During his visit last week, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Evan L. Pettus, 12th Air Force Commander, said he was here to discuss “air domain awareness, and collaborate on advancing Guyana’s airspace awareness capacity to protect its national security and sovereignty.” His visit followed two visits by the US Army 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), one in Sept 2023, and the other in Jan 2024. The former exercise entailed strategic planning sessions and procedures geared towards augmenting the military readiness and capabilities of both nations, in order to effectively respond to a range of security threats; while the latter focused on advising and evaluating the operations of the GDF training corps, engineer battalion, as well as maintenance and warehouse operations. Last December, we had a visit by a UK patrol boat, the HMS Trent, which conducted some exercises in the sea.
These initiatives represented military engagement in the three classical physical domains in which war is conducted – land, sea and air. Nowadays, technology has created a fourth warfighting physical domain – space – and one functional domain: cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS]). But what exactly is “domain awareness”, of which Gen Pettus dealt with “air domain” component? According to the US Military Review, with “Domain awareness”, domain functions as an adjective to describe awareness. What a domain is depends on context. Relevant modern definitions include a field, realm, sphere, or a range of knowledge, activity, influence, responsibility, or a physical region characterized by specific features.
Awareness is simpler; it is the quality or state of realization, perception, knowledge, or understanding that something is (or is not) happening, or exists (or does not exist). By taking key elements of all of the preceding definitions and concepts, the proposed definition follows: “Domain Awareness is having operational knowledge of a particular sphere of concern, and understanding its interactions with other domains in a given environment. By extending Domain Awareness across all domains, the operational sensors enable superior Domain Awareness through the timely creation and sharing of multidisciplined intelligence data at all classification levels through directed or automated dissemination mechanisms in near real time.”
We note that in this year’s Budget, approximately $21 billion has been allocated to improve our air and sea domain awareness capabilities: two aircraft, several long-range drones, and one coastguard boat is a welcome addition to our present equipment. According to the article, “Domain awareness will be key when employing increasingly robotized, automated forces that necessarily rely on high-fidelity information on all domains. The systems that produce domain awareness capability must be high- fidelity redundant systems generating and providing highly accurate information to sensors and shooters. Otherwise, unresolved ethical considerations involving the use of lethal autonomous weapons would prohibit our developing them, let alone our destroying them on the battlefield. Defeating intelligence collection systems that enable adversarial domain awareness and domain awareness superiority will be a top priority on the way to decision dominance.” It is clear that while we may not have the capability to have a presence in space, by sharing information with an ally such as the US, we may have access to information that affects our security.
By now it should be clear that key to countering military threats, whether from Venezuela or Suriname, with which we have border issues, domain awareness, which depends on very specialized training such as in cyber security, would be key. As such, while there has been some discussion as to the appropriateness of the training offered by our educational institutions to our population in the midst of our oil bonanza, there has been no initiative taken to impart the necessary training that the domain awarenesses warfighting demand. We have to start with the schools, to grow digital fluency and skills related to AI and automation in the young. But to satisfy our needs in the here and now, the Govt would need to “borrow” necessary skills from industry – which is already short. Recruitment of second generation skilled overseas Guyanese might be an option.
