Hornet Math by DEW Line

Over at the DEW Line, Stephen Trimble is discussing the $5.3 billion contract for more Super Hornets for the Navy.

I researched Boeing's press releases to find out how much the Super Hornet's price has changed over the last decade. Even as the company introduced the Block II Super Hornet/Growler with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, the price has steadily declined. Keep in mind these figures don't include 'actuals' -- Congressional plus-ups make true cost comparisons impossible. But the trend is clear.

• MYP 1 (June 2000) -- orders 222 aircraft for $8.9 billion, or $40.09 million per copy. Adjusted for inflation based on consumer price index: $49.45 million (2009 dollars)
• MYP 2 (December 2003) -- orders 210 aircraft for $8.6 billion, or $40.95 million per copy. Adjusted for inflation based on consumer price index: $47.65 million (2009 $), a 7.6% decrease
• MYP 3 (September 2010) -- orders 124 aircraft for $5.3 billion, or $42.72 million per copy, a 10.4% decline compared to MYP-2 and 13.6% decline compared to MYP-1

* Boeing MYP contracts exclude government furnished equipment, which includes engines

You don't want to pick up Stephen's math and run with it, because if you do, you'll realize the Navy could replace every Hornet in inventory with a Block II, add an extra squadron of Block IIs to all 11 carrier air wings, add an 11th Carrier Air Wing, and still save money by sticking with SHs and choosing not to buy the Joint Strike Fighter.

Is the Joint Strike Fighter really worth all the extra money? It better be, but I remain unconvinced. It is clear the low number from Boeing explains the large order of 124, compared to the original estimates of ~70 a few years ago.

Speaking of USCGC Escanaba (WMEC 907)

There appears to be some interest in story I wrote regarding the gunfight by the crew of the USCGC Escanaba (WMEC 907) with some smugglers a few weeks ago. Well, if you want to know the story of the USCGC Escanaba (WMEC 907), follow the blog of the USCGC Escanaba (WMEC 907).

More on the gunfight here. More here.

Interesting Links of Interest

I may pick up some of these topics later, or other authors may want to chime in, but I want to briefly mention a few news items from earlier this week:

1) Somali Navy Plans Action Against Piracy - the Somali Navy thinks they are ready to make a difference. Things are not going well in Somalia though, with many rumors that the AU no longer believes they are fighting for the winning side. Lets face it, the TFG is a failure, but lucky for them there isn't a plan B.

2) Who Attacked al-Shabab? The Rebel Leader Speaks - No one seems to know which country made a helicopter attack on al-Shabab. Normally I would be tempted to say it was us, but I honestly don't think it was governments of either the US or the Europeans this time. All indications are the attack was conducted by a single helicopter that fired unguided rockets that missed the intended target. Well, to me that sounds like mercenary work.

If I was making an educated guess, I would highlight that we have pictures of a meeting earlier this month that includes officials of the TFG and the owner of a private security company, followed not long after by an attack from a single helicopter using ammunition less sophisticated than what would normally be used by the naval forces offshore. If you want to know who is flying helicopters over Somalia attacking al-Shabab on behalf of the TFG, then ask Michele Lynn Ballarin. You think I highlight strange events in Somalia for no reason? Come on, you've been reading the blog long enough to know better - I've been expecting this type of thing.

3) Keeping the Pacific Pacific: The Looming U.S.-Chinese Naval Rivalry - when Seth Cropsey speaks, I take notes. Follows the Kaplan article from Sunday. Is it time for the United States to begin discussing the next step beyond regional partnership and naval exercises in how to manage the PLA Navy growth in the Pacific? My answer is no for two reasons:

First, the US Navy is too guarded on the information of PLA Navy developments. China's lack of transparency is a serious problem that prohibits any outside observer, specifically the American people and anyone without a security clearance from getting good information on PLA Navy development until folks like Feng post pictures. Second, the DoD has all their eggs in the "land war in Asia" basket, not "the AirSea Battle doctrine to hedge PLA Navy growth" basket. Until the DoD is willing to give better information outside random Congressional testimony and an annual report on the PLA, and actually has a plan - I say the time is not right.

4) Read this list as a reminder where we are right now. I follow these lists to insure I balance my perspectives.

5) Strategic Defence and Security Review: Britain faces impossible choices in an uncertain world - What a load of crap. Britain has plenty of money. I am tired of listening to a nation with the worlds 6th largest economy complain they don't have enough money for defense. Britain's problem isn't money; it is leadership and priorities. No worries, the US has a similar problem with the only exception being our nations wealth hasn't led to a drop in defense... yet.

6) "Deadliest Catch" stars quit Discovery show - oh yeah... this is important stuff. I watch almost no TV, but among the few shows I program on the DVR is Deadliest Catch. This will almost certainly leave me with little reason to watch Deadliest Catch, so Whale Wars and Top Chef will become my only non-sports TV viewing for awhile. I'm probably better for it.

7) The Importance of Understanding Wikileaks - Matt Armstrong is all over this topic, and by the third paragraph you'll see why this article is important. See also this CRS Report (PDF) on the topic.

8) Defining the Marine Corps’ Strategic Concept - Fabius Maximus is trending towards becoming a Marine Corps advocacy blog with G. I. Wilson and H. Thomas Hayden now contributing - and I love FM for it. This article is an important contribution.

On Propaganda Wars

This video appears to originate from MEK (but credit IranNTV). MEK is still listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. Regardless, this video is a classic use of social media for propaganda purposes.

Very clever stuff if you ask me. This kind of stuff is blocked in Iran though.

Six Hundred Kilobytes of War 2.0

The first cyber smart bomb has been delivered, and researchers are still trying to figure out who did it, and even what the target was. Stuxnet may be getting lots of attention in the news over the last week, but what is most interesting about this cyber smart bomb is that the payload expected to finish the job by January 2010 - meaning whatever got hit was hit months ago.

I rarely get the opportunity to discuss cyber security on the blog - contractually I must get approval to blog such discussions. In most cases I simply ignore the topic and let someone else do it better than I anyway, but in the case of Stuxnet we cannot ignore what has happened on ID.

For technical professionals I encourage you to monitor Symantec for updates and revelations regarding Stuxnet. I personally hope that Liam O'Murchu publishes his paper on the worm for public consumption while responsibly withholding certain details. Stuxnet is a game changer for cyber warfare for many reasons, but one reason we must not ignore is that Stuxnet represents the first seriously dangerous piece of malware to be openly disseminated and discussed in the context of a state level cyber smart bomb.

For those who want to be caught up to speed, here is a brief recap.

The Stuxnet worm is a "groundbreaking" piece of malware so devious in its use of unpatched vulnerabilities, so sophisticated in its multipronged approach, that the security researchers who tore it apart believe it may be the work of state-backed professionals.

"It's amazing, really, the resources that went into this worm," said Liam O Murchu, manager of operations with Symantec's security response team.

"I'd call it groundbreaking," said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky Lab. In comparison, other notable attacks, like the one dubbed Aurora that hacked Google's network and those of dozens of other major companies, were child's play.

As the New Scientist notes, Stuxnet is unlike anything seen before.

Computer viruses, worms and trojans have until now mainly infected PCs or the servers that keep e-businesses running. They may delete key system files or documents, or perhaps prevent website access, but they do not threaten life and limb.

The Stuxnet worm is different. It is the first piece of malware so far able to break into the types of computer that control machinery at the heart of industry, allowing an attacker to assume control of critical systems like pumps, motors, alarms and valves in an industrial plant.

In the worst case scenarios, safety systems could be switched off at a nuclear power plant; fresh water contaminated with effluent at a sewage treatment plant, or the valves in an oil pipeline opened, contaminating the land or sea.

"Giving an attacker control of industrial systems like a dam, a sewage plant or a power station is extremely unusual and makes this a serious threat with huge real world implications," says Patrick Fitzgerald, senior threat intelligence officer with Symantec. "It has changed everything."

