Skip to content

Category: News

Published on

By Michael R. Gordon and Ian Talley from the Wall Street Journal

December 2, 2020

Top U.S. military commander for Central and South America cites ‘alarming and concerning’ presence of elite Quds Force

WASHINGTON—Iran has sent arms and dispatched paramilitary operatives to help Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro maintain his hold on power, the top U.S. military commander for Central and South America said Wednesday.

“We see a growing Iranian influence in there,” Adm. Craig Faller, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters, citing the “alarming and concerning” presence of military personnel from the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Tehran has used the force to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other foreign allies and proxies.

Iran’s and Venezuela’s missions to the United Nations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iran is just one U.S. adversary backing the embattled Venezuela leader. Thousands of Cubans have been “basically owning” the country’s intelligence service and guard force that protects Mr. Maduro, Adm. Faller said. Hundreds of Russians have also been instrumental in providing support to “keep key elements of Maduro’s military just ready enough,” he added.

Adm. Faller’s comments on Iran come amid rising tensions between Washington and Tehran and represent a rare instance in which a senior U.S. military official has publicly accused Iran of shipping arms to Venezuela.

The U.S., he said, has expended considerable effort trying to distinguish between humanitarian cargo and shipments that run afoul of international sanctions aimed at undermining Mr. Maduro’s grip on power.

“We’re concerned about what we see…It’s not just oil shipments, it’s arms shipments as well,” he said. “We saw an uptick in that this year. We are watching the rate of change very carefully.”

Adm. Faller didn’t specify the arms that the U.S. says are being provided. In September, the State Department sanctioned an Iranian defense unit it said had ties to the Maduro regime, in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to deter sales of conventional weapons, including military jets, boats and tanks.

Iran and Venezuela have long shared diplomatic ties, but the Trump administration’s economic sanctions against the two countries encouraged them to strengthen relations.

Battered by the Americans’ “maximum pressure” campaign, Iran has been desperate to sell its petroleum products. U.S. and international sanctions against Venezuela have made that country an eager buyer.

Tehran has been swapping its fuel for Venezuela oil, which it has sold through the black market, U.S. and Western officials say. Iran has also been paid in gold from Venezuela’s vast deposits, proving Tehran with a commodity that is difficult for sanctions monitors to track, they said.

The U.S. has disrupted some of those fuel shipments, but Venezuela analysts say deliveries continue. The flotillas are often accompanied by Iranian naval vessels, including an intelligence ship that U.S. officials say has been used to transport missiles to Iranian proxies in the Middle East, according to U.S. officials.

Iran’s Mahan Air, an airline sanctioned by the U.S. for transporting men, money and arms for the terror-designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has also restarted flights between the two countries, according to the company and flight-tracking data.

Earlier this year, an Iranian conglomerate owned by the country’s military and tied to its missile program established a retail foothold in Venezuela, according to Western officials and records detailing the move.

In addition to providing a potential avenue for evading sanctions, the retail link may be a way for Tehran to export military expertise and technology, U.S. officials say.

Another concern for the U.S. is that Iran might use its presence in South America and its ties to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group also operating in the region, to retaliate against the U.S.

“We’re real concerned about what Iran is up to, not just globally, but here in this hemisphere,” Adm. Faller said, adding that some members of the large Lebanese diaspora in South America had ties to Hezbollah.

Appeared in the December 3, 2020, print edition as 'Iran Arms Bolster Maduro, U.S. Says.'

The original article can be found here

Others:

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/us/politics/coronavirus-southern-command-china-latin-america.html

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-military-honduras/u-s-may-start-sharing-sensitive-intelligence-with-honduras-in-drug-fight-idUKKBN28C0KL

Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-military-honduras/update-1-u-s-may-start-sharing-sensitive-intelligence-with-honduras-in-drug-fight-idUSL1N2II32E

Inside Defense: https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/southcom-eyes-program-record-persistent-surveillance-network

Aviation Week: https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/sensors-electronic-warfare/stratollites-show-promise-southern-command

National Defense: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/12/2/commander-alarmed-as-china-makes-inroads-in-americas

News Beezer: https://newsbeezer.com/china-stands-ready-to-be-the-first-to-distribute-virus-vaccine-in-latin-america-us-official-says/

ExBulletin: https://exbulletin.com/world/593103/

Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/trump-threatens-to-hold-defense-bill-hostage-in-his-war-with-social-media-platforms

Nach Welt: https://www.nach-welt.com/china-ist-bereit-als-erster-virusimpfstoff-in-lateinamerika-zu-vertreiben-sagt-us-beamter/

WTVB: https://wtvbam.com/2020/12/02/u-s-may-start-sharing-sensitive-intelligence-with-honduras-in-drug-fight/

Published on

By Brian W. Everstine of Air Force Magazine

November 18, 2020

China and Russia have noticed an increase in USAF bomber missions in the Indo-Pacific, and they are starting to respond in their own ways, the top USAF officer in the region said.

The Air Force in April stopped permanently basing bombers at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and started deploying short-term “dynamic force employment” task forces of bombers in the region on short notice. B-1Bs from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, recently deployed to Andersen under this model for training with partners in the region.

Since shifting to dynamic force employment, “We’ve actually flown more of the bomber-type missions than we did in the last nine months of the continuous bomber presence,” Pacific Air Forces boss Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach told reporters Nov. 18 during a virtual roundtable. In addition to flying missions from bases like Andersen or Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, there have been several long-range missions for bombers that begin and end at their continental United States home bases.

“They fly all the way to either the East China Sea, and sometimes we go [over] the South China Sea and execute the mission,” Wilsbach said. “And the really cool thing about these is that it’s not just one bomber or four bombers flying a straight line for sometimes 24 hours, there’s training events that are occurring all throughout. We train with our allies and partners, we train with the joint forces, and of course we do train with the United States Air Force.”

