Defence`s Feeds

ItAF aircrews with the 62nd FS were literally enthusiastic about their first Red Flag with the new 5th generation aircraft. Red Flag 19-2 has come to an end at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, on [...]

North Korean Unidentified Main Battle Tank

EDA’s ‘OMBT-Leo2’ project, launched in spring 2017 with the ambition to optimise existing Main Battle Tank (MBT) capabilities in Europe (with an initial focus on the Leopard 2A4), will enter a new phase in the coming days with the publication of a call to European industry to participate in a Preliminary Market Consultation (PMC) and offer possible market solutions. 

The purpose of the PMC is to gather accurate information regarding possible commercial solutions for upgrading Leopard 2A4s up to the 2A7 or equivalent version, in-line with existing technical standards and requirements. Participants are asked to respond to the PMC with proposed solutions that are sufficiently detailed and include a realistic price range and possible timelines. 

The objective is to reach out to the full European defence industry spectrum and ensure the collection of comprehensive and accurate cost data.  To this purpose, the PMC will be disseminated via the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and EU National Defence Industry Associations (NDIAs). Industry will have to submit their responses to the PMC until 18 July 2019. Only responses covering full system-level solutions will be taken into further consideration.

EDA encourages the establishment of European multinational cross-border industrial partnerships as the preferred mechanism to exploit this opportunity. The Agency also considers this programme as a suitable vehicle for enhanced access for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) to the cross-border supply chain.

The PMC follows EDA’s Request of Information (RFI) in 2017 through which a first contact was established with industry on this concrete programme
 

Business-to-business workshop

In order to support the PMC, EDA will organise a business-to-business (B2B) workshop at its premises in Brussels around mid-May. Further details on this workshop, including participation criteria and related requirements, will be communicated by EDA to industry in due time.

The aim of the B2B workshop is to promote cross-border cooperation within the EU and enhance mid-caps/small and medium enterprises’ access to defence contracts in general, and to the future OMBT-Leo2 programme (contractual) implementation in particular, by facilitating initial contacts between industrial stakeholders with relevant expertise (at full-system and / or subsystem level), in this field. Specific criteria for participation of interested industries will be part of the communication and each request will be assessed by contributing Member States experts and EDA, on a case-by-case basis.
 

Way ahead

The information gathered through the PMC will be assessed by EDA and governmental subject matter experts. The results of the assessment will further support contributing Member States in their national decision, and EDA in the awarding process of possible future contracts.
 

Background

In spring 2017, EDA launched the ‘OMBT-Leo2’ project, a new Pooling & Sharing initiative which aims at optimizing existing Main Battle Tank (MBT) capabilities in Europe with an initial focus on the Leopard 2A4. The concept foresees the offer of surplus Leopard platforms available in certain Member States (the ‘providers’) and transfer them (lease, rent or sell) together with an upgrading package to one or several other Member States (the ‘receivers’) interested in acquiring and introducing in-service this type of capability. The Pooling & Sharing of training, exercises and maintenance between providers and receivers, using already existing facilities, is also part of the concept. Upgrade of legacy MBTs to the latest technical standards would have a positive impact for European defence industry in the area of land systems. It would also contribute to the maintenance of technological excellence of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB). Additionally, regarding economies of scale, Member States owning and operating for national purposes the same type of MBTs, can opt-in for upgrading their in-service fleet.
 

More information : 

• EDA seeks European defence industry’s input on Main Battle Tank optimization (EDA news, September 2017)
  
  

AH-1Z Viper Was Participating in USMC Weapons and Tactics Instructor’s Course. Two U.S. Marines, Maj. Matthew M. Wiegand, 34, of Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Capt. Travis W. Brannon, 30, of Nashville, Tennessee, have been identified as [...]

Secret Two-Seat Variant Uses Additional Crewmember to Counter Anti-F-35 Social Media Posts. Israel has unveiled their previously classified F-35F Nebekh Joint Social Media Fighter (JSMF). The new rear seat position in the two-seat F-35F Nebekh [...]

EDA held a workshop in Athens recently to conclude the first phase of the Smart Blue Water Camps (SBWC) research project. 

Water infrastructure is facing pressures due to climatic changes and sometimes a lack of investment. At the same time, military installations can be insufficiently acknowledged in both distributed water management and pollution control despite their ubiquitous presence.

