Wanted: realistic simulations for digital warfare

ORLANDO, Fla.—Training models and simulations need to “move beyond the physical domains” to keep pace with global threats, said Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

“We have some holes in our swing from a domain perspective,” Grady said Tuesday during a panel at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference. “And the areas that I'm focused on now are: can we move beyond the physical domains to space, into cyber, into the [electromagnetic] spectrum, into, say, irregular warfare? We have to be able to simulate those.” 

It is more challenging to digitally recreate threats like irregular warfare or in the information environment because it “starts to get into the cognitive domain,” Grady said, but it’s crucial. 

“I think if we can get those right, you get some attributes that will be really important. The first is that we might be able to go at scale and at speed faster, particularly if we design a system that is mobile and is cloud-based and leverages AI,” he said. “The second thing is, whatever we build into the future has to be easy to use, right? Because I think that's what will generate the iterative cycle that we really want. If it takes weeks and weeks and weeks to set up the next run…that's not helpful. It's useful, but it's not where we need to be.” 

Moreover, simulated environments must be integrated so allies and partners can “see themselves,” he said.  

"Because we're not going to do anything with them, and so we have to move along with them. And so I think we can solve the standards, the all-domain solutions, the cross-domain solutions, if we can be mobile, if we can build in scale and speed, if we can build ease into it, and then that collaboration with a fast turn, I think we’ll achieve that," Grady said. 

The Space Force also wants combat credible models and simulations for space systems as quickly as possible. Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, the head of Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, said the command is focused on putting the right infrastructure and training in place to quickly integrate real-life scenarios. 

“In a benign environment, which we operated for many decades, we could develop individual trainers, positional trainers that allowed crews to get very proficient, to do their daily jobs, day in and day out. But that didn't necessarily integrate a threat into that environment the way that we face it today,” he said during a separate panel Tuesday. “As a deployed-in-place force with most of our capability operating from the United States, with a few exceptions, when it comes to electronic warfare, most of what we do is dependent upon integrating units together, completely different than we had in the past.”