Lockheed develops electronic warfare tools with eye toward multinational interoperability

On the same subject

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  February 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval

  SPAWAR Fosters Innovation, Industry Engagement at WEST 2019

  Elisha Gamboa, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Public Affairs SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) joined 10 other Navy commands at the U.S. Navy Information Warfare (IW) Pavilion to demonstrate the critical teamwork required in today's information driven environment during WEST 2019, Feb. 13-15, at the San Diego Convention Center. The Navy's IW pavilion at the conference, co-hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) and Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), showcased the Navy's role in the information domain through the use of speakers, panels, subject matter experts and capability displays. As part of the speaker series, SPAWAR Commander Rear Adm. Christian Becker stressed the command's mission of delivering information capabilities to the fleet from seabed to space to protect the Navy and the nation from attack, promote prosperity, and preserve strategic influence. “The proliferation of advanced technologies makes staying ahead of the competition a constant challenge,” said Becker. “To outpace our adversaries we must take every opportunity to innovate, lead and drive new ways to speed delivery of advanced capability to the warfighter now and into the future.” Emphasizing information as a key domain of warfare, Becker also announced that SPAWAR will be changing the names of its Echelon III systems centers, SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic and SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific, to Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic and Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific respectively, effective Feb. 18. “While the centers' mission will remain the same, the new names reflect the centers' focus, core capabilities, and importance in the full spectrum of warfighting,” Becker said during his address to the industry on Feb. 13. “The names also improve clarity of mission and purpose with our stakeholders across the fleet and industry and throughout the broader Information Warfare Community and Naval Research and Development Enterprise.” To provide attendees with a comprehensive understanding of the Navy's information warfare community, this year's Navy IW pavilion featured three ways for industry to engage with Navy IW professionals — the Navy IW theater speaking series, the Navy IW engagement zone and Navy IW technology demonstrations. The speaker series covered topics focused on the evolution and present state of the information warfare domain ranging from rapid prototyping, enabling ‘compile to combat in 24 hours,' cybersecurity, military intelligence, enhancements in military training and technology, and extensive insight into the IW community status and mission areas. In an effort to foster innovation, an engagement zone meeting area provided a platform for attendees to connect with more than two dozen program managers, business portfolio managers and subject matter experts from multiple IW commands. “WEST provides a terrific opportunity to meet with industry experts on a wide range of technology areas to accelerate learning in support of PEO C4I's Information Warfare mission outcomes” said Capt. Kurt Rothenhaus, program manager of the Navy's Tactical Networks Program Office (PMW 160), at the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I). Surrounding the engagement zone, the IW pavilion also hosted 18 technology demonstrations spotlighting various systems and capabilities that support and facilitate information warfare, from seabed to space. Highlighting innovation in acquisition was SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific's rapid prototyping exhibit, demonstrating some of the latest tools available to defense acquisition professionals to deliver capability to the warfighter at the speed of relevance. “SSC Pacific has a long, proud history as first-adopters of disruptive, information-based technologies and novel engineering methods,” said Carly Jackson, SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific's director of prototyping-Information Warfare. “Our world class scientists and engineers have been at it again — emboldened by the urgency of calls from our fleet commanders — thriving in the power and complexity of the cresting waves of technology and innovation, and setting new standards for speed, scale, and rigor as we rapidly prototype and field capabilities to our Nation's Sailors and Marines.” Also popular with attendees was the SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific additive manufacturing exhibit, demonstrating modern technology developments in 3D printing of antennas for Naval applications. PEO C4I demonstrated the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES), the Navy's next generation tactical afloat network. CANES will take advantage of the new business model of open architecture, Service Oriented Architecture, and rapid commercial off-the-shelf insertion, in order to bring fiscal savings to the Navy, as well as operational agility to the warfighter. To encourage and facilitate industry connections and partnerships, SPAWAR also had representatives from the command's Office of Small Business Programs on hand to provide information on how to do business with SPAWAR. “The IW Pavilion provides a platform for us to inform our small business industry partners about current and future requirements needed to support SPAWAR's mission,” said Mark McLain, SPAWAR Office of Small Business Program director. “SPAWAR recognizes that small businesses drive innovation and the creation of new industries, and tapping into their specialized capabilities and experience will assist in growing our industrial base of capable companies that can provide innovative, agile, and affordable solutions for today's and tomorrow's Navy.” Other displays ranged from unmanned under water vehicles used for operational decision making, cutting-edge position, navigation and timing technologies, artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, military satellite and nanosatellite communication systems, research and development of commercial cloud services and more. The premier naval conference and exposition on the West Coast, WEST is now in its 29th year of bringing military and industry leaders together. Co-sponsored by AFCEA International and the U.S. Naval Institute, WEST is the only event in which the makers of platforms and the designers of technologies can network, discuss and demonstrate their solutions in a single location. SPAWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities supporting naval, joint, coalition and other national missions. SPAWAR consists of more than 10,000 active duty military and civil service professionals located around the world and close to the fleet to keep SPAWAR at the forefront of research, engineering and acquisition to provide and sustain information warfare capabilities to the fleet. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=108628

