CNO Testimony

But for those who were already rowing ashore and surrendering their sword to China with things like DF-21 in play, the CNO underscored the reality of how hard it would be for the Chinese actually to do what many American analysts believe can be done easily, namely to strike moving ships at sea at will without suffering severe damage in return.

What seems to be often forgotten is the law of the reactive enemy.  Every system in play will be countered by the reactive enemy, and in this case the US is the reactive enemy to the Chinese systems.SS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) for a visit with senior Navy leadership including 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott H. Swift. Greenert visited Blue Ridge as part of a larger tour to the Indo-Asia-Pacific talking with leadership and Sailors in the region. 5/10/13

Adm. Jonathon Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, arrives on board the U.S. 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) for a visit with senior Navy leadership including 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott H. Swift. Greenert visited Blue Ridge as part of a larger tour to the Indo-Asia-Pacific talking with leadership and Sailors in the region. 5/10/13

The CNO highlighted the importance of the kill chain and the USN’s core effort on the development of advanced capabilities to operate a more effective kill chain.

To develop future capability, Warfighting First compels us to look for the most effective way to defeat a threat or deliver an effect that can be realistically fielded, efficiently. The logic we use to identify our most effective capabilities is to analyze the adversary’s “kill chain” or “effects chain” and pursue an asymmetric means to “break the chain.”

For example, to execute a successful attack, an adversary has to:

• Find the target
• Determine the target’s location, course and speed (or relative motion)
• Communicate that information coherently to a platform or unit that can launch an  attack
• Execute an attack using anything from a kinetic weapon to electromagnetic systems to cyber.

Each (or any) of these “links” in the chain can be broken to defeat the threat. But some are more vulnerable than others and kinetic effects are not always the best way to break the chain.

So instead of overinvesting and trying to break every part of the effects chain, we focus on those where the adversary has a vulnerability we can exploit or where we can leverage one of our own advantages asymmetrically.

The DF-21 certainly comes to mind as a nice target in such an approach to disrupting and defeating adversarial systems.

But in a recent report by the Center New American Security claims that ships like carriers are now so vulnerable the United States should abandon them.

http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS%20Carrier_Hendrix_FINAL.pdf

This report is billed as a report on defense transformation, but the author seems to have forgotten that defense transformation is an interactive process, and in this case, shaping distributed operations is the overall strategic thrust of the United States in meeting the PRC challenge in the Pacific.

In this report we learn that unlike the CNO, this analyst does not believe that the US can defeat the Chinese kill chain.

Using a maneuverable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) placed on a CSS-5 missile, China’s Second Artillery Division states that its doctrine will be to saturate a target with multiple warheads and multiple axis attacks, overwhelming the target’s ability to defend itself.20 The MaRV warhead itself would use a high explosive, or a radio frequency or cluster warhead that at a minimum could achieve a mission kill against the target ship.

While the United States does not know 
the cost of this weapons system, some analysts have estimated its procurement costs at $5 mil- lion to $11 million.  Assuming the conservative, high-end estimate of $11 million per missile gives an exchange ratio of $11 million to $13.5 billion, which means that China could build 1,227 DF-21Ds for every carrier the United States builds going forward. U.S. defenses would have to destroy every missile fired, a tough problem given the magazines of U.S. cruisers and destroyers, while China would need only one of its weapons to survive to effect a mission kill.

Although U.S. Navy and Air Force leaders have coordinated their efforts to develop the means to operate in an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment by disrupting opposing operations,23 the risk of a carrier suffering a mission kill that takes it off the battle line without actually sinking it remains high.

Amazingly after making this argument we learn that the answer to such challenges is to buy more Unmanned Vehicles!

