Archive: June 5, 2024

South Korea preps new antimissile weaponry to counter North’s arsenal

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Threatened by Pyongyang’s burgeoning stocks and varieties of ballistic missiles and rockets, South Korea is moving forward with a key class of interceptor weaponry.

Defense officials have completed development of the long-range L-SAM air defense system, moving on to the more advanced L-SAM-II.

Late last month, Korea’s Defense Acquisition and Program Administration, or DAPA, announced it was wrapping up development of the L-SAM. After contractor LIG Nex1 began work on the program in 2014, officials now deem the technology suitable for combat.

“The L-SAM research and development project is currently being finalized, with the goal of completing system development at the end of this year,” a DAPA statement reads. This paves the way for production to commence ahead of fielding “in the late 2020s,” according to the agency.

A terminal-stage, upper-tier defense system, the L-SAM system is meant to to intercept targets at altitudes of 31-37 miles (50-60km). Fired from a truck-and-trailer launcher, it utilizes two missile types to shoot down aircraft and ballistic missiles, respectively.

South Korean military paves way for robotic vehicles in its ranks

The new capability will play a key role in the Korea Air and Missile Defense protective umbrella that currently relies on the shorter-range M-SAM system, the U.S.-made Patriot suite and the U.S. Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), with the latter deployed in Korea since 2017.

Meanwhile, a next-generation weapon capable of knocking out aerial targets even higher and farther away is already in the works. A meeting by the Defense Acquisition Program Promotion Committee on May 29 approved a basic development plan for the L-SAM-II. Given the risk posed by North Korean Kim Jong-un’s missile programs, Seoul has accelerated its completion deadline by two years, to 2032.

Following feasibility studies approved last year, the L-SAM-II’s development will now receive a 1 trillion-won budget, or around $730 million.

The enhanced missile “uses a high-altitude interceptor with an increased interception altitude compared to the existing L-SAM,” the agency explained.

The L-SAM-II’s enhanced range – some three times that of its predecessor, at around 93 miles (150km) – will enhance South Korean multilayered air defenses. The L-SAM-II will boast two missile types – a high-altitude interceptor, and a glide-phase interceptor optimized to intercept hypersonic glide vehicles.

At the same May 29 meeting, DAPA approved development of M-SAM Block III medium-range air defense missiles, with interceptors and radar upgraded to counter hypersonic threats.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already ordered the M-SAM Block II under $3.2 billion and $3.5 billion contracts, respectively, opening the Middle East market for prospective L-SAM deals as well.

The sales underscore the M-SAM’s popularity, placing it alongside K9 artillery pieces as being among South Korea’s most successful defense products for export.

South Korea hopes to attain cumulative defense sales of $20 billion this year.

DARPA project uses AI to flag space weapons, spy satellites

As more governments and commercial companies look to proliferated satellite constellations for increased capacity, some defense experts are concerned that these large fleets could be providing cover for space weapons or spy satellites.

A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort aims to use artificial intelligence to shine a light on those potentially nefarious capabilities.

In 2023, DARPA selected Slingshot Aerospace, a California-based space technology firm, to create an AI system that identifies anomalous satellites within these large constellations. The company unveiled its model, dubbed Agatha, on June 5, announcing that it had demonstrated the ability to detect outlier satellites among operational constellations.

“Identifying malfunctioning or potentially nefarious objects and their objectives within large satellite constellations is a complex challenge that required us to reach beyond traditional approaches and develop a novel and scalable AI algorithm,” Dylan Kesler, Slingshot’s director of data science and AI, said in a statement. “Our Agatha model has also proven its ability to deliver high-quality insights that provide ‘explainability’ or context for why specific objects were flagged.”

The Chinese government has announced plans to launch two megaconstellations in the coming years comprised of tens of thousands of satellites, a bid to rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose network of Starlink communication satellites includes more than 6,000 operational spacecraft.

At the same time, Defense Department officials have confirmed Russia is developing a satellite that could carry a nuclear weapon and last month launched a counterspace weapon designed to follow U.S. spy satellites.

Audrey Schaffer, Slingshot’s vice president of strategy and policy, told C4ISRNET these developments make a tool like Agatha particularly important.

“Agatha is one example of a technology that is designed to help see clearly in that kind of increasingly crowded and congested environment,” she said. “In particular, Agatha really helps you find that needle in the haystack.”

To train Agatha’s algorithm, Slingshot fed more than 60 years of data from simulated megaconstellations created by the firm. Those constellations included outlier satellites, which allowed Agatha to distinguish between types of satellites and flag anomalies.

