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The Pentagon is building an AI product factory

The Pentagon’s research chief is deep in discussions about the newly announced Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, or JAIC, a subject of intense speculation and intrigue since Defense Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin announced it last week. Griffin has been sparse in his public comments on what the center will do. But its main mission will be to listen to service requests, gather the necessary talent, and deliver AI-infused solutions, according to two observers with direct knowledge of the discussions. Little else about the center has been decided, they say.

“We are looking right now, as we speak, at things like how we structure it, who should lead it, where it should be, how we should structure our other research. These are ongoing questions we are addressing this week,” Griffin said at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

To prove its worth to service leaders, the center’s first projects will follow the model of the Air Force’s AI-powered Project Maven. Services will bring problems that might be eased by AI — say, reducing human workload in classifying objects discovered in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data — and the center will marshal computing resources, contractors, and academics toward a solution.

“Everyone is very happy with Project Maven,” in terms of speed of delivery, quality of product, and organizational structure, according to one of the observers. “There’s an element [of the Defense Department] that’s asking, ‘How do we make a Project Maven factory?’”

The JAIC will also get something valuable out of these visits and assignments: access to endpoint users as well as access to data.

Currently, the goal is to stand center with a staff of about 200 people in about two years, said the two individuals. But both acknowledged that it usually takes longer than expected to staff a new government center. Somewhere in the future — one observer called it a “far-off” ambition — the center could develop into a major national lab on par with the Sandia National Lab for nuclear research, which boasts a staff of 10,000.

There may also be some secondary effort to explore how to use AI safely and ethically, issues at the forefront of the Silicon Valley discussion of AI. Another secondary effort may explore the foundations of much more advanced — read: less practically usable in the near term — AI.

Following the Maven example, the military will rely mostly on contractors and third parties for its AI, and the center could help. “Project Maven has a staff of about 12 (or so) and a budget of $70 million dollars. So are they reliant on outside contractors,” noted one of the individuals.

The center will include a physical building — the two individuals anticipate a lot of arguing about its location — But there will also be a heavy university component. Little pieces of the JAIC, or rather JAIC activity, will exist or take place in universities across the country that routinely partner with the Defense Department on projects.

This is less of a surprise. The center rises out of a recommendation from the Defense Innovation Board: “This center should coordinate research in these areas across the Department, and liaise with other labs in the private sector and universities, and should also conduct educational efforts to inform the Department about the implications of these advances for the Defense enterprise.” The board is chaired by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, who reiterated that point in his testimony alongside Griffin on Tuesday.

“The impact of AI and ML [machine learning] will be felt in every corner of the Department’s operations, from critical tactical operations such as Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), targeting, cyber defense and autonomous land, air and sea vehicles; support operations such as personnel billeting, training, logistics, and threat analysis and war-gaming,” the recommendation continues. “The Board likens this situation to that which existed in the first (nuclear weapons) and second (precision munitions and stealth) offsets. Indeed, both AI and MLare key components of the Department’s Third Offset thinking.”

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Jura said:

Apr 11, 2018 so Three Things to Watch from the PACOM’s (Likely) Next Commander

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Adm. Phil Davidson, the nominee to take over U.S. Pacific Command, has warned against sanctioning India for buying Russian arms that could include a proposed $6 billion deal for S-400 Triumf anti-air missiles billed as "F-35 killers" by Moscow.

The growing strategic partnership between the U.S. and India to counter China should take precedence over sanctions, Davidson said in written responses to questions ahead of his Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) confirmation hearing Tuesday.

Davidson noted his "concern for our defense relationships in the Indo-Pacific with countries such as India, Vietnam, and Indonesia."

"If the United States decides to sanction these partner nations for their purchases of Russian equipment, this decision may hinder the growth of each developing partnership and increase each partner's dependence on Russia," said Davidson, currently commander of Fleet Forces Command.

The immediate issue was the proposed deal, now in its final stages, for the S-400s that Russian President Vladimir Putin first pitched to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a visit to India in 2016.

Last week, Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in Moscow to work out details on the reported $6 billion purchase of the S-400s, a mobile surface-to-air defense system dubbed the SA-21 "Growler" by the U.S. and NATO.

In what could be seen as a sales pitch, Russian officials earlier this week claimed that the U.S., French and British cruise missile strikes on suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites avoided areas protected by S-400 and S-300 systems.

India's interest in the S-400s has intensified with reports that Russia has already begun deliveries of the S-400 systems to regional rival China under a $3 billion deal for the missiles that Moscow claims would be effective against stealthy U.S.

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The proposed S-400 deal could potentially make India liable under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) signed by President Donald Trump last August. The Act targeted Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential elections and its aggression in Crimea and Ukraine.

