From physical to virtual to digital: The Synthetic Environment and its impact on Canadian defence policy
| Author | Kevin Budning,Alex Wilner,Guillaume Cote |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221135302 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2022, Vol. 77(2) 335–355
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020221135302
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From physical to virtual to
digital: The Synthetic
Environment and its impact on
Canadian defence policy
Kevin Budning
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Alex Wilner
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Guillaume Cote
Collins Aerospace, Ottawa, Canada
Abstract
The Synthetic Environment (SE) takes the power of computing, digital processing,
artificial intelligence, extended reality technology, and other advancements borrowed
from the gaming industry to create a computer simulation with near-perfect levels of
realism. Designed to enable connectivity across all domains and platforms, SE has the
potential to dramatically improve military training, force development, situational
awareness, and communications. Our article provides a technical overview of SE and
offers a high-level analysis of its use in Canada, the US, UK, and Australia. Informed by
dozens of interviews and a roundtable workshop held with experts from academia,
industry, and government, this article relates SE to Canada’s future defence policy. We
argue that leveraging SE effectively will require that Canada commit to a long-term SE
program, promote new government-industry partnerships, encourage top-down
leadership from both civilian and military officials, and consolidate domestic skillsets
and industry knowhow to maintain and retain Canadian sovereignty.
Corresponding author:
Kevin Budning, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By
Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada.
Email: kevin.budning@carleton.ca
Keywords
Synthetic environment, artificial intelligence, Canadian armed forces, emerging
technology, defence policy, NORAD modernization, connected battlespace, military
training
In August 2021, the US Navy launched Large Scale Exercise 2021, which consisted of
25,000 participants across 17 time zones, 25 ships, 36 live and 50 virtual constructive
units, along with six Navy and Marine Corps commands.
1
The purpose of the exercise
was to test, improve, and ultimately adopt a new, agile, and digitally relevant method of
warfighting that would help eliminate traditional stovepipe approaches to Command
and Control (C2) by incorporating and relying upon a Synthetic Environment (SE). SE
takes the power of computing, digital processing, artificial intelligence (AI), machine
learning (ML), and other technologies borrowed from the gaming industry to create a
computer simulation with near-perfect levels of realism. Designed to enable con-
nectivity across all domains and platforms, SE has the potential to dramatically improve
situational awareness, communications, C2, training, and force development strategic
planning.
2
The US, UK, and Australia have all taken note of SE’s emerging role in
current and future operations. In Canada, several teams across the Canadian Armed
Forces (CAF) and the Department of National Defence (DND) are currently tasked with
investigating and implementing initiatives that will support a future infrastructure. In
comparison to its Five Eyes (FVEY) partners, however, the Canadian government has
demonstrated that it is not optimally organized, nor has it prioritized fully leveraging
this emerging capability across the national defence enterprise. Instead, Canada is
approaching SE on an “as-needed basis”—an additional input that can be used to
support Canada in accomplishing specific defence functions. This places Canada as an
outlier among its closest allies.
Research around Canada’s SE has yet to garner any serious theoretical attention
from defence scholars. Nor is it well documented in open-sourced material. The
purpose of this article, then, is to provide a broad, empirically driven overview of the
effects SE will have on the future of Canada’s defence policy, and to help spur the-
oretical research on, and policy debate surrounding, this emerging challenge. Our
analysis suggests that a Synthetic Environment is essential for modernizing and
digitizing the CAF and for defending and retaining Canada’s sovereignty into the next
decade(s). We also find that if Canada expects to remain a critical ally to both the United
States and the FVEY more broadly, Ottawa must embrace this technological shift by
1. Diana Stancy Correll, “Navy,Marine Corps aim to refine, test, modern warfighting concepts in Large Scale
Exercise 2021,”Navy Times, 9 August 2021.
2. “Synthetic Environments,”CAE, n.d., https://www.cae.com/defence-security/what-we-do/training-
systems/synthetic-environments/(accessed 30 September 2022).
336 International Journal 77(2)
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