✍️ security/defense @InsiderEng & @ArchivesDefense | News/analysis on procurement, arms sales & security assistance 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇹🇼 | RT≠endorsement, opinions=mine
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If you want to read beyond these highlights, check out my latest for @InsiderEng, which explores this in more length. I also touch on the question of what we might expect from the incoming Trump Admin and the new Congress in the US.
"there is no executive agent or proponent [for EW] designated at the highest level of the Army to ensure appropriate resourcing of critical functions, equipment, training, and staffing."
This is a summary of my latest piece for @InsiderEng, please do check it out. This thread will also include some additional details that have been learned since the column was posted. 
The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) govern the export of defense articles via commercial transactions. Any company involved in any aspect of the defense industry is very familiar with these lengthy & strict regulations.
If you want my full analysis on Kursk, check out my latest piece for @InsiderEng. It was submitted a week ago, so it predates the latest news. This thread will focus on the key grand strategic outcomes; no tactical or operational analysis here.
𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗔𝗗𝗦: 𝗡ati𝗢nal 𝗠aneuver 𝗔ir 𝗗efence 𝗦ystem, has been developed following a 2019 contract with the @FMateriell (🇳🇴) to fulfill a mobile, short range air defense requirement for the Army. 6 vehicles were ordered with 3 already delivered & successfully tested.
I don't know who coined this idiom, but the oldest instance I found of it in the context of missile defense is from a 1988 @SteveEngelberg article in NYT. An officer in the US Navy used it to illustrate their air and missile defense doctrine to Engelberg.
Officially the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), or more commonly, the National Security Advisor, Sullivan has held the role since the beginning of the Biden Administration. It is one of the most powerful positions in the White House.
A lot of the public discourse around Russian EW has focused on their efforts at GPS interference and denial. This has arguably been a successful Russian info operation. Lost in the conversation is that the most vulnerable systems to EW are commercial off-the shelf ones.
Please do read the entire interview, linked below, @ArchivesDefense. My thanks to @ThrustWR and the team there for publishing it in full. Here are some of the most interesting things that Roman had to say though. ⬇️
IPSSAA appropriates $8,120,242,000, of which:
The Supplemental is actually comprised of 4 bills, which were packaged together by the US House under 1 rule, passed and messaged to the Senate. It includes Supplemental Appropriations Acts for Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and an omnibus sanctions bill.
This isn't a comprehensive summary of everything in the policy update. I'm just going to cover some key pieces, and if you're interested in learning more I would suggest you read it for yourself. All figures discussed in this thread are Canadian $s. 
facebook.com/share/p/N2qptW…
This thread is on US Security Assistance to Ukraine (specifically Presidential Drawdown Authority), a topic I have been covering for 2 years now. There is no TL;DR. This is a complicated subject that I hope I have made understandable for you. 2/109
I can't TL;DR this. You're going to want to read all of it, but the key takeaway is, 🇺🇦 needs ATACMS to destroy time sensitive targets & reduce expenditure rates of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG. Without it, certain high value Russian assets are largely safe from destruction. (2/72)
This thread will focus on Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows delivery of equipment from US stock to meet Ukraine's immediate needs. Congress has authorized $32.2 billion in PDA since the invasion began: $14b in FY22 & $18.2b in FY23. (2/24) 
US federal law prohibits the sale or transfer of cluster munitions (CMs) with a dud rate that exceeds 1%, however the President can waive this restriction. The DoD’s own policy, dating back to the Bush Admin in 2008, is to phase CMs w/ a dud rate exceeding 1% out of service. 2/22
❗️ Pentagon confirms that M109 Paladin SPGs will be provided.