AD2S 2024 Conference Program: An Agenda “Based On Current Security Events”

By Murielle Delaporte - Interview with General (2S) Jean-Marc Laurent, head of the Defense & Aerospace Chair at Sciences Po Bordeaux

Heir to the ADS Show created in 2012, AD2S takes up the torch of this singular aeronautical show. Unique in its conception, the fruit of cooperation between the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, but also in its theme, which jointly highlights the technical-operational activities of the civil, military and dual aeronautic sectors. Like its predecessor, AD2S will be held at the end of September at the Mérignac French air base, and is expected to attract over 150 exhibitors and numerous national, European and international visitors.

As usual, the event will include technical demonstrations by third-dimensional forces from all the armed forces, representing operational activities. These demonstrations will also involve the national defense industry, which plays a key role in providing capabilities. In France, the Defense Technological and Industrial Base is not just a capabilities provider, but a full-fledged player in the national defense posture.

The show will also feature a series of two daily conferences featuring a wide range of panelists from the French and European military, industrial and academic worlds. This year’s theme reflects the security issues affecting today’s world, namely the resurgence of a Major High-Intensity conflict (or M&HI conflict). It is indeed important to stress the difference between major conflicts and high-intensity conflicts. The former have a definitive impact on the global geopolitical order. This was the case with the XXth Century’s world wars, after which nothing was “never to be the same again”. The Cold War also falls into this category, even if its intensity only translated into regional wars or defensive postures in Europe.

On the other hand, certain confrontations can be of high or even very high intensity, without constituting a major turning point for humanity. Moreover, this high intensity is not always perceived or experienced the same way depending where one serves or which service one belongs to. Kosovo, for example, was a case of high intensity in the air, while Afghanistan was a case of high intensity on the ground. But these two engagements, hard as they were at times, did not change the face of the rest of the world.

Today, the fear of Western societies is that our armed forces will have to face a major, high-intensity conflict with an international competitor determined to use force to impose a political or societal model, or to react to global economic pressure. This fear is coupled with an almost existential concern for French and European military, which has been hit especially hard by three decades of shrinking capabilities for the sake of some make-belief peace dividends or budgetary control, the unfortunate outcome of which we all know. All military forces have been affected, including the Air force. In this respect, the military MRO segment has been particularly affected by such a lack of resources. Faced with sometimes destabilizing transformations, it was also subjected to intense activity in numerous operational theaters.

The question this 3-day cycle of conferences aims to answer is how to anticipate and prepare the aeronautical ecosystem, both civil and military, for the extremely brutal shock of an M&HI conflict (see program >>> Program - AD2S Aerospace & Defence Support and Services (bciaerospace.com)

The  first panel, scheduled for the morning of September 25 and entitled “Technical-operational support for defense aeronautics facing a major conflict", should help translate the notion of M&HI conflict into operational and technico-operational reality: intensity of technical support, impact of the unavoidable dispersal of forces and logistical flows, risks of attrition or war damage, and so on. In this respect, the OPEX experienced over the last three decades cannot serve as a direct reference.

While some of them have gone through HI phases, sometimes harsh and cruel, they have only done so in phases, and not in the same way in all engagement environments. And even if they have given rise to some remarkable operational actions and incomparable bravery, and too many valiant soldiers have given their lives, they have not weakened Western armies to the point of questioning their very existence. Focusing on the air sector, the speakers on this panel, general officers from French and allied forces, will give an overview of the technical and operational consequences that an M&HI-type conflict could entail, particularly in terms of military, and will discuss the strategies in place or planned to deal with them.

In the afternoon, a second panel entitled “Aerospace operational support economy preparing for conflict” will focus on the industrial translation of what an increase in the war effort means for institutions or structures producing or managing technical support: adapting State-Industry relations, changing production parameters, running a “combat” Supply-Chain, supplying strategic resources, logistics management to feed flows to the forces, conditioning the social corps, etc.