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  November 21, 2023 | International, Naval

  Pentagon seeks to rapidly build up information-warfare force

  Emerging technologies play a critical role in both waging and foiling influence campaigns, according to the Defense Department's strategy.

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  July 3, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Trump Warns NATO Allies to Spend More on Defense, or Else

  By Julie Hirschfeld Davis WASHINGTON — President Trump has written sharply worded letters to the leaders of several NATO allies — including Germany, Belgium, Norway and Canada — taking them to task for spending too little on their own defense and warning that the United States is losing patience with what he said was their failure to meet security obligations shared by the alliance. The letters, sent in June, are the latest sign of acrimony between Mr. Trump and American allies as he heads to a NATO summit meeting next week in Brussels that will be a closely watched test of the president's commitment to the alliance. Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned its value and has claimed that its members are taking advantage of the United States. Mr. Trump's criticism raised the prospect of another confrontation involving the president and American allies after a blowup by Mr. Trump at the Group of 7 gathering last month in Quebec, and increased concerns that far from projecting solidarity in the face of threats from Russia, the meeting will highlight divisions within the alliance. Such a result could play into the hands of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is to meet with Mr. Trump in Helsinki, Finland, after the NATO meeting, and whose primary goal is sowing divisions within the alliance. In his letters, the president hinted that after more than a year of public and private complaints that allies have not done enough to share the burden of collective defense, he may be considering a response, including adjusting the United States' military presence around the world. “As we discussed during your visit in April, there is growing frustration in the United States that some allies have not stepped up as promised,” Mr. Trump wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a particularly pointed letter, according to someone who saw it and shared excerpts with The New York Times. “The United States continues to devote more resources to the defense of Europe when the Continent's economy, including Germany's, are doing well and security challenges abound. This is no longer sustainable for us.” “Growing frustration,” Mr. Trump wrote, “is not confined to our executive branch. The United States Congress is concerned, as well.” The president's complaint is that many NATO allies are not living up to the commitment they made at their Wales summit meeting in 2014 to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on national defense. American presidents have long complained about the lack of burden-sharing by NATO member countries, but Mr. Trump has taken that criticism much further, claiming that some of the United States' closest allies are essentially deadbeats who have failed to pay debts to the organization, a fundamental misunderstanding of how it functions. The Trump administration has already reportedly been analyzing a large-scale withdrawal of American forces from Germany, after Mr. Trump expressed surprise that 35,000 active-duty troops are stationed there and complained that NATO countries were not contributing enough to the alliance. In the letter, Mr. Trump told Ms. Merkel that Germany also deserves blame for the failure of other NATO countries to spend enough: “Continued German underspending on defense undermines the security of the alliance and provides validation for other allies that also do not plan to meet their military spending commitments, because others see you as a role model.” In language that is echoed in his letters to the leaders of other countries — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway and Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium — Mr. Trump said he understands the “domestic political pressure” brought to bear by opponents of boosting military expenditures, noting that he has expended “considerable political capital to increase our own military spending.” “It will, however, become increasingly difficult to justify to American citizens why some countries do not share NATO's collective security burden while American soldiers continue to sacrifice their lives overseas