Nouvelles

By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — When the U.K. rolled out its Modernising Defence Programme report last month, it highlighted a need to increase stores of weaponry to deal with threats from great powers around the globe. In his speech unveiling the document, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson specifically stated that to “improve the combat effectiveness of our forces, we will re-prioritize the current defense program to increase weapon stockpiles. And we are accelerating work to assure the resilience of our defense systems and capabilities.” But what does that actually entail? During a Tuesday visit to Washington, Director for Strategic Planning Will Jessett said the U.K. plans to go about increasing weapon stockpiles in two ways. The first is the easy route: throw money at the problem. And a certain amount — the Ministry of Defence employee wouldn't say exactly how much — of the recent budget increase given by Parliament will indeed be going toward increasing stockpiles of armaments. The second part is more difficult, but goes to a throughline for the strategy document: the need to be smarter about how the British military uses its gear. “We've spend a shedload of money on producing the force structure that we have already. We're not necessarily generating and using it as effectively as we might have done,” Jessett said. “The first thing to do is to make sure that we are making the best of the existing capability that we have, and that [includes] making sure that we've got both the weapon stockpiles and the spares to make sure that you can actual[ly] generate the right numbers of aircraft squadrons." “So some of this will be the new money out of the couple of billion but a lot of this is going to be telling the services themselves,” he added. “There isn't a dollar figure, but there are strong incentives now back on the services to say: ‘Guys, you've got to [use] the capabilities that you've got already.' ” Looking at the Pentagon's efforts over the last few years shows that may be easier said than done. Pushing to find new efficiencies inside the U.S. Defense Department is an annual affair, with the latest attempt delayed by the removal of Chief Management Officer Jay Gibson and the fallout from the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. And building up missile stockpiles is a logistical challenge for the department right now, with the Pentagon warning last May that producers of vital parts and materials are on the verge of going out of business or beholden to foreign ownership. Jessett acknowledged the Brexit-shaped elephant in the room, noting that the ability of the MoD to invest funding into new defense priorities will be directly impacted by any deal reached between Britain and the rest of Europe, particularly with foreign-made equipment. “Amongst the reasons we started to face this affordability delta in 2017 were because exchange rates did fall, relative to where they were in 2015,” he said. “I think back to this [question] about the terms of the deal. If we get a deal that's OK, I can imagine, personally, exchange rates not just stabilizing but somewhat improving. If not, it is by definition going to add further pressure into this.” But, he added, “that's not what we're planning for at the moment.” https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/01/08/to-build-stockpiles-of-weapons-uk-looking-at-two-pronged-approach

Angel Krasimirov, Tsvetelia Tsolova SOFIA (Reuters) - The Bulgarian government has approved a plan to start talks with the United States on buying eight new F-16 fighter jets to replace its ageing Soviet-made MiG-29s and improve compliance with NATO standards, the defense minister said on Wednesday. A deal for Lockheed Martin's F-16V Block 70 would be worth around 1.8 billion levs ($1.1 billion), Bulgaria's biggest military procurement since the fall of Communist rule some 30 years ago. The decision still requires parliament's approval. Other bidders had included Sweden, with Saab's Gripen jets, and Italy, with second-hand Eurofighters. Senior defense ministry and army officials say the F-16 is a multi-role fighter plane that had been tested in battle and had a long lifespan. The defense ministry has previously said that the United States does not need additional licenses and agreements to supply the war plans with the necessary weaponry and licenses, unlike the offers from Sweden and Italy. “The government is proposing to the parliament to allow it to start talks with the United States to acquire new war planes,” Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov told reporters. The center-right coalition government has a thin majority in parliament, which is expected to vote on the move next week. The plan has spurred heated political debates in the Black Sea country with supporters hailing it as a strategic choice for Bulgaria, whose NATO neighbors are also flying F-16s, while critics accused the government of breaching the tender rules. On Tuesday, the White House said the United States was ready to work with the government to tailor a deal that will fit Bulgaria's budgetary and operational requirements. Its bid at present exceeds the tender's estimated limit, officials said. “We believe that the F-16 Block 70 offers Bulgaria the best possible combination of price, capability and interoperability with other NATO air forces,” U.S. President Donald Trump's administration said in a statement. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, a former air force commander and frequent critic of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, is believed to favor the Swedish bid and has criticized the process as flawed and “a triumph of lobbying”. Critics have questioned whether the United States can deliver the first two F-16 jets within two years as required and pointed to a U.S. proposal for a one-off payment upon contracting rather than offering a long-term payment scheme as preferred in the tender. Sweden has expressed its disappointment over the decision and said its offer was well below the estimated budget, provided for deferred payment and was ready to deliver on time. The question of which warplanes to buy has been vexing successive governments in Bulgaria for more than a decade. Borissov's government re-launched the tender in July, after a parliament commission ruled that a previous process which favored the Gripen jets, should be reviewed. ($1 = 1.7057 leva) Editing by Kevin Liffey and Susan Fenton https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bulgaria-defence-jets/bulgaria-decides-to-start-talks-with-u-s-on-f-16-jet-deal-idUSKCN1P30W9

