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24 Jul 19. What happened at the military’s biggest cyber training exercise to date. When soldiers are preparing to deploy, they head to the Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California. There, they can replicate an entire campaign during a two-week rotation against a world class force.
But in the cyber world, no such training environment exists. That means cyber forces train in ad hoc cyber ranges and are limited by the number of teams that can dial in. Moreover, there is no space to rehearse for an upcoming mission.
The Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE), managed by the Army, seeks to change all of that. PCTE is an online client in which members of U.S. Cyber Command’s cyber mission force can log on from anywhere in the world for training, either of individuals or of groups, and to rehearse missions.
In June, the program underwent its biggest test to date, working with cyber warriors from across several time zones during an exercise created by the Navy, to get the system ready for primetime.
Making sense of Cyber Forge
The genesis for the June exercise, called Cyber Forge, comes from a simple fact: Navy leaders were looking for a better way to train their cyber teams.
“The pipelines that are provided at the time do not meet the demands that we need in order to keep the sailors up to speed in the cyber realm,” Chief Petty Officer Clayton Henry, told Fifth Domain during a visit to the exercise.
In addition, the current methods and tools available are inefficient, officials said.
“I wanted a better way to train my team,” said Jeff Tucker, who is part of Navy Cyber Defense Activity 64, which houses several defensive cyber teams, and designed the Cyber Forge scenario, told Fifth Domain.
To date, most cyber training exercises were a version of playing capture the flag.
“Capture the flag, [is] basically just a question-based type thing. You really have to lead teams down a path, there’s really no set path on how you do it right or wrong. While that’s nice, that’s not an effective way to train people,” Tucker said.
Navy leaders thought there could be a mutually beneficial relationship if they linked up with the PCTE team. The operational community needs to train and the PCTE team needs operational users to continue to test its prototype. As a result, officials extended invitations to Cyber Forge to the entire joint force, not just the Navy, to help test the scalability of PCTE.
“I wanted to be able to expand it out to affect more teams because my team isn’t the only one that needs extra training.,” Tucker said. “That’s how it grew.”
Cyber Forge was a created as a template inside the PCTE platform and could then be downloaded by other teams across the Department of Defense. Teams from the Army, Air Force and Navy — six teams of 10 to 15 people each — spread from Maryland, Georgia, Texas and Hawaii, participated.
The event focused on defensive cyber operations and involved teams hunting on a network to drive out an actor and then delivering a remediation plan to the network owner. The exercise was a significant expansion from previous exercises with the PCTE.
“It’s testing it at a scale and scope that we haven’t done,” Amit Kapadia, product manager of Cyber Resiliency and Training and chief engineer at Army Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, told Fifth Domain. “There’s about 150 different virtual machines times six different individual games going on so we’re gradually increasing the size and scope of this.”
Cyber leaders had used PCTE for two previous offensive cyber exercises — Cyber Anvil in February and Cyber Valhalla in March — but both were smaller events.
With Cyber Forge, Kapadia said the team looked to learn how the system performed over several time zones. Others on the operational side noted that they’re learning how to run a distributed white cell, a team of administrators which essentially runs the overall scenario dialing up or down the difficulty. Ideally, cyber teams hope to have teams dial in from all over the world for training.
“[One of the] lessons learned already is [that] distributed white cell is hard,” Henry said.
“It’s hard to relay information and it’s hard to relay not only information but intent. Everybody will perceive something differently,” Henry added. “It’s really easy to walk over to the teams, see what the team is doing … But if he’s over in Georgia, I have to hope he answers his phone or he sees me on Slack … If he doesn’t understand my question … that’s just a pertinent example of how a distributed white cell works.”
This experience from participating in an exercise is critical for the program office.
“This is huge because the platform providers [and] the program office will see what works and what doesn’t work and we can take that feedback and roll into the next sprint,” Lee Rossey, chief technology officer of SimSpace, one of the PCTE contractors, told Fifth Domain.
Personnel from the operational community were generally pleased working with the PCTE team for Cyber Forge.
