The second keynote of the morning was delivered by VADM Craig Clapperton, who wears multiple hats as Commander of US Fleet Cyber Command, Navy Cryptologic Command, Navy Space Command, US TENTH Fleet and Joint Force Headquarters Cyber (Navy). He spoke about the challenges that his commands have been asked to do, and, having spent much of his career in EA-6B Prowlers and EA-18G Growlers, he provided an insightful EMSO perspective in his remarks.
Admiral Clapperton began by describing the CNO's 2024 Navigation Plan. He said, "Admiral Franchetti has pushed out her [Project 33], her NAV plan, and she talks about seven targets. She talks about five key capabilities and four enabling activities. And when you look through those targets and the things that the CNO has asked us to do, right at the very top are things like fight from the MOC and [develop] more combat-effective forces. She talks about the criticality of C5ISRT to counter adversary overhead systems. She talks about targets that require more remote and automated access, thus enabling and requiring artificial intelligence. And she talks about the need for long-range fires, which requires battle space and space domain awareness and over the horizon targeting capabilities. All of those require mastery of the electromagnetic spectrum, both from our side, while preventing the adversary from using it on their side."
He also explained, "In my cyber hat, I'm also the regional Cyber coordinating authority for two critical combatant commands. First USINDOPACOM and also USSOUTHCOM. And I can tell you that Admiral Paparo and Admiral Halsey require battle space awareness, space domain awareness. They want to fight in a distributed and networked architecture that requires assured C2 secure NC3 systems and the integration, the inextricable integration of non-kinetic effects with traditional and kinetic maneuver different in many ways than other services that in that Indo Pacific fight they are dependent upon one another."
He added, "There is no success without the perfectly synchronized – down to the hours, minutes and seconds – integration of information warfare and non-kinetic effects with that dynamic force maneuver, emissions control and deception. You cannot do that without mastery of the electromagnetic spectrum."
Admiral Clapperton said the main capabilities his commands focus on delivering are assured C2, battlespace awareness that provides over-the-horizon targeting and long-range precision fires, and the integration of non-kinetic effects. He said, "Those are the three warfighting capabilities that my team provides to the rest of the joint and combined team. And I would argue that if we fail, [the warfighter] will fail. And if we cannot use the electromagnetic spectrum how we want and deny the adversary the same, we will fail."
He discussed the Navy's development of resilient C2 and targeting networks in greater detail and then returned to integrated effects. "There is no one magic cyber effect. There is no one electronic warfare effect. There is no one space effect. There's no amount of deception or maneuver that in and of itself will enable that. It all has to be integrated seamlessly. Yes, that requires high power computing. Yes, it requires advanced encryption in artificial intelligence. But the data doesn't move and get from one place to another without the EMS. And if we don't understand how we're using it and how [adversaries are] potentially exploiting our signatures and how we're using it, again, we lose."
After describing the stakes and spelling out the EMSO risks the Navy faces, Admiral Clapper finished on a positive note, focusing the innovation that his commands are pursuing to develop solutions and capabilities, such as resilient C2 networks with well defined data standards, to meet these challenges.