Implementing EMSO for the Future Fight

Show Notes

The Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) Cross-Functional Team (CFT) established by Congress a few years ago has been focusing on developing a new EMS Superiority Strategy and a comprehensive implementation plan that is now going into effect across the Department of Defense (DOD). Podcast host Ken Miller sits with Brig. Gen. Darrin Leleux, Deputy Director of the EMSO CFT and Deputy Director for Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations and Space Requirements, Joint Staff (J8). Ken and Brig. Gen. Leleux address gaps in electromagnetic warfare and EMSO capabilities and where we are in the implementation of the strategy. They also share how the entire EMSO community across DOD, the military services, Congress, industry, and academia must work together to ensure the necessary oversight and progress by 2030 to achieve and sustain a military advantage in the EMS.

Creators & Guests

Host

Ken Miller

AOC Director of Advocacy & Outreach, Host of @AOCrows From the Crows' Nest Podcast

Producer

Laura Krebs

Editor

Reese Clutter

What is From the Crows' Nest?

This podcast features interviews, analysis, and discussions covering leading issues of the day related to electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). Topics include current events and news worldwide, US Congress and the annual defense budget, and military news from the US and allied countries. We also bring you closer to Association of Old Crow events and provide a forum to dive deeper into policy issues impacting our community.

Ken Miller (00:10):
Welcome to "From the Crow's 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. Thanks for listening. In today's episode I sit down with Brigadier General Darren Leleux. He is the Deputy Director of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross Functional Team and Deputy Director for Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations and Space Requirements, joint staff J-8. Before I get to him, I want to remind you that the AOC's 58th Annual International Symposium and Convention is just around the corner. November 30th to December 2nd, here in Washington, D.C. at the D.C. Convention Center. The theme is, All Domain Operations Integrating Effects Across the Spectrum.

Ken Miller (00:51):
In our last episode, I had retired Air Force Colonel Hook Prior on the show. He is our convention chair and he shares some of his thoughts about what the sessions are going to cover across all the topics that have influenced all domain operations. If you have a few extra minutes, I encourage you to go back to that episode and listen to it, some good content on what to expect at the show but we hope to see you there. And as I've talked about before, the From the Crows Nest podcast is going to be there too. We're going to interview a lot of the speakers and we're going to be releasing several episodes a day. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, follow it, and have everything set for automatic download so that you get all the episodes and you don't miss any of the interviews. To learn more about the upcoming event, go to crows.org/2021home, H-O-M-E for more information to register and we hope to see you there in a few weeks.

Ken Miller (01:41):
Now I want to welcome my guest, Brigadier General Darren Leleux. Again, he is the Deputy Director of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross Functional Team, or the EMSO CFT. He is also Deputy Director of Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations and Space Requirements, joint staff, J-8. J-8 of course, deals with force structure and resources on joint staff. If you're in the EMSO community you'll know that the EMSO CFT established by Congress a few years ago, has been focusing on developing a new Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Superiority Strategy, which was formally released last year and a comprehensive implementation plan that is now going into effect across the department. This strategy and implementation plan of course, continues a multi-year effort by DOD. Military services, congress, stakeholders everywhere, to address these persisting gaps in electromagnetics warfare and EMSO capabilities.

Ken Miller (02:36):
I wanted to have general Leleux on the podcast today to talk a little bit about where we're at on EMSO, where the I-Plan is going to be taking us, and to set the stage for quite frankly, regular conversations that we're going to need to have on the EMSO community about how we implement this strategy effectively in the years to come. General Leleux, it's great to have you on From the Crows Nest. Thanks for joining me.

General (02:58):
Very good. Well, thank you for the introduction Ken and thanks for inviting me to join you on today's podcast.

Ken Miller (03:04):
All right, I just want to dive right in. We have the EMS Superiority Strategy and Implementation Plan. It's a significant step forward but certainly there's a lot of challenges ahead of us in this, as we try to address culture, processes, concept of operations and so forth. Basically to start, I was wondering if you could help kind of bring us up to speed on EMSO. Where it has been in the past, where are we today, and what do we have to look forward to moving into the future?

