C4ISR Watch

The Defense Department's chief information officer, newly empowered by the latest defense policy bill, has set the modernization of the nuclear command, control and communications network as the office's top priority.

Industry representatives last week gained insight into the Army's vision of its future tactical network, which the service laid out in a strategy submitted to Congress earlier this month.

The Air Force is pursuing new battle management and command-and-control efforts after abandoning the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization program in its fiscal year 2019 budget request.

Sources told Inside Defense this week they expect the Air Force will not fund the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System recapitalization in the Defense Department's fiscal year 2019 request, a stark change of course from its original plan.

Air Force Distributed Common Ground System officials say the director of operational test and evaluation's latest findings on the program are outdated because he did not account for recent software updates and new system baselines.

The Defense Department has awarded a contract worth up to $950 million for cloud services to an Amazon Web Services partner, but says the award is unrelated to a high-level steering group's plans for accelerating cloud adoption across the department.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is focused on developing platforms and systems containing a "significant amount of autonomy," as the Defense Department pushes for technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and manned-unmanned teaming.

The Pentagon's cloud executive steering group's award to an obscure company for "contractor support services" is under protest, raising more questions about the group's push for commercial cloud adoption across the Defense Department.

Mobility and combat air forces need a better understanding of communication authorities when working alongside command-and-control aircraft, an Air Force official said following the largest joint forcible entry exercise to date.