The Beat

Predictive policing

Interested in how big data can help law enforcement? A new article from City Journal, ‘Big data on the beat’, discusses how technology and big data can anticipate and prevent crime. It explores how police departments in the US are using predictive policing not only to increase arrest rates, but also to anticipate criminal activity in high risk areas and establish crime prevention measures. If you’re interested in reading more about predictive policing, take a look at this article published by Forbes last month.

The Dutch take a hawkish approach to UAVs

A new video has revealed that Dutch police are training eagles and hawks to intercept and take out illegal drones. Dutch law enforcement agencies are working with Danish eagle training company, Guard from Above, to train the birds to identify drones, take hold of them mid-flight using their talons and then to fly away with them. According to The Telegraph, ‘the Dutch National Police is currently just trialling eagle defence’ for use in situations when using another drone to intercept is too dangerous. Watch the video in full over at Foreign Policy.

CT Scan

US Ramping up counterterrorism efforts

The US State Department is undergoing a hefty restructure in order to consolidate CT efforts into one bureau. The new Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism will engage with foreign governments on terror prevention, and be furnished with a foreign assistance budget of nearly US$400 million. Areas of high priority include North Africa and Southeast Asia.

At the same time, the Pentagon is seeking a roughly 35% increase in funding for the fight against Daesh in the next fiscal year (from October 1). The number exceeds US$7 billion, with $1.8 billion going toward replenishing stocks of ‘GPS-guided smart bombs and laser-guided rockets’ to target Daesh fighters.

CSIS CT Q&A

A recent CSIS-hosted panel discussion on terrorism examines a variety of topics, including but not limited to: impacts of the Presidential race on future CT policy, developments in Libya and online radicalisation. Check out the video on CSIS’ YouTube channel, or in audio format here.

Checkpoint

EU’s ultimatum on the Greek border

Greece’s border with Turkey has made it an accessible transit point into Europe for many Syrian refugees. Now that a number of European countries are increasing border controls, both locals and refugees alike are concerned that a huge population of refugees will remain trapped in Greece. The EU has also issued a three-month ultimatum to Athens to improve its own border protection measures or else be suspended from the Schengen passport-free travel zone.

Securing the Turkish border

In a similar vein, the US has ramped up pressure on Turkey to secure its porous border with Syria, fearing Daesh will continue to use sections of the border as its gateway into Europe, thereby exposing European cities to terror attacks. DefenseNews reports that the US is expected to offer support to Turkey, including border security technologies such as surveillance balloons and anti-tunnelling equipment, to improve Turkish capabilities.

First Responder

ASEAN cooperation

ASEAN has affirmed the importance of improving regional cooperation in disaster resilience efforts. Adelina Dwi Ekawati Kamal, head of the Sustainable Development Directorate in the ASEAN Secretariat’s Socio-Cultural Community Department, emphasised the ‘socio-economic cost’ of failing to adapt to the increasing frequencies of extreme weather events, at the ASEAN–China Seminar in Cambodia this week.

Obama shakes up risk management

President Obama signed an Executive Order this week to establish a federal earthquake risk management standard in the US. The order mandates that the federal agencies must adhere to earthquake-resistant building codes when constructing or re-constructing a building. That coincided with the White House Summit on Earthquake Resilience, which convened federal, state, private and academic representatives to promote the implementation of a new earthquake early warning system.

Zika resilience

The Zika virus has been declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Margaret Chan, WHO Director General, made the announcement on Monday and emphasised the importance of a coordinated global response. Experts suggest there’s a very low chance of the virus posing a serious threat to Australia, however the recent confirmation of two cases in New South Wales serves as a reminder of the importance of risk mitigation and public health resilience. Check out this handy infographic from The Washington Post for all you need to know about the Zika virus.

Sea State

Last week, 10 US soldiers were held by Iran’s military after their riverine boat drifted into Iranian waters. In order to complete the journey from Bahrain to Kuwait, the two vessels were required to refuel at a meeting point located three miles west of the 12-mile limit surrounding Iran’s Farsi Island. However, the boats strayed from the approved course and ended up in Iranian territorial waters. It’s believed that at least one of the boats had mechanical problems. The release of the naval officer came after 16 hours of negotiations, with Iran’s Naval Commander, Admiral Ali Fadavi, stating that  ‘this trespassing was not hostile or for spying purposes‘ and that the naval officers had been in Iranian territory ‘due to a broken navigation system’.

