Author: alaysia.mckenzie

The Army, Defense Logistics Agency, and Pentagon are working to make data-sharing easier and improve supply-chain woes.

BY LAUREN C. WILLIAMS

JANUARY 17, 2025

Virtually all of the Army’s weapons are affected by delayed or backordered parts—and mismatched computer systems are largely to blame. And it’s only been a month since a new digital tool has started to replicate that. 

“Our supply chain is huge. The Army doesn't buy all of its own parts. In fact, 90 percent of our parts—mostly low-dollar, high-volume expendables, things that go pretty quick, consumable-type stuff—we actually rely on the Defense Logistics Agency to buy them,” Richard Martin, Army Materiel Command’s director for supply chain management, told reporters on Wednesday.

“Using a Black Hawk helicopter as an example, the Army has the lion's share. The Navy also flies a similar aircraft. The Air Force flies a similar aircraft. The Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, they all have similar-type aircraft,” Martin said, at a media event following the Association of the U.S. Army’s industrial-base readiness event on Wednesday. 

But each of those entities has their own business systems. And just over a year ago, the Army realized that DLA’s systems weren’t showing data from the service’s maintenance and supply systems—and what they did get was unreadable. 

Over the last year, the service developed a tool—Army Materiel Command Predictive Analysis Suite, or APAS—that allows them to share information back and forth with DLA. They started using it in December.

“There's still some bugs in it, if you will. But it's definitely allowing them to see…the depth [of detail] that we're trying to get to and lets DLA make that procurement decision,” he said. 

“It lets DLA recognize what we are ultimately consuming,” he said. Before the systems were properly connected, the Army would need 20 of a particular part for a weapon every month, for example, but DLA would receive that data as needing 20 every few months. This created a backlog. 

“They would see, ‘hey, I need 100 [of this part]’ and the reality was I not only needed 100 immediately, because there are weapon systems down for that part, I actually needed another 200 to replenish my stocks,” he said. 

APAS also lets the Army see DLA’s lead times for part delivery and how much the agency is buying, enabling the service to manage the parts needed to make weapons operational and replenish stockpiles.

The Defense Logistics Agency handles about 5 million national stock numbers—that is, individual parts—across the military services. 

“We've started with DLA and the Army because we found that all the services we're doing forecasting separately and differently and managing their systems differently, and we needed to have a way to share the data so we could see what they were consuming and have predictive analytics we could look at where we need to have parts bought ahead of need,” Kristin French, DLA’s deputy director for logistics operations, told reporters on Wednesday. 

This accountability is crucial for industry to have enough time to configure and startup manufacturing lines, French said. 

“It takes them, sometimes a year, 18 months—in munitions, two years or more—to get parts or items,” she said. 

The DLA and the Army started a data-sharing working group, and now uses a system with API interfaces that allows the two organizations to see supply needs and availability. 

“We have to do it through protocols, because the systems are different, but we do it through API Interfaces where we can talk to each other and see what they're consuming so we can predict what we will need to procure the future requirements,” French said.

Sharing data is one of the biggest challenges in sustainment and logistics, said Steven Morani, the acting secretary of defense for sustainment. The Pentagon has been using its main data analytics platform, ADVANA, for logistics data from across the services. 

“And that actually accelerated our ability to get the weapons systems performance data into a shared environment. And it allowed us to make progress on an area that we had been quite honestly struggling to get agreements on, and that was performance metrics,” which details the health and status of various platforms, Morani told reporters during a Defense Writers Group event on Friday.  

Today, all services are putting in that data in the same way thanks to guidance issued last year. “We’re using that data to see ourselves better,” Morani said. In 2025, the Pentagon plans to add supply data metrics in hopes that it will “move us from this pool system, where the units are having to send that demand signal, for us to see the demand signal through data, understand consumption rates, and now push materiel there before you know a unit runs out. And that's really the goal of what we're trying to do.”

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said that plans to move 4,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam will put those forces far from where they are needed.

JEFF SCHOGOL


Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith cautioned on Wednesday that ongoing efforts to relocate Marines from Okinawa to Guam will move those forces away from where they are most needed.

“Frankly, Guam puts us going the wrong way,” Smith told reporters at a Defense Writers Group Breakfast in Washington, D.C. “Guam puts us on the other side of the International Date Line, but it puts us a long way from the crisis theater, from the priority theater.”

