In the May 2008 issue of National Defense magazine, respected industry analyst Sandra Erwin writes about the emerging competition between the U.S.-designed F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and a range of less capable but much cheaper alternatives in the international fighter aircraft market:
The Pentagon is counting on its prized new Joint Strike Fighter to guarantee victory against future enemies. But before it can secure its place as the world’s premier combat jet, the JSF must first be able to beat its canny competitors in the global aerospace industry. European manufacturers of warplanes such as the Eurofighter and the Gripen are out there, aggressively marketing their products as cheaper and easier-to-acquire alternatives to JSF. These companies offer industrial "offsets" so buyers get a share of the production work. That is bad news for JSF, which will have to play catch-up against these savvy marketers. One issue of concern is that European companies are offering attractive incentives to JSF partner nations to buy their jets, possibly at the expense of future JSF purchases. That is something that worries Air Force Maj. Gen. C.R. Davis, program executive officer for the JSF. "What keeps me awake at night is how those airplanes are marketed," he told "This Week in Defense News."
As was noted here, the United States needs a large production run for the JSF in order to amortize its astronomical development costs, and to that end has created a team of multinational partners to share the burden. But as the cost of the aircraft has increased rapidly over the past several years, a number of these partners, most notably Norway, have begun suffering a combination of sticker shock and buyer's remorse, and are now searching for more affordable alternatives. As Reuben Johnson noted here, the Swedish JAS.39 is very much in the running, but so are the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafael, the Boeing FA-18E/F Super Hornet, as well as different models of the Russian MiG-29 and the Su-30. As Erwin's article notes, this is a cause of great concern within the USAF, because without substantial foreign sales, the United States cannot afford to buy the JSF in the numbers required to maintain fighter strength at a reasonable level as the F-15, F-16, and older models of the FA-18 begin to retire.
Cost is just one part of the equation. Many potential foreign buyers are deeply concerned over the export control and technology transfer restrictions placed on various aspects of the JSF, particularly those concerned with low-observable (stealth) and counter low-observable systems. In many cases, the United States will only sell this technology in the form of a sealed "black box," which the user country cannot open either for maintenance or for upgrades; this places the user country at the mercy of the United States, which can withhold supplies of critical spare parts. In other instances, the United States may provide less capable versions of critical systems, so that the buyer gets a second-class bird for a first class price.
The United States also places restrictions on third party sales, meaning that even JSF partners cannot sell JSF-derived technologies without first obtaining an export license from the United States. While this helps ensure that our "family jewels" do not fall into the wrong hands, it also places European companies at a competitive disadvantage against both the United States (which can deny the necessary licenses) and other companies that do not use U.S.-derived components. Licenses are covered under the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are greatly resented in Europe because of the limits it puts on the sale of technology and because of the bureaucratic hassles involved in getting a license (which is needed for anything beyond the most cursory of discussions about a system or technology).
The second Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), USS Independence, has been launched after a complex operation in Mobile, Ala.
The ship first saw the sun April 26 when workers at Austal USA moved the striking, aluminum-hulled trimaran out of its building shed and onto a floating drydock. The 417-foot-long ship was balanced on its center section while stanchions steadied the outriggers covering the craft's 100-foot beam.
Launched, but not commissioned. Though the Indy is floating, Lockheed still has a laundry list of work to do before she's ready to assume her official USS designator and (presumably) start sending Somali pirates to Davy Jones' Locker or put the fear of Allah in Iranian fast-boast crews. She comes in at an estimated $400 million (or two F-22s!), which is an awful lot of dosh for a job that could probably be accomplished with a volley from a 5-inch Mark 45 deck gun.
In fairness though, the trimaran hulled LCS does bring in a whole new class of capabilities that would be quite useful in fighting, say, off the target-rich shores of the Iranian gulf isles. Wonder if her older (but lamer looking) sister ship, the Freedom, is first tasked with escorting battle groups in and out of the Persian Gulf.
A number of contributors to this blog have written on the controversial tanker deal awarded by the Air Force to EADS, and currently being investigated by GAO (examples here, here, here, here, and here). Now it looks like the House at least, is getting ready to pass legislation to undo the deal:
First, those lawmakers are readying measures that would prevent the Air Force from following through on the contract, which was awarded to a team led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the U.S. arm of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space company (EADS).
Second, they propose to permanently change Pentagon contracting rules that they believe favor foreign firms over U.S. companies...
The Buy American movement could be helped by a slowing economy, growing concern about the outsourcing of jobs abroad and the pressures of an election year, analysts said. In the House, particularly, the odds are good for passage of legislation related to the tanker deal.
The White House is likely to issue a veto threat on any legislation to retroactively overturn the contract award. This probably gives Boeing advocates in Congress a free pass: they can vote for legislation to protect American jobs, knowing that in the end it won't be enacted. That's assuming of course, that Congressional leaders are content to let the issue die after a veto.
The more significant question is what U.S. trading partners do if and when Congress adopts legislation to reverse the award. Congressional actions typically get a lot of attention in foreign capitols.
"In my view we can do and we should do more to meet the needs of men and women fighting in the current conflicts while their outcome may still be in doubt," he said. "My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield."
He cited the example of drone aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents without risking the life of a pilot. He said the number of such aircraft has grown 25-fold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
He said he has been trying for months to get the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, like the Predator drone that provides real-time surveillance video, to the battlefield.
"Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it's been like pulling teeth," Gates said. "While we've doubled this capability in recent months, it is still not good enough."