Against this backdrop, EDA’s SBWC research project was launched in 2017 with the Hellenic MOD as lead nation to investigate how to improve water management in military camps from sustainability, hydro-informatics, and technological perspectives. During 2017 and 2018 at sites from each of the six participating Member States involved (Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain), the National Technical University of Athens collated water supply, distribution and consumption data, and made technical assessments. Bespoke recommendations were made for each of the military sites from across these different European geographic and climatic regions based on:

• detailed modelling of water and wastewater cycle of each camp using an Urban Water Cycle Optioneering Tool (UWOT)  
• assessments of alternative scenarios regarding interventions for each camp 
• consideration of social, economic, environmental and technological context factors such as population, monitoring and automation of water transmission and storage systems, budget availability, regional water quantity and quality, climate change, and the feasibility of using information and communications technology (ICT)
• development of Key Performance Indicator protocols, including economic, operational and social impacts 
• economic assessments of interventions for each camp based on modelling results.

Recommended interventions varied in scale and complexity and ranged from those of a more straightforward nature, such as the installation of grey water recycling and water harvesting systems, to more technologically sophisticated measures, such as the application of ground penetrating radar to support leak detection and control  or the use of a grid of smart sensors to enable real-time monitoring and management of water supply systems.

It was found that leakage was responsible for considerable water losses with mitigation measures costing around 40% of the annual cost of water lost to leakage in one case, thereby providing a significant return on investment.

Rainwater harvesting in another case could provide nearly two thirds of the supply required for vehicle washing. Installation of smart water grid systems would integrate ICT into the management of the water distribution systems to optimize operation of the water supply network.

The conclusions of the final report were presented and the way ahead, such as implementation of nationally based recommendations as well as potential further steps, were discussed at the workshop chaired by Richard Brewin, EDA Project Officer Energy and Environment Systems.

 

Today, we publish an important work, a bibliography of Afghanistan. It is intended to be an up-to-date resource for studying and researching contemporary Afghanistan, particularly the post-1979 period. The author, Christian Bleuer, began compiling this bibliography in 2004/05 when, as a graduate student, he became increasingly frustrated with trying to find sources. Initially, it was just for his own benefit. Later, he published the bibliography as a free online resource for other scholars, updating it regularly until 2012 when he became too busy. The bibliography published today represents a seven-year update, which AAN is proud to publish. Here, we give a brief outline of what the bibliography covers and we also hear from Christian Bleuer* about the work of a bibliographer, his favourite research and how funding has lead to overstudy of certain topics (eg governance, aid) and understudy of others (eg particular ethnic groups). 

To download the bibliography, click here.

Spanning almost 300 pages, this bibliography covers a vast range of topics – from ethnic groups, through Islam, war, regional relations, the security sector, development, peace-building, governance, opium, women, human rights, migration, education and economics, to natural resources. (Actually, there are even more, too many to list here). Most of the sources are in English and date from the late 1970s onwards, with earlier publications on ethnic groups and, to a lesser extent, Islam also cited. The bibliography may be updated in the future, so if you would like to suggest fresh sources, preferably from an academic journal or well-established research institute, please check the appendix of the bibliography on how to contact us.

Compiling such a bibliography is a major work. We asked Christian Bleuer how and why it had come about. 

(1) Why publish a bibliography on Afghanistan?

All the Afghanistan bibliographies that have been published as books are out of date. They are also of very little use for those who research Afghanistan post-2001. In addition, they are usually only found in university libraries and, even if you can find a copy to purchase, they are very expensive. In particular, a hard copy sitting in a western library is of no use to someone in Afghanistan who wants to start their research (on the English sources). There was a clear need for a contemporary Afghanistan bibliography that was freely available to download.

(2) What are the topics that are most researched on Afghanistan?

These are all connected to aid, development and state-building, as that is where the money in Afghanistan is being spent, so interest and funding has followed suit. There is a significant amount of military research as well, but the bulk of the most interesting military research is generally not publically available. I expect that the aid, development and state-building publications will soon collapse in terms of both quality and quantity, given that funding and access to fieldwork opportunities continue to disappear. Sadly, I expect that, soon, refugee and migration studies will predominate.

(3) Are there topics that you were surprised there were no or little research on?

There is a massive failure to research the drivers of conflict – an all-important topic. The publications on this subject are few and far between, and most have poor methodology (borne mostly out of fieldwork difficulties and lack of funding). Islam in Afghanistan is also another neglected research area. When compared to research on Islam done in other parts of the world in the last two decades, the shortcomings are glaringly obvious. Given the importance of Islam to Afghan politics, culture, security and even economics, it is astonishing.