The missions have brought an uptick in Chinese and Russian intercepts.

“They’ll send their fighters out, and of course, through our collections we can tell that they see us with their radars, and then we have other methods to figure out what they’re thinking,” Wilsbach said.

Russia also has increased its “countering missions” near Alaska, he said. During the summer, the Air Force flew a large mission in the region “and then a few days later, the Russians reciprocated with a pretty large mission into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone,” he added. “And so there’s a little bit of back and forth there with flying missions inside of our air defense identification zone.”

China bombers also have been “quite active in the South China Sea, in particular, almost every day” and sometimes in the East China Sea, Wilsbach said. “So, we’re seeing their activities perhaps as counter to what we’ve been doing.”

The original article can be found here

Others:

AFCEA: https://www.afcea.org/content/seemingly-boundless-bombers-secure-skies

Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/trump-plan-to-pullback-us-troops-from-iraq-and-afghanistan-draws-vigorous-bipartisan-pushback

National Defense Magazine: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/11/18/pacific-commander-wants-hypersonic-weapons

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/10040973

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/10041097

Published on

By Jared Serbu of Federal News Network

November 13, 2020

The Navy made major progress toward eliminating maintenance delays in its shipyards in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, partly by setting more realistic goals for how long each period of upgrade and repair work would actually take.

In fiscal 2020, the total number of days by which ships overran their planned maintenance schedules fell by 80% compared to the previous year, according to the top official at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). In 2019, there were a collective 7,000 days of delays across the fleet. That fell to about 1,100 by last year.

“We did a fairly detailed analysis on availability duration and whether we were planning the duration of the availabilities correctly up front, and what we found is we were not doing that,” Vice Adm. William Galinis, NAVSEA’s commander told reporters Thursday. “We had a lot of data that showed us that after we went through and did the analysis. And after we reset the duration for availabilities going forward, that’s going to help us tremendously.”

But the 2020 gains were not purely a matter of moving the goalposts. Galinis said the Navy and its contractors truly are getting ships in and out of their maintenance periods more quickly than in years past. Even when compared against the earlier, unadjusted schedules, the number of days of delay in 2020 still would have been down by 40%, compared with 2019.

After a major hiring initiative in the late 2010s, the Navy had set a goal of eliminating maintenance delays completely by fiscal 2021. Galinis said it’s now clear the service won’t achieve that goal, but that’s mainly because of a few especially-difficult maintenance problems on a relative handful of ships.

The guided missile destroyer USS Oscar Austin, for example, was badly damaged in a 2018 shipyard fire, and repairs are taking longer than expected. And four Ticonderoga-class cruisers that require extensive upgrades to their electronic, hull and mechanical systems to stretch them to their planned 35-year service life are proving to be more complicated than originally planned.

“We’re not going to make the goal we set for ourselves, but we understand the discrete drivers behind that,” Galinis said. “That’s not to say there won’t be other ships that are that are out there, and we’ll continue to manage that, but overall, right now, we’ve got about 67% of our avails tracking to on-time delivery. That’s up from less than 50% last year. So I think we’re moving the needle in the right direction.”

The Navy’s persistent inability to process its ships through maintenance yards on time has been highlighted for years in independent watchdog reports. The Government Accountability Office argues — and the Navy generally agrees — that the problem poses serious readiness issues, since it consistently causes fewer ships to be available to military planners than they expect.

According to GAO, 75% of ships that entered a maintenance yard stayed there for longer than they were supposed to between 2014 and 2019. As recently as 2019, more than half of the delays lasted for longer than 90 days. GAO said the primary issues are insufficient capacity at the Navy’s public and private shipyards and a shortage of skilled personnel.

But NAVSEA has hired thousands of new workers over the past several years to help tackle the workforce problem. Galinis said training programs for that new cadre of shipyard employees is proceeding well, despite the challenges of COVID-19.

In the meantime, the command is looking to solve other problems that have tended to slow down the maintenance process.

One way is to minimize the amount of new, unplanned work that’s ordered after a ship has already gone into its maintenance period.       

“It’s been almost case-by-case, ship-by-ship, in terms of how we’ve been doing this. But our [Surface Maintenance Engineering Planning Program] has done a really good job of building and stabilizing the class maintenance plan — what we refer to as directed work, and we’re trying to push more maintenance work into that directed work category,” Galinis said. “What that does is it really provides a pretty stable baseline in terms of requirements and planning for a larger percentage of the work that we’re doing in an availability.”

In the meantime, Galinis said NAVSEA has been making more of a concerted effort to make sure the materials shipyards need to complete repairs are ready when a ship enters the yard, so that workers aren’t waiting for components to arrive.

“That’s another area that has caused us to go long in some availabilities, where either we didn’t order the material on time, or we ordered it and for whatever reason, the lead times were longer than anticipated,” he said. “We stood up a material group to really get after that.”

The original article can be found here.

Others:

National Defense Magazine: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/11/12/navy-working-through-columbia-challenges-still-on-schedule

USNI: https://news.usni.org/2020/11/12/navsea-cruiser-modernization-delays-biggest-hurdle-to-on-time-maintenance

USNI: https://news.usni.org/2020/11/13/fire-safety-discussions-after-bonhomme-richard-fire-centered-on-drills-fire-suppression-systems

Inside Defense: https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/galinis-navy-cutting-maintenance-delays-will-miss-goal-eliminate-them-fy-21

Inside Defense: https://insidedefense.com/insider/galinis-espers-500-ship-navy-plan-still-moving-forward-despite-secdefs-departure

Defense Daily: https://www.defensedaily.com/galinis-future-fleet-plans-still-moving-esper-fired/navy-usmc/

Seapower Magazine: https://seapowermagazine.org/on-time-delivery-of-navy-ships-from-maintenance-alleviates-shipyard-capacity-shortage/

