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By Olena Goncharova. EDMONTON, Canada — As Canadians head to the polls on Oct. 21, the Ukrainian government may be wondering how a potential change in leadership could alter relations with Kyiv's closest overseas ally. Among the numerous parties represented on ballots across the country, there are six with enough legitimacy and reach to take part in nationally televised debates, and only three — the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties — which will almost certainly garner the overwhelming majority of votes. And the real contest comes down to only two: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party and Andrew Scheer's Conservative Party, which have been exchanging leads or tied for almost the entirety of the parliamentary campaign. While the candidates are competing on an array of issues ranging from climate change to economic policy, this time foreign policy has played an even more substantial role than usual in how the parties have defined themselves. The 2019 campaign is different from previous ones due to an increasingly dangerous international environment and uncertainty over U.S.-Canadian relations. But no matter the election outcome, there is unlikely to be any significant change from Canada's current political stance vis-a-vis Ukraine, experts believe. The ruling Liberals put “democracy, human rights, international law, and environmental protection” at the heart of their foreign policy. In their campaign, they are calling for the establishment of the Canadian Center for Peace, Order, and Good Government, which will lend expertise and assistance to those seeking to build peace and advance justice. They also call for a continued increase in Canada's international development assistance every year until 2030 and want to ratchet up the Magnitsky sanctions regime on foreign human rights offenders. However, the Liberals do not have any specific points geared towards Ukraine. The Conservatives' promises are more detailed. They want to cut 25 percent of all foreign aid spending, strengthen ties with Japan, India, and Israel and deepen their commitment to Canada's democratic alliances — NATO and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Under the Liberal government, international assistance in 2018 stood at $6.1 billion and accounted for almost 1.8 percent of federal budget spending. And $57 million of that aid went to Ukraine. In its campaign, the Conservative Party has promised to refocus aid away from middle-income and higher-income countries, a category which would seem to include Ukraine. However, Scheer says a Conservative government would increase military and other aid to Ukraine. Other Conservative platform positions include supplying the Ukrainian military with lethal defensive weapons, restoring the practice of sharing RADARSAT-2 imagery with the Ukrainian army and providing additional humanitarian assistance to support internally displaced people. Fen Hampson, an international affairs expert and professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, says both candidates “are and have been strongly pro-Ukraine” and will continue to apply sanctions against Russia and provide economic assistance to Kyiv. In fact, the biggest risk to Canadian support for Ukraine is likely connected not to which party is victorious, but to the absence of a winning party. “If we have a minority government as many are now predicting, which is to say neither party wins a majority in parliament and has to work with other parties, this may mean a government that is focused on internal as opposed to international issues,” Hampson said in a written comment to the Kyiv Post. “That could have an impact on the government's ability to do things proactively, including in foreign policy.” Other experts interviewed by the Kyiv Post share Hampson's take. Andrew Rasiulis, a former director of military training and co-operation at the Department of National Defence and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, agrees that the two parties have “pretty much the identical position on the issue of Ukraine.” Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky shifted the world's focus toward Ukraine by calling for peace in Donbas and opening negotiations with Russia in the so-called Normandy format peace talks. Canada might have a specific role to play in it, Rasiulis argues, but the new Canadian government will be very cautious in this realm. “They would not want Canada to be caught outside the game, because if there is a Normandy format summit — possibly in November — Canada has a choice to make,” Rasiulis told the Kyiv Post. “We can either be on the sidelines and won't talk to the Russians unless they leave Donbas and return Crimea. But on the other hand, if there are negotiations, then Canada could play a role in terms of offering a peacekeeping force. That force hasn't been discussed yet but I believe it will come up.” Rasiulis believes that if Ukraine implements the Steinmeier Formula as a potential way to reinvigorate negotiations with Russia over the war, which has killed more than 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine, Canada can offer its peacekeeping force to help secure the Russia-Ukraine border during local elections in Donbas and convince Russia that “this force can be objective.” Read More: What is the ‘Steinmeier Formula' and why are so many Ukrainians against it? Over the past four years of the Trudeau government, Canada's armed forces have been present in Ukraine as part of Operation Unifier, which runs until 2022. About 200 Canadian troops working in six-month cycles have trained over 13,000 members of Ukrainian security forces to date. Though Canada is not a major military power, its troops are efficient