SysAdmin, Author at Second Line of Defense

Dr. Harald Malmgren

Posted on January 27, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

01/27/2010

Dr. Harald Malmgren is a recognized expert on world trade and investment flows.

At Yale University Malmgren was Scholar of the House and research assistant to Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling, graduating BA summa cum laude in 1957.

At Oxford University, he studied under Nobel Laureate Sir John Hicks, and wrote several widely referenced scholarly articles while earning a D.Phil. in economics in 1961.

After Oxford, he was appointed to the Galen Stone Chair in Mathematical Economics at Cornell University.

He began government service under President Kennedy as an adviser to the Secretary of Defense.

Under President Johnson he became the first Assistant US Trade Representative. He left government service in 1969, to head research at the Overseas Development Council, and to serve as adviser to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.

At that time, he authored International Economic Peacekeeping, a guide for negotiations on trade liberalization during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1971-72 he also served as principal adviser to the OECD Secretary General and as a senior adviser to President Nixon on foreign economic policies. President Nixon subsequently appointed him the Principal Deputy US Trade Representative, with the rank of Ambassador.

In this role he served Presidents Nixon and Ford as the US chief trade negotiator.

In 1975 Malmgren left government service, and was appointed Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution.

Since 1977 he has been adviser and strategist for international corporations, banks, investment banks, and sovereign wealth funds.

He has also advised finance ministers and prime ministers of a number of governments around the world.

Over the years, he has continued writing on economics, markets, and public policy.

He also serves as Chairman of the Cordell Hull Institute in Washington, a private, not-for-profit “think tank” which he co-founded with Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State.

According to Rise.Global, Dr. Malmgren is identified as one of the 100 most influential geopolitical experts in the world.

Cybersecurity Policy in Flux

Posted on January 26, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

01/26/2010

A number of key drivers for change in cybersecurity policy are in play, including significant legislation pending, more than a few international regulatory bodies meeting, companies beginning to publicly complain about hacking from allegedly government entities, and now the United States State Department raising access to Cyber as a fundamental policy of the United States. A conference hosted by the Stevens Institute on January 19 and 20^th, chaired by Michael W. Wynne, 21s Secretary of the Air Force, addressed the dynamics of cybersecurity policy.

A Consensus to Protect the “Freedom of Cyberspace”
The goal of the conference was to shape an academically focused guidebook to be used by all parties as a sourcebook for Cybersecurity Policy as the leadership in corporate and government discern how to balance the push for productivity and economic benefit to society, on the one hand, with the growing demands for government intervention to protect this newly seen Freedom of Cyberspace from malefactors, and malicious behavior stemming from individual and group actions, on the other.
Panels from Energy, Financial, Medical, and Government as well as service providers gave their perspective of the current state of policy. Two areas came to the fore quickly.

Directing Accountability
First, there is a need to increase the capability of attribution and forensics in the area of directing accountability. This is balanced by the concern for suppression by coercion activists by the same attribution. As was brought out early in the conference was the thought that attribution and forensics by law enforcement or by the military or even by corporations needed as well an explanation for what purpose, and to what end coupled with some higher moral or legal permissions such that actions would benefit society.
Attributing Liability
The second area that came out was safe software or liability attribution for unsafe software or connectible infected hardware. At present the domain is a buyer beware sales area with great toleration for patches and updates to fix problems.

There seemed to be similar pressure as with the electrical industry early in its maturity that led to the use of ‘Underwriter Laboratories’ but no strong central authority such as the insurance companies to be the backstop. As the cautious aviation industry explores the next generation air transport system they are planning on vetting each piece of software, and conducting multiple tests of the hardware coupled with active security architectures aimed at increasing safety and reliability, while gaining productivity. This frames the alternative, with the developer, here the Government, taking on the liability for each element. In the case of the service providers, they evidenced a very high sensitivity to security, but their primary thrust is increasing client access, speed, and utility; and their concern was the general premise that regulation tends to slow the speed of evolvement, and therefore their market.

A Tough Balancing Act
The medical panel felt the pressure of the President’s objective for electronic records to increase productivity but worried as the opposing pressure from wireless technologies exposed them to intrusion and privacy issues. The venture capital panel hit hard on the current lack of funding available for technology starts and wondered about whether legislative thrusts would further inhibit funds available. They also went through the legislation and characterized some of its stronger parts as to roles and missions, and the strong educational thrust. There was as well a desire to lift some of the current immigration rules as they apply to technology workers.
All of the panels suggested strong international cooperation and collaboration and some international representatives went over the present state of regulation and concerns in their own countries. This was reinforced by the lunch and dinner speakers that each asked for a voluntary framework for security policy but acknowledged that randomness of intensity and application left the field open to problems.
That said the framework of the Rockefeller-Snowe Bill was used as a foil and deemed as overreach; but also was acknowledged as a sign that the legislative side was hearing complaints without satisfaction. The allegation of government-sponsored attacks, though with at present circumstantial logic for proof, has also stirred nationalistic calls for stronger, and better technologies in this clearly asymmetric area of technology. With today’s military relying on greater net-centric command and control continuing to strengthen defenses to allow continued operations is an imperative.***

* The academic oriented Guidebook for Cybersecurity policy is well underway, with active contributions by attendees as requested by the Conference Technical Chair Dr. Joseph Mitola, and strong editing by author Jennifer Bayuk of the Stevens Institute Faculty. It was looked at in draft by the attendees for comment, and should be available widely by mid to late spring.