I'm curious about context here. From what I've seen, the Air Force has been more than eager to prove their small war utility, mostly in the form of UAV coverage, tactical airlift, and close air support. So I'm thinking that this may be a case of the force being willing, but the bureaucracy being weak. In other words, Air Force has clogged itself with so many regulations, it appears to have lost touch with two of the guiding lights of successful warfare: speed and simplicity.
While I'm skeptical of claims that the Air Force is reluctant to get in the fight, the service is in need of a massive system flush, one that purges the ranks of overregulation, top-heavy leadership, and unnecessary bureaucratic constructs. Most of the public affairs wounds that the Air Force has suffered in the past few months have been self-inflicted, so looking inward may be the best way to cure the service's woes.
Air Force news story here. But I was more taken with this delightful quote from General Gary Harencack:
"The B-2 is airpower at its purest, most elegant and deadliest form," the general said.
Open admiration for air-delivered death and destruction is rare in this day and age of politically correct Air Force leadership. Some people think that military leaders should play the part of remorseful warrior, always apologetic for the terrible violence they must commit in defense of the Republic. Nonsense...let good men like General Harencack make our enemies squirm.
Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.
Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.
There's two sides to this coin. On one hand, the military is an excellent way to realign misguided souls who would--in all likelihood--continue down the wrong path upon release from prison.
On the other hand, I tend to agree with guys like General Barry McCaffrey, that these "are not people who should be wearing the uniform." So I suspect there's a happy medium here, and that the Army and Marines are carefully screening individuals with records before assimilating them into the military ranks, thus rendering breathless reporting on the subject unnecessary.
North Dakota’s congressional delegation announced Tuesday that the Air Force has informed them Minot Air Force Base will get a second squadron of B-52 bombers and about 1,090 more personnel.
The Air Force announced Tuesday that it plans to keep the nation’s total B-52 force at 76 aircraft instead of cutting the fleet to 56 aircraft as it had originally proposed.
Unfortunately, the bombers are coming from Barksdale AFB and not being resurrected from the boneyard, so there won't be any net gain in the actual size of the bomber fleet. B-52s are among the cheapest aircraft in our inventory to fly, so bringing 20+ of the big fellas back from the dead, assigning them to the nuclear mission, and freeing up the rest of the Buff fleet for combat ops seems like it'd be a smart move. Never hurts to have more devastating firepower available in the increasingly important Pacific AoR.
Of course I'm biased. I'm a huge B-52 fan (the bomber, not the awful band).
From the UK's Daily Mail, top brass force Brown to review £1bn defence cuts:
An emergency review of the country's defences is due to take place following a crisis meeting between the heads of all three armed services and Gordon Brown.
The chiefs are understood to have said that cuts ordered by the Prime Minister threatened to undermine current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the future viability of the forces.
At least two senior officers, believed to be Army generals, have threatened to resign - according to several sources.
The story is a bit old, 3 weeks or so, but still quite relevant. America needs a strong British military to help form the backbone of the alliance against Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, the ruling Labor Party has steadily slashed defense budgets for the past decade or so, reducing Her Majesty's Armed Forces to what some are calling a glorified gendarmerie.
Even if the British defence chiefs get their way and force Labor into properly financing the military, the situation will remain dire. Increases proposed by the MoD only get the Brits back up to status quo, instead of compensating for years of neglect. As our military objectives are the same, the Labor cuts also negatively affect US campaigns. The traditionally trustworthy British forces no longer have the ability to project power into more than one or two areas of operation, forcing American and fledgling Iraqi or Afghani units to fill the gaps.
Though it's a tough pill to swallow and we'd undoubtably prefer the Brits, perhaps it is time to start looking at Sarkozy's France as our new special defense partner?
While the U.S. Air Force is busy setting up a cyber command, defense experts are busy debating what, exactly, a cyber command should do...
When describing the new command's mission, its chief, Air Force Maj. Gen. William Lord, said it is defending "the whole electromagnetic spectrum."
The whole spectrum eh? From radio to gamma rays? I thought we were just talking about cyberspace here. This has been a real problem with the Air Force as of late. The service has been inundated with bureaucratic edifices that clog up productivity while having a negligible impact on the war.
The Air Force's need to hack and to defend against hacks is obvious, so I doubt that anyone challenges Cyber Command's utility. What is questionable is the value of standing up the enormous administrative component needed to support a Major Command. The Air Force is hard-pressed for money right now, yet they continue to bloat the service with highly expensive, officer-heavy support and administrative units instead of concentrating on the basic mission essentials.
Ergo, you've got an entire Major Command whose mission is "uncertain."
Cyber Command could be ahead of its time. But if it does exist to defend our networks and hack our enemies back to the stone age, then CC's battle geeks will need to be quick, adaptable, and surprising in their actions. Unfortunately, excessive administrative bureaucracy specializes in making operations slow, rigid, and highly predictable. Best idea I've heard yet on Cyber Command? Stick them in the now-vacant Cheyenne Mountain complex, and put a crazy cigar chomping general in charge of geek-ops.
Cyber Command’s new emblem can’t be anointed officially until the new command is stood up this October, but the one in the works replicates the former Strategic Air Command’s patch.
Only “minor modifications” have been made to the SAC emblem to create AFCYBER’s design and “bring it up to current Air Force emblem standards,” according to service documents.
In other news, the Air Force has "emblem standards." Leadership!