About 19,000 Marines are currently stationed in Okinawa. The United States and Japan agreed in 2012 to move about 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam and other locations in the Pacific, including Hawaii. About 4,000 Marines are expected to be stationed on Guam, where Camp Biaz will serve as their primary installation.

Although the Marine Corps is committed to drawing down to about 10,000 Marines on Okinawa, the move to Guam is a “challenge,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday.

For example, the Army also expects to deploy forces to Guam, and that would limit the space available for the Marines, Smith said. Apra Harbor, where aircraft carriers and other Navy ships can dock, is also undergoing infrastructure updates. In April 2023, a $106.9 million contract was awarded for an embarkation and debarkation facility for Marines.

“So, I’m not sure that is in the best strategic interests of America, to be honest with you,” Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “But it is a treaty obligation we have with Japan, which we’re going to comply with unless, and until, it changes.”

Roughly 100 logistics support Marines with III Marine Expeditionary Force began moving from Okinawa to Guam in December.

The Marine Corps supports the 2012 agreement between Japan and the United States and the planned relocation of forces to Guam or Hawaii, a spokesperson for the service told Task & Purpose on Wednesday.

“The Marine Corps will continue to explore options for the best location for the future force in the region,” they said. “The realignment of Japan-based Marines is the result of nearly 20 years of bilateral policy negotiation reflected in multiple international agreements and arrangements. This laydown honors an international agreement with the [Japanese government].”

Okinawa is part of the “first island chain,” which refers to a chain of islands in the Pacific that includes Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, which would be the front line in a war with China. U.S. military leaders have speculated that China could attempt to invade Taiwan by 2027. Although the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 is vague about how the United States would respond to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to defend the island nation.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, testified during his confirmation on Tuesday that the incoming administration will make deterring China a top priority.

“We’re going to start by ensuring the institution understands that as far as threats abroad, the [Chinese Communist Party] is front and center — also, obviously defending our homeland as well,” Hegseth said.

China’s aggressive claims that it controls waters administered by other countries in the Western Pacific and the Defense Department’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region provide an argument to possibly consider relooking at the agreement to move Marines from Okinawa to Guam, Smith said.

“That’s obviously a domestic issue for the Japanese government to decide,” Smith said. “But what I do know is every time you give China a foot, they take a mile. They only understand one thing, which is a credible deterrent force. And that credible deterrent force has to be present to win, which to me means being in the first island chain.”

BY MEGHANN MYERS DECEMBER 10, 2024

The second Trump administration will have to address climate realities one way or another, according to a deputy assistant defense secretary.

Extreme weather is creating fertile ground for conflict in multiple regions of Africa, the Pentagon’s top Africa official said Tuesday.

It’s also threatening the U.S.’s ability to maintain military bases like Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, on the continent’s central east coast, said Maureen Farrell, deputy assistant defense secretary for African affairs.

“Djibouti is one of the hottest countries on earth, and our ability to operate and engage in Djibouti is significantly affected by climate stressors in the Horn of Africa,” Farrell told reporters at a Defense Writers Group meeting.

For example, high temperatures regularly force sailors stationed at Camp Lemonnier—a Navy expeditionary base of roughly 4,000 uniformed and civilian personnel that stages troops for missions in Africa, Europe and Asia—to suspend physical training to prevent heat stress.

At the same time, “there's a number of African conflicts that we could point to that are over water and land rights,” Farrell said.

That includes competition between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan for fresh water. And in countries like Somalia, drought is pushing devastated farming communities into the arms of al-Qaida’s most well-funded affiliate.

“So we see climate-stressed areas to be a wonderful recruiting opportunity for terrorist groups,” Farrell said. “And some of the previous droughts that have taken place in Somalia, we have seen an uptick in al-Shabab recruiting, for example, which we correlate directly with the lack of other livelihood opportunities for the communities there.”

The U.S. military has taken steps to alleviate some of the challenges, she said, such as in Chad, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has helped local forces floodproof their bases, after years of drought hardened the soil to the point that heavy rains will immediately accumulate rather than soak into the earth. 

But while the Biden administration has embraced climate change policy in its work to deter conflict in African nations, there are questions about how a second Trump administration—with a president who has dismissed climate concerns in the past—will approach U.S. engagement in Africa.

“The consequences of not engaging on climate issues are quite serious and far reaching that affect not only U.S. interests, but also those of our allies and partners,” Farrell said.

And whether the Trump administration wants to call it climate change or not, she said, the consequences are unavoidable. 