Maritime Network: https://news.maritime-network.com/2020/11/12/navsea-cruiser-modernization-delays-biggest-hurdle-to-on-time-maintenance/

Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/can-the-uniformed-military-hold-the-line-at-the-pentagon

Defense Daily: https://www.defensedaily.com/appropriators-knock-navys-large-surface-combatant-schedule-plan/navy-usmc/

Defense Daily: https://www.defensedaily.com/senate-appropriators-block-funds-second-frigate-cape-sends-updated-cost-estimate/navy-usmc/

Published on

By Joe Gould of Defense News

October 29, 2020

WASHINGTON ― Amid reports the Trump administration is fast-tracking sales of the high-tech F-35 warplane to the United Arab Emirates, the State Department remains committed to consulting Congress on arms sales to foreign governments, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

The comments from Assistant Secretary Bureau of Political-Military Affairs R. Clarke Cooper seemed to signal the administration would not seek to bypass Congress, as it has done with certain sales to Saudi Arabia. Some lawmakers are taking steps to slow the F-35 deal, raising concerns about preserving Israel’s military edge in the Middle East and the UAE’s ties to Russia and China.

For decades, the State Department has informally consulted with the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees before formally notifying Congress of sales, which affords lawmakers a chance to block them. Asked broadly whether the department plans to honor that process, Cooper said it was “a good-faith protocol” and “we continue to do that.”

“To your question about consultation with Congress, it’s definitely something we’re committed to. It is something that is going to continue to be required of us,” Cooper said during a Defense Writers Group roundtable. He added that previous clashes between the White House and Congress over arms sale notifications were a “stress test” of the process.

Though Reuters has reported there is a goal to have a letter of agreement between the U.S. and the UAE by Dec. 2, Cooper said “there are no dates associated with the work that’s being done.” He also acknowledged the U.S. is working with Abu Dhabi to address its security requirements while maintaining Israel’s edge, but he otherwise declined to provide specifics.

Following an agreement between Israel and the U.S. to upgrade the former’s capabilities to preserve its edge, Israel said last week it will not oppose the U.S. sale of “certain weapon systems,” considered by some to mean the F-35.

“That process is moving along, it’s a good process,” President Donald Trump told reporters hours later. “We’ve had an incredible relationship long term. We’ve never had a dispute with UAE. They’ve always been on our side, and that process is moving along, hopefully, rapidly.”

Israeli opposition would have been fatal to the deal in Congress, where Israel enjoys strong support. Two key Democrats introduced legislation earlier this month that would place restrictions on F-35 sales to Middle Eastern nations to address their concerns about both Israel’s security and the security of the advanced F-35, which is equipped with sensitive technologies.

The original article can be found here.

Others:

Breaking Defense: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/10/trump-admin-sets-allied-defense-spending-targets-taiwan-deals-lead-way/

Defense One: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/10/will-covid-stressed-countries-slow-their-arms-buys/169642/

Military Times: https://www.militarytimes.com/congress/2020/10/28/amid-uae-f-35-deal-trump-administration-wont-end-congressional-arms-sale-reviews/

Yahoo News: https://news.yahoo.com/amid-uae-f-35-talks-191901606.html

Jewish Insider: https://jewishinsider.com/2020/10/daily-kickoff-in-the-san-diego-race-between-ammar-campa-najjar-and-darrell-issa-a-spotlight-on-israel-in-the-closing-days/

Voice Of America (VOA) News: https://www.voanews.com/usa/west-danger-losing-turkey-us-warns

Eurasia Review: https://www.eurasiareview.com/29102020-west-in-danger-of-losing-turkey-us-warns/

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/9844499

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/9844081

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/9843839

TASS: https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/9843223

Inside Defense: https://insidedefense.com/insider/state-official-says-turkey-risks-new-sanctions-if-it-doesnt-walk-back-s-400

National Defense Magazine: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/10/28/state-department-hints-at-more-arms-sales-to-mideast

Politico: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-defense/2020/10/29/covid-again-hits-top-brass-791270

Daily Magazine: http://www.dailymagazine.news/us-says-very-real-risk-of-turkey-sanctions-over-russian-arms-nid-1345670.html

Boxun: https://www.boxun.com/news/gb/intl/2020/10/202010291445.shtml?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=3ea510ea7de27a75b37bb75509c0f7885ce97611-1603989311-0-ASkCfTWkTNewWqIg7DkRTN5zBTUYf231OZa-XWNVWXzbdTn8GmR5k1pagE-MK74Dgkgtn8SPLbcapMXIdVsAS9HFca5Sa8TDctz7edJOrFpYws51pvhNpGzJSamcn_jr9Bnh8Kdt3-54HTBZPDp1uDV8JEgvjIJGPIWKvIOq8El_zFFUhmc3irTQgI5GLGZ_FRR43z7zKGHYaYSw0Y4UoQzb3kKUI-ruJdAGb0NEUDhObR5ADReC8JkyWi5X17gBjxBXVfr7ShC5VRq3QjoxMvZV1jtdhHdAClAHs9f7OpD6YCtO8KM26NpU93TKUhCFy1M365S6h5rT1OPUWjT6qWM

VOA Indonesia: https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/as-peringatkan-turki-agar-tidak-mengoperasikan-s-400-/5639889.html

VOA Albania: https://www.zeriamerikes.com/a/5639833.html

Indianapolis News. Net: https://www.indianapolisnews.net/news/266820564/west-is-in-danger-of-losing-turkey-us-warns

Press From: https://pressfrom.info/fr/actualite/monde/-740838-us-minimise-les-sanctions-chinoises-sur-les-armes-de-taiwan.html

Press From: https://pressfrom.info/au/news/world/-293043-us-plays-down-china-sanctions-over-taiwan-arms.html

Daily Magazine: http://www.dailymagazine.news/us-plays-down-china-sanctions-over-taiwan-arms-nid-1345040.html

Breaking Defense: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/10/trump-admin-sets-allied-defense-spending-targets-taiwan-deals-lead-way/

Yahoo News: https://news.yahoo.com/us-plays-down-china-sanctions-214459087.html

MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-says-very-real-risk-of-turkey-sanctions-over-russian-arms/ar-BB1aumv2

Yahoo News: https://news.yahoo.com/us-says-very-real-risk-211931943.html

Foreign Policy Insider: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/28/how-trump-lost-the-balkans/

Global Security. Org: https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/turkey/2020/turkey-201028-voa01.htm

Published on

By Kimberly Underwood of Signal Magazine

October 9, 2020

The Defense Health Agency is relying on information technology as it grows as an agency and standardizes its operations around the globe.

