The defense industry has long endeavored to equip forces with enhanced communication by connecting technologies across land, sea, air, and space. This goal might seem easily attainable in today’s smartphone-enabled world, but aging hardware, fragmented install bases, and inconsistent standards across devices and networks may weaken secure communications.
As adversaries continue to deploy electronic warfare capabilities, defense forces could benefit by eliminating system frailties and creating a strong multidomain operating (MDO) environment that incorporates the most secure and sophisticated technologies, including emerging AI applications. McKinsey associate partner Christian Rodriguez recently met with Stacy Kubicek, vice president and general manager of sensors and global sustainment at Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control Division, at the Farnborough International Airshow to discuss what’s next for multidomain operations. An edited transcript of the conversation follows.
Christian Rodriguez: Where do we stand in the journey toward MDO capabilities?
Stacy Kubicek: This is what everybody’s thinking about, and I’ve definitely heard it talked about at Farnborough. Lockheed Martin has made MDO a focus in connecting air, land, sea, space, and even cyber capabilities.
Christian Rodriguez: How have recent global events catalyzed innovation and changed the pace of MDO?
Stacy Kubicek: There’s been a huge change and shift in urgency as of late. I think that’s one of the biggest things that Lockheed has been focusing on: How do we change from a platform-centric warfare model to more of a mission-centric model?
You must start by getting at the heart of what MDO is going to provide. You’re shifting the way you’re thinking about the battle space. You’re shifting the way you’re thinking about how everything is going to be connected. And that opens a lot more avenues for how we’ll do that.
Christian Rodriguez: How quickly is MDO innovation occurring? Do all regions share the same interest?
Stacy Kubicek: We’re moving at a pace that is unprecedented, from a technology standpoint. I’ve had many discussions about this at Farnborough because there is such a demand signal in Europe, where conflict is occurring right at their front door.
For some of our allies, we have to determine how to form partnerships and develop innovations that meet their needs. These vary by region, of course. We must understand customers by listening to them and hearing about their needs so we can make the right investments and adapt quickly to fulfill any urgent requests. This is instigating a large amount of change very quickly, and it has been phenomenal to see what that change has created.
Christian Rodriguez: As we think about the next step in multidomain architectures, what needs to happen to enable a full-scale, fully networked, end-to-end multidomain operating environment?
Stacy Kubicek: Scalability is always going to be a challenge, and it all comes down to the data. Think about the amount of data out there, whether it can be trusted, and the speed at which it can move. That gets at the heart of MDO. It’s about the speed of getting the right data to a war fighter. We’ve been putting a significant amount of effort into the interoperability of our different platforms and being able to adapt to the changing operating environments while still communicating rapidly.
Christian Rodriguez: We’re moving toward a hyperconnected edge environment with multidomain nodes, edge computing, and sensors working together to create and process data. How can AI be part of that story and how can we win customer trust for AI?
Stacy Kubicek: Trust is such a critical component, whether it’s pilots or ground operators. Everyone needs to trust the data before they use it to sense threats and act. AI must be a part of the data solution, and it’s already a big discussion topic with different groups, including cybersecurity. How do we trust the AI data we’re getting? What’s the data integrity? The process could be a crawl, walk, or run pace, to be quite honest, to establish proof points and show what AI data you can trust. There are some situations where AI data may not be sufficient because of the stakes involved.
Although we still have to reach a balance about what can be trusted, AI will be integrated into MDO. Think about the massive amounts of data that we have coming from all the different platforms. Despite the volume, we must quickly ingest the information and act on it. For that to happen, we need a productive and trustworthy way to integrate AI into the fabric of everything that we’re doing.
Christian Rodriguez: What are some of the complications that could interfere with MDO and how can companies work through them?
Stacy Kubicek: There’s no one straight answer, but any solution is going to involve partnerships. When I say partnership, it’s at all levels. It has to be done hand in hand with our customers, with the countries, with all of our partners.
At Lockheed Martin, we invest in many different things. We know we can’t do it all. We appreciate the partnerships that we have across the board, including those with customers in many locations.
It’s going to have to involve a continued dialogue, and that is the thing that’s shifting. Partnerships have always been there, but greater communication has to happen. We need open, transparent discussion, early and often. We need to get in front of it, talk about the need that our customer has, and determine how we can solve that together quickly.
Christian Rodriguez: Any reflections on the Farnborough International Airshow? What are your takeaways from the gathering?
Stacy Kubicek: It’s interesting. Two years ago when I was here, there were a lot of good discussions, meetings, and interactions with industry partners, but there’s been a shift, and you can feel it. This shift is in the urgency that we’ve been talking about, and just the reality of the world that we’re in now. In missiles and fire control, which is my business area, we’re almost 50 percent international, partially because of increased demand from allies. I would not have been able to say that a couple years ago. That is a testament to the types of discussions we’re having.
