The Pentagon wants to create a broader network of innovators By: Mike Gruss

The Pentagon is reorganizing its internal offices to better partner with universities and upstart technology firms to ensure the military has access to talent and research in the near future and to fortify its innovation pipeline. 

Defense leaders are increasingly worried about what they describe as the national security innovation base. They hope a series of steps will make it easier to work with, and take advantage of, the leading-edge science across the country. This includes technology that spans from the concept stage to the production stage, and outlets that includes researchers to the defense industrial base.

The changes, which affect the Defense Innovation Unit and MD5, were first mentioned in the Pentagon’s budget request for fiscal 2020 and have been discussed with increasing details in recent weeks. Defense innovation leaders explained the new setup to C4ISRNET in an interview May 9.

DIU’s mission is to help the military accelerate its use of emerging commercial technologies and lower the barrier of entry for businesses that don’t already do business with the Pentagon.

Under the new approach:

– The MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator has been renamed the National Security Innovation Network. The network, which helps connect academia, DOD laboratories and users, will fall under the Defense Innovation Unit as a way to take advantage of economies of scale. Morgan Plummer, the network’s managing director, said the new name, which changed May 6, more accurately portrays the agency’s mission. The program has its own line in the budget for the first time in fiscal 2020.

– The National Security Innovation Capital fund, a new program created in the fiscal 2019 defense policy bill, will set aside investment in upstart U.S. companies so they don’t fall risk to foreign investors. U.S. leaders fear that as some startups become so desperate for funding they may not consider the national security ramifications of accepting money from overseas. “It’s an attempt to keep hardware investment on shore,” said Mike Madsen, director of Washington operations at DIU. The NSIC also aims to signal to the investment community that the Defense Department is interested in developing dual-use technologies and to provide a foreign investment alternative for hardware companies.

In testimony to Congress in March, Mike Griffin, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief for research and engineering, said that the new groups will fall to DIU “in an effort to put similarly-focused organizations under a single leadership structure.”

Perhaps more importantly, Defense leaders said the new structure will help the Pentagon “hand off” technology with a low readiness level or level of maturity until it is ready for broader adoption.

“There are these huge pools of untapped talent,” Plummer said. To take advantage of that talent means going beyond research grants in academia and instead to create a network of hubs and spokes of early stage ventures in approximately 35 communities throughout the country. While DIU has offices in Austin, Boston and Silicon Valley, creating a broader network means the NSIN would have staffers in cities such as Chicago, Miami, Columbus, Boulder, Raleigh, St. Louis and Minneapolis.

“It makes the Department accessible in a real way,” Plummer said. Previously, business leaders may see the Pentagon as a “big gray monolith” and “may not even know where the door to this place is.”

DIU will continue to focus on artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber, human systems, and space.

The Pentagon asked for $164 million for DIU in its fiscal 2020 budget request.

What in the world is going on?

Things like this… just hurt—we can do better…USAF, Navy, and USMC…

Air Force Logistics Commander in Korea Fired Due to Loss of Confidence

A commander of the logistics readiness squadron at Osan Air Base, South Korea, has been removed from his post due to a loss of confidence in his ability to lead.

Navy Fires Head of Aviation Training School

A Navy captain who commanded the school that develops aviation technical training has been removed from his job.

Commander of USS Decatur removed for lying to fleet command, Navy says

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – The Navy relieved the commanding officer of the San Diego-based destroyer Decatur in January for lying to San Diego fleet command about the ship’s position, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Sunday.

Okinawa-based CH-53 squadron commander sacked

A CH-53E squadron commander based out of Okinawa, Japan, was sacked over a lost of trust and confidence, according to the 1st Marine Air Wing.

Commander and sergeant major fired from Marine unit that lost 2 rifles

The battalion commander and battalion sergeant major of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, the unit that lost two rifles in December 2019, were recently relieved for “loss of trust and confidence,” a Marine official confirmed.

New details on sub commander convicted of ‘inappropriate relationship’ with subordinate’s spouse

The former commander of a Connecticut-based submarine who pleaded guilty last year to a conduct unbecoming an officer charge visited the bedroom window of an enlisted subordinate’s wife, engaged in “inappropriate conversation there” and also sent “inappropriate electronic messages,” on June 11, 2018, according to recently released Navy records

Marine fires Navy commander of training battalion

The leader of Marine Training Command, Brig. Gen. Jason Morris, has fired the Navy captain at the helm ofField Medical Training Battalion-West at Camp Pendleton.

Commander of Texas-based Marine reserve aerial refueling squadron fired

The commander of a Marine reserve aerial refueling squadron was relieved from his job in February for “loss of trust and confidence in a his ability to lead,” a Marine Corps spokesman confirmed.

Captain Warned That Crew Wasn’t Ready Before Sub Ran Aground, Investigation Shows

A newly released investigation from a submarine mishap in 2015 that caused some $1 million worth of damage shows that an inexperienced crew was given the go-ahead to complete a tricky return-to-port mission in the dark, despite warnings from the commanding officer that they weren’t ready.

Hickam fires security forces squadron commander, superintendent after investigation

The commander and superintendent of the 647th Security Forces Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam were removed from their positions Wednesday after an investigation, the base said in a Wednesday email.

Sub commander convicted for ‘inappropriate relationship’ with enlisted sailor’s spouse

The Navy cited a loss of confidence in Cmdr. William Bradley Swanbeck’s ability to command the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine Montpelier when he was fired from his job in June 2018.

The one-star, his NAVSEA employee, rumors of a romance and the scandal that finally got him fired

A Navy one-star was fired from his position at Naval Sea Systems Command last year after investigators determined he had an affair with a female subordinate, according to records obtained by Navy Times.

Commander of California fighter squadron fired after F-18 retirement event

The commander of Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 225 was relieved of command Jan. 24 following “concerns of poor judgement” the Marine Corps confirmed Thursday.

‘You all suck’: A cruiser captain, shame roulette and the hunt for Sun Drop soda

The ex-commanding officer of a Japan-based Navy warship created a toxic work environment, ordered subordinates to locate his favorite soda and wasted taxpayer dollars on medals he wasn’t authorized to award, according to a recently released Naval Inspector General investigation.

Two-star head of Air Force Research Lab fired; under OSI investigation

The commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Maj. Gen. William Cooley, was relieved of commandWednesday, Air Force Materiel Command said in a release.

