Trump's US election win may bring NATO members' defense spending back into focus

On the same subject

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  June 26, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Big reveal of UK modernization plan expected in Brussels

  Andrew Chuter LONDON ― The British Ministry of Defence's Modernising Defence Programme, essentially a review of spending and capabilities, should start to see the light of day around the time of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels. British Prime Minister Theresa May could unveil the headline conclusions of the program at the summit, with the details to follow sometime in the future. The fear is that without the government handing the military more money over the next decade, capabilities will be lost and procurement programs abandoned or delayed ― and in some instances, that is already happening. The MoD has been battling for additional cash from the Treasury for months, but with the British government announcing June 18 plans to spend billions of pounds more on health over the next few years, the chances of defense getting any significant boost appears increasingly remote. Instead the MoD will likely have to persevere with efficiency and other cuts to reduce a black hole in the 10-year equipment plan that the National Audit Office, the government's financial watchdog, said earlier this year could be unaffordable to the tune of between £4.9 billion and £20.8 billion (U.S. $5.7 billion and U.S. $24.1 billion). The parliamentary Defence and Public Accounts committees are so worried about “severe“ budgetary pressures that they took the unusual step of jointly writing to the prime minister in early June to voice their concerns. A June 18 report by the Defence Committee said that if the government wants to have the resources to keep the country safe, it “must begin moving the level of defence expenditure back towards 3% [from the current level of 2 percent] of GDP, as it was in the mid-1990s.” https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nato-priorities/2018/06/25/big-reveal-of-uk-modernization-plan-expected-in-brussels/

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  July 31, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Pentagon needs access to defense companies’ networks to hunt cyberthreats, says commission

  Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The Pentagon must be able to hunt cyberthreats on the private networks of defense companies in order to strengthen national cybersecurity, according to one of the leaders of the Cyber Solarium Commission. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who co-chairs the commission, said in testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities that there must be greater visibility of these networks, in which much sensitive and classified information is kept. “I think one of our biggest findings in the report was that while we are getting a better awareness of our own systems, we still — down to the level of some of our DoD contractors, subcontractors, all the small companies that work with the big defense primes — don't have the level of visibility on the threat picture and the security of their networks that we need,” he said July 30. “I just would argue that we need to figure that piece out because we just can't be in the process of reacting to cyber intrusions after the fact. We have to identify those threats at a quicker timeline at which our adversaries can break out on networks.” The Cyber Solarium Commission is a bipartisan organization created in the 2019 to develop a multipronged U.S. cyber strategy. The commission's report, released in March, recommended Congress require the defense industrial base participate in threat intelligence sharing programs and threat hunting on their networks. “Improving the detection and mitigation of adversary cyber threats to the DIB [defense industrial base] is imperative to ensuring that key military systems and functions are resilient and can be employed during times of crisis and conflict,” the report stated. China has been accused of pilfering reams of data from the networks of defense companies, including plans for the F-35 fighter jet and sensitive data on U.S. Navy programs that, while not classified by themselves, can collectively provide vast strategic insight into Navy plans and operations, officials claim. The commission's report recommended that a threat-hunting program include Department of Defense threat assessment programs on DIB networks; incentives for companies to feed data collected from threat hunting to the DoD and the National Security Agency's cybersecurity directorate; and coordination of DoD efforts with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. Congress is calling for the creation of a threat-sharing model in this year's defense authorization bill. The Senate's version includes a provision to direct the defense secretary to establish a threat intelligence program “to share threat intelligence with, and obtain threat intelligence from, the defense industrial base.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/07/30/pentagon-needs-access-to-defense-companies-networks-to-hunt-cyberthreats-says-commission/

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  December 24, 2018 | International, Naval

  Brazil’s oil revenue is set to fuel multibillion-dollar warship program

  By: Sebastian Sprenger RIO DE JANEIRO — The incoming Brazilian government is poised to follow through on a plan to funnel oil and gas revenue toward new defense spending, leaving European shipbuilders hopeful that the country can afford its new corvette program. Directing 2 percent of royalties from offshore drilling to the military has been a national policy for some time, but previous governments have never fully applied it, according to Eric Berthelot, who heads the Brazilian subsidiary of French shipbuilder Naval Group. Officials under outgoing president Michel Temer first moved to tap the oil fund and have so far forwarded roughly $650 million to state-owned Emgepron to manage new naval projects like the $1.5 billion Tamandaré frigate program. The government of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician who will take office in January, is expected to further implement the policy, according to several industry officials in Europe. They said Brazil's ability to pay for the program will be closely watched as the Bolsonaro government makes its first moves next year. Naval Group is competing against Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, Dutch shipbuilder Damen and Italy's Fincantieri. The Brazilian Navy and the four bidders are in the final stages of coordination before the proposals are due on March 8. The Navy is expected to pick a winner later that month, though it is possible officials will await the LAAD defense expo here in early April to announce results. The Tamandaré program is for four ships and an initial eight-year maintenance package. The warships are meant to help protect Brazil's resource-rich waters up and down its vast coastline, dubbed the Blue Amazon. European vendors tussling for business in the same competitions worldwide has become a recurring theme, fueling calls for consolidation of the continent's shipbuilding industry to retain a competitive edge. “The Europeans are more divided than ever,” Naval Group Hervé Guillou told reporters at one of the company's offices here. But, he cautioned, “you have to wait for the right moment to consolidate.” Naval Group and Fincantieri already have decided to join their businesses to some extent, but so far nothing concrete has sprung from those aspirations. https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2018/12/21/brazils-oil-revenue-is-set-to-fuel-multibillion-dollar-warship-program