Defence`s Feeds

On May 25, Georgia's State Security Service (SUS), the internal intelligence service, members of the country's National Security Council, headed

During her current trip to the French capital, it is understood Sonia Backès, the president of the Provincial Assembly of

President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on 1 June outlining the new priorities the FSB will be given in Russia's

With the traditional summer shakeup looming, a number of changes are planned in the French special forces which are an

From Hakluyt's 2020 financial statements published at the end of May, it appears the company opened a new subsidiary in

Americas

Boeing won a $39.7 million contract modification for new-build AH-64E aircraft. The AH-64 Apache is a twin-engine, four bladed, multi-mission attack helicopter designed as a highly stable aerial weapons-delivery platform. The helicopter is designed as a weapons delivery platform and is equipped with: a M230E1, 30mm automatic gun, aerial rockets system, and point target weapons system. Work will take place in Mesa, Arizona. Estimated completion date is October 31, 2025.

A US Air Force probe into its recent contract award to Boeing for Japan’s KC-46 tankers spare parts has raised concerns about unfair pricing. Service officials reportedly confirmed to Defense News the Air Force’s recent $88 million contract award to Boeing for the spare parts included about $10 million in costs they could not determine to be fair or reasonable.

Middle East & Africa

The Lebanese Navy is set to receive new offshore patrol vessels from the United States and France, Defense News reported. 4 of the 7 vessels will be provided with help from France, while the remaining three Protector-class offshore patrol vehicles (OPVs) will come from the US.

Europe

Swiss newspaper Le Matin says the Dassault Rafale fighter is leading the competition to become the next fighter for Switzerland. The news report says a decision could now be announced on June 23. Le Matin says there are signs that the Swiss government has decided on the Rafale. For example, the head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport, Viola Amherd, had cited the Rafale as an example of how the Swiss military could achieve its strategic objectives.

Saab announced that it would be working with Finnish firm Varjo to integrate the company’s Human eye resolution mixed reality (XR) technology into all simulators for the Saab Gripen E/F aircraft. Saab’s Head of Tactical Environment Simulation and Visualisation Stefan Furenbäck said in a statement, “We are finalising the basic functionalities in our own simulator so that we can use Varjo’s XR-3 headsets in all our flight simulators. We’ve previously carried out smaller, independent prototype-like projects but now we’re integrating them into our actual flight simulators.”

Asia-Pacific

Samsung Heavy Industries Co. said that it teamed up with Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to develop carbon-free nuclear-powered ships. The project will be based on the so-called molten salt reactor technologies. A molten salt reactor is a kind of small module reactor that utilizes molten fluoride salts as the primary coolant at low pressure. It has been emerging as a carbon-zero nuclear energy source, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.

Today’s Video

Watch: Is the Boeing AH-64 Apache The Ultimate Weapon?| The Ultimates: Combat Helicopters | Spark

While the European Union has developed a number of policy commitments and instruments to deal with the nexus between climate change and security, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has lagged behind. This study discusses the security implications of climate change in the EU Neighbourhood and makes recommendations concerning how the CSDP might integrate climate factors into its mission and deliverables. The CSDP will need to adopt a place-specific approach that foregrounds the distinctive social, political and economic dynamics through which climate factors makes themselves felt in different partner countries. The analysis looks in particular depth at the Sahel and the Horn of Africa as two regions where CSDP missions already operate or are likely to operate in the future. Countries in these regions are highly vulnerable to the interaction between a degraded environment and climate change impacts, raising the prospects of humanitarian crises due to food insecurity and internal instability due to competition for resources. These problems compound the EU’s prominent security concerns of terrorism and migration. The EU can move to climate-proof the CSDP through better conflict intelligence and foresight, carefully adapted and adequately resourced mandates, climate-change proofing investments in equipment and infrastructure, and better links to local social and institutional dynamics. The European Parliament should deploy its considerable political capital to support such initiatives, through resolutions, engagement with the UN and other inter-parliamentary fora, and efforts to garner political commitment from the Member States.
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Last week, experts from 18 EDA Member States participated in an online workshop organised by the Agency to identify and discuss emerging propulsion technologies for the air and space defence domain.