The system incorporates a method known as inverse reinforcement learning. The technique allows Agatha to not only recognize and track anomalous spacecraft maneuvers or other activity but to assign motivation to those actions.

“Agatha doesn’t just identify that this particular satellite is an outlier,” Schaffer said. “It can also make an assessment of why the satellite is behaving differently than the other satellites in the constellation and what policies or operational directives it might be following that explain the difference in behavior.”

Once it had trained the model, Slingshot set out to test Agatha’s abilities using existing commercial constellations. Schaffer wouldn’t identify which companies’ satellites the system observed, but said it flagged several non-nefarious anomalies, which it then confirmed with the spacecraft owners.

The DARPA-led project wrapped up earlier this year, and Schaffer said the company is now in conversations with potential government and commercial customers who may be interested in Agatha. She noted that the tool could be useful to U.S. Space Command, National Space Defense Center monitors activities in space.

“The amount of traffic in space is only growing,” she said. When you have not just 10,000 satellites that are active but 10,000 satellites in a single constellation, it is very quickly going to be impossible for humans or even teams of humans to sift through all that data and identify potential threats to our national security.”

Proposed House spending bill would add more F-35s

A proposed defense spending bill the House of Representatives released Tuesday would fund eight more F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in fiscal 2025 than the military originally planned.

The Pentagon’s budget request earlier this year included money to buy 68 F-35s — 42 F-35As for the Air Force, and 13 F-35Bs and 13 F-35Cs for the Navy and Marine Corps.

But the House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s draft spending bill would add two more F-35As to the Air Force’s purchase, and six more F-35Cs, for a total of 76 jets. The number of F-35Bs the Marine Corps would buy would remain unchanged under this appropriations bill.

The plan to increase F-35 purchases in the proposed defense appropriations bill would differ from the House’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act, which would cut the number of F-35 purchases by as much as 20.

The NDAA, which the House Armed Services Committee approved last month, would first cut the Pentagon’s F-35 purchases down to 58, and then prevent the military from accepting delivery of another 10 jets until it certifies several problems with the jet are fixed.

HASC lawmakers are growing impatient with the F-35 program and manufacturer Lockheed Martin over problems such as delays in its Technology Refresh 3 upgrades, which have halted deliveries of the newest jets for nearly a year. HASC staffers told reporters in May that the roughly $1 billion saved by cutting the first 10 F-35s would be reinvested to ensure the jets work properly when they roll out of Lockheed’s factory.

The defense appropriations bill would also provide funding for 15 KC-46 Pegasus aircraft, eight MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopters, and 18 F-15EX Eagle II fighters, as the Air Force requested in March. The Air Force had originally expected to buy 48 F-35As and 24 F-15EXs in 2025.

And the appropriations bill would provide the Air Force $120 million to buy two more HH-60W Jolly Green II combat rescue helicopters in 2025. The Air Force has sought to curtail its HH-60W buy and cap it at 75, down from 113, arguing that the helicopters would not be survivable in a future war against an advanced adversary such as China.

Lawmakers would also provide the Air Force $400 million to speed up the delivery of Boeing’s E-7 aircraft, known in other countries as the Wedgetail, which is meant to replace the aging E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS.

The appropriations bill also proposes $1.9 billion in procurement funds for the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, and $2.7 billion in research, development, test and evaluation funds to continue the bomber’s development. Another $2.1 billion in RDT&E funds would go to developing and modernizing the F-35.

The Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance future fighter program would get $3.3 billion for development, in line with the service’s request, and nearly $493 million in RDT&E funds for its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile.

The Air Force would also receive $3.4 billion to continue developing the LGM-35A Sentinel nuclear missile, which is meant to replace the decades-old Minuteman III.

House defense spending bill nixes funding for second Virginia sub

The House’s annual Pentagon spending bill only funds the procurement of one Virginia-class attack submarine for fiscal 2025 instead of two vessels as it has in previous years.

The draft spending bill, released Tuesday, overrides legislation the House Armed Services Committee advanced last month, which authorized partial funding for a second Virginia-class submarine. Instead, defense appropriators in the House have sided with the Navy, which requested funding for just one attack submarine this year citing production delays amid industrial base constraints.

“We have to rebuild the industrial base in order for us to build submarines,” House defense appropriations chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., told Defense News. “I want more submarines. But in order for us to get there, we have to rebuild the industrial base to get the necessary workforce to build the submarines. So we’re focusing on fixing the problem in order for us to build more submarines.”

