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  May 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  China cozies up to Japan and South Korea as ties with U.S. sour over coronavirus

  Chinese leader Xi Jinping is welcomed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe upon his arrival for a welcome and family photo session at Group of 20 leaders summit in Osaka last June. | POOL / VIA REUTERS BY TOMOYUKI TACHIKAWA KYODO BEIJING – While China's tensions with the United States and Australia have been sharply intensifying over its handling of the new coronavirus outbreak, the Asian power has been apparently aiming to bolster ties with its neighbors — Japan and South Korea. As relations with Washington are expected to worsen at least until the U.S. presidential election later this year, Beijing has been making friendly overtures toward Tokyo and Seoul with an eye on economic revival after the pandemic passes, diplomatic sources said. Many foreign affairs experts are carefully watching what kind of foreign policy China will adopt at the postponed annual session of the country's parliament, the National People's Congress, scheduled to be convened next Friday. Recently, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Beijing of failing to curb the spread of the virus, first detected late last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, and of not sharing relevant information in a timely manner. Trump has said the United States could even “cut off the whole relationship” with China, while threatening to impose tariffs as punishment for Beijing's alleged mishandling of the epidemic in the critical early months. Amid growing uncertainties over ties with the United States, “China is really eager to strengthen cooperation with Japan to revive the economy, which was hit hard by the virus outbreak,” a diplomatic source said. “For Japan, China is an essential trading partner. Japan also thinks the economy cannot rebound without cooperation with China. They are unlikely to be willing to ignite a controversy,” he added. In March, the Chinese Foreign Ministry abruptly announced a temporary ban on foreigners entering the country. The measure has applied even to those who hold a valid visa or residence permit. Beijing, however, has sounded out Tokyo on partially easing the restriction so that businesspeople who test negative for the new virus can travel between the countries, Japanese government sources said. China has already started to allow the entry of South Korean businesspeople meeting certain conditions in an attempt to ensure a smooth supply chain, which has been seriously disrupted in the wake of the virus spread. President Xi Jinping was quoted by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as telling South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a phone conversation on Wednesday that Beijing and Seoul “were the quickest to set up a joint response mechanism, and have maintained a track record of zero cross-border infections.” “The two sides also opened the first ‘fast-track lane' for urgently needed travels without compromising control efforts to facilitate the unimpeded operation of the industrial chain, supply chain and logistic chain in the region,” Xi told Moon. A source familiar with the situation in East Asia said, “For the time being, China's diplomacy may be determined by how much some countries can contribute to the economy. I'll be paying attention to what Foreign Minister Wang Yi says at the National People's Congress.” Tokyo has also taken a softer stand against China than other nations, as the governments of the world's second- and third-biggest economies have been trying to improve their ties by effectively shelving bilateral rows. Japanese Ambassador to Canada Yasuhisa Kawamura was quoted by China's Embassy in the country as telling Ambassador Cong Peiwu on May 8 that Tokyo is opposed to politicizing the pandemic and will work in tandem with Beijing to prevent infections. Earlier this month, the Japan Coast Guard said two China Coast Guard ships had approached and chased a Japanese fishing boat in Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The group of uninhabited islets, called Diaoyu in China, are controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing. Relations between the two countries have been often frayed by the territorial dispute, but strains did not escalate this time. Globally, more than 4.5 million cases of infection with the new virus have been confirmed, with the number of deaths exceeding 300,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, China is facing some pressure over other countries regarding the virus outbreak, including Canberra that has asked for an independent investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus, prompting China to suspend beef imports from four major Australian meat processors, citing labeling and certification issues, in an apparent retaliatory move. “We will need an independent inquiry” to “learn the lessons,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on April 23. Australia is one of China's largest trading partners. “Now people are aware of my view about having the sort of authorities that would enable independent public health inspectors to be able to go into areas where a virus of potential pandemic implications can be understood quickly,” Morrison added. The Chinese Embassy in Canberra released a statement on April 28 saying Ambassador Cheng Jingye has “called on Australia to put aside ideological bias, stop political games and do more ... to promote the bilateral relations.” The Chinese Commerce Ministry has indicated that, following an 18-month investigation, it will impose anti-dumping tariffs on Australian barley. The punitive step would deal a stunning blow to Australia's agricultural sector. “If an independent inquiry is conducted, China may be blamed for the virus outbreak. China is worried that the proposal will be raised at the WHO's general assembly that will begin Monday,” a diplomatic source said, referring to the World Health Organization. China is also at odds with the United States, Europe, New Zealand and others over Taiwan's participation in the WHO as an observer. Beijing has long considered the self-governing, democratic island a renegade province awaiting reunification. The WHO has been criticized by the United States and some of its allies for having turned a blind eye when China allegedly withheld information that could have helped limit the epidemic. The global body's director general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, has strenuously rejected such accusations. Trump, who is believed to be attacking Beijing to gain public support ahead of the presidential election, has been one of the strongest critics of the WHO, calling it “a puppet for China.” In recent weeks he has frozen funding to the U.N. agency. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has also said Japan, along with the European Union, will seek an investigation into the WHO's initial response to the coronavirus spread at the two-day annual meeting of its decision-making body in a virtual setting. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/17/national/politics-diplomacy/china-japan-ties-us-coronavirus/#.Xs_4ijpKiUl

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  October 1, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR

  How new network tools can help find paratroopers faster and improve situational awareness

