L'Otan demande aux pays de l'Alliance de passer en « économie de guerre »

Sur le même sujet

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  28 septembre 2020 | International, Naval

  The Pentagon is eyeing a 500-ship Navy, documents reveal

  David B. Larter and Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's upcoming recommendation for a future Navy is expected to call for a significant increase in the number of ships, with officials discussing a fleet as large as 530 hulls, according to documents obtained by Defense News. Supporting documents to the forthcoming Future Navy Force Study reviewed by Defense News show the Navy moving towards a lighter force with many more ships but fewer aircraft carriers and large surface combatants. Instead, the fleet would include more small surface combatants, unmanned ships and submarines and an expanded logistics force. Two groups commissioned by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to design what a future Navy should look like suggested fleets of anywhere from 480 to 534 ships, when manned and unmanned platforms are accounted for — at least a 35 percent increase in fleet size from the current target of 355 manned ships by 2030. The numbers all come from an April draft of inputs to the Future Navy Force Study conducted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. While the number will likely have changed somewhat in final recommendations recently sent to Esper, the plans being discussed in April are notable as they reflect what will likely be major shift in the Navy's future — and the expectation is that a larger-than-planned Navy based on the concepts laid out in the documents will remain intact in the final analysis. Esper himself hinted at that in comments last week. In a speech delivered at the think tank Rand, the secretary called for a Navy of “over 350 ships,” specifically by increasing the Navy's shipbuilding funding account. “In short, it will be a balanced force of over 350 ships — both manned and unmanned — and will be built in a relevant time frame and budget-informed manner,” he said. Indeed, the fleet compositions presented in the inputs broadly reflect the concept of a lighter fleet more reliant on unmanned or lightly crewed vessels that Esper described to Defense News in a February interview. “One of the ways you get [to a larger fleet] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [ships], which over time can be unmanned,” Esper said then. “We can go with lightly manned ships, get them out there. You can build them so they're optionally manned and then, depending on the scenario or the technology, at some point in time they can go unmanned.” The Future Naval Force Study, overseen by Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, kicked off in January after Esper decided he wanted an outside take on the Navy's self-review of its future force structure. The OSD-led review tasked three groups to provide their version of an ideal fleet construction for the year 2045, one each by the Pentagon's Cost Assessment & Program Evaluation office, the Joint Staff, the Navy and a group from the Hudson Institute. Those fleets were war-gamed and the results were compiled into the Future Naval Force Study, which was briefed to Esper earlier this month. Ultimately, the Navy is using the feedback from the study to create their shipbuilding plan and fiscal 2022 budget request, the service said in a statement. “The Future Naval Force Study is a collaborative OSD, Joint Staff and Department of the Navy effort to assess future naval force structure options and inform future naval force structure decisions and the 30-year shipbuilding plan,” said Navy spokesman Lt. Tim Pietrack. “Although COVID-19 has delayed some portions of the study, the effort remains on track to be complete in late 2020 and provide analytic insights in time to inform Program Budget Review 22.” The April documents viewed by Defense News included notional fleets designed by CAPE and the Hudson Institute. Defense News did not have access to the Navy's inputs into the FNFS. Neither fleet reviewed by Defense News, nor the fleet developed by the Navy, will be the final composition reflected in the FNFS. The numbers, however, provide a glimpse of the radically different future fleet likely to be reflected in the final analysis expected later this year. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/09/24/the-pentagon-is-eyeing-a-500-ship-navy-documents-reveal/

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  16 mai 2024 | International, Terrestre

  OCCAR contracts MBDA to launch HYDIS² concept phase

  The European Commission selected the HYDIS² project for funding in July 2023 and the governments of France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands decided to co-fund.

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  27 avril 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Recalculating: GPS, L-band and the Pentagon’s untenable position on 5G

