One of the reasons I listen closely to Gen. James Mattis is that he is an avid student of history, and uses lessons from past wars to guide the work he and other folks down at Joint Forces Command are doing to re-craft operational concepts.
Mattis says future wars will be of the hybrid variety, characterized by a mixture of conventional and unconventional operations blending both high-tech attacks, such as cyber, and low tech, such as IEDs, all on the same battlefield.
Because of a hybrid enemy’s adaptability and fluid nature there is no single “template” for the threat, such as there was in Cold War days when one could template a Soviet Motorized Rifle Battalion down to the individual vehicle. But there is a “textbook” example of a hybrid war, Mattis says: Israel’s fight in south Lebanon against Hezbollah in 2006. Frank Hoffman, who writes extensively on hybrid threats, said the Lebanon war is the “Grozny” for the 21st century; a contemporary war that will be picked apart and analyzed for potential lessons.
In our continuing exploration of hybrid threats and their implications for doctrine and organization, we drill down a bit deeper into some of the lessons Israel took from that conflict. Long revered as one of the most formidable militaries in the world, military professionals took notice when the IDF was roughly handled by Hezbollah. The Israeli military itself launched some 50 internal probes to determine what went wrong.
IDF Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, former leader of the IDF’s Intelligence’s Research Division, was tasked with re-writing IDF doctrine and operational methods to avoid a repeat of the military’s dismal performance. I was passed along a briefing given last year by Brun summarizing lessons learned. He called the war a “wake-up call,” and his analysis of the Hezbollah hybrid archetype is interesting.
Brun defined Hezbollah as a terrorist organization with the structure and capabilities of a state-like regular army and with a guerrilla mode of operation. Hezbollah’s strategic concept was “victory” through “non-defeat;” which meant Israel’s tactical victories were of little to no importance. Hezbollah began the war with some 10,000 fighters equipped with vast quantities of anti-tank guided missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, a large arsenal of rockets, some 1,000 long range (up to 250 km) and 13,000 shorter range, an air unit equipped with aerial drones and a naval unit with anti-ship missiles. Hezbollah’s “operational concept” was the continuous launching of rockets into Israel’s cities even in the face of a significant IDF ground maneuver.
Hezbollah pursued what Brun called a “strategy of disappearance”: command posts and arms stored in civilian buildings; launching rockets from civilian surroundings and sensitive sites such as mosques and schools; use of “low signature” weapons including rockets, mortars and anti-tank missiles; and Hezbollah employed extensive camouflage and field fortifications such as tunnels and bunkers. As military analyst and former general Bob Scales told me, Hezbollah’s ability to fire rockets, move fighters and resupply when the Israeli Air Force had complete “air dominance,” was one of the big surprises of the war.
Some people are willing to forgive the defense establishment for its zeal in pursuing high-tech solutions. Gen. James Mattis, commander of Joint Forces Command, is most definitely not one.
In a wide ranging critique of defense planning over the past decade, Mattis blasted the “wrongheaded thinking” of recent years that led military planners to seek technological solutions to solve war’s fundamental challenges and naively dismiss war’s unchanging reality. “We embraced some wishful thinking, we espoused some untested concepts and we ignored history,” he said yesterday at CSIS in Washington.
Mattis didn’t mention the previous Pentagon leadership by name. But it was former SecDef Rumsfeld who turned “transformation” into the catch-all buzzword signaling the military’s embrace of a Toefler-certified digital future. Phrases such as “information dominance” and “Effects Based Operations” filtered into doctrine manuals. In the new American way of war, near-perfect intelligence gathered from unblinking electronic eyes would replace the fog of war that causes confusion, casualties and uncertain outcomes with predictability in American military operations.
Mattis is determined to bury that notion. “Defense planners will not be allowed to adopt a single preclusive view of war,” he said. ”War cannot be precisely orchestrated. By its nature it is unpredictable. You cannot change the fundamental nature of war.”
The military has swung too far in its embrace of high-technology, Mattis said, using as an example what he called “over-centralized” command and control. That over-centralization can create a “single point” of failure, he warned. “The U.S. military is the single most vulnerable military in the world if we overly rely on technical C2 systems.” In future wars, technical systems will be under attack and will go down, he said, so forces must disaggregate authority and decision-making to much lower levels. “We’re going to have to restore initiative” among small units and individual leaders.
Tasked with crafting a force for the “combatant commander after next,” Mattis is striving to prevent the military from repeating past mistakes such as “grabbing concepts that are defined in three letters, and then wondering why the enemy dances nimbly around you.” He recently decreed that EBO be dropped from the American military lexicon. The rhetorical battle over EBO was largely between those who see troops on the ground as the linchpin of future conflicts, versus airpower enthusiasts, who believe just the right amount of precision weaponry applied at just the right point can produce, well, most any desired effect.
In future wars, ground forces — supported by aviation and naval forces — will be the linchpin, Mattis said. It is on the ground, in complex terrain, mixed in with the civilian population, where today and tomorrow’s enemy will confront U.S. forces. “These wars will be fought among the people… we’re going to have to deal on human levels with human beings and not think that technology or tactics by targetry will solve war.” The likelihood that most wars will be of the irregular variety (I’ve noticed Mattis tends to avoid using the descriptive term “counterinsurgency” when discussing current and future wars) will demand troops with “cultural savvy” who know when to shift gears from one form of war to another. War is a human endeavor and so defense planning must focus on the human factors, he said.
The “advise and assist” capability of ground forces will be key, requiring that regular forces achieve a “seamless” integration with special operations forces. “High performing small units are now a national imperative,” Mattis said, “capable of operating independently at increasingly lower echelons.” The effort he envisions is not designed to turn regular forces into special forces, rather, it recognizes that the individual and the small unit are the key players on a decentralized battlefield. Fundamentally, quality becomes much more important than quantity. The vulnerable gaps JFCOM is seeking to plug are those at the small unit level, where guerrilla fighters have targeted U.S. forces over the past eight years.
The first Quadrennial Defense Review I covered — also the first QDR there ever was — included what I thought was a productive and provocative tool, a panel of outside defense experts who were charged with critiquing the QDR as it went along and basically grading it when it was done.
At Wednesday’s House Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Rep. Mac Thornberry, one of the most consistently thoughtful and effective legislators on the House Armed Services Committee, asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates if he thought such an outside panel would be a good idea. Gates made the classic bureaucrat’s move of preempting the questioner, telling Thornberry he had already ,made a move in that direction, naming Andy Marshall, head of the elect Office of Net Assessment, and Marine Gen. James Mattis, head of Joint Forces Command, as his red team.
Gates said he wanted to avoid any groupthink and so had charged Marshall and Mattis with doing critical analyses of both the QDR’s scenarios and its outcomes. With the smart folks we have among our readers, I’d like to get a Buzz debate going about whether this is a good idea to follow in this QDR. This is a chance to perhaps help a good idea get crucial support it might not otherwise — or a chance to kill a flawed idea before it grows too big, depending on where you come down.
Generally speaking, I really like the idea of an outside panel to help drive the QDR teams to greatness. Here’s one reason why. While I can’t remember a lot of the details, I do remember getting my hands on a letter the National Defense Panel wrote during the first QDR in the last quarter of the process. That letter sparked considerable discussion about the direction of elements of the QDR and resulted in substantial changes being made to the final QDR product.
But another reason is that people whose jobs don’t depend on the conclusions they reach are often willing to offer solutions or analyses that those closer to where the rubber hits the road may fear to tread. Put a few eminence grises such as Paul Kaminski or John Hamre on it to lead, spice it up with a few defense iconoclasts like Loren Thompson or Robbin Laird and add a few solid industry experts and you could end up with one heck of an interesting alternative vision of what the QDR should become.
The kind of red team effort I see working would be one that met this sort of standard. An old special forces buddy told me years ago about a successful raid his red team made on a nuclear sub base, slipping aboard a boat, entering offices and slipping away before the security forces could react. It led to a fair amount of turmoil at the base but demonstrated gaping holes in their security that were then filled. While Gates is clearly willing to make hard decisions, I say he can use all the help he can get from a robust red team that is not too closely tied to the building.
At a naval strategy conference I attended back in 2007, Stephen Carmel, VP of Maersk Shipping, said that while piracy was a problem for regional coastwise trade, it didn’t really register for international shipping. There was an “unfortunate tendency,” he said, to conflate “petty thieves in bumboats, something we have been dealing with forever,” with the the threat of hijacking on the high seas. “I make a distinction between a 300,000 ton [supertanker] loaded with crude and a barge carrying a couple cups of Crisco.” Stowaways, Carmel said, concerned him more than pirates. Efforts to get an update from Carmel have so far proven unfruitful; Maersk is a bit inundated with calls these days.
To be fair to Carmel, Maersk operates a fleet of some 1,000 ships across the entire world. To get a sense of why he tended to downplay piracy, and also why that particular part of the Indian Ocean that abuts Somalia has become such a happy hunting ground for pirates, go to the U.S. Coast Guard’s AMVER web site and click “Density Plots” on the left hand column. The plot shows the shipping bottleneck that forms in the Gulf of Aden as ships go to and from the Suez Canal. It also shows the extent of global shipping; it is truly global, with ships literally covering the world’s ocean surface. Now take a look at the “Live Piracy Map,” updated by the International Maritime Bureau. It illustrates just how localized the piracy problem is, most activity is concentrated in the Gulf of Aden.
The real challenge is the vast ungoverned, Hobbesian space called Somalia that provides pirate gangs a conveniently located home port, says Martin Murphy, a maritime strategist with CSBA. The unique characteristic of Somali piracy, he says, is the sanctuary that allows pirates to hold hostages for ransom, without threat of capture, until shipping companies reach the pirate’s monetary demands. Once ashore in Somalia, the hostage takers are truly in the driver’s seat, which is one of the reasons the Navy was so determined to prevent Captain Phillips’ captors from reaching shore.
Lately, the pirates have moved operations further out to sea, adopting their own version of the U.S. Navy’s “seabasing” strategy intended to provide large offshore operating platforms for ships and amphibs. Pirates attack much further from the Somali coast, well into shipping lanes, staging from a “mother-ship,” usually a large fishing vessel, and then running down slow moving freighters with small, fast Zodiac or Boston whaler type boats. It’s a very effective business model, akin to a whaling fleet roaming the oceans hunting prey, occasionally putting in at foreign ports to resupply, but able to remain at sea for long periods.
Since ransoms run into the millions of dollars, there is a huge incentive for more parties to enter the marketplace. Piracy is becoming an established piece of the “underground” economy. Once such huge market incentives are in place, the problem becomes nearly impossible to eradicate. Sweeping up pirates won’t work either as there is an inexhaustible supply of willing freebooters in a country like Somalia where there are so few economic options. Even if you catch pirates in the act, what do you do with a bunch of teenagers who just tried to hijack a ship? Shooting hostage takers is one thing, shooting cargo hijackers is another. The enforcement at sea problems become ever more complex, Murphy says, and for the world’s navies, it’s a particularly daunting security challenge.
There is a real risk that these sorts of pirate whaling fleets may begin to spread across the globe, moving up the “adaptation” chain, using better ships and technology to stay linked to each other and to track shipping, constantly refining tactics. Murphy says the recent spread of piracy along major shipping lines likely stems from Somali mother ships motoring ever further from homeport hunting vulnerable freighters.
“The initiative is with the pirates,” Murphy says. “They’re evolving their tactics and their ability to shift their operating area much more quickly than we can respond.” The world’s navies simply don’t have enough ships to patrol the more than 2 million square miles of Indian Ocean, let alone the entire “global commons.” Then there is the identification challenge. “How do you tell a local fishing boat from a pirate boat? How do you tell a dhow from a pirate mother ship?” Murphy asks. While some vessel configurations may look suspicious, you have to prove it, which can require boarding the ship in question and looking under the tarpaulin, or catching them in the act. Helicopters and aerial drones flying off Navy ships greatly expand the area that can be patrolled. But the eye-in-the-sky hardly solves the positive identification challenge as the pirates swim in a sea crowded with fishing vessels.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Please read the rest of Greg's story at DoD Buzz along with SecState's new policy on countering piracy. Also, keep in mind that yesterday the chairman of the House Armed Services committee Ike Skelton called for "counter piracy operations on Somali territory"...
I encourage you to pursue these pirates beyond the waters we are currently patrolling and into the safe havens where they are operating. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution requires no less. Furthermore, established authorities such as United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1846 and 1851 have expanded the ability of international forces to conduct counter-piracy operations within Somali territory. This does not have to be a large operation. In most cases we already know the cities in which they are operating and often even the names of those organizing the attacks. Pirate attacks and rhetoric have only become more brazen in recent months and cannot be allowed to continue.
Until a long term solution to the lack of governance in Somalia is found, the only way we can sufficiently protect our interests in the region is by seeking out the criminals who are responsible for these attacks and hijackings and bring them to justice.
Get ready for more on this as Congress comes back from spring break.
