Pentagon’s Shyu, LaPlante push to get critical tech into production

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s top technology officer said she’s working closely with her acquisition counterpart to ensure capabilities demonstrated through a series of joint experimentation efforts, the first of which will focus on long-range precision fires, can quickly transition to production.

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu said that as her team prepares for the first Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve demonstrations early next year, she’s working “hand in glove” with Pentagon acquisition chief Bill LaPlante to ensure the most promising projects don’t languish — a concern expressed by Senate lawmakers, who are proposing cuts to the program’s fiscal 2023 budget.

“The best critical prototypes that we define, he will look to accelerate the acquisition pathway to get [them] into production as quickly as possible,” Shyu said during the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s DARPA Forward conference in Atlanta this week.

Shyu initiated the RDER effort as a means to help the Department of Defense address joint, high-need capability gaps by partnering with the services to fund experimentation. The first RDER sprint, which is the process the program uses to gather ideas from industry and the services, focused on long-range fires and the second on contested logistics. The third group of demonstrations will center on base defense technology. The program held an industry day in July and drew nearly 500 people from 190 companies.

The department chose its first projects, which haven’t been disclosed publicly, last summer and plans to begin to execute them as soon as Congress approves fiscal 2023 appropriations. Since the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, DoD has been operating under a continuing resolution, which holds funding at fiscal 2023 levels.

‘Valley of Death’

Lawmakers approved $324 million in RDER funding for fiscal 2022, and DoD requested $358 million in fiscal 2023. The Senate Appropriations Committee wants to cut that request in half to $176 million, saying officials haven’t made sufficient plans to transition RDER technology to the field.

“Experimentation and innovation absent defined program goals merely widen the ‘valley of death’ instead of addressing core programmatic and process challenges inside the department,” the committee said in a July report accompanying its version of the fiscal 2023 defense spending bill.

Shyu said this week that RDER was designed, in part, to help address “valley of death” concerns, a phrase used broadly to describe the often drawn-out — and sometimes terminal — phase between when a technology program starts and when it is adopted by a service user.

“If you have a great prototype that’s solving a capability that I need, we want to test it out,” she said. “Let’s test it out in a contested environment. Does it still work [outside] your lab? If it still works, there’s an option. We can go into rapid fielding.”

The department is making plans for its fiscal 2024 RDER funding request. Shyu said she had a meeting scheduled this week to discuss RDER resourcing with the Defense Management Action Group, a panel of Pentagon officials who make budget recommendations to the defense secretary.

Biden National Defense Strategy tackles China, Russia, nuke deterrence

WASHINGTON ― The Biden administration laid out a national defense strategy aimed at China, which it views as America’s most consequential strategic competitor, and Russia, which it sees as an “acute threat” capable of cyber and missile attacks on the U.S.

The administration’s first National Defense Strategy highlights Beijing’s growing military strength as well as its provocative rhetoric and coercive activity toward Taiwan as part of a broader pattern across the Asia-Pacific region. The 80-page unclassified version comes six months after it was sent to Capitol Hill and two weeks after the White House released its long overdue National Security Strategy.

“The NDS bluntly describes Russia as an acute threat, and we chose the word ‘acute’ carefully,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters. “Unlike China, Russia can’t systemically challenge the United States over the long term, but Russian aggression does pose an immediate and sharp threat to our interests and values. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s reckless war of choice against Ukraine, the worst threat to European security since the end of World War II, has made that very clear for the whole world.”

Pentagon officials said they did not substantively change the strategy, which was completed in March, in response to Russia’s 8-month-old invasion of Ukraine. Since then, the U.S. has sent more than $17 billion in military aid to Ukraine, the fight has severely degraded Russian forces and Moscow is threatening to employ nuclear weapons.

A senior Pentagon official told reporters there was “overlap” between how the Pentagon is meeting challenges from both countries, particularly through investments in cyber, space and undersea capabilities, among others. “I like to think of it as the ‘two for one,’ if you will,” the official said.

The Pentagon is dealing with Russia’s threats to escalate the war in Ukraine, China’s reaffirmation of threats to annex Taiwan by force, an increasing alignment between the two, and mounting nuclear concerns from North Korea and Iran.