It might be tempting to dismiss the U.S. Navy’s potential focus on China as a passing fad — part of the now-familiar phenomena of “China fever.” Another perspective holds that this focus can best be explained by a simple case of enemy deprivation syndrome. While there is a kernel of truth in both of these intellectual approaches, facts on, above and especially under the water increasingly belie these conclusions and demand serious attention from American strategists.
China has launched more than 36 new submarines since 1995 — far outpacing U.S. intelligence estimates from a decade ago. Additionally, supersonic indigenous cruise missiles, rumored development of an anti-ship ballistic missile, dynamic mine warfare and amphibious warfare programs, invigorated aerial maritime strike capabilities, as well as a variety of new, sleek and modern surface combatants, suggest a broad front effort by the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
This is slowly becoming a dangerous situation.
Not because I think that we'll be at war with China anytime in the near future, but rather that the rapidly shrinking gap between China's military capabilities and our own makes a quick localized war over Taiwan or the Spratley Islands more likely.
This is precisely the reason that we need to retask the Air Force and Navy with their old primary mission as our principle strategic warfighting services. Back during the Cold War, the Air Force's Strategic Air Command had a great motto: Peace is our profession. That eventually blossomed into Reagan's peace through strength (or my favorite, peace through superior firepower), but the message was clear: the power of America's strategic forces assured the world that the Cold War would never go hot.
The same applies to China. The more we weaken our strategic forces, refuse to modernize the Air Force and bolster the size of the Navy, the higher the probability of war in the Far East. The Army and Marines--properly equipped and sized--can handle counterinsurgencies and low-level conflict, while a powerful Air Force and Navy will ensure that America's wars are contained and statistically small.
The B-2 crash was the type's first, and took out a full five percent of the fleet. Today's crash is the ninth for the currently 70-strong B-1 fleet. Prior to today, 17 people had died in B-1 accidents.
While crashes are a fact of life in the Air Force, you can't help wonder if the recent spate of accidents isn't putting pressure on the Air Force to get serious about its so-called "2018 bomber."
In fairness, the Air Force has been deadly serious about force modernization for several years now. Less serious are the service's detractors in Congress and at the Pentagon, though many legitimately question the need for hyper-expensive weapon systems in a time of counterinsurgencies, low-level conflict, and small wars.
I'd really like to see the Air Force just come out and declare a single mission and purpose one of these days. They're in bad need of focus. Insisting that we need F-22s and new hyper-sonic bombers to win the war on terror isn't credible. But there will always exist a need for a strategic vanguard against powerful nation-states, irrespective of the sole-superpower times that we live in. That's the Air Force's bread and butter, and if the service was to simply come out and say "We exist to protect America against rival nations" instead of acting like they're the very keystone of non-kinetic operations, they'd likely have an easier time of modernizing and replacing their ancient fleet of aircraft.
Jeffrey Lewis flags some interesting testimony from a recent hearing on the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Here's Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, apparently unaware that the Pentagon was not responsible for the program, or maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile in general:
MR. ENGLAND: So Mr. Hobson, I guess I was not aware that we were not paying for these programs —
REP. HOBSON: You’re not.
MR. ENGLAND: — with Department of Energy, because — okay, I guess that’s a surprise to me. I mean, I always thought we were funding those development programs and funding the DOE labs to do work for us. So I though there was a money transfer to DOD (sic) to do this. I guess I’m surprised —
That's like finding a couple billion in your pocket, right? Maybe it's even enough to convince England that the Air Force can afford a few extra F-22s.
Boeing's Mark McGraw just told me that on air. Doesn't it strike you as a pretty significant advantage for Boeing that its proposed tanker could refuel the new Marine Corps platform while the Airbus tanker can't? If there was a huge gap between the two tankers, that might not make a difference, but by every account, it was a dead heat, so this difference seems very significant on its face.
Word on the street is Boeing lost on four of five evaluation criteria; how that amounts to a dead heat, I don't know. Regarding the ability to refuel "new" Marine Corps platforms, the new MV-22 Osprey at present is not fitted for aerial refueling, but when it is, it, like other helos, will use the probe-and-drogue system shared by the rest of the Navy. At present, because of their low speed, helos do not refuel from jet tankers, but instead use KC-130 Hercules, which are more closely matched to them in speed. The Osprey, being capable of 300 knots, could, flying flat out, match speeds with a jet tanker, but it would be iffy. Assuming that this is a mission requirement, both the Boeing and Airbus tankers are dual-capable; i.e., they have both flying boom (used by the Air Force) and probe-and-drogue (used by the Navy) units, just like the existing KC-10.
The Boeing offering is smaller, has less range, less cargo capacity, and less fuel transfer capacity. On the bright side, Boeing says it is cheaper (we'll have to wait on that one), and can be operated from forward bases (why on earth would you want to do that?), which the company claims obviates the shorter range. But then Boeing ignores the vulnerability and strategic issues inherent in forward basing, as well as the additional cost of shipping fuel to forward bases, to say nothing of the O&M costs associated with creating forward base detachments for every tanker squadron in USAF.
All-in-all, sounds like McGraw is blowing smoke, but the Boeing objective at this point is to keep the protest alive through the election cycle in the hope that the new President and Congress will be more protectionist in outlook and will cancel the contract award (ideally, from his perspective, mandating a sole source award to Boeing).
