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24 Sep 21. Elettronica is recognised as one of Europe’s best workplaces. Elettronica has been recognised as one of Europe’s best places to work in 2021. The company has been awarded Best Workplaces™ Italia and the Great Place to Work® Italia certifications for its commitment to wellbeing in the workplace.
Elettronica is proud to have been included in the very exclusive Best Workplaces™ Europe 2021 classification, in 29th place among companies with over 500 employees. Elettronica stood out among around 3,000 European enterprises for its corporate welfare policies.
The classification is drawn up by the GPTW Institute. Each year, the institute analyses the best workplaces in Europe. The awards are made on the basis of companies ‘human resources management practices and via interviews. Over half a million employees across the continent were interviewed regarding key factors which help create optimum workplaces for everyone. The European Best Workplaces classification, like its Italian equivalent, is based on the Trust Index. This index represents employees’ perceptions of their working environment. It analyses the trust they are given, their sense of belonging to the workforce and relations between co-workers. The prize was awarded this morning during an online event in collaboration with The Economist.
This prestigious recognition follows the recent award to Elettronica as the overall top ranked of businesses participating in the Welfare Index 2021. The company received a special mention by the Guiding Committee for Social Impact, in the presence of Italy’s Employment Minister Andrea Orlando, “for having had a positive impact on the internal and external community thanks to the richness of the initiatives undertaken and the effects that they have had on all of the stakeholders revolving around the corporate ecosystem”.
“The path taken in recent years to improve the wellbeing of our people and making our business a better place, day after day, is beginning to produce results. Being recognised among the best businesses in Europe in terms of welfare is a matter of great pride for us. We reached this landmark in Italy two years ago but being recognised for excellence in Europe, which for our business is the territory with the most ambitious entrepreneurial challenges in terms of future defence projects, is very significant.
Our people and their valuable skills are the future of the business and the engine for achieving new and increasingly challenging targets”, said Domitilla Benigni, Managing Director and CEO of Elettronica.
23 Sep 21. EDJX and Cubic Corporation Partner to Launch the Internet of Military Things Edge Platform. Blueforce Development to become the first certified application provider for the Autonomy Institute Alpha Lab at Austin’s Camp Mabry Texas Military Department.
EDJX, the pioneer in distributed computing services at the edge, and Cubic Corporation, the market leader in networked Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) technology, today announced a strategic partnership to launch the world’s first Internet of Military Things™ Edge Platform.
The Internet of Military Things Edge Platform is a converged infrastructure solution consisting of EDJX EdjOS with Cubic Corporation’s edge compute and networking hardware. Blueforce Development, a leading innovator in sensor fusion, sensor cueing, and Artificial and Predictive Intelligence software at the edge, will become the first certified application developer on the IoMT Platform. The Internet of Military Things Edge Platform, which has significant implications for IoT and advanced AI solutions at the far edge of the network, is the first major solution to be built on the Autonomy Institute GRID that includes Public Infrastructure Network Node (PINN), announced earlier this year. The Autonomy Institute is the conduit for these technologies combining to form a transformational end-to-end IoT solution from base to battlefield, solving immediate challenges for the military and civilian first responders.
The IoMT Platform will launch on the Autonomy Institute Alpha Lab at Texas Military Department’s (TMD) Camp Mabry in Austin, TX, coinciding with the deployment of PINN infrastructure. The PINN is the first unified open standard to support 5G wireless, Edge Computing, Radar, Lidar, enhanced GPS, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and solves current infrastructure challenges.
The Autonomy Institute Alpha Lab at Camp Mabry will be available to developers to build, test and deploy next generation IoT solutions providing the blueprint for public safety, military and civilian use cases. The Alpha Lab is part of operationalizing the PINN, which will have significant implications for public safety and disaster response. PINNs will enable first responders to accelerate emergency and disaster response with intelligent infrastructure and facilitate humanitarian assistance with disaster relief and domestic operations.
