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Preparing for future wars means getting ready for World War II-level losses, the US Air Force's top officer says

The Air Force's "historically-anomalous period of dominance" after the Gulf War is coming to an end, the service's chief of staff says.

www.businessinsider.com

Preparing for future wars means getting ready for World War II-level losses, the US Air Force's top officer says

Christopher Woody
Sep 3, 2020, 4:19 PM

• The US military has spent recent years shifting its attention to the challenges posed by competitors that can match or in some cases exceed the capabilities of US forces.
• A future conflict with such adversaries will be a marked departure from recent combat, and losses in such a fight could approach the levels of World War II, the Air Force chief of staff wrote in a recent paper.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The superiority the US Air Force has enjoyed in skies around the world for the past three decades is coming to an end, the service's new top officer said in his first major strategic document, published this week.

In a paper titled "Accelerate Change or Lose," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles C.Q. Brown Jr., who took over in August, wrote that the window of opportunity to adapt to future challenges is closing and that changes are needed in how the service develops, acquires, and uses its manpower and technology.

The Air Force has enjoyed "a historically-anomalous period of dominance" since the Gulf War in late 1990, Brown wrote.

"For decades, American, allied and partner warfighters have felt safe with the top cover and strategic deterrence our air forces have provided; and for much of our existence as a country our Homeland has served as a sanctuary. These assumptions no longer hold true today," Brown added.

An F-35 student pilot climbs into an F-35 Lighting II at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, July 7, 2017. (US Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Jensen Stidham)
Brown wrote that during the decades in which the US focused on fighting violent extremism, adversaries studied the Air Force with the aim of developing means to counter it.


Brown echoed many officials in cautioning about "great power competition," which primarily refers to Russia and China. Those countries have developed advanced air-defense systems and other long-range weapons, and the Air Force needs to "build deep institutional understanding" of them, Brown wrote.

"Future warfare will not remain far from our shores," Brown added. "Overseas, our Airmen will have to fight to achieve localized air superiority."

Those changes mean a future fight against a peer or near-peer competitor could come with losses comparable to some of the most intense combat the US military has faced.

"Tomorrow's Airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments, and must be prepared to fight through combat attrition rates and risks to the Nation that are more akin to the World War II era than the uncontested environment to which we have since become accustomed," Brown wrote.


A manned-unmanned fight

Flak completely destroyed the nose section of this Boeing B-17G, a 398th Bomb Group aircraft, over Cologne, Germany. US Air Force
Some of World War II's most brutal fighting was in the air. Over Europe between 1942 and 1945, for instance, the Eighth Air Force suffered about half of the US Army Air Force's casualties, with more than 26,000 killed.

In the latter half of the 20th century, US aircraft largely controlled the skies. For decades after the Korean War, no US ground troops were killed by enemy air attack, and US aircraft were rarely shot down. (Brown's predecessor was one of the few pilots downed by enemy fire after the Cold War.)

Brown isn't the only Air Force official to acknowledge that planes and pilots won't go unscathed in a future conflict.

"If we're going to start thinking about a peer competitor seriously, we can't be an Air Force where everything that takes off needs to come back and land. It's just too hard to imagine with all the technology in the world that you can design invincible airplanes," Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition chief, said at a think-tank event late last year.

A woman dances on the US Air Force insignia of a US F-117 stealth aircraft that crashed in a village west of Belgrade, March 28, 1999. Reuters
Roper's comment came in response to a question about whether the Air Force could in the future have more unmanned than manned aircraft. That will "probably" be the case, Roper said.


Roper has touted his "Century Series" concept to speed up aircraft development through shorter programs that share components. "I definitely think many of those systems will be unmanned," Roper said at the event.

Through its "Skyborg" program, the Air Force is working on unmanned aircraft that use artificial intelligence to adjust to the battlefield. The Air Force intends for those aircraft to be attritable — which means reusable but cheap enough to discard — and be capable of acting as a wingman to manned aircraft.

Roper said the hope was the F-35 and the new F-15EX could be "trailblazers" in that manned-unmanned concept.

"The thing I so dearly want our pilots to have is if they have to fly into uncertain airspace, that they've got the option to push their attritable scout, or their forward-based jammer or forward-based sensor, so they're either confusing the enemy first, seeing the enemy first, [or] disrupting the enemy first," Roper said. "If we have to lose systems in the fight, shame on us if they're not those attritable systems."

Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie, seen here on its first flight on March 5, 2019, is a candidate for the Air Force's Skyborg program. 88 Air Base Wing Public Affairs
The Air Force has lost unmanned aircraft. At least three drones were downed over the Middle East in recent years, and the service has said it believes a Russian anti-aircraft system was used to shoot down a drone over Libya last year.


Other military officials have noted the benefits of using unmanned platforms in place of manned aircraft, but whether and how to employ those platforms is a decision for humans. Like other senior leaders, Brown said preparing for future conflicts requires getting the right people.

"Successful operations and combat support in a contested environment demand maximum delegation, trust, and empowerment of Airmen before conflict starts," Brown wrote, with emphasis. "We must empower Airmen at all levels, delegating to the lowest capable and competent level possible, mindful that with empowerment and trust comes accountability."

"We must develop the Airmen we need for the high-end fight" starting during recruitment and throughout their career, Brown added. "The US Air Force must ... reward and retain those Airmen who foster the personal attributes necessary for success in the challenging future ahead."

 

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Macron decries ‘Islamist separatism’, defends right to blaspheme

French president, who proposes law against ‘Islamist separatism’, defends free speech amid Charlie Hebdo attack trial.

www.aljazeera.com

Macron decries 'Islamic separatism', defends right to blaspheme
French president, who proposes law against 'Islamic separatism', defends free speech amid Charlie Hebdo attack trial.

20 hours ago
French President Emmanuel Macron criticised what he called "Islamic separatism" in his country and those who seek French citizenship without accepting France's "right to commit blasphemy".

Macron on Friday defended satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of Prophet Muhammad that helped inspire two French-born men to mount a deadly January 2015 attack on the paper's newsroom.

The weekly republished the images this week as the trial began of 14 people over the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket.

Speaking at a ceremony on Friday celebrating France's democratic history and naturalising new citizens, the French president said: "You don't choose one part of France. You choose France ... The Republic will never allow any separatist adventure."

Freedom in France, Macron said, includes: "The freedom to believe or not to believe. But this is inseparable from the freedom of expression up to the right to blasphemy."

Noting the trial that opened on Wednesday, he said, "To be French is to defend the right to make people laugh, to criticise, to mock, to caricature."

The 2015 attacks killed 17 people and marked the beginning of a wave of violence by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group in Europe.

Macron's centrist government has promised a law in the coming months against "Islamic separatism" but it is not yet clear exactly what it would police.

Some critics fear it could unfairly stigmatise France's Muslim population, the largest in Western Europe.
SOURCE: AP NEWS AGENCY

 

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Defense Minister Says Iran To Export Weapons When Embargo Lifted

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier-General Amir Hatami has said that lifting the arms embargo on Iran, which is due to happen in October, will allow Iran to "export more defense products".

en.radiofarda.com

Iran News
Defense Minister Says Iran To Export Weapons When Embargo Lifted
September 05, 2020

• Radio Farda

IRAN -- A group of domestically built surface-to-surface missiles are displayed at a military show marking the 40th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah, at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque, in Tehran, February 3, 2019
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Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier-General Amir Hatami has said that lifting the arms embargo on Iran, which is due to happen in October, will allow Iran to "export more defense products".

In an interview published on Saturday by the government-mouthpiece Iran newspaper, Hatami claimed that Iran currently produces "more than 90 percent of the weapons required by the armed forces and the remaining 10 percent does not affect the country's defense capabilities,"

Hatami also said that while the arms embargo sanctioned by the U.N. Resolution 2231 prevented Iran from exporting weapons, with the lifting of the embargo, Iran will be able to export "products [defined as weapons] and technical services."

After pulling out of the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers in May 2018, the Trump administration reimposed U.S. sanctions on Iran. Despite the crippling effects of the sanctions, Iran has so far refused to negotiate directly with the United States for a "better deal" sought by the U.S. administration.

In August 2020, the U.S. proposed a resolution to the U.N. Security Council to extend the embargo on Iran. The proposal was greeted with widespread opposition from other Security Council members, and eventually failed to pass, as 13 of the 15 members abstained from the vote. The U.S. then attempted to invoke the "snapback" mechanism that would restore all U.N. sanctions on Iran in accordance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The remaining participants in the 2015 nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) have said the U.S. no longer has the standing to invoke the snapback mechanism.

U.S. administration officials have argued that, as a permanent member of the Security Council, the U.S. still has the legal grounds to call for the reimposition of sanctions. The Security Council presidents for August and September, Indonesia and Niger, have refused to act on the proposed resolution.

Iranian officials, President Hassan Rouhani in particular, have always said that the provision of the JCPOA that allows the U.N. arms embargo on Iran to eventually be lifted is one of the

SEE ALSO:
Iran Parliament's Economic Committee Chair Says Tehran Stock Exchange Is "Manipulated"
Britain Seeking Ways To Pay Off Debt To Iran To Bring Jailed Mother Home

 

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UN Nuclear Watchdog Says Iran’s Enriched Uranium Stockpile 10 Times Over Limit

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has increased, and it now stands at more than 10 times the limit set down in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report on September 4.

en.radiofarda.com

Iran News
UN Nuclear Watchdog Says Iran’s Enriched Uranium Stockpile 10 Times Over Limit
September 05, 2020

• RFE/RL

The interior of the Fordow Uranium Conversion Facility in Qom, Iran (file photo)
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Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium continues to increase and now stands at more than 10 times the limit set down in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the UN nuclear watchdog said in a report on September 4.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said that Iran has begun providing access to sites where the country was suspected of having stored or used undeclared nuclear material.

According to the IAEA quarterly report, Iran as of August 25 had stockpiled 2,105.4 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, up from 1,571.6 kilograms last reported on May 20.

The 2015 deal -- known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms.

The IAEA said that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5 percent, higher than the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal with world powers.

Before the JCPOA, Tehran had enriched its uranium to 20 percent, which is considered a quick technical jump to weapons-grade level of 90 percent.

According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, to produce one nuclear bomb Iran would need 1,050 kilograms of uranium enriched at 3.67 percent, and would then need to enrich it further to 90 percent purity or above.

Experts say if Iran chose to produce a nuclear bomb its breakout time would be at least three to six months, but that it would take much longer to actually weaponize a device. While the JCPOA was in full effect, Iran’s breakout time was estimated at more than one year.

However, Iran’s stockpile of heavy water had decreased and is now back within the limits set by the JCPOA, the nuclear watchdog said.

The nuclear deal – signed with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China, and Russia -- promised Iran economic incentives in return for the curbs on its nuclear program.

In 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal and reimposed crushing sanctions, saying it needed to be renegotiated.

Since then, Iran has announced gradual violations of JCPOA restrictions. The remaining parties to the deal maintain that even though Iran has been violating many of the pact’s terms, it is important to keep the deal alive because Iran has continued providing the IAEA with critical access to inspect its nuclear facilities.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

 

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French soldiers killed in Mali armored vehicle attack – DW – 09/06/2020

Two French military personnel died in Mali after their armored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. France has deployed over 5,000 troops in West Africa to fight jihadists in the region.

www.dw.com

French soldiers killed in Mali armored vehicle attack

Two French military personnel died in Mali after their armored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. France has deployed over 5,000 troops in West Africa to fight jihadists in the region.

Date 05.09.2020

Two French soldiers deployed in Mali were killed in an operation on Saturday after their armored vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device, the French presidency said in a statement.

Another soldier was injured in the blast that took place in Tessalit, a town in the country's northeastern region of Kidal.

The soldiers were members of the paratroop regiment based in Tarbes, southwestern France, the statement said.

France has deployed over 5,000 troops in West Africa as part of its Barkhane military operations to fight against Islamists linked to al-Qaida and the "Islamic State."

Read more: Mali coup: ECOWAS, junta transition talks end without deal

President Emmanuel Macron, in a tribute to the dead soldiers, praised "the courage and determination of the French military deployed in the Sahel region."

He also called for a swift transition to civilian control of Mali after the military junta ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in a coup on August 18.

The junta, led by Colonel Assimi Goita, calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People.

Ex-president flown to UAE

On Saturday, Keita was also evacuated to the United Arab Emirates for medical treatment. "He left this evening for Abu Dhabi," his former chief of staff, Mamadou Camara, told news agency Reuters. "It is a medical visit of between 10 and 15 days."

After the coup, Keita tendered his resignation and had been detained for 10 days by the ruling military junta. The 75-year-old was released following pressure from the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS.

His health had been of concern since he was hospitalized following his detention. The deposed leader had left the hospital on Thursday after treatment for a mini-stroke. He had been moved to his residence under tight security.

Senior French politicians and military officers fear that last month's military coup will further destabilize the West African nation and undermine the fight against the Islamist groups active in Mali and the wider Sahel region.

Large parts of Mali are still outside the government's control and the fight against insurgents has left thousands of people dead since 2012.

In total, 45 French soldiers have died serving in the region since 2013, according to the French military.

adi/sri (AFP, Reuters)

 

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Highlighting the salient features of India, Pakistan Nuclear Doctrine

Strategic culture of South Asia is comprise of hostility between India and Pakistan. Conventional war, territorial issues, arms race, rising insecurities eventually led to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.India and Pakistan became nuclear weapons states in mid-1998. A debate emerged at...

moderndiplomacy.eu

Defense
Highlighting the salient features of India, Pakistan Nuclear Doctrine

Published 17 hours ago
on September 6, 2020

By Aamira Bibi

Strategic culture of South Asia is comprise of hostility between India and Pakistan. Conventional war, territorial issues, arms race, rising insecurities eventually led to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.India and Pakistan became nuclear weapons states in mid-1998. A debate emerged at international level about the nuclear doctrine for the region. Nuclear doctrine is “the set of principles or rules governing the employment of a capability”. The basic use of this concept is primarily in political, military and strategic sides. If we see doctrine specifically in military terms it contain those rules and principles in which military forces maneuvers. In nuclear doctrine state mainly address two main objective first management of the nuclear weapons and second operational positioning. To avoid all type of issues related to nuclear weapons states needs to develop rules and principles to determine in which conditions these weapons will be used. Nuclear doctrine is an important piece of paper for policy maker in war like situation or in unstable situation. There are mainly two types of nuclear doctrine offensive and defensive.

India and Pakistan both states are nuclear weapon states and play a significant role in peace of South Asia. India developed its nuclear weapon in 1974 and named it as peaceful nuclear explosion. Nuclear doctrine was drafted in 1999 by National Security Advisory Board but that was never approved. In 2003 Indian government spelled out its nuclear doctrine. India opted NFU and declared its nuclear weapon program as only for deterrence purposes. NFU but retaliation is must in response to an attack on India and Indian forces anywhere. Credible minimum deterrence is there to attack aggressor with punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons. No weapons against non-nuclear weapons states or not align with nuclear power. India will retain the option of using nuclear weapons in response to any attack of chemical and biological weapons. Using of nuclear weapons against any aggressor will be in hands of elected people .e.g. Prime Minster. Lastly India will promote nuclear free world without any discrimination.

So every nuclear or conventional doctrine have some controversies which are difficult to explain and implement. No first Use is the most controversial part of Indian nuclear doctrine. Indian NFU is conditional and number of times its officials declared that they will reverse it as per the condition. It clearly means that their No First Use posture is not credible enough with regard to their adversaries. Numerous strategist and Indian officials brought Indian NFU in spotlight to evaluate its credibility. Some of them are entirely against this posture. Indian defence minister said that India should not bind itself with No First Use and say that India will react responsibly. There were number of calls during past year to revise the No First Use posture. Bharatiya Janata Party included this in its election manifesto but because of public pressure they later declared that there wouldn’t be any reversal in nuclear doctrine. It’s important to know what are the pros and cons of NFU to evaluate why NFU is so much controversial in Indian case. Those who are in favor of NFU claim that it will represent India as responsible nuclear weapon states. As late K. Subrahmanyam pointed said, as far as deterrence is concerned perception matters instead of number. So having NFU as nuclear doctrine wouldn’t matter. On the other side those who are against NFU claim that NFU is “not so much a strategic choice, but a cultural one”. They claim that if India found advantage in attacking first in any crisis, it will bring serious consequences as having No first Use posture.Bharat Karnad says that NFU is for peace time and it is not suitable for India.

