Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 74

Expansion of force structure is also not a course of
action that will be pursued in the current fiscal climate,
so the emphasis on active measures across the Army
and the services is important. Funding at the current
level is sufficient to maintain a capability that can
be modestly expanded somewhat if the threat grows
modestly larger than anticipated. However, if the UAS
threat to tactical formations continues to expand exponentially as current trends indicate, the Army must
seriously examine bringing a basic capability to brigade
combat team formations that will protect them, or
otherwise it must accept the losses that will follow.
The services must reexamine joint tactics,
techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and training
required to defeat UAS capabilities. The emergence
of the UAS threat has revealed that the Army does
not have sufficient forces at all levels to combat it.
Leveraging combined-arms air defense procedures,
utilizing friendly armed UASs, and examining Army
aviation’s role in C-UAS can help to alleviate the problem of insufficient UAS defense assets currently faced
by the Army. The examination of current techniques
can help maximize the effectiveness of existing air and
missile defense systems and improve current organizational capabilities to execute essential tasks.
This reexamination needs to lead to the development of a joint C-UAS concept, a joint C-UAS strategy,
and an update of Joint Publication 3-01, Countering Air
and Missile Threats, to address the evolving threat in
greater detail.16
The development of TTPs to improve interoperability among the services supports the joint integration
of mission command. Current cross-domain detection
and combat-identification efforts are time consuming,
and C-UAS is dynamic. The most likely individual
to come into contact with a small-threat UAS in the
future will be a soldier on the forward edge of the battlefield. How will he or she know the unknown UAS is
a threat? Neuenswander emphasizes the importance
of good interoperability across all levels to counter the
UAS threat in his 2012 article “Wargaming the Enemy
Unmanned Aircraft System Threat”:
If the soldier can confirm the UAS is a threat,
this is the first step in the UAS defense kill
chain. However, [lack of] interoperability
can become a great obstacle in the process.
Soldiers at the squad level do not have access
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to an air picture and no standard service or
joint air defense request system currently exists. The development of a Joint Air Defense
Request System that would correlate visual
detections from ground units and enable
follow on engagement is needed.17
Services must pursue a common command and
control capability to exercise control of the complex
C-UAS environment. The U.S. Army has taken positive step with its ongoing development of an Integrated
Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System
(IBCS). The IBCS provides users with a fused, composite air picture for greater situational understanding and
awareness, automated battle management tools to aid
in engagement decisions, and an integrated planning
capability that assists in C-UAS defense design.18 The
planned introduction of IBCS in 2018 will allow Army
air and missile defense elements to receive friendly
UAS locations from nearby ground stations and to pinpoint aerial position reports from self-reporting UASs.
It will also provide the force with a highly accurate and
correlated common tactical air picture.
The joint force needs to expand its exercises to
address evolving threats. The joint force must refine
its doctrine to address engagement authority demonstrated by C-UAS scenarios and match emerging technological developments. It must continue to evaluate its
doctrine and TTPs, using exercises that include C-UAS
scenarios to practice and refine the application of TTPs.
A proactive approach to address the emerging UAS
threat supports the vision of Secretary of Defense
Ashton Carter, who said, “the Pentagon must always
have a watchful eye on the horizon, anticipating needs
and gaps in capabilities before they become dire.”19
As the chief of staff of the Army also outlined in the
Army Operating Concept,
One of our most important duties as Army
professionals is to think clearly about the
problem of future armed conflict. That is
because our vision of the future must drive
change to ensure that Army forces are prepared to prevent conflict, shape the security
environment, and win wars.20
By taking the proactive steps outlined above with
regard to C-UASs, the Army and the joint force will
be better prepared to prevail against a serious,
imminent threat.
November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW