Collective Defense in an Era of Tokens and Data Links

Welcome to the Cogs of War podcast. My name is Madeline Field, and I'm the assistant editor of the Cogs of War vertical brought to you by War on the Rocks in Booz Allen, Hamilton. I'm joined today by Admiral Pierre Vendier, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. We had a fascinating discussion about NATO's ongoing transformation, innovation, and how to think about technical change. We hope you enjoy the show. Admiral Vendier, welcome back to the War on the Rocks office, and thank you for joining Cogs of War. Thank you for having me. You were on the show a year and a half ago to discuss how NATO can innovate and adapt before a crisis. Can you reintroduce yourself to our listeners and just let them know what you've been up to for the past two years? I'm Admiral Pierre Vendier. I'm the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation for NATO, one of the two strategy commands. This command exists since 2003 and has been given to the French since 2008. And we are in charge of the NATO future. And I know that you come from a long line of French naval officers. So what do you think would surprise your father, your great-grandfather, the most about the way that war has changed today? In fact, my grand-grand-uncle, which first name and last name was the same as mine, was in charge of the submarine warfare during World War I. Perhaps you know that in at the end of 1917, in fact, the Germans had some very significant and very efficient submarine force. It was killing the trade, especially coal. France was running out of coal. And the British, that had a very big navy, was using some very bad tactics to try to deal with the submarines. And my grand-grand-uncle was involved in the convoy theory, where you gather the ships, you protect them with escort ships, and then you are able to encounter a submarine force and kill it. And so that has been the beginning of a new warfare. It has been given in a book from Mathieu Tatar, which is the naval defense university, which gives an account. And I found in the book the story of my grand-grand-uncle. Today, you help oversee, as we said before, innovation and adoption for NATO countries. But today, there does seem to be inherent tension between rapid acquisition and technical change in interoperability. So how are you thinking about this? I think we are in a new geopolitical cycle. In fact, the World War I was a war of farmers equipped with rifles that discovered the fire in the machine gun. And in fact, there has been a transition to the industrial age. World War II was an industrial war. After that, we had the Cold War that was a nuclear war. And today, we are something which is in transition between nuclear and industrial war to digital war. And we see that in Ukraine. We see that in fact, the software, the data, the loop with which you use the data from sensing to. acting is something that gives you a strategic advantage. And today, I think the big challenge for all the armies, the Western ones, is to get advantage of a digital society. We have. You have all your life in your phone today. It's not the case of the military, which have the post-industrial stuff. And that is the problem today because on a protracted war, we don't have the tools, the industry, and the design to sustain. So that is a transition we need to make. In fact, when you make the math, you see, for example, that average production of Patriots is around, I'd say, 1,200 a year. When you make the math with the ballistic missile that are produced by Russia or Iran, it's maybe five times more. So you don't have the missiles to kill the missiles. For the drones, Shahids, for example, it's 50,000 for Russia and maybe quite the same figures for Iran. And so we don't have the things to kill that. And when you go to your legacy industry today, the design of what we have, it's very good weapons, but it has not been designed to be mass produced as the weapons we have to kill. So I'd love to go back to some of these manufacturing and joint licensing problems. But you've spoken before about the idea that NATO can be a demand signal for industry. What emerging technologies or capabilities do you think NATO and its countries will need most in the future? We are working hard on what we call the false mix. So we will have the legacy platforms go for quite a while. It's not the end of the tank or the jet or the frigate or the submarine. Maybe one day, but it's not today or not in the next week. But today we know that without unmanned systems around this, we can't prevail. We can't protect ourselves. And the risk to make some aggressive maneuvers is too high for a limited number of platforms there. If we want to regain the maneuver, the ability to maneuver or to countermaneuver or to defend today, we need a bunch of unmanned systems around us. So Ukraine has no choice. They lost the Navy on the first day of fight. They don't have that much armored vehicles. And today they turn themselves. It's this new war. I think the challenge for NATO is to bring that in. And the question is, what is the percentage of the mix? How are you bringing that in? I know a big focus for you has been exercises, but what are you doing? So I'm trying everything. So at different levels. So at the ground level on the field, we made some very big experiments as the Task Force 6. Last year, we hiked for 10 million of euros during one month. 50 boats we operated in the Baltic. The US went with 20 more. We're seeing the size of the experiment. And so during one month, we operated 70 boats in different areas, Danmark Strait, Gotland, and in front of Finland. And we lost about 50 boats. And we learned a lot. And today we have some navies that are jumping in. The Baltic navies, Italy are jumping in. British are jumping in. And so they will develop some USV fleets to supplement, complement their forces. And that has been a huge experience because it gives us subject matter experts. And in NATO, we are able to put on the start line all the nations. So the level of IQ, the global level of IQ raise very fast because the people, the companies, they can compare themselves. They can see what the others are doing. And so you don't go to see your government saying, "I'm the best." You see what the others are doing. And so that has been a good impulse to accelerate the adoption of new technology. So that was on the field. We are complementing this approach by the strategic approach. So we've done a large bunch of war games to understand what is the strategic problem we have to solve. And from that, we describe the problems that we have to solve. We describe what we call the future strategic environment. So it's a little bit smoky, but it's to try to understand what kind of relation the big powers will have in the future, because that will drive the way we will have to use the military. And then from that, we've made the future force studies. So given this future strategic environment, what are the forces we need? And we have a common design, which now we push to the nations and say, "Okay, 10 years of reason, this is the things you need to have if you want to tackle these different futures." And to give flesh on the bone, we've launched a forced lethality enhancement studies. So the idea is with what we have, what we can add on to make us more lethal, more relevant, more cost efficient. So we launched 18 studies with industry, for example MITRE, which is doing very well with us, with Airbus, with Kronsberg, with BIA, and a lot of bunch of with Safran of the French company, to just make them work with us on the force mix and finding some solutions. And we have very good, interesting findings. What's the most interesting finding? The most surprising for me was the use of helicopter. So we've seen devastated images in Ukraine saying, "Okay, the assault helicopter is finished. And so we don't need them anymore." And in fact, the modeling simulation we've made say, "Okay, if you can accompany your helicopter strike with drones, carrier drones, navigate at the same speed of the helicopters." And they will evolve. And that's what we're working on. And they will be able to sanitize the environment around your raid. Then it changed everything. And we've made some simulation. And today we increased the lethality of the helicopters by 50% and resilience in the same figure. And I was happy to see a US company in the tailhook that released a video, I won't say the name and you'll find it, where they propose a drone carrier, which is exactly the concept we worked on with Airbus. And so that means that the best way to see if you're right when your findings are the same as others you don't work with. And that was the case. So how are you thinking about, I know this has been a perennial challenge for US planners, but making sure not to plan for the future whereby gleaning too many lessons from the current one. So how are you guys thinking about that? Are these exercises really the way that you're pushing this future doctrine forward? We need to renew the ambition on the field experiments, the way we train. So basically the training was in the past decades, you have a plan and the plan is supposed to be the best you can have. And then you train the troops to run the plan. In fact, we know, and especially in this new environment, that no plan resists the first contact with the enemy. So in fact, the ability of the troops is to replan and to adapt very fast as the Ukrainians do. But so to invent a new kind of warfare, you need to test things in the field. I give you an example with the watch, an analogic watch, but so some in the room have some digital watch. Very nice watch, yeah. What you do with that kind of watch, digital watch, it's fully different way what you do with this. And unless you have it, you can't imagine what you could do. It's exactly the same with the new stuff. So unless you have a bunch of drones in a surface force, naval force you don't know how to use it a way to prepare the future is to buy that kind of things and test some ttps some tactics techniques and procedures and say okay how i defend our attack what kind of tactics i can get i can make to harass the enemy and test it again and again so it's not paperwork it's not designed in hqs it's using modeling and simulation and then go to the field to test things how are you integrating digital modeling and simulation so we have a big program which is a next generation modeling simulation so we have a program that will deliver some infrastructure some computing to do that and so the idea that you can have a first layer of computing that will say assess and check your ideas to give you hints of what you should test in the field and i think a larger part of the training in nato should be to have this kind of fight club approach where in fact you you fight with no rules and you accept to be challenged to see where are the limits where are the new things you need to be able to solve to solve your problems during world war one back to world war one in fact the german and the the allies had to solve was fire fire was dramatically and devastators it was killing a lot of people and nobody had a way to solve it so we the people thought that the they would solve it by artillery smashing down so it had been great progress great progress of artillery and then in fact it's the tank that sold the thing that was a moving banker and and we have quite the same challenge today to solve to say to how we do we solve the problem today we we see on the field so i've heard you talk a lot about data throughout the course of this episode and you've spoken about this idea of data as a backbone but of course data sovereignty is a challenging issue for nato so how are you guys working on solving that it's really the core of the problem we have to solve because the digital iq of stakeholders is lower than the one which is in the commercial side it's pretty evident when we discuss with the big hyperscalers or the people from ai the question they ask us we are not ready to answer we met with some hyperscalers and they went to us and say okay guys article 5 how many tokens you want that was how much gigawatts you need to run these tokens how many data centers you need to be protected and so that that is new way of thinking and we we need to ramp up in the understanding of what means the large use of data that means that nations need to align and i think we need to rebuild what we think about data sovereignty we are not ready for it today that i've seen much more as a paper with a secret stamp on it in fact it's data flows it's processing data some is public some is open some is classified now you merge this we have a pretty good example of how it works with delta in ukraine the delta suite which is used by the shoulder unclassified level it's protected but unclassified and the soldier has imagery targeting uh support on his phone on his personal phone maven just became fully operational on nato is that helping i guess ease allies concerns about data sovereignty how is that fitting into and i know this isn't under your command directly but is that providing a useful model for countries moving forward so i think what maven brings first is a huge expertise of complex problem solving i met yesterday with alex carp here in dc and we discussed that in fact the core of the expertise of maven is solving complex problems and i think material the most complex problems today so the fact that now we have a huge program in nato where uh we we try to solve the problems with digital is very good nothing is changing the thing and uh the fact that you come shape at the same software brings traction in the system the big question uh the allies have is a question of a vendor lock are they're dependent on a single vendor that can move the prices when he wants that is the first question there and the second question is for the nations whatever the solution is what kind of data you want to share and what what kind of data we don't want to share with with alex carp we discussed about the israelis and even if they use maven in certain domains they do not share some data the kids kind of data just for them and i think that is the question nations have to solve what they want to share and what they don't want to share data is obviously incredibly important for training autonomous systems so is nato having any challenges getting great training data the question which is behind of beyond autonomy in is the question of swarming because in fact today in ukraine you have one pilot behind one drone we can't afford that it is too costful you know the next generation of of robotics will be more autonomous and working swarms so we need to define what kind of standards we we employ to define swarms missions what is mission planning at the digital age with a swarm what i think today is that programming the swarm will be one of the tasks of the mission planning system so you want to achieve that so you will assign a specific pattern and mission to the drones you will use depending what kind of enemy what kind of situation what kind of geography you want you are confronted to on what kind of timeline are you hoping that nato can transition i would like that we commence the uh the first experiments in the following years so i say in 18 months today for example we are conducting lcix so lcx is the layered counter u.s initiative the problem we have to solve today is that when when you look at the counter u.s problem you have more than 240 companies producing some solutions to kill the drones none of them has the same standards and none of them is integrated so imagine you are on the polish border and you have five different nations brigades one british one french one u.s one turkish one polish they would the first thing they will do today is kill the others drones because they are not connected they are not embedded in the uh in a comprehensive c2 system so the nato perspective integration of robotics is the main main issue so what we do so this year uh act will will conduct four experiments on integrating drones so uh the two first were to create our subject matter experts and the big one we'll make in ladvia in october uh which name is fuse because it's um in fact it diebacks so it's a digital backbone exercise plus a next generation targeting plus lcix it would be a big exercise and we want to bring all these things together planning the moment