Photo feature: On board 'The Mighty Ike' with Carrier Strike Group 2 - Skies Mag

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  19 novembre 2023 | International, Naval

  NATO to buy 6 Boeing Wedgetails to update surveillance capability

  The contract with the company — one of the military organization’s biggest-ever purchases — is set to be signed next year.

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  17 décembre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  How DoD can improve its technology resilience

  Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense must bolster its resilience in mission platforms in order to stay ahead of threats, a new think tank report says. With the military's shift toward great power competition, or conflict against nation states, its systems and platforms will be under greater stress than technological inferior adversaries battled during the counterterrorism fight of the last decade-plus. Systems and networks are expected to be contested, disrupted and even destroyed, meaning officials need to build redundancy and resilience in from the start to work through such challenges. In fact, top defense officials have been warning for several years that they are engaged in conflict that is taking place below the threshold of armed conflict in which adversaries are probing networks and systems daily for espionage or disruptive purposes. “Resilience is a key challenge for combat mission systems in the defense community as a result of accumulating technical debt, outdated procurement frameworks, and a recurring failure to prioritize learning over compliance. The result is brittle technology systems and organizations strained to the point of compromising basic mission functions in the face of changing technology and evolving threats,” said a new report out today by the Atlantic Council titled “How Do You Fix a Flying Computer? Seeking Resilience in Software-Intensive Mission Systems.” “Mission resilience must be a priority area of work for the defense community. Resilience offers a critical pathway to sustain the long-term utility of software-intensive mission systems, while avoiding organizational brittleness in technology use and resulting national security risks. The United States and its allies face an unprecedented defense landscape in the 2020s and beyond.” This resilience, is built upon three pillars, the authors write: robustness, which is the ability of a system to negate the impact of disruption; responsiveness, which is the ability of a system to provide feedback and incorporate changes on a disruption, and; adaptability, which is the ability to a system to change itself to continue operating despite a disruption. Systems, the report notes, are more than just the sum of its parts — hardware and software — but rather are much broader to include people, organizational processes and technologies. To date, DoD has struggled to manage complexity and develop robust and reliable mission systems, even in a relatively benign environment, the report bluntly asserts, citing problems with the F-35′s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) as one key example. “A conflict or more contested environment would only exacerbate these issues. The F-35 is not alone in a generation of combat systems so dependent on IT and software that failures in code are as critical as a malfunctioning munition or faulty engine — other examples include Navy ships and military satellites,” the authors write. “To ensure mission systems like the F-35 remain available, capable, and lethal in conflicts to come demands the United States and its allies prioritize the resilience of these systems. Not merely security against compromise, mission resilience is the ability of a mission system to prevent, respond to, and adapt to both anticipated and unanticipated disruptions, to optimize efficacy under uncertainty, and to maximize value over the long term. Adaptability is measured by the capacity to change — not only to modify lines of software code, but to overturn and replace the entire organization and the processes by which it performs the mission, if necessary. Any aspect that an organization cannot or will not change may turn out to be the weakest link, or at least a highly reliable target for an adversary.” The report offers four principles that defense organizations can undertake to me more resilient in future conflicts against sophisticated adversaries: Embrace failure: DoD must be more willing to take risks and embrace failure to stay ahead of the curve. Organizations can adopt concepts such as chaos engineering, experimenting on a system to build confidence in its ability to withstand turbulent conditions in production, and planning for loss of confidentiality in compromised systems. Improve speed: DoD must be faster at adapting and developing, which includes improving its antiquated acquisition policies and adopt agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery. Of note, DoD has created a software acquisition pathway and is implementing agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery, though on small scales. Always be learning: Defense organizations operate in a highly contested cyber environment, the report notes, and as the department grows more complex, how it learns and adapts to rapidly evolving threats grows in importance. Thus, it must embrace experimentation and continuous learning at all levels of systems as a tool to drive improvement. Manage trade-offs and complexity: DoD should improve mission system programs' understanding of the trade-offs between near-term functionality and long-term complexity to include their impact on systems' resilience. https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/12/14/how-dod-can-improve-its-technology-resilience/

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  9 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  UK - MOD sets out vision to diversify supply base

  The Ministry of Defence has today announced plans for modernising its estate and establishing a broader and more diverse supply base. The Defence Infrastructure Organisation's (DIO) new procurement plan outlines a programme of major projects and contacts for the next five financial years. This includes work to construct new buildings, such as housing and accommodation, the refurbishment of current facilities; as well as services such as catering, waste management and cleaning. The plan also sets out ambitions to establish a broader and more diverse supply base, including doing more business with small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Currently, around 75% of spending on maintenance at defence sites goes directly or indirectly to SMEs, and further diversifying the supply base will help build resilience into projects and provide more opportunities for smaller companies to work on key defence projects. By listing all the major projects and contracts, the procurement plan will make it easier for existing and potential suppliers to plan ahead, by offering advice on bidding for this work and greater transparency on working with the MOD. These measures will help in particular small businesses, who don't always have the skills and prior experience of working with the MOD in such areas. Minister for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood said: The defence estate is where our brave armed forces live, work and train and so it's crucial we give them the best supplies and facilities possible. Working with industry is critical to delivering this, and our new Procurement Plan ensures the private sector has a head start in bidding for this crucial work. Opportunities outlined in the Procurement Plan include the £4billion Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, the Future Defence Infrastructure Services contracts - which will provide facilities management across the UK's military bases- and the £1.3bn Clyde Infrastructure Programme. The plan also details several prominent works that demonstrate DIO's key role in supporting defence throughout the UK. These include essential maintenance work worth £568 million to support nuclear infrastructure capability at HMNB Clyde, as well as a £58m investment in a modern submarine training facility at the base. Alongside this, there are plans for an £8m investment in Bovington Camp to support the AJAX armoured vehicles which will enter service in 2020. Jacqui Rock, DIO Commercial Director, said: As DIO we recognise that our current and future suppliers are key to our success. We have worked with industry to produce the Procurement Plan and we are committed to building a broader, more diverse supplier base. We believe in being as transparent as possible in our procurements and through this new approach we are encouraging new entrants, including small and medium sized enterprises, to consider the benefits and opportunities that working with DIO can deliver. The Procurement Plan will help achieve the goals set out in our first ever Commercial Strategy. This set out our vision for how we do business and how we will work effectively with our suppliers. The Procurement Plan also sets out how DIO can deliver social and economic benefits throughout its supply chain by working to contribute to the government's aim of recruiting 20,000 apprentices through construction procurement and promoting sustainability through its supply chain. By 2020, DIO has committed to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30%, a 30% reduction in domestic business flights, a 50% reduction in paper usage and reducing waste going to the landfill to less than 10%. The full DIO Procurement Plan can be found here The DIO Commercial Strategy sets the direction for future DIO Procurement Plans. The full DIO Commercial Strategy can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-sets-out-vision-to-diversify-supply-base--2