September 17, 2024 | International, Naval
The new contracts will advance or replace existing systems on Navy aircraft.
February 18, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
The International Defence Exhibition and Conference is opening its doors to trade exhibitors and visitors Feb. 21-25, with more than 1,300 vendors as well as five countries participating for the first time.
April 24, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem (ret.) and Douglas Birkey The nation faces a bomber crisis, and it is time to openly acknowledge the scale and scope of the problem. Tasked with deterrence and, if necessary, striking targets around the globe, Air Force crews operating these aircraft afford the nation's security leaders unique options best embodied in the phrase: anytime, anyplace. Despite the criticality of this mission, the Air Force currently operates the smallest, oldest fleet of bombers since its 1947 founding. No other service or ally has this capability, which places an imperative on this finite force. The service's recent announcement that it will be ending its continuous bomber presence in Guam further amplifies the precarious state of bombers. It is a stark warning to senior leaders in the Pentagon, in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill that the Air Force is “out of Schlitz” when it comes to the critical missions they perform. Bombers are unique instruments of power. They can strike targets with large volumes of kinetic firepower without requiring access to foreign bases and without projecting the vulnerability associated with regionally based land or sea forces. The striking power of a single bomber is immense. In fact, B-1Bs flying missions against ISIS in the opening days of Operation Inherent Resolve were able to carry more munitions than that delivered by an entire carrier air wing. Stealth bombers can penetrate enemy air defenses, depriving mobile targets of sanctuary. They can also carry large bunker-buster munitions required to eliminate deeply buried and hardened facilities. Bomber aircraft are also cheaper to operate on a per-mission basis when compared to alternate options, like ships, large packages of smaller strike aircraft or standoff missiles. The erosion of the bomber force is no secret. At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force possessed 400 bombers arrayed to fight the Soviet Union. Today, it has just 157, with a plan to cut a further 17 in the fiscal 2021 budget submission. Air Force efforts to modernize the bomber force a decade ago were thwarted within the Department of Defense by an excessive near-term focus on counterinsurgency operations. Bombers are requested by combatant commands on a continual basis given the concurrent threats posed by peer adversaries, mid-tier nations like Iran and North Korea, and hostile nonstate actors. The Air Force knows this mission area is stretched too thin, and that is precisely why in 2018 leaders called for an additional five bomber squadrons in “The Air Force We Need” force structure assessment. Well-understood risk exists with operating a high-demand, low-density inventory for too long. The B-1B force, which makes up over one-third of America's bomber capacity, offers a highly cautionary tale in this regard. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the service retired 26 of these aircraft to free up modernization funds, which subsequently were snatched away from the bomber mission area for other uses. For the next two decades, the Air Force flew the B-1B in a nearly continuous string of intense combat deployments. Sustainment funding was under-resourced, which further wore down the B-1B force. Last summer, B-1B readiness rates plummeted below 10 percent — effectively putting them out of commission. As Air Force Global Strike Command Commander Gen. Tim Ray explained: “We overextended the B-1Bs.” It was a toxic formula of too much mission demand and too few airplanes. Air Force leaders continually signaled concern, but their calls for help went unanswered. The normal solution to this sort of a challenge would be straight-forward: Go buy more airplanes. However, operational B-21s will not be in production until the latter 2020s. The Air Force is asking to retire 17 B-1s to free up resources to nurse the remaining aircraft along as a stopgap measure. COVID-19 emergency spending and corresponding downward pressure on future defense spending are only going to aggravate the complexity of this juggling act with mission demand, available force structure and readiness. Whether world events will align with these circumstances is yet to be seen. It was in this context that the Air Force decided to end its continuous bomber presence on Guam. Launched in 2004 to deter adversaries like China and North Korea and to reassure regional allies, the mission has been a tremendous success. It clearly communicated U.S. readiness to act decisively when U.S. and allied interests were challenged. Ending continuous bomber presence in the Pacific now sends the opposite message, just as the region grows more dangerous. This is a decision with significant risk, yet it is an outcome compelled by past choices resulting in a bomber force on the edge. The path forward begins with admitting the nation has a bomber shortfall. Retiring more aircraft exacerbates the problem. Nor is this just an Air Force problem. Bombers are national assets essential to our security strategy and must be prioritized accordingly. If other services have excess funds to invest in ideas like a 1,000-mile-range cannon when thousands of strike aircraft, various munitions and remotely piloted aircraft can fill the exact same mission requirements, it is time for a roles and missions review to direct funding toward the most effective, efficient options. Bombers would compete well in such an assessment. Ultimately, the solution demands doubling down on the B-21 program. There comes a point where you cannot do more with less. Given the importance of bombers to the nation, rebuilding the bomber force is not an option — it is an imperative. Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzriem served as a fighter pilot and held various command positions. He concluded his service as the director of plans, policy and strategy at North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command. He is currently the director of studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, where Douglas Birkey is the executive director. Birkey researches issues relating to the future of aerospace and national security, and he previously served as the Air Force Association's director of government relations. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/23/americas-bomber-force-is-facing-a-crisis/
