danielboon
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PARAGUAY PRESIDENT ABDO SAYS CLOSING EMBASSY IN VENEZUELA, WITHDRAWING DIPLOMATS IMMEDIATELY
WAR 01-05-2019-to-01-11-2019___****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
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PARAGUAY PRESIDENT ABDO SAYS CLOSING EMBASSY IN VENEZUELA, WITHDRAWING DIPLOMATS IMMEDIATELY
danielboon
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#BREAKING
US seeks to 'expel every last Iranian boot' in Syria: Pompeo
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US seeks to 'expel every last Iranian boot' in Syria: Pompeo
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Hummm...you can drive a semi sideways over the list of "groups" inside of Syria, never mind Lebanon and now Iraq....
Last edited:
Zagdid
Veteran Member
Russian military mulls building base in CAR: report
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russian-military-mulls-building-base-in-car-report/ (fair use)
By News Desk - 2019-01-10
A Russian military base may appear in the Central African Republic, the framework agreement envisions such a possibility, but the issue has not been discussed so far, CAR Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara said in an interview with Sputnik.
“We have not yet spoken about the specific development of the base, but such a possibility is not ruled out in the framework agreement that has already been concluded between our countries. If the presidents, as supreme commanders-in-chief, as leaders of the nation, make the decision to deploy the base, it means our countries will agree on that, and we, as ministers, will be implementing it,” Koyara said.
She said an army training center had been established in the CAR’s Berengo jointly with Russia. She said it could not be considered a Russian military base, but added that people had already begun to perceive it that way.
“Our population perceives Russia very well. When the talk is about Russia, people understand that this is a full-fledged partner that may change the country’s future. And it is this human support, so to speak from the masses, that suggests that the word ‘partner’ is fully applicable to Russia,” Koyara added.
The authorities and armed groups of the Central African Republic are ready for a meeting on the settlement under the auspices of the African Union, they expect to be notified of the date and venue, Marie-Noelle Koyara added.
“Armed groups are ready for a meeting, we are ready for a meeting, all interested parties are ready for a meeting, and now we are waiting for the response from the African Union as a coordinator, when and where it should take place,” Koyara said.
The meeting on settlement of the conflict in the Central African Republic under the auspices of the African Union should result in the development of a road map, Marie-Noelle Koyara said.
“The elected president chose the path of dialogue to return to peace, after which the African Union decided to aggregate all the proposals to develop a road map to implement this path. And now the role of the African Union is to send expert representatives to a joint meeting with representatives of the CAR government,” Koyara added.
After the disarmament of Anti-balaka and Seleka in the Central African Republic, the armed groups may join official security structures, Koyara stressed.
“The main goal of this dialogue is to bring these groups to disarmament. After that, they have, in fact, two paths… Those who want may join security agencies. These are the police, the army, the gendarmerie and those involved in forestry,” Koyara said.
Others, she said, may return to a peaceful life as part of public projects and social programs.
“One of the recommendations that we heard at the international forum in Bangui was that due to the fact that there was such a huge number of crimes, we cannot afford a full total amnesty. Those who committed crimes must answer for them. Therefore, our Justice Ministry has much work to divide [people] into those who may be pardoned and those not worthy of it, who may not be pardoned,” Koyara said.
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russian-military-mulls-building-base-in-car-report/ (fair use)
By News Desk - 2019-01-10
A Russian military base may appear in the Central African Republic, the framework agreement envisions such a possibility, but the issue has not been discussed so far, CAR Defense Minister Marie-Noelle Koyara said in an interview with Sputnik.
“We have not yet spoken about the specific development of the base, but such a possibility is not ruled out in the framework agreement that has already been concluded between our countries. If the presidents, as supreme commanders-in-chief, as leaders of the nation, make the decision to deploy the base, it means our countries will agree on that, and we, as ministers, will be implementing it,” Koyara said.
She said an army training center had been established in the CAR’s Berengo jointly with Russia. She said it could not be considered a Russian military base, but added that people had already begun to perceive it that way.
“Our population perceives Russia very well. When the talk is about Russia, people understand that this is a full-fledged partner that may change the country’s future. And it is this human support, so to speak from the masses, that suggests that the word ‘partner’ is fully applicable to Russia,” Koyara added.
The authorities and armed groups of the Central African Republic are ready for a meeting on the settlement under the auspices of the African Union, they expect to be notified of the date and venue, Marie-Noelle Koyara added.
“Armed groups are ready for a meeting, we are ready for a meeting, all interested parties are ready for a meeting, and now we are waiting for the response from the African Union as a coordinator, when and where it should take place,” Koyara said.
The meeting on settlement of the conflict in the Central African Republic under the auspices of the African Union should result in the development of a road map, Marie-Noelle Koyara said.
“The elected president chose the path of dialogue to return to peace, after which the African Union decided to aggregate all the proposals to develop a road map to implement this path. And now the role of the African Union is to send expert representatives to a joint meeting with representatives of the CAR government,” Koyara added.
After the disarmament of Anti-balaka and Seleka in the Central African Republic, the armed groups may join official security structures, Koyara stressed.
“The main goal of this dialogue is to bring these groups to disarmament. After that, they have, in fact, two paths… Those who want may join security agencies. These are the police, the army, the gendarmerie and those involved in forestry,” Koyara said.
Others, she said, may return to a peaceful life as part of public projects and social programs.
“One of the recommendations that we heard at the international forum in Bangui was that due to the fact that there was such a huge number of crimes, we cannot afford a full total amnesty. Those who committed crimes must answer for them. Therefore, our Justice Ministry has much work to divide [people] into those who may be pardoned and those not worthy of it, who may not be pardoned,” Koyara said.
Hummm….
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...dings-Magazine&p=7143631&posted=1#post7143631
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019-01/converting-merchant-ships-missile-ships-win
Converting Merchant Ships to Missile Ships for the Win
393 24 16
Proceedings Magazine - January 2019 Vol. 145/1/1,391
By Captain R. Robinson Harris, U.S. Navy (Ret.); Andrew Kerr; Kenneth Adams; Christopher Abt; Michael Venn; and Colonel T. X. Hammes, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
The Navy wants and needs more capability to ease the strain on its slowly growing fleet, a strain amplified by global great-power competition. The pace of the 30-year shipbuilding plan as envisioned falls short in fielding the offensive power or the number of ships necessary to challenge adversaries. Achieving “the Navy the nation needs” warrants an innovative approach. The Navy should acquire and arm merchant ships, outfitting them with modular weapons and systems to take advantage of improving technology and shipping market conditions while providing capability more rapidly and less expensively than traditional acquisition efforts.
Critics deride the Navy’s emphasis on ships numbers. They say it is not numbers but the capability carried by the ships that matters. But both are important.
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral John Richardson has voiced concern about fleet operational restrictions imposed by the Navy’s ballistic-missile defense (BMD) mission. [1] The CNO explains that the BMD ships are restricted to confined operating areas—“little boxes,” as he puts it. His concern appears not to be with the BMD mission, but rather that with only 280-some ships, restricting the movements of BMD assets means that there are other important missions elsewhere that the Navy cannot fulfill.
The 355-ship force is a goal—and a distant one at that. The actual size of the Navy in recent years has fluctuated between 270 and 290 ships.
To get to 355, the Navy’s 2019 ship-building plan proposes an eventual composition of 12 aircraft carriers, 12 ballistic-missile submarines, 66 attack submarines, 104 large surface combatants, 52 small surface combatants, 38 amphibious warfare ships, and 71 combat logistics and support ships. [2] But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) notes that the proposed construction and retirement schedules “would not meet [the] goal of 355 ships any time over the next 30 years.” [3] The Navy has responded by announcing service-life extensions for some destroyers and attack submarines to “reach 355 ships in 2034.” [4] The cost to build and operate the proposed fleet would average $109 billion per year (2018 dollars) through 2047, “at least one-third more than the amount appropriated for fiscal year 2016 for today’s 275-ship fleet.” [5]
This makes the plan’s completion seem very unlikely. Indeed, Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), incoming House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chair, has noted that the Department of Defense’s current $717-billion budget is not likely to reach that size again any time soon. Smith expects lawmakers increasingly will focus on military capabilities rather than numbers of ships, aircraft, or weapon systems. HASC has urged the Navy to consider options beyond new construction to grow the fleet.
Conversion not Construction
One option would be for the Navy to convert readily available merchant hulls into missile-armed Navy ships.
CBO analyst Eric Labs points out that:
“Measuring relative naval power is a difficult task. Of the measures CBO used, the number of VLS cells is arguably the most meaningful because it represents the missile firepower of the fleet, which serves as a proxy for its offensive and defensive capability. . . . A weakness of using [this number] however, is that it does not capture the capability of the Navy’s most potent conventional weapon system—the aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing—nor that of the Navy’s amphibious warfare ships. However, there is little difference in the [proposed] number of aircraft carriers among CBO’s alternatives until the 2040s.” [6]
Former Under Secretary of the Navy Bob Work appears to concur on the utility of VLS-cell-number metric because it emphasizes fleet offensive and defensive capability over simple hull numbers. [7]
Because the number of aircraft carriers in the fleet will not increase until the 2040s (if then), the question becomes how to add VLS cells (and missiles) to the fleet sooner. Modernizing and modifying existing ships is a necessary first step. For instance, adding missile systems to amphibious ships could increase the VLS-cell inventory by around 270. [8]
More cells are necessary but not sufficient. Additional hulls are needed to compete with near-peer adversaries, and converting merchant ships into VLS missile-cell carriers could provide an economical complement—although not a complete alternative—to new construction.
Options include International Maritime Organization–compliant double-hull tankers and container ships. Given their size, either type probably could accommodate tactical ballistic missiles in addition to ship-launched cruise missiles. Container ship conversion into a “missile merchant” would be easier and probably less costly if VLS modules were housed in special ConEx Boxes or stacked in container cells. On the other hand, Mercy- class hospital ships are converted tankers in which the medical spaces were dropped into the open hull; similarly installing conventional VLS modules on board a modern tanker would offer improved survivability. [9]
It Floats—But Will It Fight?
By leveraging existing combat systems and “kill webs,” missile merchants would act as on-demand remote magazines—not unlike the arsenal ship concept (more on that below). Advances in high-performance computing, software virtualization, and composite materials enable proven, existing systems such as cruise missiles to fit into International Organization for Standardization–compliant ConEx shipping containers. This modular form-factor allows for rapid and low-cost outfitting of container ships and plug-and-play compatibility with existing Navy and Joint combat systems. These technologies increasingly leverage offboard targeting data, allowing for missile merchants to contribute to the fight without requiring expensive sensor suites.
Such ships can increase not only the capacity of the fleet but also its capability. In particular, the Navy faces a range challenge from current and emerging unmanned aerial systems and ballistic and cruise missiles. The current carrier air wing has a range of 450 nautical miles (nm). Even when the MQ-25 Stingray tanker reaches initial operational capability in 2027 , the air wing will only have a range of around 700 nm—about half that of many antiship cruise missiles. VLS-configured or containerized missile systems would dramatically (and comparatively inexpensively) increase the damage a strike group could inflict before closing to launch aircraft.
How Many? And How Much?
Cargo ships are bought and sold through a network of ship brokers, with the largest based in Europe and Asia. Trade publications such as Tradewinds , Lloyds List , Marine Log , etc., show that the nominal cost to acquire container or double-hulled tanker ships could be between $25 and $50 million per hull depending on size and where they were constructed. [10] (Any major conflict in the Pacific will significantly reduce international trade, which could make a large number of commercial platforms suddenly available at a fraction of the cost of building a new warship.)
Because the expensive sensor suites will be off-hull, the cost to convert such ships to missile platforms should be modest, assuming the employment of standard Mark 41 VLS 8-cell modules or purpose-built ConEx boxes. Using standard 20- or 40-foot-long freight containers offers the advantage of several different loading systems and intermodal handling systems ashore.
It’s the People, Not the Machines
To crew these ships, reserve detachments could provide one option, although Navy Captain Chris Rawley, a reserve surface warfare officer, has suggested that a “hybrid” crew model might be best:
A handful of warships in the U.S. Navy, including USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15), two flagships, and submarine tenders . . . are commanded by a commissioned naval officer, though their navigation and engineering functions are primarily conducted by [civilian mariners]. This hybrid crewing approach enables them to conduct or command offensive operations in accordance with international law.
One of the Navy’s key vulnerabilities today is its inability to replace combat losses rapidly. The combination of reduced shipyard capacity and long construction times means the Navy will have to fight with whatever ships are in or near commission. The current shipbuilding plan does not address this problem, but converted merchant ships could offer a solution.
Rather than trying to maintain reserve ships in the so-called Ghost Fleet, the Navy could ensure surge-production capacity for missile and drone systems. Rapid conversion of merchant ships combined with significant output of offensive weapons would cut the time required to supply new combatants to the fleet from years to months. With practice—and a stock of containerized weapons systems on hand—the conversion time possibly could be reduced to weeks.
