Enterprise Solutions for the EMS – A Critical, Continuing Conversation

It has been a great honor to serve as the Chair for our 56th Annual AOC International Symposium and Convention.  This is an amazing time to be advancing such a critical topic, "Building the EMS Enterprise."  The EMS is incredibly powerful but also very innocent, since it is literally everywhere and impacts everything, yet cannot discern uniforms, geography, organizations, programs, or funding lines. The ability to achieve the meaningful goal of building an EMS Enterprise thus requires consideration of several systemic obstacles.

In the distant past, during World War II, operations in the EMS (OEMS) were simple and articulated.  During the period of Operation DESERT STORM, OEMS became complicated, yet remained separable and manageable.  Today, OEMS has become irrevocably complex, as a living system of dynamic interrelationships involving friendly military, adversary military, and neutral civil/commercial participation.  A key challenge is that many senior decision makers who were indoctrinated during the “complicated” years are now bringing those aging assumptions to face our modern state of Spectrum “complexity.”

Within the DOD, Service Departments all approach the EMS very differently, from their iconic self-identities: strength (Army), presence (Navy), shock (Marines), speed (Air Force), and surgery (SOF).  Thus, no one Service Component is inclined to maintain an adequately comprehensive perspective for managing a Department-level EMS Enterprise.  In other words, the Services cannot be allowed to "compete to exclusion" in such a profoundly shared space as the EMS.  This is because we exist in a closed system of resources and competition to exclusion will only result in degradation of critical capacity.

The current framework for capability requirements, development, acquisition, fielding, employment and cooperation is based upon a legacy paradigm of things easily kept separate (e.g., aircraft, ships, tanks, missiles, bombs, satellites, etc.), and not for things which cannot be separated, such as EMS interdependence. This causes us to treat our one shared EMS Superiority opportunity as many separate EMS problems inducing cost, delays, and uncertainty, across our forces and operations.  Alternately, when we commit to govern, resource, and maneuver within the EMS as a warfighting domain, then its operationalization – like that of the other physical domains – will be inevitable, to the benefit of all who operate within the EMS. 

Recognizing the EMS Domain

We are building a new table representing EMS Superiority and whose legs are labeled Domain (Permanence), Governance (Ownership), Enterprise (Substance), and Resource Authority (Leverage). If any of these legs are missing, the table may fall at the first substantial challenge.  Each of the permanent warfighting domains can be characterized as a deterministic set of physical governing dynamics, in a contested space, with a value proposition. The list of physical governing dynamics is complete: Newton rules gravity (Land) dynamics, Bernoulli rules fluid (Air/Sea) dynamics, Kepler rules orbital (Space) dynamics, and Maxwell predictably bounds the EMS.

Put simply, a domain behaves predictably, is fought over, and its absence (failure to recognize a domain) prohibits a force from imposing their will in that physical space decisively. The EMS fits this template and uniquely joins all other domains by its very nature.  Each domain behaves as a characteristically discernible, permanent and unique physics-based continuum through or from which decisive maneuver, attack, concealment, deception and related effects delivery can be conducted and measured by operational forces. These essential attributes are shared by the EMS. Thus, the EMS functions and is required as a domain.

Maneuver in the EMS mirrors the other physical domains in that it applies manipulation of three dimensions over time. Maneuver in the truest sense is not constrained by spatiality; it must be thought of as dynamic adaptation for advantage within a predictable system. In the case of the EMS, we adjust parametrics, geospace and relative power – over time – to ensure freedom of action.  When several elements are optimized in concert, we affect tactical Spectrum Maneuver. When EMSO forces apply Electromagnetic Battle Management (EMBM; C2 of the EMS aspects of military capability) in and among several tactical groupings simultaneously, we affect operational Spectrum Maneuver. This is not an abstract concept, it’s just that legacy paradigms and comfortable consensus preclude us from thinking of it in this way and thereby taking advantage of this truth.

Acknowledging the EMS Domain is central to the strategic goal of organizing the force to maneuver in the one physical permanent space shared by all forces. The EMS Domain is important to Cyber Operations, but it is not part of Cyberspace. The EMS is not merely the narrow “transport layer” portion, within the communications portion, within the RF portion of a still more massive expanse. The EMS is the total of all radiant analog EM energy for any purpose.  In the EMS, commanders must retain freedom of maneuver, create effects, achieve military objectives, deny enemy freedom of action, enable operations, and execute the Warfighting Functions. C2, Maneuver, Fires, Intelligence, Protection, and Sustainment are performed in the EMS as in all other physical domains, in decisive and enabling roles. – Jesse "Judge" Bourque, AOC Symposium Chair