Another point which is a question over Credible Minimum Deterrence, India is spending huge amount of money on military modernization and initiating arms race in the Region and at the same time they claim that they have credible minimum deterrence posture. Number of Indian strategist says that Indian Nuclear doctrine lack clarity which can lead to any situation in future.

Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons for security purposes to create a strong deterrence against India. Initially Pakistan was stick to peaceful use of nuclear technology but Indian certain actions over time provoked Pakistan to go nuclear. So Pakistan did managed to get nuclear capability. Later these elements became the foundation of Pakistan Nuclear doctrine. Pakistan nuclear posture is truly Indian centric. Pakistan has no official nuclear doctrine but official statements from military and political leadership clearly define the agendas which are part of Pakistan nuclear policy. There are some salient elements in Pakistani nuclear doctrinefirst nuclear weapons are for national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Main purpose of Pakistani nuclear weapons are to counter Indian aggression. Pakistan nuclear doctrine is consist of few main elements, first Pakistan will maintain Credible Minimum Deterrence, Secondly Pakistan will avoid any type of strategic arms race with India. Thirdly Pakistan will stop testing but it is subjected to Indian actions. Pakistani command and control structure is part of it as well. Lastly Pakistan doesn’t have No first Use policy. Pakistan put certain conditions for using nuclear weapons first.

As Pakistani nuclear capability is Indian centric so Indian further actions provoked Pakistan to bring some sort of change to counter Indian hostile and belligerent policies. Pakistan moved from Credible Minimum Deterrence to Full Spectrum Deterrence. India is modernizing its conventional forces. Developing Cold Start Doctrine type of policies which is a huge threat to stability of south Asia. So Pakistan is taking certain actions to balance Indian actions.

Pakistani Nuclear doctrine which is ambiguous and unwritten and there is only one source of information which is official statements. Inside Pakistan there is no clash over Pakistan nuclear policy. Both Military and political leadership are on the same page. Nuclear doctrines mainly serve two purposes first it play a great role of signaling to your adversary intentionally or unintentionally. Second it clarify the role of Nuclear weapons and identify the threshold. Nuclear weapons states adopted mix sort of approach, few have declared nuclear doctrine and few remained ambiguous and Pakistan is one of them.

Having an explicit nuclear doctrine can benefit a state because it clearly indicate threshold. Ambiguous and unwritten nuclear doctrine can be harmful in case your adversary imagined the threshold very low and took certain action which is intolerable. Secondly clear nuclear doctrine will help the states to gain the support of International community not only in peacetime but in crisis time as well. So in my opinion if Pakistan declare its nuclear doctrine it would help Pakistan to gain the status of responsible nuclear weapon state and it will stop India taking further actions like Balakot and claiming false surgical strikes.

As Pakistani nuclear program and doctrine is Indian centric, so the threat perception remained in India. Pakistani included no to arms race in its unofficial doctrine but on the other hand Indian military modernization is pushing Pakistan to increase its capabilities and declare its involvement in arms race as well.

Pakistan kept the option of first use as it didn’t deny it as such. But the problem lies with practicality of this concept. First use require high degree of military intelligence, early warning system and high degree of proficiency. All these concepts are debatable in context of Pakistan.

Lastly Pakistan Full Spectrum Deterrence is more or less related to NATO’s Flexible response and to keep that intact, continues up gradation in military strategy and weapons is necessary. Current economic situation and after effects of COVID-19 would create serious challenges for Pakistan to maintain FSD in future.

Both states are nuclear weapon states and play a crucial role maintaining peace in South Asia. India had declared its nuclear doctrine but Pakistan remained it ambiguous by not declaring it officially. Both have some sort of controversies in their nuclear doctrine which can lead to any misadventure by both side. Credibility of nuclear doctrines can serve the purpose of peace well.


Related
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India and Pakistan bid for NSG MembershipDecember 7, 2018In "South Asia"
Successful Test of Nasr Pours Cold Water on India’s Cold Start DoctrineFebruary 7, 2019In "Defense"

 

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India’s options when faced with a collusive two-front threat - The Sunday Guardian Live

The China-India military stand-off continues and is likely to be a long haul. Meanwhile, there is contemplation that China and Pakistan could pose a

www.sundayguardianlive.com

India’s options when faced with a collusive two-front threat


Manpreet Sethi

• Updated
• :
• September 5, 2020,
• 10:25 PM

The China-India military stand-off continues and is likely to be a long haul. Meanwhile, there is contemplation that China and Pakistan could pose a collusive two-front threat to India. The strategic nexus between the “iron brothers” is old, deep and broad-based. Both symbiotically support each other to complicate India’s security. Pakistan is assured of Chinese weaponry, economic assistance for infrastructure development, intelligence inputs, diplomatic support and psychological backing. China can bank on Pakistan for tactical actions to impose pressure on India by opening new fronts using its regular army or terrorist infrastructure.



Placed in the middle, India faces China, which enjoys numerical conventional superiority, and Pakistan whose nuclear weapons negate India’s conventional edge. To address them individually or jointly, some opine that India should adopt a more offensive nuclear posture by projecting first use of nuclear weapons, building “tactical” nuclear weapons (TNWs) and threatening their use with impunity, a la Pakistan.


Before India rushes to this conclusion, some questions should be answered. Pakistan may project use of nuclear weapons, but can it really use them in a manner that brings benefits? Does India believe Pakistan’s nuclear use threat? Has that stopped a resolute India from undertaking conventional punitive actions? Notwithstanding all the nuclear noise, Pakistan understands that unless its first use is able to disarm India’s nuclear arsenal, it is sure to suffer nuclear retaliation, worsening its situation. How, then, is the threat of first use credible?


India will face the same credibility issues when it signals the first use of nuclear weapons. In fact, laying down artificial redlines for nuclear use in conventional scenarios is not helpful. It can place national leaderships in a commitment trap or a credibility crisis. India has wisely circumvented this problem by adopting the no-first-use doctrine. The only redline here is nuclear use by the adversary. Short of that, there should be little reason for India to use nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the assumptions that use of low-yield TNWs is more credible, or that their controlled use would be condoned for fear of nuclear escalation, are both questionable. A 75-year old taboo against nuclear use makes any decision to use them, even the low-yield variety, extremely difficult and not easily condoned. Also, no such use can guarantee a controlled conflict since the response from the other side will always be unknown. India, for instance, promises massive retaliation against any use of nuclear weapons. Pakistan can never safely presume that India would act otherwise. The assuredness of retaliation ensured by secure second-strike capabilities makes the weapon non-usable. The Superpowers could not use them despite building thousands of TNWs. Neither has Pakistan been able to do so despite professedly deploying such weapons. India will not be able to do so either.







The answer to dealing with a collusive two-front situation lies not in projection of first nuclear use, but in exploiting arrows in the diplomatic, information, military and economic (DIME) quiver.


In the diplomatic domain, India’s stature as a responsible country that respects international rules and values is far ahead of China and Pakistan. Individually and jointly, their disruptive behaviour is well recognised. India has the opportunity to team up with like-minded nations to pose credible dilemmas to both. For example, India’s efforts at engaging West Asia or exposing state support to terrorism have been fruitful against Pakistan. China’s non-transparency on the pandemic, debt diplomacy, expansionist behaviour has already created an anti-China sentiment that India can exploit to great effect.







Utilisation of the information spectrum is critical for this. India’s success at blocking Pakistan’s ability to play a victim of terrorism is one illustration of effective use of this sphere. In case of China too, India needs to amplify Beijing’s aggressive tendencies and duplicity, facts that already have a resonance. Further, India can find and fuel fissures in the collusion. Beijing and Islamabad have no civilisational, ideological, socio-cultural, or religious affinities. China is apprehensive of Pakistan’s radical Islam and its appeal with the Uighurs; this could be exploited. China should also be reminded that any Pakistani nuclear use would result in socio-environmental consequences that it will not be able to escape either. Other points of friction can be found and exploited.


On the military front, the answer lies in building usable capability in the conventional realm. Chief of Defence Staff has expectedly underscored India’s ability to take on a collusive threat. More thoughtful build-up and use of numerous rungs on the conventional spectrum, including newer realms of space and cyber, can provide important leverages. Indeed, conventional capability is the only instrument that can credibly deter and punish.







Lastly, India’s trade, markets and resources are its strength. Denial of these allows India to wage “economic warfare”. This has persisted with Pakistan for some years now. India has also managed further economic heat from the Financial Action Task Force. China, meanwhile, has squandered a good economic relationship worth $100 billion owing to the current crisis. Some steps taken by India have also reverberated with other countries and the collective impact on China will be felt if these policies are sustained.


India’s security challenges are complex. But a change in nuclear doctrine to deal with tactical, sub-conventional or even conventional concerns would be meaningless. A shift to nuclear pre-emption would only heighten risks of inadvertent nuclear escalation. As instruments of deterrence, nuclear weapons are most credible when threatened against an existential crisis. India’s DIME actions can ensure that China and Pakistan, individually or collusively, cannot pose such a risk to the country. India must focus on options that lie between fisticuffs and nuclear use.


Manpreet Sethi is Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies.








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The Army Is Working To Field A Ground-Launched Strike Version Of The Navy's SM-6 Missile
The missile already has latent land and ship attack capabilities that could be swiftly adapted for the Army's post-INF treaty needs.
By Tyler RogowaySeptember 6, 2020

• The War Zone

U.S. Navy
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The Army is working hard to reorient itself toward expeditionary peer-state warfare across huge geographical areas, namely in the vast Pacific Theater. Unbridled by the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, whole categories of land-based missiles that can reach out over long distances to make pinpoint strikes are now once again an option for the service. These missiles could be cruise and ballistic types, as well as hypersonic ones. With an eye on fielding longer-range strike capabilities in Asia to counter-balance China's growing military might and to deter Russia in the Europen theater, the question becomes how can the Army get these long-dormant capabilities re-deployed in a relatively short period of time. The answer is to adapt missiles that other services already have.

This is a no-brainer for the Navy's Tomahawk cruise missile, which is now a multi-role weapon that is able to hit surface targets as well as ones on land, and it can even be retargeted in flight. The Tomohawk's land-based cousin, the BGM-109G Gryphon, served as a major component of the nuclear deterrent in Europe during the last decade of the Cold War. So, this type of application is far from unfamiliar when it comes to America's venerable land-attack cruise missile.


With this in mind, a version of the new and greatly improved Block IV "Tactical Tomahawk" in a forward-deployed, ground-launched format is the closest thing there is to a mature capability available for the Army's use. Such an initiative is already underway, which you can read more about in this past piece of ours, and the U.S. Marines are slated to receive the weapon for a similar application soon.

In the background is the Tomahawk ground-based launcher used to test the missile in such a format shorty after the INF treaty ended a year ago:

Good visit to @LockheedMartin with the Strategic Capabilities Office to see critical new capabilities under rapid development. This will help ensure the U.S. and our allies in Europe & Asia are able to defend against aggression #PeaceThroughStrength pic.twitter.com/NDz2dffwCr
— Ambassador Marshall S. Billingslea (@USArmsControl) August 14, 2020​

At the same time, hypersonic technology development is moving ahead at a rapid pace and the Army has its own plans to field these extremely fast, precision-strike weapons in the relatively near future, which you can read all about here. But these weapons will be prohibitively expensive and will be primarily reserved for ripping apart the enemy's most critical defenses and strategic infrastructure. They are also still anything but 'off-the-shelf' in terms of availability and even viability. So what's left? Well, it would seem the Navy's SM-6, and the Army clearly agrees.
During a Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) webinar interview dubbed A Conversation on Army Readiness and Modernization, Bradley Bowman and General Joseph M. Martin, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, had the following exchange:

BOWMAN: That’s great. Let’s transition, if I may, to the long-range precision fires, which is, as you know well, the Army’s number one modernization priority as I understand it. Can you very quickly, if you wouldn’t mind, just explain to the average listener, what is long-range precision fires, and why is it so important to the Army?
MARTIN: A couple aspects. There’s strategic, there’s operational, and there’s tactical. Because we’ve got efforts going on in each and every one of those.
So strategic. We’ve got a couple of capabilities we’re developing.

The long-range cannon, the strategic long-range cannon. This thing’s going to shoot 1000 miles and be able to deliver multiple rounds simultaneously on a target. The beauty of that capability, artillery has been around for a long time, but it’s never shot that far, but it’s literally undefendable when you can shoot those number of rounds at that rate over that distance. Additionally, long-range hypersonic weapons. Those are game-changers in defeating exquisite enemy capability. Once again, because you can’t defend against a long-range hypersonic weapon. It moves very quickly and strikes its target very quickly. It’s going to allow us to penetrate the anti-access area denial layers. By the way, those capabilities, the long-range hypersonic weapon, fourth-quarter 23, we’ll be fielding our first battery of that.

Operational. We got the precision strike missile. What the precision strike missile will do for us is it allows us to exceed the capability of our ATACM. It’ll go several hundred kilometers beyond that, but we’re also in the process of coordinating with other services to bring some other mid-range capabilities into play. Think about Tomahawks and think about shorter-range hypersonic weapons. We’re looking at land-based, land launched Tomahawk Missiles and SM-6s, which are in the Navy’s inventory. We’re looking at launching those from the land. That capability is coming third quarter of '23.

Then in tactical, we’ve got the extended-range cannon artillery. That’s a 155-millimeter capability where our typical artillery right now can shoot as far as 30 kilometers, we’re looking to shoot beyond 70 kilometers. That bridges a gap with our near-peer adversary’s artillery capability, providing us the ability to counter their longer-range artillery, which can’t range this particular system. That’s also coming in fourth quarter of '23.
For long-range precision fires, that’s actually our number one modernization program priority. We’re going to make artillery great again, that’s the focus.

SM-6, also known as the Standard Missile-6 or the RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), is primarily a surface-to-air missile, with the capability to swat down air-breathing threats, such as aircraft and cruise missiles, over great distances, while also having a terminal ballistic missile defense capabilities.

Raytheon/DOD
It fits well with the arsenal aboard U.S. destroyers and cruisers as it can add a last line of defense against ballistic missiles, especially anti-ship capable ones, that SM-3 mid-course interceptors may miss. This capability exists alongside offering additional traditional anti-air capabilities that complement the venerable SM-2 series, from which the SM-6 was derived, including being a networked weapon with its own active radar seeker.

DoD
What most don't realize is that the missile has secondary land-attack and potentially even anti-ship capabilities. In that manner, it is something of a quasi ballistic missile that is already intrinsically multi-role in nature. It is also fast. We don't know specifics, but it likely would descend on ground or surface target at very high supersonic or even hypersonic speeds, making it more survivable than say a Tomahawk.

DoD
So, the Army could leverage what the Navy has already paid for and thoroughly tested for their land-based needs. What's more exciting is that with additional development dollars from the Army, a joint SM-6 program effort could greatly accelerate the ongoing development of the missile, especially in its new second-generation, larger form-factor configuration. There is even a real possibility the SM-6 could be adapted for air-launch as a very long-range air-to-air missile, as well as a land-attack and anti-ship weapon. This could make it truly a joint tri-service program. You can read all about the SM-6 and its capabilities here, and its next big evolution in this past feature of ours.
The idea that the Army could get a networked, precision land attack and anti-ship quasi-ballistic missile, and maybe even a long-range anti-air weapon, all in one package by adopting the SM-6 is undoubtedly a very attractive proposition. This is especially true for a service that is trying to find its way in a new strategic reality where air and sea capabilities seem to have stolen the stage. Land-based SM-6s and Tomahawks could also potentially use the same launch system as they were both designed around the naval Mk 41 vertical launch system's constraints.

DoD
As a long-range networked weapon, the SM-6 can engage targets that are beyond the detection range of the ship it is launched, using another platform's sensor data, like say from an F-35 or E-2D, to provide targeting information from a forward position.
One can imagine how ringing contested areas like the South China Sea with forward-deployed and even road-mobile SM-6 missiles could drastically complicate China's anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy. In theory, it could be used to dismantle critical components of that A2/AD strategy from inside its huge protective umbrella during the opening moments of a conflict.

