Will Turkey return to F-35?; DOD AI chief: send money; SecDef tours troubled carrier; and more… – Defense One

Using artificial intelligence on the battlefield has drawn debate in recent years amid the Pentagons high-profile effort to train algorithms to pick out people, buildings, and vehicles, amid oceans of drone-gatheredvideo.

On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan gave an update on the Pentagons Joint Artificial Intelligence Center at The AtlanticFestival.

Money first: Shanahan said his JAIC (pronounced jake) will see its $89 million budget more than double, to about $200 million, when the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. Then, he said, We will seek additional funding through the course of the next five-year budget cycle to begin to show how important it is to bring this across the entire Department ofDefense.

How much money is a little difficult topredict.

Subscribe

Get The Global Business Brief in your inbox:

The must-read news, analysis and insights about the intersection of business and international security.

This a little bit of a hard sell sometimes because artificial intelligence in a software-driven age, its hard for me to project out three years from now exactly what projects were going to be working on, Shanahan said. What Id like to do is be held accountable after the fact for did you seek spend your money in the wisest way possible, did you show that you made the right investments and when you didnt, did you fail early and stop a project and moveon.

Asked whether the Pentagons AI goals depend on big tech companies like Google, who withdrew from Maven after thousands of its employees who objected to the work Shanahan replied, It would be extremely hard to do it withoutthem.

How Companies View AIs Role in Defense. Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski believes AI will get better when its deployed onto thebattlefield.

Theres a lot of things that are happening now in the lab that are not going to get better until we field them, Rozanski said on Tuesday. Training an AI has to happen in the place where the AI is going to operate. A lab is not where the AI is ultimately going to operate, so its never going to learn, its never going to get trained to the right level until it gets put into an operationalcontext.

But there are key challenges in getting AI to the battlefield, Rozanski said. Among them, the infrastructure for analysts and communications, or lack thereof, on thebattlefield.

Tom Arseneault, BAE Systems president and COO, said modeling might be able to help intesting.

Increasingly, the field is a relative thing, Arseneault said. As we get increasingly digital, were able to model the field in an environment where we can test a little bit more safely and a little less expensively. Systems will be formed out of digital models. We model the environment in which they operate and all of that can happen in a virtualworld.

Youve reached the Defense One Global Business Brief by Marcus Weisgerber. Send along your tips and feedback to mweisgerber@defenseone.com or @MarcusReports. Check out the Global Business Brief archive here, and tell your friends to subscribe!

Now service officials hope they can get the MQ-25 operating faster thanplanned.

The U.S. will increase air and missile defenses from Iran at the request of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Pentagon leaderssaid.

Low Earth orbit will soon be awash in small satellites, and the national security community is increasingly concerned about theirsecurity.

Last week, we told you that F-35-maker Lockheed Martin is pitching the Pentagon a five-year maintenance deal to avoid negotiating yearly contracts a move the company says would save billions of dollars. Pratt & Whitney, planes engine maker, sees a value in this type of arrangement, known as a performance-based logistics, or PBL, contract, because it allows the company to lock in long-term supplierdeals.

We think theres incredible value in a PBL. We do agree that going to a longer PBL will allow us as a contractor to provide more value, Matthew Bromberg, president of Pratt & Whitneys Military Engines business, told a few reporters on the sidelines of the Air Force Associations Air, Space and Cyber conference lastweek.

A short PBL is like trying to manage a fleet with your hands tied behind your back, he said. You cant order the parts, you cant invest in the repairs, you cant invest in the sustainment, the tooling, [and] thetraining.

Bromberg said a long-term sustainment contract five year or 10 years I think is the way to go. A 10-year deal is something that we floated, but we dont have an offer out there. That said, the company is talking to the [F-35 joint program office] aboutit.

The commercial sector typically signs seven to 10-year logistics contracts, hesaid.

There he toured the USS Gerald Ford, the Navys newest aircraft carrier, which has been riddled with issues involving its propulsion systems and weapons elevators. Huntington Ingalls Industries said: Esper toured Ford to see the progress being made during the ships post-shakedown availability and to learn more about its weapons-handling innovations and increased warfighting capabilities. Heres a breakdown by Bloomberg about the problems with the ship.

U.S. Air Force combat search-and-rescue crews have been waiting a long time for new helicopters, but they moved a step closer this week. The Air Force cleared the helicopter for production, according to Lockheed Martins Sikorsky, maker of the HH-60W. Four test helicopters are already flying (here are some pictures of them). Now all the helo needs is a name. Rescue Hawk,anyone?

Maybe, say reports about a briefing given by U.S. ambassador David Satterfield to Turkish officials. Satterfield offered on Friday to sell Turkey a Patriot missile defense system and lower tariffs on steel and aluminum, Haberturk and NTV reported, without citing anyone, Bloomberg reports. Local media also reported that the U.S. may unveil a new economic package to boost bilateral trade to $100 billion from about $19billion.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been involved with efforts to pull Ankara back into the F-35 fold, met with Turkeys President Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the week. Were trying to get them back in the F-35 program, he said onSunday.

A meeting between Erdogan and President Trump to discuss the Patriot deal had been expected this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York but while the two leaders attended a reception on Wednesday, it does not appear that meeting tookplace.

The Trump administration is considering sanctioning Turkey over its buying the S-400 air and missile interceptors from Russia. The U.S. kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program after Ankara began receiving the interceptors this summer. The ban prevents Turkey from buying the planes or making parts forthem.

Announced this week: the State Department cleared a $400 million deal for eight Boeing-made AH-6i attack helicopters, along with Hellfire missiles and a bunch of other weapons for Thailand. State also approved an $86 million deal for Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures for Qatar for its two 747-8 head-of-state aircraft AKA, its version of Air ForceOne.

ICYMI: Earlier this month State cleared thesedeals:

Tyler Evans has been named senior vice president of Aerojet Rocketdynes Defense Business Unit. He was previously vice president of the companys Rocket Shop Defense Advanced Programsunit.

General Dynamics appointed General Dynamics NASSCO president Kevin Graney as president of General Dynamics Electric Boat, effective Oct. 1. David Carver, NASSCOs vice president and general manager of repair, will succeed Graney as president of General Dynamics NASSCO. Current Electric Boat president Jeffrey Geiger will retire on Sept.30.

The rest is here:

Will Turkey return to F-35?; DOD AI chief: send money; SecDef tours troubled carrier; and more... - Defense One