30 janvier 2020 | International, C4ISR
By: Chiara Vercellone
For the United States to meet the goals laid out in the National Defense Strategy, especially in Asia, and to realize President Donald Trump's vision of an open Indo-Pacific, the Department of Defense's battlefield technology must undergo significant changes, according to a Center for a New American Security report released Jan. 28.
The report, an independent assessment mandated by Congress in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, proposed the revamping of C4ISR systems as they remain “brittle in the face of Chinese cyberattacks, electronic warfare and long-range strikes.”
The Pentagon's C4ISR capabilities have fallen behind technologically, as they were developed “in an era when competitors or adversaries could not attack U.S. assets in space or at long ranges,” the report found. At the same time, a 2019 Department of Defense's report on China's military and security developments found that country has prioritized military capabilities with disruptive potential, including hypersonic weapons, counterspace capabilities, artificial intelligence and C4ISR advanced robotics.
Thus far, the Department of Defense has been able to develop countermeasures against China's abilities, said Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow at CNAS and one of the authors of the report.
“As the threat continues to get more sophisticated, these [countermeasures] will likely lose their effectiveness,” Dougherty said. “This necessitates building a new architecture that is designed around resiliency, kill webs, and graceful degradation.”
While under attack, U.S. systems sometimes fail to have any connectivity and have sporadic dial-up speeds. Instead, they should still have some level of communication even while the attack is going on, even if this means at lower bandwidths.
To strengthen its systems, the report recommended, the U.S. military should develop space capabilities resistant to kinetic attacks, synthetic training environments for U.S. forces to practice C4ISR operations, systems that can transmit data via multiple pathways and surveillance systems that can avoid being detected.
A recent project by RAND found that, while the Department of Defense maintains an advantage in airspace penetration capabilities, it remains vulnerable to air base attacks and Chinese anti-surface warfare.
An initial system with these developments could be in place in the next decade if the Department of Defense and armed services create a basic system and improve it over time, Dougherty said.
“If, as we have done in the past, we wait around for a ‘perfect' set of requirements to develop an ‘objective' future system, we could see this take 15-20 years, at which point China will likely have far surpassed us in this competition,” he said.
22 avril 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Northrop Grumman was awarded a $2.3 billion contract for the propulsion system maintenance of the Minuteman III missile system, the Pentagon announced.
6 janvier 2024 | International, Terrestre
The strategy will address how commercial systems could be used to fill capability gaps and provide backup capability when needed.
2 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Eric Lofgren In 2015, Congress passed middle tier acquisition, or MTA, authorities for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding. Lawmakers expected detailed guidance to follow shortly after. By June 2019, the Government Accountability Office found little clarity on documentation and authority. Congress reacted by threatening to withhold 75 percent of MTA funding in 2020 until the Pentagon released guidance. Dangle the purse strings and compliance follows. The undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, or USD(A&S), released Department of Defense Instruction 5000.80 on Dec. 30, 2019. The MTA guidance, however, is more likely to pump the brakes on rapid acquisition than propel it forward. Programs designated “middle tier” do not have to follow regulatory processes for requirements and milestone reviews. That can shave years off a program schedule. In return, the prototype must be completed — or system fully fielded — within five years. As of March 2019, there were 35 middle tier programs. The term “middle tier” is perhaps misleading considering nearly half of them exceed the cost thresholds for major weapon systems — roughly $200 million for prototyping or $1 billion for fielding. Many questions remained unanswered until the new policy. How big was a middle tier? What documentation does it require? What is the role of oversight and USD(A&S)? Authority For several years, acquisition authority had been delegated down to the services. While the services only managed 48 percent of major programs in 2014, the figure grew to 90 percent in 2019. DoDI 5000.80 reverses the trend. While the services can approve MTA for non-major programs, only USD(A&S) may approve major programs. Moreover, major programs have far more entrance documentation than non-majors, including approved requirements, an acquisition strategy and a cost estimate. The services may avoid some documentation by disaggregating major systems into multiple MTA programs. For example, two of the Navy's non-major programs are components to Standard Missile-6 Block 1B. The same is true of the Air Force's Airborne Warning and Control System. USD(A&S), however, can still disapprove any MTA program, whether major or non-major. With advisers from all around the Office of the Secretary of Defense, there will be will numerous potential veto points. Each official may extract concessions from MTA programs managed by the services. Even though 31 out of 35 MTA programs are rapid prototyping efforts, the undersecretary for research and engineering, or USD(R&E), has been relegated to a secondary position. All MTA authority rests with USD(A&S). Almost as an affront to USD(R&E), he was given control over a rapid prototyping fund that Congress stopped funding. The outcome reflects a broader weakening of USD(R&E). Congress has reacted negatively to the undersecretary's effort to move fast and reallocate funds to higher value uses. USD(R&E) may lose control of the Missile Defense Agency to USD(A&S). Documentation While MTA exempts programs from traditional requirements and milestone processes, documentation abounds. Each service must create its own requirements process with approval in six months. Joint service requirements are discouraged from using MTA pathways. MTA requirements, however, must still meet the needs determined by four-star generals in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and combatant commands. This may in effect bring the same approvals from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System process back into MTA. Many of the DoDI 5000.02 processes also apply. Still required are system analyses, sustainment plans, test strategies, cybersecurity, risk assessments, cost estimates and more. Contractors performing on MTA programs must still report cost data. No exemption was made for earned value management systems. Sidestepping many contract regulations — for example, with other transactions authorities — remains a separate process. Most importantly, Congress requires detailed justification in the budget for every MTA program. That means the services must start justifying MTAs at least two years in advance of funding receipt. Many of today's MTA programs spun off existing, budgeted line items. New programs may find a hard time finding funds. The present situation is reminiscent of the time David Packard attempted rapid acquisition between 1969 and 1971. A couple years later, new layers of bureaucracy descended. Similarly, MTA has built within it the seeds of another slow-paced bureaucratic order. Adm. Hyman Rickover's skepticism to the reforms nearly 50 years ago rings true today. As Rickover wrote to Packard in a memo: “My experience has been that when a directive such as the one you propose is issued, most of the effort goes into the creation of additional management systems and reports and the preparation of large numbers of documents within the Service to ‘prove' that the requirements of the directive are being met in order to justify funds for the Service. “So long as the bureaucracy consists of a large number of people who consider that they are properly performing their function of approval and evaluation by requiring detailed information to be submitted through the bureaucracy, program managers will never be found who can in fact effectively manage their jobs.” https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/01/02/too-many-cooks-in-the-dod-new-policy-may-suppress-rapid-acquisition/