Photograph by Geoffrey Lee, Planefocus Ltd

Feb. 11, 2013 - By BRIAN EVERSTINE  - Defense News

January 24, 2013: Strategy page

The U.S. Navy is running out of money and is having a hard time avoiding the consequences. Thanks to all the new information systems added in the last two decades, the navy has been finding out quickly and in great detail how its current policies are running the ships and sailors ragged. The problem is that the navy has less money (because of budget cuts) and is unable to cope with high costs of replacing carriers and submarines that are dying of old age. The leadership has been unwilling to accept a small enough navy, especially one with fewer carriers, to match the current budgets. So ships are going to sea longer, with more broken or borderline equipment and crews that are fed up with all the time at sea. This problem has been growing for over a decade as more Cold War era ships got older and more difficult to maintain.

Efforts have been made to address the crew morale problem. Five years ago the navy adopted a policy of adjusting ship schedules so that crews spend at least half their time in port. This is called "dwell time." With some 60 percent of navy personnel married, time in port is important. The navy also eliminated its decades old policy of regular six month deployments at sea. These deployments were far away and kept sailors cut off from home. The new policy was to keep ships closer to their home port, the better to "surge" a larger number of warships in an emergency. In the past ships returning from a six month cruise usually required a month or so of maintenance and repairs in port, with a lot of the crew taking leave. Military personnel get 30 days of leave (vacation) each year. Thus ships returning from the old six month cruises were out of action for a month or more. The new policy eliminates most of that and more ships are available all the time. The new 50/50 policy uses a lot of shorter trips to sea. Carriers only go out for a week or two at a time, so their pilots can get some practice.

This new policy failed when the navy declared that growing tensions with Iran and China required a surge and has been hustling to find sailors and working ships to maintain a strong presence in the Persian Gulf and Western Pacific. The data management systems show maintenance being deferred, spare parts not available to keep a lot of weapons and equipment on ships running, and more and more sailors, especially experienced specialists, deciding that they have been pushed too far for too long and are getting out. Many navy leaders want to cut back on sea time and allocate money saved towards improving maintenance, readiness, and retention (sailors staying in).

Another issue that cannot be avoided much longer is that the navy cannot afford as many carriers as it has been used to. Replacing the existing Nimitz class carriers is simply too expensive. The new Ford class aircraft carriers keep getting more expensive. The first of them, the USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78), was originally supposed to cost $8 billion, plus $5 billion for R&D (research and development of new technology and features unique to this class of ships). Now it appears that the cost of the Ford will not be $13 billion but closer to $15 billion. The second and third ships of the class will cost less (construction plus some additional R&D). Thus the first three ships of the Ford class will cost a total of about $40 billion.

The current Nimitz-class carriers cost about half as much as the Fords. Both classes also require an air wing (48-50 fighters, plus airborne early-warning planes, electronic warfare aircraft, and anti-submarine helicopters), which costs another $3-4 billion. Four years ago the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), the last of the Nimitz class carriers, successfully completed its sea trails and was accepted by the U.S. Navy. The Bush was ready for its first deployment in 2010. The next new carrier will be the first of the Ford class.

The first Nimitz entered service in 1975 and is currently set to serve for 49 years before decommissioning. All of the Nimitz class carriers are similar in general shape and displacement. But over four decades of use each new member of the class received recently developed equipment. This stuff was installed in older Nimitzs eventually as they went in for maintenance. The Bush, the last of the Nimitz class, has a lot of new gear that wasn't even thought of when the first Nimitz entered service. The first ship of the next class of carriers, the USS Ford, will be about the same length and displacement of the Nimitz ships but will look different. The most noticeable difference will be the island set closer to the stern (rear) of the ship.

While the Fords are much more expensive, the navy expects to reduce (by several billion dollars) each carrier's lifetime operating expenses because of greatly reduced crew size. Compared to the current Nimitz class carriers the Fords will feel, well, kind of empty. There will be a lot more automation, computer networking, and robots. The Bush has a lot of this automation already.

By the time the Ford enters service in 2015, even more of the crew will be replaced by robots than is the case in the Bush. The Ford will have as few as half as many sailors on board. Carrier based UAVs are also on the way. Work on flight control software for carrier operations is well underway. Combat UAVs (UCAVs) weigh about 20 percent less than manned aircraft and cost 20-30 percent less. They use less fuel as well. The Ford can take advantage of UCAVs because it is built to handle more sorties each day (about 150) and surge to about 50 percent more for a day or so. For this reason, many naval leaders believe a reduction in carriers is practical, as the use of UCAVs and smart bombs makes the remaining carriers (as few as six) much more effective.

Whatever the case, something has to be done, or the navy will tumble into a state of disrepair and inability to do much at all.

MOSCOU, 21 janvier - RIA Novosti

Le chef du bureau d'information de l'Otan à Moscou, Robert Pszczel, espère que Moscou et Washington poursuivront leurs négociations sur le bouclier antimissile en Europe.

