Generating EW Effects

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Col. Angelo Fernandez:

All right. Can everybody hear me? Good morning. How’s everyone doing today? All right. So, I like to give a… You know the AFA Symposium brings together innovators, developers, thinkers, and war fighters to discuss a variety of issues that really drive the lethality of our military. So, let me start with a big thank you to AFA for hosting this symposium. I’m Angelo Fernandez. I’m the Mission Delta 3 commander.

In Space Force, we’re responsible for presenting, generating, and sustaining war fighters in the Space Electromagnetic Warfare enterprise to push guardians and airmen all around the world serving combatant command needs. I’m joined today by Mr. Anthony Nigara, and he’s the vice president of the strategy and business development for the space emission systems segment at L3Harris Technologies. He has an extensive background in the EW field, and thank you for joining us today, Anthony.

Anthony Nigara:

Thank you, sir.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

All right. And also, to the left is Mr. Dan Mooney. He’s the director of business development, small forum factor solutions at BAE Systems. I look forward to Dan’s in-depth discussion of how he’s been able to seamlessly blend industry capabilities to meet defense needs and shape this discussion today. So, thanks for joining us as well, Dan.

Dan Mooney:

Thank you, sir. Happy to be here.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

You know, to kick off the discussion this morning, what I thought we would do is just explore… We’re going to explore the topic of generating EW effects. The concept of exploiting EW to achieve military objectives is embedded in today’s modern warfare. The joint force views spectrum superiority as critical to all domain maneuvers. So, let’s first start the discussion, just baseline, what does EW mean to you? Go ahead, Anthony.

Anthony Nigara:

Sure. Thank you, sir. And good morning, everyone. It’s great to be here. I spent a lot of my career in electronic warfare, so it’s a topic I’m very passionate about. Yeah. When I think about EW, I mean, it’s important to talk about definitional information. It’s utilizing, controlling the spectrum for our own opportunities and our capabilities while denying the adversary, the use of that spectrum.

And when I think about the spectrum, I think also about space. When I think of the space domain, it is not regional. It is global. It’s everywhere at once. The same thing with the spectrum. But when I look at how we employ some of our effects, they tend to be platform-specific, domain-specific, service-specific. But truly, the spectrum is multi-domain by nature. It is joint, it is coalition, it is global, it is everywhere all at once.

So, being able to control that domain, if you will, we used to talk about the spectrum as a domain. I think it’s very important that we do so today because future conflicts will be won and lost within the spectrum. So, EW effects are extremely important for us to maintain our advantage.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Excellent. Thank you, Anthony. Dan, anything to add?

Dan Mooney:

Yeah. And sir, I’ll start off with, though I didn’t have the honor of flying like many of the fine men and women in this room, I did receive a call sign recently from a colleague of closed captions because of my accent. So, if there’s subtitles required later, you can blame me. But to the point of EW, right? For us at BAE Systems, we’re a subsystem provider, right? Not a platform provider.

So, how do we help the battlefield calculus? That’s a main component of this, all the way from our F-35 EW suite system to the EPAWSS on the Strike Eagle system, and then down to things like weapons and affordable mass in that entirety of the spectrum. So, things like low SWaP, bringing capabilities, and being software-defined.

So, I’m sure we’ll touch on that later, but the key is that… You know, I heard recently on a podcast the example of “Hey, in World War I, we essentially had fighters that were flying, shooting gloralized pistols at each other. And then 50 years later, we had the SR-71.” What an engineering miracle.

Within the EW spectrum now and in the environment that we’re in, those kind of engineering miracles are going to happen on a daily or hourly, or pulse-by-pulse type environment. So, speed and all of that is really what I think is key for electronic warfare.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Excellent. Excellent. Thanks, fellows. When I looked at the joint publications, the way on the defense side we define EWs, it refers really to military actions involving the use of electromagnetic energy and directed energy to control the electromagnetic spectrum or to attack the enemy. And so, Dan, to build off of what you just provided in terms of the evolution, and we’ve seen this throughout history, the rapid evolution of military technologies and the character of war, and how it shifts. Maybe we can explore that a little bit and talk about what trends in EW technology are most impactful to addressing and impacting the long-range kill chains in a modern threat environment?

