Defence`s Feeds

As a result of the increased pressure to reduce cost and delivery times of modern ships and submarines, many shipyards are revising their processes and toolsets to optimise the management of sister ships.

A leader in the marine fendering industry, Marine Fenders International (MFI) engineers have developed the industry's most versatile and customised donut fendering solutions.

American Mk.16 Assault Rifle

Sparton and Ultra Electronics' joint venture (JV) Erapsco has been awarded subcontracts worth a combined $30.3m to produce sonobuoys for the US Navy.

The UK Ministry of Defence has entered a £269m deal with Lockheed Martin to start manufacturing of the new Crowsnest system to protect the Royal Navy's new Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) aircraft carriers.

The Armed Forces of Malta has awarded a contract to Italian shipbuilding company Fincantieri to modernise its offshore patrol vessel, P61.

Americas

• The USAF and Army have tasked Raytheon with adapting their Coyote UAV into a suicide drone to take out quadcopters. The program will see the UAV given features in order to operate as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) asset, as well as being fitted with a counter unmanned air system (C-UAS) capability in order to defend itself against small quad-copter UAVs by using a kinetic payload. Completion of the C-UAS is expected by the end of the year. Coyotes currently form the backbone the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology (LOCUST) program.

• Costs associated with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program could drop, according to Lockheed Martin’s CEO Marillyn Hewson. Hewson met with US President-elect Donald Trump for a second meeting last week, later telling reporters that her company is “close to a deal” to bring down the cost of the F-35 program. In addition to the fighter’s costs, Hewson committed the firm to increasing jobs at their Fort Worth, Texas, facility by 1,800.

• Ethical conflicts at Pratt & Whitney have resulted in the ousting of the head of the company’s F135 engine program alongside nine other employees. The dismissals come after the completion of an internal audit which uncovered an ethics issue linked to a visit by South Korean military officials several years ago. During the trip, the Korean delegation paid a visit to the company’s West Palm Beach facility in Florida, and Pratt & Whitney paid for a rental van to fetch them there. While certainly not the most outrageous form of graft in the industry’s history, causing no violation of US export control or anti-bribery laws, the engine company deemed the move as a breach of their strict ethics laws, amounting to “inappropriate entertainment.”

Africa

• An ex-USAF WC-130H Hercules aircraft has been offered to the government of Niger under the Pentagon’s Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program. Currently collecting dust at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, the plane was offered to Niger in November 2015, but this offer has yet to be accepted. The WC-130H was used in weather reconnaissance and aerial sampling, and has been modified to penetrate hurricanes and typhoons to collect meteorological data that make advanced warnings of such storms possible. In a separate EDA transfer, Washington is sending a C-130 wing set to Niger, although it is unknown if the set would be used on the offered WC-130H, or an older C-130H first delivered in Niger in 1979.

Europe

• Leonardo will develop the replacement for the Italian Army’s A129 gunship, following the awarding of contracts by the Italian National Armaments Directorate of the Italian Defense Ministry. Under the contract, Leonardo will design and produce one prototype of the new exploration and escort helicopter (NEES) as well as three production examples. Rome could buy as many as 48 NEES as part of the replacement program. The company has also consolidated their UK operations under a single entity, Leonardo MW Ltd, comprised of AgustaWestland Ltd, Selex ES Ltd, Finmeccanica UK Ltd, and DRS Technologies UK Ltd.

• The Slovakian government has received a number of offers to buy or lease fighter planes that will replace their aging MiG-29s. Those offered include Saab’s JAS-39 Gripen fighter, currently operated by neighboring Czech Republic. Last December, both governments signed a “Joint Sky” agreement, aimed at collaborating on joint airspace defense, and if Bratislava selects the Gripen, both countries could potentially share maintenance and pilot training.

• EUROSAM has officially welcomed Italy’s participation in the development of their Aster 30 Block 1 NT program. A consortium led by MBDA and Thales, EUROSAM’s B1NT program is an effort supported by the French and Italian defense ministries to develop new technology for the Aster missile in addition to modernizing SAMP/T systems currently in service. Currently used to counter ballistic missile threats, improvements made to the Aster 30 Block 1 NT will allow operators to extend this capability to more complex threats and will also deal with the emerging threat of Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles.