Boeing was arrogant and ticked off its customer by ignoring mission requirements--in effect, telling the Air Force that it knew better than they did what the Air Force needed. This is never a good business strategy. They also assumed that USAF would never make a major award to a foreign manufacturer. Obviously, this was a faulty assumption. As to why the Airbus award constitutes a dire threat to U.S. national security, your guess is as good as mine. We buy a commercial airframe, half of which is built in the U.S., from Airbus, and we give it to Northrop to stuff with all the refueling, communications and other mission equipment, which is worth more than the value of the airframe. The Airbus deal will create as many new jobs in the U.S., albeit at the expense of some Boeing jobs--my guess is a net gain in U.S. employment. Security of supply is not an issue, given that France is a member of the LOI (Letter of Intent) Six, which all have memoranda of agreement in place with each other to ensure access to parts and services from each other. The Boeing protest, and its supporters, in short, are making a straightforward protectionist argument, which in the long run will come back to bite all U.S. defense manufacturers.
Russia's foreign ministry said March 19 it was studying written proposals from the U.S. aimed at allaying Moscow's concerns over Washington's missile defense plans in Europe.
The proposals came after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday with outgoing President Vladimir Putin, president-elect Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials.
"We've literally just received the written proposals of the American side on missile defense and will proceed to study them," foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told Russian news agency Interfax.
Sounds like diplo-fluff to me. Quite frankly, I don't blame the Russians for throwing a fit over the proposed missile defense radar and interceptors. If they wanted to stand up similiar installations in Canada, we'd be reacting the exact same way. It's not that a few interceptors aimed at containing Iranian Shahabs would stop a full-out, over the pole ICBM lay down between the United States and Russia, but rather the simple fact that the boost-phase interceptors will jumble up Ivan's targeting equation something awful. I've heard stories about the condition of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces from U.S. START Treaty inspectors: launcher tubes filled with water, hatches that won't blow when the missile is released, rocket fuel leaks, etc. They need all of the working missiles that they've got just to cover the bare minimum of targets needed to maintain effective deterrence.
So I suspect that when Putin meets with NATO in April, the only benefit of Russia's analysis will be that their "no" comes with a polite smile.
House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., threatened during a hearing in early March to "stop the money" for the contract. Rep. Norman Dicks, a Democrat from Washington whose district would see an influx of jobs if Boeing won the contract, argued that "we're going to start this thing over."
Others have focused their resistance on EADS, the French-based parent company of Airbus. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., said "we should have an American tanker built by an American company with American workers," and Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, argued that the decision would hurt "national security interests..."
If GAO upholds the decision, Congress has the power to cancel funding for the project or direct program funds to Boeing through an earmark. But such a move, contracting experts said, would be virtually unprecedented and could spark a wave of unintended consequences.
Congress has complained that the Defense Department 'changed the rules' for the acquisition midstream, but now Members of Congress are talking about doing the same. While bureaucrats are required by law to disregard job impacts when making acquisition decisions, legislators are arguing to overturn the award on the ground that that consideration should have been paramount. If Congress decides to wade into this after it's already been decided, it will delay delivery of critical hardware, add uncertainty to the acquisition process, and give European governments an excuse to shut their markets to American companies. And it will give John McCain the chance to take a more prominent stand against the ultimate earmark--a stand which is unlikely to cost him electoral votes in Washington, Illinois, or even in deep-red Kansas.
Tom Barnett's piece in the April issue of Esquire is blamed--or credited--with bringing about the fall of Adm. William Fallon, who will step down soon as commander of U.S. Central Command. Barnett portrayed Fallon as a guy who stood up to the president on Iran. Barnett also portrayed Fallon as a scourge of "hardliners led by [Vice President] Cheney," "neocons," and "supporters of Israel."
Now, not too long ago, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was also known as a hardliner, and even in some circles as a "neocon." Of course, such people use the term "neocon" as nothing more than shorthand for either "hardliner" or "friend of Israel," which makes it sound like a coinage of the department of redundancy department.
But guess who wrote a profile of Don Rumsfeld three years ago, one at least as fawning as the one of Fallon? Why none other than Tom Barnett.
The piece, which appears in the same magazine's July 2005 issue, is entitled "Donald Rumsfeld: Old Man in a Hurry: The inside story of how Donald H. Rumsfeld transformed the Pentagon, in which we learn about wire-brushing, deep diving, and a secret society called the Slurg." Here is what Barnett has to say on the first page of the piece:
It is from this suite of rooms that Rumsfeld has become one of the most loathed and revered men in the world. The man is too impatient, too damned arrogant, too beyond politics, and just too stubborn for his own good. He is the famously combative, two-time SecDef (both youngest and oldest ever) who chews up and spits out experienced reporters in what are easily the most skillfully performed press conferences since John Kennedy walked the earth. He has brilliantly executed a couple of wars, and badly botched a peace. Let us stipulate all these truths just to move the conversation along.
But something else has been going on in this office, and it's nothing short of the most profound transformation of the U. S. military since World War II--a historic process that will, paradoxically, yield a force Americans haven't seen since our frontier days. The United States had one Defense Department on January 20, 2001, and it will have a very different one by January 20, 2009. Donald H. Rumsfeld, thirteenth and twenty-first secretary of defense, is the reason why.
Does one whiff a touch of opportunism floating on a tainted breeze?
I would also note that when Robert Kaplan wrote a piece for the June 2005 issue of the Atlantic Monthly entitled "How We Would fight China," Barnett referred to it on his website as "Kaplan's strategic lap dance for the U.S. Navy and Pacific Command?"