By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the U.S. government shutdown continues into its 18th day, defense firms and industry advocates are beginning to worry that the pause in business could eat into companies' cash flow. The Defense Department is funded for fiscal 2019, with Congress having passed a spending bill for the new fiscal year in September. That means work on the military's weapons programs continue apace, but many defense companies also hold contracts with agencies that are not currently funded, like the Department of Homeland Security — which includes the Coast Guard as well as Customs and Border Protection — and NASA. The Aerospace Industries Association, a lobbying group that represents defense and commercial aviation companies, warned that impacts to the aerospace sector extend beyond the 800,000 federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay. For example, weapons sales and transfers to U.S. allies and partners are stalled as a result of the closure of the departments of State and Commerce, AIA said in a Jan. 8 statement. Research projects at NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are suspended, “setting back development of game changing technologies.” And meetings between the government and industry have been canceled or delayed. “Every day the shutdown lasts, the impacts grow and become more difficult and more expensive to fix,” said AIA President and CEO Eric Fanning. “It's time to get these dedicated public servants back to work.” Tony Moraco, the CEO of government service and information technology firm SAIC, told investors Jan. 7 that the effects of the shutdown are expected to be short term and primarily affecting accounts with NASA, the FAA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Moraco characterized the effect on SAIC and Engility — the latter of which is set to merge with the former this year — as a “modest impact on revenues and potentially cash collection, which we think we can recover — mostly — if this is resolved in the near term.” But SAIC Chief Financial Officer Charlie Mathis said the government is already behind on payments to the two companies by about $40 million to $50 million. “If we get through this quickly, they could catch up,” he said, but the shutdown would have to be resolved within a week for the companies to hit their cash-flow goals for their fiscal year ending Jan. 31. Furthermore, the companies are seeing a hit of about $10 million per week in revenue as the shutdown progresses, and “if it continues, that number could increase,” Mathis said. The probability of an extended shutdown seems to be rising. The government shutdown started Dec. 22 amid disagreements between President Donald Trump and Congress over funding for a border wall that would separate the United States and Mexico. But with Democrats now controlling the House of Representatives, a deal on funding for the wall may take weeks and could propel this shutdown past the 21-day mark of the 1995 shutdown, currently the longest on the books, according to CNN. Defense contractors will eventually get paid back for work accomplished while the government was shut down, but there could be long-standing consequences. If the shutdown persists for a protracted amount of time, there could be repercussions for the federal government's recruiting pipeline, as well as the balance of federal employees and contractors, said Byron Callan, an analyst for Capital Alpha Partners. “How will this shutdown impact the ability of federal agencies impacted by the shut-down to recruit and retain skilled individuals?” he wrote in an emailed analysis of SAIC's investor meeting. “There might be near-term collateral damage if people leave government service, but a 1-3 year factor to consider is how this shutdown and the potential for future ones accelerates reliance on federal service contractors.” https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/01/08/us-government-shutdown-creating-angst-for-defense-contractors

By: Mark Pomerleau The Navy awarded a contract for cyber, electronic warfare and information warfare services to nine companies in a deal that could eventually be worth as much as $962 million. The companies include Grove Resource Solutions Inc., Millennium Corp., SimVentions Inc., BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton, CACI NSS Inc., General Dynamics Information Technology, Leidos, Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. and Scientific Research Corp. The new contract, run out of the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in South Carolina, will provide cyber mission engineering support services and deliver “information warfare capabilities through sea, air, land, space, electromagnetic, and cyber domains through the full range of military operations and levels of war,” according to a Nov. 30 contract announcement. According to a Jan. 7 press release from General Dynamics, the company will compete for individual task orders to provide “state-of-the-art solutions for the Navy and Marine Corps' warfighting needs.” A spokesman clarified that GDIT expects to compete for the opportunity to provide C4ISR capability to the Navy and Marines with the potential to develop prototypes depending on specific requirements. The spokesperson added that the contract might present opportunities to assist in the Navy's premier electronic warfare program Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program as requirements overlap. https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2019/01/08/9-companies-will-compete-for-work-on-the-navys-giant-engineering-contract