“No one was expecting a flawless operation but we are pretty close to having almost no issues,” Tucker said. “For the most part, we are able to provide a pretty realistic simulated environment for the teams to work how they see fit … I couldn’t be happier with the way PCTE is going … the way I see it is it could easily be our primary tool to train our personnel and assess our personnel in the future.”
Officials noted it will be many months until PCTE is ready to can be used for a major Tier I exercise such as Cyber Flag, which is Cyber Command’s premier annual exercise, but the goal is to eventually reach that threshold.
However, many in the contracting and cyber community are concerned about how the eventual PCTE platform will scale around the world given that the prototype has been run by smaller companies without experience integrating large programs akin to major prime contractors.
“That’s why we want to do these events,” Kapadia said. ”Why we are in this prototyping stage is to be able to know that each of these events that we’re taking on … we’re getting to that next level of scalability,”
Lt. Col. Thomas Monaghan, product manager of cyber resiliency and training at PEO STRI, told Fifth Domain there is no correct answer to the scalabilty question, acknowledging this is the first time a program like this has been done. “We’re taking small scale events and figuring, okay, this is what the materiel solution management looks like, this is what the operational management looks like … and [we] adjust fire for the next mission.”
We’re going to need a bigger boat
For a joint program that is going to span all services, the Army’s program office is going to need a bigger contract vehicle going forward for PCTE allowing for more money and a wider range of services.
The PCTE team held an industry day June 11, when they briefed a new contract vehicle for the program called Cyber Training, Readiness, Integration, Delivery and Enterprise Technology, or TRIDENT.
“What that means is we can do stuff, like when cyber mission forces say ‘we need to go after this type of training event, this type of content,’ we have the vehicle to do that,” Monaghan said. “It’s more of an everything contract instead of a little niche … it allows us to do so much more instead of this little [contract]… figure out an OTA, figure out this.”
Monaghan said the contract vehicle is valued at almost $1bn dollars, one of the biggest contracts the program office has ever awarded.
Where is PCTE headed?
Many at Cyber Forge described the current iteration and future version of the PCTE platform as an on-demand interface with modules that teams can click on depending on what they want to practice. Additionally, there’s the option for organizations to create their own exercise or range within the platform, like the Navy did for Cyber Forge, or to choose from an existing template inside.
According to budget documents, the PCTE program plans to spend more than $400 million on the program in the next five years.
The program still has a way to go in terms of integrating new capabilities. In the prototype phase, the Army has conducted a series of cyber innovation challenges (CICs), which are awards to layer new technologies onto the platform.
The third challenge was awarded in February to Metova Federal, ManTech and SimSpace Corp. to work on the white cell exercise control. SimSpace will also work on a technical management dashboard. These capabilities were too new to be featured in Cyber Forge.
Similar to the Apple app store, the program office has instituted a standard for companies to provide new solutions or applications so long as they meet certain security requirements.
After the vendor awards a series of monthly sprints will incrementally add capabilities and technology to the platform. Rossey explained that monthly sprints occur with users providing feedback. He added another major update to the platform is scheduled for August with more monthly updates planned.
All of this is leading up to what personnel are calling the PCTE 1.0, or the official version of the program, slated for release in January.
PCTE is also making cyber more joint
Officials said events like Cyber Forge also allow for personnel from the program community, contracting community, academic community and operational community to get together and hash out big picture issues associated with cyber training and cyber issues across the joint force.
Since PCTE is a joint program to be used by all the services cyber mission force personnel under Cyber Command, the program has to take into account stake holders and teams from across the services.
One of the sessions observed at Cyber Forge focused on building content for what are known as Joint Qualification Requirements (JQR). JQRs are essentially the checklists personnel in DoD need to know to qualify to use a particular weapon system, cyber or not. For cyber, this could be the defensive kits teams deploy with when responding to a breach.
Participants said they wanted to include the requirements in the training environment for all the cyber weapon systems, a change that would allow cyberwarriors to log in to train on their specific weapon system.