Dan Mooney:

Yeah, absolutely. So, if you think about the days of the Cold War, right, where it was analog type systems, the cat and mouse game with our adversaries was done by on a yearly basis, if not longer, right? Even by the decade in some instances. Now, we’re in a world of all digital that the software-defined aspect, you have to be able to adapt very quickly, right? So, speed and the rate to be able to get there.

The other thing that I would say is in terms of, I really love this current administration’s approach to open systems. So, things like MOSA, WOSA, right? The ability to host third-party algorithms, third-party apps, if you will, is critical to be able to adapt to these threats. So, in the past, it was bespoke, proprietary, single boxes or multiple boxes in some instances to do a mission. Now, we need one box that hosts third-party algorithms to be able to do all of that to address the threat of the day.

And I think that that’s something that’s really being embraced now. We think of things like Big Iron software framework, right? We think of things like WOSA on the weapons side. This will enable us to have the hardware available for the mission of the day, because if we’re going to keep pace with the current threat, it is not going to be with hardware, it is not going to be with firmware, it’s going to be with software. And that is the only thing that can process the data, which is critical to be able to address the threat.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Awesome. Anthony?

Anthony Nigara:

Yeah, sure. Just building on what was said, I think what’s really critical for long-range kill chains is truly dominance within the spectrum. If you think about the ranges at which we need to operate, especially in the Indo-Pacific Theater, it’s going to rely solely really on the spectrum. For us to be able to target and ultimately enhance the probability of kill and probability of success of our weapon systems, we need to dominate the spectrum to do that. It has to operate over long ranges.

And what that also means is with advancements in capabilities, as was mentioned around miniaturization, digitization right at the aperture, we now have EW capabilities and effects within sensors we never thought possible. We used to have to build bespoke EW systems on larger platforms. Now, we can embed this throughout the force. Having a distributed architecture allows us to provide that element of surprise against the enemy, not knowing when those effects will come into play.

So, what that does, though, is it shifts the problem set. It’s no longer a bespoke standalone platform EW challenge. It becomes a data challenge. It becomes how do we get that information distributed across the battlefield? How do we now do electronic warfare battle management in near real time across all these distributed assets? At L3Harris, we have a capability we call DiSCO, which is about Distributed Spectrum Collaboration Operations. It allows you to combine cloud-based processing and edge node processing to really give the operator that real-time view into the spectrum and operations.

And that’s really critical because our threats are adapting. We need to adapt in real time to defeat them. We can no longer wait for a mission data file update six months from now against the way a threat changed on the battle space. I think one example I’ll use, I recently worked in our communication systems business just to give you an idea of how important the spectrum is. And we provide many thousands of tactical radios for the Ukrainian troops that are operating on the front lines.

And I’ll tell you how important feedback is to making those systems successful. We have a standing weekly call with the operators, the Ukrainians, with our engineers, and they give us real-time feedback into the Russian EW threat environment. We take that in, our engineers then create new software waveforms, push them out to the front lines, and this allows the troops there to operate in that highly dense, highly contested EW environment. But we have to actually operate faster than that.

I mean, we think about a week, and that seems like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s incredible,” but we must operate at the minute and the second timescale. So, how do we create that feedback loop for what we see on the battle space within the spectrum? Adapt, make sure that the forward sortie collects that information, either passes it back to those coming in behind, and then we all have that collaborative EW battle space picture. I mean, that’s really the way that we’re going to win in a peer conflict.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

That’s phenomenal, fellows. And really, what I’m pulling in terms of trend that you’re both highlighting is this ability to sense the environment in the EW, quickly pull in that data, and then develop any type of new attack vectors in that non-kinetic space to adjust to whatever emergent threats are evolving. Yeah, that’s acceptable, or exceptional, and inherently that’s like one of the core advantages inside EW is that flexibility and adaptability.