Using the hybrid crewing model, reservists could crew the ships and operate the weapon systems, focusing their normal peacetime training commitments on their possible wartime missile-merchant duties. (Weapon system reservists should be able to train at home stations since most training could be designed to use simulators.) The annual two-week, active-duty period would be dedicated to team training on board a ship at sea.
Sizing the Magazine
The question of how many missiles each ship should carry invites a hedged response: enough to be of interest to the adversary, but not so many as to mimic the arsenal-ship concept . When they were proposed, those floating magazines were considered risky, holding too many eggs in each basket. If only a few large merchants became missile ships with, say, 100-plus missiles per hull, an adversary could concentrate attacks on these few ships, roughly equivalent in value (at least by the VLS-cell metric) to destroyers and cruisers.
The Navy might therefore consider missile merchants “too important to lose,” starting a spiral of engineering changes, defensive system upgrades, and cost increases. On the other hand, arming them with too-few weapons does not add much punch and does little to complicate adversary planning. A detailed campaign analysis is warranted, but our rough estimate of the “just right” number is 30–50. Converting 10 to 15 cargo ships would give the fleet between 300 and 750 missile cells at a fraction of the cost and time for new-build surface combatants.
Missiles Need More than VLS Cells
Arleigh Burke –class destroyers were designed around their weapon systems. This results in fine warships, but at great cost in time and money. The missile merchant would rely instead on weapon systems built as modular units—not only the missile launchers, but also the sophisticated computing assets that support them. Commercial ships have the space but may not have the electrical power or cooling infrastructure to support standard processing equipment. Virtualization, which digitizes functions that physical computer components would otherwise do, can shrink whole combat systems to the size of desktop computers and reduce their support needs. This comes at a processing-power cost, but the missile merchants will receive their targets from sensors on aircraft and conventional surface combatants, reducing computing demand.
Missile merchants will have to rely on reduced susceptibility to detection and targeting for survivability. As offensively capable naval vessels, missile merchants would need to be marked as United States Ships, flagged, and named—a problem in the face of electro-optical sensing. But many targeting systems rely on inverse synthetic-aperture radar, which produces a low-resolution image of its target for identification, revealing only a simplified shape. In heavily trafficked areas, a missile merchant without sensor masts would be hard to discern from other merchant ships at range. Electronic emissions that could be correlated to U.S. Navy assets pose risks that must be mitigated as much as possible. Automated ship reporting systems should be used judiciously.
While it is true that converted tankers and container ships will lack many of the defensive systems to defeat modern naval weapons, they will require only small crews of perhaps 30 sailors each. The Navy can experiment with inexpensive ways to harden these ships. Ships in the 30–50,000 dead-weight ton range would possess cargo capacity well in excess of that needed for the combat systems. Even a small container ship will have hundreds of empty containers. The Navy could experiment with different types of fill to absorb the energy of enemy weapons— anything from large sandbags to expanding foams. Much as World War II Q-ships sometimes carried buoyant cargoes to make them survivable, the Navy today could mount the outer rows of containers as inner hulls. If only the inner two rows carry weapons, up to four on each side could be configured as protective layers and perhaps reserve buoyancy.
Damage control could consume the efforts of a minimal crew, but—with some additional cost—automated systems could be installed. Drawing enemy fire could become an important function, perhaps protecting higher value, more-densely manned combatants.
Distribute Lethality Today, Not Tomorrow
Converted merchant ships can serve as durable, inexpensive weapons "trucks." Given the interchangeability of modern containers, these converted ships could become among the most easily upgraded systems in the fight, at a fraction of the cost and time required to design new ships around new systems. The Navy should start experimenting with the concept immediately.
[1] Admiral John Richardson at U.S. Naval War College Current Strategy Forum, June 2018.
[2] Congressional Research Service (CRS), “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plan: Background and Issues for the U. S. Congress,” 31 July 2018.
[3] Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “An Analysis of the Navy’s FY2019 Shipbuilding Plan,” October 2018.
[4] CBO, “Analysis.”
[5] CBO, “Analysis,” and email from Dr. Eric Labs to R. Robinson Harris 19 October 2018.
[6] CRS, “Navy Force Structure.”
[7] Under Secretary of the Navy Robert Work briefing at Surface Navy Association Symposium 10 January 2011.
[8] This number was derived by Mr. Kenneth Adams as follows: 13 LPD’s x 16 cells + 8 LSD’s x 8 cells.
[9] Email note from Mr. Lee Wahler.
[10] Email note from Mr. Jon Kaskin, SES, (Ret.).
Captain Harris is a former surface warfare officer who commanded the USS Conolly (DD-979) and Destroyer Squadron 32. Mr. Kerr is a former submarine officer and a 2009 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He currently works as an operations analyst. Mr. Adams is an operations analyst for Lockheed Martin and a former battleship sailor. Mr. Abt works for Lockheed Martin—Rotary and Mission Systems. Mr. Venn works as Director, Enterprise Strategy for Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems business area. Colonel Hammes served 30 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He has a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University.
25 Comments
leesea • 17 hours ago
The article speaks mainly to how a container ship might be modified. I believe that a "hardened tanker" has more PROS starting with carrying its missile payload below main deck out of sight. And the former cargo tanks can be armored with much more buoyancy maintained on double hulled tankers. By using standard VLS launchers conversion costs can be contained.
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TrustbutVerify • 13 hours ago
The first step is to develop the mobile Conex box systems and have them built out. They can then be mounted anywhere - CG ships, converted merchant vessels, islands - with (as noted) targeting data downloaded from the battle network. Once needed, you can decide where to put them - and they can be transported quickly. Each missile node would be accessed and fired based on its location and the location of the target. This decentralized targeting network has been demonstrated by using F-35 sensor suites for forward targeting for the fleet.
Obviously all the discussion of buoyancy, crewing, etc. are great and well founded, but you also have to think about the other purpose of a crew - repelling borders. It doesn't happen often to Navy ships with a crew, but a ship with a small crew - like a merchant vessel or converted vessel as discussed - is susceptible to this (as Somali pirates have shown). Using the recently developed armed robots on the ships could allow them to be used as roving topside patrols or for shooting at approaching ships. They can be remotely operated (just like a drone) from anywhere - on the ship or off. A .50 cal is pretty good for antipersonnel use and against some pretty substantial armor (at least for ships). The latest DARPA development in targeting for the .50 cal would also allow it to act as a CIWS and shoot down drones, as well.
The key thing is that this is not a first line concept, but a back-up concept. We can't build subs (even AIP subs with Japan or Australia in the area) and surface ships fast enough to meet the need if things go south in the near future, and we damn sure won't be able to replace losses in a war very quickly. However, this concept could keep us in the fight at a high tempo with offensive capabilities rather than playing defense while we rebuild capacity.
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Bryan • 14 hours ago
These are always good ideas. But VLS in and of themselves do not take up a large area or have excessive weight. 96 vls cells and Tomahawk can fit on a smaller EFP, with weight/space to spare. No need for a double hulled tanker unless it's going to be an arsenal ship with at least 248+ vls cells plus another mission to use the excess capacity. It's not survivable once the war starts unless it is protected. Cheapest way to do that is to make the tanker part of the CSG and assign it the role of stand off land attack for first day of war scenarios. It's reasonably protected and close enough to strike range to be employed early in a war. No fancy interfaces. Just an updated stand alone work station for selecting the appropriate targeting list. This allows the VLS cells in the Burke's for air defense and asroc. Perhaps allowing a further delay/savings in CG(x)?
Buying 9 of these would help with a missile forward strategy. Filling it with older Tomahawks would also allow more dual use missiles such as a LRASM to fill the sub payload modules in the future.
Too many eggs in one basket is an idea to address. Making a habit of keeping older Burke's around for a few cruises helps. Place a missile load out for self defense/merchant escort and fill the rest of the vls with Tomahawks. Buying a level 2 frigate with 48 vls instead of 16. Any and all of these ideas can work. The reality is, we can't afford what we've got. The carrier centered Navy is removing ships such as frigates in order to afford the 12 carriers. Until they are forced to change and use a strategy with less carriers, nothing like this will be done.
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Chuck Hill • 21 hours ago
Might want to think about putting some VLS on Coast Guard cutters too. 8 launchers on each of the 36 new or planned large cutter would provide 288 VLS cells and these ships already have communications systems, security systems, crews, and some defensive weapons.
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StealthFlyer • 11 hours ago
Arming LPDs with the 16 VLS they were designed for and requiring the FFG(X) to have 32+ VLS instead of 16 would increase the overall number of missiles without risking sailors on cargo ships that were not designed for combat.
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Francis Finn • 42 minutes ago
The many responses to this article points out a few simple facts:
1) The current state of ship design and procurement is not sustainable. We have been reduced to having a small number of highly capable (and outrageously expensive) ships that are irreplaceable, the loss of which would be catastrophic.
2) The recent attempt to remedy this situation ie. Littoral Combat ships has been less than remarkable. The upcoming frigate will hopefully improve the result but at a much higher cost.
3) There is no shortage of incredibly insightful ideas, many of which show great promise. It is time for the Navy to embrace the philosophy of the 1970's era Air Force and institute a high-low mix that resulted in the fielding of the F-15 and F-16. We should maintain current plans for high end surface combatants, submarines and aircraft carriers and add modular weapons systems that can be employed on a wide variety of easily, or ready built platforms. This would enable a surge capacity we do not currently have while also giving the ability to field more weapons now in order to discourage current adventurism by China, Iran, North Korea or any other potential adversary.
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Marc Apter • 2 hours ago
I had to get rid of my old copies of Proceedings when we down-sized, but wasn't this proposed in the late 70's, early 80's?
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USVoter • 2 hours ago
An interesting idea. What about making the modular box systems controllable by OTHER ships fire control systems? Any Aegis-class already has all the radars and control capability needed, it just needs that extra inventory of missiles available. What says that inventory has to actually be IN that ship? Control the modular box via wireless networking for the firing and control the missiles from the other ship.
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Continued.....
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...dings-Magazine&p=7143631&posted=1#post7143631
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019-01/converting-merchant-ships-missile-ships-win
Converting Merchant Ships to Missile Ships for the Win
393 24 16
Proceedings Magazine - January 2019 Vol. 145/1/1,391
By Captain R. Robinson Harris, U.S. Navy (Ret.); Andrew Kerr; Kenneth Adams; Christopher Abt; Michael Venn; and Colonel T. X. Hammes, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.)
The Navy wants and needs more capability to ease the strain on its slowly growing fleet, a strain amplified by global great-power competition. The pace of the 30-year shipbuilding plan as envisioned falls short in fielding the offensive power or the number of ships necessary to challenge adversaries. Achieving “the Navy the nation needs” warrants an innovative approach. The Navy should acquire and arm merchant ships, outfitting them with modular weapons and systems to take advantage of improving technology and shipping market conditions while providing capability more rapidly and less expensively than traditional acquisition efforts.
Critics deride the Navy’s emphasis on ships numbers. They say it is not numbers but the capability carried by the ships that matters. But both are important.
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral John Richardson has voiced concern about fleet operational restrictions imposed by the Navy’s ballistic-missile defense (BMD) mission. [1] The CNO explains that the BMD ships are restricted to confined operating areas—“little boxes,” as he puts it. His concern appears not to be with the BMD mission, but rather that with only 280-some ships, restricting the movements of BMD assets means that there are other important missions elsewhere that the Navy cannot fulfill.
The 355-ship force is a goal—and a distant one at that. The actual size of the Navy in recent years has fluctuated between 270 and 290 ships.
To get to 355, the Navy’s 2019 ship-building plan proposes an eventual composition of 12 aircraft carriers, 12 ballistic-missile submarines, 66 attack submarines, 104 large surface combatants, 52 small surface combatants, 38 amphibious warfare ships, and 71 combat logistics and support ships. [2] But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) notes that the proposed construction and retirement schedules “would not meet [the] goal of 355 ships any time over the next 30 years.” [3] The Navy has responded by announcing service-life extensions for some destroyers and attack submarines to “reach 355 ships in 2034.” [4] The cost to build and operate the proposed fleet would average $109 billion per year (2018 dollars) through 2047, “at least one-third more than the amount appropriated for fiscal year 2016 for today’s 275-ship fleet.” [5]
This makes the plan’s completion seem very unlikely. Indeed, Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), incoming House Armed Services Committee (HASC) chair, has noted that the Department of Defense’s current $717-billion budget is not likely to reach that size again any time soon. Smith expects lawmakers increasingly will focus on military capabilities rather than numbers of ships, aircraft, or weapon systems. HASC has urged the Navy to consider options beyond new construction to grow the fleet.
Conversion not Construction
One option would be for the Navy to convert readily available merchant hulls into missile-armed Navy ships.
CBO analyst Eric Labs points out that:
“Measuring relative naval power is a difficult task. Of the measures CBO used, the number of VLS cells is arguably the most meaningful because it represents the missile firepower of the fleet, which serves as a proxy for its offensive and defensive capability. . . . A weakness of using [this number] however, is that it does not capture the capability of the Navy’s most potent conventional weapon system—the aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing—nor that of the Navy’s amphibious warfare ships. However, there is little difference in the [proposed] number of aircraft carriers among CBO’s alternatives until the 2040s.” [6]
Former Under Secretary of the Navy Bob Work appears to concur on the utility of VLS-cell-number metric because it emphasizes fleet offensive and defensive capability over simple hull numbers. [7]
Because the number of aircraft carriers in the fleet will not increase until the 2040s (if then), the question becomes how to add VLS cells (and missiles) to the fleet sooner. Modernizing and modifying existing ships is a necessary first step. For instance, adding missile systems to amphibious ships could increase the VLS-cell inventory by around 270. [8]
More cells are necessary but not sufficient. Additional hulls are needed to compete with near-peer adversaries, and converting merchant ships into VLS missile-cell carriers could provide an economical complement—although not a complete alternative—to new construction.
Options include International Maritime Organization–compliant double-hull tankers and container ships. Given their size, either type probably could accommodate tactical ballistic missiles in addition to ship-launched cruise missiles. Container ship conversion into a “missile merchant” would be easier and probably less costly if VLS modules were housed in special ConEx Boxes or stacked in container cells. On the other hand, Mercy- class hospital ships are converted tankers in which the medical spaces were dropped into the open hull; similarly installing conventional VLS modules on board a modern tanker would offer improved survivability. [9]
It Floats—But Will It Fight?
By leveraging existing combat systems and “kill webs,” missile merchants would act as on-demand remote magazines—not unlike the arsenal ship concept (more on that below). Advances in high-performance computing, software virtualization, and composite materials enable proven, existing systems such as cruise missiles to fit into International Organization for Standardization–compliant ConEx shipping containers. This modular form-factor allows for rapid and low-cost outfitting of container ships and plug-and-play compatibility with existing Navy and Joint combat systems. These technologies increasingly leverage offboard targeting data, allowing for missile merchants to contribute to the fight without requiring expensive sensor suites.
Such ships can increase not only the capacity of the fleet but also its capability. In particular, the Navy faces a range challenge from current and emerging unmanned aerial systems and ballistic and cruise missiles. The current carrier air wing has a range of 450 nautical miles (nm). Even when the MQ-25 Stingray tanker reaches initial operational capability in 2027 , the air wing will only have a range of around 700 nm—about half that of many antiship cruise missiles. VLS-configured or containerized missile systems would dramatically (and comparatively inexpensively) increase the damage a strike group could inflict before closing to launch aircraft.
How Many? And How Much?
Cargo ships are bought and sold through a network of ship brokers, with the largest based in Europe and Asia. Trade publications such as Tradewinds , Lloyds List , Marine Log , etc., show that the nominal cost to acquire container or double-hulled tanker ships could be between $25 and $50 million per hull depending on size and where they were constructed. [10] (Any major conflict in the Pacific will significantly reduce international trade, which could make a large number of commercial platforms suddenly available at a fraction of the cost of building a new warship.)
Because the expensive sensor suites will be off-hull, the cost to convert such ships to missile platforms should be modest, assuming the employment of standard Mark 41 VLS 8-cell modules or purpose-built ConEx boxes. Using standard 20- or 40-foot-long freight containers offers the advantage of several different loading systems and intermodal handling systems ashore.
It’s the People, Not the Machines
To crew these ships, reserve detachments could provide one option, although Navy Captain Chris Rawley, a reserve surface warfare officer, has suggested that a “hybrid” crew model might be best:
A handful of warships in the U.S. Navy, including USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15), two flagships, and submarine tenders . . . are commanded by a commissioned naval officer, though their navigation and engineering functions are primarily conducted by [civilian mariners]. This hybrid crewing approach enables them to conduct or command offensive operations in accordance with international law.
One of the Navy’s key vulnerabilities today is its inability to replace combat losses rapidly. The combination of reduced shipyard capacity and long construction times means the Navy will have to fight with whatever ships are in or near commission. The current shipbuilding plan does not address this problem, but converted merchant ships could offer a solution.
Rather than trying to maintain reserve ships in the so-called Ghost Fleet, the Navy could ensure surge-production capacity for missile and drone systems. Rapid conversion of merchant ships combined with significant output of offensive weapons would cut the time required to supply new combatants to the fleet from years to months. With practice—and a stock of containerized weapons systems on hand—the conversion time possibly could be reduced to weeks.
Using the hybrid crewing model, reservists could crew the ships and operate the weapon systems, focusing their normal peacetime training commitments on their possible wartime missile-merchant duties. (Weapon system reservists should be able to train at home stations since most training could be designed to use simulators.) The annual two-week, active-duty period would be dedicated to team training on board a ship at sea.
Sizing the Magazine
The question of how many missiles each ship should carry invites a hedged response: enough to be of interest to the adversary, but not so many as to mimic the arsenal-ship concept . When they were proposed, those floating magazines were considered risky, holding too many eggs in each basket. If only a few large merchants became missile ships with, say, 100-plus missiles per hull, an adversary could concentrate attacks on these few ships, roughly equivalent in value (at least by the VLS-cell metric) to destroyers and cruisers.
The Navy might therefore consider missile merchants “too important to lose,” starting a spiral of engineering changes, defensive system upgrades, and cost increases. On the other hand, arming them with too-few weapons does not add much punch and does little to complicate adversary planning. A detailed campaign analysis is warranted, but our rough estimate of the “just right” number is 30–50. Converting 10 to 15 cargo ships would give the fleet between 300 and 750 missile cells at a fraction of the cost and time for new-build surface combatants.
Missiles Need More than VLS Cells
Arleigh Burke –class destroyers were designed around their weapon systems. This results in fine warships, but at great cost in time and money. The missile merchant would rely instead on weapon systems built as modular units—not only the missile launchers, but also the sophisticated computing assets that support them. Commercial ships have the space but may not have the electrical power or cooling infrastructure to support standard processing equipment. Virtualization, which digitizes functions that physical computer components would otherwise do, can shrink whole combat systems to the size of desktop computers and reduce their support needs. This comes at a processing-power cost, but the missile merchants will receive their targets from sensors on aircraft and conventional surface combatants, reducing computing demand.
Missile merchants will have to rely on reduced susceptibility to detection and targeting for survivability. As offensively capable naval vessels, missile merchants would need to be marked as United States Ships, flagged, and named—a problem in the face of electro-optical sensing. But many targeting systems rely on inverse synthetic-aperture radar, which produces a low-resolution image of its target for identification, revealing only a simplified shape. In heavily trafficked areas, a missile merchant without sensor masts would be hard to discern from other merchant ships at range. Electronic emissions that could be correlated to U.S. Navy assets pose risks that must be mitigated as much as possible. Automated ship reporting systems should be used judiciously.
While it is true that converted tankers and container ships will lack many of the defensive systems to defeat modern naval weapons, they will require only small crews of perhaps 30 sailors each. The Navy can experiment with inexpensive ways to harden these ships. Ships in the 30–50,000 dead-weight ton range would possess cargo capacity well in excess of that needed for the combat systems. Even a small container ship will have hundreds of empty containers. The Navy could experiment with different types of fill to absorb the energy of enemy weapons— anything from large sandbags to expanding foams. Much as World War II Q-ships sometimes carried buoyant cargoes to make them survivable, the Navy today could mount the outer rows of containers as inner hulls. If only the inner two rows carry weapons, up to four on each side could be configured as protective layers and perhaps reserve buoyancy.
Damage control could consume the efforts of a minimal crew, but—with some additional cost—automated systems could be installed. Drawing enemy fire could become an important function, perhaps protecting higher value, more-densely manned combatants.
Distribute Lethality Today, Not Tomorrow
Converted merchant ships can serve as durable, inexpensive weapons "trucks." Given the interchangeability of modern containers, these converted ships could become among the most easily upgraded systems in the fight, at a fraction of the cost and time required to design new ships around new systems. The Navy should start experimenting with the concept immediately.
[1] Admiral John Richardson at U.S. Naval War College Current Strategy Forum, June 2018.
[2] Congressional Research Service (CRS), “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plan: Background and Issues for the U. S. Congress,” 31 July 2018.
[3] Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “An Analysis of the Navy’s FY2019 Shipbuilding Plan,” October 2018.
[4] CBO, “Analysis.”
[5] CBO, “Analysis,” and email from Dr. Eric Labs to R. Robinson Harris 19 October 2018.
[6] CRS, “Navy Force Structure.”
[7] Under Secretary of the Navy Robert Work briefing at Surface Navy Association Symposium 10 January 2011.
[8] This number was derived by Mr. Kenneth Adams as follows: 13 LPD’s x 16 cells + 8 LSD’s x 8 cells.
[9] Email note from Mr. Lee Wahler.
[10] Email note from Mr. Jon Kaskin, SES, (Ret.).
Captain Harris is a former surface warfare officer who commanded the USS Conolly (DD-979) and Destroyer Squadron 32. Mr. Kerr is a former submarine officer and a 2009 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He currently works as an operations analyst. Mr. Adams is an operations analyst for Lockheed Martin and a former battleship sailor. Mr. Abt works for Lockheed Martin—Rotary and Mission Systems. Mr. Venn works as Director, Enterprise Strategy for Lockheed Martin’s Rotary and Mission Systems business area. Colonel Hammes served 30 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He has a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University.
25 Comments
leesea • 17 hours ago
The article speaks mainly to how a container ship might be modified. I believe that a "hardened tanker" has more PROS starting with carrying its missile payload below main deck out of sight. And the former cargo tanks can be armored with much more buoyancy maintained on double hulled tankers. By using standard VLS launchers conversion costs can be contained.
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TrustbutVerify • 13 hours ago
The first step is to develop the mobile Conex box systems and have them built out. They can then be mounted anywhere - CG ships, converted merchant vessels, islands - with (as noted) targeting data downloaded from the battle network. Once needed, you can decide where to put them - and they can be transported quickly. Each missile node would be accessed and fired based on its location and the location of the target. This decentralized targeting network has been demonstrated by using F-35 sensor suites for forward targeting for the fleet.
Obviously all the discussion of buoyancy, crewing, etc. are great and well founded, but you also have to think about the other purpose of a crew - repelling borders. It doesn't happen often to Navy ships with a crew, but a ship with a small crew - like a merchant vessel or converted vessel as discussed - is susceptible to this (as Somali pirates have shown). Using the recently developed armed robots on the ships could allow them to be used as roving topside patrols or for shooting at approaching ships. They can be remotely operated (just like a drone) from anywhere - on the ship or off. A .50 cal is pretty good for antipersonnel use and against some pretty substantial armor (at least for ships). The latest DARPA development in targeting for the .50 cal would also allow it to act as a CIWS and shoot down drones, as well.
The key thing is that this is not a first line concept, but a back-up concept. We can't build subs (even AIP subs with Japan or Australia in the area) and surface ships fast enough to meet the need if things go south in the near future, and we damn sure won't be able to replace losses in a war very quickly. However, this concept could keep us in the fight at a high tempo with offensive capabilities rather than playing defense while we rebuild capacity.
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Bryan • 14 hours ago
These are always good ideas. But VLS in and of themselves do not take up a large area or have excessive weight. 96 vls cells and Tomahawk can fit on a smaller EFP, with weight/space to spare. No need for a double hulled tanker unless it's going to be an arsenal ship with at least 248+ vls cells plus another mission to use the excess capacity. It's not survivable once the war starts unless it is protected. Cheapest way to do that is to make the tanker part of the CSG and assign it the role of stand off land attack for first day of war scenarios. It's reasonably protected and close enough to strike range to be employed early in a war. No fancy interfaces. Just an updated stand alone work station for selecting the appropriate targeting list. This allows the VLS cells in the Burke's for air defense and asroc. Perhaps allowing a further delay/savings in CG(x)?
Buying 9 of these would help with a missile forward strategy. Filling it with older Tomahawks would also allow more dual use missiles such as a LRASM to fill the sub payload modules in the future.
Too many eggs in one basket is an idea to address. Making a habit of keeping older Burke's around for a few cruises helps. Place a missile load out for self defense/merchant escort and fill the rest of the vls with Tomahawks. Buying a level 2 frigate with 48 vls instead of 16. Any and all of these ideas can work. The reality is, we can't afford what we've got. The carrier centered Navy is removing ships such as frigates in order to afford the 12 carriers. Until they are forced to change and use a strategy with less carriers, nothing like this will be done.
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Chuck Hill • 21 hours ago
Might want to think about putting some VLS on Coast Guard cutters too. 8 launchers on each of the 36 new or planned large cutter would provide 288 VLS cells and these ships already have communications systems, security systems, crews, and some defensive weapons.
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StealthFlyer • 11 hours ago
Arming LPDs with the 16 VLS they were designed for and requiring the FFG(X) to have 32+ VLS instead of 16 would increase the overall number of missiles without risking sailors on cargo ships that were not designed for combat.
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Francis Finn • 42 minutes ago
The many responses to this article points out a few simple facts:
1) The current state of ship design and procurement is not sustainable. We have been reduced to having a small number of highly capable (and outrageously expensive) ships that are irreplaceable, the loss of which would be catastrophic.
