Empowering the Combatant Commands Is Critical for the Future Fight
If U.S. European Command — where I am the chief of staff — had to fight today, we would risk failing to support our commander in making decisions at the speed and quality necessary to succeed in modern conflict.
In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States assembled a coalition to provide urgently needed support to Ukraine. Our planners soon found themselves working around a table with multinational partners looking over each other’s shoulders to synchronize military assistance in the form of equipment and supplies. It quickly became evident that an unclassified but secure communications platform was essential to share information across an impromptu group of 26 partners. Despite the U.S. Air Force leading the development of a network capable of such a requirement since 2018, it could not deliver on the promise of a combined communications environment. In response, the combatant command fielded an expedient solution to perform this critical communication function in crisis.