January 30, 2024 | International, Aerospace
October 2, 2018 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
Macedonia just took a big step to becoming NATO’s 30th member
By: Aaron Mehta and The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A national referendum on changing Macedonia's name won with overwhelming support Sunday, paving the way for the nation to join NATO as the alliance's 30th member.
The referendum, pushed by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, received international attention in recent weeks, with U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and German chancellor Angela Merkel among other world leaders travelling to Skopje to show support for the vote.
The result: upholding Zaev's agreement with Greece to name the former Yugoslav republic to “North Macedonia.” Greece, arguing its neighbor's name implied territorial ambitions on its own province of the same name, has blocked Macedonia's efforts to join NATO since 1990; Greece has agreed to drop its opposition with the name change.
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White issued a statement following the results, saying the department “strongly” supports the vote and calling it a “historical moment.” Defense officials in Washington have been vocal with their support of Macedonia coming into NATO, with Mattis, during his visit to Skopje, noting it would represent a blow to Russia.
In July, NATO formally opened the door for Macedonia to join the alliance if the name referendum passed, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warning that the vote represents a “once in a lifetime” chance for the nation to enter the alliance.
In a joint statement Monday, Stoltenberg and the President of the European Union Donald Tusk praised the vote, saying “The name agreement between Athens and Skopje has created a historic opportunity for the country to join the transatlantic and European community as an equal member. This would change the life of the people of the country and that of their children for the better.”
“It is now in the hands of politicians in Skopje to decide on the way forward,” the two added. “The decisions they take in the next days and weeks will determine the fate of their country and their people for many generations to come. We encourage them to seize this historic opportunity.”
Low turnout marred what should have been a major victory for Zaev and his supports. Results from more than 97 percent of polling stations showed 91.3 percent of voters approving the deal. However, turnout stood at just 36.8 percent, a far cry from the massive support the government had hoped for.
Opponents to the name change had called for a boycott of the vote and celebrated in the street outside Parliament when turnout figures were announced, chanting slogans and waving flags.
"The people made a great choice and said 'yes' to our future. It is time for lawmakers to follow the voice of the people and to provide support," Zaev said. "There will be no better agreement with Greece, nor an alternative for NATO and the EU."
The agreement faces more hurdles before it can be finalized. If the constitutional amendments are approved by Macedonia's parliament, Greece will then also need to ratify it. But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras faces political problems of his own. His governing coalition partner, right-wing Independent Greeks head Panos Kammenos, has vowed to vote against the deal, leaving Tsipras reliant on opposition parties and independent lawmakers to push it through.
Should everything go right, Macedonia will begin the long process of joining the alliance. How long remains to be seen, with analysts predicting the process will not be finished by the time world leaders gather for the 2020 NATO Summit.
With Elena Becatoros and Konstantin Testorides, Associated Press. AP reporters Ivana Bzganovic and Nicolae Dumitrache in Skopje and Demetri Nellas in Athens, Greece contributed to this report.
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December 7, 2018 | International, Aerospace
Saab puts marketing effort for Swordfish maritime plane on hiatus
By: Valerie Insinna BANGKOK — Over the past two years, Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab has put its advertising muscle into promoting a maritime patrol aircraft it called Swordfish. But in the absence of a launch customer and no immediate sales prospects, the company is ending its marketing campaign — at least for now, the head of its Asia-Pacific business said Thursday. “From a product perspective, we are no longer marketing it. So it was a concept. It was an opportunity that we looked at on the back of GlobalEye, and we're just concentrating on GlobalEye,” Dean Rosenfield said in a roundtable with journalists in Saab's Bangkok office. Defense News traveled to Thailand the week of Nov. 26 to learn more about the country's air warfare capabilities, accepting airfare and accommodations from Saab. Swordfish was initially conceived as a derivative of Saab's GlobalEye airborne early warning aircraft. Both are based on Bombardier's Global 6000 airframe and contain a suite of cutting-edge sensors, with Swordfish also adding torpedoes, sonobuoys, anti-ship missiles, an acoustics processor and a magnetic anomaly detector. But while GlobalEye has landed a launch customer in the United Arab Emirates, Swordfish is still looking for a buyer. Saab hoped to position Swordfish as a lower-cost alternative to Boeing's P-8 Poseidon, which is used by the U.S. Navy to hunt submarines and conduct surveillance over open waters. The firm targeted a handful of international countries who had expressed interest in upgrading their legacy maritime surveillance inventories. One such country was South Korea, which was looking for up to six additional aircraft to augment its fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3 Orions. In March, one Saab official told Defense News that — should South Korea chose Swordfish as its future maritime patrol aircraft — the company was prepared to allow South Korea to have a hand in producing the aircraft, with the first few aircraft being produced in Sweden and the rest assembled in South Korea. Saab had responded to South Korean requests for more information about Swordfish, Rosenfield said. But in June the country decided to award a sole-source contract valued at about $1.7 billion to Boeing for the P-8 Poseidon, eschewing the Swordfish and Airbus' C295. In July, another sales opportunity for Swordfish was dashed, when New Zealand announced that it would buy up to four P-8s to replace its P-3s. Rosenfield said that even if Saab wasn't successful in the Korean competition, the company's efforts may still prove fruitful as it goes forward marketing its GlobalEye early warning plane. “But the good thing about what we did there is that it gave us great recognition — brand recognition — particularly as we were marketing a GlobalEye capability like what we are delivering to the UAE,” he said. “That's where we see it going.” Rosenfield said there may be opportunities in the future to resurrect the Swordfish sales initiative. “If there is a customer who has a need for a maritime patrol aircraft, like Singapore for example, and they are prepared to invest in the technology to take something that hasn't been delivered before to a first customer, then we're happy to entertain that discussion,” he said. But currently, “the product, per se, doesn't exist in the Saab portfolio,” he added. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/11/30/saab-puts-marketing-effort-for-swordfish-maritime-plane-on-hiatus
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October 2, 2019 | International, Aerospace
Air Mobility Command exercise tests ability to operate in degraded combat environments
By: Diana Stancy Correll Operating in austere conditions, beyond well-defended bases, is likely in the event of a conflict with a near-peer adversary like Russia or China, according to Air Force leaders. As a result, the service has increasingly focused on its ability to operate in degraded combat environments the past several years. The biennial Mobility Guardian exercise now underway in Washington state is testing mobility aircraft's readiness to conduct their missions in such contested environments. For Air Mobility Command's largest readiness exercise, more than 4,000 U.S. and troops, including members of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps are now at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane and other Western locations to train for airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation and global air mobility support. The exercise is also designed to sharpen participants' abilities to conduct forcible entry, airfield seizure, strategic deterrence and humanitarian relief operations, according to the service. As just one example of the kind of training going on, airmen from the 92nd Logistics Readiness Squadron employed a Fuels Operational Readiness Capability Equipment system, marking the first time the mobile fuel bladders have been used stateside in an uncontested environment. “We use the FORCE to help sustain bare bases and allow for fuel distribution anywhere around the world at a moment's notice,” said Master Sgt. Daniel Rey, 92nd LRS fuels information service center section chief. “The bladder can hold up to 50,000 gallons of fuel, which can help service a wide range of friendly aircraft.” Meanwhile, at Moses Lake, about 100 miles southwest of Fairchild, airmen from the 621st Contingency Response Wing provided tactical operations center support during a first-of-its-kind Ability to Survive and Operate scenario Sept. 16, according to an Air Force news release. In the scenario, aircrew from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom aboard a KC-135 Stratotanker reported chemical contamination while performing an aeromedical evacuation. The Contingency Response Team at the TOC coordinated ground decontamination support and received the aircraft. “We provided command and control coverage, access to ramp space and a location to set up a decontamination line for aircrew flight equipment,” said Master Sgt. Jeremiah Ibarra, 321st CRT chief, in the release. “From the tactical operations center we coordinated with the air operations center to get AFE the equipment and supplies they needed.” CRTs deploy to locations that don't have established air support, and deploy forces that can open and operate an airfield. “We set up airfields and ramps, communicate aircraft landing, parking, maintenance, refueling and fleet service,” Ibarra said. “To my knowledge this is the biggest CRT operation that has ever happened.” The CRT is training alongside the 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, and the 521st AMOW, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, at Moses Lake to demonstrate the capability to operate as an integrated team. “To have the CRT embedded with us here isn't something that we do often, but it has been super beneficial.” said Capt. Jennifer Krutka, officer in-charge of Moses Lake, in the news release. “It has truly been a team effort. We have port airmen learning how to do maintenance and maintenance personnel learning port duties. One of Gen. [Maryanne] Miller's initiatives was to be more versatile airman, and we are doing that here.” Miller, the head of Air Mobility Command, stressed the significance of the exercise as it related to the 2018 National Defense Strategy at the Air Force Association's Air, Space Cyber conference last week. “It is imperative that we outpace our adversaries and best position the mobility air forces to defeat the threats of tomorrow,” Miller said. She also said the exercises align with the command's evolution over the past year into a “warfighting component command” that streamlines the mobility of forces through direct coordinating authority. “The world has changed and through our transformation efforts, AMC has adapted to meet the growing requirements and accelerated global demands,” Miller said. “As a more agile organization, we have increased our ability to fully leverage the full complement of our mobility resources.” The Air Force says another element of the exercise is fostering relationships with allies. There are nearly 30 international partners participating in the exercise this year. “The future of warfare will be increasingly joint,” Lt. Col. Joseph Monaco, director of Mobility Guardian, said in an Air Force news release Sept. 9. “This exercise is an unparalleled opportunity to develop joint-minded airmen who can integrate seamlessly with soldiers, sailors and Marines to compete and if necessary, win amidst great power adversaries.” The exercise, which kicked off Sept. 8 and concludes Sept. 28, employs aircraft including the KC-10 Extender, KC-135 Stratotanker, C-5 Super Galaxy, C-17 Globemaster III and C-130H/J Hercules and Super Hercules. Of the 4,000 service members, 2,500 are from AMC. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/09/25/air-mobility-command-exercise-tests-ability-to-operate-in-degraded-combat-environments