BRIGADIER GENERAL DARRIN LELEUX: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brigadier General Darrin Leleux. I'm the Deputy Director for the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross Functional Team, also known as EMSO CFT.
Thank you for taking the time to join. We want to update you on the Department's actions since the signing of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy last October, and efforts to turn the strategy's vision into results, and rebuild, and normalize Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, or EMSO for the Department. As you know, winning on today's battlefield requires the Joint Force to achieve electromagnetic spectrum or EMS Superiority no matter where we are in the world. We must be better than our adversaries in speed, communication and decision making.
Many of our systems rely on freedom of action in the EMS, and the EMS is a critical enabler for joint warfighting concepts, and the joint all domain command control (JADC2). Today's threats continue to increase and we must prioritize EMS superiority in all domains so that in the next fight, our warfighters have what they need to win.
To start today, I want to recap a brief history for context. Over the past 12 years, we've seen multiple studies affirming the need to prioritize EMS issues. In response in 2019, the Secretary established the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross Functional Team, also known EMSO CFT, to fill the void of EMSO leadership across the Department.
Last year, the secretary signed the EMS Superiority Strategy to take bold action across the Department to regain U.S. dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum. That strategy combined to DOD's 2013 EMS Strategy and the 2017 Electronic Warfare Strategy, bringing together spectrum management and electromagnetic warfare requirements for the first time. The strategy established five Department-wide goals. First develop superior EMS capabilities; second, evolved to an agile fully integrated EMS infrastructure; third, pursue total force EMS readiness; fourth, secure enduring partnerships for EMS advantage; and finally, establish effective EMS governance to support strategic and operational objectives. The strategy was further supported by joint doctrine for EMSO.
Following the secretary's signature of the strategy, we set to work putting this strategy into action under the direction of the vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the secretary senior designated official (SDO) for the EMSO CFT, I lead the strategies implementation plan (I-PLAN) development. The EMSO CFT comprised of Office of Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, the Combatant Commands, and especially U.S. Strategic Command, and the services worked with over 150 experts throughout the Department to craft an implementation plan that had full Department agreement.
The secretary signed the strategies implementation plan in July. This development is significant because the Department now has the secretary's authoritative tasking to realize the EMS Superiority Strategy's vision. Today, instead of the previous siloed stovepipe approach to EMSO, the implementation plan sets out a new integrated joint view of the EMS enterprise approach to normalize EMSO for the Department, and ensure EMS Superiority. It is adaptable to strategic priorities, and rigorous and demanding accountability and impact.
Although the implementation plan is classified and will not be released, I want to share a few highlights. First, the implementation plan directs oversight responsibility. The EMSO CFT has an oversight team currently led by the vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff who established processes and procedures to develop, integrate and enhance Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations in all domains, and who will hold accountable Department entities responsible for implementation plan tasks.
In the fall, the vice chairman's oversight responsibilities will transition to the Department's chief information officer. Second, the implementation plan outlines a framework to drive EMS investment prioritization. To date, the Department has lacked a comprehensive portfolio-based approach to prioritize, synchronize and integrate EMSO capability investments. To address this, the implementation plan directs the development of an EMS enterprise capability planning guidance to account for and modernize DOD EMS efforts, and provide recommendations for EMS enterprise investments.
Third, the implementation plan prioritizes EMS leadership and governance. Congress and the Government Accountability Office have emphasized the importance of DOD assigning a senior official with authority to oversee long term EMS implementation. In the fall, the DOD's chief information officer will be the implementing office for this effort, and overall lead for the DOD. The Department is also rewriting the EMS family of policies in the implementation plan to establish effective EMS governance for EMS activities across DOD. The implementation plan further directs the creation of a two-star direct reporting unit under the commander U.S. Strategic Command and additional billets for greater EMSO expertise.
Fourth, the implementation plan identifies EMS enterprise workforce development and sustainment requirements. An EMS workforce study began last year. It included stakeholders throughout DOD and prioritizes total force readiness and training to sustain and grow EMS learning, and develop and retain EMS expertise within the DOD. To conclude, the implementation plan marks a stark difference from past initiatives and reflects a Department shift to view and align EMSO in a holistic DOD enterprise approach.
The services are essential to these efforts, and they have a prioritized EMSO in many critical ways. I want to note just a few examples. The Navy established the information warfare community to provide sufficient overmatch of our adversaries. The Army is continuing with cyber electromagnetic activities and growing two additional multi-domain taskforce. The Air Force recently published a [inaudible] Superiority Strategy and stood up its first spectrum warfare wing this summer. The Marine Corps increased the CW capabilities for the infantry battalions in support of Marine Littoral Regiments and Marine Expeditionary Units. And the space force recently stood up Space Delta 3 dedicated to space electromagnetic warfare.
So at this time, I want to turn it over to my colleague, Ms. Vernita Harris from the DOD's CIO's Spectrum Office for her remarks. Ms. Harris?
VERNITA HARRIS: Thank you, General Leleux. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for attending today's briefing. I'm Vernita D. Harris, the Director of Spectrum Policy and Programs which is within the DOD CIO's Office. As General Leleux noted, the strategy in I-PLAN seeks to transform the way we manage and use spectrum for national security missions, train our workforce, develop new disruptive capabilities, and engage in partnership with allies, industry and policy makers.
Currently, the DOD CIO is the principal staff assistant and senior advisor to the secretary of Defense for all matters relating to spectrum. Upon signature of the I-PLAN and in line with CIO's existing enterprise leadership roles on spectrum, the secretary assigned oversight of the I-PLAN which will transition from EMSO CFT team over to the DOD CIO early this fall.
As Secretary Austin also highlighted recently, the nation has entered an age of warfighting where U.S. air, land, sea, space, cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum dominance is challenged by peer and near peer adversaries. As a critical step forward and implementing the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the DOD transitioning from the traditional considerations of electromagnetic warfare as separable from spectrum management to unified treatment of these activities as Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, EMSO. This ship is guided by the 2020 Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy, which seeks to align spectral resources, capabilities and activities across the DOD to achieve freedom of action in the spectrum at a time and place of our choosing. The I-PLAN provides the directive tasking necessary to achieve that vision. Our current work with A&S (Acquisition & Sustainment), R&E (Research & Engineering), OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) policy and others across the Department on spectrum matters set a solid foundation for success.
As the principal staff assistant for spectrum, DOD CIO collaborates closely with partners across the executive branch, the legislative branch, the industrial base and our allies to create the regulatory policy and technology environment for achieving an optimized and integrated approach to EMSO. This new governance role is a natural extension of the responsibilities vested in the DOD CIO and law and policy for oversight, guidance and coordination for all DOD matters related to spectrum. This transition is based upon very diligent and collaborative work completed over the last two years. CFT handoff of oversight of the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy I-PLAN to the DOD CIO early this fall, establishes the enterprise approach and focus needed to maintain EMS superiority.
I appreciate your attending today's briefing and I will hand it over to STRATCOM's Brigadier General Anthony.
BRIGADIER GENERAL ANNMARIE ANTHONY: Thank you, Ms. Harris, General Leleux. I'm Brigadier General AnnMarie Anthony. I am the Deputy Director for Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations at United States Strategic Command. The United States Strategic Command, we are glad to be here as the operational proponent for the Electromagnetic Spectrum Enterprise and for EMS dependent capabilities. We are excited to be part of this Department-wide implementation plan for the Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy. United States Strategic Command has been fully involved in the drafting of the implementation plan, and we are looking forward to executing our portion of that plan.
As General Leleux mentioned in his remarks, we will be standing up a two-star direct report organization underneath Commander United States Strategic Command. We will be referring to this organization as the Joint EMSO Center or, the acronym, JEC. This is going to be an organization aligned to Commander U.S. Strategic Command with expanded authorities. And under those authorities, we will have the responsibility first for the evaluation, assessment and certification of Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations readiness, as well as the identification of joint force EMSO deficiencies and opportunities to advance mission effectiveness, interoperability, speed and survivability. What we're really doing here is answering the question, are we ready and able to operate in a complex electromagnetic operating environment.
And while we're doing the evaluating and the assessing, we're also going to be providing operational risk assessment identifying requirements and gaps to DOD CIO as the Electromagnetic Spectrum Enterprise lead. We will also be coordinating with joint and service professional military education learning centers for JEMSO, Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations curriculum and certifications, as well as providing this training support to our other combatant commands. We will finally be providing operational perspective to the DOD CIO as they promulgate policy for the Electromagnetic Spectrum Enterprise resource prioritization and Joint Force training and education for the DOD.
