19 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
By: Joe Gould
HALIFAX, Canada — A top uniformed NATO official warned Friday the European Union army concept endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be “duplicative” and “unwise.”
In an interview at the Halifax International Security Forum, UK Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, pointed to NATO's strength as a single set of forces, with a unique command and control network and planning process.
“It's not rhetoric based. It's real planning based on real data,” Peach said. “And therefore, why would you wish to duplicate or replicate the strengths of an existing strong alliance.”
The comments came after Merkel on Tuesday floated the idea of a “real, true European army,” to compliment NATO during a speech before a session of the European Parliament. Those remarks virtually echoed Macron's call a week earlier, in an interview with Europe 1.
U.S. President Donald Trump called Macron's comments “very insulting” in a spate of Twitter posts as the two held a meeting last week in Paris.
Trump himself has tested the strained bonds with some of America's closest allies by pressuring NATO allies to rely less on the U.S. and dedicate a greater percentage of their gross domestic products to defense.
On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg alluded the proposal of a European force at a NATO conference in Berlin, saying he welcomed, “increased EU efforts on defense, because I think that can actually help to strengthen NATO.”
European allied militaries can act without the U.S. so long as they use NATO command structures, Stoltenberg said.
“It will be not a wise decision by all those nations who are members of both NATO and the European Union to start to have two sets of command structures, or duplicate what NATO is doing,” Stoltenberg said.
On Friday, Peach referred to Stoltenberg's remarks, saying, “Of course, as chairman of the military committee, I agree with [Stoltenberg]. It's unwise to duplicate.”
Peach emphasized that NATO has a, “single set of forces, and in our processes, those forces are trained, and assured and certified by NATO.”
At the conference, Peach had a broader message that the alliance's 29 members member remain committed to it — and that it is adapting with the times.
“Throughout the history of the alliance there have been inevitable tussles about how to go forward,” Peach said. “But throughout as a military alliance, we have adapted our command and control structure, responded to new challenges, embraced new members and continued to adapt to new types of warfare and new threats.”
Separately, Finland and Norway intend to launch diplomatic discussions with Moscow over suspected GPS signal-jamming by Russia's military, which overlapped with NATO's Trident Juncture exercises, the largest maneuvers in the High North since the end of the Cold War.
Peach on Friday would not confirm the interference took place, but called the principle of freedom of navigation, “very, very important, both to NATO and the International community.”
“Freedom of navigation is not just freedom of navigation at sea, so we need to analyze claims with data. And anything that interrupts freedom of navigation is important to be reported," he said.
How to manage and operate within the electromagnetic spectrum are important topics that deserve more attention, he said.
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/17/nato-official-warns-eu-force-would-be-unwise/
10 octobre 2022 | International, C4ISR
Project Convergence this year will grow in scope and scale to examine more deeply how the joint force and international partners can conduct fully connected combined operations. Another new element to the U.S. Army's annual experimentation event is a “gateway” where industry can test emerging technology in a operational environment.
13 août 2020 | International, Naval
A DoD paper for Congress suggests COVID could shut down shipyards, but Navy officials and analysts say there is little risk. By PAUL MCLEARYon August 12, 2020 at 4:04 PM WASHINGTON: A top Navy official today tried to clarify a Pentagon information paper leaked last week which warned that “at least one” of the seven shipyards that churns out ships for the Navy could close unless Congress handed over billions more to the service. As part of an $11 billion package the Pentagon is requesting from Congress to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the defense industry, the Navy is requesting $4.7 billion in part to ward off the chances “at least one” of the big seven shipyards shutting down. The paper, which has been delivered to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, also warned of over 100,000 lost jobs across shipyards and factories that make aircraft and other weapons for the military. But the Navy's top acquisition executive told reporters today that the wording continued in the paper might leave too much out. “The words could be taken out of context,” James Geurts said. “There probably should be the word ‘temporarily' in there.” If a shipyard started to see a significant portion of its workforce test positive for COVID, “we might have to temporarily close down the shipyard for a period of time until we got it under control. Not that we would have to shut down a shipyard permanently.” The memo contains no such caveats, however. It flatly states a shipyard could close unless the Navy gets the funding boost. Asked where the paper came from, and who it was intended for, DoD spokesman Christopher Sherwood told me via email the department “provided informational material to our oversight committees when asked about the impacts COVID-19 has had on the Defense Industrial Base and our suppliers.” The Navy has gone to great lengths to help its shipyards weather the COVID storm, pumping $130 billion into its supplier base this year in upfront payments, spending that is 25% higher than at this point last year. But some yards have experienced pain keeping to schedule, with uncertain futures ahead as the Navy looks to change its fleet mix in the coming years to better compete with China and Russia. Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, acknowledged that all Navy shipyards “have a backlog of work, including Bath Iron Works, which was the subject of speculation about closing.” Bath, already six months behind on building seven destroyers in dock, is stumbling to the conclusion of a six-week strike by 4,300 shipbuilders which will likely make those delays even longer. Likewise, the Mississippi-based Austal is looking at the end of the road for its contract to build dozens of aluminum Littoral Combat Ships in a few years, which would likely mark the end of the Navy's interest in buying aluminum hulls. That shipyard “would be at more risk” Cancian said. Neither shipyard is any worse off than the others due to COVID-related shutdowns, however, making the Pentagon's point that yards could shut and require COVID relief funds to keep going, an argument that finds few adherents. There's little doubt COVID is slowing down both ship construction and repair, “but that doesn't mean the Navy doesn't need the ships anymore,” said Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute. “It just means everything takes longer, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the shipyards are going to close.” Clark noted that while Bath is in a bad spot with delays to its destroyer work that will be compounded by the strike, the Navy still needs it to build destroyers in the future, since relying on Huntington Ingalls as the nation's only shipyard that can build the ships is too risky. Add to that the likelihood that the Navy will move toward buying more numerous small cruisers, unmanned ships, and smaller platforms for Marines and away from small numbers of large destroyers and amphibious ships in the future, means there will be more contracts, and work to go around later this decade. The service is still on track to deliver its much-delayed 30 year shipbuilding plan and force structure assessment this fall, in which several options like a new class of destroyers, a new class of smaller frigates, and smaller hospital ships will all likely find their way into the plans. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/08/shipyards-not-at-risk-despite-dod-warning-it-needs-money-to-save-them/
1 février 2022 | International, C4ISR
The new machine learning system developed by Raytheon BBN Technologies in partnership with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity allows English-speaking users to search foreign documents and speech without knowing the language.