October 27, 2020 | International, C4ISR
It's not the Space Force you may have heard about. Still, NATO's newly announced space centre boldly takes the seven-decade-old institution where no international military alliance has gone before.
Most of its leading members and adversaries have sought individual advantage in the final frontier over the decades. And while the European Space Agency is a collective body, its civilian mission and its politics are inarguably different from those of NATO.
That difference was on display this week as NATO defence ministers, meeting online, put the final pieces in place for the new centre, which has been in the works for a couple of years.
"The space environment has fundamentally changed in the last decade," said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
"Some nations, including Russia and China, are developing anti-satellite systems that could blind, disable or shoot down satellites and create dangerous debris in orbit."
NATO "must increase our understanding of the challenges in space," he said.
Unlike U.S. President Donald Trump's much-hyped plan to make the Space Force a separate branch of the U.S. military, the North Atlantic alliance has been careful to present its space centre not as a "war fighting" arm but as something purely defensive.
A 1967 international treaty commits 110 countries, including the United States and Canada, to limiting their use of space to "peaceful purposes" alone and prohibits the basing of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear bombs, for instance) in orbit. It further prohibits the militarization of the moon and other celestial bodies.
Stoltenberg has insisted that alliance activities will be in line with international law.
That's an important point for Paul Meyer, adjunct professor of international studies in international security at Simon Fraser University in B.C. He warned in a recent policy paper for the Canadian Global Affairs Institute that the "prospects for armed conflict in space appear more likely than they have been since the days of the Cold War."
Meyer said world leaders should think hard about what role — if any — arms control could play in avoiding a war in space.
"Diplomatic solutions are not being pursued, despite the fact that irresponsible state conduct in space can ruin it for everyone," he said Friday.
NATO has no satellites or space infrastructure of its own — but many member nations do and Stoltenberg said the alliance will draw on their expertise in setting up the new centre.
Almost all modern militaries rely on satellites. In any major conflict between NATO and either Russia or China, the orbital communication and navigation grid would be the first piece of infrastructure to be hit.
Not only does NATO need satellites for surveillance, reconnaissance and communications, an increasing number of military operations are being targeted from space.
A good example is the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, during which 68 per cent of airstrikes employed smart bombs guided by lasers and satellites.
Those "eyes in the sky" are also important for defence against ballistic missiles and (naturally) weather forecasting.
Dan Coats, the former U.S. director of national intelligence, warned Congress almost two years ago that China and Russia have trained and equipped their military space forces with new anti-satellite weapons.
Those warnings have not been limited to the Trump administration. In the spring of 2019, Norway accused Russia of "harassing" communications systems and jamming Norwegian Armed Forces GPS signals.
Last spring, the NATO space centre reported that Moscow had test-fired a satellite-killing missile.
Frank Rose, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a recent online policy analysis that outer space will need to be "mainstreamed" within NATO when it comes to planning and operations.
He also argued that the alliance will need to find a way to "incorporate diplomacy into any eventual strategy."
Meyer agreed and noted in his October 2020 policy paper that Canada is largely absent from any meaningful debate on the militarization of space.
The Global Affairs website, he said, contains outdated material, is full of banal, non-specific references and is largely devoid of Canadian content.
"Pity the Canadian citizen who wishes to understand where our country stands on this troubling issue of outer space security," Meyer wrote.
It's not clear what sort of contribution Canada might make to the new NATO space centre.
In a statement, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said it's important for Canada's allies to develop a strategy that "ensures a peaceful use of space while protecting ourselves.
"Canada has been a leading voice in NATO about the importance of space for the Alliance and we remain committed to working with our Allies and partners to prevent space from becoming an arena of conflict."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-space-command-space-militarization-stoltenberg-1.5775269
February 21, 2023 | International, Aerospace, Other Defence
Serbia said on Tuesday it would buy loitering munitions, a type of drone that flies to a target and detonates, from the United Arab Emirates, signalling a further distancing from longtime ally and arms supplier Russia.
December 3, 2020 | International, Land
With 9,500 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles already delivered, the Army was running out of room on its existing contracts, so it just ordered another 2,738 from Oshkosh. That'll keep production going through a re-competition scheduled for 2022. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on December 02, 2020 at 4:49 PM WASHINGTON: The Army's already shared Oshkosh's Joint Light Tactical Vehicle design with rival companies, who hope to take over the program when a new competition is held in 2022. But, having announced a new $911 million order just yesterday, Oshkosh Defense is confident that it'll fend off all challengers and keep building JLTVs for years to come, general manager George Mansfield told me this morning. “This contract really shows how the Joint Program Office feels about Oshkosh,” Mansfield said. “They're very confident we build a good quality product, [and] we are on time and under budget so far.” In fact, Mansfield said, Oshkosh JLTVs were coming in so much under budget that the military was able to buy more vehicles in less time than the original contract anticipated. (And it did so despite cuts to the JLTV budget in recent years). That's why the Army — which runs JLTV on behalf of all the US armed services and seven foreign customers from Belgium to Brazil — had to issue the new contract this fall. You see, in 2015, when Oshkosh beat aerospace titan Lockheed Martin and Humvee manufacturer AM General, the Army issued a production contract with a maximum value of $6.7 billion and a maximum quantity of 16,901 vehicles. That contract was supposed to last eight years, through 2022. Before it ran out, the Army would hold a new competition, open to all comers, with the winner – perhaps Oshkosh, perhaps a rival – getting a new contract to build JLTVs after 2022. But Oshkosh kept selling JLTVs more cheaply than the 2015 contract had assumed. That meant the military could buy more vehicles more quickly, even with a reduced budget for JLTV. That meant, in turn, that it ran up against the 2015 contract's 16,901-vehicle maximum this fall, two years ahead of schedule. So, to keep production going, the Army issued the new contract: an additional $911 million for 2,738 more JLTVs, plus 1,001 trailers and other kit. That brings the total on order to 18,073 JLTVs, of which over half – about 9,500 – have already been delivered. What does a JLTV cost? That's tricky. Oshkosh doesn't divulge exact prices. The government's estimated Average Procurement Unit Cost per JLTV is $395,000 (once adjusted for inflation; it's $365,000 in 2015 dollars). If you just divide the dollar value of the new contract by the number of vehicles, the average cost per JLTV has fallen below $333,000. But the actual price per JLTV is actually a lot lower than that, because these contracts always include trailers, specialized mission equipment for different JLTV variants, spare parts and support. The new contract allows the Army to order additional JLTVs through November 2023. That keeps production going through the re-competition, which is scheduled to award a contract in the second half of 2022. Now, the re-compete is not about picking a new design. Instead, it's about giving the Army the option to pick a new manufacturer for the existing design. Under the terms of the original 2015 contract, the government bought the Technical Data Package that shows you how to build a JLTV and can give that data to any company it likes. In fact, several potential competitors have not only gotten the data package, they've actually leased JLTVs so they can reverse-engineer them. But while competitors now have the JLTV design, they don't have Oshkosh's facilities, workforce or their years of experience actually building it. “We've been manufacturing this vehicle for five years,” Mansfield told me. “We know how it's designed because we designed it, we know how to manufacture it, we've got a strong supply base. So I think we're in a very good position.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/12/jltv-new-911m-order-strengthens-oshkoshs-hand-for-recompete
February 9, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Air-launched effects are considered a critical piece of the U.S. Army's overhaul of the helicopter fleet.