DefenseScoop

🏆 We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2024 #DefenseScoop50 Awards! These visionary leaders and innovative programs are at the forefront of revolutionizing defense through advanced technology. Join us in congratulating these pioneers who are not only redefining the future of military strategies but also ensuring our national security. Explore the full list of this year's remarkable recipients: https://lnkd.in/d3ED45ST

After experimenting with a more centralized structure for its mission deltas over the last 10 months, the Space Force now hopes to transition nearly all of its units to the new organizational design in the next year, according to the head of Space Operations Command (SpOC). The service announced the new unit structure, known as integrated mission deltas (IMDs), in September as a way to address gaps in readiness. The model brings a single mission area’s personnel, training elements, and maintenance and sustainment functions under a single commander and integrates additional cybersecurity and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operators. https://lnkd.in/eziWqEsB

Members of NATO and the commercial sector need to enhance cooperation to improve data security, senior officials suggested Monday on the eve of the alliance’s summit in Washington. The summit, which kicks off Tuesday, is expected to include discussions and potentially major announcements about the road ahead for digital capabilities https://lnkd.in/eBgee5Mx

There are many challenges facing the United States today that threaten the country’s global leadership and economic power. One of the most significant strategic challenges can be summed up as the Great Power Competition, where Russia represents an acute threat, and China, the premier pacing threat. Amidst these real-world challenges, the United States continues to have a special tool critical to its national security, and indeed, global leadership — the diversity of its people. The urgency that current threats pose requires U.S. policymakers to resist being drawn into self-defeating divisive politics. Instead, American diversity should be valued not only as an inherent good, but as a strategic asset. https://lnkd.in/ej4djwzn

As it works to promote transatlantic security and deter aggression, NATO must strategically grow its collective defense industrial capacity and rapidly adopt interoperable drones and other emerging military capabilities like those the U.S. is presently hustling to field and scale, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said. Speaking at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Hicks reflected on some recent progress and the “pivotal moment” the alliance is now confronting. https://lnkd.in/eJz8sBa2

In a move to collectively confront adversarial threats to NATO’s communications and computer networks that continue to intensify, allies are set to formalize and unveil plans this week for the creation of a new, first-of-its-kind integrated cyber defense center, the White House revealed. On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington on Wednesday, a senior official from the alliance familiar with these plans briefed DefenseScoop on leaders’ strategic vision for the new cyber hub, which will be set up at the coalition’s military headquarters in Mons, Belgium. https://lnkd.in/eR6MaHzP

A group of NATO countries are set to begin implementing a new project aimed at improving the alliance’s ability to quickly share intelligence gathered by space-based assets operated by both member nations and the commercial sector. Seventeen NATO members signed a memorandum of understanding for the Alliance Persistence Surveillance from Space (APSS) program as part of the annual NATO summit being held in Washington this week, the alliance announced Tuesday. Members will now move into a five-year implementation phase of the project, during which allies will contribute more than $1 billion “to leverage commercial and national space assets, and to expand advanced exploitation capacities,” according to a press release. https://lnkd.in/eBxshRzW

Amid the Department of Defense’s all-out push to adopt a zero-trust security framework across its enterprise by 2027, Senate lawmakers want to make sure that “internet of military things” hardware is included in that. The Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday released the full text and report for its version of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act with a number of cybersecurity provisions included in it related to zero trust — a widely recognized, cloud-based concept that assumes an adversary has already gained access to a network and therefore looks to limit further movement internally by requiring constant monitoring and authentication of users and their devices as they pass from one part of a network to another. https://lnkd.in/ef8RAa-j

🌍🚧 The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) is leveraging Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud to tackle climate challenges. The Climate Resilience Platform helps HDOT assess risks and prioritize investments to improve public infrastructure. Learn how AI is empowering HDOT to make data-driven decisions: https://lnkd.in/eqUVATJK Google Cloud #GoogleforGov #GooglePublicSector

New NATO-Ukraine hub for war analysis, training to open in Poland next year. Brandi Vincent has more from the Washington Summit on the plans for the JATEC: https://lnkd.in/ejtSQEaf