U.S. Navy's newest air-to-air missile could tilt balance in South China Sea

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  November 8, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Cracks emerging in European defence as NATO faces ‘brain death’, Macron warns

  MICHELLE ZILIO ADRIAN MORROWU.S. CORRESPONDENT French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that NATO faces “brain death” because the United States can no longer be counted on to co-operate with the other members of the military and political alliance. In an interview published on Thursday, Mr. Macron said what “we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” citing concerns about the lack of co-ordinated strategic decision-making between the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Speaking more generally about the future of Europe, Mr. Macron said the continent needs to “wake up” to the shift in U.S. foreign policy toward isolationism and the global balance of power, with the rise of China and re-emergence of authoritarian powers such as Russia and Turkey. Mr. Macron said Europe is at risk of disappearing geopolitically and losing “control of our destiny” if it fails to face this reality. U.S. President Donald Trump has condemned NATO as outdated, and complained publicly that the United States contributes the most to its defence operations, while other allies, including Canada, fail to boost their military spending. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was visiting Germany on Thursday for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, hailed NATO's importance in uniting democratic countries to win the Cold War. But at a press conference with his German counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Heiko Maas, he repeated Mr. Trump's demand that other members contribute more to the alliance. He said he was glad to see German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer's commitment earlier in the day to bring German defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2031. “It is an absolute imperative that every country participate and join in and contribute appropriately to achieving that shared security mission,” Mr. Pompeo said. NATO is an alliance of 29 countries from Europe and North America for mutual defence, fighting terrorism and helping manage crises around the world. Its members contribute to its operations mainly by participating in its missions. Members pledged in 2014 to increase their military spending to 2 per cent of GDP by 2024. U.S. military spending was 3.2 per cent of GDP in 2018, according to the World Bank. Canada has no clear plan to reach 2 per cent in the next decade. In a statement, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan's office said Canada's total defence spending is expected to reach 1.48 per cent of GDP by 2024. However, spokesperson Todd Lane said the government plans to exceed another NATO target, 20 per cent of defence spending on major equipment. Mr. Maas, the German foreign affairs minister, dismissed Mr. Macron's comments. “I do not believe NATO is brain-dead,” he said. “The challenges should not be downplayed in their importance, those that we are facing, but we have an interest in the unity of NATO and its ability to take action.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday in Berlin, also rejected Mr. Macron's “drastic words.” “That is not my view of co-operation in NATO,” she said at a news conference. “I don't think that such sweeping judgments are necessary, even if we have problems and need to pull together.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that NATO continues to play an important role on the world stage. He pointed to Canada's leadership of the NATO training mission in Iraq and its involvement in a mission in Latvia as examples of where the alliance is still valuable. “I think NATO continues to hold an extremely important role, not just in the North Atlantic, but in the world as a group of countries that come together to share values, that share a commitment to shared security,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. Fen Hampson, an international affairs expert at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, said Mr. Macron made a fair point about NATO's problems, but said use of the term “brain death" was a bit hyperbolic. “This [NATO] is a corpse that perhaps has a beating heart in terms of the intergovernmental machinery, but in terms of its political leadership and political commitment ... I think he is on the mark there,” Prof. Hampson said. In the wide-ranging foreign policy interview with The Economist, Mr. Macron also questioned the effectiveness of NATO's Article Five, which says that if one member is attacked, all others will come to its aid. The collective defence article is meant as a deterrent. Mr. Macron said NATO “only works if the guarantor of last resort functions as such,” adding that there is reason to reassess the alliance in light of the U.S. actions. He pointed to the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria last month, abandoning Kurdish allies. The move made way for Turkey to invade and attack the Kurds, whom Turkey has long seen as terrorists. Mr. Macron expressed concern about whether NATO would respect Article Five and back Turkey, a member, if Syria launched a retaliatory attack. “If the [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad regime decides to retaliate against Turkey, will we commit ourselves under it? It's a crucial question,” Mr. Macron said. David Perry, vice-president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said that while Mr. Trump's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria sent a troubling signal to allies, it would be much more difficult for him to bypass the U.S. national security community, which widely supports NATO, to make drastic changes to his county's involvement in the alliance. “NATO is different in the order of importance than the American relationship was with the Kurds. Because of that there's enough of the national security establishment built in and around Trump that would safeguard the U.S. role in the alliance to prevent anything catastrophic from happening," Mr. Perry said. Roland Paris, a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa and former foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trudeau, said Mr. Macron is right about the need for Europeans to work together more effectively, but said calling NATO's Article Five into question is a “dangerous and irresponsible way to do so.” https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-says-nato-is-still-important-despite-macrons-warning-of/