June 23, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
By: Martin Banks BRUSSELS — The new head of the European Defence Agency, Jiří Šedivý, has thrown down the gauntlet to European Union member states, telling them: “It is up to you to deliver.” In an interview with Defense News, he said the onus is on EU countries “to use the EDA to its full extent.” Šedivý has extensive experience in the defense domain, having served as defense minister and deputy defense minister of the Czech Republic, NATO assistant secretary general for defense policy and planning, and permanent representative of the Czech Republic to NATO. His term comes amid a fast-changing European defense landscape and new EU defense initiatives that are under increasing pressure to deliver results. How will the COVID-19 health crisis affect European defense spending in the near, mid and long term? Let's be realistic: We are still in the middle of the pandemic and, at this stage, nobody can foresee what its exact repercussions will be. But being realistic also means that we have to anticipate, already now, that national and European defense budgets might come under pressure as a result of the massive economic and financial costs of COVID-19, whether we like it or not. Here our answer should be straightforward: Rather than cutting national defense expenditure rashly, let's coordinate, pool and share our resources and invest more in collaborative capability development because a collective approach is much more cost-effective than national solo efforts. The same goes for defense research where national ministries of defense might face problems to receive the same funding than in the past to finance their individual national programs. The best response to shrinking national budgets for defense research is to join forces and resources and to engage in more cost-effective collaborations at EU level. We therefore should maintain our European defense ambitions, keep course and pursue the implementation of the new EU defense instruments — the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF) — which are all in place, fit for purpose and ready to be used. The COVID-19 crisis could offer us an unexpected and unique opportunity to reinvigorate defense cooperation in Europe. The defense portion of the proposed EU budget has come under pressure. If the European Defence Fund is indeed curtailed, how do you expect EDA to adjust its objectives? It is too early to speculate about the Fund's future budget allocation as negotiations are still ongoing. Therefore, we have to wait and see. This being said, the EDF will be an essential part of the EU's defense-cooperation toolbox, together with CARD and PESCO. Therefore, it is crucial that the Fund receives the financial means it needs to play its role properly. I thus hope for adequate funding for this important collaborative tool because for the reasons I just explained, we need more defense cooperation in the future, not less. And the Fund will serve not only as an incentive to that end, but also as a point of leverage for economic recovery. In any case, EDA's activities are not directly linked or dependent of the Fund's budget as we are an intergovernmental agency entirely and directly funded by our member states, not through the EU budget. U.S. defense companies want to be allowed to compete for EDF money and PESCO participation. How do you believe it is possible to strengthen intra-EU defense cooperation without shutting out trans-Atlantic ties at the same time? Third-party participation in the EDF is among the topics currently discussed between member states, the Commission and the European Parliament as part of the legislative process on setting up of Fund. So the jury is still out on the outcome of these talks. EDA is not involved in that process and therefore I cannot comment. However, I want to recall a basic underlying principle of European defense cooperation, namely that the European Union is fully committed to working with the U.S. as a core partner in security and defense matters. The EU defense initiatives must be understood in this context: They are not directed against our trans-Atlantic partnership but aim to enhance Europe's contribution to our common trans-Atlantic security by sharing a greater part of the burden. PESCO and EDF will help enhance EU member states' investment in the joint development of defense capabilities and deepen cooperation to make more efficient use of defense spending in the EU. The resulting defense capabilities will not be owned by the EU but by its member states. Which means they will also be available to NATO, at least for those EU member states that are NATO allies. As a result, EU cooperation ultimately also strengthens NATO as well as our trans-Atlantic partners. What is in store for the dozens of PESCO projects currently underway? For example, do you expect new ones to join the roster at some point, or some to be canceled if they fail to deliver? As you know, PESCO is a member states driven initiative. It's therefore up to the 25 participating countries to decide whether they want to launch new collaborative projects in the future. If you ask me, I expect indeed more projects to be added in the future but not this year as it was decided to skip 2020 after three consecutive waves of new projects launched — 47 in total to date — since December 2017, when PESCO was established. Focusing on the project implementation and delivering tangible outputs is thus the priority now. Equally, it is up to the member states involved in a given project to decide about possible changes or adjustments to be made or, to answer your question, even to cancel a project that would fail to deliver. It's the member states who own the projects, so it is up to them to implement them in the way they want. This being said, EDA is available and keen to support them, if they wish, in the implementation. As the European hub for collaborative capability development, we have the expertise and experience needed to do that. We therefore encourage member states to make full use of the Agency and to seek our know-how and support for bringing their PESCO projects forward. And we see that they start to rely more and more on our help. The number of PESCO projects which have been or currently are supported by the agency has constantly increased and now stands at six; two of them (in the areas of CBRN surveillance and deployable underwater capabilities) as EDA projects. Judging from informal expressions of interest received, we have reasons to expect those numbers to further grow in the future. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/06/22/new-european-defence-agency-boss-warns-against-rash-budget-cuts-by-eu-members/