We at STRATCOM are looking forward to this challenge and intend to make the JEC, or the Joint EMSO Center, the heart of Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations. Thank you.
STAFF: Okay, thank you very much. We'll go with the first question to Lauren Williams.
Q: Hi, all. Thanks for doing this. I know you said that the implementation of plan is classified. But can you give us any idea of what the concrete markers are going to be, in like I guess next six months or so?
GEN. LELEUX: Thanks for the question. This is Brigadier General Leleux. So, you can think the implementation of plan as a decomposition of the strategy. The strategy has the five goals roughly aligned around capabilities, infrastructure, readiness, partnerships and governance. So what we did in the development of the implementation plan was to decompose the strategy along the lines of those five goals and 18 objectives, and develop tasks for various OPRs (office of primary responsibility) around the Department. The first 90 days, each of the components will be evaluating those tasks, putting together plans to accomplish them, and developing any resource requirements that are needed for those tasks.
STAFF: Lauren, did you have a follow-up?
Q: I do and it's related to workforce. You guys didn't really mention it here but it's in the release. And so, I was interested how each of your respective systems are going to tackle what's noted as like an EMS workforce challenge to making sure you can define the workforce and make sure you have enough people to do the job for the mission.
GEN. LELEUX: Okay. I thought I just briefly mentioned but we started a workforce study about a year ago. And we followed basically a four step process. The first was a current state assessment. What does our current force look like with respect to EMS, the knowledge, skills and abilities for our force? The second is, we looked at, based on the work roles that they have, what are those competencies that they are required to accomplish. Third, we looked at what is the education and training framework that is necessary to get the level of expertise that we need in those areas. And then, fourth, putting together a roadmap, so that's based on the current assessment. And then we look forward at the future force and what would those require on those same four steps. So that's kind of the process that that we've been following.
General Anthony, did you have anything you wanted to add?
GEN. ANTHONY: I guess. This is General Anthony. And I would just like to reiterate that underneath the Joint EMSO Center, we will have a responsibility to coordinate with both the Joint Force and with services for professional military education and curriculum when it comes to the electromagnetic spectrum operating environment. So we will be involved in training and furthering the EMSO knowledge across the Department of Defense.
STAFF: Sounds good. Thank you very much. Next question goes to Kimberly Underwood.
Q: Thanks for your time today. I wanted to ask about ENS implementation plan and the strategy --
STAFF: Kimberly, you're coming in broken. So, I'm still not sure if you have on speaker. Maybe you can turn it off speaker and talk directly into the line perhaps or something.
Q: Yes. I'm on my phone so I'm not on speaker. If I'm still broken, you can actually read that question, that I sent in if that works better. Thank you.
STAFF: Sure. Thank you very much. We have it here. And the question is, how does the strategy address GAO's (Government Accountability Office) recommendations about Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations?
GEN. LELEUX: Thank you, ma'am, for that question. So you may recall, the GAO issued that report in December of this past year, we were sort of in the middle of the development of the implementation plan at that point. But the GAO recommended had five recommendations. I'd say, the first four talked about identifying processes and procedures necessary to provide for planning, budgeting of the EMSO. The second was related to EMS government, EMS governance management, organizational and operational reforms. The third was about assigning clear responsibility to a senior official. The fourth was issuing the implementation plan. And then, the fifth was about creating oversight processes that facilitate the Department's implementation.
The first four I would say are in the plan. The tasks that are in the plan, and the fourth was actually issuing the implementation plan, which was done last year, excuse me, last month, by the secretary. The last one, the oversight process, that's what really makes I think this plan different and ensures success. And that is the oversight process. It allows -- it provides for an oversight authority at the four-star level, that will advocate for and ensure accomplishment of those tasks. And that individual will also have a reporting requirement to the secretary on a regular basis to go over how things are going.
So the key feature there is that it has visibility at the highest levels of the Department, and to ensure that we take action.
STAFF: Thank you, sir. Kim, I'm not sure if we'll be able to read you but do you have a follow up?
Q: No. Not at this time, thank you.