The IoMT Edge Platform is part of the broader future of AI at the edge and IoT story as a key proof point in an emerging market. IoT and 5G marks AI at the edge, the processing of AI algorithms on edge, on users’ devices. Internet of Military ThingsTM is an emerging application of this technology, transforming military security and connectivity.
“We are excited to support the launch of the Autonomy Institute Alpha Lab. Camp Mabry and the Texas National Guard have become a center of gravity for research and innovation. We are continually looking to leverage and accelerate the adoption of new commercial technology and novel architecture deployments like the PINNs. This Lab will help bring the concept of the Internet of Military Things to fruition by acting as a pathfinder for our systems to connect, share data, and learn. As a nation, we need to move faster if we are to meet the challenges of tomorrow,” said Lt. Col. Alex Goldberg, Southwest Region Engagement Lead for the Defense Innovation Unit.
“The EDJX platform is a quantum leap in the field of edge computing because it enables our intelligent IoT and C2 application products to scale from base to battlefield, reducing cognitive lift while increasing the tempo of operations for members of the military and our first responders,” said Michael Helfrich, Founder and CEO of Blueforce Development. “Military and first responders need actionable intelligence for superior decision-making, where access to data and the fidelity of information is critical to decision-making in time-constrained decision environments.”
Service members and first responders make quick decisions for mission success and for the safety and security of others who depend on those decisions. These individuals operate under intermittent connectivity, weighty and complex gear, and with limited time to assess an environment before acting. The proliferation of sensors, unnamed vehicles, command posts, and mobile-enabled ground troops has resulted in a battle space that is increasingly complex and sophisticated. Edge computing enables data processing at the tactical edge by decentralizing decision-making changes, bringing the powers of data to the field, providing better information for the military and civilian first responders.
“Our innovative compute and networking platforms have been enabling allied forces around the world to benefit from the emerging Internet of Military Things over recent years. Our partnership with EDJX and Blueforce Development will greatly accelerate the proliferation of intelligent and autonomous solutions,” said Mike Barthlow, SVP & GM, Cubic Mission Communications and Computing. “We are excited to team up with EDJX, Blueforce, and Autonomy Institute Alpha Lab at Camp Mabry to expand our vision for the safety and security for those operating at the tactical edge.”
The tactical edge comprises the platforms, sites, and personnel (U.S. military, allied, coalition partners, first responders) operating at lethal risk in a battlespace or a crisis environment characterized by a dependence on information systems and connectivity for survival and mission success. Users are fully engaged, highly stressed, and dependent on their information systems’ availability, integrity, and transparency.
“Launching the IoMT Edge Platform in partnership with Cubic ushers in the era of Industry 4.0 by bringing all of the key ingredients missing in the pursuit of mobile, intelligent, and autonomous systems development,” said John Cowan, EDJX co-founder and CEO. “Innovation will be at the heart of this project and we are excited to work with leading innovators like Blueforce and the Autonomy Institute in the effort to create the future.”
Call to Action
Sign up to attend the roundtable discussion, Critical Infrastructure At The Edge. Roundtable panelists include John Cowan, CEO and Co-founder, EDJX; Jeffrey DeCoux, Chairman, Autonomy Institute; Michael Helfrich, CEO and Founder, Blueforce Development; Mike Barthlow, SVP, Cubic Corporation; Major General (ret.) James K. “Red” Brown, Deputy Commanding General, Army National Guard for United States Army Forces Command. Moderator: Laura Roman PhD, CMO, EDJX.
About EDJX
EDJX is an edge computing platform that makes it easy to write edge and IoT applications using serverless computing, accelerate content delivery, increase the responsiveness of edge applications, and secure edge data at the source. EDJX helps businesses handle the explosive demand for data processing to serve real-world edge computing applications, including industrial IoT, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and robotics. Led by cloud industry veterans John Cowan and James Thomason, EDJX is a privately held company based in Raleigh, NC. Visit EDJX and follow EDJX on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Cubic Corporation
Guided by continuous customer collaboration, Cubic Mission Communications and Computing is reshaping multi-domain operations through mission-inspired solutions that are big on performance but small in size. Our reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP), modular designs, and class-leading scalability combined with the latest satellite, cellular, and radio frequency (RF) technology ensure our users can meet the emerging Internet of Military Things requirements, both now and into the future. On land, at sea, or in the air, our solutions are faster to deploy, easier to learn, and simpler to use. Cubic Mission Communications and Computing is a business unit of Cubic Mission and Performance Solutions, a Cubic Corporation division. For more information about Cubic, please visit the company’s website at www.cubic.com or on Twitter @CubicCorp.
About Blueforce Development Corporation
Blueforce Development is a turnkey IoT/sensor communication platform that delivers shared and real-time actionable insights to provide rapid, secure, intelligent connectivity between people, sensors, and systems… in edge-based IoT environments… to accelerate and enhance decision making. More information can be found at blueforcedev.com or by calling Blueforce at 866-960-0204.
About Autonomy Institute
Autonomy Institute is a cooperative research consortium focused on advancing and accelerating Autonomy and AI at the edge. Autonomy Institute aligns government, industry, academia, and the public to create the policies, industry, jobs, and community benefits of autonomy, starting with Intelligent and Autonomous Infrastructure. Investment in a twenty-first century Intelligent and Autonomous infrastructure is among the highest priorities for stimulating economic and job growth. Autonomy Institute’s deployment of the Public Infrastructure Network Node (PINN) will be as critical to a city as roads, power, telecommunications, and water infrastructure. Learn more about PINN at Autonomy.institute and follow Autonomy Institute on LinkedIn and Twitter. (Source: PR Newswire)
23 Sep 21. Top US Army General: Network Modernization ‘Never Going To Stop.’
“This is going to be a continuous journey because the explosion of information technologies is only accelerating on us,” Lt. Gen. John Morrison said.
The Army’s effort to modernize its networks to prepare for future wars is a “continuous journey” that requires the flexibility to add emerging technologies, the general leading the effort said this week.
“What we need to realize is it’s never going to stop,” Lt. Gen. John Morrison, the deputy chief of staff for the G-6, said on a webinar hosted by GovExec. “This is going to be a continuous journey because the explosion of information technologies is only accelerating on us. And we need to be adaptive and set a foundation that allows us to continuously innovate over time so that we can bring in new capabilities as they emerge in a relatively seamless fashion and not get stuck to ‘I’m going from one capability to another capability and I’m on a seven year journey to get there.’”
Morrison is leading an effort to unify the Army’s enterprise and tactical networks to position the service’s digital architecture for multi-domain operations, in which the Army runs operations across the warfighting domains.
The G-6 office, which Morrison leads, is working on a unified network strategy designed to outline how the service plans to get a seamless connection between the battlefield networks of a brigade combat team and the enterprise network in a more stable environment. It’s a necessary effort, Army officials have continuously said, because a brigade’s battlefield network won’t be able to fire artillery over thousands of miles or launch cyber effects against the enemy. That all requires connection back to the enterprise.
Before the Army begins to add emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, which will be critical piece of data processing on the battlefield for both multi-domain operations and the Pentagon’s larger Joint All-Domain Command and Control, Morrison said the Army can improve its current network.
“The first thing we need to do is optimize the network that we have,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that we’ve done with previous investments inside the Army where we can make the network operationally better just with what we have. It is literally just making sure we have the right technical implementations to drive forward. Then aligning our modernization pieces.”
In its fiscal year 2022 budget request, the service asked for about $2.7bin for its network modernization efforts, more than $500m more than its FY21 enacted budget.
The service is also trying to be more “ruthless” with its divestments, Morrison said, so it’s not adding improved IT capabilities while maintaining similar older ones. Maj. Gen. Maria Barrett, commanding general of Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, said that one of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is to resist investing in legacy IT systems.