The Ukraine crisis delayed the rollout of the White House’s overarching National Security Strategy, which was released Oct. 12. The administration initially planned to release the strategy in February; that delay also encompassed the defense strategy.

The National Defense Strategy’s centerpiece is “integrated deterrence,” or coordinating military, diplomatic and economic levers from across the U.S. government to deter an adversary from taking an aggressive action. But it also stresses “campaigning” to build up the capability of international coalitions and complicate adversaries’ actions.

It also calls for making “the right technology investments” as it points to new threats from space weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, and new applications of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. Along with investments in directed-energy and hypersonic weapons, the strategy says it would be a “fast-follower” where market forces are driving commercialization of capabilities the military would use, like artificial intelligence, autonomy and renewable energy.

Nuclear competition

The Nuclear Posture Review, also released Thursday, emphasizes the need to modernize nuclear forces and highlights the dilemma of deterring two nuclear-armed competitors, Russia and China. It emphasizes the need to maintain robust nuclear command, control and communications through satellites and cyberspace.

Biden came to office championing nuclear weapons reduction, and the strategy stresses efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons. But administration officials acknowledged that arms control efforts have been stymied by China’s refusal to participate.

Though the document calls for the B83-1 nuclear gravity bomb to be retired and development of the sea-launched cruise missile to be halted, Congress appears poised to preserve the latter, amid support from top generals, through the 2023 defense policy bill. The administration is yet to decide on how it will approach its plan to retire the B83.

Administration officials previewing the strategy said the sea-launched cruise missile and gravity bomb had been deemed unnecessary after broad consultations in and outside the Defense Department.

When asked what message Putin would receive from any move to scuttle the nuclear-armed SLCM, Austin defended the U.S. nuclear arsenal’s ability to deter Russia.

“As you know, our inventory of nuclear weapons is significant. And so we determined, as we looked at our inventory, that that — you know, we did not need that capability,” Austin said of the SLCM-N. “We have a lot of capability in our nuclear inventory, and I don’t think that sends any message to Putin. He understands what our capability is.”

Global deployments

The strategy’s force-planning construct aims for the ability to respond to short, small-scale crises without substantially impairing its readiness for high-end conflicts with Russia and China.

“Our force posture will focus on the access and warfighting requirements that enable our efforts to deter potential PRC [People’s Republic of China] and Russian aggression against vital U.S. national interests, and to prevail in conflict if deterrence fails,” according to the document.

That will include investments in cyber, space and undersea capabilities in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, a senior defense official said, as well as exercises in those areas.

“And so as we understand our posture, how do we make sure that we don’t just think about sort of folks on the ground, which is just our more traditional view, but, for example, in our space capabilities?” the official said.

Though officials have been mum on any negotiations about changing the mix of forward-deployed and rotating troops abroad, defense officials in recent years have put both of those possibilities on the table.

“My advice would be to create permanent bases, but don’t permanently station,” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee in April. “So you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases.”

At the time, the U.S. had mobilized roughly 20,000 troops to Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling into question whether a more robust presence in Europe would be necessary going forward.

In the preceding years, the Army had closed some of its permanent garrisons in Germany and replaced that posture with heel-to-toe rotational deployments.

And in Asia, the discussion of whether tens of thousands of permanently based troops in Japan and South Korea is the best way to deter China and North Korea has continued.

In 2021, the Army announced it would move an artillery headquarters from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to South Korea, while a previously rotational attack helicopter presence would also be permanently based in South Korea.

“I don’t think we’re looking to have fixed bases in fixed places, right?” a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official told reporters in 2020. “I think that’s, one, too expensive. Two, I think that you rely, then, on all of the agreements that you have to have to do that, and time.”

“The Department is establishing a new framework for strategic readiness, enabling a more comprehensive, data-driven assessment and reporting of readiness to ensure greater alignment with NDS priorities,” the new document reads, but the senior defense official didn’t offer any details on what that should look like.

The strategy itself describes an approach where ships, aircraft and other capabilities will be deployed, keeping in mind that they must be preserved long enough to have a clean handoff when new technology goes operational, with no gaps in availability.

Air Force to replace Kadena F-15 squadrons with rotational fighters

WASHINGTON — The Air Force is planning to replace the two squadrons of F-15C Eagle fighters it has stationed at Kadena Air Base in Japan with a rotational force of fighters.

