Air Force picks seven new possible homes for KC-46A Pegasus

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  January 27, 2021 | International, Land

  Raytheon Expects Biden to Block $500M Bomb Sale to Saudi Arabia

  Yet industry executives believe foreign arms sales will remain a priority of the new administration. BY MARCUS WEISGERBER GLOBAL BUSINESS EDITOR JANUARY 26, 2021 02:51 PM ET Raytheon Technologies executives told investors Tuesday that it expects the Biden administration to block at least one arms deal to a Middle Eastern ally as the U.S. shifts its weapons export policy. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes, speaking on the company's quarterly earnings call, said Raytheon has removed from its books a $519 million projected sale of an “offensive weapon system” to a “customer in the Middle East...we can't talk about.” On the same call, CFO Toby O'Brien said the sale involves an “offensive munition.” The scale of the deal indicates that the execs were referring to the planned sale of some 7,500 Paveway bombs to Saudi Arabia. Last April, Raytheon said in a regulatory filing that its arms sales could be hurt by lawmakers' concerns about Riyadh's role in Yemen's civil war and about the Saudi crown prince's involvement in the murder of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist. Still, in December, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was moving ahead with the sale. “We had assumed that we were going to get a license to provide these offensive weapon systems to our customer,” Hayes said. “With the change in administration, it becomes less likely that we're going to be able to get a license for this. And so we appropriately decided that we could no longer support the booking of that contract.” During his Senate confirmation hearing last week, now-confirmed Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the Biden administration would “end our support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.” Still, Hayes said the company does not anticipate issues selling defensive weapons, like Patriot missile interceptors, and other types of arms in the region. “Look...peace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon,” Hayes said. “I think it remains an area where we'll continue to see solid growth.” Similarly, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet expected foreign arms sales to remain a priority in the Biden administration. “As far as international business, including foreign military sales, the tendency of the people in the Biden administration [and] in the president's own statements, reiterate his view that alliances are important that they need to be cultivated, and that they have real value in deterrence and national defense,” Taiclet said. “I do think that we'll have a more open environment for [foreign military sales] and direct commercial sales to our international partners.” Taiclet said foreign weapon sales are a way to generate American jobs and stimulate the U.S. economy. “If jobs and the economy are important, the promotion of international defense sales, one would surmise, would also be important,” Taiclet said Tuesday morning on Lockheed's quarterly earnings call. While arms sales create jobs growth, a 2019 Center for International Policy report said those claims, particularly during the Trump administration, were greatly exaggerated. Still Taiclet, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, said arms sales are a way to deepen relationships with an ally. “I can tell you that there's no better way to get a tighter bond with an ally than sell them jet fighter aircraft,” he said. “All the way back in the mid-[19]80s, when I was in pilot training, we had Saudis in our class, for example.” https://www.defenseone.com/business/2021/01/raytheon-expects-biden-block-500m-bomb-sale-saudi-arabia/171645/

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  September 20, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Shanahan: cybersecurity will become new measure for industry

  By: Aaron Mehta NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – The Pentagon is preparing to press the defense industry to increase its cyber security, with Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan saying it will become a key measurement for how industry is judged by the department. “This is a public service announcement for those of you from industry, especially for those of you that are in the, I'll call it, higher tiers,” Shanahan told an audience at the annual Air Force Association conference Wednesday. “Cybersecurity is, you know, probably going to be what we call the ‘fourth critical measurement.' We've got quality, cost, schedule, but security is one of those measures that we need to hold people accountable for,” he said. “We're going to work with our industrial partners to help them be as accountable for security as they are for quality. And it shouldn't be that being secure comes with a big bill. It's just like we wouldn't pay extra for quality. We shouldn't pay extra for security.” The responsibilities of primes goes beyond just ensuring their own internal cyber security, in Shanahan's eye. The former Boeing executive laid down the gauntlet to the biggest industrial partners, saying flatly it is part of their job to make sure the lower-tier supplier are secure as well. “I'm a real strong believer that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 leadership has a responsibility to manage the supply chain. And that's where we have real gaps,” he said. “Security is the standard. It's the expectation. It's not something that's above and beyond what we've done before.” In recent years the Pentagon has been increasingly vocal about its concerns that lower-tier suppliers are not as secure digitally as they need to be; unsecured parts from those suppliers can then be incorporated into larger projects, potentially with vulnerabilities that would not be discovered until it is too late. To try and address that, the Pentagon has been looking at a plan to launch red team cyber attackson industrial partners, in which a cell would test vulnerabilities and try to penetrate the contractors' systems, in order to identify weaknesses. https://www.fifthdomain.com/digital-show-dailies/air-force-association/2018/09/19/shanahan-cyber-security-will-become-fourth-critical-measurement-for-industry

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  July 6, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Ligado would be banned from DoD contracts under House plan

  Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― Lawmakers took another apparent jab at Ligado Networks on Wednesday as the House Armed Services Committee passed a ban on the Pentagon awarding contracts to firms that interfere with Global Positioning System signals. The panel adopted an amendment from House Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner to bar the Department of Defense from contracting with an entity that engages in commercial terrestrial operations using certain frequency ranges ― unless the defense secretary certifies the operations do not cause harmful interference to a the military's GPS devices. Ligado is not specifically named. However, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved the plan from Ligado to use the bands identified in the amendment: the 1525–1559 MHz band and the 1626.5–1660.5 MHz band. The FCC's decision in April came despite objections from the DoD and a number of nondefense industry trade groups, which argue that Ligado's plan would create wide-ranging disruptions for GPS usage. During the markup, the panel approved a separate amendment from Turner that would bar DoD from spending any money to mitigate impacts from Ligado's potential interference with the military's GPS signals. The moves by lawmakers during the HASC's markup of its version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act is the latest salvo from lawmakers on Congress' defense committees. Earlier this month, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., offered legislation that would require the company to cover the costs of any GPS user — government or commercial — hurt by its spectrum use. Turner, a defense hawk in Congress, is among 22 HASC members who called on the FCC to reverse its support for Ligado's plan. He has called for an inspector general to probe consulting company Roberson and Associates, the firm that determined Ligado's plan wouldn't cause GPS interference. https://www.c4isrnet.com/congress/2020/07/01/ban-on-dod-contracts-to-ligado-approved-by-house-panel/