Early in the pandemic when the Pentagon were scrambling to establish network tools to enable mass telework, Barrett said vendors offered legacy solutions, which she decided to “resist investing” in as the Pentagon was preparing to roll out the Commercial Virtual Remote Environment, its Microsoft 365 telework solution.
“I’d like to see us really take the momentous changes that we have done through COVID. And really keep that change cycle, and really condition people to be adaptive, with new technologies that are going to continue to come at them” Barrett said. “I don’t see this slowing down.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
22 Sep 21. USAF ‘Zealots For The Electromagnetic Spectrum’: General.
“[The electromagnetic spectrum is] like the oxygen that surrounds us right now. You don’t have a choice. You are in it,” the Air Force’s director of EMS superiority said.
The Air Force’s director of electromagnetic spectrum superiority called on an audience of military and industry officials Tuesday to “become zealots for the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“I contend that [electromagnetic warfare] is critical. It will help us get the competitive advantage. It will help us keep the competitive advantage,” Brig. Gen. Tad Clark said at the Air Force Association’s 2021 Air, Space & Cyber conference.
Clark acknowledged that electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) is a domain the US neglected for a long time, while warning of dire consequences for US warfighters if a concerted effort is not made to advance capabilities in this domain. Clark urged the audience, which included industry heavy hitters, to bring forth solutions and said EMSO cannot be ignored.
“[The electromagnetic spectrum is] like the oxygen that surrounds us right now. You don’t have a choice. You are in it,” he said.
Clark’s urgent call underscores what some experts recognize as “the most important environment to modern warfare,” even while EMSO remains the “most unheralded warfighting space.”
The EMS enables a broad range of military capabilities, from communications, signals intelligence, and command & control to sensing, navigation, and targeting. Yet, “In many ways, it’s the forgotten domain because we can’t feel it like the land or experience it like we do cyberspace on the computer,” as Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Bryan Clark put it this spring.
Brig. Gen. Clark acknowledged that electromagnetic warfare (EW) has evolved, and while the US stalled in this domain, adversaries have improved their capabilities. This presents the US military with new challenges.
“Gone are the days when we know what the threat is, we have a library [of countermeasures], and we have a few buttons to press to protect us,” Clark said.
In apparent recognition of this fact, the Defense Department made an effort to accelerate capabilities in this domain, first by releasing the 2020 Superiority Strategy in October and then in July, when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the strategy implementation plan.
Clark said the needed EW innovations revolve around some key attributes, to include artificial intelligence/machine learning, software-defined EW, open modular architectures, and distributed EW.
Clark then moderated a wide-ranging panel discussion with industry engineers/executives around these attributes, some of which are highlighted below.
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning In EW
Jerry Wohletz, VP/GM of electronic combat solutions at BAE Systems, noted that AI/ML is “now all the rage” in EW. That’s partly because AI/ML is well-suited to taking large datasets — like those gathered from the EMS — and pulling out patterns in the data.
Pilots sitting in cockpits face a deluge of data coming their way, and Wohletz said they must be able to “process [data gathered in the spectrum], discern intent, and if necessary, neutralize that pulse.” Some of the most urgent questions: “Is that pulse tracking? Is that pulse firing? Is that pulse firing on me?”
Wohletz noted that the US’s adversaries are increasingly trying to conceal their intent in the spectrum, which means many pilots will only meet adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures once in a contested environment. Given this reality, Wohletz said it’s important to be able to use AI/ML for parsing data and intel in real time to make decisions.
Modular Open Systems Architectures
To analyze all that data and respond, the military needs cutting-edge tools, which can be brought to bear more quickly if the military and industry adopt open systems.
“Building open systems is difficult,” Gerald Gerace, chief scientist in the electronic warfare division at Leidos, said, but it can be easier to build new systems that are open than it is to open older, closed systems.
