The Defense Department will remove two batteries from Kuwait, and one each from Bahrain and Jordan, as the U.S. military shifts its focus to adversaries like Russia and China, as well as Iran. The batteries will be taken offline and returned to the U.S. to be refurbished and upgraded before being relocated. According to an official, there are no plans to replace the systems.

Despite this realignment, the U.S. military says it is maintaining its commitment to allies in the region.

“U.S. Central Command is strongly committed to working with our allies and partners to promote and provide regional security and stability,” said Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the command. “U.S. forces remain postured to conduct operations throughout the region and to respond to any contingency.”

Patriot batteries are mobile, air-and-missile defense systems designed for point defense of a relatively small area, making Patriot ideal to defend bases and specific locations.

The newest version of Patriot, the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE), is a hit-to-kill interceptor that eliminates targets through a kinetic collision, whereas earlier variants relied on blast fragmentation warheads — which spread shrapnel over an area much like a shotgun — to destroy incoming threats.

PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles are frequently deployed by Saudi Arabia to intercept short-range ballistic missiles launched into Saudi territory by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. It is difficult to discern the system’s effectiveness due to conflicting media reports from Saudi and Yemeni sources. In March, video emerged that challenged claims that Saudi Patriot assets intercepted seven incoming missiles fired by Houthis toward Riyadh.

Patriot systems are currently fielded by 14 countries, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.

WASHINGTON ― U.S. Navy pilots from Carrier Air Wing One, placed aboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, are conducting integrated flight operations with French Naval Aviation aircraft this week.

Designed to increase readiness, demonstrate systems and mission interoperability, and strengthen NATO, the exercise tests pilots by practicing air warfare and strike techniques. Aircraft taking part in the exercise include the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and E-2D Hawkeye as well as France’s Dassault Rafale M fighters.

“France is our oldest ally and a vital partner in ensuring security and stability in the region and across the globe,” said Rear Adm. Gene Black, the commander of Carrier Strike Group 8. “The opportunity to integrate with French Naval Aviation helps us enhance our interoperability as we work to achieve common objectives.”

During the exercise, flight operations were conducted over France and in French and international waters in the Bay of Biscay.

“When we operate together we’re stronger than just the sum of our parts, and this training continues our investment in that cooperation,” Black said.

WASHINGTON ― Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army crossed the Atlantic Ocean to participate in the Swift Response 18 exercise to demonstrate the unit’s readiness and global response capability.

The unit took off on a 7,000-kilometer, nonstop flight from its home base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Lithuania and Latvia on June 8.

During the flight, a C-17 Globemaster aircraft completed one aerial fueling, before members of the 82nd and British Army paratroopers assigned to the 3rd Regiment Parachute Battalion descended on the drop zones in Rukla, Lithuania, and Ādaži, Latvia.

Airborne forces from nine nations participated in the exercise, including Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“By working with our NATO allies and partner nations, we are able to maintain and strengthen our interoperability,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Scott Pence, the commander in charge of the jump near Rukla. “Every time we do an exercises like this and work with the Lithuanians, the Polish or Latvians, we are able to test our communication systems, our signals, and also our battle tactics, techniques and procedures.”

After reaching the ground, the soldiers simulated securing an airfield, with Lithuanian soldiers playing the opposition force.

“This is the whole purpose of our training: to show our allies our readiness and show our command we are ready to go anytime, anywhere,” said Pvt. Daniel Guevara, a paratrooper assigned to 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

The Marine Corps has forged a contract with a start-up technology firm that makes sending snail-mail letters to soon-to-be Marines as easy as clicking “send” on an email.

Sandboxx Family Communications, based in Virginia, operates an app that allows family members to send custom letters to recruits at basic training, deployed units or any military address around the world.

Founded by Marine Corps veterans Sam Meek and retired Maj. Gen. Ray “E-Tool” Smith, Sandboxx technology aims to maintain connections among service members and their families, and to ensure that each service member is supported throughout their military career.

“Recruits perform at higher levels in boot camp when they receive encouraging letters and photos from loved ones at home. With Sandboxx web and mobile applications, users can type a message from their phone, add a photo and hit send. Sandboxx will securely print the message and deliver it to the recruit or Marine, usually on the next business day,” Smith said in a company press release.