and well-trained and “have passed on some of their knowledge to those engaged in security issues” and the war in Donbas, argues David R. Marples, a historian and professor at the University of Alberta. Liberal Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland — who is of Ukrainian ancestry on her mother's side — has also been a consistent and outspoken supporter of Ukraine, and is banned from entering the Russian Federation as a result. “It seems clear, therefore, that Ukrainians will not be worse off if Trudeau and the Liberals are granted a second term in office,” Marples said. The historian stresses that the Conservative government's policies might be a bit harder to predict. “Though Scheer is unlikely to make any conciliatory moves toward Russia, the bigger question is whether Ukraine is on his horizon at all, insofar (as) his major focus is on China — he has demanded a much stiffer response to the recent actions of the Chinese government, which have included the arrest of three Canadian businessmen,” Marples said. “On the other hand, he has expressed concern about the lack of unity among NATO allies, with an implicit sideswipe at President Donald J. Trump and his nebulous policies and apparent kinship with dictators.” Moreover, Scheer is close to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was a fervent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Though the extent of Harper's influence in a future Conservative government is unclear, he has often appeared alongside Scheer at public events,” Marples told the Kyiv Post. “For Harper, the priority was dealing with Russia — which he often equated with Communism — rather than China. Scheer appears more reticent, even distant from such an ideological stance.” https://www.kyivpost.com/world/what-can-ukraine-expect-from-canadas-federal-election.html?cn-reloaded=1

Defence takes a fifth of the federal budget and has often been a target for deficit cutters Murray Brewster The Conservatives have pledged to "protect" the budget of the Department of National Defence even as they work to eliminate the federal deficit. In their election platform, the Tories said they would find $5 billion in savings by cutting operational expenses, but were not clear on precisely what that meant, other than to say it would not affect services to Canadians. The Liberals, through their two-year-old defence policy, committed to increase defence spending by 70 per cent to $32 billion annually by 2024-25 — a program that would unfold at precisely the same time a potential Conservative government intends to cut expenditures.​​ The Liberals have also set in motion plans to buy two of the military's biggest-ticket items — new fighter jets and navy frigates. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said Wednesday his party would stick with those purchases, but would be more efficient. "We are committed to the funding allocated to the Department of National Defence," he said during a campaign stop in in southwestern Ontario. "We will not do what the Liberals did, which is waste hundreds of millions of dollars stopping and starting the procurement process." The Conservatives have pledged to depoliticize the process of buying military equipment and have complained about the Liberal government's delivery timelines and decisions, including the plan to purchase used Australian F-18s to supplement the existing fighter jet force until a decision is made on brand-new warplanes. Says money wasted "They have wasted so much money when it comes to procurement," Scheer said, adding that Conservatives would "protect the budgets of National Defence [and] we're going to ensure that the money that's allocated to National Defence is spent wisely." At least two experts wonder how the Conservatives can live up to that pledge in light of the fact the Defence Department is the single biggest discretionary expense on the federal balance sheet and the last two times Conservatives — or Liberals — tried to balance the budget, military spending took major hits. Under the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper, the defence budget was cut by $2.1 billion annually and the department racked up sizeable chunks of lapsed spending, money that was appropriated by Parliament, but not spent. The reduction took place after the Afghan war and the department faced concurrent spending cuts through the Conservative strategy review and deficit reduction action plan. Both Liberal and Conservative governments in the 1990s cut defence spending and postponed buying new equipment, most notably new maritime helicopters, which only came into service in the last few years Defence spending an obvious target "Balancing a federal budget without looking at defence spending is extraordinarily difficult, to impossible," said Dave Perry, an analyst and expert in defence spending at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. "Defence spending accounts for one-fifth of the federal budget." And even if the Conservatives did look for savings, a change to the accounting structure at Defence leaves little room for them to recoup much money by cancelling or postponing equipment purchases. Reducing the size of the military or the civil service was something previous governments did, but Perry said those kinds of cuts "take two years or more" to make their way through the system. Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer and CEO of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, said much of what all of the parties are proposing — and their ability to deliver — is contingent on the kind of Parliament that is elected on Monday. CANADA VOTES How much will the defence file matter to voters? PBO pushes up cost estimate for Canada's frigate build by $8 billion In a minority government scenario, the Conservatives might find themselves struggling to deliver savings outside of the Defence Department, he suggested. Would need majority "If elected, I would assume the Conservatives would need a majority government to push through the savings on direct program spending – infrastructure, wage bills, other operations, corporate and development assistance," Page said. The Liberal record on defence spending is up for debate. An internal DND slide presentation, obtained by CBC News, lays out projections for the department going to up to the 2036-37 fiscal year. Faced with extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration to meet NATO's goal of earmarking two per cent of gross domestic product for military spending, the Liberal government committed to a 70 per cent increase by 2024-25. The Feb. 25, 2019 slide presentation shows that spending will peak in 2026-27 and begin to fall again in the preceding decade. Used Australian fighter jets could cost $1.1B: Parliamentary budget officer The document also shows that, for two years running, the Liberals have not spent as much as they planned on new equipment. While $12.7 billion was set aside in their plan between 2017-19 for new military gear, the Trudeau government only asked Parliament for permission to spend $8.34 billion — leaving $4.4 billion still in the treasury. The slide presentation said part of the reason is that some existing projects came in under budget, but in one-third of the instances the spending delay was because the Defence Department — or the federal government in general — could not get the projects organized. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-defence-spending-1.5323618

Par Nicolas Barotte La crise couve depuis longtemps entre le Pastonia et le Dragonia. Dans la région que les deux pays se disputent, les tensions intercommunautaires se sont aggravées, exploitées par un groupe terroriste aux volontés séparatistes. Face au risque de conflit, le conseil des Nations unies est parvenu à signer une résolution. Une force franco-britannique va être déployée sur place... Au large de l'Écosse, entre le loch Ewe et le loch Linnhe, l'exercice «Griffin Strike» peut commencer. Il s'achève ce vendredi. Le calendrier ne manque pas d'ironie. Tandis qu'à Bruxelles, un accord a été signé pour permettre le divorce entre le Royaume-Uni et l'Union européenne, la Marine française et la Royal Navy ont mis en scène pendant deux semaines la profondeur de leur coopération. https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/a-l-heure-du-brexit-la-cooperation-militaire-franco-britannique-continue-20191017

ARMY AECOM + Tetra Tech JV, Boston, Massachusetts (W912DY-20-D-0013); Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp., Overland Park, Kansas (W912DY-20-D-0012); and Jacobs Government Services Co., Arlington, Colorado (W912DY-20-D-0014), will compete for each order of the $149,969,200 hybrid (cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price) contract for architect and design services. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 16, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, is the contracting activity. South Dade Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Inc.,* Plantersville, Alabama, was awarded a $11,600,230 firm-fixed-price contract for mechanical maintenance services. Bids were solicited via the internet with five received. Work will be performed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2025. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance; and civil works funds in the amount of $11,600,230 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg, Mississippi, is the contracting activity (W912HZ-20-C-0002). NAVY Raytheon Co., McKinney, Texas, is awarded a $17,897,746 cost-plus-incentive-fee order (N00019-20-F-0277) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-15-G-0003). This order procures Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared special test equipment updates to the Windows 10 operating system in support of the F/A-18E/F aircraft. Work will be performed in McKinney, Texas, and is expected to be completed in February 2022. Fiscal 2018 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $17,897,746 will be obligated at time of award, all of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. BAE Systems Technology Solutions and Services, Rockville, Maryland, is awarded a $7,930,867 modification (P00050) to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract N00421-15-C-0008. This modification exercises an option to provide engineering and technical services for integrated communications and information systems radio communications to Navy ships in support of the Ship and Air Integration Warfare Division, Naval Air Warfare Center – Webster Outlying Field. Work will be performed in Saint Inigoes, Maryland (60%); California, Maryland (30%); Bath, Maine (5%); and Pascagoula, Mississippi (5%), and is expected to be completed in October 2020. Fiscal 2020 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,300,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Pride Industries, Roseville, California, has been awarded a $15,246,093 modification (P00059) to previously awarded contract FA2816-17-C-0001 for civil engineering services. The modification provides for operations and maintenance, engineering, environmental, and grounds maintenance for 61st Civil Engineer and Logistics Squadron. Work will be performed at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California; Fort MacArthur, California; and Defense Contract Management Agency, Carson, California, and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, 2020. The total cumulative face value of the contract to $61,308,694. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $9,646,783 are being obligated at the time of award. The Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, is the contracting activity. DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY National Industries for the Blind, Alexandria, Virginia, has been awarded a maximum $8,562,960 modification (P00005) exercising the first one-year option period of a one-year base contract (SPE1C1-19-D-B043) with four one-year option periods for moisture wicking T-shirts. This is an indefinite-delivery contract. Locations of performance are Virginia, North Carolina and Arkansas, with an Oct. 30, 2020, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/1991710/source/GovDelivery/

