Big Deck vs Small Deck Naval Aviation

The September edition of Proceedings is out, and yet again, the topic of Sea Basing is skipped. I actually think the topic belongs in this issue, as the September issue addresses naval aviation, and if there is one enormous problem with the proposed Sea Base, it is certainly aviation. Maybe next month, or more likely, the topic won't come up until November, highlighting the way Sea Basing in the eyes of the Navy is no longer about the Navy, rather the Marines.

As usual though, Proceedings delivers high quality stuff, at least in the online edition. I'm still waiting for my hard copy, but it can wait while we take on the topic of CVN-78.

Mike Burleson took on the topic of Big carriers yesterday when he linked to this post on IntelliBriefs. The IntelliBriefs article is a decent summery, there are some factual errors but in general it sums up the global activity in building new naval aviation ships. Mike on the other hand went a step farther, when he listed 5 reasons why the dominance of the aircraft carrier is "running out of steam."

• The Nuclear Shkval torpedo
• Wake Homing torpedoes
• Air Independent Submarines
• Less vulnerable platforms duplicate the carrier's mission
• The cost

With all due respect, I disagree strongly.

In the September 2007 issue of Proceedings, Rebecca Grant, Admiral John Nathman, USN (Ret.), and Loren Thompson attempt to defend the Navy position on big deck carriers. Up until the point I read Mike's post, I was wondering why they felt compelled, but apparently there is still a group of people who believe in the Cebrowski naval aviation model. In the article "Get the Carriers!" the authors lay out their defense. A sample:

Just what should carriers provide?

According to the critics, not much. There’s a misconceived belief among them that the need for air power is on the wane. One basic line of argument is that surface ships with missiles can replace carriers in littoral attack. Branching out, critics contend that since the revolution in strike warfare increased precision strike capacity by an order of magnitude, then micro-air wings on small carriers can do the job. It’s all framed in lurking suspicions about the vulnerability of carriers and a vague desire not to put all the eggs in one basket.

The trends in air warfare paint a different picture. Demand for air power is up, and the range of tasks is growing. Consider the recent slate of tasks for Navy carrier aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq. They’ve done everything from providing early air support in Afghanistan in 2001 to flying more than 5,500 sorties in a little over six weeks as major combat operations began in Iraq in 2003. In the years that followed, they’ve learned to hunt insurgents, watch over convoy routes, and supply non-traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) from on-board systems. NATO patrols in Afghanistan do not move without air power available.

Naval aviation leadership made much of the revolution in strike warfare carried out in the late 1990s. While that was a landmark achievement, joint demand for air power didn’t stop with precision.

Revisiting Mikes position, he basically lays out 4 reasons why big decks are on the way out; nuclear weapons, submarines, VLS destroyers, and cost. Lets take them one at a time, and let me add some points the authors in Proceedings glanced over.

First, the use of nuclear weapons is just as effective against any alternative to the CVN as it is to the CVN, and perhaps more so. To casually nuke a Nimitz class CSG with a torpedo would be to kill 6500+ sailors, likely resulting in unrestricted warfare on whomever used such nukes, and probably prompting a nuclear response. Until someone can point out an alternative that can survive a direct hit from a nuclear torpedo, I'm not ready to change my mind because of this threat.

Second, I think most people would agree modern submarines are one of if not the biggest threat to aircraft carriers, but not because they are aircraft carriers, but because an aircraft carrier is a surface ship. A destroyer or cruiser wouldn't have any advantage over an aircraft carrier against a submarine, and in fact, given the mission profiles and where they are asked to operate today, destroyers and cruisers are more vulnerable.

AIP and wake homing torpedo's are clearly threats, but this argument is better used against a certain 14,500 ton littoral destroyer than it is a blue water 30 knot cruising aircraft carrier. AIP is certainly an interesting technology, but while its advantages are often stressed, the weakness (specifically the speed/endurance ratio) is too often ignored. While specific exercises have revealed success for AIP submarines, freelance exercises where a submarine threat is known to exist haven't been as successful for AIP, in fact it has been proven many times the Collins class is better suited to hunt a CVN in blue water than a U-212 is, precisely because the Collins isn't AIP.

Third, Tomahawk cruise missiles have been around awhile now, can someone point out a single example where the use of cruise missiles either did or even could have replaced the need for conventional naval air power? Lets see, it wasn't the case in Operation Earnest Will, nor Operation Desert Storm, nor Operation Southern Watch, nor Operation Northern Watch, nor Operation Desert Fox, nor Operation Allied Force, nor Operation Enduring Freedom, nor Operation Iraqi Freedom. I have always believed the 'cruise missile is better crowd' is too focused on kinetic solutions to see the advantage of air power.

Fourth, cost. There is no question that aircraft carriers and carrier air wings are expensive, but the question is, relative to what? The Air Force? There is a political cost there that can be very high, see Saudi Arabia in 1991 and Osama Bin Laden's reasons for 9/11. Here is my million dollar cost question on forward deployed air power launching from sovereign US property at sea that I never see answer for..., what is the cost of mission unavailable when needed? That question doesn't get answered, because Americans take for granted the awesome capabilities of our Navy, although they do pay for it. When it is said and done, the CVN-68 has 11% inflation, every other shipbuilding program in the Navy would kill for only 11% inflation. For the cost of the 7 planned DDG-1000s, the Navy can buy 3 CVN-78s. Are 7 DDG-1000s really as capable as 3 CVN-78s?

The authors though barely mentioned the main reasons I would have emphasized.

The problem with small deck carriers or cruise missile alternatives is they won't deploy the E-2Ds or EA-18Gs. These aren't just trivial aircraft randomly exclusive to big deck carriers, these are game changers and represent the quantum leap difference in capability comparisons between every other nations Navy (and in most cases, air force) and the US Navy. For all the hype regarding stealth and speed, I can't imagine a SWO is going to be comfortable operating anywhere near major air and missile threat zones without Growler and Hawkeye support. Helicopters are not a substitute for Hawkeyes, and looking forward the ideas behind EW on the UCAS-N and JSF only exists on paper.

The demand by the Army and USAF for EA-6B support in OIF pretty much sums up why calls for small deck carriers can be safely ignored, at least until there is a viable EW replacement prototype capable of operating off a small deck aviation ship.

Finally, sortie rates. My problem with the Cebrowski inspired small deck carrier cries is that the suggestions are made despite evidence that big decks support higher sortie rates at lower cost, and you can prove it. Either using pen and paper, or modeling via software like Harpoon 3 ANW, build an alternative and verify. The MoD and Royal Navy did when designing requirements for the CVF, the reason they went larger by nearly 3x the existing carriers was to support 24/7 sortie rate generation that can sustain both defense and offense in operations. In reading the requirements, the 36 number for JSFs is directly tied to sustaining required sortie rates.

A common retort is that 3-4 small deck carriers could match a CVF. Maybe, but to support 24/7 operations you increase costs substantially, because now you are supporting 3-4 different aviation maintenance crews of 3-4 different ships, and each ship has to have enough to support 24/7 shifts. Ultimately, you end up requiring more sailors, thus incurring more cost for equal capabilities, and that is in relation to the CVF, never mind the CVN-78s which are more efficient.

Bottom line, the Navy was very thorough in study of the big deck vs small deck question, and bigger won most categories.

Virtual Gaming and Naval Simulation

The CDR talked about gaming today with a story about a man sucked into his virtual world oblivious to the reality in his life, which in the story told includes Mr. Gamers wife. Gaming is a topic I have intentionally avoided until now.

I have worked in the gaming industry... from several different angles. From an IT perspective, I recommend the gaming industry to anyone looking to become a better programmer, it is a thankless job for sure, but in virtual world gaming the subscription based revenue system drives rapid attention to sometimes major programming challenges, and in the end you will learn to value of process and efficiency in code unlike any other programming job out there.

I never made much money programming in the gaming industry though, and as a capitalist I quickly took a different perspective. Early on I recognized the value of Real Money Trading (RMT) which was part of the first game I was involved in, Ultima Online. RMT has since become a billion plus dollar industry and perhaps the biggest challenge to the gaming industry itself, in particular those games of competition. That led me to seeking out virtual worlds where competition was between players, then using my 'skillz' to create an unfair advantage in my favor. It wasn't hacking, we never attacked gaming code, but it is hard to argue it wasn't cheating, but in the top echelons of player vs player competition of virtual worlds, its commonplace and I don't apologize for it.