** On a final note: Melisa Hathaway was awarded the Steven Institute Award for professional excellence, the first time it has been granted, for her body of work under two Presidential Administrations in the field of Cyberspace Policy.

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***Posted January 26th, 2010

Robert Johnson on: Why are there no heavy US Army units in Afghanistan?

Posted on January 25, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

01/25/2010

By Robert Johnson

W15JOHNSONPIC1-500l

U.S. Army Soldiers from 1st platoon, delta company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment conduct a mounted counter indirect fire patrol in Sabari, Afghanistan (Courtesy Photo: Joint Combat Camera Afghanistan, Coalition Outpost Sabari, Afghanistan, 01/15/10)To be Tracked or to be Wheeled: A False Debate?
There is a debate simmering “under the radar” between different camps, mostly within the U.S. Army, concerning which is best suited to meet the demands of combat operations in Afghanistan: tracked or wheeled combat vehicles.
Unfortunately, both sides fail to address several key issues. The discussion, which pits the Stryker vehicle against the tracked vehicles of heavy brigade combat teams (HBCT) (such as the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle), is often cast in terms of which vehicle offers the better set of protection vs. mobility trade-offs.

While clearly the heavier HBCT vehicles offer greater armor protection and off-road mobility, Stryker enthusiasts argue that the Stryker, with its greater speed and add-on armor, matches or exceeds the HBCT vehicles in terms of effectiveness in Afghanistan combat operations. In truth, the argument is essentially conceptual in nature at this point, given that the U.S. military has not yet deployed HBCT formations into Afghanistan.

The reason for the absence of HBCTs in Afghanistan consists of a combination of the following factors:

HBCT formations remain heavily committed to operations in Iraq;
Deploying heavy vehicles into Afghanistan will prove difficult (i.e., either completely by air or via the Khyber pass from the Pakistani port of Karachi) making the Stryker (sans add-on armor) more strategically deployable into the country; and
As some HBCT advocates have suggested, the U.S. Army favored giving the Stryker an opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness as a way to secure the future of Stryker formations.
The absence of heavy U.S. military land units in Afghanistan stands out as some allies, most notably the Canadians, have for years deployed heavy tracked land forces (i.e., with both tanks and APCs) as their contribution to NATO forces in country.

Enhanced Protection: Much More than Meets the Eye
Despite these considerations, the debate between Strykers and HBCT vehicles tends to cloud the more relevant and important factors that should determine what formations are best suited to enable combat operations within Afghanistan.

First, the state of the road network in theater is best described as abysmal.
As some have said elsewhere, the best roads in Afghanistan are worse than the worst roads in Iraq (and the worst roads in Iraq are worse than the worst roads in the U.S.). Therefore, it would seem reasonable to conclude that a stronger off-road capability would be a plus. This assessment appears to have been validated by the MRAP program’s special acquisition of MRAP all terrain vehicles (MATVs) for deployment to Afghanistan. These vehicles are equipped with independent suspension technology. In this regard, the advantage would seem to belong to the HBCT vehicles.
Second, protection is much more than simply using armor to stop IEDs, RPGs, or whatever the Taliban may throw at allied forces.
This observation should not minimize the role of armor protection – witness the up armoring of Humvees in Iraq and their ultimate displacement by MRAPs. It should, however, highlight how armor protection remains the last line of defense in terms of soldier protection.
Most importantly, sophisticated sensors and systems provide battlefield commanders with the intelligence and knowledge of where the enemy is deploying and what they plan to do. These capabilities, called alternatively ISR and RSTA by U.S. and European militaries, provide the first line of defense.
The second and third lines of defense, given the integrated nature of combat capabilities, are the firepower and mobility of the vehicles themselves. For instance, the ability to shoot and destroy an enemy system or simply to drive your vehicle where the enemy is not or cannot go, constitute additional elements in providing protection to friendly forces.
A fourth line of defense is access to a robust network, enabling utilization of key combat multipliers, especially air (rotary and fixed) and artillery and mortar fires.
Given this more comprehensive understanding of what constitutes protection, HBCT formations have an edge when assessing their added armor protection, greater firepower, and superior off-road mobility. The Strykers, on the other hand, have an edge in terms of ISR capabilities, given their advanced on board C4 architecture that enables more sophisticated networking with ISR assets and other combat multipliers. Depending upon the relative emphasis one places upon the different capabilities contributing to protection, one could fairly claim either set of vehicles as superior.