Navy cans warship CO

The commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer Decatur was fired Thursday after superiors lost confidence in his ability to command, officials say.

Spangdahlem group commander disciplined for inappropriately touching squadron commander’s wife

The former commander of the 52nd Operations Group at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany was disciplined after an investigation into accusations that he rubbed his crotch against the rear end of a lieutenant colonel’s wife at a dinner last year.

Marine vet Duncan Hunter resigns from Congress after corruption conviction

SAN DIEGO — Republican U.S. Rep. Duncan D. Hunter submitted his resignation Tuesday, one month after pleading guilty to a corruption charge, leaving vacant one of the GOP’s few remaining House seats in heavily Democratic California.

Former Minot judge advocate, convicted of attempted larceny, to be discharged

Lt. Col. Deric Prescott, the former staff judge advocate at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, will be dismissed from the Air Force after he was convicted at court-martial of attempted larceny during a permanent change-of-station move and making a false official statement.

 

Navy chief charged with stealing body lotion

3 female staffers sexually harassed by top Pentagon official: IG report

The official, Guy Roberts, was the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs — as well as a former Marine Corps infantry officer, judge advocate and staff officer.

Navy fires EOD unit commander

The Navy fired the leader of a California-based explosive ordnance disposal unit Thursday, citing “a loss of confidence in his ability to command.”

Army 3-Star General Loses Rank After War College Plagiarism Revealed

An Army deputy chief of staff has been retired at a lower rank after a watchdog investigation found he had plagiarized work for his master’s degree at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as a lieutenant colonel, Military.com has learned.

‘If he was on the battlefield, he probably would’ve been shot in the back’— Inside the toxic command of Air Force Lt. Gen. Lee Levy

There are good leaders and bad leaders, and then there are leaders whose command climates are so toxic and humiliating that they make deployments seem like a cakewalk. Air Force Lt. Gen. Lee Levy II was in the third category, according to a recent Inspector General report.

‘Oink, oink.’ Lieutenant general belittled staff, mocked female airman’s weight, IG found. It cost him a star.

Subordinates were “walking on eggshells” to avoid upsetting him, according to a March 2019 IG report.

IG found former academy commandant misused travel, had poor command climate; she will seek redress for firing

An inspector general report released Thursday found Brig. Gen. Kristin Goodwin, former commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, failed to maintain a healthy command climate, and broke multiple travel regulations.

‘Executing the plan’ — How a CO’s warship romance got him canned

The commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer Hopper was fired last year after his shipboard romance with a petty officer was revealed, according to an internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.

Air Force nurse, a major, pleads guilty to pharmacy kickback scheme

A nurse at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a criminal health care fraud scheme, in which she accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks for referring patients to pharmacies offering compounded drugs.

Retired Navy officer pleads not guilty in child sex case

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A former faculty member at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, has pleaded not guilty to engaging in sex with a minor and other charges.

Ronald Zenga, previously of Middletown, faces a federal indictment that alleges he took a minor across state lines and another country for sex.

Report: CO forced minions to write his FITREP, gave secretary ‘panic attack’

Navy Cmdr. Jesus “Manny” Cordero-Vila was at the helm of Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Sicily for only about nine months.

But in that time, the CO allegedly forced his subordinates to write his fitness reports, outlawed the mention of his predecessor’s name, provoked a panic attack in his secretary, tried to “voluntell” sailors into community service projects and seemed to harbor little knowledge about the basics of his command’s cyber mission, according to an internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.

‘Wild Weasel’ maintenance squadron commander fired at Misawa

Lt. Col. Jason Moehle, the commander of the 35th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Misawa Air Base in Japan who oversaw maintenance of its famed “Wild Weasel” F-16s, was relieved of his duties Monday.

Navy fires admiral because of ‘off-duty incident’

Two months after assuming command of the Navy’s Expeditionary Strike Group 2, Rear Adm. Erik M. Ross was fired Friday in connection to an “alleged off-duty incident,”

Squadron commanders removed at Moody, FE Warren

Two Air Force bases on Monday announced the removal of squadron commanders in separate incidents.

F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming on Monday announced that Lt. Col. Nicholas Petren had been relieved of command of the 90th Security Forces Squadron there. In another release, Moody Air Force Base in Georgia announced that Lt. Col. Scott Rein had been relieved of command of the 41st Rescue Squadron.

F.E. Warren Security Forces Commander Relieved Following Investigation

Officials with Air Force Global Strike Command’s 90th Missile Wing announced Monday that Col. Damian Schlussel, commander of the 90th Security Forces Group, relieved Lt. Col. Nicholas Petren, head of the 90th SFS, “due to a loss of confidence” in his leadership.

Why the entire SEAL Team 7 leadership team got canned

In the wake of a series of scandals dogging California-based SEAL Team 7, the entire senior leadership team was relieved of duty on Friday morning.

Navy officer accused of ‘nonconsensual sexual contact’ with sailor and soldier

A Virginia-based Navy officer is facing a court-martial trial for allegedly making “nonconsensual sexual contact” with a sailor and a soldier, according to Navy charge sheets.

Army recruiting company commander suspended after using Nazi phrase in a memo

Navy cans cruiser CO

Less than three months after he took command of the guided-missile cruiser Antietam, Capt. Tadd Gorman was relieved of command Tuesday.

Navy boots boat’s XO

No really it is not the same article as the one below…The Navy on Monday relieved the executive officer of the fast attack submarine Jimmy Carter, due to what officials called “a loss of confidence in his personal judgment.”

“The Navy is investigating questions that have arisen with respect to Lt. Cmdr. (Jonathan) Cebik’s personal conduct,” 

Superiors relieve warship XO

The executive officer of the Japan-based warship McCampbell has been relieved of duty.

The guided-missile destroyer’s XO since February, Lt. Cmdr. Randall Clemons was removed “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to fulfill his responsibilities,” Task Force 70spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight said in an email to Navy Times.

Army Installation Management commander relieved due to loss of confidence

Lt. Gen. Brad Becker, the commander of Army Installation Management Command, has been relieved of command, service officials said Thursday afternoon

Navy cans captain in Pensacola

SOCOM boss calls for another ethics review

After a rough couple of months for special operations scandals in the news, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command is opening up a review into the entire command’s culture and ethics, according to a memo released Monday.

Dyess maintenance squadron commander removed, under investigation

Lt. Col. Pete Leija was removed from command of the 317th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas Monday morning.

