In this edition...Summer 2025

Welcome to the Summer 2025 edition, there’s a lot to consume!

No better place to start than with a statement from General Dame Sharon Nesmith DCB ADC Gen, Master of Signals as she prepares to handover as Master to Major General Paul Griffiths, CB. This is followed by coverage of the Royal Signals Institution’s Annual Dinner and Awards Ceremony held in The Dorchester, Park Lane in November. A great event attended by 375 serving military personnel and our corporate membership.

The Winter 2024 edition of the British Army Review (BAR) provided a focus on Defence in the digital age. Major General Mark Purves, CIO Army and his senior leadership team covered the major characteristics, opportunities and challenges presented in the digital era in a series of essays. They are directly relevant to our readership and I am very grateful to the BAR for allowing publication in the Journal of the Royal Signals.

Maintaining currency with doctrine is professionally important. The update on Allied Joint Publication (AJP)-6, Allied Joint Doctrine for Communication and Information explores and demystifies the wider doctrine development process by explaining what doctrine is and its relevance. Thanks to the Integrated Warfare Centre.

Having digested the key principles in AJP-6, you can then review up-to-date military practice in Commander 7 Signal Group’s article which examines how large-scale command post exercises like Exercise CERBERUS act as a platform to: enhance rapid learning and identify critical lessons; integrate and test emerging technologies, optimise C2, and adapt processes to the evolving character of warfare.

There is much to learn from the war in Ukraine. WO1 Matt Jones’ article on Electronic Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict underscores the need for NATO and other forces to prioritise and rapidly deploy Electronic Attack capabilities and shift land EW focus from predominantly passive surveillance to active effects.

We have several contributions from the Institution’s corporate membership.

• Neil Fraser, NSSL Global and Dominating the data domain; managing the addiction to bandwidth to increase lethality at the tactical edge.

• Mark Humphries, Civica collaborated with Chris Griffin, Information Design Authority (Army) on The benefits of Adopting an Enterprise Architecture Approach - An Army HQ perspective.

• James Hilliam, Senior Consultant, Techmodal and Applied Data Science: Practical Solutions for Real World Challenges

  
  

All very welcome and important contributions to the RSI’s professional dialogue.

Contributions from King College London continue with Lie Another Day: Countering AI-generated images and videos from Aliénor le Mire-Cahn and Mission Command: Still the Best Game in Town? from Leon Mihelcic.

Lieutenant Luke Ranner has collated several informative cyber related insights from Exercise CYBER OWL, a yearly Royal Signals led battlefield study into the capstone cyber conference DEFCON. Specialist Group Information Services (SGIS) keep us abreast of AI related matters with In Defence of AI from Dave Meaney and Regulating AI in a Data-Driven Defence Landscape from Heath Groves.Defence Cyber Marvel (DCM) is an internationally recognised cyber exercise. Four and a Half Bad Days in Cyberspace – DCM4 Inspiration and Warning was originally published as a blog by Dr Keith Dear and is published his by kind permission. It clearly emphasises the impact DCM is making on the UK’s response to cyber.

There is much in the history section. Dr Colin Williams goes “back to the future” in Turing Amongst the Robots: Some Hidden Histories (and Possible Futures) of AI which will form the basis of an RSI lecture in September. There are also historical contributions from 220, 280 and 299 Signal Squadrons. The section concludes with the serialisation of the Corps paintings, more will follow with each edition. … and please give thought to letters to the Editor. Further dialogue is always welcome.

Joe