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  July 13, 2020 | International, Land

  Russia and US jostle for arms sales to India after tensions with China over border

  India is a top buyer of foreign weapons on the international market and Russia has been its main supplier since the Soviet era The June 15 clash between China and India in the contested Galwan Valley lends an urgency to New Delhi's arms programme Russia and the United States are racing to sell weapons to India as New Delhi seeks to boost arms supplies for its ongoing military tension with Beijing. The Indian government last week rushed to approve a proposal to acquire 33 new Russian warplanes for US$2.4 billion and upgrade 59 more, in addition to an earlier US$5.43 billion deal for S-400 air defence missile systems, after the deadly skirmish with Chinese troops last month on their disputed border. However, Russia's close relationship with China raised questions over Moscow's reliability by some in India, while the US, which has been stepping up ties with New Delhi through the Indo-Pacific strategy, has been pushing for arms sale to India. “Many believe that India must not put all its eggs in one basket, rather continue to follow the middle path by pushing for engagement with both Russia as well as the United States,” said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, a distinguished fellow and head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. India is a top buyer in the international arms market, with billions of dollars of imports every year. In the past 10 years, it has spent more money on foreign weapons than any other country in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Russia has been the main supplier to India since the Soviet era. Since 2000, it has sold about US$35 billion worth of weapons, accounting for more than two-thirds of India's arms procurement of US$51 billion. Most of India's strategic weapons – from its only active aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya with its ship-borne MiG-29 and Ka-31 aircraft, to its only nuclear attack submarine in service, the Chakra II, to its T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks – are from Russia. Additionally, Russia licensed Indian firm HAL to build the Su-30 MKI, the main fighter for the Indian Air Force, and contributed to India's only nuclear-capable supersonic cruise missile – the BrahMos. In comparison, arms deals with the US have totalled just US$3.9 billion over the past 20 years but America has been rapidly catching up since 2010 to rise to number two vendor to India, surpassing Israel and France. India has equipped its military with Boeing C-17 and C-130J airlifters. Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to US President Donald Trump to buy US$3 billion worth of US equipment, including helicopters, as the two converged on a course to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region, and gradually formed much closer military ties with a series of strategic military pacts Then the tension between India and China suddenly escalated, culminating in a clash on June 15, in which at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the contested Galwan Valley between Indian-administered Ladakh and Chinese administered Aksai Chin. The continued stand-off added urgency to India's arms shopping. “Russians profit from a Sino-India clash. I don't think the Americans would be so happy to see that,” said Zhou Chenming, a Beijing-based military analyst. “The Trump administration has been trying very hard to grab a bigger share in this market of billions every year, which they wouldn't want to miss.” The US has leverage. The 2017 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) punishes whoever engages in “significant transactions” over US$15 million with the Russian state-owned defence industry. And Washington has remained non-committal despite the constant request for an exemption from the Indian side. “I don't think the US will actually implement the sanction at the end of the day. That was part of the effort to pressure India to choose American arms over Russian,” said Song Zhongping, a military commentator in Hong Kong. “And Russia will not sit by. They will also take action to keep India on.” Other efforts include discussions earlier this year in which the US offered to develop for India a “super F-16”, and even transfer the production line to India as preferred by the Modi government, as well as other air defence missile alternatives to the S-400. The US has delivered Apache and Chinook helicopters now deployed in Ladakh. Song said India's buying spree could increase its strength against the Chinese army but only to a limited extent. “India could buy some advanced weapons but cannot buy real combat capability. A modern military is an organic system,” he said. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3092710/russia-and-us-jostle-arms-sales-india-after-tensions-china

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  October 29, 2019 | International, Naval

  After a leadership shakeup at General Dynamics, a murky future for submarine building

