5th generation air battle management / Christopher John Westwood

The aim of this paper is to examine what 5th Generation (hereafter referred to '5th-Gen') looks like in the Air Battle Management (ABM) environment. The paper will deconstruct 5th-Gen into its component parts, and in so doing, propose a baseline characterisation to help a broader audience understand what 5th-Gen is, why 5th-Gen is real, and why it is important. The paper offers a model as a lens through which a simple characterisation of 'n-generation' can be explained. The paper traces the history of ABM through this model to set the context for the characterisation of the future of ABM as an important element of a Multi-Domain Command and Control (MDC2) endeavour. The paper describes some of the human challenges that will accompany the transition from 3rd and 4th Generation Air Battle Management to 5th Generation Air Battle Management (5G-ABM). While the paper focuses on the air domain, many of its observations apply across all warfare domains.