Stuxnet was written with a specific target in mind, but it is still unclear what that target was. As recently as Wednesday night Forbes began to speculate that the target was India's INSAT 4B satellite which apparently went offline due to a system glitch on July 7, 2010. Forbes speculates that the virus could have been written by the Chinese to disable the satellite to force SunDirect to order its servicemen "to redirect customer satellite dishes to point to ASIASAT-5, a Chinese satellite owned and operated by Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co., Ltd (AsiaSat)."

That follows speculation from an article in the Christian Science Monitor (and to some degree the German newspaper FAZ) that the target was the Iranian Bushehr reactor, which leads to the natural suggestion that the Israeli's developed the malware. The bottom line on Stuxnet is we have a serious cyber warfare capability that was unleashed on a target that needs to be examined.

Professional Grade War 2.0

As Symantec notes, there are no less than 4 zero day Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities that Stuxnet is able to seamlessly exploit, although apparently one of the vulnerabilities had been known about since 2009, even though Microsoft failed to provide a patch until a few weeks ago. A zero day vulnerability packaged within malicious malware is a serious problem, but four never heard of, demonstrated, or identified vulnerabilities in a single package? It is unprecidented.

Stuxnet also introduces something that will no doubt have Siemens stockholders a bit nervous - a rootkit for Industrial control. Symantec explains the danger:

Previously, we reported that Stuxnet can steal code and design projects and also hide itself using a classic Windows rootkit, but unfortunately it can also do much more. Stuxnet has the ability to take advantage of the programming software to also upload its own code to the PLC in an industrial control system that is typically monitored by SCADA systems. In addition, Stuxnet then hides these code blocks, so when a programmer using an infected machine tries to view all of the code blocks on a PLC, they will not see the code injected by Stuxnet. Thus, Stuxnet isn’t just a rootkit that hides itself on Windows, but is the first publicly known rootkit that is able to hide injected code located on a PLC.

In particular, Stuxnet hooks the programming software, which means that when someone uses the software to view code blocks on the PLC, the injected blocks are nowhere to be found. This is done by hooking enumeration, read, and write functions so that you can’t accidentally overwrite the hidden blocks as well.

Stuxnet contains 70 encrypted code blocks that appear to replace some “foundation routines” that take care of simple yet very common tasks, such as comparing file times and others that are custom code and data blocks. Before some of these blocks are uploaded to the PLC, they are customized depending on the PLC.

By writing code to the PLC, Stuxnet can potentially control or alter how the system operates. A previous historic example includes a reported case of stolen code that impacted a pipeline. Code was secretly “Trojanized” to function properly and only some time after installation instruct the host system to increase the pipeline's pressure beyond its capacity. This resulted in a three kiloton explosion, about 1/5 the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

For those who are getting lost in the technical jargon, lets ponder a few non-technical observations.

I have a hard time believing a single person could identify the 4 zero day vulnerabilities - which is what suggests this was a team of researchers working collaboratively in developing working exploitations. The skill sets involved in the zero day windows vulnerabilities are completely different than the skill sets involved in developing a rootkit for industrial hardware devices - which means not only is this team highly trained, but is additionally broadly diverse in skill sets. It has been suggested there is a Siemens association that cannot be ignored, and while probably true, as the New York Times reports Stuxnet also "masked their attack with the aid of sensitive intellectual property stolen from two hardware companies, Realtek and JMicron, which are located in the same office park in Taiwan."

It is clear Stuxnet underwent considerable Quality Assurance during testing to develop code that can not only meticulously exploit 4 zero day vulnerabilities in multiple Windows operating systems without being noticed, but also in order to develop a rootkit for industrial hardware - one is going to require a fairly significant testing environment that consists of the kind of industrial hardware you will not easily store in some hackers basement. That means there is a multi-million dollar industrial site somewhere on the planet that was used to develop this code.

When you factor in that Stuxnet executes in a way that nothing crashes, offers no outward signs of infection, and the final payload is specific parameter and code manipulation for specific SPS computer within an expected environment - making Stuxnet a target specific attack - it is hard to look anywhere else except at the government level for such a meticulous and well funded development.

Speculating the WhoDoneIt

Of all the analysis I have seen, this one makes the most sense to me - and for those who want to know more, this link is a fantastic read that could form the basis for the Stuxnet movie one day:

But there is another theory that fits the available date much better: stuxnet may have been targeted at the centrifuges at the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. The chain of published indications supporting the theory starts with stuxnet itself. According to people working on the stuxnet-analysis, it was meant to stop spreading in January 2009. Given the multi-stage nature of stuxnet, the attacker must have assumed that it has reached its target by then, ready to strike.

On July 17, 2024 WikiLeaks posted a cryptic notice:

Two weeks ago, a source associated with Iran’s nuclear program confidentially told WikiLeaks of a serious, recent, nuclear accident at Natanz. Natanz is the primary location of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. WikiLeaks had reason to believe the source was credible however contact with this source was lost. WikiLeaks would not normally mention such an incident without additional confirmation, however according to Iranian media and the BBC, today the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, has resigned under mysterious circumstances. According to these reports, the resignation was tendered around 20 days ago.

A cross-check with the official Iran Students News Agency archives confirmed the resignation of the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

According to official IAEA data, the number of actually operating centrifuges in Natanz shrank around the time of the accident Wikileaks wrote about was reduced substantially.

On 07. July 2009 the Israeli news-site ynet-news.com posted a lengthy piece on possibly cyberwar against the Iran nuclear program. Intriguingly, even contaminated USB-Sticks were mentioned. In retrospect, the piece sounds like an indirect announcement of a covert victory to allies and enemies.

That there are serious anti-proliferation efforts by all available means undertaken by western intelligence is not in doubt. .

There is further indication in the way stuxnet is actually working on the SPS-level. The current state of analysis seems to support the assumption, that the attack was meant to work synchronized and spread over many identical nodes. In a nuclear power plant, there are not many identical SPS-nodes, as there is a wide variety of subsystems of different kind. Compared to this, an enrichment centrifuge plant consists of thousands of identical units, arranged in serial patterns called cascades. Each of them is by necessity the same, as enrichment centrifuges are massively scaled by numbers. stuxnet would have infected each and every one, then triggering subtle of massive failures, depending on the choice of the attacker. To get an impression how the Natanz facility looks from the inside, Iranian President Ahamadinendjad has visited the place in April 2008.

So in summary, my guess is that stuxnet has been targeted at Natanz and that it achieved success in reducing the operational enrichment capability successfully.

Best theory I have seen so far, although one hopes there is some identification within stuxnet that will eventually reveal the target for sure. Given the malware is a 600kb package that is masterfully put together, there are probably clues within that will send researchers on multiple wild goose chases the wrong direction. I can't imagine that the malware was masterfully put together only to forget to leave plenty of misdirections within the code to insure the original authors are never identified.

Ramifications for the US Navy

Stuxnet is six hundred kilobytes of War 2.0 engineered to a weapons grade level of capability with no observable side effects and a massively destructive payload intended for a specific target. It is also a publicly available powerful piece of code that will be reverse engineered by the cyber community of the world - the ramifications of which can only be speculated.

Navy warships and aircraft depend on the type of industrial machinery at the heart of the Stuxnet payload - thus Stuxnet represents exactly the kind of cyber capabilities that could potentially be developed to target and disable naval vessels at sea during wartime. The US Navy has begun developing open architecture standards to steamline technologies in all aspects of technical specifications, and it is at these points in the standard architecture system that must be protected as the points of attack by malware like Stuxnet.

Special consideration must be integrated into the security of terminals that monitor the hardware of ships systems, particularly as the fleet becomes more reliant on specific engineered systems like the GE LM2500 turbines, or any of the various engineering and information systems that run ships. While AEGIS no doubt already has security considerations built-in, smart cyber payloads against naval vessels will most likely target engineering and power systems to exploit multiple points of failure within the infrastructure of a warship where security is harder to centralize rather than directly attacking the highly secured and protected computer systems. If French naval aircraft can be grounded by the "Conflicker" virus, then what happens when the enemy develops malware that specifically targets the temperature gauges of the Joint Strike Fighter? Things can go bad real fast if the engine is overheating in mid-flight and the pilot doesn't know it during a war sortie.