A source familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the Pentagon hasn’t yet announced its plans, said the rotational force will be at least a short-term solution to replace the F-15Cs stationed on the Okinawa base as the older fighters are retired.

Kadena now has at least 48 F-15s as part of the 18th Wing’s 44th and 67th fighter squadrons.

The source said the Defense Department hasn’t decided on the longer-term plan for Kadena’s fighter force, and whether the base will stick with having squadrons of fighters rotating through on temporary deployments or whether other fighter units will be permanently deployed.

It will also take a while for Kadena’s F-15Cs to return to the United States, the source said. The Air Force typically flies aircraft back in waves in these situations, and backfills them with rotational forces in the interim.

Financial Times first reported the Air Force’s plan to move to a system of rotational fighter deployments at Kadena.

The Air Force and Pentagon would not comment on the record by press time.

The Air Force is moving to retire large swaths of its aging F-15C fleet, many of which are pushing 40 years old and reaching the end of their lives, and replace them with newly-built F-15EX fighters.

Congress gave the Air Force permission to retire 48 F-15C and D fighters, the service’s full request, as part of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The Air Force also wants to cut another 61 F-15Cs in 2023. This would reduce the F-15C fleet to 107, roughly half its 2021 size.

Kadena’s 18th Wing also has E-3 Sentries, KC-135 Stratotankers, and HH-60G Pave Hawks.

Pentagon’s missile defense review lacks execution plan, analysts say

WASHINGTON — The unclassified version of the U.S. Missile Defense Review, released by the Pentagon on Oct. 27, contains no major surprises when it comes to strategy, but missile defense experts say it lacks a clear execution plan.

The new review takes up 17 pages in the 80-page unclassified version of the U.S. National Defense Strategy released today. The classified version is lengthier and more comprehensive, defense officials said in a briefing at the Pentagon. The NDS, for the first time ever, includes the Nuclear Posture Review and the MDR. In years past, the major guidance documents were unveiled separately.

The Trump Administration released the last MDR in 2019 — a 108-page document that maintained a large amount of continuity with the MDR of 2010 — but placed the missile defense enterprise in the context of great power competition against Russia and China for the first time.

“The Missile Defense Review largely represents a continuation of current policy on missile defense and does little to clarify the administration’s strategy on how missile defense should be adjusted to meet growing threats,” Patty-Jane Geller, a senior policy analyst at the think tank, the Heritage Foundation, who is focused on missile defense and nuclear deterrence.

“It is disappointing to see another missed opportunity to bring more coherence to our missile defense policy, Geller said.

“For example, the MDR commits to the priority of homeland missile defense and staying ahead of the North Korean threat. It also rightly stresses the importance of improving our ability to address advanced threats like hypersonic weapons,” she said. “Yet it gives little information about an actionable plan to meet these growing challenges.”

The review reaffirms that homeland missile defense is the United States’ top missile defense priority. The U.S. will continue to modernize and expand the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, system, which was built to protect the U.S. homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran.

The system consists of 44 interceptors buried in the ground, primarily at Fort Greely, Alaska, with a handful at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, as well as a network of space-based and terrestrial-based sensors and an integrated command-and-control system.

The review shows a commitment to continuing to develop a Next-Generation Interceptor, expected to be fielded in the 2028 time frame, to augment and potentially replace current interceptors. The current plan is to acquire 20 of those interceptors, according to a Pentagon official at the background briefing. The timeline and fielding plan is not laid out in the MDR.

Geller quickly pointed out that while the MDR commits to improving homeland missile defense, a recent Statement of Administration Policy on the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill objects to a provision that would require a funding plan to buy additional NGIs that would help outpace the North Korean threat.

The brevity of the review “leaves several issues unmentioned,” Tom Karako, a missile defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense News, one being the absence of timelines and phases.

“It is one thing to say the United States must defend Guam, that we must have hypersonic defense and that space sensors are critical, but there are no express milestones or dates to assess whether they will be available within the decade, let alone at the speed of relevance.”

Moreover, Geller noted while the MDR commits to hedging against advanced technologies being developed by China and Russia, like hypersonic weapons, a Statement of Administration Policy also objects to additional funding for the Glide-Phase Interceptor that the Missile Defense Agency is developing to take out hypersonic missile threats in flight.

