Apr. 24, 2013 - By PAUL McLEARY – Defense News

WASHINGTON — Next month, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is scheduled to award a contract to one company for at least 1,300 ground mobility vehicles (GMVs) to replace its current fleet of aging GMVs.

SOCOM commander Adm. William McRaven confirmed the planned award while warning about his command’s spending on research and development during a hearing of the House Armed Services’ intelligence, emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee on April 17.

The GMV program is the planned replacement for the heavier Humvee variant being used by SOCOM, and according to budget documents released in April, they would start being fielded next year.

SOCOM’s fiscal 2014 budget request submitted April 10 calls for $24.7 million to purchase 101 vehicles in the coming year at $245,000 per vehicle. The three companies competing for the work, which is expected to produce about 200 vehicles a year for seven years, are General Dynamics, current GMV-maker AM General and Navistar International.

Requirements documents released last year call for a vehicle that weighs less than 7,000 pounds, has the ability to carry up to seven passengers and can be transportable in an M/CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

On April 5, SOCOM also released a request for proposal for what it is calling an internally transportable vehicle (ITV), which will be designed to fit in the back of a V-22 Osprey. While the specifications are classified, a draft solicitation released in June revealed that any submission must include two “critical flight mission payloads,” one at 1,000 pounds and another at 2,000 pounds, with a field-installable weapon station mount capable of fitting the M2 .50-caliber machine gun, the M240, the M249 squad automatic weapon, the MK-19 and the MK-47 Grenade Launcher.

SOCOM also requires the ITV to fit two passengers in addition to a driver, feature a removable gunner’s seat, be able to carry three to six casualty litters and have a crush-resistant roll cage.

SOCOM wants designs capable of traveling 350 to 450 miles “at 45 mph on level paved roads using organic fuel tank(s), without refuel, and exclusive of onboard fuel storage cans,” while reaching top speeds of 65 to 75 mph.

Given the advanced electronic jamming and communication technologies that modern spec ops forces employ in austere environments, SOCOM requires that any submission be able to produce continuous electrical power — even with the engine off — to operate a manpack radio for four to 12 hours.

Even with these initiatives and several other big-ticket developmental items outlined in the 2014 budget, such as the $20 million requested to kick off a Precision Strike Package Large Caliber Gun program, which would build an upgraded version of the Precision Strike Package on AC-130J gunships, McRaven told lawmakers that his command’s research-and-development budget “is a little out of balance.” After 12 years of focus on readiness as a combat force, “our research ... has waned a little bit.”

McRaven said even though SOCOM takes up only 1.7 percent of the total Defense Department budget, “my expectation is that we will take some cuts” in coming years.

April 24, 2013: Strategy Page

The U.S. Air Force has increased the number of F-16s it wants to refurbish to 1,018. Last year the plan was to refurbish a few hundred of its 22 ton F-16 fighters because their replacement, the 31 ton F-35 was not arriving in time. So far 11 F-35s have been built and another 19 are to be built this year. That’s too slow to deal with number of F-16s that are growing too old to fly. The air force is doing a similar refurb on 175 F-15C interceptors. It may take a decade or more for F-35 production to get to the point where most F-16s can be replaced. Until then the F-16s must be ready to get the jobs done.

This is one of several reasons why many nations upgrade their F-16s. Some of these nations are holding off on ordering F-35s (or cancelling existing orders), either because of the high price or doubts about how good it will be. Aircraft manufacturing and maintenance companies see a huge market for such upgrades. Half or more of the 3,000 F-16s currently in service could be refurbished and upgraded to one degree or another. That’s over $25 billion in business over the next decade or so.

The F-35 began development in the 1990s, and was supposed to enter service in 2011. That has since slipped to 2017, or the end of the decade, depending on who you believe. Whichever date proves accurate, many F-16 users have a problem. Their F-16s are old and year by year more of them become too old to operate.

No matter how late the F-35 is, the U.S. Air Force now plans to refurbish at least a thousand Block 40 and 50 F-16s. The work will concentrate on extending the life of the airframe, plus some electronics upgrades. The air force does this sort of thing frequently to all aircraft models. It's called SLEP (Service Life Extension Program), and this one is special only because it concentrates on very old aircraft and is intended to keep these birds viable for another 8-10 years.

Many air forces are finding that it’s more cost-effective to upgrade via new electronics and missiles and, as needed, refurbishing engines and airframes on elderly existing fighters, rather than buying new aircraft. This is especially the case if the new electronics enable the use of smart bombs or more capable air-to-air missiles. One of the more frequently upgraded older fighters is the American F-16. Even the U.S. Air Force, the first and still largest user of F-16s had always planned to do this with some of its F-16s.

The F-16C was originally designed for a service life of 4,000 hours in the air. But advances in engineering, materials, and maintenance techniques have extended that to over 8,000 hours. Because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, F-16s sent to those areas have flown over a thousand hours a year more than what they would in peacetime. The current planned SLEP will extend F-16C flight hours to 10,000 or more.

The F-16 has proved to be remarkably adaptable and is one of the most modified jet fighters in service. The most numerous F-16 is the C model. The first version of this, the F-16C Block 25, entered service in 1984. The original F-16, as the F-16A Block 1, entered service in 1978. While most F-16s still in service are the F-16C, there are actually six major mods, identified by block number (32, 40, 42, 50, 52, 60) plus the Israeli F-16I, which is a major modification of the Block 52. Another special version (the Block 60) for the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is called the F-16E. The F-16D is a two seat trainer version of F-16Cs. The various block mods included a large variety of new components (five engines, four sets of avionics, five generations of electronic warfare gear, five radars, and many other mechanical, software, cockpit, and electrical mods).

The F-16 is the most numerous post-Cold War jet fighter, with over 4,200 built and still in production. During The Cold War Russia built over 10,000 MiG-21s and the U.S over 5,000 F-4s, but since 1991 warplane production has plummeted about 90 percent. Since the end of the Cold War the F-16 has been popular enough to keep the production lines going.

The F-16 can also function as a bomber and ground attack aircraft (although not as effectively as the air force experts would have you believe, especially compared to the A-10). It can carry four tons of bombs and has been very effective using smart bombs. In air-to-air combat F-16s have shot down 69 aircraft so far, without losing anything to enemy warplanes. Not bad for an aircraft that was originally designed as a cheaper alternative to the heavier and more expensive F-15.

Although the F-35 is designed to replace the F-16, many current users will probably keep their F-16s in service for a decade or more. The F-16 gets the job done, reliably and inexpensively. Why pay more for new F-35s if your potential enemies can be deterred with F-16s. This becomes even more likely as the F-35 is delayed again and again. Finally, the upgrade is a lot cheaper, costing less than $20 million per aircraft, compared to over $100 million for a new F-35. If your potential enemies aren’t upgrading to something like that, a refurbed F-16 will do.

April 25th, 2013 By US Department of Defense - defencetalk.com

The Air Force will see few force structure changes this year, but readiness and modernization accounts will be in flux this year and next, Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley said here today.

The secretary also told the Defense Writers’ Group that now is the time for another base realignment and closure process.

Readiness and modernization will be problems for the service, Donley said. Air Force readiness has declined since 2003 as the service concentrated on providing support for counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, he explained, and providing combat power for the full spectrum of operations has decayed.

“Air-to-air combat, suppression of enemy defenses [and] operations in a contested air environment have not gotten the attention they deserve, and readiness has declined in that respect,” Donley said.

The service had been working to rebuild readiness, he said, but sequestration spending cuts have thrown that effort out the window. Troops and aircraft deploying in support of operations are top notch and receive the training, equipment and supplies they need, the Air Force secretary said, but stateside training has been slashed.

A flying hour reduction of 18 percent is concentrated in the last six months of the fiscal year, and only to stateside-based units, Donley said.