All these factors indicate that a turn toward UCAVs is long overdue. The advent of A2/AD technologies is pushing U.S. carrier strike groups farther from their targets, and the combat radius 
of the F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is simply not going to solve that problem. One solution would be to cancel the always-troubled JSF now while simultaneously extending production of the lower-cost Hornets. That would allow the Navy to invest the nearly $70 million cost differential between the JSF and the F/A-18 in accelerating the development and production of a UCAV that could operate both from large carriers and from smaller, less expensive, light amphibious carriers. New Hornets operating from the legacy large carriers would allow the United States to meet its obligations in the near term while investment in UCAVs would begin the Navy’s pivot toward the new strategic environment.

The author here seems to have forgotten that the UCAVs is one of the most vulnerable of all air systems.

It is a data link in space, which is a nice target on many grounds, but certainly in terms of jamming.

And if the DF-21s are as formidable as he believes then why are so-called smaller ships, with significantly less capability to defend themselves, would be more survivable?

And as for the F-35 claim that the combat radius is a problem compared amazingly to UCAVs and F-18s, the point really is the reach of the F-35 fleet.

The fleet will exchange information among its key elements and the reach will significant for an F-35 fleet, which unlike the F-18 or UCAVs, are US and not allied flown.  The global fleet of F-35s in the Pacific is one of the building blocks for expanding the capability for the distributed fleet to disrupt the Chinese forces.

And as for the carrier, the new USS Ford will shape a new approach as well.  We recently interviewed Admiral Moran, the head of air warfare in the USN, and he underscored the key correlation of the Ford with the new F-35Cs in shaping distributed capabilities of the Navy fleet.

The USS Ford will be able to operate with flexibility from being the centerpiece of a classic strike fleet, or work as a the flagship for an scalable evolving distributed expeditionary strike group. In effect, the new USS Ford is conceived as not the centerpiece of a classic carrier battle group, but as a central piece of a spider’s web. This means that a potential threat like the Chinese DF-21 has to go up against the web, not just a single asset.

Recently, Secretary Hagel reminded PRC leaders that the Japanese islands claimed by Japan are covered by the US-Japanese security treaty.

The islands at the center of a territorial row between Japan and China are covered by a military protection accord between Washington and Tokyo, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday.

“The United States does not take a position on the ultimate sovereignty of the islands, but we do recognize they are under the administration of Japan and fall under our security treaty obligations,” Hagel said at a news conference with his Japanese counterpart Itsunori Onodera.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/disputed-islands-covered-by-u-s-japan-accord-hagel

But wait a minute Mr. Secretary!

You might need to move your forces off of Okinawa, for PRC “scholars” are claiming that you are on PRC territory!

In a move clearly designed for transparency, these words come from the PRC:

China’s top newspaper on Wednesday published a call for a review of Japan’s sovereignty over the island of Okinawa — home to major US bases — with the Asian powers already embroiled in a territorial row.

The lengthy article in the People’s Daily, China’s most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that the country may have rights to the Ryukyu chain, which includes Okinawa.

The island is home to major US air force and marine bases as well as 1.3 million people, who are considered more closely related to Japan in ethnic and linguistic terms than to China.

The authors of the article, two scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, considered China’s top state-run think-tank, said the Ryukyus were a “vassal state” of China before Japan annexed the islands in the late 1800s.

“Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration,” wrote Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, citing post-World War II declarations that required Japan to return Chinese territory.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/17067780/china-should-reconsider-who-owns-okinawa-state-media/

Soon we will learn that earlier Chinese “outreach” under Admiral Zheng He means that everywhere he went should be claimed by the PRC!

To get our readers ready for forthcoming claims, here are some insights from the amazing voyages of Zheng:

Zheng He (1371–1433), formerly romanized as Cheng Ho, was a Hui-Chinese court eunuch, mariner, explorer, diplomat and fleet admiral, who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Somalia and the Swahili coast, collectively referred to as the “Voyages of Zheng He” from 1405 to 1433.

As a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whose usurpation he assisted, he rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing. These voyages were long neglected in official Chinese histories but have become well known in China and abroad since the publication of Liang Qihao’s “Biography of Our Homeland’s Great Navigator, Zheng He”in 1904^.