-- Greg Grant
Initial Hill Reax to Gates Budget
Regardless of who won and lost in Gates' plan, what will really matter now is how Congress reacts. So far, Hill reaction to the Gates' moves is cautiously supportive. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) called it “a good faith effort” but pointedly noted that, "the buck stops with Congress which has the critical Constitutional responsibility to decide whether to support these proposals."
Rep. Murtha praised Gates for taking "an important first step in balancing the Department’s wants with our nation’s needs. For far too long, the Defense Department has failed to address these challenges, and I applaud the Secretary for conducting this comprehensive review." But he echoed Skelton’s comments that Congress will have the next say in how the nation spends its treasure.
The ranking Republican on the HASC, Rep. John McHugh (NY), was much more critical. He said that Gates' decision to move substantial amounts of funding that had been in supplemental spending bills into the baseline budget "will be tantamount to an $8 billion cut in defense spending" without an increase in the budget topline. He noted that the GOP supports building such funding into the regular defense budget, just not at the expense of overall spending.
McHugh also questioned Gates on missile defense, saying that the defense secretary's decision to move money to the SM-3 and THAAD programs and to effectively freeze Ground-based Midcourse funding "places unnecessary risk to the homeland. Just a day after North Korea launched a long range ballistic missile the Secretary missed an opportunity to re-commit to investment in missile defense capabilities."
Overall, Gates has made some dramatic decisions. But Winslow Wheeler, a former Congressional budget staffer and now an analyst at the Center for Defense Information, wonders how much will actually change.
"While Washington DC hisses and spits over the secretary's hardware recommendations, it is probably more important to ask, what has changed, and if anything has, where are we now going? It does not appear that the basic DOD budget has changed; this set of decisions may be budget neutral, or it may even hold in its future expanded net spending requirements," he said. "While many decisions were made, the Pentagon ship of state appears to be very much on the same basic course."
President Barack Obama is expected to approve a new constellation of highly classified multi-billion dollar spy satellites in the next few days, injecting a major new expenditure into the Defense Department budget that was not planned when the administration began its budget deliberations.
The debate between the intelligence community and the military over this system has been particularly sharp. In the words of one Hill source familiar with the issue. “A deep path has been worn between the Pentagon on this one,” the source said.
Gates and Blair signed a classified memo approving the program on March 30, according to two sources familiar with the program. Details of the program are highly classified. A DNI spokesman had not responded by the time we posted this story but may provide details later.
However, we have obtained a few details in the meantime.
The system may cost $3.5 billion to get started, if earlier estimates are accurate. It may cost up to $10 billion, over the next five years depending on which technical approach was approved and on how many satellites will be built.
The Hill source said that the DNI and Pentagon would have great trouble paying for the system. “I don’t think they can come up with enough to pay for two-plus-two,” the source said, refusing to add any details.
US Army Confirms Israeli Nukes; Israeli Aid At Stake
The Army has let slip one of the worst-kept secrets in the world -- that Israel has the bomb.
Officially, the United States has a policy of “ambiguity” regarding Israel’s nuclear capability. Essentially, it has played a game by which it neither acknowledges nor denies that Israel is a nuclear power.
But a Defense Department study completed last year offers what may be the first time in a unclassified report that Israel is a nuclear power. On page 37 of the U.S. Joint Forces Command report, the Army includes Israel within "a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east."
The single reference is far more than the U.S. usually would state publicly about Israel, even though the world knew Israel to be a nuclear power years before former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu went public with facts on its weapons program in 1986.
Several years later investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published "The Samson Option," detailing Israel’s strategy of massive nuclear retaliation against Arab states in the event it felt its very existence was threatened. Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been estimated to range from 200 to 400 warheads.
Yet Israel has refused to confirm or deny it’s nuclear capabilities, and the U.S. has gone along with the charade.
As recently as Feb. 9 President Barack Obama ducked the question when asked pointedly by White House correspondent Helen Thomas whether he knew of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons. Keeping the blinders on is necessary politically in order to avoid a policy confrontation with Israel.
By law, the U.S. would have to cease providing billions of dollars in foreign aid to Israel if it determined the country had a nuclear weapons program. That’s because the so-called Symington Amendment, passed in 1976, bars assistance to countries developing technology for nuclear weapons proliferation.
Given the U.S.’s long history of selective blindness when it comes to Israeli nukes, it’s unlikely that the Joint Operating Environment 2008 report compiled by the Army amount to much more than a minor faux pas.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a March 8 article on the report, observed: "It is virtually unheard of for a senior military commander, while in office, to refer to Israel’s nuclear status. In December 2006, during his confirmation hearings as Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates referred to Israel as one of the powers seen by Iran as surrounding it with nuclear weapons. But once in office, Gates refused to repeat this allusion to Israel, noting that when he used it he was 'a private citizen.'"
-- Bryant Jordan
Two Big Air Scoops
Two great Pentagon business stories today, one from Defense Tech friend and congressional defense beat reporter Josh Rogin and another scoop from our boy Colin Clark at DoD Buzz.
As our readers know, Pentagon chief Gates put a major clampdown on any leaks from the Obama defense budget planning. My colleagues on the budget beat have been majorly frustrated with the lack of string for story-hungry editors (myself included).
As the "April" deadline for specifics on the '10 budget details approaches, cracks are starting to form.
First off, Rogin reports at Congressional Quarterly that the Obama admin has decided to delay purchase of a new tanker by five years and cut out altogether the Next Gen Bomber program (though he's quick to point out no final decision has been made).
Both of these are huge mistakes, in my opinion. The KC-135 has a few more years left on it for sure, but delaying it another five means delaying it another 10 in reality. It's one of those unsexy things that aren't that much fun to buy, but "you're sure glad you have them when you need them" kind of things that pushed off into the future could mean serious problems for a force as expeditionary as ours.
And the NGB...again, bombers have proven themselves to be highly adaptable platforms for a wide range of missions and munitions. They last a long time and evolve well to the threat. Our current fleet is either too small (B-2) or too old (B-52) to meet the long loiter, long range, heavy payload demands of operations, so it seems a big error to shunt this one to the side as well.
Also, Colin has an excellent grab from sources on the JSF/F-22 plans coming out of DoD. He hears that the F-22 line will be kept open, with production funding for as many as 40 more planes, and that the F-35 will be trimmed back from plans in 2010, but ramp back up in 2011 and the POM (though he has no numbers to attach to Lightning II buys).
This info would seem in line with persistent rumors that Gates and Co. will salami slice the F-22 buy, largely because they know that Congress will fund it, desperate to keep those jobs going. The F-35 trim is apparently the tactical trade-off for continuing the F-22 production. The strong out-year funding would be proof that the Pentagon remains strongly committed to the F-35, a signal that allies will peer at as closely as an anthropologist watches a rare ceremony celebrating, say, fertility.
Couldn't have said it better myself...We know how Congress works, don't we?
-- Christian
New Threats Must Drive Big DoD Changes: DSB
Threats to the United States have outstripped "our intelligence, diplomatic, and investment capability," and the Pentagon must enact a broad series of institutional changes to cope with these new, often unexpected threats according to a major study by the Defense Science Board.
The nub of the problem is that "growing social, cultural, religious, economic and technical interdependencies have made things less predictable, more unstable and more prone to unintended consequences," the study said. The DSB study calls for the Pentagon to educate Congress about the problem and to create a new office to advise senior military leaders “of high risk potential red capabilities” and how to handle them. The new office, to be known as the Capability Assessment, Warning and Response Office, would warn senior leaders of high risks, come up with options to counter them, and recommend technological approaches, the study says.
The DSB also recommends that the Pentagon embrace red teaming throughout it structure. “It should become ubiquitous, should challenge all levels from policy and strategy to operations, and not just to manage surprise,” says the 2008 Summer Study, titled “Capability Surprise.” The study was led by Miriam John, former vice president at Sandia National Labs and now a member of the board of SAIC, and Robert Stein, former Raytheon corporate vice president. In addition to red teaming, the military must place much more emphasis on rapid fielding of capabilities and create a Rapid Capability Fielding Office that would report directly to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
The report, which has not been publicly released, calls for this new office to consolidate all OSD fielding initiatives, except the office dealing with IEDs, into one place and to use money that is not tied to any service or to the joint staff.
In addition, intelligence capabilities must improve their ability to warn leaders about new “critical” threats and to focus on foreign denial and deception efforts. The study recommends the DNI warning office establish a cell within the new CWRO advising the SecDef and, more broadly, the intelligence community needs to focus on detecting adversary denials and deception.
One of the most revealing parts of the study is a top ten list of why the U.S. gets surprised at the strategic level.
Thought we could respond without doing anything new
Knew it was likely, understood the magnitude of the implications, but didn’t pursue it appropriately
Did it to ourselves
Believed they were not up to it
Believed they wouldn’t dare
Knew it might happen, but were trapped in own paradigms
Didn’t imagine or anticipate the strategic impact
Lost in the ’signal to noise’ of other possibilities
Imagined it, but thought it was years away
Were willing to take the risk that it wouldn’t happen.
Northrop Grumman roared today, sending out a press release that cuts to the upgraded version of the Hawkeye, “Puts 350 U.S. Jobs at Risk.” Yesterday, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee, issued an adumbrated Navy shipbuilding budget.
These and other less public moves seem confirmation that, with the Obama administration’s eyes so firmly fixed on how to rebuild the economy, Congress and the defense companies are going to be all too happy to push things their way and see if the administration notices in time.
Several lobbyists and consultants have said over the last few weeks that this was exactly what they were advising their companies to do and it looks as if it is becoming a public sport.
“The longer the Pentagon waits to signal its program choices the more other interests are going to step into the breach,” said a long-time Pentagon watcher, familiar with the Hill, industry and the building. For the companies, facing tight credit and the prospect of major program cuts, this source said it is their fiduciary responsibility to lobby like hell and do it as publicly as needs be. “The stakes are high and each year they get a little higher as we get fewer programs and those are all more expensive than ever.”
Part of the problem is that Gates and his team made the reasonable choice to put off some major program decisions such as the tanker until the new team was in the building. Well, the old team is still in the building — although a few Obamites should be joining them soon now that the SASC has approved Bill Lynn and and the other three new senior Pentagon leaders — and the Pentagon has not made these decisions and it faces enormous challenges in deciding the future course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, those folks in the Pentagon has scrubbed the numbers several times over the last few years and know these programs as well as any political appointees ever will, something our Pentagon watcher noted. “In some ways I’m not sure what else we need to know in order to make some decisions. How much more TacAir debate do you need to have,” he said.
Of course, hanging over all this is the dark cloud of fear afflicting most Americans about the economy’s future course. Our Pentagon watcher argues that this is exactly why modernization programs should be funded as fully as possible. “We have never had the number and extent of the bleeding of jobs we have right now,” he said. But that is not good reason t cut program for infrastructure work and other non-defense spending. The country must consider the cost of funding uncertainty and the possible loss of highly skilled and often unique jobs on the industrial base. Our Pentagon watcher said that the jobs you lose today help decide what you can build tomorrow.
Read the rest of this story over at DoD Buzz, and stay tuned for the first edition of the "Weekly Buzz" talk show premiering here on Defense Tech.
In the Mumbai tragedy, it took three days for India’s police and commandos to overwhelm 10 fanatical fighters who killed some 160 people and wounded nearly 300. The attack speaks to the lethality of guerrilla fighters armed with fanatical fervor and small arms, the difficulties inherent to urban combat and the security challenge of the modern city as soft target.
After the five-plus year battle of Baghdad, Americans have become accustomed to snipers, IEDs and car bombs as the most common urban warfare tactics. The Lahskar-e-Taiba fighters were of a more dangerous breed than a suicide bomber who detonates him or herself in a crowd as the number of casualties was directly related to how long they stayed alive and their ammunition lasted. Although they embraced eventual martyrdom, they sought to delay it as long as possible so as to rack up a higher body count. That is a very difficult enemy to counter.
In a column penned last week, strategist Edward Luttwak called the Indian security forces response “pathetically inadequate in quantity and quality.” Instead of the 200 National Security Guard “Black Cat” commandos tardily dispatched to Mumbai, India should have sent 1,000, Luttwak says. The Indian government response was certainly shoddy, but it should also be kept in mind just how difficult and complex a tactical challenge the Indian security forces faced.
I was reminded of an article written some time back (December 2003) by former Australian Army officer David Kilcullen, of counterinsurgency fame, in that service’s excellent journal. In the piece, Kilcullen discussed close combat in complex terrain, defined as “terrain where you cannot see as far as you can shoot.”