“We are standing down nine fighter squadrons, three bomber squadrons, … and there will be an additional bomber squadron this summer when it returns from deployment,” he added. “It will make the challenge of readiness in [fiscal year 2014] that much harder.”

Some of the recovery from this drawdown will take months, but for depot-level maintenance, which the service is deferring, recovery may take a year or more, he said.

Modernization remains an overarching problem for the Air Force, the secretary said. The average age of the air fleet is increasing, with some aircraft — B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers — being far older than their crews, he noted.

The Air Force must modernize across the board, Donley said. In addition to its fighters, bombers, tankers and trainers, he said, the service also must modernize satellite capabilities and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

“Every mission area that you can think of needs to be modernized,” he added.

The fiscal situation could be the Air Force’s best chance to eliminate excess infrastructure, Donley said.

“It’s a significant forcing function,” he added, noting that Air Force officials estimate the service has roughly 20 percent excess infrastructure by square footage. Eight closures conducted during the 2005 base realignment and closure round, he said, were relatively small.

Since then, the Air Force has retired more than 500 aircraft, and the number of personnel has shrunk. The best way to do this is to retire aircraft and eliminate the infrastructure that supports those aircraft, Donley said, but aircraft retirement decisions and base closure decisions are made in separate worlds. The Air Force did do this in a drawdown during the 1990s, he added, but has not since then.

24/04/2013 Michel Cabirol – LaTribune.fr

C'est inéluctable, le budget de la Défense va encore baisser. Notamment le budget d'équipement, ce qui se répercutera sur l'industrie de l'armement. Toute la question est de connaître l'ampleur des coupes...

«Réduire le budget équipement dès 2014 peut être une bonne pioche pour le gouvernement, car les licenciements chez les industriels interviendront bien plus tard », explique cyniquement un industriel du secteur. « Le temps de l'industrie, qui travaille sur le moyen et le long terme, n'est pas celui du politique, qui gère le court terme », regrette-t-il. D'où les inquiétudes des grands patrons du secteur de la défense, qui ont toutefois pu passer le message, lundi 15 avril à l'Élysée, au cours d'un entretien d'une heure et quart avec François Hollande, qui a été « très à l'écoute et compétent sur les dossiers », selon un industriel. Contrairement à ce qui s'était passé le 10 avril lors du dernier conseil de défense. De quoi ouvrir à nouveau des espoirs pour les industriels de l'armement.

Car ce qu'ils redoutent le plus, c'est une politique de rupture qui changerait le modèle des armées et, donc, sacrifierait des secteurs industriels. « Je n'aimerais pas être le patron de Nexter en ce moment », explique-t-on au ministère de la Défense. Bref, entre une politique de rupture et une cuisine budgétaire habituelle avec étalements et/ou reports de programmes, certes pénible, pour les industriels, il n'y a pas photo. « Depuis plusieurs années, les armées comme les industriels ont appris à ne pas demander tout et tout de suite, analyse un industriel. Ils acceptent des lacunes quand la pensée opérationnelle ou les prio-rités industrielles ne sont pas claires, comme le report pénible du programme de drone MALE, mais sont finalement intelligentes et responsables au plan budgétaire. Peu de couples industrie/client ont su gérer ainsi ce commencement de pénurie, en évitant les désastres. »Mais, à 29 milliards d'euros de budget par an, comme le veut Bercy, la défense ne sait pas faire. « Nous sommes en cessation de paiement car dès 2014 nous aurons un problème de trésorerie immédiat », explique une source proche du dossier. Pourquoi? Parce que comme l'expliquait à l'automne le chef de l'État-major des armées, l'amiral Édouard Guillaud, « la défense est comme un grand navire lancé à 32 milliards d'euros : on ne peut pas réduire sa vitesse aussi rapidement qu'on le voudrait. »Quoi qu'il arrive, la défense ne sera pas épargnée. Déjà, l'État envisage de réduire la cible finale de l'un des programmes les plus emblématiques, le Rafale, laquelle pourrait passer de 286 à 225 appareils à l'horizon 2025. Le ministère de la Défense réfléchit également à baisser ses commandes d'hélicoptères. Récemment, la direction générale de l'armement (DGA) a obtenu un délai de deux mois avant de conclure, ou pas, une nouvelle commande d'hélicoptères de transport NH90 (Eurocopter), qui devait être passée à la fin de mars. Et les directions financières des différents états-majors planchent sur les équipements des armées selon les différentes trajectoires financières encore en cours aujourd'hui. À François Hollande, chef des armées et du combat pour l'emploi, de trancher.

