The companies opened the second day of the Farnborough air show in England July 19 by announcing they had signed a memorandum of understanding to pursue a potential deal with Saudi Arabia for the Embraer’s C-390 tactical airlift twin jet.

The aim is to establish a partnership to collaborate in the Middle East and other markets, they said in a statement.

Details of the potential scope of the strategic partnership were not available. Ian Muldowney, chief operating officer for BAE Systems Air sector said the collaboration “recognizes the capability of the C-390 Millennium aircraft combined with BAE Systems’ extensive knowledge and understanding of international markets including experience in standing up military capability and delivering industrialization through the support, maintenance, and training solutions for complex aircraft.”

BAE has had a major industrial and support presence in Saudi Arabia for decades on the back of massive deals in the air sector involving Typhoon, Tornado combat jets and Hawk trainers.

The C-390, known as the Millennium, is a multi-mission platform available in airlifter, air-to-air refueling and other variants.

Launched in 2009 on the back of a Brazilian military requirement the Lockheed Martin C-130J rival has been picking up international orders, most notably in the Netherlands where the government said it would buy five C-390′s to replace it’s aging C-130 H fleet.

Embraer previously had an agreement with Boeing to market the C-390 in markets like the Middle East but that arrangement fell apart in 2019 when a wider co-operation plan collapsed.

The C-390 MoU was one of two agreements signed by the British company and Embraer at the show. The two sides also confirmed their intention to create a joint venture to develop a defense variant of a electrically powered VTOL platform originally designed by the Embraer backed company Eve for the urban mobility market .

The companies revealed last December they were planning to work together in the eVTOL market.

“Teams from BAE Systems and Embraer will continue working together to explore how the aircraft, designed for the urban mobility market, can provide cost-effective, sustainable, and adaptable capability as a defense variant,” said Jackson Schneider, president and chief executive at Embraer Defense & Security.

Eve Holding announced at the show a non-binding Letter of Intent with Embraer and BAE to explore the potential order of up to 150 electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles with the aim of examining the aircrafts applications for the defense and security markets.

What exercises with allies and partners have shown over the years is that this type of interoperability remains challenging, but military officials say repetition and practice are key to making strides.

The casualty evacuation mission was “a good example of that progress there,” Brig. Gen. Brandon Tegtmeier, deputy commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division, told Defense News in an interview following the completion of the exercise known as EDGE 22, which took place at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, earlier this month.

“That’s just a small thing,” he said. “We have a lot of progress to make still, but again, a really good step forward.”

Additionally, the Army reported a call for fire was achieved through a Dutch-run waveform.

The Army’s EDGE series of exercises began last year and is slated to continue annually in coordination with Project Convergence, a larger event in the fall. EDGE is considered the practice round for the aerial tier of PC. This year, Project Convergence, now in its third iteration, brought in international partners for the first time; EDGE then followed.

Project Convergence examines and tests how the Army plans to fight against near-peer adversaries across all domains using capability slated for fielding in roughly 2030 and beyond.

EDGE, this year, was focused on a European theater scenario centered around a wet gap crossing. The 82nd Airborne and other allied units at the exercise were tasked with defeating an enemy’s integrated air defense systems. That would then lead to the second phase, introducing maneuver forces through air assaults to seize two different pieces of terrain.

Netherlands, Italy and Germany were active participants in the exercise, while Australia, Canada, France and the United Kingdom were observers.

German and Italian forces participated in the combined air assault with the 82nd. The Germans brought their German Future Soldier System, and Italian soldiers brought their Targeting and Communication Command Kit.

The Netherlands contributed its Joint Air Ground Gateway, a command-and-control tactical node, and was able to successfully integrate the node into the Windows Tactical Assault Kit (WINTAK), a map-based application that provide operators position data, a chat function and mission planning capabilities across a shared picture.

The exercise relied on the Variable Message Format communication protocol, understood by all NATO forces, to communicate.

“I think everybody would admit we are not where we need to be with our allies,” Tegtmeier said. “I think having those nations present out at Edge 22 is a huge step forward in terms of fixing that problem.”