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  February 13, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Pentagon seeks to cut F-35s, other equipment to pay for Trump’s border wall

  By: Aaron Mehta , Valerie Insinna , David B. Larter , and Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is seeking to divert $3.8 billion, largely from its fiscal 2020 weapons procurement budget, in order to fund President Donald Trump's border wall, according to a reprogramming request to congress obtained by Defense News. Among the victims of the cuts: a mass of aircraft purchases including F-35 joint strike fighters, C-130J cargo aircraft, MQ-9 Reaper drones and P-8 maritime surveillance planes, as well as ground vehicles and naval priorities. Overall, the plan would shift $2.202 billion in FY20 defense appropriations and $1.629 billion in FY20 Overseas Contingency Operations funding towards the wall, a key priority from president Donald Trump ahead of the November presidential elections. Air Force and Navy aviation spending takes the brunt of the cuts proposed by the Pentagon, with aircraft procurement going down by $558 million for Navy and Marine Corps and $861 million for the Air Force. Importantly, all of the funding decreases target items that were specifically added by Congress during the budgeting process, which could incur rancor from lawmakers. For the Navy, the Pentagon would cut two of the six F-35B short takeoff and landing aircraft added to the FY20 budget by Congress and two MV-22 Ospreys, stating that “current funding is more than sufficient to keep the production line open.” It also seeks to eliminate funding for one of the nine P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft funded in FY20, stating that the additional aircraft is “[in] excess to the 117 aircraft required.” In the Air Force's budget, the Pentagon slashed funding for the four of the eight C-130Js added by Congress for the reserve and Air National Guard. The department stated that funding for those planes can be rescheduled to fiscal year 2021, when the period of performance for the associated contract starts. The request would eliminate eight MQ-9 Reaper drones, culling most of the funding added by Congress for an increase of 12 MQ-9s. “The program is currently undergoing a strategic review,” the department stated in written justification, referring to an ongoing debate within the Air Force about how many Reapers to buy and retain over the next decade. “Procurement, if necessary, can be rescheduled to a later fiscal year.” Combatant commanders have consistently said they need more surveillance assets around the globe. It also strips $156 million for advanced procurement for the F-35A and removes $180 million for light attack aircraft for the Air Force, which the service has decided against procuring but has been widely supported by lawmakers as a low-cost alternative for the counter-terrorism fight. The Army would stand to lose $100 million in funding for national guard Humvee modernization and $194.5 million in Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck funding. However, with the Humvee set to be replaced by JLTV, the Army is unlikely to be heavily impacted by these funds being shifted around. The reprogramming request also cuts $650 million in advanced procurement funding for an America-class Amphibious Assault Ship, LHA-9, which is being built in Mississippi at Ingalls Shipbuilding. On its website, Huntington Ingalls Industries says the advanced funding provided by Congress, “enables a hot production line and a supplier base of 457 companies in 39 states to build this powerful warship.” The reprogramming also cuts funding one expeditionary fast transport ship, which is built in Alabama at Austal USA, which has been an area of interest for the powerful Republican Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby. The ship was deemed “excess to current programmatic need,” the reprogramming document says. “The procurement exceeds the program-of-record requirement,” the document reads. “This is a congressional special interest item.” In addition, the national guard and reserves would lose about $1.3 billion in what the reprograming request describes as unnecessary funding, given historic underexecution of prior year funds. A spokesman for the Pentagon declined to comment. Last year, the defense department had budgets, largely for military construction projects, diverted into funding a stretch of the wall project. Those projects cut included the rebuilding of several DoD schools both in the U.S. and abroad, special operations training centers in Europe and Hurricane Maria relief for Puerto Rico National Guard facilities. Overall, more than 100 projects had funding delayed. Asked on Tuesday about a potential reprograming of defense funds to pay for the wall, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said “We did receive the request from DHS, that's all I'll say right now. We're working our way through the process, we're doing all those things we need to do. So when we're ready to make an announcement, we'll make an announcement.” Word that the Pentagon may once again be raided to pay for the wall came in mid-January, and at the time seemed to catch Republican supporters in Congress off-guard. “I wish they wouldn't take [wall funding] out of defense. I want to build the wall, I supported direct appropriations for it and fought for it — but we have to evaluate what this does to the military, what it affects, where and how,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Richard Shelby, R-Ala, at the time. But he added that nobody should be surprised the administration repeated the tactic, after it worked last year. https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/02/13/pentagon-seeks-to-cut-f-35s-other-equipment-to-pay-for-trumps-border-wall