General (03:30):
You and this audience appreciate more than most people, the centrality that EMS has in our daily lives and for our military allies and partners to achieve mission success. The department has gone through a significant shift on EMSO over the last few years. And I'd like to outline for you where we were, where we are now, and where we're going. In the past, DOD EMS efforts were disjointed, unsynchronized, and stovepiped. DOD had three core root challenges requiring cultural and structural changes within the services, OSD, the joint staff, and the combatant commands. Governance was independent, processes were segregated by service, and EMS prioritization was treated as a war-fighting enabler, not as a war-fighting capability. Over the past several years, we've seen multiple studies affirming the need to prioritize EMS issues and do better. In response to this, at the congressional direction, the secretary established the EMSO CFT with the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff as the senior designated official two years ago, to take bold action across the DOD to regain U.S. dominance in electromagnetic spectrum.

General (04:42):
Last year, the CFT led the drafting and coordination and the secretary signed the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy. The strategy's vision is freedom of action in the EMS at the time, place, and parameters of our choosing and having the ability to deny this to our adversaries in a conflict. Additionally, the joint staff published Joint Pub 3-85 on Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, or JEMSO. The impact was combining electromagnetic warfare and spectrum management into one strategy and doctrine for the first time. This created a fires and maneuvers approach to EMSO. EMSO, [being 00:05:23] an all coordinated military actions to exploit, attack, protect, and manage the electromagnetic environment.

General (05:29):
At present, we're working to normalize EMSO for DOD both in structural and cultural changes. This means pulling EMSO activities out of stovepipes and approaching it holistically, as well as prioritizing EMSO into existing department processes. To accomplish this, the CFT also led the drafting and coordination and the secretary signed the EMS Superiority Strategy's Implementation Plan, or I-Plan, in July of this year. The impact was a new integrated DOD-wide EMS enterprise approach to fight stovepipes and achieve EMS superiority. The I-Plan is driving doctrine, organization, training, [material 00:06:11] solutions, logistics, personnel, facilities, and policy, or [DOTMAIL 00:06:16] PFP changes. The I-Plan is the tool for these changes to bring the strategy's vision to fruition and achieve capability overmatch for strategic advantage in this era of strategic competition. Because the EMS superiority underwrites joint war fighting concepts and multi-domain operations, it involves and affects OSD, joint staff, the services, and combatant commands. And they all have an important role in the I-Plan. A lot of people have asked me about the DOD releasing the I-Plan but because it's classified I won't go into details, other than to note a few high level aspects.

General (06:56):
First, the I-Plan is a secretary's authoritative tasking to every DOD organization with an EMS stake. No one can fix this challenge alone. If that were the case, we never would have needed the CFT to force change. Second, the I-Plan directs oversight in governance. The vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is the senior designated official but the secretary recently determined that the DOD CIO is best positioned and resourced to execute long term I-Plan oversight. CIO will assume I-Plan oversight in the fall of this year. Third, the I-Plan outlined the framework to drive EMS investments prioritization through the development of an EMS enterprise Capability Planning Guidance, or CPG. Finally, the I-Plan identified EMS enterprise workforce development and sustainment requirements. The EMSO CFT recently finished an EMS workforce study, where we found gaps in EMS expertise and provided recommendations to prioritize total force EMS readiness. In the future, successful I-Plan execution will result in EMS enterprise normalization in the DOD.

General (08:02):
The totality of these efforts and their strategic impact across the EMSO portfolio to include technology, infrastructure, readiness, workforce, partnerships in governance, will shape the future of DOD. Done correctly, this new approach will result in an enduring EMS enterprise with integrated governance. Holistic processes across DOD and EMS prioritization as a war-fighting capability.

Ken Miller (08:27):
Thanks for the good summary, General. We've been involved in this for a number of years and there's been this evolution that's taken us to this point. And it really kind of basically started about seven years ago really intensely with an OSD. When then Deputy Secretary Work mentioned the third offset strategy and he created out of there the Electromagnetic Electronic Warfare EXCOM and then they released a strategy in 2017 and then tried to take a few steps before Congress stepped back in to create the EMSO CFT. And it was a bit of a new effort to attack the problem. And so I was wondering if we could go back a little bit to something you said earlier with the creation of the EMSO CFT in this process of writing this document how is the EMSO CFT created? How does it function? You have the services representing, you have a lot of subject matter experts. How do they inform the leadership about what DOD needs to do to address some of these gaps?

General (09:31):
The EMSO CFT was created in February of 2019, as a result of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act by then acting secretary Shanahan. And his tasker to us was to regain U.S. dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum. The primary mechanism that the CFT is using to accomplish this department-wide task is through a secretary level strategy and implementation plan. To that end, the CFT led the drafting, coordination, and staffing of the 2020 DOD EMS [inaudible 00:10:03] strategy, as you know, and the corresponding 2021 implementation plan, or I-Plan. And we worked with over 150 subject matter experts throughout the department to incorporate their different perspectives. And we used traditional processes to get the secretary's signature.

