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  November 2, 2018 | International, Land

  NATO general: Europe not moving fast enough on military mobility

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — European nations are not moving as fast as needed to resolve long-standing logistical issues that could tie up efforts to meet invading Russian forces, according to a top NATO general. “From a military perspective, of course I would say it is not moving fast enough,” Lt. Gen. Jan Broeks, director general of the alliance's International Military Staff, said Wednesday. “It is not moving fast enough. Of course, there is always an element of how fast you can get financing, building the brigades, building the roads,” Broeks added. “It's a lot of work. but we need to be ambitious and we need to be very clear, in a military context.” Since Russia seized Ukrainian territory in 2014, NATO nations have woken up to the challenges involved in moving military forces from one side of the continent to a potential eastern front, an issue that broadly falls under the “military mobility” heading. Officials have been upfront that the situation needs a lot of work and investment, but Broeks' comments underline how much more work there is to do. Those challenges largely fall into two sets. The first is logistical — finding which roads can support the weight of military equipment, increasing capacity at key ports or repairing aged rail tracks. The second is legal — making sure nations have preapproved forces from other nations to enter their airspace and cross their borders. Broeks, who is from the Netherlands, traveled to Washington this week accompanied by Lt. Gen. Esa Pulkkinen, the Finnish officer who serves as director general of the European Union's military staff. The two were hosted by the Center for a New American Security think tank. Pulkkinen said the legal set of challenges is the one that can be most easily tackled. “These are the areas where you can proceed more [quickly]. Some of the issues are in the hands of the EU, some in the hands of the member states,” he said. And Broeks indicated there may be developments in the area of authorities coming “weeks and months” ahead of the alliances 2019 political guidance document. “When I think about rapid air mobility, it's a very critical element,” he explained. “At the moment, it is a procedural element. If we were deploying forces either through airlifts or through support through airlift, or elements of this [such as] rotary-wing and fixed-wing supporting missions, if they would not have to go through procedures for clearance, then we're there in rapid air mobility. “We in Europe control this,” he added. “We need to go with nations because nations own the airspace.” Since taking over their respective jobs, the two men have made it a point to regularly attend dinners to foster closer ties between military planning for NATO and the EU; the visit to Washington represents the first time two officers in those jobs have traveled together to America, and the trip is part of an effort to assuage concerns within the U.S. government that NATO and the EU are not coordinating defense priorities. Much of that concern stems from the EU's announcement in late 2017 of the Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense, or PESCO, a fund for EU defense projects. American officials quickly sounded the alarm that PESCO could take funds away from NATO priorities. Both Broeks and Pulkkinen have downplayed those concerns, with the two pointing to military mobility as one example where PESCO can help support NATO nations with extra funding while providing benefits for non-NATO nations. But Pulkkinen also emphasized that while PESCO is funding some initiatives on the mobility front, it should be treated as extra help, not the central solution. Another area of joint collaboration for military mobility has come from NATO's Trident Juncture exercise, now underway. Both men said the exercise includes a focus on moving units through various airspaces and over borders. “We get lessons learned out of this because the U.K. has forces [moving] through the Netherlands, through Denmark, through Norway. The Germans move forces north. So we get a lot of this, both from interoperability and military mobility,” Broeks said. “We don't have any EU exercises at all, [so] any chance to improve the interoperability of the forces, including the EU members' state forces, is good for us,” Pulkkinen added. “We are very grateful on the EU side that some non-NATO EU allies are [involved].” https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/01/nato-general-europe-not-moving-fast-enough-on-military-mobility

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  January 31, 2019 | International, C4ISR

  For DoD cyber, 2019 is the year of doing

  By: Mark Pomerleau Following a year of cyberspace strategizing, 2019 will be all about implementing rules and tools, according to the Department of Defense's top uniformed cyber policy adviser. Appearing Jan. 29 before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Brig. Gen. Dennis Crall said the department knows where it needs to head following last year's DoD cyber strategy (the first in three years) and now is the time to show results. “This is the year of outcomes and that's what we're focused on — delivering the capabilities and improvements that we've discussed for some time,” he told the committee, adding that the strategy process allowed them to take a look at some departmental gaps and get after them. The strategy actually has actionable lines of effort and there are things they can do to measure progress, he said. The document lays out five objectives and five areas of interest under its strategic approach. The five objectives include: Ensuring the joint force can achieve its missions in a contested cyberspace environment; Strengthening the joint force by conducting cyberspace operations that enhance U.S. military advantages; Defending U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious cyber activity that alone, or as part of a campaign, could cause a significant cyber incident; Securing DoD information and systems against malicious cyber activity, including DoD information on non-DoD-owned networks; and Expanding DoD cyber cooperation with interagency, industry, and international partners. The five areas of interest under the guise of its strategic approach include building a more lethal joint force; competing and deterring in cyberspace; strengthening alliances and attracting new partners; reforming the department; and cultivating talent. The strategy also notes DoD must take action in cyberspace during day-to-day competition to preserve U.S. military advantages and defend U.S. interests. The focus will be on nation states that can pose strategic threats to the United States, namely China and Russia. “We will conduct cyberspace operations to collect intelligence and prepare military cyber capabilities to be used in the event of crisis or conflict,” the document says. Dana Deasy, the department's chief information officer, told the same committee that the threat from Russia and China is so acute he is briefed weekly from U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency on them. This allows him to understand their offensive and defensive posture relative to the DoD. “Suffice to say that these are very strong, capable adversaries, but at the same time we have some strong, capable abilities ourselves,” he said. Cyber Command has now assembled a full force of cyberwarriors and received limited acquisition authority to start equipping them. However, there is much more work to be done. In fact, aside from individual tools, the force is still in need of a training range where cyberwarriors can do individual and collective training, as well as mission rehearsal, similar to rifle ranges or national training centers in the physical world. The Persistent Cyber Training Environment, being run by the Army for the joint force, will get after this; however, it is still in the prototype phase with a limited capability delivered to users. Additionally, the force needs a large-scale command-and-control platform that will house tools, provide commanders global situational awareness of forces and enable forces to plug into operations from remote locations. This is the goal of Unified Platform, which is also still in the prototype phase, though officials have said a limited product could be delivered as early as the spring. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2019/01/30/for-dod-cyber-2019-is-the-year-of-doing

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  May 18, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  US Air Force plans to award Next Generation Air Dominance deal in 2024

  The NGAD solicitation formally begins the process to choose a company to build the Air Force’s next advanced fighter system, which will replace the F-22.