27 octobre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
19 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
UK: Modernising Defence Programme - Update
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has provided a final update on the Modernising Defence Programme to the House of Commons.
In July, I made a statement setting out headline conclusions from six months of work on the Modernising Defence Programme (MDP). Since then, work has continued apace. Firstly, I would like to welcome the extra £1.8 billion of funding for Defence, including the additional £1 billion that was in last month's Budget.
Today, I want to provide an update on the MDP, and set out the work that will be ongoing. I have placed a full report on the MDP in the library of the House.
First, I should put the MDP into context.
The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review was the right plan for Defence at that time. The Government put the Defence budget on a firmer footing, increasing throughout the life of the Parliament. Defence is much stronger as a result of that. NATO is growing in strength and the UK is a leader. More allies are meeting the 2 per cent spending guideline, or have developed plans to do so. We are the second largest defence spender in NATO, one of only a small number of allies to spend 2 per cent of our GDP on defence, and invest 20 per cent of that in upgrading equipment.
We can be proud of what we have achieved since 2015. But we have to also be vigilant. National security challenges have become more complex, intertwined and dangerous since 2015 and these threats are moving much faster than anticipated.
Persistent, aggressive state competition now characterises the international security context. In response to the growing threats the MDP was launched in January.
And, in the last year, our Armed Forces have demonstrated their growing capability, engaged globally, and supported the prosperity of the UK. The Royal Navy has increased its mass and points of presence around the world. We have taken steps to forward base the Army, enhancing our global posture. The Royal Air Force has continued to innovate, and has celebrated a proud past its RAF100 years since its creation. Progress has also made in cyber and space, as the changing character of warfare makes both domains increasingly important. We have reinforced the UK's position as a leading voice in NATO and on European security. And, our Armed Forces have led the way for Global Britain, tackling our adversaries abroad to protect our security at home and nurturing enduring relationships with our allies and partners.
Through the work over the past year the MDP has identified three broad priorities, supported by the additional £1.8 billion invested in Defence.
Firstly, we will mobilise, making more of what we already have to make our current force more lethal and better able to protect our security.
The UK already has a world-leading array of capabilities. We will make the most effective use of them.
We will improve the readiness and availability of a range of key Defence platforms: major warships, attack submarines, helicopters and a range of ISTAR platforms. We are adjusting our overseas training and deployments to increase our global points of presence, better to support allies and influence adversaries.
To improve the combat effectiveness of our Force, we will re-prioritise the current Defence programme to increase weapon stockpiles. And we are accelerating work to assure the resilience of our Defence systems and capabilities.
We can mobilise a full spectrum of military, economic and soft power capabilities. And, where necessary and appropriate we will make sure we are able to act independently.
We will also enhance efforts with our allies and partners, aligning our plans more closely with them, acting as part of combined formations, developing combined capabilities, and burden-sharing. And we continue to invest in, and grow, our global network of Defence personnel and the education and training we offer in the UK and overseas.
Secondly, we will modernise, embracing new technologies to assure our competitive edge
Our adversaries and competitors are accelerating the development of new capabilities and strategies. We must keep pace, and conceive of our joint force as consisting of five domains, air, land, sea, cyber and space, rather than the traditional three.
We must modernise, targeting priority areas. A major new step will involve improved Joint Forces Command that will be in a better position so that defence can play a major role in preventing conflict in the future and improve our cyber operations and capabilities across the armed forces but also across government as well.
This year Defence's Innovation Fund put £20 million towards projects in areas including unmanned air systems, virtual reality training, and enhanced digital communications for the Future Commando Force. The fund will grow to £50 million next financial year, increasing the scope, ambition and value of the projects it can support.
We will launch new ‘Spearhead' innovation programmes that will apply cutting-edge technologies to areas including sub-surface threats to our submarines, our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability, and command and control in the Land Environment as well.
And to drive innovation and change through the Department I am launching a Transformation Fund. Next year, I will ring-fence £160 million of MOD's budget to create this fund available for innovative new military capabilities. I will look to make a further £340 million available as part of the Spending Review. This fund will be available for new innovative military capabilities which allows us to stay one step ahead of our adversaries.
Together these and other steps will enable the acceleration of our modernisation plans.
Thirdly, we will transform, radically changing the way we do business in Defence.
We need to improve markedly the way we run Defence. To sustain strategic advantage in a fast-changing world, we must be able and capable of continuous and timely adaptation. We will embrace modern business practices and establish a culture that nurtures transformation and innovation.
We also need to create financial headroom for modernisation. Based on our work to date, we expect to achieve over the next decade the very demanding efficiency targets we were set in 2015, including through investment in a programme of digital transformation.