STAFF: Okay. Thank you very much. Let's go to Jackson Barnett.
Q: Thank you very much for doing this. Could you explain how the CIO will be overseeing this implementation? What is materially going to change from having this the best within the CFT and the vice chairman? And also, if you could say, you mentioned it's happening in the fall, I don't know if you have a date or even a specific month in the fall that change is going to happen.
GEN. LELEUX: Thanks for the question. This is Brigadier General Leleux. So I will just start out with what we're doing now, and that is the vice chairman as a senior designated official for the EMSO CFT has the oversight authority for the strategy. I have an oversight team that works for me, and they are working with the OPR for the various tasks. And I mentioned earlier about their developing plans and budgeting requirement, I'm sorry, resource requirements for those tasks. That all requires an oversight staff, and that's what -- that's the function that that we're doing right now.
That is the feature that will be transitioned in the fall. And I'll hand it over to Ms. Vernita Harris to talk about the CIO and how they will implement it.
MS. HARRIS: Thanks very much, Jackson. Vernita Harris here from the Director of Spectrum Policy Programs Office in the CIO's Office.
So the DOD CIO is [inaudible] for electromagnetic spectrum. We have been appointed by Secretary Austin to be the Electromagnetic Spectrum Enterprise lead. And with those responsibilities, the secretary assigned DOD with oversight of the I-PLAN as well. So we already manage and coordinate spectrum-related activities across the Department. And the [inaudible], the CIO's office, we have, or we are organizing our team to execute against the strategy as well as the I-PLAN. Thank you.
STAFF: Thank you very much. Jackson, did you have a follow up?
Q: Yes. If you could just elaborate a little more on what role this implementation plan will have in accelerating things like JADC2 and Joint Warfighting Concept. You mentioned that at the top kind of briefly, but how is this implementation plan going to enable those new capabilities and frameworks?
GEN. LELEUX: Okay. This is a Brigadier General Leleux. I did mention that at the beginning. As you know, that the Joint Warfighting Concepts and the JADC2, you know, the capabilities that are needed to accomplish those things rely on the electromagnetic spectrum. So the EMS Superiority Strategy and the implementation plan that goes with it ensures that we will have EMS Superiority to enable the JADC2 and the Joint Warfighting Concepts that did you refer to.
General Anthony, do you have any points you want to make?
GEN. ANTHONY: And I would just say that the success of JADC2 relies on our ability to have control of the electromagnetic spectrum. So carrying this implementation plan out and having the superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum will allow JADC2 to be successful.
STAFF: Thank you, general. Let's move on to Mark.
Q: Great, thank you for all for doing this. Given that the service has set their own budgets, I'm curious what the I-PLAN and the vice chairman/senior designated official say about kind of getting them all on the same wavelength to ensure the success of the strategy and coordination in the future of capability, alignment and acquisition.
GEN. ANTHONY: So this is a Brigadier General Anthony. I'm going to start and answer it from the operations perspective, and then hand it over to Darrin Leleux, who will look at the policy in the higher level.
So one thing that -- what STRATCOM is going to be doing with the JEC, is we're going to be doing that operational risk assessment. So we're going to be identifying capability gaps and requirements through a rigorous process. And so that way, we'll know where do we need to look at, perhaps looking at other techniques, or tactics, or material solutions --
OPERATOR: The caller has disconnected the line, goodbye.
GEN. ANTHONY: -- and we will hand those assessments off to the Department. Then, we'll -- I'll hand it over now to General Leleux who will take it from there. But we provide the operational risk assessment that what do we need to do, where do we need to go.
GEN. LELEUX: Okay. And to add on to that, when we staffed the implementation plan, I will say that all the services were part of the development of that plan, and they concurred with the plan as we wrote it. And I have regular engagements with them. They see the need. In fact, I listed some of the key features of some of the things that the services have been doing. For instance, the Air Force just published their own EMS Superiority Strategy, sort of nest under the DOD level strategy. So those are the things that I would say, along with the operational assessment that General Anthony mentioned, to get everybody integrated, and moving in the same direction.
GEN. ANTHONY: And just sort of to add on is that, another great feature of the implementation plan is we're really looking to normalize processes. And so, STRATCOM doing that operational risk assessment and identifying those requirements and gaps to the DOD CIO, to the OSD acquisition and sustainment through normalized processes such as the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, and other venues that are normal across the Department.