General (10:19):
Now, to the question about the different members of the CFT, I consistently encourage all of the members of the CFT cause I don't have any, what I would call permanent staff, permanent billets. They are all assigned to the CFT by virtue of the establishing memo by the secretary. I work with the various components to get members for the CFT and I encourage those members to stay connected with their parent organizations. That's really one of the strengths of the CFT is the ability to have that reach back to all the components in the DOD and provide that department-wide perspective.

Ken Miller (10:58):
And then, with the EW EXCOM of course that's in ANS in the office of secretary of defense. How do you work with that body which also, obviously is a very important part of this broader effort to address EMSO capability, how do you work with them? And then kind of related to that, obviously in the congressional law that you said, there were a number of CFTs created and there have been over the last few years. There's the JADC2 CFT and there's a number of other cross-function teams. How do you work with those? And is there regular interface because you can't talk about EMSO without talking about some of these other missions, they all are related.

General (11:40):
Yeah, okay. I'll take those in order. The CFT, as I mentioned is a secretary created organization in OSD with the vice chairman as the senior designated official. We have staff from across the department whereas the EW XCOM is an advisory board. That is the principle forum within DOD to inform, coordinate, and evaluate EW matters to maintain a strong technological advantage in U.S. capabilities. It has two co-chairs, the vice chairman and the under secretary for acquisition sustainment. Those are the two co-chairs for the EW EXCOM. One of their focuses is on investments to ensure that DOD is properly coordinated in our EW investments and EMSO investments. I attend the EW EXCOM regularly and it's lower level board, the EWCT, to ensure that we're synchronized. Now turn it to the second half of the question which was about the various other CFTs. Since the EMSO CFT was established, DOD, as you mentioned, created a number of other CFTs to prioritize those crosscutting issues like EMS, which is one of the benefits of the CFTs is kind of looking at those crosscutting issues.

General (12:51):
The EMS is kind of fundamental in that it's an important enabler for all of them. And the EMSO CFT works with such as the JADC2 CFT or others closely coordinating our approaches, our strategies, and our I-Plans to ensure that we're aligned. And I attend regularly other CFT senior steering groups to ensure synchronization.

Ken Miller (13:15):
Now you talk about the crosscutting aspect of EMS operations. One of the core components of the strategy that came out and is kind of the hallmark of it that a lot of people spend time thinking about and discussing was this idea that the EMS is a maneuver space. Could you talk a little bit about what does that mean and how does that reflect where we've come in our understanding about the importance of the EMS and all those related capabilities. Cause that was a huge determination really to kind of identify it clearly as a maneuver space. Could you tell us a little bit more about that thought process?

General (13:50):
Yeah, absolutely. As you mentioned, it's a key aspect of the strategy. The strategy recognizes that EMS is a critical battle space in its own right. EMS as a maneuver space means that we will control the EMS with agility and resilience in the most congested and contested EMS environments. That's what the goal of the strategy is. It also means that we have freedom of action in the EMS at the time, place, and parameters of our choosing, which is the vision of the strategy and that we're able to deny that to our adversaries in a conflict.

Ken Miller (14:23):
The superiority strategy had five strategic goals outlined in the document. Could you walk us through those strategic goals and any particular points of emphasis that's really garnering the close attention of DOD in the services? What are some of the most important pieces of those strategic goals that keep you up at night thinking about how we implement them effectively?

General (14:48):
As you mentioned, there's five department-wide goals in the EMS superiority strategy. There are 18 sub-objectives within those goals. The first goal is developing superior EMS capabilities and that's things like technologies to enable system capabilities and survivability in EMS. Adapting commercial technologies, building a robust electromagnetic battle management system, fielding disruptive EMS capabilities. That's what goal one focuses on. The second goal is evolving to an agile, fully integrated EMS infrastructure. And that involves accelerating EMS information integration into operations and planning at the combatant commands, dedicated intelligence for EMS superiority, establishing and managing architectures and standards, modernizing EMS infrastructure for testing, training, and analysis. That's what goal two really focuses on. Goal number three is pursuing total force EMS readiness. And that involves training and sustaining EMS expertise across the department. Incorporating EMS concepts and doctrine in the formal education. Evaluating and tracking EMS readiness. Those are the real focus areas for goal number three.