U.S. Army Soldiers from 1st platoon, Delta company, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment conduct a mounted counter indirect fire patrol in Sabari, Afghanistan (U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander,Joint Combat Camera Afghanistan, Coalition Outpost Sabari, Afghanistan, 01/15/10)
Third, there are a couple of overlooked issues specific to Afghanistan that are crucial to understanding the success or failure of the employment of heavy or medium weight land formations in tactical operations.
Specifically:
– The connectivity from theater to home station in the past and today (unlike in Iraq) remains virtually non-existent in Afghanistan. Therefore, Stryker formations are unable to utilize their superior on-board C4 architecture to establish a number of network-based advantages when preparing for on-going operations.
– The networks within theater (i.e. within Afghanistan) are not as robust as in Iraq nor are the information platforms (like UAVs, etc) as plentiful in Afghanistan as they have been in Iraq.
These key factors explain why Stryker formations in Afghanistan have been unable to capitalize upon their superior on-board C4 architecture not only to enhance their protection, but, more importantly, to become more effective in their mission.
On balance, these factors create more of a disadvantage for the Stryker formations than the HBCTs, which, absent the more advanced on-board C4 architectures, are a more self-reliant formation in terms of the mobility, armor protection, and firepower components of protection.

A couple of additional factors, both of which are not measurable without specific experience in Afghanistan include:

(1) the relative quality of leadership of each particular formation;
and, (2) the quality of preparation and training for deployment to Afghanistan.
The Stryker formations that have thus far deployed to Afghanistan shifted at the last minute from a planned deployment to Iraq making their preparations cursory at best. HBCTs, as already noted, have not yet deployed to Afghanistan.

These two additional factors are crucial considerations, but – given the current state of the Afghanistan experience – not yet measurable, in terms of HBCTs vs. Stryker brigade formations.

Mixed Capabilities: the Key to Flexibility and Effectiveness
Finally, as almost all combat soldiers recognize, to argue that one single type (or even class) of vehicle best serves the needs of combat operations in Afghanistan, misses one of the most important elements of conducting combat operations.
Organizing different units together to achieve a mix of capabilities most suitable for the current combat operations is a long-standing and widely recognized approach. Such an approach enables the combination of capabilities to optimize effectiveness.

W15JOHNSONPIC3-300 — A convoy in a urban environment (credit: http://www.militarynewsnetwork.com)

A great example of this aspect of combat operations occurred in Iraq with the very units being considered here. When then LTG Ray O’Dierno commanded the multi-national combat formations in Iraq during the recent surge, one key component of allied forces’ ultimate success was the task organization of the HBCT and Stryker brigade formations to suit the urban nature of the combat operations. In particular, Abrams tanks were moved out of the HBCT formations essentially parking them outside the urban areas. This move made the Bradley the primary vehicle weapon platform due to its superior precision and less damaging fires. The Strykers were then added as combat troop transports based upon their speed and relative ease in navigating urban area road networks. This approach was designed to more effectively conduct counter insurgency operations in urban areas where extensive collateral battle damage jeopardized the objective of earning and retaining the support of the populace, while at the same time still bringing superior firepower and mobility with sufficient protection to the battle itself.

Armed with this understanding, one must wonder why the U.S. military continues to deny itself the ability to provide battlefield commanders with a similar set of flexible options, in terms of task organization opportunities, that would come with the deployment of both Stryker brigades and HBCTs into Afghanistan. Additionally, why have they been slow in building a robust network that connects units within the theater, as well as with those outside the theater? And why have they been so slow in adding ISR assets?
It would be unreasonable to conclude that the U.S. military has failed to consider these factors. Nor would it be appropriate to consider that the Administration has not allowed the U.S. military in Afghanistan, within an overall limit on the size of the surge, the mix of forces that they would request. For example, this happened when then SecDef Aspin denied the U.S. military’s request for tanks in Somalia in 1993; the impact of this move cannot be lost on many senior Obama Administration defense officials who also served during the Clinton Administration.

Building a Hedge Capability in Afghanistan
Clearly the answer lies in the type of combat operations the allied military leadership in Afghanistan plans to conduct. Afghanistan, all agree, is not the same as Iraq and therefore the lessons of Iraq are not readily transferred. In particular, given the difficulties noted above in mobility over land (not only in terms of deployment, but also in the logistical support of heavy units), unlike in Iraq, air operations – in terms of combat firepower, ISR, and lift – can be expected to figure most prominently in Afghanistan.

In such a case, light infantry and special forces – capable of vertical operations (i.e., air insertion and resupply) – can be expected to figure prominently and, perhaps in the leadership’s mind, decisively despite the challenges presented by the extreme altitude of certain areas of Afghanistan.
Such thinking is evident in the appointment of GEN Stanley McChrystal, a career special operations and light infantry officer. Perhaps, the war plans have so few heavy forces committed to Afghanistan because the campaign envisions decisive combat power being delivered via a combination of air and light infantry /special operations forces.