2) The recent attempt to remedy this situation ie. Littoral Combat ships has been less than remarkable. The upcoming frigate will hopefully improve the result but at a much higher cost.
3) There is no shortage of incredibly insightful ideas, many of which show great promise. It is time for the Navy to embrace the philosophy of the 1970's era Air Force and institute a high-low mix that resulted in the fielding of the F-15 and F-16. We should maintain current plans for high end surface combatants, submarines and aircraft carriers and add modular weapons systems that can be employed on a wide variety of easily, or ready built platforms. This would enable a surge capacity we do not currently have while also giving the ability to field more weapons now in order to discourage current adventurism by China, Iran, North Korea or any other potential adversary.
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Marc Apter • 2 hours ago
I had to get rid of my old copies of Proceedings when we down-sized, but wasn't this proposed in the late 70's, early 80's?
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USVoter • 2 hours ago
An interesting idea. What about making the modular box systems controllable by OTHER ships fire control systems? Any Aegis-class already has all the radars and control capability needed, it just needs that extra inventory of missiles available. What says that inventory has to actually be IN that ship? Control the modular box via wireless networking for the firing and control the missiles from the other ship.
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Continued.....
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Continued.....
Jicdoit • 2 hours ago
Hmmm...i often wondered how we could support wwii style amphibious landings without the big guns from battleships. Thoughts on containerizing artillery too?
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Chesapeakeguy • 4 hours ago
I think merchant ships for military use makes sense, to a degree. I don't understand why they have to lack a generic point defense system. These should not be considered 'first line ships' that will replace anything in the Navy's inventory, they should complement existing capabilities, and be used to free up front line units for use elsewhere (like what Jeep carriers were often used for in the Pacific in WWII). With networking like that provided by the Cooperative Engagement capability (CEC), such ships that are so armed can indeed be 'shooters'. But they can also be useful, perhaps more so, in other warfare areas. Both the Army and Navy have been kicking these kinds of ideas around for decades now (look up the Arapaho Project). One interesting mission for a potential militarized merchant ship would be that of a modern day "Q ship". Something that might be able to lure enemy platforms up close in places like crowded shipping lanes where proper identification will be critical for any combatants to ensure they are targeting the right vessel(s). But, that might realistically only be practical in the first few weeks or at most months of a conflict
If the goal is to provide ready offensive fires, I still believe that a better and more cost effective option would be the development of an 'arsenal plane', like that involving a converted 747. Such a plane can patrol near any area without being threatened, and if they fire their entire weapon's load, they can return to base (and that base need not be in an area that is under threat) to reload and be back on station within a couple of days at most. With a small number of such planes, one or more can always be 'on station'. Such a plane should be able to carry anywhere from 60 to a hundred or so cruise missiles. With inflight refueling and additional crew members onboard they would be able to stay aloft for days at a time.
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MzUnGu • 6 hours ago
Most containership are design to goes around 19 kn, where navy boats goes 30+. So, in time of trouble...it'll need other ship to stay behind for anti-ship missile defence, submarine defence....
These ships sounds like it will not be able to operate independently at troubled waters, it'll prob even need an escort to and out of port too.....it's more trouble than it's worth.
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Tired_Libertarian • 7 hours ago
How about a VLS in a box? That might be nice and one cargo ship would be able to become an arsenal ship but how survivable would the single engine and drive shaft be?
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Lucius_Severus_Pertinax • 8 hours ago
The very Fact this is openly being talked about suggests to me that is ALREADY being done.
However, the Chinese can do this too; and, one can be Assured that the CHINESE will NOT be bothered with observing such niceties as Marking, Naming, Flagging, etc..
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Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
Background: Antisubmarine warfare 70's.
I agree with it all. 30 - 35 missiles per ship but with an actual CAPACITY up to 150 plus to transport them to the battlefield much more makes sense to me. After all these missiles were manufactured in the US, right ? If you are coming from the safety of point X, with 160 missiles on board, carry some cargo and fuel and food, and ______ at the same time, unload excess fuel at point Q, unload 40 missile units at point Y, 40 more missiles at point R, that sort of idea.
Their basic communications should be military, solid and redundant, (unless the civilian can match it) Redundant radar mounted in different areas, they should be able to move reliably at at least 24 knots. 28 knots would be nice.
If you have 15 - 30 of these you have just given the enemy a nightmare to track because they are moving. Even his submarines will be spread thin.
These ships should have some kind of friend or escort. How about a sub or surface ship from Singapore or Australia ? And in harm's way, when you know the load will totally be launched, why couldn't the ship play hide and seek around islands ? (Mountains and high land block horizontal radar signals) If attacked near land and they were sinking, they could beach the container ship, saving ship and cargo. Repair it later.
A allied submarine finding an enemy sub tracking it, could quickly come to the surface, exposing a transmitting antenna and warn the crew. If the ship had four or more fast torpedoes, it could then launch on the coordinates given by the submarine (Notice that they are NOT tracking the submarine) and change course away from the threat. Lots of possibilities.
If a container ship turned to ram a submarine on the surface, (or even most surface warships) the submarine or surface ship would be sunk, NOT the container ship, witness the recent Arleigh Burke collisions.
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
Merchant ships, regardless of whether they are real or missile-armed Q-ships, will not last the opening hours of all out naval warfare. They will be nothing but fat juicy targets for Chinese H-6s and J-15s armed with ALCMs or Chinese subs armed with SLCMs or torpedoes. Even if we had several dozen of them, they will all quickly disappear in war.
If we have to dedicate our limited number of subs to escort these fat targets for ASW purposes, then they become self-defeating, as our subs need to be directed 100% to sinking enemy shipping (subs and surface ships) or defense of high value targets (CVNs).
The Chinese would dearly love to see us go down this self-defeating path.
See my alternative proposition - which is basically what the US is already doing today. We are in fact putting the Army, Marines, and Air Force in the anti-shipping role using ground based long range fires and ALCMs, all capable of launching massive salvos of literally thousands of ASCMs as necessary to wipe out any Chinese surface fleet. B-1Bs already deploy LRASM today, the Army is already busy developing mobile ground based ASCMs and launchers, and the Marines are buying up NSMs and will likely also do LRASMs too.
Essentially, at the outbreak of war with China, we'll simply need to pull back our surface fleets to beyond the range of their DF-21 IRBMs and then turn all of the seas west of the second island chain to the China coast into a no-float zone.
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Chesapeakeguy Duane • 4 hours ago
Yeah right Duane, because of course NO EFFORTS will be made to protect those ships. They'll just be sent directly into the path of the ChiCom military.
Yawn...
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Southernfriedyankee Duane • 12 hours ago
In one sense, yes, however, as is stated in the article, while the ships would legally carry US flags, do you think the Chinese will blindly fire their expensive arsenal at any and all container ships and piss off Fillipinos, and Germans and the Vietnamese and Africans and Europeans when they sink their ships by accident ? That is part of what I like about this strategy. Stalin said and believed that quantity has a value all its own. So while I believe that ongoing improvement of weapons systems is essential, I think this can work. Among other things, it makes tactics for the Chinese a nightmare.
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 9 hours ago
The Chinese know that the US and our allies cannot survive long without seagoing logistics. It is the most obvious war aim, and is nothing new. That's precisely what the Germans tried to do to the allies in WW Two, and is precisely what the US Navy did to Japan in WW Two. And that is precisely what we must do to the Chinese if we have any hope of winning a war.
So yes, sinking all merchant ships, whether real or Q-ships, will be a primary war aim of the Chinese.
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Jim Denton Duane • 8 hours ago
And we understand China cannot survive, economically, without safe SLOC. A blockade of the sea lanes around Indonesia will rapidly starve them of trade, and cash. Of course, we would have to form convoys to allow passage of ships to our allies (Japan, S Korea, etc) to keep them from starving, too.
A strategy of using these ships as Q ships, even sending them to random ports in Asia to load and unload real cargo will keep the Red forces guessing.
As for missile command and control, insert them into convoys and "toss" the missiles into the Aegis "basket" of the DDG escorting the convoy.
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MzUnGu Jim Denton • 5 hours ago
China would do fine with a naval blockade, even if that is doable. It's a vast country with unlimited resources, thousand of miles open border to another country with vast amount of oil and gas, called Russa.
If they can't sell them iPhone to Americans, they can just sell it to the other 1.4 billion consumers there called the Chinese. LOL
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jack anderson • 13 hours ago
I agree with The Commodore 100%! I think that a hot war in the SCS is going to consume weapons at a horrific rate and with the UNREP issues of reloading at sea a $2B Burke that is Winchester seems like baggage, unless a nearby battery of 100s of missiles can be launched by integrated fires, obviating the need for much in the way of need for fire control on the battery ship. Regarding cost, Panamax build carriers are pretty cheap these days, and like Leesea states, there are pluses for being below the gunwale.
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old guy • 13 hours ago
Great idea. The "SEAMOD" concept we developed in NAVSEA 03, in 1976, could be adapted to a container mounted launch system, which is completely self contained (may take two or three, 8X8X20 units, including birds, launcher and power supply) system.
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Duane • 13 hours ago
This exercise unintentionally reveals the inherent inefficiency of using surface ships as floating missile launchers for attacking land and sea targets. The poor man's solution in buying up used merchant carriers and then spending tens or hundreds of millions to upgrade them with proper systems - electrical power, air conditioning, crews quarters, etc. - and then providing at least a modicum of self defense (otherwise the crews aboard become nothing but defenseless sacrificial targets - any volunteers?) which implies sophisticated sensors, air and missile defenses, ASW systems, etc. just leaves the Navy chasing its own tail.
Ships make lousy arsenals - too expensive to build and operate, too vulnerable to attack and destruction.
Instead, it is far better to do the following to increase our firepower in the naval battlespace:
1) Build longer ranged cruise missiles and base them on mobile ground based launchers all along the first and second island chains of the West Pacific, to turn the entire Chinese coastal waters zone into a no-float zone. These are vastly cheaper platforms than any ship, they are unsinkable, they can all be brought under the umbrella of existing and future ground based air and missile defense systems, and we can build and deploy vastly more of them than we can ever hope to build surface ships, whether "poor mans arsenal ships" or fully capable surface warships.
2) Deploy vast numbers of ASCMs and LACMs on existing and future aircraft. Air launched cruise missiles have essentially unlimited range with aerial refueling. A single B-1B carries 24 LRASM. A squadron of B-1Bs carries more cruise missiles than a CSG. Attack aircraft like Super Hornets, F-35s, F-16s, and F-15s can carry up to six ALCM each, and we have literally thousands of such aircraft in our inventory today.
Aircraft can fly to their launch point, launch a ALCM salvo, and return to base and reload and return to battle in less time than it takes a ship to go through two watch turnovers. Whereas surface ships cannot reload at sea and must return to home ports located perhaps weeks away ... during which time, with empty magazines, they are sitting duck targets for the enemy.
We have the resources today to do both 1 and 2 ... yes, Navy guys are supposed to lobby for more hulls, it's what Navy guys do. But more surface ship hulls is NOT the way to defeat China in a naval war.
We'd be far better designing building and deploying much smaller and cheaper SSNs without the bloated Virginia designs we now build for way too much cost. SSNs are fantastic ASW and anti-shipping platforms that can literally sweep the sea of enemy warships and transports. Cruise missile armed merchant ships will be a waste of money, time and crews' lives, as they will be totally unsurviveable in any naval war, with a likely life expectancy once the shooting starts measured in days or even hours.
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Southernfriedyankee Duane • 12 hours ago
The answer is of course diversification if only for the fact that it multiplies the tactical problems 100 fold on the other side. I would remind you that the traditional places: Midway, Hawaii, territories north of Australia, and so on, are no longer 100% safe. We are not protected by distance anymore like we were in the 40's. Just look at the North Korean threats made 16 months ago against US territories where US bombers are based. THEREFORE once the location of a permanent land base missile system is known, don't you think it would be obliterated immediately by the Chinese ?
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
To say that no place on earth is 100% safe has only been true since 1945.
But China cannot obliterate every square mile of land in the first and second island chains. Mobile ground based launchers can literally be anywhere and everywhere. Long range aircraft can literally come from anywhere - from Whiteman AFB in Missouri, to anywhere else - using aerial refueling, and the ALCMs themselves are gaining range. Currently our TLAMs are already good for over 1,000 miles, and they can be ground launched. Our LRASMs are good for somewhere between 300 and 500 miles. The Army is working on their own long range fires that will be good out to around 1,000 miles. That means the entire Japanese archipelago, ROK, Taiwan, Vietnam (yes - they are becoming a US ally against China), the Philippines, and Singapore, plus now Borneo and quite possibly other parts of Indonesia, can completely cover every square inch of the East China Sea and South China Sea.
And while China may be able to launch missile attacks against specific targets in Japan, ROK, Taiwan, etc. they cannot possible find and take out but a handful of highly mobile ground launchers, if any, nor can they defend from ALCMs coming from literally anywhere.
