Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Pentagon Approves Five Drone Makers for Military Sales

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship Missile Defense

Comments: 0

The U.S. Department of Defense has given five small drone manufacturers permission to sell to the U.S. military and federal agencies, in the wake of last year’s ban on these agencies buying Chinese-made drones.

Pentagon officials said four U.S. companies—Skydio Inc., Vantage Robotics, Altavian Inc. and Teal Drones—were approved after 18 months of testing, along with France’s Parrot SA PARRO -2.23% .

“We are putting these tools in the hands of our war fighters in very critical times, and we need to ensure that the technology in their hands is not only cutting edge but is also secure,” said Michael Kratsios, the president’s top technology adviser who was also recently named the Pentagon’s acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

The U.S. military has used small aerial drones for decades and has tried to expand its fleet. Defense Department officials requested for its 2019 budget nearly $280 million for small-drone purchases—enough to buy more than 3,000 of them—up from $89 million the year before, according to the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College in New York.

The Pentagon in 2018 largely banned purchases of commercial, off-the-shelf drones until it could determine how to mitigate security risks, including when drones are used for surveillance of military installations and critical infrastructure.

In 2019, Congress formalized that ban with a federal law that prohibits the purchase of Chinese drones for the Pentagon and other federal agencies.

Compared with the U.S. military’s existing inventory of smaller drones, the newly accessible line of drones are more portable, easy to use and meant to launch in less than two minutes, helping U.S. soldiers get visual help in their environments, said Defense Department official Chris Bonzagni. Most of the U.S. military’s existing drones take more time to launch and are controlled by more senior, commanding leaders, he added.

The $18 million project to identify “safe for government use” drones was led by the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, which recruits Silicon Valley tech and other commercial innovators to help solve its problems. Several of the companies hadn’t worked with the Defense Department before the effort, Mr. Bonzagni said.

The drones, priced between $7,000 and $15,000, will be available for purchase through the federal government’s procurement website in early September.

China’s DJI Technology Co. is the world’s biggest drone maker, and some of its drones were purchased in years past by federal agencies.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that it believes DJI was “selectively targeting government and privately owned entities…to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive U.S. data.”

DJI officials have disputed that claim.

Mr. Kratsios, the Pentagon’s acting chief technology officer, said that beyond the Defense Department, the new availability will have “tremendous spillover effects that are going to benefit” other federal agencies that rely on smaller drones.

Photo: Representatives from the French drone maker Parrot, one of the companies approved to sell to the U.S. military, with a prototype. - PHOTO: RICK WILKING/REUTERS

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-approves-five-drone-makers-for-military-sales-11597921200?mod=hp_lista_pos1

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