The Defense Department has received a recommendation from the Government Accountability Office directing military departments and the Defense Logistics Agency to follow a criteria for measuring the performance of utilities privatization contracts.

The GAO said in a report published Tuesday that military departments have failed to note the costs and reliability of utility commodities and modifications, as well as evaluate contractor performance during utility privatization efforts for military installations.

The agency believes the DoD will have a difficult time managing utility reformation programs and long-term procurement vehicles without a standard for monitoring the performance of such contracts.

GAO also recommended the DoD develop procedures that inform military departments about contractor defense information related to utilities privatization contracts.

The DoD includes a clause in its utilities privatization contracts that requires contractors to protect data processed, stored and transmitted in their information or industrial control systems.

DLA and military department officials have admitted to not implementing the clause so that DoD can develop procedures pointing out the contractor’s defense information associated with utilities privatization contracts.

The procedures will assure military departments and DLA that such information are secure.

Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and counterparts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.K. have issued a joint statement that lays out a framework to engage and discuss with industry the challenges and benefits of encryption.

Security officials and attorneys general under the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance released the Statement of Principles on Access to Evidence and Encryption at this year’s Five Country Ministerial in Australia, DHS said Thursday.

The statement seeks to address data access challenges posed by encryption to law enforcement and intelligence agencies through the implementation of three principles: mutual responsibility; rule of law and due process; and freedom of choice for lawful access platforms.

The officials agreed to work together to safeguard critical infrastructure and further build up collaboration between cyber offices to improve cyber threat monitoring efforts.

They also announced plans to form a new group, Aviation Security 5, to streamline information sharing about threats to the aviation sector.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has said the Defense Department wants to choose and deploy the “right” technical platform and capability in order to ensure the country’s military edge in the space domain, DoD News reported Friday.

“And when you pick the wrong product, no matter how talented the team or how many resources there are, you lose,” Shanahan said Aug. 27 at the U.S. Air Force’s space and missile systems center in California.

“Acquisition is a huge enabler, but getting the product right is, in my mind, the most important thing we can do.”

He cited some of the department’s priorities for command and control, space situational awareness, Missile Defense Agency and the proposed space force.

“If you want to know what I think about the Space Force [it’s this]: How do we deliver warfighting capability more quickly?” he added.

The Rand Corporation said that the U.S. Air Force faces capacity limitations in responding to the potential demands and challenges posed by different future security scenarios.

Researchers from the Rand Corporation described in a report entitled “Is the USAF Flying Force Large Enough?” four hypothetical future scenarios that the Air Force could face, namely: a scenario similar to the Cold War and characterized by a prolonged conflict like the Vietnam War; another Cold War scenario but this time characterized by a short conflict like the Kosovo War; a peace enforcement scenario similar to the one faced by the U.S. in the 1990s; and a scenario in which global counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations is predominant, much like what the U.S. military is facing today.

The Rand Corporation reported that under all four scenarios, the USAF, with its fleet of aircraft from fiscal year 2017, would experience a shortfall in one class of aircraft or another, with the peace enforcement scenario being the “most stressful to capacity.”

In addition, the Rand Corporation found that none of the USAF classes of aircraft performed robustly across all four scenarios, with fighter aircraft coming the closest, performing well in three out of four hypothetical futures.

The researchers went on to note that protracted military operations are a cause of the Air Force’s capacity limitations and recommended that military and political leadership explore “more force structure, develop alternative force presentation models that may more efficiently use existing forces” and become “more aware of the risks and costs of prolonged operations.”

The Defense Department has created a road map meant to help military services align unmanned technology projects and goals and with DoD’s strategic vision.

The document obtained by USNI News cites interoperability, autonomy, network security and human-machine collaboration as four themes that can serve as the foundational areas of interest for accelerating the use of unmanned systems.

DoD said interoperability will provide the basis for future advances in warfighting as it has already contributed to the deployment of autonomous technologies.

The road map also noted that advances in autonomy will help boost the productivity of manned and unmanned systems.

The department additionally stressed the need to encourage human-machine teaming in combat operations, as well as address vulnerabilities to prevent attacks on networked connections.

Lastly, DoD said supporting policy, requirements and acquisition environments should match advancements in technology.

“To ensure our military advantage, emphasis should be placed on the evolution, availability and employment of unmanned technology,” the agency said in the road map.

Rosetta Lue, senior contact center adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Information Technology, said the department plans to employ artificial intelligence tools to reform its customer service operations, Federal News Radio reported Friday.

Lue said during the Digital Government Institute’s 930Gov conference that the federal agency will possibly rely on AI to analyze data from numerous call centers and websites, as well as automate tasks to further serve veterans and their families.

She added that there is still a need for the VA to standardize its data collection and storage processes to allow AI systems to correctly analyze the information.

“Besides the technology and websites, I really have to say, the place that we’re finding all those nuggets of information is in that data and that data management approach to analytics and AI, natural language and robotics,” the VA official explained.

The effort comes after the Office of Management and Budget required the VA and other agencies to modify their public service offerings under the President’s Management Agenda.

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie recently announced that he will prioritize the overhaul of the department’s customer service operations, which presents administrative and bureaucratic problems.

Gen. James McConville, vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, said the service will look into how the civilian sector applies innovation and modernization with the aim of applying the same methods in the military.

McConville noted in an interview with Army Sustainment Magazine that adopting modern technologies such as autonomous vehicles, additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence will help boost logistics and accelerate production and maintenance processes, the service said Friday.

He added that modernization is “extremely important” in military logistics, which involves feeding soldiers, fueling and arming vehicles and helicopters and arming warfighters in the battlefield.

McConville also explained that the Army Futures Command will help bring new systems into the military over the next three to eight years, as well as shorten development and acquisition timelines.

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Lastly, the Army has formed cross-functional teams consisting of operators, sustainers and acquisition officials to develop requirements for the service’s modernization priorities. 

“The fact that we’re keeping the operators and acquisition professionals together throughout the process is allowing us to get a product that the operators want and that acquisition professionals can acquire in a timely manner,” the Army official said.