Exercises like EDGE, he noted, generate new technology ideas and new possibilities to increase interoperability.

In the scenario, the 82nd’s Tactical Command Post served as a Combined Joint Task Force headquarters. The headquarters was positioned well outside the range of enemy long-range fires that it would not have been able to assume using current fleet capabilities. The Army expects to have vast improvements when it comes to speed and range from its Future Vertical Lift fleet with a planned fielding timeline of 2030.

The work the Army did as a coalition with its allies “really informed our gaps when it comes to cross-domain solutions within the coalition,” Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, who oversees the Army’s FVL development, told Defense News in a recent interview.

“It went much better than expected,” he added.

The exercise also helped the service and its coalition partners further understand the technical challenge of achieving the ultimate interoperability goal — being able to work from a single screen in the CJTF environment.

The coalition used a cross-domain solution certified waveform to perform a number of vignettes in which sensitive but unclassified data was passed into a secret enclave and then out to an unclassified one.

“The reason that’s important is really being able to go from strategic to tactical, tactical to strategic in a very agile manner,” Rugen said, referring to the way digital data was securely passed between those performing the tactical mission and the headquarters coordinating the mission.

But coalition interoperability remains a challenge, Rugen said, because it’s not yet clear what data should be passed and what the U.S. and its partners should keep to themselves.

“We should have the ability to filter that [data] out but still provide useful information to our coalition partners and vice versa,” Rugen said. “There’s an ability to filter out that metadata and then give useful things to either the tactical edge or the strategic decision makers.”

Findings at EDGE will inform policies going forward, he noted.

Moving forward, the coalition needs to come to a decision on what waveforms and databases are used as a standard of operation and construct a gateway that allows the right data to flow, Rugen said. Then that gateway has to be interoperable within everyone’s network.

In EDGE, the Army used a variety of waveforms including TSM and Link-16.

During the exercise, “we didn’t necessarily care what the parallel network was, if somebody has a different one. … It doesn’t matter what the black box is,” Rugen said. In other words, the exercise proved interoperability as a concept, but the Pentagon and its allies and partners will have to determine what hardware and software will be standard.

The Army, over 19 days at EDGE, said it achieved 67 technical objectives with 34 first-time events using over 17 distinct FVL-related technologies and capabilities.

These included experimentation with an Air-Launched Effects swarm launched by a surrogate aircraft flying as Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. The swarms evaluated at EDGE mark the largest ALE-small swarm to date. The Army deployed about 25 drones in four waves using the service’s “Wolfpack” concept for intelligent swarms, allowing the aircraft to stimulate, hunt, kill and assess threats.

The Army also used two waveforms that allowed the swarm to double ALE range from missions executed last year.

And the service’s Aerial Tier Network (ATN), which provides digital and voice communication, saw further refinement and improvement, according to Rugen.

The Army also evaluated a number of dual-use sensors typically used for protection, but, at EDGE, were used for lethal effects. Radar warning receivers in aircraft cockpits, for example, transferred data of incoming fire through the network to the CJTF to be used for targeting, Rugen said.

In a letter Monday to lawmakers, Adm. Chas Richard, U.S. Strategic Command’s chief, said he was otherwise satisfied with Biden’s fiscal 2023 defense budget proposal, but made the point about the SLCM-N. On Tuesday, it became fodder in an unfolding fight over plans to defund the submarine-launched low-yield missile.

“While I am satisfied USSTRATCOM priorities are adequately addressed, the current situation in Ukraine and China’s nuclear trajectory convinces me a deterrence and assurance gap exists,” Richard wrote.

“To address this gap, a low-yield, non-ballistic capability to deter and respond without visible generation is necessary to provide a persistent, survivable, regional capability to deter adversaries, assure allies, provide flexible options, as well as complement existing capabilities. I believe a capability with these attributes should be re-examined in the near future,” the letter continued.

Though military leaders are required by law to provide Congress with their wish lists or unfunded priorities, Richard’s letter did not make any requests for a particular program or funding amount. Biden’s $813.4 billion national defense budget includes $50.9 billon in nuclear weapons spending, up $7.7 billion from the 2022 request.

