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22 Nov 23. With DoD ‘pausing’ negotiations, new F-35 logistics deal in doubt for 2024. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment Christopher Lowman told Breaking Defense that negotiations on the performance-based logistics agreement with Lockheed are at an impasse.
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have stalled on reaching an agreement for a new sustainment approach for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, prompting military officials to instead explore options for continuing the jet’s traditional maintenance structure “at least” through the end of next year, a top defense official tells Breaking Defense.
In an interview at his office in the Pentagon earlier this month, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment Christopher Lowman said his team has been working with Lockheed to certify a performance-based logistics (PBL) agreement, but a congressional mandate that the agreement either increase readiness or decrease maintenance cost of the tri-variant fighter has proved to be a stumbling block.
“The Congress really has levied on us a hard requirement before we can award a PBL,” Lowman said, adding that “we cannot certify as of today.”
Due to the impasse, Lowman said Pentagon officials have started work on drawing up a new sustainment contract that would run “at least through the end of ‘24,” an indication it could stretch longer than that.
“And so that’s just to ensure that we have the necessary framework and support in place to sustain currently fielded F-35s and operations globally,” he said.
In a statement provided to Breaking Defense today, the Office of the Secretary of Defense said that the current proposed PBL “does not meet” the Congressional certification requirements. “Accordingly, the Department is pausing F-35 PBL negotiations with Lockheed Martin,” the statement says, adding that the Pentagon and Lockheed “have agreed to extend the FY23 annual recurring sustainment contract (FY23A) through March 2024 and are working an additional extension through June 2024.” After that, the new contract Lowman was referring to would take effect.
According to OSD, the extension will give both parties more time to negotiate while ensuring no lapses in coverage for sustainment.
Unmanned and unmatched: Rheinmetall’s autonomous vehicle technology drives future force mobility
A dollar figure for the extension is not immediately clear; in 2021, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed a sustainment contract worth up to $6.6 billion, which had a base year in fiscal 2021 and options through FY23.
The PBL would change how the stealth fighter is sustained: whereas Lockheed is currently paid on an ad hoc basis for parts and maintenance, a PBL, on the other hand, would tie dollar awards to performance outcomes. The proposed deal officials have been evaluating would also span five years, in contrast to existing annualized contracts.
“We continue to view Performance Based Logistics contracting as the primary way to increase part availability, readiness, and affordability for the long-term as the F-35 fleet scales. While we are disappointed with the decision, we remain committed to partnering with our customers to deliver sustainment support, enabling mission readiness and deterrence,” Lockheed said in a statement to Breaking Defense.
The decision by the Pentagon to continue the current sustainment arrangement had been largely expected, but the assumption was that it would be a short-term issue. Lockheed officials earlier this year projected confidence the PBL could get on contract before the new year, but by September, difficulties in reaching an agreement prompted executives to push that timeline out to the first quarter of next year at the earliest.
The new Viper Shield electronic warfare suite, meant to help foreign F-16 customers fend off modern EW threats, will be ready for production in late 2025, L3Harris told Breaking Defense in Dubai.
But the fact Lowman anticipates needing a traditional sustainment agreement through the entirety of 2024 suggests the issue could drag on.
The ultimate fate of the proposed PBL is itself unclear. An expansive report on F-35 sustainment published by the Government Accountability Office in September, which identified numerous issues driving the stealth fighter’s disappointing readiness rates, found that officials weren’t sure the Congressional requirements to certify the PBL could be met.
Executives at Lockheed, however, are pushing hard to change the approach to maintaining the F-35, which is expected to cost $1.3 trillion to operate and maintain across its entire life cycle.
“I have a belief that performance-based logistics, where you’re held accountable to an outcome, drives performance,” Greg Ulmer, the head of Lockheed’s aeronautics division, told Breaking Defense during an interview at the Paris Air Show earlier this year, adding that his desire is for something longer-term than a five-year plan.
“I am motivated to perform. I don’t want just a five-year PBL. I want a 10-year, I want a 15-year,” he added. “My motive is to have a long-term relationship with my customer that’s satisfying for them through my performance that they continue to contract with me. And I’m not sure in other approaches that that motivation toward performance on outcome is there.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
22 Nov 23. DOD Mobilizes Manufacturing Innovation Institutes to Support Military Industrial Base. The Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Innovation Institutes (MII) met with stakeholders to discuss how the manufacturing innovation ecosystem can support the services’ modernization efforts at the Organic Industrial Base Modernization workshop Oct. 25 – 26 in Chicago.
Representatives from MIIs attended the workshop, hosted by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program, to get a better understanding of the current critical needs for modernizing the OIB and the subsequent opportunities to propose technology projects.
The nine MIIs are public-private partnerships designed to leverage commercial investments in manufacturing technologies, thereby creating conditions in which new innovative technologies can thrive, helping private industry grow and the Pentagon to achieve its strategic and operational goals.