Ebay became my friend, as did IGE who quickly become one of my top buyers, and while players might cry foul about how terrible it is that people like me was selling virtual equipment for real money to the highest bidder, I learned over time many of the people I was selling to were the people crying foul the loudest. In other words, the while people morally disapproved on some level of people like me publicly, they were putting up dollars in bunches buying from me in private. Anything for an advantage...

Compared to most people who chose to play those highly competitive player vs player games, I played alot less than most, and learned to automate the gaming process so my individual characters would advance at a similar pace as the hardcore gamers. One side note though, when you engage in virtual world gaming, you unavoidably become part of a community, usually of similar mind as yourself, and you see the story the CDR describes first hand as people get sucked in. It's sad, it is quite pathetic, and it is a great deal more common than people believe. The thing is, non gamers do not realize just how enormous the communities are. They are huge, and as the picture shows (click the picture above to enlarge and see), there could be hundreds of people just on your screen at one time, with thousands unseen, and that is just one of dozens if not hundreds of servers in only one of several dozen countries.

Gaming, in particular virtual world gaming, is an interesting study though. As WIRED pointed out a couple weeks ago, government is using virtual world gaming as case studies. One such example recently reported by the BBC:

The "corrupted blood" disease spread rapidly within the popular online World of Warcraft game, killing off thousands of players in an uncontrolled plague.

The infection raged, wreaking social chaos, despite quarantine measures.

The experience provides essential clues to how people behave in such crises, Lancet Infectious Diseases reports.

In the game, there was a real diversity of response from the players to the threat of infection, similar to those seen in real life.

Some acted selflessly, rushing to the aid of other characters even though that meant they risked infection themselves.

Others fled infected cities in an attempt to save themselves.

And some who were sick made it their mission to deliberately infect others.

Considering people in the real world strap bombs to themselves to blow up others, it is not easy to dismiss that the virtual world response of individuals wouldn't imitate the real world response of individuals. In 2005 I knew a bunch of people who played WoW at the time, they were all into player vs player combat, and they organized into groups of infected and non-infected, moved to areas where you could kill other people, and would kill others in massive ambushes to protect themselves from the disease while sending out there infected to seek out in game rivals to infect them with the disease.

While the 2005 incident has been getting attention lately, one of the things that got me out of virtual gaming was another government research project, specifically regarding currency. Academia has been studying virtual worlds from all angles for years, but the most illusive aspect of these studies is the Black Market, the very aspect of virtual gaming I knew best. In 2005 I participated in a federally funded economic study conducted on 2 very different virtual worlds to test various theories on inflation, counterfeiting, and reactions to supply and demand disruption.

Working with the gaming companies, we targeted stable virtual world economies in two very different systems, one was a highly competitive virtual world involving player vs player competition, while the other was quite the opposite, with no player vs player competition. In both cases, by disrupting the supply by buying all available supplies and creating problems in the areas where specific items within the virtual world can be accumulated, we were able to directly effect the economy. We also manipulated the economy heavily through RMT, by buying up all the black market currency for specific virtual worlds over a period of time, we then unloaded the currency into the relatively stable economy in an attempt to gauge the impact of counterfeiting, and again we were highly successful in crashing the market by reducing the value of currency for a period of time.

Seems trivial and stupid huh, but the data collected could in fact effect your daily life, allowing the US government to gauge the impact of a massive influx of counterfeiting of greenbacks by North Korea for example.

Anyway, enough of virtual worlds...

There are two naval tactical simulations out there for those who are into such things. I have added a section on "Naval Simulation" on the links of my blog, mostly inspired by myk, whose blog I have been watching since he set it up. Both simulations out there are tactical, not strategic, and both are still works in progress in my opinion.

The first and best naval simulation out right now is Harpoon 3 Advanced Naval Warfare. It comes with a great deal of flexibility, and without question the community of choice for Harpoon 3 is HarpoonHQ, with no exceptions. Myk is there, as is Byron who is a frequent commenter over at the Phibian's place. Working with the HarpoonHQ database and Harpoon 3 is actually a good teaching tool regarding the realities of naval combat, a good tool for the navy hobby types to test theories and generally start thinking beyond simply blue platform X vs red platform Y. I don't know how things are today, but in my high school back in the day, my ROTC instructor used Harpoon and the Fleet series games to introduce us the basic terminology of naval warfare, to get us to think tactically, but mostly to get us together for activities after school other than drill under a Navy theme for those who wanted to participate.

