January 20, 2014 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued January 17, 2014)

Kendall: Military Technological Superiority Not Assured

WASHINGTON --- The decline in research and development brought on by budget cuts is contributing to the erosion of the U.S. military’s technological superiority at an alarming rate, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics said.

“Technological superiority is not assured,” Frank Kendall told a conference yesterday sponsored by the Center for a New American Society. “The United States came out of the Cold War, and demonstrated in the first Persian Gulf War, a very significant superiority in military technology and the application of those technologies. And we’ve sort of had an assumption [during] the last 20-plus years that that {American] technological superiority would be a fact of life in the world.”

The Defense Department has “a big part of sustaining the levels of [research and development] investment that I think we need,” Kendall added.

Despite the relief provided by a trillion dollar plus spending bill approved by Congress for 2014, Kendall said the department still faces heavy budget cuts.

“We’re still taking substantial cuts, and [2015] is much worse than ’14 is,” he said. “And then we don’t know what will happen to us after that.

“So with budgets heading in that direction,” he continued, “and all the uncertainty we’re dealing with, the Department of Defense has a very difficult planning problem.”

Part of that planning problem, according to Kendall, is the uncertainty of how much force structure DOD will be able to retain.

“There’s always a tendency to hang onto force structure in order to do to the things we need to do in the world,” he said. “But if we do hang onto that force structure, the consequence of that is R&D has to be cut,” in order to pay salaries and readiness.

“And that’s what you’re seeing even with the appropriations bill the Senate just passed,” Kendall said. “And it gets much worse as we go further out.”

Eventually, “if we know where the [budget] is going, we can get our force structure down to where we can get in balance between those different accounts that I mentioned,” he said.

The undersecretary laid out three points supporting his concern for the erosion of U.S. technological superiority.

“[Research and development] is not a variable cost. There’s a tendency in the Defense Department, when we cut budgets, to kind of cut everything.

“But what drives R&D is the rate of modernization that we desire,” Kendall continued. “[It] is really not dependent on the size of the force structure.”

Kendall’s second point is time is not a recoverable asset. R&D really buys that time in something of a race for technological superiority, he said.

“I can buy back readiness, I can increase force structure, but I don’t have any way to buy back the time it takes me to get a new product,” Kendall said.

That timeline in the acquisitions business is relatively long, Kendall said, noting how often he gets remarks about the length of an acquisitions process which hasn’t changed much over the years.

Essentially, Kendall said, it takes about two years before the department can get a budget to spend serious money on an idea.

“Then we have two or three years to four years of risk reduction where we develop the technology to where we’re confident we can put it into a product,” he said. “Then we have five or six years of development of making the product ready for production.”

Combine that with the “few years of buying enough numbers to make a difference militarily,” Kendall said, and the timeline easily becomes 10 or 15 years.

“So for that reason as well, I’m concerned,” he said. “I’m trying to do a lot of things now to hedge against these [challenges] and make people aware of these things and do more about them.”

Kendall reiterated how important he believes research and development is to maintaining DOD’s edge in technological superiority.

“It’s critical to the department, it’s critical to our future,” he said. “It is not ‘the wolf closest to the sled’ right now, necessarily. But I think it is absolutely paramount that we keep our R&D budgets funded.”

Brussels | Nov 20, 2013 European Defence Agency

The X-51 hypersonic test vehicle beneath a B-52

07 October 2013 by ADIT - defenceWeb

This month, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a report focusing on the attractive although elusive concept of game changing technologies. The report is part of a larger project called NeXTech, led by the U.S Department of Defense’s (DoD) Rapid Reaction Technology Office.

The project has consisted of interviews with leading experts on leading edge technologies, as well as in war games involving the US Army War College, the US Naval Postgraduate School and the US Naval Academy. The simulations involved people from the US DoD as well as foreign militaries and civilians.

In this report, Ben FitzGerald and Shawn Brimley point out several key issues concerning disruptive technologies. To begin with, let’s have a look at the author’s definition of a “disruptive” or “game changing” technology. According to them, it is “a technology or a set of technologies applied to a relevant problem in a manner that radically alters the symmetry of military power between competitors. The use of this technology immediately outdates the policies, doctrines and organization of all actors.”

As we understand it, it is a shift from the prevailing paradigm. Such development gives headaches to strategist and military officers. The pace of technological innovations appears to have increased with the emergence of semiconductors. In this area, the “Moore’s law” states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every two years. The authors note that “if Moore’s Law hold true the way it has for the past 40 years, it presents immense complexity. For instance, between the current review of the US defense strategy and the moment when the Quadrennial Defense Report will be published, we will see a doubling of the technological power and complexity of our processing chips, computer and all that is powered with them.” In that respect, let’s just notice that the DARPA regularly awards contracts as part of the Technology Advanced Research Network (STARnet), a “nationwide network of multi-university research centers “focused on discovering solutions to the intractable problems that are forecast to lie in the future of integrated circuit progress and to lay the foundations for microsystems innovations once the improvements associated with Moore's Law are exhausted” (sic).