He continued: "'Sell out' isn't too strong a term for what Kaplan does in this piece. As someone who's worked for the Navy for a decade and a half, I don't think I've ever seen analysis that whores itself more for the most over-the-top strategic fantasies of naval leaders who feel embittered and betrayed by the end of the Cold War. This is U.S. Navy and Pacific Command propaganda at its best."
Oh, by the way, guess who was commander of Pacific Command at the time of the Kaplan piece. None other than Adm. William "Fox" Fallon.
Hmm. It sounds like Barnett did Kaplan one better. If Kaplan's piece on Fallon's PACOM in 2005 was a lap dance, Barnett's fawning piece on Fallon last week might best be described by a word that ends in "job".
Since 1991, the United States has been the world's sole superpower. Now, 17 years later, the armed forces that underwrite that status have begun to fray. Nowhere are the limits of the U.S. military more evident than on the ground in Iraq, and so Congress and the media have focused their attention on the stretched ground forces of the Army and Marine Corps. U.S. control of the seas and skies is something that the public and policy makers tend to assume, as they have since the fall of the Soviet Union. But on the sea and in the air, America has coasted for two decades on investments made in the 1980s. Now, after a generation of heavy use around the globe, from Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s to Afghanistan and Iraq today, hardware bought during the Reagan buildup is simply wearing out.
The Air Force and Navy, both more technologically dependent than their Army and Marine counterparts, have been increasingly vocal about their modernization needs. But Congress is reluctant to fund big-ticket weapon systems while soldiers and marines slog it out on the streets of Baghdad and the mountains of Afghanistan, irrespective of the condition of equipment that is--quite simply--falling apart.
Also problematic is the perception that our defense spending is higher than it's ever been. I say perception, because to argue that we're breaking the bank on defense isn't exactly accurate. As Goldfarb and I have pointed out ad naseum, we're only pumping some 3.5% of the GDP into defense. That's fractional compared to past wars, including the Cold War.
So our Air Force and our Navy are falling apart, but neither are doing too much of the fighting. That's not a lack of will, obviously, this just isn't a high-tech war. The Army and Marines are neck-deep in combat, but they've had to posture themselves against the type of war that they spent decades training to fight. Therein lies the problem, as we've appropriately adjusted ourselves to fight low-level conflicts and insurgencies, the pendulum has swung too far into the low-intensity spectrum, costing us our ability to dominate peer actors. So how do we strike a balance between peer/near peer conflict while continuing to prosecute non-state actors on the micro level?
The answer is the two-force solution. End the procurement holiday. Give the Air Force the Raptors that they need and the Navy their 330 fighting ships. Let the Navy and Air Force rediscover their Cold War roots as the powerful strategic aegis against the Russian Bear and Chinese Dragon, while the Army and Marines fight the skirmishes across the globe. Winning a war is only half of the Armed Forces' mission, the other half is preventing one.
Vice President Dick Cheney is willing to poke fun at his critics:
This is a clip from Cheney's appearance yesterday at the Heritage Foundation to discuss the 25th anniversary of the Strategic Defense Initiative. The full text of his remarks is available here. A highlight:
There is still a great deal yet to accomplish in the field of missile defense. But we’re a lot farther along than we would have been if Ronald Reagan hadn’t set this effort in motion 25 years ago. At the end of his address to the nation, Reagan said, “Tonight we’re launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history. There will be risk, and results take time. But I believe we can do it.” Well, time has shown that he was right. We can do this. We are well along in making good on the promise of strategic defense. The project gathers together American idealism, American ingenuity, and American optimism. And that is an unbeatable combination.
Just posted on THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online is an article by Mackubin Thomas Owens about Admiral William "Fox" Fallon and his recent resignation. Owens explains that Fallon's resignation was largely due to a recent Esquire article about Fallon's very public disagreements with the Bush administration over foreign policy. Owens writes:
While reasonable people can disagree over the wisdom of the Bush administration's policy regarding Iraq, the really troubling aspect of this article is that it reveals the extent to which a combatant commander had taken it on himself to develop and disseminate policy independently of the president. This flies in the face of the American practice of civil-military relations, going back to the American Revolution.
He continues that it is
undeniable that as commander of CENTCOM, Fallon acted in a way that exceeded his authority. The tenor of Fallon's public pronouncements was in stark contrast to that of statements made by other high-ranking military officers who, while they have no desire to provoke a war with Iran while the U.S. military is heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, have not taken it upon themselves to constrain American foreign policy to the extent that Fallon has. Indeed, had Fallon not stepped down, the president would have been perfectly justified in firing him, as Abraham Lincoln fired Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, as Franklin Roosevelt fired Rear Admiral James O. Richardson, and Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Some of The Blog's friends had similar things to say about Fallon. One foreign affairs expert remarked, "That's very thoughtful of Fox Fallon to spare President McCain the necessity of firing him." And what's next for Fallon? Another scholar speculates, "Just think...we now will have the round of Fallon on every talk show possible. He'll make Wes Clark appear shy and retiring is my guess."
According to the most recent Gallup poll, "A record proportion of Americans -- 47% -- say the United States' national defense is not strong enough. Another 41% say the country's defense is about right, while 10% say it is stronger than it needs to be."
This is a very interesting finding, particularly given all the emphasis in the media on the unpopularity of the war in Iraq. The movement of these numbers over the past four years is even more intriguing. The percentage of Americans who say the U.S. national defense is not strong enough has increased steadily since 2004 and now is at its highest point since Gallup has been asking this question in 1984.