China is certainly investing in all forms of ballistic missiles, including anti-ship ones, both long-range and short-range. While a U.S. strategy of deploying its own missiles directly into and around contested areas that China says it holds claim over would be a major step in countering Beijing's abilities to militarily back-up those claims, getting friendly countries to allow for U.S. missiles to be based in their territory remains the biggest question mark surrounding such a strategy. Doing so would put host countries right in China's military and diplomatic crosshairs. As such, even though it is pretty clear that the Army could field cruise and ballistic missiles ashore soon, it isn't clear if there will be countries within their relevant ranges that will actually accept to host them.

Chinese Internet
The CM-401 is a short-range ballistic missile that is guided by an active seeker, allowing it to engage surface targets.
Europe is a different equation altogether, especially when it comes to whether or not any of these 'new' U.S. weapons will be nuclear-armed like their predecessors, the Gryphon and Pershing II. Still, finding hosts in Europe would likely be easier than in parts of Asia.

Regardless, the SM-6 could very much end up being the Army's super versatile, hard to defend against, quick-strike weapon of choice in the years to come. Considering its growing prominence within the U.S. Navy's own quiver, we could see its secondary capabilities rapidly expanded in the very near future.
Author's note: Hat tip to Kingston Reif for pointing this out!
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com



videos at source
posted for fair use

The Army Is Working To Field A Ground-Launched Strike Version Of The Navy's SM-6 Missile

The missile already has latent land and ship attack capabilities that could be swiftly adapted for the Army's post-INF treaty needs.

www.thedrive.com

 

[jward]

Sep 6, 2020,07:50am EDT
Venezuela’s New Submarine Could Threaten U.S. Internet Cables

H I SuttonContributor
Aerospace & Defense
I cover the changing world of underwater warfare.
The Venezuelan Navy’s recently revealed submarine is small, unarmed and short ranged. Yet it could pose an asymmetrical threat to U.S. interests in the Caribbean. This is because it is a type of submarine designed for diver-lock-out work, meaning that it can be used to transport underwater saboteurs.

The Venezuelan Navy's mini-submarine could deliver divers to interfere with underseas communications ... [+]
H I SUTTON
The divers could attack ships with limpet mines in the manner of World War Two frogmen. But a more modern target might be undersea communications cables. In other words, the internet.
After years of economic troubles, sanctions and a near civil-war situation in the country, the Venezuelan Navy (Armada Bolivariana de Venezuela) is a shadow of its former self. Historically it has been relatively well equipped with frigates and submarines. But the sanctions and turmoil have hit hard. Its two conventional submarines haven’t been to sea in years.
The most modern warships are patrol ships built in Spanish shipyards. But when one of these modern warships, the Naiguatá, attempted to board a cruise ship in April it ended badly. Naiguatá was crushed by the civilian ship’s ice hardened bow and sank. That embarrassing incident did not reflect well on the Venezuelan Navy.
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The mini-submarine is different; it may pose a more credible threat. The sea floor is crisscrossed with internet cables and other fiber-optic communications. A key location in the Caribbean is the U.S. territory of Guantánamo Bay. Several fiber optic cables are known to land there. And there are many other cable links within reach of Venezuelan ships.
The Italian designed VAS-525 mini-submarine is relatively deep diving, able to reach down 525 feet. It carries three divers who can leave the submarine, conduct the mission, and return. They could carry cutting devices or small explosive charges.

To be most effective the attack would have to be made out to sea, in relatively deep water, to make it harder to repair. Undersea internet cables are often damaged by ships anchor’s but this is usually close to shore. Consequently they can be fixed quickly. But an attack in deeper water, especially if repair vessels feel under threat, could be more disruptive.
Conducting an attack would not be easy for Venezuela however. The mini-submarine would have to be carried to the target area somehow. The Venezuelan Navy’s submarines are inoperable so they couldn’t carry it. And anyway, while it is conceivable, using a submarine to launch another submarine is likely to be beyond the Venezuelan Navy’s capabilities.
Using warships would be difficult to conceal, and the area is heavily patrolled by U.S. Navy assets. But civilian vessels could act as a mothership. The mini-submarine can be towed into position in a special floating barge which has a hole in the middle for the mini-submarine to be lowered into the water. Venezuela is believed to have one of these. However a crane could also be used to lift the sub in and out of the water. This option might be easier to conceal from prying eyes.

Attacking the internet cables during peacetime could be used as a means of hybrid warfare. The Russian Navy for example has developed sophisticated methods of using submarines to interfere with the cables. And last year the spy ship Yantar, known for loitering around undersea cables, was in the Caribbean. The Venezuelan Navy does not have the tools or practice of the Russians, but if motivated it could try to inflict a blow against other country’s undersea cables. The VAS-525 mini-submarine gives them a way to do it.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

H I Sutton

Venezuela’s New Submarine Could Threaten U.S. Internet Cables

The Venezuelan Navy’s recently revealed submarine is small. But it is ideal for transporting small teams of underwater saboteurs.

www.forbes.com

 

[jward]

American paratroopers train with new M17 9mm service pistol of US Army
analysis focus army defence military industry armyPOSTED ON THURSDAY, 03 SEPTEMBER 2020 08:39
According to information released by the U.S. DoD on September 2, 2020, U.S. Paratroopers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division conduct weapons familiarization with the new M17 9mm service pistol, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, September 2, 2020.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link

Paratroopers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division conduct weapons familiarization with the M17 service pistol, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, September 2, 2020. (Picture source U.S. doD)
The new M17 and compact M18 pistols comprise the Modular Handgun System, a weapons system that replaces the M9 and M11 pistols, offering improved ergonomics and lighter load which increases maneuverability on the drop-zone for our Paratroopers.

The US. Army selected Sig Sauer to make the full-size M17 and compact M18 9mm MHS (Modular Handgun System) variants in January 2017, awarding a contract worth $580 million over 10 years. In May 2017, the Army announced that the first unit that will receive the M17 would be the 101st Airborne Division by the end of the year. At the same time, the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces revealed they also intend to acquire the handgun, making it the standard sidearm for the entire U.S. military. The services plan to procure up to 421,000 weapons in total; 195,000 for the Army, 130,000 for the Air Force, 61,000 for the Navy (M18 compact version only), and 35,000 for the Marines

The M17 handgun is a variant of the SIG SAUER® P320® pistol and is equipped with an external safety, an integrated MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rail for the attachment of light and laser systems, self-illuminating night sights to maintain combat effectiveness in all lighting conditions, and is capable of accepting a sound suppressor.

American paratroopers train with new M17 9mm service pistol of US Army | analysis focus army defence military industry army

U.S. Paratroopers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division conduct weapons familiarization with the new M17 9mm service pistol

www.armyrecognition.com

posted for fair use

 

[jward]

India Claims To Have Successfully Tested A Hypersonic Scramjet Powered Vehicle
Details surrounding the test remain limited, but if it was successful as claimed, it formally marks India's entrance into the hypersonic weapons race.
By Thomas NewdickSeptember 7, 2020

• The War Zone

According to India, they have joined the hypersonic club with a successful first flight-test this morning of its indigenous Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle. A product of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the vehicle supposedly utilizes air-breathing scramjet technology to propel it to hypersonic speeds. Eventually, it’s hoped that the technology demonstrator will inform the development of future hypersonic cruise missiles.
The hypersonic cruise vehicle was launched at 1103 hours on September 7, 2020, from the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Launch Complex at Wheeler Island, off the coast of Odisha, in eastern India.




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A scramjet typically only functions properly at high speeds, requiring some kind of booster, generally a rocket motor, to accelerate it to operating velocity. Then, the scramjet — an airbreathing jet in which the airflow is supersonic throughout the entire engine — kicks in. Hypersonic speeds are normally defined as Mach 5 or above.

DRDO
The Agni-I carrying the HSTDV lifts off from the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Launch Complex at Wheeler Island.
The Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV) was launched atop an Agni-I rocket — based on a short-range ballistic missile — which took it to an altitude of 18.6 miles and hypersonic velocity, according to a statement from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). At this point, the aerodynamic heat shields fell away and the cruise vehicle separated from the launch vehicle. The air intake for the scramjet deployed and the vehicle continued to fly for more than 20 seconds at a speed of around Mach 6. The scramjet engine was powered by kerosene fuel.

DRDO
Computer-generated concept art of the HSTDV cruise vehicle.
“The critical events like fuel injection and auto ignition of scramjet demonstrated technological maturity,” the DRDO announced. “The scramjet engine performed in a textbook manner.”
The entire test was monitored by telemetry stations, electro-optical systems, and tracking radars — including a research vessel in the Bay of Bengal.
The latest demonstration proved a number of key technologies that will now inform further hypersonic developments, including the aerodynamic configuration of the cruise vehicle, separation mechanism, scramjet ignition, and sustained combustion in the hypersonic realm.

On Twitter, the DRDO celebrated the achievement, describing the test as “a giant leap in indigenous defense technologies.” The organization also noted that the mission “demonstrated capabilities for highly complex technology that will serve as the building block for NextGen Hypersonic vehicles.”

DRDO with this mission, has demonstrated capabilities for highly complex technology that will serve as the building block for NextGen Hypersonic vehicles in partnership with industry.
— DRDO (@DRDO_India) September 7, 2020​

According to local media, the HSTDV will pave the way toward a practical weapon in the next five years. Other nations to have tested the technology required for a hypersonic cruise missile are the United States, China, and Russia.

A first test by the DRDO in June 2019 had been less successful. On that occasion, the Agni-I rocket reportedly failed to achieve the required altitude from Wheeler Island, apparently due to weight issues, although few details were provided.
There’s currently plenty of activity in the field of hypersonic missiles, as leading military nations seek a way of penetrating increasingly sophisticated enemy air defenses. Flying at tremendous speed and using an atmospheric flight profile, hypersonic weapons, in general, are a challenge to spot, track, and intercept.

AIR FORCE PHOTO BY MATT WILLIAMS
An Edwards Air Force Base test B-52H Stratofortress carrying two AGM-183A ARRWs for a captive-carry test flight.
Not all hypersonic missiles are powered, however, with some like the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, utilizing an unpowered boost-glide vehicle. A scramjet powerplant, on the other hand, offers the opportunity for sustained cruise and a more dynamic flight profile, making it potentially harder still to intercept and more flexible to employ.

JOSEPH TREVITHICK
An artist’s concept of a HAWC follow-on weapon intended for the U.S. Navy.

In the United States, under the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept program, or HAWC, Northrop Grumman has teamed up with Raytheon to work on a scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missile, which is competing against a rival design from Lockheed Martin.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the HAWC program in 2014, in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and recently announced the first captive-carry flight tests of prototype missiles from both design teams. It appears test flights are now imminent.
Yet another U.S. scramjet effort involves the Air Force’s Mayhem program. This seems geared toward examining the more advanced end of powered hypersonic development, with the aim of fielding an expendable air vehicle to test exotic turbine-based combined cycle engines. This type of powerplant combines a ramjet or scramjet with a conventional jet turbine, meaning it can operate at lower speeds too.


LOCKHEED MARTIN
The U.S. Air Force’s Mayhem program is expected to examine turbine-based combined cycle designs, a type of engine that could power future hypersonic aircraft, such as Lockheed Martin's in-development SR-72.
The Indian HSDTV, however, is probably closer in concept to the scramjet-powered X-43A hypersonic test vehicle developed for NASA, being a technology demonstrator rather than a prototype for a true weapon system. To date, the X-43A remains the fastest jet-powered air vehicle, achieving a speed of Mach 9.6 in a 2004 flight test. Unlike the HSDTV, the X-43A, together with its booster stage, was air-launched, from under the wing of a NASA NB-52 test aircraft.



In the United States, the X-43A was followed by Boeing’s experimental X-51A Waverider, another scramjet-powered design. The ‘waverider’ concept involves the vehicle ‘skipping’ on top of the shockwaves produced during high-speed flight to produce additional lift. This same concept is now being used in the Northrop Grumman/Raytheon design for HAWC.

U.S. AIR FORCE
The Boeing X-51A Waverider.
While the X-43A and X-51A were carried aloft by a B-52 before being accelerated by a booster motor, previous U.S. hypersonic tests, like DARPA’s Project Falcon, have relied on rockets with a ballistic trajectory to get the test vehicle up to the required speed. It’s no surprise, therefore, that India took this approach with its HSDTV.
Alongside the HSTDV, India is also continuing to work with Russia on the scramjet-powered Brahmos-2 hypersonic cruise missile, with a preliminary agreement signed back in 2012 and involving both the DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia. It’s unclear how the two programs are related, if at all, but plans call for the Brahmos-2 to be made available in versions launched from land, sea, and aircraft platforms. The Brahmos-2 may also leverage technology from the NPO Mashinostroyenia 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, for which there are plans to arm a range of Russian Navy warships and submarines.
As it embarks on a new realm of hypersonic weapons development, India no doubt also has one eye on its regional rival China, which is already making rapid progress in this area.

With a hypersonic renaissance already well underway in the United States, and with similar programs known to be active in China and Russia too, India’s latest 'successful' hypersonic test couldn’t be more timely.
Contact the author: thomas@thedrive.com
posted for fair use

India Claims To Have Successfully Tested A Hypersonic Scramjet Powered Vehicle

Details surrounding the test remain limited, but if it was successful as claimed, it formally marks India's entrance into the hypersonic weapons race.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

The great debate over Russian nuclear doctrine

Since the Cold War, military ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’ have argued over Russian thinking and planning for nuclear war.

thehill.com

The great debate over Russian nuclear doctrine
By Peter Pry, opinion contributor — 09/06/20 01:00 PM EDT 158 Comments
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

The great debate among U.S. analysts over Russian nuclear doctrine, and how worrisome its threat may be, finally has been resolved — and the hawks win.

During the Cold War decades and afterwards, military “hawks” and “doves” argued over Russian thinking and planning for nuclear war.

The doves — usually liberals, anti-nuclear academics or State Department bureaucrats — argued that Russia views nuclear weapons just as we do. Doves said both Moscow and Washington understand nuclear weapons are instruments of last resort, so destructive as to be practically unusable and only for deterrence, not warfighting. Therefore, according to doves, the U.S. should not worry so much about Russian nuclear threats and refrain from building up nuclear weapons and strategic defenses, because this provokes costly, unnecessary, potentially dangerous arms-racing.

Hawks — usually conservatives, think tank academics or Defense Department bureaucrats — argued that Russia views nuclear weapons differently from us. Hawks said Russia sees nuclear weapons as just another instrument of warfare, does not have an uncrossable “bright line” between conventional and nuclear conflict, and might well launch a nuclear surprise attack. Therefore, according to hawks, the U.S. should engage in arms-racing to prevent Moscow from gaining any real or perceived numerical or technological advantage in nuclear weapons that could tempt Russian aggression.

Now the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which is supposed to be nonpartisan but has been on the dovish side of the debate, appears to have begrudgingly surrendered (without admitting it) to the hawks. The surrender is reflected in two new CRS reports by Andrew Bowen (“Russian Armed Forces: Military Doctrine and Strategy”) and Amy Woolf (“Russia’s Nuclear Weapons: Doctrine, Forces, and Modernization”).

Bowen sets up a hawk straw man so he can pretend to knock it down later, stating that “many analysts assert that Russia maintains an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy, where Russia might threaten the use of nuclear weapons early in a crisis if it risked losing a conflict.” In fact, Russian nuclear doctrine provides for not merely threatening but actually using nuclear weapons early in a crisis or conflict — not just to avoid losing but to win from the outset through “shock and awe.”

Bowen then offers a “rebuttal” to the above, but it doesn’t sound very dovish: “Other analysts contend, however, that this explicit policy [‘escalate to de-escalate’] does not exist. They note that Russian military doctrine focuses on escalation management rather than thresholds for nuclear use and escalation control. Additionally, Russian doctrine gives policymakers flexibility in identifying the type and nature of its responses and does not exclude possible use of NSNW [non-strategic nuclear weapons]. However, damage would be applied progressively and in doses to demonstrate the potential for further punishment and provide incentives for settlement.”

Yet, Bowen’s description of Russian nuclear doctrine is perfectly consistent with the “escalate to de-escalate” strategy as one of Russia’s many possible nuclear warfighting options. His bottom-line: “Accordingly, Russian military doctrine appears to utilize escalation management to control the growth of conflicts, deter outside actors, and support resolutions that are acceptable to Russia.”
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In other words, translating from dovish to more hawkish lingo: Russian military doctrine seeks escalation dominance and use of nuclear weapons in any way necessary to achieve victory.

