Information Warfare

US Marines pivot approach to information warfare at commandant’s command

https://www.c4isrnet.com/information-warfare/2020/10/12/us-marines-pivot-approach-to-information-warfare-at-commandants-command/

The Marine Corps is taking lessons from the last three years to better optimize its tactical information forces, called MEF information groups. (Cpl. Antonio F. Garcia/U.S. Marine Corps)

WASHINGTON — Three years after their formation, the U.S. Marine Corps' tactical information warfare forces are at an inflection point, as they make changes to how they operate per directions from the commandant, according to a top official.

The Marine expeditionary force information groups, or MIG, were created in 2017 as a means of modernizing the Corps and keeping pace with adversaries who exploit the information environment via cyberattacks, propaganda and electronic warfare. The MIGs includes tactical cyber operators to conduct defensive cyber operations, electronic warfare, signals intelligence and other information-related capabilities.

As each of the military services reorganize under a banner that’s loosely referred to as information warfare, the Corps' version is dubbed “operations in the information environment,” purposefully eschewing the term “information warfare.”

“Over the past three years we have learned a lot about conducting operations in the information environment through the implementation of the MIGs. As part of the overall Marine Corps Force Design efforts, we are turning our lessons learned into process improvements at the MIG level and continuing to refine our capability requirements at the MIG and tactical level,” Jennifer Edgin, assistant deputy commandant for information, told C4ISRNET. “The improvements are based on ensuring survivability and lethality of our expeditionary forces and ensuring that every Marine has access to information when they need it, how they need it, on demand.”

The commandant of the Marine Corps has directed a force design update and required the service to not only slim down — meaning there will be cuts in units as well as fleets of large platforms such as tanks — but also to better integrate with the Navy by acting as an expeditionary extension of the fleet.

Under new guidance, the Marine Corps is working to more seamlessly integrate all its forces, to include information warfare, with the Navy.(Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Codie L. Soule/Navy)

This integration is taking place from operational and strategic levels all the way down to the more tactical carrier strike group and amphibious ready group/Marine expeditionary unit levels, culminating at the joint maritime level of the combatant commands.

Officials say that based on preliminary force design ideas, the commander of a Marine expeditionary unit in 2030 will likely will need a cyber planner, a psychological operations planner and someone who understands space. This would mean the force must also figure out how to integrate those individuals into the expeditionary strike group.

https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1315471045441261568

Department of State

@StateDept

US government account

In Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party has committed egregious human rights abuses against Uyghurs and members of other minority groups, including coercive population control, forced labor, and repression of cultural and religious expression.

https://go.usa.gov/xGbJX

7:55 PM · Oct 11, 2020

Article and video at https://www.state.gov/ccpabuses

“We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.”

Michael R. Pompeo

Secretary of State

What’s Happening in Xinjiang?

The Chinese Communist Party is waging a targeted campaign against Uyghur women, men, and children, and members of other Turkic Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, China. Documented human rights abuses include coercive population control methods, forced labor, arbitrary detention in internment camps, torture, physical and sexual abuse, mass surveillance, family separation, and repression of cultural and religious expression.

Watch Video in ARABIC | CHINESE | RUSSIAN

In recent years, these egregious abuses have increased through government policies under the pretext and justification of fighting the “three evils” of “ethnic separatism, religious extremism, and violent terrorism.”

The U.S. Department of State, scholars, human rights organizations, journalists, think tanks, and survivors of the Xinjiang camps themselves have provided ample information substantiating these abuses including:

Coercive population control through forced abortion, forced sterilization, and involuntary implantation of birth control;

The detention of more than one million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, ethnic Kyrgyz, and members of other Muslim minority groups in internment camps;

Forced labor in facilities nearby or affiliated with the internment camps;

The destruction and closure of mosques and other religious sites, prevention of youths from participating in religious activities, forced political indoctrination or “re-education”.

Forced Population Control

The CCP is perpetrating a sustained campaign of forced sterilization, forced abortion, and involuntary implantation of birth control. Recent, documented evidence of these practices in Xinjiang is consistent with decades of CCP practices that demonstrate an utter disregard for the sanctity of human life and basic human dignity. We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.

Forced Labor

Since 2017, the CCP has ramped up its campaign of brutal repression of Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups through far-reaching and arbitrary detention and forced labor. In some cases, authorities have detained members of these groups based on spurious “birth policy violations.” The CCP’s use of forced labor to target members of ethnic and religious minority communities is not confined to the Xinjiang region, and is increasingly taking place throughout China through the CCP government-facilitated arrangements with private sector manufacturers. The government expanded this campaign through the transfer of more than 80,000 detainees into forced labor in as many as 19 other provinces during the 2019 reporting period, according to NGO estimates and media reports. The U.S. Department of State, along with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a business advisory to caution businesses about the risks of supply chain links to entities that engage in human rights abuses, including forced labor, in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China.

Violations of Religious Freedom

The CCP is among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world and it continues to show blatant disregard for religious freedom and exercises extreme hostility to members of all religious faiths, including Protestants, Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong. The CCP’s campaign of repression against Uyghur Muslims and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang continues to escalate. More than one million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority Muslim groups have been arbitrarily detained in internment camps since April 2017. In practice, the CCP targets everyday expression of Islamic belief such as owning a Quran, praying, avoiding alcohol or tobacco, fasting during Ramadan, as well as secular aspects of non-Chinese culture such as Uyghur language and Uyghur music.

https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-army/2020/10/11/armys-do-it-all-goggles-to-reach-soldiers-hands-in-2021/

Army’s do-it-all goggles to reach soldiers’ hands in 2021

A Marine dons the ruggedized, military prototype of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System during a user study at Fort Pickett, Va., on Sept. 1, 2020. The Marine Corps and Army are working together on the technology. (Army)

The do-it-all goggle under development by the Army will see its first ruggedized test with a company-level exercise this month, with fielding to begin next year with one unit, followed by the distribution of 40,000 devices across the service.