The decision comes despite intense pressure from a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn. They have lobbied defense appropriators to fund two submarines, arguing that only funding one submarine would adversely affect companies further down the supply chain.

“House Republicans’ first take at the defense appropriations FY25 bill will never become law,” Courtney said in a statement. “Aside from its hyper-partisan policy riders, it does not reflect the stated need of combatant commanders, the [FY25 National Defense Authorization Act], which advanced 57-1, and the will of 133 Democrats and Republicans who requested steady Virginia-class funding.”

The defense appropriations bill allocates $3.6 billion for a Virginia-class submarine as well as $3.7 billion in advance procurement funding to continue buying long-lead time materials for future attack submarines. The Navy hopes that the advance procurement funding will sustain vendors in the meantime.

But, Courtney argued, the bill “also does nothing to support the supply chain companies that do not receive advanced procurement funding, leaving many suppliers in the industrial base uncertain about future business.”

Courtney is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee’s seapower panel, and his Connecticut district includes General Dynamics Electric Boat, which makes the Virginia-class submarines.

The Armed Services Committee authorized $1 billion in incremental funding for a second Virginia-class vessel in its FY25 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House is scheduled to vote on next week. That money will not be available for industry unless congressional appropriators opt to include it in their spending legislation.

Courtney and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., recently led 131 other lawmakers in a letter to defense appropriators beseeching them to fund two Virginia-class submarines against the Pentagon’s wishes.

“Preserving a consistent production schedule is essential for shipyard and industrial base stability, and to meet the Navy’s operational requirements,” the lawmakers wrote in a May letter to Calvert and Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the panel’s top Democrat.

While industry works to overcome production delays stemming from labor shortages and lingering pandemic-related supply chain shocks, the Navy assesses that it needs to build two Virginia-class vessels and one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine to meet its fleet requirements.

The AUKUS agreement, in which the U.S. will transfer at least three and as many as five attack submarines to Australia in the next decade, would require a production boost of 2.3 to 2.5 Virginia-class vessels per year, on average.

The $883 billion defense spending bill includes $31.6 billion in the shipbuilding budget to procure four battle force ships.

It includes another $4 billion in funding to continue bolstering the submarine industrial base. Congress allocated another $3.3 billion in submarine industrial base funding when it passed its massive foreign aid bill in April.

The Senate is expected to mark up its version of the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act next week, and senators have not yet released their FY25 defense spending bill.

‘America’s gatekeeper’ has a message for small defense contractors

There’s a lesser-known Pentagon agency you must get to know if you’re a small business hoping to break into the multi-billion dollar defense contracting arena.

In an interview, its new director said the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, nicknamed America’s gatekeeper, is better known for conducting 95% of background investigations for federal workers and military personnel, but less so for its role protecting the nation’s industrial base.

David Cattler, who took the reins in March, wants to change that.

In an effort to centralize the government’s sprawling personnel security system, Congress sought to move this responsibility to DCSA from the Office of Personnel Management, which was finalized via an executive order in 2019. Now, Cattler said he’s in the midst of a “90-day approach” as the leader of an organization that should be at full performance in five years.

Background investigations move to their new home at the Pentagon

The White House has said small businesses are “the engines of the economy,” and it has told agencies like DCSA to ensure their participation in government contracts. Last year, they spent a record $178 billion on small businesses. DoD alone increased its spend by 8%.

There’s an imperative from government to extend a welcome to small businesses, and DoD has a growing portfolio of commercial technology and services that can diversify the industrial base. There’s also a need to ensure barriers to entry aren’t too high without compromising security. That’s where DCSA comes in.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been in this role for a little less than three months. What’s new to you? What’s your vision for the agency?

I’m a big “first 90 days” person. This is one of several organizations I’ve either joined or created or led over the course of my career that is new or beginning or had some big issues that needed to be addressed. And this one’s no exception.

As far as the “first 90 days” approach, I tend to see this as an organization that after five years should be in full performance. In a lot of ways it is because it builds off a pretty strong legacy, whether you were formerly with the Office of Personnel Management or the Defense Department. We’re talking decades of experience and structure and qualification in the workforce.

The first thing that struck me in this 90 days is that we’re not actually fully confident in every way we should be. We’re not fully mature. Some things have to be worked out. If you put it in commercial terms, we’ve gone through a five-year period of strategic merger and acquisition, and that can be tough because you do need to have a mindset of one culture, one team, one brand.