Of the original dovish view of Russian nuclear doctrine — that, even for Moscow, nuclear war is “unthinkable” — hardly a feather remains.

With the June publication of Russia’s “On the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence,” and Moscow’s threat that it would view “the launch of any ballistic missile toward Russia as nuclear,” the doves’ goose is cooked.

Bowen is right that “Russia’s newly published nuclear doctrine notwithstanding, some ambiguous language and the secretive nature of the topic means that analysts continue to debate the true nature of strategic deterrence and the role of nuclear weapons in Russian military doctrine.” However, the great debate over Russian nuclear doctrine now appears to be more quibbling over semantics and nuances than real disagreement over substance. Hawks and doves will continue arguing vehemently, despite really agreeing on essentials, because our strategic culture, like everything else, is so polarized.

For the unadulterated view of Russian nuclear doctrine, read the Russians themselves and Dr. Mark Schneider’s “Russian Nuclear ‘De-Escalation’ of Future War” in the journal Comparative Strategy (March 25, 2019); “Russia’s Military Strategy and Doctrine” by Glen E. Howard and Matthew Czekaj (Jamestown Foundation, 2019); and Dr. Stephen Blank's 2019 publication, "The Russian Military in Contemporary Perspective."

For doves, the great debate never really was over Russian nuclear doctrine but about stopping U.S. nuclear-weapon modernization, deeply reducing nuclear arsenals and “banning the bomb.” Doves continue to see nuclear weapons — not Russia — as the real threat.

Doves may now agree that Russian nuclear doctrine is alarming — but do not expect to see a new consensus on modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Some doves already insist that the increasing nuclear threat from Russia, China and North Korea means it is more urgent than ever for the United States to lead toward “a world without nuclear weapons” by setting a good example.

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Not too long ago, the House Armed Services Committee held hearings on abolishing U.S. nuclear bombers and ICBMs, and reducing ballistic missile submarines from 14 to 6.
Doves may yet get their way, after the 2020 elections.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry was chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission and served on the staff of the House Armed Services Committee and at the CIA. He is the author of several books on weapons and warfare.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

Erosion of nuclear deterrence makes India-China relations critical

Countries with nuclear weapons are moving closer to military confrontation

www.ft.com

Opinion Geopolitics

Erosion of nuclear deterrence makes India-China relations critical

Countries with nuclear weapons are moving closer to military confrontation

Gideon Rachman
14 hours ago

My generation grew up in the shadow of a possible nuclear war. I was born a few months after the Cuba missile crisis — the closest humanity has come to nuclear Armageddon. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was a big political force as I was growing up.

My children’s generation are much more likely to demonstrate against climate change than nuclear weapons. Leading politicians also no longer worry so much about nukes. Nuclear arms-control negotiations, a staple of the cold war, have fallen into abeyance. But this relatively relaxed attitude is having a paradoxical effect. It seems to be making countries armed with nuclear weapons more willing to risk military confrontation with each other.

There are three international rivalries where tensions between nuclear-weapons states are reaching dangerous levels. The biggest current risk is on the China-India border — where recent clashes have led to 21 Indian fatalities and an unknown number of Chinese casualties. Military tensions are also rising between China and the US in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the crisis in Belarus has led to fears of Russian military intervention, which would put Nato on alert.

The erosion of nuclear deterrence gives rise to two distinct, but related, risks. The first is of a conventional war, which could happen if two nuclear-weapons states believe they can fight each other without the risk of nuclear escalation. The second is of a nuclear war, which could happen if a conventional war escalated unexpectedly.

During the cold war, the US and the USSR were too conscious of the dangers of nuclear warfare ever to risk striking each other directly with conventional weapons. But the Chinese leadership has taken the risk of killing Indian troops, despite India's possession of nuclear weapons — and New Delhi is pushing back.

The deadly clash in the Himalayas over the summer was only the second time that two nuclear-weapons states have fought. The first was the Kargil war between India and Pakistan in 1999. That confrontation did not go nuclear. But it left world leaders profoundly shaken. Bill Clinton, the US president at the time, called the frontline where the two sides had clashed “the most dangerous place in the world”.

There are fewer nuclear-alarm sirens sounding this time around. Most experts take comfort from the fact that India and China both have a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons. But if Beijing and New Delhi’s confidence that the other side will not use nuclear weapons persuades China to press home its military advantage, then India may be tempted to alter its policy in an attempt to restore deterrence. Some experts point to the possibility of India deploying tactical nuclear weapons in the Himalayas, or formally renouncing its no-first-use policy.

Threatening to use nuclear weapons is always tempting for a country that fears it might lose a conventional war. Pakistani military doctrine envisages an early resort to nuclear weapons, in the event of an invasion by India that would otherwise lead to defeat.

Western analysts have long feared that, for similar reasons, Moscow will threaten to use nuclear weapons early in any conflict with Nato. This strategy is known as “escalate to de-escalate”. Nato planners sometimes point to a 2009 Russian military exercise that reportedly ended with a simulated nuclear attack on Warsaw. The Russian scenario was centred around a conflict over Belarus — where current civil and political unrest has led to discussion of Russian military intervention.

American concern that Russia might use smaller, tactical nuclear weapons, in any conflict with Nato has led the US to develop its own new generation of low-yield nuclear weapons. These were deployed for the first time on submarines earlier this year. They are said to be smaller than the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945 — an idea that is apparently meant to be reassuring.

As well as modernising its nuclear arsenal, the US is withdrawing from its existing nuclear-arms control agreements with Russia. The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty was allowed to lapse in 2019. The Start treaty, which governs intercontinental nuclear missiles, is unlikely to be renewed next year.

A major reason that the Trump administration has given for not renewing existing arm-control treaties with Russia is that they do not limit China — which is the country the US now regards as its most dangerous rival.

Even when Barack Obama was president, I heard senior American strategists predict that there will eventually be a military confrontation between the US and China — probably at sea. Their expectation was that any confrontation would be quickly brought under control through diplomacy.

The risks of such a clash are now rising, with Washington and Beijing taking actions over Taiwan and the South China Sea that the other side regards as provocative. The obvious danger in a clash is that diplomacy fails to calm things down and the conflict escalates.

The fact that any confrontation would be seen as a symbolic struggle for primacy in the Pacific means a clear defeat might well be unacceptable to both Beijing and Washington. That increases the risk of military escalation between two states that possess considerable nuclear arsenals. No one should be complacent about how that might play out.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Crisis in Mali is Deepening as Death Count Swells

Two French soldiers were killed in an IED attack days after an ambush claimed the lives of ten Malian soldiers near the Mauritania border.

sofrep.com

Coalition SOF The Crisis in Mali is Deepening as Death Counts Swell

by Steve Balestrieri 5 hours ago

The situation in Mali continues to worsen with the Malian military and its French allies suffering casualties in combat operations recently.

A Malian military unit was caught in an ambush by Islamic jihadists on Thursday night. The ambush occurred in the western part of the country near the Mauritania border, the Malian army said in a statement Friday.

The Malian Army posted on Twitter that its mission in Guire suffered deaths, injuries, and material damage on Thursday’s ambush. “Reinforcements have been dispatched there,” it added.

It was the largest attack on the military since it removed President Keita and his government from office on August 18.

Additionally, two French soldiers were killed and another one wounded on Saturday in an operation near Tessalit in Mali’s northeastern Kidal region after their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, the Élysée Palace announced.


The French troops were part of the ongoing “Operation Barkhane,” the French-led effort to rid the Sahel region of an Islamic insurgency. The soldiers were members of the Airborne regiment based in Tarbes, southwestern France.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that France mourns for the soldiers’ sacrifice. He sent his “sincere condolences to their families and loved ones” while praising the “courage and determination of the French military deployed in the Sahel region.” He also took the opportunity to call on the leaders of the military group to speed up the transition to civilian rule.

The military’s coup against President Keita has been condemned internationally and regionally among Mali’s West African neighbors. There is concern that the coup could undermine the coalition’s military campaigns against Islamist militants in the region.

The ruling military group, called the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, is now running Mali under the leadership of Col. Assimi Goita.

Despite the removal of President Keita, France has said that it will continue its military support for its former colony in the fight against Islamist militants.

Background

In 2013, after the Taureg rebellion against the government was hijacked by Islamic jihadists that pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda, France began deploying troops in the country, after Mali requested help. The French initially deployed over 4,000 troops. Their numbers have now swelled to 5,100 as “Operation Barkhane” continues.

Initially, the French military intervention stemmed the Islamist tide. But the jihadists have since regrouped, reorganized, and spread their insurgency to Niger, Mauritania, Chad, and Burkina Faso. These countries comprise the G5 Sahel. The Sahel is a semi-arid region just south of the Sahara.


Mali has long been plagued by political instability: This is the third coup in the past 20 years.

A number of issues were the catalyst for the military taking over power from President Keita. These include the jihadist insurgency, ethnic violence with Fulani tribesmen being forced from traditional grazing lands due to climate change, and huge government corruption.

There have been reports that the military wants to set up a transitional administration that will hold power for three years in order to prepare for a return to civilian rule. The country’s longtime political opposition, the international community, and the West African regional bloc are demanding the junta speed up that transition.

Military Control in Mali

Thus, on Saturday, Mali’s military junta began talks with opposition groups to discuss the transition to civilian control of the government.

Yet, if history is to be any judge, the ruling junta should not rush the transition. The last elections exemplify why: In the 2018 election, voter turnout was low due to perceived electoral fraud and the deepening Islamist insurgency; this led to the election of Keita’s ineffective government. Compounding the issue, the problems that Mali would face were it to hold elections now are more acute: Insurgent attacks are increasing; the government is struggling to control the outlying areas of its territory; and the coronavirus is prohibiting large gatherings of people. Therefore, trying to hold elections now, knowing that voter turnout will be negatively affected considerably, would cause more problems than it would solve.

Instead, the military needs to strengthen its ties with its neighbors and the worldwide community, even if it means that it will have to remain in power for a while. This will not be easy, since it is the exact opposite of what the worldwide community is calling for.

Already, ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) has cut financial aid to Mali. Neighboring countries have also closed their borders in a bid to step up pressure on the coup leaders. Additionally, Mali is currently suspended from the African Union and from receiving U.S. military assistance.

Therefore, the composition of a transitional government will be critical in assuaging international concerns. The transitional government should involve the opposition and include its most vocal member, Salafi imam Mahmoud Dicko. He is a very captivating man and is considered to be one of the most influential people in Mali. He originally supported the now-deposed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in the 2013 election, but then began supporting the opposition in 2017. However, Dicko has frequently stated that he has no political ambitions. But his voice has resonated with a considerable segment of the population and he may be forced by events into serving a role in a transitional government.

Task Force Takuba

The stability of the country at the present, despite a huge French military intervention, is at a critical juncture.


To help stabilize the region, the French have created “Takuba,” a task force of Special Operations units from throughout the E.U. The task force will train, advise, assist, and accompany units from the G5 Sahel in their fight against the insurgency. The governments of Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Mali, Niger, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have pledged support.

The task force began initial operations from the French base at Gao. It won’t be in its full complement of troops until early next year.

The French have suffered increasing casualties during the seven years that they’ve deployed to Mali. Since 2013, 45 French soldiers have died, according to the French government.

Last November, 13 French soldiers were killed when two helicopters collided during a combat operation against jihadists near the border with Burkina Faso and Niger. It was the largest single loss of life for the French military in decades.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/08/northrop-grumman-icbm-deal/

Northrop Grumman wins $13 billion contract to replace U.S. ballistic missiles
The Air Force contract is part of a broad-ranging plan, hatched under Obama and accelerated under Trump, to rebuild America’s nuclear infrastructure
By Aaron Gregg and Paul Sonne
September 8, 2020 at 5:11 p.m. PDT

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Falls Church-based defense manufacturer Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to replace America’s aging stock of intercontinental ballistic missiles, marking a major step forward for an ambitious plan to modernize the nation’s crumbling nuclear missile infrastructure.

While a nonproliferation treaty caps the Defense Department’s stock of nuclear warheads, top defense officials have said updating the missile infrastructure that would be used to deliver those warheads is essential for deterring aggression from countries such as Russia and China.

“Modernizing the nuclear strategic triad is a top priority of our military,” Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said in a statement. “It’s key to our nation’s defense. It provides that strategic nuclear deterrent that we depend on day after day — that we’ve depended on decade after decade.”

The award sweeps aside an earlier bid from Boeing, which has led the Pentagon’s ballistic missile work since the Eisenhower administration. And it gives Northrop the lead on a long-term program, estimated to be worth $85 billion or more over the next several decades, that includes almost every major defense manufacturer except Boeing.

The U.S. military operates 400 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles out of 450 silos across three Air Force bases: Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. Air Force officers man the silos around-the-clock in underground capsules with equipment that dates to the Cold War, waiting for an order from the commander in chief to launch the nation’s most dangerous weapons if necessary. Because the silos are scattered across farmland in remote areas of multiple states, they ensure that the U.S. nuclear deterrent would survive in the event of an attack and be able to respond.

The contract announced Tuesday calls for Northrop to develop and manufacture missiles that can be operational by 2029.

“Our nation is facing a rapidly evolving threat environment and protecting our citizens with a modern strategic deterrent capability has never been more critical,” said Kathy Warden, Northrop’s chair, chief executive and president.

The award of the contract to Northrop Grumman comes in the middle of a vast, three-decade modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal that President Barack Obama approved in 2010 in exchange for the Republican-led Senate’s ratification of the New START Treaty with Russia.

In addition to replacing the ICBM fleet, the modernization will see the Pentagon introduce a new submarine and bomber, a long-range standoff cruise missile for the bomber, and new command and control technology.

In 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the overhaul would cost $1.2 trillion over 30 years, including the operation and maintenance of the existing nuclear arsenal while the new technology is introduced. In 2019, the CBO estimated that the Pentagon would spend $61 billion over the subsequent 10 years on modernization of the ICBM fleet alone.

The Defense Department has regularly underscored that the expenditure on the nuclear modernization is only a small percentage of the total defense budget and the country’s gross domestic product each year, and that it is necessary to keep the country’s nuclear deterrent safe and up to date.

But the cost of the project has led to calls for it to be rolled back, particularly from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who has called the plan unaffordable. Some congressional Democrats have also opposed the cruise missile, saying its introduction will cause instability among nuclear powers.

This is the first time that the United States is trying to simultaneously modernize the nuclear enterprise while also modernizing an aging conventional fleet of aircraft and other equipment, Gen. David Goldfein, then the top officer in the Air Force, said during an appearance at the Brookings Institution in July.

Goldfein said, “There are either going to be some significant trades made, or we’re going to have to find a fund for strategic nuclear deterrence,” or a separate account to bankroll the nuclear modernization outside the Air Force budget.

Others have raised concerns that the push to modernize nuclear missiles is not only expensive but also could be overtly counterproductive. Congressional Democrats have expressed opposition to developing new cruise missiles, warning that that could spur Russia and other nations to be more aggressive in their weapons programs. Others have argued that sea- and air-launched nuclear missiles are sufficient.

“Our nation faces major security challenges, including a global pandemic that has killed almost 200,000 Americans, and we shouldn’t spend our limited resources on new nuclear weapons that we don’t need and make us less safe,” said William J. Perry, who served as defense secretary during Bill Clinton’s administration. Perry has also argued that ground-based ballistic missiles are a danger because they cannot be recalled if launched by mistake. Perry has proposed scrapping the ICBM fleet altogether.

The decision to give the contract to Northrop Grumman could permanently tip the scales in a U.S. defense industry in which Boeing has been, and remains, a leading supplier. The contract awarded Tuesday was preceded by a head-to-head competition in which the two companies were separately awarded research and development contracts to build a new ballistic missile.

But Boeing effectively walked away from the table last year, telling top defense officials that it would not submit a bid. Its concerns stemmed from Northrop’s 2017 acquisition of a company called Orbital ATK, which builds the solid rocket motors that propel ballistic missiles. Boeing took its case to the Federal Trade Commission and the Pentagon seeking to force Northrop to team up, but no such agreement materialized.

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Aaron Gregg
Aaron Gregg covers the defense industry and government contractors for the Washington Post's business section. Follow

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

The Missing, Irregular Half of Great Power Competition - Modern War Institute

The US military has embraced great power competition as its organizing principle, but cannot seem to agree on what the term actually means. While the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) […]

mwi.usma.edu

The Missing, Irregular Half of Great Power Competition

Eric Robinson | September 8, 2020

The US military has embraced great power competition as its organizing principle, but cannot seem to agree on what the term actually means.