The MDR also “fails to clarify U.S. policy on defending against Russian and Chinese missiles,” Geller said.

“It reiterates the current position to rely solely on nuclear deterrence — rather than missile defense — to defend the homeland from Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles, but then commits to defending Guam as part of the homeland against China, and defending the homeland from Russian and Chinese cruise missiles,” she said.

The review stresses the need to prioritize the missile defense architecture on Guam which is already underway. “Guam’s defense, which will include various active and passive missile defense capabilities, will contribute to the overall integrity of integrated deterrence and bolster the U.S. operational strategy in the Indo-Pacific region,” the review states.

Other missing pieces, according to Karako, include the “usual” assurance against arms control limitations, the need for increasing production quantities, the need for maintaining flexible acquisition authorities or who exactly will manage the new “missile defeat” enterprise.

Missile defeat “encompasses the range of activities to counter the development, acquisition, proliferation, potential and actual use of adversary offensive missiles of all types, and to limit damage from such use,” the review defines.

Using the term “missile defeat” is one area where the MDR branches out from past iterations, Karako noted.

“The use of ‘missile defeat’ represents a subtle but important shift, which applies broadly to the missile defense enterprise,” he said. “A broad defense and defeat-dominant posture towards North Korea remains intact, but attack operations and other novel measures left-of-launch will help size the requirements for active missile defense interceptors within the comprehensive missile defeat enterprise.”

The 2022 MDR also “notably recognizes how various air and missile threats would be used in conjunction for complex and integrated attacks,” Karako said. “It is critical, and long overdue, to acknowledge that adversaries will attempt to suppress U.S. and allied air and missile defense capabilities.”

The 2018 NDS, released during the Trump Administration, endorsed dispersed basing and operations, but the 2019 MDR “did not apply that logic to [air and missile defense],” Karako said.

The 2022 review “does so explicitly,” he added.

“Future air and missile defense capabilities must also be more mobile, flexible, survivable, and affordable, and emphasize disaggregation, dispersal, and maneuver to mitigate the threat from adversary missiles,” the review states.

The review also heavily emphasizes the need to bolster regional defense and deterrence through “close cooperation” with allies and partners on Integrated Air and Missile Defense, or IAMD.

“IAMD represents an effort to move beyond platform-specific missile defense toward a broader approach melding all missile defeat capabilities – defensive, passive, offensive, kinetic, non-kinetic – into a comprehensive joint and combined construct,” the document states.

“As such, the United States will continue to pursue joint, allied and partner IAMD capabilities needed to maintain a credible level of regional defensive capability for joint maneuver forces and critical infrastructure against all missile threats from any adversary in order to protect U.S. forces abroad, maintain freedom of maneuver and strengthen security commitments to our allies and partners,” the review reads.

Fearing Russian false flag in Ukraine, US launches plan to track arms

WASHINGTON ― The U.S. State Department released plans Thursday to better track weapons supplied to Ukraine, voicing fears Russian forces could capture and use them to fabricate an attack by Ukrainian forces.

“Pro-Russian forces’ capture of Ukrainian weapons ― including donated materiel ― has been the main vector of diversion so far and could result in onward transfers,” the plan reads. “Russia probably will also use these weapons to develop countermeasures, propaganda, or to conduct false-flag operations.”

The warning comes amid Russia’s unfounded claims Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb” on its own soil, which U.S. officials see as a potential pretext for Moscow to escalate the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also accused Russia of planning to blow up a huge dam near Kherson and blame it on Ukrainians.

Since Russia launched its war in Ukraine eight months ago, the U.S. has been speeding more than $17 billion in military aid, from shoulder-fired rockets, howitzers and armored vehicles to advanced air defense systems. U.S. lawmakers and officials in Europe, which is also providing billions in weapons, have in recent weeks stepped up calls for stiffer oversight.

The State Department is especially concerned about two classes of weapons: man-portable air defense systems, including the thousands of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles sent by the U.S., and anti-tank/all-purpose tactical guided missiles, including thousands of Javelins the U.S. sent.