  Daniel S. Goldin Last week, Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, submitted the L-band Ligado spectrum proposal for approval, which, he said, will “make more efficient use of underused spectrum and promote the deployment of 5G” with “stringent conditions to prevent harmful [GPS] interference.” All five FCC commissioners voted to affirm the proposal, which was formally published in a 70-page report. L-band is a critical piece of spectrum that will help accelerate the deployment of U.S. 5G so we can compete and ultimately win against China. The Department of Defense argues that use of the L-band (as Ligado proposes) will interfere with GPS, which is essential to our military and economy. The FCC's final order concludes that the testing upon which the DoD and other opponents based their GPS interference claims was invalid. L-band opponents' interference measurement (termed 1dB C/No) is “inappropriate” and “there is no connection presented in the technical studies” that prove this measure of interference “relates to performance-based metrics” of a GPS receiver. In short, the FCC said there is no harmful GPS interference, and opponents have been using a flawed methodology and an invalid test with which the FCC “strongly disagree[s].” The FCC's recent report is not the first time the Ligado proposal was determined to cause no GPS interference. In early 2019, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration under David Redl reviewed the Ligado proposal carefully — along with the 20 government agencies that comprise the review body — and determined there is no interference. The NTIA then wrote a recommendation for approval and, before it could get to the FCC, it was blocked, eventually leading to Redl's dismissal. Further, over 5,000 hours of testing, including 1,500 hours at a high-tech U.S./DoD-sponsored and designed facility (performed by the world-recognized standard-in-testing National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists and engineers), proved no harmful GPS interference. Afterward, a DoD expert who monitored and confirmed the testing results told me “there is no interference problem, only a bureaucracy problem.” Yet DoD has continued to blitz the executive and legislative branches, galvanizing opposition with a compelling plea: Ligado hurts GPS, which endangers military operations and will harm the economy. Powerful. But factually wrong. And if wrong, why is Defense Secretary Mark Esper continuing to lobby against the FCC? The FCC is an independent agency. The Communications Act of 1934 charged the FCC with regulating communications for important reasons, including “for the purpose of national defense.” So why is the DoD employing principles of war — offensive operations to mass upon and seize the objective — toward the demise of Ligado's proposal and, perhaps implicitly, Ligado itself? Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee are weighing in on the DoD's behalf. They have been presented partial, one-sided information. Mr. Esper is a capable, reform-minded defense secretary who has brought much-needed change to the Pentagon. But he has also been advancing one-sided recommendations from his senior staff for GPS issues, some with longstanding connections to the highly influential Position, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board — which enjoys a level of influence akin to a special interest group within the U.S. government. A reading of the defense secretary's November 2019 letter to the NTIA reveals that even the DoD was never really sure about its own GPS interference claims, stating merely there are “too many unknowns,” the “risks are far too great,” testing shows “potential for” disruption and the Ligado system “could have a significant negative impact.” Yet, once the Ligado proposal was presented for approval on April 15 — with no new testing or analysis since November — DoD leadership tweeted that Ligado's signal “would needlessly imperil” DoD capabilities that use GPS, and risk “crippling our GPS networks.” If taken at face value, this means the DoD has spent over $50 billion over 45 years on a military GPS system that is so fragile it can be rendered useless by a 10-watt transmitter (a refrigerator light bulb) operating 23 MHz away. If true, this would represent one of the most egregious mismanagements of taxpayer dollars in federal procurement history. The pandemic has shown that China is coercing nations in need of medical assistance to adopt Chinese 5G infrastructure. Coercion from Chinese dominance in 5G would be worse. Agencies like the FCC and NTIA are in the national security arena now. As Attorney General William Barr stated in February, “we have to move decisively to auction the C-band and bring resolution on the L-band. Our economic future is at stake. We have to bear in mind in making these spectrum decisions that, given the narrow window we face, the risk of losing the 5G struggle with China should vastly outweigh all other considerations.” It is time for bold, forward-looking leadership and a wartime mindset. Chairman Pai deserves credit for setting this example. His courageous decision, coupled with support from the FCC commissioners and the strong statements of support from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Barr, signals a new determination to win the 5G race. L-band spectrum will enable other key elements of the U.S. 5G strategy and private sector innovation faster than any other option. It also demonstrates that a science-based approach to technology and policy is critical, otherwise we will grind to a near halt on every major decision — like this one — to China's benefit. America is truly “exceptional,” and the envy of every political system the world over, because our system is anchored on the rule of law and institutions that allow stakeholders' competing interests to be adjudicated. All parties have had many years to make their cases. The FCC's world-class scientists and engineers have come to a conclusion. The DoD has no new information; it just does not like the result. After all the internal policy battles are fought, there is only one constituency that matters: the American people and their national and economic security, consistent with U.S. policy objectives grounded in facts. This is why we must embrace this scientifically sound and strategically wise decision by the FCC and move forward, guided by another more apt principle of war: unity of effort. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2020/04/24/recalculating-gps-l-band-and-the-pentagons-untenable-position-on-5g/