STAFF: Thank you, sir and ma'am. Mark, did you have a follow up?
Q: Yes. Just quickly and kind of unrelated, with the development of the strategy, the I-PLAN, and that eventual transfer to the CIO's Office, does that sort of mean the eventual, you know, end or roll down of the EMSO Cross Functional Team?
GEN. LELEUX: So the EMSO CFT was directed by Congress to be established in FY (fiscal year)'19 NDAA, and the SecDef (Secretary of Defense) established the CFT. The vice chairman, when it's appropriate, will recommend the stand down of the CFT. It is meant, the CFT is meant to be a temporary organization but we have no date or anything like that as to when the CFT may stand down as of yet.
STAFF: Thank you, sir, and Mark. Let's move on to Toby.
Q: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for doing this. A lot of our readers are international mobile operators, and I think a lot of them would be quite surprised by the idea of bidirectional sharing, which I think was mentioned in the original strategy. Is that's something that you're still pursuing in this plan? Do you have plans to do bidirectional sharing, or you persuading the U.S. operators to allow you to use spectrum at the same time? Thank you.
MS. HARRIS: Hi, Toby, it's Vernita Harris here. So we are looking to partner with industry on advancing new sharing technologies and concepts. We believe that sharing has to be the new normal. With 5G here and 6G next, we like everybody else is going increasingly wireless. As the environment gets more crowded, sharing spectrum will be the only way to meet everyone's needs. And so therefore, I'm sure you've heard my boss, Mr. Moorefield, who is Deputy CIO in DOD or C3 (Command, Control and Communications), has said that whoever figures out how to share is going to own the spectrum space.
And in the US, we want to be the leader in pushing for innovative spectrum sharing technology solutions. We believe that these are both economic and national security benefits too to us.
STAFF: Thank you, Toby. Do you have a follow up?
Q: Yes, thank you. And thank you for the answer as well. You talked about the integrated approach to the policies. It's going to change how the U.S. deals with friends and adversaries, and international sector negotiations, or is it more -- it's not really change the way that U.S. approaches [inaudible] or something? Thank you.
STAFF: Toby, can you restate the question?
Q: Yes, sure. So the question relates to, you were talking earlier about developing this integrated policy on EMS. And so, I'm wondering how this relates to how the U.S. DOD does its international spectrum negotiations for special spectrum? How it talks to its allies and adversaries about spectrum, including at the [inadible] level, for example, where there have been negotiations? And so, for example, Russia was very successful in one of the negotiations of 2019, introducing 5G into a band that NATO uses. And I was wondering if this is the kind of thing that the U.S. will be able to do with this more integrated approach to DOD spectrum. Or if this initiative is about different things, and you really want to talk about that's also fine.
I'm not sure if the rephrasing helped. I guess, if don't have answer then that's okay. Thanks.
STAFF: So, Toby, if you're talking about international pieces that are beyond the scope of the DOD, so we'll take your question, and see if we can direct it maybe to the NSC or something. Would that be acceptable?
Q: That is totally acceptable. Thank you. And yes, okay. Yes. Thank you for that.
STAFF: Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's move on to Jared, are you on the call?
Q: Hey, Russ, I'm here. Can you hear me?
STAFF: I hear you, go ahead.
Q: Everybody, my apologies, I joined the call quite late. So this may have been covered already. But the press release made note of the need to define an EMS workforce. And maybe my question gets ahead of the game a little bit. But do you have any sense at this point what other workforce codes throughout the Department might eventually get folded into that EMS workforce? What size it is? Any other characteristics that workforce might have?
GEN. LELEUX: Thanks for the question. That is actually what the workforce study is all about, identifying those expertise. You can kind of think of EMS expertise on a continuum. Nearly everyone in the Department to some degree uses the EMS, so you can think of that maybe on the left side of the spectrum, all the way to the right side of a spectrum where you have some very specific knowledge, skills and abilities that you require of a member to know. For instance, maybe a Growler pilot that has -- that's doing electromagnetic warfare. So there's a there's a continuum.