The State Department said, as part of the plan, it is working with Kyiv to clear explosive remnants of the war, an activity that would enable “on-the-ground accounting for and securing of weapons,” the plan says.

“As in any conflict, we remain vigilant to the possibility that criminal and non-state actors may attempt to illicitly acquire weapons from sources in Ukraine, including members of the Russian military, during or following the conflict,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

The one-page plan released Thursday offered a number of actions, some for next year, others for 2024 and beyond — but few details about how they would be implemented.

Among other steps in the plan, U.S. embassy personnel in Kyiv would help Ukraine increase weapons tracking. Beyond that, the State Department plans to bolster training for Ukrainian forces on protecting their borders and destroying found weapons and ammunition to deny them to non-state actors and protect civilians.

In the future, the U.S. also wants to deploy contracted de-mining units to work alongside Kyiv’s forces and train border forces to recognize man-portable air defense systems and anti-tank weapons.

So far, Ukrainian forces have been keeping small arms and other weapons from ending up on the black market and Ukraine has committed to safeguarding weapons donated by the U.S., but the plan acknowledges “the chaotic nature of combat can make this difficult.”

The race to arm Ukraine highlights West’s worry of losing tech secrets

This summer, the European Union launched a new platform to discuss organized crime in the region with an eye toward the illegal smuggling of diverted weapons. The law enforcement agency Europol said then it was working with Ukrainian officials to reduce the risk of illegal arms transfers.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, in a June interview with the Financial Times, pushed back against western concerns the country could become a source of smuggled weapons, but acknowledged it needed to expand its arms tracking systems.

Reznikov disclosed that some of Ukraine’s allies had sent military representatives to the country to observe the flow of their donated weapons and he invited others to follow suit. He also said Ukraine was using NATO software, acquired in 2019, to monitor the destination and use of weapons provided by the west.

“We need to survive. We have no reason to smuggle arms out of Ukraine,” he told the Financial Times.

The arms control community has been pressing the Biden administration for months to conduct stronger oversight. The number and variety of arms sent to Ukraine, and the potential they will overwhelm Ukraine’s ability to absorb and track them, have been worrisome to arms control advocates.

“The quantity of weapons that has gone to Ukraine already is larger than than any year to Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11,” said Rachel Stohl, the director of Stimson Center’s conventional defense program. “This [State Department tracking effort] is very much focused on the most high-tech sophisticated weapons. Light weapons have a huge diversion risk.”

Stohl hailed the Biden administration’s new plan for addressing these concerns, but she said it lacks details about implementation and said its effectiveness remains to be seen.

“Some of the things they’re laying out should be done as a matter of course. You shouldn’t be transferring weapons to a recipient if you can’t be sure how those weapon are being used or by the people you intended to use them,” Stohl said.

Pentagon setting up office to speed JADC2 integration across military

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is establishing an office tasked with aligning and accelerating joint all-domain command and control, a multibillion-dollar effort meant to tie together all components of the U.S. military, from sensor to shooter.

The acquisition, integration and interoperability office will first look “at how we’re going to integrate, truly get JADC2 talking across the department,” according to Chris O’Donnell, deputy assistant secretary of defense for platform and weapon portfolio management.

The Army, Navy and Air Force each have their own approaches to the realization of JADC2. The Army has Project Convergence, the Navy has Project Overmatch and the Air Force has the Advanced Battle Management System. Uniting these efforts across land, air, sea, space and cyber is an office priority.

While there is already “great work going on,” there “needs to be more jointness, and we’re working toward that,” O’Donnell said Oct. 26 at a symposium hosted by the Association of Old Crows, a nonprofit specializing in electronic warfare and information operations.

O’Donnell’s comments come amid concerns expressed by defense officials, lawmakers and analysts that the military services are not actually on the same page, or are not sufficiently collaborating. A version of the annual defense bill included an audit of JADC2 progress and prices. Staffers described the measure as informative, not punitive.

Project Convergence shows JADC2 alignment, leaders from 3 services say

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown in June met with fellow leaders from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Space Force to assess JADC2 common ground and discuss advancements. The Air Force at the time said the summit underlined how seriously the Defense Department is taking cooperation.

The new office will be housed under the secretary of defense. The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, which reached full operations in June, is also working on JADC2 data integration. The CDAO reports directly to the deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks.

