February 26, 2024 | International, Security
5 strategies to speed adoption of AI and data analytics across the DOD
Opinion: NAVAIR is teaming with U.S. Naval Surface Force’s Task Force Hopper to explore fielding of AI-embedded sensors onto aircraft.
January 7, 2019 | International, Naval, Land, C4ISR
New in 2019: The Army’s new way of warfighting will continue to evolve
By: Todd South
Each of the past three years has seen the Army build and upgrade its newest warfighting concept, one that leaders look to transform the service in an era of greater competitionand multi-faceted threats.
That concept, while improved, will continue to evolve in the coming year as well, with more experimentation and feedback from soldiers at all levels.
The Army will fight its future battles through formations geared toward multi-domain operations and guided by real-world threats to global military superiority, according to an updated version of Army warfighting called Multi-Domain Operations 2028.
“U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028” is both a revision to ongoing warfighting plans and an invitation for input from across the force.
“The American way of war must evolve and adapt,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley wrote. “It describes how U.S. Army forces, as part of the Joint Force, will militarily compete, penetrate, dis-integrate, and exploit our adversaries in the future.”
And while it has been formed by commanders at Army Training and Doctrine Command, Army leaders know it needs more.
“Every one of you is part of our evolution and the construction of our future force,” Milley wrote, addressing soldiers, “and we want your critical feedback.”
The main task of this new battle concept is to get after “layered stand-off,” in which adversaries have created ways to deny historical U.S. dominance of domains such as air-land-sea, and new ones such as information and electromagnetic spectrums to keep U.S. and allied military units at bay.
In the newly released document's preface, Gen. Stephen Townsend, TRADOC commander, focused on how the Army will operate and enable the joint force in future conflicts.
“If deterrence fails, Army formations, operating as part of the Joint Force, penetrate and dis-integrate enemy anti-access and area denial systems; exploit the resulting freedom of maneuver to defeat enemy systems, formations and objectives and to achieve our own strategic objectives; and consolidate gains to force a return to competition on terms more favorable to the U.S., our allies and partners,” he wrote.
To reach those goals, the Army will need some new functions, new equipment and advanced processes to select, train and retain capable soldiers.
Some of that was evident this past summer in the Pacific, where fires soldiers found novel approaches to integrating traditionally land-focused Army assets and networks to link up with partner forces and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps teams to share information and strike ships at sea in simulated, contested environments.
The director of the Army's Capabilities Integration Center, Brig. Gen. Mark Odom, in an Army release, highlighted key factors in the new concept's importance.
The concept focuses on operational problems with competitors such as Russia and China, as opposed to the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism focus in recent decades. This means it returns the Army to a focus on threats rather than capabilities-based approaches, he wrote.
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January 30, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
New bill could get Italy its own DARPA
By: Tom Kington ROME — As consensus grows in Italy that military planners need better access to civilian technology, a new law is being proposed to give the country its own version of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The new bill, which its authors claim has backing from the military and Italy's political parties, envisages the setup of a new agency able to stimulate and coordinate the development of civil technologies for military application. “We want to make the newest technology more accessible,” said Alessandra Maiorino, the Italian senator who is steering the bill through parliament. Established in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union launching its Sputnik satellite the year before, DARPA has since teamed with universities, corporations and government partners to fund research programs to improve America's defense capabilities. Technologies it has worked on have also fed back into civilian applications, notably the internet, voice recognition and small GPS receivers. “Thanks to the DARPA system, avangard civilian technologies are considered to have strategic value. This in turn has a cascade effect on the economy and on innovation in the U.S.,” according to the Italian bill. The bill calls for the new Italian agency to be based near Pisa at an existing military research facility. An eight-person management board would include a military director, three civilian researchers and representatives from the four government ministries involved — the Department of Treasury, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Economic Development, and the Ministry for Education, University and Research. The Joint Centre for Innovation and Strategic Technologies, known by its Italian acronym CINTES, will now be discussed in the Senate's Defence Committee, where representatives from the military, academia and industry will be invited to give their opinions, said Maiorino. The bill does not cite the required funding for the agency — a figure which has yet to be decided. However, it claims that Italy must quickly set up its own version of DARPA to keep up with France and Germany, who are already ahead in launching such an agency. The bill claims France's Innovation Défense Lab is now “allowing France's DGA procurement agency to map out and evaluate civilian technologies and acquire those which are of interest to the defense sector.” Germany's planned ADIC agency is cited in the bill as an example of the government investigating “disruptive” technologies in cybernetics and other key technologies. Maiorino, the senator backing the bill in Italy, is a member of the Five Star party, which has previously taken a unfavourable approach to defense investment. Before entering government in 2018, the party called for the cancellation of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. As such, the party's support for the new bill reflects a progressively more positive view of the defense sector since it entered government. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/cultural-clash/2020/01/29/new-bill-could-get-italy-its-own-darpa/
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October 7, 2024 | International, Land
US State Dept okays defense sales to India, Italy, Romania for $965 million