"Je reste optimiste, car le système antimissile en Europe profiterait aux Etats-Unis et à la Russie. Si l'investiture de Barack Obama donne une nouvelle impulsion à ces négociations, je ne pourrai que m'en féliciter", a déclaré lundi M. Pszczel à Moscou.

Selon lui, la création d'une capacité de défense antimissile balistique n'est pas une question que l'on pourrait régler rapidement.

Lors du sommet Russie-Otan à Lisbonne en novembre 2010, Moscou et Washington ont convenu de coopérer dans le domaine de la défense antimissile européenne. Cependant, les parties n'ont jamais réussi à s'entendre sur l'architecture du futur bouclier. En outre, les Etats-Unis refusent de garantir que le futur bouclier ne sera pas dirigé contre le potentiel stratégique nucléaire russe.

Le chef du bureau d'information de l'Otan à Moscou a également salué le fait que le nouveau représentant permanent de la Russie Alexandre Grouchko a commencé son travail à Bruxelles.

"L'Alliance est prête à coopérer avec le nouvel ambassadeur russe", a souligné M. Pszczel.

11 janvier 2013 diploweb.com

Jan. 12, 2013 by Dave Majumdar – FG

Washington DC - Despite a declining budget, the US Air Force is committed to its secretive Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) programme. However, what kind of military capacity the service will be able to offer in the future is an open question.

"Long term, we're committed to the long range strike bomber," says USAF Secretary Michael Donley. "We're going to try to keep programmes like that on track. But every programme would be affected if sequestration were to hit."

Sequestration was originally scheduled to be enacted on 2 January, but a last minute deal reached between the Obama Administration and the US Congress delayed the maneuver by 51 days. If the Congressional sequestration were to be enacted, it would automatically cut US defence outlays immediately by about 10% every year for 10 years. "Sequestration is a self-inflicted wound on national security," says US Army Gen Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It's an irresponsible way to manage our nation's defense. It cuts blindly, and it cuts bluntly."

The Pentagon, in a memo issued by deputy secretary of defense Ashton Carter, has already taken steps to try to mitigate the damage by deferring maintenance and civilian personnel actions. But even if sequestration were to be avoided, analysts say that defence budget cuts are all but unavoidable given the massive hole in Washington's coffers.

In that eventuality, the Pentagon needs the ability to manage its finances in a strategic manner. "We need budget certainty; we need time to absorb the budget reductions; we need the flexibility to manage those reductions across the entire budget," Dempsey says.

Even with potential defence cuts, USAF leaders say that they know what the service will look like in the 2020s. "You can see what the Air Force will look like now in 2020 in terms of new capabilities coming onboard," Donley says. "The [Boeing KC-46] tanker will be fielded. The [Lockheed Martin] F-35 will be fielded. We'll be well along in the development of the bomber program. We will have developed further in the cyber area, for example. So you can see based on our priorities, and the dollars that are being invested now when these capabilities will deliver."

But Donley cautions: "But the underlying issue is size, overall capacity of the armed forces."

1/2/2013 strategypage.com

A U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion lifts M777 howitzers over Helmand province, Afghanistan, Dec. 29, 2012. U.S. Marines assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing provided aerial support by repositioning the howitzers to Camp Dwyer. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Keonaona C. Paulo

January 9, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: Project On Government Oversight; issued January 8, 2013)

U.S. Central Command has released some interesting numbers on the performance of modern air systems in Afghanistan; the data do not augur well for our defenses in the next decade, nor for the suitability of the man who appears likely to be the next secretary of defense, former Senator Chuck Hagel -- his admirable iconoclasm toward some national security dogmas notwithstanding.

With the Department of Defense budget looking at no real growth or even reductions in the next few years, there will be a clear need for defense systems that offer more performance for less cost. The data from Afghanistan on what drones are contributing to the war there show that we are getting little but paying a lot, the reverse of what we will need in the future.

These data notwithstanding, drones are the embodiment of what conventional wisdom in Washington holds to be the wave of the future for air power -- the quintessence of the high tech cutting edge that the pundits want more and more of and just the kind of myth that politicians appointed to senior executive branch positions fall for time and time again.





The Pentagon's new leadership needs the wit to recognize that the conventional wisdom on these (and other) systems can be badly wrong, and it needs the moral courage and political dexterity to act, standing up to the embedded material and intellectual special interests in the Pentagon, Congress, and think tanks that leap to the defense of these systems time after time. Without such brains, guts, skill, and, especially, persistence in the next Pentagon leader, our defenses are in for a rough ride -- downhill -- in coming years. In short, we need real deeds from a tough, no-nonsense executive, not just interesting, sometimes iconoclastic words.

The Air Force component of CENTCOM (AFCENT) releases numbers to the public each month on Air Force and allied sorties and weapon releases in Operation Enduring Freedom (which mostly means the war in Afghanistan) for drones and manned aircraft. (Data on CIA drone activities in Pakistan and elsewhere are not included.)