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Jicdoit • 2 hours ago
Hmmm...i often wondered how we could support wwii style amphibious landings without the big guns from battleships. Thoughts on containerizing artillery too?
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Chesapeakeguy • 4 hours ago
I think merchant ships for military use makes sense, to a degree. I don't understand why they have to lack a generic point defense system. These should not be considered 'first line ships' that will replace anything in the Navy's inventory, they should complement existing capabilities, and be used to free up front line units for use elsewhere (like what Jeep carriers were often used for in the Pacific in WWII). With networking like that provided by the Cooperative Engagement capability (CEC), such ships that are so armed can indeed be 'shooters'. But they can also be useful, perhaps more so, in other warfare areas. Both the Army and Navy have been kicking these kinds of ideas around for decades now (look up the Arapaho Project). One interesting mission for a potential militarized merchant ship would be that of a modern day "Q ship". Something that might be able to lure enemy platforms up close in places like crowded shipping lanes where proper identification will be critical for any combatants to ensure they are targeting the right vessel(s). But, that might realistically only be practical in the first few weeks or at most months of a conflict
If the goal is to provide ready offensive fires, I still believe that a better and more cost effective option would be the development of an 'arsenal plane', like that involving a converted 747. Such a plane can patrol near any area without being threatened, and if they fire their entire weapon's load, they can return to base (and that base need not be in an area that is under threat) to reload and be back on station within a couple of days at most. With a small number of such planes, one or more can always be 'on station'. Such a plane should be able to carry anywhere from 60 to a hundred or so cruise missiles. With inflight refueling and additional crew members onboard they would be able to stay aloft for days at a time.
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MzUnGu • 6 hours ago
Most containership are design to goes around 19 kn, where navy boats goes 30+. So, in time of trouble...it'll need other ship to stay behind for anti-ship missile defence, submarine defence....
These ships sounds like it will not be able to operate independently at troubled waters, it'll prob even need an escort to and out of port too.....it's more trouble than it's worth.
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Tired_Libertarian • 7 hours ago
How about a VLS in a box? That might be nice and one cargo ship would be able to become an arsenal ship but how survivable would the single engine and drive shaft be?
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Lucius_Severus_Pertinax • 8 hours ago
The very Fact this is openly being talked about suggests to me that is ALREADY being done.
However, the Chinese can do this too; and, one can be Assured that the CHINESE will NOT be bothered with observing such niceties as Marking, Naming, Flagging, etc..
•
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Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
Background: Antisubmarine warfare 70's.
I agree with it all. 30 - 35 missiles per ship but with an actual CAPACITY up to 150 plus to transport them to the battlefield much more makes sense to me. After all these missiles were manufactured in the US, right ? If you are coming from the safety of point X, with 160 missiles on board, carry some cargo and fuel and food, and ______ at the same time, unload excess fuel at point Q, unload 40 missile units at point Y, 40 more missiles at point R, that sort of idea.
Their basic communications should be military, solid and redundant, (unless the civilian can match it) Redundant radar mounted in different areas, they should be able to move reliably at at least 24 knots. 28 knots would be nice.
If you have 15 - 30 of these you have just given the enemy a nightmare to track because they are moving. Even his submarines will be spread thin.
These ships should have some kind of friend or escort. How about a sub or surface ship from Singapore or Australia ? And in harm's way, when you know the load will totally be launched, why couldn't the ship play hide and seek around islands ? (Mountains and high land block horizontal radar signals) If attacked near land and they were sinking, they could beach the container ship, saving ship and cargo. Repair it later.
A allied submarine finding an enemy sub tracking it, could quickly come to the surface, exposing a transmitting antenna and warn the crew. If the ship had four or more fast torpedoes, it could then launch on the coordinates given by the submarine (Notice that they are NOT tracking the submarine) and change course away from the threat. Lots of possibilities.
If a container ship turned to ram a submarine on the surface, (or even most surface warships) the submarine or surface ship would be sunk, NOT the container ship, witness the recent Arleigh Burke collisions.
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
Merchant ships, regardless of whether they are real or missile-armed Q-ships, will not last the opening hours of all out naval warfare. They will be nothing but fat juicy targets for Chinese H-6s and J-15s armed with ALCMs or Chinese subs armed with SLCMs or torpedoes. Even if we had several dozen of them, they will all quickly disappear in war.
If we have to dedicate our limited number of subs to escort these fat targets for ASW purposes, then they become self-defeating, as our subs need to be directed 100% to sinking enemy shipping (subs and surface ships) or defense of high value targets (CVNs).
The Chinese would dearly love to see us go down this self-defeating path.
See my alternative proposition - which is basically what the US is already doing today. We are in fact putting the Army, Marines, and Air Force in the anti-shipping role using ground based long range fires and ALCMs, all capable of launching massive salvos of literally thousands of ASCMs as necessary to wipe out any Chinese surface fleet. B-1Bs already deploy LRASM today, the Army is already busy developing mobile ground based ASCMs and launchers, and the Marines are buying up NSMs and will likely also do LRASMs too.
Essentially, at the outbreak of war with China, we'll simply need to pull back our surface fleets to beyond the range of their DF-21 IRBMs and then turn all of the seas west of the second island chain to the China coast into a no-float zone.
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Chesapeakeguy Duane • 4 hours ago
Yeah right Duane, because of course NO EFFORTS will be made to protect those ships. They'll just be sent directly into the path of the ChiCom military.
Yawn...
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Southernfriedyankee Duane • 12 hours ago
In one sense, yes, however, as is stated in the article, while the ships would legally carry US flags, do you think the Chinese will blindly fire their expensive arsenal at any and all container ships and piss off Fillipinos, and Germans and the Vietnamese and Africans and Europeans when they sink their ships by accident ? That is part of what I like about this strategy. Stalin said and believed that quantity has a value all its own. So while I believe that ongoing improvement of weapons systems is essential, I think this can work. Among other things, it makes tactics for the Chinese a nightmare.
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 9 hours ago
The Chinese know that the US and our allies cannot survive long without seagoing logistics. It is the most obvious war aim, and is nothing new. That's precisely what the Germans tried to do to the allies in WW Two, and is precisely what the US Navy did to Japan in WW Two. And that is precisely what we must do to the Chinese if we have any hope of winning a war.
So yes, sinking all merchant ships, whether real or Q-ships, will be a primary war aim of the Chinese.
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Jim Denton Duane • 8 hours ago
And we understand China cannot survive, economically, without safe SLOC. A blockade of the sea lanes around Indonesia will rapidly starve them of trade, and cash. Of course, we would have to form convoys to allow passage of ships to our allies (Japan, S Korea, etc) to keep them from starving, too.
A strategy of using these ships as Q ships, even sending them to random ports in Asia to load and unload real cargo will keep the Red forces guessing.
As for missile command and control, insert them into convoys and "toss" the missiles into the Aegis "basket" of the DDG escorting the convoy.
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MzUnGu Jim Denton • 5 hours ago
China would do fine with a naval blockade, even if that is doable. It's a vast country with unlimited resources, thousand of miles open border to another country with vast amount of oil and gas, called Russa.
If they can't sell them iPhone to Americans, they can just sell it to the other 1.4 billion consumers there called the Chinese. LOL
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jack anderson • 13 hours ago
I agree with The Commodore 100%! I think that a hot war in the SCS is going to consume weapons at a horrific rate and with the UNREP issues of reloading at sea a $2B Burke that is Winchester seems like baggage, unless a nearby battery of 100s of missiles can be launched by integrated fires, obviating the need for much in the way of need for fire control on the battery ship. Regarding cost, Panamax build carriers are pretty cheap these days, and like Leesea states, there are pluses for being below the gunwale.
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old guy • 13 hours ago
Great idea. The "SEAMOD" concept we developed in NAVSEA 03, in 1976, could be adapted to a container mounted launch system, which is completely self contained (may take two or three, 8X8X20 units, including birds, launcher and power supply) system.
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Duane • 13 hours ago
This exercise unintentionally reveals the inherent inefficiency of using surface ships as floating missile launchers for attacking land and sea targets. The poor man's solution in buying up used merchant carriers and then spending tens or hundreds of millions to upgrade them with proper systems - electrical power, air conditioning, crews quarters, etc. - and then providing at least a modicum of self defense (otherwise the crews aboard become nothing but defenseless sacrificial targets - any volunteers?) which implies sophisticated sensors, air and missile defenses, ASW systems, etc. just leaves the Navy chasing its own tail.
Ships make lousy arsenals - too expensive to build and operate, too vulnerable to attack and destruction.
Instead, it is far better to do the following to increase our firepower in the naval battlespace:
1) Build longer ranged cruise missiles and base them on mobile ground based launchers all along the first and second island chains of the West Pacific, to turn the entire Chinese coastal waters zone into a no-float zone. These are vastly cheaper platforms than any ship, they are unsinkable, they can all be brought under the umbrella of existing and future ground based air and missile defense systems, and we can build and deploy vastly more of them than we can ever hope to build surface ships, whether "poor mans arsenal ships" or fully capable surface warships.
2) Deploy vast numbers of ASCMs and LACMs on existing and future aircraft. Air launched cruise missiles have essentially unlimited range with aerial refueling. A single B-1B carries 24 LRASM. A squadron of B-1Bs carries more cruise missiles than a CSG. Attack aircraft like Super Hornets, F-35s, F-16s, and F-15s can carry up to six ALCM each, and we have literally thousands of such aircraft in our inventory today.
Aircraft can fly to their launch point, launch a ALCM salvo, and return to base and reload and return to battle in less time than it takes a ship to go through two watch turnovers. Whereas surface ships cannot reload at sea and must return to home ports located perhaps weeks away ... during which time, with empty magazines, they are sitting duck targets for the enemy.
We have the resources today to do both 1 and 2 ... yes, Navy guys are supposed to lobby for more hulls, it's what Navy guys do. But more surface ship hulls is NOT the way to defeat China in a naval war.
We'd be far better designing building and deploying much smaller and cheaper SSNs without the bloated Virginia designs we now build for way too much cost. SSNs are fantastic ASW and anti-shipping platforms that can literally sweep the sea of enemy warships and transports. Cruise missile armed merchant ships will be a waste of money, time and crews' lives, as they will be totally unsurviveable in any naval war, with a likely life expectancy once the shooting starts measured in days or even hours.
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Southernfriedyankee Duane • 12 hours ago
The answer is of course diversification if only for the fact that it multiplies the tactical problems 100 fold on the other side. I would remind you that the traditional places: Midway, Hawaii, territories north of Australia, and so on, are no longer 100% safe. We are not protected by distance anymore like we were in the 40's. Just look at the North Korean threats made 16 months ago against US territories where US bombers are based. THEREFORE once the location of a permanent land base missile system is known, don't you think it would be obliterated immediately by the Chinese ?
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Duane Southernfriedyankee • 12 hours ago
To say that no place on earth is 100% safe has only been true since 1945.
But China cannot obliterate every square mile of land in the first and second island chains. Mobile ground based launchers can literally be anywhere and everywhere. Long range aircraft can literally come from anywhere - from Whiteman AFB in Missouri, to anywhere else - using aerial refueling, and the ALCMs themselves are gaining range. Currently our TLAMs are already good for over 1,000 miles, and they can be ground launched. Our LRASMs are good for somewhere between 300 and 500 miles. The Army is working on their own long range fires that will be good out to around 1,000 miles. That means the entire Japanese archipelago, ROK, Taiwan, Vietnam (yes - they are becoming a US ally against China), the Philippines, and Singapore, plus now Borneo and quite possibly other parts of Indonesia, can completely cover every square inch of the East China Sea and South China Sea.
And while China may be able to launch missile attacks against specific targets in Japan, ROK, Taiwan, etc. they cannot possible find and take out but a handful of highly mobile ground launchers, if any, nor can they defend from ALCMs coming from literally anywhere.
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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/rep...er-kalibr-m-range-land-attack-cruise-missile/
Report: Russia Developing 4,500 Kilometer Kalibr-M Range Land-Attack Cruise Missile
The Kalibr-M will be deployed on Russian warships and submarines when developed.
By Ankit Panda
January 10, 2019
On Tuesday, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that Moscow is undertaking the development of a new extended-range variant of its subsonic Kalibr (3M14) land-attack cruise missile. Citing a defense industry source, TASS revealed the existence of a Kalibr-M project.
This new missile is slated to be larger than the existing ship-launched Kalibr missile, which is thought to have a range capability of approximately 2,350 kilometers. The new Kalibr-M will reportedly have a range of 4,500 km and will be deployed on Russian Navy warships.
The development of the Kalibr-M is presently at an early stage, the source noted. It is likely to be deployed in the late-2020s.
According to TASS, the Kalibr-M is expected to be “significantly” larger than the existing Kalibr missile, which is 6.2 meters long with a 0.43 meter diameter.
Though little else is known about the new missile’s physical dimensions, it may resemble existing Russian systems like the P-800 Oniks.
In terms of payload, the new Kalibr-M is likely to be both capable of nuclear and conventional payloads and may carry up to a 1 ton payload.