General (16:00):
And goal number four is securing enduring partnerships for EMS advantage. And that involves increasing our leadership and international forum, enhancing access interoperability and capacity with allies and partners in EMS. And also increasing our leadership and domestic processes related to the electromagnetic spectrum. And then finally, goal five is establishing effective EMS governance. And that really focuses on unifying our department-wide EMS enterprise activities and promoting policies that support DOD EMS capabilities.

Ken Miller (16:32):
The strategy of course, does not live in a vacuum and there's a lot of other strategies out there. It's really kind of more or less a node in a much broader network of DOD transformation that is kind of pointing the department into what it wants to look like in 2030 based on emerging threats and global security issues. How does the superiority strategy then fit into this broader vision of DOD in the future looking at 2030?

General (17:01):
From a big picture, the strategy looks at forces in 2030 and beyond and their ability to be ready to fight and win through the deliberate institutional pursuit of EMS superiority. This is true in their previous national offense strategy and remains important for future national defense strategies. Winning on today's battlefield requires the joint force to achieve EMS superiority, no matter where we are in the world. In today's era of strategic competitors, the safety and success of our forces really require high end capabilities that can survive in a congested and contested and constrained electromagnetic operating environment.

Ken Miller (17:38):
Back in December, I believe it was, that GAO released a report on basically the ineffectiveness of DOD implementing past strategies related to EW. And they testified at a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee back in the spring. They pointed out a lot of points, shall we say failure from DOD, of really effectively implementing the strategies. And one of the goals of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy is to take those previous strategies that were really not realized and fully implemented, put them and update them and combine them into this broader superiority strategy. Taking into account GAO's recommendations and their analysis of past efforts, what makes this different? I mean, are we in a better position today to actually fully implement the strategy? And really who's going to be responsible for making sure that this actually does succeed this time?

General (18:36):
Sure that's a great question, Ken. First, I'll just talk a little bit about the GAO recommendations and then I'll dive into that last point that you had. The GAO report that came out in December, some of your listeners who may have read that, it had five recommendations. And we read that report, thought it was good analysis, we reviewed it. And we used that information in crafting the I-Plan and ensuring that we addressed those outstanding issues that the GAO identified. And all five of the recommendations were addressed in the I-Plan. And all of them are complete except for one of them. Of those recommendations, we identified the processes and procedures that were requested or identified that was needed. We reformed government structures in the I-Plan. We assigned leadership for strategy implementation, that's the one that's not quite completed yet but should be completed by the fall. And that's with the transition of oversight authority to the CIO, which will, as I said earlier, happen this fall.

General (19:40):
The fourth recommendation, the GAO was to issue the I-Plan itself, which we did in July. And then finally, to develop an oversight processes, which that was part and parcel of the development implementation plan, that oversight process. And that leads me into your last point was, how do we know that we're in a better place? It wasn't just an implementation plan with tasks for individual agencies around the department. It was also the oversight processes and that oversight processes that were identified in the I-Plan, had a number of features. One of them acknowledges the fact that this needs to be a living document. The EMS is a dynamic changing place that we need to be able to adapt to. Not just because our adversaries are quickly adapting in this space, but because technology in this space is quickly adapting.

General (20:30):
We need a document that's going to be able to do that. That's the first thing I'll mention. The second thing is that the oversight it gives a high level individual, a four star level individual, an oversight role. Initially the vice chairman and as I mentioned, will be transitioned to the DOD CIO in the fall. It gives a high level individual, that person is the ultimate responsibility for making this happen. And finally, it requires that individual to give the set staff a quarterly update on progress. And those three things combined I think it ensures that we're in a better place because it provides that oversight of the process and it won't allow for it to languish in but requires a regular high level visibility.

Ken Miller (21:28):
Now, I've said on the show numerous times listeners may be tired of me even saying it but I've always said the EMS is really the backbone of everything we want to do from a joint force perspective in operations. You need to have that access to the spectrum at the time, place, and for the duration that you need. You need that superiority. If you don't have it, you can't do anything. At least you can't do anything effectively. In our view, it's just absolutely so important that we get this right. And yet there's still a lot to the discussion. I mean, the EMSO community is very diverse in terms of how we think about these problems.

Ken Miller (22:05):
As you're starting to talk about this more and getting out into our community, I know that you just spoke at a AOC conference a month ago or so, what are some of the things that you're hearing from the EMSO community? What are some of the things that we are unified on and what are some of the misconceptions as a community, we have to kind of figure out because we have to be all on the same page moving forward. Not just the CFT, not just CIO, not just U.S. STRATCOM. Industry, academia, associations, we all have to be on the same page. What are some of the misconceptions we have to work on still from your perspective to make sure that our message is clear that hey, EMS superiority is critical. We've got to do it to succeed in future operations.