The released data are bad news for drone advocates. They show that in the first eleven months of 2012, the U.S. and NATO forces involved in Afghanistan conducted 1,505 air-to-ground "strike sorties" -- i.e., those that involved the release of at least one weapon. A total of 3,886 weapons were released on those strike sorties -- 3,439 from manned aircraft and 447 from remotely piloted aircraft, or drones (namely, the MQ-1B Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper). In other words, the drones were responsible for just 11.5 percent of the air-to-ground weapons used in the war. Manned aircraft, such as the A-10, F-16, F-18, AV-8B and B-1B, were responsible for the other 88.5 percent. Put simply, in the air war in Afghanistan -- called by some "the Drone War" -- drones did little better than 10 percent of the weapons delivery.

Little as they did in the first eleven months of 2012, they did even less in 2011, when manned aircraft released 5,117 weapons and drones released just 294 -- or 5.4 percent of the total.

The AFCENT data is very sparse on allowing more meaningful comparisons between drones and manned aircraft in the Afghanistan war. AFCENT declined to provide this writer more detail, but it gave some useful data to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the United Kingdom. That data shows that in 2011, manned aircraft flew almost 24,000 of the total close air support sorties -- whether a weapon was released or not -- and they flew well over 17,000 in the first ten months of 2012. Drones flew 10,300 sorties in the same category in 2011 and 7,600 in 2012. Thus, the manned aircraft are responsible for about 70 percent of the total sorties in both years.

More importantly, manned aircraft are flying an even larger percentage of the strike sorties: aircraft performed 1,743 strike sorties, or 88 percent, in 2011 and over 1,100, or 82 percent, in the first ten months of 2012. Finally, for delivering numbers of weapons during a strike on a target, drones averaged 1.4 weapons per strike in 2012; aircraft averaged twice that.

Nor is there any basis to think that drones have been delivering weapons more accurately. According to DOD's weapons tester, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the Reaper, for example, is capable of employing only two types of munitions: the AGM-AGM-114 laser-guided "Hellfire" missile and the GBU-12 laser-guided bomb. Manned aircraft carry a far greater variety, and while CENTCOM has not released the data, anecdotally it appears that most manned aircraft munitions are GPS-guided JDAMs, which have fewer limitations from clouds and weather and other causes than do the drones' laser-guided munitions.

That the drones are responsible for such a small percentage of the air-to-ground war in Afghanistan is the natural result of their inherent limitations. Prominent among them is their tiny payload compared to manned aircraft: The "more capable" drone, the MQ-9 Reaper, carries roughly one-ninth to one-fourth the payload of an A-10 or an F-16.

Nor are the drones cheaper to buy and operate. Using the Air Force's definition for all the components in a Reaper unit, they cost about $120 million to buy, compared to about $20 million for the original A-10 and about $55 million for a modern F-16. A Reaper "CAP," or unit, costs about $20 million per year to operate, compared to $5.5 million for an A-10C for a year or $4.8 million for an F-16C.

In short, with drones like the iconic Reaper, our forces get less performance for more cost -- compared to 35-year-old aircraft designs such as the A-10 and F-16.

These data notwithstanding, drones continue to be the darling of opinion in much of DOD, journalism, and think tanks. Articles repeatedly label Afghanistan as "the drone war," and one think tank drone advocate even referred to the AFCENT information as a "powerful data point" in favor of drones being "here to stay." They may, indeed, be here to stay, but that will be based on politics and hype, not performance in Afghanistan -- and perhaps the affinity of some for what drones are doing in Pakistan and Yemen under CIA control.

Whoever is the next secretary of defense will face a choice. He or she can operate at the policy wonk level, as so many already have, ignoring these kinds of basic nuts and bolts data. When they do so, and are told by in-house advocates of drones (or F-35s, or Littoral Combat Ships, or C-130Js, or almost anything else) that the newest technology is cheap and effective, the secretaries of defense with policy wonk and/or political backgrounds have proven themselves to be undisposed to serious, informed questioning. They end up taking the advocates' assertions at face value and acting on them.

The next steps in this process are as predictable as the sunrise: when some outsider suggests a budget cut, the DOD bureaucracies easily convince the secretary that their "affordable" and "effective" weapon systems will no longer be available. Then, the secretary proclaims the idea of insufficient resources for these pet rocks to be a "doomsday." In doing so, facilitators of business as usual like Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta thoroughly isolate themselves from the fact that the additional cost and low performance of these systems is much of what is driving the budget beyond acceptable levels of spending.

It is easy for the in-house advocates to co-opt the secretary of defense when he or she comes from an institution like Congress, where rhetoric and appearances trump facts, especially if the words are articulated cleverly or forcefully.

Such superficiality is precisely the profile Senator Chuck Hagel had as a member of the Senate. He was frequently in the news saying something interesting, often against the dogma of the Republican Party or even American politics in general. But, quick, tell yourself something he actually did of consequence in the Senate -- legislation or other important actions, not just words. Draw a blank? So did I, and I was watching up close and personal as a Republican Senate staffer for many of Hagel's twelve years there. Beyond the rhetoric, his record is quite sparse.