This is a purpose-built security agency that combines a lot of elements from the legacy Office of Personnel Management and its authorities and statutory responsibilities, along with a similar and impressive set of things from DoD. And the expectations for what DCSA will do span across the federal government.

DCSA is not just America’s gatekeeper; DCSA should be the nation’s premier provider of integrated security services. So the first task is not to assert that we are that, but to have other people see us in that way, and relatedly to have them see us as their preferred partner.

How does DCSA interface with the defense-industrial base and its security?

If you’re outside the national security community, especially the security part of the national security community, and if you’re outside of the defense-industrial base, do you know who we are? I don’t think so. And that’s a real shame because taxpayers are paying $2.8 billion for it this fiscal year. I take this very seriously. You’re paying 15,000 people to do the work.

We were created as a result of yet another inflection point: the OPM hack. We’ve accreted some of these additional responsibilities like the insider threat role, in no small part because of the series, conditions and departmental analysis after the Navy Yard active shooter [incident], Fort Hood, and related tragedies and real problems within the security community to anticipate, detect, characterize, intervene and mitigate those sorts of threats.

If you work for a company, if you want to start one or if you want to keep up business at a company that requires a facility clearance, the odds are pretty good you’re going to work with DCSA. If you have a cyber problem, if you have an insider threat problem or if you have a counterintelligence problem, the odds are pretty good you’re going to interact with DCSA. If you want to be certified to be a professional in a space, or if you want to get better as a professional inside and outside government, you’ll likely interact with DCSA.

What is the ideal relationship between the agency and industry?

Security can be viewed by some as an overhead cost. It’s a must-do, but I’m going to go to compliance. Some — many even — may go the extra mile.

I sent a letter to our key partners in government and in the private sector when I first arrived, saying: “Call me directly, anytime. Send me an email I want to meet you all. I really want to hear from you. If I can help you, I will.”

We’re going to expand CEO-level and C-suite engagement. I get that security can be viewed as overhead and as a cost, but we need to practice security by design, which means that security really should be baked in from the very beginning. Security is a required element to one’s approach to tackling a contract — the same as it is for us in government before we embark on anything.

Be reasonable, particularly on the cost of compliance. You need to be efficient and effective. You don’t have to build to the minimum; you can build in some additions so that there’s more resilience and maybe some fallbacks or spillover so that you’ve got overlapping capabilities.

I was a little surprised by how warmly welcomed I was by industry. We are on the same team. And to be clear, it’s not that they think they’re going to have an easier time in a compliance inspection; that’s not what it is. It’s that you don’t start in an adversarial way. We want industry to be proved to be secure. Nobody who works for DCSA is going out trying to have someone lose their security clearance or fail on a facility clearance review.

So the relationship with industry is critically important. It’s very, very close. And it is mutually respectful, hopeful and very supportive.

The federal government is trying to increase business with small companies. How do you ensure the barriers to entry aren’t too high without cutting corners on security?

A lot of this stuff becomes about balance. We want to trust you. We want you, as a small business, to be able to compete. For classified work, we want you to be able to sustain the facility so you can do the work and compete for more work or different work. But that’s also about trust and the right balance.

Now that the internal directives have been approved, we’re moving forward with Section 847 implementation, [a provision from the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that says DCSA will review Defense Department contracts that exceed $5 million for foreign ownership, control or influence in its supply chain]. The clock will soon start for that to be implemented. Put that human terms: Say I’m the CEO of a company that’s won a DOD contract of $5 million-plus. That’s just about everybody, right? We’re going to have to take a hard look at that coming in. We want 25 calendar days to complete our review.

That’s an inflection point in terms of responsibility, authority and accountability. There’s no one that works at DCSA that wants to be in a position to tell the CEO of a small business: “Sorry, that’s going to take 40 days, 80 days, 120 days.” We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we’re ready when the light turns green, to move forward and be able to satisfy that set of requirements.

That’s why we’ve asked again for more resources and proper authorities. Give us the guiding directives to get the policy framework built so that we know what we’re required to do.

If I put myself in the shoes of somebody in the private sector and ask myself, “Would I just spend money on security?” — maybe, maybe not.

But if the government came to me and explained — and we can and we do — the reason why we have changed this policy that will correspondingly increase cost is X, Y and Z, and we provide the expert that can give you the details, they get it.

Is that baseline trust there, or is DCSA in the rebuilding stage with industry and its stakeholders?

