Defence`s Feeds

American SH-3 Sea King Anti-Submarine Warfare Helicopter

The engineering and technology group SENER ended 2014 with a turnover of 1,315.7 billion Euros; an increase of 8.02% over the previous year.

On Sunday I had the opportunity to chat, via direct message on Twitter, with a Chief Inspector from West Midlands Police. He had tweeted pictures and comments from his course on Public Order Policing, and I had some follow up questions for him. Over several exchanges he happily discussed with me official tactics and approaches, as well as a bit of his experience. For a variety of reasons I value this sort of first hand, practitioner based material in my research. This was not the first time I have used Twitter to further my understanding or sustain my interpretations, but the fact that I can do so speaks to something much more important.

Policing in the United Kingdom is in the midst of a quiet but revolutionary experiment to make itself proactively available to the public by way of social media, and particularly Twitter, in unprecedented numbers and across the chain of command, to include senior leadership. The prospects for this, for its influence on society and policing, are momentous. While its ramifications cannot yet be known, there are three areas in which this phenomenon highlight important opportunities across research, policy and community relations: the human element which emerges, the self-narrative or portrait of the institution and its character, and the engagement philosophy.

First, to the human element. Many of the police accounts, corporate and informal, are associated with an individual. Not just a role, but a particular character and human emerges from the communications. I am a memoir, experiential based military historian by training, and within that as well I value the quotidian and the little things that are said and done for the wisdom it conveys. Happiness, Limeade on Guadalcanal… was written in earnest, as it must be accepted that while seemingly irrelevant on the surface, from these details of the personal experience often emerge profound insights. [1] And the material in public and on social media is just the tip of the iceberg. The human element has a practical story to tell about the work, in general and in detail, and deserves more attention in the course of police research.

Turning to a more meta perspective, taken together this messaging creates the self-image of British policing. From both its personal and corporate accounts, in words and images, the characters of the forces and their constituent parts, as well as the broader national service, are created. Assessing this, in its grand vista and detail deserves attention as well for its influence in policy, practice or communications. At the practical level, for example, to understand that how the police conceive themselves in a particular situation or issue differs from how they are viewed by the public will help to identify areas for redress.

Finally, the matter of engagement and Police-Community Relations (PCR) has particular resonance in this discussion. Timely to do so, as BBC’s “The Met” has people talking. Having seen it, I would say the work is very interesting, definitely worth a watch. [2] Throughout, the participants confronted a host of hard issues about community relations, particularly those relating to race and policing. And they are discussing it today. Many of the individuals mentioned above are on Twitter answering questions and comments regarding the documentary. And as individuals it is clear that many of them are compassionately engaged with their work. On a purely social media front, thinking back to the disorders, it is a long way since the Met was overwhelmed by mass BBM’s, and one wonders how the police would use their new presence in similar circumstances today. More importantly, the documentary identifies the clear rift still to mend. Improving identification between police and disaffected members of the community will require effort across many fronts and over time. Nevertheless, what the Twitter activity of policing suggests, both online and in the metropolis (and the UK at large), is that the police themselves are open to, if not actively interested in, expanding and improving their conversation with the public they serve. It will be interesting to track how this philosophy of engagement will be taken up in and by the challenged communities.

Perhaps the recourse to social media is natural. Gregarious by nature, the British Bobby has simply taken up a new beat. What has changed is that this activity is now visible to a greater percentage and cross section of society. Subtly, 140 characters at a time, over the course of thousands of tweets, this will affect the shape of policing and consent, as well as the understanding of both.

 

 

 

Notes:

1 Funny to discuss that blog in this one on social media and Twitter as its title was too long to tweet in its entirety. Sigh.

2 One point I would make, as it focused on the Duggan shooting, the riots, and the influence of the Inquest verdict, it was strange not to include something on the vigil the following Saturday. Its peaceful terms deserved highlighting.

Public hearing "The implementation of the Solidarity Clause"
Location : Altiero Spinelli, room 1E-2, European Parliament
Poster
Poster
Programme
Draft programme
Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

The fourth edition of the Personnel Recovery Controller and Planner Course (PRCPC), a project initiated by the European Defence Agency, took place from 25 May to 5 June 2015 in Veszprém, Hungary. Organised and hosted by the Hungarian Defence Forces at the Air Command and Control Centre (ACCC), the exercise gathered 20 students from 8 countries.

Students from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom benefitted from the knowledge and experience of a cadre of instructors from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, and the United States. Personnel recovery (PR) is usually defined as the sum of military, diplomatic and civil efforts needed to ensure the recovery and reintegration of isolated civilian or military personnel.

