31 août 2022 | International, Naval
Austal USA to build sail-powered uncrewed ships in partnership with Saildrone
Work on yard's first Saildrone Surveyor to start this fall
25 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
Former Symantec boss takes over the Defense Innovation Unit
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — Michael Brown spent two decades running companies in Silicon Valley, eventually rising to CEO of Symantec, one of the largest software companies in the world, with annual revenues of $4 billion and more than 10,000 employees.
On Sept. 24, he starts a new job as the next leader of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit. While it comes with a much smaller budget, in the range of $40 million, it's a job Brown believes he's stepping into at a critical time.
“My fundamental view is we are in a technology race. We didn't ask to be in this, but we're in it,” Brown said in an exclusive interview with Defense News. “I'm concerned that if we don't recognize that we're in a race and take appropriate action, then we let China move forward and we don't put our best foot forward in terms of leading in these key technology areas.”
Brown spent the last two years as a White House presidential innovation fellow with the Pentagon, meaning he's not coming into the world of defense cold with the DIU job. During that period he met Raj Shah, the previous DIU leader, as well as Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who now will be Brown's boss. Brown also co-authored a Pentagon study on China's influence in the U.S. tech scene, an experience that has influenced his views as he prepares to take over DIU.
“One of the things I carry with me is I understand the motivation of companies, CEOs, investors because I've been working with these folks my whole life,” he said of his qualifications.
Created in 2015 to be the Pentagon's outreach effort to Silicon Valley, DIU — until recentlyknown as the Defense innovation Unit Experimental — has gone through several high-profile iterations. It opened offices in Austin, Texas, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, but also worked through two leaders. It went from reporting directly to the secretary of defense to the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.
The group has also faced questions about its future from skeptical members of Congress, and resistance inside the building. The hiring of Mike Madsen to handle the office's Washington operations is expected to ease those concerns, but Brown acknowledged he would be spending time in Washington every few weeks to shore up internal and external support.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Griffin wanted a leader for the agency with a large commercial background, Brown said, “because that's the community we need to access.”
Brown wants to create “the ideal exchange where we have access to all the leading technologies from whatever companies we want to work with on the supply side — and on the demand side we have the effective relationships with the Pentagon, throughout the military, so we can be select about what are the most interesting problems to work on in national security that have the greatest impact.”
The China problem
Brown's comments on China put him in line with the broader Trump administration, whose officials have repeatedly pointed to China as a competitor, and the Mattis-led Pentagon, which has warned of risk from China both as a military competitor and in influencing American supply chains.
DIU, to Brown, has a specific role to play in that race: getting the Pentagon the best commercially available technology, and hence freeing up funding to invest in the military-only capabilities, such as hypersonics, needed to check Chinese ambitions.
More nebulous but just as important for Brown is a new mission for DIU: doing outreach into the commercial tech community to explain the Pentagon's views on China, and why contributing to the departments efforts are worthwhile. Or as Brown puts it, “making sure the companies in these innovation hubs are aware of the technology race that is going on, so that they're not only viewing China as an economic opportunity but also seeing the geopolitical consequences. Being part of that debate is going to be an important role for DIU.”
Brown said some of DIU's top priorities will include human systems engineering, information technology, cyber or advanced computing, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. He is also ordering a look at the various processes DIU uses to see if areas can be sped up, and whether other transaction authorities are being used to their full potential.
He said he did not expect a significant restructuring of the office, but one priority is getting a human resources leader and new general counsel to smooth the transition of future hires. Capt. Sean Heritage, who has been acting as DIU interim head, will return to being the Navy lead for the office.
The former CEO acknowledged that his background and high-level ties to the tech community may open doors that would be otherwise be shut (Brown was reportedly forced out by Symantec's board in 2016 due to company numbers, making him the third CEO to be removed by the company in the space of four years). He also envisions working with academic institutions located near the three DIU hubs to encourage a debate on the issue.
Part of DIU's role is explaining to companies why they should support the department's efforts. Silicon Valley has a reputation as being hostile to the military — a reputation that has only increased in recent months following an employee-led pullout by Google of the department's Project Maven, an effort to incorporate AI into analyzing drone footage.
Brown, however, said those concerns are largely “overblown,” noting the office is already in discussions with well over 500 different tech firms.
“We haven't found there's a reluctance on the part of companies developing the technologies we're interested in working with the Pentagon,” he said. “They are interested in how DIU can help make that process easier for them.”
Brown thinks he is the man to make that happen.
“Contrary to what a lot of folks read or talk about with government, my experience is if you have good ideas and have persistence, you can make that happen.”
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19 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
The defense industry remains in dire straits. Congress must pass another relief package.