“OSD ManTech, through the MIIs, spearheads innovation and adoption of advanced manufacturing capabilities to improve the U.S. supply chain and national security readiness,” said Berardino Baratta, chief executive officer of Manufacturing x Digital. “MxD and our fellow MIIs convene government, industry, and academia to accelerate innovation through public-private investment in technology. With a better understanding of the OIB’s challenges and needs, we can leverage our collective ecosystems to support DOD modernization priorities.”
For Steve Luckowski, program manager for the DOD MIIs, the workshop highlighted the challenges of the OIB facilities, some of which are more than 200 years old.
“Through the MIIs’ partnerships with industry, DOD gains access to modern manufacturing technologies that are potential game changers for the OIB.” he said, adding that the event was an excellent opportunity for the Manufacturing Technology Program to discuss problems the military industrial installations and the broader sustainment community face.
Senior DOD leaders who spoke at the workshop included Dr. Vic S. Ramdass, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Materiel Readiness; Richard Martin, director of supply chain management, U.S. Army Materiel Command; Jeffrey R. Sick, director of logistics, Air Force Sustainment Center; David R. Menzen, Deputy Director, Logistics Division and Marine Col. Kirk M. Spangenberg, commander of Marine Depot Maintenance Command. The leaders discussed their modernization visions, the challenges they face, and the technologies they need to achieve mission success.
The OIB is composed of 47 government-owned sites and thousands of facilities. Each service is pursuing unprecedented modernization efforts, with plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in modernization, which includes incremental 5-, 10- and 15-year plans to overhaul and upgrade operations, technologies, processes and infrastructure.
With high stakes and expectations, collaboration between the private and public stakeholders has become critical, said Stephanie Hoaglin, the acting director of the Army’s OIB Modernization Task Force.
“The more we connect between public and private, the more we can innovate, accelerate capabilities, and lower the risk of modernization,” Hoaglin said. “What’s necessary is for the services and the MIIs to partner together and share best practices and help each other to stay up to date on topics such as cyber security, engineering, and advanced manufacturing. Industry partners are key to accomplishing Army modernization goals and ensuring that the services have the equipment they need to succeed.”
The event concluded with the scoping of key focus areas, which will pave the way for the OIB Modernization Challenge in February 2024, a closed event for invited programs. OSD ManTech will offer an expected $2.5 million to help advance or transition technologies that align with the Department’s Critical Technology Areas and other priorities defined by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. The event will include a project pitch session where solution providers vie for up to five $500,000-awards to invest in technology advancement or transition.
About USD(R&E)
The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)) is the Chief Technology Officer of the Department of Defense. The USD(R&E) champions research, science, technology, engineering, and innovation to maintain the United States military’s technological advantage. (Source: https://www.defense-aerospace.com/U.S. DoD)
22 Nov 23. United States Endorses Responsible AI Measures for Global Militaries. The United States government is leading global efforts to build strong norms that will promote the responsible military use of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. Last week, the State Department announced that 47 states have now endorsed the “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy” that the government first launched at The Hauge on Feb. 16.
AI refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence, such as recognizing patterns, learning from experience, drawing conclusions, making predictions or generating recommendations.
Military AI capabilities includes not only weapons but also decision support systems that help defense leaders at all levels make better and more timely decisions, from the battlefield to the boardroom, and systems relating to everything from finance, payroll, and accounting, to the recruiting, retention, and promotion of personnel, to collection and fusion of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data.
“The United States has been a global leader in responsible military use of AI and autonomy, with the Department of Defense championing ethical AI principles and policies on autonomy in weapon systems for over a decade. The political declaration builds on these efforts. It advances international norms on responsible military use of AI and autonomy, provides a basis for building common understanding, and creates a community for all states to exchange best practices,” said Sasha Baker, under secretary of defense for policy.
The Defense Department has led the world through publishing a series of policies on military AI and autonomy, most recently the Data, Analytics, and AI Adoption Strategy released on November 2.
The declaration consists of a series of non-legally binding guidelines describing best practices for responsible military use of AI. These guidelines include ensuring that military AI systems are auditable, have explicit and well-defined uses, are subject to rigorous testing and evaluation across their lifecycle, have the ability to detect and avoid unintended behaviors, and that high-consequence applications undergo senior-level review.
As the State Department’s press release on November 13 states: “This groundbreaking initiative contains 10 concrete measures to guide the responsible development and use of military applications of AI and autonomy. The declaration and the measures it outlines, are an important step in building an international framework of responsibility to allow states to harness the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks. The U.S. is committed to working together with other endorsing states to build on this important development.”
The 10 measures are:
1. States should ensure their military organizations adopt and implement these principles for the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI capabilities.