To this end, Gerace said the military should consider three things about developing open systems. The first is to think about the spectrum as a service, much like the popular software-as-a-service model for apps. In the EW context, pilots must be able to “move across the spectrum at will and change the bandwidth at will,” he said.
The second is to design open architectures that can provide “plug-n-play capabilities.” This will broaden the number of people in the military and industry who can develop new capabilities and get them quickly and efficiently fielded.
Third, Gerace said the military and industry need to move toward standard interfaces. Much like open architectures, standard interfaces will allow more players to efficiently develop and bring forth new capabilities.
Similar to Gerace’s points, L3Harris Technologies VP of Strategy and Business Development Anthony Nigara said the military and industry should work together to build an ecosystem, wherein people can develop new capabilities without being locked out by propriety systems.
Nigara used the analogy of app developers, who can focus on software features and functionalities without having to learn a completely new set of, for instance, internet protocols every time they set out to build a new app.
Nigara also advocated for standardized interfaces, “so anyone can develop those capabilities and plug them in at the time of need” with “little barrier to entry.”
Shifting Mindset from Cyber vs. EW to Combined Cyber-EW
In a broader sense, the industry leaders discussed a fundamental change in mindset. Cyber and EW are sometimes thought of as being distinct, but Gerace said it’s “natural to unify” the two. Mysteriously, he said, “There’s ongoing work in that area, but I can’t say much about it.”
Gerace did note that, of course, operations against a radar are different than those against a computer, but the goal is similar in that “You just have to find and go against mistakes the adversary made in their systems.”
Nigara highlighted that cyber and EW should be seen as a “merged capability,” explaining, “We have to think of them as one and the same along the same continuum. It’s really just about timescale.”
Of combined cyber-EW, Wohletz said, “We’re already there. It’s just a different technique. It’s just a matter of programming it into the system.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
21 Sep 21. USAF cyber defense taking aim at core weapon systems. The USAF’s information warfare entity is focusing more attention toward defending weapon systems from adversary probes. Enemies have begun to be more active below the threshold of war, using cyber and digital capabilities to conduct espionage against military and non-military targets while also accessing sensitive systems to disrupt them or sow doubt among users.
For 16th Air Force — the Air Force’s main information warfare entity that fuses cyber; information operations; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; electronic warfare; and weather capabilities — defending these systems from digital intrusions is about producing intelligence.
“How do we generate the right intelligence to understand the threat to those weapon systems and then how do we bring together the capabilities that we have to defend our networks and our weapon systems in a way that buys down the risk for operational commanders?” Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, 16th Air Force commander told C4ISRNET in a Sept. 20 interview as part of the Air, Space and Cyber conference hosted by the Air Force Association.
Haugh noted many of these weapon systems pre-date the modern cyber threats perpetuated by sophisticated nation states, namely Russia and China. 16th Air Force, as a result, must try to reduce the risk to these systems.
Haugh said the defensive cyber teams within 16th Air Force are able to defend the entirety of the network all the way down to a particular enclave or a specific weapon system. The organization can ensure everyone has a common picture of the threat as well as the intelligence of what the threats look like, he said, adding they can help make those systems more defensible and less vulnerable.
Haugh also described aligning high-end defensive cyber protection teams — the highly sought and extremely technical cyber teams the services provide to U.S. Cyber Command — with internal defensive assets or resources at a local installation or wing.
The Air Force is building a cadre of mission defense teams — specialized groups that protect key Air Force missions and installations such as critical infrastructure or computers associated with aircraft and remotely piloted systems.
“Where we need to, we can use our combat power to apply additional sensors through a CPT, we can partner with the wing that has their own internal defensive capabilities or in some cases … our program offices may have a cybersecurity service provider, how do we apply them in an area to get them the right data so that we can buy down that risk for an operational commander,” Haugh said.
The Air Force recently has been experimenting with partnering the cyber protection teams and mission defense teams on training, tactics and tools.
