Army to release new digital transformation strategy

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  29 mars 2019 | International, C4ISR

  Palantir wins competition to build Army intelligence system

  By Shane Harris The Army has chosen Palantir Technologies to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for soldiers, according to Army documents, a significant boost for a company that has attracted a devoted following in national security circles but had struggled to win a major defense contract. Industry experts said it marked the first time that the government had tapped a Silicon Valley software company, as opposed to a traditional military contractor, to lead a defense program of record, which has a dedicated line of funding from Congress. The contract is potentially worth more than $800 million. The Army's decision to go with Palantir, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and sometimes adviser to President Trump, brings to a close the latest chapter in a fierce competition. In March 2018, the Army chose Palantir and Raytheon to vie for the next phase of the Distributed Common Ground System (or DCGS-A, for Army), which lets users gather and analyze information about enemy movements, terrain and weather to create detailed maps and reports in real-time. The system is designed to be used by soldiers fighting in remote, harsh environments. But critics within the Army and in Congress have for years complained that DCGS-A cost too much and didn't deliver the intelligence and capabilities that soldiers needed. Some soldiers said the system was too hard to use and searched for alternatives. Many became backers of Palantir, which sells to governments and businesses, including in the financial and health care sectors. Palantir and its advocates argued that their software was cheaper and could meet all the Army's requirements. But Army brass defended their decision to pay for a custom-built platform. In 2016, Palantir successfully argued in court that the government was required by law to consider purchasing commercial products, when available, rather than custom ones. That sent the Army back to the drawing board and led to the face off between Palantir and Raytheon. Before his death. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) praised the new approach on Twitter, noting that after the Army had already spent $3 billion in development costs, “it was time to find another way.” Raytheon and Palantir were allowed to test their respective software platforms with a live audience of soldiers, who told them what they liked and didn't and what they would change. The two companies then refined their offerings to suit the Army's needs. Traditionally, the government first chooses a company to build a system according to a set of detailed requirements. But this approach let the Army take both companies' products for a test drive before settling on the winner. “The Army changed its approach to acquisition,” Doug Philippone, a former Army Ranger who leads Palantir's defense business, said in an interview. He said the company was always confident it could win if it were allowed to adjust its technology after getting feedback from soldiers, who he said put the software through a rigorous test, even parachuting out of airplanes with reinforced laptops containing Palantir's software. Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Raytheon, said the company was disappointed in the outcome. “We will wait for the Army's de-brief to understand their decision.” The Army did not provide a comment for this story. Raytheon and Palantir may compete for subsequent phases of work on the program. Unlike most Silicon Valley start-ups, which aim to make their fortunes building consumer applications and software, Palantir at its founding set its sites on Washington, believing that its data analytics tools would find an eager market among U.S. spy agencies and the military, which are constantly trying to manage ever-expanding streams of information. Philippone said the Army win had validated Palantir's strategy. “We founded the company around solving this particular mission,” he said. The company faced initial skepticism from investors, who thought it couldn't overcome entrenched bureaucratic interests and what they saw as political favoritism that led the Pentagon to spend billions every year with the same small group of Beltway contractors. “Everyone told us we should stay away from Washington because it was corrupt and we didn't know how to play golf with senators,” Joe Lonsdale, a Palantir co-founder, said in a 2011 interview. The company got an early investment in 2005 from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital arm, which tries to quickly develop technologies that the intelligence agency might use. The In-Q-Tel connection helped Palantir get meetings with U.S. officials and intelligence analysts, and even test its software with the CIA's counterterrorism center, according to people familiar with the matter. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/palantir-wins-competition-to-build-army-intelligence-system/2019/03/26/c6d62bf0-3927-11e9-aaae-69364b2ed137_story.html

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  11 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Where the next iteration of the Army’s network capabilities is heading

  Andrew Eversden The Army is finishing up a list of requirements for technologies it needs for the next round of its network modernization capabilities, known as Capability Set 23, one of the service's network leaders said May 6. The Army wants to have research and development contracts for prototypes signed no later than July, according to Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of the network cross-functional team for Army Futures Command. He added that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has slowed the timeline. Capability set 23 is a follow-on effort to capability set 21, which is addressing current capability gaps in the Army's network with technology currently available, such as improved network transport capabilities. The service plans to deploy new network tools every two years starting in 2021 as part of a continuous network modernization plan. “We realized we weren't going to be multi-domain dominant with what we fielded in Cap Set '21,” said Gallagher, speaking May 6 at the C4ISRNET conference. For Capability Set '23, the service plans to take advantage of emerging technology, with developments from either commercial industry or internal researchers that are part of the Command, Control, Communications, Commuters, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground. “The next steps for Cap Set '23 — it's about enhanced capacity in our network backbone,” said Gallagher. “High capacity, low latency communications that are not readily available today, but they're emerging in technology." The key piece for is medium-Earth and low-Earth orbit satellite constellations, which will provide the Army with significantly more bandwidth and reduced latency. “In some cases, it's kind of like having a fiber optic cable through a space-based satellite link,” Gallagher said. Gallagher added that Army plans to prototype the technology over the next year and added that around spring next year the Army plans to be working on the preliminary design review for Capability Set '23. Capability Set '23 will also expand on tools from Capability Set '21 to increase the resiliency of the Army's network. Gallagher said that the service is looking at advanced networking waveforms that can be effective in a contested environment. For Capability Set '23, the Army reviewed more than 140 white papers on capabilities and narrowed its selection to 12 papers that they thought would be ready for the second capability set iteration and will help “prototype and make some network design choices," Gallagher said. The Army then held a “shark tank” style event in March and is now “actively in discussions with vendors,” said Justine Ruggio, director of communications for the Network Cross Functional Team at Army Futures Command. Meanwhile, the Army is collecting feedback from soldiers on Capability Set '21 pilots and will procure those technologies this year. Initial delivery of the new capabilities to units is scheduled for second quarter of fiscal 2021, Gallagher said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/05/07/where-the-next-iteration-of-the-armys-network-capabilities-is-heading/