A good example of disruptive technology was the proliferation of unmanned vehicles, ten years ago. With time they became “random” with 8,000 unmanned aerial vehicles and 12,000 unmanned ground vehicle present in the US armed forces.

However, CNAS’ experts insist on the fact that technological dominance “is a strategic choice.” During the cold war, it underlines that “the choice to optimize investments in fewer, better platforms eventually generated game changing capabilities.” The author warns that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, such strategic choice is now “a matter of presumption.” Without any serious rivals, the unmatched technological edge and military superiority is now perceived as being in the nature of the US armed forces.

Over the past decades, many countries have “emerged” as military technology players, including China. Globalization is also a factor in the proliferation of advanced technologies. The NeXTech project identified several technologies that could be game changers.

Additive manufacturing (AM), which is an industrial way of production consisting of creating items layer by layer using lasers, is one of them. AM dramatically cuts the time between prototyping and serial production. It is also more flexible, since production lines can be adapted more rapidly.

The second type of disruptive technologies is autonomous systems. According to the report, it could be used in a broader range of military operation as well as intelligence activities. Directed energy weapons are also envisioned as revolutionary. These consist of weapon systems based on millimetre waves, high power microwaves, lasers, and electromagnetic pulses. The main advantage of lasers is that there is no flight time between the shot and the target since the beam basically travels at the speed of light. Some serious limits exist though: bad weather (or humidity) considerably diminish the use of such technology, and it requires a considerable source of energy. It could be a powerful defensive tool against missiles.

The cyberspace was not forgotten since “as with most fame changing tech, cyber technology has blurred previously well understood boundaries, exposed vulnerabilities and created new threats and industry.” The last game changer could be HPM, an acronym standing for Human Performance Modification. It consists of using drugs, techniques, machines or genes to enhance or degrade human performance. Concrete applications could be improving IQs or developing natural night vision. It is to be noted that several technological fields, which appeared to many A&D sector analysts as “disruptive” are not mentioned in the CNAS report. Indeed, no mention is made of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, or about the possible implications of Boeing’s X-37 unmanned reusable spacecraft. In addition to those weapons of “outer space,” it appears that hypersonic missiles or aircraft would have deserved to be included in the report.

Those technological gaps will face various challenges: the decreasing level of R&D spending, the resistance of the military to new, unproven, revolutionary technologies. To be certain that the US will keep its No.1 seat, the authors recommend that the Secretary of Defense issues an annual report on the state of defense R&D coupled with temporary or permanent subcommittees of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees tasked with overseeing the defense R&D spending. To conclude they insist, once again, one the fact that “America’s privileged position in military technology is not an inherent right.”

June 14, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued June 13, 2013)

Competitive Defense Contracting: When It Makes Sense (and When It Doesn't)

Competition has become the mantra of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) acquisition corps. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, Mr. Frank Kendall has gone on record saying “I think that nothing, nothing, works better than competition to drive cost down.” DoD has established metrics for competition, sort of like a quota system. Many more prime contracts are being competed. The idea is to the greatest extent possible to replicate the commercial marketplace.

Unfortunately, the defense marketplace does not resemble the ideal free market where competition produces optimal market efficiency. Indeed, there are reasons to believe that the competition goals set by DoD and the policies implemented to encourage competition are not contributing to acquisition cost savings. A recent study of the defense industrial base by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments concluded that efforts to increase competition based on the presumption “that the defense industry operates like a normal free market is not only unlikely to improve efficiency, but have often made things worse.”

The defense sector is really a state monopoly and should be treated as such. There are approaches to improving performance and reducing costs such as performance-based contracts. But to pretend that this sector can be a mirror of the commercial marketplace is wrong and ultimately counterproductive to the goals of reducing costs for defense goods.

There is a natural place for competition in the defense marketplace. In the early phases of a major program – concept definition, technology development and risk reduction – there is value in competition. DoD has experimented with continuing a second contractor through later program stages, including into full-rate production, with mixed results. Also, there are a range of goods and services that are commoditized and can be treated the same in the defense market as they are in the commercial world. Hence, the defense customer can use competition to achieve reduced price for a specified level of performance. This kind of competition is inherent in the products themselves and in their use. It is natural.

But for platforms, major weapons systems and networks, products that are likely to be in the force for decades and undergo repeated upgrades, certainty, reliability, quality and effectiveness must be the considered. Beyond a rather obvious point, competition for this set of goods and services is not natural but forced.

Click here to download the full study as PDF (24 pages)

April 17, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: U.S Air Force; issued April 17, 2013)

Science, Technology Remain Critical, Official Says

WASHINGTON --- Despite fiscal uncertainty, science and technology remain critical elements in mitigating emerging threats against the United States, a Defense Department official told Congress yesterday.

Alan Shaffer, the acting assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, pledged to continue a focus on programs such as electronic warfare, counter-space, cyber, and counter-weapons of mass destruction to meet U.S. national security goals.

"The challenge is clear. The president and the secretary of defense depend on defense research and engineering to make key contributions to the defense of our nation," Shaffer told the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on intelligence, emerging threats and capabilities.

