Coast Guard needs help with IT infrastructure, cloud consolidation

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  31 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Pentagon seeks to classify future year defense spending plans

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has asked Congress to allow it to classify its Future Year Defense Program spending projections, new documents have revealed. The FYDP numbers, which project five years into the future, are considered essential information for the public to see where the Department of Defense expects to invest in the future, and to hold the department accountable when those spending plans change. Information on the request was published Monday by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood wrote that the proposal would “make it even harder for Congress and the public to refocus and reconstruct the defense budget.” In its request to Congress, the Pentagon wrote that an unclassified FYDP “might inadvertently reveal sensitive information,” despite the fact the numbers have been unclassified since 1989. “With the ready availability of data mining tools and techniques, and the large volume of data on the Department's operations and resources already available in the public domain, additional unclassified FYDP data, if it were released, potentially allows adversaries to derive sensitive information by compilation about the Department's weapons development, force structure, and strategic plans,” the DoD wrote. It added that there is a commercial concern with the FYDP providing too much information to industry. “The Department is also concerned about the potential harm to its interactions with commercial interests by release of FYDP information prior to the budget year. Exposing resources allocated to future acquisition plans may encourage bids and other development activities not beneficial to the Government,” the proposal read. Seamus Daniels, a budget analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a tweet that “DoD's proposal to eliminate the unclassified FYDP severely limits the public's ability to track how strategy aligns with budgets and how program plans change over time. Serious step backwards in transparency from the department.” Earlier this year, the No. 2 uniformed officer in the Pentagon railed against the department's tendency toward overclassification, calling it “unbelievably ridiculous.” The Pentagon has requested a number of legislative changes this year, in addition to the FYDP classification attempt. Among the notable requests are one that would remove the requirement for the defense secretary to “notify the Senate and House Armed Services Committees whenever the Secretary establishes or modifies an end-of-quarter strength level;” a request for the ability to add an additional 15 general officer billets in the combatant commands and three general officer billets on the Joint Staff, to be filled exclusively by reserve component officers; and a request to rename the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict as the assistant secretary of defense for “Special Operations and Irregular Warfare.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2020/03/30/pentagon-seeks-to-classify-future-year-defense-spending-plans/

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  22 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR

  To be competitive in 5G, the US must play offense, not defense

  Joel Thayer , Harold Feld , and Daniel Hoffman The Department of Defense and the Department of Transportation are far from the first to try to upend an independent agency's proceeding. However, these executive agencies have been far more aggressive than normal in that pursuit in response to the Federal Communications Commission's April 20 Ligado decision. This dispute significantly compromises the United States' leadership in global markets — by both undermining domestic initiatives and by undercutting our policy positions internationally. The recent dispute concerning Ligado pits the DoD and DOT on one side, and the Federal Communications Commission, the State Department and Attorney General Bill Barr on the other. This dispute involves the FCC's unanimous decision to grant new wireless entrant Ligado's request to modify its licenses to provide a national, low-power 5G network for Internet of Things services. The Ligado decision took nearly two decades, all told. It is not overstating to say that what should be a straightforward engineering decision has devolved into a watershed moment that, if Congress doesn't act, may prevent the U.S. from deploying 5G at a rate greater or equal to China or other international sovereigns. Worse, it will deprive Americans of competition, wireless innovation and related economic growth for years to come. IoT enabled by 5G will revolutionize everything from precision agriculture to self-driving cars. By focusing exclusively on IoT, Ligado can expedite the deployment of this technology while traditional wireless carriers focus on building out consumer-oriented 5G networks. This will accelerate deployment of 5G networks and introduce competition into the nascent IoT market. This is why Barr (whose Antitrust Division concentrates on competition) and the State Department (which wants to see the U.S. retain wireless leadership in global markets) have supported the FCC's decision. Ostensibly, the DoD and DOT say that Ligado will interfere with sensitive GPS operations. But its rationale does not survive even casual scrutiny. In recent weeks, internal emails from the DoD have surfaced showing that at least some of the DoD's own spectrum experts categorically agreed with the FCC that Ligado posed no threat, but were overruled by their superiors. The real issue is that the DoD and DOT are the largest and most powerful federal spectrum users. Any growth in 5G will require them to make further adjustments. Oddly, neither agency operates near Ligado's spectrum, and yet they seek to impede Ligado's ability to innovate in it. Put simply, Ligdao is just the unlucky party caught in the middle of their broader interagency spectrum fight. Congress made the FCC an independent, expert agency to prevent precisely this kind of situation. One of the most important reasons the FCC even exists is to set uniform rules for commercial wireless networks so that equipment can interoperate and companies can innovate, which ensures consumers ultimately reap the benefits of their products. Unfortunately, the Senate and House Armed Services committees intend to end run the agency by including provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that, in effect, prevent stakeholders that work with the Defense Department — either directly or indirectly — from using Ligado's network, which includes just about every major company in America. The U.S. squabbling with itself only yields an uncontested “win” for China. Our competitors are coordinated and not stumbling over themselves on petty spectrum disputes. They are certainly not waiting for the United States government to get its act together. To the contrary, as the House Appropriations Committee observed in its report on the FCC's budget: “The U.S. is falling behind other countries in the allocation of [5G] spectrum.” Chinese-owned companies Huawei and ZTE have already bought up significant wireless infrastructure for its 5G networks across the globe and have begun deploying IoT services in the same or similar bands the FCC authorized for Ligado. If that happens, it's China that sets the terms for 5G, which adversely affects our nation's security given China's penchant for international data aggregation. Upending the FCC would hand China a nearly insurmountable advantage in the race to 5G. Also, if Congress sides with the DoD and DOT instead of observing the FCC's 17-year-long rigorous testing and analysis, which included that of the DOT's and the Defense Department's own spectrum experts, then the FCC will be effectively paralyzed going forward. Congress needs to put a stop to these games before they do permanent damage and let the FCC do its job. Joel Thayer focuses his practice on telecommunications, regulatory and transaction matters, as well as privacy and cybersecurity issues. Harold Feld has worked in telecommunications law for more than 20 years. He is senior vice president of Public Knowledge, a 501(c) that advocates for policies to expand broadband access. Public Knowledge has provided support for Ligado several times in the FCC proceeding. Ligado sponsors its IP3 award at the $5,000 level. Daniel Hoffman worked in the CIA, where he was a three-time station chief and a senior executive clandestine services officer. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2020/07/23/to-be-competitive-in-5g-the-us-must-play-offense-not-defense/

