8 Apr – The Land Task Force supports a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Omiishosh Memorial School in Pauingassi First Nation, Manitoba, during Operation Vector.
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IN THE NEWS
May 07
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly committed to keeping NATO’s door open for aspiring states which meet the alliance’s requirements. This is according to a White House official who briefed reporters May 6 on Air Force One. Karine Jean-Pierre also noted that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Kyiv to affifm U.S. “support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”
May 07
More than 130 members of the House of Representatives are pushing back against other politicians’ call for reduced U.S. procurement of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters next year. In a newly-disclosed April 28 letter to the Armed Services Committee and a defence sub-panel of the Appropriations Committee, they urged support for the Department of Defense’s request for more fighters. “Cuts in the Fiscal Year 2022 will leave the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps with a capability gap that legacy aircraft or new variants thereof cannot fulfill,” they wrote.
May 07
The government has restarted the contract for two new Coast Guard icebreakers. The largest ships in the Coast Guard fleet, they will play a critical role in enabling the Canadian Coast Guard to patrol and protect Canada's 243,000 km of coastline.
May 06
In a 12,400-page communique at the end of their two-day summit in London, foreign ministers from Canada and the other G-7 countries included an anodyne critique of China and Russia, both of which rejected the characterizations. Potentially setting the tone for a G-7 leaders meeting in June, they reiterated concerns about Beijing’s human rights record and expansionism and Moscow’s aggression in eastern Europe.
May 06
Thirteen years after a former administration announced it and four years after its supposed delivery date, the announcement of a new contract for a heavy Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker is expected today. Shipyards in Vancouver and Quebec have been competing for the work ever since the government removed the project from a Vancouver yard.
May 05
Chinese President Xi Jinping would be making “a very serious mistake” if he ordered an invasion of Taiwan, says U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We are committed to making sure that Taiwan has the means to defend itself,” he says. “That commitment is not going away. And at the same time, I think it would be a very serious mistake for anyone to try to disrupt by force the existing status quo.”
May 05
Some 28,000 military personnel from 26 countries began an exercise May 4 in the Balkans and Black Sea region near Russian territories. The U.S.-led initiative is designed to test infrastructure and interoperability along NATO’s southeastern flank.
May 05
A 20-ton Long March rocket used by China to launch part of its proposed space station last week is expected to re-enter the atmosphere “around May 8”, according to U.S. officials. However, its precise entry point and potential impact area will remain uncertain until reentry begins.
May 05
Britain’s Royal Marines have produced a video of a successful test of a jet pack for potential use in boarding parties. They normally would fast-rope from a helicopter but the suit developed by Salisbury-based Gravity Industries provides a dramatically different option.
May 05
Thirty more Dassault Rafale fighters have been ordered by Egypt at an estimated cost of nearly €4 billion. Coming six years after an initial procurement of 24, it would give the Egyptian air force the largest Rafale fleet after France.
May 05
A new light armoured vehicle prototyped for the U.S. Marine Corps at a cost of more than $6 million has been unveiled by Textron. Systems, named for a venomous water snake, the Cottonmouth advanced reconnaissance vehicle is intended to replace a General Dynamics legacy fleet which has been in service since the 1980s.
May 05
In a potentially significant shift in the debate over sexual assault in the U.S. military, Army Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says he is open to the idea of take prosecutorial decisions out of commanders’ hands. “We’ve been at it for years, and we haven’t effectively moved the needle,” he says. “We have to.”
May 05
Nine more individuals, including two from Turkey’s main procurement agency, have been charged in an ongoing industrial espionage case. Others include active and retired military personnel and three persons in the private sector. The government detained 33 other individuals in January and March.
May 04
The U.S. has reached a settlement with Honeywell over allegations that it illegally exported technical drawings of parts of the Lockheed Martin F-35 and other weapons. The State Department says data shared with Canada, China, Ireland and Taiwan harmed national security but the North Carolina-based company, which voluntarily disclosed its actions, says no detailed manufacturing or engineering expertise was shared and that the technology involved is “commercially available throughout the world.”
May 03
Five aircraft are competing for Finland’s potential €9-billion replacement for its fleet of legacy Boeing F-18 Hornets. They are the Saab Gripen, the Lockheed Martin F-35, the Dassault Rafale, the Boeing F-18 Super Hornet and the Airbus-BAE-Leonardo Eurofighter.
May 03
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says the government, having commissioned yet another external review, is prepared to reform his department’s handling of sexual misconduct. “It's possible . . . authorities will need to change,” he said May 2. “There possibly might be legislative changes as well.” Meanwhile, there were 581 documented reports of sexual assault in the military over the last five years.
May 03
U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin could be meeting in a third country this summer. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says Biden “believes that such a summit would be valuable in establishing better understandings between our two countries and the possibility of getting this relationship on a more stable, predictable path.”