It’s there. The only thing that surprised me was how strongly positive these interactions have been. Industry is telling me: “Wouldn’t it be great if DCSA had more responsibility and authority?”

From a workforce perspective, DCSA conducts 95% of the federal government’s background clearances. How are you tackling the modernization of this system? What advice do you have for someone who’s looking to get cleared for the first time?

One bit of advice I would give to somebody that’s coming in from the outside is: Plan ahead and be realistic.

If you’ve never held a security clearance and you wish to pursue a government job that requires one, it could take some time. Hiring is one thing; onboarding is another.

The second thing I would say is: Be honest. When you open that eApp form and you start typing, fill it out completely and honestly. Don’t overthink it. Not to sound harsh or overly dramatic, but we’re going to find out about things because we’ve got awesome people and great databases, and we’re going to check you six ways to Sunday before we put you in a position of trust. So be honest. A mistake that you made that you’ve picked yourself up from and recovered and moved on from — that’s perfectly understandable. Nobody’s perfect.

The next thing I would stress to people coming in from the outside is: If you’ve had a security clearance and it’s fairly recent, and you are enrolled in [continuous vetting], you can actually be re-onboarded, re-adjudicated and authorized for onboarding very quickly. And that’s another element of Trusted Workforce, [a whole-of-government approach to reforming the personnel security process].

Reciprocity is also a piece of this. If you come into the DOD, I’m proud to say that the DCSA team can get that done for your employer in less than one day. Reciprocity going in other directions can be more of a challenge.

What’s the latest on timelines for security clearances?

When we talk about the timelines that are in Trusted Workforce — and where we are with the inventory and the goals — what we’re tracking right now is the toughest 10% of cases.

So in 90% of the cases, you’re going to move quite quickly through because you probably haven’t had a brush with the law or you haven’t traveled extensively.

Many of the things we’re looking for in terms of potential indicators where — it’s not a bar to your clearance or a bar to your re-clearance, it’s just something that gets flagged for investigation and adjudication, and we have to take a deeper look. That deeper look can take time. And that time can aggregate.

Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to do interviews remotely, but we also do a great number of interviews and investigations in person. It can be challenging. People are working from home, sometimes in remote areas. They’re working odd schedules. Your references need to be checked, and they’re working from home, they’re working on schedules, they’re traveling. That all takes time to get through.

House lawmakers propose $1.3 billion for Pentagon innovation

House lawmakers want to allocate more than $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2025 toward Pentagon initiatives such as the Defense Innovation Unit — part of a continued push from Congress to field commercial technology at a faster clip.

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s draft of FY25 military spending legislation, released June 4, would add more than $500 million for DIU initiatives to quickly deliver capabilities that meet urgent needs from combatant commands and the services. The bill would also expand access to classified facilities for the innovation hub and the non-traditional companies it works with.

Another $400 million would support a Pentagon effort to fast-track technology from small business to military users, known as Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies, or APFIT. Congress provided $300 million for the project in fiscal 2024, which funded capabilities including a mobile communications gateway for the Navy and optical clocks for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The bill, which the committee is slated to debate June 5, would continue a campaign from House appropriators to ensure that the Department of Defense has more resources to back up its stated objective to better leverage innovation in the private sector.

In FY24, a provision from the defense panel calling for an $800 million increase to DIU appropriations made it into law. Along with providing a financial boost, the legislation gave the organization more authority to drive DoD’s innovation fielding efforts.

At the Pentagon, DIU’s influence has grown in recent years. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year elevated the unit to report directly to his office and named Doug Beck, a former Apple executive, to lead it.

Beck now sits on the Deputy’s Innovation Steering Group, which oversees DoD efforts to rapidly field technology to address high-need operational problems. DIU is also playing a key role in Replicator — an effort to field thousands of drones by next summer and develop a process for quickly delivering capabilities to military users.

DIU is working now to craft a spending plan for the funding it received in FY24 which, due to prolonged budget deliberations, came more than five months into the fiscal year.

The organization plans to distribute the money across four primary buckets: accelerating existing programs, launching new ones, supporting projects housed within other Defense Department innovation organizations and addressing some of the challenges commercial companies face as they try to work with DOD.

Italy confirms air defense battery earmarked for Ukraine

ROME — Italy has confirmed it will send a second SAMP/T air defense battery to Ukraine in response to urgent appeals by Kyiv to help defeat Russian missile attacks.

“It is known that we will send SAMP/T, which is an instrument of air defense, therefore of protection, that Ukraine itself asked us for,” Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said late on June 3.