Welcome to the future of warfare, where simply planting doubt in the reliability of a system due to a cyberwarfare based malware payload infection is enough to achieve a mission kill against an enemy system.

Peacemaking: The High Seas Gunfight

In the missile age, it is noteworthy that with the exception of a single torpedo attack - we continue to see a series of gunfights of various natures define military combat at sea. Navy Times reported yesterday that just two weeks ago, the US Coast Guard engaged in one such firefight.

A boarding team from the medium endurance cutter Escanaba got in a shootout with suspected drug smugglers while attempting to board a vessel in international waters near the coast of Nicaragua Sept. 14, the service said in a statement.

The Coast Guardsmen were perusing a go-fast vessel in Escanaba’s over-the-horizon small boat and were closing in when the suspects began shooting at the team. The Escanaba’s crew members immediately returned fire while the coxswain began evasive maneuvering and continued the chase, according to the Coast Guard statement.

The suspected smugglers then entered Nicaraguan waters, and the boarding team lost contact with them.

The USCGC Escanaba (WMEC 907) seized 963 pounds of cocaine that was jettisoned from a vessel 21 miles south of Providencia, Colombia on Sept. 17, 2010 - just three days after this incident. In that incident, the suspects beached their vessel and fled on foot, evading capture.

There is a huge human centric training discussion in the action described by Navy Times that I am skipping - not because I don't recognize it exists, rather because I think the US Coast Guard actions in this case once again verifies my belief that our people are well trained to react to this situation appropriately.

But the question is do we equip them right? My favorite piece of the often maligned Deepwater Program isn't any of the aircraft or cutter programs, rather the Coast Guard's Long Range Interceptor & Short Range Prosecutor programs. I have no information regarding the specific equipment the Coast Guard is purchasing as part of these programs, but at the conceptual level I appreciate the value the Coast Guard is placing on these systems - and in my opinion, the Navy does not have a good reason not to be making a similar focus on small deployable manned boats.

It is important to note the nature of operations has not changed - but what has changed is the frequency in which maritime security operations is putting small boats of navy and coast guard personnel in close proximity to small boats with armed men. For example, yesterday it appears that Turkey became the latest nation to position their warships right off the coast of some piracy port in Somalia to intercept pirates as they departed for the sea. That operation looks very similar to what the FSD De Grasse (D 612) was doing off the Somalia coast a few weeks ago.

In all of these cases we continue to find maritime security operations using small boats - sometimes with helicopter assistance and sometimes not - in situations where a deadly gunfight can break out. Within the context of the emerging irregular warfare threat matrix to be faced by naval and coast guard forces in the maritime domain - are we putting our people in the best position to insure their safety during small boat operations?

In the context of daily activity, I think it is pretty obvious small boat operations during daily Maritime Security Operations is where our people are the most vulnerable - and the necessity to protect people becomes an even bigger challenge when our naval ships intended to specifically address the MSO function (like LCS is expected to do) are being fielded with smaller crews, because the loss of even a single sailor has greater impact to the operation of a ship.

There is a school of thought that argues unmanned surface vessels represent the solution to these issues. I don't believe that is true, and a focus on unmanned technologies would be a distraction in understanding the value of more capable small manned deployable boats.

Unmanned vessels can give naval forces at the small boat level a higher level of warfighting capability - but must do this at the cost of greater peacemaking capabilities at sea. An unmanned small boat takes up the space of a manned vessel, and when most of the activities of small boat operations require a human touch, you lose capability with an unmanned technology.

For example, how does a robot help with this problem - or put another way, how much worse would this situation have been had the US Navy been using an unmanned small boat instead of a manned small boat?

Thirteen people aboard a skiff drowned Monday in the Gulf of Aden as the crew of the U.S. destroyer Winston S. Churchill attempted to assist the disabled vessel, a military statement said.

The skiff was found drifting in a Gulf shipping corridor on Sunday.

When U.S. Navy personnel couldn't repair its engine, the ship was towed toward the coast of Somalia and assistance was offered to the 85 people on board -- 10 Somalis and 75 Ethiopians.

"While transferring humanitarian supplies to the skiff, the passengers rushed to one side and the skiff began taking on water, quickly capsizing and sinking rapidly, leaving all 85 passengers in the water," according to the U.S. Navy.

The Navy said the destroyer crew immediately began search and rescue operations. Thirteen passengers drowned and eight were missing, the Navy said. Sixty-one passengers were rescued.

Unless the small unmanned surface vessel has a gun that can shoot lifeboats and flotation devices from its stern, you have sacrificed capability by replacing a small manned craft with an unmanned vehicle.

This discussion goes to the nature of warfare evolving in the 21st century. A few observations:

Naval surface vessels are trending toward gun warfare in the 21st century. Naval surface vessels represent the only human peacemaking capability at sea - underwater and aviation capabilities can not substitute in the primary functions of peacemaking, even as the greatly contribute to the battlespace awareness in peacemaking. Peacemaking is a primarily human activity.

Naval surface vessels are the most vulnerable vessels in warfighting. Naval warfare has not changed since WWII, warfighting in the missile age at sea is still primarily done by aircraft and submarines. Warfighting is a primarily technological activity.

So I ask again... when looking at the activities our forces, do we equip our people in a way that aligns activity with capability? When I look at programs like the Littoral Combat Ship and think about what kind of Coast Guard cutters we need in the 21st century, I'm not always convinced we are aligning our technology choices with activities as well as we could be.

Sri Lanka Lessons Learned

If you haven't seen it, the recent article in The Island titled Sri Lanka’s Admired Innovations in war highlights several interesting points in the defeat of LTTE by Sri Lanka. It starts by making the case for a military solution to insurgency - which is a point to be discussed by experts elsewhere. There are other points made though - many of which are worth noting.

I do not normally quote so much of the content of a single news article - but this article is brilliant and must be examined in full (including what I do not quote, so read it!. For example:

Strategic Communication:

Sri Lanka made several innovations in order to win the war. The government started a website, "Defence.lk" in order to obtain public support for the war. This website was a great success. It became the most visited Sri Lanka website, with a daily average of 8 to 13 million hits. It provided hourly updates on the progress of the war. ‘Defence.lk" was the subject of a MBA research project.

Regional Partnership:

Sri Lanka devised a ‘unique arrangement’ to keep India briefed on Eelam War IV .A team consisting of Defence Secretary, Secretary to President and Basil Rajapaksa was formed, by passing the Foreign Ministry. India was represented by its Foreign Secretary, National Security Advisor and Defense Secretary. Gotabhaya Rajapakse said ‘We visited India many times, they came here and we discussed many issues. Lines of communication were kept open at all times. There was continuous dialogue and the war continued unhindered’. India is now considering using this model in its discussion with other nations.

Naval Tactics and Equipment:

The main tactic used by the LTTE at sea was the ‘swarm attack’ of 20-25 boats with 5-6 suicide craft and sophisticated equipment. Each boat had about 15 persons, with each combatant donned in helmet, body amour and carrying a personal weapon. Swarms were used to attack isolated naval craft, to escort LTTE craft coming from deep sea carrying ammunitions, and also terrorists moving along the coastline. To counter this, the Navy decided to create its own ‘swarm’.

Navy engineers designed three types of small, high-speed, heavily armed inshore patrol craft, suitable for operations in different types of sea .These boats were built at Welisara where there were rudimentary facilities for boat building. 150 boats were manufactured in three years .It took just eight days to complete and fully equip a single craft. "We manufactured these boats through day and night because we needed them quickly ". They manufactured more than one hundred 23- feet long, fibre glass ‘Arrow’ boats, powered by Japanese 200 horsepower outboard motors. ‘Arrow’ was very effective in shallow waters where Dvora could not go. There was also a 17- meter long command-cum- fighting boat. All boats were manned by highly trained sailors from elite units, such as the Special Boat Squadron.

