Planes, tanks and helicopters: Equipment shortfalls are hurting the Guard’s readiness, leaders say

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

  In chaos, there’s opportunity … and that’s bad news

  James Yeager This year is only four months old and it's already one for the history books — and not in a great way. As the defense community works in tandem with the broader government to keep citizens safe and healthy, cybersecurity threats are only becoming more aggressive. If we've learned anything about cyber adversaries, it's that they will seize on any opportunity to gain an advantage in targeting their victims, including exploiting the fears of the public during a global pandemic. As COVID-19 has moved from the East to the West, adversaries have followed suit, using lures that play into people's desperation for information on the disease. In “The Art of War,” Sun-Tzu said“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” The COVID-19 virus is infecting more than just people. The pandemic has created chaos and handed adversaries an irresistible opportunity to exploit the situation to gain entry into our networks, whether that's to steal intellectual property, disrupt operations, or gain a strategic advantage if they are a nation-state actor. Already, we are seeing an increase in phishing campaigns using COVID-19 as a hook to launch malware in emails disguised as alerts. Particularly vulnerable are the thousands of remote workers — government employees and contractors alike — who are using their own home networks, which are largely less sophisticated and secure than their work environments. The stakes are high, particularly for those in defense jobs, where an errant click can have devastating consequences. Coincidently, 2020 is the year when the DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification has grown teeth and will force more than 300,000 defense contractors to up their cybersecurity game or face bottom-line consequences. Now is not the time to make mistakes. In CrowdStrike's recent Global Threat Report, we captured and analyzed real-world inputs from observed trends in cyber-attacks on commercial and government enterprises. The following are some of the notable attack vectors and trends we observed across the public sector during 2019: An escalation in ransom demands, including ransomware attacks on defense supply chain providers, schools and local municipalities. Surpassing the volume of malware attacks are malware-free attacks that use code which executes from memory or stolen login credentials. Continued state-sponsored targeted intrusions aimed at the government and defense sector. In fact, we have witnessed adversaries exploiting fear around COVID-19 to socially engineer their way to user credentials and sensitive data. In the months ahead, I contend we'll see many more of the same tactics from the same bad actors: Russia, China and newer players on the block, such as Iran, which has leveraged U.S. social media platforms to develop information operations campaigns. Amidst massive change, periodic chaos and long-term disruption, the defense community — government and industry — must put a premium on speed. Speed to detect. Speed to investigate. Speed to mitigate. We recommend that agencies and companies implement cybersecurity practices that follow the 1-10-60 Rule: detect intrusions within 1 minute; investigate and gain a comprehensive understanding of the attack within 10 minutes; and contain and remove the threatening adversary from the network within 60 minutes. This benchmark will limit the damage caused by inevitable attacks. Yes, inevitable. Cyberattacks are a constant and while building a bigger, wider and thicker wall may help keep bad actors out, they are persistent and determined enough to eventually get in, and when they do, you're on the clock. This year will only get worse as the impacts of COVID-19 will be deep, damaging and long-lasting. We're all faced with loss and uncertainty as we attempt to recover from the global pandemic. For the defense community, there is no time to recover and regroup. You are already on the clock, as those who wish to do our nation harm are already hard at work. https://www.fifthdomain.com/opinion/2020/04/24/in-chaos-theres-opportunity-and-thats-bad-news/

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  28 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Japan at a crossroads: What’s keeping its defense industry from growing?