Last Wednesday, the head of the US Coastguard, Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft, announced a Federal Business Opportunities solicitation for the Polar Class Icebreaker Replacement Program. A second icebreaker is important to the Coast Guard’s Arctic strategy, with President Obama last year calling for the US to accelerate plans to buy at least one new heavy icebreaker by 2020. Each ship is likely to cost around US$1 billion. Zukunft has said that the US has a long way to catch up with its number one Arctic competitor, Russia, which has 41 icebreakers and another 14 under construction, in contrast to the US which has the Polar Star and the medium icebreaker Healy.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has announced its intention to offer the US military use of eight bases, after the country’s Supreme Court upheld a security agreement with Washington. The facilities include the former Clark Airbase and air and naval facilities on the south-west island of Palawan which faces the South China Sea. It’s reported that the Americans are also seeking access to three civilian seaports, including Subic Bay, a former US Navy base.

Flight Path

Pentagon officials have revealed to Defense One that the US Air Force has given up immediate plans to retire the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack plane. The A-10, affectionately known as the Warthog, is designed to provide close air support and to withstand enemy ground fire. The postponement of the ageing attack plane is said to be due to its critical role in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. For Warthog novices, Business Insider looks at why US soldiers love the A-10 and how it sparks fear in their enemies, complete with pictures and video footage, which you can check out here.

The growing schism between Vietnam and China over the South China Sea looks set to take off into the skies, at least according to an article on The National Interest which looks at Vietnam’s negotiations with American and European manufacturers to purchase a range of new aircraft to replace its ageing Russian-made fleet of fighters. For a different take on the negotiations, Robert Farley at The Diplomat checks out the potential shift in Vietnamese military aviation, and why it matters if the Vietnam People’s Air Force begins flying western fighters.

Quick read: Northrop Grumman has laid out their vision for a sixth generation long-range unmanned fighter with advanced cyber resiliency. DefenseNews takes a look.

Rapid Fire

Robots may soon be raining from the sky, as the US Army begins testing a new robot-assisted parachute system. The aerial guidance unit is designed to allow military cargo-drops into forward operating bases without the use of GPS, instead relying on a camera and custom software to guide the parachute. The desire for a system that doesn’t rely on GPS stems from its limitations, which includes unreliable signal strength in places like the valleys of Afghanistan and the possibility of enemy signal jamming.

The US Army has also approved plans to upgrade its Chinook fleet in the 2020s—specifically the CH-47F and MH-47G variants. While the exact upgrade technologies haven’t yet been determined, they will aim to improve the Chinook’s lift capability noticeably. That’s good news for the Australian Defence Force, as the Australian Army operates seven CH-47F Chinooks, with Defence thinking about boosting the fleet by three.

The Turkish army will soon have a brand new base in Somalia—Turkey’s first military base in Africa. The base is intended as a training facility for Somali troops, many of whom are engaged in the fight against al-Shabaab militants. The news comes on the heels of an earlier announcement that Turkey will be building a base in Qatar.

Sea State

Last week, the US Navy’s lead Zumwalt-class destroyer commenced its first sea trial. The vessel departed from the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine for its open ocean trials, eight years after construction on the vessel began. Designed for land-attack missions, the 185.9m long vessel features a tumblehome hull design and a new Advanced Gun System (AGS), and also introduces a number of automated shipboard functions. The vessel, the first of three ships in the class, has come at a cost of US$4.4 billion.

Also in the US, it’s been reported that the US Navy’s newest ship, USS Milwaukee, has broken down on its way home to California. The littoral combat ship, which was commissioned in November, had to be towed more than 40 nautical miles after suffering an engineering casualty. The cause of the ship’s failure remains under investigation but officials says it appears that debris caught in the lube oil filter causing the system to shut down. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has publically stated that the ‘US Navy ships are built with redundant systems to enable continued operation in the event of an engineering casualty, which makes this incident very concerning’.

Meanwhile, tensions between Turkey and Russia are heating up once again with Moscow reporting that one of its warships fired warning shots at a Turkish fishing boat in the Aegean Sea to avoid a collision. The Russian defence ministry said that it had summoned Turkey’s military attaché over the incident.

Flight Path

The Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board has approved the next step of its effort to replace the US Air Force’s ageing fleet of E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Radar System (JSTARS) spy planes with next generation aircraft. Last Friday the Pentagon confirmed they had signed the ‘Milestone A’ decision necessary to move the program into the technology maturation and risk reduction phase, which the Pentagon had previously blocked due to unspecified concerns about the project. Defense News takes a look at the approval of the JSTARS acquisition program.