An important point he makes is that more than sheer numbers, urban combat requires “small, networked, mutually supporting semi-autonomous teams.” Even big battles in urban terrain rapidly dissolve into a series of “mini-battles” fought in streets, courtyards and rooms in houses. “If a thousand troops attack a hundred in complex terrain, what ensues is not one large, single battle, but several dozen individual duels and small-group engagements fought over a dispersed area.” He used the Black Hawk Down Mogadishu battle as an example.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters dispersed upon landing in Mumbai into two man teams and rapidly fanned out into the city. Countering such an enemy requires security forces that can also rapidly disperse and operate individually with very high levels of tactical skill. Even the standard ten man section may be too large for such battles, Kilcullen says. Instead, “the four-man fire team may become the true building block for the close fight in the first quarter of the 21st century.”
I would be curious to know how many countries possess troops with that required level of tactical skill and unit cohesion. Kilcullen’s piece in the Australian Army Journal brings up an interesting discussion as we contemplate how to counter what are sure to be future Mumbai style attacks and is well worth a read, along with an earlier piece he wrote in the June 2003 issue.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Penn.), the former admiral who was fired by the man who is now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, appears to be in the running for Navy Secretary.
At this point it is hard to tell if Sestak is promoting himself — often the kiss of death for those seeking senior positions in a new administration -- or if the Obama administration is considering his nomination.
On the first day he rose to lead the Navy, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen fired Sestak, who was deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements and programs. Two years later Sestak retired from the Navy. He was canned for creating a “poor command climate.” In plain English, the driven naval leader treated those who worked for him badly, often using his temper to lash those who worked for him. Some of his staff quit without new jobs.
Still, some sources who know Sestak praise his intellect and drive, noting that he rose fast and far in the Navy. And two political observers noted that he unseated former Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Penn.), defeating the veteran congressman with a substantial 56 percent of the vote.
In other transition news, Air Force Secretary Mike Donley looks to have a reasonable shot at staying on in his position. Among the compelling reasons for his remaining is the terrible churn the Air Force has suffered at the highest levels over the last five years. Since 2004 there have been five acting or confirmed Air Force secretaries and Donley’s predecessor, Mike Wynne, was canned by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Keeping Donley, especially since Gates has decided to stay, would send a strong signal to the service that Gates wants to continue the changes that Donley has begun to improve the nuclear enterprise and generally rebuild the service.
It seems like everybody's talking about it these days.
This unmanned tank that tops 60 mph, can be fitted with a remote gun system and plows over concrete barriers like its a wall of foam.
Colin's down at the Army Science Conference and they're raving about it:
That’s the Ripsaw MS1, a tracked unmanned ground vehicle that no less than Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff, called an “an amazing piece of gear” this morning.
The Ripsaw may be one of those development programs that lawmakers can use to justify earmarks. It was funded by an earmark worth about $1 million pushed through by GOP Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine. The vehicle is on display for the first time at the Army Science Conference here in Orlando.
Built by twin brothers, Geoff and Mike Howe of Barwick, Maine, the Ripsaw can careen at high speed over obstacles that would leave a vehicle’s crew dazed and bruised. It is operated by a driver in another vehicle using a modular crew station that can be unbolted and placed in a range of Army vehicles, including the Stryker and all the MRAP models.
A weaponised version, modified by the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, includes a remotely operated M240 machine gun. The gun is operated by a separate person using another modular station that can be put in a range of vehicles.
In addition to impressive firepower, the Ripsaw can carry a payload of 2,000 pounds. It is not armored and each track can be removed as a unit should it be damaged, according to Bhavanjot Singh, ARDEC project officer.
Singh and the Howe brothers are eager to find a sponsor to help get the Ripsaw into production, or at least to get some prototypes built and tested in the field.
At least four congressional aides checked out the vehicle at the conference display here and Chiarelli had a tour of his own. Singh was enthusiastic about both the vehicle and its builders.
“They are very good dreamers,” he told me.
And Fox called Ward onto the show to talk about it this morning:
How do I get one of these again?
Seriously, it seems like a good idea. And it reminds me of an email I got from a source of mine yesterday who was blowing his top about how Ford is calling itself "the arsenal of Democracy" to try to win a slice of the $25 billion in bailout money. He makes the point that where were the "Big Three" when the services were asking for MRAPs? When have they contributed to any technological advance in manned ground combat systems within the last decade?
Nope, it takes a million dollar earmark from Susan Collins to fund a couple brothers from Maine who want to take a chance on a revolutionary new vehicle.
Good for them and shame on Ford, GM and Chrysler...don't go waving the bullet-scarred flag at me.
-- Christian
Army Science Conference
Our colleague Colin Clark, editor of DoD Buzz, is attending the 26th Army Science Conference in Orlando this week. He'll be updating the Buzz with his stories but the Army has gone all "Web 2.0" on us and is live streaming some of the presentations and panels.
Below is a video that was shown this morning to attendees. It looks like only two of the talks are archived on the official live cast site, but we'll have whatever content we can grab here on DT for you to peruse as we get it, so stay tuned.
-- Christian
The "Buzz" on F-22
For a jauntier and updated version of some of my F-22 coverage, you can tune into my latest podcast. I did the interview with Addison Schonland, president and founder of Innovation Analysis Group, a consulting firm based in San Diego.
We spoke about the Pentagon’s out-maneuvering Congress on the F-22 funding and John Young’s subsequent comments slamming the Raptor’s availability, maintenance and costs.
Tough Ethics Rules for Upcoming Obama Appointments
Colin has an excellent piece up on DoD Buzz that's generated a ton of conversation over there so I thought I might share it over here...
The Obama transition team has issued ethics guidelines that are likely to make it extremely difficult to attract qualified defense industry appointees.
“No political appointees would be able to work regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration,” the new guidelines say.
“You can understand the motivation behind it, but it’s not clear that you will get the best and brightest people who understand what needs to be done to serve in the government. As you know previous administrations have had great difficulty attracting people under the existing guidelines,” a procurement expert with experience in and out of government told me this morning.
The Aerospace Industries Association recently published a report, “Overcoming Barriers to Public Service,” on the difficulties of finding good people.
Three of the candidates for senior Pentagon positions — Paul Kaminski and Jacques Gansler for deputy secretary of Defense, and John Douglass for undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics — might well benefit from the Obama strictures. All three men are eminent in their field, none of them have worked for a defense company recently and all are old enough that they probably would not have to scramble for a high paying job in industry after they leave government.
-- Colin
DoD Gear Chief Speaks Out
The Air Force generally does a rotten job of managing and budgeting for space programs. That was the strongest message sent today by John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, as he discussed the 2010 budget and acquisition in general during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters yesterday.
Although Young said he didn’t want to single out the service, that’s just what he did repeatedly during the almost two-hour session.
“Based on the 2010 POM they are not performing well,” Young said, who separately described the interference and gaming of the services during the budget as a “cancer.” It began with a discussion of the Transformational Satellite program, T-Sat. Young said “there are camps” in the Pentagon that “have consistently wanted to club the T-Sat for more reason than it’s a very expensive program.” The camp’s identity became clear a few second later when Young noted that the Air Force “underfunded” T-Sat in the 2009 budget.
Then Young listed a litany of space programs the Air Force had either mismanaged or underfunded. Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) is still emerging from a Nunn-McCurdy breach and apparently has not solved a software problem that has bedeviled it for more than a year. Ground terminals needed for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) weren’t built in time to receive data from the satellites. And the Air Force goofed and didn’t budget to ensure the Wideband Gapfiller System would continue to provide data to 27 weapon systems. “It’s beyond me,” Young said in exasperation with the MUOS oversight, adding that the Pentagon had found money to keep the data flowing.
I asked Young if he would move the executive agent for space, currently vested in Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, to a joint or OSD perch. The executive agent oversees all military space programs. Young made clear he did not think the Air Force was the right place: “I would never put it there.” He indicated that Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England is being given analytic data to move the executive agent to a joint perch. One likely candidate for the job: Josh Hartman, currently director for space and intelligence capabilities in Young’s office.
In other acquisition news:
“MRAP Light:” Young said the Pentagon is moving ahead on just how to meet the need for well protected vehicles that can handle the rugged terrain of Afghanistan, saying the upcoming supplemental “may have room for additional vehicles for Afghanistan.” Young was very careful to avoid saying there is an actual program here yet, but they are clearly headed that way. One of the possibilities being discussed is grabbing the nascent Joint Light Tactical Vehicle program and getting it to Afghanistan as quickly as possible. Young was very cautious not to say that JLTV was the solution, but he did say it was being discussed as a possible part of the solution.
In a conference call with reporters this morning, the BAE Systems JLTV program lead told me that most of the subsystems on the JLTV prototype are at TRL 7 (Technology Readiness Level), the first level at which a system could be considered ready to undergo operational test and evaluation. When I told Young this, he laughed and said he bet that BAE Systems would sell their system for $1.98 a copy. Then he added, with a very big smile, that he appreciated BAE’s input.
The debate about guns or butter hotted up last week, with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) calling for an enormous decline in defense spending of 25 percent and the head of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) saying money for weapons will have to come from spending originally slated to fund substantial increases in Army personnel. Below defense consultant Robbin Laird weighs in on the likely impacts of the financial crisis on defense spending.
The impact of the global financial crisis on US defense spending will strike in two ways, directly and indirectly. The impact will be substantial in terms of the ripple effect of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq upon the recapitalization budget.
Why? Throughout the Bush years, defense recapitalization has been overtaken to a large extent by the cost of military operations, and the re-definition, in effect, of recapitalization in terms of reset of equipment being used directly in those operations. At the same time, the wear and tear of capital equipment upon a number of infrastructural support elements, ranging from Air Force tankers, Air Force lift, sealift and related equipment means growing pressure to modernize those forces as well.
The major direct impacts of the financial crisis on the budget are three-fold and all lead to an inevitable downturn in the top line for the capital budget.
First, the new administration will be elected to deal with the financial crisis, not to recapitalize defense forces. This means that public spending to support the financial institutions plus injections of public monies in a number of civil industries or infrastructure replacement will compete directly for defense capitalization dollars.
Second, the cost of money for the federal government will go up as various public sectors compete for money to borrow for re-capitalization. Given the dependence of the US public sector on overseas borrowing, and given the increased cost of that borrowing, the result will be significant pressure to reduce new equipment acquisition simply in terms of the unit costs going up in terms of the cost of capital.
Third, the perceived need for the new administration to “borrow” from the defense budget to pay for other public sectors will go up. Because the financial crisis is as much a political legitimization as an economic crisis, defense will not get a free political ride. It will lose its privileged position as an investment priority.
Two distinct groups are emerging in the Army with quite different views on the nature of future wars the U.S. is likely to fight and the decisions the service should make about future force structure and weapons. The first group is the Title 10 side that urges the Army to embrace the troubled Future Combat Systems program and new operational concepts built around dominant battlefield intelligence. The other side is represented by officers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who think future wars will resemble the messy reality of the current ones.
In a new paper, Army Col. H.R. McMaster, definitely a member of the messy war group, calls for abandoning so-called transformation, which is intellectually rooted in the idea of a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). McMaster, of 73 Easting and Tal Afar fame, is a highly influential soldier-scholar who is currently putting together a brain trust for Gen. David Petraeus to review U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.
McMaster says the widely held vision of a revolution in warfare, of light, agile high-tech forces destroying an adversary with pin-point precision weapons fired from stand-off distances, ran headlong into reality in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be a superlative stretch of reality to describe the brutal fighting in those wars as anything remotely revolutionary. Both have featured much less high-tech and much more high-firepower in fierce firefights, not at the stand off ranges preferred by U.S. soldiers but in engagements where combatants were separated by only a few feet.
He says the U.S. will fight future wars “against armed groups that employ tactics and strategies similar to those it is facing in Afghanistan and Iraq.” The Army’s “legacy” formations have figured prominently in the current fight and will again in future wars. He criticizes analysts and officers - calling out Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap and Lt. Gen. David Deptula - who “advocate a return to 1990s thinking” where high-tech surveillance, air power and precision weaponry deliver “effects” against the enemy from long range in an effort to avoid costly and protracted “boots on the ground” efforts. Those who have bought into the RMA orthodoxy make the mistake of defining future conflict “as we might prefer it to be,” McMaster says.
McMaster really lets it fly at both Air Force leaders who have been very vocal in pushing the notion that airpower is America’s true asymmetric advantage. “Deptula and Dunlap fail to consider the enemy’s ability to react and adopt countermeasures that complicate our ability to remotely deliver effects. One wonders what kind of remotely delivered capability might secure people from terrorists living in their midst, reconstitute a police force, or interdict concealed vehicle bombs aimed at crowded marketplaces.” Moreover, McMaster says, future adversaries, such as China, are developing weapons designed specifically to take out U.S. surveillance and IT assets
McMaster takes a big swipe at his own service and the $200 billion Future Combat Systems program that was originally intended to supply the Army with a new family of lightweight armored vehicles but has since dissolved into a collection of some promising and many not so promising technologies. McMaster says recent combat experience shows, “we should reject the notion that lightness, ease of deployment, and reduced logistical infrastructure are virtues in and of themselves. What a force is expected to achieve once it is deployed is far more important than how quickly it can be moved and how easily it can be sustained.”