The second and perhaps more interesting naval simulation out right now is Global Conflict Blue. Recently the Thai Navy, short on funding, decided to utilize the open source software to meet its requirements for official naval simulation (English summery here). I haven't played it much, but the 3D graphics are probably more appealing to the younger X-Box era generation, although I prefer the look and feel of Harpoon 3 better. As an open source project though, if it gets attention and potentially more government support worldwide, the potential is actually quite interesting.

Either way, check out myk's place if realistic tactical naval gaming is something you think you might enjoy. If you decide to buy Harpoon 3, I'll see ya at HarpoonHQ, where you are guaranteed to meet 100 people a lot smarter than I, and perhaps the smartest hidden navy related community on the web.

BTW, for those curious, the pictures are from Lineage2, a highly competitive player vs player game I made good money in, and ultimately became hated in the gaming community because of. Ironically, it was a copy of the tax payments I made with the IRS from profits playing the black market in that game the first few months in 2005 that ultimately landed me on the economic research team in fall 2005.

6th Fleet Focus: The South African Submarine School

Stories like this serve as a reminder that no matter how many tools you pile onto surface platforms, no matter how many systems they have either on or off the platform, they are still a long way from changing the balance of power at sea.

A lone South African submarine has left some North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commanders with red faces on Tuesday as it "sank" all the ships of the Nato Maritime Group engaged in exercises with the SA Navy off the Cape Coast.

The S101 - or the SAS Manthatisi - not only evaded detection by a joint NATO and SA Navy search party, comprising several ships combing the search area with radar and sonar; it also sank all the ships in the fleet taking part.

Several times during the exercise that lasted throughout Monday night and Tuesday morning a red square lit up the screens where the surface ships thought the submarine was, but it remained elusive.

This gave Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota something to brag about when he landed on the SAS Amatola to speak to the media on Tuesday.

"To be able to frustrate detection by NATO nations is no mean achievement; it speaks of the excellence of the equipment we required for this purpose."

And while this left one of the world's strongest military alliances frustrated, it was also a sign that the group had a capable partner in Africa, Lekota said.

Sea Power 21, Version 2.0 Part 2

In October 2002 Admiral Vern Clark introduced the Sea Power 21 concept in Proceedings Magazine. It was billed as a vision statement for the 21st century, and in general it was a combination of lessons learned since the last maritime strategy (1986), but also it carried with it buzz from the "transformation" idea that was just beginning to come from the Pentagon. The Sea Power 21 vision statement was the first official naval document that included the word "transformation."

This post represents the second installment of Sea Power 21 version 2.0 (Part 1 here). The topics discussed within are presented last in Sea Power 21, so in effect I am skipping ahead a bit only to return to parts skipped in part 3.

Strategies are enduring, and effective strategies are almost timeless, and while they account in many cases for the environment of the time, politically, technically, and professionally to an extent, they don't require much revision to be relevant to other time periods. The last Maritime Strategy for the US Navy dates to 1986, 5 years before the fall of the Soviet Union. In September of 2007, that strategy remains the foundation for the US Navy today, for at least another month anyway, and for its 21 years the outcome is unquestionably the most powerful naval force in the history of mankind in today's US Navy.

Concepts of Operations (or visions), like Sea Power 21, are not as enduring. They should be constantly reevaluated to determine what is working, and what isn't. Being that we are approaching 5 years of Sea Power 21, I suggest it is time to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't, why, and what needs to be 'tweaked.' In this section there is a need for major change, or what I would call a reevaluation of the major changes implimented, and where the path is unclear I suggest consulting history as a guide. This process of reevaluation would lead to Sea Power 21 v2.0. In part 2, I will focus on the following areas of Sea Power 21:

• Sea Trial: The Process of Innovation
• Sea Warrior: Investing in Sailors
• Sea Enterprise: Resourcing Tomorrow's Fleet

Sea Trial

In March of 1922, the US Navy converted the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3) in to the US Navy's first aircraft carrier, commissioned the USS Langley (CV 1). What followed was the steady innovation of aircraft carrier operations. Starting with the launch of a a Vought VE-7 from her deck on October 17, 1922, followed by the landing of a Aeromarine 39 while underway on October 26th, 1922. Testing, analysis, and demonstrations followed until the USS Langley was taken back to Norfolk for repairs and modifications, where she was then transferred to the Pacific fleet arriving in November of 1924. For the next 12 years the USS Langley (CV 1) operated off the Pacific west coast and Hawaii innovating carrier aviation, a development process that ultimately took 14 years to understand the concepts. Unfortunately, the US Navy never truly understood or embraced the concept of carrier aviation until December 1941, when Japan introduced the true capabilities of carrier aviation in Pearl Harbor, after which the aircraft carrier became the center of the US Navy, a position it holds to this day.

