US Army’s tactical network modernization team requests industry pitches for future capabilities

On the same subject

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  July 13, 2020 | International, Land

  As Defender 2020 drill winds down, US Army plans for 2021 edition

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — As the last portions of the altered Defender 2020 exercise kick into gear, the U.S. Army is beginning to plan its 2021 edition, a top general said Thursday. Speaking at a Defense News virtual panel on trans-Atlantic alliances Brig. Gen. Sean Bernabe, deputy commander of U.S. Army Europe, expressed confidence that Defender 2021 will be able to happen despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “We've been continuing to look forward now that we've gained some confidence that we can train large-scale, collective [military exercises] in this environment,” Bernabe said. “We've been looking further and further forward. As we speak, we're planning exercise Defender Europe 2021, to take place in the late spring, early summer of 2021, focused in the Black Sea and Balkans.” Planning “is underway, again informed by our experiences between March and June. Having validated that we can do it, we're confident that we'll figure it out in partnership with our allies,” he added. “I feel confident that we will [be able to] maintain readiness and interoperability across Europe, despite COVID, regardless of how long it may be a part of our operating environment.” Bernabe predicted the 2021 exercise will likely be smaller than 2020′s planned version, which should be no surprise. Defender 2020 was billed as the third-largest military exercise in Europe since the end of the Cold War, a major test of the United States' ability to move stateside forces to locations across Europe, including Poland, the Baltics, some Nordic nations and Germany. A total of 20,000 soldiers were expected to participate. However, the COVID-19 outbreak forced the Army to hit pause on the exercise in March just as it was starting. Several smaller, related drills were canceled outright, and U.S. forces were sent back home. A smaller associated exercise picked up again in June. Bernabe's comments came just hours before the Army announced that a combined arms battalion would deploy to Europe between July 14 and Aug. 22 as part of the “final phase” of the modified Defender 2020 exercise. The deployment will involve 550 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas, with the 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters in Poznan, Poland, serving as mission command. Approximately 55 Abrams tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles will take part. The tanks will be equipped with the Trophy active protection system so the Army can “assess and experience the dynamics of moving and installing the system in a field environment.” At the end of June, the European Union put citizens of the United States on a list of countries barred from traveling to EU member states due to the continued spread of COVID-19. However, military movements are exempt from that rule, and Bernabe believes the Army has a good plan in place for the intake of forces into Europe. “To be good neighbors, we are using some very, I'd say, aggressive approaches to make sure that we are screening and testing for COVID as personnel arrive,” he said. “Make sure that we're putting in the mandatory 14 days' [quarantine], making sure that we continue screening, we wear masks, we practice physical distancing to make sure that we're not bringing infection into Europe while we focus on maintaining the military readiness. “So thankfully we've worked with our host nations to continue to flow personnel into and out of Europe.” https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-army/2020/07/10/as-defender-2020-winds-down-army-planning-for-2021-underway/

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  December 11, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Defense Technology Highlights Of 2020

  Graham Warwick https://aviationweek.com/aerospace-defense-2021/defense-space/defense-technology-highlights-2020

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  May 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  The US needs to rethink its overseas supply chain

  By: Thomas Ayres As Americans respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have become acutely aware of the outsized impact of our dependence on China in the supply chain. Pharmaceutical companies learned key chemicals and minerals are exclusively made or mined in China. For instance, reports show China produces 97 percent of the antibiotics, 95 percent of ibuprofen and 91 percent of hydrocortisone consumed in the U.S. market. Hospitals also learned that while China produces 50 percent of the world's face masks, they are of dubious reliability. There is cause for concern with the quantity or quality of ventilators. In sum, we learned as citizens what we in the Department of Defense have known for some time: Our national security supply chain must be free from dependence on China. The DoD's concern for its supply chain is not new. Congress spurred activity over a decade ago by questioning the DoD's supply chain risk management, or SCRM, policies. The National Defense Strategy‘s recognition of a new era of strategic, great power competition further sharpened the DoD's focus, propelling recent efforts to enhance regulations and procedures in addressing supply chain threats. We are transitioning from analog to digital, with the goal of planes, ships, tanks and satellites all seamlessly sharing data — a lethal version of the ride-sharing app on your smartphone. Yet, even as the DoD builds this future, the threat of supply chain disruption and concerns about component quality within the electronic backbone are real. Counterfeit or planted microelectronic parts can be vectors for cybersecurity intrusions. Recently, for instance, the DoD voiced concerns that Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei's 5G solution provided back doors, purposefully or negligently, for data corruption, data extraction, system failure or worse. Similarly, SCRM policies have increasingly addressed the concern of intellectual property theft enabled by subcomponents designed to allow information to flow back to larger architectures. The COVID-19 pandemic is giving new meaning to that threat, and the risk of disruption to both raw and manufactured materials from abroad has become apparent. Our SCRM focus must broaden in response to COVID-19 to better address national production capacity and sustainability. Being able to assure access to the minerals, chemicals, subcomponents and components required to build weapon systems is essential. China supplies 80 percent of the rare earth minerals imported to the U.S., many of which are essential to electronic parts. Since 1933, the Buy American Act has required federal agencies, including the DoD, to purchase items manufactured in the U.S. Additionally, these items must be made from supplies mined or made in the U.S. The act is implemented by regulations requiring analysis of the components — where they are mined or made, and where they are assembled. Companies that falsify “Made in America” designations can be debarred from the federal marketplace. In July 2019, months before the pandemic emerged, President Donald Trump issued an executive order seeking to increase the minimum domestic manufacture thresholds above the current 50 percent floors. The pandemic now shows even more needs to be done. We must increase to President Trump's mandated percentages, and we must also analyze where each of the subcomponents are manufactured. This doesn't mean we need to back away from allied contributions or alliance-based weapon systems like the F-35 fighter jet, which benefits from the industrial cooperation of nine partner nations. But in light of COVID-19, it does mean that when we make risk-based and measured decisions to produce an alliance system, we program in several months' worth of component backlogs to allow continued production during future quarantines. The majority of our weapon systems are made in the U.S. by American companies with greater than 50 percent of component production and assembly done domestically. Yet, what is less clear are the composition of the subcomponents in the components themselves. Not recognizing the risks of the subcomponents equally jeopardizes the new reality of disruptions to our supply chain and risks of data extraction, degradation and spying, about which we have increasingly been concerned. Recently, I sought to buy a grapefruit spoon on the internet and found it exceedingly difficult to learn where the offered spoons were made. The harder it was to find, the more I suspected it was made in China. Perhaps Congress should pass a law making it easier to learn the source of manufacturing. Ensuring my access to an American-made grapefruit spoon is not nearly as vital as assuring our access to critical weapon systems, rare earth materials, and pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. A vital step is knowing the source countries of components and subcomponents. We must have deeper knowledge of the full supply chains of subcomponents, and how and where they are produced. Trust can only come once we know all that is required to understand our supply chains and we seek even greater focus in our new normal. Our security depends on it. Thomas Ayres is general counsel for the U.S. Air Force. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/22/the-us-needs-to-rethink-its-overseas-supply-chain/