The new missile may raise concerns in the United States about a possible land-based deployment should the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 see its end this year.
The Trump administration has informed Russia of its intent to withdraw from the INF Treaty, citing the 9M729 or SSC-8, a Russian ground-launched cruise missile thought to be based off the 3M14 that violates the Treaty’s prohibition on ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 500 km and 5,500 km.
Should the INF Treaty end, Russia would be free to explore a ground-launcher option for the Kalibr-M as well, providing it with a ground-launched standoff capability greater than that which is thought to be provided by the 9M729.
According to TASS, the new missile is being developed for deployment primarily on Russian Navy frigates and submarines.
In 2015, Russian Navy used the Kalibr to strike targets in Syria from the Caspian Sea. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the time, four Russian warships launched 26 Kalibr cruise missiles at Islamic State targets in October of that year.
Last year, a Russian Northern Fleet naval group was deployed off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean armed with Kalibr cruise missiles as well.
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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://defense.info/featured-story/2019/01/russia-building-out-nuclear-capabilities-in-its-fleet/
Russia Building Out Nuclear Capabilities in Its Fleet
01/08/2019
By Stephen Blank
During the Cold War two of Russia’s four fleets were nuclear ones, the Northern Fleet based out of Murmansk in the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic, and the Pacific Fleet based out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk.
Most analysts have maintained that this disposition has remained the case until now.
But can we be certain of that?
Indeed, already in 2008 then Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, announced that, “According to the information to which we have access, there are already tactical nuclear weapons in the Kaliningrad area. They are located both at and in the vicinity of units belonging to the Russia fleet,”1
Since then Russia has also sent nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to be based in Kaliningrad.
So while those are land-based missiles, there is good reason to see these missiles as potentially usable to gain command of the Baltic Sea and deny that to NATO.
But apart from the possibility of elements of the Baltic Fleet being nuclear we should also have concerns that Russia may be nuclearing the Black Fleet and/or the Mediterranean Eskadra parts of which are based at Tartus in Syria.
As this writer and others have observed, since 2014 a sustained buildup of Russian forces in Crimea and the Black Sea have gone far towards creating a layered A2AD (anti-access and area denial) zone in that sea although NATO has begun to react to the threat and exercise forces there.2.
That layered defense consists of a combined arms (air, land, and sea) integrated air defense system (IADS) and powerful anti-ship missiles deliverable from each of those forces. Moscow has also moved nuclear-capable forces to the Crimea and Black Sea to further display its determination to keep NATO out but also to use the umbrella it has created as the basis for an even more expansive strategy (resembling that used by the Egyptian Army in the Yom Kippur War of 1973) from which it can project power further out and deny those areas to NATO or at least threaten NATO with heavy costs.3
And beyond that Russia in 2017 began work on the Syrian bases at Tartus and Khmeinim to make them ready for hosting nuclear-capable warships and planes as well.4
These trends clearly bespeak an interest in warfighting operations under conditions of a nuclear and conventional umbrella as suggested throughout this article.
Moscow is evidently building a nuclear –weapons storage facility in Crimea suggesting it will base if not deploy nuclear weapons there. 5
Among the weapons being deployed are nuclear-capable Kalibr’ sea launched cruise missiles (SLCM) that have now also been deployed to the coast of Syria.
It is clear that Moscow intends to raise the specter of nuclear escalation in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.6
Thus today we are at a point where prominent experts, e.g. James Sherr of Chatham House, and former USAREUR Commander Lt. General Fredrick (Ben) Hodges (Ret) all see “the wider Black Sea region as the major area of potential friction with Russia in the next decade.”7
We must also keep in mind that Russian ships based in the Caspian Sea also have the range to hit targets in the Middle East with the Kalibr’ as they have done in October 2015 for Putin’s birthday.8
Moscow has learned how to deploy nuclear-capable SLCMs with great lethality on cheaper, smaller ships like corvettes.
At that time it became clear that:
“This was not a missile seen as being normally carried by the corvettes, which had [shorter-range] Klub missiles as opposed to the land-attack version,” said Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
The Kalibr, he said, “changes it from being a sea-control ship to one with distributed lethality.
The US has been aspiring to that, but the Russians have shown they already have it.”9
As Clark observed then, as well the new Russian capability for distributed lethality poses serious problems for the U.S.
“The Russians are adopting distributed lethality faster than the US,” he noted.
“The arguments made for distributed lethality are to put firepower on a bunch of smaller ships, have them disperse, in turn increase targeting problems for the enemy, and you may be able to generate the same kind of firepower if you concentrate the platforms.
“With the Russians, these 900-ton corvettes are harder to find than a [4,000-ton US] littoral combat ship.
“You can buy them in larger numbers, and they also carry land-attack weapons,” unlike LCS.
“It would seem to give you a much more effective land-attack lethality than what the US Navy is pursuing.”
Clearly the deployment of such capabilities along with UAV’s massive integrated air defense networks, fighters and strike air craft, plus land-based shore and air defense is making the Black Sea a n increasingly inhospitable zone for the U.S. and NATO.
But given Rusisa’s quest for bases throughout the Levant, Mediterranean, and even Red Sea areas the objective of an anti-access are a denial capability being extended out to the Eastern Mediterranean, well beyond the Black Sea, is taking shape.
Moreover, Russia is refining this capability to include Caspian based ships as well.
In October 2018 Moscow fired Kalibr’ SLCMs at targets during Caspian exercises.10
Beyond that, at present the specific threats we see in the Black Sea are directed against Ukraine and Romania.
But because Romania is a NATO ally and Ukraine is steadily drawing ever closer to European security organizations who identify its cause with their own, any further fighting in this maritime zone is fraught with danger and is unlikely to be confined to the Black Sea.11
Indeed, there is good reason to believe that naval operations in and around the Black Sea will inevitably entail operations a on shore and against land-based forces and defenses in both countries. Russian writers, in assessing the lessons of Syria, have argued that,
It follows from what has been said that in implementing future construction plans for new submarines, and also in the modernization of the majority of the surface fleet, the Russian Navy will, by the end of the next decade, be capable of carrying out massed missile strikes against the surface and land targets of the likely opponent.
Each fleet will have enough ships and submarines armed with Kalibr’ and Polymet-Redut (missiles) to have a seriously enhanced combat capability. 12
For example, in response to talk of NATO exercises, Andrei Kelin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs labeled such exercises destabilizing and further added that, “This is not NATO’s maritime space and it has no relation to the alliance.”13
More recently, Russian defense establishment has announced that nuclear-capable “Kalibr”(SS-N-27) ship-based missiles will be “permanently based“ in the Eastern Mediterranean, thus providing a capable and reliable reach for Moscow’s forces in the region.14
These deployments began in the fall of 2018.15
Such missiles, with a range of up to 300 kilometers, give even older Russian vessels a sufficient offensive as well as defensive counter-punch to strike at naval or even shore-based targets.
Moreover, Russia will also conduct permanent exercises in the Mediterranean to go with its permanent deployment there. 16
Consequently as a result of the annexation of Crimea it is not just Ukraine that is in the eye of the Russian hurricane but also other littoral countries, e.g. Romania. Russia’s seizure of the Crimea and buildup in the Black Sea makes its maritime zone contiguous to that of Russia and that this puts Romania at great risk from both maritime operations and land attacks to the Dniester or beyond.17
Indeed, the treaty on Crimea’s annexation to the Russian Federation states that, “the demarcation of Black Sea territorial waters is established based on the international treaties made by the Russian federation.” According to the Munich-based expert, Vladimir Socor, “This vague wording appears to imply that Russia deems the agreements made with Ukraine on territorial demarcation with other countries are no longer valid, and suggest that Russia might try to negotiate and modify the current demarcation agreements.”18
And that means Russia could easily incite pressure against Romania and its critical maritime energy facilities that it has already frequently menaced by overflights and the like.19
While we have no definitive answers as to whether or not Russia has nuclearized the Black Sea Fleet and/or the Mediterranean Eskadra, it clearly can do so if it so desires and has reserved that option for itself in the future.
Thus Romania now experiences what one writer calls “periodic threats of annihilation for hosting American ballistic missile defense, exercises simulating Romania’s invasion, and repeated violations of air (and naval) space.”20
But Russian pressure is not confined to military threats either by land through Transnistria and Moldova or by sea and air from the Black Sea.
Russia’s maritime and other incursions or probes also seem to be directed against Romania’s efforts to secure its energy independence and integrate fully with Western energy institutions and companies.
It is quite likely that Moscow, for example wants to prevent Moldova from escaping its dependence on Russian gas transmissions from Ukraine or perhaps from Russian gas in general as President Igor Dodon has now expressed interest in alternative gas routes like the Iasi –Ungehni (Romania)-Chisinau gas pipeline.21
But it also clearly wants to retain a capacity to threaten Romania, the most pro-American state in the Balkans.
In other words, the Kerch Strait incident of November 2018 should bring home to us the fact that the threats posed by Russia in the Black Sea do not end with Ukraine and are potentially not confined to the conventional level of war.
These SLCM capabilities also are not the only ones in Moscow’s arsenal of naval warfare.
In 2009, Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev, the Navy’s Deputy Chief of Staff, told RIA Novosti that, “Probably, tactical nuclear weapons will play a key role in the future,” and that the navy may fit new, less powerful nuclear warheads to the existing types of cruise missiles. “There is no longer any need to equip missiles with powerful nuclear warheads,” Burtsev said. “We can install low-yield warheads (possibly fusion weapons? -Author) on existing cruise missiles.”22
Given the lack of progress on reducing Moscow’s arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, those systems are also still potentially available to Russian commanders for use in regional contingencies.
In the light of Russian deployments in the Baltic and Black Seas not only U.S. and NATO commanders have to be vigilant and able to devise countermeasures and deployments to the threats ranged against NATO allies by those Russian capabilities.
In the context of the apparent unraveling of arms control agreements like the INF. other cases of Russian violations the danger of heightened nuclear threats to Europe (as Russia has made clear it will launch when and if the U.S. leaves the INF treaty), and new Russian capabilities it can be argued that the temptation to use these SLCMs or tactical nuclear weapons or to rethink using them in warfighting scenarios has grown and will continue to grow.
This represents a renewed nuclear threat to Europe and our allies if not allies elsewhere so that from now on we need to think not only about conventional naval warfare but also about the possibility of nuclear war generated from the sea.
Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow American Foreign Policy Council
Editor’s Note: Dr. Blank has highlighted the return of the nuclear dimension and what Paul Bracken has highlighted in terms of the second nuclear age.
The Putin Administration has certainly focused on creating the impression that it is lowering the nuclear threshold.
They have done so in part in my view because of the relative weakness of their conventional forces directed against Europe and with the significant shift in Western forces towards distributed operations and new approaches to force integration which in my view will make it much harder for the Russians to defeat Western forces.
From this point of view, we are the reactive enemy.
But clearly we have to take the second nuclear age very seriously think through crisis response approaches and capabilities.
Footnotes
“Bildt Plays Down Russian Nuclear Threat,” The Local, August 18, 2008,” http://www.thelocal.se/13780/20080818; Mark Franchetti, “Russia’s New Nuclear Challenge to Europe,” Timesonline, August 17, 2008, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worldeurope/article4547883.ece
Stephen Blank, ”The Black Sea and Beyond,” Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, October, 2015, pp. 36-41; “NATO Military Exercises Begin In Black Sea,” http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-31828111/nato-military-exercises-begin-in-black-sea, March 11, 2015; Alex Gorka; “Exercise Sea Shield-2017: NATO Provokes Russia in Black Sea Before Defense Ministers’ Meeting,” https://www.strategic-culture.org/n...ssia-black-sea-defense-ministers-meeting.html, February 10, 2017; Damien Sharkov, “NATO To Strengthen in Black Sea Region Despite Russian Warning,” http://www.newsweek.com/nato-strengthen-black-sea-despite-russia-warning-470717, June 15, 2016
Stephen Blank, pp. 36-41
“Russia Begins Development of Syrian Bases To Host Nuclear Warships & Warplanes,” www.rt.com, December 26, 2017
Oleksiy Serdyuk, “Kremlin Continuing Building Up Forces In Ukraine,” Ukraine Defense Review, NO. 1, 2018, pp. 28-29
Matthew Bodner, “Russia Deploys Military Ships To Syria Armed With Kalibr’ Cruise Missiles, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2...s-to-syria-armed-with-kalibr-cruise-missiles/, August 28, 2018
Interview With LTG Ben Hodges, Sherr, Blank pp. 36-41
Christopher P. Cavas, “Is Caspian Fleet a Game-Changer,” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2015/10/11/is-caspian-sea-fleet-a-game-changer/, October 11, 2015
Ibid.
“Kalibr Missiles Destroy ‘Enemy’ Facilities During Caspian Military Drills,” http://tass.com/defense/1024793, October 6, 2018.