May 03
MGen Peter Dawe, head of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, has been placed on indefinite leave by the Acting Chief of the Defence Staff, LGen Wayne Eyre, for having written a letter of support four years ago for a soldier found guilty of sexual assault. Dawe’s deputy commander, MGen Steve Boivin, has been appointed to replace him.
May 03
The U.S. Army’s concept of portable nuclear reactors to supply dependable power to combat operations is “extremely disturbing” and “based on a lie,” says the author of an academic report released by the Department of Defense. Alan Kuperman, coordinator of a University of Texas nuclear proliferation initiative, says Project Pele means higher costs and is a potential threat to U.S. personnel.
Apr 30
The 3M Company was found liable today for hearing damage suffered by three U.S. Army veterans who accused the company of covering up design defects in its earplugs. The Florida jury awarded each $2.1 million in punitive damages and a total of $830,500 in compensatory damages.
Apr 30
U.S. Army leaders have concluded that the modern fast-paced, multi-domain, wide-ranging style of combat could be a platform for changing the laws governing armed conflict. Gen Mike Murray, the head of Army Futures Command, says future leaders will have to rely on artificial intelligence and autonomous and semi-autonomous systems just to do their jobs.
Apr 30
A bipartisan coalition of U.S. Senators are pressing the Department of Defense to remove sexual misconduct cases from the traditional military chain of command and transfer jurisdiction to an independent counsel’s office. The move comes a week after a Pentagon review commission concluded that independent counsel is better qualified to deal with the complexities of evidence gathering and prosecutorial decisions.
Apr 29
Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court of Canada judge as well as a former UN Commissioner for Human Rights, has been appointed to lead a review of sexual harassment and misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. She is tasked with providing “concrete recommendations” on how an external reporting system could enable victims to report issues without fear of reprisal.
Apr 29
The commander of an RCAF Lockheed-Martin CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft has been formally reprimanded for diverting his aircraft during a six-hour B.C. coastal training mission to an area where he could find mobile phone service in May 2019. He was trying to check in for a personal flight scheduled for the next day and the diversion resulted in the training mission having to be reset. He pleaded guilty at a court martial.
Apr 29
The recent sinking of an Indonesian submarine with all 53 persons aboard is seen by a former Australian submarine commander as a catalyst for other navies to review the likely causes and responses to determine whether there are lessons to be learned from the tragedy.
ISSUES & IDEAS
It is most unfortunate that the recent MND announcement about sexual misconduct left us with the impression that this is another study to study previous studies! It did not explain well.
The Minister of National Defence announces that Madame Louise Arbour will lead an Independent External Comprehensive Review into harassment and sexual misconduct in the DND/CAF. Her mandate is to provide concrete recommendations to set up an independent, external reporting system that is free from any influence of the Chain of the Command.
A serving police officer reflects on the state of policing today with a message to colleagues: "We can't be defensive." This highlights, for Canada as well, the critical thinking that must sweep aside any remnants of the culture that has mangled the concept of equal Justice.
FEATURED ARTICLES 2020 |
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BY ARIE EGOZI
Israel is using nano satellites to monitor for hostile missile launch preparations, and is developing cruise missiles to add to its defence arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles.
BY EUGENE GERDEN
In a move intended to bring Russia to the level of modern armies of the West, its military is ready to begin the next stage of massive reforms of its national armed forces to ensure their active development within the next decade, according to recent statements made by Russian military commanders and local defence analysts.
BY ROBBIN LAIRD
The shift from land wars to conflicts in contested air and sea spaces, means new concepts of operations and systems are developing, and this requires collaboration between the services.
BY HUDSON ON THE HILL
The JSS project timeline is much longer than it should be, but is well underway. So why, after all this time, did the House of Commons ask the Parliamentary Budget Office to review costs?
Every year, FrontLine highlights a select group of organizations that make innovation a serious priority. From R&D to advanced technologies, these companies are making a difference for the future.
BY DARREN HAWCO
As adversaries utilize increasingly technological tactics, NATO needs to consider deterrence from the lens of today and not the past, to evolve its role as an international actor, and to reassess the capabilities required to deter potential adversary actions across the entire spectrum of hostile measures.
Newer technologies have brought about significant changes in the threats being faced, driving nations to modernize their defences, which are becoming vulnerable to counter-attacks and countermeasures. IAI’s BARAK- MX sets new standards for modern air defence capability.
Although COVID-19 has had a significant impact across Canada, the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) has made significant progress in 2020. The question now, is what will the headwinds be like, in 2021 and beyond?
Many leadership changes in your defence community in 2020. The following highlight DND/CAF, Rockwell Collins, Samuel Associates, Thales Canada, MDA, Deloitte Canada, Federal Fleet Services, and Boeing Canada.