2. States should take appropriate steps, such as legal reviews, to ensure that their military AI capabilities will be used consistent with their respective obligations under international law, in particular international humanitarian law. States should also consider how to use military AI capabilities to enhance their implementation of international humanitarian law and to improve the protection of civilians and civilian objects in armed conflict.
3. States should ensure that senior officials effectively and appropriately oversee the development and deployment of military AI capabilities with high-consequence applications, including, but not limited to, such weapon systems.
4. States should take proactive steps to minimize unintended bias in military AI capabilities.
5. States should ensure that relevant personnel exercise appropriate care in the development, deployment, and use of military AI capabilities, including weapon systems incorporating such capabilities.
6. States should ensure that military AI capabilities are developed with methodologies, data sources, design procedures, and documentation that are transparent to and auditable by their relevant defense personnel.
7. States should ensure that personnel who use or approve the use of military AI capabilities are trained so they sufficiently understand the capabilities and limitations of those systems in order to make appropriate context-informed judgments on the use of those systems and to mitigate the risk of automation bias.
8. States should ensure that military AI capabilities have explicit, well-defined uses and that they are designed and engineered to fulfill those intended functions.
9. States should ensure that the safety, security, and effectiveness of military AI capabilities are subject to appropriate and rigorous testing and assurance within their well-defined uses and across their entire life-cycles. For self-learning or continuously updating military AI capabilities, States should ensure that critical safety features have not been degraded, through processes such as monitoring.
10. States should implement appropriate safeguards to mitigate risks of failures in military AI capabilities, such as the ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences and the ability to respond, for example by disengaging or deactivating deployed systems, when such systems demonstrate unintended behavior. (Source: U.S. DoD)
21 Nov 23. Hicks: DOD Is Becoming More Agile. The Defense Department is making progress in becoming more agile, and leaders are driving change, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told the Defense Writers’ Group today.
She said programs like the “replicator” initiative are the future for the department. The idea is to speed programs from basic research to fielded, military capabilities. Replicator will begin with all-domain, “attritable” autonomy to help overcome China’s advantage in mass. China has more ships, more missiles and more forces than the United States. Replicator will focus on fielding thousands of self-piloting ships and uncrewed aircraft within the next two years.
DOD officials often talk about the “Valley of Death” for ideas and capabilities. After research and tests, the capabilities hit the valley of death and often never get fielded.
Replicator is an example of what the department must do on a large scale to stay ahead of potential threats like those emanating from China and Russia. These new capabilities require new doctrines and new uses and new cultures — really — to operate. And the U.S. military is positioned to capitalize on this and move forward.
Hicks said DOD would be further along the road to modernization and change if it weren’t for the problems caused by Congress passing continuing resolutions rather than military appropriations.
Defense officials work hard to build trust with Congress, Hicks said. “But … trust is a two-way street,” she said. “And we are really being challenged to trust that our partners in Congress can get done what they need to do for us to achieve those ends.”
Hicks said this is true with the request for a supplemental appropriation to fund aid to Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific expenditures. Hicks said there is strong bipartisan support for this.
The department is also facing the continuing resolution challenge, she said. Congress is unable to agree on appropriations for the fiscal 2024 budget and has passed continuing resolutions that fund the government at the fiscal 2023 level. “We’ve gotten used to getting by CR to CR, but it’s with significant consequences,” she said. “We estimate we’ve lost probably a total of about four years’ worth of progress on our modernization efforts. In the … nearly 11 years that we’ve been dealing with CRs, that is a cost you can’t buy back; you just can’t buy back time.”
The CRs stop new programs from beginning. They halt advanced procurement for shipbuilding and much, much more.
Even with these problems, Hicks said innovative work is happening in the department. “I think there has been phenomenal work that’s happened across the department,” Hicks said. “One of the great things about our defense system is that innovation happens all across it.”
The innovation continues, as does innovation in America’s commercial sector. “All of that should improve our agility, but to tap into that we have to be able to have predictable, reliable and appropriately strategically driven resources, and we have to be able to have the leadership in place,” she said. “All of that really impacts our ability to meet our potential.”
Hicks said strong U.S. alliances and partnerships are key. “We need to leverage that alliance structure that both is so valuable an asymmetric advantage for the United States and something we know the Chinese are very worried about,” she said. “We have made incredible progress there. I don’t think anyone could look at the U.S.-Philippine defense relationship a couple of years ago and have expected us to achieve the kinds of agreements that we now have — the ability to bring South Korea and Japan together with the United States.”
The Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense agreement, the growing relationship with India and the centrality of U.S. ties to the nations of Southeast Asia show there is “lots of really positive momentum and real gains there,” Hicks said.
Leadership is important in continuing this process, Hicks said. There has to be consistency in the message to those pushing these processes, programs and strategies forward. (Source: U.S. DoD)
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