Asia Pacific

• Pakistan is hoping that a Donald Trump presidency may restart a plan to procure F-16 jets through a foreign military financial aid scheme. US Congress downed the plan last year following concerns by some lawmakers over Islamabad’s allegiances in regards to counter-terrorism operations in the region. It was decided that if Pakistan wanted the F-16s, they would have to pay for them out of their own pocket.

Today’s Video

Aster 30 Block 1 NT:

The latest European Defence Matters magazine is now available with a special focus on the European Defence Action Plan (EDAP) presented by the European Commission in November 2016.

NEW: the magazine is from now on available ONLINE in a user-friendly, state of the art responsive lay-out and accessible via all your devices: smartphone, tablet or desktop! Check it out HERE

An eventful and turbulent 2016 has triggered a new ‘momentum’ for European defence cooperation which crystalized into three major defence initiatives: the EU Global Strategy and its security and defence implementation plan, the EU/NATO Joint Declaration and its follow-up as well as the European Defence Action Plan which was adopted by the Commission on 30 November.

The latter topic, the Commission’s European Defence Action Plan (EDAP), is the headline story in this 12th issue of European Defence Matters. Over several pages, we summarise and analyse the main content of the Action Plan and speak to one of its authors, Commission Director General Lowri Evans (DG GROW). The defence industry’s reaction to EDAP is also reflected as are the views of the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the Defence Union, Urmas Paet, who we met for an interview.

Saab CEO Håkan Buskhe, who is our guest for the ‘Industry Talk’, gives insight into his company’s strategy and how he sees the defence industry developing in the coming years.

In another interview, we talk to Lt. General Erhard Bühler who is not only the Head of Directorate General for Planning in the German MoD, but also the chairman of the EDA Steering Board in capability directors composition.

European Defence Matters N°12 also offers you extended articles on two colorful EDA highlights of 2016. First, the European Defence Agency’s Annual Conference which has established itself as ‘must be event’ for the whole EU defence community. Secondly, the 10th EDA Helicopter Training Exercise (‘BLACK BLADE’) which took place in the second half of November in Belgium and mobilized 14 helicopters and 400 staff from 4 Member States.

A final word on the new ONLINE format of European Defence Matters which will make your reading experience even more comfortable:

• in addition to the print version, the online version occasionally offers expanded articles and supplementary pictures

•  articles and pictures can be shared instantly via Twitter, LinkedIn and Email

• the magazine’s ‘Explore’ section allows you to easily access the European Defence Matters archive and revisit articles of previous editions

• by joining us via www.eda.europa.eu/webzine, you will have access to the latest issue and the possibility to navigate through the previous editions by using the ‘Explore’ function.

Enjoy navigating, enjoy reading!

 

More information:

• European Defence Matters 12 (webzine)

 

France-based Airbus Group division Airbus Defence and Space has entered an agreement to divest 49% of its shares in Atlas Elektronik Group to German multinational conglomerate thyssenkrupp.

The US Navy has attained initial operating capability (IOC) for its AN/AES-1 Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS).

Lockheed Martin has secured a development contract to provide advanced electronic warfare surveillance and countermeasure capabilities for the US Navy’s MH-60 helicopter fleet against anti-ship missile (ASM) threats.

Top 10 Military Trucks

American president-elect Donald Trump has said that no more detainees should be transferred out of America’s war on terror detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. He takes office on 20 January 2017, which leaves the Obama administration just a few days to get men cleared for transfer out of Cuba. Among those waiting to see if their cases go through in time are three Afghans, money changer Wali Mohammed, chokidar Abdul Zahir and seller of plastic flowers Bostan Karim. All have been in detention since 2002 and, AAN’s Kate Clark reports, the cases against them were always among the flimsiest.