Air Force Academy cadet pleads guilty to assault, gets prison term

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — The military says a U.S. Air Force Academy cadet who was charged with sexual misconduct has pleaded guilty to assault.

Navy: Rear admiral fired over ‘inappropriate, personal relationship’

Rear Adm. Stephen Williamson was relieved Friday as the director of industrial operations at Naval Sea Systems Command following an investigation into what officials said as an inappropriate relationship.

Drunken-driving charge leads to removal of Air Force Academy colonel

The vice commandant of cadets at the Air Force Academy has been relieved from his post after a traffic stop led to a drunken-driving charge.

Disgraced Navy SEAL gets 60 years in jail for molesting kids

A former member of SEAL Team 1 in San Diego has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for child molestation on Tuesday, which comes on top of a previous federal sentence of 27 years he’s currently serving for manufacturing child porn in Virginia.

Marines reprimand 1-star alleged to have bullied subordinates and ‘devalued women’

A Marine brigadier general who was alleged to have “disparaged, bullied and humiliated subordinates, devalued women” while he ran the Corps’ legislative affairs has received administrative reprimand. (More here as well)

Navy SEAL Platoon Removed from Iraq over Reports of Sexual Assault, Alcohol Use

A special operations commander’s decision to remove a Navy SEAL platoon from Iraq centered around allegations that a senior enlisted member of the team raped a female comrade, The New York Times reported Thursday.

‘I Have a Moral Responsibility to Come Forward’: Colonel Accuses Top Military Nominee of Assault

Col. Kathryn A. Spletstoser of the Army says she had returned to her hotel room and was putting on face cream on the night of Dec. 2, 2017, after a full day at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California, when her boss, Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, the commander of United States Strategic Command, knocked on her door and said he wanted to talk to her.

Sexting, salacious snapshots: Inside SEAL Team 6′s spoofing scandal

An ongoing Navy probe to catch the culprit who catfished women into sending nude photos shines a light on the normally shadowy world of SEAL Team 6, one of America’s most secretive commando units — but the suspected sailor says they got the wrong man.

IG Rebukes Former Pentagon Spokeswoman for Making Staff Run Her Errands

Dana White, the former Pentagon spokesman under Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, misused her subordinates’ time to run errands for her during and after work hours, according to a new investigation report.

Army recruiter who calls himself ‘Colorado Batman’ arrested for allegedly soliciting young girls for sex

Army Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Hardcastle, 31, was arrested on Monday amid allegations he was soliciting girls as young 10 for sex.

Two-star fired from running top secret program office; under multiple IG investigations

A groundbreaking female fighter pilot was fired from her current job as director of the Defense Department’s Special Access Programs Central Office — which manages and oversees some of the military’s most secretive classified programs — and is under several inspector general investigations.

Navy War College chief under investigation: Kept margarita machine in his office, more

NEWPORT, R.I. — The military is investigating the president of the U.S. Naval War College amid allegations that he spent excessively, abused his hiring authority and otherwise behaved inappropriately, including keeping a margarita machine in his office.

Why a chief lost his anchors last month

A chief was convicted for using illegal drugs last month and busted down to E-5, according to legal records. Chief Aviation Machinist’s Mate Mark W. Dean pleaded guilty at a special court-martial trial to using marijuana and cocaine on May 11, 2018 and his grade reduction was the only penalty he received, records indicate.

Navy captain’s lust for teenager rightly brought him eight years in prison, court rules

A Navy captain who brought wine, a piggy bank and condoms to a purported sleepover with an adolescent he met at a Naples base library was properly found guilty of attempting to sexually abuse and assault a child, the Navy’s appellate court ruled.

Head of Air Force Warfare Center Relieved of Command

Maj. Gen. Peter Gersten, who has led the Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nev., since July 2017, was relieved of command on June 2 due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to an Air Combat Command release. ACC boss Gen. Mike Holmes made the decision based on an “alleged unprofessional relationship,” according to the command’s initial statement. 

AFSOC one-star falsely claimed flight hours, disrespected subordinates, IG found

Brig. Gen. Brenda Cartier, now the director of operations at Air Force Special Operations Command headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida, received a letter of counseling after an inspector general investigation found she failed to treat subordinates with dignity and respect in her previous position, and falsely claimed flight hours on an MC-130J in 2017.

The commander of one of the Marine Corps’ most famous recon battalions was fired over domestic-violence allegations

• The commander of the Marine Corps’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was over “credible” allegations of domestic violence, according to a sworn statement by his wife. 
• It is unclear whether Lt. Col. Francisco Zavala will remain in the Corps, but his is the fourth high-profile firing of a senior Marine officer in recent weeks.

Navy fires helo squadron’s command master chief

By: Geoff Ziezulewicz 

The senior enlisted leader of a California helicopter squadron was relieved of duty on Friday, Navy officials said.

Command Master Chief Brian Todd Morris was removed from his post at Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 4 due to “a loss of confidence in his ability to perform the duties of a command master chief,” according to Naval Air Forces spokesman Cmdr. Ronald Flanders.

Navy: Officer masturbated at desk, searched for child porn…

A California-based Navy officer is facing a court-martial trial for allegedly masturbating at his desk and “entering search terms indicative of child pornography” on his work computer, according to charge sheets.

Former Holloman squadron commander to face civil, military trials on virtual child porn charges…

The former commander of the 49th Medical Support Squadron at Holloman Air Force Basein New Mexico will face a civilian trial later this month over accusations of possessing virtual child pornography, and will also be court-martialed in August.

Another Marine commander fired: California 1st Recon Battalion lieutenant colonel relieved of command…

The commanding officer for the Camp Pendleton, California, based 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was relieved of his command on Tuesday, the Marine Corps has announced.

Lt. Col. Francisco X. Zavala is the fourth Marine commander in recent weeks to be sacked.

The commander of the 1st Marine Division, Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi, relieved Zavala over “lost trust and confidence” in his ability to continue to lead 1st Recon battalion, a press release stated.

 

 

 

 

The Stunning Evolution of Millennials: They’ve Become the Ben Franklin Generation

Adam Hanft: Political Columnist, CEO of Hanft Projects

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Wealthfront – an online financial services start-up targeted squarely and unashamedly at Millennial wallets – raised $64 million last month. That’s on top of $35 million that venture firms plowed into the company earlier this year.