or come home gravely wounded,” Mr. Trump wrote to Ms. Merkel. Mr. Michel reacted tartly last week to the letter, telling reporters at a European Union summit meeting in Brussels that he was “not very impressed” by it, according to a report by Deutsche Welle. Mr. Trump has long complained about the alliance and routinely grouses that the United States is treated shabbily by multilateral organizations of which it is a member, be it the World Trade Organization or the North Atlantic alliance. But in Europe, the letters to NATO allies have been greeted with some degree of alarm because of their suggestion that Mr. Trump is prepared to impose consequences on the allies — as he has done in an escalating tariff fight with European trading partners — if they do not do what he is asking. “Trump still seems to think that NATO is like a club that you owe dues to, or some sort of protection racket where the U.S. is doing all the work protecting all these deadbeat Europeans while they're sitting around on vacation, and now he is suggesting there are consequences,” said Derek Chollet, a former Defense Department official who is the executive vice president for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Europeans have been watching Donald Trump begin to implement his rhetoric on trade in ways that are very combative,” he said, “and they're starting to contemplate whether he would do this regarding security issues, as well.” Mr. Trump's letter to Mr. Trudeau was reported last month by iPolitics in Canada, and the existence of others was reported last week by Foreign Policy. It was not clear precisely how many Mr. Trump wrote, and the White House would not comment on presidential correspondence. But two diplomatic sources said they believed at least a dozen were sent, including to Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the matter, said that Mr. Trump is committed to the NATO alliance and expects allies to shoulder “their fair share of our common defense burden, and to do more in areas that most affect them.” John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump's national security adviser, said Sunday that it was NATO members who refused to spend more on defense — not the president — who were responsible for undercutting the alliance. “The president wants a strong NATO,” Mr. Bolton said in an interview on CBS's “Face the Nation.” “If you think Russia's a threat, ask yourself this question: Why is Germany spending less than 1.2 percent of its G.N.P.? When people talk about undermining the NATO alliance, you should look at those who are carrying out steps that make NATO less effective militarily.” But for diplomats hoping fervently to avoid another high-profile summit meeting collapse with Mr. Trump as the instigator, the letters were concerning. “Europeans, like many folks in our Defense Department, think that there are many good things that could come out of this summit if only they can keep it from going off the rails,” Mr. Chollet said. “They are hoping to survive without irreparable damage, and so the fact that you have all these storm clouds surrounding NATO and Trump is really worrisome.” Mr. Trump's disparagement of Europe and the alliance has become almost routine, leaving some veteran diplomats aghast. Last week, Jim Melville, the United States ambassador to Estonia, told friends and colleagues that he would resign at the end of this month after more than 30 years in the Foreign Service, in part because of the president's language. “For the President to say the E.U. was ‘set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank,' or that ‘NATO is as bad as NAFTA' is not only factually wrong, but proves to me that it's time to go,” Mr. Melville wrote in a Facebook post. He was referring to remarks about Europe that the president made during a rally last week in Fargo, N.D., and comments about NATO that he is reported to have made privately during the Group of 7 gathering. Still, the president is not alone in demanding more robust military spending by NATO allies. Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, wrote to Gavin Williamson, the British defense minister, last month saying he was “concerned” that the United Kingdom's military strength was “at risk of erosion” if it did not increase spending, and warned that France could eclipse Britain as the United States' “partner of choice” if it did not invest more. A United States official confirmed the contents of Mr. Mattis's letter, first reported by The Sun. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/world/europe/trump-nato.html