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — Submarine building, the pride of the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding efforts over the past decade, is facing a mountain of uncertainty, a point underscored by the replacement of senior members of General Dynamics leadership, compounding delays with construction of the Virginia-class submarine and nagging questions about the quality of the work after a high-profile welding issue threatened to trip up the Columbia-class ballistic missile sub program at the starting line. Adding to the uncertainty for General Dynamics, which operates the Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut, are indications that profits from constructing Virginia-class subs may be slipping. And challenges in training new workers in the complex world of building subs as well as concerns that the Columbia program might negatively affect General Dynamics' bottom line are impacting General Dynamics' partner yard Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News, Virginia, as well as the U.S. Navy. Furthermore, a contract for the significantly larger Block V Virginia-class submarine, expected to be one of the largest in the Navy's history, has been repeatedly delayed amid disputes over labor rates, sources told Defense News. That contract is more than a year past due, according to Navy budget documents. In September, General Dynamics pushed out Electric Boat President Jeffrey Geiger. Industry and Navy sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Geiger's replacement was the culmination of mounting frustration on the part of the Navy. That came to a head when quality control issues surfaced with missile tubes in production destined for the Virginia Payload Module, Columbia-class subs and the United Kingdom's replacement ballistic missile sub. Geiger's ouster came on the heals of General Dynamics replacing long-time executive John Casey as head of the Marine Systems division when he retired earlier this year. The shakeup, delays and lingering issues put the Navy and the submarine-building enterprise at a crossroads. It's clear that the Navy's efforts to ramp up production of its Virginia-class attack boats ahead of Columbia have encountered myriad issues and delays. But while delays may be acceptable for the Virginia program, the interconnected nature of submarine building means those delays could eek into a program that the Navy has for years insisted cannot be delayed any further: the replacement of its aging Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, part of the nuclear deterrent triad. The Navy has said Columbia must be ready for its first patrol in 2031 to ensure the nation doesn't fall below a dangerous threshold where retiring Ohio-class submarines leaving the country without an adequate number of boats to execute its deterrent strategy. But to head that off, the Navy may have reduce its expectations of the industrial base's capacity to build submarines, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank and a retired submarine officer. “The Navy is going to have to reduce its appetite for submarine capacity while it gets the construction process in a better position,” he said. “All of the things we have seen in the past year in the submarine-building enterprise are the results of the ramped-up production levels and the challenges that EB [Electric Boat] faces in hiring more workers up in Connecticut. “They've been growing capacity, investing in infrastructure; they're trying to hire a bunch of workers and design engineers. [But] there just isn't a large workforce of those kinds of people up there as opposed to in Hampton Roads or the Gulf Coast. So there are a lot of challenges in ramping up production to [increase] Virginia-class production and, in addition, starting Columbia and beginning the Virginia Payload Module-equipped Virginias, which is a 30 percent larger submarine.” A bridge to Columbia In March, Defense News reported that all the Virginia-class submarines under construction were between four and seven months behind schedule. Naval Sea Systems Command pointed to the cumulative effect of ramping up to building two Virginia-class submarines per year. In a statement, the service's top acquisition official said the Navy was continuing to confront material, labor and shipyard infrastructure issues. Labor issues in particular hit the Newport News yard, which told investors in a recent earnings call that profits had slipped by about 23 percent on the Virginia sub building because of delays associated with labor issues. In the face of the mounting issues, the Navy should be willing to make difficult choices to get back on an even footing, Clark said. “Are we going to make some tough choices and dial back submarine construction deliberately to make sure we can get Columbia started correctly?” he asked. “And that means maybe we slow down Virginia, maybe we go to one per year for at least a couple of years to catch up.” Clark said the Navy should continue to fund two submarines per year but should expect that they will take longer to build while General Dynamics and Newport News stabilize their labor and parts issues. Paring back submarine production is a tough pill to swallow for the Navy, as it's been fighting for years to prevent a shortfall of attack submarines in the coming decade. The Navy expects its inventory of attack boats to drop from 52 to 42 by the late 2020s as Cold War-era Los Angeles-class attack subs retire. Furthermore, there's the question of whether scaling back production might invite a funding cut, which could make matters worse. The supplier and labor issues, after all, primarily stem from the 1990s when the Navy all but stopped buying submarines, which resulted in a contraction of the number of businesses that built submarine parts and a loss in skilled laborers who knew how to build them. Less funding would likely have a detrimental effect on sub-building efforts, said Bill Greenwalt, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer. “Under our current budget and appropriations process, slowing down — which likely implies cutting program funding — would exacerbate industrial base problems as it already has in the past due to lack of program demand,” Greenwalt said. “Congress and the Navy need to be prepared for industrial base surprises and seriously face the past problem of the underfunding of naval shipbuilding.” “A flexible schedule and more realistic and flexible funding mechanisms will be needed to meet whatever industrial base challenges ... will inevitably arise,” he added. “In the near term we may even need to look at some of our allies' capabilities to meet shortfalls and help us keep on schedule until we rebuild U.S. capacity.” Greenwalt's view tracks with that of General Dynamics, according to a source with knowledge of the company's thinking on the difficulties it has faced. The company considers ramping up production on the Virginia-class sub as essential to building a sufficient labor force and supplier capacity so the resources are available to build Columbia class on schedule, the source said. ‘Two-hump camel' The Navy's top acquisition official, James Geurts, has similarly described the issue. On the possibility of building a third Virginia-class submarine in 2023, Geurts told the House Armed Services Committee's sea power panel in March that it would benefit the Columbia-building effort. “We can get some of the additional workforce trained up, get some more of the supplier base and get some of the supplier builds out of the way before Columbia gets here,” he said. Officials everywhere seem to agree that the labor force is the most critical factor when it comes to getting submarine building on track. In an exit interview with Defense News in August, outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said turnover at shipyards was a challenge but also an exciting chance to build a new generation of skilled labor. “We're asking a lot of the submarine industrial base right now to continue with Virginia, two to three per year including that payload module, and deliver Columbia,” Richardson said. “And the workforce is going through a transformation. “The people who built and delivered the Virginia program, the Los Angeles program and Seawolf — those folks are retiring. We used to have this two-hump camel in terms of the demographics of the shipyard: You had the Cold Warriors and you had the post-9/11 folks. And that Cold War hump is gone. And I think that although it's going through some friction right now, it's really inculcating, indoctrinating and educating a brand-new workforce.” Richardson also sounded a note of warning about work quality, saying that the managers overseeing the work for the submarine-building enterprise must be on top of their jobs. “We've had some welding issues: We've got to be on that,” he said. “[It's] a lot closer oversight as we educate this new team.” Clarification: The story has been updated to better reflect the arguments surrounding the future of submarine building. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/28/after-a-leadership-shakeup-at-general-dynamics-a-murky-future-for-submarine-building/

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  December 30, 2022 | International, Aerospace

  New in 2023: Welcoming new airframes to the fleet

  The Air Force hopes to show off the B-21 Raider bomber's first flight in 2023 — though that target has been pushed back multiple times.