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the Army's digital team." When Primeau talks of geospatial information enabling the lethality and survivability of a battle group or combat team in Adaptive Dispersed Operations (ADO) — the Army's future operating concept — he draws on U.S. General (Ret'd) Stanley McChrystal's team-of-teams model for nimble innovation and business operations. A shared consciousness of data is key to empowering the execution of ADO, he suggested. "If we are going to have small teams make quick decisions in an overabundance of data, they need to be structured for it. They need to have things like local servers, especially if it is a denied environment in terms of cyber and connectivity, to be empowered to leverage sensor or C4ISR data to take decisions locally, yet still connect strategically to enable the larger operation." In an ADO environment where "the whole element is mobile, you need agility down to the edge," he said. "And your edge person now is an infantry sergeant — 26 to 28 years old and a digital native — who can handle a lot more digital information than most headquarters people." The Army's six Land C4ISR projects will address several current challenges related to gathering and moving information at the edge, Primeau noted, in particular a program to modernize sensors related to its intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities. But for geospatial and other data to be most valuable at that tactical edge, the headquarters elements like a combat team will require resident resources such as servers, processors, tools, and integrated sensors, connected to a more resilient cloud-based architecture when available, but also able to work with individual troops when denied or disconnected, "with the same data and applications." He equated the possibilities for ISTAR with the modern capabilities of a delivery service like FedEx or Canada Post. What used to be a manual process to track and deliver packages is now almost completely digital and, where feasible, automated. At Project Convergence in the spring of 2024, the U.S. Army's Future Command will experiment with a "tactical data fabric." This common layer is intended to bridge the enterprise level and the tactical edge by integrating massive amounts of data in multiple formats from multiple sources, and then employing advanced analytics and machine learning to aggregate and package the information for decision makers. The Canadian Army will be closely monitoring those experiments, what Primeau called "an open exploration of how data communicates among systems." "This Project Convergence idea is where the next battle is," he said. "Twenty-five years ago, we would bring tanks, artillery, soldiers, engineers and work out combat arms tactics on the battlefield. This is the new tactics. We need to invest in data manoeuvre. It's now about how the data flows between the platforms, information systems and applications. If each of these has its own data repository, its own look and feel of tools, nothing will work. We need all the data in one place, talking to all the applications, with all the analysis shared." The digital strategy notes the disruptive potential a shift to "Everything as a Service" (EaaS) could have on the military, but as the "digital solutions industry" undergoes "a significant pivot" from physical products to a service model, the Army should aim to alleviate "resources by outsourcing … where applicable," it stated. To get this right and identify the most effective solutions in a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem — consider the advances of AI in just the past few months — Primeau recommends several steps, starting with "envisioning" solutions together with academia, industry and defence scientists that answer the big questions about the Army's challenges (such as interoperability) and the types of capabilities soldiers and headquarters require. Then, assess and organize the data needed for those solutions and understand how it will be viewed, shared and communicated across the battlespace, before bringing in the right people to lead and acquire the right tools. Once the Army has its vision, supported by the data, the right people will then identify the best and smartest solutions, he suggested. And those need to be continuously reviewed and upgraded as technology changes. As with the geospatial information gathered during the B.C. floods, the determinant of a successful action was not the data but the information technology that permitted it to flow. Once the Army solves its digital infrastructure at the edge, it will have maps that are intuitive enablers and accelerators to solving complex problems. n A member of 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group Headquarters and Signal Squadron on Ex. Unified Resolve in February 2023. Photo: Cpl Aimee Rintjema Lt Shawn Hogan briefs a member of 5 Service Battalion on Ex Remorqueur Tactique in October 2021. Photo: Cpl Hugo Montpetit 40 CANADIAN ARMY TODAY | SPRING 2023

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