with the uh hq in brussels to do that next year on an essay on a yearly basis are there any countries besides ukraine that you think have done a good job at beginning to set a standard for autonomous systems so i think the us with diu uh has quite a good expertise we worked a lot for the task forces in the baltic with u.s experts that gives us very good advice the way i run the task force six was really the uh something and false with the uh my u.s roommates in fact we said we will put on the water things without concept and without requirements it's something absolutely abnormal in a mutual system and so we say we put that in water and then while playing with it we will discover the potential of the tool because it exists so it's not we are not in designing face and thanks to that in fact we learned a lot and we open our minds to new ways of doing things and so i really think that it's what we need to enforce to create occasions for the nations to come in a field and encounter some very hard war fighting conditions and then to invent the way to react to that there's been a push both on a mix of national and then nato-driven innovation organizations what's one concrete change that you've seen in nato that you can point to and say hey this is one of our innovation uh initiatives that's working so i think task force is definitely a success there because i put what i asked to my team it was not to make an experiment and then to change we say we we want to run the adoption question i i set in act an adoption board innovation is not that complex you have a lot of people that invent things the problem is how to transition from innovation to adoption so you have the the adoption cycle what i call the itaa loop so you invent you test you adopt and then you acquire and then you loop it that is something which is the most complex because you change the organization you change the war fighting you change the relations between the stakeholders you change the relation with the industry and so it's the artist adoption is really the the question there i know you don't drive acquisition reform but you do consult with member countries about it i imagine so what lessons are you learning where is progress being made where is progress being made where is progress being made progress not quite there yet so the big change we have to achieve with industry in my perspective is we are not at war so we build a mystery in industry complex which is dedicated to to create a stockpile and the stockpile is supposed to be sufficient to deal with crisis today we are in front of protracted wars and so industry is a part of the theory of success theory of victory and we don't have this industry because a sustaining ramp up in very uh very quick production is something we are not ready for so we need to rethink the industrial model but the question is not producing hundreds of submarines let's say how maybe thousands of drones when needed when needed because the uh the speed of obsolescence is quite high and so you know only need a small bunch of it to be trained to make your tcps and trainings but when you go to war you need to ramp up and so that means that the design of your stuff need to be fought with an industry which is able to ramp up and that is what we need to invent what's interesting about these past few years is that both europe and the us have started to create their own sovereign defense tech ecosystems and i'd imagine that both are interested in investing and their own sovereign ecosystems. So how are you thinking about that split when it comes to interoperability? FRANCESC CAMPOY: So it's where we work. So we say, whatever you choose to have, would it be their homeland solution or something you buy on another country? Would it be US, for example? In fact, we need to work on the interoperability piece. So that means, what are the standards we enforce? One of the big things we enforce for the Task Force 6 was the STANAG. It's the Standard NATO Agreement, where, in fact, we say, that is the technical settings you need to fulfill. And so now, when you want to have a drone force, you know that you have to fulfill this STANAG that has been proven efficient in the Task Force 6. We will do the same for the integration of drones, country drone solutions. And so I think it's where NATO is good at. It's to try to solve a global problem, and not only nations' ones. STEPHANIE WONG: So for industry, because we have a lot of industry leaders, what's your advice for selling into NATO or NATO countries? FRANCESC CAMPOY: Join us. For example-- ALEXANDRE DROUIN: For us, LTIX is something where I still miss some good companies I would like to have to bring this expertise and to help us to solve this problem at speed, because the tests may come faster than we expect. Now, being closer with the military, hiring some highly experienced military in their design system is something that accelerates the design process, because it's just to weight the needs from the staffs. It's a long process. It takes years. It's too complex. It's not realistic with the technology. The loop of this problem is maybe three or four times longer than the speed of tech. So you're always late. You're always obsolete. Close links with the combatants. STEPHANIE WONG: So the US has quite a few initiatives about this. Are you learning any lessons from your Pentagon allies? FRANCESC CAMPOY: I often refer to the HOV lanes when coming in DC. So you have the big highway with traffic