What we're focusing on is, I guess, what you would think of is the right half of that continuum, where not necessarily the ones that need to use EMS on a nonspecific basis, but those that have more specific knowledge, required knowledge, skills and ability requirements. And so, I described a little earlier that we took the four step process, where we identified the current state assessment of the force, develop competency-based models based on the work roles that we had that we identified for those individuals. Put together the education in our framework, education and training framework. And then, develop the roadmap to improve that framework.
I think there's a lot of good work that's going on around the Department. The problem has been that it's siloed and not center, you know, lessons learned aren't getting shared as well as they should be. And that's what we're really trying to get after is, is having an enterprise approach to EMSO. So I hope that that answers your questions, sir.
STAFF: Thank you, Jared. Do you have a follow up?
Q: Yes. No, that's helpful. Thank you.
STAFF: Thank you, Jared. Let's move on to Jon Harper.
Q: Thank you for doing the call. I was wondering if this initial resource requirements evaluation will have any impact on the POM (program objective memorandum) process or shape the FY '23 budget request at all? Will that be something that happens down the road?
GEN. LELEUX: Thanks for the question. So I mentioned right, just a little bit ago, regarding the first 90-day assessment, where each of the office of primary responsibilities, they're identifying a plan to accomplish the tasks, and identifying resource requirements. And those resource requirements will follow the same processes within the Department, and make their way through -- using the normalized approach.
Q: Thank you.
STAFF: Okay. Jon, did you have a follow up?
Q: No, I don't.
STAFF: Okay. Let's move on to Frank Wolfe.
Q: Yes. Just to follow up on that. What do you foresee in terms of the I-PLAN sort of influence on service budgets going forward? I mean, is this implementing this within their current TOAs (table of allowance), there are going to be more funding required? Obviously, it's we'll know, obviously in the POM process goes forward. But what are your expectations for how the services are going to implement the I-PLAN and whether this is going to require more funding for them to do that?
GEN. LELEUX: Well, I'd say that the I-PLAN has passed for all the components in the Department. The services have a Title 10 responsibility to organize, train and equip the forces. They prioritize their resource requirements. I did mention that we're working on a capability planning guidance, along with the other OSD and the Joint Staff and the Combatant Commands. So that will be the way that we develop a prioritization scheme and work with the services to get that right.
STAFF: Thank you, sir. Frank, do you have a follow up to that?
Q: Yes. General Hyten had talked previously about advances that have been made recently, given the low tech warfare or relatively low tech warfare in Afghanistan or Iraq and in the obviously what Congress has talked about the need to rejuvenate EMSO. But I wondered if do you have any sort of examples of -- what examples sort of stand out to you when you look across and now obviously with this current consolidation that Congress has wanted apparently. What do you -- do you have any sort of examples where you think that there have been particularly advances in EMS recently where you can point and say, okay, this is on the right.
We have something from either the Air Force or another service in terms of the capability that either can be used jointly or obviously is good on its own in terms of EMSO. Just wondered if you can cite any recent improvements in EMSO from our capabilities or systems perspective.
GEN. LELEUX: This is Brigadier General Leleux I want to just highlight the examples I gave at the beginning, in my opening remarks, you know, talked a little bit about the Navy establishing the information warfare community, the Army continuing with cyber electronic activities and the growing those two additional multi-domain taskforce. The Air Force just recently published their EMS Superiority Strategy. The Air Force is increasing its EMS capabilities for infantry battalions, in supporting the regiments and expeditionary units. And the space force just stood up its Space Delta 3 dedicated space electronic warfare. So those are some, I guess, key service level activities that that I say.
And I just want to clarify, for the infantry battalions, I was referring to the Marine Corps, increasing its EW capabilities, if I misstated that.
STAFF: Thank you, sir. Okay. So we've gone through everybody who said they were going to have a question, Kim Underwood sent in another question as well so we'll get to that in a moment. But I wanted to give an opportunity to any of those other journalists on the call, who may have a question that didn't tell me beforehand that they have one.
Q: Russ, hi. This is Travis with Bloomberg. I actually did have a question if I could ask them.
STAFF: Travis, go ahead.
Q: Sure. I wanted to ask about the strategy goals and the first goal, developing superior EMS capabilities. Can you talk at all about what the implementation plan says about priorities for that particular goal? And working with the defense industry, is there -- are there any timelines there and benchmarks for progress for developing these capabilities?
