US State Dept OKs potential sale of Abrams main battle tanks to Romania for estimated $2.53 billion - Pentagon | Reuters

On the same subject

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  April 24, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Top Air Force general defends Advanced Battle Management System from critical report

  Valerie Insinna A report by a government watchdog that slammed the Air Force's major command-and-control program did not include key classified information and was outdated by the time it was released last week, the service's top general said Wednesday. On Friday, the Government Accountability Office delivered a scathing report on the Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System, which seeks to overhaul the U.S. military's command-and-control infrastructure so that any platform will instantly and seamlessly be able to share data with another weapon system on the battlefield. The problem, according to the GAO, is that the Air Force has not provided enough detail on exactly what technology it needs, how it plans to field it and how much it will cost. But speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein said the agency did not have access to key information that may have fleshed out the service's plans. “There is a bit of latency to the reporting,” Goldfein said. “Two things I would offer is that they were not able to get to our December ABMS demo. So they didn't actually ... see in real time what we were connecting.” The other problem, Goldfein said, is that the organization was not cleared to receive information about the classified portions of the program. “That makes it challenging because if the technology you're moving forward, if a lot of it is in the classified realm — if a lot of it, quite frankly, was in the space realm — and the GAO doesn't have access or clearance to be able to look at it, then the report is going to be on a very small portion of what the Advanced Battle Management System really is,” he said. In an email to Defense News, GAO director Marie Mak disputed Goldfein's characterization of the report, saying that the organization has a full understanding of past and present ABMS efforts, including the December exercise and numerous classified discussions. “Those discussions did not change our finding that the Air Force still does not have an overall plan for ABMS, a point which they openly acknowledged and in fact concurred with our recommendations,” she said. “The Air Force still needs to develop an overall plan, to include preliminary costs and schedule. Without some type of overall plan in place, it will be difficult for the Air Force to prioritize this program among the acquisition efforts within the Air Force.” When Goldfein became the Air Force's chief of staff in 2016, he made connecting the joint force one of his major priorities. Since then, the service has canceled efforts to replace legacy aircraft that play a role in battlefield management, such as a recapitalization of the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft. Instead, it has put its financial resources toward ABMS, which it envisions as a family of systems that will be more survivable than a direct replacement for JSTARS aircraft or other assets. The service tapped Preston Dunlap to manage the ABMS effort in 2019. It then conducted its first set of technology demonstrations in December, where it tested 28 different technologies, with 26 of them proving to be successful. However, some lawmakers have remained skeptical about the Air Force's approach and lack of transparency. In March, Republican Sen. David Perdue called for the Air Force to deliver an analysis of alternatives and capability development document — two pieces of documentation typical to defense acquisition programs. “The development of ABMS is encouraging, but we need to make sure Congress has proper oversight throughout the process,” said Perdue, whose home state of Georgia is the location of Robins Air Force Base, where ABMS is slated to be based. Goldfein did not directly address one of the GAO's major complaints: that the program is at greater risk for schedule delays and cost growth because it does not have a firm business case that spells out capability requirements and cost. But he acknowledged that the Air Force has to do more to share information with Congress and the GAO in a timely matter. However, the pace of the ABMS program may also require lawmakers and the GAO to put in more time to keep updated on the effort's progress, he said. “The GAO has got to keep up ... and we've got to help,” Goldfein said. “This is not a poke or criticism. We've got to help them. We've got to help Congress. We've got to help think tanks. We've got to help others realize that we are moving out and we are developing capability faster than we've ever developed capability before. We're connecting things faster than we've ever connected them before.” “Every four months we are connecting new capabilities that have never been connected. That's a hard one to deliver a report on, but I'm eager to sit down with the GAO and get them up to speed.” Updated on 4/23/19 at 11:45 a.m. with comment from the GAO. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/04/23/top-air-force-general-blasts-critical-advanced-battle-management-system-report/

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  April 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Global defense spending sees biggest spike in a decade

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — Global defense spending hit $1.917 trillion in 2019, a 3.6 percent increase over previous year figures and the largest increase in one year since 2010, according to the annual report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States remains the world's largest defense spender in 2019, with its $732 billion representing 38 percent of global military spending, SIPRI has reported. That was followed by China ($261 billion, at 14 percent of global total), India ($71.1 billion, at 3.7 percent), Russia ($65.1 billion, at 3.4 percent) and Saudi Arabia ($61.9 billion, at 3.2 percent). All told, the top five nations accounted for 62 percent of overall military spending. “Global military expenditure was 7.2 percent higher in 2019 than it was in 2010, showing a trend that military spending growth has accelerated in recent years,” SIPRI's Nan Tian said in a statement. “This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure.” Large year-over-year increases were seen in China (5.1 percent), India (6.8 percent), Russia (4.5 percent), Germany (10 percent) and South Korea (7.5 percent). Regionally, military spending increased in Europe by 5 percent, Asia and Oceania by 4.8 percent, the Americas by 4.7 percent, and Africa by 1.5 percent. Combined military spending by the 29 NATO member states was $1.035 trillion in 2019. SIPRI is widely considered to be the authority on military expenditures and exports, having gathered such data for decades. Other key developments, as noted by the researchers: Together, the top 15 countries spent $1.553 trillion, 81 percent of global military spending. All but three countries in the top 15 had higher military expenditures in 2019 than in 2010, the exceptions being the U.S. (15 percent drop), the U.K. (15 percent drop) and Italy (11 percent drop.) Total military expenditures of the 11 countries in the Middle East for which data is available decreased by 7.5 percent to $147 billion, driven in part by an estimated 16 percent drop from Saudi Arabia. That overall percentage also decreased in 2018. SIPRI was unable to calculate totals from Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Military spending in South America was relatively unchanged from the previous year, coming in at $52.8 billion. Fifty-one percent of that spending, $26.9 billion, came from Brazil. Combined military expenditures from Africa grew by 1.5 percent to an estimated $41.2 billion in 2019, the first time that region saw a spending increase in five years. That includes plus-ups in Burkina Faso (22 percent), Cameroon (1.4 percent), Mali (3.6 percent), the Central African Republic (8.7 percent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (16 percent) and Uganda (52 percent). Of the 149 countries SIPRI studied, 10 allocated 4 percent or more of their gross domestic product to the military, which the group defines as the “military burden.” Thirteen countries had a military burden of 3 to 3.9 percent of GDP; 24 had a military burden of 2 to 2.9 percent; 65 had a military burden of 1 to 1.9 percent; and 34 allocated less than 1 percent of their GDP to the military. Three countries had no military expenditures in 2019: Costa Rica, Iceland and Panama. https://www.defensenews.com/global/2020/04/27/global-defense-spending-sees-biggest-spike-in-a-decade/

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  November 4, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  Spanish air chief calls for Madrid to meet NATO's 2 percent defense spending goal

  The Spanish air force's top military official wants his country to invest more in its military apparatus, to be able to defend itself at home and contribute to its international partnerships.