26 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — Less than a day after the General Services Administration opened the doors for the landing team from the Biden-Harris campaign to arrive at the Pentagon, members have already had two conversations with current defense officials, with more to come.
But while the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 lays out clear directives on how one administration helps usher in the next — it literally comes with a handbook on best practices — this transition, like so much else in 2020, may require some flexibility thanks to COVID-19.
The GSA's move — which came after growing criticisms from Democrats who felt the agency was slow-rolling the start of the transition for political purposes — freed up funds, office space and, critically for the Pentagon transition, allowed the sharing of sensitive information with the incoming team.
However, the transition is kicking off just as the Pentagon upped its level of COVID preparedness. As a result, maximum occupancy has dropped to 40 percent, with extra temperature checks.
According to Washington Headquarters Services Director Thomas Muir, the agency transition director, that won't stop the transition, but it may require the team to rely more on video teleconferencing than previous groups.
The incoming team “is willing and certainly able to abide by the COVID restrictions here in the Pentagon. They agreed with the protection measures we're doing for our families, our employees, ourselves, our colleagues, our comrades here in the Pentagon.” Muir said at a press conference Tuesday, adding that “Some will work in the building, some will be virtual.”
Kash Patel, the newly installed chief of staff for newly installed Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, will be leading the transition for the current administration. But Muir will manage the day-to-day work, according to chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman.
“I spoke with the chief of staff today, and he is assured me that Tom here is the lead on this and that he is going to be working with Tom, and Tom is going to be the one working with the team today,” Hoffman said, adding that Patel's role is mainly “to be the touch point for the secretary, to ensure the secretary has insight into what's going on and to make sure the transition is successful.”
Patel also reached out to transition lead Kathleen Hicks in order to share his contact information in case she had any questions.
Muir said his team has been preparing for six months in case a transition was needed, and believes the current set up will allow the Biden-Harris team to work as safely as possible.
Included in that setup: office space at the Pentagon that allows for social distancing, and which comes equipped with both secure and unsecure VTC capabilities. With the GSA certification, the FBI and Department of Justice can begin giving security clearances to the transition team, allowing access to classified information needed to give an up-to-date situation report to the president-elect and his advisers.
Informing the transition is a group of “transition assistance coordinators,” largely general officers or senior executive service civilians, drawn from key offices around the military agencies, combatant commands, joint staff and OSD. That group, which meets weekly, will provide information as needed to the transition team and help set up interviews with key officials.
Muir noted he expects daily conversations with the Biden-Harris group, adding “They're looking forward to participating in discussions in the Pentagon. I'm providing a small tour on Monday next week.”
31 décembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Military chaplains said that some Canadian Forces personnel are experiencing "lengthy commutes and a diminished work-life balance.”
11 février 2020 | International, Naval
By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is calling for a 355-ship fleet by 2030, but for fiscal 2021, shipbuilding took a big hit in the Defense Department's budget request. The Navy's FY21 budget request asked for $19.9 billion for shipbuilding; that's $4.1 billion less than enacted levels for 2020. The ask also seeks in total four fewer ships than the service requested in its 2020 budget. The hefty slice out of shipbuilding comes in the first year the Navy requested full funding for the first Columbia-class submarine, which Navy leaders have warned for years would take up an enormous portion of the shipbuilding account. The Department of the Navy's total budget request (including both base funding and overseas contingency operations funding) is $207.1 billion, approximately split $161 billion for the Navy and $46 billion for the Marine Corps. News of the cuts come a day after Defense News held an exclusive interview with Esper during which he backed a larger, 355-ship fleet, but said the Navy must refocus around smaller, lighter ships to fit within budget constraints. In total, the Navy requested two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, one Columbia-class submarine, one Virginia-class submarine, one FFG(X) future frigate, one LPD-17 amphibious transport dock, and two towing and salvage ships. The budget reflected a cut to the Virginia-class sub and FFG(X) programs, each of which were supposed to be two ships in 2021, according to last year's 30-year shipbuilding plan. Both cuts were forecast in a memo from the White House's Office of Management and Budget obtained by Defense News in December. The memo also called for cutting an Arleigh Burke destroyer, but it appears to have been restored in trade-offs. Another controversial move in the budget is the decommissioning of the first four littoral combat ships, likewise a move forecast in the OMB memo, as well as the early decommissioning of a dock landing ship. The budget also requests a $2.5 billion cut to aircraft procurement over 2020's enacted levels, requesting $17.2 billion. The budget calls for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets fighter jets, 21 F-35C jets (between the Navy and Marine Corps), and four E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. The budget also funds $160 million in shipyard upgrades, as well as research into the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform to the tune of $17 million. There is also $208 million