The aircraft carrier for the US Navy was an innovation over time, the evolution of technology that really wasn't fully understood by Navy leaders until after Midway in 1942, around 20 years after those early flights off the Langley.

Technology has seemingly increased the speed of the innovation process, but perception isn't always reality. In reality, not much has changed. As an example, the MV-22 concept dates to 1986, meaning it has taken 21 years and 22 billion dollars to date to bridge the gap between two very well understood technologies, airplanes and helicopters. The biggest two innovations of the last decade is Cooperative Engagement Capability and technologies enabled by satellite communications, neither of which are innovations specific to the Navy.

Sea Trial is to identify innovations with the greatest potential to provide dramatic increases in warfighting capability, and it appears in part this specific role is being achieved. Modular configuration is the major innovation in the LCS, while the DD(X) introduces a number of innovations. While the extent to which these innovations will increase warfighting is still unclear, what is missing from Sea Trial is the stated process by which innovations 'should be' incorporated into the Navy. Innovation in and of itself is critical, but equally important is deciding what innovations should be included in new projects, and to what extent the maturity of an innovation is required before committing the investment to innovation.

To me this is the weakness of the Sea Trial process. There appears to be a prudence in evaluation regarding how to incorporate innovations, with the standard operating procedure currently in practice to include everything in new hulls, regardless of its level of maturity as a technology, and despite prudent experimentation to determine effectiveness. The key element missing from Sea Trial is actually in the paperwork, but doesn't exist in form. The Langley was built on a converted collier hull, so I ask the question, where are the operational prototypes?

The lack of prototyping large capital investments that include large numbers of innovations has driven costs up in procurement, but where it has been done costs have been kept manageable. The UCAS-N is a good example where a prototype matters. Sea Trial ultimately is ineffective if dedication to innovations becomes too cost prohibitive to integrate effectively into the warfighters arsenal, Sea Power 21 version 2 would focus on testing innovations similar to the model utilized for the SSGN, which instead of a "Deep Change" approach that transformation describes, instead utilized an evolutionary approach by testing and integrating mature technologies to enhance existing capabilities, which ultimately proved to be a fiscally responsible approach as well.

Sea Warrior

This section is intentionally short. Timing is everything. This story and this story raise new questions regarding the effectiveness of Sea Warrior in Sea Power 21. When it comes to the Navy and its people, there are better sources than I. Things aren't all bad, there is no question the Navy has committed to the excellence of its sailors, and there are programs that have helped. I only have one piece of advice on this subject, when it comes to people and skills there is a high cost in low quality, and the costs increase or decrease in direct proportion to the quality (or lackof) of leadership.

In a Navy where the only way to lose command is to be too politically incorrect, or to be in command when a mishap occurs while underway, these relatively random standards for leadership across the fleet, not only at sea, highlight why the results from leadership are, random. While lip service is paid and all the right things are written down and highlighted in Sea Warrior of Sea Power 21 as the process to follow in producing highly capable sailors, the efforts of the bottom up approach only go so far in a top down Navy.

Ultimately, I don't know what can be done here. Clearly the existing process is flawed, but the alternatives are complicated for both the enlisted sailors and officers. I'll let smarter, better informed advice flow from those who would know better than I.

Sea Enterprise

In downloading the US Navy official brief on Sea Enterprise, you might be shocked to learn the first thing stated after the cover page, it reads "We must drive down our costs!" The next two items listed as follows:

Sea Enterprise is focused on doing just that: Transforming Navy business processes… driving enterprise-wide effectiveness/efficiency

It sounds great, but the very next page sums up the problem.