NAVY The Boeing Co., Seattle, Washington, is awarded a $193,318,432 modification (P00003) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, time and material, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-18-D-0113. This modification provides CFM56-7B27A/3 and CFM56-7B27AE engine depot maintenance and repair, field assessment, maintenance repair and overhaul engine repair, and technical assistance for removal and replacement of engines for the P-8A Poseidon aircraft in support of the Navy, the government of Australia and Foreign Military Sales customers. Work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia (94%); and Seattle, Washington (6%), and is expected to be completed in October 2020. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. StandardAero Inc., San Antonio, Texas, is awarded a $174,743,115 modification (P00004) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, time and material, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-18-D-0110. This modification provides CFM56-7B27A/3 and CFM56-7B27AE engine depot maintenance and repair, field assessment, maintenance repair and overhaul engine repair, and technical assistance for removal and replacement of engines for the P-8A Poseidon aircraft in support of the Navy, the government of Australia and Foreign Military Sales customers. Work will be performed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (93%); and San Antonio, Texas (7%), and is expected to be completed in October 2020. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. AAR Aircraft Services Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, is awarded a $44,865,877 modification (P00005) to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, time and material, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00019-18-D-0111. This modification provides P-8A Poseidon aircraft depot scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, fulfillment of depot in-service repair/planner and estimator requirements, technical directive incorporation, airframe modifications, aircraft on ground support, and removal and replacement of engines in support of the Navy, the government of Australia and Foreign Military Sales customers. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is expected to be completed in October 2020. No funds will be obligated at time of award. Funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Corp., King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, has been awarded a $108,322,296 contract for the Mk21A Reentry Vehicle (RV) program. This contract is to conduct technology maturation and risk reduction to provide a low technical risk and affordable RV capable of delivering the W87-1 warhead from the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Weapon System. Work will be performed at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and other various locations as needed, and is expected to be completed by October 2022. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and one offer was received. Fiscal 2019 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $8,033,916 are being obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is the contracting activity (FA8219-20-C-0001). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY DRS Network & Imaging Systems LLC, Melbourne, Florida, has been awarded an $18,451,845 firm-fixed-price contract for wired housing assemblies. This was a sole source acquisition using justification 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a one year base contract with one one-year option period being exercised at the time of award. Location of performance is Florida, with a Nov. 27, 2021, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Warren, Michigan (SPRDL1-20-C-0022). UPDATE: Textron GSE/TUG Technologies Inc., Kennesaw, Georgia (SPE8EC-20-D-0050), has been added as an awardee to the multiple award contract issued against solicitation SPE8EC-17-R-0002, announced Dec. 2, 2016. ARMY Bristol Construction Services LLC,* Anchorage, Alaska, was awarded a $10,086,761 modification (P00004) to contract W9126G-18-C-0066 for construction of open storage areas with fencing, lighting and limited security. Work will be performed in Texarkana, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 25, 2020. Fiscal 2018 military construction funds in the amount of $10,086,761 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity. *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/1990450/source/GovDelivery/