In 2007 the navy was able to launch a flotilla of "Arrow" boats which outnumbered the LTTE boats. When LTTE launched 20 boats, the navy launched 40. It was ‘swarm against swarm’. The boats operated in groups of four. Squadrons consisting of 25-30 craft were kept at strategically important locations. Squadrons could be shifted from place to place in a very short time. They were combined when necessary and about 60 boats were available for some battles. These boats used infantry tactics. They went in arrowhead formation or in three adjacent columns in single file so as to mask their numbers and increase the navy’s element of surprise.

"These boats used infantry tactics" is very interesting to me, because I believe that is how swarm tactics will be successfully deployed in the maritime domain. Several years ago there was a popular Iranian military forum (mostly Russian language) where the most popular post discussed small boat swarms in the context of Soviet era armor tactics - and how small boats fielding guns, mortars, and rockets could leverage Panzer tactics of WWII to leverage communications, mobility, and speed to defeat an objective - which was usually a large navy warship.

Organization and formation alone will not bring success with swarm tactics though - the key to successful swarm tactics at sea will be the ability of each individual boat commanders ability to think and act independently as necessary to achieve the objectives of the overall plan. Decentralization of command at the tactical level while operating within the framework of the battle strategy is critical to successful swarm tactics - and I note that was not mentioned in this article - even though there are numerous cases in the Sri Lanka battles against LTTE at sea where decisive action taken by individual officers during the battle often made the biggest differences in the fight.

On Maritime Security:

The Navy also created On Board Security Teams (OBST). These were deployed on merchant ships to provide security when the ships transited through dangerous waters. These well trained teams were an effective deterrent against terrorist attack. Navy authorities said these teams could be used to combat modern day piracy. Recently, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative at the UN, Palitha Kohona pointed out to the UN Security Council, that the dense shipping lanes south of Sri Lanka had been free of any piracy in the past 28 years, despite heavy traffic. This was due to On Board Security Teams. They were a visible deterrent, they could react immediately to attacks. He said Sri Lanka was ready to share its expertise and personnel regarding the OBST with the rest of the world.

On Tactical Choices Against Insurgency:

Had the govt ordered an all out war effort, ignoring civilian casualties, the war would have been over in February 2009. UN chief Ban Ki-moon, when he flew over the Vanni battlefield in the last stages of the war, had asked why they did not carryout an amphibious assault on the Mullaitivu beach to conclude the offensive. The President ordered a No Fire Zone, in the east where the LTTÉ was using the villagers as a massive human shield. Air attacks were prohibited and army was ordered not to use heavy guns while LTTE continued to use them. The decision to create a No-fire Zone was Sri Lanka‘s own, innovative decision. International law did not demand this. This No-fire Zone is unique to Sri Lanka. Gotabhaya Rajapakse said that other countries should also follow its example.

A truly informative article by Kamalika Pieris. I was somewhat surprised how few people have apparently read the article as noted by the hit count at the bottom of the page.

The Swarm

It is very easy to look at this technology and be dismissive... but that is our weakness isn't it? We are a technology society and look at the specifics of technology to form the basis for our judgments. If a technology doesn't conform to our conceptual expectations regarding capability, then 'it doesn't pass the smell test' and is usually dismissed with sarcasm. I expect there is plenty of sarcasm to be easy shared upon examination of this little piece of tech being fielded by Iran.

Iran's state TV says the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard has received its first three squadrons of radar-evading flying boats.

The report says the domestically made craft can be used for surveillance and can carry guns and transmit data. Its production is part of Iran's effort to boost its arsenal and military capabilities despite international sanctions over the country's controversial nuclear program.

Iran announced last year it had successfully tested the plane, dubbed the Bavar-2, or Confidence-2. A flying boat is a seaplane with a hull that allows it to land and travel on water.

Radar-evading? Not likely. I'd also add that as a small sea plane this little thing almost certainly requires sea state 1 to land and take off in water - meaning it is highly dependent upon environmental conditions. Finally, as a machine of war I am skeptical how reliable its communications suite is, not to mention unimpressed with its token machine gun.

See how easy it is to dismiss this stuff solely on the examination of technology? I'm being kind to some of the comments I have already seen from others...

But as I observe Iranian military capabilities in the maritime domain, it isn't the specifics of the technology that concerns me - it is the commitment Iran is making at the tactical level to technologies that fit a certain capability set intended to exploit specific capabilities fielded by their opponents. The Iranians appear to believe that swarm tactics give them advantages over the capabilities of western naval powers (specifically the US) to which they define as their greatest threat. The question is: In the confined waters of the Persian Gulf, does quantity of small, agile forces leveraging swarm tactics offer a tactical advantage over the capabilities of high quality, larger but numerically inferior naval vessels of the US? Is the break point the number of assets or is it a capabilities based metric of combined arms that can be leveraged?

When you start going down the road of what 20 small boats at 35+ knots attacking a destroyer looks like, the questions that come to my mind are - how many .50 cal machine guns do you have on your ship? How quickly can you get ammunition to those guns if they must sustain fire over long periods of time? How protected are those positions from incoming machine gun fire?

The weakness of our Navy isn't air attack from a tactical fighter, nor is it the ASM attack from a fast attack missile craft - indeed fighting those capabilities are the strength of our ships. The weakness comes in the form of swarms - and mixing several of these flying boats with a couple dozen boghammers in a swarm attack will result in:

• CIWS ammunition being exhausted quickly
• SeaRAM ammunition being exhausted quickly
• Reliance on small arms to fight off the attack

Are we ready for that? This isn't WWII where we still understood the value of small caliber on a battleship - this is the 21st century where missiles define our conceptual foundations for naval warfare - or the kind of naval warfare we would prefer to fight. 5" guns are great, but the enemy will fight inside your bubble.

How will those doors work when a grenade goes off on top of your MK 41? I have seen folks laugh at the idea of the MK 46 30mm guns on the LCS - but I'd like to see these guns incorporated into all surface combatants, and specifically located in a way where they can decompress the angles and shoot targets very close in.

I'm the first to admit I am completely unimpressed with the technologies fielded by the Iranian Navy and IRGC - but if deployed by tactically leveraging their numerical advantages with sound formations and dedicated trained personnel, our ships will find themselves in a world of trouble if we have to fight numerically superior swarms in confined shallow waters. The Navy talks about not wanting to fight fair, but the question is whether our Navy ships have enough weapons to combine combat power against an enemy - and at point blank range that can be problematic for ships designed specifically to fight at standoff ranges.

And fighting at point blank range is exactly what all these fast, low signature platforms Iran is developing are intended to do.

Western European Navies (week 38)

On the off chance that people want to get the info I put up here quicker, you can follow me on twitter, were I tweet most of this stuff (and some more).

Political News
There's been an informal meeting of the EU Defence Ministers in Ghent (Belgium).
The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the EU, Catherine Ashton, was absent......again. The President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, did go. But that's no surprise, given he is from Belgium.

The Commander of the Finnish Defence Forces is advocating for a reorganization to achieve cost saving measures. For those of you who actually understand Finnish, here is his speech.
I'd say: welcome to the club Finland.

HMS Gloucester has been barred from entering an Uruguayan port. It's seen as a solidarity gesture to Argentina.

After three years the defence trade cooperation treaties between the USA, the UK and Australia have made it through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Norway is going to try to get Russia working with NATO on Arctic Ocean security.

Global Operations
The Area of Operations for Atalanta has been extended.

Second EUNAVFOR piracy case in Kenya: 7 men sentenced to 5 years in prison.

Shipbuilding
Germany willl be selling two of the six Type 206 submarines they decomissioned to save costs.

Swedish Kockums has gotten a contract to upgrade 2 Gottland-class submarines. Delivery of the first upgraded sub is scheduled for October 2011

French DCNS shows some new stuff clearly aimed at Euronaval.
It also looks like they are the sure winners of the Russian 'competition' for amphibious ships.

The third Type 45, Diamond, has been handed over the British MoD.

In competition with the UK and Italy, France will propose an offer of OPVs, frigates and a tanker to Brazil.