The FCS program likes to show a briefing slide that illustrates the long line of fuel tankers required to support the gas guzzling Abrams tank and the much fewer needed to support the future FCS vehicle. McMaster points out the weakness of that pitch. Sure, a 30 ton FCS vehicle with new, more efficient engine technologies will cut down on the logistical tail compared to Abrams tanks. But what do you get at the end of that long line of fuel tankers? With the Abrams, arguably the world’s best main battle tank with an impenetrable frontal arc and unmatched firepower. With FCS, you get a vehicle, with armor no thicker than that of a Bradley, that depends on situational awareness to survive an engagement.
McMaster says that despite six years of combat experience, the Army continues to embrace the “flawed doctrinal concepts and a continued fixation on futuristic experiments” that say FCS equipped soldiers will have near perfect situational awareness and will be able to promptly dispatch enemies without engaging in close combat. That’s a dangerous road to go down, he warns, that could end up costing soldiers lives. The gulf between the Army’s new warfighting concepts and the lessons coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan “demands a thorough review of Army organization.”
McMaster says theory continues to triumph over practice because of the tangled web of relationships between defense contractors, the DoD, Congress, and think tanks that often lend legitimacy to flawed concepts. He says the military should stop outsourcing its intellectual responsibilities, and defense contractors “should not produce and test operational concepts that can later be used to justify the purchase of their systems or products.”
Fed up with schedule delays and soaring costs, the Defense Department late Thursday axed the Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program that was to provide a replacement for the service’s ageing OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. The Army’s contract with Bell-Textron was valued at more than $6 billion for some 500 new lightly armed scout aircraft. The Army’s Kiowa Warriors have seen heavy use in Iraq and are valued among aviators for their exceptional maneuverability at low altitudes.
In a press release, John Young, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer said, “Rather than continue this program, I have decided that the best course of action is to provide the Army with an opportunity to define a coherent, disciplined Kiowa Warrior helicopter replacement program, and to obtain more rigorous contract terms for its development.”
The ARH was originally projected to cost $8.56 million per aircraft with delivery to begin next year. DoD now estimates the helicopter will cost $14.48 million per copy and the initial delivery date had slipped to 2013.
In the same Pentagon statement, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren stated, “The cost and schedule that were the focus of the decision to award the contract to Bell Helicopter are no longer valid. We have a duty to the Army and the taxpayer to move ahead with an alternative course of action to meet this critical capability for our Soldiers at the best price and as soon as possible.”
In an Army press release, Lt. Gen James Thurman, Army operations director said, “the war-fighting capability for a manned, armed, reconnaissance helicopter is crucial to supporting our ground combat commanders and remains a critical requirement for the Army. To this end, we will rapidly pursue a re-validation of the particular characteristics needed for this capability so that we can restart the process of acquiring a manned, armed reconnaissance helicopter.”
The Army has been upgrading its Kiowa fleet with new avionics and electronic countermeasures.
One of the most interesting undercurrents at last week’s Association of the US Army conference was worried talk about whether the recession or downturn or whatever we’re calling it will affect defense spending.
Army Secretary Pete Geren was relatively hopeful. Congress, he told reporters, understands what the Army is trying to do and largely supports it. FCS, the Army’s premier modernization effort, is in good shape and has strong congressional support. As you can tell, Geren was all about Congress and declined to talk about the larger economic issues.
As I went from display to display on the floor I spoke with about a dozen industry sources about the economy and the budget. Most were gravely concerned about their 401Ks and a bit less worried about the budget. Still, they all expressed concern that the Army will have to begin choosing between so-called reset choices and those of modernization. This is one of several major friction points in the coming budget. First, the services have all made noises about how they are going to build the spending that has been in supplementals into their regular budget baselines. That’s one place for tradeoffs. Then there is the squeeze that will probably result from lower government revenue figures. There will be political pressure to withdraw from Iraq and thus lower operational costs. Operational and maintenance money has been very important to the Army, in particular. And then there is the normal budget wrangling. That offers an awful lot of places where Army — or any other service’s — spending can be whittled away.
And the Army is going to face skepticism over FCS even if the economy does hold relatively firm during first three months of next year. For example, when I asked Maj, Gen. Charles Cartwright during the big FCS briefing whether House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) supported the Army’s approach on FCS, the general offered all sorts of explanations about how the program was on track and, in the best tradition of message management, avoided issuing a potentially damaging statement. To his credit, Cartwright did it with style and humor, even when pressed. The problem is that Skelton made clear after the Army scrambled to restructure the program and get more FCS components to troops as quickly as possible that he (and Airland Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Neil Abercrombie D-Hi.) worries the Army may be rushing the testing on the programs. Included among them are: Tactical and Urban Unattended Ground Sensors; the Non Line of Sight-Launch System, network kits for Humvees; the Class I Unmanned Air Vehicle; and the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle.
Of course, during AUSA reporters were watching the world’s stock markets plummet day after day and no one knew whether there would be an upside any time soon. With the encouraging ballistic trajectories in the market so far this week, one could argue it’s all moot except that the US economy already appeared headed to rough waters before the market plunges.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The copy keeps pouring in from Colin and the gang over at DoD Buzz who are all over the Association of the US Army convention in DC like white on rice. We'll feature some of their content, but I'd recommend keeping an eye on what they're up to over at the Buzz.]
With up to $100 billion at stake in an era when defense budgets are probably going to shrink, you can understand why defense industry officials lust after the contracts for the three variants of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). Final proposals are due this week with a contract award set for the end of the month. The rubber is about to hit the road with the Army set to award three 27-month technology development contracts.
One interesting tidbit: Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that JLTV must be able to withstand both IEDs and explosively formed penetrators. Until now, industry and government officials had avoided discussion of explicit protection levels. Most details of protection requirements are classified. Industry officials with each team declined to discuss this, only saying that their vehicles met or exceeded MRAP protection requirements.
Here are the teams competing: Boeing, Textron and SAIC; BAE and Navistar; Northrop Grumman and Oshkosh Truck; Lockheed Martin and Armor Holdings; Blackwater and Raytheon. A lot of the floor space at the AUSA conference this week boasted a variant of the JLTV. All of the JLTV’s variants on display boasted ISR systems that will allow them to joint FCS brigades, as the Army plans for them to do eventually. They also had either the ability to let drivers flip a switch or hit a computer screen for differing terrains and weather conditions.
BAE unveiled its prototype for variant B [pictured above], a rakish looking vehicle with a relatively spacious interior capable of seating seven fully loaded troopers.
Lockheed displayed a very impressive vehicle. During a press briefing, Lockheed officials boasted of the 20,000 miles their JLTV prototype has endured. Troops had clambered in and out of the vehicle with full combat gear, proving their cabin design, they said. The company had declined to use a hybrid engine after extensive analysis, said Katherine Hasse, who leads the company’s JLTV effort. “Our experience with hybrids was that they are not ready for military use yet,” she said, adding that they boost vehicle weight by up to 700 pounds.
An Oshkosh official agrees that hybrids aren’t ready yet. There also are disadvantages to the big hump between the two front seats caused by the GTV vehicle’s transmission. (The Oshkosh official had not seen the Lockheed vehicle.) “That’s fine if you’re a hurdler,” said Ken Juergens, Oshkosh’s program director for JLTV. The Northrop-Oshkosh team is using a diesel-electric drive system, which eliminates the need for a transmission and conventional drivetrain. Juergens also touted Oshkosh’s experience in building vehicles in different weight classes: Nobody else has gone to different weight classes.” The
Congress has concerns about whether the Army can handle all the ground vehicles it plans to buy. In the House report accompanying its version of the 2009 defense authorization bill, the House Armed Services Committee mentioned JLTV twice in separate sections.
“In addition to the thousands of light, medium, and heavy trucks and hundreds of armored security vehicles, the committee is aware the Army would purchase over 12,000 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles by the end of fiscal year 2008 and almost 2,000 additional Stryker vehicles through fiscal year 2013,” the report noted.
“Concurrently, the Army and the Marine Corps continue to develop the joint light tactical vehicle (JLTV), which would perform many of the same missions that current up-armored high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWV) and MRAP vehicles now perform.” So it calls on the Army to work with the Marines to come up with a long-term strategy and to “consider cost reduction strategies, reliability, and maintainability improvement initiatives.”
Reporters can be really dumb. There I was in front of Raytheon’s booth at the Association of the US Army’s conference with a little button under my thumb. I hit the button. My lower thoracic area got very hot, very fast. So I waited for the machine to recycle and hit the button again. This time the pain was more intense — I wasn’t screaming or anything — and my skin felt like it was about to catch fire.
I didn’t do this just to make you all chuckle. The idea was to see what the Marines will probably buy from Raytheon with $25 million buried deep in the summer supplemental spending bill. The Marines haven’t signed the contract — yet — but negotiations are well under way for five nonlethal Silent Guardian systems . It looks as if the system will be used in Afghanistan to help protect high value assets as well as bases.
The system beams millimeter wave energy at the speed of light for more than 250 meters and penetrates the top layer of the skin. As soon as you move away from the beam the pain stops, although there is a nagging sensation of pain for few moments afterwards. The antenna covers a full 360 degrees and the beam can be used to sweep across a crowd or to target one person at a time. It’s got safety cutoffs so it doesn’t cause permanent damage, according to John Patterson, a Raytheon spokesman.
The Silent Guardian is one variant of Raytheon’s Active Denial Systems, most of which provide area-wide protections against weapons such as missiles.
Non-lethals have been in development for a very long time. The first big burst of enthusiasm hit in the mid-1990s when the Pentagon created its first non-lethal office. Most of those technologies foundered — such as sticky foam — among concerns that non-lethals might hurt people, which always seemed ironic given that high velocity bullets and bombs are considered legal.
In addition to the Marines, the National Institute of Justice is investigating development of a much smaller version of Silent Guardian for police and other homeland security forces.
-- Colin Clark
No (Quranic) Justice in Peace
The new Army doctrine intended as the by-the-book bridge between combat and stability operations is a bold step — even making clear the Army’s role in helping to establish a judiciary once the major shooting stops.
But there’s one place that doctrine framers decided not to boldly go with that mission — setting up a judiciary when the host nation is bent on having one rooted in religion.
“When we looked at the judicial sector, at the end of an operation you want what we call rule of law … where people are empowered, where the law serves the people and not necessarily the government,” Lt. Col. Steve Leonard, the primary author of the 200-plus page Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations, told Military.com during a bloggers’ roundtable held in Washington as part of the Association of the United States Army annual symposium. Though just released Oct. 6, the document has been in the making since late 2005. It points out that the U.S. military has a long history — though not a consistent one — of establishing or re-establishing civil authority once major fighting has ended.
The Stability Operations manual goes so far as to lay out the Army’s obligation to restoring civil authority, including existing laws, courts and justice systems when they function. Of course, these may be suspended by the Army if the players cannot or are not performing them, or if they impede the Army from carrying out its own obligations under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, according to the manual.
“But oftentimes what we see in these countries is rule by law, where the ruling authority maintains control over the civil populace by leveraging the laws to their benefit. You don’t want that.”
What the doctrine looks at is just two of three types of authority: civil authority, in which law is used to govern the population and provide for its essential needs, safety and security; and transitional military authority, which is what the doctrine calls for while the Army and its partners — other U.S. agencies, allies, or non-governmental agencies — help establish a working judiciary.
“You hit the third leg of that [religious authority],” Leonard told Military.com. “We actually had this debate as we developed the doctrine. Did we want to address establishing a religious authority or a religious judiciary? Say a … judiciary based on the rule of the Quran, for instance?”
Not only does Leonard not believe the Army or any partners would have the expertise to do that, but the developers of the doctrine did not believe it was a place they wanted to go.
“In this book [doctrine] there were not too many things we declared off limits, but that was one we just felt was too far down the road for us to [address], although it exists. But I don’t think our national interests push in that area that we would be trying to establish religious authorities.”
Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hamel, the former commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., is one of the generals who has been punished in connection with the service’s nuclear lapses. Hamel was reprimanded, according to a source who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. He is retiring effective Oct. 1, according to the official Air Force web site. Hamel was responsible for managing the research, design, development, acquisition and sustainment of space and missile systems, launch, command and control, and operational satellite systems. The formal announcement of the punishments will be made at 3 p.m. today by Acting Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz.
[NOTE: Follow this minute-by-minute breaking scandal at DoD Buzz. We'll be taking calls from sources and asking the hard questions at the Pentagon briefing in an hour.]
[Editor's Note: Colin broke this story last week and has a follow up that we posted last evening on the continuing fallout from the Air Force (and DLA) nuke scandals.
A source tells me he's upset by the double standard of this punishment versus the one handed out from the Minot incident. He wonders whether there's more to the after action report on the mis-shipped fuses than meets the eye.
Obviously, our sources would not give us any names -- but we did confirm this is going to be announced today at 4pm. The AP came out with a story on this issue about the same time we posted...but Colin got it first with his own sourcing...Great work...]