Over at Breaking Defense, Colin Clark reveals that Northrup Grumman is reportedly developing a new 40-foot flying wing for the US Navy’s DDG 51 warship and the Littoral Combat Ship. The bird is apparently part of a DARPA program called the TERN, is designed to carry loads of around 500 pounds for approximately 600 nautical miles, and flies using 10-foot counter-rotating rotors.

Wrapping up Flight Path this week, Dave Majumdar takes a look over at The National Interest at Pakistan’s chance of acquiring Lockheed Martin’s stealthy fifth-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Between concerns about technology transfer to China and the very real risk that the F-35 could change the balance of power between India and Pakistan, Majumdar concludes Pakistan’s chance of acquiring the fighter is ‘fairly close to nil.’

Rapid Fire

Three new Chinese urban combat robots have been unveiled at the Beijing 2015 World Robot Conference. The three tracked chassis robots include a combat variant, which can be equipped with an assault rifle, a reconnaissance variant, and an explosive disposal variant. The reconnaissance robot is reported to be light enough for a soldier to carry in a backpack, and all of the robots are remotely operated.

Thanks to the wonders of science, US soldiers could soon be able to eat mac and cheese MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat). MREs are used as military field rations and options are limited to what can be safely preserved. Dr Tom Yang at the US Army Combat Feeding Directorate is researching ‘osmotic meat’ technology for long-lasting jerky and bacon, as well as a method of microwave cooking that will allow soldiers to safely eat their beloved mac and cheese even in combat zones.

In anticipation of the new Star Wars film, the US Army Transportation Museum is drawing attention to some exhibits that are believed to have inspired some of the vehicles in the original film trilogy. Included are a hover-jeep that is reminiscent of Luke’s land speeder, as well as a four-legged hydraulic-powered cargo transport that looks like the AT-AT used to attack the Rebel base in The Empire Strikes Back. And yes, there’s also an early jetpack.

The Wednesday hacking of the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) by apparent ‘Chinese’ actors was another example, if one was needed, of the persistent threat to Australian computer networks, both government and private sector. It’s a stark reminder that Australia needs to continually up its game and shines a firm spotlight on the Government’s Cyber Review and what it will deliver. Cyber incidents aren’t uncommon; in its unclassified threat assessment the Australian Cyber Security Centre stated that it had to respond to 1,131 cyber security incidents involving Australian Government networks and other networks of national importance during 2014, equating to an average of three per day. So in many ways it’s surprising that more incidents of this nature aren’t receiving greater publicity.

We should be circumspect in our attribution of this incident to China. Making a firm attribution case is time consuming and often filled with difficulty in making an absolute judgement. Masking the true origins of a cyber incident is easy—states often use proxies or compromised computers in other jurisdictions to cover their tracks. As such, more detail is required before we can categorically state that China was the source.

A plausible reason for any group to have hacked into the BoM network is an interest in BoM’s customers. BoM provides predictive weather services to a range of Government and private sector clients, and in some cases, will have direct linkages into their networks to deliver their most up to date forecasts and weather data. Those private sector clients include aviation, energy, mining, offshore platforms and marine industries, all of whom would be of interest to a state-based hacker.

This provides an avenue of exploitation for a person or group to access more sensitive networks. That isn’t an uncommon modus operandi—why try to break down complex cyber defences when you can go in via the weakest link? Examples of this stretch back over 10 years: Titan Rain, a US Government codename for a series of attacks on government military systems which took place from 2003-06, is a prime example. Defence contractors were targeted as an easier avenue into Pentagon networks and led to extensive sensitive data extraction.

Another possibility is that whoever hacked into the BoM could be seeking information on Australia’s negotiating position at the Paris climate talks, which would use the data collected and analysed by BoM on Australia and the region’s weather and climate. It’s been observed that cyber espionage activities often increase immediately prior to major international bilateral and multilateral discussions. In a report released earlier this year, cyber security firm FireEye identified a cyber espionage group dubbed APT30, which specifically targeted Southeast Asian and Indian officials holding key political, economic and military information. FireEye believes APT30 is a state backed group from China, and noted that its activity peaked around important regional summits, particularly ASEAN meetings. Similarly, The New York Times recently reported on Iranian backed hackers who identified and targeted US State Department officials involved in implementing the nuclear deal with Iran.

While a pre-summit infiltration on a national weather service may seem like a peculiar espionage target, this isn’t the first time that such an institution has been in the cross-hairs. In December last year, the US government’s National Weather Service (NWS) was compromised by external attackers. Like our own BoM, the NWS provides climate, water, and weather data, and forecasts and warnings to the public and several government and non-government customers. More interestingly, the infiltration took place three months before the UN’s massive Lima Climate talks. The summit saw 194 country delegations descend on the Peruvian capital to thrash out an agreement on climate change, and was one of the largest negotiations of its type.

