Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed and approved the Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2020 Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy’s Implementation Plan (EMSSS I-Plan) on July 15, aligning electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) resources across the department, the Pentagon announced this week.
“Today’s EMS Superiority Strategy combined our electromagnetic warfare and spectrum equities for the first time ever,” said Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the senior designated official who oversees the implementation of the EMSS Strategy.
“The Strategy’s I-Plan provides direction to the department to accomplish the Strategy’s goals and objectives and realize the vision. Future challenges require us to fight and win in the EMS from the beginning, and commanders must plan to win the EMS in their area of responsibility,” Hyten said. “The Strategy’s I-Plan sets us on a path to dominate the future battlespace. While the services are organizing, training, and equipping better for EMS, we have more work to do. We are determined to get there and achieve spectrum superiority in all domains.”
The EMSSS I-Plan provides DoD with a clear vision to implement the EMSS strategy, building a department-wide EMS enterprise. Additionally, the I-Plan requires accountability, oversight, and results.
DoD published the strategy in October 2020, in an effort to align EMS resources, capabilities, and activities across the department and ensure EMS superiority.
The EMSSS strategy has five goals:
- “Develop Superior EMS Capabilities;
- Evolve to an Agile, Fully Integrated EMS infrastructure;
- Pursue Total Force EMS Readiness;
- Secure Enduring Partnerships for EMS Advantage; and
- Establish Effective EMS Governance.”
The DoD CIO is tasked with overseeing the EMSSS and ensuring its goals are achieved, in partnership with the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cross-Functional Team.
“The enterprise approach in the EMSSS I-Plan reaches beyond the traditional ‘silos’ and drives the department to act in a more integrated fashion, mirroring the shared nature of the EMS,” said Acting DoD CIO John Sherman. “It allows us to pursue, track, and measure identified EMS capability gaps; enables the DoD to define and refine our policy, processes, and procedures; and establishes effective and enduring EMS governance.”
“As we did with cyber, we will define an EMS Workforce and look at what we need to do to increase and track our readiness across this strategically significant, cross-domain maneuver space,” he added. “Lastly, it is important to note the I-Plan defines enterprise EMS capabilities and establishes and executes new processes for funding, tracking, and reporting of those capabilities.”
