Rapid Fire 2011-08-15: SAAB Buys Sensis

• Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and South Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, says that US foreign policy needs to make the transition from the immediate challenges of the Middle East to address ‘long term and deeply consequential issues in Asia’.

• Israel sees the visit of the Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as an opportunity to influence China’s arms sales to the wider Middle East.

• Russia makes a number of announcements regarding the future shape of its air defense systems. The mid-range Vityaz air defense system is expected to replace the S-300 by 2014, with the short-range Morfey due to be introduced by 2013. It is also expected that S-500 air defense systems will be deployed around Moscow by 2015.

• Saab completes the acquisition of air traffic and defense management systems provider Sensis Corporation.

• The CIA’s former Director of Operations, Chad Sweet, outlines to the Washington Journal US strategies to counter homegrown terrorism.

• South Korean media relays that a Chinese Army publication sees the country’s first aircraft carrier as being utilized to deal with territorial disputes. This contradicts the Chinese Defense Ministry’s assertion that the carrier is for training purposes only.

• The UK’s Disposal Services Authority (DSA) is assuming greater responsibility for plugging the £36 billion black hole in the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) budget. Products it is seeking to dispose of include a replica Harrier jet, Saxon armored personnel carrier and luxury watches for intelligence agents.

• Rumors are circulating that the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency provided Chinese engineers with access to the remnants of the Black Hawk stealth helicopter that crashed during the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.

The Virtual Armed Forces: US Military Turns to Virtualization

USS Abraham Lincoln
going virtual

The US Department of Defense (DoD) and the individual services are turning more and more to virtualization to improve the efficiency and flexibility of their IT networks. This technology allows multiple virtual machines with different operating systems to run side-by-side on the same physical machine. The main benefit is a decrease in needed hardware, space, and power to perform the same IT operations, thus saving money and weight on military IT systems and platforms.

At the same time, virtualization raises security concerns because traditional IT security products, such as firewalls, do not work in the virtual environment.

• Virtualization: What Does It Mean?
  
• DISA Out in Front
  
• GD’s TVE Project
  
• Navy’s Virtual Strike Force
  
• Air Force Goes Virtual Early
  
• Security Challenges/Benefits
  
• Key Contacts
  
• Additional Reading