October 15, 2019 - The U.S. Army has awarded BAE Systems a new $437 million task order to provide open source support for the Army and Army Intelligence & Security Command (INSCOM) approved partners. The task order was awarded under the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) multiple-award IDIQ contract and the acquisition was managed by GSA's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM) on behalf of the Army. Under this task order, BAE Systems will deliver open source capabilities derived from publicly available data to the Army. To support this activity, the company will provide INSCOM with training, policy and governance recommendations, assessments and implementation of emerging capabilities. BAE Systems will also establish and manage a secure cloud hosting environment for these activities. “We're proud to continue to partner with the U.S. Army and support their critical national security missions with this new capability,” said Peder Jungck, vice president and general manager of BAE Systems' Intelligence Solutions business. “Our open source solution is designed to deliver timely, objective, and cogent information to mission-critical programs in the face of evolving threats and the continuous increase in the volume and sources of open source data.” BAE Systems delivers a broad range of services and solutions enabling militaries and governments to successfully carry out their respective missions. The company provides large-scale systems engineering, integration, and sustainment services across air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains. BAE Systems takes pride in its support of national security and those who serve. View source version on BAE Systems: https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/bae-systems-selected-to-provide-open-source-intelligence-support-to-the-us-army

Les questions de défense ont dominé le conseil des ministres franco-allemand organisé à Toulouse. Un accord pour harmoniser les exportations d'armes a été annoncé. Face à l'accroissement des tensions dans le commerce international, les deux dirigeants ont aussi envoyé un message fort à Airbus. Par Grégoire Poussielgue Publié le 16 oct. 2019 à 19h15 Priorité à la défense. Le climat, les droits d'auteur et l'innovation ont, entre autres, été au menu du conseil des ministres franco-allemand qui s'est tenu mercredi à Toulouse, mais les questions de défense ont occupé une place prépondérante. Dans l'enceinte de la préfecture de Haute-Garonne, Emmanuel Macron et Angela Merkel ont pu lever les points de friction et aller plus loin dans leur politique commune de programmes d'armement. Les « blocages importants ont été levés » sur les programmes de développement du char et de l'avion de combat du futur, ont annoncé les deux dirigeants. La date de janvier 2020 a été retenue pour notifier les crédits tant attendus par les industriels de l'aéronautique qui visent la réalisation de prototypes à l'horizon 2025. La question sensible des exportations d'armes a aussi trouvé une issue. La France et l'Allemagne ont annoncé un accord « juridiquement contraignant sur les règles de contrôle d'exportations d'armement pour les programmes développés en commun ». Cet accord était indispensable pour mener à bien les programmes communs en matière d'armement. Un « résultat concret qui permettra davantage de sécurité », s'est félicitée la chancelière allemande. Un accord obtenu non sans mal car, depuis un an, les tensions sont fortes. Après l'assassinat, il y a tout juste un an, du journaliste saoudien Jamal Khashoggi, l'Allemagne a suspendu ses ventes d'armes vers l'Arabie Saoudite, ce que la France n'a pas fait. Avec l'invasion du Kurdistan syrien, les pays européens ont suspendu leurs exportations d'armes vers la Turquie. Symbole fort sur l'économie Entre Emmanuel Macron et Angela Merkel, il fallait aussi un geste symbolique fort pour marquer la solidité d'un couple franco-allemand « souvent mis à l'épreuve », comme le dit l'Elysée, et ce avant le Conseil européen de la fin de la semaine. Entre le dossier brûlant du Brexit et le rejet de la candidate française, Sylvie Goulard, à la Commission européenne , sans oublier les tensions commerciales croissantes avec les Etats-Unis, l'environnement européen traverse une zone de fortes turbulences. La relation franco-allemande n'y échappe pas. « J'entends parfois dire que la relation franco-allemande est difficile, c'est la situation du monde qui est difficile. S'il n'y avait que nous, les choses seraient plus simples et avanceraient plus vite », a dit le président français après le conseil. Pour le premier conseil des ministres franco-allemand depuis la signature, en janvier dernier, du traité d'Aix-la-Chapelle , qui renforce leur coopération, la chancelière allemande et le président français ont aussi manié le symbole. Avant les rencontres bilatérales et le conseil des ministres à la préfecture de Toulouse, les deux dirigeants ont longuement visité la chaîne de montage de l'A350 sur le site Airbus de Toulouse. Un symbole de « l'excellence européenne » selon le président français et un fer de lance de la coopération franco-allemande depuis un demi-siècle. Rassurer les salariés Après l'augmentation des droits de douane décidée par les Etats-Unis, il s'agissait aussi de rassurer les salariés français et allemands travaillant sur le site de Toulouse. « Nous tenions à venir aux côtés d'Airbus pour dire notre confiance dans l'entreprise et tout ce qui est devant elle. Vous allez construire le futur de cette entreprise. Il y a parfois des moments de doute et d'inquiétude mais c'est une entreprise formidablement solide », a déclaré Emmanuel Macron à l'occasion d'une rencontre avec les salariés. Angela Merkel y est aussi allée de son couplet. « Nous ferons tout pour garantir le succès de cette entreprise dans les années à venir », a-t-elle dit. https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/europe/defense-merkel-et-macron-trouvent-un-accord-pour-renforcer-leur-cooperation-1140681