  By: Mike Yeo MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan is facing what appears to be an increasingly difficult choice, between a desire to keep its domestic defense industry in business, and getting more value for its defense spending while introducing much-needed capabilities by buying foreign off-the-shelf systems. This conundrum comes as the U.S. ally continues to warily eye nearby China's military buildup and North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. Japan's defense industry came to being soon after the end of World War II, as it attempted to rebuild its shattered economy. According to Corey Wallace, a postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate School of East Asia Studies at Germany's Freie Universität Berlin, Japan adopted what was known as kokusanka — a conscious and systematic attempt to domesticate technologies that Japan would need for an autonomous defense-industrial base. Through licensing agreements and other methods of technology transfer and acquisition, the Japanese government in the post-war period identified the most important platforms it thought it needed and tried to domesticate them. Today, Japan's local industry produces all of the country's warships and submarines, albeit fitted with important systems like the Aegis combat system, radars and missiles from the United States as well as most of its land warfare systems. Despite these capabilities, there are a number of hurdles for Japan's defense-industrial base. Chief among these is the relatively small, domestic market that drives up unit prices as well as Japan's own set of unique requirements that sometimes create a bespoke product difficult to market overseas. The small, domestic market has also meant there is little competition. And when the price of a product is determined by what Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun calls the “cost calculation method,” in which a contractor's profit is added to the prime cost that also includes that of materials and labor, it can lead to “an open invitation for soaring costs as contractors have few incentives for suppressing the prime cost.” An example of this is the C-2 airlifter. Since 2016, Japan has ordered a total of seven C-2 aircraft out of an eventual requirement of 40. This slow production rate means the C-2 costs about $201 million per aircraft, according to the latest budget request from Japan's Defense Ministry, which has asked to procure two aircraft in the next fiscal year. This, coupled with the need to focus on the expensive missile defense systems against the North Korean ballistic missile threat, has put Japan's defense budget under strain, to the point that earlier this year Japan's Finance Ministry reportedly took the unorthodox step of urging its defense counterpart to consider the option of acquiring a cheaper airlifter instead of the C-2. Given recent developments in the geopolitical and domestic industrial sphere, Japan has turned to what Wallace calls “selectivity and concentration” — the country accepts that its defense-industrial base cannot achieve absolute autonomy, particularly in areas like fighter jets and ballistic missile defense, where international cooperation is necessary in the development process. Foreign partnerships Cooperation with a foreign partner appears to be the way Japan is proceeding with two key aerospace programs: the development of a new air-to-air missile and its next fighter jet. Japan is developing the Joint New Air-to-Air Missile, which will marry the active electronically scanned array radar seeker of Japan's AAM-4B air-to-air missile with the European MBDA Meteor ramjet-powered beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. The missile is intended for use by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, but the program appears to be on a long timeline. Reports indicate no technical work has been done, and the first prototypes are planned to be ready for test shots after April 2022, with a decision following on whether to go ahead with the program. With regard to its next-generation fighter jets, following a request for information from several overseas manufacturers earlier this year, Japan is reportedly studying the feasibility of a joint development program. Local media has tracked the story, although official information is scant pending the release of Japan's five-year midterm defense plan later this year. It's widely expected Japan will link up with a foreign partner for the development, however some are holding out hope for a wholly domestic fighter program despite the risks and higher costs involved. Japan has not locally built fighters since Mitsubishi F-2s rolled off the line in 2011. However, Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer who is now a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, says Japan should consider spending more on defense, telling Defense News earlier this year that figure should be about $5 billion to $7 billion more per year for the next five years. As the world's third-largest economy, he said, “Japan has all the money it needs to properly fund defense. And the amounts required are about the same as the waste and/or fraud in a couple of public works projects, but it chooses not to do so.” Japan's latest defense budget request for the next fiscal year is for $48 billion, which is a 2.1 percent increase from the previous year's allocated budget and represents a new record-high defense budget for the country. The amount is roughly 1 percent of its gross domestic product, which, although not official policy, has essentially become a ceiling for its defense budget. Notably, Japan is carrying out final assembly on most of its 42 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters, which will eventually replace the upgraded F-4EJ Kai Phantom II aircraft currently in service. The government reportedly wants to buy more F-35s, with some suggesting it's looking at the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B to equip the flight decks of its helicopter destroyers of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Export challenges Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan has ended its ban on defense exports, which his government sees as a way to boost Japan's economy. Japanese defense companies have and continue to pursue several international acquisition programs ranging from Australia's requirement for submarines to France and Germany's requirement for new maritime patrol aircraft. However, these export opportunities have presented their own set of challenges, not least the fact that Japanese companies lack the savvy of their more-experienced competitors at the higher end of the global arms market, and that they're being priced out by cheaper alternatives at the lower end. And despite their undoubted quality, Japanese offerings are sometimes hindered in the export market by the domestic market's bespoke requirements. In the case of the C-2, there were no requirements for the aircraft to conduct operations on short or poorly prepared airstrips, and this is likely to hurt its prospects in New Zealand, which is seeking airlifters for both strategic and tactical airlift missions. In this case, the ability to operate from poorly prepared runways is important given the Royal New Zealand Air Force conducts regular operations to South Pacific islands, particularly on humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions in the aftermath of natural disasters. Newsham noted that despite the recent loosening of restrictions, there has not been significant effort by Japanese companies to dive into the international defense market, as most major Japanese companies don't consider the defense business to be profitable. Other sources in Japan who are familiar with the industry have corroborated that view in speaking to Defense News. And Newsham adds that despite being the administration that pushed for the loosening of defense export restrictions, the Abe government has not proactively supported Japanese defense companies seeking to do business overseas. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/11/26/japan-at-a-crossroads-whats-keeping-its-defense-industry-from-growing

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  14 novembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The Tech Companies That Are Eager to Sell AI to the Pentagon

  BY DAVE GERSHGORN The Pentagon's AI shopping list is similar to a Silicon Valley company's: fast data organization, predictive maintenance, and mitigation for threats. While Silicon Valley workers continue to protest their employers selling artificial intelligence products to the US military, the US military is still looking to spend money on AI. The Army Research Lab, the Project Maven team, and the USDepartment of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center will host technology companies later this month in Maryland, where the government will view private demonstrations. According to federal contracting data (free login required for the full list), large tech companies such as Intel, IBM, GE, Oracle, as well as defense company Raytheon, have expressed interest in showing off their AI for the military. Absent from the list are AI giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, though the DoD has not responded to an inquiry as to whether the available contracting data is the complete list of attending organizations. The DoD's needs aren't too different from those of a Silicon Valley tech company, though the technology is unlikely to be used in a food delivery app or search engine. The military is looking for help organizing and standardizing its data, tools to create AIalgorithms, and infrastructure to test and deploy those algorithms. Some of the military's uses are similar to commercial applications for AI, like predictive maintenance and translation, though other use cases include analyzing drone footage and “force protection,” which means mitigating potential threats to the military. Project Maven, in particular, is focused on tech that autonomously extracts information from still or moving imagery. Smaller, more specialized tech firms from outside of Silicon Valley are also vying for government contracts. Descartes Labs, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze satellite imagery, is planning to attend the industry day and give a demo. Descartes Labs' government programs director, Steven Truitt, tells Quartz the company plans to discuss a super-computing platform for the intelligence community and “defense information awareness missions.” A competitor, Orbital Insight, has also indicated interest in the event. Of the 42 businesses interested in attending the event, six are owned by veterans, according to the contracting documents. John Merrihew, VP government solutions at AI contractor Veloxiti, says his military experience puts him in a different category of tech company than Silicon Valley. “I'm an Army retiree after 24 years and a half-dozen combat tours, so I have an obligation to [provide this technology],” Merrihew told Quartz. “I'm not a guy out on the west coast who's made a lot of money like Google. All of my engineers have security clearances, so we're pretty bought in on trying to help the military in this area.” https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/11/tech-companies-are-eager-sell-ai-pentagon/152800/