at the moment in defense,\u201d Magowan added. \u201cWe want to have that [conversation] and understand it better \u2014 what you think we should be doing in terms of our business model, and what we need to deliver that operational concept.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although the concept of operations still needs to be fleshed out, the MoD has identified several capability themes to be developed \u201cover this autumn period to Christmas,\u201d to be culminated in a new management strategy and implementation plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":35919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,83],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3420],"class_list":["post-18132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-show-dailies","category-dsei"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"2FXJ224JWRBENG2NGFQ7PPD53U","arc_canonical_url":"\/2021\/09\/14\/british-military-taking-steps-to-make-multidomain-integration-a-reality\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n