O’Donnell on Wednesday said the military has “done an amazing job” addressing how critical information will be shuttled back and forth to all corners of the military, and how that information, once received, will be used to fight more effectively.

“I would never say the services are too siloed in their approach. The services are doing exactly what they need to support service needs,” he said. “They’re all talking to each other.”

Space Force expects budget growth into 2024 amid ‘tremendous need’

WASHINGTON — Following a 38% increase in its fiscal 2023 budget request, the U.S. Space Force expects the upward funding trajectory to continue next year, according to a senior official.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson said during an Oct. 25 Mitchell Institute event in Arlington, Va., that the service will require more resources as it looks to make its spacecraft and other systems more resilient and takes on tasks including space domain awareness and data exploitation.

“I can’t talk about the current budget process that we’re in, but you should not expect that emphasis and that understanding to change as we move into the future,” he said. “There’s tremendous need and tremendous opportunity for growth.”

Thompson said there has been strong support for the service from Congress and a recognition from the Biden administration.

“They’re providing the resources that we need to get after all of the missions — missions that we have to continue to do today, the pivot that we have to do to those more resilient architectures . . . missions that we didn’t do a decade ago that we now need to do to defend and protect our interests and capabilities,” he said.

In March, the Space Force requested $24.5 billion in fiscal 2023, up from $17.4 billion last year. Nearly half of that growth includes existing Department of Defense budget lines that transferred from elsewhere in the Pentagon. The proposal includes $15.8 billion for research and development and $3.6 billion to procure new capabilities.

Congress has yet to approve a defense spending package for the government fiscal year that started Oct. 1. The department is operating under a continuing resolution, which freezes funding at fiscal 2022 levels.

Thompson declined to discuss the details of the service’s fiscal 2024 budget request, which hasn’t been finalized by Pentagon leadership. An analysis of the Space Force’s future funding projections conducted by research firm Metrea Strategic Insights using publicly available data from the service’s budget justification documents shows that its topline request for next year could reach $27 billion.

‘Exploit, buy and build’

As Thompson described, near-term budgets will largely be driven by the service’s need to maintain its current capabilities while transitioning to satellites and ground systems that are protected against threats from adversaries including China. While it will take time to develop and field the architecture the Space Force ultimately wants, the service is pushing to deliver some upgrades by 2026.

To achieve greater resiliency, leaders at Space Systems Command, the service’s acquisition arm, developed an “exploit, buy and build” mantra, emphasizing that before building something new, the service should consider how it can better use its current systems and what commercial industry may already be developing.

Brig. Gen. Timothy Sejba, program executive officer for space domain awareness and combat power and battle management, command and control, said during an Oct. 19 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association conference that this approach doesn’t mean the service won’t build new systems.

The demand for resiliency will likely lead to near-term budget and program decisions that prioritize leveraging existing capabilities, he said.

“We may have to make some tough choices as we look at what is required over the next three to four years to ensure our architecture is much more resilient going forward,” Sebja said.

To deter Arctic aggression, build the polar fleet we need

Winter is coming early this year in the Arctic. Last month, a Chinese and Russian joint surface action group came within 75 nautical miles of Kiska Island, Alaska. In response, the Coast Guard mobilized a patrol to monitor the ships as they approached American home waters. A year prior, several Chinese warships had entered the U.S. exclusive economic zone off Alaska.

These repeated tests of American resolve so close to our shores should set off alarm bells in Washington. Our two greatest adversaries, China and Russia, are now cooperating on the high seas to challenge our presence in the region.

Chinese and Russian attempts to gain superiority in the Arctic are not new. In 2015, five Chinese vessels marked President Barack Obama’s visit to the Bering Sea with battle drills off the Alaskan coast. Russia has long maintained a strong military presence in the Arctic, even after the end of the Cold War.

What is different now, however, is that our rivals’ power projection in the polar regions is outpacing our own. As a self-described “near-Arctic power,” China has been working to build a “Polar Silk Road” of economic and military infrastructure across the Arctic. Meanwhile, Russia is developing its already-formidable capabilities to disrupt freedom of navigation and U.S. operations.