While the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) has driven a monumental shift toward great power competition, the document failed to define the term in any meaningful fashion, nor did it build a common understanding across the US military regarding what it means to actually compete. Beyond the oblique directive to do more against China and less against terrorism, America’s military has been left to organize around a defining principle that gets defined differently in the eyes of each beholder.

Take, for example, the public statements of America’s military leadership regarding great power competition. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has declared that competition with China requires deploying troops abroad to new bases in the Indo-Pacific. Yet Gen. Mark Milley, as chief of staff of the Army, declared instead that competition requires forces at home to reorganize, refit, and retrain to prepare for high-end conflict.

The NDS itself, echoing former Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s own views on irregular warfare, asserts that part of great power competition involves information warfare, ambiguous or denied proxy operations, and subversion. Yet Secretary Esper has since declared that competition means irregular warfare is a thing of the past.

Even if competition was intended as a rhetorical big tent, these contradictory views have wildly different implications for an organization as large as the US military. Should forces be postured abroad, or trained at home? Should they prepare for high-end conflicts, or gray zone aggression? Should they do all of the above, or nothing at all?

To succeed in the competition it so desperately hopes to undertake, the US military must learn to bridge the gaps between these competing visions, and embrace a new framework for understanding competition through the lens of its current approaches to traditional and irregular warfare. In so doing, the Defense Department can finally move beyond its myopic focus on preparing for great power conflict, and embrace the missing, irregular aspects of great power competition.

Back to Basics: Traditional and Irregular Warfare

A clearer understanding of the US military’s role in competition should begin with how it approaches conflict. America’s capstone military doctrine recognizes just two forms of warfare—traditional and irregular.

Traditional warfare is defined in the classic Westphalian sense, where states seek to use the military instrument to achieve “domination” over adversaries when unable to resolve differences through peaceful means. War is easily distinguishable from peace, and is waged by uniformed soldiers on clearly defined battlefields, with tangible objectives.

By the mid-2000s, however, in an effort to diagnose why military domination was the wrong strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military realized it needed new doctrine for a second, and coequal, form of warfare known as “irregular” warfare.

Rather than compelling an adversary through force, irregular warfare seeks to defeat an adversary by building legitimacy and influencing populations. Irregular wars are fought not for tactical victories in the Suwalki gap, but for influence in eastern Ukraine, and for legitimacy in contested areas like northeastern Syria and the South China Sea.

These two forms of warfare represent different approaches to compelling an adversary in conflict. As a result, they also offer insights into how the US military can employ its warfighting capabilities—both traditional and irregular—to succeed in competition.

Conventional Deterrence and Competition

The application of traditional warfighting capabilities in competition is more easily understood by the US military. Practically speaking, this is conventional deterrence.

At its core, deterrence is about discouraging states from taking unwanted actions. As a broader concept, states can deter both conventional threats, as well as nuclear and even gray zone aggression. And yet, the primary contours of America’s military-industrial complex since the start of World War II have focused on deterring conventional aggression against Western Europe, from both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Today, record Pentagon budgets are now justified by the need to deter an increasingly capable Chinese military from a conventional invasion of Taiwan, along with other similarly conventional threats.

But is deterring conventional aggression synonymous with great power competition? America’s military leaders sure seem to think so.

As secretary of the Army, Mark Esper declared in 2018, “We are in an era of great power competition [with] China and Russia and . . . we must be prepared for a high-end fight with them in the future.” The former chief of staff of the Air Force, when asked about great power competition, cited homeland defense, nuclear deterrence, and preparing for conflict as areas for further investment. Even the commandant of the Marine Corps’ ambitious redesign efforts for great power competition are premised upon “naval expeditionary warfare in actively contested spaces.”

When viewed through the lens of conventional deterrence, competition is reduced to the correlation of forces between the US Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army, the vulnerability of allied airbases in the Indo-Pacific to missile attack, and the posture of NATO-led rotational battlegroups in the Baltics.

But if America recognizes two forms of warfare—traditional and irregular—should it not also recognize two forms of competition? Phrased differently, if the US military focuses solely on deterring conventional threats in competition, is that sufficient to challenge China’s and Russia’s competitive strategies?

The Irregular Half of the Competition Equation

While much of the Pentagon remains laser-focused on the conventional threats posed by great powers, the NDS itself pays considerable deference to the irregular aspects of competition.

In its diagnosis of the strategic environment, the NDS declares that “China is leveraging . . . influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce neighboring countries,” and that Russia seeks “to discredit and subvert democratic processes” throughout Eastern Europe. It also emphasizes that great power competitors have “increased efforts short of armed conflict by expanding coercion to new fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately blurring the lines between civil and military goals.”

These asymmetric threats fall well outside the US military’s understanding of its role in deterring conventional aggression. And yet, the NDS makes clear that the military’s failure to address the full spectrum of great power competition “will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets.”

Given the NDS’s discussion of these irregular threats, the lack of public rhetoric from US military leadership to this effect is troubling. This is perhaps a consequence of the NDS’s failure to define this space clearly. More likely, it is a symptom of the US military’s historic struggles to understand its role in irregular conflicts beyond the tactical defeat of an adversary.

But the United States has clear doctrine for irregular warfare, borne out of the realization that not all conflicts can be won through the linear application of force. Applying this approach to competition, rather than conflict, makes the missing half of the competition equation much clearer.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

Just as irregular warfare seeks to gain legitimacy and influence in conflict, the NDS embraces a form of competition in which states vie for legitimacy and influence through coercion and subversion, malign influence, proxies, and predation. Viewed in this context, Chinese island building in the South China Sea is just as much about forward staging of air defense capabilities as it is about challenging the legitimacy of Vietnamese and Philippine claims to sovereignty on China’s periphery. Similarly, Russian aggression against Ukraine and Georgia is just as much about challenging NATO posture as it is about eroding Western soft power in the former Soviet sphere.

In fact, when viewed on a continuum, a holistic understanding of competition emerges. Just like the divide between traditional and irregular warfare, the US military must acknowledge competition’s two, coequal parts—the threat of military domination through conventional deterrence, and the contest for legitimacy and influence through irregular competition.

This approach would allow policymakers and planners to design strategies that unleash America’s own irregular warfare capabilities in great power competition. Moreover, it would allow Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps leadership to invest in irregular warfare capabilities most relevant for competition, rather than eliminate these capabilities simply because they were once used to support counterterrorism.

Hybrid Warfare and Gray Zone Aggression

This framework also helps reconcile two other terms that are used interchangeably with competition—hybrid warfare and gray zone aggression.

In this context, hybrid warfare can be defined as the application of both traditional and irregular approaches in a given campaign. In this way, hybrid warfare describes the ambiguous methods used by a state to achieve its objectives. This is demonstrated best by Russia’s use of “little green men,” an irregular tactic, to pave the way for an otherwise conventional annexation of Crimea. US doctrine actually embraces this logic, noting that “warfare generally has both traditional and irregular dimensions.”

Gray zone aggression, then, describes a state’s limited use of violence to advance its interests, intentionally blurring the line between peaceful competition and all-out warfare without provoking escalation into conflict. In this way, gray zone aggression describes the ambiguous intent behind a state’s escalation in a given campaign, rather than the methods used to escalate. This approach is seen clearly in China’s recent violent confrontations with India near Aksai Chin.

While the United States prefers to operate along the edges of this continuum—swinging wildly between its embrace of counterinsurgency in 2007 and its singular emphasis on high-end conflict under the 2018 NDS—the reality is that America’s adversaries prefer to exploit these seams.

Filling in the Seams of Great Power Competition

The implications of failing to understand the two halves of competition, and the seams between them, could be catastrophic for efforts to achieve the NDS’s vision for great power competition.

While America prepares for a traditional war neither Russia nor China seems eager to fight, these competitors are busy shaping conditions to their advantage through proxies, denying the United States military access to key terrain through coercion, and eroding American influence through disinformation—all without firing a shot.

This does not mean that the United States should abandon conventional deterrence as a fundamental priority. Without this strength, an adversary could prioritize conventional aggression once again to great effect.

However, because of this strength, America must acknowledge that shrewd adversaries will emphasize indirect approaches in response. Sophisticated adversaries may even pursue investments in high-tech capabilities to incentivize the United States to spend ever-increasing sums of its own wealth, chasing declining marginal gains in lethality.

A myopic understanding of competition risks rendering the American public’s $730 billion annual investment in its military useless against significant threats to America’s security. It risks unwise resourcing choices that de-emphasize missions and skills needed to gain legitimacy and influence in competition, such as information operations, intelligence and logistics support to allies, special operations forces capable of working with local partners, and even policy expertise within the Pentagon and National Defense University.

While still nascent, some concrete steps have been taken toward embracing the irregular half of the competition equation.

The Irregular Warfare Annex to the NDS, endorsed by Secretary Mattis and approved by Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan in 2019, declares that America will proactively employ its irregular warfare capabilities in great power competition “as a means to help expand the competitive space, defeat our adversaries’ competitive strategies, and set the globe for transition to crisis.” The Pentagon has begun to implement this strategy, the only annex to the NDS, seeking to dictate “the character, scope, and intensity of our competition with adversaries.”

Similarly, the US Army’s continued investments in the growth of its security force assistance brigades retain critical expertise in building partner capacity, and free up conventional brigade combat teams to focus on traditional warfare requirements.

The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act also establishes a principal information operations advisor to the secretary of Defense, and opens up a legal framework for the US military to engage in the types of non-attributable messaging that have come to define modern information statecraft.

These changes are a start. But the Department of Defense and its leadership need to publicly embrace both sides of the competition equation, drive this thinking into budgets, and push back against the impulse to reduce competition to preparing for conflict alone.

Until then, America risks losing the competition it faces today, while waiting for just the right type of war to come tomorrow.



Eric Robinson is an analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Previously, he was the Irregular Warfare Policy Chief in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2017 to 2020.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.



Image credit: 1st Lt. Benjamin Haulenbeek, US Army

 

[jward]

Trump Discloses Supposed Existence Of A Secret New Nuclear Weapon System To Bob Woodward
Other sources reportedly confirmed that the weapon system does exist, but declined to get into specifics.
By Joseph Trevithick and Tyler RogowaySeptember 9, 2020

• The War Zone

AP—Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
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President Donald Trump disclosed that the U.S. military has a potentially previously unknown secret nuclear weapon in an on-the-record interview with Washington Post associate editor and veteran journalist Bob Woodward for his new book. Other sources reportedly confirmed the existence of the weapon system in question, but offered no additional details about it.

Woodward conducted 18 interviews between December 2019 and July 2020 with Trump for the book, titled Rage, which will begin shipping to the general public later this month. The Washington Post published various details from it, along with audio from Woodward's conversations with the President, on Sept. 9, 2020.



These Are The Briefings President-Elect Trump Got On The F-35, Air Force One, and NukesBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Trump Tweets Intelligence Image After Iran's Rocket Explosion And Offers Them "Best Wishes"By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Air Force Eyes Adding Nuclear-Armed Hypersonic Boost-Glide Vehicles To Its Future ICBMsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Fogbank Is Mysterious Material Used In Nukes That's So Secret Nobody Can Say What It IsBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Navy Missile Sub Has Begun Its First Patrol Armed With Controversial Low Yield NukesBy Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
“I have built a nuclear – a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about," Trump told Woodward. "We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody – what we have is incredible."

Though Woodward's sources said that Trump was speaking about a real system, and they were surprised he did so at all, they do not appear to have confirmed any specifics about it. These kinds of comments from Trump are not necessarily new. The President certainly has a known penchant for touting advanced American military and intelligence capabilities, including openly discussing sensitive topics, including in public. He has also talked up the strength of America's nuclear arsenal, and the efforts under his administration to continue modernizing it, on a number of occasions.

However, it is also known that Trump doesn't always appear to have a firm grasp of the topics in question, leading him to make false pronouncements about certain weapon systems and their capabilities. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the case of the "super-duper missile," which he referenced while speaking to reporters during an event at the White House in May 2020. He claimed this weapon was "17 times faster than what they have right now," referring to comparative Russian and Chinese developments. It ultimately turned out to be a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle that the U.S. Army and Navy are collaboratively developing that the Pentagon had previously publicly stated had an estimated peak speed of Mach 17.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, and many of their delivery systems, these are some of the most secretive systems within the U.S. military's arsenal, even if their existence is publicly known. Their exact capabilities generally remain undisclosed in order to prevent opponents from developing countermeasures that could limit the utility of America's nuclear deterrents. As such, it is possible that Trump was talking about a still-secret nuclear weapon, about which little is known, but which has been publicly acknowledged. A prime candidate may be the still-nebulous W93 warhead, which, if the program proceeds, could eventually go on top of the Navy's Trident D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The U.S. military has been coy about just how new or not the design of this weapon might be.

The Navy also deployed the W76-2 warhead, a lower-yield variant of the W76 series, on some of its Tridents for the first time earlier this year. Work is also still ongoing on the nuclear-capable B-21 Raider stealth bomber, the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, and the new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the U.S. Air Force, as well. In August, that service also indicated that it might be interested in a nuclear-armed hypersonic weapon as a potential warhead for the GBSD in the future, as well.

On the other hand, Trump could be referring to something far more exotic that does not exist currently in the public domain in any concrete manner. Russia has been actively pursuing so-called "super weapons," some of which are of an exotic nature, including nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed cruise missiles and ultra-long-range torpedoes. It is possible that Trump let slip something along these same lines that is truly unique.

It remains to be seen whether any new details about the weapon system Trump mentioned to Woodward will emerge now that the interview is public record, but someone is sure to press Trump further on it. We will keep you up to date with what he says and any other info that emerges about it.
Contact the authors: Joe@thedrive.com and Tyler@thedrive.com

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Trump Discloses Supposed Existence Of A Secret New Nuclear Weapon System To Bob Woodward

Other sources reportedly confirmed that the weapon system does exist, but declined to get into specifics.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

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#Reviewing Victory

Cian O’Driscoll has written a thoughtful, erudite book that manages to insightfully explore both just war theory and the nature of war. Across seven pithy chapters plus an introduction and conclusion, O’Driscoll develops an extended argument about why the concept of victory in war is problematic for

thestrategybridge.org

#Reviewing Victory

Jeffrey W. Meiser

September 9, 2020

Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Just War. Cian O’Driscoll. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Cian O’Driscoll has written a thoughtful, erudite book that manages to insightfully explore both just war theory and the nature of war. Across seven pithy chapters plus an introduction and conclusion, O’Driscoll develops an extended argument about why the concept of victory in war is problematic for just war theory and how the integration of victory into just war theory can lead to a more realistic, though tragic, appraisal of just war theory. His conclusions should interest not only just war scholars, but also the broader community of war studies scholars and military practitioners. The latter should be pleased by his call for greater realism in normative analysis of war and highly readable rethinking of just war theory. The former will undoubtedly read the book with some discomfort and dissatisfaction, but should take his arguments at face value, as an effort to improve rather than refute just war theory.

Victory and Just War Theory
Just war scholars distinguish between good wars and bad wars. Good wars are characterized by just causes and proportionate and discriminate prosecution, along with other more fine-grained criteria. Bad wars are the opposite.[1] However, this description omits the final phase of war, its termination. Professor O’Driscoll brings the concept—or idiom—of victory back into just war theory. He believes victory is particularly problematic for just war theory and therefore is important to engage specifically, in addition to paying more attention to war termination in general.[2] O’Driscoll identifies and engages the reasons why just war scholars avoid discussing victory and shows why these reasons are unsatisfying. Each of the seven chapters starts with a statement of one of these reasons, which he calls problems, before developing a counter-argument using an impressive range of classic and modern just war thinkers to elucidate his position. O’Driscoll’s extended essay then concludes with the argument that a closer investigation into the implications of victory by just war scholars will improve just war theory, despite the complications it brings to the table. In this sense, O’Driscoll distances himself from critics that seek to fundamentally undermine just war theory.
The Good Reasons

The seven reasons just war scholars avoid discussing victory, identified by O’Driscoll, include both plausibly justifiable scholarly reasons and less justifiable, self-serving reasons. In the first category, the general argument just war scholars give for not including victory, as presented by O’Driscoll, is that all research communities must draw a line somewhere about what is relevant and what is outside their purview. The reason for having fields, sub-fields, specializations, research communities, and the like is to allow for specialization. The parameter set by just war scholars focuses on the reasons for war and the conduct of war. How wars end has never been a prime concern for just war theory and there is no pressing reason to get into that complex topic now. O’Driscoll disagrees and sees the arguments for bracketing or excluding victory as unconvincing, because victory has always been part of the just war conversation, as shown in his exegesis of Saint Augustine.[3]

“St. Augustine in His Study” by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502 (Wikimedia)
The second reason just war scholars claim victory lies outside their purview is that scholars of strategic studies and military history focus plenty of attention on the causes of victory and defeat and it is best left in their expert hands. O’Driscoll responds that victory in war has long been viewed as having moral and not just military relevance, and assumptions about the moral character of the victor continue to permeate just war theory.[4] Finally, because decisive victory is irrelevant in modern war, in that it does not happen, it is a moot point.[5] Why should just war theorists feel compelled to study something that no longer occurs? O’Driscoll sees some truth in this argument, but shifts the terrain slightly to say that just war theory actually assumes decisive victory is likely and therefore lacks realism.