A House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday offered a stage for the debate over the composition of that budget.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin defended DoD’s $34.4 billion budget for nuclear weapons modernization as “very significant.” He acknowledged Russia has a nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines, but downplayed the utility of the SLCM-N.

“The marginal capability that this provides is far outweighed by the cost,” he said.

Marking a break between civilian and uniformed leaders, the chief of U.S. European Command, Gen. Tod Wolters, told lawmakers last week he backs SLCM-N.

Then on Tuesday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said his past support for SLCM-N hasn’t changed. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee’s top Republican, Rep. Doug Lamborn, who elicited the answer, quoted Richard’s letter at the hearing.

But House Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Joe Courtney, D-Conn., defended the administration, arguing that installing low-yield nuclear warheads on Virginia-class attack subs would mean less space for conventional weaponry.

“I think the administration made the right choice in terms of keeping the attack subs focused on their main mission,” Courtney said. “Putting tactical [nuclear] weapons on there changes it in a clunky way.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., acknowledged the likelihood of a fight in the committee and echoed Courtney’s view that adding nuclear weapons would complicate the mission of attack submarines. He pointed to ongoing plans to develop a similarly capable air leg of the nuclear triad: the long-range standoff weapon.

Pressed by Smith to explain his views further, Milley said that with roughly 50 attack submarines in the fleet, there was room for some to get the SLCM-N and others to continue their usual missions.

“Some of those would have a mission change, others would not,” Milley said before pivoting to argue that America’s nuclear arsenal is sufficient.

“No foe should underestimate our capability because of … a decision to produce or not produce a SLCM-N. Our nuclear capability is much, much bigger than that,” he said.

It was all part of the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corp artificial intelligence-enabled live-fire target identification exercise on Thursday that used nearly 20 platforms and units from each of the other branches.

The event was the fourth of its kind for the Scarlet Dragon program, which began in 2020.

The Corps, assisted by elements of the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, worked with various platforms in all domains. But a key ingredient was the National Geospatial-Intelligence Center, which provided satellite imagery for software to sift through and find targets.

Due to safety concerns with weather conditions, no steel struck any targets, but Col. Melissa Solsbury, chief data officer for the Corps, told Army Times that the event “achieved machine to machine learning at scale.”

“Since our first event we have been able to reduce the speed of moving data from sensor to shooter by nearly 50 percent,” she said.

Officials did not disclose the time necessary to move data from sensor to shooter.

And maritime assets in the exercise were used for intelligence, allowing leaders to test maritime asset integration with AI algorithms on synthetic aperture radar systems, she said.

Which, essentially, gave them a chance to test out aspects of their system in inclement weather, Solsbury said.

Had steel hit target, two GBU-32 bombs would have hit on a 10-digit grid after having scanned across a plethora of potential targets along the mid-Atlantic seaboard.

The first test-fire in December 2020 proved AI-enabled fires set up. The second, in March, worked Multi-Domain Operations tasks. While the third, in June, doubled the number of units and platforms being used and tested the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control interoperability.

This most recent event worked through Joint All-Domain Operations with the addition of deep troves of an intelligence agency’s data.

Scarlet Dragon is using existing platforms and networks to harness that imagery so that leaders can use it to identify certain targets in a vast array of options. The software for the project comes out of the Pentagon’s Project Maven, an algorithm-based tool used to quickly process drone video for target ID and selection which started in 2017.

Thursday’s iteration worked through all steps to drop two GBU-32 bonds on range targets after scanning possible targets in a 7,200 square kilometer area stretching from Virginia to Georgia, officials said.

“The Scarlet Dragon series is designed to increase our joint warfighting capability and how AI-augmented decision making significantly increases the scale, speed and accuracy of our targeting process,” Lt. Gen. Erik Kurilla, XVIII Airborne Corps commander told Army Times.

The Corps is using today’s technology to increase that capability with other services, Kurilla said.

