How DoD can improve its technology resilience

Mark Pomerleau

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense must bolster its resilience in mission platforms in order to stay ahead of threats, a new think tank report says.

With the military's shift toward great power competition, or conflict against nation states, its systems and platforms will be under greater stress than technological inferior adversaries battled during the counterterrorism fight of the last decade-plus.

Systems and networks are expected to be contested, disrupted and even destroyed, meaning officials need to build redundancy and resilience in from the start to work through such challenges. In fact, top defense officials have been warning for several years that they are engaged in conflict that is taking place below the threshold of armed conflict in which adversaries are probing networks and systems daily for espionage or disruptive purposes.

“Resilience is a key challenge for combat mission systems in the defense community as a result of accumulating technical debt, outdated procurement frameworks, and a recurring failure to prioritize learning over compliance. The result is brittle technology systems and organizations strained to the point of compromising basic mission functions in the face of changing technology and evolving threats,” said a new report out today by the Atlantic Council titled “How Do You Fix a Flying Computer? Seeking Resilience in Software-Intensive Mission Systems.”

“Mission resilience must be a priority area of work for the defense community. Resilience offers a critical pathway to sustain the long-term utility of software-intensive mission systems, while avoiding organizational brittleness in technology use and resulting national security risks. The United States and its allies face an unprecedented defense landscape in the 2020s and beyond.”

This resilience, is built upon three pillars, the authors write: robustness, which is the ability of a system to negate the impact of disruption; responsiveness, which is the ability of a system to provide feedback and incorporate changes on a disruption, and; adaptability, which is the ability to a system to change itself to continue operating despite a disruption.

Systems, the report notes, are more than just the sum of its parts — hardware and software — but rather are much broader to include people, organizational processes and technologies.

To date, DoD has struggled to manage complexity and develop robust and reliable mission systems, even in a relatively benign environment, the report bluntly asserts, citing problems with the F-35′s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) as one key example.

“A conflict or more contested environment would only exacerbate these issues. The F-35 is not alone in a generation of combat systems so dependent on IT and software that failures in code are as critical as a malfunctioning munition or faulty engine — other examples include Navy ships and military satellites,” the authors write. “To ensure mission systems like the F-35 remain available, capable, and lethal in conflicts to come demands the United States and its allies prioritize the resilience of these systems. Not merely security against compromise, mission resilience is the ability of a mission system to prevent, respond to, and adapt to both anticipated and unanticipated disruptions, to optimize efficacy under uncertainty, and to maximize value over the long term. Adaptability is measured by the capacity to change — not only to modify lines of software code, but to overturn and replace the entire organization and the processes by which it performs the mission, if necessary. Any aspect that an organization cannot or will not change may turn out to be the weakest link, or at least a highly reliable target for an adversary.”

The report offers four principles that defense organizations can undertake to me more resilient in future conflicts against sophisticated adversaries:

Embrace failure: DoD must be more willing to take risks and embrace failure to stay ahead of the curve. Organizations can adopt concepts such as chaos engineering, experimenting on a system to build confidence in its ability to withstand turbulent conditions in production, and planning for loss of confidentiality in compromised systems.
Improve speed: DoD must be faster at adapting and developing, which includes improving its antiquated acquisition policies and adopt agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery. Of note, DoD has created a software acquisition pathway and is implementing agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery, though on small scales.
Always be learning: Defense organizations operate in a highly contested cyber environment, the report notes, and as the department grows more complex, how it learns and adapts to rapidly evolving threats grows in importance. Thus, it must embrace experimentation and continuous learning at all levels of systems as a tool to drive improvement.
Manage trade-offs and complexity: DoD should improve mission system programs' understanding of the trade-offs between near-term functionality and long-term complexity to include their impact on systems' resilience.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/12/14/how-dod-can-improve-its-technology-resilience/