Since its launch in November 2014, the app has been used to send more than 1 million letters to recruits and service members around the world.

Sandboxx also aims to help recruiters attract new prospects using demographic data and interest targeting through social media. And for recruits preparing to ship out to boot camp, the app comes with weekly training advice and workouts.

While at training, Sandboxx will send weekly updates to friends and family explaining what recruits are doing during boot camp. The company also helps to simplify travel for military graduation, connecting users with military travel experts to book trips.

Sandboxx currently has more than 400,000 users.

The 18th Field Artillery Brigade partnered with the 353rd Combat Training Squadron at Eielson Air Force Base to execute a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rapid infiltration mission. HIMARS are mobile ground systems that can strike targets over 160 km away.

The Army and Air Force sent one C-17 to transport two HIMARS to Fort Greely, where they were driven to their firing location. At the same time one HIMARS launched its payload, F-15s, F-16s and E/A-18s were fighting in the same airspace.

According to Lt. Col. Ronald Crabtree, the 353rd chief of weapons for Red Flag-Alaska, this air-land collaboration broke new operational ground.

“In the past, from what I’m told, when the Army shoots these rockets they just clear the air entirely,” he said. “So the idea that we’re doing it during a large-force exercise with upwards of 20 to 30 aircraft in the air is a big deal. It demonstrated we are able to do it tactically and safely.”

At the same time the Army and Air Force were working on their coordination, NATO airmen from 15 different countries practiced cuing up unreported ground and air targets to mitigate fighter jet losses. Flying in a E-3A Sentry, an American airborne early warning and control aircraft, the NATO crew identifies targets from over 50 miles away flying at 10,000 feet above the simulated dogfight.

Red Flag-Alaska offers these crewmen a unique training opportunity to hone their skills in a more realistic operational environment.

“Red Flag-Alaska provides the type of training that is only replicable in real-life combat situations. It’s a really good example of the air-to-air component,” said Staff Sgt. Ryan Goll, a radar technician. “Tracking enemy fighters and actually getting our communications gear jammed — this is more than your typical sortie or exercise; Red Flag is the most realistic training you’re going to get.”

Capt. Noel Conrard, an air battle manager, compared the exercise and normal training to playing on a full sized field instead of in the backyard. “When we are at home station [training] it’s like a backyard football scrimmage; we just don’t have as many players,” said Conrard. “But at a large force exercise like Red Flag-Alaska, it’s like playing on a regular sized football field. We execute different tactics and integrate with more assets. It allows the E-3 to be used to the fullest extent of its capabilities.”

The exercise, which ran from April 30 to May 11, was the first of four scheduled for 2018. Red Flag-Alaska 18-2 will begin June 11, 18-3 on August 11 and 19-1 on October 8.

The Hacking for Defense program, known as H4D, is working to develop this talent by partnering students at universities across the country with the Department of Defense. Developed by Steve Blank, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and Newell, the former head of the Army Rapid Equipping Force, the program partners undergraduate and graduate students with the government in a unique way.

This year, Hacking for Defense will be taught at over 18 universities through out the United States. That’s up from 11 universities a year ago.

Students who sign up for the course are put into teams and tasked to design a solution to a problem statement. Those problems range from issues with the acquisition process and information sharing in disaster zone environments to tracking medical information of combat casualties.

In answering problem statements, students conduct hundreds of interviews with the people their solution is designed to help. This could mean designing an app or crafting a policy change. In doing so, H4D exposes students to a lesser known pathway for national service and introduces students to parts of government that a traditional academic course could not.

Although the program’s name suggests the course is only suitable for computer scientists and engineers, teams are mixed with students with a variety of backgrounds, from political science to nursing.

If the program is going to maximize its impact it “needs to be taught in every state in the country, at as many universities as we can get our hands on,” Newell said. The challenge “is not the speed of technology, but our ability to energize a generation of young technologists to get involved,” he added.

The F-22 program office failed to generate an appropriate contracting strategy, which led to delays and a final product that may not deliver “modernized capabilities necessary to sustain air superiority against rapidly evolving U.S. adversaries,” according to the report published Monday.