Four months before the US NWS compromise, alarm bells were ringing in New Zealand when someone tried to infiltrate a supercomputer based at the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington. The computer, worth $12.7m, dubbed FitzRoy, is one of the most sophisticated computers in the world dedicated solely to environmental research and forecasting. New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Centre was called in by Prime Minister John Key to discover what the attackers were after, but were unable to find a logical explanation.

It could be the case that Australia has fallen victim to a group with similar intentions in the lead up to the Paris talks with the aim of collecting as much information possible on Australia’s negotiating position, and its basis in climate data, to influence the outcome of the talks. However it would be expected that other countries around the world would be similarly targeted, and if this is the case, it hasn’t been widely reported.

Regardless of who the perpetrator is behind the BoM infiltration, it’s easy to logically deduce several reasons why such an organisation presents an appealing infiltration target. Hopefully this serves as a wake up call for all government agencies, regardless of the size or classification level of their work, that their information and networks are valuable to foreign actors, and as such, they should do their upmost to protect them.

Sea State

Beijing has announced plans to establish a naval facility in Djibouti with the goal of boosting counter-piracy and peacekeeping efforts in the region. Reportedly, the Chinese installation will be located near a US airbase. The outpost will break Beijing’s longstanding policy against building military facilities abroad. Since 2008, China has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the area, sending 21 convoys with a total of 60 vessels into the Gulf of Aden. Until now, Chinese vessels have been reliant on foreign facilities for resupply.

Meanwhile, tensions have heightened on the Korean Peninsula with reports that Pyongyang attempted to conduct a submarine-launched ballistic missile test on Saturday. The launch, which took place between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, is said to have been unsuccessful. According to a Korean government official, ‘there is no evidence of the missile taking flight, and only debris from its cover was found, so it is highly likely that the launch was a failure’. The launch comes only three weeks after North Korean President Kim Jong-un declared an extensive ‘no sail zone’ in the waters off its eastern city of Wonan.

While in London, the Royal Navy’s flagship vessel, the HMS Ocean, is set to be decommissioned in 2018 despite a multi-million pound refit. The Davenport-based helicopter carrier and assault ship underwent an AU$135 million upgrade in 2014. The decision to decommission the vessel, which played a crucial role supporting operations in Afghanistan and Libya, was made in the recent strategic defence and security review.

Flight Path

Last week’s Flight Path addressed rumours that the US Air Force was considering buying 72 additional F-15s or F-16s instead of F-35s due to the soaring costs of the F-35 fighter program. These rumours have now been well and truly been squashed, with US Air Force spokesman Ed Gulick declaring that: ‘At this time the Air Force has no plans to acquire 72 new F-15s or F-16s, although the Air Force is always looking at options to be prepared for a dynamic global security environment.’

The Philippines has received the first two of 12 FA-50 Golden Eagle fighter jets this week from Korea Aerospace Industries as part of a US$400 million program signed between the two countries back in 2013. The FA-50s, a light combat derivative of the T-50 supersonic jet fighter, can be used as either a fighter or a trainer aircraft, and will significantly enhance the Philippine Air Force patrol capabilities. It’s not surprising to hear from Philippines Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin that among the areas the jets will be posted is Palawan, the Philippines’ closest point to the Spratly Islands. You can watch the Philippine Air Force welcome the jets on YouTube.

Looking north, it looks like our Canadian friends are working on designing a new program to train future pilots. David Pugliese over at Defense News takes a look at the project here.

Rapid Fire

ICYMI, the US Army is using rocket artillery in the war against Daesh in Iraq. Joseph Trevithick reports for War is Boring that over 400 rockets have been fired at Daesh targets from M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) platforms ‘since the middle of summer’. Wesley Morgan echoes this statistic in a report for The Washington Post. However, both pieces also provide interesting details on the platform itself—Trevithick analyses its capabilities and Morgan offers a history of the platform’s use, particularly in Afghanistan.

In other [under] ground warfare news, the Israeli Defense Forces are developing a new urban training base which will include subterranean facilities for anti-tunnel warfare. The facility will also include advanced simulators and live-fire training areas.

Animal lovers will be pleased to learn that a new law in the US requires retiring military dogs to be retired on US soil so that the dogs aren’t left overseas and ineligible for military transport. The law also mandates that former handlers be given the first chance to adopt their furry compatriots.

A US Marine Corps combat correspondent has been photographing Star Wars action figures in lifelike military scenes. The Galactic Warfighters project depicts Clone Troopers in a variety of situations including combat, and includes descriptive captions.