23 Apr 2013 By David Blair - telegraph.co.uk

The free-riding nations of Europe are making a big mistake by slashing their defence budgets

In the high summer of the Atlantic alliance, Winston Churchill warned America that the “price of greatness is responsibility”. Seventy years on, the US might reasonably have hoped that the countries it was about to liberate when Churchill came to call would have shouldered the responsibility for their own defence.

Remarkably, the opposite is true: not only do the 26 European members of Nato still depend on Washington as the ultimate guarantor of their security, but this reliance is increasing. A revealing New York Times report this week quotes US officials complaining about Europe’s “collective military irrelevance” – and arguing that Britain’s own position is so bad that it might have to give up on a Trident successor to make ends meet. “Either they can be a nuclear power and nothing else,” says a source, “or a real military partner.”

Back in 2001, the US accounted for 63 per cent of Nato defence spending. Today, the figure is 75 per cent, with the other members running down budgets in response to the financial crisis and the monumental expense of their welfare systems. Can history provide a more glaring example of free-riding? Rock-solid in the belief that the US will always underwrite their security, Europeans have taken the opportunity to slash defence budgets and buy generous welfare systems instead. Today, most European countries invest barely 1 per cent of national income on their armed forces, leaving America to pick up the burden by spending 4.8 per cent of its own GNP.

The partial exceptions are Britain and (ironically) Greece. Today, these two countries have the biggest defence budgets in Europe as a share of national income: both spend about 2 per cent, which is more than their neighbours but still less than half of America’s level.

But the free-riders are taking a huge gamble. You can sleep safely under the shield of a Great Power only if that benevolent titan is prepared to protect you forever. In Washington, however, US officials cannot help but notice what is happening. At a recent briefing, a senior official politely voiced “surprise” that Britain was prepared to do without aircraft carriers – or at least those capable of actually launching air strikes – until the end of the decade. He was also puzzled that an island nation, reliant for its trade on vulnerable shipping lanes, was willing to scrap a new generation of maritime patrol aircraft. Both “capability gaps” would, naturally, be left to America to fill.

Handing over essential tasks to the Americans has become the unofficial mantra of British and European defence ministries. It is, perhaps, the Arthur Clough school of policy: “Westward, look, the land is bright!”

But the Great Power is turning its own gaze westward. Last year, Barack Obama took a decision that history might record as the most significant of his presidency. He declared that US naval strength will now “pivot” towards Asia, with 60 per cent of American sea power to be deployed in the Pacific by 2020. The reasons behind this are obvious: China’s rise has landed the US with a new strategic competitor and Washington’s friends in Asia require its protection far more than free-riding Europeans.

Moreover, America’s new allies are willing to invest in their own defence. As long ago as 2008, Asia’s military budgets overtook Europe’s. In that year, Asia collectively spent £173 billion on defence, compared with £144 billion among Europe’s Nato members. Since then, the gap has only widened. That reflects the performance of Asia’s economies versus stagnating Europe. All the more reason, then, for the US to focus increasingly on Asia instead of its old allies.

In his final speech before stepping down as US defence secretary in 2011, Robert Gates displayed the candour of a statesman on the verge of retirement. “If current trends in the decline of European defence capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in Nato worth the cost,” he said.

How might this be avoided? Britain has a crucial role to play. The defence and security review of 2010 was designed to keep us above the vital but undefined threshold that makes Britain a worthwhile ally for America, while still making inevitable cuts. The more realistic goal turned out to be ensuring that when we did fall below that line, we would eventually be able to clamber back up again.

