Precision Kills From the Sea - Updated - Another Sub Strike

See update at bottom.

As usual, first reports on the strike in Somalia were inaccurate. It was not an airstrike as first reported, rather the Navy continues to engage over the horizon with its cruise missile strikes in the very early morning hours. The Washington Post has what will probably be the final word on the strike.

A U.S. military official said five Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched against the village from a U.S. naval vessel. The official would not confirm the type of vessel or its home base but said ships from the Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, "routinely operate in the Horn of Africa area."

Tomahawk cruise missiles go for about $400,000 a piece, with 5 missiles involved this operation cost about $2 million dollars. While the US operates a number of maritime patrol and UAV aviation assets in the region, there are not many attack aircraft regionally that can respond to time sensitive targets. Given options for attacking terrorists, as the price of Tomahawk cruise missiles has fallen over the years and the maturity of the technology, they have become the most cost efficient way for time sensitive precision strikes.

The Advanced Gun System being developed for the DDG-1000 will be able to handle this type of strike, but I question whether a $3+ billion dollar ship is the smartest way to deploy the weapon.

This strike continues a pattern of naval forces supporting special forces with ISR and long range strike in dealing with the terrorist targets in Somalia. This approach produces no footprint on the ground but has had mixed results, with some strikes missing intended targets. Is this the best way to deal with terrorists in Somalia? We don't know, but we observe there are not many alternatives short of putting boots on the ground.

Update: It was premature to suggest this was the end of the discussion, because the LA Times is reporting this morning the attack came from a submarine.

A U.S. missile strike Monday against suspected terrorists in a remote village of southern Somalia killed at least six people and wounded 10, witnesses and local leaders said.

A Tomahawk cruise missile was launched from a U.S. submarine off the coast of the African nation, U.S. officials said, but they declined to identify the target or provide other details.

Once again the submarine community appears to be executing the GWOT strategy from the sea. If in fact the LA Times is right, it continues to be the amphibious ships and submarine community executing the "from the sea" strategy to fight terror cells in ungoverned countries.

We've been thinking about this a lot lately, and in the context of strategy, we keep thinking that the HI/LOW mix for shipbuilding strategy is flawed, what the Navy needs to be doing is thinking in terms of BIG/SMALL wars for fleet constitution. In other words, we stop thinking in terms of size, and start thinking in terms of function.

A War of Proxy Wars

CIA Director Michael Hayden conducted a Q&A at Kansas State University on Wednesday, and busted out some comments worth analysis.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date.

Hayden made the statement in response to a student question while delivering the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University.

"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that."

It is very difficult to prove "it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq" which is why he begins the sentence with "It is my opinion." We observe Directory Hayden to be a sharp guy, and as CIA Director he unquestionably has access to more information that we do on the topic. In essence though, his opinion becomes that he believes the government of Iran has declared war on the United States military in Iraq.

The story continues.

Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon, including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.

Another senior military official said the evidence will include mortars, rockets, small arms, roadside bombs and armor-piercing explosives - known as explosively formed penetrators or EFPs - that troops have discovered in caches in recent months. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the evidence has not yet been made public, said dates on some of the weapons were well after Tehran signaled late last year that it was scaling back aid to insurgents.

This is much easier to prove. Origin of military equipment can be determined by scientific means, hell origin of any hardware can be done this way, and is not really subject to a political opinion. The politics arrives after an accurate revelation. We know too many folks both in Iraq and who have been to Iraq who have first hand accounts on this subject, and we do recognize that some of the military equipment is sourced to Iran, and in particular the really nasty modern stuff.

While there are a lot of people who are under the mistaken impression Iran is going to go away when Bush leaves office, we see Iran, not Iraq, as the enormous foreign policy burden Bush will leave the next president. Iraq was contained, constrained, and only empowered through the broken corruptive nature of the UN, a series of corruption driven programs we believe screwed Saddam just as much as it was screwing legitimate sanctions. As we have said many times on this blog, we did not support the invasion of Iraq, believing at the time Bush was attacking Iraq to avoid addressing the problem with Iran. However, now that we are in Iraq we do not support withdrawal from Iraq until an exit strategy is developed. We see the political rhetoric in this election to be very tactical, as stuff like surge or withdrawal does not strike us as very strategic.

We find it very plausible that Iraq represents the same strategy for both Iran and the United States. While we are leveraging Iraq as the battlespace to fight a proxy war against Al Qaeda and other extremists "over there," it seems very plausible Iran is fighting a proxy war against the United States "over there" as well. Either it is time to discuss a peace treaty for the proxy war, or time to shift the proxy war to a real war. We really do not see another option for the United States, as the present situation does not provide stability as long as Iran is involved. We note that Iran has the same two options for a conclusion to the stalemate, but they have one more, time is on their side.

We believe the exit strategy out of Iraq goes through Iran. We do not know what that strategy should be, but with rhetoric like what we see from General Hayden here, it does not appear the United States knows either. One thing that is also clear, the conservative "bomb, bomb, bomb..." approach and the progressive "get our troops out now" approach both strike us as unproductive, and neither appears in line with our national economic interests.

