WASHINGTON-The new Secretary of the Air Force stated that he is skeptical about the current plan to establish the service's advanced combat management system, which indicates that the plan may undergo a major overhaul.

"I want to pay more attention to the specific operational returns of the investment," Frank Kendall told Defense News in an interview on August 13. "For investment in this type of technology, where can we get the greatest combat performance improvement on the battlefield?"

"I don't think we have thoroughly considered where this technology can have the greatest impact and how to get there as soon as possible," he said. "I want to emphasize actual combat and meaningful military capabilities, not just to show what cool things you can do, but the real capabilities in the hands of operators."

The goal of the ABMS program is to create an "Internet of Things" for the military, providing a technical infrastructure that connects all platforms and sensors, allowing information to flow freely between them. The service is also interested in integrating artificial intelligence technologies that can parse information and assist decision-making.

But in Kendall's view, the plan has not yet answered important questions about what information will be transmitted and why, what results it aims to achieve and how these results will improve current command and control capabilities.

Kendall said he has instructed the ABMS program to analyze.

He said: "I want to design a capability that can make a measurable difference in combat results, increase the exchange rate... and increase the number of targets the Air Force serves in a certain period of time." "Choose your indicators, but I want to be able to show the investment. Actual operating returns."

Kendall’s comments highlighted the comments of other senior Air Force officials, including General Dave Alwin, Deputy Chief of Staff, who told reporters in June that the service needed to shift ABMS from focusing on open technology demonstrations to buying ready-made product. site.

"We understand that when Congress looked at [the budget], it was not clear enough. Maybe we did not have a clear enough path to justify the funding we asked for," Olwin told reporters at the June 24 roundtable. "We have to look in the mirror and say that we need to adjust ourselves better in order to be able to express more clearly what we want to do."

After Congress cuts funding for the program, two ABMS technology demonstrations are planned for 2021. The first demonstration took place in February, and the second demonstration ended in July.

Although the ABMS technology demonstration will proceed as planned in the short term, Kendall said that he hopes that future demonstrations can be centered around providing an operational problem for defense companies to solve, and then try their solutions.

"This is the operation we want to carry out, this is the asset we must have. If you want, you bring us an information system, which will enable us to achieve greater success in this regard," he said. "Tell me what it looks like and how you will achieve it. What concrete things will you do? Of course, we will do this through competition."

Valerie Insinna is an air combat reporter for defense news. She previously worked on Navy/Congress Beat for Defense Daily, and then worked as a writer for National Defense Magazine for nearly three years. Prior to this, she served as an editorial assistant for the Tokyo Shimbun Washington Bureau.