Every sweeping cliché about Millennials – that they are addicted to the itch and twitch of immediate gratification, that they are not interested in participating in the casino stock market – is being sent to the generalization graveyard. Not just because of the success of Wealthfront – who has crossed $1 billion in assets under management – but also the growth of Betterment, LoanVest and others who have a hungering eye on the $7 trillion in liquid assets that Millennials will have in their generational clutches within the next five years.

What’s particularly revelatory about the success of Wealthfront – they reached one billion in two-and half years, while it took Chuck Schwab six years to get there – is its canny use of technology and whizzy algorithms, the deities of the Millennial, in the service of a rather boring, long-term, Ben Frankliny investment conservatism. This is more often associated with people who need hip replacements than hipsters.

Wealthfront works by first asking a few basic questions – age, income, liquid assets, risk tolerance. It’s the bromidic stuff of financial planning for decades. Then it provides a financial plan consisting of ETFs – most of them from Vanguard – that track underlying indices in a variety of asset classes, trades based on what the algorithm instructs. The boil down their practice to: personalize, diversify, re-balance.

It’s not surprising that Millennials are willing to put their financial faith in the crunch of algorithmic investing (or as its called, robo-investing from robo-advisors. After all, this is a generation of digital natives and semi-natives who trust code jockeys to find the cheapest plane ticket, recommended the best oxtail pizza, and soon, to provide driverless cars. They will also be the early adopters of Apple Pay and other new transaction modes.

Their faith in technology is understandable. Algorithms don’t act in their own self-interest. Algorithms weren’t responsible for dreaming up sub-prime loans and nearly bringing down the financial system. Millennials didn’t trust authority and conventional sources of wisdom before the melt-down. Imagine now. Wealthpoint argues that Millennials: “…have been nickel-and-dimed through a wide variety of services, and they value simple, transparent, low-cost services.

The Pew Study “Millennials in Adulthood” confirms the Wealthfront thesis finding that “… just 19% of Millennials say most people can be trusted, compared with 31% of Gen Xers, 37% of Silents and 40% of Boomers.” If you can’t trust people in general – which was the question – what hope is there for the conniving financial advisor?

The technology lure of Wealthfront is unsurprising, but what is remarkable is that Millennials are so drawn to the core Wealthfront investment thesis, which argues against individual stock picking, and balances a personalized mix of actively managed ETFs instead. As they put it, “…our service is premised on the consistent and overwhelming research that proves index funds significantly outperform an actively managed portfolio.”

I love that a generation who’s identified with the eroticism of immediacy is choosing slow and steady as an investment theme. It makes them, truly, the Ben Franklin generation, in even more ways than just how they relate to money; they value craft, authenticity, strong values. Ironically, they are far more prudent and sensible than their predecessors. After all, both Boomers and, yes, the Greatest Generation fell victim to get-rich-quick bubbles, blandishments, and stock-picking mania. Not many people reading this remember or know that the stock market euphoria of the sixties was monikerized as “the Go-Go Years.”

Millennial attitudes are understandable, to say the least; they are struggling under the crippling weight of student loans, they’ve seen their parents and often grandparents suffer the pain of the financial crisis, so to the extent they want to enter the stock market at all, they want to do it with commanding caution. As one commentator, noted, they “share experiences that color how they look at their finances and the financial industry”

Yet despite their personal debt and experiential context, Millennials are surprising long-term optimists, which explains their willingness to park their money in tracking ETFs. On this subject, Pew notes: ” Millennials are the nation’s most stubborn economic optimists. More than eight-in-ten say they either currently have enough money to lead the lives they want (32%) or expect to in the future (53%).”

Needless to say, skeptics are in full swarm mode, most from the traditional advisory world. They argue that nothing can replace a human being – supported by the right technology tools. And that Wealthfront’s business model – a monumentally minimal .25 percent (on assets over $10,000) – does not a business make. I’m confident, though, that the folks at Spark, who led the $65MM round, can do basic Common Core multiplication.

It will, in fact, be possible for Wealthfront to move up to more expensive, value-added services if it so chooses, because they are proceeding from a place of generational trust. It will be harder for traditional financial institutions to come down and meet them from the top of the mountain.

An America led by the Ben Franklin generation is likely to be a more stable, patient, values-driven and realistic place than the one led by the boomers. It’s a place where technology is expected to solve problems, simplify life, and strip inauthenticity out of the sales process. They don’t want to beat the system; the success of Wealthfront and others says that the Ben Franklins want a fair system they can be part of, and that can benefit everyone in it.

For traditional financial institutions – who for decades have sold themselves on outperforming the system – this is decidedly not good news. The regulatory language “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” was created because banks, mutual fund companies, and others would manipulatively scream “Up 75 percent” and investors would see that as a go-forward promise.

I’m not saying that Wealthfront or Betterment will become tomorrow’s JP Mogan Chase or Fidelity. The market is dynamic; already Schwab is getting into their space, and others will follow. But the impact of the Millennials on the fundamental sales structure, value equation and content (in its broadest form) delivery of financial services is yet to be written. There is no doubt of that.

While it is true that most financial behemoths make their big money from the corporate side, I think even that world – which is very much driven by advisory services and complex financial products – is vulnerable to the upside-down view of the Ben Franklin generation. Even so, the quirky but intellectually consistent confluence of Ben Franklin values and Larry Page technology will come to disrupt the embedded architecture of corporate finance. Not all of it can be dismantled, but I can see opportunities for disruption in areas like debt syndication.

So when the SEC finally gets its act together on the JOBS Act, and promulgates the details of equity crowd-funding for non-qualified investors, that will be just the beginning of what I think will be an inevitable cascade of change. Things happen slowly till they happen fast. It was back in 1998, believe it or not, when Spring Street Brewing was brought public by Wit Capital in the first Internet IPO. The giants of financial service haven’t seen the telluric shifts that travel, media, entertainment and home thermostats have. They will. Depending on who you are, the Ben Franklin generation is composed of 80 million Benedict Arnolds.

I have not, or do not, consulted for any of the companies referenced in this piece, and have no equity position in them.

Follow Adam Hanft on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hanft

New Russian Boldness Revives a Cold War Tradition: Testing the Other Side by DAVID E. SANGER

nytimes.com · · October 30, 2014

WASHINGTON — When the White House discovered in recent weeks that its unclassified computer systems had been breached, intelligence officials examined the digital evidence and focused on a prime suspect: Russia, which they believe is using its highly sophisticated cyber capabilities to test American defenses. But its tracks were well covered, and officials say they may never know for sure.

