Warlords Series 15: The Warlords in Copenhagen, 2015

Not only are the Marines key players in the Pacific, but clearly, they are as well in the Northern Flank of NATO.

Fortunately for the Marines, the Nordics are rebuilding their defense capabilities to deal with the Russian challenge and as part of that effort, Norway and Denmark along with the UK are leveraging the F-35 as part of their force transformation strategies.

The Marines have been key influencers in that process.

A visible example of that was the engagement of the CO of the Warlords in a high profile seminar in Copenhagen as the Danes were considering their replacement aircraft.

The article below was first published on April 30, 2015 and discusses the Copenhagen Airpower seminar held that year.

That article follows:

2015-04-30 Lt. Col. “Chip” Berke first met John Blackburn as a guest at the Williams Foundation Seminar in March 2014 on airpower.

When Blackburn was putting together a follow-on event with the Centre for Military Studies in Denmark, he requested early on that Berke provide his insights into what the fifth generation experience is really all about.

There is virtually no one better qualified to do so — which the audience attending the Copenhagen airpower symposium soon learned.

His background is unique in that he has moved from more than 2,000 hours in the Hornet to the F-22 and then the F-35. He then became the first F-35 squadron commander in the USMC. He also had time as a ground air controller with both the Marines and the US Army as well.

For Berke, the F-35 represents a rupture in airpower, not a steady state evolution.

It is not a replacement aircraft, and is no more a chronological replacement for the Hornet or the Super Hornet than is the Osprey a replacement for the CH-46.

It is very different type of airplane and rooted in doing things very differently, and that difference is crucial to mission success dealing with 21st century strategic challenges.

It is more about rupture than continuity and is a key part of the air combat revolution underway.

Berke described the challenge he faced going from being a very successful pilot in 4th generation aircraft to confronting the disruptive change associated with fifth generation.

He faced a situation where pilots with much, much, much less experience than he had were able to excel against him as he brought fourth generation mindsets to the F-22.

I showed up with guys about half my experience, who were just annihilating me in the airplane.

They just understood things way better than I did.

It was a very difficult transition for me.

So much of what you knew as a pilot didn’t apply.

It was very frustrating to make fourth generation decisions – my Hornet brain – inside an F-22.

A lot of those times, if not most of the times, those decisions proved to be wrong.

One might note, given the high cost of pilot training and the key role of the combat pilots in the air combat force that learning to fly yesterday’s airplanes creates a mind set that actually can undercut the capabilities to use 5th generation aircraft such as the F-35 effectively.

It is not just about wasting time, effort and resources; it is about undercutting the speed with which the F-35 can have an impact upon the combat force.

When he was able to grasp how to think differently as a combat pilot in the F-22, he recovered his ability to perform combat dominance.

You have so much more to offer the three-dimensional world than you did prior to really figuring it out.

When you realize that your contribution to air warfare is about that, and you’re doing it much better than you can in any other platform, you start to recognize your contribution on war fighting as a Fifth Gen aviator.

And what made the F-22 different suggests how the F-35 is different.

The F-22 is a very fast and maneuverable aircraft, but that is not where it excels.

It is an information dominant aircraft, a characteristic that the F-35 takes to another level.

“The F-22 is the fastest, the most powerful fighter ever built.

The least impressive thing about the Raptor is how fast it is, and it is really fast.

The least impressive thing about the Raptor is its speed and maneuverability.

It is its ability to master the battlespace is where it is most impressive.”

Rather than focus on speed is life and more is better, the Raptor has started the rupture in air combat whereby information dominance in the battlespace is the key discriminator.

Berke believes that the replacement mentality really gets in the way of understanding the air combat revolution that fifth generation capabilities have introduced and that will accelerate with the F-35 global fleet.

He argues for the need really to accelerate the leap into fifth generation-enabled combat forces for the US and its allies.

“When you look back a decade from now, what will the F-16 be in 2025? Or the F-18 in 2025?

The disparity which is already significant now will be even greater a decade out with comparison to the F-35.”

It is about the plane in an important sense.

We don’t want to find ourselves freaking out in 10 years that we wasted the last 10 years wondering, “Should we?” We should have spent all that time asking ourselves, “How do we?”

The “should we” question is yesterday’s news.

If you’re asking if we should fly Fifth Generation airplanes – if you’re asking if a Fifth Gen fleet is necessary, you are old.

You are behind.

You are late.

And you’re going to lose.

In another sense it is really about the synergy between the plane and the emerging fleet and the fifth-generation enabled combat ecosystem.

Berke used the iPhone analogy to describe the dynamics of change.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone he said it was revolutionary for it combined a computer, with a music player with a phone.

And he repeated this several times in the roll out presentation.

I doubt that anyone in the audience today would describe their iPhone that way.

The ecosystem, which grew up around the phone and with which the phone itself has matured, is what is revolutionary, not simply the phone.