Some of that tech included fires support elements from II Marine Expeditionary Force, F-35s from 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, A-10s out of 75th Fighter Squadron, F-15s with the Air Force’s 4th Fighter Wing, an E-2 C/D Hawkeye and F-18 from the Navy’s Carrier Air Wing Three, Army 18th Field Artillery Brigade with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, rotary wing aircraft, command and control and other assets.

“It’s about seeking ways to achieve decision advantage in large-scale combat operations,” he said. “It’s about learning, as an organization, how to employ data as a strategic asset in the joint fight.”

What AI can do is “accelerate the targeting space,” said Col. Joe O’Callaghan, the XVIII Airborne Corps Fire Support Officer.

Which means helping soldiers make better decisions faster.

“We fully understand that in any future conflict it’s going to be the best shooter for the target or the least worst-case shooter,” O’Callaghan said. “AI is allowing us to rapidly understand an environment and take advantage of it.”

The work being done by Scarlet Dragon is expected to feed into the larger Project Convergence effort by the Army, tying together all of these joint systems, shooters and sensors for a unified battlefield management system.

Undergirding much of the work are efforts that may go unseen during an event such as a large-scale live fire.

That’s creating data-literate soldiers who know not only how to run the machinery and execute code, but to understand the importance of data and how it shapes the fight.

Solsbury told Army Times that effort is Project Ridgeway and it is how the Corps is tackling that concern.

Ridgeway is targeting staff officers and NCOs to upgrade their data skills, in part through a six-week program with Joint Special Operations Command, she said.

The main “data gatekeepers” in the formation are the brigade staff officers, she said.

“By that, I mean that they horde data and do not understand where and how to ensure their data contributes to a body (an aggregate) or insight,” she said. “Our staff officers do not appreciate the power in aggregating, consolidating, and harnessing data—they don’t value or view data as a strategic asset.”

Ridgeway is how officials hope to solve that problem.

Another part of Ridgeway is to help the XVIII Airborne Corps find practical ways to apply emerging technology as they figure out how best to put AI into the fight, she said.

The next live fire is scheduled for early 2022 and will focus on data-centric warfare, using all joing partners in all domains and achieving information advantage over adversaries, officials said.

The failed proposal came as Republicans, and some Democrats, have raised questions about whether Amazon tried to improperly influence the competition for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract. In July, the New York Times reported on emails showing that an Amazon consultant turned Pentagon adviser pushed for a meeting between then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The Department of Defense’s inspector general found in April that DoD’s award of JEDI to Microsoft over Amazon in 2019 didn’t violate any laws. The Pentagon subsequently announced in July it was canceling JEDI and replacing it with a new enterprise cloud contract that will likely include direct awards to Microsoft and Amazon next year.

During Wednesday’s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act, Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., proposed an amendment that would have required the DoD inspector general to submit to HASC all the documentation it collected and reviewed. He questioned the IG report’s credibility, alleging some of the emails it cited had been “edited and manipulated.”

“There have been allegations of corruption since JEDI’s inception, and recently the DoD Inspector General’s report has come under criticism,” said Banks, the top Republican on the cyber, innovative technologies, and information systems subcommittee.

The ensuing debate featured a tense exchange between HASC Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. Smith, leading opposition to the amendment, argued sharing the documents would slow the Pentagon’s follow-on enterprise cloud program by infusing it with the same toxic politics that encumbered JEDI.

“Politics came in because it was a $10 billion contract, and everybody wanted that money,” Smith said. “We can pull it back open again and have all those people go back at each other and restart the food fight, or we can move forward and actually get moving on the cloud.”

Gaetz told Smith, “I appreciate the gentleman from Washington making the pro-Amazon argument.” Smith cut him off and later responded that he had never supported Amazon and that Amazon’s competitor, Microsoft, is also based in Washington state.

Smith said Gaetz had made his point for him. “You were clearly, unequivocally, making the political argument that my argument must have less validity to it because I’m close to where Amazon is. That is exactly what happened over and over and over again as we tried to actually just move forward with the contract.”

Andrew Eversden contributed to this report.