They have no doubt, however, about what happened this week on the edges of NATO territory in Europe. More than two dozen Russian aircraft, including four Tu-95 strategic bombers, flew through the Baltic and Black Seas, along the coast of Norway and all the way to Portugal, staying over international waters but prompting NATO forces to send up intercepting aircraft.

Taken together, they represent the old and the updated techniques of Cold War signal-sending. In the Soviet era, both sides probed each other’s defenses, hoping to learn something from the reaction those tests of will created. In 2014, cyber is the new weapon, one that can be used with less restraint, and because its creators believe they cannot be traced and can create a bit of havoc without prompting a response.

In this case, the response was that the White House shut down use of some of its networks for lengthy periods — more an inconvenience than anything else, but a sign of the fragility of the system to sophisticated attacks.

But in both, divining the motive of the probes and the advantage, if any, they created is far from easy.

The Russian aircraft exercises were part of a broader escalation: NATO has conducted more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft this year, its officials report, far more than last year, before Russia annexed Crimea and began its operations in Ukraine.

“This is message-sending by Putin, and it’s dangerous,” one senior defense official said Wednesday, noting that in many cases, the Russian aircraft had turned off their transponders and did not reply to radio calls to identify themselves. In response, Germany, Portugal, Turkey and Denmark sent aircraft aloft, along with two non-NATO nations, Finland and Sweden. They were particularly struck by the use of the Tu-95 bombers, which Russia usually keeps clear of Europe.

But what’s new is the sophistication of Russia’s cyberespionage campaigns, which differ somewhat from China’s. The Chinese attacks — like those led by Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army, whose members were indicted earlier this year by the Justice Department — are aimed chiefly at intellectual property theft. The Russians do a bit of that, too, but the attacks also suggest more disruptive motives.

Last year, security researchers at several American cybersecurity companies uncovered a Russian cyberespionage campaign, in which Russian hackers were systematically hacking more than one thousand Western oil and gas computers, and energy investment firms. The first motive, given Moscow’s dependence on its oil and gas industry, was likely industrial espionage. But the manner in which hackers were choosing their targets also seemed intended to seize control of industrial control systems remotely, in much the same way the United States and Israel were able to take control of the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz when it attacked its computer systems with malware through the summer of 2010, disabling a fifth of Iran’s centrifuges at the time.

In the case of the attack on the White House’s unclassified computer system, officials say no data was destroyed. “The activity of concern is not being used to enable a destructive attack,” Bernadette Meehan, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said Thursday. She would not say which country or hacking group was suspected of being behind the attack.

But there is evidence that the internal alarms at the White House were not set off — a sign of the sophistication of the attack. Instead, the United States was alerted by a “friendly ally,” one official said. That suggests the ally saw the results of the attack on a foreign network, perhaps picking up evidence of what data had been lifted.

Armond Caglar, a cybersecurity expert for TSC Advantage, a consultancy in Washington that focuses on these kinds of attacks, said the motive could be “to test what the security culture is, or to get valuable information about the security posture at the White House.”

But that posture is quite different for classified systems. He also said it could be to “prepare for more graduated attacks” against better protected networks, including SIPRnet, the classified system Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, entered to turn over hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks in 2010.

Russian hackers — those working for the government and those engaged in “patriotic hacking” — are considered particularly stealthy. In several cases, security researchers have found evidence that hackers were probing the very core of victims’ machines, the part of the computer known as the BIOS, or basic input output system. Unlike software, which can be patched or updated, once the BIOS of a machine is infected with malware, it often renders the machine unusable.

Researchers have also found that the hackers were remarkably adept at covering their tracks, using encryption to cover their tools, but their digital crumbs left no doubt that they were Russian. Their tools were built and maintained during Moscow working hours, and snippets of Russian were found in the code. Though researchers were unable to tie the attacks directly to the state, they concluded that Russian government backing was likely, given their sophistication and resources.

Since researchers uncovered the campaign last year, they say the attacks have become more aggressive and sophisticated.

Early last month, security researchers uncovered a separate Russian cyberespionage campaign that used a zero-day vulnerability — a software bug that had never been reported in Microsoft’s Windows operating system — to launch cyberattacks on a long list of Russian adversaries. Among them: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, European governments, the government of Ukraine, academics who focused on Ukraine, and visitors of the GlobSec conference, an annual national security gathering that took place last May in Slovakia and was largely dominated by the situation in Ukraine.

Then this week, researchers at FireEye, a Silicon Valley firm, released their work detailing a similar campaign by Russian hackers that also targeted NATO, and a long list of victims that included the governments of Georgia, Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Eastern European governments and militaries, and journalists writing on issues of importance to the Russian government.

“This is no smash-and-grab, financially motivated Russian cybercriminal,” said Laura Galante, the threat intelligence manager who oversaw the research at FireEye. “This is Russia using their network operations to achieve their key political goals.”

nytimes.com · by DAVID E. SANGER · October 30, 2014

‘We’ve Got To Wake Up’: Frank Kendall Calls For Defense Innovation By Sydney J. Freedberg

breakingdefense.com / View Original / August 6th, 2014

 DeM Banter:  This goes back to a very basic question… do we have an ecosystem that supports innovation? 

WASHINGTON: “We’ve been complacent,” Frank Kendall said. For decades, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer said yesterday, the US has assumed its forces will be better equipped than any foe, but that’s increasingly in doubt: “Our technological superiority is very much at risk, there are people designing systems [specifically] to defeat us in a very thoughtful and strategic way, and we’ve got to wake up, frankly.”

“One of the things now hurting our force is we’ve gotten used to having nothing but very, very high-end weapons systems, ‘exquisite’ weapons systems,” elaborated one of Kendall’s aides, Alan Shaffer. “Unfortunately….potential adversaries have figured out how to counter [those] with things like very cheap electronic warfare systems,” said Shaffer, currently acting assistant secretary for research and engineering, speaking at the same defense industry conference that Kendall addressed. Those threats, Shaffer said, include “nations we don’t normally think of as technologically advanced such as Iran, which is fielding a very exquisite system of Global Positioning System jammers and integrated air defense systems.”

It takes innovation, both tactical and technological, to stay ahead of such savvy adversaries, and incentives for innovation will be a major part of the Pentagon’s next round of acquisition reforms, said Kendall. Better Buying Power 3.0 will be released in “two or three months,” he told reporters after his speech to industry group AFCEA. But Kendall made clear to the it would be a matter of incremental improvements to the existing system — “I am not a believer in silver bullets” — rather than radical change.