If correct, then the lack of HBCTs in Afghanistan and the relative shortage of tactical and operational mobility assets capable of transporting vehicles begins to make sense. However, it remains to be seen whether key terrain can be held effectively over the long term by light infantry forces supported by air power.

W15JOHNSONPIC4-300 — U.S. Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division test fire the M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System in Hutal, Afghanistan, Jan. 21, 2010. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Dayton Mitchell, Joint Combat Camera Afghanistan, Hutal, AF, 01/20/10)

One must also consider what Iraq War experience might transfer more readily to Afghanistan. For instance, immediately following the declaration of victory in Iraq by President Bush, sufficient numbers and types of U.S. troops were not effectively employed, rapidly transforming the U.S. “victory” into a protracted counter insurgency campaign. One lesson from Iraq that can be applied to Afghanistan is that whatever we do in Afghanistan, sufficient forces – in terms of both numbers and types – should be available for employment as the situation on the ground shifts.

If anything is constant in war, it is that, as Clausewitz opined centuries ago, because the enemy is an independent actor, “the simple becomes very hard.” This would suggest that perhaps a few HBCTs might have utility in Afghanistan, if only as a hedge against the dynamic nature of warfare.

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***Posted January 25th, 2010

Cyber Diplomacy: Coincidence or Strategy at the Copenhagen Conference

Posted on January 25, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

Danish Prime Minister
Lars Lokke Rasmussen
with his Chinese counterpart
Wen Jiabao
(Photo: China Daily, 12/17/2009)

The Chinese strategy at the Copenhagen conference has been discussed in Hal Malmgren’s article entitled “Copenhagen Dynamics: A Window into 21st Century Geo-Politics“. In effect, the Chinese wanted neither to be blamed for any failure of the conference to take action or any ability of the conference to limit seriously Chinese options in dealing with economic growth. To meet both of these objectives, the Chinese leadership sought to meet with leaders other than the US until China had sorted out its public position. Then from a position of “diplomatic consensus,” they could meet the US on relatively equal grounds.

Coincidently, on the day the conference opened (December 15^th), the Google website in China was attacked and gmail accounts accessed. At the same time, our sources tell us, the Indian Prime Minister’s office as well as other senior Indian ministries was hacked. And in Europe, the German chancellery was hacked along with senior ministries. Similar attacks occurred in France as well.

The response of the French and the Germans has been to focus on the Microsoft portal which is used in government offices. Notably, both governments suggested that Internet Explorer not be used in favor of other browsers.

Perhaps this is just another coincidence like when the Russians attacked Georgian sites prior to taking military action. Or perhaps we are seeing cyber attacks as a part of a concerted diplomatic policy.

———-

***Posted January 25th, 2010

Eglin AFB’s Upcoming Comprehensive Training Facility for the F35

Posted on January 24, 2010 | by SysAdmin

01/24/2010

Preparing for the F35: The 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin Air Force Base Stands Up a Comprehensive Training Facility

Sldinfo’s Robbin Laird interviewed Colonel Tomassetti, 33rd Fighter Wing, Vice Commander, in early January 2010 and discussed the 33rd Fighter Wing’s approach to F-35 training and the nature of the training center.

SLDinfo: Let me start with the first, most obvious question: What is the 33rd Fighter Wing and what’s your role at the Wing?

Colonel Tomassetti: The 33rd Fighter Wing is the wing that has been charged with running the joint strike fighter, the F35 integrated training center operations here at Eglin Air Force Base. My role is I am the vice commander, so I answer to the wing commander, who is Colonel Dave Hlatky, United States Air Force. It is a joint organization. Key leadership roles are all made up from representatives from the three U.S. services, and they are on a rotation basis. They’re on separate timelines so that we don’t ever change out the entire leadership in any given rotation of military people in a summer.

SLD: The Wing is located at Eglin Air Force Base, and you are a Marine in a deputy commander role. What I was surprised to learn is that Eglin is not really just an Air Force base, but that you have several co-located military facilities on the base. This is collectively referred to as Team Eglin, so what are the advantages, from your point of view, of having the training center located in such a virtually joint setting?

Colonel Tomassetti: Eglin is a unique place. I’ve heard it said in several briefs since I’ve been here that if you count the land ranges and the over-water ranges that Eglin has purview over, it makes it the largest military base in the world. I’ve never verified that myself, but I would guess that’s a pretty accurate statement. There are a whole host of folks, who are tenants in that space here at Eglin, representatives from all the U.S. services and a variety of missions that go on here, everything from special forces to the training mission that we bring to the table in the 33rd Fighter Wing to the test mission that goes on for Air Force weapons testing, up to and including there is a phased array radar at one end of the complex that tracks space debris and is a national asset. So all that stuff is happening in the complex and with that wide variety of users that are present, in my mind from a training perspective for future air crew and maintainers, that presents us a wide variety of opportunities to interact with organizations, services, and capability that sometimes you have to wait for big exercises or even wars to bring to the table.