Separately, Haugh explained that the maturity of a major Cyber Command program has allowed defensive cyber protection teams across the services to share data more quickly and respond to threats better.
Unified Platform is the centerpiece for Cyber Command’s program architecture that will integrate and analyze data from offensive and defensive operations with partners.
The program, which is being built by the Air Force on behalf of Cyber Command and the joint force, is enabling these teams to simultaneously share threat data and information that allows them to apply algorithms and automate where it makes sense, Haugh said.
“It’s not about acquiring information, it’s about now, how do you get the right airmen to be able to use the right algorithm to see that data. That’s advancing every day,” he said.
Part of this is enabled by what’s known as a big data platform, essentially a hybrid cloud environment that allows for storage, computation and analytics across networked sensors. There are several among Cyber Command, the Defense Information Systems Agency, Army Cyber Command and the Marine Corps.
Haugh noted his unit is working with the other service cyber components to advance tradecraft, and the big data platform has allowed them to jump forward. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
22 Sep 21. Northrop tests interoperability between advanced airborne radar and electronic warfare system. Northrop Grumman said it successfully demonstrated interoperability during a recent test of a new electronic warfare system meant for F-16s. During the Northern Lightning Air Force exercise, which took place in August at Volk Field Air National Guard Base, aboard a Canadair Regional Jet, the company says it tested using the APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar, which the company is providing to the Air Force, and what it is calling the Next Generation Electronic Warfare System, an ultrawideband system that detects the radio frequency environment to decide which signals to jam.
Company officials said it’s critical both aircraft subsystems — the active electronically scanned array radar, which is nearly identical to those aboard F-35s and F-22s, and the EW system — can perform their roles without interfering or degrading each other.
“You needed it to be interoperable with the other subsystems and one of those other key subsystems is the advanced AESA. Because you don’t want electronic warfare to have a negative impact on AESA, you don’t want AESA to have a negative impact on electronic warfare,” James Conroy, Northrop’s vice president for navigation, targeting and survivability, told C4ISRNET. The EW system is “a survivability function. AESAs aren’t typically only doing survivability, they’re doing other situational awareness as well as targeting capabilities. You have subsystems that are doing different functions, and you need both those functions to be able to operate simultaneously.”
Northrop representatives also noted the company built the EW system to be compatible with the radar.
The system flew against over 170 test points and against Joint Threat Emitters on the ground, which simulate advanced radars.
Conroy said the test was the first demonstration of the EW system outside a lab environment. During the exercise, the company took the system to an airborne platform and flew it against simulated threats while also having to operate with other aircraft and radars in the same airspace.
“During Northern Lightning, we gained valuable insight on NGEW capabilities,” Lt Col. Stephen Graham, F-16 electronic warfare test director of the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force, said in a news release. “We are one step closer to installing the first NGEW suite on an Eglin F-16 in less than one year.”
While the Next Generation Electronic Warfare System is not in production for the Air Force, Northrop did win an other transaction authority award last year to develop the system using existing technology. Since the award, Northrop has been working with the Air Force to showcase how it can interact with the F-16, its subsystems and other critical capabilities.
This work is part of the F-16 modernization efforts the Air Force has undertaken. Because the aircraft has been flying for decades — long before modern technological threats on the battlefield — the Air Force must implement upgrades to make the system more survivable against sophisticated adversaries.
“There is a strong push to improve electronic protection for the F-16 against modern adversaries,” Graham said. “NL21 allowed for both an RF-dense environment while permitting targeted testing before, during and after LFE [Large Force Exercise] fights.”
Conroy said the F-16 is still capable.
“We really need the electronic warfare on these platforms to really make them survivable in that next generation or the next type of conflict that these platforms may be engaged in,” he said. “The RF threat environment has got so congested, meaning that there are so many other signals that are out there and being able to find the right signals really requires a lot of advanced processing.”