It sounds to me from what you've said previously, like, at this point in the process, maybe you're just tasking DOD acquisition officials with developing a plan and looking at resources. Thanks.
GEN. LELEUX: Okay, thanks. From the strategy, there were several technologies that were highlighted in the strategy that we are -- that they did -- the force needs, in particular dynamic spectrum sharing technologies, agile frequencies, our ability to be agile within the frequencies, frequency diversity and wide tuning ranges, minimizing our EMS footprint, reducing vulnerabilities to detection, resiliency against RF-enabled cyber attacks, modular open system approaches, software-defined systems, a whole series of various technologies that are needed in the future force.
I'll also highlight electromagnetic battle management as a specific capability that's being developed now, and is one of those that are called out in the goal number one. General Anthony, would you like to offer any comments on this?
GEN. ANTHONY: Sure. So thank you, Gentlemen Leleux. This is General Anthony. And so, the electromagnetic battle management tool (EMBM), this is a tool that's going to be used by our combatant command, JEMSOC, so the Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operation Cells. And the JEMSOC, for each combatant command, that particular combatant commands mission is going to use the EMBM tool to do joint planning situational awareness and command and control.
And we are in the process of developing this tool. We are using a rapid software acquisition process. It will feature cloud-based data tools and machine-to-machine and human-to-machine interactions. At STRATCOM, we are the operational manager and then DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) is the program manager.
While we are at the very beginning of this effort, a user group has been established, and they have developed the first set of requirements for EMBM, and those are underway. In the next month, the users and the programmers will meet to discuss the work to date and the way ahead. So this is one capability that we have already moved out on -- in the technology realm, over.
STAFF: Thank you. Travis, do you have a follow up?
Q: Yes, I actually do. So the implementation plan, he talked about the 90-day tasking. But I'm wondering if there is a section of this plan that deals with Congress and any authorities that the Department may need from Congress. Can you say anything about whether it does identify what might be needed from Congress? And can you mention any of those things? Thank you.
GEN. LELEUX: So as you know, Congress has a strong interest in this area and we have a regular reporting requirement in EMSO CFT to keep them up-to-date. And we have regular, a regular dialogue with Congress to ensure that we're working together on this for the future force. General Anthony, do have anything do you want to add?
GEN. ANTHONY: Yes. This is General Anthony. And just so you know part of the whole normalization of Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, Strategic Command under its expanded authorities will be briefing Congress regarding the state of Joint Force electromagnetic spectrum readiness, capability, integration and the ability of the Joint Force to conduct effective operations in the electromagnetic spectrum. So we will be having that dialogue with Congress as we progress in this mission area.
STAFF: Thank you, Travis. Appreciate the questions. Were there any other journalists on the call who would like to ask the question that haven't been called on yet?
Q: Hey, Russ, this is Carlo Munoz at Janes. Just had a just a few, just two quick questions.
STAFF: Okay. Go ahead, sir.
Q: Um, first of all, thanks. Thanks again for taking the time. My first question is, now the implementation plan is sort of been finalized, is there any requirement or any need seen to make any potential changes to the Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, joint publication at all? Just to kind of bring things more in line with the implementation plan. And then, I have a follow up.
GEN. ANTHONY: So, thank you for the question. This is Brigadier General Anthony. So, United States Strategic Command actually did the work to publish what you're referring as Joint Pub 3-85 Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations. And that was just published in May of 2020. One of the great things about that publication is that brought together electromagnetic warfare and spectrum management underneath Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations.
And then, as a Joint Pub, that will be regularly reviewed, and updated, so the next time it comes up for review, if there's anything that as we go through the 90-day assessment, as we mature this mission area that we need to make changes, we will definitely be capturing that and making sure that it gets into those regular updates.
STAFF: Okay. Carlo, your follow up?
Q: Yes. Actually, the follow up for General Anthony as well. In January, General Hyten made a comment saying, regarding STRATCOM and the EMSO operations, saying that they're under-resourced, undermanned, and not fully capable of performing EMSO duties they have been given. Given the implementation strategy now, the authorities that have been handed to STRATCOM, do you think that General Hyten's concerns have sort of been addressed with the new strategy?
