In this Q&A with Mike Coulter, senior vice president of Corporate Business Development and president, International for Leonardo DRS, we discuss the defense needs of Middle East countries, particularly the UAE, as well as interoperability with the US and other countries.
Breaking Defense: What are the main threat scenarios for the Middle East and how can countries like the UAE use enabling capabilities and technologies to address that threat?
Coulter: Thanks, Barry, it’s great to be with you. Ukraine has captivated international audiences in the past year, but I would tell you that our partners in the Middle East have been operating in this complex environment for years now. What we are seeing for the first time on news channels is what our partners in the UAE have been telling us about for 5 or 10 years.
I highlight the plethora of unmanned aerial systems out there, which has driven an urgent need for air defense capabilities and protecting soldiers from drones and larger air threats. A dynamic battlefield includes the electromagnetic spectrum in cyberspace, which is driving the need for capabilities like signal recognition, detection, and identification in order to detect, exploit, and attack.
The key to everything is secure communication and secure battle management that is operable with both the host country’s forces and partner forces.
Breaking Defense: You mentioned threats such as unmanned systems, and I know that Leonardo DRS is working closely with the US Army on its counter UAS program. In fact, Leonard DRS provides the radar and sensors for the Army’s CUAS program of record. You also have a number of important military partnerships with the UAE. Tell us a bit about those?
Coulter: We’re proud of our partnerships in UAE. People say international business is different and hard, and they’re right. For that reason, DRS made a decision about 15 years ago that we weren’t going to be doing international business; we were going to be doing home-market business, and we committed to making UAE a home market.
For the past 15 years we’ve developed deep relationships, both with the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces and particularly with UAE defense industry. We’ve worked with NIMR to deliver capable combat vehicles to the UAE Armed Forces, and with EARTH on electro-optics for the Emirate Armed Forces.
We’ve worked with EDGE to provide combat training to the Emirate Air Force, with Abu Dhabi Ship Building to provide Navy EW, and now with International Golden Group to provide the C4I system for the Emirate Navy. So we have those deep partnerships, and we’re looking forward to expanding those.
You mentioned we’re the program of record for Counter UAS in the United States, a program called M-LIDS [Mobile-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System], as well as the short range air defense program called M-SHORAD. We’re currently talking to Emirate partners about bringing those to the UAE.
We recently acquired a company called RADA, which is the leader in the world on tactical radars. They lead the way in defining unseen threats and very small threats relevant to counter UAS.
Lastly, as space has become a priority not just for the US but for the UAE, we have ongoing conversations with the UAE Space Agency to bring space sensing capability into the UAE.
At the end of the day, it’s about partnership, not sales.
Breaking Defense: As you know, the US is focused on interoperability between its services and allies. What are your thoughts on how the UAE and others can use the enabling technologies that we’ve been talking about to be more interoperable with the US?
Coulter: At the end of the day, you don’t fight alone, you fight with friends and partners. So interoperability is critical. The US government has long recognized this, and we’ve enjoyed strong US government support — both in technology release and also in foreign military financing into the region to expand interoperability with allied forces.
We’re very proud of the success that we’ve had on battle management with EDGE in the UAE. There’s a program called ELTS, Emirates Land Tactical System, which is the UAE’s battle management program, and it is the exact same backbone that the US uses on their program called MFoCS [Mounted Family of Computer Systems] and that the UK uses on Bowman.
We’re now working with EDGE to export that capability from UAE to other regional partners — having recently done so in Bahrain. So we’re very proud of interoperability.
The next step is what partners are now calling interchangeability. So that is when your partner is not able to be there, how can you operate and then support those systems commonly?
We have a large effort now going into UAE on how to support common systems that both the US and the UAE are using. We’re working on the ELTS program to support battle management in the UAE. And similarly, we’re working with EDGE to support all of our EOIR sensors in the UAE.
Breaking Defense: That was an interesting comment on not necessarily interoperability but interchangeability.
Thank you for participating today, Mike, and appreciate everyone who’s watched.
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