"L'achat des F18 et Eurofighter par l'Allemagne est plutôt une bonne chose pour la France" (Eric Trappier)

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  30 juillet 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Contracts for July 29, 2021

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  7 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Pentagon reports boost in predatory foreign investment to US tech firms amid pandemic

  Valerie Insinna Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the Defense Department has seen a small increase in predatory foreign investment in U.S. companies, such as small drone manufacturers, the Pentagon's head of industrial policy said Wednesday. “In general terms, there has been of an uptick, but it's always been pretty high,” Jennifer Santos, deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy, said Wednesday during the C4ISRNET Conference. The Pentagon has become increasingly concerned about what it calls “adversarial capital” — a tactic whereby foreign nations, particularly China, make investments into U.S. technology startups that are part of the defense market. Once those countries make their investments, they could own or have access to unique American technologies, while the Pentagon loses its own access due to security considerations. With the U.S. economy increasingly fragile due to COVID-19, the Defense Department must be vigilant about potential risk to American companies, Santos said. “We simply cannot afford during this period of economic uncertainty the loss of American know-how in critical tech.” But Santos stopped short of saying the uptick in predatory foreign investment was a direct result of the pandemic, instead noting that the Defense Department recently expanded its existing tools to monitor adversarial capital. One tool, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, allows the government to block a foreign investment attempt on national security grounds. The jurisdiction of that tool increased in February, so the Defense Department has seen a boost in the number of cases it is tracking, Santos said. “Twenty percent of our [gross domestic product] is foreign direct investment, which is fantastic. But there's some areas where there are threats associated with some of that capital, and we want to protect those industry partners,” she said. Over the past eight weeks, the Pentagon hosted 25 teleconferences with industry to help guide companies that might be experiencing financial distress caused by COVID-19. Some of that outreach, such as a webinar held last week, centered around avoiding adversarial capital, Santos said. While her comments on adversarial capital did not center specifically on the small drone industry, she noted that the pandemic has made supply chain vulnerabilities in that sector more apparent to the department. “The market for UAS [unmanned aerial systems] in the United States is dominated primarily by foreign companies, especially Chinese companies,” she said, adding that Chinese firms hold 97 percent of the small UAS market, with about 75 percent of sales in the U.S. commercial market coming from Chinese drone maker DJI. “U.S. firms have struggled to compete in this drone area,” she said. "Even commercial drones manufactured in the United States often use components made in China. We don't know what the exact effects of COVID will be on this small UAS sector, but I know one thing: We will emerge from this stronger.” Brent Ingraham, the Pentagon's unmanned systems technical director, pointed to the American Drone Security Act currently under proposal by Congress. If passed, the legislation would apply the same security restrictions on UAS used by the Defense Department to the rest of the federal government, which would secure industrial opportunities for U.S. vendors that have a trusted supply chain, he said. As the Defense Department looks to expand its base of small UAS manufacturers, one of the military's legacy providers offered a word of caution. "We as a community are all in favor in faster, cheaper, better, but we need to have an exercise in caution when you do that,” said Gorik Hossepian, AeroVironment's vice president of UAS product line management. “Our past is full of examples of when we do those kinds of things, we tend to sacrifice one versus the other. We need to not lose sight that what we need is a balance.” "At the end of the day, the war fighter at the edge of the battlefield ... needs to have a product that is trusted,” he said. “Members of some of our community, to some extent, have that as some of our DNA — the DNA of working with the end user to solve those problems.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/05/06/pentagon-reports-boost-in-predatory-foreign-investment-to-us-tech-firms-since-pandemic-start/

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  8 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  COVID-19: Help Fleets Of Innovators Make 3D Printed Face Masks

