May 10, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Drones, planes need new weapons and sensors, says special ops official
The gunships still take center stage but require advancements to keep up with the pace of warfare.
August 30, 2019 | International, Aerospace
SPACECOM is a go: Newest combatant command signed into existence
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has a new combatant command.
With a twirl of the pen, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed into creation U.S. Space Command, the 11th war-fighting command for the Defense Department.
“This is a landmark day, one that recognizes the centrality of space to America's national security and defense," President Donald Trump said during the event, held in the Rose Garden of the White House.
“It's all about space,” Trump said, adding that for anyone looking to challenge the U.S. in orbit, “it's going to be a whole different ballgame.”
Air Force Gen. Jay Raymond is the new head of SPACECOM; Army Lt. Gen. James Dickinson has been nominated to become the deputy commander. Upon Trump's signature, 287 individuals, pulled largely from U.S. Strategic Command, became the first members of the new command.
Earlier in the day, Raymond and Stephen Kitay, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, told reporters the creation of SPACECOM marked a new era in how the Defense Department approaches space.
“We are at a strategic inflection point. There is nothing that we do [as a joint force] that isn't enabled by space. Zero,” Raymond said. “Our goal is to actually deter a conflict from extending into space. The best way I know how to do that is to be prepared to fight and win” should deterrence fail.
SPACECOM's mission falls into four broad categories:
- To deter potential adversaries in space.
- To defend American assets in orbit.
- To deliver war-fighting capabilities (such as GPS) to other combatant commands.
- To develop joint war fighters to be able to operate in the space domain.
The command will include a traditional headquarters staff, service components from all four armed services and two operational components: Combined Forces Space Component Command — focused on integrating space capabilities around the globe and throughout joint coalition partners — and Joint Task Force for Space Defense — focused on protecting and defending the war-fighting domain.
“Space will not be an Achilles' heel. We will protect and defend and provide it for our way of life and our way of war,” Kitay added.
Technically, this is a relaunch of SPACECOM, which existed in another form from 1985 through 2002. However, Raymond said, the two organizations are very different, with a “sharper” focus on the dangers from other nations in space a key part of the new incarnation. Those threats include kinetic and non-kinetic activities from competitors such as China and Russia — and any future competitors who might gain space capabilities in the future.
As if to underscore the changing space environment, news broke Thursday that Iran's most recent attempt at a space launch appears to have failed on the ground. The effort was the third failed launch attempt this year, but the effort shows Iran is willing to invest significant national capital into putting assets into orbit.
SPACECOM will continue to grow, including a final selection on the location of its headquarters. But questions remain about integration plans with an eventual Space Force, should Congress back its creation as a new military branch.
The budget for SPACECOM in fiscal 2020 was $83.8 million, of which $75.6 million was shifted from previous organizations.
Raymond warned that a continuing resolution this year would have a “significant impact” on the standing up of the new command. “We need to have stable budgets as we build this command. Continuing resolutions are never good, and it would be bad in this case as well,” he said.
