Fewer airmen, fewer bombs and delayed F-15s: Goldfein outlines effects of continuing resolution

On the same subject

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  December 10, 2019 | International, Land

  US Army picks two vehicle protection systems to evaluate realm of the possible

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has picked two active protection systems to evaluate next fall for possible applications on a variety of ground combat vehicles. A Rheinmetall and Unified Business Technologies team received an $11 million contract from the Army to provide its StrikeShield APS system for the evaluation. And a DRS and Rafael team received a similar contract to participate, the Army confirmed to Defense News. After evaluating two active protections systems — StrikeShield and Rafael's Trophy VPS — in a 2018 demonstration, and determining neither were the right fit for an interim APS capability for the Stryker combat vehicle, it appears the door is opening back up for that capability. It is likely the solution the Army is evaluating from DRS and Rafael is Trophy VPS, Rafael's lighter version of its Trophy APS system that is being fielded on Abrams tanks. The Army found interim APS solutions for both its Abrams tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, but the service has struggled to find one for the Strykers. The service moved quickly over the past several years to field combat vehicle protection against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank-guided missiles while it develops a future system. The service's new evaluation effort — conducted through the its new Vehicle Protective Systems (VPS) program office — will begin in October 2020 at Redstone Test Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “It provides a pathway to potential utilization of the system on vehicles in the current Army vehicle fleet as well as vehicles fielded in the future,” according to a Rheinmetall statement issued earlier this month. The Army will evaluate StrikeShield “as part of a larger effort to characterize APS performance against a wide variety of anti-armor threats,” Rheinmetall's statement read. “This significant contract award represents the first funded APS testing the Army will undertake of the StrikeShield system.” Rheinmetall and UBT funded the previous evaluation of the system for Stryker at the invitation of the Army. Based in Unterluess, Germany, Rheinmetall has been pushing to get its active defense system in front of the Army and under consideration for integration into U.S. combat vehicles for several years. The company seemed poised to be selected as the interim solution for the Stryker prior to the Army's demonstration last fall. The Army also considered Herndon, Virginia-based Artis Corporation's Iron Curtain APS for Stryker through a more extensive evaluation, but decided in August 2018 not to move forward in fielding it to Stryker units. The new round of evaluations considers limited characterizations focused on platform agnostic testing to garner additional data on hard-kill APS, the Army told Defense News in a written statement. The APS will be installed on a vehicle agnostic test riq, the service said, to inform APS considerations for “multiple ground combat platforms.” “The results of this activity will be leveraged to inform the Army's approach to future hard kill APS acquisitions,” the service added. While the Army has looked and, in some cases, acquired APS for the Stryker, Bradley and Abrams, it is also considering what protection systems are needed for its armored multipurpose vehicle, mobile protected firepower capability and Bradley's future replacement, the optionally manned fighting vehicle (OMFV). The evaluations are scheduled to start at the beginning of fiscal 2021 and will last roughly six months. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/12/09/us-army-picks-two-vehicle-protection-systems-to-evaluate-realm-of-the-possible

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  June 11, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  We prepared for war, but should have spent our money elsewhere

  By: Laicie Heeley As the host of a national security podcast literally named “Things That Go Boom,” I spend a lot of my time thinking about what keeps us safe. And usually these thoughts are pretty focused on big, obvious threats — things like bombs. But with the world seemingly imploding, a global pandemic spreading, nationwide protests against police brutality erupting and world economies tanking, it's clearer than ever that we've been preparing for the wrong crisis. You could say we were preparing for World War III, when we got hammered by World War C. Staying safe means recognizing what threats we're facing — the ones we're expecting and the ones that might catch us off guard. But we didn't do that. Instead we invested hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and wars while the coronavirus slipped silently and invisibly across our borders, into our homes and even onto our military aircraft carriers. The greatest threats of the past decade have come in the form of a deadly virus, climate-related natural disasters, economic meltdowns, and attacks on free and fair elections. So why are expensive weapons systems and massive military installations still a foregone conclusion? America spends over $700 billion a year on our national defense. That's about a sixth of our overall budget and more than health care, education and all the rest of our discretionary spending combined. And the money is solid, meaning that most of the time, it's not subject to normal swings in the economy. Things are bad? We can't let the military feel the pain. Things are good? The military has to prepare for the next big threat. Bad or good, it's always a great time to invest. You can't put a price tag on security, they say. And they don't. According to the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project, America's war on terror — which now spans more than 80 countries — has cost taxpayers over $6 trillion since 2001, with no signs of slowing down. And in its latest budget proposal, the Trump administration proposed spending $20 billion more on military programs than on all other federal programs combined. Conversely, in 2018, the Trump administration cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's budget by 80 percent, forcing it to scale back its efforts to prevent epidemics in 39 of 49 countries, including China. These and other major cuts to global health spending left the U.S. unprepared for the crisis we're facing now. As vital American businesses — from my son's preschool to our friends' farm — struggle to survive, the defense industry has unsurprisingly had no such problem. In late April, for example, some contractors received a windfall of business when the State Department approved over $2 billion in weapons sales to repressive regimes like India, Morocco and the Philippines, with more supposedly on the way. The defense industry is doing so well in fact that it is showing up on investment lists as an example of one of the best places to “hedge in hard times.” Despite their already deep financial pockets, Congress decided to give these huge contractors billions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds. This comes as a bit of a surprise when you consider that the Pentagon just recently diverted $13.3 billion in unused funds for the construction of the president's border wall. And the first-ever audit of the Department of Defense revealed that it failed to spend almost $28 billion from 2013-2018, all the while asking for more funding. Unfortunately, experts believe this money, which is supposed to be used to help keep workers safe and employed, will instead only help make the companies' executives richer. We're already seeing this play out. Deemed “essential workers” due to the pending arms sales, workers in these manufacturing plants recently went on strike after they were forced to go to work even as a number of their colleagues tested positive for coronavirus. Flush with additional resources from a growing military budget, and as other departments' budgets have been cut, the Pentagon has also become deeply embedded in domestic affairs. Last year, Defense Secretary Mark Esper went so far as to proclaim election security a core part of the Pentagon's mission, despite the hesitance of past officials to allow such forms of military creep. The separation of the civilian and the military is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. The breakdown of these norms isn't good for our country, and it isn't good for the Pentagon, which has already sounded the alarm on what the military can — and cannot — do to deal with the pandemic. What's more, the migration of funds to the Pentagon saps other agencies of vital and limited resources. By many accounts, it also makes us worse at winning wars, as the Pentagon foregoes more focused and essential strategic planning in favor of a do-it-all, buy-it-all reality. Consider that some estimates put the annual cost of eradicating homelessness in the United States at about $20 billion, and the cost of eradicating hunger in America at about $26 billion. And consider, in the midst of an outbreak, that we could buy 2,200 ventilators for the price of one F-35. It doesn't have to be this way. While some may see the Pentagon budget as a sacred cow, it's not. Reconsidering our spending to invest more heavily in the programs that really keep us safe is not only possible, but long overdue. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/10/we-prepared-for-war-but-should-have-spent-our-money-elsewhere/

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  June 6, 2024 | International, Security

  Muhstik Botnet Exploiting Apache RocketMQ Flaw to Expand DDoS Attacks

  Muhstik DDoS botnet is exploiting a critical vulnerability (CVE-2023-33246) in Apache RocketMQ to infect servers.