December 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
En gestation depuis 2016, le fonds européen de Défense (FED) doté de près 8 milliards d'euros (7,953 milliards exactement) sera bientôt une réalité. La Commission européenne a salué, lundi 14 décembre, l'aboutissement des négociations entre les Etats membres et le Parlement européen afin que l'UE dispose enfin d'un budget de soutien à l'innovation en matière de défense.
Un vote doit encore avoir lieu au Parlement européen et au Conseil européen afin d'approuver définitivement le texte d'accord. "Il s'agit du tout premier programme financier pluriannuel visant à soutenir la recherche et le développement dans le domaine de la défense dans l'Union", se félicite la Commission. Les 8 milliards d'euros dégagés sur la période 2021-2027 sont toutefois bien en deçà des 13 milliards d'euros prévus à l'origine, d'où le sentiment mitigé de la part de certains industriels de l'armement.
Un dispositif spécifique pour les PME
Le but du FED est de faire émerger une base industrielle et technologique de défense de dimension européenne en favorisant les rapprochements et les coopérations. Pour prétendre à des financements, les industriels de différents pays devront en effet s'associer en consortium. Les deux tiers du FED seront orientés vers le financement du développement de nouvelles capacités militaires en complément des investissements des Etats membres. L'autre tiers de cette somme servira au financement de projets de recherche collaboratifs. Par ailleurs, les PME qui participeront à des projets de R&D transfrontaliers seront aidées à travers un dispositif spécifique.
Ce fonds s'appuie sur l'expérience du programme européen de développement industriel de défense qui avait déjà mobilisé 500 millions d'euros pour 2019 et 2020. Des domaines de recherche prioritaires avaient alors été définis : l'électronique, des métamatériaux, les logiciels cryptés... Ce financement était également ouvert au développement de technologies dans les domaines des drones, des communications par satellites...
Mettre fin à l'émiettement des budgets et des initiatives
Le FED doit aussi favoriser la création d'une Europe de la Défense et mettre fin à un éparpillement des initiatives et des budgets. Selon l'agence européenne de Défense, 80 % des acquisitions et plus de 90 % des projets de recherche et technologie en matière de sécurité et de défense sont gérés sur une base nationale. Par ailleurs, l'UE dispose de 178 systèmes d'armes différents, contre 30 pour les États-Unis tout comme il existe 17 types de chars de combat en Europe contre un seul aux États-Unis.
Ce manque de coopération coûte cher aux Européens. Cela conduirait à une perte pour les Etats membres évaluée entre 25 et 100 milliards d'euros par an ! "Gr'ce à l'acquisition en commun, il serait possible d'économiser jusqu'à 30 % des dépenses annuelles en matière de défense", estime la Commission.
May 16, 2024 | International, Security
Google fixes critical zero-day vulnerability in Chrome. CVE-2024-4947, a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript engine, has been actively exploited b
September 28, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR
Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― An affiliate of government contractor Amentum will buy DynCorp International, the global services provider, the companies announced Thursday. The deal, for undisclosed terms, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. In a joint release, the companies billed the deal as creating a mission-critical support services powerhouse, as they have had, collectively, $6 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. The new entity would employ 34,000 people in more than 30 countries. “The combination of our two companies will accelerate our growth into key new markets such as aviation support services, contractor logistics support, intelligence solutions, and training,” said Amentum CEO John Vollmer. Earlier this year, Amentum launched as a privately held company after the sale of the AECOM Management Services business to affiliates of Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities LLC. The new firm provides mission support and equipment sustainment, information technology, intelligence, nuclear and environmental remediation, among other services. “We look forward to welcoming DynCorp's employees to the Amentum family," Vollmer said. "Our complementary capabilities and cultures will propel Amentum to the top of our market as a leader with differentiated solutions to support our clients' most challenging missions.” In April, DynCorp won a $185 million, nine-month extension to support Army Sustainment Command in Southern Afghanistan under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) IV contract. The company said it has continuously provided LOGCAP services for the U.S. Army for 11 years. “This strategic combination of two market leading companies will deliver tremendous value to our customers and increased opportunities for our employees,” said DynCorp CEO George Krivo. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/25/amentum-to-acquire-dyncorp-international/
February 5, 2019 | International, C4ISR
By: Jessie Bur A recent Department of Defense memorandum indicates that the agency wants to pursue multiple commercial cloud vendors as it attempts to modernize its IT and data infrastructure, though a single provider will still have singular influence over the agency's “general purpose cloud.” “DoD is driving toward an enterprise cloud environment that is composed of a general purpose cloud and multiple fit-for-purpose clouds,” the memorandum to Congress, released Feb. 4, said. “In addition, it should be recognized that the Department will still need non-cloud data center capability for applications that are not suited for the cloud. Over time, with the adoption of an enduring enterprise cloud strategy, the non-cloud environment should become smaller.” That general purpose slot will be filled by the awardee of the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, which has been criticized for its single-award intent as giving the winner an outsized control of the defense cloud market. Many companies vying to support the Pentagon's cloud requirements claimed that the odds were stacked in Amazon's favor. The approach spurred protests and a lawsuit in fact. According to the memorandum, the fit-for-purpose environment will be made up of the Defense Information Systems Agency's milCloud suite, as well as other unnamed vendors. Throughout the cloud migration process, DoD will stick to four guiding principles: War-fighter First — any cloud solution must at all times address the needs of improving lethality while not jeopardizing the safety and mission of American war fighters. Cloud-Smart, Data-Smart — cloud solutions must streamline transformation and embrace modern capabilities while enhancing data transparency and visibility. Leverage Commercial Industry Best Practices — the cloud strategy should promote competition and innovation while preventing lock-in of one particular solution or technology. Create a Culture Better Suited for Modern Technology Evolution — the strategy will need to create a culture of learning and innovation while discouraging custom, federated approaches. This approach to commercial cloud is not entirely unexpected, as DoD Chief Information Officer Dana Deasey said during an October 2018 press event for the Defense Enterprise Office Solution cloud contractthat the agency would be delineating between general purpose and fit for purpose contracts. "This marks a milestone in our efforts to adopt the cloud and also in our larger efforts to modernize information technology across the DOD enterprise," Deasy said in a statement on the memo to Congress. “A modern digital infrastructure is critical to support the war fighter, defend against cyberattacks and enable the department to leverage emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence.” The new strategy also means that DoD will move away from a cybersecurity posture that focuses on perimeter defense and instead prioritize the protection of data and systems. “DoD will produce a unified cybersecurity architecture that addresses cloud and the needs of classified and unclassified missions and data. The capabilities will be tested and assessed independently and frequently to ensure that cybersecurity attributes remain effective against developing threats,” the memo said, adding that the CIO will determine the command and control requirements between the agency and the cloud service providers. Cloud contracts will also likely include requirements for training and workforce development to ensure that DoD can develop the expertise necessary to use and protect their new cloud environments. And any potential migrations to cloud will have to come with thorough evaluations of legacy DoD applications. “It is imperative that DoD has a cloud strategy to ensure that legacy applications are not moved to cloud without properly re-architecting them to make use of the data, security, resiliency and application advantages that cloud provides,” the memo said. “Additionally, DoD should independently test and assess cloud network security to verify security compliance and incident response and review all contractor and third-party testing results to ensure that performance and security monitoring are sufficient.” https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2019/02/04/dod-to-officially-pursue-a-multi-vendor-cloud-strategy