“These are all the same issues. Every administration has the prerogative to put whatever branding on their special initiatives,” she said. “So whatever you call it, these changes in the environment, in the terrain, and the challenges resulting from regional conflicts are unchanging.”

Farrell did not indicate a concern that current Africa policy will be gutted, instead pointing out that Congress has funded the Biden administration’s efforts in a bipartisan manner.

“You'll notice the way that I'm talking about this is in terms of our strategic resilience, changing strategic environments,” she said. “All of those are facts. Those have nothing to do with the political branding that we decide here in Washington to place on some of these interests.”

The next administration might shift to buzzwords like “sustainability” and “resiliency” rather than focus on man-made climate shifts, she said. 

“What we are doing in terms of the way we are engaging on it, I would expect to continue, but perhaps just with a different talking point around it, because the challenges are the same,” Farrell said.

The service has never confirmed putting companies on the blacklist until now.

By Audrey Decker

The Space Force has put a defense contractor on a blacklist intended to hold companies accountable for poor performance and program delays. 

“There is a company on the watch list today. I won't say who it is,” Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, commander of Space Systems Command, told reporters at a Defense Writers Group event. 

The Contractor Responsibility Watch List, or CRWL, was created in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act to give Space Systems Command the power to stop underperforming contractors from getting new contracts. Until today, the service has never confirmed if it has used the list. 

The list “has absolutely worked as intended. We've seen significant improvement in performance and attention at the most senior levels of the corporation,” Garrant said. While Garrant didn’t name the company, he said the contractor works on high-priority space programs. 

The service wants to expand the tool in the 2025 NDAA and move the authority to blacklist contractors to Air Force space acquisition chief Frank Calvelli. Calvelli has been known to publicly call out defense contractors for schedule delays, and has emphasized the need to hold industry accountable. 

Once the authority is moved, Calvelli will likely use it “more frequently,” Garrant said. 

Calvelli has been trying to address long-delayed “problem children” programs in the Space Force, including an RTX program called GPS Next Generation Operational Control Segment, or OCX, which are ground stations that will control the Pentagon’s constellation of GPS satellites, as well as an L3Harris space command-and-control system called Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System, or ATLAS. 

The Space Force recently booted RTX from a contract to develop new missile warning and tracking satellites due to cost overruns and schedule problems—an example of how the service is keeping contractors accountable, Garrant said.

“[Calvelli] has talked a lot about holding people accountable, whether they're in the government or in industry. Without particulars, in my tenure, we have relieved program managers that work for me, holding them accountable. I would offer that removing one of the industry partners was holding them accountable to what they proposed to us from a cost, schedule, performance perspective. That’s the indication,” he said. 

The Navy's top officer described lessons learned from ships countering drones and missiles fired by Houthis in the Red Sea.

ByMark Pomerleau

October 2, 2024

One of the key lessons from the Navy’s recent engagements with Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea is being adaptable on the battlefield to use existing systems differently.

Over the last year, Navy assets in the region have come under fire from a barrage of systems launched by the Houthis — a group backed by Iran that has controlled portions of Yemen, including the capital, since 2014 — to include one-way drones and missiles. Navy ships have used a variety of expensive missiles to shoot down these assets, leading many outside experts to ask if the sea service and the Department of Defense are on the wrong side of the cost curve, shooting down inexpensive projectiles with million-dollar ammunition.

“The other lesson learned … is really using what you have differently. Using Hellfire against unmanned surface vehicles, air-to-air, aviation platform shooting down UAVs,” Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, told reporters during a roundtable Wednesday hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “These are things where we’re really learning. I think that Ukraine has shown us that you can innovate on the battlefield. I want to innovate before the battlefield, so we can stay ahead of any adversary any time.”

Navy aircraft had previously been used to shoot down several missiles and drones fired by the Houthis.

Franchetti noted that there isn’t a price tag for the lives of the sailors being targeted by the Houthis, a refrain echoed by top officials alluding to the fact they will use whatever capabilities at their disposal — regardless of how expensive — to protect personnel.

“I’m very proud of them, speaking with them directly. They have been in a weapons engagement zone and working at a level of intensity really never seen in my lifetime and really since World War II. I am very grateful for the weapons systems we have and for their ability to deploy them,” she said. “We’ve learned [that] conventional platforms [are] defeating unmanned platforms. We see that again every day that our ships are there and that our weapon systems and our training process that we’ve invested in over the last 10 to 15 years has really paid off. Our weapons are working as designed, our people know how to use them as designed and I think that confidence is really important as they integrate our capabilities along with the capabilities of the Air Force with allies and partners there.”

