Vice Chief Hyten to approve joint guidance on EMSO this month

New joint guidance governing how US armed forces’ will adopt, implement, and execute the Pentagon’s new strategy for electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) is expected to be released by the end of January, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff US Air Force General John Hyten said.

The new guidance, in the form of a Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) memorandum, will include an initial list of joint EMSO capability requirements that will be fleshed out by members from the joint staff’s Functional Capability Boards (FCBs) once Gen Hyten signs the memorandum at the end of January, he said on 6 January. The four-star air force general is the senior designated official from the EMSO Cross-Functional Team (CFT): the body tasked by the Pentagon to draft and implement the new EMSO strategy.

The FCBs input will be folded into the initial EMSO requirements list detailed in the JROC memorandum, with subsequent guidance to flow out of those recommendations, according to Gen Hyten. “The challenge is that we have never done this before and if you have never done something before [then] actually doing it is going to be interesting,” he said, noting the FCB requirements are expected by the end of May.

Aside from the FCBs, member nations of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing consortium – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have been briefed on the details of the new EMSO strategy. Discussions are under way with NATO partners on what the strategy’s impact may be on current and future joint operations, defence officials say.