If China and Russia reach their goals, the Arctic will emerge as a central theater in our respective competitions. Alaska is a vital location for monitoring Chinese and Russian missile forces. The Arctic’s natural characteristics also make it ripe for space launch, reconnaissance, and energy resource capture. Losing the upper hand in the Arctic could result in our exclusion from the region militarily and economically — an ominous prospect, given the trajectory of American relations with Russia and China.

Securing the north: Expanding the United States’ icebreaker fleet

The United States has already been caught flat-footed, as we have invested relatively little in our Arctic forces. For example, the combined icebreaker fleets of our adversaries outpace ours by more than 25 to 1.

U.S. leaders simply have not met the Arctic challenge, and we are only beginning to confront this reality now. In recent months, the Biden Administration has created new posts at the Pentagon and State Department to address Arctic security. And more recently, the White House rolled out a comprehensive political-military strategy for the Arctic, which includes a call for a greater military presence in the region.

Our core challenge, however, is that the U.S. defense industrial base will essentially be starting from scratch to field these capabilities. Decades of low investment in icebreakers from the federal government has left U.S. shipbuilders unprepared to service even the best defense strategy. Today, only one shipyard in the United States is building polar icebreakers, and we are set to add just three of these crucial ships by 2030. Without sustained investment in these capabilities, there is little hope of maintaining long-term U.S. power in the region.

Congress has worked to authorize funding for a twelfth national security cutter in this year’s defense bill, but much more needs to be done. We need to expand the icebreaker program and substantially increase the budget for U.S. Northern Command, which would give planners the tools they need to navigate this unstable strategic environment.

Russia and China’s latest target, Kiska Island, became known during World War II as one of few U.S. territories ever to be occupied by a foreign nation. Japanese control of the island came to an end in 1943 when Adm. Chester W. Nimitz and his cruisers expelled the Japanese. Since then, U.S. forces have continued a proud tradition of Arctic operations, including the first deployment of a nuclear submarine in 1954.

It appears Kiska — and indeed the United States — is once again coming under threat from a Pacific power. The moment demands that we unleash the full might of our defense industrial base to secure our foothold in the Arctic. As the proverbial winter with China and Russia comes, we should prepare ourselves to weather it.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. He also serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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Harden the cybersecurity of US nuclear complex now

Given Vladimir Putin’s reckless talk about his potential use of Russian nuclear weapons, the United States must ensure its own nuclear stockpile is safe, secure, and reliable. Yet, for decades, the stewards of the country’s nuclear complex — the Departments of Defense and Energy — failed to assess and remediate the cyber vulnerabilities of America’s strategic forces. An effort to reverse that neglect has been building momentum over the past five years. Both Congress and the executive branch must accelerate the pace.

On October 18, the Kremlin announced that the four Ukrainian regions recently “annexed” by Russia are now under the protection of the Russian nuclear umbrella. In plain speak, Putin suggested that attempts to aid Ukraine in the rescue of its sovereign territory could be met by a nuclear response. To deter additional aggression and dangerous escalation, Washington should ensure the U.S. nuclear triad stands ready and able, as the Pentagon says, to “deliver a decisive response anywhere, anytime.”

But deterrence is only as good as it is credible.

Two years before the February invasion of Ukraine, the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission called for a Cybersecurity Vulnerability Assessment across the U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications, or NC3, system.

The Commission’s rationale was simple: an adversary could breach any military system, including the NC3, reliant on computer networks built upon software and hardware of sometimes unknown provenance. A potential compromise could create a false warning of attack or prevent warning of an actual attack. A breach could render the U.S. launch capability inoperable or allow unauthorized use of weapons.

Given Moscow’s proclivity to use false flag operations to justify the use of force, America’s nuclear arsenal must be protected from manipulation by an adversary.

Buried in both the Senate and House versions of the massive 2023 National Defense Authorization Act are short provisions augmenting the cybersecurity of the NC3. This step forward builds on important work over the last few years by both Congress and the executive branch.

The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review in 2018 first underscored the risk to the NC3, noting, “The emergence of offensive cyber warfare capabilities has created new challenges and potential vulnerabilities for the NC3 system.” A Government Accountability Office report later that year warned that “until recently, DOD did not prioritize weapon systems cybersecurity.” Against that backdrop, the Solarium Commission urged Congress to direct the Pentagon to “continuously assess weapon system cyber vulnerabilities” and “routinely assess every segment of the NC3.”