Northrop officials said they view the demonstration as a stepping stone. Next spring, Conroy said, they’ll begin developmental test on actual F-16s. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
22 Sep 21. Low-Level Commanders Need Authority to Counter Information Operations, Northcom Leader Says. How’s the United States doing in its efforts to counter the information and propaganda campaigns waged by adversaries to undermine American democracy? Not so good, the commander of U.S. Northern Command said.
“I think we’re getting, and I’m on the record, I think we’re getting our rear end handed to us in the information space because we’re so risk-averse in the environment that we operate in today,” Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said yesterday, during a presentation with the Air Force Association.
The general said he thinks the United States must speed up its ability to respond if it’s going to protect things like elections or prevent the spread of misinformation and propaganda by the likes of Russia and China.
“I think we need to be a little more aggressive,” he said. “I think, right now, we should change the paradigm [for] the way we do information operations.”
Right now, he said, information operations plans might go through a combatant commander, to the Defense Department, bring in the National Security Council and involve the White House as well, he said.
“That is a very slow process, and in the environment we’re operating in right now … in about 12 hours to 24 hours in the information space, you’re irrelevant. It has moved on,” he said. “I believe we need to flip that paradigm and push down, use mission command — the lanes in the road, the rules of the road — and allow commanders of the lower level to be able to execute within the mission environment that we’re operating in to be more effective in real time.”
More Than Nukes
Northcom is responsible for protecting the U.S. homeland — its people, national power and freedom of action. Right now, VanHerck said, more of that protection is dependent on nuclear power than what should be.
“Homeland defense today is too reliant on what I think is the foundation of homeland defense, and that is our nuclear deterrent and deterrence by punishment,” he said. “But what that doesn’t do for us is give us opportunities to deescalate early and deter earlier.”
Deterrence with nuclear capabilities he said, while useful, are too escalatory in nature and other avenues must be looked at.
“What I’m trying to do is fill that gap and focus on a little bit of deterrence by denial,” he said. “Ballistic missile defense is deterrence by denial. But I also believe hardening resiliency, or the way we project our force, creates deterrence options on a day-to-day basis.”
The homeland defense of tomorrow, he said, won’t look like what it does today. Getting there starts with changes to policy — which he said will need to involve civilian policy makers rather than uniformed military personnel.
“It needs to be our policymakers that decide what we must defend kinetically,” he said. “And it’s not everything. So I’m reaching out, trying to work through the department, trying to work through the interagency, to figure out what that is.”
Certainly, he said, things like continuity of government, nuclear command and control capabilities, forward power projection capabilities, and the defense industrial base are included.
Beyond that, he said, homeland defense can also include things like resilience, deception and information operations. But those are not enough either. VanHerck said he wants to go even further to the left — meaning to get ahead of crises before they happen.
“I believe that takes a layered defense, a layered defense focused on forward capabilities,” he said. “I don’t want to be shooting down cruise missiles over the National Capital Region. I think we need to be partnered with [our] 11 combatant commands, allies and partners forward, to generate deterrence day-to-day, and then in crisis and conflict, utilize those capabilities to deter and defend forward before it becomes a threat to our homeland. That’s where my homeland defense design is focused.” (Source: US DoD)
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Spectra Group Plc
Spectra Group (UK) Ltd, internationally renowned award-winning information security and communications specialist with a proven record of accomplishment.
Spectra is a dynamic, agile and security-accredited organisation that offers secure Hosted and Managed Solutions and Cyber Advisory Services with a track record of delivering on time, to spec and on budget.
With over 15 years of experience in delivering solutions for governments around the globe, elite militaries and private enterprises of all sizes, Spectra’s platinum and gold-level partnerships with third-party vendors ensure the supply of best value leading-edge technology.
Spectra was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) in 2019 for SlingShot.
In November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced its listing as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier by the UK Crown Commercial Services.
Spectra’s CEO, Simon Davies, was awarded 2017 Businessman of the Year by Battlespace magazine.
Founded in 2002, the Company is based in Hereford, UK and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2013 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
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