It’s quite a comparison to where we were, you know, I think World War II and the bombers making their runs and then coming back and trying to develop and drop the intelligence. And then where do they strike next? Well, what you’re highlighting is this future environment of needing to be able to sense, pull, have it connected, and then instantly go out and arm up our formations. Do you see EW applying to one domain? Is this all domains? How is that, in your all’s perspective, a factor into the threat environment?

Dan Mooney:

Yeah, great question, sir. So, I think that EW is table stakes now, right? In the past, it may have been a nice to have. Now, I think that having that capability to dominate the spectrum is required in all sets of missions. We’re here at an Air Force show, but for the Army, for the Navy, what have you, having a key advantage there in the EMSO is certainly something that’s required. To me, the other aspect of this is having the right ability to have the processing on hand.

So, we think about, you know, everybody here, I’m sure, has an iPhone. There’s probably some Android folks, you’re doing the same thing. But every two years, right, you get a new phone. It has an immense amount of greater processing capability. We need to be able to do that with our systems so that, again, there’s not going to be hardware that’s fixed, not going to be firmware that’s fixed. It’s the processing capability permission that enables us to get out there and perform our tasks.

The other thing that I would state, right, is that making sure that we’re on the cutting edge, implementing a lot of these third-party software things that I mentioned earlier, it’s great to be able to have the ability to do that. How do we operationalize that, right, so that the warfighter is able to go out there and use it operationally? Things are great in a lab, but how do we increase the speed to make that operational out in the battlefield?

And I’ve seen great recent examples of that, and they’re paying off dividends, but ensuring that there’s that key connect between the warfighter and what we’re doing in the industry, I think, to me is very critical. And I think the key to that is staying close with folks like the 350th Spectrum Warfare and using things like Crowd Sourced Flight Data, like we were alluding to here. And to me, that’s really the key aspect of the future.

Anthony Nigara:

Yes, certainly building on what was mentioned, EW is definitely all domain. I want to say it’s multi-domain, but it’s all domains at once, right? And I think we have to get comfortable with this concept that it’s one of those cross-cutting technologies, much like we talk about in terms of cyber. Whether the sensors or solutions are air-to-ground, air-to-air, ground-to -space, space-to-air, or the like, they really all operate within a single spectrum.

And that’s true whether we’re us and our allies and partners, and that’s another thing we’re going to get into a little bit, is how do we control the spectrum in a joint fight? But remember, that same precious resource is being utilized by the enemy. So, we have to be very critical that we have a full picture, multi-domain of operations within the spectrum, and ultimately give our commanders the tools that they need to make those real-time decisions.

Ultimately, getting the operator on the loop and ultimately removing them from that decision-making process. I think as we progress forward in this distributed environment, it’s going to be absolutely critical to have machine-to-machine decision-making as well. We’ve gone to the days where we can decide in real time best path, best course of action, and operation within the spectrum.

I think we’re going to have to get comfortable with machine-aided at first, and then ultimately machine-made decisions within the spectrum to operate as most efficiently and effectively as possible. But that’s going to not only, I think the technology is there to do that today. I think that there’s going to be some cultural, there’s going to be some training impacts.

I think we have to get comfortable and really train in this, we love getting to a black and white answer, right? We have a threat, we have an environment, we go test against that threat, we get the feedback, we score ourselves, “Did we do pass or fail?” In the future, it’s going to become, “What is the probability of mission success based on those conditions?” And ultimately, we have to get comfortable with those sort of probabilistic outcomes when we think about machine-to-machine decision-making within the spectrum, because all this is happening faster than we can process, really, as humans.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

No, that really resonates with me for both your answers. So, leading the mission Delta 3 inside Space Force, we’re literally charged to make sure we’re preparing our guardians to fight in this domain of EW, right? And so, the way we both generate the readiness of our crew force, we’re putting them in high-intensity environments that we’re creating in-house to say, “All right, how do we force package all of our weapon systems together to then nest it with the broader joint scheme of maneuver?”