By: Mackenzie Eaglen House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, recently wrote in an op-ed on Defense News that Congress “cannot panic and hand out blank checks to defense contractors.” They were concerned with a “lack of detail” in the Pentagon's stimulus funding request. Pentagon officials have responded with said requested detail. It's clear the defense, shipbuilding and aerospace industrial base — an “essential” workforce as designated by the Department of Homeland Security — is indeed in need of help. These critical firms need financial support to the tune of about $11 billion to support more than 100,000 direct jobs. Nor should the military have to take it out of hide, as suggested by some. According to the Defense Department, the data from industry is showing 30-40 percent inefficiency across the defense industrial base, but certain sectors like shipbuilding are experiencing 50-60 percent inefficiency. At shipyards, for example, blue-collar worker attendance ranges from just half to 70 percent. Other short-term sectors at risk include textile manufacturers, body armor suppliers and small business electronics suppliers, who feed guidance systems and wiring harnesses in Army vehicles and aircraft. A sampling of specific reasons for inefficiency include: Confirmed cases or quarantines Government facility closure/standdown test delays Telework Closures due to travel restrictions Logistic implications caused by travel restrictions requiring commercial freight Availability of parts and supplies High absentee rates Local and state lockdowns Foreign government lockdowns Supplier shutdowns Pentagon leaders are worried about the near term, but also permanent damage. Officials are “concerned with a potential loss of critical labor skills,” such as welders. Shipbuilders are in dire straits given the “significant touch labor” required to build a ship and “greater facility impact from social distancing.” The potential shutdown of one of the “big seven” private shipyards is a real risk right now. The Virginia-class attack submarine is currently experiencing delays in its production line, as Newport News Shipbuilding has “prioritized its available workforce on supporting maintenance for in-service submarines and aircraft carriers.” If electricians, engineers and solderers shift from the Virginia assembly line elsewhere, the work is slowed and “the opportunity for the cost to come down on each successive submarine hull is diminished.” Congress has repeatedly supported this program above recent budget requests and presumably cares greatly about this unanticipated cost overrun through no fault of nor negligence by the contractor. The Air Force is experiencing major program delays due to the impact on the aerospace industrial base — both primes and suppliers. Programs impacted include the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and KC-46 tanker due to facility shutdowns in the U.S., England, Italy and Japan. These two aircraft programs will likely miss major milestones — therefore delaying the time when they become available to the war fighter. Aircraft engine-maker GE Aviation is a “fragility concern” across the armed forces. For the Air Force, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile are “being impacted by reduced workforce and facility availability.” The Small Diameter Bomb motor supplier is being pulled to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency with motors for hospital beds. Aerospace firms with commercial work are reporting problems given the massive decline in commercial demand, which affects defense. Contrary to the assertion that the Pentagon doesn't need more stimulus money to support contractors, the services are “concerned about large commercial companies, like Boeing and GE that are critical to our defense industrial base facing negative cash flow and other associated impacts from COVID-19.” Small businesses and subcontractors are particularly vulnerable as they have far less slack to respond to crises. Many live contract to contract, as indicated by a 2018 Pentagon report. According to the Defense Department, “small businesses ... have been the hit the hardest due to unfamiliarity that [the] defense industrial base is exempt from most local shelter-in-place orders.” The Pentagon's request for more stimulus money is not a case of pork for primes. This industry has “a notably high rate of subcontracted work flow and systems with high component volumes, driving job loss directly to program partners and the supply chain.” So while virtually all of the Pentagon's missiles are built by two primes, 98 percent of the subcontractors making parts for U.S. munitions are the only source for these items. If these unique businesses fail, there may not be any replacements. A study last year by George Mason University found “contractor workforce challenges have a direct impact on the government's ability to ramp up quickly.” Budget fluctuations are particularly hard on small companies that “do not have large enough portfolios to shift people between projects. The contractor workforce loses skills or move on.” These firms operate with “thin margins and low lines of credit.” The additional costs to respond to COVID-19 were not part of the original contracts the companies are currently performing, and warrant stimulus money. Hopefully, Chairman Smith and Sen. Durbin now agree. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/18/the-defense-industry-remains-in-dire-straits-congress-must-pass-another-relief-package/
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22 avril 2020 | International, Naval, C4ISR
For the Navy’s hospital ships, networking is yet another challenge
Andrew Eversden When the Navy hospital ship Comfort deployed to Haiti in 2010 following devastating earthquakes, media organizations broadcasting in the area ate up so much satellite bandwidth that the ship had to revert to paper processes and adjust its satellite communications for some ship-to-shore messaging. While the outages weren't a widespread issue, said Sean Kelley, who served as the ship's top IT officer at the time, the problem highlighted a challenge these ships face: broadband. Now, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort are deployed to Los Angeles and New York, respectively, and are in the national spotlight as symbols of the coronavirus pandemic relief effort. But security and IT experts say the ships' mission presents the Navy with distinct networking problems, from cybersecurity to network connection for patients. Onboard devices When disaster strikes, the Navy's hospital ships deploy in a matter of days, mobilizing with a crew of about 100-1,200 personnel. But the influx of staff also leads to an incursion of devices, all of which must be secure and require bandwidth. “You have a lot of different people going to a lot of different places that now have to be acclimated to this environment,” said Kelley, now executive vice president at Unissant, an IT and cybersecurity company. “So that's really one of the biggest challenges, is getting all those things turned on, all those things activated, making sure that they are all compliant with the latest patches and fixes, and making sure they're good.” This process can be a “nightmare,” said retired Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett, former deputy chief information officer of the Navy and cybersecurity division director. “The challenging part is always in the first couple days whenever this happens,” said Barrett, who oversaw communications and cyberspace for Operation Unified Response, the U.S. military's mission in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. “The team is coalescing about how they want to operate, and they're getting their feet wet, getting new accounts on networks ... [getting] their logins.” Cybersecurity aboard the ships is also complex. Both ships have 1,000 beds, 12 operating rooms, blood banks, labs, medical devices and a multitude of other “internet of things” devices connected to hospital beds. According to a 2018 survey by health care IoT security company Zingbox, each bed can have as many as 10-15 IoT devices. “They have to be cyber-ready, or the mission of the Mercy is considered [degraded],” said Dean Hullings, global defense solutions strategist at Forescout, which handles Comply to Connect — a Defense Department framework created to ensure the cybersecurity of new devices — for the USNS Mercy. Ensuring connectivity For the devices to function, they need connectivity. When the ships arrived in ports in late March, technology firm CenturyLink “donated” connectivity to the Mercy, while Verizon provided connectivity to the Comfort. Former and current Navy officials told C4ISRNET that adequate broadband is the most challenging IT consideration faced by these ships. “Obviously you're going to be transferring imagery of X-rays or things like that that are more dense and require a ... higher data rate, so that bandwidth in port is important,” Barrett said. And with the introduction of patients, bandwidth needs become more complex. “The greatest communications challenge we are going to face during this deployment is the increased need for patients to communicate off the ship during their stay,” Tom Van Leunen, a spokesman for Military Sealift Command, told C4ISRNET. “Our hospital ships are designed to support official communication for the ship's crew and embarked medical community to complete their job. Adding a capability for patients to reach loved ones increases the risk of saturating the bandwidth off the ship.” Aboard both ships, the Navy doubled the bandwidth, he said, adding that Navy personnel also set up separate networks for patients' communications. While this solves one networking problem, it can also create an increased cybersecurity risk. Securing the ships Cybersecurity on the hospital ships follows the same standard practices as the rest of the Navy fleet. Since those aboard are largely Navy medical staff and personnel, they know what activities are acceptable on the network, Barrett said. “You can't just go and plug anything into that network because of potential vulnerabilities that that system may bring that could affect not just the ship, but remember, the ship is then connected to the rest of the [Department of Defense Information Network],” Barrett said. “So risk by one is shared by all.” ForeScout's Hullings said a hospital environment “epitomizes” why the Comply to Connect program is necessary. The ship has desktops, servers, routers, printers and other networks equipment, as well as mobile devices, such as tablets, that health care providers use to track patient care. “The truly unique stuff is the mission systems of the hospital, like X-ray machines, MRI machines, the beds themselves in the post-operative recovery rooms, that are all sensors. And they are all passing data. They have to be protected,” Hullings said. A spokesperson for the Navy told C4ISRNET that the ships are prepared for the cybersecurity challenges associated with their missions, but declined to address what additional cybersecurity challenges are introduced with the addition of private citizens. “These ships have routinely deployed in humanitarian assistance missions such as Pacific Partnership (USNS Mercy) and Continuing Promise (USNS Comfort) that required them to operate in partner nation ports, with foreign national patients being brought to and from the ship,” said Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for the Navy's 10th Fleet. “In all operating locations, we take appropriate precautions to keep our networks secure, and we do not discuss specific measures in order to protect operational security.” Cybersecurity on the hospital ships follow the same protocols as any other Military Sealift Command ship, said Benham. “Protecting our networks is a continuous challenge, and the overarching concern is to ensure that the right information gets to the right place at the right time with the right level of protection,” he explained. Cybersecurity aboard the hospital ships follow similar efforts to those recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Wash your hands. “It's ‘wash your hands' with your computer, too,” Barrett said. “Do good hygiene with your computer.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2020/04/21/for-the-navys-hospital-ships-networking-is-yet-another-challenge/