At a time when its budget is declining and advocates, backed by generally accepted myths, press hard for their particular hobby horse to be protected while others go begging, the Pentagon needs someone with a demonstrated record as a tough, acutely well informed downsizer or as an accomplished infighter against the powerful bureaucracies that run free under politically oriented secretaries of defense. A talker, not a doer, Senator Hagel, no matter how much I may admire his politics, is not the right person.

This is not to say that the other publically mentioned candidates for the job would be better.

As a denizen of the think tank and policy world, Michelle Flournoy -- as intelligent as she seems to be -- has been operating in a world where soft-policy differences are the stock in trade, not bureaucratic fights down in the weeds over the quality of data on performance or costs. As the chief architect of DOD's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review as the Pentagon's under secretary of policy, she showed little interest in or understanding of how the building actually operates at the basic level.

As undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics and then as deputy secretary of defense, Ashton Carter has shown little ability to master the bureaucracy. In fact, he let slide far more problems than he has done anything meaningful about. That is all too clearly the case with, for example, the Pentagon's most expensive program ever -- the F-35 -- which remains both unaffordable and a gigantic performance disappointment after four years of Carter's ministrations.

The vast chasm between conventional wisdom and reality on drones, their costs, and what is and is not working at the tactical level is replicated in myriad ways in the secretary of defense job portfolio -- from assault rifles to missile defenses to arms control and especially to questions of war and peace.

What we need least is yet another dilettante who specializes in politics of the moment and fancy words.

January 8, 2013 china-defense-mashup.com

1. China’s first aircraft carrier, the “Liaoning” ship, was officially delivered to PLA Navy.

After the construction, test and trial navigation were completed as scheduled, China’s first aircraft carrier was formally delivered to the Navy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on September 25, 2012.

Approved by the Central Military Commission (CMC), it was named the “Liaoning” ship of the PLA Navy with a designated hull number of “16″. Related scientific experiments and military trainings continued following the official delivery and commissioning of the “Liaoning” ship.

On November 25, Chinese Navy’s first batch of carrier-borne aircraft pilots successfully flew the home-made J-15 fighters to accomplish the arrested deck landing and ski-jump takeoff on the “Liaoning” ship.

2. The U.S. announced new military strategy.

US President Barack Obama announced a new military strategy on January 5, 2012 to shift U.S. focus to the Asia-Pacific region. According to the strategy, the U.S. will slim down its army’s scale, reduce its military presence in Europe and strengthen its military presence to the Asia-Pacific region.

The US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta expounded the “rebalance strategy in Asia-Pacific region” at the Shangri-La Dialogue on June 2, 2012 and stated that the U.S. would deploy 60% of its warships in the Pacific Ocean by 2020.

3. Russia’s first fifth-generation strategic missile corps established

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the establishment of its first fully-equipped missile corps of the fifth-generation guided missiles, namely “Yars” and “Aspen-M”, on September 20 in the State of Ivanovo near Moscow. After the fifth-generation guided missile system is equipped, Russia further enhanced its capability to break through the anti-missile system.

Prior to that, the NATO announced the official launch of the European anti-missile system on May 20.

4. “RIMPAC 2012″ exercise held

The world’s largest multi-national maritime military joint exercise, namely the “Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2012″ led by the U.S. was held in Hawaii and its surrounding waters on June 29 with the participation of 42 warships, 6 submarines, 200-plus aircraft and 25,000 soldiers from 22 countries. Russia and India participated in the exercise for the first time.

The contents of this exercise included the offense-defense combat of aircraft carriers, beach landing drills and others aiming to test the coordinated operation capability between the U.S. fleet and the allied fleets in the Asia-Pacific region.

5. Israel took “Defense Pillar” military action against Gaza.

The number of rockets fired into Israel by armed personnel of Palestinians saw sudden increase in Gaza Strip starting from November 10. Israel’s Defense Forces initiated a large-scale military operation, code-named “Defense Pillar”, against Gaza from November 14 to 21.

This action led to the death of 162 Palestinians, including Jabari, the No. 2 leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and leader of the Qassam Brigade, together with the destruction of a great number of infrastructures in Gaza. This was the most intense fire exchange between Israel and Hamas in recent years.

6. Syrian civil war upgraded

The Syrian government forces and the main opposition armed forces successively expressed their willingness on October 25 to accept the proposal made by Brahimi, the special representative of the UN-Arab League’s envoy for the Syrian crisis, to cease fire during the Eid al-Adha period.

However, on the first day of the ceasefire, also the first day of Eid al-Adha festival, a car bomb exploded in the south of Damascus, capital of Syria, killing 5 and injuring 32, and nullified the agreement of the Eid al-Adha ceasefire. Under the support from exterior forces, the Syrian opposition armed forces gained rapid growth in their strength and more places kept falling into their control.