For the past 15 years to 20 years senior leaders have had access to an unprecedented amount of data on every inch of the battlespace while deployed, Berger said Aug. 2 at the annual Sea Air Space conference hosted by the Navy League.

Information tied with the natural desire of control has hurt the Corps’ ability to think ahead and has reduced the independence of junior leaders, he says ― an independence that is necessary to cultivate for the future of dispersed operations that Berger envisions.

Small unit Marine leaders “are ready to make decisions, I think at their level we are shackling them,” Berger said.

The Corps is undergoing a revolutionary force design change aimed at moving it away from the past 20 years of wars in the Middle East to one focused on near-peer opponents like China and Russia.

Berger sees the future of the Corps as a small, light, maneuverable force widely dispersed within range of the theoretical enemy’s weapons and rocket systems.

The dispersion and maneuverability will prevent the hypothetical enemy from landing any knockout blow against the Marines, while a location near the opponent will allow them to track the enemy’s naval movement and accurately direct missile fires.

The dispersion will put extra pressure on junior leaders with future companies, potentially having them take on the responsibilities currently residing with battalions or even regiments.

“I think the best commanders I’ve seen actually sit outside their command centers because they sense, ‘I can’t get overwhelmed by what’s happening in the moment I need to think ahead,” Berger said.

While Berger trusts those junior leaders, he is unsure if his generation of leaders are capable of handing them the reins and if the structure of the Corps encourages leaders at that level to take risks.

The commandant said one of the main driving forces in his vision for a future Corps was an order sent by former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King in January 1941.

The letter, popularly known as serial 53, calls out the Navy’s culture of “flag officers and other group commanders to issue orders and instructions in which their subordinates are told ‘how’ as well as ‘what’ to do to such an extent and in such detail that the ‘Custom of the service’ has virtually become the antithesis of that essential element of command — ‘initiative of the subordinate.’”

King goes on to cite the anxiety of commanders to perform their duty so “smoothly that none may comment unfavorably,” as the main cause of the micromanaging of commanders.

Berger said the Corps could lift King’s “diagnosis” and apply it to the modern-day Marine Corps.

“If we give them broad guidance and let them make the mistakes, let them run, we will have much better small unit commanders,” he added.

To help junior Marine leaders be more comfortable making decisions the commandant has set about reforming both officer and enlisted schoolhouses, allowing Marines to take on more responsibility from the very start of their careers.

The Corps is implementing changes that will use “YouTube” style videos, online flashcards, issued laptops or tablets and other tools to help Marines pass courses at their own pace and take greater ownership of their own learning.

The strategy already has led to more than 100 Marines graduating from the Network Administrators Course at Marine Corps Communication Electronics School.

The so called “21st century learning” model also was implemented in the Corps’ new infantry school, where the focus was on creating future squad leaders and platoon sergeants, rather than just competent trigger pullers.

Graduates from the first pilot program ran at the School of Infantry–West on Camp Pendleton, California, left the course more proficient in many infantry skills, but most importantly they were free-thinkers capable of solving a problem without the help of instructors or noncommissioned officers.

“By accident we created tacticians,” Lt. Col. Walker Koury, commanding officer for Infantry Training Battalion–West, told a group of reporters in April.

Berger suggested the Marine Corps re-evaluate how it performs its after action reports once in the fleet.

Instead of immediately critiquing a decision made by small unit leaders, Berger said every after action report, from a training scenario, should start off by thanking the leader for simply making a decision.

Berger also wants to put new technology in the hands of captains and majors, allowing them to develop uses and protocols for the new tech that may have been missed by top brass in the Pentagon.

“We’re at a disadvantage at my grade and age,” Berger said.

“That’s the sweet spot, just give them the tools, don’t tell them how to use them, they’ll probably by the end of tomorrow figure out seven ways you had never envisioned,” Berger said.

Marines will be armed to the teeth with sensors and potentially missiles capable of sinking enemy ships. That’s the vision of Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger that was formulated specifically to faceoff against China in the Pacific Ocean, but Marine leaders say can it be used in any other potential theater of war.

While the Corps is still fine-tuning certain aspects of dispersed operations, like training and equipment, one major questions remains.