In the complications and the dilemmas that our guardians are presented with, and then how they quickly solve these and come up with exquisite solutions, it’s been exceptional. And I’ve seen a fundamental transformation within just the Space Force of us getting postured for today’s modern environment. And it’s translated into operational success, where both in Operation Midnight Hammer, where we did the Iranian nuclear facility takedown, we had guardians supporting that joint maneuvers, and the bomber pathway of creating these flight quarters and cones of silence.

And that is also true in Operation Absolute Resolve. So, it doesn’t matter where the U.S. is projecting power, I have seen that the military, and in particular in the Space Force, were rapidly postured to make sure we’re enabling joint schema maneuvers. Thanks, fellows.

You know, so we talked a little bit about trends, capabilities, and the operational aspect. Maybe now, if we can pivot and describe, how do we actually fill the capabilities? And are we on a path for success? Because inside the DoD, we’ve recently announced that there’s major acquisition reforms. And do you see that the reforms that have been announced, are they able to help improve the fielding of EW capabilities?

Dan Mooney:

Yeah, so I certainly think that they do. To me, again, they’re removing some of the barriers, right, making it a little bit easier to get things to the war fighter. That’s what we all want. To me, it really starts, though, at the ground level with operational analysis. That’s what comes to mind for me. So, in the EW world, we can sit there, we can all look at a box, say it does this, say it does that. That’s not quite sexy, if you will, right? That doesn’t really resonate as to what the mission effect is of that box, per se.

So, with operational analysis, teaming with the government, doing it on our own, we can show the effects of what these boxes are doing, right? Because it’s really about the techniques and the capabilities that are being put out there on these things. So, I can speak for BAE Systems here on this one. We self-invested in, on the weapons side, a high-low mix, OA, to show, “Hey, you know, on things like the FAMM program, Family of Affordable Mass Missiles and the like, the Air Force has the need for 150K Gas-N-Go pro, no problem,” but there needs to be a cost per effect and disaggregated capabilities across these salvos to be able to achieve that cost per effect and mission success, right?

Because essentially everything that’s in the air at this is a node. And if it’s a node, it can be connected to, and it can be part of this mosaic-type warfare of sharing the burden, across a team, versus these traditional single-system, single-kill type aspects. So, for me, the main aspect of acquisition reform has been the customer’s or the government’s ability to listen to the OA, take it into account, give us feedback. It’s not perfect. It’s never panacea.

And have it become one message so that we know, “Hey, that’s what we need to move out on.” And then I’d say the other aspect is removing some of the barriers of requirements that don’t pertain to your systems, things that’ll just slow you down, removing the whole, it takes seven years to get something to the warfighter when other people are just going to go out and MacGyver bubblegum and shoelace something to solve that need. So, the ability to do things differently and accept things like OTAs and other contract vehicles and the like, I think is really critical.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Copy. Thanks.

Anthony Nigara:

I think I’ll talk about a couple other topics in terms of acquisition reform and EW. I think what was mentioned before is open system architectures. I think we all need to get comfortable with the fact that we’re outfitting platforms with hardware that is vastly capable of being updated in terms of software, in terms of waveforms, in terms of techniques. And we need to head towards an ability for the U.S. government to acquire those techniques via commercial model, via a way that allows effectively software enhancements to be procured out in industry in a competitive way.

There’s no reason to say that we shouldn’t have future systems that are a mix of hardware and software-defined solutions from the best of industry. And today, it’s challenging to acquire that way. Typically, when a system is awarded to an individual vendor, they stay the course throughout the entire lifecycle of that system, including all the software enhancements that happen along the way.

I think by providing these solutions in an open architecture way and effectively allowing on-ramps for others to host software-defined solutions on any and all platforms that operate within the spectrum would really benefit the warfighter ultimately, and it’s something we should take full advantage of. The other piece I really want to hit on here in terms of acquisition reform is really on the exportability side.

