Agrégateur de flux

Americas Boeing has expressed interest in converting its F-15EX Eagle II fighter jet into electronic attack aircraft similar to the EA-18G Growler. Company official Rob Novotny said to Breaking Defense that internal discussions are currently underway whether to proceed with the proposed conversion or not. The F-15EX already boasts an electronic warfare (EW) capability, thanks to its Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System. Kratos has unveiled a small affordable engine intended for the US Air Force’s futuristic Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). Developed in partnership with GE Aerospace, the GEK800 can reportedly generate up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) of thrust, making it “ideally suited” for cruise missiles. But the two companies said it could still be scaled up to meet the requirements of the CCA program. Middle East & Africa According to Defense News, Israel Aerospace Industries, the maker of Germany’s future long-range antimissile system, has increased shifts and hired more workers to meet the deadline of setting up an installation in Germany sometime next year, a company executive said. The extra effort follows the national logic of outfitting the Israel Defense Forces as the priority, while also keeping international orders on track, Shay Gal, vice president for external relations, told Defense News at the Farnborough […]

EXCLUSIF - L'optimisme des chefs d'entreprise a rebondi, passant de 82 points à 84 points au mois de juillet, révèle la dernière Grande consultation des entrepreneurs (GCE) pour CCI France, La Tribune et LCI. Derrière ce léger sursaut, les dirigeants demeurent angoissés sur la viabilité de leur entreprise (56%, +7 points). Malgré un ralentissement, l'inflation continue de miner le moral des milieux patronaux. Attentistes sur la situation politique, les chefs d'entreprise sont inquiets sur l'investissement et l'emploi.

To stop the growing crisis in the country’s east, the West must pressure Rwanda.

The United States can reinforce restraint.

F-15C over DC (click to view full) “Array of Aging American Aircraft Attracting Attention” discusses the issues that accompany an air force whose fighters have an average age of over 23.5 years – vs. an average of 8.5 years in 1967. One of the most obvious consequences is the potential for fleet groundings due to unforseen structural issues caused by time and fatigue. That very fear is responsible for the #1 priority placed on bringing new KC-X aerial tankers into the fleet to complement the USA’s 1960s-era KC-135 Stratotankers. It can also affect the fighter fleet more directly. Following the crash of a Missouri Air National Guard F-15C aircraft Nov 2/07 (see crash simulation), the US Air Force suspended non-mission critical F-15 flight operations on Nov 3/07. While the cause of that accident is still under investigation, preliminary findings indicate that a structural failure during flight may have been responsible. In response, Japan suspended its own F-15 flights, which left them in a bit of a bind – even as Israel’s F-15s joined them on the tarmac. As the effects continue to spread and the USAF and others continue to comment on this situation, DID continues to expand its coverage […]

North Korean hackers have conducted a global cyber espionage campaign in efforts to steal classified military secrets to support Pyongyang's banned nuclear weapons programme, the US, Britain and South Korea said in a joint advisory.

US Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday (25 July) to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden.

Hungary borrowed one billion euros ($1.1 billion) from Chinese banks earlier this year, its debt management agency said on Thursday (25 July), as the EU member state faces a difficult financial situation.

L'Allemagne redécouvre depuis quelques années son passé colonial et s'intéresse aussi aux destins d'Africains qui ont vécu en Allemagne même avant la fin de cette ère coloniale, en 1918 comme après. Un travail de mémoire est en œuvre. Des pavés de la mémoire ont été posés à la mémoire de cette minorité, qui faisait également partie des victimes des Nazis. Le Camerounais Ludwig M’Bebe M’Pessa Akwa, qui a fait une carrière d'acteur connu en Allemagne sous le nom de Louis Brody, a survécu à ces persécutions. Une plaque a été inaugurée ce jeudi 25 juillet sur la façade de l'immeuble où il vivait à Berlin en 1918. 

C'est le jour J ! Les Jeux olympiques de Paris s'ouvrent vendredi avec une cérémonie spectaculaire très attendue, mêlant une parade qui se veut grandiose, malgré un risque de pluie, avec le défilé embarqué des délégations sur la Seine, en plein centre de Paris. Une cérémonie placée sous une sécurité maximale.