In further fallout from the nuclear scandals that have plagued a beleaguered Air Force, the Pentagon is set to announce Thursday afternoon that at least seven general officers -- including at least one three-star general -- and five to seven colonels have been disciplined in connection with nuclear lapses, according to two sources familiar with the issue.
The generals are expected to be named; the colonels will remain anonymous.
A congressional aide confirmed the timing of the announcement but did not know how many officers were to be disciplined or what their punishments might be.
"They are holding this extraordinarily close," the aide said of Air Force and Pentagon officials.
Earlier sources - who sought anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter -- had indicated the number of general officers to be reprimanded stood at five, but that number has climbed since last week.
The Pentagon is expected to announce the names of the general officers and their punishments at 4 p.m. on Thursday, following a long meeting on Monday during which several of the punishments were reconsidered.
Sources declined to specify whether punishments were changed, nor would they name those to be disciplined. But there is clearly concern that the Air Force has rushed to judgment in an effort to put the nuclear mess behind it.
One source said he is not "convinced the Air Force did its own thorough investigation," adding the service accepted the Schlesinger and Donald reports about the nuclear lapses at face value "so they could make the 'sacrificial offering' and move on quickly."
A second source voiced similar concerns.
A report by Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, director of naval nuclear propulsion, into the nuclear enterprise detailed a loss of oversight from senior Air Force leaders and lowered performance related to the nuclear mission.
Quick and dirty, here are the basic defense spending decisions made by the House Appropriations Committee as Congress races to adjourn for the November elections. Highlights of the continuing resolution (since a stand-alone appropriations bill won’t be passed) include funding for one DDG-1000, $750 million for ISR needs, the JSF second engine program and advance funding for 20 more F-22s.
Shipbuilding: $14.1 billion (same as administration’s request). Congress wants to build eight ships — one more than the request. Here’s the list: one LPD-17 Amphibious Transport Dock; one DDG-1000 Guided Missile Destroyer; one Virginia Class Submarine; two Littoral Combat Ships; two T-AKE cargo ships; and one Intra-Theater Troop Transport Ship.
Planes: Joint Strike Fighter: $6.3 billion, same as the administration’s request but Congress slices the money differently, including $2.9 billion for 14 aircraft (two fewer than the request) and $430 million for the second engine program that was not included in the president’s request, for a total of $3.4 billion in RDTandE.
F-22: The House will almost certainly approve $2.9 billion for 20 F-22s, but another $523 million (not requested) is included for advance procurement of anotherl 20 F-22s.
Ground systems: Future Combat Systems: The House approved $3.6 billion, $26 million more than the budget request to speed up the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Unmanned Ground Vehicle programs.
The continuing resolution includes $150 million in advance procurement money for a fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite that the administration did not want.
Finally, the House appropriators included $750 million that the administration did not request for “urgent intelligence needs,” items identified by the Pentagon’s ISR Task Force.
If Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, could put his hands on one more dollar to spend he would buy a heavily armed version of the new Joint Cargo Aircraft. In fact, he wants them so badly that after spending that dollar, he’d “go down the table, stab the others in the back and take their dollars” for the program. Or at least that’s what he said during a roundtable of four-star generals at the annual Air Force Association conference.
The command, based at Hurlburt Field, Fla., needs a successor to the aging AC-130 gunship, and so it’s asking to redirect about $32 million from its current fiscal year budget to buy a prototype from JCA maker Alenia Aeronautica and its U.S. partner, L3 Communications.
The command hasn’t settled on what size cannon to go in the plane, but it wants something that can take out a truck or tank — probably something between a 25mm and 40 mm weapon, said Jason Decker, a spokesman for L3.
The AFSOC version would be called the AC-27J Stinger II, Decker said this week at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., where he stood before an oversized illustration of the proposed plane. Though it’s being called a gunship — gunship lite, in some quarters — Decker said that reference tends to draw the ire of Lockheed Martin, maker of the AC-130 family of gunships since the 1960s and the -130A and H model Spectre and the AC-130U Spooky.
But the AC-130s are showing their age and need replacing, AFSOC officials have said. Wurster, commander of AFSOC, said during a presentation at the conference that he wants 16 combat JCAs ready by 2015.
In March, in an interview with CBS Evening News, AC-130 pilot Lt. Col. Mark Clawson said the planes are seeing so much action in Iraq and Afghanistan that “it’s hard to keep them flying.”
Another pilot noted that for every hour of flying,the gunship requires 14 hours of maintenance. And cracks in the wings are prompting their replacement five years ahead of schedule, Capt. James May said, according to a transcript of the interview.
The original version of the Stinger was a C-119 manufactured by Fairchild and initially were deployed to Vietnam in 1969 and used by the 18th Special Operations Squadron, 14th Special Operations Group, at Phan Rang Air Base, but also were operated by detachments out of air bases at Da Nang and Phu Cat, according to the National Museum of the Air Force.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will announce a range of punishments for at least five general officers and possibly several colonels for lapses connected with the nation’s nuclear weapons.
Several senior Air Force generals declined to comment about the disciplinary actions this afternoon at the Air Force Association’s annual conference. But a congressional aide confirmed the Defense Department sent a letter to lawmakers yesterday confirming the impending disciplinary actions.
A report by Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, director of naval nuclear propulsion, into the nuclear enterprise detailed a loss of oversight from senior Air Force leaders and lowered performance related to the nuclear mission.
Gates had to intervene personally and ordered Donald’s review after sensitive nuclear parts were sent mistakenly to Taiwan and a B-52 bomber flew across the country carrying six armed nuclear cruise missiles.
Last week, a panel of august experts led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger said they had been surprised by the erosion of controls over nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War and recommended that Air Force Space Command be folded into a new Air Force Strategic Command and urged a range of other measures to ensure airmen dealing with nukes “feel they are part of an important mission.”
Read the rest of this exclusive story on DoD Buzz.
-- Colin
What Should the West Do About Georgia
Colin has a great commentary from ousted Air Force secretary Mike Wynne over at DoD Buzz on how the West should respond to Russia's invasion of Georgia.
Here's an excerpt:
The Russian incursion in Georgia raises fundamental questions about Western policy responses and the tools available to support Western policy. Russian actions can not be a surprise to the West; The Georgian People spoke out at least two weeks prior, and it takes time to move troops into and out of the tunnel separating Ossetia and Georgia. Also; where was the verification from the media? Where were the satellite images of the destruction of the town in Ossetia that has been heavily propagandized to support the two pronged invasion? All this makes one wonder about the reality of the event. The ability of the Georgians to see and broadcast the event was blinded by the Russian shootdown of the Georgian UAV weeks earlier.
In hindsight, the Russians sent many signals, yet those signals seemingly were ignored or set aside. What is real is the recognition of the two breakaway provinces,and de-facto occupation of the port city.
Russian actions challenge the West to revisit its ability to defend the states bordering Russia, including the new states of NATO, against Russian military petro-power. Beyond Georgia or Europe, there is the question of the credibility of Western responses to states like Russia that take into their own hands the fate designing borders.
After all, the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein led to a unified Western response to restore the territorial integrity of Kuwait. But to do this required a 6-month military buildup before a response could be generated.
Can we not do better now in providing appropriate military tools for Western decision-makers? We need tools or force packages which let states like Russia know that their actions will not go unobserved or unmitigated. We need flexible tools for ambiguous situations so that Western decision-makers can make NATO a serious enterprise.
How might have we responded and what can we do now? We could have flown Global Hawks or U2s on the Russian-Georgian border to signal our watchfulness to the Russians. We could have escorted these assets with the F-22s, which fly at high enough altitude to operate as a defense of unmanned assets, or can operate to defend key assets in Georgia. If the Russians determined to invade, we could have strengthened air defenses of key Georgian positions, provided fighter re-enforcements, and placed special forces or Marines on the ground in the national capital. We need to strengthen our capability to shape flexible force packages which can generate firebreak messages rapidly and effectively. And Europe, under the leadership of President Sarkozy, could shape their military capabilities to inject similar force structure capabilities to shape choices and limit Russian options.
With regard to the new states, I have written elsewhere about the need to shape cyberwarriors to defend against Russian attacks, and we need to enhance their ability to provide for air and tank defenses through providing aid to the new states in Europe. When considering Ukraine, we need to discuss with their leadership how they would like to enhance their defenses against external threats. In the 1980s, West Europeans discussed the need to enhance the tools for “defensive defense.” Such tools are stronger now, ranging from cyber to ground and air defenses. Europe, as well as American industry, has appropriate technologies at hand to assist endangered states to provide firebreak defenses against a Russia which thinks its petrol interests will block the will of the West to respond.
For decades its name could not be spoken outside of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility or mentioned to someone without at least TS/SCI clearance.
It built wondrous satellites that did things like detecting missile launches from space that no one had believed possible until the National Reconnaissance Office did them.
But a string of failures, goofs and budget busters, combined with the increasing importance of intelligence gathered by air breathing assets such as Predator and Global Hawk drones, has led a prestigious commission of space experts to recommend that the NRO be merged with Space and Missile Systems Command to create something called the National Security Space Organization.
The recommendation is made by something called the Allard Commission, which was created by Congress last year. It is led by the national security space guru Tom Young, a former Lockheed Martine executive and the man who always seems to get the call to figure out how to fix space when things go wrong. Young has kept his panel’s recommendations under wraps but word began leaking out last week.
The plan would also lead to stripping the Air Force of its executive agent for space – the person who serves the Office of Secretary of Defense as the lead on unclassified space acquisitions – and transferring it to the new authority. This office will also have budget authority for all space programs.
This would include a combination of the NRO and SMC and “other elements of Air Force Space Command” to create a single National Security Space Command.
A veteran space intelligence expert, Bob Butterworth, rejected the Allard Commission’s proposals, especially its efforts to integrate so-called black (NRO) and white (military) space. “The effort to integrate is just misconceived,” he said. “People who even started out doing black-white integration mostly gave up after going through the first space based radar experience.” Space Radar was an idea generated from the top of the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon. It was supposed to provide the US with both moving target indication – the ability to track trucks and tanks – and highly refined strategic radar imagery of use to the intelligence community. The idea has foundered on the rocks of wildly differing requirements and enormous cost.
Integration exponents also argue that the space industrial base is largely shared between the two communities. Thus, integrating programs could save money and lessen the strain on the limited pool of engineers and other specialists needed to build satellites and their sensors.
“That has not been documented. It is just hand waving as far as I can tell,” Butterworth said.
For those watch these things closely, the Allard Commission’s use of the NSSO name has caused considerable confusion in the rumor mill. Was the commission recommending dissolution of the NSSO, an office without budgetary authority that advises the Pentagon’s executive agent for space? No. It was suggesting creation of an entirely new organization.
Part of the NRO’s problem is that under current law no one really knows – including congressional aides who help write the laws deciding this – who is in charge of classified acquisition programs. “This raises the question, who is in charge, and that is unanswerable,” said a congressional aide. For background on some of this, see last week’s story on the BASIC program.
Does this mean the NRO will vanish? The name may change, the organization may be rebuilt but the functions won’t disappear. More on this tomorrow.
Between the tanker wars, the battles over intelligence and space systems and the recent firefight between the service and OSD it’s hard to remember that the Air Force actually fights real wars. But the new Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, knows and, in the first major brief laying out his priorities, Schwartz puts nukes top of the list, then he cites improving joint cooperation.
As part of this, he wants to “aggressively adapt AF ways and means across the spectrum” (read better balance between special operations and conventional forces). And he defines the spectrum as including command and control, ISR and “non-traditional roles.”
Next on the list comes that old time religion — taking care of airmen. But this includes two warfighting goals that are pretty revealing. Schwartz says airmen must be “trained & ready for 21st Century challenges” (can you say next war-itis) and he admits the service needs to “Reinforce our Warfighting Ethos, expeditionary combat mindset.”
Fourth comes reset, or “Modernize our aging air & space inventories.” And, for better or for worse, acquisition comes dead last.
While the increase in troop numbers known as the surge has gotten much credit for the decline in combat and civilian deaths in Iraq one key component of the effort has been underplayed — the changed role of intelligence teams operating in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.
In an exclusive interview with DoDBuzz, the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, said his people are working in teams with DIA, NRO, FBI and other intelligence agencies in theater and those teams are providing improved actionable intelligence to troops.
For example, every brigade combat team has NGA and other intelligence community personnel embedded to provide analysis and information on a 24-hour basis.
“It’s those intelligence community interagency teams that are working hand in glove with the forces that we have deployed forward that are making a difference,” Murrett told me. While he was very cautious in discussing examples of just how those teams have operated, he offered two details: they are embedded with troops, often on the front lines; and the intelligence community teams have been a major factor in helping find IED caches.