I think it is, especially when it comes to spectrum solutions, it is extremely difficult to export. We, as a company, L3Harris, are thinking export first in all of our designs, as I mentioned before, they’re all software-defined at the moment. So, the hardware baseline that us and our allies utilize will largely be the same. I think we need to think about export controls via software, but be comfortable and be flexible that we need to field the same kit with the U.S. and our allies, our closest joint partners that we’re going to be fighting with, have to have near equal capabilities.

And again, we can govern that via software and via control. But if we’re not operating in the joint fight with a common battle picture, a way to identify, distribute targets within the spectrum in a coalition way, it’s going to be very difficult for us to fully operate, right? It’s very easy to step on each other, create fratricide, create other activities if we don’t have that common operating picture. And it really starts at the acquisition of those weapon systems.

It starts at the base. And I think we’ve all seen it. We’ve seen, you know, capabilities get into our allies’ hands late. There’s been a lot of, you know, bureaucracy around export regulations. But I think that’s one area that we have to take head on as we not only reform the U.S. policy on what gear we’re buying for our own capabilities, but how we’re going to help out our partners.

Dan Mooney:

And sir, if you don’t mind me adding something, because that’s a great point, is that where EMBM, I think, comes into play a lot, right? Electromagnetic Battlefield Management across not only the domestic space, but also on the international side. How do we have that essentially common C2 picture in the EW space with our partners to be able to make sure we’re not stepping on each other’s toes, as you said. That to me is critical.

Anthony Nigara:

Yeah, and I don’t know really today of any sort of joint combined EW battle picture activities, right? When we think about solutions within common C2, right? I’m very familiar with all the capabilities we provide in terms of Link 16. I know Link 16 gets a little bit of a bad rap in terms of its communication capabilities. But at the end of the day, the power of it is that high-side joint network that gives everyone the same operating picture to understand where troops are, where the enemy is, and ultimately plan out activities. We need that same level of true interoperability with our partners within the spectrum.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Love it, fellows. No, it hits home. When I look at U.S. national security, fundamental to our posture is the asymmetric advantage of our allies, the strength of that, and how that puts us in a really good position to be able to secure our interests and our allies’ interests around the world. What do you see as U.S. government and industry actions we can do to improve coalition EW readiness and interoperability?

Dan Mooney:

Yeah, great question, sir. I think that we should use democracy and capitalism against them and embrace commercial-type means, right? So, if you look at… If we want to get into just a vanilla manufacturing conflict with the INDOPACOM threat or anything like that, I don’t think that’s to our advantage. But if we leverage commerciality for things in the past that were acquired through, you know, standard FAR-type stuff, standard traditional defense contracting, versus product-based acquisition, I think that we may be at a disadvantage.

And I see the current administration and acquisition officials embracing that. So, to me, it’s about, “Hey, let’s embrace commerciality, because that will lead to speed, that will lead to stockpiling of products that are required,” again, all the way from the spectrum of EW suites for aircraft, all the way down to the low-cost, affordable mass weapons. That entire spectrum, you would have products on hand to address the threat when you need to. And the way to do that is commerciality to go fast versus, you know, bespoke, long-standing type defense contracting. So, being a defense product, I think, is one way to address that.

Anthony Nigara:

Sure. I think I talked a little bit about acquisition reform as it relates to acquiring materiel for the U.S. as well as our allies. So, I think I’ll talk about the training aspects. You know, I do believe, I know we train within the spectrum as a U.S. force. I know we have multiple joint activities and opportunities to train as a joint force. I’m just, at least from where I said, I’m not always seeing those opportunities focused on spectrum dominance, as the primary method for joint training.

I think we also need to make sure that when we train, it’s in the most robust electromagnetic environment. You know, we have to put our stuff against the test that we expect to see in the Indo-Pacific. I will tell you again, going back to my story on the Ukrainian feedback, they were extremely surprised at the challenging electromagnetic environment. I mean, it was a shock. We should not be shocked by how challenging the EM environment is, should we have to go into a peer conflict.

