Industrie de l'armement : la taxonomie, un enjeu pour l’investissement

On the same subject

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  March 11, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Cyber Command doubled its contract spending in the past year

  By Mark Pomerleau U.S. Cyber Command nearly doubled the amount of money it issued in defense contracts between fiscal years 2018 and 2019, according to figures provided in written testimony to Congress. In 2019, the command awarded $74.9 million through 81 contracting actions, Gen. Paul Nakasone, the command's leader told the House Armed Services Committee March 4. Those figures are up from the 32 contracts valued at $43 million in fiscal year 2018 that Nakasone provided in testimony in February 2019. Congress gave Cyber Command limited acquisition authority in 2016 following the model of Special Operations Command. It capped acquisition funds at $75 million per year, with a clause that is scheduled to sunset in 2021. However, some members of Congress questioned whether it needed $75 million. Nakasone lauded the role of DreamPort, a public-private partnership in Columbia, Maryland created by Cyber Command to engage with businesses, in increasing the aperture of organizations it works with. “Over the past 18 months, Dreamport has allowed the Command to engage more than 1,000 private companies, educate over 1,000 military personnel on innovative technologies, and involve more than 350 students and interns from 65 colleges and high schools on STEM initiatives,” he wrote. “It has been home to Cyber Command's effort to begin implementing the principles of zero-trust networking on the military's networks. Dreamport also hosted the public-private collaboration that resulted in kits that help enable the Cyber National Mission Force to conduct Hunt Forward operations. The traditional ways of doing business would have been too cumbersome and too slow. Dreamport is key to the command's ability to engage in public-private partnerships at the unclassified level.” Nakasone also told the committee in his written statement that the command has hired its first command acquisition executive responsible for leading the organization's acquisitions and to develop capabilities for the joint cyber force. In total, the command requested a $636 million budget for 2021, compared to the $596 million it used in fiscal year 2020. The executive is largely responsible for procuring and developing capabilities under what Cyber Command calls the Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture, which was established in the last two years to guide capability development priorities. These capabilities fall under five buckets; Common firing platforms to be used at the four cyber operating locations of the service cyber components. These platforms will be worked into a comprehensive suite of cyber tools; Unified Platform, which will integrate and analyze data from offensive and defensive operations with partners; Joint command and control mechanisms for situational awareness and battle management at the strategic, operational and tactical levels; Sensors that support defense of the network and drive operational decisions, and; The Persistent Cyber Training Environment, which will provide individual and collective training as well as a way to rehearse for a mission. The Army is managing PCTE on behalf of Cyber Command and the joint force. The cornerstone of this architecture is the command's data tool called Unified Platform. Nakasone told the House Armed Services Committee that Unified Platform is starting to come online and over the next year it will be the central focus of building the architecture allowing the force to store data and conduct worldwide operations. Budget documents from the Air Force, the service procuring Unified Platform on behalf of Cyber Command and the joint cyber force, for fiscal year 2021 indicate flat funding for the tool for 2021 as compared to 2020. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/cybercom/2020/03/09/cyber-command-doubled-its-contract-spending-in-the-past-year/

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  May 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Securing technological superiority requires a joint US-Israel effort