On the same subject

April 3, 2020

Air Force small business program seeks technologies to help counter COVID-19
by Sandra Erwin In response to the SBIR solicitation, a space startup is developing a geospatial intelligence-based tool that can help governments identify infected areas. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force Small Business Innovation Research office has posted a new solicitation that includes COVID-19 countermeasures as an area of interest. The March 30 Small Business Innovation Research solicitation, like most SBIR calls, is open to proposals on any topic that addresses a defense-focused need. But this is the first one that includes COVID-19 “defeat and mitigation related to Air Force operations and activities” as an area of interest. Proposals are due April 30. This SBIR is for “direct to Phase 2” contracts of up to $1 million over 27 months. Phase 1 awards are for early research work whereas Phase 2 are for technologies that are relevant to defense needs but also have commercialization potential. Some Air Force SBIR programs require matching funds from private investors. According to the March 30 solicitation, companies can compete for $1 million Air Force awards but private matching funds are not a requirement. The SBIR solicitation is an opportunity for startups in space and defense to adapt technologies for COVID-19 response, Shawn Usman, an astrophysicist with Rhea Space Activity, told SpaceNews. Usman said Rhea Space Activity has partnered with Illumina Consulting Group and Dynamic Graphics to offer a geospatial intelligence-based tool that can help governments identify infected areas much faster than is currently possible. “We can provide operational, real-time data analysis and alerting capabilities to federal, state, and military emergency operations centers,” he said. “Our solution will collect publicly available information, including social media and adware data, and correlate it with other data sets from public health organizations to create alerts detailing the emergence of COVID-19 hotspots.” Using open-source analytics and satellite collected geospatial information it would be possible to “readily confirm COVID-19 infected population areas, and will provide first responders with much more detailed, real time information to formulate their own reaction plans,” Usman said. https://spacenews.com/air-force-small-business-program-seeks-technologies-to-help-counter-covid-19/
December 1, 2020

How the Biden administration is expected to approach tech research and development
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — Experts expect President-elect Joe Biden's administration to build on the Trump administration's investments in emerging technologies, while adding to research and development budgets in the Defense Department and across the federal government. The incoming Biden administration signaled throughout the campaign that basic research and development funding would be a priority. Biden wrote in Foreign Affairs he would make research and development a “cornerstone” of his presidency and pointed to the United States having the “greatest research universities in the world.” “It's basic research that's the area where you get the breakthroughs, and you need long-term, sustained investments to build up a strong S&T base,” said Martijn Rasser, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security's technology and national security program. Biden's R&D investment is an expected change from the Trump administration's approach, which experts have noted is narrower in scope and focused on harnessing private sector innovation. “The reality is the U.S. private sector has eclipsed the government, which in some ways that can be good,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities. “The private sector can move with greater agility than the government, but the private sector may not be focusing on developing those exquisite technologies that we need for the war fighter.” Experts told C4ISRNET they expect the Biden administration to invest more money in basic research areas and to reform immigration laws that slowed the innovation pipeline from abroad to the United States. “China is closing in. They are spending every year more and more on R&D. They will soon, if not already, be spending as much as we are, if not more on R&D,” Langevin said told C4ISRNET. “Congress has woken up to this problem.” Basic research Perhaps the most likely area the Biden administration is poised to change is basic research and development funding. According to annual reports from the Congressional Research Service, the Trump administration consistently proposed top-line cuts to federal research and development in yearly budget proposals. This included the fiscal 2021 budget proposal's $13.8 billion decrease in defense R&D over the fiscal 2020 funding enacted by Congress. While the Pentagon has often been spared from such cuts, the Trump administration has also suggested trimming the defense-related basic research budget line — money that is a “substantial source of federal funds for university R&D,” according to the Congressional Research Service. The White House's FY21 defense-related basic research budget line asked for a reduction of about 11 percent from FY20 enacted, or a $284.2 million decrease. Biden's campaign platform calls for a four-year investment of $300 billion in R&D for new technology such as 5G, artificial intelligence, advanced materials and electric cars. “A nation speaks to and identifies its priorities by where it puts its research dollars, where it puts its money,” Langevin said. “Basic research has to be more of a priority, and that's something I'm going to encourage the Biden administration to focus on.” Michèle Flournoy, thought to be a leading contender to become the next secretary of defense, has also written about the need to increase investment in emerging technologies to counter China. In Foreign Affairs in June, Flournoy wrote that “resilient battlefield networks, artificial intelligence to support faster decision-making, fleets of unmanned systems, and hypersonic and long-range precision missiles” will “ultimately determine military success.” “Continuing to underinvest in these emerging capabilities will ultimately have dire costs for U.S. deterrence,” she wrote. Congressional and think tank reports published during the Trump administration's tenure called for an increase in basic research funding. A report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's strategic tech and advanced research subpanel, led by Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., recommended bumping up federal research and development funding from 0.7 percent to 1.1 percent of gross domestic product, or an increase of $146 billion to $230 billion. A report by the Council on Foreign Relations from 2019 applauded the Trump administration's requested increases in funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, now funded at $3.46 billion, and the Defense Innovation Unit, for which the Trump administration requested $164 million. Laying the groundwork Initiatives started under the Trump administration did provide a groundwork on which the Biden administration can build. Under the Trump administration, DARPA kicked off a $1.5 billion microelectronics effort. In artificial intelligence, the administration launched the American AI Initiative. However, the Council on Foreign Relations criticized that effort because it had no funding and left agencies to prioritize artificial intelligence R&D spending without metrics, while also drawing funds from other research areas. The administration also made an $1.2 billion investment in quantum information science. “The Trump administration started bringing national attention and federal focus to many of these technologies,” said Lindsey Sheppard, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I hope to see from the Biden administration perhaps a more cohesive guiding strategy for all of these pieces.” While the Trump administration has started many initiatives, the Council on Foreign Relations report also criticized the Trump administration's innovation strategy as an “incremental and limited approach,” writing that “action does not match the language officials use to describe the importance of AI to U.S. economic and national security.” While investment in future technology is important, defense budgets are expected to stay flat or decrease in the coming years. In her Foreign Affairs article, Flournoy acknowledge that the budgetary reality will require “tough tradeoffs.” Experts agree. “R&D programs are going to have to start being able to consistently, clearly articulate justifications for their budgets and the returns on investment,” Sheppard said. But the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for increased investments in research and development, Himes and Langevin argued. Both lawmakers identified biothreats as something they fear for the future. Biological threats are one area that DARPA — an organization Langevin pointed to as a major federal R&D success story — has triumphantly address. Commercial partners from DARPA's 3-year-old pandemic prevention platform program announced they developed a COVID-19 therapeutic using new techniques. “There's absolutely going to be a rethink,” Himes told C4ISRNET in an interview. “Are we correctly allocating money between the possibility that there could be a pandemic that kills a million Americans, versus the possibility that we're going to have to fight the Russians in the Fulda Gap? I think there's going be a lot of thinking about that. And there should be thinking about that because our money should go to those areas where there's the highest probability of dead Americans.” Immigration innovation Another way to improve American innovation in critical future technologies is by allowing highly skilled foreigners to work in the United States. Biden has hinted at changes that will affect American innovation through the expected reversals of President Donald Trump's immigration policies, which limited high-skilled workers from legally working in the country. The Biden administration's platform states it wants to reform the H-1B visa process that the Trump administration restricted, much to the chagrin of American tech companies, which use the program to hire top talent from abroad. Think tanks have recommended reforming the current U.S. immigration policy to attract international students, entrepreneurs and high-skilled workers because of the innovative ideas they provide. For example, an analysis by Georgetown University's Center for Security and Technology found that 68 percent of the United States' top 50 artificial intelligence companies were co-founded by immigrants, most of whom came the U.S. as students. “A lot of the Trump administration's policies — we're shooting ourselves in the foot making it so much harder for people to come here,” said Rasser, who wrote a report for CNAS last year calling for H1-B caps to be increased. “Because of the fact that people want to come to the United States to live and work, that's one of our greatest competitive advantages. It's something I expect the Biden administration to reverse.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/transition/2020/11/29/how-the-biden-administration-is-expected-to-approach-tech-research-and-development/
December 17, 2020