For the last six months, the U.S. military has been on the frontlines in the fight against the pandemic, providing necessary supplies and medical support across the country. Meanwhile, internally, the U.S. Defense Department has faced the threat of the virus with its warfighters. More than 55,000 Defense Department personnel have had the COVID-19 virus, and there have been 79 deaths—including one active-duty member, seven reservists or National Guard personnel and 71 dependents, retirees or family members, reported Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, USA, director, Defense Health Agency (DHA). 

Gen. Place, a physician and combat surgeon who became DHA’s third director in September of 2019, spoke on October 8 to reporters during a Defense Writers Group call hosted by David Ensor, director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University.

In addition to providing military heath care and services, the DHA performs medical-related tasks as requested by DOD and the U.S. Combatant Commands, whether it is COVID-19-related or for operational missions around the world, the general shared. Through the Military Health System (MHS), the agency is responsible for delivering care at more than 700 hospitals, clinics and medical centers across the world, and it does so in collaboration with DOD’s Tricare Health Plans and providers.

“In terms of tackling the pandemic and how we're handling those challenges, it really gets back to the core mission of the Defense Health Agency, which is to become an integrated system of readiness and health,” Gen. Place said. “With COVID, our responsibility is to then balance the delivery of health care along with the readiness of the force.”

The agency helps to optimize medical surveillance and research to identify health threats—including infectious disease threats—and then develops proposals or clinical practice guidelines to aid in the care of the 9.6 million beneficiaries in the MHS, the general said.

“That means understanding at the individual level, and taking care of individual people or assuring the readiness of individual service members, but also collectively having a scale and scope that supports all 2.9 million of the active-duty personnel and family members, and an entire beneficiary population of 9.6 million,” Gen. Place stated.

At its core mandate, the DHA is working to standardize its operations and platforms. The agency is only seven years old and was created to be a centralized health leader, as opposed to each service’s standalone efforts.

“Standardization is useful to drive improvements in our outcomes,” he noted. “Those outcomes may be clinical outcomes. They may be administrative outcomes or some combination thereof, but standardization, where standardization is appropriate. And in so doing, we have chosen health information technology tools that are in support of that standardization process.”

Gen. Place emphasized that over the next year DHA would continue to focus on the further development of GENESIS, the MHS’ comprehensive electronic health platform. GENESIS will securely integrate inpatient and outpatient information and connect medical and dental patient data, providing a full picture in the continuum of care for warfighters and their families. The agency is leveraging commercial off-the-shelf equipment and technology for the platform, which, when fully deployed, will provide a single health record for service members, veterans and their families, according to the agency.

The GENESIS platform is employing tools such as voice recognition. For notes to a patient’s chart, physicians or care providers no longer have to write or use dictation services. The agency is fitting another tool, natural language processing, into data analysis efforts, to allow providers to perform “the same sort of data elements or data review and help us see things that perhaps that we didn't see before,” he added. Other improved imaging capabilities are needed—whether advances in plain film imagery, X-Rays, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging or ultrasound—which then could be combined with artificial intelligence, the surgeon shared. 

“How can we use those artificial intelligence protocols to do first-pass reviews of those imaging studies, to either put clues to the human being, the radiologist who is interpreting them,” Gen. Place said. “Or in some cases, if the computers demonstrate that they do better than humans, how do we transition some of that reading over to the computer systems, so that we can improve both the speed and accuracy in the reading of those imaging systems. That is the direction in which we are going.”

The agency has already seen success from a ground-breaking cloud project from the Program Executive Office, Defense Healthcare Management Systems (DHMS), completed in June. Called the Accelerated Migration Project, or AMP, DHMS, working with more than 20 vendors, constructed a cloud platform and moved petabytes of secondary health care data and related applications to that cloud, digitally transforming access to U.S. Defense Department medical records. 

Data management also will play a role in administering a COVID-19 vaccine across the DOD, when such a treatment becomes available under Operation Warp Speed, the general said. 

“A significant amount of effort has been done by my organization, the Defense Health Agency, because we have the requirement for the immunization system for the Department of Defense,” he specified. “And we exercise that plan every single year with our Influenza Plan. So, we've utilized the year-over-year Influenza Plan as the skeleton, the backbone, so to speak, for developing a COVID-19 vaccination implementation plan. And of course, there will likely be some differences.”

DHA’s plan will have to account for the fact that up to six separate manufacturers may present different types of COVID-19 vaccines, which may require one or two injections. In contrast, “the influenza vaccine is the same thing, no matter who the maker is, and in generation it is a single injection,” the surgeon said. “And so, we have to be able to figure out not just how we transport it, how we hold it, how we inject it, but also how does it fit in the system with six different makers? And how, if you get one injection, how do we make sure that the second dose is from the same maker, that sort of thing.”

The original article can be found here.