When Obama came into office in 2009, he vowed to close Guantanamo down. Congress blocked this, stopping him from transferring detainees to the American mainland for trial or incarceration. His only success has been in reducing the population; it should be down from 242 in 2009 to, if all goes to plan, around 40 by 20 January 2017 when he leaves the White House. Anyone remaining after that, it would seem from Trump’s statements on Guantanamo, is likely to be there a very long time. During the election campaign, he praised the detention camp, saying he would like to bring more detainees there. (He also praised waterboarding, although he said it was not “tough enough” and even if it did not work, he would authorise it because “they deserve it anyway for what they do to us.”) Then, on 3 January 2017, Trump tweeted that no more detainees should be transferred; they were “extremely dangerous people,” he said and “should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.”

Prisoners cleared for transfer

In mid-December 2016, there were still 22 detainees who had been cleared for transfer by a body known as the Periodic Review Board – which can also order the continuing detention or military trial of detainees. The New York Times reported that the US government had found countries willing to take 17 or 18 of them:

The effort was part of a burst of urgent, high-level diplomatic talks aimed at moving as many as possible of Guantánamo’s 22 prisoners who are recommended for transfer. By law, the Pentagon must notify Congress 30 days before a transfer, so the deadline to set in motion deals before the end of the Obama administration was Monday [19 December 2016]. By late in the day, officials said, the administration had agreed to tell Congress that it intended to transfer 17 or 18 of the 59 remaining detainees at the prison; they would go to Italy, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Four prisoners were transferred out of the detention facility on 5 January 2017 – all Yemenis bound for Saudi Arabia. The deadline for the others is now approaching fast. Trump’s assessment that these men are extremely dangerous belies the facts, at least for Wali Mohammed, Abdul Zahir, and Bostan Karim. An earlier in-depth investigation by AAN, “Kafka in Cuba: the Afghan Experience in Guantanamo” (which contains sourcing for all the information cited in this dispatch) uncovered just how thin the cases against these three men were. None had been detained on the battlefield. Two had been handed over by Pakistan and the third detained by US forces from his home after a tip-off which proved to be wrong; their case files contain very little, or no evidence of wrongdoing, but rather fantastical allegations, based on hearsay, double hearsay (X said Y said Z was a terrorist), testimony obtained through torture and unverified and unprocessed intelligence reports known as IIRs, some from foreign intelligence services, including the Pakistan’s ISI. Such reports typically bear cautions such as: “WARNING: THIS IS AN INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE.” There are also some gross factual mistakes in the files. It looks likely that Wali Mohammed and Zahir were victims of mistaken identity. Details of their cases and the other two Afghans still in Guantanamo can be found in an annex at the end of this dispatch.

Prisoners due to remain

If the 17 or 18 detainees do manage to get out before 20 January, that will still leave four or five other men also cleared for transfer, including (according to The New York Times article cited earlier) an Algerian, a Moroccan and a Tunisian, whom the administration is “reluctant to repatriate for reasons having to do with their home countries.” The US will not release people without security guarantees and assurances that they will not be tortured; it is not clear what the problem is in these men’s cases. There is also, reported the paper “a stateless Rohingya man whom no country [has] offered a home.”

The Periodic Review Board had recommended that ten of the other remaining detainees should stand trial in military tribunals in Guantanamo. All have been charged and one has already been convicted. The remaining 27 detainees, who include two Afghans, Harun Gul and Muhammad Rahim(1) have been called ‘forever prisoners’. The Periodic Review Board has ordered them to remain in detention without trial; they are considered too dangerous to release, but the US authorities do not have court-worthy evidence against them.

Both Harun and Rahim are accused of being facilitators for al Qaeda and have been detained since 2007. Harun was captured in Afghanistan probably by the National Directorate of Security, the NDS (the US said it did, the NDS said it did not), and Muhammad Rahim in Pakistan by the ISI. Again, neither was detained in battle; their cases are also based on intelligence. There is far less information in the public domain about their cases than the Afghans detained in earlier years. Neither has had the opportunity to publically defend himself, even in the limited ways open to those men detained earlier.