7. DPRK successfully launched “Light Star III” satellite.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) used the Galaxy III carrier rocket and successfully launched the second “Light Star” satellite into the pre-selected orbit on December 12.

The U.S. and its allies held that DPRK’s usage of the satellite launch to test its ballistic missile technology posed a threat against the peace and security in the region, and committed a provocative act to undermine the global non-proliferation system.

8. Indian test-fire of intermediate-range ballistic missile “Agni-5″ successful

India successfully launched the “Agni-5″ intermediate-range ballistic missile on April 19 for the first time. With a range of 5,000-plus kilometers, the missile is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads. To date, it is India’s farthest-reaching missiles, covering the entire Asian continent, half of Europe and most of the Indian Ocean.

9. U.S. and its allies held “Schriever-2012″ joint military exercise.

The U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, Australia and other countries held the “Schriever – 2012″ international military exercise from April 19 to 26 at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Through the use of network to simulate military operations in outer space, the operations of aerospace and cyberspace were closely integrated with the cooperation between the U.S. and its allies being greatly promoted in the fields of aerospace and cyberspace.

10. UN Security Council decided to deploy Africa-led Support Mission in Mali.

Both Mali of the West Africa and Somalia of the East Africa and their nearby areas have witnessed an aggravated threat of terrorism in 2012. The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on December 20 to deploy an African-led international support mission in Mali (African-led Support Mission).

In a statement made by the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja on November 12, a total of 3,300 soldiers will be dispatched to Mali in order to help Mali fight against the armed organizations in the north.

December 19, 2012 Vivek Kapur - IDSA COMMENT

In the face of international opposition, North Korea launched a rocket on 12 December 2012 to place a satellite in orbit.1 Its earlier four attempts had all failed; the first of these was in 1998 and the most recent failure was in April 2012.2 The “successful” launch on 12 December 2012 places North Korea among the few nations (United States, Russia, China, Japan, Europe, India, Pakistan and possibly Iran) that possess the ability to build long range ballistic missiles. What has added to international concerns about North Korea’s missile programme is its transfer of missiles banned by multilateral treaties and conventions to countries such as Pakistan and Iran as well as its support for international terrorist groups.3

India has no direct dispute with North Korea and the distance separating the two countries serves to further reduce threat perceptions. India’s interest in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes comes from the reported clandestine co-operation between North Korea, Pakistan and Iran in this regard. There have been persistent reports that North Korea has assisted Pakistan’s missile programme in return for Pakistani assistance with its nuclear weaponisation programme. The current Pakistani ballistic missile capability extends to a reported range capability of about 1500 to 2500 km, which is equivalent to that of the North Korean Taepodong-I missile and its further developments. The test conducted on 12 December 2012 by the Unha-3 rocket gives North Korea a range capability of 5500+km or the equivalent of the Taepodong-II missile.4 India’s Agni-V missile was claimed to have a range of 5500 km and falling into the classification of an ICBM. This is a range capability not currently possessed by Pakistan and one, if inducted by Pakistan from North Korea, would be detrimental for Indian security. Iran has also been suspected of being a recipient of North Korean ballistic missile technology.5 Iran’s acquisition of long range ballistic missile capability from North Korea would further complicate India’s security situation. Beyond this direct impact of North Korean missile proliferation, India, as a responsible member of the international community, has no choice but to support international action and restrictions on countries that act and behave in a manner that is found unacceptable by the rest of the world.

India has ballistic missile armed countries on its Northern as well as Western borders. Further, territorial disputes exist with both of these neighbours. The steady spread of ballistic missile technology to ever more states continues unabated. Although the likelihood is remote presently, there is no guarantee that in the near to medium term future such technology will not be available with more of India’s neighbours. There is also the alarming, but above zero, possibility of ballistic missiles falling into the hands of terrorist groups especially in “failing” or “failed” states such as Pakistan whose military includes several sympathisers of terrorist groups. (Two terrorist organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah, have already demonstrated the ability to obtain and use such weapons – Fajr-5 missiles with ranges of 75 km – against Israel).6 Such developments in its neighbourhood have adverse implications for India.

No country is in a position to be able to control the proliferation of ballistic missile technology all by itself, India included. Even missiles with non-nuclear payloads could be a major threat to India’s security and economy. Hence, if unable to avoid the proliferation of ballistic missiles in South Asia, India would have no choice but to work towards countering this threat. Nuclear armed ballistic missile attacks would be countered by India’s declared Nuclear Doctrine and executed by the Indian strategic forces. The challenge here would lie in dealing with situations where the country responsible for the launch of a nuclear attack cannot be easily identified, as in the case of missiles launched from sea.

There are two possible solutions to countering the conventional payload ballistic missile threat. The first would be to harden all population centres and other vital facilities against such attacks. Given the very large number of these and the ever increasing range and accuracy of ballistic missiles available with an ever increasing group of countries, this is unlikely to be feasible or even prove sufficient. The second option would be to develop a viable Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system. India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is already working on a ‘only terminal stage intercept’ BMD system, which has achieved several notable successes during its trials to intercept target ballistic missiles in the exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric stages. Ballistic missile proliferation in India’s neighbourhood requires the development of a more capable BMD system.