By having this discussion, officials said it also helps Cyber Command look at the capabilities they have and standardize them across the force. (Source: Fifth Domain)
23 Jul 19. FAA Allows Military Aircraft to Turn Off ADS-B Transmissions. U.S. federal, state and local government aircraft performing sensitive operations are now permitted to fly with their installed automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) position reporting electronics turned off, according to a new rule published by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Thursday.
Under the new rule, aircraft conducting operations related to homeland security, law enforcement, national defense and intelligence that could be compromised by transmitting realtime aircraft position information are permitted to disable ADS-B transmissions after obtaining proper authorization from the FAA.
Changes to the FAA’s ADS-B Out airspace requirement come following several years of interagency meetings held by the FAA, Defense Department (DoD), Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Leadership from those agencies expressed strong concerns about adversaries being able to easily gain public access to real time ADS-B flight identification and positional data. A provision in the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act also prevents the FAA from mandating ADS-B installations on certain DoD aircraft.
Security concerns associated with ADS-B Out are not solely caused by the abilities of the ADS-B transponders, but instead by the proliferation and wide availability of new, inexpensive ADS-B ground receivers and applications than can track ADS-B equipped flights for 100 to 300 miles. In comparison to older Mode S transponders, ADS-B provides more detailed information including aircraft registration number, longitude, latitude, dimensions and velocity.
According to a description of the new policy, several alternatives to the new rule were considered that the FAA ultimately deemed too time consuming to meet the Jan. 1, 2020 ADS-B Out mandate, or required costly investments by DoD and other agencies. One alternative was to mask the identity of ADS-B Out equipped DoD aircraft, which defense officials determined still would not meet their needs because third parties would still be able to identify the aircraft location, velocity and altitude.
Other alternatives included the use of encryption for sensitive aircraft or a new exemption process where agencies could petition the FAA for the authority to turn ADS-B Out transmissions off. However, since no encryption solution for ADS-B currently exists and an exemption process requires agencies to submit their requests at least 120 days in advance of the exemption need, these alternatives were also decided against.
Through the rule change, the FAA has tasked its system operations security division with accepting requests from each individual agency requiring the authority to turn their ADS-B Out transmissions off. A major goal for the FAA is to avoid coordinating ADS-B Out transmission cancellations on a per-mission basis. Instead, the systems operations division will review requests submitted by the highest possibly agency organization level.
“Once an agency has determined the broad mission sets that should be excepted from the transmitting requirement using its internal policies and assessment criteria, it must contact the FAA for authorization to conduct these broad mission sets without transmitting,” FAA officials wrote in the new policy statement.
While the new rule is effective immediately, the FAA is allowing comments to be submitted about the rule change through Sept. 16, 2019. (Source: Defense Daily)
23 Jul 19. HASC GOP Leader Urges Congress to Consider AUMF Debate Through Cyber War Lens. Congress has been sharply divided along mostly party lines on whether to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has allowed the executive branch to circumvent legislators and approve the use of force in the global war against terrorism.
But perhaps lawmakers could consider a response to a plausible but indirect threat, such as a cyber attack, to find common ground on the future of the AUMF, said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee July 20.
Speaking during a panel with fellow HASC member Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, Thornberry acknowledged that updating the AUMF “may not be possible” with such a sharply divided Congress with the House led by Democrats and the Senate run by Republicans.
However, lawmakers could “step back on something that is not an immediate crisis, and think through how we would authorize the use of force, like a cyber war,” he noted.
The House voted in June to repeal the AUMF within eight months, and also attached an amendment to its recently passed version of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to prohibit a war with Iran without congressional approval. The AUMF debate is expected to be a sticking point as the House and Senate prepare to work together on a conference NDAA bill.
A cyber war “presents some real challenges that we need to think through,” he said. “It’s not just electrons going back forth. There are physical consequences, [and] people can die.”