One of five systems now operated by Italy, the battery due for dispatch to Ukraine is reportedly currently deployed in Kuwait. Another system has recently been stationed in Slovakia as part of a NATO program, and another is due to be set up in June in southern Italy to protect a G7 summit.

The battery is set to be included in the ninth package of arms to be delivered to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been a keen backer of Kyiv’s campaign to oust Russian forces, but so far the Italian government has kept details of its arms supply secret amid widespread opposition among Italian voters to sustaining the war effort.

The ninth package of arms including the SAMP/T system is unlikely to be approved until after European Union elections this weekend. Italy jointly supplied a battery with France to Ukraine last year.

SAMP/T is a truck-based tactical antimissile system designed to destroy hostile cruise missiles, manned and unmanned aircraft and tactical ballistic missiles.

Tajani said that Italy would not allow Ukraine to use Italian weaponry to strike targets inside Russia. “Italian arms cannot be used against Russian territory, but we will help Ukraine to defend itself from the Russian invasion,” he said.

The United States last week gave Ukraine limited permission to Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to hit targets inside Russia close to the border with the Kharkiv region.

On June 2 the Russian ministry of defense claimed U.S.-supplied HIMARS artillery had been fired into Russia.

Meanwhile, the Netherlands has been trying to “quickly” pull together an additional Patriot air-defense system for Ukraine, and has called on other European nations to contribute, the Dutch government said last week.

The Netherlands will provide core components and parts for a Patriot system from existing stocks, and has identified which countries could offer additional parts and munitions, the Defence Ministry said in a May 28 statement. The government is in talks with several partners to assemble a complete system, including training of Ukrainian crews.

“With our offer, and consulting with partner countries providing several key parts and munitions, we can provide Ukraine with at least one fully operational system in a short time frame,” Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said in a statement.

The Netherlands said that while Patriot systems are admittedly scarce, “Ukraine is also fighting Europe’s fight,” and the country’s war-fighting capability, energy production and infrastructure are under daily attack.

Ollongren cited remarks by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that member countries could temporarily move below the alliance’s own defense capability pledges, “so the room for creativity is there.”

The Netherlands is counting on pledges made by industrial suppliers to speed up production and delivery of replacement systems, Ollongren said.

Stoltenberg said in an April 17 speech that if allies face a choice between meeting alliance capability objectives and providing more aid to Ukraine, “my message is clear: send more to Ukraine.”

The Netherlands has so far contributed two Patriot launchers as well as air-defense missiles for the system, according to the Defence Ministry.

Ruitenberg reported from Paris.

US military works to deepen partnerships in African Lion exercise

TAN TAN, Morocco — High-ranking military officials from the U.S. and its top African allies watched intently as dust and flames shot up from pieces of the Sahara Desert hit by tank and artillery fire. They looked up as pilots flew F-16s into formation. And they listened intently as Moroccan and American personnel explained how they would set up beachheads to defend the Atlantic coastline in the event of a potential invasion.

The practice scenario was among those discussed during African Lion, the United States’ largest annual joint military exercise on the continent, which concluded Friday in Morocco.

US Africa Command boss defends US counterterrorism strategy in Africa

Over the past two weeks, roughly 8,100 military forces from nearly three dozen countries maneuvered throughout Tunisia, Ghana, Senegal and Morocco as part of the war games held this year as militaries confront new challenges in increasingly volatile regions.

Generals from the United States and Morocco, which hosted the finale of the two-week event, celebrated African Lion’s 20-year anniversary and how partnerships between the U.S. and African militaries have expanded since it began.

“This exercise has grown over the years since 2004, not only have the number of multinational service members that we train with, but also the scope of the training as well, which has expanded to more than just security,” said Gen. Michael Langley, the head of the United States’ Africa Command.

But despite the spectacle of live-fire demonstrations and laudatory remarks about partnerships by Langley and Col. Maj. Fouad Gourani of Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces, parts of Africa are getting much more dangerous.

The United Nations earlier this year called Africa a “global epicenter for terrorism.” Fatalities linked to extremist groups have risen dramatically in the Sahel, the region that stretches from Mauritania to Chad.

Since 2020, military officers disillusioned with their governments’ records of stemming violence have overthrown democratically elected governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and began distancing themselves from Western powers.

From 2021 to 2024, militants killed more than 17,000 people across the three countries, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

The United States is holding steadfast to its strategy of coupling weapons assistance and intelligence sharing with initiatives designed to boost civilian populations and strengthen institutions.