By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has selected L3Harris Technologies to provide ROVER 6 transceiver equipment upgrades in support of the U.S. Army's One System Remote Video Terminal program of record, meant to improve situational awareness for soldiers in the field, the company announced Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference. The company did not disclose the value of the award but said it was more than $90 million. The portable ROVER systems deliver full-motion video and geospatial data from manned or unmanned aircraft to enhance reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and general situational awareness on the battlefield. The move comes as the Army envisions advanced manned-unmanned teaming, or MUM-T. Within the last month, the Army acquisitions office for unmanned aerial systems awarded a contract for the Rover 6S and the Tactical Network ROVER2E, a newer version of the man-portable radio. The Army is scheduled to receive its first deliveries beginning in November 2020, the company said at the AUSA meeting in Washington. According to L3Harris, the updated systems expand frequency capability. They also reduce the equipment's size, weight and power needs, as well as add processing resources. They also include Cryptographic Core Modernization. The systems are meant to transform sensor-to-shooter networking and allow increased levels of collaboration and interoperability with virtually all large airframes, unmanned aerial vehicles and targeting pods in theater today. The upgrade included modernizing the waveform the equipment uses such that more users are able to transmit video, according to Kevin Kane, L3Harris' vice president for international business development. “Being able to share that real-time situational awareness more broadly on the battlefield is really what it's all about,” Kane said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/15/l3harris-to-provide-rover-transceiver-upgrade-in-deal-worth-over-90-million

By: Kelsey D. Atherton Military planners spent the first two days of the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting outlining the future of artificial intelligence for the service and tracing back from this imagined future to the needs of the present. This is a world where AI is so seamless and ubiquitous that it factors into everything from rifle sights to logistical management. It is a future where every soldier is a node covered in sensors, and every access point to that network is under constant threat by enemies moving invisibly through the very parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that make networks possible. It is a future where weapons can, on their own, interpret the world, position themselves within it, plot a course of action, and then, in the most extreme situations, follow through. It is a world of rich battlefield data, hyperfast machines and vulnerable humans. And it is discussed as an inevitability. “We need AI for the speed at which we believe we will fight future wars,” said Brig. Gen. Matthew Easley, director of the Army AI Task Force. Easley is one of a handful of people with an outsized role shaping how militaries adopt AI. The past of data future Before the Army can build the AI it needs, the service needs to collect the data that will fuel and train its machines. In the shortest terms, that means the task force's first areas of focus will include preventative maintenance and talent management, where the Army is gathering a wealth of data. Processing what is already collected has the potential for an outsized impact on the logistics and business side of administering the Army. For AI to matter in combat, the Army will need to build a database of what sensor-readable events happen in battle, and then refine that data to ultimately provide useful information to soldiers. And to get there means turning every member of the infantry into a sensor. “Soldier lethality is fielding the Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems, or our IVAS soldier goggles that each of our infantry soldiers will be wearing,” Easley said. “In the short term, we are looking at fielding nearly 200,000 of these systems.” The IVAS is built on top of Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality tool. That the equipment has been explicitly tied to not just military use, but military use in combat, led to protests from workers at Microsoft who objected to the product of their labor being used with “intent to harm.” And with IVAS in place, Easley imagines a scenario where IVAS sensors plot fields of fire for every soldier in a squad, up through a platoon and beyond. “By the time it gets to [a] battalion commander,” Easley said, “they're able to say where their dead zones are in front of [the] defensive line. They'll know what their soldiers can touch right now, and they'll know what they can't touch right now.” Easley compared the overall effect to the data collection done by commercial companies through the sensors on smartphones — devices that build detailed pictures of the individuals carrying them. Fitting sensors to infantry, vehicles or drones can help build the data the Army needs to power AI. Another path involves creating synthetic data. While the Army has largely fought the same type of enemy for the past 18 years, preparing for the future means designing systems that can handle the full range of vehicles and weapons of a professional military. With insurgents unlikely to field tanks or attack helicopters at scale anytime soon, the Army may need to generate synthetic data to train an AI to fight a near-peer adversary. Faster, stronger, better, more autonomous “I want to proof the threat,” said Bruce Jette, the Army's assistant secretary for acquisition, logistics and technology, while speaking at a C4ISRNET event on artificial intelligence at AUSA. Jette then set out the kind of capability he wants AI to provide, starting from the perspective of a tank turret. “Flip the switch on, it hunts for targets, it finds targets, it classifies targets. That's a Volkswagen, that's a BTR [Russian-origin armored personnel carrier], that's a BMP [Russian-origin infantry fighting vehicle]. It