Yes, BBP 3.0 will continue the push to streamline bureaucracy, rely more on privately-funded research and development, and generally use more commercial business practices, but “the commercial model does not apply all the time,” Kendall warned. In theory, “we could just buy products that are already on the market, we could stop doing R&D,” he said. “A lot of our allies do this, [and] if you’re willing to be No. 2, 3, or 4, we could do that.” But if the US military wants to stay No. 1, then it can’t rely on the private sector to fund cutting-edge, military-specific R&D. No matter how much you reform, he said, such weapons programs will still take many years and taxpayer dollars.

So what can the Pentagon do to make a difference? One deceptively simple-looking measure Kendall mentioned is to write “best value” contracts that actually pay companies for exceeding performance targets, instead of awarding them to the lowest bidder who meets the minimum requirement.

That said, formal requirements aren’t holy writ. “We’ve got to start  breaking the tyranny of the requirements process,” said Shaffer. “Right now, if you look at many of the systems we’re fielding. they have this enormously long set of requirements, many of which may not matter a whole lot. We can do prototyping to build a capability, let operators play with it, then we can figure out what we really have to build.”

This “build it and they will come” approach is essentially how the Predator drone evolved from a demonstration project to a military icon. But Shaffer’s archetype of such “capability prototyping” is the famous Air Force and NASA “X-Planes,” from the Bell X-1, which broke the sound barrier in 1947, to the Boeing X-51, which broke the endurance record for hypersonic flight – six minutes at Mach 5.1 – in 2013. None of the X-designs was ever mass-produced for military service, nor were they meant to. They weren’t built to formal requirements, either. Instead, they provided not only valuable test data but, just as important, dramatic proof of what new technology could do, jumpstarting military imaginations to explore the possibilities.

Getting ideas from the X-plane stage into production will require closer cooperation between the Defense Department science and technology (S&T) community and the rest of the acquisition system, which will be a priority of Better Buying Power 3.0, said Shaffer. In one recent success, he said, the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) leapt directly from a DARPA demonstration into a formal program of record for at least 100 missiles, with program inception in 2013 and fielding set for 2018, less than five years later. “That’s pretty good,” said Shaffer. “That happened because we did the prototyping early in S&T.”

Prototypes boost innovation best in the early stages of the program, “before you go to formal lockdown of requirements at Milestone B, before you got to Critical Design Review,” Shaffer emphasized. “Post Milestone B, it’s too hard for S&T to get wedged in, and we probably don’t want to” — that’s the point where the program must focus on schedule, budget, and getting new technologies to work reliably — [so] you want to delay Milestone B as long as you can to burn the risk down.”

That said, you can never eliminate risk without eliminating innovation as well. “If you’re going to do things for the first time, it’s probably going to take you longer than you thought and it’s probably going to be harder than you thought… and some of the things you try aren’t going to work,” Kendall said. “I think we have to accept that.”

Today, Kendall feels, “we’re not taking enough risk. That doesn’t mean we should take risk wildly or stupidly…..you have to manage it, you have to understand it, you have to deal with it… but if you don’t take risk, you’re not going to be the No. 1 military power in the world.”

Clapper: Terror threat is growing By Michael Hardy

www.c4isrnet.com / View Original / July 24th, 2014

James Clapper: A ‘perfect storm’ is making the U.S more vulnerable to terrorists.Photo by: File

A “perfect storm” of factors has weakened the country’s ability to prevent and fight terrorism, according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Speaking at the National Press Club to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Commission’s report, Clapper noted that “the terrorist threat to the United States is still very, very real.”

The three factors contributing to the “perfect storm” are:

■ A loss of intelligence sources in the wake of unauthorized disclosures of information;

■ Policy choices limiting the collection of information, and;

■ Recent and expected future cuts to the budgets of intelligence agencies.

“The terrorist threat is not diminishing. It is spreading,” he said. “As a nation, in my opinion, we are accepting more risk than we were three years ago, or even one.”

See the full presentation at C-SPAN.org.

How Will This War End? By Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, U.S. Army retired

 armymagazine.org / View Original / July 25th, 2014

 

The primary metric in war is attaining one’s strategic aims. In the post-9/11 war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, who is winning? Both the U.S. and al Qaeda have done a lot of killing, but attrition alone is not decisive. The U.S. is now on its third strategy in this war. This strategy seems as unlikely to attain America’s strategic aims as the previous two.

Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, but it was not their first attack against us. The December 1992 bombing of two hotels in Yemen that had housed U.S. troops in transit to Somalia was the first. In February 1993, an al Qaeda-trained truck bomber attempted to bring down New York’s Twin Towers. Al Qaeda-trained Somalis brought down a U.S. helicopter in October 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia. In August 1996, Osama bin Laden publically declared war against the U.S., and in August 1998, al Qaeda bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers in October 2000. These were the major attacks that succeeded; there were others that were foiled.

These attacks were not isolated acts; they were tactical actions, part of campaigns designed to attain strategic aims. Al Qaeda’s campaign objectives are:

- Conduct “bleeding wars,” wars intended to defeat Western powers in Iraq and Afghanistan by causing their withdrawals, and attacks on Europe and the U.S. intended to further bleed the West’s will.

- Establish safe havens and franchises throughout the rest of the Islamic world, the ultimate franchise being Palestine, with the intent to create bases for future operations as well as cadres of leaders and fighters who can take advantage of local situations as opportunities arise.

Al Qaeda’s three strategic aims are:

–  Drive the U.S. from the Muslim world.

–  Destroy Israel.

–  Create a jihadist caliphate along the lines of the Ottoman Empire at its height.

The U.S. should understand by now that al Qaeda’s aims are to control land and peoples. Al Qaeda may use irregular forces, employ terrorist, guerilla and insurgent tactics, and be a network rather than a nation-state, but its strategy is a classic offensive one: conquer, defeat and control.

Though pushed out of Afghanistan in 2001, al Qaeda has retained its safe haven in Pakistan, from which it threatens that country’s government and seeks to return to Afghanistan once the U.S. departs. Al Qaeda has taken advantage of the civil war in Syria and established itself as a main contender for power. It is on both sides of the Gulf of Aden, the southern entrance to the Red Sea: in the Arabian Peninsula (on the Yemen side) and in East Africa and Al Shabab (on the Somali side). Another group, al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, is active in Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania, and it has links to other terrorist and criminal organizations. An al Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, operates in North Caucasus, Chechnya and the surrounding areas. These are the main affiliates; there are other associates, supporters and sympathetic organizations. The Army of Islam operating in the Gaza Strip, for example, is inspired by al Qaeda, even if it is not yet a fully recognized affiliate. The network is dynamic and complex, and names change as do leaders; the threat does not.

