Joint All-Domain Command and Control was already an ambitious undertaking. It’s been one of the most attention-getting Department of Defense initiatives of the 2020s, the Pentagon’s push to get all of its service branches interconnected across different access points (land, sea, air, space, etc.). But as of last year, DOD officials began introducing a new component to the acronym formerly known as JADC2: including allied nations on the interconnected communications is seen as increasingly important as geopolitical tensions heat up, so Combined was added to the beginning of the concept to signal the syncing up with foreign nations. Thus, CJADC2 was born.

Of course, as the U.S. government deepens its relationship with countries like the U.K., Australia and others, so too will government contractors’ ties to these allies. The Potomac Officers Club has noted this development and created a brand new event to accommodate it: the GovCon International Summit. The inaugural event will be held at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Virginia on Oct. 10. Sign up now!

The GovCon International Summit will feature a panel discussion centered around CJADC2 and will break down what adding the global aspect means for the endeavor. Entitled Putting the C in CJADC2, it will be held from 9:50 to 10:50 a.m. — the first panel of the day, following two riveting keynote speeches.

CJADC2 Experts

Geopolitics Forcing DOD to Lean More on Allies; GovCons Follow Suit - top government contractors - best government contracting event — Jon Rhone

Jon Rhone

SAIC’s Jon Rhone will moderate the panel. Rhone is the in-house command and control strategist for the contractor and boasts a deep understanding of the field. He gained this through about two and a half decades of military service, primarily with the U.S. Air Force. As an active duty service member, Rhone completed tours in the combat Air Forces, Joint Special Operations Command and was a staff member at Air Combat Command. Perhaps most pertinent to the subject, he was at the helm of the combat operations division at the Air Operations Center, the Air Force’s C5ISR operational test and evaluation group — the entity responsible for cementing the Shadow Operations Center-Nellis, or ShOC-N, as the JADC2 experimentation battle lab for the service branch.

Bearing the call sign “BigDogg,” Rhone is an enthusiastic and spirited leader who will bring his invaluable combination of private and public sector experience to the POC stage.

Major-General Michel-Henri St-Louis

Voicing the perspective of one of the the closest allies of the U.S. (literally!) will be Major-General Michel-Henri St-Louis, who is the defence attaché to America and an infantry officer who has truly seen the world through his pursuits. He has been deployed six times to Bosnia, Afghanistan, Croatia and beyond and has worked as chief of staff at the operational level in the 1st Canadian Air Division and thrice served with the director general of strategic planning, with the strategic joint staff and with the Canadian Army staff at the strategic level.

Major-General St-Louis is highly decorated to boot, and relevant to the discussion, was recognized with the Meritorious Service Medal for his leadership of Joint Task Force IMPACT. He is no stranger to international cooperation and will be a highly informative presence on the panel, communicating to industry what Canada needs to enable the American mission.

More panelists will be added soon.

Recent CJADC2 Developments

Feb. 21 — Deputy Secretary of Defense and Wash100 Award winner Kathleen Hicks announces that a base-level version of CJADC2 is live and operational.
May 30 — DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office launches Open Data and Applications Government-owned Interoperable Repositories, or Open DAGIR, an AI-based “multi-vendor ecosystem with supporting business models that enables industry and government to integrate data platforms, development tools, services, and applications.”
June 1 — Maven Smart System, a data-sharing system manned by contractors (currently Palantir) expands access.
Sept. 6 — Deadline for industry to submit proposals for required CJADC2 capabilities like a common data ontology, access to live data, digitized workflows to aid contested logistics and sustainment.

Learn More About CJADC2

Understanding CJADC2 deeply is already very important if you want to have the DOD as your customer, and it’s only going to get more crucial. The panel will cover topics like: