L3Harris awarded $145 Million contract to modernize US Space domain awareness capabilities

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  28 novembre 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Canada has plenty to gain from upping its defence spending

  COLIN ROBERTSON Colin Robertson, vice-president and fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute If we thought passage of the new North American free-trade agreement would get Donald Trump off our back, think again. We've been served notice that Canada has got to pony up more on defence and security. We should do so, not because the U.S. wants us to, but because it serves Canadian interests, especially in exercising Canadian sovereignty in our North. The Trump administration is close to a deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on congressional ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade. The possible changes to the agreement signed last November will not trouble Canada. Tougher labour and environmental standards enforcement – “trust but verify” – are aimed at Mexico. Another change would shorten the patent-protection period for new pharmaceutical drugs. The USMCA could pass through Congress before Christmas. But even if the deal gets stuck, Mr. Trump's threat to rescind NAFTA is increasingly remote. The more Americans learned about NAFTA, the more they liked it, especially in the farming community and Mr. Trump needs their votes if he is to be re-elected next year. A new trade agreement does not mean complacency about trade. We're still paying tariffs on our lumber exports. Protectionism, especially in procurement, is endemic. We need to sustain the Team Canada effort with Congress, governors and state legislators. Rather than blame Ottawa, provincial premiers need to remind their neighbouring states why trade and investment is mutually beneficial. Premiers and governors should strive for a reciprocity agreement on procurement. But if our trading relationship is shifting out of crisis mode, defence and security will take that space. Continued free riding by the allies, as the Trump administration sees it, is not an option. With the end of the Cold War, Canada took the peace dividend and then coasted in our defence spending. But today's world is meaner with a rising China and revanchist Russia. The Trudeau Government thought its defence policy – titled Strong, Secure, Engaged – and its promise of new warships, fighter jets and active missions in Latvia and Iraq, would suffice. Wrong. For Mr. Trump, the bottom line is the 2014 commitment by the governments of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member-countries to achieve spending of 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by 2024. Canadian spending, according to NATO, is currently 1.27 per cent. It is scheduled to rise to around 1.4 per cent by 2026-27, well short of the allies' pledge. If we are going to spend more, then let's invest in northern sovereignty. Brian Mulroney persuaded Ronald Reagan to tacitly acknowledge Canadian sovereignty through Arctic waters. Since then, the Americans have pressed us to exercise that sovereignty. Stephen Harper instituted Operation Nanook and he made annual summer visits to the North. But the promised Arctic base in Nanisivik, Nunavut, has never materialized. The promised icebreakers are still to be built. In contrast to the American, Chinese and Russian policies, Canada's long-delayed Arctic policy framework, finally released in September, is sophomoric. It ignores both defence and security. The Americans want us to collaborate in updating the postwar North Warning System. Jointly managed as part of our NORAD alliance, its replacement will be expensive. But it's also an opportunity for us to lead in the development of innovative space and underwater applications that would buttress our Arctic sovereignty. We can take inspiration from HMCS Harry DeWolf, the first of our offshore patrol ships. The largest Canadian warship built in 50 years, it is now afloat in Halifax harbour. We are also an Indo-Pacific country. The almost year-old Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) gives us first-mover advantage over the U.S. in places such as Japan. But our Pacific partners expect us to demonstrate greater commitment to their security. This means more navy and air reach. Is our Pacific posture adequate? Does our capability, including our bases, meet the new threat assessments? Managing the trade relationship with the Trump administration is hard. David McNaughton was the right ambassador for the Trudeau government's first term and its focus on trade. Mr. MacNaughton's outreach strategy needs to become a permanent campaign. Our next ambassador will need demonstrated security chops in addition to political savvy. Handling defence and security is going to be really hard. But as a friendly ambassador, whose country faces the same challenge, observed at the recent Halifax International Security Forum, we Canadians are going to have to toughen up. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-canada-has-plenty-to-gain-from-upping-its-defence-spending/

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  3 mai 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  Estonia has signed a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries to acquire long-range loitering munitions

  The procurement of long-range loitering munitions aims to strengthen Estonia's defenCe capability by significantly increasing its indirect fire capabilities.

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  26 mars 2020 | International, C4ISR