SLD: So you have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the co-located facility?

Colonel Tomassetti: Absolutely.

SLD: What is the basic timeline for rolling out the program this year and what might we expect to see in 2010?

Colonel Tomassetti: Our plan at the 33rd Fighter Wing is that we will be ready for training on 1 June of 2010 and what that means is we will start our first group of pilots in their first academic event on 1 June. The first group of pilots is here already and so that piece is ready. We are working through the courseware and the syllabus that they will be part of, so that piece is in work. We expect to have the simulators that they will train on delivered in the springtime, and we are expecting to have the airplanes that they will fly delivered in the fall. We have made provisions while construction is ongoing for the final facilities. If those facilities are not ready in time to accommodate all the hardware and stuff that’s coming in, that we have interim facilities planned. If they need to go into an interim classroom to start until the actual classrooms in the academic training center are available, we have provisions for that, so that’s our goal. We started training on 1 June here in the 33rd Fighter Wing with our first group of pilots and everything hopefully will flow in after that.

SLD: When are you anticipating a full ramp-up of the program and what kind of size student body would you have of maintainers and pilots in the program at that point?

Colonel Tomassetti: Actually if you look at the projections and again, right now, I’ll talk in terms of what will happen that will get us to capacity when we have three squadrons here at Eglin. The original vision was for five squadrons here at Eglin and some debate and some discussions and some decisions still remain on whether we will stay at three or whether we will grow to the planned five; but basically, around the 2014, 2015 timeframe, we will hit the peak pilot production based on three squadrons worth of airplanes. An average daily student load is the way we are tracking it, and is one of the metrics we’re tracking: how many students are on the campus on any given day. We expect somewhere between 80 and 100 pilot students on the campus on any given day; on the maintenance side, it will be a little slower to hit peak capacity. That comes around 2016 or so but we expect the average daily student load for maintainers to be somewhere between 600 and 800 on any given day. So really, you’re looking at almost 1,000 students on any given day here at the 33rd Fighter Wing.

SLD: I had a chance to look at some of the construction and got a sense of the layout of the new training center. It seems more like a college campus than a classic military training facility, and this would suggest that you have in mind several new approaches or techniques to operate in this center. Could you talk a little bit to those new approaches and techniques that you envisage to start with?

Colonel Tomassetti: it is indeed setup deliberately to have that sort of campus flavor and approach to it. The academic training center, the place where everyone will go through their classroom training and some of their initial simulator training, the living facilities for the enlisted folks and the dining facilities for those folks all sit in a very co-located area. No one has to cross any major roads to get from one building to another.

In fact, you could probably get everything you need to get done on any given day as a student without leaving that little four-block radius of space. We are going to take full advantage of everything that electronic classrooms of today bring to the table. That is everything from using a variety of electronic media; most everything that they will do in a classroom environment is computer-based training. Everybody whether you’re a pilot or maintainer will start out in those electronic classrooms, some of which are led by human instructors and some, which are purely computer-led, and computer-based training that they progress through. As an example, the pilots who check in here will be issued a laptop and that laptop, of course, will allow them to access information, words and pictures about the F35 that they are learning how to fly.

Additionally what it will do is it will allow them to practice some procedures that they will need in the cockpit. You can replicate some of the displays that appear in the cockpit of the airplane on that laptop. You can activate certain menus. You can drilldown through certain menus. You can work through certain procedures on that laptop up to and including if you check out the stick and throttle that can be connected to the laptop, you can actually go fly practice missions and practice profiles on that laptop. That can be done in the academic training center, and we’re working through what it would take for those pilot students to take that home and be able to practice at home at their own leisure for learning – – to continue their learning.

SLD: It would seem that the way you’ve set this up, there are a lot of savings to come from this approach compared to classic military training in the days of the F18 and F16 being the key programs.

Colonel Tomassetti: Absolutely. When I was a student going through initial flight training, I was issued a stack of books that not only did I have to carry those around with me in the classroom environment from day to day, but if I was going to take anything home, I had to drag that big bag of books home. Just taking all that stuff and putting it in a digital format and as you might be thinking, of course, not only you have access to whatever those books that are now digitized are but everything that’s ever been written or documented to that point in time about the F35 as far as technical information, with that laptop, those students will have access to it. So if they are particularly interested in a certain thing and the one page or the one paragraph in the flight manual didn’t fulfill their curiosity, they have the ability to dig down further into engineering drawings and background and stuff that I, as a student when I went through, never had the ability to go do.

SLD: Clearly this is setup to shape a joint approach to the training: from your point of view, how will this joint approach work out in terms of shaping the training and in reverse, the joint experience will shape training?

Colonel Tomassetti: You know, we’re going to be sitting here at Eglin Air Force Base. We’re going to have representatives from all three services in the U.S. and whatever partner countries are here at Eglin, and those students, without us doing anything deliberate or specific, are going to be going to the same classrooms, sitting next to each other. They’re going to go and they’re going to eat breakfast and lunch together in the same dining areas potentially. They’re going to go run in the same jogging rails. They’re going to go workout in the same fitness facilities.

