ABSTRACT
Motivation In recent years, the shift in the U.S. DoD and U.K. MOD from requirements-based system acquisition to capabilities-based acquisition has brought new challenges to the defense acquisition community. An excellent example of the challenges can be seen in the vision of the Chief of the U.S. Air Force in recent years to develop a new acquisition strategy for the Air and Space Operations Center (AOC). This new strategy was intended to lead to the development of the AOC not just as a command and control system, but also as a weapon system. Command and control systems, such as the AOC, had never been regarded as weapon systems prior to this vision. Historically, the AOC has been a family of systems (FoS) assembled ad hoc to meet specific mission objectives. The AOC equipment was comprised of various workstations that employed a variety of applications that processed inputs from diverse communications and sensor feeds. The vision to acquire the AOC and give it behaviors more resembling an actual weapon system, for example, an F-15 fight aircraft, was a significant undertaking by the U.S. Air Force. Some of the
components of the AOC were under the direct control of the Air Force, whereas many others were not. The physical facility of the AOC, which was deployed in the theater of operations, was just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the systems that enabled the command and control capabilities of the AOC were not even located at the physical facility. They were like the mass of the iceberg that lies below the waterline and remains unseen.
