BAE Systems to supply assault amphibious vehicles to Taiwan

Sur le même sujet

• 

  6 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  US Air Force gets ready for decision on commercial aerial-refueling services

  By: Valerie Insinna ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force will know by the end of this month whether it will kick-start a competition for aerial-refueling services, the head of Air Mobility Command told Defense News. The service is in the final stages of a feasibility study that is evaluating whether the Air Force should buy commercial tanking services to support day-to-day needs for training and testing, said Gen. Maryanne Miller in an exclusive Feb. 28 interview. “The interest is high on the commercial side. The commercial companies who are considering this are really waiting to see the feasibility study, which will be completed in March,” she said. “The interest is high on the outside. I talked to a few vendors yesterday that was asking me when the study is going to be done. We're all waiting for that.” The study will help the Air Force determine whether it is cost-effective to use commercial aerial-refueling services as well as help set parameters on how a contract could be structured. However, Miller said, industry-operated tankers would not conduct combat or other overseas operations, and instead would be used exclusively for tasks in the continental United States such as augmenting training or for test and evaluation missions that AMC does not always have the capacity to fill. AMC believes its requirement will amount to about 6,000 hours per year, although the study could influence that number. Currently 14 companies have indicated interest in competing for the opportunity, she said. If the service decides to move forward with a competition, it believes it will be able to move from a contract award to an initial operating capability using a few aircraft in about a year, Miller said. “I love the idea. I hope the feasibility proves positive for us. That way we can get our requirements out there, we can start receiving proposals and then work that process as defined. We're optimistic,” she said. “That would be exciting to relieve some of the tension and stress on our force.” Getting Congress to agree to fund aerial-refueling services could be a hard sell, especially as the service considers paring back some of its own capacity. To free up funds for other priorities, the Air Force proposed retiring 16 KC-10s and 13 KC-135s in fiscal 2021. However, the idea has come under fire from U.S. Transportation Command — which has sought funds to buy back 23 of those tankers — as well as lawmakers who question whether the Air Force would be taking on too much near-term risk. But Miller contended that having the flexibility of commercial aerial-refueling services could relieve pressures on the military's own tankers, filling the gap for U.S. missions when there is high demand abroad. “It really just relieves and fills that market of the service missions we just don't get to today. Some of that is readiness-related,” she said. It also could have a positive impact for acquisition programs, as there will be more aerial-refueling resources available for test and evaluation, allowing test points to be completed more quickly and efficiently, and let the Air Force ensure it doesn't wear out its legacy KC-135s too quickly. “Having one more option is just really, really important.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/03/05/the-us-air-force-is-getting-ready-to-make-a-decision-about-commercial-aerial-refueling-services/

• 

  24 décembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  Russia, Ukraine exchange claims over downed military aircraft

• 

  6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Opinion: Why Interest On Federal Debt Matters For Defense

  Byron Callan June 30, 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic has stoked consternation that U.S. defense spending is going to be significantly pressured in the 2020s. Congress will likely stick to the $740.5 billion defense discretionary top line agreed to in last year's budget deal for fiscal 2021. But the combination of trillions more in federal debt from higher spending and lower tax receipts this year and next and the probability that there will be future federal spending to better prepare for pandemics raise a higher probability of defense spending pressure. “Flat” was already the new “up,” but “flat” now may be a budget that does not keep pace with annual inflation. The fears may be that defense spending will decline in the 2020s after a couple of good years of largesse from Congress and the White House. Despite trillions in additional deficits and federal borrowing in 2020-21, there is one bright spot that indicates less dire defense spending pressures than now perceived—the interest on the federal debt. U.S. federal debt is comprised of debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt, which is owned by different federal trust funds, the largest of which is Social Security. As of May, total debt held by the public was $19.8 trillion, and intragovernmental debt was another $6 trillion. Often, these two sums are lumped together, but they should be treated separately. The interest paid on debt held by the public is dispersed by the Treasury in the form of outlays to the owners of that debt. The interest paid on intragovernmental debt is, in essence, interest the federal government pays itself. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in its annual projections of outlays, breaks out these two components of interest outlays to show net interest outlays. This is mandatory spending, and so it has been paid along with the other mandatory and discretionary funding the U.S. federal government provides. One of the silver linings of the pandemic has been the Federal Reserve's aggressive lowering of interest rates. This makes federal debt more affordable, much in the way that a lower interest rate on a home mortgage can make a place to live more affordable. The OMB projections released in February showed net interest outlays of $378 billion for fiscal 2021 rising to $665 billion by 2030. One could take issue with the deficit projections behind these outlay projects, as they may have rested on GDP growth expectations that were too optimistic and nondefense spending cuts that were not going to be realized. However, dividing interest outlays on debt held by the public by debt projections implied an interest rate of 3% or more over the forecast period. The pandemic has trashed those rate projections. Federal debt held by the public is offered in different maturities. Treasury bills, which mature in a year or less as of May, were 23% of the total debt held by the public. Treasury notes that mature in 1-10 years were 51%, and bonds that mature in 10-30 years were 12%. (There is another 10% of other Treasury instruments.) Rates now are much lower, although clearly that would only matter for new debt that is issued by the Treasury. The rate on a 90-day Treasury bill is currently 0.13%. On a five-year note, it is 0.33%, and on the 10-year note, 0.69%. The 30-year note rate is 1.4%. This implies that interest outlay projections should be declining, although new projections may have to wait until the White House releases its 2022 fiscal budget request and out-year projections, presumably in February-March 2021. Net interest outlays could be at least $100 billion less in 2022-23 than the February 2020 projections on higher debt but lower rates. In the scheme of total federal outlays, which the OMB projected to be $4.8 trillion for 2021, $100 billion is not a lot, but it indicates there is a bit more headroom for defense spending and other nondefense discretionary spending than a focus on federal debt alone might suggest. Federal infrastructure spending could be one area of more traction in the 2020s, and the issue of social justice may also spur more demand for federal resources. One outcome of the pandemic, however, will be to make defense expectations more sensitive to interest rate expectations. It is not too difficult to project scenarios with rising debt and interest rates that increase to more “normal” levels. The pandemic also underscores that the unthinkable should be given a bit more room on long-term projections. It is quite conceivable that a major military conflict, a massive natural disaster or another economic contraction could further add to federal debt in the 2020s. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/opinion-why-interest-federal-debt-matters-defense