UK AOC Newsletter - November 2010 |
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ELECTION
TIME Nominations for the post of President are invited from the UK Chapter membership by the completion and submission of a nomination form. In accordance with the Constitution of the UK Chapter, nominations for the position of President shall be supported in writing by no less than six full members of the AOC UK Chapter. All nominations must be validated by the nominee's agreement, in writing, to stand and should be submitted by 31 December 2010 to Wg Cdr Phil Davies, Chairman of the Nominations Committee, at:
If you have not done so already, you are encouraged to register now! 47th
ANNUAL AOC EW
SYMPOSIUM & CONVENTION 3-7 OCTOBER 2010 The UK Chapter President, Vice President, and several of the UK Board and the UK Chapter membership managed to get to Atlanta, USA, for this year’s symposium where the British presence was most notable and very visible. The UK Chapter was once again presented with a Distinguished Chapter Award in the large chapter category, Dr Bob Andrews was there as the newly elected Regional Director (International 1), while David Kitching and Roger Blackburn were each presented with the Colonel Anton D Brees Lifetime Achievement Award for services to EW. The following article was written by John Clifford and Chris Howe and published in the symposium Show Daily on 7 October 2010. ELECTRONIC
WARFARE IN A CHANGING
ENVIRONMENT Thesis: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose By
John M Clifford OBE, President UK Chapter, and
Chris Howe MBE, Vice President UK Chapter. As President of the UK Chapter let me welcome all our members, give thanks to the US National Board, AOC HQ staff and the Peachtree Roost for all the excellent long term effort that goes into making these Conventions a success. Members of the UK EW community from the military, academia, S&T, industry, and those without portfolio, are here again taking part, if not exactly in the same numbers as in days of old but still in strength. You might now be wondering at this point about the thesis. Please stick with me and I will return to it, and membership. The convention theme follows a pattern of many US and international EW events over the past decade of being loosely related to transformation, of warfare and of EW. As a conference organiser myself I know that this is largely because transformation is sufficiently broad and encompassing and frankly quite an exciting idea – who wants to stand still? Clearly not the AOC, as we have leapt on every band-wagon within reasonable reach - think C2W, Info ops and now cyber – in an understandable, if perhaps misguided effort to stay relevant or modern. For those of you lucky Americans attending the classified session, it is great to see the issue being tackled is the EM Operational Domain which is overdue recognition. When you have sorted out its integration with “cyber” and space, we can all turn our minds to properly integrating it with the other physical domains, where real deadly war fighting is taking place every day. As events of this decade have shown, there is plenty for everyone concerned with EW and other EM operations and capabilities to get on with. On the other hand, it is fair to ask where all this transformation has got us. Is there a result or anything to show? Is it really a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same? Many nations including the UK and NATO now have updated concepts that recognise the EM environment or operational domain in some form. The US has struggled a little in this area but it now looks as if progress is being made. Doctrine, how we fight the EW battle, is also being updated in NATO, the US and ABCA-Armies. The real challenge is to develop simple terminology that is consistent with other warfare language and easy for all war fighters at every level to understand and use. The operational imperatives of the past decade mean that many of our land, air and maritime forces have pretty good platform protection - at least for the current fight. Many of them are well equipped with modern electronic surveillance kit for frontline war fighter use and a few have proper offensive EA capability, if only on a small scale so far. Industry has so far come through the financial troubles well although few can doubt that the future will be tougher. In terms of technology, advances in the commercial world now drive military advances with the pace of development increasing – not entirely without problems for the military, although the opportunities must be grasped.This Atlanta event will, I think, expose again a concern that many in the EW field have felt acutely at some point. That is, how to make EW a truly sustainable military discipline with the resources, provenance and above all powerful and enduring advocacy it needs, or more exactly, which our Nations and warfighters need. Looking at the symposium agenda it appears that others are also recognising, and hopefully addressing, this need which can be summed up as recognition of the EM operational environment or EM Domain followed by essential action, including advocacy, leadership and the provision of resources – scientific, technical, industrial and human. Without second guessing the contents, the titles of a number of presentations certainly look interesting and appear to be related to the permanence or otherwise of EW. Hopefully they will provide insight into how it might be achieved. It is also encouraging as a foreigner, to see more speakers from outside the US at this international event. So a big thank you is due to the organising committee and HQ and I am sure for the insight and leadership of our President, COL Chris “Bulldog” Glaze. Returning to this year’s convention theme ‘Electronic Warfare in a Changing Environment’, and our thesis, what do they mean for the UK Chapter? Without a doubt the most important issue for the future of EW, and the future of the AOC, is to spread the word about all things EW and EM and to capitalise on the success and lessons, yes failings too, of recent times. First, we have the major challenge of getting and maintaining top leadership awareness and support. Great EW Conferences can help raise leadership awareness and outstanding magazines such as JED have a major role. The second and possibly greater challenge, for the long term good of EW, the AOC, and the UK Chapter, is to reach out and gain new, young and diverse members. We all face the problem of an aging, decreasing and less recently operational membership. Past initiatives have failed to attract new members. A new approach is needed. I believe we should be reaching out to all those even remotely involved in EW and EM operations (think SIGINT, ISTAR, Communications, NAVWAR, IT people) whether they be military, students, engineers, scientists, leaders or whatever and not just to individuals but to front line units, training establishments, HQ, agencies and organisations. We should give them free membership, free JED, a follow up program by e-mail or phone, web-casts, pod-casts, etc. All this free for, say, one year. And not just in the US but throughout the world, with active local Chapter support. Looking at the AOC balance sheet and resources, we have the ability to do this now and attract a whole new generation of EW supporters and AOC members. So, do we keep on with the same approach to change, which has failed, or do we do try something new? Only time will tell but there will be a lot who prefer to keep on doing the same things in the hope, but not expectation by now, of effecting change. Turning back to the UK Chapter, we have had another excellent year, winning an AOC Distinguished Chapter award again for 2009/10 for a whole range of activities, including awards (8 different types to front line forces, academia and the military), meetings, visits, events, membership initiatives and social happenings. A number of our members are being recognised here in Atlanta for their long term and long-suffering support to EW and the UK Chapter. Congratulations for winning the Colonel Anton D Brees Lifetime Achievement Award go to Roger Blackburn and David Kitching from all the Board and Membership along with our heartfelt thanks. The UK Board has taken an aggressive approach to recruitment using the tools at our disposal. Communication is, of course, the essential ingredient in trying to attract new members. In order to disseminate information to our members and potential members, the UK Chapter brings all its communications together with a continually updated and informative website, run by our VP, Chris Howe MBE. In summary, we are in a time of change. Whether we change into something more adaptable, resilient, useful and effective depends on how we change and why. We cannot change just for the sake of change or we will go backwards as others around the globe advance. So we need to think deeply about what changes we actually need. Such thinking requires the open-minded participation of people. And recruiting new people, with new ideas, requires a new approach to recruitment. Finally, from the UK Chapter Board of Directors and its membership, we hope you all enjoy Atlanta 2010 and hope to meet again in Washington 2011 to see what has changed and perhaps to meet with new and more diverse members.
VISITS AND EVENTS The following visits and events are being arranged and details will be published as they become available: • 6th Classified EW Symposium, Defence Academy Shrivenham, 1-2 December 2010 • AOC UK Chapter Christmas Dinner, London, Friday 10 December 2010 • AOC UK Chapter Annual General Meeting, London, Tuesday 1 February 2011 • Dstl, Porton Down TBA
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