By: Burak Ege Bekdil ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's procurement authorities are working to identify why some of the industry's most talented individuals are migrating to Western countries — an exodus that could stall several indigenous programs. Turkey's procurement authority, the Presidency of Defence Industries — also known as SSB and which directly reports to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — conducted a survey to better understand the migration. A parliamentary motion revealed that in recent months a total of 272 defense industryofficials, mostly senior engineers, fled Turkey for new jobs abroad, with the Netherlands, the United States and Germany topping the list, respectively. Other recipient countries are Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Poland, France, Finland, Japan, Thailand, Qatar, Switzerland and Ireland, according to the SSB's internal study. The companies affected by the exodus are state-controlled entities: defense electronics specialist Aselsan, Turkey's largest defense firm; military software concern Havelsan; missile-maker Roketsan; defense technologies firm STM; Turkish Aerospace Industries; and SDT. Findings among those who left and responded to the survey include: 41 percent are in the 26-30 age group. “This highlights a trend among the relatively young professionals to seek new opportunities abroad,” one SSB official noted. 40 percent have graduate degrees; 54 percent have postgraduate degrees; and 6 percent have doctorates or higher degrees. 59 percent have more than four years of experience in the Turkish industry. The largest group among those who left (26 percent) cited “limited chance of promotion and professional progress” as the primary reason to seek jobs in foreign companies. Other reasons cited include lack of equal opportunities in promotion (14 percent); low salaries (10 percent); and discrimination, mobbing and injustice at work (10 percent). 60 percent said they found jobs at foreign defense companies after they applied for vacancies. 61 percent are engineers and 21 percent are industry researchers. Among the respondents' expectations before they would consider returning to Turkish jobs were higher salaries, better working conditions, full use of annual leave, professional management and support from top management for further academic work. They also want the political situation in Turkey to normalize and for employees to win social rights in line with European Union standards. They also want to guarantee there won't be employee discrimination according to political beliefs, life styles and religious faith. They added that mobbing should stop and that employees be offered equal opportunities. A recent article in The New York Times, citing the Turkish Statistical Institute, said more than a quarter-million Turks emigrated in 2017, an increase of 42 percent over 2016, when nearly 178,000 citizens left the country. The number of Turks applying for asylum worldwide jumped by 10,000 in 2017 to more than 33,000. “The flight of people, talent and capital is being driven by a powerful combination of factors that have come to define life under Mr. Erdogan and that his opponents increasingly despair is here to stay," according to The New York Times. "They include fear of political persecution, terrorism, a deepening distrust of the judiciary and the arbitrariness of the rule of law, and a deteriorating business climate, accelerated by worries that Mr. Erdogan is unsoundly manipulating management of the economy to benefit himself and his inner circle.” One senior engineer who left his Turkish company for a job with a non-Turkish, European business told Defense News: “I know several colleagues who want to leave but have not yet found the right jobs. I expect the brain drain to gain pace in the next years, depending on Western companies' capacity to employ more Turkish talent.” https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/01/08/turkish-brain-drain-why-are-defense-industry-officials-ditching-their-jobs-in-turkey-for-work-abroad

Ashley Roque, Washington, DC - Jane's Defence Weekly In the US military's bid to protect troops inside its M1 Abrams main battle tanks from incoming threats such as anti-tank guided missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, the army and US Marine Corps (USMC) are purchasing additional Israeli-built Trophy active protection systems (APSs). Leonardo DRS, Rafael's US-based partner, announced on 8 January that it has received a contract initially worth up to USD79.6 million to provide the services with additional Trophy systems. The latest contract pushes the programme's funded value more than USD200 million. "Leonardo DRS is proud of the confidence shown by the army in deciding to field Trophy to even more US combat brigades," said Aaron Hankins, vice-president and general manager of the Leonardo DRS Land Systems division. "Together with our Rafael partners, we are fully committed to meeting our customers' demands and are working in parallel to further address the urgent protection needs of other US platforms." The company declined to discuss the specific number of APSs acquired under the latest contract or how they will be split between the army and USMC. With a proliferation of anti-tank guided missiles and the Pentagon preparing for a potential ground conflict with Russian forces, the army evaluated three APSs: Rafael's Trophy on the Abrams tank, IMI Systems' (now owned by Elbit Systems) Iron Fist on the M2 Bradley, and Artis' Iron Curtain on the Stryker. Trophy was the first system flagged to proceed. Then, in November, the Army's Requirements Oversight Council (AROC) decided Iron Fist will move into the next phase of urgent qualification testing, and plans to urgently field "at least a brigade's worth of capability", according to Ashley John, the army's public affairs director for the Program Executive Officer - Ground Combat Systems. https://www.janes.com/article/85597/us-military-buys-additional-trophy-aps-rafael-pushes-light-version-for-bradley-and-stryker

