The State Department‘s newly-established Global Engagement Center wants to create a global network of third party partners to support its messaging campaign against the Islamic State militant organization, C4ISR & Networks reported Monday.

Meagen LaGraffe, chief of staff to the coordinator and special envoy of the GEC, told a New America Foundation event Thursday that GEC has veered from its previous direct engagement approach “to focus more on partner driven content and credible third party voices,” Mark Pomerleau reported.

“The approach we’re taking to build a network of credible third party voices all across the world in regions that span the globe and also sort of transregionally functional partnerships so that we can cultivate and build not only themes and messages but also consistent messengers for anti-[Islamic State group] narratives,” said LaGraffe.

LaGraffe further said GEC coordinates its efforts with the Defense Department including the work of the Cyber Command which is tasked to interrupt the IS group’s cyber operations.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the North Atlantic Council has cleared a plan to deploy in 2017 multinational battalions to the eastern part that marks the alliance’s border with Russia, DoD News reported Friday.

Stoltenberg said at the two-day Warsaw Summit that kicked off Friday in Poland that the U.S. will serve as the lead country for the battalion in Poland, Canada in Latvia, Germany in Lithuania and the U.K. in Estonia, Jim Garamone writes.

“[The battalions] demonstrate the strength of the transatlantic bond, and they make clear that an attack on one ally would be considered an attack on the whole alliance,” he said.

Stoltenberg noted that NATO officials also declared initial operational capability for the Ballistic Missile Defense system, Garamone reports.

“This means the U.S. ships based in Spain, the radar in Turkey and the interceptor site in Romania are now able to work together under NATO command and control,” he said.

Stoltenberg also discussed cyber space as a new operational domain as well as NATO member countries’ pledge to increase their defense spending and plan to engage in a dialogue with Russia, according to the report.

President Barack Obama has said the U.S. will maintain its support of defense and security initiatives in Europe as well as transatlantic relationship and common efforts with allies amid threats facing NATO member countries, DoD News reported Saturday.

Obama told a group of reporters at the NATO summit in Warsaw that the U.S. will deploy a battalion of soldiers in Poland as the area’s lead nation to support NATO’s defense and deterrence posture, Cheryl Pellerin reported.

He added U.K. will lead in Estonia, Germany in Lithuania and Canada in Latvia — a strategy that will add 4,000 NATO troops in the region on a rotational basis, Pellerin quoted.

Obama further said the additional U.S. armored brigade will be stationed through Europe with 4,000 more U.S. troops, DoD News stated.

A team of the Transportation Security Agency and American Airlines will install new screening technology at select facilities nationwide in the fall.

TSA said Tuesday the team will establish new automated security screening lanes and computed tomography scanners in an effort to meet security efficiency targets at the Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Miami international airports.

“Our foremost priority is the security of the traveling public … to ensure that we remain up-to-date in an evolving threat environment, TSA continues to test and deploy state-of-the-art technologies,” said Peter Neffenger, TSA administrator.

“Our responsibility is to keep passengers safe but also moving through security,” he added.

TSA noted the team will install automated belts to drag bags into the X-ray scanners, property bins larger than ones found at regular screening lanes, Radio Frequency Identification tags attached to each bin and cameras to capture photos of the outside of the bag.

The agency added the CT technology was designed to help address wait time at screening lanes and potentially provide passengers an option to have liquids, gels, aerosols and laptops in carry-on bags at all times.

TSA will also collaborate with vendors, airlines, airports and the counter-terrorism community to roll out additional automated checkpoint lanes as part of its mission to incorporate automated security checkpoint lanes at all U.S. airports.

Robert Brock, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, has joined the Kansas Transportation Department as that agency’s first unmanned aircraft systems director, The Wichita Eagle reported Tuesday.

Jerry Siebenmark writes the 22-year Air Force veteran previously held responsibilities for intelligence and special operations units that use drones.

Brock will work to educate individuals and companies on the safe operation of UAS and on the privacy implications of drone use as well as help drive the growth of drone-related businesses in the state, the report said.

Siebenmark reports that Brock will be based in KDOT’s headquarters in Topeka and at Kansas State University Polytechnic in Salina and report to Merrill Atwater, Kansas’ director of aviation.

Prior to his role at the state of Kansas, Brock served as a business-to-business promoter, platform instructor and mentor at Global Leadership Summit.

He previously served as a personnel and program manager at the Air Force and has worked with the 3rd Special Operations Squadron and National Reconnaissance Office.

The U.S. Air Force could determine an approval for initial operating capability of the service branch’s Lockheed Martin-built F-35A aircraft within the August-to-December window, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

Colin Clark writes Gen. Hawk Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, has said he does not see a yellow flag or red flag in the program and noted that the F-35A had a “really exceptional” mission-capable rate during a Mountain Home Air Force Base engagement in June.

Defense News reported Friday Lockheed officials have also confirmed the 2.0.2 version of the Autonomic Logistics Information System will be ready in October or November.

“We’ve deployed with the current software we had and it worked,” said Carlisle.

Carlisle added Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, can approve an IOC prior to delivery of Lockheed’s ALIS logistics system.

The U.S. Navy plans to build the second Virginia-class nuclear submarine in 2021 in order to meet operational demand by 2020s, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

Studies done by the Navy indicate General Dynamics’ Electric Boat subsidiary and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding division can continue to build two Virginia-class submarines per year even if construction work on the first Ohio Replacement Program submarine kicks off in 2021, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. writes.

Rear Adm. Michael Jabaley, program executive officer for submarines at the service branch, said at a Center for Strategic & International Studies event, that the military branch believes that after 2021, shipbuilders would be provided with additional facilities to build two Virginias on an annual basis and that the plan on the Virginia program “won’t detract from the construction of that first Ohio Replacement hull.”

The report said the service branch is projected to operate below the requirement of 48 attack submarines as some of that vessels approach retirement by 2029.