  By JOHN QUIGG Next month we'll celebrate the 80th anniversary of Operation Dynamo, better known as “the Miracle of Dunkirk.” In the course of three days, hundreds of British civilian boats crossed the Channel to save their Army from starvation and the advancing Germans. Why? The Royal Navy did not have enough ships to transport the troops nor the right type of boats to operate in the shallows of the French coast. The key to the operation's success was governmental agility, masterful logistics, and realizing that the only solution to saving the entire force was a never-seen-before public/private partnership and lightning fast decision making (along with favorable weather and air cover). Our first responders and medical heroes are trapped on a figurative beach as the crest of the COVID-19 epidemic looms with too few supplies, thus facing illness and possible death. Supply chains ravaged by years of creating just-in-time global networks are not up to this challenge. The “Little Ships” in our modern story to the rescue will be 3-D printers. The air cover will be shielding from tort lawyers, and the civilian volunteers the remarkable talents comprising the nation's maker community. I confess that this is personal — my youngest brother is an EMT in suburban Atlanta. He tells me that his coworkers and emergency room staff are already down to handmade masks and are begging for supplies. The need is clear – top priority must be placed on vetting and publishing designs, finding out where the nation's supply chain can't satisfy projected demand, and the command and control required to match makers with the needs of the nation's first responders. For example, the Seattle Children's hospital was running critically low on masks several weeks ago and was desperate for help. Enter Rory Larson, a talented CAD designer who spent two caffeine fueled days and nights designing and testing a printable version of an N-95 mask with replaceable filters which were enthusiastically embraced by the hospital staff. His father, Garr, connected him with Jonathan Roberts, a veteran of Microsoft and Innovation Partners. Roberts helped scale the availability of the design, enlisted production partners and reached out to people who could help them leap over the many administrative hurdles — and set up a website. Now anyone with a printer can download the design and print their own masks. The military is already headed down this path. US Forces Korea tasked their science advisors from the Office of Naval Research and Army Futures Command to start an internal effort given the shortages of masks and other supplies in Asia. They designed, produced and disseminated a face shield for gate guards and are exploring the techniques for other medical shortfalls however the design and approval process is still problematic. One of their largest challenges is procedural – sharing military-manufactured equipment falls foul of all sorts of regulations and they will need process changes at a pace no earthly acquisition official could normally achieve. This problem is replicated across the defense enterprise as installations around the world wrestle with the red tape surrounding helping their neighbors and host countries. To help, the Department of Defense Manufacturing Innovation Institute for additive manufacturing (www.AmericaMakes.us) initiated a fast track certification process to breach the monolith of government approvals. ONR Global's Mark Buffum tells me that they are working with ONR/USFK legal to check that the validation coordination between the FDA and AmericaMakes will allow designs that have passed Clinical Review to be moved to production at DOD installations globally. The end state for now is a tested design placed on the NIH's 3D design exchange that is approved for manufacture. The government is working on the dispensations needed to take a mask printed on a Navy ship in Korea, an Army logistics train in Iraq, or an Air Force base in Colorado. Similarly, 3D makers near Active Duty/Reserve/National Guard installations should be integrated into their supply chain. If worst case scenarios come to pass and civilian logistics fail then we have an exercised plan to connect military supply and transport capabilities to the manufacturers and vice versa. Much as the Royal Navy executed the plan to flag and man the Little Ships during Dunkirk, we must figure out how the military can leverage local, regional, and national maker capabilities to get those printers humming. A case in point is the Belgian chemical company Solvay, partnering with Boeing, to leverage its extensive expertise in thermoplastic materials—and especially medical-grade plastics—to support various efforts aimed at fighting the pandemic. Their support centers located around the world are ready to support material selection, manufacturing support, relevant testing and regulatory certifications. They are offering to put makers in touch with their extensive network of distributors, molders and machine shops.Additionally, Boeing is working with Solvay to design/produce more durable face shields for healthcare workers. Boeing announced last week it would be shifting some of its manufacturing capacity, including its in-house 3D printing, to produce thousands of face shields per week for medical workers. At the local level, community leaders like Todd Spain are talking to their local hospital to determine shortfalls, and are working with a regional maker group, Colorado Makers Unite (MakerUnite.co) to produce their own masks and ventilator adapters to protect the staff and enable equipment sharing. They are prepared to make anything their first responders need. One of the biggest roadblocks is the administrative state: the only readily available plastic is not approved for medical use, the approved plastic is on a 3-week wait list and costs 10X more, shipping of vital feed-stock and machines is not on the prioritized list, and the usual hurdles of liability, etc.... One can only imagine the potential legal hurdles to using something that hasn't been tested in countless lawsuits unless a company gets regulatory relief. A partnership with the local National Guard unit or military installation could bring their concerns to light and allow the Defense Department to take on the job of connecting the capability to the population and while providing emergency protection from the trial bar. We must move heaven and earth to give the brave people trying to build an ad hoc network of 3-D mask makers our best and ensure that the “small ships” of the 3-D printing world and its makers are allowed to give it their best shot. I can only hope that history looks back at this time with wonder that we were able to pull it off. John Quigg, a retired Army officer, was one of America's first cyber warriors. He is a senior advisor to Spurrier Capital Partners, a New York investment bank, and a senior staffer at Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/covid-19-help-fleets-of-innovators-make-3d-printed-face-masks