Though she declined to offer specific lessons and applications for assets currently deployed to avoid touching on ongoing operations, Franchetti acknowledged that the joint services along with allies and partners will all continue to contribute capabilities to thwart these types of threats in the future.

“You learn a couple things from that [engagement]. One is the power of allies and partners being able to work together. Like-minded nations to stand up again for that rules-based international order … it just reiterates the value of allies and partners, which our adversaries simply don’t have,” she said. “It’s clear that unmanned platforms are part of that changing character of war … you also need to be able to defeat them. This is a strong area of focus for our secretary of defense. He’s really put a lot of emphasis on counter-UAS and using creative solutions to get after that. We’re focused on that too. I think there’s some – all five services, are working on that, so there’ll be some integrated capabilities that we’re able to come up with.”

One of the biggest lessons Franchetti touted was the ability to take data from weapon systems to learn and improve tactics. Engineers can work with industry to devise fixes against these capabilities the Houthis are employing — which includes the best Iranian technology the Islamic Republic is supplying — in an ongoing cat-and-mouse game.

“We’re continuing to learn,” Franchetti said. “We know that this change in the character of war is that we are going to have to be able to defeat those types of technologies, whether it’s kinetically or non-kinetically or … farther left of launch and look forward to working on that.”

Others:

https://breakingdefense.com/2024/10/navys-80-percent-surge-readiness-target-is-a-stretch-goal-says-cno

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/2/navy-investing-in-industrial-base-to-fix-sub-programs-cost-schedule-challenges

Mike Glenn September 17, 2024

The war in Ukraine has shown that the U.S. must prepare for new forms of conflict and do a better job rapidly integrating new technology and capabilities with older systems, the chair of a panel examining the National Defense Strategy said Tuesday.

Former Rep. Jane Harman, chair of the congressionally mandated Commission on the National Defense Strategy and a California Democrat, said she visited a drone factory during a recent visit to Ukraine. The workers constructed drone casings using a 3-D printer and ordered the software from Amazon. 

“They can produce a drone for $350. I don’t think the Pentagon can produce a cup of coffee for $350,” Ms. Harman said.  

Ms. Harman and the commission vice chair, Ambassador Eric Edelman, spoke about the commission’s report with the Defense Writers Group a day before their Wednesday testimony to the House Armed Services Committee about the National Defense Strategy.

Their bipartisan commission, in a scathing report released in July, said the U.S. is not prepared for the large-scale war it waged against Germany and Japan nearly 80 years ago.

And China is outpacing the U.S. and has largely negated its past military advantages in the Western Pacific, the commission argued.

“The U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat,” the report stated. “It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale; field more and higher-capability platforms, software, and munitions; and deploy innovative concepts to employ them together better.”

Drones have proven to be vital for Ukraine in its war against invading Russia, both in providing Kyiv with a low-cost aerial intelligence-gathering capability and in destroying Russian military targets. They plan to eventually produce at least one million drones every year, Ms. Harman said.

“That’s the standard we have to be moving toward,” she said.

Executives from top defense technology companies warned Congress this week that China is outperforming the U.S. in mass production of drones. Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing about 10,000 small intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones every month. 

“When I look at what they’re losing per month and what we currently have in our inventory, I think ‘My goodness, we would last less than two months in a great power conflict,” Skydio global government president W. Mark Valentine told lawmakers on Monday. “And I just personally think that’s unacceptable.”

Mr. Valentine, whose company says it is America’s leading drone manufacturer, called for a surge of American drones into Ukraine, which he said would enhance the industry’s ability to meet U.S. requirements in the event of a future conflict. 

However, the National Defense Strategy Commission warns that the U.S. defense industry can’t meet the vital equipment, technology and munitions needs of the United States, its allies, and partners. A protracted conflict — especially in multiple regions — would require a much greater capacity to produce, maintain and replenish weapons and munitions stocks, and drones.

“We just don’t have the defense industrial base to sustain that kind of production. We need major investment in the defense industrial base to be able to surge production when we need it,” Mr. Edelman said. “We should be the ‘Arsenal of Democracy,’ but I don’t think we can be the Arsenal of Democracy alone.”