While the DRDO’s BMD project is reportedly proceeding well and should be available for initial deployment in the near future, it is only a terminal phase system as of now. There is a need to extend the current capability towards the ability to engage ballistic missiles during their mid-course and boost stages as well as during the terminal stage of their flight. DRDO may need to explore air-based, Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) and Electromagnetic (EM) gun based solutions in addition to its current land based ‘anti-missile missile’ BMD system to achieve a more robust and capable BMD system or a system of systems capable of reliable boost phase, mid-course phase and terminal phase ballistic missile intercept and destruction.

The proliferation of ballistic missile technology has continued despite international efforts to curtail it. This proliferation poses threats to India’s security. India may face a conventional as well as nuclear ballistic missile threat in the near to medium term future. The possible spread of these ballistic missile capabilities has the potential to further complicate India’s security situation. India is preparing to deal with the nuclear ballistic missile threat from its potential adversaries through its nuclear doctrine and nuclear forces. However, the increasing ballistic missile threat would require a combination of developing a full spectrum (boost phase, mid-course phase and terminal phase) BMD capability. The current DRDO BMD programme needs to be extended to attain such a capability.

1. 1. “UN condemns North Korea over rocket launch”, http://www.dw.de/un-condemns-north-korea-over-rocket-launch/a-16450004, accessed on 17 Dec 2012.
2. 2. “UN Security Council condemns North Korea rocket launch”, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20697922, accessed on 13 Dec 2012.
3. 3. See, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iran/missile/overview.html and http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/missile/hatf-5.htm accessed on 17 Dec 2012.
4. 4. Markus Schiller, “Characterizing the North Korean Nuclear Missile Threat”, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2012/RAND_TR..., Pp 11, accessed on 13 Dec 2012.
5. 5. “N. Korea rocket launch draws more worry than Iran's”, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46988250/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/n-kore..., accessed on 13 Dec 2012.
6. 6. “Iran supplied Hamas with Fajr-5 missile technology”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/21/iran-supplied-hamas-missile-..., accessed on 17 Dec 2012.

Dec. 08, 2012 by David Axe – wired.com/dangerroom

The Air Force’s multi-billion-dollar drone fleets may have helped against the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. But in a fight against a real military like China’s, the relatively defenseless unmanned aerial vehicles would get shot down in a second. So once again, the air will belong to traditional, manned bombers and fighters able to survive the sophisticated air defenses.

At least that’s the Air Force’s official position. Secretly, however, the flying branch could be working on at least two new high-tech UAVs optimized for the most intensive future air wars. Ace aviation reporter Bill Sweetman has gathered evidence of new stealth drones under development by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — the latter potentially armed, and both drawing on classified funds. If these robots are real, the Air Force’s drone era is not only not ending — it’s barely begun.

To be clear, no one thinks unmanned aircraft are becoming any less vital to Washington’s shadowy counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and, possibly soon, Mali. Missile-armed Predators, the larger Reapers carrying bombs and missiles, and stealthy, unarmed Sentinel spy drones, operated jointly by the CIA and the military, are still America’s weapon of choice for hunting terrorist leaders. Three years ago then-CIA director Leon Panetta, now the defense secretary, called UAVs the “only game in town” for disrupting the core of al-Qaida.

But when it comes to strictly military campaigns — assuming those even exist anymore — flying robots appear to be falling out of favor with the nation’s air combat branch. Earlier this year the Air Force announced controversial plans to scale back its known current and future drone fleets.

 Gone would be the Block 30 model of the brand-new, high-flying Global Hawk recon UAV, axed in favor of upgrades to the decades-old U-2 spy plane. Production of the workhorse Reapers was slashed from 48 per year to just 24. Looking ahead, the Air Force cancelled a planned, unclassified effort to develop a jet-powered attack drone, the MQ-X. Indeed, the flying branch abandoned its entire 30-year “roadmap” for future UAV development, which had anticipated a host of new robot designs to ultimately replace most manned aircraft.

Publicly, the Air Force is even considering reneging on its promise to make the next-generation heavy bomber now in development “optionally manned,” meaning it could be converted into a large, long-range drone with the flip of a switch.

The potential high cost of the dual design is “probably going to make it difficult to afford an unmanned solution,” Air Force Global Strike Command boss Gen. James Kowalski said.

Remarkably, it was just four years ago that then-Defense Secretary Bob Gates leaned on the flying branch to finally get serious about pilotless planes, which can fly far longer than their manned counterparts and are ideal for surveillance and attacks missions against lightly armed militants like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even after (then) seven years of war, motivating the Air Force to purchase more drones — and consequently fewer traditional planes — was “like pulling teeth,” Gates said. To break the logjam Gates had to fire the Air Force’s two top officials and abruptly cancel further production of the air-combat service’s prized F-22 fighter.