The general basis for O’Driscoll’s view is the unity of war. He does not believe it is justifiable to exclude war termination from the commencement and prosecution of war. In this he is swimming against the tide. In strategic studies, the causes of war are usually discussed separately from discussions of warfighting, which is usually distinct from the study of war termination and the stabilization or peacebuilding stage of conflict. There is no prima facie reason why moral philosophers and political theorists cannot make the same separation. And yet, I find O’Driscoll’s argument convincing: there is a continuity between how wars start, how they are fought, and how they end. The interconnectedness is strong enough to require any general theory of war to address all three elements of war. Scholars of strategic studies should take a lesson from this argument and consider moving toward a more holistic understanding of war. Foundational scholars like Carl Von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu do make a claim to a comprehensive study of war, but most modern scholarship is more fine-grained and compartmentalized.

The most questionable part of O’Driscoll’s analysis of the issues above relates to the issue of modern war and decisive victory. While the author notes the difficulty of conceptualizing victory, and the likelihood that decisive victory is a concept relevant to only a relatively short historical period, he still makes it the centerpiece of his analysis and treats it as mostly unproblematic.[6] O’Driscoll views the term success as euphemistic rather than as encompassing a wider range of outcomes. For example, one might say that North Vietnam was successful in its war against the United States, but one might hesitate to call it victory. Furthermore, some strategic studies scholars, following Clausewitz, are reluctant to use the term victory, because war is generally part of a larger conflict which does not begin or end with war.[7] The messiness of the concept of victory does not negate O’Driscoll’s work, but it opens up another avenue of inquiry that will most likely support O’Driscoll’s conclusions.

The Real Reasons
Just war theorists have a second category of reasons for ignoring victory. O’Driscoll portrays this set of reasons as self-serving in the sense that avoiding the concept of victory allows just war theorists to avoid dealing with difficult challenges to their core beliefs. The unifying theme of this set of problems for just war theory is the fear that “just war is just war.”[8] If there is nothing special about just wars—in that all wars are vicious and bloody and are equally bad—then just war theory loses its raison d'etre. To maintain their delusions and idealization of just war, as O’Driscoll frames it, theorists try to hide behind the claim that just wars end in peace rather than victory for one side and are more akin to judicial actions imparting punishment rather than seeking victory.[9] Furthermore, just war scholars want to avoid consideration of victory because it would compel them to consider the possibility of conquest and entitlement to spoils of war, which is wholly contrary to how just war scholars think of war.[10] Finally, the idea of victory fosters an escalatory logic by encouraging both sides to strive to the utmost to win and vanquish the other.[11] For these reasons, just war scholars find it is best to avoid the topic of victory altogether.

Not surprisingly, O’Driscoll finds all these arguments unpersuasive, because they are hopelessly divorced from the reality of war. First, to the extent that peace is possible, it requires victory of some sort to be achieved, and that victory must be achieved through force of arms. Second, whatever the purpose of war, it cannot escape its nature. As O’Driscoll cogently states: “While war might be employed to serve a higher purpose, it can never transcend its own base nature.”[12] So, while establishing peace and punishing transgressions might be the purpose of war, the basic nature of war is the violent struggle to vanquish one’s foe. Part and parcel of the nature of war is the power imbalance between the victors and the vanquished and all that follows from that including the possible justification of conquest. A final aspect of war brought into focus by the lens of victory, is the inherently escalatory nature of war and how just war theory may exacerbate this tendency. Just war scholars may hope to maintain a “spirit of moderation” in the conduct of war by avoiding a discussion of victory, but O’Driscoll sees this as a fool’s errand and doubles down on his critique by arguing that just war itself reinforces the escalatory logic of warfare. If striving for victory encourages unrestrained warfare, striving for victory while believing that one’s cause is just provides even greater impetus to “win-at-all costs mentality.”[13]

A landscape by George Edmund Butler of the battlefield at Polygon Wood, painted in 1918 (Wikimedia)

Victory and the Nature of War
Professor O’Driscoll thus takes just war theorists to the place they fear: just war is just regular war with a false gloss of respectability. However, he counsels us to not turn away from this reality and instead face it and fully embrace the tragedy of war. In this place of hopelessness, there is a way forward. By acknowledging the tragic nature of war, the need to apply principles of justice to war becomes even more pronounced. In the author’s words, “Unless one is willing to surrender the conviction that we can, should, and must subject warfare to normative scrutiny, this desperate grasping to discern what counts as right and wrong in the context of war ought to be respected and perhaps even welcomed for what it is: namely, a resolute if somewhat forlorn commitment to ordering (as best we can) the affairs of international society according to principles of justice.”[14]

To those of us who have suffered ourselves, seen family and friends suffer, or lost comrades to war, these arguments may resonate in a deeply personal way.

All of this, when recast in a personal light, speaks to the fundamental truths revealed in this book. To those of us who have suffered ourselves, seen family and friends suffer, or lost comrades to war, these arguments may resonate in a deeply personal way. Through this intimate lens, a portrait of war comes into focus. First, we see the purely tragic nature of combat. A dead friend is a dead friend. All the justice in the world cannot change that fact or lighten the burden of shame, anger, and loss. But, at the same time, we may understand our friend died for a just cause and it may alleviate the heartache, at least a little. This is where Cian O’Driscoll takes us. To a place we fear to go, a place of tragedy and heartbreak, but also a place of hope. We can find meaning in striving for justice and for doing everything possible to mitigate the horrors of war. We will mostly fail, but that is not the point.

Jeffrey W. Meiser is an assistant professor at the University of Portland and was previously an associate professor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. His book, Power and Restraint: The Rise of the United States, 1898-1941, was published by Georgetown University Press in 2015.
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Header Image: The Winged Victory of Samothrace (Louvre)
Notes:
[1] Cian O’Driscoll, Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Just War (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2020), 2.
[2] O’Driscoll, Victory, 11.
[3] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapter 1.
[4] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapter 3.
[5] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapter 6.
[6] See O’Driscoll, Victory, 4-7.
[7] For example, see Everett Dolman, Pure Strategy: Power and Principle in the Space and Information Age (Routledge, 2005), chapter 2.
[8] Ken Booth quoted in O’Driscoll, Victory, 12.
[9] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapters 2 and 4.
[10] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapter 5.
[11] O’Driscoll, Victory, chapter 7.
[12] O’Driscoll, Victory, 89.
[13] O’Driscoll, Victory, 127.
[14] O’Driscoll, Victory, 150.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

Posted for fair use.....

FY21 NDAA: Nuclear Security and Military Technology Proposals

The House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act make significant policy proposals for the National Nuclear Security Administration as well as for the Defense Department’s missile defense and space technology development efforts.

www.aip.org

FY21 NDAA: Nuclear Security and Military Technology Proposals

Publication date:
9 September 2020
Number: 81

The House and Senate versions of the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act make significant policy proposals for the National Nuclear Security Administration as well as for the Defense Department’s missile defense and space technology development efforts.

As Congress turns to its fall business, a conference committee is expected to convene soon to reconcile the versions of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that the House and Senate passed this summer.

Some of this year’s more contentious provisions involve nuclear security. One Senate proposal would give the Department of Defense more influence over the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the quasi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy responsible for maintaining the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads. The House, meanwhile, is proposing to block the Trump administration from advancing its idea of conducting an explosive nuclear test, which would break a moratorium the U.S. has observed since 1992.

This bulletin reviews provisions in the NDAA bills bearing on nuclear weapons as well as other military technologies. Throughout, numbers in brackets refer to corresponding bill sections and pages from the accompanying House and Senate Armed Services Committee reports. Prior bulletins covered provisions related to shoring up the U.S. “national security innovation base” and bolstering U.S. competitiveness in commercial technologies with military applications. Subsequent coverage will review provisions relating DOD laboratories, STEM workforce development, and the environmental resilience of DOD facilities, among other matters.

Nuclear weapons
NNSA budget formulation. Early this year, it was widely reported that NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty had pushed the White House to include billions of dollars more for her agency in the president’s budget request than Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette felt was appropriate. President Trump ultimately sided with her and the incident reportedly motivated Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to include a provision in the committee’s draft NDAA that would grant the DOD-dominated Nuclear Weapons Council authority to modify NNSA’s budget request. The proposal sparked bipartisan pushback in Congress and from Brouillette on the grounds it would diminish the traditional civilian control over the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The final Senate bill was amended to allow the council to review NNSA’s budget submission to the White House and have its views included as an appendix. [Secs. 1652 and 3111]
Nuclear testing. The House proposes to prohibit any use of federal funding to “conduct or make preparations for any explosive nuclear weapons test that produces any yield.” [Sec. 3121] However, the Senate would allow NNSA to spend at least $10 million to “carry out projects relating to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary.” [Sec. 3166] NNSA currently assures warhead viability through its Stockpile Stewardship Program, which employs simulations and non-explosive experiments conducted at national labs and testing facilities to understand how warhead integrity evolves with time.
Nuclear weapons effects. The House proposes to update a congressional apology to individuals suffering from the effects of past U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapons testing by specifying affected states and territories. [Sec. 3119] Another provision proposes that Congress adopt the view that the U.S. should “compensate and recognize all of the miners, workers, downwinders, and others suffering from the effects of uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out during the Cold War.” [Sec. 3120] A third provision would initiate a National Academies study of effects resulting from “likely and plausible scenarios for nuclear war.” [Sec. 3117]
Nuclear missile EMP resilience. The Senate would require the Air Force to produce a report on its plans to ensure the resilience of its next-generation nuclear missiles against electromagnetic pulse attacks. [Sec. 6651]
Plutonium pit production. NNSA is currently aiming by 2030 to annually produce at least 80 plutonium nuclear weapons cores, known as pits, to replace ones in the current U.S. nuclear stockpile. However, some assessments have questioned the immediate need for pit replacement as well as NNSA’s ability to meet its production goals through plans to build a new facility at its Savannah River Site. The House proposes that, if a new independent assessment cannot assign a 90% confidence level to NNSA’s cost and schedule objectives for the Savannah River facility, the agency would have to evaluate whether a five year schedule extension would present a “grave threat” to national security and consider the option of surging production at its existing facility at Los Alamos National Lab. [Sec. 3115] The Trump administration objects to obtaining a new independent cost estimate as such as estimates are already part of DOE’s ordinary project management procedures.
Inertial confinement fusion. The Senate proposes that NNSA establish a working group to implement recommendations from a National Academies review of the agency’s inertial confinement nuclear fusion program that was required by last year’s NDAA. The program supports the Stockpile Stewardship Program and also entails more general research in high energy density physics. [Sec. 3163]
Long-term computing needs. The Senate proposes initiating a National Academies study of NNSA computing needs that will not be met through exascale computers in the next 20 years. The study would consider both classical and quantum computing architectures as well as both technical and personnel requirements. [Sec. 3156]
Stockpile Responsiveness Program. The House committee report encourages NNSA to redirect some of the Stockpile Responsiveness Program’s effort to “reducing cost, risk, and difficulty of manufacturing and producing nuclear weapons,” which it flags as the “overriding challenge of the nuclear enterprise.” [p. 309] Congress created the program through the fiscal year 2016 NDAA to cultivate and maintain a broader skillset among NNSA’s scientists and engineers than is generally exercised through the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
Discretionary manufacturing R&D. The House report directs the Government Accountability Office to review NNSA’s Plant-Directed and Laboratory-Directed R&D programs’ spending on technology and manufacturing projects to ensure they are being “efficiently funded.” [p. 306]
Construction projects oversight. NNSA is currently working intensively to recapitalize its facilities and reduce maintenance backlogs. The House report directs GAO to review the agency’s performance on these efforts, stating “NNSA’s past record makes close oversight of such projects essential.” [p. 306]
Military technology
In compliance with the fiscal year 2017 NDAA, DOD created the new position of under secretary of defense for research and engineering in 2018 to focus its development of cutting-edge military technologies. Mike Griffin, the first person to hold the job, undertook aggressive initiatives across a range of technology areas, sometimes clashing with members of Congress and other DOD officials. Space technology proved a particular bone of contention, with Griffin championing a new entity called the Space Development Agency (SDA), even as the Trump administration moved to make a new service branch, the U.S. Space Force, DOD’s focal point for military space activities. While Griffin resigned in July, some proposals, particularly in the House bill, respond to tensions that arose during his tenure.
Missile Defense Agency. The House would require DOD to explore the prospect of transferring oversight of its Missile Defense Agency (MDA) from the under secretary for research and engineering to the under secretary for acquisition and sustainment. The provision cites DOD’s declining funding requests for advanced technology development at MDA as justification, but lawmakers reportedly included it out of broader frustrations with Griffin’s leadership over missile defense. [Sec. 1655]
Space Development Agency. Noting that SDA has had a “rocky” start, the House report expresses concern the agency is not equipped to pursue its various priorities and has not set out an adequate multiyear budget. Therefore, the agency is encouraged to “focus on top priorities,” including a low Earth orbit missile warning system and an expansive satellite network for providing data and connectivity to terrestrial military forces. [p. 239] The Senate bill would reaffirm current plans to transfer SDA to the Space Force no later than the end of fiscal year 2022. [Sec. 1606]
Assistant secretary for space and strategic deterrence. The House proposes expanding the responsibilities of the assistant secretary of defense for space policy to also include missile defense and nuclear deterrence. [Sec. 921] The Trump administration “strongly objects” to this provision.
Space-based tracking sensors. While SDA is responsible for developing a new low Earth orbit missile warning system, MDA has responsibility for developing a sensor for use in that system that can detect both hypersonic weapons and ballistic missiles. Although the Trump administration has proposed transferring the sensor project to SDA, the House bill would direct the work to continue under MDA. The Senate bill would likewise keep the project with MDA, while directing DOD to weigh in on whether it should be transferred to the Space Force after fiscal year 2022. Both bills would require DOD to report annually to Congress on the project’s budgetary requirements, reflecting their interest in fully funding it. [House Secs. 1653 and 1654; Senate Sec. 1662]
Directed energy. The House bill would direct DOD to establish a Directed Energy Working Group to coordinate efforts in the area across the department and the military service branches. [Sec. 225] The House report also expresses a specific concern over DOD’s decision to remove development of a diode pumped alkali laser from MDA’s portfolio. The project, based at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, had been supported as a possible route to developing an airborne weapon capable of destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles during the boost phase of their trajectory. However, Griffin explained earlier this year he had become “extremely skeptical” about such weapons’ prospects. The report directs DOD to further explain its plans for boost-phase missile defense, including for systems that employ directed energy weapons. [p. 241]
Hypersonic testing. The Senate proposes requiring DOD to explore the “potential refurbishment of existing operating and mothballed federal research and testing facilities to support hypersonics activities.” [Sec. 240] The provision was introduced as an amendment by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rob Portman (R-OH), who framed it as a potential path for resuscitating work at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio.
Commercial space capabilities. The House and Senate reports both express considerable interest in enhancing DOD’s use of commercial space capabilities, including in communications, space situational awareness, weather observation, and space weather monitoring. [House pp. 231, 233, 239; Senate p. 372] The House bill also incorporates a standalone bill called the Space Technology Advancement Report (STAR) Act, which would require the National Space Council to produce an annual assessment of U.S. competitiveness in the “emerging commercial space economy,” especially vis-à-vis China. [Secs. 1721 to 1723]

 

[Housecarl]

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U.S. Military Is Offered New Bases in the Pacific

The Republic of Palau has asked the Pentagon to build ports, bases and airfields on the island nation, officials said, offering a boost to U.S. military expansion plans in Asia, as Washington aims to counter China.

www.wsj.com

• Politics
• National Security

U.S. Military Is Offered New Bases in the Pacific
Palau invites Pentagon presence at unspecified joint-use facilities, marking an advance of U.S. efforts to pressure China

By Sept. 8, 2020 5:30 am ET

• 193 Comments

PALAU—The Republic of Palau has asked the Pentagon to build ports, bases and airfields on the island nation, officials said, offering a boost to U.S. military expansion plans in Asia, as Washington aims to counter China.
(Rest behind subscription wall....HC)


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Pacific island nation of Palau offers to host US military bases, report says

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Republic of Palau, which occupies territory that’s becoming increasingly important to U.S. military planners, is offering to host new U.S. military facilities.

www.stripes.com

Pacific island nation of Palau offers to host US military bases, report says

By SETH ROBSON | STARS AND STRIPES Published: September 9, 2020

The Republic of Palau, east of the Philippines in the Western Pacific, has offered to host new U.S. military facilities, including ports and air bases, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The offer came during a visit last week by Defense Secretary Mark Esper that coincided with bomb-clearing and airfield repair by U.S. Marines on the islands of Peleliu and Angaur, the newspaper reported.