  BAE execs explain the thinking behind their latest acquisition

  By: Mark Pomerleau In late January, Arlington, Virginia-based BAE Systems Inc. announced two acquisitions to bolster its electronic systems sector, a move that reflected a combined investment of $2.2 billion. The purchase included $1.9 billion for Collins Aerospace's GPS receivers business and $275 million for Raytheon's tactical airborne radios. Company leaders saw an opportunity. GPS receivers could provide secure and resilient position data that would help precision-guided munitions become more accurate. Airborne tactical radios, typically installed on rotary, fixed-wing aircraft and drones, would create a new business for BAE's electronic systems sector. The properties became available because of a proposed merger between United Technologies and Raytheon, and BAE's two top executives said they see the purchase as a way to more closely hew their businesses toward the Pentagon's long-term needs. Specifically, they point to the 2018 National Defense Strategy. A closing is dependent on the Raytheon-United Technologies merger and is expected in the first half of 2020. C4ISRNET's Mark Pomerleau spoke recently with Jerry DeMuro, BAE's chief executive, and Tom Arseneault, company president and chief operating officer, about the thinking behind the investment. C4ISRNET: How do you see these acquisitions fitting into BAE overall? What opportunities could this create? Jerry DeMuro: As we look at the National Defense Strategy and we look at the service modernization priorities and where we think customers are headed in our core markets, we think that these two businesses are very relevant. We have capabilities in those areas that these properties complement very well. Both of them happen to be very mature, well-established, strong technology-based businesses that are on the cusp of significant growth because of the relevance to the service priorities. [It's a] unique opportunity [that] only came about because of the UTC-Raytheon merger. We were very pleased to see it [and we were] opportunistic in going after them. Tom Arseneault: Precision and autonomy are two key things that run through the Defense Strategy and priorities in the services and the technologies that [Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering] Dr. [Mike] Griffin talks about. With autonomy, you need to know where you are. Position data is important. Secure, resilient position information. Military GPS is a critical underlying technology. With Collins, you've got a company that's been doing this for 40-plus years and a million and a half of these devices are out there going to M-Code [a new military signal used for GPS]. Autonomy, ditto. You need to know where you are ... certainly with precision-guided munitions. You're also relying on secure communications. You need to know where you are, and you need to be able to communicate with the systems around you. C4ISRNET: How do you see these new businesses complementing what you already have and allowing you to pursue contracts that you couldn't before? DeMuro: We've been working for a number of years now — most people don't know — but we have a precision-guided munitions business. We provide the seekers for the THAAD [Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense]; we provide all the smarts in terms of combining EW, precision locating and navigating in the LRASM [Long-Range Anti- Ship] missile. We just won the [Precision Guidance Kit] contract — precision-guided mortar. We are also the provider of the high-velocity projectile and putting these kinds of capabilities in there. It's a great fit for that business, but also in many of the other things that we produce. Combining this kind of capability gives us a whole new market that we can bring their capabilities to. And the same thing applies in the radio world, software-defined radios. We can take some of those waveforms and incorporate them in devices that we have today in our C4ISR portfolio. It's not about cost synergies; it's really about market synergies in those places where we're headed already. C4ISRNET: Obviously, some of those capabilities, such as THAAD, are dependent on a lot of disparate systems. Does this acquisition help BAE become more interoperable with a lot of other systems? DeMuro: Think about a product that we make today, the Link 16 [military tactical data link network]. Arseneault: We own the Link 16 waveform as part of the fundamental portfolio of our current communications business. Now we'll be able to add that family of waveforms, we'll be able to use it on these acquired radios and then vice versa. There's a number of waveforms — software-defined radio waveforms — that come with this portfolio, that we will be able to then market out through our existing communication devices. THAAD was more on the precision side. While THAAD, itself, is a seeker of a type, I think this is more applicable to some of the new next-generation seekers that will want to be multimodal. So it's [electro-optical/infrared], it'll be radio frequency and GPS. [We want to] have as many opportunities to get a really good sense of what's driving precision. With a million-and-a-half devices out there, there is a whole wide set of customers that these will continue to supply. But this will also be a good opportunity for us to incorporate that technology into some of our roadmaps. SECTR [Seeker Cost Transformation] is a DARPA program, a next-generation multimodal seeker. So, GPS will be a piece of that. The idea being where seekers are more modular and so you can use a seeker on multiple weapon types and reduce costs and have greater efficiency. C4ISRNET: Are you thinking of a card you can plug in? Or more software adaptable? DeMuro: Chip sets, right. Combined functionality ... because it's all about size, weight and power and cost as you get out there. But the presence of these two product families, and what has to happen to upgrade them in and of itself, supports the business case. We didn't really include a lot of synergies in the business case, but we see some real opportunity there. C4ISRNET: Can you expand on the autonomy side? I see how the GPS, and linking GPS to radio, can lead to greater precision, but where do you see opportunities on the autonomy side? Arseneault: Autonomous systems need to know where they are. Secure, resilient position information is critical ... DeMuro: Anti-spoofing. Arseneault: These sorts of devices are going to find their way into many if not all of the modern autonomous systems. Likewise, you need to be able to communicate with things around you. As we're headed to swarms, they want to know where they are. They want to know where all of their surrounding platforms are. Manned-unmanned teaming is another version of autonomy where you want to know, and you want to be able to communicate with your wingman as they call it. DeMuro: If you think about anti-access/aerial denial, doing all of this in a contested environment — it's got to be secure. M-Code is absolutely essential to that. These waveforms, low probability of intercept, low probability of detection and also software-defined radios are very agile in moving around to enable that in contested environments. Both of these properties help accomplish that. C4ISRNET: You mentioned the National Defense Strategy; what role do these non-kinetic capabilities play in future conflicts? DeMuro: They're foundational. If you don't have them, you can't operate in the future environment. https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/03/23/bae-execs-explain-the-thinking-behind-their-latest-acquisition