Others:

Military.com: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/10/09/military-brass-covid-19-could-get-same-treatments-trump-received-general-says.html

VOA News: https://www.voanews.com/usa/top-us-general-coronavirus-quarantine-having-no-impact-readiness

Federal News Network: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/10/covid-19-throwing-a-wrench-in-dha-transition-plans/

Military Times: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/10/08/senior-military-leaders-will-have-access-to-same-covid-19-treatments-as-trump/

Bloomberg Government: https://about.bgov.com/news/health-care-briefing-stimulus-disruption-threatens-vaccine-push/


Air Force Magazine: https://www.airforcemag.com/as-covid-19-spooks-joint-chiefs-dod-plans-ahead/

Published on

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. of Breaking Defense

The Pentagon is finding alternative clouds while waiting for JEDI, Dana Deasy said, so it can upgrade them to JEDI as soon as the courts allow.

WASHINGTON: After months of delays from a still-unfinished court battle, the long-awaited JEDI cloud contract will be neither irrelevant nor overtaken by events when it finally arrives, the Pentagon CIO said this morning. In fact, Dana Deasy told the Defense Writers’ Group, while JEDI itself is in legal limbo, the Defense Department is doing all it legally can to lay the groundwork for a swift adoption as soon as the judge permits.

The big thing the long-awaited Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure can do that alternative clouds can’t, he said: provide rapid access to data, across multiple levels of classification, not just to centralized command posts but out to frontline troops on the tactical edge.

JEDI, Ligado & Legal Limbo

JEDI’s not the only big issue in suspended animation. Deasy and his staff are also trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission to overturn its decision on Ligado, a 5G firm the FCC recently awarded spectrum now used by GPS and other military systems.

“You haven’t heard a lot about it, because we haven’t heard a lot about it,” Deasy told the press. After formally asking the FCC to stay its decision and reconsider it, he said, “we provided all the necessary documentation back to the FCC, all the engineering data. We met individually with each commissioner of the FCC and walked through on any questions they had. And we have simply not heard anything back from the FCC.”

With JEDI, likewise, the timeline is out of the Pentagon’s hands. “The court process is one we don’t control, so I’m not going to tell you, right now, when I think that’s going to come to an end,” Deasy said. “Do I think we’ve done all the right things now? Have we submitted all the right documentation that, I believe, allows us to move this on? Yes.”

While the legal battle over JEDI persists DoD is vigorously finding alternatives to JEDI for key functions – both business and warfighting – that need to move to the cloud now. At the same time, it’s also making sure it can quickly upgrade from those stopgap solutions to JEDI as soon as it’s available.

“Cloud, for me, has always been first and foremost about supporting the warfighter,” Deasy said. “When we got put on hold with JEDI, that didn’t mean we were going to stop working on figuring out ways to support the warfighter.”

That’s why you see initiatives like the Air Force’s CloudOne, a cloud computing project designed to support the nascent Advanced Battle Management System. ABMS, in turn, is the leading candidate to be the backbone of a future all-service command system called Joint All-Domain Command & Control (JADC2).

“We have clouds that are in place are helping us do many aspects of JADC2” already, Deasy said, even without JEDI. But, he emphasized, “it is still very much going to fill some very big holes that we have on our strategy, [because] it has always been first and foremost a tactical edge cloud.”

Without JEDI, “we still do not have an enterprise tactical edge cloud,” he said, “[and] there’s aspects of JADC2 where we’re still going to need that tactical cloud out at the tactical edge.”

Many other benefits of cloud computing that are not unique to JEDI don’t have to wait for it to clear the courts, Deasy continued. In fact, trying new techniques out on stopgap and alternative clouds can help ease adoption of JEDI when it’s ready.

“I know that everybody continues to be fixated on this contract,” he said. “For me…the cloud is nothing more than a facilitated environment that allows us to do what really matters — and that’s going to be the DevOps, agile development.”

DevOps is the private-sector practice of having development and operations teams, coders and users, work side by side to refine a piece of software, rapidly making small upgrades, getting feedback on how they work, and upgrading again. (DevSecOps is a variant that brings cybersecurity teams in too). That rapid back-and-forth collaboration contrasts sharply with traditional Defense Department practice of going from initial concept to R&D to testing, taking years or decades in the process, before asking actual users what they think. Cloud computing is an particularly important tool for DevOps because it makes it easier for different teams to share files, data, and development tools – but which specific cloud you use is less essential.

“We’re doing a lot of work with the services on getting them prepared to move their development processes and cycles to DevOps, so when the JEDI cloud finally does get awarded, we’re not starting at day one,” he said. “There’s tools that have to be identified. There’s integration environments to be identified. There’s directories that have to be set up that allow people to connect into these worlds. That’s all work that we can continue to do.”

What’s tricky, Deasy said, is you have to set up these stopgap and surrogate clouds so that users can easily transition to JEDI as soon as it’s available, rather than laboriously reinventing the wheel.

“We are telling people right now … if you have an urgent warfighting need that needs to be met in the short term, we continue to find homes in other platforms,” he said. “That is obviously okay in the short term — but over time, that starts to become problematic, because now you’re starting to set up a lot of different solutions, different environments.”

“We are going to have to go back and sort out some of the solutions down the road once we get JEDI in place,” Deasy said. “Whatever technologies, tools they were going to use, we need to do our darnedest to try to make sure that pivoting them back, bringing them back to JEDI… would not be a Herculean task.”

The original article can be found here.

Others:

National Defense: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/9/30/pentagon-data-strategy-to-be-released-soon

MSN:https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspolitics/overnight-defense-congress-recommends-nuclear-arms-treaty-be-extended-dems-warn-turkey-militarys-eighth-covid-death-identified/ar-BB19xWuf 

Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/national-security-is-not-among-tonights-presidential-debate-topics-but-here-are-five-ways-it-could-come-up

Inside Defense: https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/pentagon-moving-forward-where-we-can-cloud-jedi-remains-delayed

Federal News Network: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/09/congressional-task-force-doubles-down-on-dod-ai-needs/

Fedscoop: https://www.fedscoop.com/pentagon-cloud-missions-dana-deasy-jedi/

AFCEA: https://www.afcea.org/content/preparing-jedi

C4ISRNET: https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/09/30/pentagons-cio-shop-teams-with-armed-services-to-prep-for-move-to-jedi-cloud/

Defense Daily: https://www.defensedaily.com/pentagon-finding-interim-cloud-options-near-term-efforts-jedi-delayed-dod-cio-says/cyber/

Published on

National Defense Magazine

7/30/2020
By Stew Magnuson

iStock photo

Research into pandemics and diseases sponsored by DARPA early in the last decade is now paying off in the fight against the novel coronavirus, the leader of the agency said July 30.