In this way, Britain tried to avoid relegation to the free-riders. So we lost our ability to launch strike aircraft from carriers, but we will regain this when the first Queen Elizabeth Class vessel enters service in 2018.

However, the current defence equipment programme assumes that its budget will rise by 1 per cent above inflation after 2015. That may not be a safe bet. True, the Trident issue is something of a red herring: we can maintain the capacity and have a proper military if we really want to spend the money. But there is still a Potemkin village quality about some of our aspirations. The Royal Navy will get two giant carriers, each capable of carrying 36 Lightning II fighters, but only one vessel will be available at any given time – and this will probably have only 12 planes. In theory, Britain will have two platforms capable of embarking 72 fighters; in reality, one will be available with only a sixth of that number of planes.

Put bluntly, Britain is perilously close to joining Europe’s free-riders. If that happens, and a future American president then turns decisively towards Asia, the government responsible will have made a great strategic blunder.

Apr 23, 2013 Spacewar.com  (UPI)

Tel Aviv, Israel - The Pentagon has stepped up efforts to fund Israel's anti-missile shield with the Missile Defense Agency requesting $220 million in fiscal 2014 for Israel's air force to buy more Iron Dome batteries.

It's the first time the MDA has specifically sought funds for Iron Dome, developed and built by Haifa's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in its annual budget process.

That underlines the U.S. Defense Department's effort to maintain military aid for Israel despite major cutbacks in defense spending.

The agency is also expected to seek another $520 million to fund other Israeli anti-missile systems, including the David's Sling and the high-altitude Arrow 3, which is under development.

"The money, if approved, would be on top of the $486 million the White House and Congress have requested or added for Iron Dome in recent years after formal budgets were submitted," The Jerusalem Post reported.

The House of Representatives and the Senate indicated in 2012 "they wanted to approve spending as much as $680 million for Iron Dome through 2015."

Iron Dome, designed to shoot down short-range missiles and rockets and recently upgraded to counter longer-range weapons as well, became operational in early 2012. But the Israeli air force, which has responsibility for air defense, has only acquired five batteries, several of those with direct U.S. funding on top of the annual $3.1 billion in U.S. military aid Israel receives.

That allowed Israel to deploy all five batteries during an eight-day November clash with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

By official count, Iron Dome successfully intercepted 84.6 percent of the rockets it engaged, including several that for the first time targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Iron Dome's Tamir interceptors engage only those projectiles its computer calculates will hit populated areas and ignores the rest.

Several missile scientists and others have questioned the system's kill rate, with one saying it was closer to 5-10 percent of rockets engaged than the government's assessment of 84.6 percent.

The government rejected the criticisms and is moving ahead with creating a multilayered defense shield against a sustained bombardment it fears by Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah on Israel's northern border and Palestinian militants in the south.

David's Sling, being developed by Rafael and the Raytheon Co. of the United States, is designed to counter medium-range missiles.

Arrow 3, being developed by state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the Boeing Co., is intended to intercept Iranian and Syrian ballistic missiles outside Earth's atmosphere. In its first flight test a few weeks ago Arrow 3 achieved an altitude of 70 miles and intercepted a simulated missile threat.

The Arrow 2 variant currently in service will backstop at lower altitudes against ballistic attacks.

The fiscal 2014 request by the MDA includes funding for further Arrow 3 testing and a second interception flight before preparations begin for initial production.

There is separate funding for an Arrow "Weapons Systems Improvement" program that integrates data links between Israeli missile forces and U.S. weapons systems in the Middle East, reinforcing protection for the Jewish state.

MDA's funding efforts underline that the U.S. administration is seeking to ensure that U.S. military aid to Israel won't be affected by the so-called sequestration of U.S. defense spending.

The Congressional Research Service figures show that U.S. aid to Israel has increased since 1949 by an average of 28 percent a year, leaping 11.4 percent from 2010-13.

The Israel lobby in Washington is pressing for exempting Israel from automatic spending cuts being introduced in virtually all other U.S. government programs.

