Minister of National Defence to travel to Brussels, Belgium to participate in Ukraine Defense Contact Group and NATO Defence Ministers’ Meetings

On the same subject

• 

  September 14, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  How does the Pentagon’s AI center plan to give the military a battlefield advantage?

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's artificial intelligence hub is working on tools to help in joint, all-domain operations as department leaders seek to use data to gain an advantage on the battlefield. This year, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center kicked off its joint war-fighting initiative, under which it is developing algorithms to provide armed services and combatant commands with AI tools to accelerate decision-making. Nand Mulchandani, acting director of the JAIC, said the center, for example, is “heavily” involved in the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System, the service's primary lever to enable the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept. The system underwent a major test last week. The center is “specifically focused” on working to harness AI to link together systems involved in the intelligence-gathering phase to the operations and effects piece of all-domain operations, Mulchandani added. “It's how do we actually connect these platforms together end to end to build sort of a system that allows a commander to actually have that level of both visibility on the intel side but able to action it on the other side,” Mulchandani said on a call with reporters Thursday. The JAIC is also working on an operations cognitive assistant tool to support commanders and “drive faster and more efficient decision-making through AI-enabled predictive analytics,” Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy said Thursday at the DoD AI Symposium. “Our goal is to nest these capabilities under the Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept ... to provide a more cohesive and synchronized operational framework for the joint force,” Deasy said. Earlier in the summer, a JAIC official said the war-fighting team was trying to aim a laser on an enemy vehicle to inflict damage. But to enable all these tools, one thing is paramount: data. The DoD CIO's office is set to release its data strategy later this year, with the department's new chief data officer, Dave Spirk, saying at the symposium that the he worked to reorient a draft of the strategy to ensure the use of data to enable joint war fighting is the top priority. “We're in a place now where we want to put joint war fighting at the top of the pile of things we're working on,” Spirk said at the symposium Sept. 9. Deasy also emphasized the importance of data in war fighting during a session at the Billington Cybersecurity Conference that same day. “When we do the exercises, the experiments and things maybe don't go right — I can guarantee you what they're going to write down on the whiteboard at the end of that is ‘data.' Did we have the right data today? Why couldn't we connect those data across our weapons systems, our various assets?” Deasy said. Critical to the development of artificial intelligence are adequate data storage and development platforms. The JAIC recently awarded a contract worth more than $100 million to Deloitte for the development of the Joint Common Foundation platform, an enterprisewide, cloud-based platform that the center will use to develop AI tools. Meanwhile, DoD components such as the JAIC are also awaiting the deployment of the DoD's embattled enterprise cloud, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. Department officials have continuously pointed to the JEDI cloud as a critical piece of the JAIC's ability to develop artificial intelligence, as the new technology it is expected to store 80 percent of DoD systems across classification levels and provide massive amounts of data. Deasy said Sept. 9 that JADC2 will require the services to collect and share data with each other in a way that they have never done before, and that may require changes to how they operate. But in order to enable JADC2, he added, a cultural shift in how the services treat their data is needed; if the services want to link sensors to shooters, interoperability of services' systems and data is imperative. “Historically, each service could gather up their data, send it up their command to focus on. But in this new world ... the services are going to have to come together, which means the data's going to have to come together in a very different way,” Deasy said at the Billington Cybersecurity Conference. The DoD is in the "early days of how we're going to do that,” he added. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/09/10/how-does-the-pentagons-ai-center-plan-to-give-the-military-a-battlefield-advantage/

• 

  July 30, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Boeing and Mitsubishi sign agreement to support Japan F-15 upgrades