“We have some examples here around COVID-19 where the investments that DARPA made 10, 15 years ago are ones now at the forefront of providing both interventions, treatments, diagnostics and other ways we're going to get out of this mess,” Peter Highnam, acting director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, told reporters.

DARPA does not currently have any vaccine programs, but one that wrapped up around 2013 turned out to have a big impact on today’s efforts to defeat the pandemic, he said in a talk organized by George Washington University's Project for Media and National Security.

Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics, or ADEPT, focused on rapidly identifying pathogens, developing vaccines and quickly ramping up production.

“The nucleic acid vaccines that we see today being discussed certainly have strong roots in that work,” he said. Such vaccines inject genetic material such as RNA and DNA into live hosts.

The Rapid Vaccine Assessment program finished its work in 2017, but also turned out to be a valuable seed DARPA planted, he said.

The program produced an artificial immune system technology to help organizations or companies determine which vaccines to pursue, or not pursue so they can “trim down that early part of the pipeline,” Highnam said.

“We have been in this business and this type of research before with the specific goal of pandemic prevention,” he added. “It's really good to see research paying off this way and to be so valuable."

Meanwhile, the ongoing Pathogen Prevention program has sought the means to help warfighters heading to regions where there might be unknown pathogens.

“How do we protect those people health-wise before we go there?" he asked. "How do you rapidly give them something — either as a prophylaxis or something that's a prevention mechanism? A vaccine, ideally, but those take as we know a long time to make sure they're safe and efficacious."

The answer being pursued by DARPA and other organizations is monoclonal antibodies, which are used to detect microorganisms that cause diseases.

“Can we detect the appropriate antibodies? Can we put them into you the individual, or have the individual generate the antibodies on demand to provide a level of protection or treatment?” he asked.

While these questions have been posed since the program kicked off nearly eight years ago, the research has pivoted to look specifically at COVID-19, he said. The research may help identify exposure to the virus earlier, he added.

As for the supply chain problem, DARPA’s Make-It program has looked into rapidly manufacturing medications solely from U.S.-based materials in order to mitigate dependence on foreign suppliers. That initiative is not specifically focused on COVID-19, but is looking at domestically making common antibiotics and other supplies used in intensive care units.

Highnam said the tale of what DARPA has accomplished — the wins and successes — is told through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the patents that have been filed there.

“Some of this story is clear and it's laid out there,” he added.

Published on

Other countries are taking note as the Beijing government breaks its promise.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a sweeping effect across the Indo-Pacific region, but ultimately the most disruptive security threat to that vast area may turn out to be China’s strongarm moves against Hong Kong, says the head of the U.S. command for that region. Adm. Phil Davidson, USN, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, specifically cited the Hong Kong crackdown as having a greater effect on security over that hemisphere of the globe.

Speaking at a media roundtable, Adm. Davidson said that other nations are alarmed by China breaking its promise to allow Hong Kong to keep its economic and political systems until 2049. “China’s reneging on its 50-year agreement to maintain Hong Kong’s political structure has sent a chill across the entire region,” he declared. “It certainly vacates the idea of ‘one country, two systems’ as a promise from China is totally undermined by China’s activities.

“Across the region, whether it’s a first island chain nation or a close neighbor like [South] Korea or as far away as Australia, it really sends a chill with the idea that a nation with a closed and authoritarian internal order is willing to undermine its own promises in order to extend that closed and authoritarian order elsewhere,” he pointed out. “That has to be particularly alarming for everyone.”

Adm. Davidson noted that the objection to China’s moves is not an attempt to contain China. The nations of the region are concerned about the Middle Kingdom’s efforts to supplant the rules-based international order, and that is the focus of efforts by the United States and its allies. The United States considers China its biggest strategic challenge.

And the Hong Kong move, along with territorial declarations in the South China Sea, are a part of China’s long-term strategy that seems to be accelerating. Adm. Davidson offers that the COVID-19 pandemic is having significant effects across the region, but none may be more significant than China’s exploitation of it. “They are using COVID-19 to take advantage of the timing and opportunity that it presents,” he stated. This includes squeezing other nations, such as Australia, that have tried to examine closely how China handled the pandemic.

“Every democratic nation in the region is watching what’s happening in Hong Kong and worrying about their own situation,” the admiral continues. “Proximity plays a reason in everybody’s calculation across the first island chain.”

These actions are increasing concern in Taiwan and other nations that seem to be targets of Chinese moves. China’s activities are part of an increased aggression designed to further China’s aims. The admiral described these as “a whole-of-party effort to coerce and corrupt the idea of a free and open Pacific.

“They believe that Asia is not just for Asians,” Adm. Davidson declared. “They believe that Asia is for China, and they are starting to advance that idea at a quicker rate."

Published on

HASC Chairman's Top NDAA Priorities: Improving Racial Equality and Fixing Health Care by Patricia Kime of Military.com

The current House defense policy bill contains a cluster of provisions to improve opportunities for minorities in the armed forces -- measures that House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said are a top priority for passage.

The defense bill, which will be debated Wednesday by the committee, would provide $3 million in scholarships at minority institutions for students engaged in the Defense Department's Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation, or SMART, program.

And it would give $17 million to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, and other minority institutions in an effort to diversify the national security workforce.

