What’s industry role in DoD information warfare efforts?

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  27 juin 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Lockheed braces for German blowback over cost of missile-defense pitch

  By: Sebastian Sprenger PARIS — Lockheed Martin executives are preparing for a stiff debate in Germany about the price tag of a next-generation anti-missile system formally proposed to Berlin just days ago. “I think the price will be a challenge, and we'll have to negotiate to come to an agreement,” Frank St. John, executive vice president of the company's Missiles and Fire Control business, told Defense News in an interview at the Paris Air Show last week. “But we're going to do better than the early expectations of the price.” That is a reference to a figure that surfaced during the spring following testimony of a senior German defense official before parliament. At the time, the cost estimate for the TLVS program, short for Taktisches Luftverteidigungssystem, was €8 billion (U.S. $9 billion). St. John declined to name the price ultimately included by Lockheed Martin and its German partner MBDA in their June 21 proposal. But he suggested the figure would lie significantly enough below the €8 million mark to be considered more than cosmetic. “I still anticipate a healthy debate and discussion about the pricing and the scope of the program through the negotiation process,” he said. Negotiations are expected to begin as soon as the German Defence Ministry has analyzed the proposal, described by German officials as being thousands of pages long. If the government and Lockheed Martin come to an agreement, the proposed investment would go before lawmakers for a decision, probably late this year or early next year. German plans for the TLVS program are based on the Medium Extended Air Defense System, conceived about 10 years ago as a replacement for the Patriot fleets of the United States, Germany and Italy. Soldiers had criticized the decades-old Patriot system as too cumbersome to deploy and maintain in the field. Germany has stuck with MEADS even after the United States and Italy dropped off, with officials in Berlin arguing the prospect of developing a truly novel defensive weapon was worth the gamble of going it alone. Defense officials in Germany have since added new requirements. For one, Berlin wants full control over all components, as opposed to buying an American weapon whose inner workings are shrouded in secrecy. In addition, the German government wants to be able to shoot down what officials call “advanced threats” (code for hypersonic missiles, such as those developed by Russia). According to St. John, Lockheed's latest TLVS proposal comes with the promise of intercepting such threats, though probably not the most sophisticated ones. “And then there is a provision in the contract and in the design of the system to add capability as time goes by and as the threat evolves,” he said. One of the sticking points for the proposed program — German access to secret performance data of the weapon's principal interceptor, the so-called MSE missile — appears to have been resolved, St. John said. Until late last year, Berlin was unhappy with U.S. Army restrictions placed on the information, which Germany considers crucial for adapting the system to its needs. Senior Pentagon leaders intervened to help resolve the logjam after Defense News reported on the issue in December 2018. “We believe that we have coordinated that with the Department of State and the appropriate folks at the Department of Defense, and that the German customer is going to have access to the data they need to evaluate the system,” St. John said. “They'll also have access to the data they need to recommend future modifications. We think that issue is resolved now.” At the same time, he added, another round of approvals will be needed from the U.S. government as contract negotiations with Germany progress. “We'll have to go back one more time ... to verify that everything is still in a good place." Patriot-maker Raytheon issued a statement Monday reiterating its readiness to snatch the missile-defense contract from arch enemy Lockheed Martin if the TLVS program goes south. The company especially played up the option of connecting an upgraded Patriot system to a lower-tier system, made by Rheinmetall, to defend against drones and artillery rounds. Ralph Acaba, president of Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business, said his company is increasingly banking on a layered air defense concept in which different systems — perhaps owned by different countries — take on various threat types. “No single nation, no single system can do it all when it comes to missile defense,” he told Defense News at the Paris Air Show. According to Joseph de Antona, vice president for business development and strategy in Acaba's division, Raytheon does not consider Lockheed's TLVS bid a threat to Patriot sales. “If a country makes a decision, it's our responsibility to honor and recognize that,” he said. At the same time, he added, Raytheon plans to continue to advise the German government on new threats and how to counter them. The company is “absolutely” still talking to the Berlin government to that effect, de Antona told Defense News. German lawmakers on the Defence and Budget committees on Wednesday approved roughly €120 million to upgrade the country's Patriot fleet to the newest configuration, known as “3-plus.” According to Raytheon, Berlin's investments to keep Patriot up to date had been lagging since the decision in favor of TLVS. Meanwhile, the proposed new system's funding profile has begun to take shape. Berlin wants to spend €3.36 billion on TLVS between 2021 and 2028, according to a draft government budget proposal meant for deliberation by lawmakers after the summer recess. That figure likely would be too low to finance Lockheed's entire program proposal. But the draft budget includes a provision permitting a transfer of funds from the envisioned €5.6 billion budget for a new heavy transport helicopter. The two contenders for that program are Boeing and Lockheed Martin. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/paris-air-show/2019/06/26/lockheed-braces-for-german-blowback-over-cost-of-missile-defense-pitch/