in research and development for the DDG-1000 class, as well as $216 million for the Ford class. It also funds the procurement of two new large unmanned surface vessels. Columbia cuts? For years the Navy has warned that once the service starts buying the Columbia class, it's going to have a significant impact on everything else the Navy wants to buy. In a 2013 hearing before the House Armed Service Committee's sea power subpanel, then-Navy Director of Undersea Warfare Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge testified that failure to realign the Department of Defense's budget by even 1 percent would have a devastating impact on the Navy's shipbuilding program. "The Navy recognizes that without a supplement this is going to have a devastating impact on our other general-purpose ships and is working with the [Office of the Secretary of Defense] and with Congress to identify the funds necessary, which I mentioned earlier represent less than 1 percent of the DoD budget for a 15-year period, to provide relief and fund this separately above and beyond our traditional norms for our shipbuilding budget,” Breckenridge said. But with the rubber meeting the road, the Navy's budget instead went down by almost 20 percent. In an interview with Defense News, Esper rejected the idea of moving Columbia out of the Navy's shipbuilding account, even as he called for a much larger fleet in the future. The Navy must tighten its belt to reduce the impact on the budget, Esper said, adding that the Air Force is in a similar financial bind. “Clearly the Columbia is a big bill, but it's a big bill we have to pay,” Esper said. “That's the Navy's bill. The Air Force has a bill called bombers and ground-based strategic deterrent, so that's a bill they have to pay. “We all recognize that. Acting Secretary [of the Navy Thomas] Modly and I have spoken about this. He believes, and I think he's absolutely correct, that there are more and more efficiencies to be found within the department, the Navy and the Marine Corps, that they can free up money to invest into ships, into platforms.” It is unclear, however, where the Navy will be able to find that money. Despite years of record defense budgets under the Trump administration, the Navy — at its current size of 294 ships — is struggling to field sufficient manpower. It has also struggled with the capacity of its private shipyards and is scouring the country for new places to fix its ships. Furthermore, there are questions about whether the Navy is adequately funding its surge forces, given that the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group was stranded on a Middle East deployment for more than 10 months because the carrier relieving it had a casualty. The Navy declined to use its surge forces and instead extended Abraham Lincoln's deployment, according to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday. Esper said the Navy must look to smaller ships to grow, even though the current budget also defunds a second FFG(X) planned for this year. The FFG(X) was developed to field significant capabilities for about half the price of an Arleigh Burke so they could be bought in greater number. “We need to move away from large platforms,” Esper said. “We need to move to smaller and more ships. We need to move to optionally manned.” The idea of moving to a more lightly manned fleet with an unmanned option is currently en vogue with the Navy, and it's partly driven by the fact that 35-40 percent of the shipbuilding budget is eaten up by the Columbia class for the foreseeable future. That's something that all parties are coming around to, Esper said. “[Acting Secretary Modly] agrees, so there's no doubt he's on board," Epser said. “I know the chairman and I have had the same conversations. I've heard from members of Congress. If you go look at the think tank literature that's out there, they will tell you generally the same thing. We need to move forward in that direction.” Optionally manned vs. optionally unmanned Experts disagree over the degree to which the Navy should pursue a more lightly manned construct, and the difference appears to be philosophical: The Navy is developing an “optionally manned” ship; a recent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments study led by analyst Bryan Clark is proposing an “optionally unmanned” ship. It may seem like a small difference, but building a ship designed from the ground up to support humans is a major difference from a boat that can accommodate a few humans if the operators want to. The Navy is currently pursuing a large unmanned surface vessel, or LUSV, which is based on a commercial offshore support vessel, as part of an effort that started in the aegis of the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Special Capabilities Office and is now run by the Navy. The service describes its planned LUSV as an external missile magazine that can significantly boost the number of missile tubes fielded for significantly less money than buying Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which cost nearly $2 billion per hull. The Navy has discussed equipping the LUSV with the ability to house sailors, but the vessel would be largely designed as an unmanned platform, which would save money because there likely won't be a need for structure that supports human habitation. Sailors supporting an LUSV might use a port-a-potty and eat MREs rather than building an at-sea septic system and galley, for example. But therein lies the problem with the LUSV, according to the study by CSBA: What would the Navy do with those vessels, which it intends to buy in mass, when it's not trading missiles with China? Before the Navy gets too far down the road of fielding an optionally manned LUSV, the Navy should pony up for a more expensive but more useful corvette that, in the event of war, could be unmanned and used as the envisioned external missile magazine, the study said. “The Navy's planned LUSV would also be an approximately 2,000-ton ship based on an [offshore support vessel] design,” the study read. “In contrast to the optionally manned LUSV, the DDC [corvette] would be an optionally unmanned vessel that would normally operate with a crew. By having small crews, DDCs could contribute to peacetime training, engagement, maritime security, and deterrence.” In other words, for every scenario short of war, there would be a small warship that can execute normal naval missions — missions that ideally deter conflict from occurring in the first place. The study described a vessel that would be crewed with as many as 24 sailors, but would retain the ability to be unmanned in a crisis. “Instead of procuring an optionally manned LUSV that may be difficult to employ throughout the spectrum of competition and conflict, CSBA's plan introduces a similarly designed DDC that is designed to be, conversely, optionally unmanned and would normally operate with small crews of around 15–24 personnel,” the report read. “DDCs primarily armed with offensive weapons would serve as offboard magazines for force packages.” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/10/355-as-secdef-backs-a-bigger-fleet-dod-moves-to-cut-shipbuilding-by-20-percent/