The bill also would require the military departments to submit a report summarizing the gender and race of each officer recommended on a list for promotion for the pay grades O-4 and above.

In a phone call with members of the Defense Writers Group Tuesday from Washington, D.C., Smith said the funding is needed because "there is statistically disparate treatment of people of color and others within the [Uniform Code of Military Justice]."

"Also in terms of hiring and promotion. We aren't doing enough there," Smith said.

More measures to improve equality in the U.S. military are expected to be introduced when the committee convenes Wednesday. After the committee approves the bill, it will have to pass the House and be reconciled with the Senate's final version, which also contains proposals aimed at improving diversity within the Defense Department.

The current Senate bill would require the Defense Department to conduct an in-depth study on the racial, ethnic and gender composition of units, the participation rates of minority populations in certain units and a review of minority leadership at the general officer level, as well as identify barriers to minority accession and training.

The Senate bill also would require the military services to expand their Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at several historically black colleges and universities and minority institutions for at least five years under pilot programs.

In the wake of the May 25 killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while in police custody and the growing call to recognize the discrimination Americans of color often face in education, employment and their communities, Defense Secretary Mark Esper this month announced a package of military-wide initiatives to improve diversity.

DoD has established a Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion in the Military, a group assigned to develop recommendations to increase racial diversity and ensure equal opportunity in the ranks.

It also plans to stand up a Defense Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion in the Armed Services, similar to the successful Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, established nearly 70 years ago.

In the past month, the individual services also have announced steps to improve diversity and quash racism in the ranks. The Army, which established a diversity office in 2005, announced this month it would stop using photos in promotion board applications to reduce bias. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday announced the formation of a Navy task force on racial equality. The Air Force, whose chief of staff, Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown is the first African American ever to lead a military branch, increased the size of scholarships for ROTC students attending an HBCU or Hispanic-serving institution. And the Marine Corps became the first service to ban the Confederate flag from military bases.

Lawmakers have said they want the services to be the source of change within their ranks and have encouraged DoD to "recognize there is more work to be done."

"We are at a transformational point in this country, civilian and military wise," said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., during a hearing of the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee this month. "And I think there's a lot of work to do."

Smith said Tuesday that in addition to improving racial equality across DoD, his other top personnel priority for the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act is the military health system, which is undergoing a consolidation and reform effort initiated in 2017.

As part of the changes, the Defense Health Agency is assuming management of the military services' hospitals and clinics and the service medical commands are shifting focus from caring for service members, families and retirees to treating only uniformed personnel.

The House bill currently contains a provision to delay the changes until the Pentagon provides Congress with an update of its medical staffing and plan to shift more retirees and family members to Tricare.

"I see the merit of what they are talking about doing in merging [the system] together ... but I need a better understanding. Reconciling that would certainly be at the top of the list," Smith said.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

The original article can be found here.

Others:

Politico: Full markup of HASC NDAA today

Federal Computer Week(FCW): Congress weighs fate of DOD's chief management officer

Federal News Network: Smith: No more corona relief for defense businesses, stop messing with CMO

USNI News: House, Senate Defense Bills Differ In Approach to Indo-Pacific Security, But Stress Region's Importance

Breaking Defense: WH’s Handling Of Russian Bounty Intel ‘Unacceptable’: Rep. Smith

Defense One/Gov Exec: Political Fight Over Russian Bounty on US Troops Appears to Warp Intel Debate

Political Fight Over Russian Bounty on US Troops Appears to Warp Intel Debate

New York Times: Trump’s New Russia Problem: Unread Intelligence and Missing Strategy

Washington Examiner: House marks up annual defense policy bill with many, but not all, issues settled

Space News: Smith encouraged by Senate NDAA proposal to increase funding for space launch technology

VOA News: Intelligence Leaks About Russia Bounty Program Provoke White House Ire

White House Updates More Lawmakers on Alleged Russian Bounties on US Troops in Afghanistan

Military Times/Defense News: Trump approves Pentagon plan to pull 9,500 US troops from Germany

Congress moves to block Trump’s Germany troop withdrawal plans

Pentagon leaders to testify next week on military's George Floyd protest response role

Stars and Stripes: Rep. Adam Smith: ‘Certainly evidence of Russian involvement’ with bounties against US troops

The Washington Times: Democrats disappointed by lack of ‘new substantive information’ about bounty intelligence reports

House chairman: There’s ‘clearly evidence’ that Russia placed bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Reuters: Trump must have been aware of Russia bounty allegation, Democratic lawmaker says

Bloomberg: Trump Pressed by Both Parties for Answers on Bounty Report

US News and World Report: Trump to Pull 9,500 U.S. Troops Out of Germany, Pentagon Says

Democrats See Russian Involvement in Bounty Program After White House Briefing

Aviation Week: HASC Chair Balks At Defense Industrial Relief Request

Wall Street Journal: NSA Differed From CIA, Others on Russia Bounty Intelligence

National Defense Magazine: Battle Brewing on Eliminating Pentagon Chief Management Officer

CQ Roll Call: On Russian bounties, congressional leaders are piecing together separate White House responses

Yahoo News: HASC Chairman's Top NDAA Priorities: Improving Racial Equality and Fixing Health Care

Trump's New Russia Problem: Unread Intelligence and Missing Strategy

Alaska Native News:Intelligence Leaks Provoke White House Ire - Alaska Native News

MSN: Trump approves Pentagon plan to move 9,500 troops out of Germany

NSA Differed From CIA, Others on Russia Bounty Intelligence

Union Leader: Trump must have been aware of Russia bounty allegation, Democratic lawmaker says

Published on

 

Lawmakers want answers from Pentagon, White House on reported Russian bounties by Caitlin Kenney of Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Leaders on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees said Monday that they want answers from the Pentagon and White House about reports that a Russian military intelligence group had paid bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan.