“Palau’s request to the U.S. military remains simple — build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly,” Palauan President Tommy Remengesau Jr., who visited the White House last year, wrote in a letter presented to Esper, according to the report.

Palau officials didn’t respond to requests for comment Wednesday, and Indo-Pacific Command referred inquiries to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“The government of Palau is not only receptive but is enthusiastic about the United States military broadening and deepening its operations, exercises and training in and around Palau,” Heino Klinck, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, told the Journal.

The offer “suggests that Palau is feeling vulnerable to China’s strategic ambitions and is seeking a counterweight,” Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus, said in an email Wednesday.

• 

The islands occupy territory east of the Philippines that’s becoming more important to U.S. military planners contemplating China’s massive military buildup and occupation of disputed sea territory to the west.

Palau, with a population just under 18,000, includes 340 islands covering nearly 180 square miles of land, just slightly less than Guam, where the U.S. military is building massive new bases for Marines to facilitate the drawdown of forces from Okinawa.

In addition to Guam, the U.S. has military facilities on other Pacific islands, such as Kwajalein and Wake Island. The U.S. and Australia also have plans to establish a presence on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, to the south, by refurbishing a World War II-era navy base.

A plan to build facilities for visiting American forces on military bases in the Philippines, which has a mutual defense pact with the U.S., has proceeded at a snail’s pace since it was agreed in 2014. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has tried to terminate the agreement that governs visiting U.S. forces and offered warm words for China and Russia.

The U.S. and Australia, meanwhile, are scrambling to shore up relationships in the Western and South Pacific, where China has been making military inroads and investing millions in construction projects, buying influence in the process.
China “seeks to reorder the region to its advantage by leveraging military modernization, influence operations and predatory economics to coerce other nations,” former acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in an Indo-Pacific Strategy Report last year.

About 100 U.S. Marines and sailors from Task Force Koa Moana of the I Marine Expeditionary Force were in Palau last month. The Army sent 200 soldiers to train there last year, the first time it had done so in 37 years.

Palau was the scene of fierce battles during World War II. About 1,800 Marines and soldiers were killed in the Battle of Peleliu in the fall of 1944. Another 8,000 were wounded.

Palau remained under U.S. administration for a half-century after the war. In 1986, Palau and the U.S. entered a Compact of Free Association, which ushered in the nation’s full independence in 1994. Under the compact, the U.S. is responsible for Palau’s military defense for 50 years.

Through a Compact Trust Fund, the U.S. Congress appropriated financial aid packages for Palau. The trust fund undergoes a review and amendment process every 15 years, with the next review due in 2024.

Meanwhile, Beijing made inroads with Palau through direct investment and a steady flow of tourists to the country.

But in 2017, China banned tour groups from traveling to Palau because the island nation refused to drop official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China maintains is a renegade province and must return to its control. Palau is one of fewer than 20 countries that formally recognize Taiwan.

robson.seth@stripes.com
Twitter: @SethRobson1

 

[Housecarl]

Watch this "card" be "played" by TPTB at some future point......

Posted for fair use.....

Exclusive: U.S. Street Gang Accesses Mexican Cartel Tunnels, Leaked FBI Report Shows

An FBI report stated the U.S.-based California Mexican Mafia was having difficulty obtaining meth from cartels due to COVID-19 complications.

www.breitbart.com

Exclusive: U.S. Street Gang Accesses Mexican Cartel Tunnels, Leaked FBI Report Shows
70

Photo: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
Jaeson Jones9 Sep 2020199

2:19


On September 2, 2020, an FBI report exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas stated the U.S.-based California Mexican Mafia was having difficulty obtaining methamphetamine from cartels due to COVID-19 complications.

The report outlined that in early July, COVID-19 severely affected supply lines throughout the U.S. and Mexico which drastically drove up prices. Ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico Border, specifically in California, were also shut down or the hours of operation became limited.

Illegal drug prices increased substantially due to the increased transportation risks brought about by lighter traffic on roadways. According to the report, many smugglers did not want chance being spotted.

As a result, the California Mexican Mafia began using underground tunnels. One began at a house in Mexico and ended at a warehouse in the United States.

U.S.-based gangs have been collaborating with cartels for over a decade. However, street gangs with access to tunnels is a paradigm shift.

It further validates how close Mexican cartels and U.S. street gangs have become. For any cartel to allow a U.S. gang to utilize a tunnel provides great insight into the depth of trust in the relationship. The sophistication required to construct tunnel infrastructure is extensive and access is not easily granted.

As far back as 2013, the Texas Department of Public Safety created a special designation for the Texas branch of the Mexican Mafia in the annual Gang Threat Assessment as Tier 1.

The tier strategy was based on three significant criteria. First, the threats posed because of the close relationship with Mexican cartels. Second is membership size. The final criteria is focused on the level of transnational activities and effectiveness.

Jaeson Jones is a retired Captain from the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division and a Breitbart Texas contributor. While on duty, he managed daily operations for the Texas Rangers Border Security Operations Center

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

Posted for fair use.....

A New START Withdrawal Will Not Cost Half a Trillion Dollars

Responding to a request from the top Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week reported the cost of a New Strategic Arms Reduction Tr

www.realcleardefense.com

A New START Withdrawal Will Not Cost Half a Trillion Dollars

By Michaela Dodge
September 09, 2020

Responding to a request from the top Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week reported the cost of a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) withdrawal could be anywhere from zero to half a trillion dollars. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Rep Adam Smith, D-Wash., are now using the CBO’s worst-case estimate to argue that New START withdrawal will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars.


Even if that half-trillion-dollar price tag were accurate (and, remember, $0 is just as likely), the notion that we should stay in this treaty for “cost-savings” is as flawed as the treaty itself.



Decisions about the size, makeup, and positioning of America's nuclear force must be guided by geopolitical developments more than the existence of arms control agreements—especially when the other party is developing a whole suite of nuclear capabilities outside of the New START framework.


Moreover, arms control agreements reflect the state of political relations among countries at the time those deals are reached. And relations between Russia and the U.S. are far tenser now than when New START was signed a decade ago. That tension is due entirely to Russia’s increasing revanchism and belligerence.


New START reflects the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review premise that Russia was no longer an adversary and the potential for conflict was low. This faulty appraisal was foundational to the Obama administration’s “reset” policy, a placating approach to the Russian Federation that emboldened Moscow to annex Crimea and launch a “civil war” in Ukraine.


One wonders what the CBO would estimate to be the cost the U.S. has paid for this “reset,” an entirely misguided approach to foreign relations with a belligerent adversary.


Menendez and Smith argue that absent New START’s “confidence and transparency measures,” countries will be compelled “to increase their arsenals to hedge against that uncertainty, which could, in turn, lead to an arms race like the one we experienced during the Cold War." But New START’s verification provisions are weak, and the treaty's central warhead limit cannot be effectively verified. New START’s “transparency” is not even close to what it is touted to be.


Making matters worse, Russia, a serial arms control violator, is developing a whole host of nuclear weapon capabilities not addressed by the treaty. Those new weapons will most definitely generate new instability in the strategic relationship.


Meanwhile, unlike its adversaries, the U.S. has not deployed a single new nuclear warhead design since the end of the Cold War, and its nuclear delivery systems are old. Unless the U.S. wants to disarm by attrition—an incredibly dangerous proposition in the current environment—it must modernize its last-generation systems.


While the CBO argues that the U.S. and Russia “could take various actions to compensate for the lack of treaty limits, perhaps to address a real or perceived buildup of forces by the other party,” the decision on whether or not to extend New START will not be even a marginal consideration in either country’s force posture decisions. Such changes take years to implement, and a five-year extension will only delay the serious questions of what to do next in a seemingly exhausted arms control process.


New START is slated to expire on Feb. 5. If it does not get extended, this doesn’t mean that there will be no arms control agreement ever. And even with a new agreement, the United States might still choose to change its strategic posture in accordance with future geopolitical developments on which New START has no bearing at all.



Dr. Michaela Dodge is a visiting research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

US Announces Troop Cut In Iraq

The announcement makes public plans that have been in the works for months.

www.defenseone.com

US Announces Troop Cut In Iraq
The announcement makes public plans that have been in the works for months.

Katie Bo Williams
|
September 9, 2020

The U.S. is preparing to reduce its troops in Iraq to 3,000, down from 5,200, by the end of this month, the top commander in the Middle East announced Wednesday.

The announcement makes public plans that have been in the works for months, as President Trump has sought to make good on campaign promises to withdraw troops from foreign entanglements before the 2020 election.

Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told a small group of reporters that the drawdown was possible because Iraqi security forces are increasingly capable of taking on the pockets of ISIS fighters still seeking to reconstitute territory within Iraq. But he cautioned that the Iraqi military isn’t yet sophisticated enough to carry on the fight with U.S. support and that he believed that the United States should maintain a presence in Iraq.

“We’re a little ways away from that from that now, but we’re certainly a lot closer than we were two or three years ago to realizing that goal,” he said, referring to Iraq’s ability to fight ISIS without U.S. help. Although the United States wants to “get smaller over time,” he said later, “I think there’s a place for us in Iraq.”

Trump in August said that the United States would be “leaving [Iraq] shortly.”

McKenzie said that the withdrawal won’t change the military’s ability to defend its troops, and that the United States will maintain its Patriot missile defense batteries and short-range defense capabilities at its remaining bases. He also said that even at the reduced troop levels, he has adequate resources to counter Iran. Militia groups loyal to Tehran have continued to launch low-level rocket attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq throughout the summer, but there have been no casualties.

“I continue to believe that Iran has an objective of ejecting the United States from the theater and from the region,” McKenzie said. “They see Iraq as a battleground for that, and frankly I think they have been thwarted in that goal. We have what we need to maintain a rough deterrence against Iran across the theater.”

In part, the withdrawal is possible because the kind of assistance that the Iraqis need now doesn’t require as many U.S. troops, McKenzie said. Iraqi forces “are actually fighting fairly effectively on the ground,” according to McKenzie, but still need help streamlining the logistics of warfighting.

“In order to be able to stand completely alone, you want to be able to produce units from your force generation capacity, you want to be able to feed them intelligence on the ground to direct them to the target you want to hit, you want to be able to supply them in combat, you want to be able to treat them medically — what I call the higher echelons of war,” McKenzie said.

“That’s still where we have more work to do. That’s why it actually takes fewer people to do it. It’ll take perhaps more specialized people as we go forward with that.”

Speaking by phone from the region, McKenzie also said that he has not been ordered to withdraw troops in Afghanistan below a current target of 4,500 troops “by late October.” That level will allow U.S. troops to continue to prevent Al Qaeda or ISIS from gaining a foothold in ungoverned spaces, McKenzie said.

“It’s still my assessment that if you want to keep going down, then we need to see concrete things from the Taliban,” McKenzie said — including a true commitment to an intra-Afghan dialogue, a sustained reduction in violence, and a break with al Qaeda. All of those expectations were laid out in the U.S.-Taliban peace deal inked in early 2020. But so far, McKenzie said, “The Taliban has still not shown conclusively that they’re going to break with Al Qaeda.”

A White House spokesman on Tuesday told reporters traveling on Air Force One that another announcement on Afghanistan is expected in the coming days.

Trump has expressed repeated frustration with U.S. deployments around the globe and in recent months has ordered a spate of withdrawals, from Afghanistan, Iraq and Germany.

In March, U.S. forces began pulling back from bases across Iraq, turning them over to Iraqi security partners. At the time, Pentagon officials insisted that the base hand-offs were part of a long-planned consolidation that reflected the success of the anti-ISIS fight — not concerns over the ongoing rocket attacks by Iran-linked proxy militias. But McKenzie in August said that the attacks contributed to the decision to consolidate U.S. bases.

“We have not pulled back because of the threat from Iran,” McKenzie said Wednesday. “What we have done is re-posture ourselves to be more effective.”

McKenzie also said Wednesday that he continues to “dig” for concrete evidence linking reporting of a bounty program targeting U.S. troops in Afghanistan to Russia.

“I have yet to see evidence that’s compelling to me,” McKenzie said. “The evidence is worrisome. I am confident Russians don’t mean us well in Afghanistan, but I cannot find a specific link to a discrete event that would tell me at a high level of certainty that they paid money to cause this specific event to occur.”

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

China’s worrisome edge toward a ‘launch-on-warning’ nuclear posture

The Pentagon warns China is constructing sea-based, land-based and air-delivered armaments, and radically modifying its alert stance.

thehill.com

China's worrisome edge toward a 'launch-on-warning' nuclear posture

By James R. Holmes, opinion contributor — 09/10/20 10:30 AM EDT 65 Comments
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

The Pentagon’s latest annual report on Chinese military power serves a reminder that the world has embarked on a second nuclear age, following the first one that began at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago. The good news is that arms-control accords slashed the number of weapons built for the Cold War. The bad news is that the nuclear club now includes far more countries than before. New members come in many shapes and sizes, with varying economic and military potential. Some border one or more potential antagonists. Some newcomers are building up their inventories while old-timers from the first nuclear age cut back or hold them steady.

In other words, the new order features less destructive power but more complexity and instability than during the Cold War, when more or less symmetrical alliances faced off for 40 years.

There is no guarantee atomic deterrence will hold in this brave new world.

That’s why the China report makes for troubling reading. The report’s authors forecast that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will at least double its stockpile of nuclear arms over the coming decade. That means China’s doomsday arsenal will expand from 200 warheads or thereabouts to 400 or more. The PLA is diversifying its inventory, for instance by putting to sea its first working class of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs). These “boomers,” as they’re known colloquially in the U.S. Navy, constitute an invulnerable second-strike capability. That is, they can vanish into the depths and strike back at a foe with nuclear-tipped missiles even if China suffers a disarming first strike against its ground-based forces.

The ability to reply with a devastating counterstrike is the gold standard for nuclear deterrence, which is why U.S. Navy grandees sound so adamant about replacing the navy’s fleet of Ohio-class boats in the coming years. Constructed to wage the Cold War, the Ohios are swiftly aging out of their service lives. Without the dozen new SSBNs of the Columbia class, for which shipbuilders first cut steel last year, the United States would lose its own second-strike capability. These are hulls the navy cannot do without.

The raw numbers from the China report aren’t that worrisome in themselves. Even if the PLA does double the warhead count, it will still field only a fraction of what the U.S. and Russian inventories hold. The New START arms-control treaty limits Washington and Moscow to 1,550 deployed warheads apiece, carried aboard 700 deployed missiles and bombers. What is worrisome is the report’s conjecture that Beijing is edging away from its longstanding “no-first-use” policy toward a “launch-on-warning” posture. That’s what former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), a longtime arms-control stalwart, calls a “hair-trigger” approach to releasing nuclear weapons.

