April 21, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
November 9, 2023 | International, Land
The U.S. State Department has approved a potential sale of Abrams main battle tanks to Romania for an estimated $2.53 billion, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
April 20, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: The Associated Press MOSCOW — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed arms control and other issues Friday as Moscow has signaled readiness to include some of its latest nuclear weapons in the last remaining arms control pact between the two countries. But first Washington must accept the Kremlin's offer to extend the agreement. The State Department said the two top diplomats discussed next steps in the bilateral strategic security dialogue. Pompeo emphasized that any future arms control talks must be based on U.S. President Donald Trump's vision for a trilateral arms control agreement that includes China along with the U.S. and Russia, the State Department said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to extend the New START arms control treaty that expires in 2021. The Trump administration has pushed for a new pact that would include China as a signatory. Moscow has described that goal as unrealistic given Beijing's reluctance to discuss any deal that would reduce its much smaller nuclear arsenal. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday that Russia's new Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile and the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle could be counted along with other Russian nuclear weapons under the treaty. The Sarmat is still under development, while the first missile unit armed with the Avangard became operational in December. The New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The treaty, which can be extended by another five years, envisages a comprehensive verification mechanism to check compliance, including on-site inspections of each side's nuclear bases. New START is the only U.S.-Russia arms control pact still in effect. Arms control experts have warned that its demise could trigger a new arms race and upset strategic stability. https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2020/04/17/russia-shows-willingness-to-include-new-nuke-hypersonic-weapon-in-arms-control-pact/
June 7, 2019 | International, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence
By: Jessie Bur Federal agencies that participate in the Centers of Excellence program will soon have more tools at their disposal for discovering the areas of greatest IT modernization need within their organization. The General Services Administration announced June 4 that it had issued a blanket purchase agreement to 22 companies to provide future CoE partners with the speed and flexibility to perform numerous discovery and assessment efforts simultaneously. “With just about a third of the agreements going to small businesses, we are proud of the cross-section of American industry and technological expertise represented,” said GSA CoE Executive Director Bob De Luca in a news release. “We selected companies who demonstrated the potential to discover issues related to current legacy systems and develop recommendations for modern-day technological solutions to the problems our citizens face when interacting with government services.” The Centers of Excellence program, started in December 2017 under a partnership between GSA and the White House, has so far had three agencies sign on to use the program to improve their IT: the Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Office of Personnel Management. The 22 BPA awardees span seven areas of change, with some companies receiving awards under multiple categories: Change Management Ambit Group, LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Ernst & Young, LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Cloud Adoption Capgemini Government Solutions LLC Flexion Inc. ICF Incorporated LLC McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Contact Center Deloitte Consulting LLP Digital Management LLC HighPoint Digital, Inc. ICF Incorporated LLC McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Slalom, LLC Customer Experience Arc Aspicio LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Grant Thornton LLP Guidehouse LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation Data Analytics Guidehouse LLP KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Information Security Centennial Technologies Inc. Deloitte Consulting LLP Electrosoft Services, Inc. Ernst & Young, LLP Grant Thornton LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. MindPoint Group, LLC ShorePoint, Inc. Veris Group, LLC d/b/a Coalfire Federal IT Infrastructure Optimization Capgemini Government Solutions LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Ernst & Young, LLP Gartner, Inc. Guidehouse LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Systems Engineering Solutions Corporation https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/06/04/gsa-chooses-22-companies-to-help-centers-of-excellence-discoveries/