This is the enemy context against which one must understand U.S. war aims and strategies. Following 9/11, the Bush administration used a counteroffensive strategy. America waged war in three theaters: Afghanistan, Iraq, and globally against al Qaeda leaders, networks and support activities. This was a strategic counteroffensive against terrorism and those who support it, but it was never adequately resourced or conducted properly, domestically or internationally. As such, it was unsustainable. Furthermore, it was an overly militarized strategy with insufficient attention given to the diplomatic actions that would be necessary to capitalize on military success and create long-term solutions.

The Obama administration withdrew from Iraq, is withdrawing from Afghanistan, and has focused its attention on disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda. We initially employed a strategy of attrition, a strategy focused on capturing or killing selective al Qaeda leaders and operatives. This strategy also continued the emphasis on military action.

Over the past decade, the strategic initiative was sometimes with the U.S. and the West, other times with al Qaeda. Clearly, both sides have made mistakes and miscalculations. Both sides have had internal disagreements as to strategies, policies and campaigns believed necessary to achieve war aims. Neither side is guaranteed to win. Each side has been partially successful. As to the U.S. and the West, bin Laden is dead and al Qaeda may be disrupted at specific times and places or in specific ways, but it is neither dismantled nor defeated. As to al Qaeda, they might claim to have driven us from Iraq and Afghanistan. They have expanded their safe havens and franchises and continue their bleeding wars and raids. They have not destroyed Israel, nor have they created the caliphate they desire.

Democracies generally have difficulty sustaining will in protracted wars of attrition. Perhaps sensing that the assumption underlying the U.S. strategy of attrition—that America can last longer than al Qaeda and that attrition will prevent the enemy from its campaign objectives and strategic aims—was problematic from the start, the President announced a new direction in his May 28 speech at West Point.

In announcing the third strategy since 9/11, the President quoted Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s position that “war is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men,” but Eisenhower’s position has a corollary: Once war is forced upon you, as it was on 9/11, it is equally tragic, folly and a crime to prolong war unnecessarily. Many of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines being recruited now were 4, 5 and 6 years old on 9/11.

The President’s new strategy is a shift “to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold.” He did not change the part of the strategy associated with killing or capturing individual enemies when that is possible and consistent with the conditions the administration has set. This new strategy appears to be an offensive strategy of leadership attrition mixed with coalition warfare; it does not appear any more sustainable or effective than the other two strategies America has attempted.

The problem with this strategy is that the U.S. will be partnering with governments and security forces that are fledging, weak, corrupt or otherwise ineffective—the very environments that al Qaeda uses to establish its foothold. The time necessary to make effective partners out of these countries will more likely inadvertently help al Qaeda’s strategy rather than achieve U.S. war aims of disrupting, dismantling and defeating the now-transformed al Qaeda network. Moreover, targeting individual leaders or operatives as we develop partners, while necessary, does not appear to be sufficient in providing a decisive advantage. Executing this strategy is likely to commit the next generation to a war.

The U.S. and its allies need a more comprehensive strategy—one that retains the efforts to make partners out of some nations and to wear down selective al Qaeda network leaders and operatives—but it involves more. Perhaps the most critical component is conceptual. The President rightly lauded American post-World War II wisdom in creating institutions that helped keep the peace and support human progress. Such wisdom and leadership have been absent in creating the international legal and diplomatic institutions necessary to fight a global war against a non-nation-state. If al Qaeda were a nation-state invading countries and using force to achieve the strategic goals as it has, the world response would be much different from what it is now.

More aggressive action is also necessary to confront and reduce the already existing and expanding al Qaeda network safe havens. These actions must be more like strategic or operational raids than invasions and occupations. The U.S. cannot do this alone. Allies must be involved, and the partners we seek must make up a substantial part of any raid, but they cannot do this alone either. If they could, they would not be in the position they are in, and to wait until they are capable is to wait too long. Military action alone, however, is not a long-term solution. Therefore, the U.S. and its allies should insist that the partners we seek implement a governance and security reform agenda as a condition for help in reducing the existing threat they face and assisting them in implementing this reform agenda.

Perhaps this more comprehensive framework from which a strategy may emerge is unacceptable to the American people. If so, it is dead in the water. All should realize, however, that wars end in one of three ways: One side defeats the other; one side concludes that it cannot win so takes formal or informal action to end the fighting—even if temporarily; or both sides sense that neither can win so they reach an accommodation. U.S. strategies have, so far, prolonged the fighting.

Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, USA Ret., is a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq and a senior fellow of AUSA’s Institute of Land warfare.

The U.S. Military Needs a Redesigned Personnel System By Todd Harrison

www.nytimes.com / View Original / July 15th, 2014

If the U.S. military were starting fresh, I would begin by designing a new personnel system. I would put more money into the forms of compensation service members value most, such as basic pay, while promising less in deferred benefits, such as pensions and health care. I would also rethink the antiquated officer-enlisted divide, allow for mid-career hires at ranks commensurate with skills and not require service members to relocate as often since many have spouses with careers of their own.

Put more money in basic pay and less in pensions and health care.

Starting anew, the military would not be burdened with the legacy bases and facilities it finds so difficult to close today. I would create as few bases as possible in the United States, knowing they will be nearly impossible to close in the future. Overseas bases should be built for scalability so they can grow when a region becomes a priority and rapidly shrink to a minimal caretaker staff when priorities shift.

Lastly, I would build combat forces that leverage our advantages and are mindful of the threats we are likely to face in the future. I would raise the share of resources and the institutional stature of enabling forces within the military, such as space, cyber and logistics. These forces are key to helping our allies and partners better defend themselves, and our alliances are one of our great competitive advantages. I would also place a higher priority on forces designed to operate in more contested environments and over longer ranges and invest in unmanned systems to the maximum extent feasible.

While this is merely a thought exercise, none of the things listed here require starting over. Each of these things can be accomplished through incremental change. All that is required are open minds in Congress and in the military — and an electorate that holds both institutions responsible for better stewardship of the nation’s resources.