Congress has passed multiple pieces of legislation into law in recent years to harden the weapons complex. In the FY21 NDAA, Section 1712 requires periodic reviews of the vulnerabilities of major weapons systems and the critical infrastructure on which those systems rely. Section 1747 requires the DoD to establish a concept for operations needed to defend the NC3 from cyberattacks.

In last year’s NDAA, Congress again addressed this issue, this time in three places: Section 1525 requires the DoD to issue regular reports on the progress of the Strategic Cybersecurity Program, an effort that evaluates the cybersecurity of offensive cyber systems, long-range strike systems, nuclear deterrent systems, national security systems, and DoD critical infrastructure; Section 1534 puts a deadline on an existing mandate for assessments of the cyber resilience of nuclear command and control systems; and Section 1644 calls for an “independent review of the safety, security, and reliability of covered nuclear systems,” which includes, but is not limited to, cybersecurity.

The Biden administration complemented these statutory requirements in May 2021 with a new executive order on “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” requiring, among other things, that the secretary of defense provide further details on cybersecurity practices for national security systems.

Adm. Charles Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, meanwhile, affirmed in April that programs to upgrade the NC3 are “harden[ing] NC3 systems against cyber threats.” As a result, NC3′s cybersecurity protections will exceed “the DoD baseline standard” including persistent monitoring to detect and mitigate threats.

Congress now aims to build on this momentum. The Senate version of the FY23 NDAA has a provision that specifically extends the requirement for annual NC3 assessments another five years. The House version clarifies how Congress will receive briefings on vulnerabilities and remediation efforts and conduct oversight of the improvements made to the NC3 system.

The last three years of direction and funding from Congress could not be clearer: the Department of Defense must maintain a laser focus on hardening the country’s strategic forces against cyber threats. The security of these systems provides the bedrock of credible deterrence that prevents Putin from launching a nuclear war.

Samantha F. Ravich is the chair of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and served on the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery is CCTI’s senior director and leads CSC 2.0, an initiative to continue the work of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, where he served as executive director. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Pentagon’s Project Maven transition stymied by Congress, official says

WASHINGTON — The failure of Congress to pass a full fiscal year 2023 budget on time is hampering the migration of portions of the Project Maven artificial intelligence effort to the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office, a senior official said.

Project Maven, the U.S. Department of Defense’s most visible AI tool, is designed to process imagery and full-motion video from drones and other surveillance assets and detect potential threats. It’s also meant to speed the use of AI across the military.

Congress in September passed a continuing resolution, providing level budgeting through mid-December and averting a shutdown, but also preventing initiatives such as Project Maven’s move from getting funding. The extension provides lawmakers more time to reach an agreement on spending for fiscal 2023, which started Oct. 1.

“That’s really the one thing that has prevented the whole transition, is that CR,” Deputy Chief Digital and AI Officer Margaret Palmieri said Oct. 25 at a symposium sponsored by the Association of Old Crows, a nonprofit focused on electronic warfare and information operations. “We’re just waiting to go through that process.”

“We’ll see how Congress reacts,” she added. “We always appreciate on-time appropriations. That allows us to keep our transition plans on track.”

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Project Maven initially launched under the office of the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security. It is now being divvied up, amid a concerted push by the Defense Department to study, test and more effectively apply AI on the battlefield and behind the scenes. Its capabilities were among the several automatic or aided target-recognition solutions tested at previous U.S. Army Project Convergence experiments.

Officials this year confirmed Project Maven would be reapportioned. In April, then-National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Vice Adm. Robert Sharp said his team would take over operational control, including “responsibility for labeled data, AI algorithms, test and evaluation capabilities, and the platform.”

Pieces not associated with GEOINT work are expected to shift to the CDAO, which was operating at full capacity as of June.

“I will say that the teams are up and running at NGA, they are ready to go. We are excited to see what they’re putting together. We have conversations with them pretty frequently,” Palmieri said Tuesday. “The pieces of Maven that have been just revolutionary have been in the computer vision space, and specifically on GEOINT type of capabilities.”

The geospatial agency, in charge of processing and analyzing satellite imagery, among other tasks, has been intimately involved with Project Maven since 2017.