The Integrated Visual Augmentation System is an effort to put the connected world of a fighter pilot in the sight picture of the close combat soldier or Marine.

Brig. Gen. Anthony Potts, who commands Program Executive Office Soldier, and Brig. Gen. David Hodne, commandant of the Army’s Infantry School and director of the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team, lead the effort. The officers spoke with Army Times about the system ahead of this year’s Association of the U.S. Army conference.

The Army wants to buy 40,000 ‘mixed reality’ goggles

The goggle would go to "top tier" Army units first.

October’s field testing at Fort Pickett, Virginia, will feature a company-sized force tasked with clearing a trench at night — one of the more challenging and potentially deadly tasks that infantry must perform.

Hodne called this field test a “significant” point in the device’s development.

But the device has grabbed headlines for another feature: It’s expected to monitor the state of the soldier, including hydration, fatigue, stress and temperature.

The relevancy of that capability came a litter early, thanks to COVID-19.

In April, developers adjusted software in the device to allow it to take a user’s temperature. The IVAS' built-in sensor can, from a distance, read a temperature. It’s not ready for doing so in austere conditions, but it was shown to work, running through 300 soldiers in about 30 minutes at an indoor location at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Potts said the system will help soldiers build and rehearse their missions, including reconnaissance, attack by fire and assault.

An added feature not previously discussed in detail is the addition of the Solder Borne Sensor, a micro-drone controlled with IVAS. Soldiers will be able to see from the drone’s point of view as it performs midair reconnaissance.

“They’re flying it off of their tactical assault kit,” Potts said.

Shortly following the field test in Virginia, the unit using IVAS will go to Alaska for a cold weather evaluation, followed by a trip to potentially Puerto Rico or Panama for jungle conditions, Potts said.

If approved, as many as 1,600 systems could be built for the four-phase test, which will include operational testing, he added.

Another test will incorporate the Family of Weapons Sights-Individual in place of the pending crew-served versions so that gunners can pop smoke into the trench and then test the device’s ability to see through the obscurant so soldiers can identify and destroy targets.

Demonstrations in 2017 of the FWS-I at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to media involved Army Times observing the see-through-smoke capability.

The FWS-I also includes rapid target acquisition, in which the goggle can lock onto a target through the weapon’s sight, much like a fighter pilot, and use the weapon to fire over obstacles or around corners without exposing the shooter.

FWS-I and rapid target acquisition are already incorporated into early versions of the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, of which the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team fielded of last year with PEO Soldier as a directed requirement. However, the team is not yet issuing them on a large scale.

The 82nd Airborne Division will soon get the device; one unit in Hawaii and another deployed to Korea already have it.

Potts said average shooters are now hitting targets at the 800- to 900-meter range with FWS-I and rapid target acquisition. That’s nearly triple the distance during unaided firing and more than 300 meters past standard optics marksmanship ranges.

“Soldiers love that system,” Hodne said. When they’re used to the older PVS-14 and then get increased ranges, high-definition clarity and thermal sensing, “it’s night and day, you can’t compare the two.”

During the annual Maneuver Warfighter Conference at Fort Benning in September, Lt. Col. Brad Winn, the lead action officer for IVAS under the Soldier Lethality CFT, highlighted the device’s day and night rapid target acquisition and thermal capabilities.

The device is expected to have an 80-degree by 40-degree field of view, and software capabilities are planned to include facial recognition and text translation. “IVAS can tell who people are and translate various languages into English,” Winn said.

Another key feature is navigation. During an early prototype demonstration, and Army Times reporter viewed the device, which maintained compass headings in the view and allowed for digital, 3D map display views within the headset. Soldiers can mark locations of enemies and allies on that virtual map and share the data within their squad, platoon or company.

Using recording options, training can play back instant after-action reviews, providing the location of each unit member during a shoot house drill, patrol or reconnaissance training evolution.

The system includes the goggle; an on-body computer; and three wearable, conformable batteries per soldier. with an advanced battery charged in each platoon. The larger network uses a radio for each soldier and a tactical cloud package that uses the cloud for each company to provide connectivity.

Since early 2019, developers have refined the design and software with Microsoft, using the company’s virtual reality HoloLens goggle as the initial device. So far, they’ve conducted more than 25 tests with more than 1,000 participants. That started in squads and moved to platoon-sized work late last year, Winn said.

The ruggedized, military form factor version is what’s to be tested at Fort Pickett this month with a company-sized, 72-hour mission.

Marines are slated to provide testing and feedback on the firing range, particularly in relation to target acquisition. The Army participants will run the maneuver portion of the testing, Hodne said.

So far, members of Army Special Forces, Rangers, and soldiers with 25th Infantry Division, 10th Mountain Division and 82nd Airborne Division as well as Marines have tested the device.

Once fielded, it will be used by close combat formations, infantry, combat engineers and scouts in the active, Guard and Reserve components, Winn said.