So without even trying, there’s going to be an interchange of cultural ideas and philosophies. There’s going to be an interchange of how we do business, how they do business. There’s going to be an interchange of all kinds of basic information that those students will just naturally gravitate to as they’re exposed to being in close proximity to each other.

So that’s without even trying. Now if you say, “Okay, what if we put a little bit of effort and thought into that?” How much more could we get out of that where we deliberately setup training events that will make Navy, Marine, and Air Force pilots go fly training missions together as they get into their advanced studies where multiple airplanes are required and we allow them to share their ideas and their service techniques of doing things and then add in the partner countries that take part in this. The opportunity to learn and increase the knowledge base of everybody who comes through the Eglin campus is tremendous.

SLD: What’s the thinking about involving the partner countries?

Colonel Tomassetti: Right now, there will be partner countries at Eglin, those who are already involved in the program and then whatever foreign military sales happen as we go down range. Exactly how many and which partner countries will appear at Eglin has not quite been determined yet. There will be some. It could be up to and including everybody who’s in the program right now, and we are preparing and planning for it to be of that magnitude. If it’s something less than that, then so be it but right now, we are working towards being able to accommodate every partner country who is involved with the program today and even doing a little planning for all those anticipated foreign military sales that may come later on down the road.

SLD: You’ve co-located the training of maintainers and pilots and this seems almost unprecedented. What’s your sense of the importance of the co-location of the training of pilots and maintainers in the training center?

Colonel Tomassetti: I think training pilots and maintainers together is not unprecedented but by no means is it the common practice across the spectrum of JSF users. From my perspective, I think there are definitely going to be some efficiencies and some synergies gained from having the pilots and maintainers together. I mean they’re going to be integrated when they get to their operational units. Starting that integration out in the training environment is probably not a bad idea.

SLD: You have mentioned earlier that the program approach allows the sharing of resources within the program across the base, across Florida. Can you elaborate? Give me just, for example, a notional idea of, for example, you have a Navy pilot and he’s being trained in the program and has an opportunity to perhaps work with the Special Forces command, the Army command being transferred from Bragg. What’s your thinking about that kind of opportunity?

Colonel Tomassetti: Absolutely, and that goes back to your first question of: What are the opportunities that Eglin presents to us? You’re going to have young soldiers out on the land ranges here that are going through training in order to prep them to go forward to a combat area. Part of that training they’re going to do is going to involve working with air support. We are going to have students going through flight training who as part of the training they have to undergo is delivering that close air support to troops on the ground.

Now in most other places, if you’re at an air and a pilot training facility, you’ve got to call in to some other organization to come out and support you to do that kind of training for you’ve got to wait for some exercise to take place for that to happen. Here, we’re all going to be out on those ranges at the same day and instead of looking at it as a conflict where, hey, they want the range in the morning, we want the range in the afternoon, wouldn’t it be nice if we both went out on the range in the morning and that soldier on the ground got their training requirements accomplished because we were providing air support and our pilots in the airplanes got their training requirements accomplished because that soldier on the ground was doing their part of the close air support mission? I mean just things like that that will happen just because we’re sitting here. Again, it’s not even going to take a whole lot of effort on our part. All we’ve got to do is talk to each other to make it work.

SLD: So the joint training and the joint fighter go together with an opportunity to leverage the co-located facilities and the shared resources across those facilities.

Colonel Tomassetti: Absolutely and I think the other thing is we have an idea and a vision, of course, about what the F35 is in terms of its capabilities and how it will be employed on the battlefield. We have that vision today but until we get out there and actually use it we’re going to have to validate to that vision and our ideas of how we employ it are correct. But in this joint environment that we have here at Eglin, we may be able to come up with completely un-thought of ways of employing what the F35 can do into some future battle area just because we have a variety of players here that we will be able to get inputs from.

We will be able to test the airplane in terms of, “Hey, well, let’s expose it to this type of environment or to this situation that we haven’t thought about before.” I think that’s only going to come in a place like Eglin where we have the whole variety of users and folks out here that are trying to get their missions accomplished, their training accomplished all in the same location.

[slidepress gallery=’eglin’]

———-

***Posted January 24th, 2010

Israel-NATO Rapprochement on Logs

Posted on January 24, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

By Franck Znaty
([email protected])

IDS Log Harmonization: a “win-win” initiative
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has started the process of adopting Nato’s Classification System (NCS). The NCS is “the codification system used by the armed forces of all NATO countries in order to facilitate military Logistics operations across NATO.” This classification is also meant to facilitate cooperation and exchange “between countries and organizations, which transfer equipment between them, and as a result to enhance military, peacekeeping and disaster-relief operations,” Yaakov Katz explains in the Jerusalem Post.
Yaakov Katz first reported in Jane’s Defence Weekly (Israel adopts NATO stock code system, 01/21/10), that following a 2006 agreement in which Israel agreed to join the NCS, the IDF, as of January 1^st of this year, “began changing its stock numbering system to the NATO Stock Number (NSN): a 13-digit numeric code identifying spare parts, equipment, food and other item of supply”, wrote Katz. The plan is being supervised by the IDF’s Logistics Corps, and the first branch to adopt this new classification is the Ground Forces Command.

