System of systems lessons to be learned in the development of air power for the future : a small state’s perspective

Sweden, as a small alliance free state with powerful neighbors, has a military history of what we nowadays call systems of systems thinking. Since the beginning of the Cold War thishas been expressed in an air force on the forefront of exploiting military innovations, not least with regard to sensor networks, datalinks, information sharing and distributed decision making. How can this history and the lessons learned come to use when future systems and technologies are to be developed to meet the uncertain future and changing threats? How does this fit with current trends such as capability-based approach and system of systemsengineering methodology? What could this mean for the development of the next generation fighter aircraft - after the Gripen E and contemporary aircraft? These questions have been studied from both a government and industry perspective, following the trend in the defense sector of a more intertwined relationship between the two, necessitated by adopting acapability view on aircraft development. This paper presents preliminary lessons identified from a case study on the project Flygvapnet 2000 (FV2000), which preceded the Net Centric Warfare era at the turn of the millennium. The analysis was based on characteristics of best practice systems of systems engineering derived from a review of literature presenting the methodology theory on capability-based approaches for analyzing, acquiring, developing, and managing military capabilities. The findings from this project will contribute to the development of systems of systems engineering methods and will spur proposals for future research