By: Justin Lynch They have been hacked, tricked and stolen from. Now the message is clear -- no more. The Navy is looking to support research in 36 areas that can help protect weapons systems from cyberattacks, Naval Air Systems Command said in a Jan. 7 update to a broad agency announcement. “It's not necessarily cutting edge research, but it is the first step in cybersecurity quality control that should have already been done,” said Bryson Bort, the founder and chief executive officer of Scythe, a cybersecurity platform. The Navy had admitted as much. Research into protecting the department's weapons comes amid reports that the American military suffers from sustained cyberattacks. In December, an Inspector General report found that some in the Pentagon were not taking basic cybersecurity steps to protect its ballistic missile system. Although the Pentagon's weapons are worth roughly $1.66 trillion, an October report from the Government Accountability Office found that “nearly all” American missiles, jets, ships and lethal equipment in development are vulnerable to cyberattacks. The announcement comes after Congress has mandated the Pentagon address its cyber vulnerabilities. Three of the research areas the Navy is interested are commonly described as the pillars of strong cybersecurity, no matter the institution. They include: Dynamic reconfiguration In an effort to confuse attackers, the Navy wants to research “dynamic reconfiguration.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines the term as “changes to router rules, access control lists, intrusion detection/prevention system parameters, and filter rules for firewalls and gateways.” "Organizations perform dynamic reconfiguration of information systems, for example, to stop attacks, to misdirect attackers, and to isolate components of systems, thus limiting the extent of the damage from breaches or compromises,” NIST officials wrote. Research by the University of Maryland's Christian Johnson found that pairing predictive analytics with dynamic reconfiguration tactics, the new approach can lead to the "successful development of learning models that identify specific classes of malware such as ransomware,” Johnson wrote in a paper for the RSA conference. Deception tactics Experts have long used strategies of physical war in digital battles, including with the use of denial and deception tactics. The Navy wants to boost understanding of this area to better secure its weapons systems. In 2015, researchers at MITRE, which conducts federally funded research, advocated for a 10-step process for planning and executing deception operations. “Leveraging classical denial and deception techniques to understand the specifics of adversary attacks enables an organization to build an active, threat-based cyber defense,” a team of researchers wrote. But the Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity, the intelligence community's research arm, says that the use of deceptive software and hardware in cybersecurity is still in its infancy. “Many techniques lack rigorous experimental measures of effectiveness,” the organization said, adding that “information is insufficient to determine how defensive deception changes attacker behavior.” Artificial intelligence If there was a common denominator of the federal government's investment in cybersecurity it is the use or artificial intelligence. The Navy has embraced artificial intelligence since its Task Force Cyber Awakening project in 2015. “We see that the more we automate our networks and the more we use machines to do the heavy lifting, the better. Our brains do not have the intellectual capacity to process all of that information,” Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett, Navy Cyber Security Division Director,told Defense Systems, a trade publication, in a 2017 interview. More than half of the challenges and research opportunities announced by IARPA in 2018 involved machine learning, according to an analysis by Fifth Domain. Cyber Command has embraced the technology in a short time period, Capt. Ed Devinney, director of corporate partnerships at the body, said during the November Cyber Con conference hosted by Fifth Domain. “If you talked to anyone at the command two or three years ago about a system that would be all autonomous, you probably wouldn't get much traction. But I think there is a growing understanding and consensus that we need to operate at machine speed, especially when talking about active defense of the network,” Devinney said. He said that everyone likes to use the phrases “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning,” however “there aren't that many people who do AI very well.” https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2019/01/07/3-ways-the-navy-wants-to-protect-its-weapons-from-cyberattacks