  By: Bradley Bowman   The United States is now engaged in an intense military technology competition with the Chinese Communist Party. The ability of U.S. troops to deter and defeat great power authoritarian adversaries hangs in the balance. To win this competition, Washington must beef up its military cooperative research and development efforts with tech-savvy democratic allies. At the top of that list should be Israel. Two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee understand this well. Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced S 3775, the “United States-Israel Military Capability Act of 2020,” on Wednesday. This bipartisan legislation would require the establishment of a U.S.-Israel operations-technology working group. As the senators wrote in a February letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the working group would help ensure U.S. “warfighters never encounter a more technologically advanced foe.” Many Americans may be surprised to learn that they can no longer take U.S. military technological superiority for granted. In his new book, “The Kill Chain,” former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director Chris Brose notes that, over the last decade, the United States loses war games against China “almost every single time.” To halt this trend, the Pentagon must shift its ongoing modernization efforts into high gear. Early cooperative R&D with the “Startup Nation” can help in this regard. Israel is one of America's closest and most technologically advanced allies. The country boasts an “innovative and agile defense technology sector” that is a “global leader in many of the technologies important to Department of Defense modernization efforts,” as the legislation notes. Some may deem the working group unnecessary, citing the deep and broad cooperation that already exists between the United States and Israel. But, as the legislation explains, “dangerous United States military capability gaps continue to emerge that a more systematic and institutionalized United States-Israel early cooperative research and development program could have prevented.” Consider the fact, for example, that the Pentagon only last year acquired for U.S. tanks active protection systems from Israel that had been operational there since 2011. Consequently, U.S. soldiers operated for years in tanks and armored vehicles around the world lacking the cutting-edge protection Washington could have provided against missiles and rockets. That put U.S. soldiers in unnecessary risk. Such examples put the burden of proof on those who may be tempted to reflexively defend the status quo as good enough. Given the breakneck speed of our military technology race with the Chinese Communist Party, it's clear the continued emergence of decade-long delays in adopting crucial technology is no longer something we can afford. One of the reasons for these delays and failures to team up with Israeli partners at the beginning of the process is that U.S. and Israeli defense suppliers sometimes find it difficult to secure Washington's approval for combined efforts to research and produce world-class weapons. Some requests to initiate combined U.S.-Israel R&D programs linger interminably in bureaucratic no-man's land, failing to elicit a timely decision. Confronted by deadly and immediate threats, Israel often has little choice but to push ahead alone with unilateral R&D programs. When that happens, the Pentagon misses out on Israel's sense of urgency that could have led to the more expeditious fielding of weapons to U.S. troops. And Israel misses out on American innovation prowess as well as on the Pentagon's economy of scale, which would lower unit costs and help both countries stretch their finite defense budgets further. Secretary Esper appears to grasp the opportunity. “If there are ways to improve that, we should pursue it,” he testified on March 4, 2020, in response to a question on the U.S.-Israel working group proposal. “The more we can cooperate together as allies and partners to come up with common solutions, the better,” Esper said. According to the legislation, the working group would serve as a standing forum for the United States and Israel to “systematically share intelligence-informed military capability requirements,” with a goal of identifying capabilities that both militaries need. It would also provide a dedicated mechanism for U.S. and Israeli defense suppliers to “expeditiously gain government approval to conduct joint science, technology, research, development, test, evaluation, and production efforts.” The legislation's congressional reporting requirement would hold the working group accountable for providing quick answers to U.S. and Israeli defense supplier requests. That's a benefit of the working group that will only become more important when the economic consequences of the coronavirus put additional, downward pressure on both defense budgets. Once opportunities for early cooperative U.S.-Israel R&D are identified and approved, the working group would then facilitate the development of “combined United States-Israel plans to research, develop, procure, and field weapons systems and military capabilities as quickly and economically as possible.” In the military technology race with the Chinese Communist Party, the stakes are high and the outcome is far from certain. A U.S.-Israel operations technology working group represents an essential step to ensure the United States and its democratic allies are better equipped than their adversaries. Bradley Bowman is the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/22/securing-technological-superiority-requires-a-joint-us-israel-effort/

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  May 31, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Airbus and Spanish Air Force to develop drone and augmented reality inspections for military aircraft

  @AirbusDefence @EjercitoAire @FEINDEF_ #Digitalisation #FEINDEF The Research and Development (R&D) project significantly reduces maintenance burden and improves aircraft availability The technology is part of Airbus' commitment to develop its SmartForce digital services for military fleets Spanish Air Force is first to benefit from this Airbus technology as part of its roadmap for the use of digital-based services Madrid, 29 May 2019 – The Spanish Air Force has become the first air force worldwide to support the development of Airbus' drone and augmented reality-based maintenance inspection services, with the aim of drastically reducing maintenance inspections for large military aircraft and increasing overall fleet availability. This digital innovation technology will initially be trialled on Spanish Air Force A400M aircraft based at Zaragoza Air Base (31st Wing), with options to extend the technology to other aircraft, including the C295 and the CN235. General José Luis Pardo Jario, Head of the Spanish Chief of the Air Staff office, said: “This technology has the potential to make a major contribution to maintenance tasks for our fleet. Not only is it more time and cost efficient, above all it allows the upskilling of aircraft maintenance personnel, in accordance with the new digital era we all need to contribute towards in order to reap its benefits.” The technology relies on drones equipped with sensors and high-definition cameras to scan, in a matter of hours and not days, the exterior of an aircraft undergoing a maintenance inspection. A secured connection allows data and information generated to be displayed on tablets and augmented reality glasses, allowing staff to quickly identify and apply maintenance procedures and corrective actions while ensuring all inspection and maintenance procedures are formally and fully recorded on the maintenance log. Not only does this technology reduce the maintenance inspection time, it supports the early detection of defects and helps guarantee quality and post-maintenance airworthiness. José Antonio Urbano Torres, Military Aircraft R&D Chief Engineer, said: “Innovation and technological development are part of our DNA. Airbus invests considerable human and economic resources in the research and development of new processes, products and services to meet the current and future needs of our customers. We would like to thank the Spanish Air Force for its contribution and commitment to the development and maturity of this system, which is sure to revolutionise military aircraft maintenance.” The tests with the Spanish Air Force A400M will allow Airbus to use real user data, not only to consolidate the algorithms for safe autonomous flight of the drone around an aircraft thus avoiding the use of scaffolding and heavy mobile equipment that risks damaging the aircraft, but also to process the terabytes of images and data as a deep learning library that allows for the development of a robust Artificial Intelligence-based defects detection system. Through its SmartForce portfolio, Airbus is continuously developing new technologies and innovative services to help military customers assess, predict and anticipate the needs of their fleets by leveraging big data analytics coupled to secured connectivity to ensure the highest mission readiness. https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2019/05/airbus-and-spanish-air-force-to-develop-drone-and-augmented-reality-inspections-for-military-aircraft.html