Exercises
EUROMARFOR will be in Casablanca from September 23 to 27 to participate in Multicooperative Exercise '10

Robert Kaplan in the Washington Post

More and more, there is a relentless drumbeat of concern showing up in the editorial pages of our great newspapers.   It is a concern that reflects the strategic dialogue that has occupied navalists for some time now, and that is the growing power of the Chinese Navy. 

The latest is a view from The Atlantic/CNAS guru Robert Kaplan.  I'm struck by the extent to which this once highly concentrated debate has now spilled out into the national dialogue.  This is a good thing, one that I hope has an impact on the strategic direction of our country.

I grow more convinced as time goes on that we need to act now to avert a future war with China.   I see two ways to do so.  The first is to walk away from the Western Pacific as an area of interest to the United States.  Were we to do so, China would likely be unbound and positioned to act as the region's hegemon.  Nations in the region would reach accommodations and a new security balance would be achieved, albeit one in which we were without any real voice or influence. 

The second way to avert war is to convince China that we are in the Western Pacific to stay, and that we intend to remain the region's hegemon.  We should consider new and innovative employment patterns, in addition to forward deploying additional forces to new locations--irrespective of the financial burden of doing so.  We should aggressively court new friends, and we should warmly value old ones.  We must make Chinese officials wake up every morning and look out the window--before saying  "today is not the day" (this is rumored to have been Joe Sestak's mantra at N8--something for which I give him great credit).  This is because once China eventually takes an aggressive move--it will not back down from it.  We will either go to war over it, or we will accept it as a fait accompli.  Our strategy MUST be to ensure they do not make the first dumb move.

What we cannot do is continue the current strategic uncertainty.  I see signs of the Administration waking to its responsibilities here, and I hope they continue.  But a strategy in which China arms while we siphon off national resources to Asian land wars, is a strategy in which China will eventually become emboldened.  This will result in the first dumb move (have we not seen evidence enough lately of China's being its own worst enemy?). 

Man up or move out.  That is the choice we face.  I move for the former. 

Bryan McGrath

The Sub Community Responds

Check out Joel's blog entry on the SSN cheating scandal - and the huge number of comments on the subject by the submarine blog reading community.

Good News on EMALS

See here.

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) completed catapult commissioning testing for its system functional demonstration at NAVAIR Lakehurst, N.J., last week.

“The team has successfully completed no-load and dead-load launches in all areas of the required performance envelope,” said Capt. James Donnelly, Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment program manager. “The program’s test performance and data supports moving from SFD commissioning to full SFD testing.”

Among the test points accomplished, the team recently completed a 154-knot dead-load launch equivalent to the weight of an F/A-18E Super Hornet, the first platform to be launched by EMALS scheduled this fall.

Moving into SFD marks the opening of the test program window for the F/A-18E launch and future launches. The F/A-18E is currently being instrumented and test data is being analyzed in order to obtain flight clearances and launch approval for later this year.

“Full SFD demonstrates the significant progress the EMALS program is making in Lakehurst,” said Ms. Lisa Nyalko, program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs (Acting). “Completing commissioning testing brings us one step closer to our first aircraft launch this fall and more importantly, to our on-time delivery of EMALS to CVN 78.”

If EMALS is not delivered on time, it will be the biggest blow to naval aviation since WWII, because no one cannot predict how big the cost fallout would be from a slipped schedule, nor how that would be handled within the political context of criticism.

Failure is not an option with EMALS.

The Afghanistan Exaggeration

Robert Farley has identified a remarkable statement by Robert Kaplan in his report on India (PDF).

He or she who sits in Delhi with his back to Muslim Central Asia must still worry about unrest up on the plateaus to the northwest. The United States will draw down its troops one day in Afghanistan, but India will still have to live with the results, and therefore remain intimately engaged. The quickest way to undermine U.S.-India relations is for the United States to withdraw precipitously from Afghanistan. In the process of leaving behind an anarchic and radicalized society, which in and of itself is contrary to India’s interests, such a withdrawal would signal to Indian policy elites that the United States is surely a declining power on which they cannot depend. Detente with China might then seem to be in India’s interest. After all, China wants a stable Afghanistan for trade routes; India, for security. Because of India’s history and geography, an American failure in Afghanistan bodes ill for our bilateral relationship with New Delhi. Put simply, if the United States deserts Afghanistan, it deserts India.

Indeed, India is quietly testing the United States in Afghanistan perhaps to the same intense degree as Israel is very publicly testing the United States in regards to a nuclear Iran. I do not suggest that we should commit so much money and national treasure to Afghanistan merely for the sake of impressing India. But I am suggesting that the deleterious effect on U.S.-India bilateral relations of giving up on Afghanistan should be part of our national debate on the war effort there, for at the moment it is not. The fact is that our ability to influence China will depend greatly on our ability to work with India, and that, in turn, will depend greatly on how we perform in Afghanistan.

The problem I have with this argument is that it suggests that somehow, Afghanistan can be described in the context of a single point of failure in some Grand Strategy for global balance of power for the United States. I see that as artificial inflation regarding the importance of Afghanistan.

India, not the US or any NATO nation, already has more influence in determining the outcome in Afghanistan because India, not the US or any NATO nation, is the largest economic power besides China in the region around Afghanistan (thus has the most to lose in the region).

It is almost treated as an afterthought that Iraq's major trade partners include Syria, Turkey, and Jordan - and btw, the country Iraq has the largest growth in trade with today is Iran, while the second fastest trade growth is with UAE. There is no way stability in Iraq is possible without the cooperation of regional nations around Iraq. The nations surrounding Iraq are invested in the stability in Iraq both politically and economically now - and that is why we can leave with a fairly reasonable degree of confidence that Iraq will mature over time.

The same holds true for Afghanistan. The US military and allies will not eventually 'win' the war in Afghanistan, success in Afghanistan will only be achieved once the nations around Afghanistan - including Iran, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and China - have a sufficiently invested interest in the stability of Afghanistan.

Without that regional investment, the operation is simply a military manhunt with no end in sight. I do not agree that US grand strategy in balancing rising powers is dependent upon our perpetual manhunt in Afghanistan, indeed I would argue that when we exaggerate a small war against a relatively small group of bad guys in Afghanistan and turn that into a major war with significant but artificial global national security ramifications, that does significantly more harm to any US grand strategy that balances rising powers.

Don't misunderstand - I am not calling for a unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, rather I believe our military strategy there should reflect that:

• Afghanistan is a small war, not a major war. Small wars are best fought with small footprints
• Regional investment in stability in Afghanistan is the only way to achieve stability in Afghanistan
• Failure in Afghanistan isn't when the US fails to achieve stability and peace, rather failure is achieved when stability and peace in Afghanistan allows regional acceptance for control of Afghanistan to be achieved by forces intent on terrorist activities outside of Afghanistan.

Kaplan is wrong if he believes violence in Afghanistan threatens the balance of power between major powers. It is not only possible, but statistically probable that violence in Afghanistan will exist in 2020 and beyond, and that violence will have very limited influence on the strategic policies of India regarding any balance of power issues between major powers like the US and China.

On the SSN Exam Cheating Article

I have posted my reaction to the Daily Beast article discussed by Robert Farley over at the US Naval Institute blog.

Am I being too cruel to the author? Perhaps, but as the early comments in Robert's post suggest, I am certain that my opinion of the author will reflect a majority of opinions by the Navy community at large that reads The Daily Beast article. I also think the culture issue raised is too serious to dismiss outright simply because the author is remarkably ignorant in regards to the value of submarines in the 21st century. Once you trim off the authors opinions from the article and focus on his testimony of experiences as a recently retired submarine officer, there are some pretty serious allegations being made that cannot nor should not be dismissed.

You can read my comments here.

Let Enlisted Personnel Fly UAVs?

This is interesting:

[UAVs] are significantly cheaper to purchase and operate than manned aircraft, and they do not require officer pilots. Officer pilots are necessary in manned aircraft because they make decisions independent of a commander's control, due to distance and communications limitations. UAVs remove these impediments. Today a team of enlisted personnel can remotely operate numerous aircraft under the supervision of a single officer. Currently, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps all use enlisted personnel to fly some UAVs. Yet the Air Force insists on maintaining antiquated requirements that all pilots -- including of UAVs -- be officers.

A recent internal audit of the Air Force's UAV training pipelines found that if properly structured, the training cost could be decreased to $135,000 per pilot, an impressive number when compared with the more than $2.6 million the service spends to train a fighter pilot. Of the approximately 1,200 individuals entering the Air Force's pilot training pipeline last year, roughly half will pilot UAVs. It costs the United States Air Force Academy $403,000 per officer graduate, while it costs less than $45,000 to recruit and train an enlisted service member. If a switch from officer to enlisted UAV pilots were made in the Air Force alone the total recruiting and training savings could amount to over $1.5 billion each year. If all of the services were to begin replacing officers in flight training pipelines with experienced enlisted personnel, such programs could yield several billion dollars in savings each year.

These would not be one-time savings, as maintaining an officer on active duty costs far more than maintaining enlisted personnel. Last year, for the first time, a Navy Petty Officer First Class completed the basic flight standards course, the first step in the Navy's pilot training pipeline. Before flight pay, bonuses, and allowances this individual is paid $2801.40 a month, compared with the $5117.10 a lieutenant is paid for the same month's work. These soldiers, sailors, and marines complete highly technical operations with extremely high levels of efficiency and do so at a fraction of the cost of an officer.

Thoughts?

Cheating the SSN Exam

Via DT, this is alarming:

During my on-board training, while I studied more than 70 hours per week, my fellow officers regularly warned me, “Don’t let knowledge stand in the way of your qualifications.” They urged me not to, “learn too much… just check the box and get qualified.” But when my exam arrived, it seemed impossibly difficult. I failed miserably, despite having made a very serious five-month long effort to pass.

My fellow officers were surprised by my failure, and wondered aloud why I hadn’t used the “study guide.” When my second exam arrived, so did the so-called study guide, which happened to be the answer key for the nuclear qualification exam I was taking. I was furious. Defiantly, I handed back the answer key to the proctor and proceeded to take the exam on my own. I failed again. My boss, the ship’s engineer officer, started to document my failures with formal counseling so that he could fire me.

The most competent junior officer on our ship ran to my rescue, confiding that none of the other officers had passed the exam legitimately; the exam was just an administrative check-off. “Swallow your pride,” he told me, and just get it done.
The ship’s engineer and executive officer didn’t believe me when I complained of the cheating, and swept my allegations under the rug. It took me five attempts before I finally passed the "basic" qualification exam. Unbeknownst to me, senior members of my crew even went so far as to falsify my exam scores in order to avoid unwanted attention from the headquarters. But strangely, the exam was anything but basic. The expectations on paper were astronomically high compared to the banal reality of how our ship actually worked.

The USS Hartford had many serious problems. Later that year, the ship ran itself aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in the firing of our captain and several senior officers. But sadly, the nuclear cheating scandal was not isolated to the Hartford. Two years later, when I began to teach at the Naval Submarine School in Connecticut, my colleagues whispered of cheating scandals aboard their own boats. Did it happen on the Scranton? What about the Seawolf? The results were not pretty. From our extensive whispered surveys, several other officers and I concluded that the vast majority of the fleet had some odious practice that resembled the cheating scandal I witnessed firsthand aboard the Hartford.

Thus far, the U.S. Navy has maintained a perfect nuclear safety record. But, having attained the senior supervisory certification of a ship’s nuclear engineer officer, I am deeply disturbed by what I consider to be a threat to the nuclear Navy’s integrity.

There's more, some of it of value and some not so much. The general point of the article was that since 9/11 (and more generally in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union) the importance of the nuclear submarine fleet has waned, and standards of training and maintenance have correspondingly declined. This is an argument that has been made in several quarters about nuclear weapons handling in the Air Force; as nukes became less core to the USAF mission, standards decline and we get incidents like Minot. I should say that while there's a certain organizational logic to this argument, I'm not yet entirely convinced on the empirical side. In the case described above, we would need a sense of how seriously such tests were taken before the collapse of the Soviet Union to have any standard of comparison. Similarly, Minot was not the first nuclear weapons handling incident in the history of the USAF. That said, it's generally correct to assume that missions de-prioritized by senior service leadership will attract less attention, less prestige, and fewer of the very best available personnel, creating the conditions under which errors and cheating can take place.

Did the DoD Whiff on PLA Navy Submarines?

I went back and reviewed the annual report to Congress, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China for 2010 (PDF) and it looks like the DoD whiffed on PLA Navy submarine developments - and whiffed badly. If the point of the document is to inform the public and Congress on Chinese military developments, it seems to me a few important points were left undisclosed.

On page 3 the report states:

China has 13 SONG-class (Type 039) diesel-electric attack submarines (SS) in its inventory. The SONG-class SS is designed to carry the YJ-82 ASCM. The follow-on to the SONG is the YUAN-class SS, as many as four of which are already in service. China may plan to construct 15 additional hulls for this class. The YUAN class SS are armed similarly to the SONG class SS, but also include a possible air independent propulsion system. The SONG SS, YUAN SS, and SHANG SSN will be capable of launching the new CH-SS-NX-13 ASCM, once the missile completes development and testing.

I'm willing to believe there are 4 Yuan class submarines, but what appears to be completely inaccurate is that China may plan to construct 15 additional hulls of the Yuan class. The problem is the picture of the submarine Feng posted on Sunday (see picture above) is not a Yuan class (regardless what Chinese bloggers call it), and is also not a Song class nor a Kilo class.

We are looking at something new and distinct, and the more I studied this picture the more it looks to me like it might be a PLA Navy variant that combines characteristics of the Yuan class with characteristics of the brand new Russian Lada class SSK. That picture probably has the cyber cops in Russia going over the computer systems at the Russian Rubin Design Bureau with a fine tooth comb, because it looks fairly clear to me like the Центральное конструкторское бюро "Рубин" took a Swiss cheese approach to security and failed to prevent China from stealing some submarine designs.

When I raised this point with someone who knows a hell of a lot more about submarines than I do, I was pleased to learn that Janes seems to think there are some similarities as well.

While not much larger than the 3,000- to 4,000-ton Type 041 Yuan class, the new boat appears to incorporate Russian design influences, including a stouter hull with a reduced aft taper similar to the Project 667 Lada/Amur class, plus an elongated sail and hull-mounted retractable hydroplanes similar to the Project 636 Kilo class. However, in contrast to the sail of the Kilo, the new Chinese SSK incorporates hydrodynamic elements such as an intricately-faired leading edge with concave and convex curves.

Here is all we actually know - the evolution of Chinese shipbuilding in producing technologies is taking place on a curve that continues to exceed the expectations and projections made by the DoD in their public documents like the annual report to Congress on the Chinese military. When China continues to outpace expectations and projections, it raises serious questions about whether the United States will be timely should China - with their 65 operational shipyards - decide to expand their naval production at a higher rate.

I think as we see China continue to incorporate the latest modern Russian technology, it is within that context we note that Russia is looking towards the west for help with their military. Our strategist can now legitimately start pondering the question - at what point does Beijing become a greater national security concern to Moscow than Washington, DC? We should also seek the answers to another question - are we accurately projecting the PLA Navy technological evolution, and if not, what are our options in addressing their technological gains that appear to be outpacing our estimates and expectations?

On Strategic Weaknesses

I find it quite remarkably how clumsy China can be.

What does this New York Times article suggest to you? The answer is many things - including a reminder how ridiculous Thomas Friedman is when he opines with China worship.

I think it lists a number of examples how the United States has successfully dominated the strategic narrative in the Pacific over the past decade - and by leveraging caution and concern the whole of government unity approach to China has positioned the United States in a way that every time China attempts to exercise any power on a regional neighbor - it ultimately benefits the interests of the United States by contributing to the narrative we have already established as the foundation.

In many ways, the single party system of China continues to be an enormous strategic weakness ripe to be exploited in diplomatic disputes. The lack of genuine political debate services as a remarkably predictable system for those China gets in a dispute with - indeed it gives considerable leverage for escalation to China's diplomatic opponents while putting all of the burden for escalation control on the leadership in Beijing.

Think about it. In the ongoing dispute between China and Japan - it is Japan who can afford to keep pushing China - because China's reaction of stirring up nationalism is a double edged sword. Over time, only China suffers from diminishing returns of escalation with a regional neighbor.

The Rare Earth mineral trade embargo is a perfect example of how China faces diminishing returns with escalation. How exactly does China win with an embargo on rare earth minerals - where they currently enjoy a near monopoly. The House Armed Services Committee has had a hearing scheduled for October 5th on the topic of rare earth minerals.

I would like to personally thank China for taking this timely and remarkably stupid action - because by doing so you have forced our Congress to take action towards reconstitution of rare earth mining in the United States - something we very much need to do to insure we aren't dependent upon China for those minerals our nation requires for our defense programs.

The Calm Before the Storm

I was thinking of this quote from Tom Rick's book The Gamble today.

“But Fallon prided himself on being a strategic thinker, a sense he may have developed because there was little competition in that arena in the Navy, which in recent years has tended to be weak, intellectually, aside from its elite counter-terror force in Special Operations, which is practically a separate service. It is difficult, for example, to think of a senior Navy officer who has played a prominent role in shaping American strategy since 9/11, or of an active-duty Navy officer who has written a book or essay as influential as those produced by the Army’s Col. H.R. McMaster, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, and Lt. Col. John Nagl.”

It's a good thing he didn't use General Petraeus as an example, because when I read the last paragraph on the last page of this article discussing Bob Woodward's upcoming book, I was stunned.

Woodward quotes Petraeus as saying, "You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It's a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."

My youngest daughter is 5. Assuming she lives to be at least 65, under the Petraeus strategy for Afghanistan the United States would have over 100,000 troops fighting a land war in Asia until at least 2075.

As this already does represent the prevailing strategic thinking in the Army - which is why the media is printing articles on how General Petraeus is buying more time for troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Nothing personal Mr. Ricks, but I'll take the strategic thinking coming from the Navy over the Army 10 times out of 10 when this is the prevailing strategic wisdom of the Army.

I don't know about you, but based on what I have read of Bob Woodward's book - it may end up being the first book I buy just to have a copy of the appendix. Robert Haddick at the Small Wars Journal explains:

Based only on this morning’s accounts from the Washington Post and New York Times, Obama’s Wars’ greatest victim will not be a few bickering staffers but rather President Obama himself. According to Woodward and the newspaper accounts of his book, it was Obama who dictated the detailed specifications of America’s military strategy in Afghanistan. These specifications arrived in the form of a six-page single-spaced "terms sheet," seemingtly drawn up to resemble a legal contract between Obama and his generals. But Obama’s "terms sheet" is apparently a stew of bureaucratic and political compromises among interest groups, not a coherent strategy. Having personally written it, Obama will not be able to blame its inevitable failure on misguided staffers.

This six-page single-spaced "terms sheet" is supposedly listed as an appendix in Bob Woodward's book. I have no idea what it says, but based on the reporting I'm thinking it will not reflect well on the Commander and Chief.

Some Russia Military News

Interesting development.

Gen Nikolai Makarov, head of the general staff, told reporters the missiles were "definitely" subject to new sanctions introduced in June.

At the time, Russia's foreign minister said the S-300 deal was not affected.

Possession of S-300 systems would enhance Iran's defence of its nuclear facilities against attack from the air.

"They are definitely subject to sanctions."

Asked if Russia had torn up its contract with Iran, he replied: "We'll see. That will depend on how Iran behaves."

Still waiting for the official announcement regarding the sale of the Mistral class amphibious ship by France. Early news reports suggest the official announcement will come by the end of September and the cost is around $765 million per hull.

I'll wait for the official announcement before taking a closer look, but I do wonder if Russia's shifting positions on Iranian weapons is related to Russia's recent military announcement - which sends a clear signal Russia is looking to the west for help Russia rebuilding their domestic defense industry.

Something tells me Russia would never be able to work with the west if they are selling military equipment in violation of UN sanctions to Iran.

The Joint Strategic Vision of Conservatives and Progressives

I've been thinking about the QDR. OK, so I'm the only person who actually thinks about the QDR, but it is useful to look at the QDR to understand where we are and where we are going. In examining the QDR I've also found myself reviewing the recommendations for the DoD produced prior to the QDR by the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress. I focus on these two think tanks because they are highly partisan - which is useful for seeing where the political parties are in terms of looking towards the future.

Both think tanks developed a force structure recommendation based on a strategic view of the world. I'm not going to review those strategic views individually - just focus on the force structure recommendations for the DoD QDR produced by both.

The Heritage Foundation

Air Force. The Air Force currently has 2,383 fighter and attack aircraft, including the F-15, F-16, F-22, and A-10. The F-35 Lightening will soon enter service.

This overall size of the Air Force fighter force structure is about right. The QDR should recommend that the Air Force stay with this number. In particular, it should clearly state that the number should not fall below the current size of the force. The QDR should also point out that this number is adequate only in the context of a commitment to modernize the Air Force's fleet of aging aircraft.

Army. The Army plans to increase its force structure to 76 combat brigade teams across the Army, with 212 modular support brigades. The combat brigade teams will be broken down into 25 heavy brigades, 43 infantry brigades, seven Stryker brigades, and one brigade equivalent of active combat regiments. The airborne units will round out the broader Army force structure.

The upcoming QDR should recommend continuing the Army plan to increase its overall force structure. However, it should state that this projected growth should be a cap. Expanding the Army beyond this level could jeopardize proper funding for other elements of U.S. conventional forces.

Marine Corps. Unique among the services, the Marine Corps force structure is established in law. The Marine Corps has three active Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs) and one in the reserves. Each MEF contains a division-equivalent ground force, an aviation wing, and a logistics group.

The QDR should make it clear that the Defense Department will not seek to change the relevant law. The three-MEF standard is appropriate for the Marines and should permit it to meet its combat responsibilities. As with the other services, this force structure number is dependent on appropriate levels of modernization.

Navy Ships and Aircraft. Shipbuilding was not a priority during the Clinton and Bush Administrations. Annual procurement has fallen to just 5.3 ships per year. A lack of funding and the increasing costs of ships under construction have combined to ensure a low rate of shipbuilding that cannot sustain the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan for a 313-ship fleet. In addition to the strategic ballistic missile submarines, the fleet includes aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, amphibious ships, attack submarines, converted Trident submarines, and miscellaneous other ships.

The Navy's future force structure is the minimum size needed to secure U.S. maritime interests, but it lacks the proper internal balance and sufficient funding for the necessary shipbuilding rates. Specifically, it shortchanges aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and attack submarines in favor of littoral combat ships. The U.S. has 11 aircraft carriers, and that number should increase to 13 over the longer term. The number of cruisers and destroyers should increase from a projected 88 to 100, and the number of attack submarines should rise from 48 to at least 60. This should be facilitated, in part, by reducing the projected number of littoral combat ships from 55 to 20.

Further, the QDR should at least consider recommending that the Navy proceed with DDG-1000 procurement instead of extending the construction of DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers by ensuring that the DDG-1000s will have both air and ballistic missile defense capabilities. However, this approach will leave the cruisers with the Navy's primary air and missile defense missions. The QDR should also include a serious discussion of America's shipbuilding industrial base and how to maintain its strategic competitiveness throughout the next two decades.