Science and technology should mitigate new and emerging capabilities that could degrade U.S. security, he said, while enabling new or extended capabilities in existing military platforms and systems.

Defense Department science and technology researchers, systems engineers and developmental test and evaluation personnel also strive to develop "technology surprise" through science and engineering applications to military problems, Shaffer said.

"Together, the professional scientists and engineers conceive, develop and mature systems early in the acquisition process," he added.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and allied personnel work with industry and international partners, academia and other government agencies to provide unmatched, operational advantage to the warfighter, Shaffer said.

"When we look at the capabilities developed and delivered by these people during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I contend the nation has received good return on investment," he said. Notable successes, he added, include mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, persistent threat-detection systems and use of multispectral imagery to remotely detect explosives.

"These three alone greatly increased the safety of our deployed force," Shaffer said. "We met the demands of an armed force at war."

But as the drawdown in Afghanistan continues, uncertainty looms in national security and budget environments, creating reductions that will rattle some programs, Shaffer said.

"It is not possible to discuss the (fiscal 2013 and 2014) budgets without addressing the impact of the sequester," he said, noting cuts of about 9 percent from each of DOD's programs and program lines.

The president's fiscal 2014 budget request for Defense Department science and technology is $12 billion, a nominal increase from the $11.9 billion requested in 2013, he added.

"This reduction will result in delay or termination of efforts," Shaffer said. "We will reduce awards."

For instance, he said, DOD will reduce university grants this year by roughly $200 million, and potentially could reduce the number of new science, mathematics and research for transformation, or SMART, scholarships in fiscal 2013 to zero.

"Because of the way the sequester was implemented, we will be very limited in hiring new scientists this year," he said. "Each of these actions will have a negative, long-term impact on the department and national security."

Budgetary pressures exist, as do new challenges, Shaffer said, adding that DOD leadership has made a strategic choice to protect science and technology where possible.

"We did this to provide options for the future as well as meet new challenges that have technological dimensions," he said.

The challenges, he added, include instability in nations such as Syria, which has weapons of mass destruction that could fall out of state control. He also cited persistent concerns over North Korean nuclear weapons with the means to deliver them, and the emergence of sophisticated anti-access, area-denial capabilities in a number of nations.

Emerging threats, he said, also include cyber exploitation and attack and the increased sophistication of advanced electronic attack capabilities of potential adversaries.

"The department's research and engineering program is faced with the same challenges as the rest of the DOD," Shaffer said.

01 February 2012 Thales UK

In an era when Government funding is in decline, technologies are evolving at record speeds and Britain aspires to maintain its leading international role, it’s clear that the UK approach to acquisition and technology needs to be brought up to date.

We therefore welcome the clarity that the White Paper brings, and support the use of competition and ‘off the shelf’ acquisition, which is a pragmatic recognition of the approach that Thales has taken on many of its UK programmes. Critical to the delivery of this approach is the Government’s recognition of the importance of UK-based systems integration skills and key technologies that provide the battle-winning edge.

On the ground in Afghanistan, both the military and the Exchequer have benefited from Thales UK’s ability to fit ‘military off the shelf’ solutions to UK forces’ needs. Whether in Armoured Vehicles such as Mastiff or UAVs like the Hermes 450 (which has flown over 50,000 hours in support of operations in theatre) recent experience demonstrates the feasibility of combining an international supply chain with domestic integration skills to deliver battle-winning capability. What matters to the soldier on the ground is not where a piece of kit was manufactured, but whether it delivers the capability he needs.

UK Armed Forces must have unique capabilities which give them an edge in the field, on the seas, in the air and in cyberspace. The challenge going forward, however, is that the specific circumstances of each capability area vary wildly, frustrating one-size-fits-all approaches. We therefore look forward to working with Government to understand how the high level strategy laid out in this Paper will carefully be put into effect in a timely manner in each case.

The Paper also confirms the need to make special arrangements for a specific set of ‘strategic’ technologies, and the inclusion of capabilities like electronic warfare and cryptography highlights how C4ISR technologies are central to delivering ‘operational advantage’ in the 21st century.

Research and Technology underpins all of the UK’s Defence goals – responding to fast-changing threats in an agile way, improving export market share and performance, convergence with Security capabilities, and reorienting the economy towards advanced technology skills and manufacturing. Whilst the White Paper’s commitment to a consistent level of funding provides certainty, it is clear that this level will need to rise significantly above current levels if the UK is to achieve its broader goals.

Exports and strategic relationships are clearly critical in developing future capability and creating economies of scale, and Thales welcomes the commitment to Anglo-French collaboration as a key contributor in realising the UK’s ambitions at a time of constrained budgets.

Similarly, Government’s emphasis on the use of service-based solutions is an effective and pragmatic response to the decline in military headcount. This recognises the benefits generated through Contractor Support to Operations in recent years, and looks forward to the emerging Whole Force Concept where reservists and industry play greater roles supporting the military force.

Victor Chavez
Chief Executive
Thales UK