Senior executives from the French institutions in charge of military MRO (DMAé, SIAé, DGA), as well as industrial leaders from Airbus Helicopters, Dassault Aviation, Sopra Steria and Thales will share their views on the industrial strategies to be innovated and on the current anticipation of aerospace production equipment, particularly as far MRO is concerned. The panel will therefore be fully complementary to the one held in the morning.

The second day, September 26, will focus on innovation in military MRO through its military effects. Innovate to fight!

The first panel, entitled “Innovation in aerospace technical-operational support services, an air power factor”, will propose innovation strategies. Whether in the logistical, technical or digital fields, they will be combined with concrete examples showing how innovation in military MRO can be not only an enabler for the latter while increasing air power. In this respect, the aim is to show that, without seeking to compensate the lack of mass that only a genuine and sustainable budgetary effort would allow, innovation can nevertheless increase the military effects and the resilience of forces and, ultimately, help to make the difference on the ground. Speakers from defense innovation (DGA-AID), the armed forces and the defense industrial base will offer concrete examples.

The second panel of the day - "Aerospace operational support: an innovative actor in sustainable development" - will focus on military MRO innovations in the field of sustainable development. Given the general theme of the conference cycle, the focus will be on innovations that simultaneously reduce the environmental impact of weapons systems while increasing their operational power. For a clearer understanding of the panel's purpose, let's take the example of fighter aircraft engines, which, thanks to lower consumption linked to innovation, not only reduce their environmental impact, but also increase their playtime in an AOR (Area Of Responsibility), and therefore actually boost their operational performance. Speakers from the armed forces and the aerospace industry will present concrete examples of this kind of “win-win” development.

Last but not least, a third day of conferences, on September 27, will be dedicated to the human dimension, with the first panel focusing on “The challenge of employment and skills preservation in aerospace operational support services”. The issues of employment, recruitment, retention, feminization, etc. are already crucial, if not problematic, in the airline industry, whether civil or military. In the event of an M&HI confrontation, the scale of the human challenge will be even greater, and the MRO challenge even more so.

The panel is to include civilian and military experts on human resources and employment in the aerospace industry and will take stock of the current situation while offering perspective. It will attempt to answer the following questions:

• How can we make Aviation jobs attractive, and how can we retain the resources we recruit?
• How can we integrate new generations into an ecosystem where, in peacetime, the collective takes precedence over individualism, and where, in times of conflict, one's personal fate must give way to an obligatory and demanding commitment?
• How, in the event of an M&HI conflict, can we shift to a posture that will profoundly alter the way work is organized? Etc.

Producing aeronautical technicians, and MRO technicians in particular, with the same level of quality and performance, but more quickly in response to the intensification of military operations, requires innovation in terms of training, both initial and in-house, both within the Armed Forces and within industries. This challenge will be the focus of a final AD2S panel,  entitled "Renewing training in aerospace operational support services", which will attempt to unveil training strategies that reduce learning times while guaranteeing the quality of the technicians output.

This panel will also look at what can be done to ensure that a faster training pace does not lower the quality, but rather increased operational capability in both industry and the armed forces. It will give the floor to aerospace trainers, both civil and military, who are involved at different levels and stages of training (schools, centers, companies) and are implementing teaching strategies, pedagogical tools and teacher-learner relationships that are capable of meeting the challenge.

In addition to pedagogy, we will also be looking at normative issues, including navigability, in the face of the potential need to adapt the latter to a conflict situation.

In short, this series of conferences is fully in line with the strategic challenges of the current context, marked by the obvious fragility of international peace. It aims to face reality head-on and make a contribution, however modest, to the thinking anticipating a major, high-intensity conflict. Although focusing on the aerospace dimension, and in particular on its military MRO segment, these exchanges would certainly be able to be transposed to other services, in the same way that the lessons learned from the ground and sea environments enrich the reflections of the military MRO community.