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  July 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  New Air Force Arctic Strategy May Update Planes For Polar Ops

  "Historically the Arctic, like space, was characterized as a predominantly peaceful domain," the Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said. "This is changing." By THERESA HITCHENSon July 21, 2020 at 4:58 PM WASHINGTON: As part of its new Arctic Strategy released today, the Air Force is eyeing how to modernize mobility aircraft capable of polar operations, improve existing bases, and expand allied cooperation as it gears up to face increased challenges in the region from Russia and China — as well as the changing environment. “Historically the Arctic, like space, was characterized as a predominantly peaceful domain,” Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett told the Atlantic Council Tuesday afternoon. “This is changing with expanded maritime access, newly discovered resources, and competing sovereign interests.” The new Air Force strategy document, which follows from Department of Defense's 2019 Arctic strategy, touts the service's extensive northern network of airbases and radar stations. The study even says that the service is responsible for “close to 80% of DoD resourcing to the Arctic region.” Now, that surprising figure is sourced to a single DoD paper from 2016, and the Navy submarine force, which regularly sails under the ice and holds an annual ICEX, might challenge that contention. As Breaking Defense readers are well aware, the Navy has been ramping up efforts in the Arctic over the past year, and new Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite is a former ambassador to key regional ally Norway. In Tuesday's event, the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David Goldfein, was politic enough to emphasize that the service is working closely with the other services, especially the Navy, and with the joint Combatant Commanders to ensure “seamless” joint operations in the region. In particular, he referred to the ongoing series of Global Integration Exercises — launched by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford — that are designed to allow more fluid operations across and between Combatant Commands. Indo-Pacific Command, European Command, and Northern Command (which covers North America) all have jurisdiction over pieces of the Arctic. Sec. Barrett cited DoD's familiar litany of concern with Russian and Chinese aspirations and activities in the far north. “No other country has a permanent military presence above the Arctic Circle comparable to Russia's. Recent Russian investments in the Arctic include a network of offensive air assets and coastal missile systems,” she said. (Of course, no country has as long an Arctic coastline as Russia, either, and Russian leaders remember the US and other Western powers staged a desultory intervention in Siberia in 1918-1920). China, she added, is setting potentially “predatory” eyes on newly opened access to natural resources, including oil. “China is not an Arctic nation by geography, but through its One Belt, One Road initiative It has laid the claim to an Arctic role, and has become an observer to the Arctic Council,” she said. “We're perfectly prepared to accept fair and benevolent action there and having China as a participant, but we will be attentive to overreaching.” The strategy, signed by Barrett, Goldfein, and Space Force/Space Command head Gen. Jay Raymond, lays out four lines of effort along with the sub-elements of each: “Vigilance in All Domains; Projecting Power through a Combat-Credible Force; Cooperation with Allies & Partners; and, Preparation for Arctic Operations.” Barrett said that the “vigilance encompasses everything from weather forecasting and consistent communications to threat detection and tracking.” The strategy document further notes that missile defense and space capabilities — including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and all-domain awareness — also are key to the mission. As for power projection in the region, Barrett mentioned in particular the Air Force's deployment of F-35 stealth fighters to Alaska as critical in enhancing capabilities. The service is in the process of moving some 54 F-35s to Eielson AFB in Fairbanks. “When the full complement of planned F-35s arrive at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska's unparalleled concentration of fifth-generation fighters will project unmistakable influence,” Barrett said. She also noted that the service is looking at recapitalization of Lockheed Martin's LC-130, the ski-equipped polar version of the C-130 Hercules transport plane. The Air National Guard currently has 10 operational LC-130H aircraft, according to the service's 2021 budget documents. “The LC-130s have been pivotal to getting access to terrain that otherwise would be inaccessible,” Barrett said. “So the LC-130 is very important, and recapitalizing is a significant issue to us.” “The Air Force will advance recapitalization and explore modernization of existing and emergent polar mobility platforms that are critical for reaching remote areas,” the new strategy says. In addition, the strategy emphasizes efforts to sustain and modernize bases in Alaska and at Thule, Greenland to allow regional power projection. As Breaking D readers know, Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of Northern Command, is particularly interested in upgrading command, control and communications (C3) capabilities in the Arctic. Raymond told the Atlantic Council webinar that one of the new challenges for Arctic infrastructure is dealing with new challenges cropping up due to the warming climate. “What has changed is the thawing and the melting of the permafrost,” he said. “It can have significant challenges on our infrastructure. It can cause foundations of buildings and equipment to shift. It can impact the structural integrity of those facilities .. for example cause increase runway maintenance,” he said. Goldfein stressed the strategy's high priority to enhance operations with NATO and regional allies, including Canada, Denmark and Norway. “You know only through cooperation with our allies will be be strong in Arctic or any other location in the globe,” he said. But he also said DoD and the Air Force should be making an effort to establish rules of the road and norms of behavior in the Arctic, and reaching out to Russia to identify mutual interests. “So, the question is: are there areas of common interest we can find above the 66th parallel that perhaps we're not able to find below?” Goldfein said. “There has to be a few areas of common interest that we can find where we can be better together than we are separately.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/new-air-force-arctic-strategy-may-update-planes-for-polar-ops