During the course, the newly-developed EDA’s Personnel Recovery Functional Area Service Advanced Technology Demonstrator (PR FAS ATD) was successfully tested and evaluated. This system is designed to provide headquarters-level PR staff with a planning tool to manage PR missions. It has been developed as part of EDA’s work to improve interoperability amongst European armed forces in the field of personnel recovery.

The next EU PRCPC will take place from 23 November to 4 December 2015 in Italy (Poggio, Renatico) and will be organised by the European Personnel Recovery Centre (EPRC). During the course, the final test of the PR FAS ATD will take place and should then allow the system to be available to all EDA participating Member States.

More information

The EDA PRCPC project was established on 30 May 2013 as an EDA Category B project, under the lead of Sweden. As of today, it gathers six contributing EU Member States (cMS): Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden. On 31st May 2015 the cMS agreed to extend the PRCPC Cat B project until 30 May 2017. EPRC is a potential candidate for the continuation of the project.

• Successful personnel recovery course held in Sweden (6 March 2015)

 

Americas

• The cost of the F-35A engine fire last June has been calculated as $50 million by the investigation board responsible for looking into the failure of the third-stage rotor of the engine fan module, with the fire resulting in significant damage to the aircraft. The fire temporarily grounded the F-35 fleet worldwide and led to red faces when the Marine Corps were prevented from demonstrating their F-35B at Farnborough. Prime contractor Lockheed Martin was awarded a $920.4 million advanced acquisition contract last week, while F-35As were scheduled to take part in upcoming USMC exercises for the first time last week.

• The US and Japanese governments have successfully conducted a test firing of the Standard Missile 3 Block IIA at the Point Mugu Sea Range in California. The SM-3 is scheduled to enter service by 2018, with both nations having invested $1 billion each into the program.

• Raytheon has been awarded a $10.6 million contract to provide testing equipment for assessing the Small Diameter Bomb II on the FA-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft, including jettison test vehicles and instrumented measurement vehicles, with these presumably to assess the future viability of using the SDBII with Super Hornets. The SDBII recently passed Milestone C, facilitating its progression to low rate initial production by manufacturer Raytheon.

Europe

• As the British Army’s Thales WK450 Watchkeeper UAV heads toward Full Operating Capability, the responsibility for personnel training on the system is being transitioned from contractor services to the Army’s own program. The first course run by British Army personnel will take place in October, with the Watchkeeper deployed to Afghanistan last year, equipped with new synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indication capabilities.

• Airbus is reportedly planning to resume test flights of its A400M transport aircraft, following the crash of one aircraft during a test flight on 9th May. The aircraft saw three engines freeze as a result of a software problem, with the resulting crash killing four crew members.

• As part of the British government’s push for privatization in the nation’s defense apparatus, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has invited bids from industry as it seeks to privatize the British Armed Forces’ fire and rescue services. The Defence Fire Risk Management Organisation is the organization in question, with industry teams competing against an internal MoD bid. The publicly-owned Defence Support Group was sold to Babcock International in December last year, whilst the Government Pipeline and Storage System was sold to a Spanish company earlier this year.The government is also mulling the sale of some of its Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) arm, the multi-billion dollar procurement agency which it attempted to partially privatize in a 2013. That effort failed and has subsequently been heavily criticized.

• Work has begun on the second of three Royal Navy Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs), with BAE Systems cutting steel at the firm’s Glasgow shipyard. The first OPV has been under construction since October, with the River-Class Batch II vessels an important bridge-buy prior to the introduction of the Royal Navy’s future Type 26 Frigates, with the $560 million construction contract sustaining industry capability in the interim.

Middle East

• Kuwait is talking to the Italians regarding a sale of Eurofighters, in a potential $4.5 billion deal comprising between 24 and 28 of the jets. The Kuwaitis are looking to replace their F/A-18 Hornet fleet, with a separate $3 billion deal slated for Super Hornets thought to be in the works alongside the Eurofighter negotiations.

• Iraq has reportedly received a third of the Mi-28NE helicopters it ordered alongside Mi-35M helicopters. The first batch of these two helicopter models were delivered in July last year, with the first Mi-28 flights taking place in September The country is thought to have ordered fifteen Mi-28s and twenty-five Mi-35s, but precise numbers have not been officially disclosed. Russia is also looking to improve its Mi-28 fleet.

Asia

• Pakistan is reportedly preparing to assemble a Chinese Type 039A Yuan-class submarine at the country’s Karachi Shipyard & Engineering Works. This follows an order for eight boats early last month.

Today’s Video

• Iraq’s first batch of Mi-28NEs…