jams. And then you have lanes where you can go. You can go fast when needed. I think the procurement system is quite the same. When you build a car or a submarine, it takes-- when you launch a program and then deliver the first capability, it's 15 years. And you still need this. So this is the normal procurement process. But we need a HOV lane for the high-tech systems, where, in fact, the way you design, the way you procure, your way to contract is different. It should be, as AI, you should buy engineer tokens and not only stuff. So one of the things we discussed with Alex Karp-- in fact, the smartness of Maven in Palantir is the close links with the users, because they understand what kind of problem they have to solve. So they do not go through big layers of stuff to understand that. They go for the user. And then they understand what they have to solve. STEPHANIE WONG: So we've talked a lot about digital problems. How are you working with partners to address manufacturing challenges? And even joint licensing problems? ALEX KAPLAN: So that is not my job there. So you have in the HQ in Brussels, you have an assistant security general, which is dedicated for defense industry. And it's really a job. It's Taja Jakula, Finnish woman, which is in charge of this. So that discussion that I led on NSPA, NATO Sustainment and Procurement Agency, where they try to frame some global contracts for the Allies. STEPHANIE WONG: How does that fit into the work that you guys are doing? ALEX KAPLAN: So now, in fact, we co-organize the NATO industry forum. And we see that we try to enforce this two-speed system there, where you have long-term investments, big industry, complex and exquisite solutions, and the other ones that with startups, with kids in the garage that can invent something which is going very fast. I've been in Ukraine last spring. I spent a very good time with these startups, from Ukraine, to see how they solve their problem. And I think this is good DNA for us. When you have to reinvent yourself night by night, then it means that you think different. STEPHANIE WONG: So looking to the future, in a couple of years from now, when your command is over, what's one metric that you want to be able to point to and say, my actions directly influence the outcome of this? ALEX KAPLAN: Yesterday, I was in Sinas with Paul Schar. That was a question he asked. Say, what are the new metrics of military power? ALEX KAPLAN: I said we could count on the use of tokens. We'll rank the nation by use of tokens. We could use-- I prefer to use a metric about the force mix. What are the services and the forces which have a force mix, where you have a good mix with drones and legacy platforms? I think that will be a signal of transformation. Today, if you have a fleet without drones, I don't think you will survive any contact with the enemy. STEPHANIE WONG: And off the top of your head, do you know what NATO countries have the sort of force mix that you are envisioning? ALEX KAPLAN: Yeah. So I was in Great Britain in July with the shot. And today, the financial problem they have drive them to think as Ukrainians. So they are rebuilding their carrier group with drones. And they think that for the cost of a frigate, they may have a good bunch of drones is calling their carrier with less people, so less HR issues, and the ability to adapt the payload and the C2 regarding that. So that's the kind of innovation they want to accomplish. So today, I think it's going in the good direction. The question is much more a question of speed. Do we change good speed? STEPHANIE WONG: So in closing, part of your remit is strategic thinking about the future of war. Is there a book or a movie that has significantly influenced the way that you think about it? ALEX KAPLAN: So on my recent life as a SACTI, I was one day over the Atlantic. And I was given the chance to see a documentary, which name is Wild Wild Space on HBO. And it's about tech guys that launch rockets, satellites, and try to make a new world. And one of them was the accounts of PlanetLab. So it's a small company, which launched some small satellites, observation, low resolution. And a few days after, I was in Munich conference. And my aide told me, the CEO of PlanetLab is there. So I met Will Marshall, which is now a good friend. And he explained to me what he was doing for Ukraine, how this company with AI looks at any change on the battlefield and is able to forecast the enemy's maneuvers, how they see the caterpillars that are doing trenches, how they see the connection of the power plant of Zaporozhye, how they see bunkering, ship-to-ship transfer in the Black Sea, and all that kind of thing. And that drove us in the ACT to change our mind about ISR, about the use of space data, and how that was a much more tactical use than Intel. We launched a program, which name is SIMBAD, which is a strategic indication broad area detection, where, in fact, we now map gigantic areas of the NATO AOR. And we see changes. And we look at-- we are able to focus other sensors or to decipher the maneuver of the enemy or to give some tactical hints to the-- Admiral Vandier, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for coming on Cogs of War. Thank you for listening to the Cogs of War podcast. Subscribe to our newsletter at warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war and make sure to rate this show wherever you get your podcasts. Keep thinking, keep reading, and stay healthy. See you next time.