General (22:56):
Yeah thanks for that question, Ken. As you say, we have to get this right. It's a critical enabler for the joint force and for our capabilities at large. The forums like this, where we're getting the message out to everyone on the importance of this strategy and implementation plan. We are doing due diligence within the department to ensure that these tasks are being taken seriously by all of the stakeholders and OPRs. We are ensuring the regular review is taking place. We are just now completing the first 90 day assessment period of the execution of the implementation plan. We'll be evaluating that with CIO on the progress that's been made of all the tasks that's in the plan. And getting the word out to the community.

General (23:56):
As one example, Brigadier [inaudible 00:23:59] Anthony and I, she's the lead over at STRATCOM, we are visiting each of the combatant commands. We're taking this message on the road to ensure that each of the combatant commands are informed of what's the latest happening. Those are some of the things that we're doing and hopefully that will bring in the broader community like you say, and ensure everybody's rowing in the same direction.

Ken Miller (24:20):
And you mentioned getting out into the community. One of the things that seems to be a continual issue that we need to address is this question of do we have enough people and enough of the right people to be able to successfully implement the strategy, the I-Plan? Where are we on the workforce issue? What do we need to do to get the right people? Both in terms of quality and quantity out there because in many cases, there's just a dearth of people who really understand this issue. And therefore, we don't have the expertise always in the right places in the right numbers to be able to aggressively pursue some of the change we need to. Could you talk a little bit about the workforce angle and what the I-Plan or what the strategy says about DOD's effort to address this gap?

General (25:11):
The DOD's greatest asset in this fight for EMS superiority is the workforce. The CFT recently completed a EMS workforce study in August to better understand DOD's current EMS enterprise workforce. Who is out there in this area and the study found challenges in accountability, strategy, traceability, education and training, credentialing, and adaptability for the EMS workforce issues. To address these challenges, the study developed an EMS competency model to establish a joint standard for EMS proficiency and inform a joint standard for EMS learning and EMS operating model to inform the workforce governance functions capability requirements. We're working with the various stakeholders within DOD to address those challenges that were identified for the workforce.

Ken Miller (26:00):
Great. We have time for a couple more questions here. To wrap up this discussion, you're going to chair a session at our upcoming convention here. The session's actually going to take place on I believe Wednesday, December 1st, and it's basically about the strategy and the I-Plan. Could you tell us a little bit about that session and what is the message that you want to get across to attendees?

General (26:24):
Sure. I'm looking forward to the AOC Symposium in December. I'm going to be moderating a breakout session on implementing the EMS Superiority Strategy Implementation Plan for the future fight. We'll have Brigadier General Anthony from U.S. STRATCOM, Ms. Vernita Harris from DOD CIO, and Mr. Dave Tremper, the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment on the panel. And we're going to discuss the department's efforts with the strategy, and the implementation plan, and our next steps.

Ken Miller (26:55):
Great. One of the reasons why we get together at this convention is to bring all the stakeholders together, basically in one place. And obviously the implementation plan says here's what DOD needs to do. But outside of DOD you have AOC, you have industry, you have academia, you have other defense-related organizations and you need their help I'm sure as well for successful implementation. What are some of the things that the EMSO community outside of DOD can do to help you moving forward?

General (27:25):
We would love for there to be more support from think tanks, from media in advancing the message that DOD is prioritizing EMS superiority and taking clear steps to drive those structural and cultural changes in DOD to get this right. I talked a little bit about those aspects earlier. We'd welcome industry's views and solutions to EMS challenges and greater information sharing and collaboration to get this right for our war fighters. EMS workforce challenges are real and we would welcome greater collaboration with universities and other educational institutions to make EMS issues appealing to attract top talent and build a stronger and agile EMS workforce to support the EMS missions for the department.

Ken Miller (28:10):
Thank you general Leleux for joining me today on From the Crow's Nest. I greatly appreciate your time and I certainly look forward to your session and look forward to continuing to talk with you on this important issue. Again, thanks for joining me on the show today.

General (28:23):
Absolutely. Thanks for having me Ken, it's been a pleasure.

Ken Miller (28:26):
Well that will do it for this episode of From the Crows Nest. I want to thank my guest Brigadier General Darren Leleux. To learn more about the association of old crows and our upcoming annual trade show, please visit our [e-mail]. Thank you for listening.