The commitment of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to maintaining aid flow to Israel was also underlined by the Pentagon announcement last week that Israel, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will be receiving advanced weapons systems worth $10 billion over the next few years.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stressed during his visit to Israel this week that military aid won't be cut.

Antiwar.com, a U.S. website that's highly critical of the levels of U.S. military aid to Israel, recently cited a report on Israeli government expenditures that showed the Jewish state spends "a hugely disproportionate amount on its military, with roughly one-fifth of the overall national budget going straight into military spending."

Apr. 23, 2013 - By PAUL McLEARY – Defense News

WASHINGTON — Top US Army leadership told lawmakers Tuesday that they’ll need three more years of supplemental war funding after the final US troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan to pay for massive postwar equipment reset activities.

Of course, we don’t know how much the Pentagon will receive in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding next year, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said it should be close to the $88 billion it received in 2013.

With the majority of the remaining 60,000 US troops set to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, however, it remains to be seen how much stomach Congress and the White House will have to spend billions more once the shooting stops.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it will take three more years of supplemental funding requests due to “the load we have in our organic industrial base,” which can only handle so much work at any given time.

“If it does not get funded,” he continued, “that means it comes out of our base budget, which it has not been budgeted for, and it’ll take money away from the daily readiness that we need in order to be prepared to meet any operational missions that we have.”

As Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh made their plea, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., issued the service a friendly warning about the political mood on the increasingly cash-strapped Hill.

“Everyone around this place seems to have their eyes on OCO funding for some other purpose,” she said. But Ayotte, a member of the pro-defense Three Amigos along with fellow Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, added “I think it’s very important for people to understand that if we don’t [continue to fund the Army] we’ll have a hollow Army and we won’t be able to reset.”

Odierno said that while the Army has already done the math on how much money it will need to ship $21 billion worth of equipment out of Afghanistan, he wasn’t prepared to share it with the Senate panel. While sure to be steep, he assured Congress that bringing the gear home and repairing would cost “far less than the cost of new equipment.”

The number should be available later this week, an Army spokesperson told Defense News.

Even with the $88 billion earmarked for the war effort this year, sequestration cuts along with the higher-than-expected costs of bringing troops and their equipment home will cause the service to run as much as $7.8 billion short of what it needs to operate in Afghanistan this year, Odierno said.

As part of its envisioned postwar realignment, McHugh said that the Army will release a blueprint for how it will manage the loss of 80,000 soldiers while shifting units between domestic installations this June, around the same time that a long-awaited Army ground vehicle industrial base report is briefed to service leadership.

The Army contracted with AT Kearney to do the study in 2012, and leadership hopes that it will help shed more light on which defense companies are most at risk from the coming reductions in available work.

“What we owe to the country, to our industry and to the Army is to really analyze inside our systems where we think we have vulnerabilities,” Scott Davis, program executive officer for the Army’s Ground Combat Systems, told Defense News last fall. The Army is undertaking the study “to understand where [industry’s] challenges are and what it would take for them to make a decision to leave the military vehicle sector,” he said.

23 April 2013 defenceWeb (Reuters)

The Malian army remains poor, corrupt and barely functional months after the launch of a European training mission to rebuild its strength, a French colonel said, urging a rapid payout of pledged donor funds.

The European Union approved in January a 15-month training mission to rebuild a badly paid and poorly equipped Malian army, with the aim of making it strong enough to fend off potential attacks by Islamist militants.

But nearly three months later, corruption remains the rule in its ranks, soldiers are unable to train and some 8 million euros ($10 million) pledged by international donors at a conference in Addis Ababa have not reached the army, Reuters reports.

"They're managing misery." Bruno Heluin, who runs training for Malian troops in the EU mission, told Le Monde daily.

"The international community says, 'We absolutely need to rebuild the Malian army'. But not a euro cent has been given to the Malian army ... even though 8 million euros were promised on January 29 at the Addis Ababa donor conference," he added.