Center for American Progress

Ground forces recommendations (Army, Marines)

• Continue increasing the size of U.S. ground forces without lowering standards. Also, enlarge the recruiting pool by dropping the ban on women serving in ground combat units and repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.
• Slow down Future Combat Systems and cut the program’s procurement, research, and design budgets by a third over the next four years.
• Move forward slowly on the Brigade Combat Team model, but carefully review the operations of the Maneuver Enhancement Brigades and determine whether more are needed.
• Maintain funding for the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle at the current level, allowing for development and testing, but delay production in favor of purchasing M-ATV armored vehicles for Afghanistan.
  

Naval forces recommendations

• Cancel the Zumwalt-class DDG-1000 destroyer and build two Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyers a year for the next four years.
• Keep SSN-774 attack submarine production steady at one per year instead of ramping up to two per year in FY 2013.
• Move forward with current plans for the Littoral Combat Ship.
• Deploy the Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) aircraft carrier but delay the construction of the CVN-79 aircraft carrier for five years.
• Cancel the LPD-26 amphibious ship and move forward with the Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future).
  

Air forces recommendations (Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines)

• End production of the F-22 Raptor immediately at 183 planes.
• Continue development of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, but do not start full-scale production until flight tests have been completed. --Buy F-16 Block 60 fighters, two wings of MQ-9 Reaper drones, and 69 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to make up for the anticipated gap in fighter aircraft.
• Cancel the MV-22 Osprey and substitute cheaper helicopters while continuing production of the CV-22.
• Build more C-17 cargo aircraft.
• Move forward on the KC-X.
• Substitute MQ-1C Warrior drones for Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters.
• Move forward on the new long-range bomber.

First, we need to recognize a few finer details. The Heritage Foundation always approaches defense issues with two battle cries - "no less" or "a lot more." Seriously, it is a problem. The Heritage Foundation needs to come up with a new national security strategic idea that doesn't always include more money.

The Center for American Progress on the other hand takes a far more strategic approach that selects winners and losers based on strategic view, but they also get caught up in social issue advocacy in a paper intended to be strategic minded. Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Seriously? As a force structure talking point? My real problem with the CAP suggestions is that it doesn't contain any strategic synergy - indeed I don't know what the military CAP advocates for is supposed to do, rather it is simply intended to cost less.

The most important point to highlight here is that both the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress went into the QDR with the recommendation to increase the size of the Army to fight a land war in Asia, even though during the QDR period being discussed a reduction in Army forces in Iraq was quite expected.

Think about that for a second - increasing the Army to fight land future wars in Asia is both conservative and progressive in the 21st century.

Are you kidding me? I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal, meaning I don't like taxes on principle alone, am agnostic to many issues of politics and religion, and don't perform a Baptist backflipout when my teenage daughters openly homosexual male friends spend the night when she has sleepovers with all the 'girls'... but it also means I don't fall into either category of conservative or progressive. However, if I was either a partisan conservative or a partisan progressive - I'd be more than a little pissed off that my political platform for national security is focused on increasing the size of the Army to fight future land wars in Asia.

When it was announced that 'combat operations' had concluded in Iraq (which is just political nonsesnse), a bunch of folks wrote articles about what was gained and lost in Iraq. Here is my concern on what has been gained and lost. The most influential loss to the United States as a result of the Iraq War was the lingering memory and understanding among the strategic culture in Washington, DC that the United States is a maritime nation. I am also concerned that as a result of the Iraq War, Washington, DC has gained an entrenchment of Army based strategic idea men populated across the think tank community that see every problem as a nail to be solved with the US Army hammer.

The ground war strategic solution mentality started as quickly as the cold war ended - with Panama, then the Gulf War, then the Balkans, then Afghanistan, and finally Iraq a second time - ultimately the United States Army has been engaged in a ground war almost 15 of the last 21 years.

Conservatives and Progressives alike need a new strategic view for America - because the United States is failing every golden rule for sustaining ourselves as a superpower when we are as a nation actively engaging in major military operations on the ground across the globe as a perpetual habit.

We can no longer ignore how every rising power in the world is focused on seapower national security strategies - while the United States remains focused on land war strategic debates (like COIN).

No matter how long we intend to be in Afghanistan, it is past time to realign the strategic direction of the United States towards seapower. If it isn't done now, then when the next crisis comes - no matter what it is - the solution will be to send in the Army because for the last two decades and counting it is the preferred way the defense establishment knows to solve national security problems anymore.

I believe the United States has more options than the US Army hammer, and there is a better way ahead strategically than perpetual land war. Hopefully, sooner than later, someone on Capitol Hill or in the White House will start saying as much and lead the nation back towards seapower.

Exercising Soft Power in 2012

I've been trying to figure out how I would work in a mention on the blog of how my Arkansas Razorbacks will be beating down the Crimson Tide of Alabama on Saturday. Football, my other passion, is not exactly a blog topic appropriate for ID...

Unless you get news like this:

When Notre Dame and Navy play in Dublin, Ireland, in 2012, they will do it in a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium.

Naval Academy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said Tuesday that the game would be held at Aviva Stadium, home to the Irish rugby union team and the Irish national soccer team. The stadium, which opened this past May, seats about 50,000 people. All of the seats are covered by a steel roof that is in the shape of a wave, reminiscent of the main Olympic stadium in Beijing.

The game has been scheduled for September 1, 2012. The US Navy should give serious thought to sending a aircraft carrier. Send the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and send an escort like the USS Freedom (LCS 1) or USS Independence (LCS 2). Put a face on the 21st century Navy with the LCS, and leverage a name like the USS Enterprise (CVN 65).

It is Notre Dame in Ireland, so the game is already going to be an enormous spectacle. Hell - someone should have ESPN on the phone tomorrow morning talking about getting the ESPN Gameday crew out there and hosting the show from the deck of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Would they turn down an opportunity to host the show overseas for the first time and on the deck of a US aircraft carrier surrounded by thousands of cheering American sailors from all over the country?

I think they would go for it.

September 1st is the first week of the 2012 college football season - Labor day weekend 2012. With a new season, it has the potential to be the biggest college football game that Saturday, and if done right the most watched Navy football game that year. Also noteworthy, for the last three seasons the English Premier League has not played soccer on the first Saturday in September - meaning Notre Dame vs Navy may be the only show in town in the UK that weekend as well.

You would have to be a fool not to see the enormous opportunity the US Navy has in terms of strategic communications to a global audience as a result of this football game.

Western European Navies (week 37)

Political News
After both the UK and France have said that they will not share aircraft carriers and are only looking into joint R&D, the chairman of the french National Assemblee defence committee (Guy Teisser) has said he could see pooling of British and French resources.

With the restructuring of the German Bundeswehr a part of the Defence Ministry might move from Bonn to Berlin.

The UK and Brazil are to sign a defence agreement.
Looks like Brazil is really pushing to make sure it will become the most important regional power.

Spain and the Seychelles have signed a Declaration of Intent on combating piracy and a Memorandum of Understanding on Defense Cooperation.

In contrast with the cuts in defence facing most European countries, German spending will rise by 1.4 percent in 2011.

Global Operations
Swedish HSwMS Carlskrona has rejoined Operation Atalanta.

German frigate FGS Schleswig Holstein has left Operation Atalanta, being replaced with FGS Köln.

Finland has decided to join Operation Atalanta in January with FNS Pohjanmaa.

Shipbuilding
The third ship of the Berlin Class replenishment ships, FGS Bonn, has been laid down.

Spain is trying to sell an Agosta class submarine to save costs. They've offered it to Thailand.

Spain has also offered 6 S-80 submarines to India. Competitors would be Germany (TKMS), France (DCNS) and Russia.

Denmark has shortlisted the Merlin, Future Lynx, NH90, Superhawk and Seahawk to replace their current Lynx fleet.

Start of the technology transfer by French DCNS to Brasil.

Exercises
Finland is hosting the Northern Coasts 2010 exercise from Sept 13-24. About 50 ships are involved, 3500-4000 people from 13 countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, German, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, France, USA, Great Britain, Belgium and the Dutch). The goal is to develop interoperability, especially in shallow reef filled waters. The scenario is a crisis management operation with terrorism, pirates and smuggling as security threats/challenges.

H/T to Charly for both the heads-up and the translation for Northern Coasts.