Defence`s Feeds

French Navy and Air Force special forces, who operate for special forces command COS (Commandement des Opérations Spéciales) and military

Japan named China as one of the country's biggest cyber threats in its new cybersecurity strategy, published on 8 July.

A job advertisement for an engineer in cyber warfare systems development, which was placed last week by the technical directorate

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS) published ex-consultant Brock Bierman's first article on 30 June on the

This study on ‘EU preparedness and responses to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) threats’ was requested by the European Parliament’s (EP) Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) in the context of, but not limited to, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Building on reports and expert input, this study first provides an update of the current level of each of the C, B, R and N threat elements, including the type of actor from which such threats might stem. It furthermore takes stock of the existing preparedness and response mechanisms and matches these against the updated threat landscape to determine the current state of play of the EU’s response tools and its remaining gaps where improvement may be needed. The study puts forward a number of recommendations on specific issues. The core of the recommendations builds on using a ‘Team Europe’ approach to create and maintain a strong task force based response capacity, with additional authority and competence given by EU Member States to the EU. This would enable the EU to better support and manage an EU-wide crisis response in the CBRN field in a timely and effective manner.
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Security Testing for iOS and Android

The Military and Your Money: How to Financially Thrive While in the Service

The Military and Your Money: How to Financially Thrive While in the Service

 EDA’s so-called ‘J1 Functional Area Service’ (J1FAS), a specialist software tool aimed at facilitating and supporting the management of human resources (HR) in national and international military missions, has recently been deployed to two additional EU CSDP operations:  the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operation IRINI (EUNAVFOR MED IRINI) which aims to enforce the United Nations arms embargo to Libya, and counter-piracy military operation ATALANTA at sea off the Horn of Africa.  

Over the last two weeks, EDA staff and contractors were present at the Operational Headquarters (OHQ) of both operations (Rome/Italy for IRINI and Rota/Spain for ATALANTA) to install the newly developed and certified software, deliver workshops and train the operations’ HR staff.  Previous, less developed versions had already been deployed before in other OHQ, including the Greek-led EUFOR RCA OHQ in Larissa in 2014, the Italian OHQ in Rome for EUNAVFOR MED operation SOPHIA in 2016 as well as several other exercises. To date, some 3,000 staff have been in and out-processed via J1FAS (about 50% in operations and 50% in exercises).  

J1FAS is a digital staff management tool developed at EDA with support from EU Military Staff (EUMS) and EU OHQs. It is a highly customised application that allows CSDP missions and operations (which traditionally have to deal with high staff turnover), but also exercises, to manage personnel data in a paperless and transparent yet secured way.  

The very first prototype was implemented by the EDA IT department and then extended by a contractor in 2011 to encompass a workflow management system which was then deployed to EUFOR RCA OHQ in Larissa in 2014. A second, slightly upgraded version followed in 2015 to be installed at Operation SOPHIA until December 2019. The latest and most powerful version of J1FAS, version 3, was only finalised and certified in the first half of 2021 and has now been deployed to Operation IRINI and Operation ATALANTA (July 2021). The software covers all three HR-management phases of a mission or operation, i.e. staff pre-processing, in-processing and out-processing. This is crucial as HR management is an essential - albeit not very publicised - aspect of operations, missions and exercises which need to be able to quickly and safely acquire, integrate, train and administer new staff if circumstances require it. 

© Operation IRINI Main functionalities and benefits of J1FAS 

More precisely, the latest version of the tool now deployed to operations IRINI and ATALANTA allows for:  

• pre-processing, in-processing and out-processing of augmentees 
• securely storing and processing personal data  
• creating workflows for operations/missions individual processes creating roles to work on a need-to-know basis  
• tracking information such as training records for compliance  
• monitoring data changes for audit trails
• facilitating data verification and standardisation   
• uploading of data prior to physical presence of an augmentee  
• mirroring the organigramme/chart  
• role mapping tailored to operations/missions requirements  
• vacancy management
• management of security passes. 

The benefits for the operation commanders are obvious: the system uses an open source software which does not require the payment of licence fees (meaning usage is free of charge as it is an EDA project),  mitigation of human errors, streamlined transparent processes, improved sustainability of data records, easy accessibility of data by authorised staff, more accurate analytics and statistics, etc.. 

Way ahead 

The J1FAS service is available to all CSDP missions and operations. EDA is looking forward to deploying the software to more missions or operations to help Member States foster digital harmonised remote pre-processing, in-processing and out-processing of personnel. 

According to our sources, the Canadian airborne Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) company PAL Aerospace has qualified to supply long distance air surveillance to the European border protection agency Frontex. PAL is partnered on the contract with the Dutch plane

Thanks to its new partnership with cyber governance and risk management firm Commugen, cyber consulting company Toka has retained its

A $50m contract signed with the Sri Lankan defence ministry in early July by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) marked the return

Satellogic's merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) CF Acquisition Corp V, announced on 6 July, will allow the Uruguayan-Argentinian

An appropriations bill for US operations abroad, introduced by Democratic representative Barbara Lee on 6 July, underscores Washington's growing concern

SVR chief Sergey Naryshkin made a timely two-day visit to Belgrade earlier this month, a few weeks after a Russian

The son - as discovered by Intelligence Online - of Lebanese magnate Fadi Nasser, who heads the Beirut-based Nasco Polymer,

According to our sources, the Canadian airborne Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) company PAL Aerospace has qualified to supply long distance air surveillance to the European border protection agency Frontex. PAL is partnered on the contract with the Dutch plane

Thanks to its new partnership with cyber governance and risk management firm Commugen, cyber consulting company Toka has retained its

A $50m contract signed with the Sri Lankan defence ministry in early July by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) marked the return

Satellogic's merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) CF Acquisition Corp V, announced on 6 July, will allow the Uruguayan-Argentinian