From court documents, Harun Gul looks to have possibly been a low-level Hezb-e Islami commander, in charge of a handful of men in Nangarhar in the post-2001 era, but allegedly also working as a courier for al Qaeda. In June 2016, the Periodic Review Board encouraged him to continue to “work with his family and representatives on his future plans and be forthcoming with the Board in future reviews.” It sounded like a hint that if he was more organised, the Periodic Review Board might assess his case differently and decide that rather than him continuing to be a ‘forever prisoner’, it could recommend his transfer. Harun Gul had another review on 11 January 2017, but the Periodic Review Board will not decide on his case for months, not until long after the new president takes office.

The fifth Afghan still in Guantanamo, Muhammad Rahim also from Nangarhar, was the last person ever to be rendered and tortured by the CIA and brought to Cuba. The US accuses him of having worked with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He is the only Afghan in Guantanamo that has been classed as ‘high value’ by the US authorities. His case is so secret his lawyer has complained he cannot say why he thinks his client is innocent because that would reveal classified information. Although the US has not revealed the evidence against Rahim, the sources of that evidence can be seen in court documents from 2010 and they are the same as in the other cases AAN has investigated: hearsay, double hearsay, testimony obtained under torture and unverified and unprocessed intelligence reports.

Prospects for the five Afghan detainees

There are no prospects, at the moment, of Rahim being cleared for transfer. The Periodic Review Board’s assessment of him was unequivocal: “…his indifference to the impact of his prior actions, and.. his extensive extremist connections provide him a path to re-engagement.”

The Board might change its recommendation for Harun from continuing detention to transfer, but if it does, this will be after Trump takes office. His lawyer, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis of human rights organization Reprieve, is trying to stay optimistic, despite the looming Trump presidency. She told the Associated Press it was still possible Trump would retain some current policies on Guantanamo once his administration had studied them, “At this point, we are all just keeping our fingers crossed for the best outcome.”

As for the three Afghans cleared for transfer, even if they do get out of Guantanamo, the impact of a decade and a half in prison will remain. A secret assessment of Zahir from 2008, published by WikiLeaks, revealed that he had “chronic lower back pain, sciatica,” and had gone through “hunger striking not requiring enteral feeding, and has a history of major depressive episodes.” His lawyer, Shayana Kadidal, described his life as “irretrievably damaged.” Wali Mohammed’s only son was killed in a road accident as he drove from Pakistan to Kabul to try to reclaim his father’s shop in Kabul’s money market. AAN was told by other money changers that a “strongman” had sold the shop and pocketed the proceeds. Most of our clients, Kadidal has said, “leave [Guantanamo] not angry but rather broken and depressed.”

The Guantanamo detention camp is now into its 16th year (it was opened on 11 January 2001) and will soon be into its third American president. Obama inherited it from Bush and, despite his election promises to close down the facility, will soon bequeath it to Trump. Afghans were, by far, the largest national group there, comprising more than a quarter of the 781 men ever held. Among the 220 Afghan detainees were a scattering of Taleban, but also farmers, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, a few children and one Shia Muslim. Three Afghans died in custody. Almost all of the rest were eventually freed. Whether, at the end of this week, two or five Afghans remain in Guantanamo now depends on last minute work by the Obama administration and host countries to complete the transfers.

Annex: The Afghans still in Guantanamo

Haji Wali Mohammed, a 53 years old money changer from Baghlan, has been detained for more than 15 years. He was picked up by the ISI in Pakistan in January 2002, he believes, because a tribal jirga had just ruled he was owed money by a man who was an ISI agent, and handed over to the Americans. According to his own detailed account, he was tortured by Pakistan and then by the Americans in Bagram, Kandahar and Guantanamo. The US accused him of being a financier for al Qaeda, the Taleban and Hezb-e Islami. It has never provided evidence that he was doing anything other than running a legal business; money changers in the Central Money Market have always worked with the Kabul government, including the Taleban’s, to ensure the supply and stability of the currency. Indeed, Wali Mohammed had been something of a failure as a money changer, losing half a million dollars in a shared arbitrage scheme with the Central Bank; he was heavily in debt when detained.