I get the part about "new ways of thinking and behaving," progress usually involves a process of developing better methods for approaching solutions, and when progress is effective, it will also require a culture change within an organization that is reflected in 'behavior.' Culture change always meets resistance, so turbulence should be expected. However, at what point did radical, "deep change" involving a process that is discontinuous with history involving surrendering control for irreversible change sound smart? The Navy is over 200 years old, the suggestion that processes refined over centuries that have been successful to the point they have achieved the very best in all categories relative to its competitors shouldn't serve as a guide is not only blatantly stupid, it requires the absence of wisdom.

The results speak to my point. Since this 'discontinuous of the past' process has been implimented, costs in every category in business management has skyrocketed. While there are individual examples where Sea Enterprise is effective, that recapitalization of costs has occurred at individual dept levels, and while this is done top line items have increased which has the effect of ultimately diminishing gains.

Sea Enterprise in action is currently a failure, period. Fiscal discipline in the Navy does not exist, and without fiscal discipline Sea Enterprise simply cannot achieve the first stated goal of driving down costs. The Navy needs to adjust its process for business, which means Sea Enterprise needs a new approach that reflects the environment.

To build the definition, the Navy needs to understand the environment, which was recently outlined by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in terms of America's four deficits.

First, there is a federal budget deficit. The Federal government continues to spend money without regard to consequences. The unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare in the future has risen to almost 50 trillion dollars, and yet nobody in Washington is concerned.

Second there is a savings deficit. Americans are living well above their means, and the US now ranks at the bottom of savings among all industrialized nations. Given the problems in our public retirement system, personal savings become more important, except they are generally non-existent.

Third, without savings the US has a balance-of-payments deficit. the US is spending more than it is producing. This leads to a trading deficit which ultimately reduces the value of the dollar.

Finally, there is a leadership deficit in Washington. US leaders have chosen to use creative accounting techniques to hide the problems from the American people, and have not confronted the reality of the challenges ahead. This isn't an idealogical problem, as both sides of the political spectrum are guilty.

These problems are national, and will directly effect the US Navy. The problems will ultimately reduce the budget of the Navy, and it will likely happen quickly. There is no indication the Navy has developed business plans to deal with this reality, instead the Navy is engaged in fiscal irresponsibility in virtually every program, yet to produce a single accurate estimate of any major procurement item since the inception of Sea Enterprise. With risk a major part of the environment, more risk in business processes simply doesn't appear to be a wise coarse of action, but with transformation as a guide, this is exactly the path the Navy is taking.

The results to date of Sea Enterprise speak louder than my words. The record of transformation in Sea Enterprise is one of failure, and the future doesn't look good. Perhaps it is time to listen to those who suggest looking to history as a guide to move forward, this isn't the first time the Navy has faced major budget reductions nor the first time the Navy faced enormous procurement challenges, the only distinguishing factor about this era is that it is the first time the Navy decided to give up control of the process to others as a business model, where in the past it took a very hands on approach and applied attention to detail. Despite what transformation suggests, there are lessons in US Naval History worth looking back to for consultation before moving forward in an uncertain era.

7th Fleet Focus: Asian Military Buildup Continues

The naval buildup in Asia continues. If you are keeping score, Japan and South Korea are both finishing new AEGIS destroyers, China is fielding a little bit of everything, Russia intends to buy 6 new aircraft carriers and rebuild its fleet, Taiwan wants AEGIS destroyers and new submarines, India is currently building 2 aircraft carriers and looking to field nuclear submarines, Pakistan is buying new submarines, and Australia is buying new destroyers and new LHDs.

Oh and this just in, Indonesia is buying 2 new submarines while making plans for "a fleet of 10 submarines and 260 surface ships in the longer term."

INDONESIA will finalise a $1.2 billion deal with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Jakarta tomorrow, to fund the purchase of Russian submarines, tanks and helicopters.

The acquisition of two high-performance Kilo-class submarines has significant strategic implications for Australia and could erode its naval dominance in the region, military experts believe.

An Indonesian Navy spokesman, Sugeng Darmawan, told the Herald long-term plans to buy another eight of the new submarines were already being discussed.

Tomorrow's agreement will deepen military links between Russia and Indonesia as well as upgrading Indonesia's army, navy and air force. It will reduce Indonesia's dependence on US military supplies.

You know, if war ever does break out in the Pacific, with all those submarines it is going to be difficult for any surface ship to survive, and that ignores the air power of the various nations listed.