July 28, 2024 | International, Land
May 11, 2020 | International, Naval
The US Navy’s modernization rush must not harm mine countermeasures
By: Rep. Rob Wittman
As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are reminded that even in a time of unprecedented technological growth and development, simple and primitive threats have the ability to radically alter our way of life. In spite of astonishing medical advancements, some threats, unfortunately, remain timeless.
Many people have drawn comparisons between the current coronvirus pandemic and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. The Spanish flu was caused by an H1N1 virus that was first identified in the United States in military personnel in the spring of 1918. It would eventually infect one-third of the global population, killing approximately 675,000 people in the United States and an estimated 50 million people worldwide. All of this was happening in the midst of the “war to end all wars” — World War I.
While the homeland was battling the flu pandemic, the U.S. Navy was battling the U-boat threat in the Atlantic.
In World War I, German submarines sank almost 5,000 ships, most of them merchant vessels. To help counter the U-boat threat, the United States and the United Kingdom embarked on an unprecedented and ambitious project: the construction of the North Sea Mine Barrage — a 230-mile-long underwater barrier of sea mines stretching from Aberdeen, Scotland, to Ekersund, Norway. The effort was a marvel of modern manufacturing, producing 1,000 sea mines every day. Over five months, the allies eventually laid over 70,000 sea mines, helping to contain the U-boat threat and protect allied shipping.
As a second wave of the flu pandemic raged across the globe, World War I finally came to an end in November 1918. The American and British navies now had the task of cleaning up 70,000 live sea mines in the unforgiving North Sea. These primitive mines were anchored to the bottom of the sea, and the U.S. and U.K. had the advantage of knowing precisely where they were located because they had laid them. Despite those advantages, it took 82 ships and over 4,000 men — 10 times the assets that were required to lay the mines — to clean up the North Sea Mine Barrage.
After almost a year of mine-clearing efforts, the operation was declared complete. Navy studies would later reveal that only approximately 40 percent of the American mines had actually been cleared, and mines continued to wash ashore for years after the end of the war.
Fast forward a century and sea mines have proliferated around the world. Since the end World War II, sea mines have damaged or sunk four times as many U.S. Navy ships as any other method of attack.
U.S. adversaries have paid attention. Russia was a pioneer in mine warfare and is estimated to have as many as 250,000 sea mines in its inventory. China is not far behind, with an inventory of around 100,000, including some of the world's most advanced mines. China has hundreds of mine-capable ships and aircraft, and could deploy thousands of mines a day during a conflict.
To counter the mine threat, the U.S. Navy relies on 11 wooden-hulled Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships, 31 MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters and a handful of explosive ordnance disposal platoons. The Navy wants to retire both the Avengers and Sea Dragons by 2025, while efforts to field any replacement capability have continued to falter.
While the U.S. Navy has focused its research and funding on countering emerging threats such as advanced radars and hypersonic missiles, a time-tested threat waits patiently in the waters around the globe; and if we ignore the lessons of history, a centuries-old technology could lead to our defeat. Mine warfare, like public health, is an area that rarely attracts attention or significant investment until a crisis emerges. We should not wait until American lives are in peril before we take action.
We need to change course immediately. First, the Navy must maintain its existing mine countermeasures forces until a credible replacement is fielded. Second, the Navy must make a significant investment to recapitalize the mine countermeasures force both in time and quantity to deliver a credible force.
Unfortunately, the Navy has spent billions of dollars and wasted precious years pursuing a mine countermeasure module program that, even if it worked as advertised, would have neither the capability nor the capacity to effectively counter an enemy mine threat anticipated in our National Defense Strategy.
Whether it's a pandemic or a proliferated naval threat, our citizens expect the United States to respond effectively, and we must make the necessary investments to counter the threats to our nation and our Navy.