But since it is not as current or direct as the U.S. military’s ongoing war against terrorism for the past 18 years, it could be considered under a more bipartisan lens, he added.
Maybe what we need to think … to get away from the partisanship that has engulfed us is a problem – but not an immediate problem,” he said.
Slotkin, a freshman House member who previously served as a CIA analyst and a policy adviser for the National Security Council, the State Department and Defense Department, said that while she supports the repeal of the AUMF itself, she agreed that the U.S. government is “very unprepared” for how to tackle the changing nature of warfare and that there is an opportunity there for bipartisan cooperation.
As the representative for Michigan’s 8th congressional district, she noted that a cyber attack on her state’s critical infrastructure could cause multiple deaths.
“If that happened intentionally and 26 elderly people froze in their homes, what is the proportional response to that?” she said. (Source: Defense Daily)
24 Jul 19. NSA Standing Up New Cybersecurity Directorate. The National Security Agency said Tuesday it is standing up a new cyber security office aimed at consolidating intelligence and cyber defense mission efforts, as well as preventing digital threats to the defense industrial base.
The Cybersecurity Directorate will be led by Anne Neuberger, who served as the NSA’s first chief risk officer, and is set to reach initial operational capability on Oct. 1.
“This new approach to cyber security will better position NSA to collaborate with key partners across the U.S. government like U.S. Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation,” NSA officials wrote in a statement. “It will also enable us to better share information with our customers so they are equipped to defend against malicious cyber activity.”
Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, is set to discuss the office’s new role at the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York.
“The Cybersecurity Directorate will reinvigorate our white hat mission opening the door to partners and customers on a wide variety of cyber security efforts,” officials wrote. “It will also build on our past successes such as Russia Small Group to operationalize our threat intelligence, vulnerability assessments, and cyber defense expertise to defeat our adversaries in cyberspace.”
Neuberger previously led NSA’s Russia Small Group task force, which was set up to specifically take on Moscow’s information operations and cyber campaigns. NSA made the task force permanent and renamed it the Election Security Group. The new office is tasked with improving cyber defense coordination among government agencies, as well as the agency’s outreach with private industry to raise awareness of malware and cyber security concerns. (Source: Defense Daily)
22 Jul 19. The US Army wants better cyber defense in 4 areas. The Army’s research and development community is looking for contractor information in developing state-of-the-art cyber defenses that can improve decision-making across the battlefield. In a notice posted online, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center’s Space & Terrestrial Communications Directorate; Cybersecurity Defense Operations and Research (CDOR) Branch is looking for capabilities to support cyber operations and security in four areas:
- Battlespace awareness. Providing friendly forces with better information to improve decision making to gain an advantage over the adversary. This can include combining intelligence related to threats, adversaries, technology and environment information.
- Secure operating area. Tools to secure cyberspace operating areas and the commander’s assessment of operational risk as well as continuous hardening for a stronger cybersecurity posture.
- Command and control. Tools to improve the cyber posture of forces to enable them to counter threats, manage risk and achieve objectives.
- Defense. Tools for stronger cyber defense against adversary attempts to disable or disrupt operations.
The notice states that the period of performance will be 12 months with four- to 12-month option periods. Responses are due by Aug. 19.
The CDOR, formerly the Army Research Lab Sustaining Base Network Assurance Branch, addresses current cyberthreats by designing state-of-the-art cyber defense capabilities. CDOR guides cyber defense research and development by relying on raw data collected from real-world networks. (Source: Fifth Domain)
22 Jul 19. IDZ-ES and the PUMA infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) for the VJTF 2023 are making a start on the end-to-end digital command radio link over the first mile using software defined radios from Rohde & Schwarz.
The seamless command radio link for the PUMA armored infantry system with the infantryman of the future (IdZ-ES) for the Very High Readiness Joint Taskforce (VJTF) 2023 is provided by Rohde & Schwarz. With the Budget Committee of the German Lower House of German Parliament (Bundestag) having given its approval for the armored infantry system service package at the end of June, the necessary contracts for procurement have now also been completed.