It’s possible the ongoing U.S. engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan is contributing to an ever-larger proportion of Americans desiring a stronger military. Whatever the reasons, the trend over the past four years is striking.
However, despite nearly half of Americans saying the U.S. needs a stronger military, Gallup also finds a 44 percent plurality says the U.S. is spending "too much" on national defense and the military. Gallup notes, "Despite or perhaps because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the percentage of Americans saying too much is being spent on the military and defense has increased over the past seven years."
Gallup also raises a noteworthy historical point about how these numbers shift over time. "The all-time high point of sentiment that too much was being spent on the military came in November 1969, in the middle of the Vietnam War (the first time Gallup asked the question using this wording), when 52% said this. In January 1981, just as President Ronald Reagan was taking office, a little more than half of Americans said the United States was spending too little on defense, perhaps as a reaction to Reagan's presidential campaign positions that the military needed strengthening. By 1987, in the middle of Reagan's second term, only 14% said the United States was spending too little."
The partisan differences in the poll are also stark. 61 percent of Democrats believe the government spends too much on the military, while only 20 percent of Republicans share that view.
We reported here last week that a Northrop-Grumman/EADS coalition was the surprise winner over Boeing in the competition for the Air Force’s new tanker. It seems the push backfrom the Hill has already commenced:
At a sometimes emotional hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, members expressed worries that the decision would imperil U.S. jobs, defense industrial capability and even sensitive technology...
Tiahrt was among the senior members of the panel from states where the Boeing tanker would be built. Their complaints were echoed by several other members who do not have a direct local connection to either bidder. While the panel has yet to decide what, if anything, it will do to affect the deal, there was no mistaking its “Buy American” sentiment.
To date, no legislation has been introduced to force a re-examination of the deal, but that's not really the point. The rhetoric from Capitol Hill is designed to demonstrate to Boeing -- and their constituent employees -- that the lawmakers will likely lend support to a challenge, if the aircraft manufacturer chooses to bring one (highly likely). Another fact that has come to light which may encourage Boeing to contest the award is the news that France is trying to lock U.S. firms out of the European defense market.
..."Northrop Grumman's victory was not a close outcome."
While both Boeing and Northrop Grumman satisfied requirements established by the Air Force, Northrop was clearly the better buy. With Northrop, the military could have "49 superior tankers operating by 2013," Thompson said, while Boeing's proposal would give it "only 19 considerably less capable planes" by then.
Boeing will reportedly be 'debriefed' on March 7, when the Air Force explains why the firm's bid fell short. We should learn soon thereafter whether the final chapter has been written on this deal, or whether the saga will continue--further delaying the production of badly-needed aircraft.
If Colombia and Venezuela were to come to fisticuffs over this latest South American crisis, the Bogota government could quickly find itself in trouble.
Colombia's Army is both larger than Chavez's and battle-hardened from years of fighting the FARC. They know the terrain, have greater mobility via their enormous helicopter fleet (including 90 modern Blackhawks), and are supported by a Colombian Air Force that specializes in close air support.
But Chavez would undoubtedly control the skies, or at least come close to it. The Venezuelan Air Force sports 80 or so operational fighters, including F-16s and Sukhoi-30s. Colombia's Air Force, postured for the close air support mission, has only a single squadron of 20 Dassault Mirage V/Kfirs, airframes that wouldn't last long in an aerial bar fight with their socialist opponents. Without freedom of the skies to clear the way for Colombian Tucanos and helicopters, Bogota's advantage on the ground is sharply reduced.
Colombia is our ally, FARC is our mutual enemy, and Chavez has built an entire career as an anti-American posturer. So here's a three-fer: Let's have joint U.S.-Colombia exercises involving a squadron or two of our new F-22s. It would concentrate the mind of Chavez, who adores his new Sukhois. His prized fighter-force would soon become scrap metal against F-22s.
The presence of the Raptor would at once remind Chavez of his place in the hemispheric pecking order, help prevent a war, aid an ally, and reassure the American public of the value of the F-22. Let's get those Raptors to Colombia!
China says it plans to increase military spending by nearly 18% this year to 417.8bn yuan ($59bn; £30bn)....
But experts believe the actual amount allocated to the Chinese military is two to three times larger than the published figure.
There was a huge fuss last year over an increase of 17.8 percent, for a total of $44.94 billion. And you'll note that last year's increase was, at the time, the largest on record.
Of course, I don't put any stock at all in these numbers. The actual number is certainly far higher, once unofficial programs (like a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, anti-sattelite weapons, and lord knows what else) are taken into account. Figure in the lies they're telling themselves about how much corruption and inefficiency is built into their own military-industrial complex, take account of purchasing power parity--you could be talking about a figure not unlike what the United States is spending every year, except without all the health care expenses, the two wars, the blue water Navy, the global commitments, etc. etc. Oh, and they also don't include procurement in the official budget. How much might production of six submarines a year cost (the U.S. builds one a year) or the new, indigenous J-10 multirole fighter? Nobody really knows.
So what are we doing different this year? Here's the story from March 4, 2007:
The United States is calling on China to be more transparent on its military buildup. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte made the call in Beijing Sunday after Chinese officials announced they plan to boost their military spending by nearly 18 percent to $45 billion this year..
An annual Pentagon report on China on Monday said Beijing's lack of transparency posed risks to stability, voicing concern over how it would use expanding military power.