  Andrew Eversden FORT BRAGG, N.C. — When paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division's First Brigade Combat Team landed in the drop zone during a night jump last week, it took leaders 45 minutes after hitting the ground to locate about 90 percent of their formation. For contrast, at an exercise early last year, the commander of that brigade didn't achieve 75 percent accountability of formation until the second day of the exercise. That's one of the major improvements that's coming to three more Army brigades as part of Capability Set '21, a new set of network tools that will be fully fielded to the First Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd in December. The exercise at Ft. Bragg provided a soldier touch point opportunity for the Army's integrated tactical network (ITN) team, made up of Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical and the Network Cross-Functional Team, to hear what soldiers thought about Capability Set '21. And leaders from the Army's tactical network modernization team received some important feedback: the technology works, but the training needs improvement. “It does what we thought it would do, which is increase situational awareness up and down,” Col. Andrew Saslav, commander of the 82nd Airborne's First Brigade Combat Team, said in an interview with C4ISRNET. “That's the critical thing ... we don't know where people are on the battlefield unless we can talk with them. Now, I can see them and that just speeds up processing.” That's good news for the Army as it's set to deploy Capability Set '21 to three more infantry brigades in fiscal 2021. The exercise, originally scheduled for January, was delayed after the deployment of the brigade to Kuwait in January and the COVID-19 pandemic. The Army's tactical network modernization effort is working to provide a resilient tactical network to enable faster communications and data transfer to enable multi-domain operations (MDO) or Joint All-Domain Command and Control. “Our obligation is very simple: we have to make this work,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said at a meeting Sept. 24. “And if it doesn't, MDO, all-domain and everything else, is a pipe dream.” Lessons learned While a high-profile Army experiment in the Yuma, Ariz. desert tested various future networking capabilities, this lesser known event in North Carolina found that the network tools fielded to brigades significantly improve communications, but that soldiers need improved training with the batteries and additional cables. A major difference maker is Capability Set '21′s End User Device, a Samsung Galaxy smartphone that works in tandem with the soldier's radio to broadcast their location to all other users across the formation, as well as provides mapping capabilities. On average, the new “revolutionary” capability allows Saslav to see his formation 45 minutes to two hours, he said, a far cry from last year and a “game changer” when it comes to fighting battles. “My job is to resource those companies, troops and batteries in the fight and I do that mainly through fires, whether that's Army indirect fires, or its joint aircraft. If I can't see them, if I don't have a real-time data on where they are, then I can't support them. And so now I can support them faster more quickly, I can bring everything in closer to get that into the fight,” Saslav told C4ISRNET. The devices also allow soldiers to mark enemy positions and broadcast that information back through the rest of the formation. Shared understanding and increased situational awareness across the formation will save lives, and the EUDs increase both by an “untold variable,” Saslav said, because the capability eliminates the game of “telephone” played between the brigade commander and soldiers spread throughout the field. Another Capability Set '21 technology, known as the Variable Height Antenna, a tethered drone flying a TSM radio, successfully extended communications by several kilometers further than a standard, ground-based antenna would reach, the exercise found. These capabilities are a critical component of the Army's work evolving its network into a mesh network that gets away from line-of-sight communications and uses individual radios as nodes that extend the range of the network to allow soldiers to talk to each other beyond line-of-sight, across the battlespace. “I can always talk to the lowest radio to the highest radio because we have this mesh network and in ITN terms, that's game changing for us,” Saslav said. “It is moving us beyond line of sight, so for the first time, and that beyond line of sight is movable and fixable.” While the devices provide greater situational awareness, Saslav said during the exercise the location data wasn't coming in with specific identifiers for what dots representing locations meant. But, in a way that highlighted the DevOps approach that the Army is taking to the modernization of its tactical network, the software was updated during the exercise because the vendor was in the field, Saslav said. In addition, the Army discovered some linkage challenges between the radio and device, finding that the radio and device would lose the link between them if they were switched off. Leaders in the field want the devices to connect automatically so soldiers don't have to connect them together themselves. A new approach to training But one major challenge Army tactical network officials learned from talking to soldiers using the equipment on the ground was that the training process for teaching soldiers how to use the equipment needed to improve. The radio and EUD are connected together to broadcast location information, but soldiers were trained to use the devices separately. But since the devices need to be used as a system, leaders learned that the soldiers needed to be trained on how the system works. “What needs to happen is soldiers need to be trained with the equipment as they are worn and functions as an overall network because everything affects everything else,” said Capt. Brian Delgado, S6 of the 82nd Airborne Division's first Brigade Combat Team. And that network can be affected differently depending on the terrain. So while classroom training on the devices is important for the soldiers to learn the technology, they also need to learn how to use the technology in the field and how the terrain can affect it. Capt. Matthew Kane, S6 of the first brigade's 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, told C4ISRNET that his big takeaway was adjustments to training. “It needs to be as hands on as possible,” Kane said. “You need to get in the terrain and actually test the radio. The classroom won't cut it just because it's no longer programming the radio and walking away.” These new capabilities also mean soldiers must carry more batteries and more cables with them. Col. Garth Winterle, project manager for tactical radios at PEO C3T, said that the team identified a couple issues with battery life, one that requires training soldiers different configurations to optimize battery life. The other battery life problem was addressed through a firmware update by the vendor. Several Army personnel in the field also noted that soldiers needed to be taught best practices for cable management. Soldiers “weren't experts on how it's powered or how to manage cables and that's not a fault of the paratroopers,” Delgado said. “That's a fault with the way that we were addressing training.” As the Army perfects Capability Set '21 and moves forward with Capability Set '23, its next iteration of network tools, it will continue to rely on the feedback of soldiers to ensure that technology works, while being simple and intuitive enough for the user. “The beauty of it is that feedback we're going to get because [which] soldier right now has a really good idea that's going to make this better? And that's the feedback we're really looking for,” said Col. Rob Ryan, deputy director of the Network-CFT. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/09/29/how-new-network-tools-can-help-find-paratroopers-faster-and-improve-situational-awareness/

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  April 6, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contracts for April 5, 2021

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