GEN. ANTHONY: So I think that the implementation plan is very helpful in addressing the concerns that General Hyten had. It provides those expanded authorities that lets us go out and do what many studies have said needs to be done. In addition, with through the 90-day assessment, we're going to be looking at any resourcing needs and then using, of course, the normal departmental processes to get the resourcing that we require. So the implementation plan, I think is a great step forward in addressing those concerns.
Q: But not all the way. Is that what -- why am I hearing that correctly, ma'am? Like there are still more to be done.
GEN. ANTHONY: I would say that it may sound like I'm saying not all the way because we haven't done the work yet. We have the plan in place allows us to do the work to get after General Hyten's concerns.
Q: Understood. Thank you, ma'am.
STAFF: Thank you, Carlo. Last call for journalists who have yet to ask a question.
Let's -- Kimberly Underwood submitted a question. I'll go ahead and read her question. And since her connection is not very good. What is the size and scope of the new organization? I think she is referring to the JEC, ma'am. That will be stood up in the fall at STRATCOM to be led by a two-star leader, and when do you expect it to reach initial and full operating capability?
GEN. ANTHONY: So as -- this is Brigadier General Anthony. So as the General Leleux stated for all of these tasks and the stand up of this direct reporting organization is one of those tasks, we are going through the 90-day assessment to determine what is our plan to get that stood up as well as what the resources are, that are required. So at this point in time, I don't have the answer but we at STRATCOM are actively working it over.
STAFF: Any of you guys have closing comments? Sorry, I screwed up the mute button. Thank you. A Lieutenant Colonel here was quick to correct me and I appreciate that.
So, Lauren, if you have a question I'd like to offer it to you.
Q: No, I'm good. Thank you all for doing this.
STAFF: Okay. Todd Lopez with Defense.gov has a question.
MR. LOPEZ: Hey, sir. Good afternoon, ma'am. This implementation plan, I-PLAN, and so, how many tasks are in that plan? Other dates associated with them deadlines? Is there a deadline for the entire plan?
GEN. LELEUX: This is Brigadier General Leleux. As I mentioned earlier, we're following a project manager -- we're using sound project management principles to both develop as well as execute the plan. Each task has dates associated with it. It has a clear person or entity that's responsible for executing it. As you know, from the strategy, the date that we're working towards is 2030. That's the date that stated in the strategy. So that's our overall goal of accomplishing EMS Superiority Strategy. So I think those are the key features to answer that question.
STAFF: Thank you for that question, Todd. I'm going to turn it over to some closing comments from the group.
GEN. LELEUX: So this is General Leleux. So I wanted to just to clarify or elaborate on one of my last points regarding the EMSO CFT and the long term, future of the EMSO CFT. I mentioned that the oversight or the transition of oversight of the strategy does not necessarily equal anything to do with the stand down of the EMSO CFT. And I wanted to just highlight a few things that that we'll be continuing to work on.
First, we will be working with CIO on the transfer of those responsibilities of oversight of strategy in the fall. We'll be working on the capability planning guidance. We'll continue to -- the workforce study that I talked a little bit about today and hope to get that completed by the end of the year. We'll be working on a couple of other initiatives related to data integration, as well as harmonizing all of the various tasks within the plan throughout the Department. So just thought I'd offer that, Russ.
STAFF: Thank you, general.
MS. HARRIS: Thank you. Just a follow up to correct the question regarding international negotiations, It's Vernita Harris, by the way. So DOD does have a -- we have a role in international negotiations, but we participate via the U.S. preparatory process. And so if you look at the strategy here, go for security during partnerships for EMS advantage. We will be using the strategy and we will be taking our proposal through the national process which State Department run. Thank you.
GEN. ANTHONY: And this is Brigadier General Anthony. And I just want to say thanks for everybody for dialing in and that STRATCOM, we are very glad to be here as the operational proponent for the Electromagnetic Enterprise and its implementation plan. And we're looking forward to all the progress over the next as we go through and see for, I guess until 2030, on that plan. Thank you.
STAFF: Ladies and gentlemen of the media, thank you so much for calling in. We appreciate your time and look forward to talking to you sometime in the future on updates for this. I can't tell you when that will be, but thanks again for calling in and have a wonderful day.