By CAITLYN BURCHETT 

September 10, 2024

WASHINGTON — Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki is taking aim at the U.S. military for failing to notify his government of sexual assault cases involving service members as he lobbies lawmakers to curb misconduct among troops stationed in his prefecture. “As good neighbors in the same region, we need to know what is going on in the military side. … At the same time, we as our prefectural government, need to assure our citizens that we are actually protecting their lives and safety,” Tamaki said Tuesday at a Defense Writer’s Group discussion with reporters.

In recent months, two service members have been indicted on sexual assault or attempted sexual assault charges. Japanese prosecutors withheld information about the charges from the public and prefectural government until June, weeks after the troops were charged. “The biggest issue that we need to face here is the fact that we weren’t [notified] of this. The information sharing system did not function at all,” Tamaki said. Specifically, he said, the prefecture wants to know how the U.S. military confirms such cases, how accused troops are disciplined, and the contents and the frequency of sexual assault training U.S. troops receive.

The Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, led by Tamaki, approved a petition in mid-July calling for changes to the U.S.-Japan status of forces agreement, the legal relationship between the U.S. military and the Okinawa population. According to Tamaki, the agreement excludes prefecture governments from receiving information about crimes involving U.S. service members on the island and gives prefectures no say in how such cases are handled.

A third case came to light last week. A 20-year-old U.S. Marine is suspected of sexually assaulting and injuring a woman in Okinawa in June, according to Okinawa Prefectural Police. The Marine is not in Japanese custody but is confined to military installations in Japan, a spokesman for the III Marine Expeditionary Force wrote last week in an email. The Japanese government, the U.S. government and the U.S. military each have differing judicial systems, Tamaki said. “The judicial systems should work hand in hand to punish these suspects. This should be a fair judicial system,” he said.

Tamaki declined to say whether the prefecture was notified of the third case in a more timely manner. The case, he said, had not been made public to the Okinawa community at the request of the victim. In July, U.S. Forces Japan outlined steps the U.S. military would take to combat misconduct, including increased police patrols and sobriety checks and reviewing liberty policies.

“Recently, there have been allegations of misconduct that stand in opposition to who we are, what we stand for, and our commitments to the U.S.-Japan alliance. These incidents overshadow the friendship and professionalism we exhibit daily and do not reflect the intentions or actions of the preponderance of U.S. service members who serve honorably in this country,” read a prepared statement from Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, commander of U.S. Forces Japan. U.S. Forces Japan is also working with the Japan and Okinawa governments to hold forums in which leaders and community members can voice concerns. The prefecture believes such steps will be effective at preventing further misconduct by U.S. troops, Tamaki said. “But transparency is important — that they share what is going on with us,” he said. Tamaki’s visit marked his fourth to Washington to voice Okinawan concerns to U.S. lawmakers.

“This is something that is very inhuman and is trampling the dignity of a person. Such inhumane and despicable crimes and heinous crimes that have happened are giving a high concern and anxiety to the people of Okinawa,” he said.

Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC Christopher Maier briefed reporters on recent pursuits.

By: BRANDI VINCENT

AUGUST 23, 2024

As the U.S. military prepares for future fights and simultaneously confronts intensifying conflicts in multiple regions of the world, Pentagon leaders are advancing efforts and technologies that promote civilian harm mitigation, according to a senior official deeply involved in that work.

“The world has gotten much more complicated, and we often think about how certain domains we’re now operating in routinely never existed a couple decades ago — cyberspace, electronic warfare. So these are important elements that we need to factor in as we think of the civilian environment, well beyond the sort of traditional kinetic effects that often are most highlighted as affecting civilians in a negative way,” Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told reporters at a roundtable Friday hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

In his current role, Maier oversees a broad portfolio of activities including counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, civil affairs, information and psychological operations, among others.

Right now, his team has “a lot to focus on,” Maier noted. He pointed to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, multiple conflicts in the Middle East that “are intertwined and certainly are more complex,” and preparing for what may come with China as the DOD’s top threat.

“In all those cases, I think we are looking to raise our overall sophistication of how we think about warfighting, and civilian harm and the associated mitigation of it, which often is a big term to say — understanding how the civilian ecosystem works in conjunction with potential military operations in the future,” Maier said.

His office is working to provide warfighters on the ground with more capabilities, support and data analytics tools to understand their strategic environments — and how the civilians who live in those places operate.

