DSB to discuss long-range standoff capabilities in classified session

A Defense Science Board's summer study task force for long-range standoff capabilities will meet in a closed session later this month, according to a Federal Register notice.  

According to the April 14 notice, the DSB task force on countering anti-access systems with longer range and standoff capabilities will meet April 26 and 27 in Arlington, VA, to examine “future capabilities and architectures for the department.”

The summer study is designed to “explore new defense systems and technologies that will enable cost effective power projection that relies on the use of longer stand-off distances than current capabilities,” according to the notice. “System components may be deployed on manned or unmanned platforms with a range of potential autonomous capabilities.”

Then-Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall called for the study in a Nov. 17, 2016, terms of reference memo. 

During the closed session, briefings will focus on long-range effects in the Pacific, future naval capabilities and the Pentagon's space policy. Acting acquisition chief James MacStravic will also give a briefing on “countering anti-access systems with longer range and standoff capabilities.”

The Long-Range Effects 2017 Summer Study Task Force will also have four panel break-out sessions focused on architecture; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; basing, delivery and weapons; and command, control, communications and cyber. 

The event will be closed to the public because “classified material is so intertwined with the unclassified material that it cannot reasonably be segregated into separate discussions without defeating the effectiveness and meaning of the overall meetings,” according to the notice. 

“To permit the meeting to be open to the public would preclude discussion of such matters and would greatly diminish the ultimate utility of the DSB's findings and recommendations to the secretary of defense and to the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics,” the notice states.