When ruling on his petition for habeas corpus, the judge, despite having allowed the government to present evidence kept secret from Wali Mohammed and his lawyer, dismissed the US government’s assertion that Wali Mohammad had “hobnobbed constantly with U.S. enemies and flew all over Europe at bin Laden’s command.” She found it “not credible” that Wali Mohammed could have acted as al Qaeda’s money manager after he had lost so much of the Central Bank’s money, although she did think he had been financing the Taleban and Hezb-e Islami. At the time of his arrest, Hezb-e Islami was not a party to the conflict, nor was it listed as a terrorist organisation, so this accusation should, anyway, have been irrelevant. Wali Mohammed has had the backing of all the other money changers in the Central Money Market in Kabul; they wrote to the US authorities arguing for his release. This was a significant show of support as they represent all parts of the country and strands of opinion.

Wali Mohammed was cleared for transfer on 26 September 2016. His lawyer, contending he had been a victim of mistaken identity, said he had been “very unlucky – most of all in having an extremely common name.”

44 year old Abdul Zahir was detained from his home in Logar by the US military and CIA after a tip-off that he possessed “weapons of mass destruction” in July 2002. Years later, in 2015, it was revealed the Americans had found only salt, sugar, and petroleum jelly at his home. Nevertheless, he ended up in Guantanamo. He had worked as a choki dar (an unarmed guard or doorman) and translator for an Arab commander with al Qaeda, Abdul-Hadi al-Iraqi, before 2001. Although such employment was not uncommon or particularly controversial in the hard-pressed economic times of the Taleban regime, the US contended he had been ideologically committed and was “a trusted member of al Qaida.”

Zahir was also in a car in 2002 from which a grenade was thrown at western civilians. One, a Canadian journalist, was seriously injured. Zahir was put on military trial at Guantanamo in 2006, on charges of “conspiring to commit war crimes, aid the enemy and attack civilians,” although the prosecutor accepted he had not thrown the grenade. The trial collapsed: already in shambles – the applicable law had not been decided and there was no-one to translate for Zahir – it was finally halted after the Supreme Court ruled that the president lacked the constitutional authority to hold such trials.

In July 2015, the Periodic Review Board recommended he be transferred and made a sort of admission that mistakes had been made. It said he had had a “limited role in Taliban structure and activities,” and had “probably [been] misidentified as the individual who had ties to al-Qaeda weapons facilitation.”

Bostan Karim, a seller of plastic flowers from Khost, was accused of being the leader of an al Qaeda IED cell. He was detained by Pakistani police in 2002 on a bus as he travelled to Miram Shah after another passenger, Wazir, had passed a broken Thuraya satellite telephone to Karim; the police had been taking Wazir off the bus for questioning and he said he gave the phone to Karim because he feared the police would steal it. Both men ended up in Guantanamo, although Wazir was released in 2007. The Pakistanis and Americans later asserted – for reasons which are incomprehensible – that the phone was being used as a detonator for IEDs. They did not explain why a terrorist would be taking a detonator out of Afghanistan. Nor did they say why possession of a satellite phone, then in common use in Khost, was evidence of wrong-doing. The judge in Karim’s petition for habeas also agreed the phone was evidence that Karim was an al Qaeda terrorist.

Karim’s fate came to be bound up with his former business partner, Obaidullah, whose house in Khost had been raided a month earlier by the US military and CIA after a tip-off. Obaidullah was tortured and ‘confessed’ that both he and Karim were in the same al Qaeda IED cell. He was also sent to Guantanamo. There was some other evidence against Obaidullah, although it fell away substantially during his habeas petition and appeals. There was never any evidence at all that Karim was an insurgent. However, the case against each man came to prop the other’s up. The judge in Obaidullah’s habeas petition said that his “long-standing personal and business relationship with at least one al Qaida operative [Karim],” was one reason why he must also have been a member; the judge in Karim’s case quoted his fellow judge who had said that Obaidullah was more likely than not “a member of an al Qaeda bomb cell committed to the destruction of [US] and Allied forces,” as evidence against Karim.