Todd Harrison is the senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Shifting Threats Spur Demand for Fighter Jets By Daniel Solon

www.nytimes.com / View Original / July 14th, 2014

On Bastille Day in Paris 100 years ago, spectators at the traditional military parade could scarcely have imagined the scale of destruction that was about to be unleashed on much of Europe, including the first use of military air power.

Since then, control of airspace has become a basic strategic doctrine. But which airspace, and how to control it in a period of game-changing developments in weapons, sensors and cybersystems, are questions as challenging as at any time in the past century.

While geopolitical threats are shifting fast, most military budgets are still locked down by post-recession austerity policies. But even though governments may want to cut military spending, defense needs are pushing the other way.

Russian and Chinese expansionism, real or perceived, has revived the specter of Cold War confrontations in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, boundaries drawn after World War I are disintegrating, with a risk of sectarian and regional power plays potentially affecting governments from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula and the Sahara.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., said he expected this week’s Farnborough International Airshow to see makers of tried-and-trusted fourth-generation fighter planes pulling out all the stops to sell into the Middle Eastern market. The term “fourth generation” is applied to planes such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, the American F-15 or the French Rafale, originally designed in the 1970s and upgraded since then to incorporate some modern stealth and electronic warfare technologies.

Air power, Mr. Aboulafia said, “is becoming less about platforms and more about systems, and systems of systems. The importance of an airplane is being dwarfed by the value and importance of its interior technologies and by the value of all the sensors, data links and connections that make it much more effective.”

An example of that trend is the Gripen E fighter program by Saab of Sweden, which incorporates increasingly advanced electronics and weaponry into a relatively inexpensive existing airframe. Brazil signed a deal in December to buy 36 Gripens, and Saab is prospecting for more customers in Asia.

In India, meanwhile, Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, and William Hague, the British foreign secretary, have been jostling this month to sell either Rafales or Typhoons to the new government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In Asia, however, Mr. Aboulafia said, what China’s neighbors perceive as its increasing assertiveness has placed a premium on stealth technology and interoperability with American forces. That, he said, spells “F-35” to him.

The highly stealthy “fifth generation” Lockheed Martin F-35 was described by Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia in April as “the most advanced fighter in production anywhere in the world.” Australia has ordered 72, with the first expected to enter service in 2020.

Whether Farnborough will provide a platform for more orders, however, is uncertain. Already long delayed and far over budget, the F-35 program suffered further embarrassment this month when an engine fire during testing led the United States military to ground its entire fleet, raising a question mark over the plane’s ability to even turn up at the British air show.

As governments gear up to meet near-term threats, they must also look ahead into a disturbingly different future, where geopolitical disruptions are matched by drastic technological changes in cyberwarfare, drones and hypersonic flight, among other areas.

At least some of those developments can reasonably be projected to a 10-year time horizon, though many others remain cloaked in secrecy.

In February, the United States Air Force said it planned to buy 80 to 100 “Long Range Strike B” heavy bombers, with an optional unmanned flight capacity and the ability to “loiter” over a battle zone, at a price of $550 million each. They would enter service in the mid-2020s.

Using existing technologies, the planes would incorporate cutting-edge electronics, making them harder to target than the current B-2 stealth bombers, which military analysts say will be vulnerable to Chinese countermeasures within a decade.

Mr. Aboulafia said he expected intense competition for contracts by all the major defense players, with “everyone hoping for a piece of this $100 billion project.”

Even more futuristic projects include the X-51 “Waverider,” a program of Boeing’s Phantom Works division. In a flight a year ago, the X-51, an unmanned supersonic ramjet that surfs on its own shock waves, reached Mach 5, five times the speed of sound. Technology from the experimental program could be used in a hypersonic missile planned for service in the mid-2020s, to be launched from B-2 bombers or F-35 fighters.

Not to be outdone, Lockheed Martin’s advanced development division has proposed a pilotless spy plane that could fly faster than a speeding missile, at Mach 6, or twice the speed of the long-retired SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane.

Named the SR-72, a demonstration model could be ready by 2018, with prototype testing in 2023 and an operational version in service by 2030.

The cost, said Alexandra Ashbourne, a military analyst based in London, could be around $300 million per plane, “which only the United States could afford.”

U.S. sends 300 more troops to Iraq over security concerns By Phil Stewart

DeM Banter:  So… it was 300 originally… then it was 200 more and now we are 300 more?  Are we at 500 or 800 now?  I think we can say–we’re back…

http://www.reuters.com / View Original / June 30th, 2014
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is ramping up its military presence in Iraq, deploying around 300 additional troops as well as helicopters and drone aircraft in response security concerns in Baghdad, officials said on Monday.

The decision announced by the Pentagon puts U.S. military personnel in a security role at Baghdad International Airport in the face of advances by an al Qaeda splinter group, three years after America’s military withdrawal.

As speculation swirls about whether President Barack Obama might authorize U.S. air strikes, a U.S. defense official said the moves were primarily focused protection of American personnel in Iraq, including civilians.

“This is not about (preparations) toward air strikes,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon said about 200 forces arrived on Sunday in Iraq to reinforce security at the U.S. embassy, its support facilities and Baghdad International Airport.

Another 100 personnel arrived in Iraq and many would be stationed at the airport, the official said.

“I think there’s an appropriate level of concern about the airport,” the official said, noting it was a vital transportation hub.

The Pentagon said a small number of helicopters and drone aircraft were also being deployed to Iraq.

The forces are in addition up to 300 military advisors that Obama authorized to be deployed to Iraq partly to set up two joint operations centers. They also will assess how the United States might provide additional support. About 180 of those advisers are already in Iraq.

The troop movements are part of the Obama administration’s attempt to help Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s push back militants from the Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL), who have made stunning advances over the last few weeks.

Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was also considering putting up a new joint military operations center in the northwest of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. While no final decisions have been made, the official said the new operations center, which would be the second the United States has established since Iraq’s security deteriorated earlier this month, could be placed in the province of Duhok, in Iraq’s farthest northern reaches near Syria and Turkey.

U.S. forces at a similar joint operations center in Baghdad are gathering information about the situation on the ground and overseeing U.S. forces who are taking stock of the Iraqi military in the field.

It was not immediately clear whether U.S. forces at the new joint operations center would be working primarily with the Peshemerga, the Kurdish forces that have long protected Iraq’s Kurdish enclave, or whether forces from the Iraqi military commanded from Baghdad would be involved.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Sandra Maler, Bernard Orr, Toni Reinhold)