Seriously. The same exact story one year on. And could the Chinese be anymore transparent? They're building a war machine, they're going to seize Taiwan at the first hint of domestic instability or Taiwanese independence, and they're going to give the U.S. Navy and Air Force a hell of a bloody nose in the process.
China Southern Airlines (CSA) announced on Monday that it will launch non-stop direct flights from Beijing to Tehran and double the frequency to four flights per week, starting on March 31.
In a broad-ranging all-hands meeting with Joint Staff members here today, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen discussed the stand-up of U.S. Africa Command, the challenges of leadership in a changing world, and the increased speed of war.
Military officials need to adopt a wartime attitude, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Mullen said he believes that, more than six years into the war on terror, people still follow a peacetime frame of mind. “There are things that we’re still doing that’s under peacetime rules,” he said. “We’re in a couple of wars, and too often we get caught up in what I call peacetime responses or adapting peacetime rules, policies, regulations to what we need to do in responding very rapidly." . . .
Changes in the world have convinced the chairman that U.S. conventional forces are going to have to take on some of the attributes of special operations forces. Conventional forces are going to have to be more culturally aware; they are going to have to build relationships with other peoples and make quick decisions under constant and extreme pressure, he said.
Both Stuart Koehl and I have received our fair share of angry letters for suggesting that the military needs to lose the chickenshit attitude and rediscover the "damn the torpedoes" warrior ethos that has characterized America's historical dominance on the battlefield. Now that the Chairman has gone on record saying what is in effect the exact same thing, I'm hoping that the administrative military takes a strong look inward.
This war stops on a dime and changes direction in the blink of an eye. It is perhaps one of the fastest paced conflicts that we've ever had to fight, in that the military is forced to continuously reinvent the wheel so as to stay one step ahead of an enemy unencumbered by the administrative suck. The bad guys move fast, while the peacetime military--still prevalent in our ranks--has built career officers and NCO careers in a bureaucratic fashion straight out of the Dilbert comic strips. Focus groups and committees, risk aversion, bloated command structures and a disproportionate ratio of bosses to war fighters, all bring operations that should be fast-paced, flexible, and innovative to a screeching halt.
That the top man in uniform has said "enough!" is one small step for the military, one giant leap for the war on terror. I'm eager to see Admiral Mullen's vision translated into policy, and hope that step one in the implementation strategy is a force-wide ban on Microsoft Powerpoint. That’d do a hell of a lot more for military productivity than a ban on blogs.
Northrop Grumman and EADS have somehow managed to defeat heavy-favorite Boeing in the battle to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers. The initial contract for 80 aircraft is valued at $40 billion, and the service has plans to purchase as many as 100 more at an as yet undetermined cost.
The Northrop KC-30, which is based on the EADS Airbus A-330 passenger jet, had been considered the more capable aircraft. It's bigger, which means it can carry 20 percent more fuel, 20 percent more passengers, and 30 percent more cargo. It can also carry 45,000 pounds more fuel than Boeing's KC-767. But Boeing had pitched the smaller size of the 767 as a feature, rather than a handicap. However, the 767 is at the end of its commercial life. The military would have been the only customer for the airplane had Boeing won the contract, raising concerns about maintenance costs.
The KC-30 will be assembled in Mobile, Alabama, but much of the work will be done in Airbus's facility in Toulouse, France. There had been doubts as to whether the Air Force, and Congress, would award such a massive contract to a French firm, but a thaw in relations following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy may have eased concerns. Also Northrop claims that its aircraft will create 25,000 American jobs.
The Air Force's tanker acquisition program first received national attention in 2001, when Senator John McCain called into question a no-bid contract that would have seen the service lease, rather than buy, 100 tankers from Boeing. Upon further investigation, it became clear that Boeing had offered illegal inducements to Air Force officials in exchange for the contract. The ensuing scandal led to jail sentences for two Boeing officials, including the firm's CFO.
McCain has repeatedly noted his role in exposing the corrupt deal during this year's presidential election.
There's a great story about General George C. Marshall, who--while posturing the nation for war--took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to hear out some gentleman from the automotive industry. After listening to them for about 5 minutes, Marshall nodded and said "Ok, do it."
The Air Force's often-delayed announcement of which defense contractor will be awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to provide new aerial refueling tankers has been postponed until 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 29, a defense industry analyst said.
I've got my money on Boeing. But with a bureaucracy as impenetrable as the Air Force, it's anyone's guess. Updates after the announcement.
The Air Force, which needs all the help it can get on the public relations front, has banned access to blogs:
The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.
Cyber Command, which is a bureaucratic construct of questionable necessity built around the need for effective network defense, has now expanded its mission from network defense to regulating internet usage within the Air Force's Major Commands. It seems reasonable, then, to ask whether time spent policing the internet habits of those in the service will, by diverting scarce resources, undermine the command's ability to defend against legitimate cyberattacks, and to return fire.
Also problematic is the fact that USAF bloggers have been among the most credible advocates for force-modernization plans, offering their strong support for the acquisition of the full fleet of 380 F-22s in particular. The Air Force has in one fell swoop discarded a valuable media asset, forcing the public to rely on cumbersome--and typically boring--USAF press releases instead.
Because Air Force public relations isn't so much an effective media campaign as it is a crawl from one PR disaster to another, the service needs bloggers now more than ever. Which makes this a strange and almost certainly counterproductive move.