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October 1, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR, Security
Secretive, never profitable Palantir makes its market debut
Frank Bajak, The Associated Press BOSTON — Seventeen years after it was born with the help of CIA seed money, the data-mining outfit Palantir Technologies is finally going public in the biggest Wall Street tech offering since last year's debut of Slack and Uber. Never profitable and dogged by ethical objections for assisting in the Trump administration's deportation crackdown, Palantir has forged ahead with a direct listing of its stock, which is set to begin trading Wednesday. In its stock offering, the company isn't selling newly minted shares to raise money; it's simply listing existing shares for public trading. The low-key strategy may not generate the enthusiasm many technology offerings do. But it's in character for a secretive company long reliant on spies, cops and the military as customers — and whose founders are holding onto voting control of the company. The big question for both investors and company management: Can Palantir successfully transition from a business built on the costly handholding of government customers to serving corporate customers at scale? The company is a hybrid provider of software and consulting services that often embeds its own engineers with clients. Analysts say its future depends on selling multinationals on its tools for gathering disparate data from an ever-expanding data universe and using artificial-intelligence technology to find previously undetectable patterns. Those can theoretically guide strategic decisions and identify new markets much as they have aided in tracking terrorists and sorting military intelligence. The company sets itself apart from most U.S. technology providers, and just moved its headquarters to Denver from Silicon Valley. Palantir colors itself patriotic and belittles other tech firms that won't unquestionably support U.S. dominance in war fighting and intelligence. “Our software is used to target terrorists and to keep soldiers safe,” CEO Alex Karp wrote in a letter accompanying Palantir's offering prospectus. While Karp acknowledged the ethical challenge of building software that “enables more effective surveillance by the state,” Palantir's prospectus touts its work helping U.S. soldiers counter roadside bombings and fight the Islamic State group. The iconoclastic entrepreneur and PayPal co-founder endorsed President Donald Trump in 2016, worked on his transition team and holds the largest chunk of Palantir stock. Thiel already exerts tremendous power from the board of Facebook, which dominates global media and seeks to create a digital currency. In its IPO prospectus, Palantir paints a dark picture of faltering government agencies and institutions in danger of collapse and ripe for rescue by a “central operating system” forged under Thiel's auspices. As the offering is structured, Thiel will be the dominant voice among the Palantir co-founders who will retain voting control. “Is that someone who you want deciding how a component of the (national) security apparatus is designed?” asked New York University business professor Scott Galloway. “If you believe that power corrupts and checks and balances are a good idea, this is just from the get-go a really bad idea.” Earlier in September, BuzzFeed reported that Thiel hosted a known white nationalist, Kevin DeAnna, at a 2016 dinner party, citing emails it obtained and published whose authors refused to talk to the online news outlet. Thiel declined through a spokesman to discuss the report with The Associated Press. Critics say he shares the blame for Facebook's incomplete removal of toxic disinformation disseminated by the pro-Trump far-right fringe. Then there are Palantir's fundamentals, which Galloway considers lousy. The company has just 125 customers in 150 countries, including Airbus, Merck, Credit Suisse and the Danish National Police. Slightly less than half its 2019 revenues were from government agencies, and three clients — which Palantir did not name — accounted for almost a third of revenues. “They're massively unprofitable and they've never been able to figure it out,” Galloway said, noting that it took Google three years to earn a profit, and Amazon seven. Over a much longer span, Palantir has accumulated $3.8 billion in losses, raised about $3 billion and listed $200 million in outstanding debt as of July 31. Palantir, named for the mystical all-seeing stones from Tolkien's “Lord of The Rings,” has recently been deepening its relationship with Uncle Sam, including winning a modest contract early in the COVID-19 pandemic for helping the White House gather data on the virus' impact. Senior emerging technology analyst Brendan Burke of Pitchbook says he isn't worried that Thiel's association with Trump will hurt the company if Trump loses the election. “The political connections don't appear to be the main driver of their recent substantial contract wins,” he said, although he noted that government contracts can be more volatile than corporate ones, where Palantir's foothold is less firm. Palantir offers two software platforms. Foundry is designed to link disparate and largely incompatible data sources into a central operating system. It's the company's primary hope for broadening its business. An earlier product, Gotham, has been used by defense and intelligence analysts and police departments to identify patterns deep within datasets. But the value of “predictive policing” tools developed with the platform have been questioned for their potential to unfairly target people of color. The New Orleans and New York City police departments, once customers, have used it. A 2017 research paper by University of Texas sociologist Sarah Brayne, who studied the Los Angeles Police Department's use of Gotham, found the software could lead to a proliferation of unregulated personal data collected by police from commercial and law enforcement databases. On Monday, Amnesty International issued a briefing that says Palantir is failing to conduct human rights due diligence around its contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calling it “deeply ironic” that the company crows about its determination not to work with regimes like China that abuse human rights. Palantir's ICE contracts involve the maintenance and improvement of two products used in deportation raids. One of them, its web-based Falcon tool, has enhanced data accessible to investigators “involving the illegal movement of people into, within, and out of the United States,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, including court records, and by the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center in a freedom-of-information request. Palantir has acknowledged in its SEC filing that “unfavorable coverage in the media” and from social activists could hurt its business. It also says its contractual obligations might prevent it from being able to defend its actions publicly, although it recently named a former Wall Street Journal reporter to its board. Negative publicity over ICE contracts may also have hurt company recruitment on college campuses. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/09/30/secretive-never-profitable-palantir-makes-its-market-debut/
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March 23, 2022 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Tank killers and other instruments of Ukraine's deadly defense | MilTech
From American-made Javelins to British-born NLAWs, MilTech's Todd South looks at the weapons the Ukrainians are using to push back the Russians.