determines whether a target is a threat or not. The Volkswagen's not a threat, the BTR is probably a threat, the BMP is a threat, and it prioritizes them. BMP is probably more dangerous than the BTR. And then it classifies which one's [an] imminent threat, one's pointing towards you, one's driving away, those type of things, and then it does a firing solution to the target, which one's going to fire first, then it has all the firing solutions and shoots it.” Enter Jette's ideal end state for AI: an armed machine that senses the world around it, interprets that data, plots a course of action and then fires a weapon. It is the observe–orient–decide–act cycle without a human in the loop, and Jette was explicit on that point. “Did you hear me anywhere in there say ‘man in the loop?,' ” Jette said. “Of course, I have people throwing their hands up about ‘Terminator,' I did this for a reason. If you break it into little pieces and then try to assemble it, there'll be 1,000 interface problems. I tell you to do it once through, and then I put the interface in for any safety concerns we want. It's much more fluid.” In Jette's end state, the AI of the vehicle is designed to be fully lethal and autonomous, and then the safety features are added in later — a precautionary stop, a deliberate calming intrusion into an already complete system. Jette was light on the details of how to get from the present to the thinking tanks of tomorrow's wars. But it is a process that will, by necessity, involve buy-in and collaboration with industry to deliver the tools, whether it comes as a gestalt whole or in a thousand little pieces. Learning machines, fighting machines Autonomous kill decisions, with or without humans in the loop, are a matter of still-debated international legal and ethical concern. That likely means that Jette's thought experiment tank is part of a more distant future than a host of other weapons. The existence of small and cheap battlefield robots, however, means that we are likely to see AI used against drones in the more immediate future. Before robots fight people, robots will fight robots. Before that, AI will mostly manage spreadsheets and maintenance requests. “There are systems now that can take down a UAS pretty quickly with little collateral damage,” Easley said. “I can imagine those systems becoming much more autonomous in the short term than many of our other systems.” Autonomous systems designed to counter other fast, autonomous systems without people on board are already in place. The aptly named Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar, or C-RAM, systems use autonomous sensing and reaction to specifically destroy projectiles pointed at humans. Likewise, autonomy exists on the battlefield in systems like loitering munitions designed to search for and then destroy anti-air radar defense systems. Iterating AI will mean finding a new space of what is acceptable risk for machines sent into combat. “From a testing and evaluation perspective, we want a risk knob. I want the commander to be able to go maximum risk, minimum risk,” said Brian Sadler, a senior research scientist at the Army Research Laboratory. “When he's willing to take that risk, that's OK. He knows his current rules of engagement, he knows where he's operating, he knows if he uses some platforms; he's willing to make that sacrifice. In his work at the Vehicle Technology Directorate of the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Sadler is tasked with catching up the science of AI to the engineered reality of it. It is not enough to get AI to work; it has to be understood. “If people don't trust AI, people won't use it,” Tim Barton, chief technology officer at Leidos, said at the C4ISRNET event. Building that trust is an effort that industry and the Army have to tackle from multiple angles. Part of it involves iterating the design of AI tools with the people in the field who will use them so that the information analyzed and the product produced has immediate value. “AI should be introduced to soldiers as an augmentation system,” said Lt. Col. Chris Lowrance, a project manager in the Army's AI Task Force. “The system needs to enhance capability and reduce cognitive load.” Away from but adjacent to the battlefield, Sadler pointed to tools that can provide immediate value even as they're iterated upon. “If it's not a safety of life mission, I can interact with that analyst continuously over time in some kind of spiral development cycle for that product, which I can slowly whittle down to something better and better, and even in the get-go we're helping the analyst quite a bit,” Sadler said. “I think Project Maven is the poster child for this,” he added, referring to the Google-started tool that identifies objects from drone footage. Project Maven is the rare intelligence tool that found its way into the public consciousness. It was built on top of open-source tools, and workers at Google circulated a petition objecting to the role of their labor in creating something that could “lead to potentially lethal outcomes.” The worker protest led the Silicon Valley giant to outline new principles for its own use of AI. Ultimately, the experience of engineering AI is vastly different than the end user, where AI fades seamlessly into the background, becoming just an ambient part of modern life. If the future plays out as described, AI will move from a hyped feature, to a normal component of software, to an invisible processor that runs all the time. “Once we succeed in AI,” said Danielle Tarraf, a senior information scientist at the think tank Rand, “it will become invisible like control systems, noticed only in failure.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/10/15/can-the-army-perfect-an-ai-strategy-for-a-fast-and-deadly-future