One key component of this intelligence comes from commercial imagery. Since it is not classified NGA can supply that data much more quickly to front-line troops than it can provide classified imagery, Murrett said. “However, I would want to emphasize that, particularly when our military forces are involved, we derive the very best data we can from whatever source we can get it from,” he added. Often that means overlaying data from classified sources on to the commercial imagery, which requires that the whole package be classified.
DoD Buzz Editor Colin Clark will be representing us at the Farnborough International Air Show this year and I wanted to get a couple folks together to give readers an idea of what's going to be happening over there...what's hot, what's not and what you might not know to look for in that Granddaddy of all airshows.
So I interviewed DT contributors Steve Trimble of Flight International, Bob Cox from the Fort Worth Star Telegram and Colin to pick their brains on what to look for as we cover next week's events.
This is a first for me in presenting this podcast, so forgive any technical difficulties or audio snafus. We'll get better at it as we keep posting them.
Yeah, I know...it's the day before the July 4th holiday. A three-day weekend is just one whistle blow away.
But when you're killing time waiting for the 5 o'clock release, be sure to join us for a Defense Tech first: a live online interview with DoD Buzz Editor Colin Clark.
Tune in for a Defense Tech First
Okay folks, I have an idea...
In a first for Defense Tech, I'd like to set up an online, virtual interview with the new editor of our recently-launched sister site: DoD Buzz.
For 30 minutes, beginning at 1500 EDT July 3 we'll have a moderated chat session with Colin. He'll be able to answer your questions in real time and give you some deeper insight into his recent scoops, including the botched tanker deal, the flap over Wynne/Moseley/Gates and Schwartz, satellite launches and intelligence community intrigue.
Now, I know all you DT readers will be on your best behavior, but in case you're not, I'll be able to nix any inappropriate questions or comments. Seriously, I thought this would be a cool opportunity for you all to meet Colin and ping him on what's "Buzz"ing around DC in the defense and acquisition biz...And if this works well, I'll set up some more like it with defense officials, industry types and analysts.
So be sure to tune in here at 1500 (that's 3:00pm for you civilian types) tomorrow to chat with Colin catch the DoD Buzz live!
-- Christian
Gates Opposed AF Plans to Deploy F-22 to Iraq
The Air Force wanted to send the F-22 to the Middle East and Defense Secretary Robert Gates nixed the plans, citing the strategic danger from the deployment if it were misread by Iran, among other factors. This comes from a single usually reliable source with knowledge of Air Force policy and operations.
Then-Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne sent a memo to Gates last December in which he made the recommendation, as well as laying out several major arguments for Air Force budget requests for the F-22 and bomber research and development, according to our source.
Central Command had approved the deployment request and we understand several Arab governments were also supportive of the Air Force effort. The main opposition to the request, we hear, came from Ryan Henry, principal deputy to the undersecretary of Defense for policy, who worried that Iran would interpret the deployment of the country’s most capable fighter as a regional escalation at a time when rumors were sweeping the region that the US was planning strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The argument for deployment of the sophisticated fighter was that the US needed to take the lead in the air war in the region. Right now, the United Arab Emirates deploys the most sophisticated fighter in the region, using the F-16 Block 60 50. Sending the F-22 would have allowed the US to field the world’s top fighter and provide ISR and targeting capabilities that no US or allied plane in the region currently posseses.
Don't expect too many bear hugs, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to attend Friday's retirement ceremony for the man he pushed out the door, Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne.
The Pentagon, at least so far, isn't trumpeting Wynne's departure. It is trumpeting the retirement of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden - also known as the director of the CIA - who retires at 10 a.m. at Washington's Bolling Air Force Base. The administration had come in for some criticism for nominating a military officer to head the CIA and appears to have been sensitive to this issue. Gates will spend much of the day doing retirements since Wynne's ceremony begins at 1 p.m.
Combine Gates' attending Wynne's ceremony with his recent trips to the Air Force commands and it becomes very, very clear that the secretary knows he has fences to mend and is trying hard to limit the damage done by his firing of Wynne and Air Force Gen. Mike Moseley. Over the next few months we will get to see whether the new secretary (acting or confirmed by the Senate) and the new chief of staff can, as a congressional aide put it after the GAO tanker protest decision came out, be the miracle workers they must be.
One of the most important program decisions of this administration was made on Tuesday last week. After years of dithering, the Pentagon’s Deputy’s Advisory Working Group (known affectionately as the DAWG) approved Tier 2 -- the next stage of the Transformational Satellite Communications system.
For a program that had just been whacked by $4 billion over the fiscal 2009 Program Objective memorandum’s five years this is a remarkable achievement and is testament to the enduring need for enormous amounts of protected communication bandwidth. Lockheed Martin and Boeing executives, who just four months ago feared the program was headed for the trash heap of history, were elated. Lockheed partners with Northrop Grumman and Juniper Networks on the program. Boeing partners with Cisco and Hughes.
T-Sat, aside from providing the vaunted comms on the move capability, will provide something even more important – enough bandwidth for the Army’s future Combat System and other key joint systems to function. There are two separate T-Sat programs -- the ground segment and the satellite segment. The DAWG meeting approved going ahead with the satellites and the plan is to build five of them and one spare.
The June 10 decision came as quite a surprise to several industry players. One told us Thursday that their company “could not believe” that the Pentagon leaders had approved the program unanimously.
The DAWG’s action spells an end to several years of questions about whether to go with what many people have called T-Sat light, which would have been basically a fifth version of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite. Congressional staff had been leaning increasingly to such a solution to cover what they feared might be an 18-month gap in protected comms coverage as the old MILSTAR satellites began to fail.
The gap is no longer a concern, according to a senior Pentagon source, adding that launch is now set for 2018. This source says that the DAWG locked in the T-Sat requirements. Doing that basically means that this program – barring major technical or schedule screwups – is likely set for a long life.
-- Colin Clark
Pitfalls of the Tanker Protest
We don’t have any inside track on the Government Accountability Office’s decision this week about the Boeing protest of the airborne tanker contract award to Northrop Grumman, but here are some of the possible pitfalls no matter which way the GAO rules. (If you know something about the protest and want to tell us before it's officially released, email me at colin.clark@military-inc.com. No one will know where it came from.)
If the protest is denied, Boeing’s supporters in Congress are clearly prepared to try and make life as miserable for the Pentagon as possible. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a senior member on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and one of Boeing’s biggest boosters on the Hill, made it clear after Thursday’s meeting of the House Aerospace Caucus that he was working hand in glove with Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), dean of the defense subcommittee, to come up with creative ways to stymie Northrop. Although single members such as these can cause heartache and heartburn, I think the relative quiet of most senators (aside from the two Washington state lawmakers) on the issue indicates that – barring some pretty spectacular goof by the Air Force contracting folks – Northrop will probably get the contract through the appropriations and authorization processes
In addition to the congressional angle, there are enormous allied industrial cooperation issues at stake. The award of the contract to Northrop was seen as a bold and welcome move by the Air Force to include allied companies on truly major contracts.
Taking it away now – either through congressional action or by reopening the bid as a result of the protest decision – would be read as a slap in the face of NATO allies and raise questions about the viability of the United States as a defense industrial partner. As one defense analyst, who has been in the thick of the contract award process, told me this afternoon, any American attending the Farnborough Air Show in mid-July will need an armed guard should the Northrop-EADS team be denied the contract.
-- Colin Clark
Missile Defense on the Skids
It’s been an entire fiscal year since the Groundbased Midcourse [missile] Defense system underwent a flight test, a congressional aide told me this morning. That failure of the Missile Defense Agency to perform tests for an entire fiscal year has got both Republican and Democratic staff and lawmakers pretty warm under the collar. The congressional aide told me this morning that “we are troubled” because this appears to “be a sign of problems with management” at MDA.
The proximate cause of this unhappiness is the latest cancellation of a GMD test known as FTG-04, scheduled for July. The congressional aide says that a third tier supplier supplied a telemetry unit with an “improperly soldered motherboard.” Since MDA would not have been able to gather any data about the scheduled test – even if everything else worked as planned – the agency decided to cancel the scheduled test.
The Center for Defense Information’s Victoria Samson, who watches MDA like a hawk, sent me an analysis this morning saying that this latest goof “is alarming” because it appears to raise questions about the GMD interceptor’s reliability – not true, according to the congressional aide – and because “it has become one of many missile defense tests that have been called off…” That is absolutely true, said the congressional aide, who ticked off a list of GMD tests since 2001 – six hits; one miss; one no-test, two tests without interceptors.
Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, head of the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Ala., said this morning that it is true that there has not been enough realistic testing of GMD in terms of countermeasures and interceptors, but he added that he feels they are now on the right track. The congressional aide did not disagree with Campbell’s statement, but said MDA has not done “enough testing of the basic system, let alone countermeasures and interceptors.”
Campbell also mentioned at the breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that there is increasing recognition that much more “ammunition” needs to be bought for the THAAD and Aegis systems. The congressional aide said this came out of the Future Capabilities Mix study recently completed by the Joint Staff. Look for an amendment to be introduced in the Senate to restore some of the $400 million cut from MDA when the defense authorization bill is considered by the whole Senate, probably next week. The amendment will argue this money should be used to buy more missiles for these two systems.
-- Colin Clark
AF Problems Deep-seated, Says Senior Senator
A senior Senate lawmaker, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), told me this morning that he believes the Air Force suffers from “systemic problems” and must examine how it buys weapons, how it manages its forces and perhaps rebuild its long-term strategy in the face of today’s changing international situation.
Sessions a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and ranking member of its strategic forces subcommittee, said he and his colleagues aren’t certain how to proceed yet to fix the service.
Sessions did praise Gates for his actions in sacking Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne and Chief of Staff Mike Moseley, noting he had helped reestablish personal responsibility among senior leaders.
A congressional source, asked about the likelihood that Congress might undertake a probing look at the Air Force to try and figure out what must be done to rebuild the service said any action was unlikely before the election. Senior lawmakers are already being drawn into daily management of the campaign message wars. And senators such as Sessions, while eager to do the right thing, will find it difficult to muster support from their colleagues for a bipartisan effort such as this would require.
Sessions’ comments came the day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ made extraordinary visits -- well intentioned and well executed –to Air Force commands to deliver the message that he believes the service matters and has his support and to give service officials the chance to ask him questions face-to-face. One of the most interesting exchanges shed some bright light on just how much far apart are the secretary and the Air Force.
Gates, flying to Colorado Springs, Colo., told reporters that he took the opportunity of a “question about the F-22s to address the speculation that, in truth, these changes were due to disagreements over the F-22. And I said that that was not true, that in fact that issue had been settled for some weeks. And that I had essentially made the decision that we would allocate enough money to keep the production line open so that the next administration could decide on the balance between buying more F-22s and buying more joint-strike fighters. And I thought that that was a significant procurement decision that ought not be made in the last six or seven months of an administration.”
You can imagine how much the Air Force officers believed that, no matter how true it is. The gap is so wide that even gates’ spokesman, Geoff Morrell, felt compelled to tell reporters that “despite rumors: the F-22 issue “had nothing to do with the secretary's decision for a change of leadership in the Air Force.”
Gates briefly mentioned the acquisition side of the Air Force’s problems, noting that he is “figuring out how to get the modernization program back on track.” He gave the example of the tanker decision. “I mean, we're 10 years past when we should have started replacing the tanker fleet.”
Gates said that no one asked him about his recommendation of Gen. Norton Schwartz, leader of Transportation Command, as Air Force Chief of Staff. A reporter asked about the choice. “He's very process-oriented. I mean, the changes that he's made in TRANSCOM have been pretty dramatic in terms of how you manage all these priorities and the logistics of supporting the war in two theaters with limited capability… But I also liked his experience and mobility and jointness. He has a lot of joint experience. His whole command has been about how do you support all of the services. So that was important. And frankly, also, the Special Operations experience.”
-- Colin Clark
Hot HIre for Top Defense Lobby
If you see the man in the picture grab him and talk to him -- in a nice way and about the military. Fred Downey, military legislative aide to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), will be joining the Aerospace Industries Association as vice president of national security at the end of this month.It is refreshing to see the biggest defense industry lobby has made a very smart hire.
I’ve known Downey for about 10 years (though we didn’t talk much while I was covering space for the last four years). You can expect a wily and febrile mind that is committed to joint operations, that understands the possibilities and limits of transformation (or whatever we’re calling it since Rumsfeld so tarred the term) and has had one of the highest profile bosses on defense issues on the Hill and knows where to step and where to tread lightly.
Before joining Lieberman, Downey had one job that marked him for life – assistant to the man many reporters call the Yoda of the Pentagon, Andrew Marshall, head of the Office of Net Assessment.
Downey’s hire also appears to mark a return to a more traditional approach by AIA to defense and intelligence issues. It also should mark a return to greater stability at the group, which has gone through four national security bosses in less than six years.
The organization tried combining its highest profile issues – international affairs and defense – under a single person, Mark Esper, who was named executive vice president of defense and international affairs in April 2006. Esper made the decision one year ago to join something many of us can barely remember -- the presidential campaign of former Sen. Fred Thompson.