A Broadened NATO-Israeli Rapprochement
As explained by an IDF Logistics Corps officer to the Jerusalem Post, the NCS “will be beneficial for us in terms of cooperation and procut and will also help Israeli defense industries sell their products to NATO member countries.”
This Israeli implementation of the NCS does indeed take place in a context of heightened cooperation between the Jewish State and the Brussels-based organization.
Last November, in the midst of a visit to Israel by the NATO’s Chairman of the Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported that the IDF will send one of its warship to join the NATO’s Active Endeavor naval force.

W15FZPIC3 — The Chairman of the Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, concludes his official country visit to Israel, conducted on November 18th and 19th, 2009 on invitation of the Israeli Chief of Defence, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi

Credit photo (left): http://www.nato.int/ims/news/2009/n091118.html

As outlined by NATO, the “Operation Active Endeavour is NATO’s only article 5 operation on anti-terrorism initiated as support to the United States immediately after 9/11. It therefore aims to demonstrate NATO’s solidarity and resolve in the fight against terrorism and to help detect and deter terrorist activity in the Mediterranean.”
While Israel already had a liaison officer within the Active Endeavour operation, the article goes on to cite defense officials who claim that “the dispatch of the ship within months marks an important step up in Israel’s relationship with the NATO alliance.”

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***Posted January 24th, 2010

November 1, 1941 Bulletin: Liberty Ship Production Stopped

Posted on January 24, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

W151941BULLPIC1 — How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? (Florida International University)

A report by the Government Review Office (GRO), an arm of the US Congress, upheld the protest by the Northwest Shipyards of Seattle Washington against the plan to build Liberty ships in yards across the country.
“I knew that using a British design and burning coal to satisfy foreign interests was against the American interests and sense of fair play,” a triumphant Senator Foghorn of Washington said. “We are pleased to see the Liberty program competed so that a real American design burning oil will have the chance to become the preferred design for this important new program supporting the US Navy.”

In particular, the GRO objected to the selected companies’ lack of shipbuilding experience. “Several of the selected teams have never built a ship. It is difficult for us to believe, for example, how Henry Kaiser and those that have built Dams can in any real sense be qualified to build ships.”

The report also criticized the inexperience of the selected shipyard workers and the planned production schedule. “Several of the proposed yards are being staffed by workers who have never before had experience in shipbuilding, so it is difficult to evaluate the claims that these yards and workers can deliver Liberty ships on time and under budget.”

“We also believe that using new untested welding techniques is questionable. We have reviewed past practices of building ships with time tested riveting techniques and find the production schedules to be unrealistic and questionable and request that the Department provide quantitative justification for its projections and assumptions.”

In addition, the GRO found the proposed armament for the ships to be unacceptable. “Four inch guns will prove inadequate in protecting the ships and we think the Department should re-examine the proposed armaments and find a more adequate means for defending the ships from air and naval attack.”

“We find that the projected life cycle costs of the ships make assumptions about the price of fuel five years out that are untested and unwarranted,” the GRO’s report concluded. “As part of the bidding process, we would like to see the bidders come up with documented projection for the price of fuel over the expected life cycle operations of the Liberty ships.”

Upon being advised of the GRO’s findings, the White House indicated that they would proceed with production. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “They are dreadful looking objects, but we need to build them full stop.”

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***Posted January 24th, 2010

Taking the pulse of the next generations of aeronautics and space engineers: A French Sample

Posted on January 23, 2010 | by SysAdmin | Leave a Comment

01/23/2010

This is the second posting in our new Outlook section, which will include regular participations from the upcoming generations. We start with an article by a student from the Toulouse-based Aeronautics and Space Institute (ISAE) – who is also part of our SLDinfo research team -, which gives a first assessment of the general mood and aspirations of the future engineers on the basis of an informal polling of French and Erasmus international students.

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The French Student Outlook For the Future: “Two Feet Anchored on Earth”

By Amélie Spire
[email protected]

