For generations, customers have counted on Lockheed Martin to help them overcome their most complex national security challenges and stay ahead of emerging threats. The decades ahead will require more technologically-advanced solutions than ever before. To help accelerate American and allied military modernization and preserve global deterrence, Lockheed Martin is developing a new framework for 21st Century Warfare.

“21st Century Warfare is bringing together the physical technology of the 21st century with the digital world technologies and increasing our deterrent capabilities,” said Lockheed Martin Chairman, President and CEO Jim Taiclet during a fireside chat with CSIS president and CEO, and Langone Chair in American Leadership, Dr. John J. Hamre, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We provide what our defense establishment needs to deter and prevent war.”

According to Taiclet, effective deterrence won’t just require greater connections between software and hardware, but must also leverage best practices from the commercial industry to enable more agile innovation and fielding of new systems.

“21st Century Warfare brings together the technologies being developed in the physical world – where the defense industry excels – and augments and accelerates those advancements with digital world technologies available in commercial industry,” said Taiclet. “At Lockheed Martin, we’re working to build that bridge between industries so that we can tap into the technology, talent and investment to increase deterrent capability.”

The best and fastest way to begin delivering 21st Century Warfare capabilities into the hands of our military is to expand and improve upon our most advanced and emerging systems. We are making the F-35 an example of that thinking in action. As the world’s premier air combat solution, it provides unmatched situational awareness and survivability, but it must also act as critical node in Joint All Domain Operations (JADO), with an ability to serve as an edge compute node, source of data, and a hub for integration of multiple manned and unmanned sensors. This capability was demonstrated in July when a PAC-3 missile successfully intercepted a threat using F-35 as an elevated sensor. The U.S. Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS) used the F-35 data with other contributing sensor data to initiate the launch of the PAC-3 to neutralize an incoming threat using combat-proven Hit-to-Kill technology.

This network-centric approach also can be seen in the multi-mission Aegis Weapon System, which combines sensor data from a variety of inputs and creates fire control solutions for sea and land-based effectors. In the future, Lockheed Martin will create the capability to link networks-of-networks to create resilient and secure global communications that will enable artificial intelligence processing at the edge and drive integrated operations to reduce decision timelines and help counter rising global threats.

Lockheed Martin has a rich history of pushing the boundaries of science and defining new eras –

from the earliest days of aviation, through two world wars and the Cold War, into the Space Age and now the Digital Age.

Discover more about Lockheed Martin’s 21st Century Warfare framework.