Beth Kindig Summary The majority of forecasts favor Amazon for the Pentagon contract while overlooking the partnerships that MS has made with the DoD since Nadella became CEO in 2014. By the first quarter of 2019, Azure Government Secret will support "Secret U.S. classified data or Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) level 6" which is on par with Amazon. The question that remains is if the Pentagon will want to use Amazon for cloud infrastructure while using Microsoft for operating systems and software. In 2019, the biggest cloud customer in the world will be the United States Department of Defense. The DoD is currently reviewing bids to award a single cloud provider a multi-year contract. Obviously, this isn't your typical enterprise IT department, transferring from on-premise servers, or a startup who needs the flexibility of cloud infrastructure to scale. The program is called the Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, or JEDI, and its purpose is to move the DoD's massive computing systems into the cloud. This one contract is worth $10 billion, or 25% of the current market, which currently stands at $40 billion in annual revenue. Many prognosticators and reporters unanimously believe the contract will go to Amazon Web Services. This belief is so strong that vendors, such as Oracle and IBM, made a rebuttal to Congress, believing the terms of the proposal favored Amazon. However, the majority of these forecasts overlook Microsoft's strength in security and IT, and the alliances Microsoft has been forming with the DoD since Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014. Admittedly, guessing a company other than Amazon will win the Pentagon contract is a pure gamble, however, there are strong indicators for Microsoft that should not be overlooked. Background on JEDI Contract The Pentagon contract will move 3.4 million users and 4 million devices off private servers and into the cloud. The security risks of using servers outside the Pentagon's domain are offset by physically separated government regions and hybrid solutions that extend on-premise servers by adding the cloud where necessary. The benefits of artificial intelligence, deep learning, and other technologies like virtual reality are essential for modern warfare as real-time data will inform missions when soldiers are in the field and also help to prepare them for combat. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4231824-microsoft-amazon-win-pentagon-contract

by Kris Osborn The Army is engineering new AI-enabled Hostile Fire Detection sensors for its fleet of armored combat vehicles to identify, track and target incoming enemy small arms fire. This system, integrated onto Apache Attack helicopters, uses infrared sensors to ID a “muzzle flash” or heat signature from an enemy weapon. The location of enemy fire could then be determined by a gateway processor on board the helicopter able to quickly geolocate the attack. The Army is engineering new AI-enabled Hostile Fire Detection sensors for its fleet of armored combat vehicles to identify, track and target incoming enemy small arms fire. Even if the enemy rounds being fired are from small arms fire and not necessarily an urgent or immediate threat to heavily armored combat vehicles such as an Abrams, Stryker or Bradley, there is naturally great value in quickly finding the location of incoming enemy small arms attacks, Army weapons developers explain. There are a range of sensors now being explored by Army developers; infrared sensors, for example, are designed to identify the “heat” signature emerging from enemy fire and, over the years, the Army has also used focal plane array detection technology as well as acoustic sensors. “We are collecting threat signature data and assessing sensors and algorithm performance,” Gene Klager, Deputy Director, Ground Combat Systems Division, Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate, told Warrior Maven in an interview last year. Klager's unit, which works closely with Army acquisition to identify and at times fast-track technology to war, is part of the Army's Communications, Electronics, Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC). Army senior leaders also told Warrior Maven the service will be further integrating HFD sensors this year, in preparation for more formals testing to follow in 2019. Enabling counterattack is a fundamental element of this, because being able to ID enemy fire would enable vehicle crews to attack targets from beneath the protection of an armored hatch. The Army currently deploys a targeting and attack system called Common Remotely Operated Weapons System, or CROWS; using a display screen, targeting sensors and controls operating externally mounted weapons, CROWS enables soldiers to attack from beneath the protection of armor. “If we get a hostile fire detection, the CROWS could be slued to that location to engage what we call slue to cue,” Klager said. Much of the emerging technology tied to these sensors can be understood in the context of artificial intelligence, or AI. Computer automation, using advanced algorithms and various forms of analytics, can quickly process incoming sensor data to ID a hostile fire signature. “AI also takes other information into account and helps reduce false alarms,” Klager explained. AI developers often explain that computer are able to much more efficiently organize information and perform key procedural functions such as performing checklists or identifying points of relevance; however, many of those same experts also add that human cognition, as something uniquely suited to solving dynamic problems and weighing multiple variables in real time, is nonetheless something still indispensable to most combat operations. Over the years, there have been a handful of small arms detection technologies tested and incorporated into helicopters; one of them, which first emerged as something the Army was evaluating in 2010 is called Ground Fire Acquisition System, or GFAS. This system, integrated onto Apache Attack helicopters, uses infrared sensors to ID a “muzzle flash” or heat signature from an enemy weapon. The location of enemy fire could then be determined by a gateway processor on board the helicopter able to quickly geolocate the attack. While Klager said there are, without question, similarities between air-combat HFD technologies and those emerging for ground combat vehicles, he did point to some distinct differences. “From ground to ground, you have a lot more moving objects,” he said. Potential integration between HFD and Active Protection Systems is also part of the calculus, Klager explained. APS technology, now being assessed on Army Abrams tanks, Bradleys and Strykers, uses sensors, fire control technology and interceptors to ID and knock out incoming RPGs and ATGMs, among other things. While APS, in concept and application, involves threats larger or more substantial than things like small arms fire, there is great combat utility in synching APS to HFD. Full article: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/armys-m1-abrams-tank-about-get-even-deadlier-40847