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  July 2, 2019 | International, Naval

  US Navy eyes new launchers on destroyers for hypersonic weapons

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — With bigger, faster missiles in development and bound for the fleet, the U.S. Navy's engineers are considering installing upgraded launchers on the stalwart Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The head of Naval Sea Systems Command, Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, told an audience at a conference of naval engineers that the Arleigh Burkes — due to their vertical launch system and Aegis missile capabilities — were easier to keep relevant than other destroyers such as the Adams and Spruance classes. Still, with the service attempting to keep the ships longer, new launchers may be in order to pace the threat from Russia and China, which have been developing their own hypersonic weapons. “Vertical launch system has been a real game changer for us. We can shoot any number of things out of those launchers,” Moore said. “We'll probably change those out and upgrade them for prompt strike weapons down the road.” Putting hypersonic weapons on surface ships would greatly increase the effectiveness of their strike capabilities. The current main strike weapon, the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, is a subsonic missile that is vulnerable to evermore advanced Russian and Chinese air defenses. Prompt strike, which refers to a Pentagon-wide effort to field hypersonic weapons to quickly strike anywhere in the world, are most likely coming first to submarines, said Thomas Callender, a retired submarine officer and analyst with the Heritage Foundation. Because subs are stealthy and can sneak in close to land undetected more easily than a surface ship, they make the most sense. “They're looking at putting hypersonics on submarines first because where you can get access,” Callender said. “You can potentially then put them on surface ships as an added capability for them, but the submarines would be the priority for access and the ranges you can achieve.” The Navy is designing a new large surface combatant to replace the cruisers and ultimately the destroyers with larger missiles in mind. As a result, the ship may be fairly large, former Surface Warfare Director Rear Adm. Ron Boxall told Defense News last year. The benefit of larger vertical launch cells is that you can pack more missiles into each cell, if you are not using the cell for the larger hypersonic missiles, Boxall said. “We are going to need, we expect, space for longer-range missiles,” he said. They are going to be bigger. So the idea that you could make a bigger cell, even if you don't use it for one big missile, you could use it for multiple missiles — quad-pack, eight-pack, whatever.” The missiles that would go into a larger launcher are still very much under development. The Navy is teamed with the Army to develop a booster for a hypersonic missile, and the Army is leading a team with the Navy and Air Force to internally build a common glide body that is producible on a larger scale. Radar upgrades Naval Sea Systems Command is also examining installation of a scaled-down version of the air and missile defense radar AN/SPY-6, under development for the Flight III DDG. The scope of that project, however, remains to be determined. “We are looking at a scaled-back version of the air and missile defense radar to back-fit the Flight Is and Flight IIs, similar to how we are looking for a version of the [Enterprise Air Search Radar] developed for [the Ford-class aircraft carriers] to back-fit on some of the old Nimitz class,” Moore said. “I'm not sure how many ships it is going to go on, we're still doing the design work. It's a fairly significant change to the structure of the ship, AMDR versus Spy.” The purpose of the upgrade would be used to track the faster, more dynamic missiles under development by Russia and China. The array is a smaller version of the SPY-6 intended for the Flight III DDG, the first of which is now under construction at Huntington Ingalls Industries. The SPY-6 destined for DDG-125 will have 37 radar modular assemblies, or RMA, which are 2-foot-by-2-foot-by-2-foot boxes that use gallium nitride technology to direct radar energy on air targets. The Flight IIA version will have 24 RMAs in the array. A version of the radar planned for the FFG(X) future frigate is a nine-RMA configuration. The Navy wants to upgrade all of its DDGs to Aegis Baseline 9 or higher with a ballistic missile defense capability and extend the service lives to 45 years as part of an effort to grow the fleet. But the Navy is going to try to get 50 years out of its Flight IIA ships. The IIAs make up the bulk of the DDG fleet, with 46 total planned for the service — DDG-79 through DDG-124. DDG-127 will also be a Flight IIA. That upgraded SPY-6 will be far easier to maintain than the current SPY-1D. Raytheon claims the radar can be maintained by simply removing an RMA and switching it out with a new one, with the rest of the work performed offsite. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/06/30/navy-eyes-new-launchers-on-stalwart-destroyers-for-putting-hypersonics-afloat/

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  August 5, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security

  The Loper Bright Decision: How it Impacts Cybersecurity Law

  Supreme Court's Loper Bright ruling overturns 40 years of Chevron deference, altering the cybersecurity regulatory landscape