Now the Iraq war is over and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. All the military branches are revamping their arsenals for an era in which they anticipate fewer long-term counter-insurgency campaigns and more short, high-intensity wars such as last year’s Libya campaign plus the ongoing responsibility of deterring a rising China. “The fleet I’ve built up — and I’m still being prodded to build up, too — is not relevant in that new theater,” Gen. Mike Hostage, head of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, said last week.

In high-stress combat the human brain is still the best computer, and human eyes the best sensors, Hostage said. Drones “don’t have the awareness that a manned plane would have.”

The other branches do not share that view. The Army is proceeding with plans to purchase more than 100 copies of its own armed Predator variant. The Navy is pouring billions into a stealthy, jet-powered attack drone that can launch from aircraft carriers. Only the Air Force has looked into the future and stated that current flying robots don’t have much of a place.

Instead, the Air Force says it wants more manned planes. Despite flattening budgets the flying branch is sticking with its longtime requirement for 1,763 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters plus up to 100 new bombers. And Hostage says his researchers are trying to define a so-called “sixth-generation” fighter to succeed the F-35 around 2030. That plane will have an on-board pilot, Hostage said.

When it comes to drones, “retrenchment returns the Air Force to business as usual,” Lt. Col. Lawrence Spinetta and M.L. Cummings wrote in Armed Forces Journal. But that retrenchment could be a cover. It’s very possible that all the Air Force’s recent backtracking on unmanned warplanes applies only to unclassified efforts. It’s feasible, even likely, that Air Force UAV initiatives are thriving within the military’s $35-billion-a-year classified budget. For sure, the stealthy Sentinel drone that first appeared in Afghanistan five years ago and subsequently spied on Iran and Pakistan is one product of the classified budget.

In fact, it makes sense for UAV development for the post-Iraq and -Afghanistan era to favor “black” programs. As America’s wars become more high-tech and its foes more heavily armed, the Air Force will need truly cutting-edge drones — the robot equivalents of the Cold War F-117 and B-2 stealth warplanes, both of which were designed and initially produced in total secrecy in order to protect their pricey new technologies.

In a recent article for Aviation Week, reporter Sweetman laid out the evidence for no fewer than two new, jet-powered, radar-evading Air Force UAVs still cloaked in black funding. In 2008 Northrop Grumman, maker of the B-2 stealth bomber, scored a $2-billion Pentagon contract that the company took pains to keep off the books. At the same time, Northrop hired as a consultant John Cashen, the man most responsible for devising the B-2′s radar-defeating shape.

The funding and Cashen’s expertise were applied to a secret effort to build a larger successor to the Lockheed Martin-made Sentinel, according to Sweetman. The new drone “is, by now, probably being test-flown at Groom Lake,” a.k.a. Area 51, Sweetman wrote.

In parallel, Lockheed could be building a stealthy spy drone meant to fly ahead of the Air Force’s new bomber, helping to jam enemy radars and spot targets for the larger, manned plane. Sweetman called the secret spy drone, which has been alluded to by Pentagon officials, “a real and funded program.” Perhaps coincidentally, in December last year a commercial satellite spotted what appeared to be a previously unknown UAV type at Lockheed’s facility in Palmdale, California.

Despite the public statements eschewing old-style drones, it’s possible the Air Force is working hard to field brand-new flying robots better suited to an era of conventional warfare. But it could be years before we know for sure, as any evidence is deeply classified and could remain so. “When the new systems will be disclosed is anyone’s guess,” Sweetman lamented.

Today’s drones might have hit their peak, by the Air Force’s reckoning. But tomorrow’s drones could rise to take their place.

28.11.2012, Guéorgui Vanetsov, Rédaction en ligne - La Voix de la Russie

L'Inde développe depuis plusieurs années son programme de défense antimissile. Le lancement réussi du missile intercepteur AAD de construction indienne depuis le polygone de l'île de Wheeler en est une nouvelle confirmation. Le missile a détruit une cible à une altitude de 15 km au-dessus du golfe de Bengale.

La cible, une modification du missile sol-sol Prithvi, a été lancée depuis le polygone de l'Etat d'Orissa. Pendant les essais, les spécialistes de Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) ont testé pour la première fois la configuration du vol du missile intercepteur. En outre, ils ont testé les capacités du missile intercepteur sur un simulateur électronique spécial. Ils ont simulé le vol d'un missile lancé à une distance de 1 500 km et sa destruction à une altitude de 120 km.

L'Inde, pourra-t-elle créer et déployer son système de défense antimissile en 2015, date qu'elle s'est fixée? La tâche est extrémement compliquée, estime Piotr Topytchkanov, expert au Centre Carnegie de Moscou :

« Cela nécessite des investissements immenses. D'autant plus que l'Inde ne possède pas des radars et un système d'alerte spatiale sur une attaque de missiles depuis l'espace. A l'heure actuelle, seuls deux satellites indiens se trouvent sur l'orbite, dont un seul a une vocation purement militaire. Il est peu probable que ces moyens permettent de détecter le lancement d'un missile, sans parler de plusieurs. Le système sera-t-il efficace contre une attaque depuis le Pakistan, principal sujet de préoccupation pour l'Inde? Pour l'Inde cela revêt d'autant plus d'importance que le vol d'un missile lancé depuis le Pakistan vers une cible sur son territoire ne dure que quelques minutes ».