“Ukraine-NATO Joint Military Exercises Begin In Western Region Of Lviv,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, September 3, 2018 www.rferl.org
Douglas Barrie and Howard Gethin, “Russian Weapons in the Syrian conflict,” Russian Studies, NATO Defense College, 02/18-May 2018, p. 9,(Italics in the original)
Sharkov
https://iz.ru/744028/2018-05-16/kor...sia-na-postoiannuiu-vakhtu-v-sredizemnoe-more
“Russia Sends New Frigate With Cruise Missiles Onboard To Mediterranean,” www.Reuters.com, November 10, 2018
“Kremlin: Russia to Conduct Exercises In the Mediterranean On Permanent Basis,” www.uawire.com, November 3, 2018
Christian Campeanu, “How Romania Might Get To Have a Conflict With Russia,” Bucharest, Romania Libera Online,” March 24, 2014 Open Source Center, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia, (Henceforth FBIS SOV), March 24, 2014
Ibid.
Conversations with Romanian Diplomats, Washington, D.C., 2018
Iulia-Sabina Joja, “Dealing With the Russian Lake Next Door: Romania and Black Sea Security”, www.warontherocks.com, August 16, 2018.
“President Says Moldova Interested In Alternative Gas Routes,” Infotag News Agency, in Russian, July 30, 2018, Retrieved From BBC Monitoring.
“Russia Could Focus On Tactical Nuclear Weapons For Subs,” RIA Novosti, March 23, 2009, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090323/120688454.html
Posted for fair use.....
https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/rep...er-kalibr-m-range-land-attack-cruise-missile/
Report: Russia Developing 4,500 Kilometer Kalibr-M Range Land-Attack Cruise Missile
The Kalibr-M will be deployed on Russian warships and submarines when developed.
By Ankit Panda
January 10, 2019
On Tuesday, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that Moscow is undertaking the development of a new extended-range variant of its subsonic Kalibr (3M14) land-attack cruise missile. Citing a defense industry source, TASS revealed the existence of a Kalibr-M project.
This new missile is slated to be larger than the existing ship-launched Kalibr missile, which is thought to have a range capability of approximately 2,350 kilometers. The new Kalibr-M will reportedly have a range of 4,500 km and will be deployed on Russian Navy warships.
The development of the Kalibr-M is presently at an early stage, the source noted. It is likely to be deployed in the late-2020s.
According to TASS, the Kalibr-M is expected to be “significantly” larger than the existing Kalibr missile, which is 6.2 meters long with a 0.43 meter diameter.
Though little else is known about the new missile’s physical dimensions, it may resemble existing Russian systems like the P-800 Oniks.
In terms of payload, the new Kalibr-M is likely to be both capable of nuclear and conventional payloads and may carry up to a 1 ton payload.
The new missile may raise concerns in the United States about a possible land-based deployment should the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 see its end this year.
The Trump administration has informed Russia of its intent to withdraw from the INF Treaty, citing the 9M729 or SSC-8, a Russian ground-launched cruise missile thought to be based off the 3M14 that violates the Treaty’s prohibition on ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges between 500 km and 5,500 km.
Should the INF Treaty end, Russia would be free to explore a ground-launcher option for the Kalibr-M as well, providing it with a ground-launched standoff capability greater than that which is thought to be provided by the 9M729.
According to TASS, the new missile is being developed for deployment primarily on Russian Navy frigates and submarines.
In 2015, Russian Navy used the Kalibr to strike targets in Syria from the Caspian Sea. According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the time, four Russian warships launched 26 Kalibr cruise missiles at Islamic State targets in October of that year.
Last year, a Russian Northern Fleet naval group was deployed off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean armed with Kalibr cruise missiles as well.
--------------------
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://defense.info/featured-story/2019/01/russia-building-out-nuclear-capabilities-in-its-fleet/
Russia Building Out Nuclear Capabilities in Its Fleet
01/08/2019
By Stephen Blank
During the Cold War two of Russia’s four fleets were nuclear ones, the Northern Fleet based out of Murmansk in the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic, and the Pacific Fleet based out of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk.
Most analysts have maintained that this disposition has remained the case until now.
But can we be certain of that?
Indeed, already in 2008 then Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, announced that, “According to the information to which we have access, there are already tactical nuclear weapons in the Kaliningrad area. They are located both at and in the vicinity of units belonging to the Russia fleet,”1
Since then Russia has also sent nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to be based in Kaliningrad.
So while those are land-based missiles, there is good reason to see these missiles as potentially usable to gain command of the Baltic Sea and deny that to NATO.
But apart from the possibility of elements of the Baltic Fleet being nuclear we should also have concerns that Russia may be nuclearing the Black Fleet and/or the Mediterranean Eskadra parts of which are based at Tartus in Syria.
As this writer and others have observed, since 2014 a sustained buildup of Russian forces in Crimea and the Black Sea have gone far towards creating a layered A2AD (anti-access and area denial) zone in that sea although NATO has begun to react to the threat and exercise forces there.2.
That layered defense consists of a combined arms (air, land, and sea) integrated air defense system (IADS) and powerful anti-ship missiles deliverable from each of those forces. Moscow has also moved nuclear-capable forces to the Crimea and Black Sea to further display its determination to keep NATO out but also to use the umbrella it has created as the basis for an even more expansive strategy (resembling that used by the Egyptian Army in the Yom Kippur War of 1973) from which it can project power further out and deny those areas to NATO or at least threaten NATO with heavy costs.3
And beyond that Russia in 2017 began work on the Syrian bases at Tartus and Khmeinim to make them ready for hosting nuclear-capable warships and planes as well.4
These trends clearly bespeak an interest in warfighting operations under conditions of a nuclear and conventional umbrella as suggested throughout this article.
Moscow is evidently building a nuclear –weapons storage facility in Crimea suggesting it will base if not deploy nuclear weapons there. 5
Among the weapons being deployed are nuclear-capable Kalibr’ sea launched cruise missiles (SLCM) that have now also been deployed to the coast of Syria.
It is clear that Moscow intends to raise the specter of nuclear escalation in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.6
Thus today we are at a point where prominent experts, e.g. James Sherr of Chatham House, and former USAREUR Commander Lt. General Fredrick (Ben) Hodges (Ret) all see “the wider Black Sea region as the major area of potential friction with Russia in the next decade.”7
We must also keep in mind that Russian ships based in the Caspian Sea also have the range to hit targets in the Middle East with the Kalibr’ as they have done in October 2015 for Putin’s birthday.8
Moscow has learned how to deploy nuclear-capable SLCMs with great lethality on cheaper, smaller ships like corvettes.
At that time it became clear that:
“This was not a missile seen as being normally carried by the corvettes, which had [shorter-range] Klub missiles as opposed to the land-attack version,” said Bryan Clark, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
The Kalibr, he said, “changes it from being a sea-control ship to one with distributed lethality.
The US has been aspiring to that, but the Russians have shown they already have it.”9
As Clark observed then, as well the new Russian capability for distributed lethality poses serious problems for the U.S.
“The Russians are adopting distributed lethality faster than the US,” he noted.
“The arguments made for distributed lethality are to put firepower on a bunch of smaller ships, have them disperse, in turn increase targeting problems for the enemy, and you may be able to generate the same kind of firepower if you concentrate the platforms.
“With the Russians, these 900-ton corvettes are harder to find than a [4,000-ton US] littoral combat ship.
“You can buy them in larger numbers, and they also carry land-attack weapons,” unlike LCS.
“It would seem to give you a much more effective land-attack lethality than what the US Navy is pursuing.”
Clearly the deployment of such capabilities along with UAV’s massive integrated air defense networks, fighters and strike air craft, plus land-based shore and air defense is making the Black Sea a n increasingly inhospitable zone for the U.S. and NATO.
But given Rusisa’s quest for bases throughout the Levant, Mediterranean, and even Red Sea areas the objective of an anti-access are a denial capability being extended out to the Eastern Mediterranean, well beyond the Black Sea, is taking shape.
Moreover, Russia is refining this capability to include Caspian based ships as well.
In October 2018 Moscow fired Kalibr’ SLCMs at targets during Caspian exercises.10
Beyond that, at present the specific threats we see in the Black Sea are directed against Ukraine and Romania.
But because Romania is a NATO ally and Ukraine is steadily drawing ever closer to European security organizations who identify its cause with their own, any further fighting in this maritime zone is fraught with danger and is unlikely to be confined to the Black Sea.11
Indeed, there is good reason to believe that naval operations in and around the Black Sea will inevitably entail operations a on shore and against land-based forces and defenses in both countries. Russian writers, in assessing the lessons of Syria, have argued that,
It follows from what has been said that in implementing future construction plans for new submarines, and also in the modernization of the majority of the surface fleet, the Russian Navy will, by the end of the next decade, be capable of carrying out massed missile strikes against the surface and land targets of the likely opponent.
Each fleet will have enough ships and submarines armed with Kalibr’ and Polymet-Redut (missiles) to have a seriously enhanced combat capability. 12
For example, in response to talk of NATO exercises, Andrei Kelin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs labeled such exercises destabilizing and further added that, “This is not NATO’s maritime space and it has no relation to the alliance.”13
More recently, Russian defense establishment has announced that nuclear-capable “Kalibr”(SS-N-27) ship-based missiles will be “permanently based“ in the Eastern Mediterranean, thus providing a capable and reliable reach for Moscow’s forces in the region.14
These deployments began in the fall of 2018.15
Such missiles, with a range of up to 300 kilometers, give even older Russian vessels a sufficient offensive as well as defensive counter-punch to strike at naval or even shore-based targets.
Moreover, Russia will also conduct permanent exercises in the Mediterranean to go with its permanent deployment there. 16
Consequently as a result of the annexation of Crimea it is not just Ukraine that is in the eye of the Russian hurricane but also other littoral countries, e.g. Romania. Russia’s seizure of the Crimea and buildup in the Black Sea makes its maritime zone contiguous to that of Russia and that this puts Romania at great risk from both maritime operations and land attacks to the Dniester or beyond.17
Indeed, the treaty on Crimea’s annexation to the Russian Federation states that, “the demarcation of Black Sea territorial waters is established based on the international treaties made by the Russian federation.” According to the Munich-based expert, Vladimir Socor, “This vague wording appears to imply that Russia deems the agreements made with Ukraine on territorial demarcation with other countries are no longer valid, and suggest that Russia might try to negotiate and modify the current demarcation agreements.”18
And that means Russia could easily incite pressure against Romania and its critical maritime energy facilities that it has already frequently menaced by overflights and the like.19
While we have no definitive answers as to whether or not Russia has nuclearized the Black Sea Fleet and/or the Mediterranean Eskadra, it clearly can do so if it so desires and has reserved that option for itself in the future.
Thus Romania now experiences what one writer calls “periodic threats of annihilation for hosting American ballistic missile defense, exercises simulating Romania’s invasion, and repeated violations of air (and naval) space.”20
But Russian pressure is not confined to military threats either by land through Transnistria and Moldova or by sea and air from the Black Sea.
Russia’s maritime and other incursions or probes also seem to be directed against Romania’s efforts to secure its energy independence and integrate fully with Western energy institutions and companies.
It is quite likely that Moscow, for example wants to prevent Moldova from escaping its dependence on Russian gas transmissions from Ukraine or perhaps from Russian gas in general as President Igor Dodon has now expressed interest in alternative gas routes like the Iasi –Ungehni (Romania)-Chisinau gas pipeline.21
But it also clearly wants to retain a capacity to threaten Romania, the most pro-American state in the Balkans.
In other words, the Kerch Strait incident of November 2018 should bring home to us the fact that the threats posed by Russia in the Black Sea do not end with Ukraine and are potentially not confined to the conventional level of war.
These SLCM capabilities also are not the only ones in Moscow’s arsenal of naval warfare.
In 2009, Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev, the Navy’s Deputy Chief of Staff, told RIA Novosti that, “Probably, tactical nuclear weapons will play a key role in the future,” and that the navy may fit new, less powerful nuclear warheads to the existing types of cruise missiles. “There is no longer any need to equip missiles with powerful nuclear warheads,” Burtsev said. “We can install low-yield warheads (possibly fusion weapons? -Author) on existing cruise missiles.”22
Given the lack of progress on reducing Moscow’s arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, those systems are also still potentially available to Russian commanders for use in regional contingencies.
In the light of Russian deployments in the Baltic and Black Seas not only U.S. and NATO commanders have to be vigilant and able to devise countermeasures and deployments to the threats ranged against NATO allies by those Russian capabilities.
In the context of the apparent unraveling of arms control agreements like the INF. other cases of Russian violations the danger of heightened nuclear threats to Europe (as Russia has made clear it will launch when and if the U.S. leaves the INF treaty), and new Russian capabilities it can be argued that the temptation to use these SLCMs or tactical nuclear weapons or to rethink using them in warfighting scenarios has grown and will continue to grow.
This represents a renewed nuclear threat to Europe and our allies if not allies elsewhere so that from now on we need to think not only about conventional naval warfare but also about the possibility of nuclear war generated from the sea.
Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow American Foreign Policy Council
Editor’s Note: Dr. Blank has highlighted the return of the nuclear dimension and what Paul Bracken has highlighted in terms of the second nuclear age.
