Exclusive: New Taiwan weapons package to be announced soon, US officials say

On the same subject

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  April 6, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Marines cyber forces to grow

  By: Mark Pomerleau The Marine Corps' main cyber war-fighting organization will soon be growing. Maj. Gen. Lori Reynolds, commander of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, said her force doesn't have the depth to do what the Army is doing in experimenting with integrated offensive and defensive cyber effects at the tactical edge with full brigades. This is one of the reasons the commandant approved expansion at MARFORCYBER, Reynolds told Fifth Domain following her appearance on an AFCEA-hosted panel in early April. “We've got to do that,” she said, referring to what the Army is doing. “We've got to get the rest of the service, Training and Education Command, we've got to give them the skills and the talent, if you will, to think about how do we prepare the rest of the Marine Corps to integrate cyber effectively. Moreover, the Marine Corps created a cyber career field earlier this year and requested 1,000 billets related to cyber/electronic warfare/information operations in the most recent budget to be better postured to fight and win in an increasingly modern battlefield. MARFORCYBER will get around 40 percent of new career field designees to work on the defensive side with just a couple going to the offensive teams, Reynolds said. The Marines have recognized that cyber is going to be a foundational capability in the future with some ingrained organizational structure behind it. “We just really have to get more return on investment ... and what we want to be able to do is continue to increase our proficiency and skills,” Reynolds said. “When you're constantly moving people out of the cyber workforce, you're starting over again all the time. That doesn't work.” Currently, the Marines deployed on the cyber mission force — a joint force that makes up U.S. Cyber Command's cyber warrior cadre — are lateral moves, Reynolds said, or they're working as signals intelligence Marines and they're just in and out of cyber. While the total number of forces on the CMF will stay the same, the types of Marines filling those roles will change, a MARFORCYBER spokeswoman told Fifth Domain. When a communication officer currently working on a team rotates, that billet will be coded as a cyberspace officer and will be filled only by someone in the new cyber career field, they added. The model going forward should be building a “foundation from the ground up of defensive cyber and then maybe start building some of our offensive capability from the defense while we're still flowing SIGINT through the offensive teams,” Reynolds said. This move comes as the Marines, as well as the other services, are going through a bit of a culture shock when it comes to introducing these nontraditional skill sets into the ranks. “I think the commandant is willing to challenge every assumption we've ever made about how we treat these MOS,” Reynolds said. In fact, during recent congressional testimony, Reynolds noted that the commandant often points out “we may end up with a platoon of warrant officers, and that's got to be okay with us.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/marine-corps/2018/04/05/marines-cyber-forces-to-grow/

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  June 10, 2022 | International, Aerospace

  Safran Announcement Hints At Secret Lockheed Aircraft

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  December 9, 2019 | International, Other Defence

  Opinion: Is Pressuring Allies To Pay More For Defense Worth The Cost?

  President Donald Trump appears to be getting his wish that U.S. allies pay more for their own defense, which begs the question: Is the victory worth the cost? Pushing allies to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense is not a new concept. Trump's predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama both argued for greater burden sharing, and Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine's Crimea region had allies starting to move toward that benchmark. Arguably, Trump's “America First” drumbeat is getting NATO allies to pay a bigger share of the cost of their defense three decades after the end of the Cold War. Military spending by European NATO nations and Canada has risen 4.6% this year, and the majority of allies have plans to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024, according to NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. Meanwhile, the U.S. is on a path to dial back its contribution from 22% of NATO's total funding to 16%. “This is a direct result of President Trump making clear our expectations that these Europeans would step up to help secure their own people,” says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Unfortunately, Trump has not stopped there, openly expressing disdain for an organization established to guard against the kind of territorial expansion undertaken by the former Soviet Union. He has hurled sophomoric barbs at steadfast allies such as the UK, Germany and Canada, while refusing to criticize Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, the architect of both the Crimea invasion and Moscow's campaign to interfere in U.S. elections. For the first phase of the Trump presidency, his cabinet tried to temper those go-it-alone impulses. Then-Defense Secretary James Mattis sought to reassure allies of U.S. support for their security. But more recent White House appointees have been less willing to cross their boss. Even more damaging was Trump's abrupt decision to withdraw most U.S. forces from Syria, disgracefully abandoning America's Kurdish allies to the benefit of Turkey, Russia and Iran and leaving Europe more exposed to attacks from Islamic extremists. “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” French President Emmanuel Macron told The Economist. Trump sees NATO in a transactional way, “as a project in which the United States acts as a sort of geopolitical umbrella, but the trade-off is that there has to be commercial exclusivity,” he added. “It's an arrangement for buying American.” While Macron is calling for a reconsideration of what NATO means in light of reduced American commitment, European nations are not waiting. They are building up their own defense industrial base. In 2017, the EU created the Permanent Structured Cooperation initiative, which is pursuing research toward new missiles, aircraft, missile defense and electronic attack capabilities. U.S. efforts to have its companies included in the work have so far been brushed off. Trump's hardball approach also is being applied to key allies in Asia that have long served as a bulwark against a rising China. The U.S. alliance with South Korea is now reviewed annually, instead of every four years. And after signing a deal in February that calls for South Korea to pay nearly $1 billion to maintain the U.S. military presence there, Washington is now demanding that Seoul pay $4.7 billion annually. Before an agreement was reached, the U.S. walked out of the talks. The Trump administration also is looking for more cash from Japan, calling for more than triple Tokyo's $1.7 billion contribution toward hosting U.S. troops in its country. These requests are straining longstanding alliances. South Korea is edging closer to China, while Japan, which has a strong industrial base, might partner with the UK on its Tempest fighter program. To be sure, U.S. defense exports remain near an all-time high. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced $55.4 billion in potential Foreign Military Sales in fiscal 2019, about the same as the prior year. But there are indications that Trump's pay-up-now methods may lead to an erosion in future sales. Asking allies to contribute more for their own defense certainly has merit, but the wider risks to U.S. global interests cannot be ignored. Can 70-year-old alliances survive if the leading partner vocally questions their value? And if the alliances crack, what would that mean for the U.S. military industrial base? “The more our alliances fray,” says Eric Edelman, a former U.S. undersecretary of defense, “the less interest people have in buying U.S. defense goods and services.” https://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-pressuring-allies-pay-more-defense-worth-cost