January 30, 2019 | International, Land
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced Tuesday that Japan has been cleared to buy a pair of land-based Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the first Foreign Military Sales announcement since the end of a government shutdown that stalled the FMS process.
The sale, worth an estimated $2.15 billion, would bolster Japan's existing sea-based Aegis capabilities. The island nation is in the process of increasing its missile defense capabilities, both through additional Aegis buys and through the co-development of the SM-3 missile with the U.S.
Although not specified in the DSCA announcement, a government official confirmed these two systems are for Japan's planned Aegis Ashore sites, which are expected to be operational by 2023.
Included in the potential package: two Aegis weapon systems, two multimission signal processors, and two command-and-control processor refreshes, alongside radio navigation equipment, ordnance, identification friend or foe systems, and construction services for six vertical launch system launcher module enclosures.
Tuesday's announcement is the first DSCA notification to be posted since Dec. 18, just days before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history began.
Speaking to reporters last week, Andrea Thompson, the U.S. State Department official who oversees the FMS process, said the shutdown was slowing down the process of clearing sales requests from foreign customers — notable, as the Trump administration has made increasing weapon sales abroad a key part of both its foreign policy and economic growth strategy.
“There will be a bit of a bump — a gap, if you will — just because we haven't had the engagement with [Capitol] Hill” normally seen in the process, Thompson said then. “We'll be able to make up some ground, but I am a realist. We have to work harder if we are going to have the numbers we had last year.”
Japan has recently spent heavily on American defense items. In September, the nation was cleared to spend $3.14 billion on nine E2-D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, and in October it agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars for SM-3 missiles.
In the recently released Missile Defense Review, the U.S. Department of Defense identified that working with partners in the Pacific — notably Japan and South Korea — is the “cornerstone” of American security in the region.
“Japan is one of our strongest missile defense partners, and works together with the United States to strengthen cooperative missile defenses against regional missile threats,” the review states. “Going forward, DoD will work with allies and partners to prioritize these types of missile defense integration opportunities that contribute to more effective protection of the United States, its allies and deployed forces.”
DSCA announcements do not mean sales are final. The announcement serves as notification to Congress about the potential sale, which can be vetoed by the Senate; once cleared, negotiations between the customer and contractor can lead to changed quantities or dollar figures from the original announcement.
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By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — A European consortium has pitched the idea of grooming intelligent drone swarms to confuse, disable and destroy enemy air defenses. The proposal is part of the Preparatory Action on Defence Research effort by the European Union to improve collaboration on among member states. Under the heading “Emerging Game Changers,” EU officials asked companies earlier this year to submit ideas for “promising breakthrough technologies” in the field of artificial intelligence for defense applications. The idea behind “SEAD Swarm” is to create the necessary algorithms that would enable a mass of aerial drones to inspect the characteristics of air defense systems, distribute the information within the swarm and derive a plan of attack against weak points. Actions taken could include blinding radar sensors, overwhelming anti-aircraft fire with kamikaze-type tactics, or attacking sites with explosive or electronic-warfare payloads. The acronym SEAD is short for “suppression of enemy air defenses,” military platforms that often expose pilots of manned aircraft to significant risk of getting shot down. The proposed project comes in the wake of Finland designating advances in AI a key objective for its six-month term leading the Council of the European Union. The idea is backed by a consortium of 12 private companies, national research institutions and universities from six countries, with Finnish company Insta as the lead. A decision from European decision-makers on the award of an approximately $2 million grant to start the project is expected in the next few months. Consortium officials stress that nothing would be built during the initial phase of the project. Instead, the idea is to incubate the necessary “swarm logic” and learning algorithms in a simulation environment, where scenarios can be gamed out and quickly adapted, Ari Kosonen, a senior systems engineer at Insta, told Defense News. Letting the drone swarm and air defense systems battle it out in a controlled cyberspace environment would yield patterns of problem-solving that can continuously improve both the attackers' and the defenders' performance, Kosonen said. In addition, thinking through the idea on a purely theoretical level would allow proper consideration for ethical and legal questions that arise whenever AI is weaponized, he added. If adopted by the EU, the participating countries of Finland, Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands and Austria would detail military officials to an advisory board to help ensure the planned simulations reflect real-world combat situations. That includes resisting the urge of crafting scenarios that are too clear-cut in allowing judgments about when to apply force and when to stand down, said Christian Brandlhuber, a senior adviser at consortium member Reply AG in Munich. “Does this work in an environment where our situational awareness is less than perfect?” Therein lies the novelty of the SEAD Swarm idea, Brandlhuber argued: Working through the rules of engagement first, only later considering requirements and finally establish concrete acquisition plans could help bring AI-enabled military technology into the EU-wide defense conversation. “There were heated discussions in the consortium about how pronounced the legal and ethical side should be,” Brandlhuber said. Dicey situations could arise, for example, when drones are cut off from communicating with human decision-makers in the final phase of an attack, while the prerequisite is to have a person in the loop for pulling the trigger. “There is a lot of uncertainty in this,” Brandlhuber said, though he argued analysts should strive to understand the complexity that comes with combining drones and AI in a military context. “You can't determine any of this a-priori.” Notably, the consortium includes sensor and hardware manufacturers, like Diehl Defence of Germany and Milrem of Estonia, that could be tapped to build prototypes if the SEAD Swarm project is selected to go forward. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/10/22/europeans-propose-siccing-self-learning-drone-swarms-on-air-defenses/