Europe needs a plan to address Alzheimer’s Disease that contains concrete measures, each with its own deadlines, and supported with proper funding, MEP Tomislav Sokol (EPP) told Euractiv.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent.

Summary and Key Points: The HALO Trust is utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance landmine detection in Ukraine, the world's largest minefield. Supported by a $4 million grant from Amazon Web Services, HALO employs AI to analyze drone-captured imagery, drastically reducing analysis time from days to hours.

-Ukraine’s extensive surface-laid mines make drone detection effective, aiding HALO's mission to clear mines faster and safer.

-With 542 drone flights and 11 terabytes of data already collected, HALO aims to deploy this AI tool by year-end, offering a model for global mine clearance efforts, including in challenging terrains like Colombia.

AI Technology Boosts Mine Detection Efforts in Ukraine

In the third year of its war of self-defense against an invading Russia, Ukraine has developed a reputation as a laboratory for battlefield innovation, from the way it employs drones and drone countermeasures to how it uses artillery. And close to the fight in eastern Ukraine, a nongovernment organization is employing artificial intelligence in a pilot program that may have life-saving implications for the entire world.

The HALO Trust, which has been working to clear mines from conflict zones for more than three decades, is applying AI to imagery captured by aerial drones to develop reliable identification profiles for landmines hidden within the terrain. Its work is partly enabled by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which gave the organization a $4 million grant in June to support secure storage of the vast amounts of data needed to build the profiles. 

The location of the pilot program is deliberate. As of this year, Ukraine is considered the world’s largest minefield, with as many as two million mines scattered across the land and potentially as much as a third of the country requiring demining for safe habitation. As Vox explains, in a conflict, potentially fatal landmines result in a couple of ways: First, artillery, which has been a land weapon of choice on both sides of the fight, can leave behind active and unstable shells, known as unexploded ordnance, or UXO. Second, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines are placed deliberately to kill combatants on foot or in armored vehicles – and these pressure-triggered devices are just as much a threat to the civilian population as to the military.

“As a very general point with Ukraine quickly becoming one of the most contaminated countries in the world, it’s the place where this technology can have the most impact,” Matthew Abercrombie, research and development officer at The HALO Trust, told Sandboxx News. “Even if we had all the resources in the world, it would still take a huge amount of time and effort to clear what’s being reported as the level of contamination. So anything we can do to narrow that down will have a huge impact on our ability to get the job done,” he added.

But there’s another reason, too, that Ukraine makes sense as a test bed for AI-based mine clearance, Abercrombie said. In the current conflict, a significant amount of placed mines are being laid on the surface of the ground, rather than dug into the ground. That allows the RGB cameras on the large commercial drones flown by The HALO Trust to capture their shape and characteristics. While the organization hopes to build in multispectral imaging eventually, which would help them capture evidence not visible to the naked eye, Ukraine offers a straightforward mine detection challenge.

As of late June, the organization had completed 542 drone flights totaling 11 terabytes of data, according to a published announcement. Flights have already been taking place for more than a year, Abercrombie told Sandboxx News, and the information they yield represents an overwhelming workload to human analysts. The information the organization collects is secure and not shared with other military or civil entities; the mine-clearing that follows identification is conducted largely by HALO’s 1,200 staff in Ukraine.

“It very quickly became apparent that the bottleneck is being able to analyze the imagery in time to make it useful,” he added.

And there is a very clear time element: according to Jennifer Hyman, head of communications for HALO, the greatest number of civilian casualties from landmines typically take place as displaced residents try to return to their homes. The technology the organization is hoping to develop, she said, would also significantly accelerate the ability to spot human activity and signs of damage, providing insights on areas that are safer for human movement and return.

“Drone imagery covering maybe a couple of hectares would take a human analyst maybe two days to trawl through and identify,” Abercrombie said. “Whereas our best estimates for the machine learning models is that it could be [done] on the order of an hour.”

Training the AI to identify mines as well as a human analyst will take time and vast quantities of imagery – thousands of images of a single variant of anti-tank or anti-personnel mine, for example. Complicating matters, human rights observers have said Russia and Ukraine are using at least 13 different kinds of each kind of mine.