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  7 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Here's the Air Force's plan to revolutionize the way it trains pilots

  Oriana Pawlyk, Military.com When Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson visited AFWERX's Pilot Training Next program in Austin, Texas, last year, she watched as trainees took flight from the seats in front of her — through the use of virtual reality. It piqued her interest enough to ask service officials to explore waysthat similar flight simulator programs could be introduced to high schools to get young students involved in the nation's endeavors to create more pilots. Officials with Air Education and Training Command (AETC) are now gearing up to present Wilson's successor with a business case for more widespread use of the system, within the force. The move provides a glimpse into Air Force leaders' thinking as they overhaul the pilot training curriculum, introducing one that augments time airborne in the cockpit with simulators and technology on the ground. It comes as the Air Force readies itself for the possibility of complex conflict with a peer-level adversary equipped with long-range missiles and advanced combat aircraft. It's a future that may represent a strong contrast to recent decades, in which the Air Force has flown in largely uncontested airspace supporting ground troops. The service is attempting to boost its pilot ranks amid a longterm pilot shortage, even as its trainer fleet ages. Air Force officials say they want to move away from the service's old-fashioned, "industrial" approach to training — having pilots sit in classrooms for weeks then moving on to a trainer. This means using virtual reality earlier and more frequently in the training pipeline. As the service prepares to bring its latest trainer, known as the T-X, into the fold, it is proposing a more "concentrated dose" of training to seamlessly transition from virtual reality to the trainer and, finally, to the Formal Training Unit, or FTU. The system is well poised to reform in a few ways, said Gen. Mike Holmes, commander of Air Combat Command (ACC). Using the low-cost immersive environment of virtual reality, together with "competency-based learning," and moving skillset testing at the graduate level to an earlier place in the model, "would experience our pilots much faster," he said. "Those are two things that are poised to make a revolutionary changein how well we train pilots and in how long it takes us to train pilots," Holmes said Tuesday in an interview with Military.com. "I want to see how fast and well I can produce experienced pilots." Pilots end up leaving the service if they feel dissatisfied and lack a sense of purpose, added Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, AETC commander. "You have to fly a lot to be good at what you do, and we don't have the money, and we don't have the weather, and we don't have the range space ... [because of] sequestration. And all these things that are politically driven oftentimes are frustrating the force," Kwast said in a separate interview. Airline hiring efforts are the biggest factor that drives pilot retention and production problem in the services, officials have said. Old learning mechanisms also bog down the system, often adding to pilots' frustration, Kwast said. "We would [add] layers of things over time" through the course of a pilot's service, "basically assuming, 'You can't handle the truth!' or 'You're not smart enough to be able to learn this holistically, we have to give it to you piecemeal and then you'd put it together in your brain over time.' That's why it would take seven years to make a great mission commander pilot." But now, he said "We're breaking that paradigm." Trainer fleet in trouble? The service still relies heavily on its trainer fleet for training, even though virtual reality is the new frontier, Holmes said. "There's still no substitute for being in a real airplane," he said. "I think we'll always want a mix of learning our skills cheaply, but also build on decision-making in a real airplane." The T-38 Talon has been the backbone of the Air Force's undergraduate pilot training, or UPT, program for decades. But last year, the trainer fleet was plagued with a series of crashes, two of which were fatal. Those selected to fly bombers and fighters typically receive their advanced pilot training in the T-38. The T-1A Jayhawk, meanwhile, is used in advanced training for students who are slated to go into cargo or tanker aircraft. The T-6 Texan II, used for instrument familiarization and low-level and formation flying, also has had its share of problems. Last year, the Air Force ordered an operational pause for the T-6 fleet after pilots suffered a series of unexplained physiological episodes, or UPEs. As a result, AETC on Feb. 1 ordered an indefinite operational pause for all T-6 aircraft at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi; Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma; and Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. That pause was lifted Feb. 28. A team of experts determined that the T-6's On-Board Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS) filter and drain valvesfailed at higher rates than expected. The discovery led to repairs and increased inspections, but pilotscontinued to suffer from UPEs. A T-6 trainer from Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, crashed just last week. The Air Force is preparing to receive new trainer jets to replace its current Northrop Grumman-made T-38s, some of which date to the mid-1960s. In September, the service awarded Boeing Co. a $9.2 billion contract to build its next aircraft for training pilots, known as the T-X program. The first T-X