Breaking Defense's Monday Morning Briefing

A News Roundup for the Week Ahead _________________________________________________________________________

A News Roundup for the Week Ahead At Kratos, affordability is a technology directly benefiting the warfighter. Presented by Kratos Kratos is disrupting the status quo by increasing warfighter capability, delivering affordable systems and solutions including unmanned systems, turbine engines, space communications, and training. Learn more. Raytheon, Northrop, Lockheed to compete for hypersonic interceptor By Theresa Hitchens The GPI is being developed to knock down hypersonic missiles as they glide through the Earth's upper atmosphere at about 70 kilometers in altitude at speeds greater than Mach 5.   DoD issues cloud solicitations to AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle By Brad D. Williams Google's addition is somewhat surprising since, in recent years, the company has pulled away from DoD work due to internal pressure on executives from its workforce. The apparent omission of IBM is also notable.   'Almost a melding' of US, UK, Aussie services coming: NSC's Kurt Campbell By Colin Clark The context for President Biden's almost four-hour discussion Monday night with President Xi Jinpeng, Kurt Campbell said, is "that the United States is here to stay in the Indo-Pacific, and we're going to defend and support the operating system that has been so good for so many of us for many years."   US Air Force one step closer to turning cargo planes into makeshift bombers By Valerie Insinna Next month, the Air Force will see if it can launch a live cruise missile from a pallet that was air dropped by a cargo plane.   Divining the future of heavy vertical lift in the Army By Barry Rosenberg With the Army focused on FLRAA and FARA, the question of heavy lift under the Future Vertical Lift program won't be answered for a decade or more. In the meantime, here's what the Army is thinking.   Allies eyeing 'niche' space capabilities for warfighting with US By Theresa Hitchens "The key to success is frank and open discussion … tearing down those information sharing barriers, to be sure that we're truly interoperable," said Australian Air Commodore Nicholas Hogan.   It's time for Pentagon to prioritize near-term acquisition fixes over systemic change By Aaron Mehta Former Pentagon official Jeff Bialos says with less than three years for an undersecretary of acquisition and sustainment to do their job, they need to focus on triage efforts.   Spain still interested in F-35: Lockheed exec By Valerie Insinna The Spanish defense ministry put the kibosh on talks of an F-35 buy, but Lockheed's vice president for aeronautics is "pretty confident" that Madrid will need to buy F-35s to replace its Harriers.   Navy finds fix for 'unacceptable' LCS issue; taxpayers likely to cover half of costs By Aaron Mehta The Navy has fixed one ship, but doesn't know how long it'll take to get the full LCS fleet to top speed.   Navy assessing LA sub fleet for possible life extensions By Justin Katz The fact the Navy can extend some of its submarine fleet's life by several years is likely due in part to the time some of those boats have sat in docks awaiting maintenance.   Assured-PNT for all 160,000 tactical vehicles is now a reality By Breaking Defense [Sponsored] Assured Position, Navigation, and Timing (A-PNT) is slowly making its way into key-leader vehicles, with no concrete plans to address A-PNT for the rest of the fleet any time soon. An interim A-PNT solution from Leonardo DRS changes that for everyone.   US space industry 'tactically strong' but lacks long-term investment, study finds By Theresa Hitchens Despite investments of nearly $200 billion in commercial space since 2012, the US will lose what the authors paint as a vital race with China without more strategic vision, study sponsored by DoD's Defense Innovation Unit says.   F-35 faces stiff competition as European nations decide on future fighters By Reuben Johnson Politics, diplomacy complicate decisions by Finland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland when it comes to the F-35 versus other American and international competitors.   Rep. Luria wants shipyard funding boost in defense policy bill By Justin Katz "We need to make sure that we have a very … robust investment in our shipyards. I don't know if we can get that full amount," Luria said of a proposed shipyard supplemental.   For JADC2 to have a chance, DoD needs to get serious about data standards By Aaron Mehta "We are past the tipping point where information and decision-centric capabilities are more important instruments of war than kinetic weapons," write former deputy secretary Bob Work and Govini's Bill Fabian.   The DOD just made cloud connections more secure with less latency By Breaking Defense [Sponsored] With Cloud Native Access Points, if you can't answer these questions, then you can't get on the network: Who are you as a user? What permissions should you have? What workloads do you need access to?   Navy orders safety stand down after finding sub leaders 'fell short' of navigation standards By Justin Katz A top Navy submariner said the safety investigation into the Connecticut incident is nearing completion.   COVID supply chain woes add yearlong delay to first F-16 rollout at new facility By Valerie Insinna The first F-16 produced in Greenville, S.C., won't be ready to begin flying until late 2022, said Greg Ulmer, Lockheed's vice president of aeronautics.   Hypersonic spy planes and cargo transports? Pentagon is interested By Theresa Hitchens You can imagine a reusable system that can fly around and drop payloads and come back, or a hypersonic system that can carry other hypersonic systems," said Gillian Bussey, head of DoD's Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.   DIA details push to modernize top-secret network amid 150% uptick in cyber threats By Brad D. Williams "I hear more about IT revolution than evolution these days, but I think IT is more evolution," DIA CIO Doug Cossa said.   Aussie PM targets quantum tech, announces 'critical technologies' push By Colin Clark Australia's ambassador to the US, Arthur Sinodinos, confirmed unequivocally that the "mature" submarines his country will buy will use highly enriched uranium: "The subs would be using HEU, and we're just working out now the arrangements what that will mean in practice."   At Project Convergence, Army 'struggling' to see joint battlefield as it heeds 'hard' lessons By Andrew Eversden Where success meant identifying failures, top Army officials said desert experiment revealed problems in "situational awareness" that will be critical in future fights.   Russia hopeful UAE will join defense programs, pitching Su-75 Checkmate By Chyrine Mezher "The Emiratis are doing a great job in keeping pace with the latest and most advanced technologies on one hand, and we don't put restrictions for cooperation with other countries on the other," said a Rostec official.   Another $25B boost, this time for shipyards, proposed for NDAA By Justin Katz The bill to add $25 billion, mostly for Navy shipyards, faces long odds in the Senate this week, but it reflects lawmakers' impatience with the Pentagon's proposals.   Former CISA head warns of rivals' 'destructive' cyber capabilities By Brad D. Williams "There's one line [in the notice] that should scare the hell out of everyone everywhere," Chris Krebs said.   Surprise Russian ASAT test shows need to 'scale' space tracking, LeoLabs says By Theresa Hitchens While Russia's Defense Minister has claimed that debris from the ASAT test doesn't endanger the US and Russian crew on the ISS, the laws of physics beg to differ.   Pentagon's first climate challenge: How to follow the money By Aaron Mehta The Pentagon wants to show its investments in climate change, but the way the budget is currently structured makes that effectively impossible, says Hallie Coyne of AEI.   Could kinetic warfare go the way of Blockbuster?: US Air Force chief By Valerie Insinna "Now we're somewhere stuck in the thinking that mass needs to be physical," Gen. CQ Brown told officials at the Dubai International Air Chiefs Conference on Nov. 13. "What if we did not have to produce sorties to achieve the same effect?"   Your tolerance for risk in critical comms will drive your security solution By Breaking Defense [Sponsored] Data protection solutions are key to the JADC2 goal of an interconnected tactical network that enables the sharing of sensor data among all military branches in every domain.   Breaking Defense 611 Broadway • New York, New York • 10012 unsubscribe