“This order is a milestone that we have reached after winning against international competitors in challenging trials and comparative tests set by the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in 2018 in Munster, Germany,” explained Hartmut Jäschke, Senior Vice President Market Segments Secure Communications Sales and Projects at Rohde & Schwarz.
Its basis is the intention of the Bundeswehr to be ready with the PUMA IFV/armored infantry system and the latest version of IdZ-ES for NATO VJTF (Land) in 2023. Rohde & Schwarz is a subcontractor of Rheinmetall Electronics, which is responsible for the IdZ-ES system, and will supply the latest tactical software defined radios (SDR) together with suitable waveforms, integration, training and services. The SOVERON family works with the high data rate and interference-immune SOVERON WAVE waveforms for tactical rugged use on the first mile, and is thus an exact match for the spectrum of requirements of a battle group for territorial and collective defense as well as for international crisis management operations. All members of the SOVERON WAVE family of waveforms offer mobile ad hoc network (MANET) functionality. Radios equipped with this capability function as routers within the IP network group, forwarding the information via other communication nodes and thus ensuring that a robust, interference-immune link can be maintained under all circumstances.
The Rohde & Schwarz VHF/UHF radio systems selected for this project will establish and maintain the command radio link with simultaneous voice and IP data from dismounted troops up to the platoon and company level. The systems concerned are handheld (SDHR/SOVERON HR) and vehicular radios (SDTR/SOVERON VR) that are interoperable with the German Armed Forces joint radio system (SVFuA, series name: SOVERON D) that has already been commissioned by the Bundeswehr and the SDR waveforms procured with it. The first batch of SOVERON D commissioned for command vehicles will be delivered to the troops in the first half of 2020. This interplay is also of great importance for future viability in the context of the Digitalization of Land Based Operations/Tactical Edge Networking (D-LBO/TEN) major project for highly secure and trusted interoperable connections that will only come into effect after VJTF 2023. SOVERON D also provides backward compatibility with the analog SEM radio infrastructure that will be in service for some time yet even though it is obsolete. This capability was also recently demonstrated in further tests.
“With our innovative overall approach – SOVERON – we provide national trusted solutions that can be tailored to the customer’s needs but which, due to their open architecture, are compatible with established radio systems and architectures and, at the same time, will be viable in the future,” Mr. Jäschke continued. “It is an honor for us to bring into operation by the troops the latest state of the art for the VJTF. By doing so, we are not only paving the way for the next steps of D-LBO/TEN and for further strategic projects of the Bundeswehr. There are also significant synergies with the Telecommunications of the Army (TK A) project in Switzerland, comparable to the networking part of D-LBO/TEN. We are in the final round of a multi-year competition here.”
23 Jul 19. Republicans urge Trump to keep 19 Jul 19. JEDI cloud buy on track. Top Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee have urged President Donald Trump to move ahead with the Pentagon’s $10bn Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud acquisition.
“We believe that it is essential for our national security to move forward as quickly as possible with the award and implementation of this contract,” four lawmakers wrote in a July 18 letter. “Moving to the cloud will help DOD operate faster, more efficiently, and compete with adversaries, like China.”
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and Robert Wittman (R-Va.) signed the letter. Stefanik is the ranking member of the committee’s Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.
The letter comes after Trump described for reporters the “tremendous” number of complaints he’s received about the JEDI contract from Republican lawmakers and technology companies, such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, Bloomberg reported. Trump said he was looking “very seriously” at the contract and would ask the Defense Department to “look into” it.
DOD has already conducted an internal investigation into potential improprieties with the acquisition and concluded, as did a federal judge, that there weren’t any. Additionally, the Armed Services Committee has been keeping an eye on the procurement process, which the lawmakers pointed out in their letter.
“Our committee has conducted oversight of this contract from the beginning,” they wrote. “While it is understandable that some of the companies competing for the contract are disappointed at not being selected as one of the finalists, further unnecessary delays will only damage our security and increase the costs of the contract.”
