Advancing Aeronautics Technology to Pace Emerging Threats
Tom Jones will speak on the emergence of 6th generation aircraft systems; Networking of systems and the keys to coalition-JADC2; and Digital transformation and its impact on acquisition, engineering, advanced manufacturing and skilling the workforce.
Corporate Vice President and President, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems
Thomas (Tom) H. Jones is corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems sector, a premier provider of military aircraft, autonomous systems, aerospace structures and next-generation solutions with major operations throughout the United States, including California, Florida, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah.
Previously, Jones was sector vice president and general manager of Airborne Sensors & Networks division for Northrop Grumman’s Mission Systems sector. In this role, Jones had leadership responsibility for division operations, including a wide range of C4ISR capabilities with a focus on evolving to multi-function sensor capabilities for U.S. and global customers.
Prior to that, Jones was sector vice president and general manager for Advanced Concepts and Technologies, also at Mission Systems. He led the development of advanced systems solutions and for providing technical discriminators to support future business captures. Additionally, he was responsible for strategic planning, activities and operations, including shaping customer research and development, advanced architectures and technologies, advanced research relationships with independent laboratories and universities; managing intellectual property and technology partnerships, foundry development, enterprise collaboration for continuous innovation; and ensuring the incubation of advanced concepts.
Jones’ prior roles within Northrop Grumman include sector vice president and general manager for Advanced Concepts and Technologies for the former Electronic Systems sector and vice president of the company’s Undersea Systems business unit in Annapolis, Maryland. Prior to joining Northrop Grumman in 2011, Jones served as director of The Boeing Company’s Marine Systems department in Anaheim, California, with responsibility for a wide variety of high technology, undersea systems solutions and services for government and commercial customers. Prior to that, Jones served in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Rockwell International and Boeing.
Jones earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Kansas State University and took additional doctoral-level coursework at the University of Southern California. He has been active in a variety of community organizations, including church, parochial schools, YMCA and youth soccer coaching. Jones served as the Chairman of the Corporate Program Management Council from 2013 through 2015.
Northrop Grumman is a technology company, focused on global security and human discovery. Our pioneering solutions equip our customers with capabilities they need to connect, advance and protect the U.S. and its allies. Driven by a shared purpose to solve our customers’ toughest problems, our 90,000 employees define possible every day.
The Williams Foundation thanks Northrop Grumman for sponsoring this lunch.
Punish, deny or retaliate: Australia’s evolved approach to deterrence in the 21st century
Major General Mick Ryan, AM (retired)
Mick spent 35 years in the Australian Army and had the honour of commanding soldiers at multiple levels. His operational service includes deployments to East Timor, Iraq, and southern Afghanistan, and he also served as a strategist on the United States Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
Mick has a bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of New England and is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force School of Languages. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and a graduate of the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting. In 2012, he graduated with distinction from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
Mick has a long-standing interest in military history and strategy, advanced technologies, organizational innovation, and adaptation theory. He was inaugural President of the Defence Entrepreneurs Forum (Australia) and is a member of the Military Writers Guild. He is a keen author on the interface of military strategy, innovation, and advanced technologies, as well as how institutions can develop their intellectual edge. He has contributed to several books, including Strategy Strikes Back (2018), Why We Write (2019), On Strategy (2020) and To Boldly Go (2021) and the forthcoming With Great Power (2023). Mick has also authored major reports on military strategy, training and education that include the Ryan Review (2016) and Thinking About Strategic Thinking (2021).
On 27 February 2022, Mick retired from the Australia Army. In the same month, his book War Transformed was published by USNI Books. He is a strategy consultant, heading his own company called Mick Ryan Solutions Pty Ltd. He is also a writer, having been published in publications such as The Economist and Foreign Affairs, and is a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC Australia.
Mick is an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, and a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
His next book, White Sun War, will be published in 2023 Casemate Books. It is a fictional account of a war over Taiwan.
Williams Foundation Conference
Sharpening the Edge of Australia’s National Deterrence Capability
30 March 2023
National Gallery of Australia
DRAFT Program
Aim
The aim of the March 2023 seminar is to explore what deterrence means to Australia and its interests in the context of being a globally respected, responsible, non-nuclear weapon capable middle power.
It will consider all national means that contribute to deterrence - diplomatic, economic and military - and discuss the limits to deterrence as a national strategy. In doing so, it will examine what a characteristically Australian deterrence looks like, balancing the need for a defensive posture and the ability to strike into the broader region, and the implications for the national industrial base.
Background
For a decade, the Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminars have focused on building an integrated 5th generation force. In air power terms, the ADF force structure substantially ‘locked in’ for the near to medium term, there is now a need to prepare for the next generation of technology.
However, new thinking is required to ensure the ADF can fight tonight as well as being prepared for the future. Air power history suggests there will be a highly innovative phase (Generation 5.5) before we get to the next transformative change. But where will that innovation come from? And can we afford to wait for the next generation to arrive?
Emerging geo-strategic, economic, and demographic trends continue to impact the environment in which Australian air power must raise, train, sustain and operate, demanding an increasingly sophisticated and balanced approach to the development of technology, workforce, policy, and process. As covered in previous seminars, this will involve the increased influence of space and cyberspace.
While technology will continue to drive the development of air and space power, a focus on technology alone is not enough to win in strategic competition. It will require an approach which is able to make best use of Australia’s geography, a relatively small but highly skilled population, existing and new partnerships, and creative thinking to provide credible options and choices at the lowest possible level of political risk.
In 2023, the theme of the seminars will therefore shift focus towards the challenges and opportunities in an Australian context, and through an air power lens exploring the following themes:
These themes will necessarily drive the exploration of future technologies at various maturity levels, including for example quantum and nano technologies; laser and other-directed energy technologies; propulsion systems; and AI.
This will also be necessary to identify national vulnerabilities, including the need to understand the environment (physical and virtual); how to generate scale and mass; the dependency on space (particularly for PNT); logistics writ large (fuel, basing, supply chains, planning etc); workforce trends and data dependency and interdependencies.
The Seminar
The April seminar will focus on deterrence from first principles and explore the strategic need while paving the way for the September seminar, which will get into the detail with the ‘Future Requirements of a National Deterrence Capability.
The opening session will introduce deterrence in strategic terms and provide an update in the context of emerging Government policy and international arrangements such as AUKUS. It will examine the importance of balancing a fundamentally defensive posture with the need to strike across domains and with purpose into the broader region.
The middle session will introduce industry partners and the need for a broader perspective of Defence industry as an integrated part of the deterrence apparatus. It will also examine the need for alignment with international partner policies, concepts, and force structures in the spirit of both interchangeability and interoperability.
Finally, Service Chiefs are invited to offer their perspectives on the emerging challenges, priorities and opportunities in the context of a characteristically Australian deterrence concept.
Industry Perspectives
Industry participants are invited to contribute to the discussion about deterrence in terms of either policy, process, technology, infrastructure, and workforce, or a combination of all. The intent is to promote industry as being more than simply a fundamental input to capability but more as an essential element of national power.
Topics for industry consideration are:
Dress: Business attire or dress of the day
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Sir Richard Williams Foundation