-- Colin Clark
DoD and DNI Battle Over Billions
Very quietly and out of sight of almost everyone but the actual players, the Director of National Intelligence's office and the Pentagon's head of acquisition are battling for the soul of the next-generation of reconnaissance satellites. A decision on this is likely this week, we understand. A draft "Statement of Guidance" is circulating, but it is classified so we cannot tell you what is in it.
The outcome of this struggle may well reshape the relationships between the military and the intelligence community, since the power to determine requirements largely determines what will be bought and how much it will cost - not to mention which company will most benefit.
In addition to the high intensity-low visibility battle between the intelligence community and the military, the future of two companies may depend on the decision: DigitalGlobe and GeoEye.
GeoEye plans an August launch of its high resolution reconnaissance satellite, GeoEye 1, which will be able to provide commercial customers and the national security establishment with better than half-meter resolution in full color. DigitalGlobe plans a launch of its WorldView2 satellite in late 2009.
Both companies need customers for the imagery. If they don't lock in the federal government as a major customer they may find it difficult to convince investors that they should stick with them. And both are spending substantial amounts of money to build these new satellites. And they haven't launched or deployed yet.
Lockheed Martin wants to build what has been termed the "exquisite" solution to this requirement and is reportedly pushing this. However, we understand from a senior intelligence source that Lockheed is unlikely to get this business in the next two to three years.
Let's look at where the major government players in this drama stand. The DNI's director of acquisition, Al Munson, reportedly wants GeoEye to get a contract for providing imagery. But he is being challenged and countered by Don Kerr, principal deputy director of National Intelligence. Kerr, whose last job was running the National Reconnaissance Office, wants to buy -- not lease -- the satellites to do this kind of work...
The Pentagon's acquisition czar, John Young, is regarded pretty highly on Capitol Hill but he's got a tough sell when he tells lawmakers and reporters that the military is getting a handle on how well it buys the nation's weapons. See my story on military.com for the details.
After his testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, I asked Young if the acquisition system is broken, as might seem self-evident to those who look at the enormous increase of $295 billion in the acquisition costs of the 95 major defense acquisition programs over the last few years.
Young said he did not think the system was broken. He pointed to comments at the hearing by the Government Accountability Office's acquisition expert, Katherine Schinasi, who said the structure of the system was sound.
Then Young launched into a lament about the paucity of acquisition officials available to manage the growing number of large programs. He pointed to the enormously difficult process he faces in trying to hire mid-career people from industry to bolster the ranks of weapons buyers. Part of the difficulty the Pentagon faces, he made clear, is that there just aren't enough new ideas and improved processes moving back and forth between government and industry because of this lack of mid-career people.
To someone who has covered acquisition since 1996, much of what Young said had the ring of truth. At the same time he didn't answer the unasked question: if you don't have enough buyers, then why don't you ask Congress for permission and money to hire a whole bunch more.
Perhaps that will come next.
-- Colin Clark
Shakeup at OSD Acquisition Coming
Alert for those who sell and build the nation’s military and intelligence satellites. You know that space programs have been wallowing in hip-deep trouble for most of the last four years. Well, John Young, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (in the picture), is trying to do something lasting about it by signing a memo by the end of the week creating a new director-level position – one of only seven in the department reporting directly to him – for space and intelligence capabilities.
My source says the position is being created because there just isn’t enough focus on space and intelligence programs (a lot of the big intel programs are space programs) at the OSD level. It will oversee not only satellites but the enormous and often underfunded ground systems they depend on.
Some of the responsibilities being placed in this new slot are coming from John Grimes’ office. He is assistant secretary of Defense for networks and information integration and his main job is to serve as principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for non-intelligence space and information superiority. But the position also ensures that intelligence data is as fused as possible and can be distributed. And he oversees DISA, which provides commercial and military satellite communications services.
A congressional aide who follows space and intelligence issues said the new position is “a good first step to try and reintegrate black and white space and strengthen the idea of an executive for space.” For those who don’t follow space acquisition closely, the executive agent for space is Mike Wynne, who also serves as Air Force Secretary. The executive agent is supposed to make sure that unclassified and classified space programs are run well and meets the nation’s needs. He is supposed to be the one-stop shop for most space acquisition and budget issues and is supported by the National Security Space Office. But the black and white sides of space have drifted pretty far apart over the last four years, with the NRO withdrawing its personnel and budgetary support about two years ago from the space office.
But the congressional aide does not think the black and white sides of space are going to be well integrated “during Bush because of issues” in the office of the Director of national Intelligence. But the new position “should help keep the need for a strong executive agent for space front and center.”
-- Colin Clark
Gen. Speakes: FCS Will Work And Helps Troops Now
The Army, unhappy that the House Armed Services Committee plans to cut $200 million from its top modernization program, plans a June 11 assault on the House side of the Capitol using elements of its Future Combat System. Relax! It’s a joke.
But the Army really does want to show the Hill just how effective FCS can be and how much it is beginning to produce capabilities soldiers use in Iraq now or in the near future. And it does plan a June 11 demonstration on the Hill.
Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, spoke Thursday afternoon with reporters and one of his first points was that the Army does have a “vision” when it comes to FCS. I asked Gen. Speakes how the Army is answering the HASC, which made a fairly compelling argument. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the House Armed Service airland subcommittee, said he cut 5.5 percent of program funding “to reduce concurrency of network and manned ground vehicle development and reduce program management costs.” On top of that, the subcommittee shifted $33 million from “long-term portions of the program to near-term elements that have a chance of being fielded by 2011.” Abercrombie made it clear that technical reasons weren’t the only justification for the reduction. FCS, he said, “continues to operate in violation of many major Department of Defense acquisition policies, including the basic and long-standing policy requiring full and adequate testing of equipment before production begins.” If that sounds to you like the Democratic complaints about the Missile Defense Agency’s approach to acquisition, you win a Kewpie doll.
Gen. Speakes very respectfully offered this justification when I asked him how the Army is answering the House criticisms: “This is an integrated program. You can’t break it apart and still deliver the capabilities.” Also, Speakes said the service plans to show lawmakers just how much FCS is influencing the fight, citing the FRAG kit 5 armor used on Humvees, which he said is the “precursor” for FCS armor. The first version of the crucial FCS network, progress on which has been criticized by the Government Accountability Office in recent reports, is being tested at Fort Bliss. Most of all, Speakes said, “the pressure in on us to deliver and to make the capabilities we are talking about and make them real. We think we are answering that test.”
Speakes’ approach on all this may have been influenced by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ), ranking member of the airland subcommittee. In a recent blog about FCS, Saxton said the Army “needs to spend less time trying to save the FCS program; and more time explaining how soldiers want and need the capabilities that FCS brings to the fight.”
Speakes also addressed the challenge in Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s May 13 speech in Colorado, when he said the military must beware of planning to fight the next war and find itself unready for the current one.
He said that FCS, which he saw in action at Fort Bliss, “must continue to demonstrate its value for the types of irregular challenges we will face, as well as for full-spectrum warfare.” Speakes said FCS will be able to go anywhere and handle any fight. It is, for example, being modified to better cope with the threat from IEDs, he said.
We’ll see whether the House Democrats and Gates buy in. Reminder – the Senate Armed Services Committee fully funded the administration’s $3.6 billion request for FCS.
-- Colin Clark
The House Panel With No TIARA
One of the least understood “reforms” by the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership was its creation last year of a Select Intelligence Oversight Panel within the House Appropriations Committee.
In these days when the intelligence budget is one of the few still growing, this new panel is especially important. On top of that, it is considering one of the few big new classified satellite programs, known as BASIC, being considered by the Pentagon and the Director of National Intelligence.
So I wanted to make sure we all knew just what this panel actually does. We asked someone who works with the panel. First – and most important to those who know about the tremendous battles over money and power between the military and IC -- the panel oversees all intelligence activities and it does not matter whether the funding comes from the Military Intelligence Program budget or the National Intelligence Program budget. This makes the House panel, led by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) (that's him in the photo), the only single body in the House and Senate responsible for overseeing all intelligence funding. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee only oversees the National Intelligence Program, which mostly covers so-called strategic systems, such as the NRO’s radar satellites.
The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee oversees both defense and intelligence spending. Traditionally, defense spending has trumped intelligence spending when it comes to the number of subcommittee staff involved and in terms of who gets what. In other words, if the Pentagon wants funding for an intelligence function and it’s a question of whether the military gets it or the CIA or DNI want it, the military is likely to get what it wants.
On top of being the only panel exclusively responsible for overseeing all intelligence spending, the panel makes annual recommendations to the House Appropriations defense subcommittee about classified defense appropriations. On top of that, the panel works with the senior leaders of the overall appropriations committee on all intelligence matters. So members and their staff can try to modify legislation at any point in the House’s lawmaking process, through to and including floor action.
Footnote – for those who grew up with the old triptych of national intelligence, the Joint Military Intelligence Program and the Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities (known as TIARA), things have changed. Now there’s just national or military intelligence money. And that is being set in legislative stone in the pending intelligence authorization and spending bills.
-- Colin Clark
Stryker update, straight from Iraq
At the end of January, Christian posted some trenchant criticisms from troops in Iraq about the Stryker system, focusing on the 105 mm Mobile Gun System built by General Dynamics Corp. He cited a litany of problems, with probably the biggest being the tropical heat generated by the system.
I got an update from Col. Jon S. Lehr, commander of 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry. Lehr told reporters today that he has signed a two-page memo to the Army leadership saying the Stryker has some “warts but it is clearly a piece of equipment we need to keep.” He admitted the heat problem, noting that the temperature climbs to 130 degrees in the crew compartment. In addition, the coaxial machine gun has some “feeding problems.” But overall, the troops told him the system works, and, with improvements, should do a decent job.
Another system that Lehr’s units used was the ever-evolving Land Warrior. This one earned much higher marks from Lehr: “I think it’s a great piece of gear.” And he’s sent another memo to the Army leadership recommending that it be deployed throughout the Army. There are a “few warts, in particular the day optic system, which Lehr said actually made things worse for soldiers. They “got rid of that” and lightened the system’s weight – always a key factor in winning praise from always over-burdened troopers.
Perhaps most importantly for the system in the long run, Lehr said Land Warrior “integrates nicely to the mobile” data systems carried by things like tanks and Strykers.
As to how Kehr’s unit has fared during its deployment in Diyala Province, get a load of these stats:
220 high value targets captured
1,700 insurgents captured
500 insurgents killed
25,000 miles of roads cleared
2,100 IEDs cleared
Lehr's bottom line: “Overall, Diyala has seen a 70 percent reduction in violence over the last year.”
-- Colin Clark
House Jams Alt Engine Down Pentagon's Throat
The House Armed Services Committee has forcefully reminded the Pentagon that it has been ordered several times by law to build and fund a competing engine for the Joint Strike Fighter. To make sure the Pentagon gets the message, the House has added language authorizing an additional $526 million for 2009 to the program to pay for the second engine.
Taking aim at the heart of the Pentagon’s resistance, the House committee report accompanying the defense authorization bill, mentions the August 2007 and February 2008 test failures of Pratt and Whitney’s F-135, the main engine.
"These test failure events… cause the committee to remain steadfast in its belief that the non-financial factors of a two-engine competitive program such as better engine performance, improved contractor responsiveness, a more robust industrial base, increased engine reliability and improved operational readiness strongly favor continuing the competitive propulsion system program," the committee report says.
It adds a nice bit of tough love, saying that "the committee strongly urges the Department of Defense to comply with the spirit and intent of section 213 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181) by including the funds necessary for continued development and procurement of a competitive JSF propulsion system in its fiscal year 2010 budget request." For those who may not remember, the administration did not request any money for a second engine program in its 2009 request.
In addition to its forceful language, the House upped the ante over the Senate’s version of the bill. The Senate only boosted the spending by $35.0 million for long lead items for the F-136, being built by a team of General Electric and Rolls Royce. Let’s see what position the appropriators take on this one.
Top Congressional Money Man Dismisses Gates Heritage Speech
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Congress and the Pentagon to keep their eyes on the ball, namely the war we are fighting now, instead of the war we might face later, maybe.
It sounded rational and, perhaps, even seemed a sound reminder that the nation can't spend everything it might want to spend on the military.
Gates' message was heard loud and clear on the Hill. Today, the top defense appropriator -- read money man -- in the House of Representatives boldly stepped in front of the nation (also known as the floor of the House) and said Gates' speech was "simply a rationalization of short-term budget decisions made in the waning months of this Administration. Now when Rep. John Murtha, (D-Penn.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, says something like this, you can bet he has a larger point to deliver. And he did. Murtha said the administration is effectively waging a war without a strategy to guide it.