Iraq has become a war of proxy wars. Whether it is this president or the next, the war will not end until the proxy aspect of the war ends. We see the development of strategy to that end as the exit strategy. We don't believe the only ways and means to reach those ends are military, although we acknowledge they may need to be.

Lemons... Start Your Engines

OK I'm taking an unfair cheap shot with that title, guilty as charged. Is anyone else ready to see these platforms at sea? We are getting pretty excited about this program, because while we don't see much strategic value in it, we observe the conversation will change once they get to sea. Lockheed Martin appears to be getting closer to trials with LCS-1, and with Austal getting attention with its new sci fi design, this press release almost screams of "me too" for good press.

Recently, the sound of steadily humming engines could be heard aboard Freedom as the ship’s two Fairbanks Morse diesel engines demonstrated excellent performance during testing. The team monitored the performance of the diesel engines, which can provide more than 17,000 brake horsepower (bhp) for the ship, at various speeds to ensure they met the Navy’s performance requirements. The engines will help to economically power the ship at cruise speeds out to ranges exceeding 3,500 nautical miles.

Freedom’s innovative propulsion system is a combined diesel and gas turbine plant which drives steerable water jets, allowing the ship to sustain sprint speeds over 40 knots. The two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines aboard Freedom are the largest gas turbines ever to be installed on a Navy ship. Two fixed and two steerable Rolls-Royce water jets - the first of their size to ever be installed on a Navy ship - will enable superior maneuverability for mission execution.

Testing and outfitting of Freedom continues dockside at Marinette Marine, in Marinette, WI in preparation for sea trials. Freedom will be delivered to the U.S. Navy in 2008 and will be homeported in San Diego.

Looks to us like it took Lockheed Martin about two weeks to overcome the engine problems Tim Colton brought up, or perhaps notably, just get the engines to start. What Lockheed Martin calls an "innovative propulsion system" has all the signs of an engineering nightmare for a small crew, at least early on while they evolve the design and procedures. We recognize it will be a process, and will probably be one of the few people trying to remind others as when the hype over small small things start.

We still hold out hope that the DDG-1000 gets canceled after 2 ships, that the Navy will buy the one LCS purchased last year, the two in the FY09 budget, and the three in FY10 before starting a design transition for 'Flight I' to a corvette/frigate. There is nothing strategic about a fleet consisting of only battleships supported by a flotilla of unrated mini-motherships, and I don't believe for a minute the Navy's own internal war games suggest otherwise. We actually believe there is a good sign this is true, because every time Admiral Roughead discusses fleet constitution with the media, he uses the word "balance."

It appears pretty obvious to us the 313 fleet plan is not balanced. If Lockheed Martin (or GD) was playing their cards right, they would be pushing for the US to build the first MMC versions of the LCS. Sure would make exports less expensive if the US carried the dime for first in class, and most importantly, the nation would get the long process of first in class design moving.

5th Fleet Focus: Another Strike In Somalia

These are still early reports, so we caution folks to be skeptical of any details. About the only thing clear is that there was a strike last night in Somalia, and it did successfully kill the man the US intended to kill.

Capt. Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, confirmed there was a U.S. airstrike early Thursday in the vicinity of Dusamareeb. Another U.S. military spokesman, Bob Prucha, said the attack was against a "known al-Qaida target and militia leader in Somalia." Both declined to provide further details.

But another U.S. defense official confirmed that the military launched a missile strike targeting Ayro at about 3 a.m. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Over the past year, the U.S. military has attacked several suspected extremists in Somalia, most recently in March when the U.S. Navy fired at least one missile into a southern Somali town.

We put our money on cruise missile. While the US has plenty of air power in the region, the events in Iraq and Afghanistan are pretty hot right now, particularly around Baghdad and in the region where the 24th MEU is engaged. We continue to emphasize there is a lot more going on in 5th fleet than people are hearing about, with the media picking up on this and now reporting almost daily incidents ranging from piracy to non violent confrontation with Iran to attacks in Somalia.

In observing the media reports of the incident over the last hour, there are a lot of inconsistencies. The number of killed depends upon who wrote the story, usually ranging from 6-12 people. The extent of the damage also depends on who wrote the story, with one story describing the damage specific to the location targeted, with another story claiming an entire neighborhood was destroyed

May take a few days to get the real details. For us, and we aren't on a need to know basis here, about the only aspect of the story we care about is whether the strike came from a ship or sub.

Russia Sets Admiral Gorshkov Price

Russia's price turns out to be a lot more money than I would have expected.

Russia has proposed a price escalation of a staggering $1.2 billion for re-equipping aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and technical evaluation and negotiations in this regard are underway, the government said on Wednesday.

Replying to questions in Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister A K Antony said the Russian side has indicated revision in time and cost for repairing the aircraft carrier due to 'growth of work'.

"The price escalation proposed by the Russian side is $1,202 million. The process of examination of the scope and necessity for additional work projected by the Russian side has been initiated," he said.

India will haggle in the press, complain, and ultimately take the deal. The Kitty Hawk would be the better option for India though.