The Putin Administration has certainly focused on creating the impression that it is lowering the nuclear threshold.
They have done so in part in my view because of the relative weakness of their conventional forces directed against Europe and with the significant shift in Western forces towards distributed operations and new approaches to force integration which in my view will make it much harder for the Russians to defeat Western forces.
From this point of view, we are the reactive enemy.
But clearly we have to take the second nuclear age very seriously think through crisis response approaches and capabilities.
Footnotes
“Bildt Plays Down Russian Nuclear Threat,” The Local, August 18, 2008,” http://www.thelocal.se/13780/20080818; Mark Franchetti, “Russia’s New Nuclear Challenge to Europe,” Timesonline, August 17, 2008, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worldeurope/article4547883.ece
Stephen Blank, ”The Black Sea and Beyond,” Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, October, 2015, pp. 36-41; “NATO Military Exercises Begin In Black Sea,” http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-31828111/nato-military-exercises-begin-in-black-sea, March 11, 2015; Alex Gorka; “Exercise Sea Shield-2017: NATO Provokes Russia in Black Sea Before Defense Ministers’ Meeting,” https://www.strategic-culture.org/n...ssia-black-sea-defense-ministers-meeting.html, February 10, 2017; Damien Sharkov, “NATO To Strengthen in Black Sea Region Despite Russian Warning,” http://www.newsweek.com/nato-strengthen-black-sea-despite-russia-warning-470717, June 15, 2016
Stephen Blank, pp. 36-41
“Russia Begins Development of Syrian Bases To Host Nuclear Warships & Warplanes,” www.rt.com, December 26, 2017
Oleksiy Serdyuk, “Kremlin Continuing Building Up Forces In Ukraine,” Ukraine Defense Review, NO. 1, 2018, pp. 28-29
Matthew Bodner, “Russia Deploys Military Ships To Syria Armed With Kalibr’ Cruise Missiles, https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2...s-to-syria-armed-with-kalibr-cruise-missiles/, August 28, 2018
Interview With LTG Ben Hodges, Sherr, Blank pp. 36-41
Christopher P. Cavas, “Is Caspian Fleet a Game-Changer,” https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2015/10/11/is-caspian-sea-fleet-a-game-changer/, October 11, 2015
Ibid.
“Kalibr Missiles Destroy ‘Enemy’ Facilities During Caspian Military Drills,” http://tass.com/defense/1024793, October 6, 2018.
“Ukraine-NATO Joint Military Exercises Begin In Western Region Of Lviv,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, September 3, 2018 www.rferl.org
Douglas Barrie and Howard Gethin, “Russian Weapons in the Syrian conflict,” Russian Studies, NATO Defense College, 02/18-May 2018, p. 9,(Italics in the original)
Sharkov
https://iz.ru/744028/2018-05-16/kor...sia-na-postoiannuiu-vakhtu-v-sredizemnoe-more
“Russia Sends New Frigate With Cruise Missiles Onboard To Mediterranean,” www.Reuters.com, November 10, 2018
“Kremlin: Russia to Conduct Exercises In the Mediterranean On Permanent Basis,” www.uawire.com, November 3, 2018
Christian Campeanu, “How Romania Might Get To Have a Conflict With Russia,” Bucharest, Romania Libera Online,” March 24, 2014 Open Source Center, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia, (Henceforth FBIS SOV), March 24, 2014
Ibid.
Conversations with Romanian Diplomats, Washington, D.C., 2018
Iulia-Sabina Joja, “Dealing With the Russian Lake Next Door: Romania and Black Sea Security”, www.warontherocks.com, August 16, 2018.
“President Says Moldova Interested In Alternative Gas Routes,” Infotag News Agency, in Russian, July 30, 2018, Retrieved From BBC Monitoring.
“Russia Could Focus On Tactical Nuclear Weapons For Subs,” RIA Novosti, March 23, 2009, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090323/120688454.html
Hummm…..
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2019/0...e-problem-with-counterinsurgency-warfare.html
Published January 09, 2019 by Tom Porter
Coercing an Ally: The Problem with Counterinsurgency Warfare
Winning or losing in war is typically decided on the battlefield. Not entirely so in counterinsurgency warfare, where military dominance is no guarantee of success, says Assistant Professor of Government Barbara Elias.
Elias, whose research areas include international relations, foreign policy, security, and Islam and politics, is currently working on a book looking at some of the costliest counterinsurgency (known as COIN) campaigns since World War II. She’s identified nine conflicts where a foreign military power has gotten mired in campaigns that have cost the lives of at least one thousand of their troops.
The cases she has chosen are the US-led COIN campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan this century, as well as the Russian (or Soviet) war in Afghanistan in the 1980s against the mujahideen. She also looks at the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, the Americans in Vietnam, and some other less- discussed wars, like the Cuban involvement in Angola, the Vietnamese in Cambodia, the Syrians in Lebanon, and the Egyptians in Yemen back in the 1960s.
“I haven’t been able to do the same level of detailed research with some of these conflicts, because the regimes in power aren’t as open to releasing all the relevant documents. Of the non-US examples,” she says, “I was able to get primary sources for the Soviets and Indians. For the others I had to reply on secondary sources.”
Local Allies
The biggest mistake made by intervening forces, says Elias, is failure to adequately cement local alliances due to an ignorance over the nuances and importance of local politics. “The US military’s COIN field manual, for example, largely ignores the politics of the host nation because it’s a manual for soldiers, who typically would prefer to stay away from politics. The manual simply assumes that local allies will cooperate because they have shared goals (i.e., the defeat of the insurgency).”
When troops find themselves on the ground, however, Elias says they often find they’re unable to follow the guidelines of the manual because they don’t have a reliable local partner, whether it’s a local commander in the mountains of Afghanistan, or a religious-political leader in a key Iraqi city.
“Local allies are often lukewarm about cooperating with the intervenors because they don’t fully trust them,” explains Elias. “They’re not interested in accepting the risk inherent in working with a foreign power for long-term gain that is not guaranteed. After all, the foreign power will one day leave, and the insurgents could rise again and seek revenge against those who helped the ‘occupying forces.’”
Lessons Learned?
In studying fifty years of unsuccessful COIN campaigns, what lessons does Elias think should be learned? “Be less ambitious and less naïve in terms of what you expect from your allies,” she says. “Accept the limitations of local allies and work within those parameters. This is something the Cubans were more successful at when they intervened in Angola in the mid-70s. They had less firepower and resources than the US, so they had to work with what they had and were less apt to try to create a state in their own image.” Success at COIN, she stresses, hinges on compromise and, crucially, focusing on shared interests, not values.
Has the US learned these lessons? Not really, says Elias. “The COIN field manual from 2006 was upgraded in 2014 with one added paragraph regarding the challenges of dealing with local allies, which doesn’t represent a great learning curve.” One of the problems, she says, is that military personnel are not always well positioned to embrace the complexity of local politics— it’s an extraordinarily difficult and tedious process for Americans in a foreign territory, and is often times beyond their purview.
Elias’s book, The Politics of Asymmetric Counterinsurgency Partnerships, is currently under review for publication.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2019/0...e-problem-with-counterinsurgency-warfare.html
Published January 09, 2019 by Tom Porter
Coercing an Ally: The Problem with Counterinsurgency Warfare
Winning or losing in war is typically decided on the battlefield. Not entirely so in counterinsurgency warfare, where military dominance is no guarantee of success, says Assistant Professor of Government Barbara Elias.
Elias, whose research areas include international relations, foreign policy, security, and Islam and politics, is currently working on a book looking at some of the costliest counterinsurgency (known as COIN) campaigns since World War II. She’s identified nine conflicts where a foreign military power has gotten mired in campaigns that have cost the lives of at least one thousand of their troops.
The cases she has chosen are the US-led COIN campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan this century, as well as the Russian (or Soviet) war in Afghanistan in the 1980s against the mujahideen. She also looks at the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, the Americans in Vietnam, and some other less- discussed wars, like the Cuban involvement in Angola, the Vietnamese in Cambodia, the Syrians in Lebanon, and the Egyptians in Yemen back in the 1960s.
“I haven’t been able to do the same level of detailed research with some of these conflicts, because the regimes in power aren’t as open to releasing all the relevant documents. Of the non-US examples,” she says, “I was able to get primary sources for the Soviets and Indians. For the others I had to reply on secondary sources.”
Local Allies
The biggest mistake made by intervening forces, says Elias, is failure to adequately cement local alliances due to an ignorance over the nuances and importance of local politics. “The US military’s COIN field manual, for example, largely ignores the politics of the host nation because it’s a manual for soldiers, who typically would prefer to stay away from politics. The manual simply assumes that local allies will cooperate because they have shared goals (i.e., the defeat of the insurgency).”
When troops find themselves on the ground, however, Elias says they often find they’re unable to follow the guidelines of the manual because they don’t have a reliable local partner, whether it’s a local commander in the mountains of Afghanistan, or a religious-political leader in a key Iraqi city.
“Local allies are often lukewarm about cooperating with the intervenors because they don’t fully trust them,” explains Elias. “They’re not interested in accepting the risk inherent in working with a foreign power for long-term gain that is not guaranteed. After all, the foreign power will one day leave, and the insurgents could rise again and seek revenge against those who helped the ‘occupying forces.’”
Lessons Learned?
In studying fifty years of unsuccessful COIN campaigns, what lessons does Elias think should be learned? “Be less ambitious and less naïve in terms of what you expect from your allies,” she says. “Accept the limitations of local allies and work within those parameters. This is something the Cubans were more successful at when they intervened in Angola in the mid-70s. They had less firepower and resources than the US, so they had to work with what they had and were less apt to try to create a state in their own image.” Success at COIN, she stresses, hinges on compromise and, crucially, focusing on shared interests, not values.
Has the US learned these lessons? Not really, says Elias. “The COIN field manual from 2006 was upgraded in 2014 with one added paragraph regarding the challenges of dealing with local allies, which doesn’t represent a great learning curve.” One of the problems, she says, is that military personnel are not always well positioned to embrace the complexity of local politics— it’s an extraordinarily difficult and tedious process for Americans in a foreign territory, and is often times beyond their purview.
Elias’s book, The Politics of Asymmetric Counterinsurgency Partnerships, is currently under review for publication.
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.france24.com/en/20190111-sudan-organisers-urge-nationwide-protests-next-week
Sudan organisers urge nationwide protests next week
Date created : 11/01/2019 - 09:38
Khartoum (AFP)
A Sudanese group that has spearheaded anti-government demonstrations since last month called Friday for nationwide protests next week to pile pressure on the government of President Omar al-Bashir.
The demonstrations that erupted on December 19 over a government decision to triple the price of bread have swiftly escalated into broader protests that are widely seen as the biggest threat to Bashir's rule in three decades in power.
"We will launch a week of uprising with demonstrations in every Sudanese town and village," the Sudanese Professionals' Association said.
The group called for a major rally in Khartoum North on Sunday, to be followed by further demonstrations in the capital during the week.
The association, which has mobilised its membership to keep up the momentum of the protests, has already called for a rally after midday prayers on Friday in the eastern town of Atbara, where the demonstrations began.
At least 22 people have been killed during the protests, including two security personnel, according to the authorities.
Human rights groups have put the death toll much higher. Human Rights Watch said on Monday that at least 40 people had been killed, including children and medical staff.
Analysts say the challenge now for organisers is to get protesters onto the street in numbers.
"Right now, some of the opposition groups and trade unions are trying to mobilise more protests, and probably they are thinking of how to escalate," said Matt Ward, senior Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica.
"But so far there hasn't been an escalation, they are persistent but they haven't risen in intensity in a significant way."
2019 AFP
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.france24.com/en/20190111-sudan-organisers-urge-nationwide-protests-next-week
Sudan organisers urge nationwide protests next week
Date created : 11/01/2019 - 09:38
Khartoum (AFP)
A Sudanese group that has spearheaded anti-government demonstrations since last month called Friday for nationwide protests next week to pile pressure on the government of President Omar al-Bashir.
The demonstrations that erupted on December 19 over a government decision to triple the price of bread have swiftly escalated into broader protests that are widely seen as the biggest threat to Bashir's rule in three decades in power.
"We will launch a week of uprising with demonstrations in every Sudanese town and village," the Sudanese Professionals' Association said.
The group called for a major rally in Khartoum North on Sunday, to be followed by further demonstrations in the capital during the week.
The association, which has mobilised its membership to keep up the momentum of the protests, has already called for a rally after midday prayers on Friday in the eastern town of Atbara, where the demonstrations began.
At least 22 people have been killed during the protests, including two security personnel, according to the authorities.
Human rights groups have put the death toll much higher. Human Rights Watch said on Monday that at least 40 people had been killed, including children and medical staff.
Analysts say the challenge now for organisers is to get protesters onto the street in numbers.
"Right now, some of the opposition groups and trade unions are trying to mobilise more protests, and probably they are thinking of how to escalate," said Matt Ward, senior Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica.
"But so far there hasn't been an escalation, they are persistent but they haven't risen in intensity in a significant way."
2019 AFP