France has begun to withdraw its 4,000-strong force from Mali after it intervened to help Malian forces drive back an offensive by Islamist militants who had seized two-thirds of the country in the desert north.

The U.N. Security Council is considering a draft resolution to approve the creation of a 12,600-strong U.N. peacekeeping force named MINUSMA, which would take over from a U.N.-backed African force currently in place.

However, peacekeepers would not remain indefinitely and donors have insisted that Mali's army be brought up to strength in order to defend against future attacks.

Instead Heluin said the army was getting on "day by day" as equipment donated by major powers proved unreliable, corrupt officers robbed their own army of transport vehicles and training remained impossible.

The army was nearly entirely dependent on outdated equipment donated by major powers including France, China, Russia and the United States - donations that had exacerbated its troubles rather than fix them, Heluin said.

"Since 2006, the Malians have ordered 800 pickup trucks. Today, almost none remain," he said. Some of the trucks had been stolen outright, while others were picked over for parts.

22/04/2013 par Nicolas Laffont – 45eNord.ca

Quelques jours après un premier recul concernant une baisse de la prime de risque des soldats canadiens déployés en Afghanistan et au Moyen-Orient, Ottawa fait de nouveau machine arrière en ce qui concerne le remboursement d’un surplus de prime pour les soldats se trouvant dans le nord de l’Afghanistan.

Un comité du Conseil du Trésor composé de membres de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada, du ministère de la Défense nationale et de militaires actuellement en poste, avait récemment décidé de revoir à la baisse la prime que touche les militaires déployés en Afghanistan dans le cadre de l’Opération Attention, en raison de la baisse des risques encourus depuis 2011.

Si le gouvernement avait maintenu la décision, la prime, serait passer de 1 356 $/mois à 848 $/mois.

Cette fois, c’était les militaires se trouvant spécifiquement dans la région de Mazar-e-Sharif, dans le nord du pays, qui étaient visés.

Régulièrement, la Défense fait une réévaluation des risques qu’encourent les militaires déployés dans les théâtres opérationnels. En Afghanistan, ce sont deux zones distinctes qui ont été prises en compte par un comité. Il avait ainsi été décidé au printemps 2012 qu’il y avait moins de risques pour les soldats se trouvant à Mazar-e-Sharif que pour ceux se trouvant dans la capitale, Kaboul.

Une baisse de la prime fut donc décidé, mais non appliquée en raison d’une «erreur administrative».

Entre la première et la deuxième rotation, ce sont pas moins de 100 soldats qui se sont rendus à Mazar-e-Sharif, et tous se sont vus signifier de bien vouloir rembourser l’excédent perçu aussi vite que possible.

«Ce problème résulte d’une erreur administrative et non d’une faute de la part de ces soldats», a déclaré le ministre de la Défense nationale, Peter MacKay dans un communiqué. «Ce ne serait pas juste de pénaliser ces familles pour l’erreur du ministère, donc nous ne demanderons pas aux soldats à rembourser la différence.»

À lire aussi:

Soldats canadiens en Afghanistan et au Moyen-Orient: même salaire, même combat >>

21 avril 2013 Par Olivier Fourt (Rediffusion) - RFI

Il n’y a pas qu’en France que l’on parle de réductions budgétaires dans la défense. Aux Etats-Unis, le secrétaire américain à la Défense, Chuck Hagel, a promis mercredi de « mettre tout sur la table » pour que le Pentagone réforme sa façon de dépenser un budget appelé à baisser durablement. C’est tout d’abord le fonctionnement de l’armée américaine qui est visé, mais certains programmes, comme le coûteux avion furtif F-35, pourraient faire les frais de cette nouvelle politique.

#US #budget cut grounds joint air combat exercise - #India #AirForce #Defence #Défense http://t.co/KKxCzkpZqk

RP Defense (@RPDefense)April 18, 2013

L' @armeedeterrefr face aux menaces budgétaires - by @jeanguisnel #France #Défense #Budget #Defence #Army http://t.co/tNgGhytODu

RP Defense (@RPDefense)April 18, 2013