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  August 18, 2020 | International, Naval

  Top US Navy chief talks connecting tech, recovering from accidents

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy is on the brink of what could be a major shift in how it operates, but first the service's top officer wants a plan to both field technologies that have been lagging for years and develop a path forward to add new unmanned tech to the mainstream fleet. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday took on his latest role in August 2019 and has since been vocal about not just the need to field new tech, but also figuring out how it all fits together. In an exclusive July 16 interview with Defense News, the CNO talked about developing and executing his plans, as well as what it will take for the Navy to recover from a series of high-profile accidents and scandals. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Congress has been asking how the Navy plans to integrate unmanned surface vessels, and whether the service is prematurely committing to them. We've got a family of unmanned systems we're working on. Undersea, we've got extra-large, large and medium unmanned underwater vehicles; on the surface we have small, medium and large unmanned surface vessels; and in the air we have a number of programs. What I've asked the N9 [warfare systems directorate] to do is come to me with a campaign plan that ties all those together with objectives at the end. I've got a bunch of horses in the race, but at some point I have to put my money down on the thoroughbred that's going to take me across the finish line so I can make an investment in a platform I have high confidence in and that I can scale. What I've found is that we didn't necessarily have the rigor that's required across a number of programs that would bring those together in a way that's driven toward objectives with milestones. If you took a look at [all the programs], where are there similarities and where are there differences? Where am I making progress in meeting conditions and meeting milestones that we can leverage in other experiments? At what point do I reach a decision point where I drop a program and double down on a program that I can accelerate? Observers have questioned whether the Navy has a concrete idea of what it wants these unmanned surface vessels to do. What's the progress on that front? The concept of operations that the fleet is working on right now will be delivered in the fall, and that talks conceptually about how we intend to employ unmanned in distributed maritime operations. The other piece of this is, what would a day-to-day laydown look like of unmanned forward? The Navy has got to be forward: For obvious reasons we don't want the fight back here; the Navy exists to operate forward. That's where we need to be in numbers. And with unmanned, if you are not there at the right time, you are irrelevant. There has to be a number of unmanned [systems] forward. I can't just decide to rally unmanned out of San Diego or in the Pacific northwest at a time when they'll be too late to need. You've talked about a “Manhattan Project” to get a reliable network to deploy overseas that can bind together all these new platforms. Where are you with that? That's a critical piece of this, and a really important point of discussion with respect to unmanned, whether that's in the air, on the sea or under the sea, is the Navy Tactical Grid. Coming into the job, the projections for the Navy Tactical Grid was for delivery in about 2035. I knew that was way, way too late. We're investing in netted weapons, netted platforms, netted headquarters — but we don't have a net. So, on a handshake with [then-Air Force Chief of Staff] Gen. [David] Goldfein, I said: “Look, I am all in, and my vision is that the Navy Tactical Grid would be the naval plug into JADC2 [Joint All-Domain Command and Control].” So the Navy Tactical Grid is a very critical piece of the unmanned campaign plan because it becomes the main artery for controlling all those unmanned platforms. Without it, I have a bunch of unmanned that I shouldn't be building because I can't control it very well. I need to put a team of the best subject matter experts that I have on the Navy Tactical Grid to deliver it here within the next few years. As part of its mark on the National Defense Authorization Act, both the House and the Senate made moves to slow down the development of the large unmanned surface vessel. They cited technical glitches with the Littoral Combat Ship program and the Ford class that have resulted in delays. Do you have concerns about slowing down that development, or is there merit to taking a slower, more iterative approach to fielding technologies? First of all, I actually agree with Congress on this. It is frustrating when you get marks on “large unmanned surface vessel” because they are concerned with the command and control of the missile systems that we could potentially put on those platforms or other systems. I go back to the campaign plan: The approach has to be deliberate. We have to make sure that the systems that are on those unmanned systems with respect to the [hull, mechanical and electrical system], that they are designed to requirement, and perform to requirement. And most importantly, are those requirements sound? I go back to: Do