But it faces new competition. Decades after the end of colonialism, Africa has once again become absorbed in fighting among Great Powers, with Western influence waning and countries accepting more economic and military support from Chinese firms and Russian contractors.

At African Lion, the U.S. military showcased part of what it offers countries facing instability inside and just beyond their borders. Besides tanks and bombers, the joint exercises included operations and practice in field hospitals, medical evacuations and humanitarian assistance.

The exercise emphasized a “whole of government” approach to addressing the root causes of instability, ranging from climate change to displacement, rather than solely focusing on military might.

“It’s important that we not only be associated with kicking down doors,” said Col. Kelley Togiola, a command surgeon who helped set up a field hospital alongside Moroccan doctors as part of the exercise. “In times of crises, those relationships matter.”

That strategy differs from what’s being offered by Africa Corps, the descendent of the Russian state-funded private military company Wagner, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died last year. Yet it’s come under scrutiny since military officers with a history of participating in training exercises have risen to positions of power after the ousters of democratically elected leaders in countries such as Guinea and Niger.

Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said regardless of how much the U.S. military broadens its efforts, its continued focus on counterterrorism will keep empowering military leaders throughout West Africa.

“The nature of security assistance is that it’s much more visible, impactful and manipulated by the recipient for ill,” Hudson said. “When we come in with training and toys, we reinforce within societies these power dynamics that in the long run are not helpful to the consolidation of civilian democratic rule.”

Despite training exercises like African Lion, U.S. military leaders face difficulties prolonging their partnerships in places they’ve long characterized as strategically critical. Countries such as Niger and Chad — which participated in African Lion — have embraced Russian trainers and paramilitaries and pushed for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

US departure from Niger ‘already underway’ ahead of September deadline

The U.S. military officials note their assessment of the threat of “malign” Russian and Chinese influence but say they can work in countries that accept assistance from geopolitical rivals.

To juggle curbing Russian influence while opposing the overthrow of democratically elected leaders hasn’t worked everywhere, especially as the U.S. military often attaches strings to how countries can implement training and weapons provided.

U.S. law makes governments deposed in military coups ineligible for large portions of assistance, despite the military’s talk of equal partnership and noninterference.

Rachid El Houdaigui, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, said the growing youth populations in west African countries wanted to forge new political identities and were skeptical of the West after years of insecurity.

“African states consider variety favorable. It allows them to choose and gives them many possibilities,” he said of countries in the Sahel that have opened their doors to Russian and Chinese assistance.

Associated Press writer Arushi Gupta contributed from Los Angeles.

NATO space enterprise must throttle up — or risk falling short

The importance of space has been increasing for allied defense, deterrence, operations and resilience over the last few decades. This summer’s NATO summit in Washington presents a key opportunity to build on the alliance’s nascent space policy and structure at an inflection point for NATO and space power.

NATO has made slow, steady progress on space policy for just over a decade. NATO published its first policy-level document related to space in 2012 and focused on space support to operations, but not until 2019 did NATO release a new space policy and declare space an operational domain.

Two years later NATO confirmed that Article 5 applies to space — a timely development that took place a mere four months before Russia’s direct-ascent anti-satellite test. In 2022, the NATO Strategic Concept underlined the vital role of space for NATO’s deterrence and defense posture. Based on the architecture provided by these strategies and documents, NATO has been attempting to operationalize its space enterprise in the past years in its role of harmonizer, enabler and coordinator among space-faring allies.

NATO also exhibited substantive organizational changes that reflected a commitment to its policy. For example, NATO established the Space Center at Allied Air Command in 2020, which has grown modestly and serves as a space focal point by sharing information about potential threats and space activities.

More recently, in 2023, the NATO Space Center of Excellence in Toulouse, France, was accredited. This center will convene more than 15 sponsoring nations to provide knowledge and analysis focused on three operational functions: space domain awareness, operational space support and space domain coordination.

NATO also has introduced two projects to support its efforts: one looking up at space for better situational awareness of objects and events for strategic decision-making, called Strategic Space Situational Awareness System; and one looking down from space to enhance space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, called Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space.

These developments are a good start, but they are inadequate given the growing threat to space security and the growing importance of space for NATO specifically and society more generally.

India plans to spend $3 billion on space. Can it catch up to China?

Despite the declining state of its space program, Russia has effectively attacked key elements of space infrastructure as part of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia is routinely jamming positioning, navigation and timing systems, which impacts military operations and increases risks for civilian aviation. Russia is also jamming communications satellites.