The Act required the president to sanction any country that strikes "highly-significant" agreements with Russia's defense industry.

In addition, the State Department last October listed more than three dozen Russian companies and warned businesses and nations worldwide that those dealing with the Russian firms could face U.S. sanctions. The list of Russian firms included missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey, maker of the S-400.

In his written responses to SASC, Davidson urged Congress to consider the long history of India and other regional nations in buying equipment and weapons from the former Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation before moving to consider sanctions under CAATSA.

He added that "Russian operations and engagements throughout the Indo-Pacific continue to rise -- both to advance their own strategic interests and to undermine U.S. interests. Russia also sees economic opportunities to build markets for energy exports and arms sales in the region."

But CAATSA sanctions were not the answer, he said.

The U.S. also faces a dilemma on whether to impose sanctions on NATO ally Turkey for its own estimated $2.5 billion deal to purchase S-400s from Russia. Putin was in Ankara earlier this month to seal the deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Several other nations, including Iraq, have expressed interest in acquiring the S-400s rather than the U.S.

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surface-to-air missile defense system made by Raytheon.

The interest in the S-400s has been heightened by the perceived failure of the U.S. Patriot systems to protect the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh against missile launches by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

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Jura said:

Oct 8, 2017
and
Pentagon: Niger investigation to be completed by January 2018

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The families of the four troops

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last October will soon get individual, closed briefings on the findings of the investigation into the attack believed to have been carried out by an ISIS offshoot in Africa, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has signed off on his review of the Article 15-6 fact-finding investigation conducted by U.S. Africa Command.

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"We are currently in the process of scheduling the next-of-kin notifications," Dana White, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, said.

At a Pentagon briefing, she gave no timeline on when the results of the investigation, said by Mattis to be thousands of pages long, would be released to the public.

Once the family briefings are completed and Congress is notified, Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander, and

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Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier, Waldhauser's chief of staff who led the Article 15-6 investigation, will give a full public briefing at the Pentagon, White said.

The ambush, last Oct. 4 near the village of Tongo Tongo in northwestern Niger, has led to allegations that what was to have been a joint training patrol by U.S. and Nigerien troops with little risk turned into a poorly-planned raid to capture a terror suspect by a force that lacked backup and air cover.

The raid found only an empty camp, and the patrol was attacked as it left Tongo Tongo, resulting in the deaths of the four American troops from the Army's Third

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Group, four Nigerien troops and a Nigerien interpreter.

In addition to the Article 15-6 investigation, the FBI has conducted its own review of the national security implications of the ambush that killed Sgt. La David Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida; Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia.

The body of Sgt. La David Johnson was not recovered until two days after the attack allegedly conducted by a group known as ISIS Greater Sahara forces.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported from Niamey, Niger, that

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the suspected Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) sympathizer who was the target of the failed raid by the joint patrol last October.

At the time, U.S. and Nigerien forces had been pursuing a militant who went by the name of Doundou Chefou and was suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of an American aid worker.

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Jura said:

Mar 20, 2018

now Air Force awards nearly $1 billion contract for a hypersonic cruise missile

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If the great Space Race that began in the 1950s helped define technologies that would take satellites and mankind into space, a new kind of global competition today will define technologies that move at more than five times the speed of sound.

The U.S.

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this week awarded Lockheed Martin Corp. a contract to develop a prototype hypersonic cruise missile, or the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon. The project -- one of two hypersonic weapon prototyping efforts the service is pursuing -- could cost as much as $928 million over the course of its lifetime.

The award comes as Pentagon officials say they fear the U.S. may be lagging behind in hypersonics, while rivals Russia and China have made hypersonic technologies national programs of record and have made recent advances. Like nuclear weapons, officials have said speedy weapons can act as deterrents, as well as game changers, in responding to conflict from hundreds of miles away.

"The Air Force is using prototyping to explore the art of the possible and to advance these technologies to a capability as quickly as possible," spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in a statement.

The service did not specify a timeline for the contract, as "funds are not obligated on this contract vehicle until task orders are issued and awarded," Stefanek said on Wednesday.

Aside from additional concepts underway from the Air Force Research Lab and DARPA, the Air Force is also setting funds aside for its Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon, known as "Arrow." According to the fiscal 2019 budget request, the Air Force is asking for roughly $260 million for the Arrow experiment.

'It just means it goes fast'
One company that specializes in rockets, engines, missiles and spacecraft has been rapidly prototyping a variety of concepts in hopes of gaining more footing in the hypersonics game.

Aerospace and defense tech company Orbital ATK has in recent months tested a partially 3-D printed hypersonics warhead and a 3-D printed

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, or scramjet, engine part.

The company deemed both to be successful, and is waiting until the Defense Department chooses what type of weapons it may someday want to procure.