We should have trained ourselves against the highest-end capabilities that our enemies have, and we should train as a joint force in that most challenging environment. We do not want to be surprised within the spectrum, should we ever have to utilize these capabilities as a joint force.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

No, I mean, you’re all hitting points that are near and dear to my heart. I look inside our formation, you know, where we have foreign exchange officers that are literally training with us and sitting side by side with saying, “Hey, what is the U.S. working on? Also, what are they bringing to the table? How can we share those lessons learned?” And then in, you know, large-scale exercises like Talisman Sabre, we’re going and deploying out weapons systems to then collaborate, integrate, and try to synchronize our effects into those type of future threat environments and then what we’re facing even today.

And we’re extracting these lessons learned on the space EW realm to say, “Okay, then what’s next?” Like, “Okay, how do we do this? How do we now start force packaging?” How can we set conditions where we’re in a position to both not only be able to employ our non-kinetic effects in a layered fashion to support coalition maneuvers, but at the same time, can we get to the place that you all are highlighting, which is also sharing the software techniques that make our systems viable and effective and lethal for the threat environment.

So now, I hear you loud and clear in terms of making sure we’re able to export the technology and the techniques when appropriate, expanding our training base and driving readiness on a variety of fronts, not just only from the U.S., but with our allies in that high-intensity environment, which pulls the thread a little bit on what does that high-intensity environment look like in your all’s mind?

So, earlier, to loop this all back, we talked about long-range kill chains, and Anthony, you’re describing, you know, what the Ukrainians are experiencing in, you know, the current fight with Russia. Can you close this up for us in terms of how all that comes together, and what it is? What is the environment that will drive our readiness for any situation?

Dan Mooney:

Sure. Yeah, to me, in that one, again, it’s being able to have software-defined products that can address the threat as needed, that you don’t need to go back, redesign hardware, It’s okay, in real conflict, like the Ukrainians are dealing with, this is the threat environment, and this is what we have to be able to adapt and address. And again, that’s through things like software, making sure you don’t have to make any changes to firmware, and some of the aspects.

And yeah, I would just say that the ability to, like we talked about earlier, share some of this data, because it is about the data and the ability to process to be able to perform the mission. How are we able to disaggregate that across both our partners and their services that are addressing the threat, and with the various other services? Because, again, we’re here at an AFA show, but there are other military services for the U.S. or our partners that are involved with that, right?

How do you share that data as soon as possible with, say, the Ukrainian Army? How do you share that with the Ukrainian Navy? Because there’s going to be a very common operating picture that we need to get into mission data files to be able to address these threats. So, to me, that’s really the key.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Awesome. Thank you.

Anthony Nigara:

Sure. Building on that, I think, you know, again, we need to be prepared for a very, very challenging electromagnetic spectrum environment. You know, look, our enemies are studying our tactics, our procedures, how we’re going to execute a long-range kill chain. And they’re going to look for, you know, seams to go after, especially when it comes to the spectrum. As I mentioned before, you know, we’re going to be employing weapons over much longer ranges, which are going to be beholden to operations within the spectrum to really have any potential to hit their targets, right?

So, we need to make sure, again, that we’re closing that entire kill chain while we test within a robust electromagnetic environment. And I think the example I used before, we know these are all software-defined systems. We need to be able to adapt in real-time or near real-time. I think today we’re probably in that near-real-time bucket. But I would also put a employee out there to say, “Please engage industry in that process.” Like I said, the most valuable thing I saw was getting that real-time operational feedback direct to our engineers to allow them to think about the problem set and then push that forward to the front edge.

So, we don’t typically get that level of operational feedback in near real time. We may 6, 12 months from now hear a debrief on how things went. But I think it’s really important to realize we are military industrial base partnership and a team, and we can really help during the fight as required. Again, we want to get to the point where it’s machine-to-machine, but we really need to bring everyone to bear as we execute these missions.

Dan Mooney:

I think that’s a great point, Anthony. Yes, I see that changing in some areas, and then other ones are more traditional in the way they do it. So, I think that’s a good point.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Excellent. All right, fellows, before we wrap this up, maybe turn it over for any final comments.