French Aeronautics Engineering Training: a “Cultural Exception” Threatened to Vanish?
There is no specific type of aeronautics engineers in France. This expression refers to numerous profiles: design engineer, production engineer, etc… Since one has to combine different abilities (e.g. electronics, optics, aerodynamics…) in order to make a plane fly, students in the field of aeronautics enjoy a wide range of possibilities when it comes to choosing a specialization. When graduation comes, students can, in spite of their scientific and technical specialization, also hold a commercial position, such as business engineer. Whether working for an industrial company or in services, in a plant or in a research department, they will be required to be able to integrate multicultural and multidisciplinary teams.
French students tend generally to get their early training in engineering schools specialized in aeronautics (ENAC, ESMA, ISAE, ESTACA or Supmeca in France), which all select their candidates via a competitive process. Students coming from other schools, but who have acquired experience in aeronautics companies can also be qualified as engineer in aeronautics. Concretely, the required length of studies is about five years and the average starting monthly income is about 2.700 Euros (about 3.700 US Dollars).
Quite a bit of disparities do actually exist between French and foreign engineers: while in France, “engineering” tends to be assimilated to social status and a good income, intellectual merit seems to be more valued abroad. The French model is in fact often perceived as a complex “cultural exception” and considered by some as doomed to disappear. The drawback of the French system is that it tends to stigmatize engineers as an elitist cast, which only top-level students can join, and not only students passionate by aeronautics. As a result, many French engineering students do not necessarily fit in and 60% of them turn to other careers, such as business, bank, management or else.

Credit: http://www.supaero.org/

Mild Enthusiasm among French Students in Aeronautics and Space
Aeronautics and space have always inspired the wildest dreams: without wings, man keeps looking for ways ahead and is attracted by the sky. Though the economic crisis strongly hits the sector, aeronautics and space industries continue to hire. In 2008, 12.000 people were hired, but the level of overall job creation in the sector declined in 2009. Commercial air transport remains the most hit by the crisis: due to the decreasing number of passengers and increasing of oil prices, experts expect a 6.4 billion Euro loss in 2009, following a 7.4 billion Euro loss in 2008.

(1) Aeronautics: “A Cloudy Sky”
Although young French aeronautics engineers in the making are aware of the current difficult economic and environmental conditions, as well as of a growing international competition, they remain relatively enthusiastic: they appreciate the fact that, attracting a cutting-edge technology, the field has a profound impact on other scientific sectors. They are indeed ready to face up to the challenges, as they are conscious of the economic weight that the aeronautics field embodies.

As far as the military aeronautics sector is concerned, many students are betting on UAVs (unmanned airborne vehicles) and believe that the F-35 could be the very last manned fighter aircraft. Except for anti- guerilla air assets, they display some skepticism about new possibilities.
Regarding commercial aeronautics, the same students are aware of the competition between the major international aeronautics players: while demand keeps increasing (about 25 000 planes are to be ordered during the next twenty years), the American constructor Boeing and the European one Airbus must cope with the emergence of new competitors, who are decided to get their share in this billion dollar market. Indeed even if the European and American powers keep the monopoly in the construction of airliners, Canada and Brazil both aim at the third place at least. The question young students is how can European and American powers remain in the race while budgets are decreasing?

A cloudy sky, not only in regards to the economy, but also as far as environmental and fuel challenges are concerned. Lack of energy, the search for new green fuels and pollution control are among the issues engineers need to consider when researching. As people tend to travel farther and more frequently, a key question is in many students’ mind: what kind of new green technologies can we develop in order to manage these flows?

(2) Space: A Crowdy Sky
The space industry is facing a strong competition from emerging powers, but the European space industry keeps its rank in the world, thanks to the performance and the liability of its systems. Thanks to innovative space programs, the CNES (Centre National des Etudes Spatiales) contributes to enhance such competitiveness.
With the development of communication and Earth watching satellites, the Ariane 5 launcher (and soon Ariane 6), the European project Galileo, the upcoming replacement of Hubble, and the NASA prospect to go back on the Moon in ten years or so, space represents a major stake. In a context of economic crisis, the key issue remains however the question of funding. European students stress the fact that it is necessary to invest in a new launcher program, in order to keep a leading position in satellite launch. As a matter of fact, Ariane 5 has reached its performance limits as far as payload is concerned.

Galileo — Photo: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/

In addition, the risks associated with funding shortage raise other questions, such as: how can private companies join the market without an excessive privatization of space? Where can we find sufficient funds? The pessimists also warn against space overload (old and unusable satellites, Space waste…), as well as the replacement of aging communication satellites. Research inertia is also listed among the mains worries expressed by the aeronautics and space engineering students, while the traditional debate about the military use of space divides the opinion.

Both Feet on Concrete (Economic) Grounds
Thus, the future remains full of questions for French students who will have to face an evolution of their status. Can-do mentality and a certain polyvalence tend to be engineers’ traditional qualities and a real asset for the future. Furthermore, even if the competition tends to increase today, the world’s lack of engineers in aeronautics offers interesting career prospects for those who are willing to pursue their dreams. Nonetheless, today’s engineers cannot ignore economic realities: technical training is not sufficient, and no one can now afford not to have a basic economic knowledge to fit in with the outside world (the exemple of the Concorde speaks on its own, as it was a technological success, but not such a great economic one, at least on the French side).
Challenges to face, stakes to take on: space and aeronautics trigger enthusiasm and confidence among the generation of engineers to come. Far from being omniscient, they are fully aware that difficulties may lie ahead of their path, but they are willing to cope with the latter as best as they can…

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***Posted January 23rd, 2010