Les Etats-Unis s'évertuent à mettre à profit les difficultés indiennes. Ils proposent avec insistance à l'Inde leur bouclier antimissile manifestant leur empressement d'aider à mettre en place un système de défense antimissile. Cependant l'Inde fait montre de réserve eu égard à une telle coopération, préférant se fier à ses propres forces en la matière. New Delhi ne veut pas être attachée aux plans géopolitiques américains en Asie. Car une tâche majeure des Etats-Unis est la dissuasion de la Chine. Dans ce cas, la coopération avec les Etats-Unis dans le domaine de la défense antimissile signifierait la destruction d'une confiance fragile entre l'Inde et la Chine à peine amorcée et à laquelle l'Inde tient vivement.

Nov. 22, 2012 - By PAUL McLEARY Defense News

More than 100 civilian employees at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama are facing layoffs in January unless the U.S. Army decides before the start of the year to refurbish more than the 47 Stryker vehicles it has already contracted for as part of the upgrade program.

On Nov. 8, General Dynamics Land Systems issued notices under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act to 139 employees working on the Stryker exchange program, in which parts from old vehicles are used to complete new-build Strykers.

The move follows recent announcements by vehicle makers Oshkosh Defense and BAE Systems that they are letting go of 450 and 145 employees, respectively, as a result of a slowdown on Army ground combat vehicle programs.

While General Dynamics is waiting until January to begin the layoffs, it does not appear any new Stryker work will come in by then — if it ever does — according to Scott Davis, the head of the Army’s Ground Combat Systems office.

Davis told Defense News the Army “is thinking through and prioritizing whether we want to continue” with its Stryker exchange program, part of a public-private partnership between General Dynamics Land Systems and Anniston.

The Army and General Dynamics will finish producing the 47 Strykers under contract early in 2013, but “I don’t hold an active requirement or the dollars to continue it” after that, Davis said. He added that his shop is preparing to brief Army leadership on the cost and benefit of modernizing Strykers in December, while a decision on which platforms and which capabilities might be upgraded is expected in February.

The Stryker exchange program harvests usable parts from older, flat-bottomed Strykers and uses them to complete builds on new double-V-hull Strykers (DVH) at Anniston. Company officials say the exchange program will not only give the Army more durable combat vehicles but also drive the cost down from $2.4 million for a new DVH to $1.6 million for an exchange vehicle.

Without new DVH contracts, operations at the facility will drop to 13 vehicles a month, well below the minimum requirement of 20 vehicles per month needed to keep the workforce at current levels.

The Army has ordered 789 DVH Strykers, and about 500 new DVH vehicles have been delivered from the Anniston facility.

The Stryker program is not the only one Army leadership is fretting over.

When it comes to overall budget pressure, Davis said, “we cut through the skin and we’re down to the bone” on development activities, and “any additional pressure will make it extremely difficult” to continue to modernize and upgrade all variants of combat vehicles on schedule.

One of Davis’ chief priorities is to identify ways to protect both the manufacturing and the intellectual industrial base in the face of budget cuts, he said. The number of companies that can design and build ground combat vehicles is limited, he added, saying, “the intellectual industrial base is mostly BAE and GD — it’s those engineers and logisticians who provide the design improvement skills” that he is looking to retain.

One of the big points of contention when it comes to the service’s ground vehicle industrial base is the battle over the Abrams tank line in Lima, Ohio. The Army doesn’t want to begin the next major round of Abrams modernization until 2017, and on Sept. 27, it awarded General Dynamics an eight-year, $395 million contract to study what capabilities it can add to the platform when those upgrades begin.

Davis said the Army and General Dynamics are studying the critical skill sets that need to be preserved at Lima and how much workflow will have to go through the line to sustain it at the minimum level of 33 tanks a month. The Army is conducting a four-month industrial base study to flesh out those issues.

One thing Davis said might help is foreign military sales (FMS).

“We’re very, very much in support of putting FMS in Lima,” he said. “We’ve got active cases in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco [for Abrams tanks], and to a large degree, that will help span that gap of U.S. production.”

The Saudi and Moroccan deals have not been fully approved by the U.S. government, but Davis said “if things go the way we anticipate it with FMS, we feel good about” the Lima Abrams line being able to meet its minimum production rate.

Because the Army and industry face the quandary of Abrams, Stryker and Bradley production ending in 2014, other new programs — such as the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV), the M113 replacement — have taken on added importance. The service has said it plans to buy up to 3,800 AMPVs, making the program “pretty critical” for the overall health of the industrial base.