“We put almost 170 people that have been resourced across the combatant commands, across the intelligence enterprise, and across elements of the Joint Staff and the Office of Secretary of Defense. And we’ve tried to emphasize people who are experts in this space, but also can speak to commanders in military terms that they can benefit from. So this includes putting — we call them CHMROs — civilian harm mitigation and response officers that focus on security cooperation and helping our elements that do that in the department,” Maier explained. 

A new Center of Excellence was also recently established to enable more resources for the commands.

“As we’ve started to exercise this and build the emphasis on [mitigating] civilian harm into large-scale exercises it becomes particularly daunting when you think of, if you will, the scale of that type of [future] conflict where we’ve talked openly about thousands of strikes in an hour,” Maier said. “And now we’re talking about very advanced precision weapons at long range that you’re just not going to be able to use the manual processes of the past. And so you’re going to really have to have a particularly strong focus on the data analytics to help us understand what we’ve hit, has there been an impact, and where do we see changes in the overall environment, including the civilian environment.”

Cutting-edge tech could help the department address those issues.

“That’s not going to be something we’re going to be able to do with humans alone. So we’re going to need the automation and aspects of artificial intelligence and machine learning and all those things that we talk about all the time on the targeting side and the operational side, but are going to have to be built in and baked into that with a focus on civilian harm,” Maier said. 

Looking to the future, he argued that it’s imperative for DOD to further invest in who he called the “critical enablers” within special operations units.

“If you’ve got [Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha], the kind of core 12-man Green Beret team, they’re going to have to go out and understand how to do cyber and get in a beam for a potential adversary satellite and understand how to operate in the environment of ubiquitous technical surveillance, just as much as they’re going to have to be able to 10-times-out-of-10 hit the target they intend to hit if they’re going kinetic,” Maier said.

In response to questions from reporters, he also acknowledged reports of Israel causing drastic civilian harm in Gaza using U.S.-supplied weapons. 

“How the Israelis are conducting the operation in Gaza, I think we’ve been very open, has concerned us at times. Probably as I’m speaking to you right now, there’s a conversation going on with the senior Israeli official. I think the secretary of defense has had, I don’t know, many, many, many, dozens of conversations with his counterpart — and civilian harm is always a feature of this, because we think it has big strategic implications,” Maier said. 

During the discussion, Maier also briefly addressed questions about how the U.S. Special Operations Forces community will play into the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for Replicator. Through that initiative, the Defense Department hopes to counter China’s ongoing military buildup by fielding thousands of autonomous systems through replicable processes by August 2025.

“I think from the SOF perspective, because we often are the ones that are able to do smaller projects, work them more quickly, test them with operators, in some cases, actually in an operational context. Then we can, in some cases, be proof of concept for Replicator that then, if something works, can be scaled up much more quickly through Replicator than it might have been through a standard prime that we would have as a contract,” he said.

By Bryant Harris of Defense News

Canada is seeking to increase its munitions stockpiles amid shortages highlighted by the war in Ukraine. But to bolster production, it first needs to expand its supply chain, particularly for the critical minerals ubiquitous in defense equipment and consumer electronics alike.

To do this, Ottawa hopes to tap further into its vast critical minerals reserves, lessening its reliance on China which dominates much of the global supply chain.

“We have an increasing dependence on Chinese critical minerals,” Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair told Defense News Monday at a Defense Writers Group event in Washington. “Certainly in my country, we have actually a lot of those assets in the ground. But we have to extract them and we have to process them,”

“Canada can be helpful to our allies by actually creating a viable source of some of those critical minerals,” he said. “And if we work very closely with our allies we can secure broadly what we all will need in the future and we won’t be potentially disadvantaged by an adversary.”

Blair raised Canada’s efforts to become a critical minerals wellspring for NATO during a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday.

“It’s particularly acute, in my opinion, in the defense industry,” Blair told Defense News. “We rely on aluminum and titanium for the planes we’re building and put in the air. Tungsten is an essential mineral for the production of munitions because of its hardness. Cobalt, rare earth minerals, all of the very technical systems that we are developing have a disproportionate reliance on minerals which are not entirely at this present time secure and under our control.”

The Minerals Security Partnership, a recently established consortium that includes Canada, the U.S. and other NATO-aligned countries met in Toronto in March.

Canada released a critical minerals strategy in December. It identifies 31 minerals Canada deems critical, including several crucial to the munitions supply chain like antimony, aluminum, copper and magnesium.

It comes as Canada seeks to bolster its munitions stocks, which Blair called “woefully inadequate.”