An award for the JEDI contract is expected in August. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are the final contestants. Amazon recently retained a Trump campaign lobbyist to represent it as controversy around the award ramps up, CNBC reported. Although the contract has survived pre-award protests and a lawsuit, there could be post-award challenges. Moreover, the president has the authority to cancel the acquisition altogether. (Source: Defense Systems)
22 Jul 19. Barrett Communications launches the 4077 HF Map & Track system. This solution provides a fully automated, scalable and independent situational awareness system for commercial, non-government and government agencies alike. This HF tracking solution is independent of infrastructure, has no ongoing costs of operation and offers greater data security through encrypted transmissions to all locations and weather conditions.
Barrett’s CEO, Mr Andrew Burt, commented “This product has been designed for enhanced reliability and asset monitoring whilst being intuitive to use. No operator training is required as it is fully automated. A unique aspect to this system is that all maps are open source and downloadable, ensuring system operability even in locations where internet access is unreliable or restricted.”
When paired with the Barrett 4050 HF SDR Transceiver, the 4077 HF Map & Track system effectively eliminates the field operator’s need to manually send GPS transmissions. The Barrett 4050’s “GPS Push” feature automates multi-channel encrypted GPS transmissions from the mobile(s) to the tracking station where the 4077 Map & Track system plots and displays on multi-level mapping software. The automated “GPS push” feature of the transceiver enables much greater reliability and occurrence of GPS tracking data, providing the operator with enhanced up to date tracking information helping to ensure fleet security.
19 Jul 19. L3Harris named on US Army cyber contract. L3Harris Technologies has been named on the US Army’s R4 Electronic and Cyber Warfare IDIQ contract. The R4 programme aims to develop and maintain the army’s lethality in non-kinetic engagements by employing cyber-electromagnetic activities (CEMA) effects in multi-domain operations. The programme includes the delivery of new cyber and CEMA capabilities as well as the upgrade of existing systems including training, documentation and support. L3Harris Technologies will compete for task orders for the programme. (Source: Shephard)
19 Jul 19. Another Half-Year US NGEN Extension. The US Navy on Thursday said it intends to issue a sole source solicitation to Perspecta for another half-year contract extension of the legacy Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) contract. In a FedBizOpps notice, the Navy said the extension will provide continuation of services Perspecta currently provides for six more months of end-user hardware (EUHW), lasting from
October 2019 to March 2020, and four to seven months of network services, lasting from June 2020 to September or December 2020. This adds to the current 23 months of extensions the Navy previously awarded, which consists of a three-month extension in option period four, a single one-year option period, and another eight-month option period. Last September, the Navy awarded Perspecta a $787m NGEN extension to last through September 2019. Without the extension, the contract would have expired at the end of September 2018. NGEN is the Navy’s enterprise-wide information technology (IT) services contract vehicle, providing IT services to the Navy and Marine Corps. This includes the Navy Marine Corps Internet (NMCI) and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN) within the continental U.S. (CONUS). The Navy has been conducting a competition for the NGEN Re-compete (NGEN-R) between Perspecta and Leidos [LDOS] since 2018 (Defense Daily, Feb. 5, 2018). Under NGEN-R, the Navy plans to add IT coverage outside CONUS through the OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network (ONE-Net), and also split the work into two contracts consisting of EUHW and service management, integration and transport (SMIT). The Navy hopes this new setup will lower total NGEN costs. The new notice said the Navy expects to award the EUHW NGEN-R contract in the fourth quarter of FY 2019 and SMIT in the second quarter of FY 2020. Perspecta is the incumbent on NGEN and provides the IT services through its U.S. public sector business it inherited from DXC Technology [DXC], which itself took Hewlett Packard’s [HP] Enterprise Services business. Perspecta launched in mid-2018 as a merger of DXC’s U.S. public sector business, Vencore, and Keypoint Government Solutions. (Source: Defense Daily)
18 Jul 19. Pentagon reconsiders plan to relocate key US intelligence hub within Britain. A U.S. intelligence gathering hub at RAF Molesworth, one of several American bases that had been slated for closure, could stay where it is as the Pentagon reconsiders a plan to move the center to a different site.