Mr. President, it's been only a year since General David Petraeus arrived in Baghdad and took command of American forces in Iraq. But in these brief 12 months, he and the American Coalition troops under his command have brought about a tectonic shift in Iraq that has altered the course of the war there, and with the future of at least two great nations--Iraq and the United States of America--and the lives of hundreds of millions of people in those two nations and so many others threatened by violent jihadist terrorists in the Middle East and beyond.
Mr. President, when the surge first began a year ago, many doubted that the violence then raging in Iraq could be brought under control. Even as American troops began implementing this bold new counterinsurgency strategy, some opponents of the war inside and outside of Congress declared that the war in Iraq was already lost, that the surge had already been tried and failed, and that it mattered more, frankly, that we get out of Iraq than that we succeed in Iraq. They could not have been more wrong.
He goes on to say that al Qaeda is facing a humiliating defeat, and that "rather than admit the possibility that they [antiwar groups] had been wrong," they have shifted the debate to political reconciliation. And yet progress is now being made on that front as well, he says. He also called the Democrats out for hypocrisy--pointing out that they are trying to impose the very kind of national caveats on our troops in Iraq that we are trying to convince our European allies to lift from their troops in Afghanistan. And he did a riff on the Obama "just words" clause--citing JFK, Truman, and Roosevelt’s calls to defend freedom abroad. Go Joe!
Stuart Koehl’s piece "Fighting for the Army’s Soul" if left unanswered may cause harm to those of us who can claim to have an Army soul and who are deeply offended by his ill informed and cruel indictment of the Army officer corps.
Readers of defense literature know that I’m not an apologist for the Army. Over the past five years I’ve been very critical of many of the same policies and conditions that Mr. Koehl criticizes. But my criticisms are based on almost four decades of real experience rather than the apparent sole source of Mr. Koehl’s information: the dissatisfied soldier son of a friend who served in Afghanistan.
Koehl claims that the Army’s ills are caused by an excessively high proportion of officers to enlisted men and that the soul of the Army can be saved by cutting that number in half. First, let’s clear the air about proportions of officers. The ratio of officer to enlisted he cites is misleading. A very high percentage of the Army’s officers are not in combat units. Most perform duties unrelated to the Army’s core mission of fighting wars. If you take away the doctors, nurses, lawyers, chaplains, pilots, scientists, technicians, IT professionals, and administrators, the proportion of officer to enlisted in combat units is actually a bit less than in other Western armies.
He suggests that the experiential pyramid is inverted, that a combat experienced junior officer and enlisted force is being led by a group of inexperienced senior officers. Again, if you look at officers in the combat arms you will see that this is not true, that in fact senior officers, at least the ones that I know well from my visits to the combat zone are enormously well credentialed in combat. Many battalion and brigade commanders I’ve met in my travels have not only served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan but have accumulated combat time in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, Somalia and Desert Storm. If Mr. Koehl thinks the Army’s senior ranks are staying at home he should talk to some of their spouses and children.
Koehl wants to cut the officer corps in half presumably thinking that junior officers will appreciate the subsequent reduction in “chickenshit,” a euphemism for interference in their lives by senior officers who have no other purpose but to harass them. But is that what younger officers really want? After all, in a few years junior officers become senior officers. How would you tell them that their reward for service in Iraq is to be discharged because there are no places for them at the top? Young men and women in the Army are no different from those in other professions. They want some day to lead. They want to spend time with their families. They want to be rewarded for their service. Reducing the Army’s leadership by half would remove any prospect of promotion or hope that they will be able some time in their careers to get off the deadly treadmill of repeated deployments.
Australia could be trusted with the United States' Lockheed F-22 Raptor fighter, US defence secretary Robert Gates says.
Currently an Act of the US Congress bars any foreign sales of the Raptor.
The aircraft is the US Air Force's most advanced fighter and its sale is prohibited to any foreign country, under a 1998 amendment to a budget bill moved by Wisconsin Democrat Congressman Dave Obey.
The production line will remain open until 2009, allowing for the next President to decide if we'll continue manufacturing the birds. If it's McCain, sympathetic ears may be willing to hear the Air Force out. Obama or HRC, maybe not. But the Raptor's current mission is as much about winning a war with China as it is about preventing one. In that sense, it's in our best interest to equip trustworthy Pacific rim allies with the world's most advanced fighter. If Australia gets access, so will the Japanese, which could mean as many as 200 allied F-22s in the theater.
The real problem: if the U.S. starts selling F-22s in the Pacific, it will come at the expense of the Joint Strike Fighter.
[T]here were 21 B-2s. Now there are 20--a roughly 5-percent reduction in an instant. In terms of airframes, that’s the equivalent of 30 F-15s crashing at the same time, or 60 F-16s, or 6 F-22s. In terms of money, that’s equivalent to 20 F-15s, 24 F-16s or 10 F-22s.
Axe then suggests, rather cynically, that the Air Force will milk this for all its worth, using the crash to drum up support in Congress for the service's recapitalization plans. We should hope so. The Air Force currently has 85 B-52s, the last of which was built during the Kennedy administration, 65 B-1s, and now just 20 B-2s. That combined fleet provides plenty of firepower for low-intensity conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only the stealth B-2 can penetrate and destroy the kind of integrated defense systems we might face in a war with China--or Iran. The Air Force had initially planned to purchase 132 airframes, but at $1.2 billion a pop, that was never really an option.
Now the Air Force is looking to build a new stealthy bomber 2018, but consensus opinion is deeply skeptical the service will be able to meet that deadline. So in the short-term, this does seem like another reason to invest more money in the only stealthy airplane currently in production, the F-22.