Reviewing the program office’s implementation of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), a software development method that divides large projects into smaller portions to develop software in shorter time periods for one final product, DoDIG found the method resulted in the identification of multiple deficiencies late in development. The deficiencies required additional software upgrades, resulting in modernization schedule delays.

DoDIG found that because the program office did not update its contracting strategy for SAFe implementation, officials were unable to identify the best strategy to incentivize contractors.

But the program office was not the only entity at fault. The offices of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics and the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition, both failed to issue policy for implementing agile software development methods on weapon systems acquisitions, according to the agency.

The F-22 modernization program was divided into 10 separate but interrelated programs, ranging from improvements to radar and communication technology, electronic protection and resiliency to a new helmet mounted display and cuing system. Early delays “in one program can have a cascading effect on follow-on modernization programs,” according to the report.

So what can the program office and AT&L do to fix these problems?

The report advises AT&L to review and revise acquisition guidance for the implementation of agile software development methods for programs that include hardware and software. The report also recommends the office compile these lessons and share them with other DoD programs.

For the Air Force, the report recommends the program office craft a clear contracting strategy to best incentivize contractors prior to awarding orders for the next step in the modernization program. With a clear strategy, the office should be able to decrease delays and ensure the system delivered meets the requirements needed to sustain U.S. air superiority, according to the DoDIG.

The goal of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N³) program is to “pursue a path to a safe, portable neural interface system capable of reading from and writing to multiple points in the brain at once,” according to Dr. Al Emondi, a program manager in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.

“We’re asking multidisciplinary teams of researchers to construct approaches that enable precise interaction with very small areas of the brain, without sacrificing signal resolution or introducing unacceptable latency into the N³ system.”

Although technologies that allow for high-quality brain system communications exist today, these invasive techniques are not a practical solution for ubiquitous man-machine communication.

Before soldiers can communicate with their R2-D2 units, DARPA scientists must overcome several significant scientific and engineering challenges.

The most significant challenge, according to a DARPA press release, will be overcoming the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull and brain tissue. If this initial challenge is surmounted, the focus of the program will shift to developing algorithms for encoding and decoding neural signals, evaluating system safety through animal testing and ultimately asking human volunteers to test the technology.

While communication neurotechnology has a stronger foothold in science fiction than reality, Emondi believes devoting resources to the enterprise will spur breakthroughs. “Smart systems will significantly impact how our troops operate in the future, and now is the time to be thinking about what human-machine teaming will actually look like and how it might be accomplished,” he said.

“If we put the best scientists on this problem, we will disrupt current neural interface approaches and open the door to practical, high-performance interfaces.”

DARPA wants the four-year project to conclude with a demonstration of a bidirectional system being used to interface human-machine interactions with unmanned platforms, active cyber defense systems or other Department of Defense equipment.

Recognizing the potentially wide ethical, legal and social implications of such neurotechnology, DARPA is also asking independent legal and ethical experts to advise the program as N³ technologies mature.

Army Gen. Joseph Votel’s opinion on the deal is in stark contrast with President Donald Trump’s, who on the campaign trail referred to the agreement as the worst deal ever negotiated by the United States, Reuters reported.

The Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, “addresses one of the principle threats that we deal with from Iran, so if the JCPOA goes away then we will have to have another way to deal with their nuclear weapons program,” Votel said.

If the U.S. was to jettison itself from the agreement, “there would be some concern, I think, about how we intended to address [the Iranian nuclear] threat if it was not being addressed through the JCPOA,” Votel said.

“Our approach is one of assuring our partners [and] maintaining deterrent capabilities in the region,” he added.

If the agreement was terminated, Votel conceded, Iran theoretically could pursue a nuclear weapon in a matter of months. “Right now I think it is in our interest” to stay in the agreement, he concluded.

Signaling that he has not changed his mind about the deal, Trump indicated Tuesday that Rex Tillerson would no longer be secretary of state, partly because he disagreed with the president on the Iran deal.

Tillerson is set to be replaced by CIA director Mike Pompeo, who is known for being hawkish on Iran.

Iranian officials have said they are not concerned about the status of the agreement.

“These changes and developments and firings in the Trump government are not new,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said. “What is important for the Islamic Republic is America’s policy in global affairs and their interaction with us, and we will adopt our own positions.”