The same is true of the F-35; it is revolutionary; but the ecosystem which will change and which will inform the further development of the aircraft is even more so.

When we fast forward to 2025, what will be the threats with which we will be dealing?

Berke underscored that we could debate that point from the perspective of 2015 but it would be a debate.

Come 2025, and the threats will be much clearer and need to be dealt with.

We need a platform which can be responsive to those threats and evolve over time.

That is precisely what the F-35 is all about.

The F-35 is designed to evolve…..

Plasticity is about the idea that is inherent in the design, inherent in the DNA of the equipment you buy, is the ability to substitute for other elements as needed.

I understand that the F-35 is built as a tactical aircraft; I get that. The fact that it’s designed as well to be flexible to other mission sets and live in other regimes that you’d never ask a tactical platform to do is what give is it that inherent flexibility, that inherent plasticity.

Do we have a platform that’s flexible enough to adapt to that changing environment? Fourth generation airplanes simply can’t do that.

And in a theme that he introduced in the Canberra conference last year, Berke underscored that the notion of a tactical fighter was undergoing change as the pilot’s ability to operate in the battlespace with information capabilities, expands as well.

The burden that the F-35 places on a pilot is much greater, and I understand the information processing is better.

I understand that the pilot interface with the aircraft is a lot better, but the skill set is much broader now because that pilot and that aircraft interact on a much broader capability, and it’s much more operational, much more strategic, than any tactical platform that’s ever been built because it’s resident in the design of the airplane because of the things that it can do.

I can provide information to a general officer sitting in a CAOC.

At the exact same time, I can send information to an aircraft flying ten miles away from me.

That information is relevant to both at the same exact time in two totally different ways.

No other airplane has ever been asked to do that before, let alone have it be natural in its DNA or expect to be able to do that by design.

And to highlight the significant difference between the 4th and 5th generation, one simply can compare what was asked of each when they were launched into operation.

What makes a sensor-collaborator-shooter platform relevant?

That is not the question we asked about a fighter 10 years ago, 25 years ago.

That was not the question we asked in 1975 when we wanted to buy the F-16.

That’s not the question that was asked 10 years ago with the Typhoon.

Information development, access sharing, and the ability to integrate security – that’s how you measure the F-35.

That’s how you measure the fifth generation fleet.

How well does it do that?

You can build and design an airplane, and we have a designed and built airplane, to be able to answer those questions, to be relevant as a shooter, to be relevant as a collaborator.

You have this information.

I have this information.

Let’s view that information together, provide each other a much more enhanced picture to make a more intelligent decision while, at the same time, funnel information to other users that can parse out the data that’s valuable and relevant to them.

And it is the ability to operate throughout the combat spectrum that is essential as well, and is a core competence of the F-35.

Air warfare is about spectrum dominance.

It’s not just enough to say, “My radar is better than your radar,” or “My sensor is better than your sensor,” or “My capability in this spectrum is better than yours.”

I have to be able to move back and forth between spectrums.

I need to figure out where within the spectrum the fight’s going to take place, and then layer on top of it as much depth.

That’s what Sensor Fusion is by the way….

It isn’t just enough for that one airplane to get that information, it’s the data link and the multi-functioning capability that all these different airplanes are fusing information together behind the scenes, and handing it to you, so you can now make decisions based on information that another airplane 10 miles or 100 miles away have given you, that you didn’t even realize because you don’t even have to ask him for information because it’s just there.

And then Berke addressed the question of stealth and focused on its important contribution to the plane and its ability to operate and not providing a mystical capability.

Stealth facilitates access.

It doesn’t make you invisible; you don’t fly around with impunity.

It just allows you to operate in an environment that you could be restricted from or excluded from without it.

You take that with all the other capabilities of the platform, aggregate them together, and you now have a survivable platform that can operate in certain environments that no other platform can.

And clearly, the F-35 is designed to work with core assets throughout the battlespace.

With regard to other aircraft, the F-35 makes other aircraft more lethal and more survivable–and legacy airplanes provide ordinance and battlespace presence which complements the F-35 as well.

“Don’t just think that the presence of a fifth gen platform is good to the legacy airplanes.

It’s a two-way street, and it’s very functional for everybody.”

And he warned that if you do not make the jump into the F-35 world, you will have a core challenge of working with everyone else who has.

If you’re on the outside saying, “I have this asset that I’d like to contribute to your fight,” you put the onus on the recipient and go, “Well, we can use that on this side. Maybe it will fit here.

Can we communicate?

Can we make this work?

Can we make this relevant?

Let me see how you fit in.

For the USMC, the F-35 delivers essential capabilities to enhance the survivability and lethality of the MAGTF.

At the same time, it also allows the Marine Corps to link up more effectively with other forces as well.

Be brilliant for the Marines on the ground, keep Marines alive, support Marines in contact, and support Marine Corp objectives. We can operate any time, any place, anywhere, for any reason, with any other user.