“We need to get to the bottom of it and we need to do it now. Again, this week before Congress leaves on the Fourth of July,” Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters Monday morning during a Defense Writers Group conference call.

The New York Times reported Friday that American intelligence had determined a Russian intelligence unit had secretly offered Taliban-linked militants bounties to kill American and coalition service members in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported Sunday that it is believed some of the bounties did result in the deaths of Americans.

The House Armed Services Committee’s leadership has requested a briefing by the Pentagon for Monday or Tuesday on the intelligence to understand its credibility and how intelligence officials arrived at their conclusion, Thornberry said. The Pentagon had not responded to their request yet, he added.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, also said Monday that the House committee needs answers on the intelligence from the Pentagon and when it was known, in order to hold appropriate administration officials and the Russian government accountable.

“If the reports are true, that the administration knew about this Russian operation and did nothing, they have broken the trust of those who serve and the commitment to their families to ensure their loved one’s safety,” he said in a prepared statement.

A meeting about this intelligence occurred at the White House in March with President Donald Trump, according to news reports. On Sunday, Trump tweeted he and Vice President Mike Pence had not been briefed on the intelligence.

Trump later tweeted, “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or [the vice president.] Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News.”

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday reiterated Trump’s stance that intelligence must be verified before it is brought to him.

“There are dissenting opinions within the intelligence community, and I can confirm with you right now that there is no consensus within the intelligence community on these allegations,” she told reporters during a news briefing.

McEnany also said eight members of Congress were being briefed Monday afternoon at the White House on the intelligence, but she did not say who was in attendance.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., took to Twitter to write he had attended the White House briefing Monday and learned The New York Times “used unconfirmed [intelligence] in an ONGOING investigation into targeted killing of American soldiers.”

“Now it’s impossible to finish the investigation. All [because] the @nytimes will do anything to damage @realdonaldtrump, even if it means compromising [national] security,” he wrote.

Banks is a Navy Reserve officer who served in Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015, according to his official biography. He tweeted the alleged bounties were placed during the time he was serving in the country.

Mitchell Hailstone, Banks’ communications director, confirmed in an email that the other attendees were Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Michael McCaul of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Elise Stefanik of New York, Chris Stewart of Utah, and Thornberry.

Thornberry said earlier Monday that he only knows about the intelligence from news reporting and Trump’s tweet that he was not briefed about the matter is “a very concerning statement.”

“But anything with any hint of credibility that would endanger our service members, much less put a bounty on their lives, to me should have been briefed immediately to the commander in chief and a plan to deal with that situation,” he said.

Thornberry also said he wants to know the timeline on “when we knew what” concerning the intelligence and in regard to the March briefing at the White House reported by news outlets.

“I don’t know how far this goes back, when we knew what. So, it is essential I think that Congress know it. And depending on those answers, it may be appropriate for people who should have briefed the president to be removed if they did not follow their responsibilities,” he said.

Claude Chafin, a House Armed Services Committee spokesman for Thornberry, said the congressman was briefed at the White House, though he still believes the full committee should also be briefed.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted Monday that if the New York Times reporting is true, he would work with Trump on a “strong response” to the Russians.

“Right now, though, we need answers. I have asked the administration to share what it knows, and I expect to know more in the coming days,” he tweeted.

The original article can be found here. 

Others:

Federal Computer Week(FCW): Thornberry talks acquisition reform in 2021 NDAA

Inside Defense: Thornberry sees potential for bipartisan unity on defense bill

National Defense Magazine:COVID-19 Key Lawmaker Supports More Defense Stimulus

Battle Brewing on Eliminating Pentagon Chief Management Officer

Yahoo News: Officials: Russian bounty reports follow years of Kremlin support to Taliban

USNI News: House, Senate Defense Bills Differ In Approach to Indo-Pacific Security, But Stress Region's Importance

Military Times: Congress moves to block Trump's Germany troop withdrawal plans

Lawmakers demand answers on reports of Russian bounties for American military lives

Defense News: Congress moves to block Trump's Germany troop withdrawal plans

Congress close to axing Pentagon's 'impossible' chief reform job

Reuters: U.S. Republicans, Democrats want to question Trump aides over Russia bounty reports

Reuters(UK): U.S. Republicans, Democrats want to question Trump aides over Russia bounty reports

US News and World Report: White House Briefs GOP Lawmakers as Trump Is Pressured on Russian Bounty Scheme

Trump Denies Russia Bounty Claim as Bipartisan Outrage Grows on Capitol Hill

The Washington Times: Thornberry: Trump should have been briefed on report of Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops if true

Defense Daily: Thornberry Sees Bipartisan Support For HASC’s NDAA, Previews Potential Amendments

The Hill: Overnight Defense: Lawmakers demand answers on reported Russian bounties for US troops deaths in Afghanistan | Defense bill amendments target Germany withdrawal, Pentagon program giving weapons to police

House Armed Services leaders demand briefing on reported Russian bounties on US troops

CQ Roll Call: House panel demands Pentagon briefing on Russian bounties

DallasNews: Trump rejects intel on Russian bounties, but top Texas Republicans say retaliation may be called for

Yahoo News:Congress moves to block Trump's Germany troop withdrawal plans

DemocraticUnderground: Republicans, Democrats want to question aides over bounty reports

Task and Purpose: Rep. Ruben Gallego: the US needs to punish Russia for placing bounties on troops in Afghanistan

EurasiaReview: White House Defends Trump Not Being Briefed On Russia 'Bounty' For US Soldiers

AmericanMilitaryNews: House panel demands Pentagon briefing on Russian bounties

 

The Project for Media and National Security is supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Additional support from The George Washington University, and gifts from CNA and The MITRE Corporation.

Viewing Message: 1 of 1.
 Notice

This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. Visit GW’s Website Privacy Notice to learn more about how GW uses cookies.