Multi-domain Warfare: Name of the Game

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the Internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

Multi-domain warfare was incorporated at Red Flag recently to an extent the US military has never done before, Red Flag participants told the Washington Post. The exercise, established in the 1970s after thousands of US aircraft were shot down over Vietnam, has long been considered one of the US military’s premier ways to train pilots for air-to-air combat. This summer, however, it integrated space and cyber missions throughout the three-week exercise. More than 100 aircraft were involved in the exercise July 11-29 at the Nevada Test and Training Range, which spans 5,000 square miles in the desert north of Las Vegas.

Will the F-35 be the last manned fighter aircraft? There’s huge potential for transformation associated with higher performance Unmanned Combat Air Systems, epitomized by prototypes such as the Northrop Grumman X-47B, the BAE Systems Taranis, and the French Dassault nEUROn projects, says The Buzz, a National Interest blog by Malcolm Davis. “We aren’t seeing the end of manned fighters but witnessing an evolving concept for air warfare in which ‘systems of systems’ replace individual platforms, and a mix of manned and unmanned systems work together,” Davis says.

Two equipment modifications designed to make the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s ejection seat safe for use by lightweight pilots will wrap up testing by the second week of September, a source with knowledge of ongoing efforts told Military.com. Air Force officials acknowledged last fall that pilots weighing less than 136 pounds were barred from flying the F-35A over fears that ejection with the plane’s hefty $400,000 helmet, weighing in at more than five pounds, could result in serious neck damage.

A New York University professor and a graduate student contend that destroying computer viruses is a mistake. In an essay for The Conversation, Howard Besser and Jonathan Farbowitz write, “Without long-term preservation, though, viruses and worms themselves will be difficult to analyze, research or write about. Cultural heritage institutions should seek to archive malware in ways that render it safely accessible to researchers and historians.”  The trick is establishing a malware archives whose contents couldn’t escape and wreak havoc. Currently, a multi-billion-dollar industry exists to control malware’s spread.

The Naval Research Laboratory has followed up on a June notice seeking information on cybersecurity services by telling vendors it plans to use a government-wide acquisition contract instead, FCW reports. In 2015, the lab was hit by a cyberattack that exploited a previously unknown software vulnerability. Its June notice to vendors states that the lab does not have the internal capability to perform required cybersecurity assessments and certifications. Officials said they wanted an ongoing contract for those services because of the constant development of new systems and threats.

Several items of US military equipment displayed by ISIS in photos published over the weekend likely were either found or captured after recent battles in eastern Afghanistan, a senior defense official said, according to CNN. US forces, including many special operations forces, have been fighting in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, a stronghold of ISIS for the last several weeks. The photos, distributed by ISIS’s media arm, depict ammunition, fabric packs, and possibly a shoulder-fired rocket launcher of the type used by US forces.

An unexpected drop in productivity may confirm the Federal Reserve’s worst fears of a US economy slipping into an extended period of slow growth with little it can do about it, Reuters reports. Hourly output per worker dropped an annualized 0.5 percent in the April-June period, US government data showed Tuesday, a third consecutive quarterly drop that puts the economy on track for its longest productivity slump since the era of stagflation, when a weak economy and high inflation coincided with four straight quarters of dropping output per worker. The news means the Fed has yet another strong reason not to raise interest rates.

Android’s vulnerability vis-à-vis Apple’s has come to the fore as 900 million Android smartphones with Qualcomm components inside are at risk, reports Wired. “Compromised devices would give bad actors root access, meaning they could collect any data stored on the phone, control the camera and microphone, and track its GPS location. It’s like giving someone the keys to your house, then holding the door open for them while they make off with the jewels,” writes Wired’s Brian Barrett.

Virtuoso bots were the stars of DARPA’s first-of-its-kind contest that sought to explore how artificial intelligence and automation might help find security and design flaws that bad actors use to penetrate computer networks and steal data, NextGov reports. A bot named Mayhem, along with its competitors, proved that machines can now quickly find many types of security vulnerabilities hiding in vast amounts of code. DARPA’s Cyber Challenge was held in Las Vegas last week.

Contracts:

Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, VA, was awarded a $52,533,286 firm-fixed-price task order (HT0011-16-F-0011) providing services to assist the assistant secretary of defense (health affairs), Defense Health Agency, in the support of action plans resulting from the Secretary of Defense Military Health Service Review. The task order provides the subject matter expertise required to move the Military Health System toward the cultural and process changes necessary to become a high reliability organization.  In addition, the task order will provide program management, performance management, and creates the systems and tools necessary for continuous process improvement and appropriate standardization across the enterprise. Work will be performed in Virginia, with an estimated completion date of August 2021. Fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $10,693,483 are obligated for this award. This task order was competitively procured on the General Service Administration’s Program Management/Continuous Process Improvement blanket purchase agreement under fair opportunity under Federal Acquisition Regulation 8.4 with four offers received. The Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, VA, is the contracting activity.

Vision Ability Execution Inc., Reston, VA, was awarded a $15,883,313 modification (P00002) to contract W52P1J-16-C-0004 for network modernization in the continental US for survey, engineering and implementation services to support modernization and upgrade installation campus area networks. Work will be performed at Fort Belvoir, VA, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2018. Fiscal 2015 other procurement, Army funds in the amount of $4,753,564 were obligated at the time of the award. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island, IL, is the contracting activity.