However, despite the size of the information collection task, HALO plans to have a first version of an AI mine-detection tool ready for distribution to its staff in Ukraine by the end of the year, according to Abercrombie. They’re also already looking ahead, to employing this technology in other minefields around the globe – places like Colombia, where mountainous terrain makes drone imagery a far more accessible option than human in-person identification.

Troublingly, Russia’s activity in Ukraine may create even more spaces for organizations like HALO to operate in: The Washington Post reported that some neighboring European countries, seeking to harden their own defenses, have been considering a return to using the cheap and deadly devices.

About the Author: 

Hope Hodge Seck is an award-winning investigative and enterprise reporter who has been covering military issues since 2009. She is the former managing editor for Military.com.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Summary and Key Points: The Russian Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear" bomber, with its turbo-prop engines, has been a cornerstone of Soviet and Russian air power since its introduction in 1956. Designed for long-range missions, it boasts an operating range exceeding 8,000 miles.

-Despite its age, the Tu-95 remains relevant, capable of carrying nuclear cruise missiles and serving as an electronic surveillance platform. It continues to patrol near American and European borders, including recent activities near Alaska and Ukraine.

-With an expected service life extending to 2040, the Tu-95 is a testament to enduring Soviet engineering, remaining a versatile and strategic asset for Russia.

The Tu-95 'Bear': Russia’s Long-Range Missile Truck

Russia’s Tupolev Tu-95 “Bear” bomber may not look like much. In fact, its turbo-prop engines are an early Cold War-harkening anachronism. But the aging Tu-95 is commonly understood to be the most capable bomber the Soviet Union ever produced.

Designing the Bear

While the turbo-prop engines look more like something you’d find on a regional puddle-jumper, rather than a great power’s nuclear bomber, the old-school engines served a very specific purpose. Of course Soviet designers could have installed turbojet engines on their Tu-95 – but the Soviets wanted a jet that could strike deep into enemy territory, with a minimum range of 6,200 miles. The turbo-prop engine enables such a vast operating range. Once installed, the Tu-95’s turbo-prop engines permitted an operating range in excess of 8,000 miles, meaning the Soviet bomber could fly back and forth across the continental U.S. about three times without needing to refuel.

The Tu-95 entered the Soviet air force in 1956, and it continues to serve today, almost 70 years later. This forces comparisons to the long-serving B-52 Stratofortress, an American bomber of similar vintage. The Tu-95, like the B-52, is still relevant. It even saw action in 2015 against ISIS, and it is expected to remain in service until at least 2040, meaning the airframe could hit the 100-year-in-service mark.

Although the Tu-95 was built as a bomber, the airframe has often been used as an electronic surveillance platform, adding value for cash-strapped Soviet/Russian forces hoping to get as much versatility as possible out of their fleet. 

Of course, the Tu-95 is also outfitted as a proper bomber. The K variant can deploy the Russian Kh-20 nuclear cruise missile, meaning the Tu-95 has both the range and ability to deliver nuclear ordnance to American soil, assuming the non-stealth airframe could penetrate American air defenses.

To be clear, the Tu-95 could not penetrate American air defense systems, nor indeed any modern air defense system, and it would not survive against modern interceptor aircraft. The Tu-95 is a 70-year-old platform, after all, and no match for 21st-century systems.

“But that’s where the ability to fire cruise missiles plays such a vital role,” Brandon J. Weichert wrote. “[The Tu-95 is] basically long-range missile trucks that can engage enemies at a distance, negating the efficacy of air defenses and the threat of intercepts.”

Tu-95: Still Flying Today

The Tu-95 has routinely pestered American and European forces, slinking up to borders and patrolling overlapping areas of interest. The Tu-95 often loiters around the Alaskan coastline, not far from Russia’s easternmost borders. In 2014, a Tu-95 flew to within 50 miles of California’s coastline, forcing the U.S. Air Force to initiate a proper intercept. 

The Tu-95 is also active in Ukraine, fitting in nicely alongside the rest of the Russian equipment – much of which is terribly outdated, yet still capable of performing adequately enough. Expect the 55 still-flying Tu-95s to remain in service for as long as Russian mechanics can keep the bombers airworthy.