We will develop a comprehensive strategy to improve recruitment and retention of talent, better reflecting the expectations of the modern workforce. We will access more effectively the talents of our ‘Whole Force' across all three Services, Regulars, Reserves, Civil Service and industrial partners.
Looking ahead, dealing effectively with persistent conflict and competition will increasingly hinge on smarter, better informed long-range strategy. To help achieve these goals we will establish a permanent Net Assessment Unit, as well as a Defence Policy Board of external experts, to bring challenge to Defence policy and to Defence strategy.
Our achievements under the MDP have made Defence stronger. The capability investments and policy approaches set out, with the £1.8 billion worth of Defence funding, will help us keep on track to deliver the right UK Defence for the challenging decade ahead.
Without a shadow of a doubt, there is more work to be done as we move towards next year's Spending Review. We must sustain this momentum if we are to realise our long-term goals of increasing the lethality, reach and mass of our Armed Forces. I will do everything within my power to make sure that the UK remains a Tier-One military power in the decade ahead, and that we continue to deliver the strong defence and security that has been the hallmark of the government.
I commend this statement to the House.
The Modernising Defence Programme
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/modernising-defence-programme-update
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6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Boeing Defense And Space’s Leanne Caret: ‘We’re Owning Our Mistakes’
Jen DiMascio Joe Anselmo Michael Bruno Steve Trimble July 01, 2020 Leanne Caret, president and CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, spoke via teleconference with Aviation Week editors in the run-up to what would have been the Farnborough Airshow. AW&ST: In addition to the turnover among Boeing executives, the company's stock and reputation have taken a beating in the past year. How is Boeing a different company today than it was 18 months ago? I am confident in the Boeing Co., and we have an enormously bright future. It's because of the incredible women and men who work for this company and bring their best every day. We have become a very introspective company, very pragmatic. We're owning our mistakes, and we're committing to address those. That is the centerpiece of what you have to do to have trust, especially in an industry as critically important as ours is, where people are flying and using our products every day, whether commercially or defending nations and allies. How has COVID-19 affected the goals that Boeing Defense set at the start of the year? The defense industry has been deemed mission-essential. We need to make certain we're continuing to deliver product to our customers, we keep our supply base healthy, and we all have an eye to the future. I really appreciate the partnership and conversations we've had with the Pentagon. You've heard [Boeing CEO/President] David Calhoun mention that, after what has happened in the commercial aerospace market, the defense business is important to the Boeing Co.—has been and always will be. After COVID-19, what does the future hold for defense spending? We have a very pragmatic view of the future. I don't anticipate significant budget increases. We have always planned that at some point we could see a regression in defense budgets. Wall Street is expecting about a 2% increase in revenue for Boeing over the next couple of years. That is on the lower end of where your peers are. They are in the mid-single digits. What rate of growth do you see? I think it's important to note where we are in the life cycle of many of the products in our portfolio. Where you will continue to see opportunity for us as we move into production on some of those key franchise programs that we won a few years ago is the [T-7 advanced trainer, MQ-25 unmanned carrier-based refueling aircraft and MH-139 helicopter]. We're all going to see the marketplace adjust as a result of COVID-19. Around the world, we've already seen some delays and some very large competitions that have been slighted because customers are having to assess where they are. I want our team to have as its centerpiece meeting our customers' needs and expectations, and I believe that the outcome of that will be growing the business and strong financial performance. Many big programs are coming down the line, such as the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft, the Advanced Battle Management System, the Next--Generation Air Dominance or the Future Vertical Lift programs. The Pentagon is emphasizing procurement with more control over intellectual property, fewer hooks into the sustainment phase and more competition. How will Boeing adapt to that over time? Will it require fundamental changes? In the last decade, we were focused on redefining how we designed and built aircraft. We were anticipating that the customer was going to commoditize the type of product that we have traditionally built. We have a foundation in model-based systems engineering to bring the collective best from industry together, so that when a system is in the field, we have developed it with maintainers in mind. That's where our build process has really paid off. In 2016, we had not won the T-7 or MQ-25 contracts or certainly not had any thought of the F-15EX yet. All three of those used this concept, which is to use advanced engineering and design toolsets to address the customer's vision. We placed our bets on changing the way we did business, and we have positioned ourselves nicely. Please update us on the KC-46. Where do things stand with the foreign object debris (FOD) situation? I'm not going to be happy until we're perfect, and we're not perfect yet. My focus is to make sure we don't deliver any aircraft with