Russia has also demonstrated effective cyber capabilities against space-enabled communications. These trends in non-kinetic malicious attacks against space resources will likely increase in frequency and intensity in the future, so allied preparations will be essential in meeting the challenge.

NATO has set some broad, ambitious goals to transform for the future. The NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept, the alliance’s North Star for its military transformation through 2040 opens the door for space to be a significant component of a multidomain operations-enabled alliance.

However, to be successful, NATO needs to identify specific actions that move beyond understanding and appreciating space to fully operationalizing the domain. The following actions are things NATO should undertake and articulate as specific objectives at the 2024 NATO summit.

NATO should enhance its role as a coordinating hub for space-faring allies at the strategic level. NATO is not an autonomous space actor; however, it can play an essential role in harmonizing allied space efforts.

NATO should consider establishing a space committee, modeled after its Resilience Committee, to help set the priorities for space efforts within the alliance, translating NATO allies’ level of ambition for space into concrete actions and guidance. Given the important role of the European Union in space, NATO should create an associated NATO-EU space task force to coordinate with the EU.

Operationally, NATO should enhance allied space domain awareness and build a common allied space domain picture. This could be done by elevating the role of the NATO Space Center through greater information and data sharing, as well as additional personnel with the requisite technical expertise. Greater information sharing through both governments and industry would help fully operationalize the center, which will be important in any future conflict with an adversary that attacks space capabilities.

Related to capabilities, NATO should include space capability requirements in this year’s NATO Defence Planning Process. As a precursor to a focus on capabilities, allies should adopt an interoperable-by-design approach for its space architecture. This effort should focus on identifying key interoperability gaps and codifying standards to address them. Technical discussions about standards and interoperability should draw on best practices from industry and other organizations, such as the EU, rather than starting from scratch.

Finally, NATO needs to think more openly and proactively about space deterrence and defense. Allies need to understand how to operate in space — and especially how Article 5 may apply to allied activities. A scenario-based discussion involving an Article 5 contingency could be particularly helpful in outlining authorities, responses and gaps in allied planning, as well as the threats that may warrant action and the specific contexts in which this may take place.

Russia’s extensive use of electronic warfare and its multiyear effort to develop a space-based nuclear weapon provide clear motivation and use cases to jump-start this important effort.

Ideally, NATO will “throttle up” and undertake all these initiatives as part of a comprehensive package of actions announced at the NATO summit. Adopting just a few would be better than none, but failing to act now in the face of a proactive and capable Russia risks falling short of a mature NATO space enterprise at a time when the geopolitical environment needs it most.

Retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock is a senior policy researcher at the think tank Rand, where he leads its Space Enterprise Initiative. He previously served as a defense attache in Russia from 2014 to 2016. Anca Agachi is a defense policy analyst at Rand and a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council think tank.

Finland beefs up artillery capability for coastal defense

MILAN — Finland is the latest Nordic country to beef up its coastal defense with the planned acquisition of over a dozen self-propelled artillery systems to protect the country’s territorial waters in the Baltic Sea.

The Finnish Logistics Command, which oversees military equipment acquisitions, announced a tender to purchase up to 20 artillery systems, depending on available funding, without disclosing the contract value.

The goal of these purchases will be to create a mobile artillery capability dedicated to coastal defense as to engage vessels in “Finnish territorial waters at the littoral area including the archipelago and hostile forces on land,” according to recently published documents.

Finland’s territorial sea covers an area of 54,130 square kilometers, per the European Commission’s Maritime Spatial Planning database.

Listed requirements for the artillery systems call for them to possess a high degree of mobility so as to allow deployment in the Finnish coastal environment, and for the ammunition to be compatible with NATO’s Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding.

An additional option for the period 2029-2031 covers six more systems, “depending on the quantity to be acquired.”

Last week, Finland’s neighbor, Sweden, launched a call to procure anti-aircraft guns to be placed on the Swedish-made Combat Boat 90 to intercept adversary drones and helicopters.

The Nordic strengthening of maritime defense capabilities comes amid growing concerns over Russia’s aspirations in the Baltic Sea region.

Last month, Moscow suggested plans to revisit and expand its sea borders around Russia’s islands in the Gulf of Finland and around Kaliningrad, an initiative that has the potential to stir up territorial disputes with several NATO countries.

The Finnish Navy’s Coastal Fleet maintains a high degree of operational readiness, focusing in part on mine warfare and maritime combat service support.