A trilingual stele left by the navigator was discovered on Sri Lanka shortly thereafter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

One good bit of news: the Chinese can not claim there are descendents of the explorer left in these far away lands!

Even worse, the existing 5^th generation aircraft is not well know either, because of limited numbers and its condemnation by Secretary Gates and then President Obama as a “Cold War” weapon.  One could note, that when the latest Korean crisis showed up, those “Cold War” mainstays, the F-22 and the B-2 (which has been flying now for more than 20 years) were called upon very quickly.  And the USAF began to do sortie surge exercises from Hawaii and Arctic exercises in Alaska to bring up the quantities of F-22s available for immediate Pacific operations.

I have had the opportunity over the years to interview many F-22 and F-35 pilots, maintainers and builders of the aircraft as well as the subsystem suppliers of the F-35 as well.[1] Much of the capability of the aircraft, including its multiple integrated combat systems are evolutionary steps forward, and low risk systems, such as the AESA radar built by Northrop Grumman for the F-35.

What is radically new is the fusion of data in the cockpit and the shaping of a new decision making capability within the aircraft and the fleet.[2] The aircraft permits situational decision-making, not just situational awareness.  It is a C5ISR aircraft, and for the USMC allows them to replace three aircraft, including an Electronic Warfare Aircraft with the F-35B.  This is also why Singapore has referred to the F-35B as a “cost effective” aircraft.

But the real impact of the F-35 comes from its operation as a fleet, not consideration of an individual aircraft as if it were a silver bullet.  The F-22 was built as an aircraft, which flies in 2, and 4 ship formations, but unlike the F-15, the “wingman” is miles away and not anywhere to be found in visual range.  As one pilot put it to me: “When we take off together that is the last time we see each other until we land.”

The F-35 also has the capability to operate miles away from one another, but with a major difference.  The individual airplanes are interconnected, operate in 360-degree operational space, and the machines pass the data throughout the network.  Each individual plane can see around itself for significant distances in 360 degree space, which has already underscored the need for a new generation of weapons, for systems such as AMRAAMs operate in half or less of the space which each F-35 can see beyond itself.[3]

It is the interconnected C5ISR delivered by the fleet, coupled with the ability to work with the off-boarding of weapons which shapes a new way forward.  Target acquisition does not have to be limited to weapons carried on board. This means that classic distinctions between tactical fighters doing close air support or air superiority missions or air defense missions become blurred. The fleet as a whole identifies targets for the various mission sets and can guide weapons from any of its elements to a diversity of targets. The reach of the fleet is the key to the operation of the fleet, not the range of individual aircraft.

As General Hostage, the Air Combat Commander, commented in an interview which Lt. General (Retired) Deptula and I did with him in his office in Langley last December:

The ability of the planes to work with each other over a secure distributed battlespace is the essential foundation from which the air combat cloud can be built.

And the advantage of the F-35 is the nature of the global fleet. Allied and American F-35s, whether USAF, USN, or USMC, can talk with one another and set up the distributed operational system. Such a development can allow for significant innovation in shaping the air combat cloud for distributed operations in support of the Joint Force Commander.[4]

With many Pacific allies already committed to the F-35 and with the USAF and USMC planning to deploy their new aircraft to the Pacific in the next couple of years, a fleet of F-35s will clearly emerge in the Pacific and shape combat capabilities the next decade out.

The vastness of the Pacific and the diversity of challenges makes the reach of the F-35 fleet a key element for a 21st century Pacific strategy. Credit Graphic: Second Line of Defense

The movement of data among the elements of the fleet will allow for the beginning to build the 21^st century equivalent to what the US Navy called in World War II, the “big blue blanket” over the Pacific.  Clearly, the US will not have the assets to do this by itself, but with the emergence of interconnected fleets this aspiration can come closer to reality.

