Defence`s Feeds

South Korean Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicle

I recently participated in the RUSI Global Security Briefing podcast hosted by Neil Melvin, Director of RUSI International Security Studies. Together with Neil and Maryna Vorotnyuk, we discussed how security relations have shifted around the Black Sea following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent build-up of regional military forces, including the significance of the recent confrontation between the UK warship HMS Defender and Russia’s armed forces in waters off Crimea.

Here’s the full show description:

Episode 7: Regional Security in the Black Sea

In this episode, the panel discuss the fast-evolving security environment in the Black Sea region, including the significance of the recent confrontation between the UK warship HMS Defender and Russia’s armed forces in waters off Crimea.

Dr Dmitry Gorenburg, Senior Research Scientist at CNA in the US, and Dr Maryna Vorotnyuk, RUSI Research Fellow, discuss how security relations have shifted around the Black Sea following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent build-up of regional military forces with host Dr Neil Melvin, Director RUSI International Security Studies.

EDA Chief Executive Jiří Šedivý was in Greece this week (12-14 July) for high-level talks with the Minister of National Defence, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, the Chief of National Defence, General Konstantinos Floros, the National Armaments Director, Aristeidis Alexopoulos and several senior representatives of the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs. He also attended the Greek defence exhibition DEFEA and participated in an industry workshop co-organised by the Agency and the Greek Ministry of Defence. 

The ongoing work on the EU’s Strategic Compass, the implementation of the recommendations made in the first Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), the state of play of the various PESCO projects with Greek involvement (the country participates in 16 PESCO projects, one of the highest numbers among participating Member States, and coordinates five of them), EDA’s role as the European hub for collaborative capability development and driver of defence innovation, Greece’s involvement in EDA projects and programmes as well as EU-NATO cooperation were among the main topics discussed. 

“I am delighted to have this opportunity to visit Greece as it is an important stakeholder and active contributor to EDA’s projects and programmes. With Minister Panagiotopoulos, I expressed my gratitude for Greece’s particularly active role in PESCO as well as its valuable contributions to the Agency’s activities, especially in areas such as maritime surveillance (MARSUR project), research and development (R&D) or the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS). In these challenging times, I particularly welcome the strong support from Greece to EDA and European defence cooperation”, Mr Šedivý commented.

Industry workshop, ministerial round-table

On Tuesday, the Chief Executive attended the opening ceremony of the Defence Exhibition Athens (DEFEA, from 13-15 July) where international companies present land, naval, aerospace, national and cyber security defence systems. 

In the margins of the exhibition, Mr Šedivý participated in an industry workshop co-organised by EDA and the Greek Ministry of Defence where he spoke about EDA’s support to innovative capability development.

Also in the margins of the DEFEA exhibition, the EDA Chief Executive furthermore moderated a ministerial round-table focused on the state of implementation of the EU defence initiatives - CARD, PESCO, EDF - in which participated four acting Defence Ministers: Greece’s Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, Cyprus’ Charalambos Petrides, Portugal’s João Gomes Cravinho and Slovenia’s Matej Tonin.

 

Turkish intelligence service MIT and its head Hakan Fidan are continuing to track supposed supporters of Imam Fethullah Gülen (IO, 24/05/21), both in Turkey, where they have been accused of fomenting the July 2016 coup attempt, but also in the world at large.

Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded a contract some weeks ago to SRC UK, the British branch of US defense

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

Turkish intelligence service MIT and its head Hakan Fidan are continuing to track supposed supporters of Imam Fethullah Gülen (IO, 24/05/21), both in Turkey, where they have been accused of fomenting the July 2016 coup attempt, but also in the world at large.

Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded a contract some weeks ago to SRC UK, the British branch of US defense

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.