I really need a littoral combat ship to go 40 knots? That's going to drive the entire design of the ship, not just the engineering plant but how it's built. That becomes a critical factor. So if you take your eye off the ball with respect to requirements, you can find yourself drifting. That has to be deliberate. With respect to the systems we are putting on unmanned vessels, I'd say we absolutely learned from LCS and Ford; those have to be proven systems that are prototyped and land-based tested before we start doubling down and going into production. The littoral combat ships are quickly coming off the lines. Is the Navy prepared for them? There are things in the near term that I have to deliver, that I'm putting heat on now, and one of them is LCS. One part is sustainability and reliability. We know enough about that platform and the problems that we have that plague us with regard to reliability and sustainability, and I need them resolved. That requires a campaign plan to get after it and have it reviewed by me frequently enough so that I can be sighted on it. Those platforms have been around since 2008 — we need to get on with it. We've done five deployments since I've been on the job, we're going to ramp that up two and a half times over the next couple of years, but we have got to get after it. LCS for me is something, on my watch, I've got to get right. I also have to deliver both the mine and anti-submarine warfare modules. These ships are probably going to [start going] away in the mid-2030s if the [future frigate] FFG(X) build goes as planned. But I need to wring as much as I can out of those ships as quickly as I can. Have you seen any significant successes with the ship? I do think we have it about right with manning. We were honest with ourselves that the original design wasn't going to do it. I really like the blue-and-gold construct because I get way more [operational availability] than I would with just the single crew. So I can get these ships out there in numbers doing the low-end stuff in, let's say, 4th Fleet where I wouldn't need a DDG [destroyer]. The Navy deployed the LCS Detroit to South America — the 4th Fleet area of operations — last year on a counternarcotics mission, and it returned earlier this month. Those are the kinds of missions for which the LCS is perfectly suited. I can deploy these things with a [law enforcement detachment] and a signals intelligence capability, and I can do that on LCS with carry-on gear. It's the right kind of platform for that. Also in 5th Fleet, those maritime security missions that we were heavily sighted on in the late 1990s and early 2000s: They still exist, I'd just prefer to do them with an LCS instead of a DDG if I can. What other programs have caught your attention? In unmanned, whether it's the MQ-4C Triton [long-range surveillance drone] or the MQ-25 Stingray [carrier-based tanker drone], I've got to put heat on those. We have to get them out there in numbers, operating with a high level of confidence, so we can leverage what we learn across the rest of the unmanned build. In the wake of the Fat Leonard bribery scandal, the fatal accidents in 2017 and now the most recent fire onboard the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, there are questions about systemic issues in the Navy. What are your thoughts about that? The Pentagon and Washington, D.C., drives you to focus on things. One of things [the late Air Force Col.] John Boyd talked about was that the priorities, even in a highly technical world, need to be on people, ideas and machines in that order. The issues we've faced in the Navy over the past few years all come back to people. They all come back to culture. If I draw it to Fat Leonard or to the 2017 Comprehensive Review or the review we did with the SEALs, most of that is cultural. Ninety-five percent of it is people-focused. It really comes down to leadership. That is not lost on me. It is easy in this building not to pay attention to it, but it is on my mind, and at the fleet commander level those are the things we talk most about: people, training, attitude. It's premature to judge the outcome of the investigation into Bonhomme Richard, but what questions do you have as you look at the scale of that disaster? This is a very, very serious incident that I think will force the Navy to stand back and reevaluate itself. We've got to follow the facts. We've got to be honest with ourselves and we've got to get after it. My intention, once the investigations are done, is to make this available for the public to debate, including what we need to do to get after any systemic problems that we might have. But one of things I did on the Sunday [after the fire broke out] was I read the report of the Miami fire back in 2012. That was the last mass conflagration in a shipyard environment that we had. There were a number of recommendations coming out of that incident. One of the questions I have is: Did we fully and adequately implement those recommendations? Because that fire was probably the most recent similar mass conflagration we've had. We learned from that. When we completed the investigation, did we just leave it in the rearview mirror, or did we — no kidding — take it seriously? https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/08/17/top-us-navy-chief-talks-connecting-tech-recovering-from-accidents/