aircraft and simulators are scheduled to arrive at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, in 2023. The service has committed to buying 351 T-X jets, 46 simulators and associated ground equipment. The pay ment structure, officials have said, also allows for an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity option to give the Air Force the opportunity to purchase up to 475 aircraft and 120 simulators. Delays to this program or other unforeseen challenges could have catastrophic consequences, said retired Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, former Air Force chief of staff. "My anxiety over this when I was the chief [is that] we are one sortie away from this older inventory having a problem," Moseley, an F-15 Eagle pilot, said in a recent interview with Military.com. "Here we are in 2019, and we're going to fly these airplanes until 2024 before T-X starts coming in." Kwast and Holmes agreed that the T-38 fleet will continue to undergo any upgrades necessary to keep them flying as long as it makes sense. "You can make anything last longer; it just takes more money to sustain," Kwast said. "I guarantee that the T-1, the T-38 and the T-6 all can last as long as we need them to last, depending on the business case and the amount of money you want to spend. But will the T-38 or the T-1 become too expensive, and [therefore], we have to jump to a different technology? Then we would look at other options." Boeing said it stands ready to produce the T-X. "Our T-X program, including engineering, manufacturing and test, is located in long-established Boeing St. Louis facilities," wrote Rachelle Lockhart, spokeswoman for the company's T-X program, in an email. "In fact, we built and assembled our first two T-X aircraft in St. Louis prior to contract award to prove the maturity of our design, repeatability in manufacturing and performance. We're now on contract, executing on schedule as planned, as are our suppliers." She added the trainer's production schedule could be advanced at the Air Force's request. "The US Air Force plan calls for a full production rate of 48 jets a year, and we will meet the customer need," Lockhart said. "Should the Air Force request a higher rate of production, we are well positioned to accommodate it." Full article: https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-plan-to-revolutionize-pilot-training-2019-5

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  13 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Find out where Trump and Biden stand on defense and security issues

  Aaron Mehta and Joe Gould Arms Control: U.S. President Donald Trump: The Trump administration has withdrawn the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and (almost) the 1992 Open Skies Treaty. It has loosened the Missile Technology Control Regime's restrictions on selling armed drones to foreign governments amid concerns about China's defense relationships in the Middle East. As of press time, administration officials have been unwilling to extend the 2010 New START nuclear pact with Russia, which expires in February, insisting that a new version include Russia's growing arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons and China, whose smaller arsenal is rapidly expanding and which appears unwilling to sign such an agreement. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden: Favored by arms control advocates, Biden has promised to renew New START and would likely accept Russia's offer to extend it five years without preconditions. He also said he would rejoin the Iran nuclear deal if it returned to full compliance described in the agreement. While Trump has loosened restrictions on the use of landmines by the U.S. military in conflict areas, Biden has said the move unnecessarily puts civilians at risk and that he would reverse it. Nuclear weapons: Trump: It's expected the current president would stay on his path of modernizing all three legs of the nuclear arsenal — something that has bipartisan support in Congress despite growing budget pressure. Trump deployed the W76-2 submarine-launched, low-yield nuclear warhead to counter a similar Russian weapon, and he has plans for a submarine-launched cruise missile, or SLCM. Trump approved a $44.5 billion nuclear weapons budget request in fiscal 2021 — an increase of about 19 percent — meant for the W76-2, several ongoing nuclear warhead life extension programs, a future W93 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, and the expansion of the production of plutonium pits for nuclear warheads to at least 80 per year. Biden: Biden signaled he would scale back Trump's buildup. The Democratic nominee for president is opposed to the W76-2 and an SLCM. Biden would face pressure from the left to drop plans to build a new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile force, replacing the Minuteman III fleet fielded in 1970, though he has not announced a position on it. Biden said he would review a policy reserving the option of using nuclear weapons first. Defense budget: Trump: The Pentagon's five-year defense plan indicates it will request flat defense spending after 2021, and — under pressure from coronavirus-related expenses — the budget is widely expected to stay flat regardless of who is president. Trump championed record national defense top lines of $700 billion in 2018, $716 billion in 2019 and $733 billion for 2020, and he created the new Space Force. He has also diverted billions of defense dollars to fund a southern border wall, and in 2018 he backed off a proposal for a $750 billion defense budget, calling it “crazy.” Biden: Biden said Trump “abandoned all fiscal discipline when it comes to defense spending,” and while he doesn't foresee major U.S. defense cuts if elected, he would face pressure from the left to make them. To affordably deter Russia and China, Biden said he would shift investments from “legacy systems that won't be relevant” to “smart investments in technologies and innovations — including in cyber, space, unmanned systems and artificial intelligence.” He also wants to boost neglected nonmilitary investments, such as “diplomacy, economic power, education, and science and technology.” Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran: Trump: Both candidates have railed against “endless wars,” and both have vowed to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. After engaging in peace talks with the Taliban, the U.S. cut its troop presence to 8,600 in June, with plans to go to 4,500 by November and no troops by the spring. For Iraq, Trump plans to go from 5,200 troops to 3,000 by November. On Iran, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal and reimposed crippling trade sanctions as part of a maximum-pressure campaign. The administration recently warned allies it may target leaders of Iran-backed militias that have targeted U.S. forces and diplomatic posts in Iraq. Biden: Biden has vowed to bring U.S. combat troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, likely leaving residual counterterrorism forces. His camp favors small-scale operations (maybe led by special forces) rather than large, open-ended troop deployments, which he agrees would require the informed consent of the American people. Biden, who voted for the Iraq War when he was a senator, said during his current campaign that he played a key role in the Obama administration's drawdown of 150,000 U.S. forces from Iraq. On Iran, he said he would commit to preventing the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon, offer a diplomatic path while maintaining targeted sanctions, and work closely with Israel to ensure the American ally can defend itself against Iran and its proxies. Arms sales: Trump: Increasing U.S. arms sales has been a central focus of Trump and his administration's foreign policy. He's moved to speed up the review process for major arms sales, made it easier to export firearms, eased the criteria for selling armed drones under the Missile Technology Control Regime and directed U.S. diplomats to advocate for American weapons purchases. He advanced several sales suspended under the Obama administration — which played into a clash with Congress over sales to Saudi Arabia and other parties to the war in Yemen. Though Trump has touted the economic benefits of U.S. arms sales abroad, the idea is also to provide partners with American alternatives to Russian and Chinese weapons in order to maintain American influence. Biden: While Biden hasn't made his views clear about arms sales overall, he said he would end U.S. military and other support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. As he reassesses the U.S.-Saudi relationship, he would end weapon sales to Riyadh (which has historically been the top partner for U.S. military sales). “We will make clear that America will never again check its principles at the door just to buy oil or sell weapons,” Biden said. On firearm exports, his campaign said he may reverse a Trump administration rule that moved jurisdiction from the State Department to the Commerce Department. NATO and Europe: Trump: Among Trump's earliest foreign policy stances was a pledge to “get allies to pay their fair share,” particularly by getting NATO members to spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. That percentage of GDP is a NATO-backed goal. Trump often mischaracterizes that pledge as allies being “delinquent” in paying the U.S. funds. Trump has also pushed for tough trade rules with European nations, which has led to tensions with European capitals. Biden: Biden and his advisers have drawn a contrast with Trump, pledging to rehabilitate frayed alliances. Biden has hit Trump for straining relations between the U.S. and Europe. He said the next president must “salvage our reputation, rebuild confidence in our leadership, and mobilize our country and our allies to rapidly meet new challenges,” pledging that he would “take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States' economic future, and once more have America lead the world.” Biden plans to review troop movements out of Germany if he takes office, according to a top foreign policy aide. Great power competition: Trump: The Trump administration's National Defense Strategy announced a new era of great power competition. But while that includes Russia on paper, the administration's economic and military focus has squarely focused on China; the rhetoric from Trump has only increased following the COVID-19 outbreak, which the Republican president has called the “China virus.” Militarily, the Pentagon is attempting to shift focus and investments toward Pacific priorities, while also withdrawing forces from Europe. Biden: While in the Senate, Biden pushed for better relations with China through increased commercial ties. But he now views China as “the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and our allies in Asia and in Europe,” one of the few areas in which he and Trump agree. Biden has called Chinese President Xi Jinping a “thug” and pledged “swift economic sanctions” against China if it tries to influence American companies or citizens. While Trump has bragged about having a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, expect a different tone from Biden should he occupy the White House. The former vice president has described Trump as “subservient” to Putin," and has talked about telling Putin directly: “I don't think you have a soul.” Information about the candidates was compiled from a series of sources including: Defense News; Military Times; Al-Monitor; Arms Control Association; Center for International Policy; CNBC; CNN; Council for a Livable World; Defense One; Foreign Affairs; Forum on the Arms Trade; Los Angeles Times; Military Officers Association of America; New York Times; New Yorker Magazine; Reuters; Stars and Stripes; The Associated Press; Vox; Washington Examiner; and Washington Post. https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2020/10/09/find-out-where-trump-and-biden-stand-on-defense-and-security-issues/