A specific and narrow example of understudy, as I have outlined in a previous AAN dispatch, is the gross neglect of Afghanistan’s Tajik and Uzbek communities. I was personally stymied in my attempts, from 2005 through to 2013, to do fieldwork on the Uzbeks of northern Afghanistan by difficulties getting permission to travel and a lack of funding. There are many areas of research in Afghanistan that have yet to be explored; I wouldn’t be surprised if this is because other researchers have faced similar problems in their chosen fields. I have now given up and switched from having my research proposals on Uzbeks being rejected… to my proposals on Russia’s Afghanistan policies being rejected. Both topics are understudied and important. I believe there is a desire from scholars to research some of these understudied topics, but access, support and funding are not easy to secure.

(4) What are your favourite publications and why?

Over the last few years, four books stand out (from the perspective of one of my main research interests, namely state-society relations). The first two are broad analyses on a single research theme that will be useful references for decades to come:

The Hazaras and the Afghan State: Rebellion, Exclusion and the Struggle for Recognition by Niamatullah Ibrahimi (Oxford University Press, 2017) and;

A State Built on Sand: How Opium Undermined Afghanistan by David Mansfield (Oxford University Press, 2016).

The other two concern state-building (and its limits and failures in Afghanistan) and are great antidotes to the belief by some that academia has nothing to offer to policy makers and international organisations:

Aid Paradoxes in Afghanistan: Building and Undermining the State by Nematullah Bizhan (Routledge, 2017) and;

Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan by Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

As for favourite articles, five come to mind. The first three concern the Taleban, namely how they have been successful on the battlefield, how they are building a system of governance inside Afghanistan, and the exact characteristics of their relationship with Pakistan:

Ashley Jackson. 2018. ‘Life under the Taliban shadow government’, Overseas Development Institute.

Theo Farrell. 2018. ‘Unbeatable: Social Resources, Military Adaptation, and the Afghan Taliban’, Texas National Security Review.

Safi Khalilullah. 2018. ‘The Afghan Taliban’s Relationship with Pakistan’, Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination.

My last two favourite articles are relatively narrow case studies that I have found especially useful. Both deal with problems of economic predation that will likely continue to fuel conflict and competition in Afghanistan well into the future:

Global Witness. 2016. ‘War in the Treasury of the People: Afghanistan, Lapis Lazuli and the Battle for Mineral Wealth’, Global Witness, and; Huma Saeed and Stephan Parmentier. 2017. ‘When Rabbits Are in Charge of Carrots: Land Grabbing, Transitional Justice and Economic-State Crime in Afghanistan’, State Crime Journal.

(5) Having compiled and updated bibliographies over many years and given the huge amount of research on Afghanistan and Central Asia, what are your best tips for carrying out good desk studies on the region? 

A researcher, both the local and the outsider, needs to accept that there is no single source, index, database or reference tool that they can rely on. There are many, many sources that need to be consulted, from bibliographies to publication databases to library collections to individual experts. There is no easy shortcut. Student favourites such as the Google Scholar and JSTOR indexes combined cover probably less than 20 per cent of sources for any given research topic. Also, if you are a foreigner you should learn the local languages or find a skilled local research partner. Or ideally, you should do both. I’m a big proponent of collaborative research (not just hiring a local research assistant).

(6) This is not your first bibliography. You started compiling it for your own website, the Afghanistan Analyst. Can you tell us how this became an AAN bibliography?

In about 2004 and 2005, I became increasingly frustrated with researching Afghanistan while at university. When I was writing an essay on the ethnic Uzbeks of Afghanistan, I was lucky enough to be able to show up to Professor Nazif Shahrani’s office hours at Indiana University and ask him for recommendations. But on other topics, I had to do my own literature search. And it was slow and frustrating. So I decided that, as I planned to continue pursuing the study of Afghanistan, I should just create a bibliography for my own reference. And then in 2006, when I created a now-comatose online research resource for Afghanistan, I uploaded my bibliography for others to use. I then regularly updated the bibliography with new versions until 2012 when I became too busy to continually update the document. So this bibliography, with a new home at AAN and support from them, is an update seven years in the making.

Christian Bleuer is a 2012 PhD graduate of The Australian National University’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) and a 2007 MA graduate of Indiana University’s Central Eurasian Studies Department. From 2011-2015 he worked in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan as a researcher and consultant for various organisations. From 2015-2016 he was a Research Fellow at the Australian National University, focusing on regional security dynamics. In 2016 he returned to Central Asia as a field researcher. Most recently he worked as a lecturer on international security at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. His publications can be found here.