About the Author: Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

All images are Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock. 

Summary and Key Points: Russia is advancing its efforts to counter the American B-2 Spirit stealth bomber by developing the Tupolev PAK DA. This new stealth bomber aims to give Russia a strategic edge similar to that of the B-2, with the capability to carry nuclear payloads.

-The PAK-DA, designed in a flying-wing style to enhance stealth, is nearing prototype completion, with plans for up to six more units.

-While the PAK-DA represents a significant step for Russia in stealth technology, it remains behind the U.S., which continues to lead with its fleet of stealth bombers and fifth-generation fighters.

Russia Advances PAK DA Stealth Bomber to Counter U.S. B-2 Spirit

When the B-2 Spirit was introduced, the flying-wing bomber forced America’s opponents to make defensive adjustments. The B-2 offered an entirely new strategic element. It was the first aircraft that had both stealth technology and the ability to carry a nuclear payload, meaning in essence that the B-2 could end worlds without ever being detected.

The Russians were especially concerned about the B-2, worried that the stealth bomber would be used for deep penetration missions against Moscow or St. Petersburg. Accordingly, Russia was eager to introduce a peer aircraft, something that could help mitigate the advantage the B-2 gave the Americans. 

Decades later, Russia is finally building an answer to the B-2 Spirit: the Tupolev PAK-DA, a stealth bomber capable of carrying a nuclear payload.

Prototype on the Way

Tupolev is understood to be nearly finished with a PAK DA prototype aircraft. The company intends to build up to six more aircraft. If Tupolev can pull off the PAK DA, Russia would become just the second nation, behind the U.S., to introduce a stealth bomber. Even China, whose military capabilities have been improving at a rapid clip, has yet to introduce a stealth bomber, although the Xi’an H-20 is currently under development.

Russia is no stranger to aerospace accomplishments. It is arguably the second most accomplished nation with respect to aerospace (and astrospace) engineering. But in the realm of stealth, the Russians have never come close to matching American capabilities. The U.S. has not only led the way on stealth technology, but has stood head and shoulders above the rest since introducing the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit about three decades ago.

Today, the U.S. commands a fleet of stealthy fifth-generation fighters, the F-35 Lightning II and the F-22 Raptor. The B-21 Raider, a new flying-wing stealth bomber slated to replace the B-2 within the next decade, is undergoing flight tests.

All told, the Americans are about a full generation ahead of the Russians (and Chinese) on stealth bombers. Both Russia and China are rushing to catch up, but designing a stealth bomber is much easier than producing or fielding a legitimate, undetectable bomber. Intelligence suggests that Russia is closer to completing the PAK-DA than the Chinese are to completing the H-20, but with the program so obscured from public view, who really knows. 

Very little is known indeed about the PAK DA. What we do know is that the airframe has been crafted in the same flying-wing style as the B-2 and B-21, so we can expect the PAK DA to have a low radar cross section and to cruise at subsonic speeds. Again, easier said than done. The Russians are not known for their stealth accomplishments; their only stealth fighter, the Su-57, is rated as the worst stealth performer of all existing stealth aircraft.

The PAK DA is slated to enter mass production before 2027, but that feels like wishful thinking. Russia has a history of slow weapons program rollouts, and the ongoing war of attrition in Ukraine is burning through resources and industrial capacities that might otherwise be used to produce a stealth aircraft. 

About the Author: Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

Image Credit: Creative Commons. 

Cent ans que Paris attendait cela. Des décennies que les fans français de sport, les amoureux de l’olympisme, espéraient ce moment. Vivre les Jeux « à la maison », dans son pays, « une fois dans sa vie ». Mais à l’heure où commence ce qui devrait être une immense fête, les sentiments ont changé. Le sort réservé aux … Continued

The region’s worst typhoon this season leaves mass flooding, shipwrecks, and a potentially devastating oil spill in its wake.

The 2024 running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has called on persons in positions of power and authority to use their offices to influence benefits for the community.

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The Okuapemhene, Oseadeeyo Kwasi Akuffo III, has strongly attested to the humility of Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh and encouraged Ghanaians to vote massively for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the upcoming general elections.