  By: Mike Yeo   1 day ago MELBOURNE, Australia — American firm Boeing has signed an agreement with Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to support upgrades to Japan's fleet of F-15 fighter jets. The agreement, made through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales process, is part of a larger $4.5 billion modernization program for 98 of Japan's F-15J/DJ Eagle interceptors ordered through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process and approved by the U.S. State Department in 2019. Boeing will provide MHI with retrofit drawings, ground support equipment and technical publications for the upgrade of the first two F-15J aircraft to the Japan Super Interceptor configuration, also known as F-15JSI. The full suite of upgrades will introduce a new radar, electronic warfare capabilities and weapons. Also included is a new advanced cockpit system running on an advanced mission computer for meant to improve pilot situational awareness. The new active electronically scanned array radar will be the Raytheon AN/APG-82(v)1 multimode set, which is also being fit on the U.S. Air Force's F-15E Strike Eagles. Japan had requested 103 radars, including six spare sets, along with 116 Honeywell Advanced Display Core Processor II mission computers and 101 BAE Systems AN/ALQ-239 digital electronic warfare systems. The upgrade package will also include anti-spoofing GPS gear for more precise navigation, as well as new radios. Japan's also requested “aircraft and munition integration and test support.” The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency notification about Japan's request did not provide more details, but Boeing's announcement of the contract included artwork of an F-15 in Japanese markings with a Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile on its centerline weapon station. Japan had confirmed in its Mid-Term Defense Plan in late 2018 that it intended to procure the JASSM for long-range land-attack missions and integrate it onto F-15s. However, it's not clear whether Japan will take up Boeing's proposal to increase the number of AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missiles that can be carried by the F-15 to 18, which the company had previously displayed on model at an aerospace exhibition in Japan. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force operates a fleet of about 200 single-seat F-15J and two-seat F-15DJ Eagle aircraft. These are all configured for an air defense role with virtually no air-to-ground capability, and they serve with seven different operational squadrons throughout Japan, a training squadron and another unit in the dedicated aggressor role, acting as the adversary during training exercises. The fleet, particularly the two squadrons based on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, have been heavily engaged in monitoring foreign military aircraft entering Japan's air defense identification zone in the international airspace around Japan. The Defense Ministry says these foreign aircraft are predominantly Chinese, with Russian aircraft coming in at a distant second. The Japan Times newspaper recently reported on China's increased use of an air base in its Fujian province to fly fighter jets near the disputed Senkaku islands. In response, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force scrambles interceptors from Okinawa once the Chinese jets take off from the Fujian base. The newspaper also reported that the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is scrambling four instead of two aircraft on each occasion, noting that the Chinese base is closer to the disputed islands than the Japanese air bases in Okinawa. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/07/29/boeing-and-mitsubishi-ink-deal-to-support-japan-f-15-upgrades/

• 

  January 14, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  France, Germany aim to unify their clashing weapons-export rules

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The German Cabinet has approved a new, high-level pact with France that calls for a common approach to weapons exports in all joint programs. The objective is included in the so-called Aachener Vertrag, slated to be signed by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the German city of Aachen on Jan. 22. The document is meant to be a milestone agreement complementary of the Élysée Treaty, signed 56 years ago, further cementing ties on all levels between the former World War II foes. Berlin and France previously clashed over the question of export limitations for the Future Combat Air System, a sixth-generation warplane envisioned to take flight sometime around 2040, Germany's Der Spiegel reported last fall. France generally is open to exporting arms to many governments willing to pay for them. German leaders profess to take a more cautious approach when human rights concerns crop up, though the government has a history of making arms deals through the back door anyway. The different philosophies came to a head following the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Oct. 2, which some have alleged was orchestrated by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi ruling family has denied the allegations, buoyed by the Trump administration's decision to play down the matter. The allegations led Merkel to publicly call for halting weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, a move that drew a sharp rebuke from Paris, where officials fumed about what they perceived as German sanctimoniousness. France and Germany's diverging export policies are based on their respective “strategic cultures,” said Wolfgang Rudischhauser, vice president of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin. Germany considers itself a “peace power,” whereas France models its policies on the premise of an “intervention army,” he said. Asked whether the section on harmonizing export policies in the Aachener Vertrag was aimed at least in part at the future combat aircraft program, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry pointed out that no projects were explicitly mentioned in the draft treaty text. That program, together with a future main battle tank and a future combat drone, forms the backbone of Franco-German defense ambitions, with tens of billions of dollars at stake. With a concrete objective toward harmonizing arms-export rules now on the books between Paris and Berlin, Rudischhauser argued that a European Union-wide regime would be needed in the end. “That would require ceding certain authorities to the EU, for which neither Germany nor France have shown an appetite,” he told Defense News. To oversee the the new treaty's defense provisions, the pact establishes a bilateral defense and security council, which would “convene regularly at the highest level.” https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/01/11/france-germany-aim-to-unify-their-clashing-weapons-export-rules