"We need a National Security Strategy to identify both the near-term and long-term threats to this country. We need a vigorous debate to achieve this strategy -- this hasn't happened since the Cold War," Murtha said. Then he sent a zinger that must have sent some shock waves through intelligence community budgeters: "This country spends more money on intelligence than all the nations of the world combined, and as I've observed our intelligence is about as accurate as Punxsutawney Phil -- 50 percent. 50 percent is unacceptable." Perhaps Murtha has his eyes set on at least one major cut to an IC program.
But in the longer term, Murtha said, "It is time to look beyond Iraq and focus on future threats." To that end, he claimed the emergency supplemental spending bill being introduced on the House floor "provides our military with equipment that will prepare them to face future threats under any scenario; not only to fight a war, but to prevent a war." Then he listed some of the bigger ticket items in the supplemental, including:
$3.6 billion to procure 15 C-17 aircraft
$2.5 billion to procure 34 C-130 aircraft
$750 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment
$1.5 billion for Humvees
$3 billion for Medium and Heavy Tactical Trucks
$500 million for Army and Marine Corps Facility Maintenance and Repairs (including the barracks that need repairs)
$300 million for facility maintenance and repairs at military medical facilities
$570 million for treatment and research activities within the Defense Health Program.
Nothing is official yet but Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), may throw his hat in the ring to become ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, responsible for overseeing space, missile defense and nuclear weapons programs.
Two senior Pentagon officials have asked Franks to make the try.
After all, the Arizona conservative may be the GOP’s most outspoken missile defense advocate remaining in the House after the election. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), former presidential candidate and the departing ranking member of the whole committee, Jim Saxton (R-NJ), current ranking member of the powerful airland subcommittee, and Terry Everett (R-Ala.), current ranking member of the strategic forces subcommittee, all plan to leave the House at the end of the year.
The ranks of missile defense advocates will be further reduced by the departure of Democrat Bud Cramer of Alabama, who is one of the few Democrats on the committee who has consistently fought for missile defense funding.
Franks told me yesterday morning at a breakfast sponsored by the National Defense University that he hasn’t made up his mind about running for the subcommittee spot. He conceded that he might be interested.
Even the once-vaunted National Reconnaissance Office, builder of America’s spy satellites, is having serious trouble managing the enormously complex and expensive satellite programs under its wing.
I’ve confirmed that, for the second time since early March, the NRO has been stripped of Milestone Decision Authority on a program -- the power to decide whether a program can progress from one stage of a program to the next stage. The program is so highly classified that we can’t discuss its name or what it does. The confirmation came from a former senior intelligence official.
In early March I broke the story that the NRO had had decision authority withheld by senior intelligence and defense officials about a new program called BASIC, or Broad Area Satellite Imagery Collection. Questions were raised in the Pentagon, by industry and Congress about whether BASIC would violate the Bush Administration’s national space policy directing the military and intelligence community to rely on commercial satellites for general mapping purposes. There were also serious concerns raised about whether the NRO could, on a broader basis, successfully execute the program.
At the time, DNI and NRO officials were careful to note that milestone decision authorities are reviewed every year for all intelligence agencies. But sources in the intelligence community made it clear to me then that the NRO has stumbled badly in recent years and needed the sort of close program supervision that the NSA and Air Force have been subject to for the last few years.
The Pentagon stripped the Air Force of decision authority for space and several other programs in March 2005 by Michael Wynne, who was then the Pentagon's acting acquisition czar. That authority was restored for several non-space programs in January 2006 but the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technloogy and logistics, John Young, still retains that authority for unclassfied space programs.
-- Colin Clark
Roles and Missions Review Underway
It was 1994 when the Pentagon last engaged in a seminal examination of what it does, how it does it and why. In Pentagon-speak these issues are known in a neat shorthand as "roles and missions."
At a Pentagon briefing today, two senior defense officials discussed how they will approach the new roles and missions work, outlining the seven main areas of focus. The one issue Congress told the Pentagon to study is whether there are unnecessary duplications of capabilities among and between the four services and other arms of the Pentagon. In addition, the officials told reporters that unmanned aircraft systems, intra-theater lift, cyber war, irregular warfare, Pentagon governance issues, and DoD’s roles and missions in the interagency world.
Note that a senior defense official said that the analysis will be done within existing budget constraints. A senior military officer said that the combatant commanders will have a great deal of input during this effort because the department is looking at how the services and other agencies can “work better together” rather than as a food fight between services for resources and responsibilities. For example, Strategic Command will be a key player in the analysis done about cyber warfare and Special Operations Command will play a major role in the look at irregular warfare.
One of the sleeper areas may turn out to be the look at interagency roles. The senior defense official said the military has learned a great deal about how effectively it works with the other parts of the government since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, noting that the current structure was developed during the Cold War and may need changing.
Congress ordered the Pentagon to do this roles and missions analysis in its 2008 Defense Authorization Act. In addition to the long-standing Quadrennial Defense Review, Congress said that the military should analyze its roles and missions in time for the 2010 budget submission. That would bring it in about a year before the next QDR. Henceforth, the military will perform a roles and missions analysis before each QDR.
The last stab at this sort of thing was the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces. The commission took a year to deliver its final report, “Directions for Defense,” to the nation, issuing it in May 1995.
-- Colin Clark
It Takes More than Photos to get a 'Smoking Gun'
If you're old enough, the pictures of Soviet ICBM missiles presented to the United Nations during the Cuban missile crisis left an indelible mark in your cortex.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, placed a series of photos on an easel to answer Soviet charges that the US had no proof that the Soviets had placed missiles in the island state and that the Soviets were just helping Cuba develop.
Stevenson told the Soviets that, "we do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and it is incontrovertible." And it was. The first pictures were of an area north of the village of Candelaria, southwest of Havana. The first photograph was taken in late August 1962 and it simply showed undeveloped countryside. The next picture showed a few tents and vehicles and several new roads. The next picture, taken 24 hours later, revealed tents for up to 500 men and seven ICBM missile trailers. But the jackpot wasn't hit until mid-October when a U-2 aircraft photographed the area of San Cristobal.
"In only six minutes, US Air Force Maj. Richard Heyser snapped 928 photographs that yielded the first confirmation of offensive missiles in Cuba," according to "Soviet Deception in the Cuban Missile Crisis," an April 2007 article by James Hansen, who served in both CIA and DIA.
The Soviets had lied about the presence of missiles just 90 miles from the US mainland and they had been caught at it. This was probably the first time that Americans were exposed publicly to the art and science of what intelligence types call change detection. But it turns out that what has become one of the touchstones of the fabulous capabilities of spies in the skies -- also known as high-flying planes such as the U-2 and satellites -- was not quite as seminal as it seemed at the time.
Many argued that the pictures were proof of the superiority of what became known during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) as "national technical means."
But, at an April 28 conference held at Georgetown University to celebrate the donation to the university of a lot of personal papers and recently declassified files from former CIA Director Richard Helms, that conventional wisdom was dealt a death blow.
Bud Wheelon, the CIA's first deputy director for science and technology, said that the agency knew about the missiles from other, more prosaic sources beforehand. In fact, human sources in Cuba had obtained detailed information about the Cuban bombers and missiles, Wheelon told me this week.
The first solid information was obtained Sept. 17, he said, from agents on the ground. Using that and other information, the US flew the U-2 and other planes over Cuba to get confirmation and to provide the world with undeniable proof that did not compromise intelligence sources and methods. After all, the Cubans and Soviets knew about the U-2s and other planes because they shot at them. We understand that at least one senior intelligence official -- long since retired -- was secretly awarded one of the CIA's highest honors for the spying done on the ground in Cuba. Senior intelligence officials, including Wheelon and CIA Director John McCone, knew about the intelligence from the agent and believed it. But the intelligence community did not.
A National Intelligence Estimate dated Sept. 19, 1962 concluded the Soviets were unlikely to try and install missiles in Cuba.
"The USSR could derive considerable military advantage from the establishment of Soviet medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, or from the establishment of a Soviet submarine base there. As between these two, the establishment of a submarine base would be the more likely. Either development, however, would be incompatible with Soviet practice to date and with Soviet policy as we presently estimate it," the estimate concluded.
Not the first time they goofed. And it won't be the last. But that is the nature of intelligence. It is the analysis of uncertain information and yields insights that are often wrong. But remember that the U-2 was built. Remember that agent working in Cuba.
And remember those 928 photographs. The process wasn't perfect. But war was averted.
-- Colin Clark
Prompt Global Strike Not Quite There Yet
Another promising weapon. Another worrying gaggle of mixed directions, uncertain focus and a lack of strategy.
That's the story of Prompt Global Strike, touted as the answer to one of the country's most vexing problems -- how to take out high-value targets far behind the lines and way beyond line of sight with accuracy and great speed. The Government Accountability Office looked at the Pentagon's stop-and-go efforts on this critical capability in a report released yesterday. The report was requested by three stalwart supporters of PGS, Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) , chairwoman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Terry Everett (R-Ala.), ranking member of the subcommittee, and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), formerly a senior member of the subcommittee and now chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The GAO told them there is no official DoD definition of global strike. The different combatant commanders support different approaches. Global strike does not figure in "any existing or proposed joint doctrine publications." Regional commanders and service officials believe that the Strategic Command -- lead proponent for the capabality -- needs to work with them more "to mitigate any misconceptions commands may have about global strike, particularly in light of frequent staff turnover." Those who would use the capability "have not widely participated in joint exercises and other training, which can increase their understanding of global strike." Correcting these would help the Pentagon better plan and develop a system and how to use it, the report says.
Plus the Pentagon needs to conduct a comprehensive assessment of possible systems because it "has not yet begun to develop a prioritized investment strategy," so it doesn't know what choices to make. From past conversations with staff and with intelligence officials it's clear that one of the biggest hurdles for Prompt Global Strike isn't the weapon itself -- though that ain't simple -- it's having the intelligence and a way to link the intelligence with the weapon system. After all, this approach is meant to come up with something that can kill someone or take out a WMD facility pretty much anywhere in the world within half an hour. Perhaps DoD could use that definition and get started?
UPDATE: One congressional aide told me: "Global strike, particularly long-range conventional prompt global strike, hasn’t come very far since its inception in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review. One of the reasons is that the Administration’s preferred approach –- Conventional Trident Modification -- was a non-starter with a majority of congress. It took DoD a number of years before this fact set in. There now appears to be consensus in Congress for this type of capability; it will be up to the next administration to put forth a technically and operationally viable concept that is also politically acceptable."
-- Colin Clark
First Chop on DoD Authorization Markup
The Senate's draft version of the 2009 defense authorization bill creates new steering boards to review requirements for major weapons systems, targeting one of the main causes of cost growth in weapons systems.
We're still trying to get some details on exactly what the Senate Armed Services Committee means by this, but it sounds as if Congress has finally - after years and years of grumbling from experts and from congressional staff about this - gotten the message that requirements really do matter a great deal and that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council and its attendant parts really don't work very well.
There are two big increases approved for weapons systems: $430 million in research and development and $35 million in advance procurement for the Joint Strike Fighter program to support the GE/Rolls Royce F136 engine program.; and $350 million for the Transformational Satellite Communications systems known as T-Sat.
Neither add is a shocker. After all, Congress told the Air Force in 1996 to create an alternative engine program for the JSF. Of course, DoD has tried to whack the funding for three years in a row, eager to move the money to other programs, and the Hill has not so gently reminded the military of the benefits of engine competitions.
We understand that, while the Senate authorizers approved this money, their colleagues who appropriate the funds have not yet looked at the T-Sat issue in detail, busy as they are with the looming supplemental spending bill.
The T-Sat increase isn't a great surprise since the key congressional staff dealing with space issues were extremely unhappy with the Air Force for cutting the size of the program's request last year and then virtually gutting the effort in this year's budget request - slicing $4 billion from it over the six years of the 2009 budget request. Those cuts came just when congressional watching this had decided the high-speed communications system was on the right track after years of pushing for more funding than its immature technologies could really sustain.
Lockheed Martin and Boeing are competing for the prime contract on this system.
Two snarky observations on the Senate markup. First, the Senate rarely moves first on a bill but the House Armed Services Committee won't get to its markup til next Wednesday. Second, we applaud the generous but futile effort of Sen. Claire McCaskill to open the Senate committee's work to public purview.
"It is my firm and simple belief that we make better laws when we do our work fully open and transparent to the public. The public deserves to know what our views and our actions are and to be able to freely scrutinize, support or oppose them," McCaskill said Tuesday.
When you talk to Senate aides they usually tell you that their bosses don't want to have to deal with a lot of lobbyists hassling them about details in the draft bill if it were open to the public. Of course, many of those lobbyists have already had their chop, since they get better access than most members of the public. (Sure, we're jealous…) The official reason offered by the committee is that closed session allows them to discuss classified issues at any time.
"It doesn't make sense to close the hearing when we are working on a section of the defense bill that doesn't contain any classified information," McCaskill said. "There's no reason why the committee can't just close the parts of the meetings that do contain sensitive information and open the rest."
More on the Senate markup as we get details from staff through the week.