“Innovations for FCAS”: Airbus concludes cooperative pilot phase with startup companies in Germany
Munich, 09 December 2020 – Airbus has concluded a pilot phase of the “Innovations for FCAS” (I4 FCAS) initiative which aims at involving German non-traditional defence players -covering startups, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and research institutes- in the development of Future Combat Air System (FCAS). This initiative which was launched in April 2020 was funded by the German Ministry of Defence. “The initiative shows that FCAS does not compare with previous larger defence projects. By implementing young and innovative players, some of whom have never been in touch with the defence sector, we ensure to leverage all competencies available for a game-changing high-tech programme such as FCAS”, said Dirk Hoke, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Defence and Space. “It will also foster technological spill-overs between the military and civil worlds. It is our ambition to continue the initiative in 2021 and beyond, and make it a cornerstone of our FCAS innovation strategy.” During the pilot phase, 18 innovative players worked on 14 projects in different areas, covering the whole range of FCAS elements: combat cloud, connectivity, new generation fighter, remote carriers, system of systems, sensors. Among these 14 projects, Airbus engineers have worked closely with SMEs and startups to achieve concrete results such as: · A first flight-test approved launcher of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) from of a transport aircraft. This project is the result of a cooperation between Airbus as A400M integrator, Geradts GmbH for the launcher and SFL GmbH from Stuttgart for UAV integration and supported by DLR simulations. An agile design and development approach allowed for rapid prototyping and flight readiness in only 6 months. · A secure combat cloud demonstrator: a first time transfer of secured operating systems into a cloud environment. Kernkonzept GmbH from Dresden together with Airbus CyberSecurity have shown how IT security can be used for highest security requirements on a governmental cloud system. · A demonstrator of applied artificial intelligence on radio frequency analysis. Hellsicht GmbH from Munich trained their algorithms on Airbus-provided datasets, allowing for a unique capability of real time fingerprinting of certain emitters, such as radars. As Europe's largest defence programme in the coming decades, FCAS aims at pushing the innovation and technological boundaries. Its development will bring disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, manned-unmanned teaming, combat cloud or cybersecurity to the forefront. https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2020/12/innovations-for-fcas-airbus-concludes-cooperative-pilot-phase-with-startup-companies-in-germany.html

All news