23 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Tony Osborne Ninety percent of Britain's front-line combat aircraft are crewed, but British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says he expects a “major reversal” of these proportions by 2040. Wallace's speech at the opening of a virtual Farnborough Airshow on July 20—a message reminiscent of the late Duncan Sandys' 1957 defense white paper that declared the manned fighter redundant and guided and ballistic missiles to be the future of Britain's defense—may hint at a radically altered Royal Air Force (RAF) with heavy fielding of swarming UAVs and other additive capabilities such as “loyal wingmen” dominating fleets. But Wallace's comments also touched on the trajectory for the UK-led Tempest Future Combat Air System (FCAS), which is targeted to begin to replace the UK's fleet of Eurofighter Typhoons from 2035. Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, chief of the Air Staff, said at the RAF's annual air power conference on July 15 that he intended any FCAS to be optionally manned. Sandys' defense plan sent reverberations through the UK aerospace industry, but the vision for the Tempest calls for a similar fundamental revolution. Saab spending £50 million on UK FCAS hub Technologies are being matured to support year-end business case submission BAE Systems says its factory of the future will subsume the need for heavy, fixed and long-lead tooling—halving production time compared with previous programs. And industry is looking to new players for cybersecurity technology from the banking world and materials technology from the automotive sector, companies from outside the typical defense industrial base. Two years since the announcement of Team Tempest—the industry consortium of BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA, Rolls-Royce and the British government's Combat Air Strategy that coalesced at the 2018 Farnborough Airshow—the group is growing for the first time, with the inclusion of Bombardier UK, Collins Aerospace, GE UK, GKN, Martin-Baker, Qinetiq and Thales UK. The additions to the team come in the form of a first wave of industrial agreements, with BAE hinting that more industrial partners will follow. Of the new partners, Collins announced it had been contracted by BAE to provide advanced actuation capabilities. Sweden's Saab announced also on July 20 that it is investing £50 million ($58 million) into the creation of an FCAS center in the UK. The facility will serve as a hub for the company's participation in the FCAS and represent Stockholm's first tentative steps into the venture. Saab does not name the Tempest specifically, with CEO Micael Johansson hinting that Sweden's involvement is focused more on the technology rather than the future platform. “Saab's FCAS strategy ensures that the technology is in place to support a long-term future air capability and also to support continuous upgrades of Gripen E for decades to come,” Johansson said. While the international partnership model for the Tempest has yet to be finalized, British officials have suggested that the partnerships could be agile and scalable. In other words, allowing nations to “partner in a way that suits them,” Richard Berthon, the UK Defense Ministry's Combat Air acquisition program director, previously told Aviation Week (AW&ST July 13-26, p. 52). Johannsson said nations looking to refresh their fleets with the current generation of fighters, like the Gripen or Typhoon, should not be concerned about the push to deliver the Tempest during the 2030s. “A strong joint partnership around a future combat air system will also guarantee Gripen and Eurofighter access to new technologies,” Johannsson said. Existing customers, he said, should see the FCAS as a “seal of approval as we safeguard continuous fighter development.” Until now, the work between the national partners had been on a bilateral basis. The aim was “to define our common objectives,” BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn says. But this work has now extended into trilateral studies that include “assessing how we can start to realize the huge potential for collaboration across our three nations,” Woodburn says. Although the talks are now trilateral in nature, the UK says it is still keen to see more international partners “join our flightpath to discovery,” Wallace adds. Industry is already beginning to think trilaterally, with GKN Aerospace in Sweden confirming it will work with Rolls-Royce in the UK and Avio Aero in Italy on feasibility studies for a future fighter jet engine. GKN states it was contracted in the first quarter of 2020 by Sweden's defense materiel agency, FMV, to conduct a study in collaboration with Rolls-Royce. Few details have emerged on the 60 technology demonstration programs currently being developed and matured by Team Tempest in support of the UK Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). Michael Christie, BAE's head of Future Combat Air Systems, says work on maturing the technologies ready to support the business case submission to the British government at the end of this year has seen the partners “at least achieve or exceed” the maturity targets set, doing so “at great pace” and providing “fundamental evidence to the business case.” “Every one of these [60] projects will deliver a UK, European or world first,” says Cecil Buchanan, the RAF Rapid Capability Office's chief scientist. https://aviationweek.com/ad-week/trilateral-tempest-expands-industrial-base