Since 2016, the European Union has developed a number of new initiatives on security and defence. In particular, the introduction of Permanent Structured Cooperation and the European Defence Fund have been designed to allow the EU to become a more autonomous actor with regard to crisis management, capacity building and protecting Europe and its citizens. Yet the development of these new initiatives raises questions about their overall coherence and the role of parliamentary scrutiny. It is necessary to analyse the role of the European Parliament and national parliaments in relation to the scrutiny of the European Defence Fund. There is a need for recommendations on how parliamentary scrutiny can be enhanced at the EU level in the area of security and defence.
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Amazing Shot by Photographer Liyu Wu Shows Unbelievable Pass (And Telephoto Compression). Ace aviation photographer Mr. Liyu Wu shot this remarkable photo of no less than three Airbus Defense A400M Atlas aircraft and three (or [...]

SEDE is organizing a public hearing on 'Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny on EU Defence Affairs' on Tuesday 2nd April, from 14.30 to 16.00, with external experts
Further information
Programme
Poster
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

SEDE is organizing a public hearing on 'Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny on EU Defence Affairs' on Tuesday 2nd April, from 14.30 to 16.00, with external experts
Location : Altiero Spinelli Room 3E-2
Further information
Programme
Poster
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

The European defence research community today discussed present and future opportunities as well as challenges at the “Capability-Driven Defence Research and Innovation” conference in Bucharest. Benjamin Les, Minister of National Defence of Romania, Ioan Mircea Pascu, Vice-President of the European Parliament and Jorge Domecq, Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency opened the conference.

More than 500 high-level representatives from Ministries of Defence, defence research institutes, industry, academia and the European institutions attended the conference organised under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Romanian Ministry of National Defence and the European Defence Agency (EDA). 

The event showcased new prioritisation instruments for defence research, technology and innovation, highlighted potential synergies to be achieved on research priorities at national and European level and provided an update on the latest developments on the European Defence Fund. Moreover, the conference provided participants insights and lessons learned from some of the most successful R&T collaborative research projects which have been implemented under the framework of EDA.

Benjamin Les, Minister of Defence of Romania inaugurated the conference. “Today's event represents an excellent opportunity for all participants to analyse the various existing defense research instruments, the EDF and its impact on capability-based defense research and innovation. Such collaborative initiatives are meant to fuel future projects between EU Member States in the field of defense research”, he stated. 

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq underlined, “A new era for European defence research is on the way. In this rapidly evolving technological context, a coherent approach among Member States will be more crucial than ever. Investment in research and especially in collaborative research is a must to be able to deliver the defence capabilities for the future.”

 During the first part of the day, high-level guests including Andrei Ignat, State Secretary and Chief of the Department of Armaments from Romania and Gabriele Fioni, Director for International Cooperation and Deputy Director of CEA-Tech representing EARTO as well as Christian Munzinger, R&T Director from Airbus Defence and Space discussed with Denis Roger, EDA Director of Research Technology and Innovation prioritisation instruments for defence research, technology and innovation. They highlighted potential synergies to be achieved on research priorities at national and European level as well as the link with existing and new funding instruments. 

The research dimension is an integral part of the process of building a coherent capability landscape based on longer-term technological development. OSRA, the Overarching Research Agenda, validated by the Member States in January, is the instrument to harmonise views of relevant European defence research priorities and identify potential funding instruments. OSRA is therefore a key prioritisation instrument and has been acknowledged by its inclusion in the draft regulation of the European Defence Fund. It is all the more important as the research priorities must serve to mature technologies required to develop capabilities which respond to Member States armed forces’ needs. 

Sylvain Kainz-Huber, Head of Unit, European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Ralf Schnurr, R&T Director, Federal Ministry of Defence of Germany, and Christian Bréant, Director Advanced Studies, THALES and Dirk Tielbuerger, EDA Deputy Director and Head of EU-funded Defence Research Unit exchanged views on the impact of the European Defence Fund on future defence capability, research and innovation prospects.

In the afternoon, Guillermo Gonzalez Muñoz de Morales from ISDEFE, the largest Spanish defence engineering company, Panagiotis Kikiras, EDA Head of Technology and Innovation Unit and Shahzad Ali, EDA Capability Technologies Moderator discussed collaborative EDA R&T defence research projects. Since 2004, EDA has managed more than 180 R&T projects worth around 1 billion Euros.
 

More information

• EDA conference page
• Romanian EU Presidency website
• OSRA (EDA factsheet)