In its research and development phase, Orbital has been designing a hypersonic warhead to start preparing for "that day when somebody will want a hypersonic" mission, said Bart Olson, vice president of strategy and business development for Orbital ATK's defense group.

"They went from design to production to test in 60 days," said Michael Kahn, president of Orbital ATK's defense systems group.

In late March, the company for the

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partially made with additive manufacturing, known as 3-D printing.

With the help of 3-D printing, engineers can work faster and make parts much more cheaply, Olson and Kahn said. Military.com sat down with both executives on April 10 during the annual Sea-Air-Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

"Three-D printing is a big deal for us, especially from the engineering perspective because you can design something ... that you can't build with conventional machines," Kahn said.

The challenges for any weapon going beyond Mach 5 speeds has been to prevent overheating and control how the weapon strikes a target, Kahn said.

Olson said its common to tailor the warhead to the effects needed. But in hypersonics, there's more of an emphasis on fragmentation at such high speeds.

Depending on launch platform -- air, land or sea -- the company is testing payloads from as small as 7 inches to 40 inches in diameter.

"We're involved in the entire tradespace," Olson said.

The 'secret sauce' to hypersonics? Their engines and propulsion, they say.

"We've been building hypersonic engines for many years, for NASA, the Air Force," Olson said. "We currently hold the record for the fastest air-breathing demonstration in history, which was a Mach 10-plus."

"We have motors that come in all shapes and sizes," he continued. "On the propulsion front, we've had numerous tests of solid propellant solutions and ... on the air-breathing side, all across the spectrum of need."

Kahn added how it's propelled shouldn't matter. "Hypersonics just means it goes fast," he said.

In January, the company

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to study a possible integration of turbine and hypersonic engine technologies under DARPA's Advanced Full Range Engine (AFRE) program.

Orbital said they're encouraged by recent commentary from Mike Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who has zeroed in on hypersonics, but also other

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in an era where Russia and China continue to make vast strides ahead of the U.S.

The U.S.'s "earlier research work in hypersonic systems development was basically what our adversaries have used to field their own systems," Griffin told lawmakers this week.

"It is time for us to renew our emphasis on and funding of these areas in a coordinated way across the department, to develop systems which can be based on land for conventional prompt strike, can be based at sea, and later on can be based on aircraft," he said during a House Armed Services committee hearing on innovation.

There has been more of an "energy from DoD" to get hypersonics involved in major systems beyond just design phases, Kahn said.

"Up until now there's been a lot of design, a lot of testing, not a lot of fielding," Kahn said.

Olson added, "We're very encouraged by ... the new philosophy from new leadership to go on past it."

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Airborne units getting new vehicle this year; legs will have to wait
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  2 days ago

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infantry brigade combat

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are slated to begin fielding 300 Ground Mobility Vehicles in use by special operations forces

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this year.

The legs? They’ll get theirs next year, if the funding request is approved.

Thirty non-airborne Army IBCTS are slated to receive 1,700 GMVs, beginning in 2019.

Lt. Gen. John Murray and Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski told members of the House Armed Services Committee on April 18 that the GMV acquisition was sped up to get the lightweight all-terrain vehicle this year rather than in 2020 as originally planned.

The vehicle selected for airborne infantry units can be configured to carry nine soldiers and equipment. It is air-droppable and capable of being sling-loaded on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.



The version that the airborne units will get doesn’t have all the “bells and whistles” of the Special Operations Command vehicle but is the same base package, Ostrowski said.

That’s because leaders are looking at a simple function – moving troops quickly.

“What we needed is a capability to move in a period of darkness from a drop zone to a landing strip at the speed that is faster than the boot,” Ostrowski said.

The Army chose the General Dynamics Flyer 72 as its initial purchase, according to Military Times’ sister publication

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.

But one congressman had questions about the price tag and how it was acquired.



Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-California, asked the generals why the Army went with a sole source contract and was paying $271,000 each for the vehicles, twice the cost of the Humvee.

Murray explained that by modifying the SOCOM contract the Army saved money required by years of requirements to start from scratch.

“Is the ($270,000) high?” he said. “It is higher than some of the options on the market. But this was the fastest way to get this requirement to the field because the competition was done.”

Though they moved quickly on picking the Flyer 72, the vehicle that hits the rest of the infantry could be different because they are competing that with other contenders originally involved in going after the contract.

Other than General Dynamics, the following competed in a vehicle demonstration in 2014: the Boeing-MSI Defense Phantom Badger; Polaris Defense’s air-transportable off-road combat vehicle DAGOR; Hendrick Dynamics’ Commando Jeep; Vyper Adamas’ Viper; and Lockheed Martin’s High Versatility Tactical Vehicle, which is a version of the British Army’s HMT-400 Jackal, according to

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.

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