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November 2, 2020 | International, Naval
American shipbuilding: An anchor for economic and national security
By: Peter Navarro “Don't give up the ship!” These were Capt. James Lawrence's dying words defending the USS Chesapeake during the War of 1812. Over 200 years later, the United States Navy and America's critical shipbuilding industry are issuing the same cry from shipyards across our nation. Here is a simple truth: A true renaissance of America's shipbuilding industry will require a large-scale overhaul and new strategy before it can churn out the ships we urgently need to maintain our status as the greatest maritime power in world history. In the first year of his “Peace through Strength” administration, President Donald Trump made a 355-ship Navy the official national policy by signing the 2018 Defense Authorization Act. Currently, however, we are asking too few ships to do too much while many vessels are decades old and severely backlogged for critical repairs. This egregiously long queue is an open invitation to foreign adversaries, who are displaying increasingly aggressive postures and rapidly expanding their own naval capabilities. Today, only seven shipyards across the country are capable of constructing large or deep-draft Navy vessels. More subtly, each yard has become specialized to build a specific warship, whether it be a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine or an Independence-class littoral combat ship. This specialization, while optimal for workforce training and infrastructure investments at specific yards, makes them remarkably vulnerable when there is a downturn in government contracts or the private market contracts. Foreign competitors such as China anchor their shipyards in tens of billions of mercantilist and predatory government subsidies every year. Unable to compete with such foreign subsidization, the American shipbuilding industry has lost 75,000 jobs — a decline of over 40 percent. For every shipbuilding job in America, three indirect jobs are supported. We have therefore allowed predatory foreign markets to steal approximately 300,000 good-paying American jobs — the population of St. Louis, Missouri. Our strategic and economic adversaries know the importance of shipbuilding. To understand the dangers, consider this: From 2010 to 2018, the Chinese Communist Party has provided over $130 billion in shipping and shipbuilding subsidies. Now, it controls the world's second-largest commercial fleet by gross tons, and constructs one-third of the world's ships. If Pax Americana is to continue, we must live up to the maxim of former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and 26th President Teddy Roosevelt: “A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace.” Restoring investment in shipbuilding will leave a wake of prosperity for our economic security and send waves of strength for our national security. Expansion in capacity and capabilities of our shipyards will again incentivize commercial shipbuilding, increasing industry efficiency and creating competition, eventually lowering the overall cost of production. This must be our policy goal. If we commit to a revitalization of our shipyards, in just a few years, scores of vessels could again make maiden voyages from American yards built at the hands of thousands of American steelworkers, pipefitters, welders and electricians — a renaissance of one of our nation's most integral industries. This would mean thousands of new jobs in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and throughout the Gulf Coast. This means secure waters around Greenland, the Bering Strait and the South China Sea as well as the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, Malacca and Hormuz. While the 296-ship fleet of the U.S. Navy is still the most powerful in the world, Communist China's People's Liberation Army Navy is now sailing approximately 350 warships and counting. Some estimates say Communist China's Navy could be as large as 450 ships by 2030 — and it's not just China that is a cause for concern. While the Chinese Communist Party militarizes the South China Sea, Russia — which will assume chairmanship of the Arctic Council in May 2021 — has been quietly rebuilding its Arctic fleet. This is a region that will be of critical importance in the years to come as northern shipping lanes open and natural resources make themselves available. As it stands now, the U.S. Navy can't effectively access these waters, as it lacks the ice-hardened warships to do so. Our shipbuilding industry was once a bulwark of American manufacturing, but decades of neglect, ambivalence to predatory foreign markets and sequestration have caused it to take on water. If we don't begin patching the holes now, it won't be just an industry that sinks. It may well be our economic and national security, as we will be unable to protect the world's sea lanes — the arteries of commerce and veins of national defense. While our enemies argue American manufacturing and might is on the decline, we repeat the battle cry of Capt. John Paul Jones: “I have not yet begun to fight!” Peter Navarro is the assistant to the president and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy within the White House. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/10/30/american-shipbuilding-an-anchor-for-economic-and-national-security/
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December 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Lockheed Makes $4.4B Bid to Buy Aerojet Rocketdyne
By: Sam LaGrone Lockheed Martin has made a $4.4 billion offer to acquire rocket engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne, the companies announced on Sunday. Speaking with investors on Monday, Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said the move to acquire the engine maker was rooted in the future growth of hypersonic weapons and missile defense systems the Pentagon is developing, as well as the growing space business. In the call, Taiclet and Lockheed CFO Ken Possenriede said the merger had the potential to improve the development of new missile and space systems by allowing engineers across both companies to work closer together. In naval programs, Aerojet supplies engines for the Navy's Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, Raytheon's Standard Missile-2, SM-3 and SM-6, and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. Aerojet is also developing a new propulsion system for the MK 54 lightweight torpedo. The company also supplies engines for Lockheed and Boeing's joint venture United Launch Alliance. Lockheed's space division is its third-largest business, accounting for 18 percent of the company's 2019 earnings, reported the Los Angeles Times. The merger, expected to close in the middle of next year, will have to clear regulators in the incoming Biden administration and is viewed by analysts as an early test of how the next White House will handle defense industry consolidation. https://news.usni.org/2020/12/21/lockheed-makes-4-4b-bid-to-buy-aerojet-rocketdyne