FOD to the U.S. government. If that means I need to hold back a delivery because a member of our team identified an issue, we're going to do the right thing. The most important thing is to deliver a perfect product to the customer. I think it is a testament to the steps that we have taken that we will not pass a defect to our customer. It speaks to the culture change that we have instituted over the last 1.5 years. Quite frankly, we have used KC-46 as the bully pulpit to redefine what we want to do as a company, and I'm really proud of the team for leading the way. Is Boeing on track for fixing the KC-46's remote vision system (RVS) in fiscal 2023? We are looking to demonstrate RVS 1.5 later this summer. It is a building block to what we call RVS 2.0. We have put in place a standard and an agreement that we are all aligned around, that really transcends what the original contract anticipated in terms of RVS. What we are incorporating posi-tions this fleet for not only a leap forward in technology but for autonomous operations in the future. We are on track in this partnership with the U.S. Air Force and the Air Force Research Laboratory. And yes, the timeline is in 2023. What is the outlook for selling F-18s internationally, given the potential for pandemic-related budget reductions in the future? We've secured a number of orders with F-18s that have kept our production line hot. Coupled with that, we're doing the service life modernization program with the U.S. Navy, where we're bringing every one of the aircraft back through and increasing capabilities that eventually will include Block 3 capabilities. We have seen signs that campaigns in Canada, Finland, Germany, India and Switzerland are sliding a bit to the right. None of them have been, to my knowledge, canceled or stopped. One of the things that we've seen them dealing with is the impact of COVID. Many times, they have the budget, but the budget may go out a longer period of time. Or right now they are impacted by staff shortages. These are some big opportunities, and I think the F-18 is positioned nicely, both from the aspects of an acquisition cost and the cost per flying hour. What is the outlook for the F-15? We just did our F-15 Qatar flight a few weeks back. We have continued to demonstrate the ability of the F-15 with our Saudi and Qatari customers and the U.S. Air Force. We're really excited about that opportunity, and it won't be your grandma's F-15. Boeing is a bit late on delivering the Space Launch System (SLS), and it was left out of NASA's competition to build a lunar lander. What are you doing to turn those programs around? On Space Launch Systems, I am really proud of the team for the amazing capabilities they developed with the world's largest rocket. She's sitting on the stand at Stennis Space Center. After watching how this team has battled through the COVID crisis, I'm looking forward to having a hot-fire [test] later this year. Early on, we struggled on SLS from an execution phase. There were also different challenges from a funding perspective and other things. Over the course of the last 1.5-2 years, the team has been hitting its milestones and commitments. On the civil space side, SpaceX beat Boeing to the punch on the first Commercial Crew mission. Are you looking to change your approach? On Starliner, we did not execute the full mission profile, and the right thing to do is to refly. I think that's the right decision, and the teams are focused on that. Our partnership with NASA dates back more than 60 years, and we're incredibly proud of this heritage. But our future isn't defined by our past. It's about making certain that we can continue to innovate and deliver today. This year marks 20 years for the International Space Station. I just couldn't be more thrilled for the team as Doug [Hurley] and Bob [Behnken] were able to join the other astronauts aboard this station. Human space exploration is not for the faint of heart. It changes mankind. We are going to continue to be a great partner, and we're going to continue to advocate for everyone's success when it comes to human space exploration—because it is that important for all of us. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/boeing-defense-spaces-leanne-caret-were-owning-our-mistakes
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10 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial
US clears $3 billion Apache sale for Qatar
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department has cleared a potential foreign military sale deal of 24 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, in a deal that could be worth up to $3 billion. The proposed sale would double Qatar's previous procurement of AH-64Es, which are used for “close air support, armed reconnaissance, and anti-tank warfare missions,” according to a notice posted on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency's website Thursday. “The helicopters will provide a long-term defensive and offensive capability to the Qatar peninsula as well as enhance the protection of key oil and gas infrastructure and platforms.” The notification is not a guarantee of a final sale. Congress can still weigh in, and once cleared by the Hill, negotiations between customer and supplier often lead to different prices or quantities. Included in the sale are the 24 helicopter bodies, 52 T700-GE-701D engines; 26 AN/ASQ-170 Modernized Target Acquisition and Designation Sight (MTADS); 26 AN/AAQ-11 Modernized Pilot Night Vision Sensors; 2,500 AGM-114R Hellfire missiles; 28 M230 30mm automatic chain guns, as well as other equipment and training. Primary work will be done at Boeing's Mesa, Ariz., facility, Lockheed Martin's Orlando, Fla,, location and General Electric's Cincinnati, OH facility, as well as other locations. There are no known industrial offsets in the deal. https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2019/05/09/us-clears-3-billion-apache-sale-for-qatar