Now you have a force that is relevant well beyond what its mission statement looks like on paper.

That’s what the F-35 provides for everybody.

It’s a great question to ask, what is it like to be part of that larger ecosystem?

In the Q and A, one audience member asked about the A-10 discussion in the US and Berke had a straightforward response:

As a JTAC the key requirement is that the airplane show up.

The A-10 pilots are amazing; the plane will not always able to show up in the environment in which we operate; the F-35 will.

That is the difference for a Marine on the ground.

Major General Anders Rex

And if you fast forward to the Royal Danish Air Force currently, there clearly is a key focus on the Danish Forces being becoming a fifth generation force.

In a visit to Denmark last year, I had a chance to meet with the new head of the Royal Danish Air Force, Major General Anders Rex and this is what he had to say about the transition process.

This interview was published on October 25, 2018 and that interview follows:

During my most recent visit to Denmark, I had a chance to visit Royal Danish Air Force bases in the Jutland area.

This provided an opportunity to discuss the transition from an F-16 to an F-35 force as well as other changes involving connectivity and decision-making systems and approaches.

But prior to those visits, I had a chance to visit with the head of the Royal Danish Air Force, Major General Anders Rex.  In past discussions, we focused on coalition issues as well as fifth generation transition issues.

And in our most recent discussion, both came together in terms of the kinds of innovations which an all fifth-generation force like Denmark will need to make in terms of building its own capability and working those capabilities with Air Forces flying older aircraft as well.

Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia will become all fifth-generation fighter forces; which provides opportunities as well as challenges in working with older generation fighter aircraft and more generally working connectivity with other air, ground and sea assets to deliver what might be called a fifth generation enabled force.

The Australians have been more forward leaning than most in terms of trying to think through the impact of building a fifth-generation force understood not simply in terms of adding the F-35 but transforming the force to become a lethal and effective integrated multi-domain force.

In fact, I last met Major General Rex in Australia last March where he attended the Airpower Conference and he clearly has worked with and has high regards for the RAAF and its Plan Jericho approach.  One aspect of the F-35 global enterprise is precisely coalition partners cross learning from one another as they stand up their F-35 squadrons.

According to Major General Rex: “The goal for our coalition and our alliance is to get the best out of what we have as a coalition force.  During Red Flag, the experiences we have been briefed on, fifth-generation aircraft make fourth-generation more lethal and survivable, and more effective.

“We could focus on the significant kill ratios which a fifth-generation aircraft can deliver. But that is not the sole focus. It is about how fifth generation aircraft lift the whole force so that the kill ratio for the entire force goes up exponentially.”

He emphasized the importance of combat learning associated with the new aircraft.

“When we were running our competition for a new fighter aircraft, I witnessed the operation of a Super Hornet F-squadron on the USS Nimitz carrier off the coast of San Diego.

“This was the latest variant of the Super Hornet which had just received a new AESA radar on it.

“And when we talked to the pilots, they made the point that there was no way they could have thought up or analyzed what they can use this radar for. Every single day they learned new things.

“That is how I see the kind of learning we are going to have operating the F-35 and more broadly the kind of co-learning which other platforms in the air, ground and naval forces will need to have as well to leverage what a fifth generation enabled force can bring to the fight.”

In effect, what Major General Rex was discussing was the opening of a significant aperture of co-learning, for example, in Danish terms, how the frigates can use their future SM-2s and SM-6s in conjunction with the SA and targeting capabilities which the F-35 would bring to the Danish force.

“Co-learning across the forces and the F-35 to the legacy platforms is a major challenge but a task which we need to master to get where we need to go as a Danish force, but even more significantly at the coalition level.”

And working with coalition partners who are not going to buy the F-35, Major General Rex underscored that the challenge was then “how do we elevate the effectiveness of those coalition partners?

“We need to focus on the broad co-learning challenge and how to elevate the combat force as a whole as the F-35 becomes a key force for change.”

Major General Rex underscored that this needed to become a core focus of exercises and training objectives within exercises, namely, co-learning between the F-35 and ground, air and naval elements both within F-35 nations as well as working with forces which do not have F-35.

A key example is the cross-border training the Norwegians do with the Finns and the Swedes.

The point of the cross training currently is that Norwegian F-16s work with Finnish F-18s and Swedish Gripens.

The Norwegians are shifting to F-35 and perhaps the Finns will as well. The challenge then is to make sure that the Gripens can work more effectively as a result of the upswing in multi-domain capabilities which the F-35 brings to a force.

In short, it is less about fourth-fifth generation aircraft integration and much more driving an air force forward in terms of the capabilities which F-35 multi-domain aircraft can provide and as that is done shape co-learning with legacy aircraft as well as with key ground and naval systems.

It is about innovations in concepts of operation and the co-learning process unleashed by a fifth generation enabled force.