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  6 février 2019 | International, C4ISR

  Why 5G is a big deal for militaries throughout the world

  By: William Schneider, Jr The public discussion of 5th generation (5G) mobile telephone service has been seen by many – perhaps most – in the United States as just another step in the evolution of mobile communications, a remarkable scientific and commercial development that has wrought a wide range of benefits world-wide over the preceding quarter-century. More recently, the focus has shifted to 5G as a proxy for the U.S.-China trade and technology rivalry. The Trump administration's effort to change the terms-of-trade with China has brought the subject of commercial and international trade consequences of the proliferation of advanced technologies into sharp relief. The U.S. efforts to extradite the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunication equipment developer and producer, Huawei from her detention in Canada for export control violations have added a geopolitical spin to what has become an increasingly tangled issue. These aspects of the story, while true, do not begin to describe why 5G is such a big deal. The technologies of 5G communication will create a backbone technology for high speed low latency telecommunication. It will serve as the basis for the global internet-based “Internet of Things” (IoT) with fundamental changes in how goods and services of every imaginable types (and many, perhaps most not yet imagined) can be developed, employed, supported, and replaced. The importance of new technologies is not their ability to do what existing technology can do now, only faster, better, and cheaper even though that is a likely consequence. In the case of 5G, its ultra-low latency (potentially hundreds of times faster than current 4G LTE) produced by its vast bandwidth that allows users to do things that previously could not be done by any practical application of existing technologies. The enormous scale of capital expenditure involved in rapidly bringing 5G technology to market – $325 billion by 2025 – to develop and produce the hardware and software needed to deliver early 5G capabilities is unlike any other infrastructure project. Reflecting its national commitment to 5G, nearly half of the world-wide investment in 5G development and employment will be made by China. The extraordinarily low latency of 5G will allow services such as augmented and virtual reality and an immersive and tactile internet that cannot be delivered by 4G or earlier technology. 5G technology also inverts the classic paradigm of computational scarcity at the network's edge (e.g. the mobile device) and computational abundance at the center. With computational abundance now at the network edge, the employment of computationally intense emerging technologies (e.g. AI, quantum computing and cryptography, facial recognition) can be performed by mobile devices throughout the network. 5G as part of China's belt-and-road initiative While Western governments have tended to see 5G as an important but incremental extension of existing telecommunications services, China has recognized the value of 5G technology with its belt-and-road initiative (BRI). That effort is China's $1 trillion global infrastructure project to expand its economic presence and support for its interests on a global scale. China sees it as a key step in becoming the world's leading economic power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist state. The project has several components, one of which has become known as the “digital road.” It anticipates projecting the deployment of China's 5G telecommunication infrastructure over the dozens of countries now affiliated with the initiative. The 5G telecommunications network would be integrated with another Chinese project, its Beidou (“Big Dipper”) precision navigation and timing system (now in the latter stage of fielding) to displace the U.S. Global Positioning System enabling China's telecommunications and PNT system to dominate the future IoT and other in areas affected by China's belt-and-road project. 5G as an instrument of China's international security policy China's global security ambitions overlap its economic aspirations. The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, the belt-and-road initiative and its associated activities were incorporated in the Chinese Constitution at the 19th CPC. In that context belt and road is a project of the Party, and not the State which significantly elevates its security role and importance to its national leadership. The BRI creates a global economic presence that has become a combination of commercial enablers for its “Maritime Silk Road” and forward air and naval installations for China's armed forces. These include air and naval facilities in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, Jiwani, Pakistan (~80-km west of its large commercial port at Gwadar, and a naval base in Sri Lanka (Hambantota, which China acquired in a debt-for-sovereignty swap when Sri Lanka could not service its BRI debt to China). China's switch from a regional to an aspiring global power reflect its aspirations that have shaped the CPC's rule since Mao: the deconstruction the old-world order in favor of one which gives China its rightful place at the zenith of a new international order. The incorporation of the technology 5G telecommunication and Chinese controlled PNT parallels a trend in US military practice. DoD military communications, like China's is moving to a wireless, mobile, and cloud-based IT systems built around 5G technology. China's convergence of its 5G, BRI presence (military and civil), PNT and dominant role in the BRI member states are aimed at becoming the world's leading economic and military power by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist State in 2049. 5G is both an enabler and product of China's remarkable economic growth since 1979 and is likely to become a central element of China's economic and military power for the 1st half of the 21st century. William Schneider, Jr. is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former under secretary of State and chairman of the Defense Science Board. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2019/02/05/why-5g-is-a-big-deal-for-militaries-throughout-the-world