That would be a dramatic departure. China’s leadership long contended itself with a “minimal deterrent” force composed of a few land-based ballistic missiles. It accepted a “striking” degree of vulnerability to superpower coercion while forswearing first use of nuclear arms. By contrast, a contender that embraces a launch-on-warning policy reserves the right to cut loose with nuclear counterstrikes before an incoming raid hits home. It refuses to take the first punch before retaliating.

A launch-on-warning posture raises a host of problems. It compresses the time available to frame and deliver a response. The potential for error is immense. Early-warning radars may give false indications of a strike. People may misinterpret the data under extreme stress. Worse, data are oftentimes ambiguous. Weapons are black boxes to outside observers. It’s hard to tell from a blip on a radar scope whether a ballistic or cruise missile is tipped with a conventional or nuclear warhead. Furthermore, defense manufacturers have made a habit of designing weapons to carry either type of munition. Ambiguity only compounds the retaliatory dilemma. Small wonder launch-on-warning proved controversial among U.S. defense officials in the 1970s and 1980s, when they were debating the proper stance for releasing ground-based Minuteman ballistic missiles.

Needless to say, the repercussions could be dire when two nuclear-armed adversaries that possess hard-to-decipher weapons and put themselves on hair-trigger alert square-off.

Strictly speaking, China isn’t a new entrant to the nuclear club. It exploded its first atomic device in 1964 and is one of five nuclear-weapon states officially acknowledged in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968. But China’s nuclear strategy is undergoing a metamorphosis not unlike that of a nuclear newcomer. If the Pentagon has it right, the PLA is multiplying its arsenal by twentyfold or more, constructing a “triad” of sea-based, land-based and air-delivered armaments, and radically modifying its alert stance. Studying its evolution hints at the quandaries endemic to the second nuclear age.

What should U.S. leaders do about China’s shift of stance? Well, there’s only so much they can do. Keeping the U.S. deterrent strong is an obvious step. Navy leaders are not wrong to stress the importance of building Columbia-class SSBNs. A measure of empathy with Beijing also would be helpful. For example, eliminating ambiguity from U.S. weapons would ease the stress on Chinese decision-makers in times of crisis, bolstering the likelihood of sound strategic choices. That might mean designating each type of missile solely for nuclear or solely for conventional payloads and conveying that to PLA commanders.

And lastly, regular consultation is a must. Beijing may be hostile, but it is not irrational. It accepts the logic of mutual assured destruction — the cornerstone of deterrence. Because Xi Jinping & Co. are rational, they may prove receptive to relaxing the PLA’s alert posture if persuaded that Washington and Moscow will do likewise.

And relaxation would be an improvement.

James R. Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and contributing co-editor of “Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age” (Georgetown, 2012). The views voiced here are his alone.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....for videos see article source.....

MQ-9 Reaper, Howitzer, Rocket Toting F-16 All Shoot Down Mock Cruise Missiles In Huge Test

The Air Force demonstrated the non-traditional forms of cruise missile defense while testing its new super command and control network.

www.thedrive.com

MQ-9 Reaper, Howitzer, Rocket Toting F-16 All Shoot Down Mock Cruise Missiles In Huge Test

The Air Force demonstrated the non-traditional forms of cruise missile defense while testing its new super command and control network.

By Joseph Trevithick
September 11, 2020

• The War Zone

USAF



A U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone used an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to shoot down a target drone simulating a cruise missile during a recent demonstration of the service's still-in-development Advanced Battle Management System command and control network. A manned F-16 Viper fighter jet also destroyed another mock cruise missile with a laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II rocket. It was the second test of this weapon in this role and the first to occur over land. This follows reports that a U.S. Army XM1299 155mm self-propelled howitzer blasted yet another surrogate cruise missile out of the sky using a Hyper Velocity Projectile during this same large scale experiment.

The Air Force has been steadily providing new details about the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) Onramp #2 event, which ran from Aug. 31, 2020, until Sept. 3, and involved various demonstrations in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as training ranges adjacent to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. A combined operations center and intelligence fusion cell at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland also support the experiments. The public affairs office at Creech Air Force Base revealed the new information about the cruise missile defense components of the experiment on Sept. 9.



The Air Force And SpaceX Are Teaming Up For A 'Massive' Live Fire Exercise
By Brett Tingley Posted in The War Zone
Heat-Seeking Missile-Armed MQ-9 Reaper Shot Down Target Drone During Exercise
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Air Force Tests Laser Guided Rockets In The Air-To-Air Role To Shoot Down Cruise Missiles
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
U.S. Navy Destroyer Fired Off Advanced Hyper Velocity Projectiles During 2018 Exercise
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
F-35 Cueing Artillery To Take Out Air Defense Site During Test Is A Glimpse Of The Future
By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

"This truly was a combined effort to make this demonstration a success," Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Chmielewski, the commander of the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron, said in a statement. "While early in development, this successful test opens the door to further explore integration opportunities the aircraft and cockpits could provide to JADC2 [Joint All-Domain Command & Control], as well as counterair capabilities and roles beyond the typical counter-terrorism role assumed by the MQ-9."

The 556th was the unit that flew the MQ-9 when it fired AIM-9X, reportedly an advanced Block II variant which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece, at the BQM-167 Skeeter target drone during the demonstration. The 26th Weapons Squadron and unspecified industry partners, likely including Sidewinder manufacturer Raytheon, were also instrumental in the successful shootdown, according to the Air Force.

USAF
The MQ-9 from the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron armed with an AIM-9X Sidewinder during the ABMS Onramp #2 event.

This is only the second time an MQ-9 has fired an AIM-9X at an aerial target. The first launch was during another successful test of the drone's ability to engage other aerial threats with the Sidewinder in 2018. The Air Force had previously armed at least some MQ-1 Predators, the Reaper's now-retired predecessor, with air-to-air versions of the Stinger missile for self-defense as early as 2003, which you can read about more here.
It's also interesting to note that the Air Force is looking to stop buying MQ-9s and pursue a replacement for its Reapers that would be more survivable in a higher-end conflict. The cruise missile defense mission could potentially breath additional life into these drones.

The recent ABMS event also reportedly included the employment of ground-launched AIM-9X, but details remain limited about that portion of the experiment. The U.S. Army has been testing a number of ground-based short-range air defense systems in recent years that could potentially have been the one to fire the Sidewinder.

The AIM-9X Block II features a two-way data-link and added range, as well as high-off boresight targeting and lock-on-after-launch capabilities. Together with thurst vectoring and an advanced imaging infrared sensor, the weapon is more agile and accurate that any previous Sidewinder variant. The weapon's increased range and adaptive flight profiles makes it easier for them to engage more diverse threats, such as cruise missiles.

USN
A 2016 US Navy briefing slide showing various advanced methods of employing the AIM-9X Block II, including against cruise missiles.

The F-16 from the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron also brought down a BQM-167 with its Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS) rocket, also known as the AGR-20A, the first such test over land during ABMS Onramp #2. The Air Force first demonstrated the ability of this weapon to be employed as a low-cost anti-cruise missile interceptor in December 2019 during a test off the coast of Florida, seen in the video below.




Using the APKWS II as an air-to-air weapon opens up a host of possibilities for Air Force combat jets, including shooting down cruise missiles, as well as small unmanned aircraft. Being a fraction of the cost of other air-to-air weapons, including the AIM-9X and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), as well as fired from a pod capable of holding multiple rockets, APKWS II could offer a cheaper means of engaging these threats, as well as greater magazine depth to do so.

The Air National Guard is also in the process of upgrading its F-16C/Ds with AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radars, an active electrically-scanned array type, that will greatly improve their ability to spot and track threats, even smaller ones, with greater precision at longer ranges. This could make them particularly effective platforms for detecting and engaging cruise missiles, including the AGR-20A.

Cruise missile defense was a major component of the ABMS Onramp #2 experiments beyond these air-to-air engagements. A U.S. Army XM1299 howitzer notably brought down yet another BQM-167 from the ground with a Hyper Velocity Projectile (HVP). The HVP, originally designed to be fired out of the electromagnetic railguns the U.S. Navy and Army have been testing, is now being adapted for use in conventional guns, including 155mm howitzers and five-inch naval guns. A five-inch naval gun on a ground-based test fixture was also present at the recent ABMS test, as was a modified 175mm M107 self-propelled gun that the Army uses for test purposes.





The HVP was originally designed as a kinetic projectile with no explosive warhead that would destroy its target by crashing into it. However, the versions that have been in development for conventional guns are said to have a high-explosive payload that could make it easier to engage a flying target, such a cruise missile.

Railguns were supposed to propel the HVP up to hypersonic speeds, Mach 5 or greater. Conventional guns cannot accelerate projectiles to the same speed, but the goal has been to find ways to get them up to at high supersonic velocities around Mach 3.

Joseph Trevithick
From top to bottom, mockups of HVPs loaded into discarding sabots to fit inside five-inch naval guns, 155mm howitzers, and electromagnetic railguns.

USN
A briefing slide showing additional detail about the variants of the HVP for use in different guns, including versions with high explosive payloads.

This is fast enough to make it feasible for surface-based guns to engage fast-moving aerial threats, even smaller ones, such as cruise missiles. The goal for HVP has always been for it to be a multi-purpose weapon able to engage targets on land, at sea, and in the air.

USN
A graphic showing the many potential uses for the HVP, including cruise missile defense.
"Just for the record, [a] tank shooting down cruise missiles. That’s just awesome," Will Roper, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, said, referring to the self-propelled howitzer bringing down the drone during the ABMS Onramp #2 event. "That’s video games, sci-fi awesome. You’re not supposed to be able to shoot down a cruise missile with a tank. But, yes, you can, if the bullet is smart enough, and the bullet we use for that system is exceptionally smart."

It is important to note that all of the cruise missile defense capabilities demonstrated during the recent ABMS event are still very much in the experimental stage. It's likely there is still much work to be done before the U.S. military would ever employ them in an actual operational context.

However, the ever-growing threat of enemy cruise missiles, both to friendly forces on land and at sea, has been a major concern for the U.S. military as a whole for some time now. The Pentagon's latest Missile Defense Review, which came out in 2019, added an entirely new emphasis on the need for additional defenses to protect against these weapons. The previous Missile Defense Review, which was published in 2010, focused entirely on ballistic missile defense.

This notably drove the U.S. Army's decision to purchase Israel's Iron Dome as an interim cruise missile defense system, an initiative the service brought to an end earlier this year over concerns about integrating it with its own new integrated air defense network. There were also questions about whether the system, which is designed to shoot down lower-tier threats, such as incoming artillery rockets and shells and mortar bombs, could reliably engage cruise missiles.

AP Photo/Dan Balilt
An Israeli Iron Dome system fires one its Tamir interceptors.

The Air Force sees the ABMS network as the glue that will hold all of these other cruise missile defense capabilities, as well as a host of others, together. The idea is to develop an overarching network infrastructure that will allow for the rapid exchange of all kinds of information between various platforms in the air, on land, and at sea, and in space, including high-quality targeting information. The service often talks about ABMS as a way to ensure the right sensors are linked to the right shooters whenever they need to be.

ABMS could well find itself tied into other similarly broad networking initiatives that the Navy and the Army have been working on, especially the former's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) and Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) architectures. The ABMS events already follow a host of other networking experiments and demonstrations across the U.S. military in recent years.

The next ABMS experiment is presently expected to occur early next year. It will be exciting to see what new "firsts" might come out of that event.

Contact the author: Joe@thedrive.com

 

[Housecarl]

Hummmm............

Posted for fair use.....

An Afghanistan peace deal is not worth the wait - Washington Examiner

Today marks the completion of 19 full years since the terrorists struck America. Our fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan has drifted for almost two decades without attainable military objectives, without strategic success, and without even the chance for ultimate military victory.This...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Opinion

An Afghanistan peace deal is not worth the wait

by Daniel Davis | September 11, 2020 09:00 AM

Today marks the completion of 19 full years since the terrorists struck America. Our fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan has drifted for almost two decades without attainable military objectives, without strategic success, and without even the chance for ultimate military victory.


This futility must end, and before the 20th anniversary of Sept. 11, all U.S. combat troops should be withdrawn.

In February of this year, U.S. and Taliban representatives signed an agreement stipulating that American forces would leave the country entirely within 14 months. Implied in the agreement was that the Taliban and Afghan government would first have to end their war through a peace agreement. Instead, U.S. national security objectives should dictate when we withdraw.

At present, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan have only the thinnest of relations with our security. Making sure the Taliban and Kabul come to an understanding has no bearing on our country’s vital interests. Under the best of circumstances, negotiations between warring parties is a painstaking, frustrating, and drawn-out affair. We’ve already seen in this current situation how delays complicate the process.

The February deal signed between the United States and the Taliban leadership established March as the date when direct negotiations would begin between Kabul and the Taliban. The prerequisite for those discussions was that the Afghan government would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners.

Almost six months later, Kabul still has not released all the prisoners and direct talks have yet to begin. Moreover, just days before Taliban and government representatives are set to begin direct talks in Doha, Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh was attacked in Kabul on Wednesday and was almost killed, potentially derailing the talks before they even begin. U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien called Afghan President Ashraf Ghani last week to urge him to resolve the prisoner issue and begin negotiations “without delay.” Yet the war has continued to rage between Taliban and Afghan troops.

Kate Clark, a long-time member of the Afghanistan Analysts Network out of Kabul, published an assessment last month pointing out that casualty rates of the Afghan national security forces remain at historic highs. But she also noted that since February, the U.S. has essentially gotten out of the direct combat role in the war and that the Afghan security forces are conducting almost all the fighting.


The war is now essentially “an intra-Afghan war,” Clark wrote, and while “all Afghan parties to the conflict are supported by foreign countries, those doing the killing and those being killed are now almost all Afghan.” The assumption among most in the U.S. is that if Trump withdrew the American military, the Afghan government would collapse in short order. However, as Clark noted, the Afghan military is already shouldering almost all of the combat against the Taliban. Our withdrawal would not change that dynamic.

In a conversation I had last month in Washington with Hasibullah Kalemzai, chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the upper house of the Afghan Parliament, he reiterated that the Afghan army would be capable of defending his country without the help of the U.S. military. Kabul would prefer, he told me, for an extension of logistic and intelligence support, but that as long as Western powers continue to provide financial aid for the sustenance of the Afghan forces, they could stand on their own.

It is a hard truth that there is no guarantee that the current Afghan government would be able to stand. Even if that turns out to be the case, the U.S. must end its combat role in Afghanistan and withdraw. As has now been painfully proven over nearly two full decades, our military presence is unable to solve Afghanistan’s political problems. It is time for the Afghan government, the Afghan people, and the Taliban to make the hard choices about their own future and ultimately be responsible for their success or failure. It’s the only way this war can be resolved.

American security will continue to be guaranteed by our unparalleled ability to project power and strike any direct threats to our security with our global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets. With or without a final and lasting peace settlement, however, it is time to end our participation in America’s longest war and withdraw all our troops.


Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.

 

[jward]

World News
September 11, 20209:10 PMUpdated an hour ago
Saudi coalition in Yemen launches air strikes in Sanaa - coalition-backed Yemeni forces, residents
By Reuters Staff
2 Min Read

ADEN (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen launched air strikes early on Saturday on two sites in the capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthi movement, residents and a spokesman for the coalition-backed Yemeni forces told Reuters.

The coalition launched nine air strikes on a military engineering camp and the headquarters of the national security apparatus, they said.

The spokesman for the coalition-backed Yemeni forces in Hodeidah, Waddah Al-Debeish, said the coalition had targeted a meeting of high-level Houthi leaders at the camp.


There was no immediate official confirmation from the Saudi-led coalition.

Bombings in Sanaa city have been relatively rare since September 2019, when Saudi Arabia launched indirect talks with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which it has been at war with since 2015. The conflict has led to what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Saturday’s strikes come after the Houthi group said it had attacked an “important target” in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday using a ballistic missile and drones.


The Saudi-led coalition did not confirm an attack on Riyadh but said it had intercepted and destroyed a number of ballistic missiles and explosive drones launched towards the kingdom on Thursday.

Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said six strikes were aimed at a military engineering camp on Saturday.

The Houthis took over the Yemeni capital Sanaa and most other cities in 2014 after ousting the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The Western-backed coalition that Saudi Arabia leads intervened to try to restore Hadi to power. The war, which has killed 100,000 people, has been stuck in a stalemate for years.

Reporting by Mohamed Ghobari, additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba, writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Sandra Maler, William Mallard and Kim Coghill
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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