For instance, he noted Canada only has two facilities making 155mm artillery rounds, which are seeking to expand production and supply chains.

The shortages have also limited Canada’s ability support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Ottawa has committed roughly $14 billion in aid to Ukraine so far, according to Blair.

“Our responsibilities to continue to support Ukraine really requires that we build up domestic capacity,” said Blair.

The effort to expand munitions lines and supply chains comes as Canada seeks to increase its defense budget, in large part through additional equipment purchases.

The defense spending increase will increase Canada’s military funding from 1.3% of GDP to 1.76% of GDP. However, that still falls short of the 2% of GDP benchmark for defense spending that NATO allies have set.

Blair said that major defense purchases that have not yet been fully funded, including a replacement for Canada’s aging submarine fleet and an integrated air and missile defense systems, would bring Canada closer to the 2% of GDP benchmark.

He noted that Canada has discussed modernizing its underwater surveillance capabilities with allies, including the U.S. and Germany.

“There are a number of options available to us,” said Blair. “But we’ve got some work to do in both determining what are requirements are, what choices are available on the market, and we’re beginning those processes right away.

“And once we’ve done that work, I’ll be in a much stronger position to go back to our government and say ‘We have a very clear path to this new capability acquisition’ and then seek the funding for it.”

Ottawa and Washington are also working together to modernize NORAD, with Blair noting that at least one over-the-horizon radar will be based in Canada.

“We’ve made commitments on getting that delivered,” said Blair. “An integrated, fully communicative systems requires consensus requires consensus and agreement on what we’re going to build and where we’ll build it.”

Assistant Secretary John Plumb: “Now space is constantly a topic at the White House and at the Pentagon.”

By: Sandra Erwin

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is prioritizing space like never before, assistant secretary of defense for space policy John Plumb said April 5.

Plumb, who recently announced he will step down after two years on the job, previously served in the Pentagon during the Obama administration, and he noted the stark contrast in how space issues are now being handled compared to a decade ago. 

Back then, space policy “was a hobby shop” and few people talked about space or discussed it in meetings, Plumb said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast meeting.

“Now space is constantly a topic at the White House and at the Pentagon,” he added. “It’s a very different situation.”

Rapid advancements in commercial space technology, coupled with the growing threat of adversaries’ space-based capabilities, have thrust space into the spotlight and is now viewed as fundamental to every aspect of national security, from communications to missile defense. 

Additionally, there is a growing number of nations and private companies with spacefaring capabilities, creating a more competitive environment. This spurred DoD to develop a strategy document released April 2 outlining how it would harness private sector innovation and integrate commercial space capabilities into military systems.

Plumb noted that various agencies across the military and the intelligence community have rolled out initiatives to increase use of private sector technology, but Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wanted a more comprehensive blueprint for the department to convey the message “that we have to move faster,” he said. 

DoD has traditionally moved far too slowly when it comes to space innovation, Plumb noted, often taking five years to develop requirements and up to a decade to field new satellite constellations that then remain in service for 20 years without any meaningful technology refresh — a pace that is unsustainable in the face of rapid advancements by competitors like China. 

To solve that problem, DoD has to leverage private sector innovation, Plumb added.

Unfinished business

As Plumb prepares to depart the administration, there remains a significant amount of unfinished business within DoD’s space policy office.

More work is needed to figure out how to work more closely with allies on space security and how to share intelligence with private companies whose satellites could become targets during conflicts, he noted. 

More broadly, there is a need to press forward with a space policy that safeguards national interests while fostering responsible behavior in the space domain. There are norms that the U.S. and other countries have adopted to prevent the creation of space debris, for example. “But norms are not treaties, they are not laws,” said Plumb. “More work is needed” in the realm of international norms and collaboration to establish clear rules of the road.

Surprising developments in space

Plumb highlighted two developments that surprised him the most during his time in office: the rapid rise of low Earth orbit satellite communications as a game-changing technology in commercial and military applications, and the pace of China’s advances in both space and nuclear capabilities.

As he prepares to leave DoD, Plumb offered a piece of advice for his successor: “Pick an area to focus on and push, push, push.”

“Results matter,” he said. “Find things where you think you can make a difference. Otherwise the building tends to spread you thin. You just go to meetings all the time but never actually accomplish things.”

Others:

Results Unclear So Far For U.S. Pressure On Russian Space Weapon | Aviation Week Network

Space policy chief urges DOD to solve over-classification issues for commercial integration | DefenseScoop