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  6 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Expand missile defenses during the pandemic, don’t cut them

  By: Rebeccah L. Heinrichs Rogue states are taking advantage of the American preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic. North Korea may test another long-range missile according to the head of U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy. He warned Congress in March that the North Korean regime is still a serious threat and is improving its missile program. And last week, Iran's Revolutionary Guard successfully launched a satellite into space. This was the first for the terrorist paramilitary group, though not the first for the regime. The pandemic is likely to prompt Congress to reassess, cut and redirect spending, but safeguarding the American people from missile attack is an essential service the government cannot afford to scale back. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Rob Soofer said at a recent Hudson Institute event: “[T]oday we are in an advantageous position vis-a-vis North Korea. Forty-four ground-based interceptors. Gen. O'Shaughnessy has complete confidence that the system will work and we can address the threat. Then the question is: Can we wait until 2028?” The Trump administration intends to deploy in 2028 the Next Generation Interceptor, or NGI, meant to handle far more complicated missile threats than what the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system was initially designed to do. Still, as Dr. Soofer explained, threats develop at an unpredictable pace, and so the Pentagon is pushing for initiatives to bolster defense in the meantime. Those initiatives will require serious bipartisan cooperation while concurrently developing the NGI and pursuing other advanced capabilities meant to dramatically increase the ability of the missile defense architecture. It's a tall order, but critical, nonetheless. First, and to be clear, the Pentagon has not yet embraced this step due to its determination to focus on NGI. But Congress should invest in more than just sustaining the current GMD system; it should improve it by adding 20 GBIs to the already fielded 44. The silos will be prepared for the additional numbers since, in 2017, President Donald Trump called for adding more deployed GBIs considering the heightened North Korea missile threat. The Pentagon began work on preparing for their delivery but never emplaced GBIs into those silos because Pentagon officials canceled the Redesigned Kill Vehicle. The Pentagon had anticipated the Redesigned Kill Vehicle for the nation's new GBIs. After evaluating the resources and time it would take to restart the production line of the Capability Enhancement II interceptors or to rapidly develop an improved kill vehicle that leverages new technology, the Pentagon should choose the most cost-effective solution. Recall, the Capability Enhancement II was the kill vehicle that performed well in the last complex flight test, which was the first salvo engagement of a threat-representative intercontinental ballistic missile target by GBIs. Regardless of the option the Pentagon would choose, the result would be a near-term enhanced capability by either increased capacity at a minimum, or an increased capacity with improved kill vehicles on 20 of the 64 at best. Either would be a much better scenario than keeping the backbone of homeland defenses stagnant while we anticipate the NGI in 2028. But that is not all the country should do. It should also move forward with steps the Pentagon has embraced. Those steps include improving the discrimination radar capability in the next few years so GMD can better detect and characterize the evolving threat, and deploying other existing systems to bolster GMD. Utilizing current systems with impressive testing records against missiles shorter than ICBM range as part of a layered homeland defense is called the “underlay.” As a key component of the underlay, Congress has directed the Pentagon to test the Aegis SM-3 IIA interceptor against an ICBM target. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, the Missile Defense Agency's planned flight tests will be delayed, including for the SM-3 IIA. The threats facing the country will not wait for the end of the pandemic, and the Pentagon should reconsider that delay. As soon as the country can test the system, and if it is a success, it would be wise to prepare to deploy Aegis SM-3 IIA as the threat requires. If there is an ICBM attack against the U.S. homeland, a GBI would have the first shot at the incoming missile while it's in its midcourse phase of flight; and if an enemy missile gets through, and the Aegis SM-3 IIA is positioned correctly, it could have another shot at the missile as it begins its descent. There has been some concern about whether Russia or China have legitimate claims that bolstering homeland defense in this way is destabilizing. But no evidence supports these claims, and, as Dr. Jim Miller, an Obama-era undersecretary of defense for policy, said at a recent Hudson event: “We cannot and must not give Russia or China a veto over the United States' ability to defend ourselves from North Korea and Iran. That is an absolute no-go for any administration.” Another system that is a natural candidate for the underlay is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense air defense system. Embracing that concept as well, Dr. Miller said: “It makes sense for certain contexts. And if you're looking at a shorter-range missile and a relatively small footprint of coverage, THAAD has a real chance to contribute in that. To me, that's certainly the case for Guam and Hawaii.” But what about cost? That's the $10 billion question — a question that happens to be valued at more than the current president's budget requires for the Missile Defense Agency. The budget request that Congress is currently considering for the MDA is roughly $9.2 billion, noticeably less than previous years, even as the role of missile defense is supposed to be expanding in the country's National Security Strategy. There is no margin for cutting the budget. Congress should rally around this mission and budget, and it should increase funding to sufficiently make these necessary improvements in the near term without paying for them by sacrificing investments like NGI for the not-so-distant future. It can do that without tipping the scale much more than $10 billion this year. That is eminently reasonable given the pressure every government department will feel after the sudden spending splurge due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rebeccah L. Heinrichs is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute where she specializes in nuclear deterrence and missile defense. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/05/05/expand-missile-defenses-during-the-pandemic-dont-cut-them/