How will the Marine Corps provide logistical support to dispersed Marines in a hostile environment?

Marine Lt. Gen. Eric Smith the current commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and the deputy commandant for combat development and integration has one possible solution: Foraging.

“The first thing about being able to handle a logistics enterprise support you in a distributed environment is need less,” Smith said Tuesday at the 2021 Sea-Air-Space conference.

“Why would I move water to the South China Sea? That’s insane, why would I move food? It’s called expeditionary foraging,” he added.

In the future Marines may be tasked with getting their own food, processing their own water and potentially even buying replacement parts for their equipment while dispersed on small far-flung expeditionary advanced bases, the general said.

In December 2019, Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit put some of those foraging concepts to the test while training on the island of Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands.

During the exercise Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 31, were tasked with maintaining logistical support of the MEU using “21st century foraging,” Marine Corps Times previously reported.

Smith believes future Marines will deploy with small water purifiers, which can be carried by a single Marine, and wearable power generators.

“The only thing I wish to move is lethality,” Smith said.

“Fuel, additives you don’t have to bring everything.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department has cleared Chile to purchase modernization upgrades for its F-16 fleet, with a potential $634 million price tag.

Chile currently operates 44 F-16s. That includes 10 Block 50 models purchased in the early 2000s, as well as 36 older models bought second-hand from the Netherlands. Reports that Chile would look to upgrade their existing F-16 fleet first emerged in 2017, but final details had not been made public. Analysts have also speculated that Chile may look to buy a small number of new F-16s to supplement its fleet.

The upgrades included in this potential sale include 19 Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS); six inert MK-82 (500LB) general purpose bomb bodies; two MXU-650KB Air Foil Groups (AFG); 44 LN-260 Embedded GPS/INS (EGI) and 49 Multifunctional Information Distribution System Joint Tactical Radios (MIDS JTRS).

Also included are avionics equipment and software upgrades, new radios, upgraded IFF transponders, secure communications equipment and other parts. The upgrades are expected to go across the 44 plane fleet.

“The proposed sale will improve Chile’s capability to meet current and future threats by modernizing its F-16 fleet, which will allow Chile to maintain sovereignty and homeland defense, increase interoperability with the United States and other partners, and deter potential adversaries,” per a statement on the website of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-16, will be the prime contractor on the deal, should it go through. All DSCA announcements must be cleared by Congress. At that point negotiations begin. Quantities and dollar values often change in the final agreement.

Although this is the first FMS case approved for Chile since the start of fiscal 2017, the F-16 has proven to be a reliable sales vehicle for Lockheed abroad, with 14 F-16 related FMS requests cleared by DSCA during this time period.

The leader of the directorate handles cyber policy for the Army’s G-3/5/7 office at the Pentagon.

Buckner is deputy commander of Joint Task Force-ARES, which engages in the cyber fight against ISIS, at U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Maryland.

She was named to her current role last June, after serving as deputy commander of operations for the Cyber National Mission Force at U.S. Cyber Command. In 2014, she was named commandant for the newly formed Army Cyber School and tasked with growing the school and developing cyber training.

Buckner is a career intelligence officer whose training includes electronic warfare and signals intelligence courses, airborne and jumpmaster schools, Joint and Combined Warfighting School and Harvard’s Executive Education Program in cybersecurity. She is a 1990 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The Army has not announced when she will transition into her new role. An Army spokeswoman told Army Times that no additional information is available yet.

The current director of Army cyber is Maj. Gen. Patricia Frost, who has led the directorate since it opened in summer 2016.

The directorate has focused on integrating the Army’s cyber, information and electronic warfare operations as the Army builds its cyber organizations and career field.

The Army has made a “very significant” investment in cyber as it rapidly formed Army Cyber Command and built its cyber mission force, Frost told Army Times in October.

“I feel very strongly that the Army is truly leading the way in this space,” Frost said in the interview. “I think we’re really seeing that come together now in how we’re equipping the cyber mission force, the operational capabilities we’re putting in our support to our geographic combatant commands we’re aligned to.”