UK restarts frigate competition - but will anyone take part?

Sur le même sujet

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  26 avril 2021 | International, Aérospatial

  Space Force acquisitions and architecture | C4ISRNET Exclusive

  C4ISRNET's Nathan Strout gets the latest on Space Force's acquisitions process as the new force gets stood up, and talks to the director of the Space Development Agency on how the Department of Defense plans to move data safely through space. More from the annual C4ISRNET Conference.

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  16 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Does the Pentagon need a chief management officer?

  By: Jerry McGinn Ms. Lisa Hershman, an accomplished former CEO who has been serving in the Department of Defense for over two years, received Senate confirmation by unanimous consent to become the DoD chief management officer shortly before Christmas. At the same time, however, the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act required two studies from the DoD that openly posit eliminating the CMO function altogether. What gives? The mixed signals coming out of these discordant events underscore the fact that the theory behind the current CMO function (and similar efforts over the past two decades) does not match the reality of the business structure of the DoD. The solution that will ultimately work best for the DoD is one that truly takes a business-based approach to DoD business operations. The CMO function is the latest in a long-running series of efforts since the early 2000s to reform the business of defense. The essential idea has been to bring the best commercial business practices into DoD business operations through organizational and legislative changes. While the rationale for these respective initiatives is unassailable, they have struggled in execution. The CMO and its predecessor organizations, for example, have focused on the acquisition or certification of DoD business systems. These efforts, however, have largely devolved into bureaucratic battles over resources and authorities, pitting the business-focused organization against the formidable military departments and the “fourth estate.” Whatever the outcome, the business-focused organization ends up being seen as weak and ineffective. Why is that? Having worked for years in and around these respective efforts in both government and industry roles, I have come to the conclusion that these well-meaning initiatives are just the wrong type of solution. This is largely because their respective organizations, often despite strong leadership and empowered by various degrees of legislative authority, have not had the bureaucratic throw-weight to succeed in Pentagon battles with the services and the fourth estate. The solution to this challenge, however, is not to further tinker with the CMO's authority or to create a larger or different CMO organization. Part of the solution is to recognize that while the DoD is not a business, it is in many ways a businesslike organization. There are no profit and loss, or P&L, centers in the DoD, but the military departments frankly function in much the same way as a P&L line of business. The services are directly responsible for training and equipping their soldiers, sailors and airmen just as P&L leaders are responsible for delivering products and solutions on time and profitably. Likewise, fourth estate entities such as the defense agencies and the Office of the Secretary of Defense have direct responsibility over their respective functions. Harnessing the power and authority of these organizations through the training and enabling of good business practices is a much more natural fit for the DoD. Devolving responsibility in and of itself is not the answer, however. The other part of the solution is accountability. Commercial businesses do not have a CMO function. Instead, well-run businesses are led by strong executives who are responsible and accountable for delivering results to their employees and shareholders. Those that succeed are rewarded, while those that fail are replaced. The same goes for the DoD. DoD leadership should focus on establishing business-reform objectives for each major DoD organization, and then holding leaders of these respective organizations accountable to the achievement of measurable business goals. This should be driven by the secretary and the deputy, and enabled by a much smaller CMO function. Secretary Mark Esper appears to be headed in that direction in his recent memo on 2020 DoD reform efforts, which focuses the CMO's efforts on the fourth estate and makes the services directly responsible “to establish and execute aggressive reform plans.” That is the right approach. In short, the DoD does not need a management organization to oversee the business of defense; it needs to enable its leaders to utilize business best practices, and then hold these leaders accountable for results. Jerry McGinn is the executive director of the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. He previously served as the senior career official in the Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy at the U.S. Defense Department. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/01/15/does-the-pentagon-need-a-chief-management-officer

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  4 mai 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The sparring partner who roughs up Marines with Snapchat

  By: Adam Stone The arm of the U.S. Marine Corps charged with tackling emerging threats has inked a deal that it says will allow it to do more realistic testing. “You want a sparring partner who reflects your adversary's capabilities,” said Lt. Col. Dan Schmidt, head of the field testing branch at the USMC Warfighting Lab. Enter MD5, the National Security Technology Accelerator. The Marine lab will identify challenges, develop warfighting concepts and design wargames and experiments. MD5 also will provide a platform upon which to accelerate these evolving concepts. Together the partners will support an Adaptive Threat Force Cadre, specially trained individuals who can share with their cohorts new and evolving response methodologies in the face of a wide range of threats. While the Marine lab will bring a military sensibility to the table, MD5 offers a private-sector approach. It is represented in this collaboration by Quantico, Va. based training-solutions contractor Guard Unit. “MD5 is designed to bring a commercial mindset to help solve problems in DoD,” said Zenovy Wowczuk, chairman of Guard Unit. “We bring technologists and other folks who haven't been standardized with DoD doctrine. They are private sector free thinkers, so they reflect the future adversary who also hasn't been indoctrinated into that mindset.” Schmidt laid out a number of specific warfighting challenges the partners seek to address. The partnership aims to tackle pervasive challenges in the information environment, issues around electronic warfare, cyber security, and command and control. The Marines want to look at technological fixes as well as organizational changes that could make the force more responsive to these threats. “How do we dominate and operate effectively with decentralized execution in a contested information environment?” Schmidt said. “Maybe if we just change a little bit of how we train and organize, we can dramatically impact the way we execute. We have a whole year of experiments lined up to flesh that out.” They also plan to look at hybrid logistics in support of future fighters. “We may have to spread out to greater distances with smaller units. Then you have to move blood plasma to the point of injury in a contested environment with contested networks. Now you are facing a whole new set of problems,” he said. Hybrid logistics could resolve some of these issues by combining the planning skills of human experts with artificial intelligence, robotics and rich data tracking. Another area of interest involves dense urban operations, an emerging combat scenario that brings my it myriad new concerns and challenges. “We know that the Marine Corps will fight expeditionary wars in mega-cities and we are in the process of discovering the implications of that,” Schmidt said. This exploration will likely dig deep into issues of networking, spectra and cyber strategy. “You have tunnels and skyscrapers and all this electromagnetic density,” Schmidt said. “We are in the early stages of developing an urban campaign plan, which has to include a range of emerging technologies. Our ground combat element, our logistics, our electronic environment ― all will play into how we fight in this environment.” MD5's close ties to industry could prove beneficial here. “We could pull in subject matter experts who have done city planning, who understand where the weak points are, and we could mount that data against the Marine Corps force to see how they react,” Wowczuk said. “We could pull from [off-the-shelf] technology to make it very difficult for the Marine Corps to do their job.” Early collaborations between the Marine and MD5 already have proven out the powerful potential of a bringing commercial-side view to the fight. In one experiment, a mock adversary was able to cull social media to gather critical intelligence on Marine activities. “We weren't used to that paradigm, where there is this rich environment of people on Snapchat taking pictures of us. They showed us just how easy it is to gather information, and from there we can devise new ways to protect some of our intelligence interests,” Schmidt said. “We would not have seen that without MD5. This is all about having an alternative perspective.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/05/03/the-sparring-partner-who-roughs-up-marines-with-snapchat/