“The Department of Defense is currently re-assessing the future location of the Joint Intelligence Analysis Complex and the NATO Intelligence Fusion Center,” Lt. Col. Carla M. Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The center provides intelligence information for the U.S. European and African commands as well as NATO. The Pentagon stopped short of saying whether it is considering scrapping a plan to build a new center at RAF Croughton, which would include $200m in upgrades, and keep the intelligence activities at Molesworth.
But the Senate’s 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which still requires House approval, calls for funds to build an “intelligence fusion center” and “battlefield information collection and exploitation system center” at Molesworth.
The Senate NDAA did not specify how cancelling the move would affect the $200m slated for the Croughton project. The change is the latest twist in a plan that has been a source of controversy for nearly five years.
Moving to Croughton was part of a broader base-consolidation effort in Europe. RAF Molesworth, which was set to shutter around 2023, was one of many facilities the Pentagon had targeted for closure.
But relocating the intelligence center was met with fierce resistance from Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who said the military failed to consider more affordable alternatives to RAF Croughton. Nunes also accused the military in Europe of providing faulty information to justify the move.
Nunes’ concerns prompted an Inspector General investigation that examined whether U.S. European Command failed to sufficiently consider its options. The IG ultimately cleared EUCOM officials of intentionally misleading Congress, but the probe found that the military’s financial analysis contained inaccurate information. The military’s joint intelligence center was established in the U.K. in 1991 because there was insufficient space at EUCOM’s Stuttgart, Germany headquarters.
Molesworth was chosen because it had vacant facilities that were ready for use. With the establishment of AFRICOM, however, the mission has grown, leading to concerns that the base’s World War II-era buildings were undersized and unequipped to handle expanding operations.
While the Pentagon has said it is reassessing the move from Molesworth to Croughton, it didn’t offer details.
“This decision does not change the U.S. commitment to strengthen the NATO alliance, deter aggression from potential adversaries, and to support multinational operations,” Gleason said. “We are working closely with the United Kingdom to determine next steps for the future location of the JIAC and NIFC.”
But officials in Britain have said for months that they have information indicating Molesworth will stay open.
Last year, the member of parliament for the area said he was “delighted” after British media reported that the U.S. had notified the British Defense Ministry it wanted to keep the Joint Intelligence Analysis Center at RAF Molesworth.
“The JIAC plays a key role in maintaining the U.K.-U.S. defense relationship and the combined expertise of our two countries working together helps to ensure European security,” lawmaker Shailesh Vara told the Hunt’s Post newspaper in November. “I am also very pleased that as a result of this decision by the U.S. government, the economic benefits to the local community will continue.”
In February this year, senior U.K. Defense Ministry official Tobias Ellwood said in a speech to parliament that Molesworth would not be shuttered, and that the U.S. would continue to use the site. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/https://www.stripes.com)
18 Jul 19. DARPA advances plan for TIMEly underwater network. Plans for a novel underwater network architecture have been laid out by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the banner of Timely Information for Maritime Engagements (TIMEly).
In a special notice released on 17 June, DARPA revealed that TIMEly is intended “to develop concepts for a heterogeneous underwater network architecture [with the goal] to enable the vision of mosaic warfare facilitated by the contemporaneous composition of effects chains from available assets in any domain, but with an emphasis on the underwater domain in order to provide options for execution on the fly”.
Mosaic warfare is an operational concept being pursued by DARPA Strategic Technology Office that seeks to shift away from a primary emphasis on highly capable manned systems – typically characterised by high costs and long development timelines – to a force mix of manned and less-expensive unmanned systems that can be rapidly developed, fielded, and upgraded with new technology to address evolving threats. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
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On 23 November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced that it had recently been listed as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier for 2015-2016 by the UK Crown Commercial Services
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