Announcing The Spectrum Imperative

A Call to Arms for the Autonomous Age

This week, CX2 is pleased to unveil The Spectrum Imperative, our call to arms for the wireless age. The Spectrum Imperative is our doctrine for designing, deploying and dominating the spectrum. We’ll share the full announcement in The Spectrum Imperative, along with the story behind it and where we’re headed next. If you haven’t subscribed to The Spectrum Imperative yet, now’s the time.

For decades, America and our allies have had the luxury of presuming a permissive environment in the electromagnetic spectrum. In that time we have become increasingly reliant on the spectrum for sensing and sensemaking, command, communications and control in an increasingly wireless and autonomous battlefield. As I have discussed ad nauseum here and in other publications like the Wall Street Journal, the pervasive nature of jamming and interference on the 21st century battlefield has turned that spectrum into a no man’s land that is degrading or outright denying our ability to operate effectively in the other maneuver domains - land, sea, air and space.

With the 21st century battlefield becoming more fragmented, decentralized and filled with autonomous systems, the spectrum has emerged as a cross domain of warfare that connects all the others. If we are to stay relevant, it is as vital that we develop the ability to not just survive but thrive in the cross domain of spectrum warfare.

As the battlespace becomes increasingly dominated by autonomous systems, the spectrum has become the 5th domain of warfare that we must not survive in but thrive in. To understand how we can achieve spectrum dominance, we must first understand the problem. The Spectrum Imperative has 10 parts, perhaps best though of as the 10 commandments of 21st century electronic warfare:

WE MUST:

1. Assume the spectrum will be contested

2. Admit we have a problem

3. Build systems that survive in disrupted communications

4. Bring EW to the tactical edge

5. Train as we’ll fight

6. Turn signals into targets

7. Modernize our electronic attack capabilities

8. Prioritize EW immunity in acquisition

9. Enable coalition spectrum interoperability

10. Be ready in all domains

While we don’t claim to have all the answers, we do hope that by at least scoping and decomposing the problem we can help drive solutions to ensure spectral superiority in the 21st century. This ties into the new mode of maneuver operations: suppression and destruction of enemy emitters and networks (SEEN/DEEN) which CX2 has chosen to build our first products to ensure.

Sometimes a video is worth a million words and the rendition below of our concept of operations (masterfully crafted by our friends on 8VC’s graphics team) is a vignette into how we seeing this type of electromagnetic maneuver operations playing out:

Building integrated systems of systems that can play out like the vignette above will require thought leadership from all levels: the warfighter, the acquisition community, defense policy and industry.

Stay tuned here as we dive deeper and deeper into the different faces of the spectrum imperative. CX2 will continue to shine a light on the problem and propose solutions where ever we can.