Karim had also been a missionary with Jamat al-Tabligh, an organisation with millions of followers in south Asia which proselytises among Muslims, urging them to lead better lives. It has endured a historical and sometimes violent antipathy from militants, including the Afghan and Pakistani Taleban, who dislike its view that now is the time for preaching (dawa), not war (jihad). US intelligence, however, classes Jamat al-Tabligh as a “terrorist support entity” and Karim’s membership and Obaidullah’s occasional attendance at meetings additional proof of them having been terrorists. Karim told one of his review boards at Guantanamo:

First of all, I am not a member of the Taleban and I’m not a member of al-Qaida. I’m a business man. I have two stores. In one store, I sell plastic flowers. In the other store, I rent furniture and dishes for special occasions. I am a missionary; I go house-to-house, village-to-village, spreading my religion.

Bostan was also ‘accused’ of having an uncle who was a member of Hezb-e Islami in the 1980s. At the time, it was actually America’s favourite faction among the mujahedin whom it then supported in their fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In one of the bizarre mistakes that litter the files of the Afghan detainees in Guantanamo, the file describes Hezb-e Islami in the 1980s as “one of the seven Al Qaida terrorist groups operating in Pakistan.” It was of course one of the seven Afghan, mujahedin groups fighting in Afghanistan. At that time, al Qaeda had yet to be founded.

Karim was cleared for transfer by the Periodic Review Board on 2 June 2016. (Obaidullah was released two months later in August 2016 and sent to the United Arabic Emirates where he is believed to be in a ‘de-radicalisation’ programme and still in some form of detention.)

Harun Gul, a 35 year old from Nangarhar, was detained in Afghanistan in 2007 and accused of being a Hezb-e Islami commander and facilitator for al Qaeda. Of all the Afghans, the least is known about his case. However, one document presented to the court in Muhammad Rahim’s petition for habeas corpus quoted notes from Harun’s interrogation (Harun testified against Rahim, although possibly under torture). The notes said Harun Gul had been in charge of six armed groups in Nangarhar province, each with three to five men, and a total operational budget for each group of 20,000 to 40,000 Pakistani rupees (roughly 200-400 US dollars) every one to three months. This does not read like the “senior commander of Hezb-e-Islami/Gulbuddin” the US claimed to have captured. The US said Harun admitted to serving as a courier for the senior leadership of al Qaeda. However, he has described being tortured, and said his captors in Afghanistan “blindfolded, shackled, and hung him by the arms while they were still cuffed behind his back, stripped and tortured him…. kept [him] alone and naked in a cell without even a bucket as a toilet.” He has said that, during interrogations in Guantanamo, he was “shackled for up to twelve hours without water or food in a position that allowed him to neither fully stand nor sit, preventing any sleep.”

On 14 July 2016, the Periodic Review Board recommended his continuing detention, although also hinting that he might be cleared for transfer if he was more forthcoming.

Muhammad Rahim from Nangarhar is accused of having been a facilitator and translator for Osama bin Laden. He was detained by Pakistan in February 2007 and handed over to the CIA; it appears the ISI said he might know the whereabouts of bin Laden. Rahim was rendered to Afghanistan and tortured. In all, he was subject to eight sessions of sleep deprivation, including three which lasted for more than four days and one, the last, which lasted for almost six (138.5 hours). The interrogation was such a failure that the CIA held an internal enquiry, concluding that the fact they had known nothing about Rahim prior to questioning him had been the problem. Nevertheless, when it transferred him to Guantanamo, the CIA announced to the world that it had captured “a tough, seasoned jihadist” who had “bought chemicals for one attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan,” a man who was “best known in counter-terror circles as a personal facilitator and translator” for bin Laden and who had “helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout for bin Laden in December 2001.”

His case is classified, so it is difficult to assess it, but court documents show he apparently admitted to working with al Qaeda commanders before 2001 and up to their escape from Tora Bora into Pakistan. However, all the serious allegations both before and after 2001 are sourced to unverified and unprocessed intelligence information reports and, to some extent, other detainees’ testimony, including Harun’s.