The Technology Foresight Workshop on Propulsion for Air and Space, conducted from 1 to 3 June, is part of a wider ongoing series of EDA technology foresight workshops which aim at assessing emerging technologies with respect to their likely impact on future defence capabilities.

Supported by Ingeniería de Sistemas para la Defensa de Espana (ISDEFE), the workshop brought together about 50 European subject matter experts in order to focus on emerging propulsion-related technologies for the military air and space domain. It involved members from several EDA Capability & Technology Areas (CapTechs) and Working Groups (WGs), including CapTech Aerial Systems, the Ad-Hoc WG Space, CapTech Missiles and Munitions and CapTech Materials and Structures. The opening part of the event consisted in a plenary session during which the invited keynote speakers introduced the topic and set the scene, followed by separated working sessions during which three expert groups were established at virtual tables. Table discussions defined the landscape of propulsion technologies relevant for future air and space defence, assessed their impact on future military applications and related operational challenges. Beyond that, experts highlighted technological gaps and obstacles and pointed out research needs on the short, medium and long term with respect to military air and space propulsion. The workshop was wrapped up with another plenary session in which summarised results of the table sessions were presented and experts debated possible follow-on and implementation activities.
EDA analysis The workshop results will be further analysed by EDA in the following weeks with the objective to provide participating Member States an overview and assessment of upcoming propulsion-related needs and implications for future military air and space applications. The analysis will also yield recommendations on potential EU research goals and synergies in the air and space domains and help to address critical gaps within current EU air and space propulsion research portfolio.
Background

EDA’s Technology Foresight Workshops aim to provide input to the EDA process of technology evaluation, including the identification and classification of technology trends and emerging technologies as well as the prioritisation of important technologies with respect to medium- and long-term capability needs. The outcome of the workshops is used as background information for relevant defence technologies and will be integrated in EDA Strategic Research Agendas (SRAs) and their Technology Building Block (TBB) roadmaps, as well as the Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) toolchain, the analyses of Key Strategic Activities (KSA) and in the Strategic Context Cases (SCC) of the 2018 Capability Development Plan (CDP).

More information: 

• EDA CapTechs

 

A London High Court ruling on 25 May in the case between Russia's Vneshprombank and its former shareholder Georgi Bedzhamov (IO, 04/06/21), highlights relations between the Russian oligarch and businessman Maxim Golodnitsky, who is a third party in the case,

Australia has been increasing spending on its cyber-intelligence capacities and has a range of locally-grown vulnerability researchers, the likes of

At a time when Serbia is trying to strengthen its cyber capacities - a Cybersecurity Intelligence Center will open in

The young JV AITC-Five Domains has hit the ground running since it won a highly strategic foreign military sales contract

As he prepares to return to defend victims of Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings before a court in London, lawyer

Huawei has hired two new Ottawa lobbyists from Impact Public Affairs as it looks to quell growing concerns about Chinese

The Ukrainian parliament's second reading of a bill to reform the internal intelligence service, the SBU, has been the subject

A London High Court ruling on 25 May in the case between Russia's Vneshprombank and its former shareholder Georgi Bedzhamov (IO, 04/06/21), highlights relations between the Russian oligarch and businessman Maxim Golodnitsky, who is a third party in the case,

Australia has been increasing spending on its cyber-intelligence capacities and has a range of locally-grown vulnerability researchers, the likes of

At a time when Serbia is trying to strengthen its cyber capacities - a Cybersecurity Intelligence Center will open in

The young JV AITC-Five Domains has hit the ground running since it won a highly strategic foreign military sales contract

As he prepares to return to defend victims of Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings before a court in London, lawyer