Dan Mooney:

Yeah, no, Again, so EW, amazing. Also, a challenging environment to be able to talk about things. So, Anthony just made some great points. You know, can’t sit here in this environment, talk about all the things that we do in this realm, but very operationally relevant and being proved out there in the field. So, despite those challenges, just know that there is success in this realm. The other thing that I would say that’s been key for us is the change in our culture to be able to adapt this, right?

So, again, I talked about traditional defense contracting towards more, towards a product-based approach. The proudest moment of my tenure at BAE happened around Halloween time. I was walking through the halls, and I hear a young engineer who I didn’t know say, “Weapons GRA,” Government Reference Architecture. I go to him, I go, “Did you say weapons GRA?” He looked at me like I had 10 heads, like it wasn’t a ubiquitous thing that everybody should know.

And he said, “Yes.” I’m like, “Oh, you’re working on that?” And he gave me the whole lowdown. And I said, “Well, we’re doing this the right way, because we are going to partner, conform to these government structures of OSA, MOSA, WOSA.” And we’re really energized as a company, and ideally as a country, to make this happen, because we want the best of breed in the warfighters’ hands, right? If people have to erase for pink slips, so be it. It’s all about protecting who protects us.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Thank you.

Anthony Nigara:

Sure. I think I’ll just end with, we talked about a variety of topics today, and I hope you found it enlightening a little bit. I think many of them were not technological. I will tell you today that, you know, ourselves at L3Harris, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, all of our competimates are fielding today highly software-defined electromagnetic EW systems in all domains. They are ready to go today. They’re ready to be software-defined. They are upgradable in real time.

So, all of the things that we talked about in terms of real-time data sharing, in terms of EWBM, in terms of upgrading waveforms in real time, are not so much technological, they’re cultural, they are policy, and sometimes, especially when we talk about our joint partners. And we talked a lot about training, and I think that’s critical as well. So, these are, I’ll call them, the lower-hanging fruit. Sometimes they’re difficult to implement, but we do not need to reinvent capabilities to enhance what we have today. So, thank you for the time.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

Yeah, fellows, I can’t thank you enough for joining. And for those in the audience, these two gentlemen were pulled in at the last minute. So, we previously had two other panelist members that were coming in from the East Coast. And so, Mother Nature gets a vote, and that blizzard was like, “They can’t make it.” And so, we were quickly able to meet in the back room and be able to have this discussion. But I think what really reigns true to me, and it’s really in this idea of generating EW effects, this is all domain.

It’s fundamental to national security and how we enable joint maneuver forces across all domains. And you can generate those EW effects from any domain. And so, how are we positioning and posturing and leveraging partnerships, whether it’s with industry that’s developing cutting-edge technology at pace, at scale, and being able to sense the environment, and doing that along with our teammates in terms of our coalition in those allies and partners that we collaborate with to then bring and fuse all that together to address the fact of modern environment includes EW. It’s just fundamental.

And so, if that is not our starting point, then we’re absolutely missing the mark. And, you know, the examples we heard today of what pulls out of… You know, what lessons we can extract from the Ukraine conflict? That’s a clear one. And so, we better be ready for this. And we better be driving those partnerships and setting conditions to allow this software-defined technology to generate the effects we expect, whether it’s to disrupt, deny, degrade, destroy, or deceive our adversary, to achieve any military objective, that’s fundamental to our job at hand.

And so, with that, fellows, I’d really like to thank you again. AFA, really appreciate you hosting us. And I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to my 37th Tactical Intelligence Squadron, who won the Polaris Award yesterday. Yeah, they’re killing it.

Dan Mooney:

That’s awesome.

Col. Angelo Fernandez:

That’s my team of killers that are quickly understanding and sensing this environment and adapting and getting that to our firing units to make sure we’re driving the effects. So, for my wranglers, shout out and then ultimately thank you all. I appreciate everyone in attendance today. Have a good day.

Dan Mooney:

Thank you, sir.

Anthony Nigara:

Thank you.