Like Harun, Rahim has been given no chance to defend himself publically. He has, however, written a series of funny and apparently perceptive letters to his lawyer which have been published. In them, he jokes about the local wildlife in Cuba, discusses pop culture and American television and calls Donald Trump an idiot and, rather than a war hero, a “war zero.”

On 9 September 2016, the Periodic Review Board, 9 September 2016, accepted the US military’s case against him and recommended his continuing, indefinite detention.

 

 

(1) Readers may have noticed two spellings for Mohammad used in this piece. They are as per the original US documents.

A new EDA project aimed at setting a roadmap for future activities designed to transpose the ‘Circular Economy’ concept into the defence sector has been launched this Friday 13 January. During a kick-off meeting held at the EDA premises, the first steps of this ambitious project were discussed with experts from the ‘Circular Economy Research Initiative’ of the Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS) which is the contractor for this project. The project will result in a study scheduled to be finalized by end of October 2017.

The CJBS researchers will be working closely with the EDA project team in order to perform the initial assessment of possible constraints and opportunities that could derive from applying the Circular Economy concept and principles to the defence sector. Both teams will then establish a roadmap for follow-on actions and propose suitable alternatives in areas where problems may arise.

Circular Economy is a new policy domain that was launched by the European Commission in late 2015 with a communication entitled “Closing the loop: Commission adopts ambitious new Circular Economy Package to boost competitiveness, create jobs and generate sustainable growth”. Then, on 30 November 2016, the European Commission adopted the European Defence Action plan which paved the road for the Circular Economy principles to be applied to the defence sector. As Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen wrote in EDA’s European Defence Matters magazine recently, “the transposition of the circular economy principles in the defence sector can benefit the European industry and economy in many ways.”

Indeed, the Circular Economy’s underlying principles are not unfamiliar to the defence sector which has managed to follow a similar path over the years, for instance by applying a through-life management approach. Therefore, it was deemed important that a proactive step be taken in view of assessing the possible alignment or gaps between the flagship initiative of the European Commission and the defence framework. In this respect, the EDA thinks that an assessment of the feasibility of a transposition of the Circular Economy concept into the defence sector could be beneficial. In particular, introducing the Circular Economy principles at an early stage of the research and technology (R&T) phase could produce more systematic and structural benefits. A positive outcome from project study could be highly beneficial for the Member States. The benefits for the defence industry (of which a large part are small and medium enterprises) will be also be explored.

The EDA expects that this initial assessment will shed some light on the potential benefits and challenges of applying the Circular Economy package to the defence sector. Moreover, it should allow to identify topics, opportunities and areas that require further assessment and analysis. These topics will be dealt with in the follow-on actions that EDA will take for establishing the work strand in the area of Circular Economy in defence and enable a smooth and beneficial transition.

The project team of the Circular Economy Research Initiative of the University of Cambridge Judge Business school consists of Dr Khaled Soufani, Dr Mark Esposito and Dr Tse Terence. The EDA project team is composed by Dr Panagiotis Kikiras, Mr Giorgos Dimitriou and Ms Patricia López Vicente.

American M16A4 Assault Rifle

China and Russia have agreed to adopt "further countermeasures" in response to Washington and Seoul's plans to deploy the US Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea, officials from both countries were quoted by China's state-owned Xinhua news agency as

Key Points The German chancellor has urged Europe to take responsibility for its own defence and security The United States may not always be there to protect Europe, she warned Europe must boost its own security because there is "no guarantee" the US will be there forever to protect

India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully test-fired the guided version of the Pinaka Mk II rocket from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The 214 mm calibre rocket was tested on 12 January to a range of 65 km, according

Ammunition specialist Nammo, owned jointly by the Norwegian government and Finland's Patria, has completed its acquisition of US hunting and tactical bullet supplier Berger Bullets, following the approval of US authorities. Berger Bullets, based in California, now forms part of Nammo's Commercial

Amid a growing scandal in the United States over Russian attempts to interfere in the 8 November presidential election, Moscow has denied the existence of both its 'cyber corps' or the assertion that any Russian government entity engages in attacks on foreign computer systems. Statements to this