And with it will be the ability to build the kind of attack-defense enterprise essential to deal with the evolving threats in the Pacific, and the efforts of China to undercut the significant lynchpin role, which the United States plays in the Pacific.

An inherent characteristic of many new systems is that they are really about presence and putting a grid over an operational area, and therefore they can be used to support strike or defense within an integrated approach. In the 20th Century, surge was built upon the notion of signaling. One would put in a particular combat capability – a Carrier Battle Group, Amphibious Ready Group, or Air Expeditionary Wing – to put down your marker and to warn a potential adversary that you were there and ready to be taken seriously. If one needed to, additional forces would be sent in to escalate and build up force.

With the new multi-mission systems – 5th generation aircraft and Aegis for example – the key is presence and integration able to support strike or defense in a single operational presence capability. Now the adversary can not be certain that you are simply putting down a marker. This is what former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne calls the attack and defense enterprise. The strategic thrust of integrating modern systems is to create an a grid that can operate in an area as a seamless whole, able to strike or defend simultaneously. This is enabled by the evolution of C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), and it is why Wynne has underscored for more than a decade that fifth generation aircraft are not merely replacements for existing tactical systems but a whole new approach to integrating defense and offense.

When one can add the strike and defensive systems of other players, notably missiles and sensors aboard surface ships like Aegis, then one can create the reality of what Ed Timperlake, a former fighter pilot, has described as the F-35 being able to consider Aegis as his wingman.

In fact, the ability for forward deployed F-35s to identify targets for surface ships can lead to a renaissance of the strike role of surface ships as well.  Or it can lead to what I referred to early last year to enhancing “the long reach of Aegis.” The F-35 is a global program tapping into the capabilities industrially and technologically of global allies of the United States in a unique way.  Earlier, the Aegis program built a foundation for such an approach, with nearly 25% of the deployed Aegis fleet now being non-American.  This led me to coin the term many years ago of the “Aegis global enterprise.”  Combing these two efforts into an integrated attack and defense capability will be game changing.

As I argued in this USNI piece:

These F-35-Aegis offense and defense bubbles can be networked throughout the Pacific to enhance the capacity of individual nations. They represent a prime example of how one country’s assets can contribute to the reach others, together establishing a scalable capability for a honeycombed force.

Overall, the enterprise lays a foundation for a global capability in sea-based missile defenses and for protecting deployed forces as well as projecting force. Power such as this is increasingly central to the freedom of action necessary for the worldwide operation of the U.S. military and our coalition partners.[5]

In other words, the roll out of the Pacific fleet of F-35s is part of the re-shaping of the US and allied military capabilities for a 21^st century strategy.  And such a strategy must be able to deal with the impact of China, Korea, the Arctic opening and the challenge of securing the conveyer belt of goods and services by sea or SLOC defense.[6]

But this does not end the story of the impact of the F-35 on the future.  Another key aspect is how the F-35 as a global enterprise can affect global investments in airpower and the growth over time of capabilities.  This is a subject broader than a short article can discuss with full justice, so I will emphasize only three key points.

First, what is not often realized is that Lockheed Martin is a 30% “prime contractor” standing on the top of a global supply chain.  And this supply chain includes many of the world’s best suppliers and subsystem providers. And foreign manufacturers produce more than 20% of the aircraft even at this stage as part of the global supply chain.

This system allows the taping of capabilities, which have been, available in specific nations and unleashing their potential to support global coalitions.  The case of Japan is suggestive whereby the participation of the Japanese in building parts for the F-35 means they are building for the global coalition not just for Japan.

Second, the F-35 is built around a global sustainment model.  This means that the Singapore F-35Bs will be supported and Singapore and could do the same for the USMC F-35Bs.  The opportunity and ability to build hubs and training ranges in the Pacific with hubs and ranges in Canada and Australia and hubs in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam provides an opportunity to re-shape how sustainment can be done in around the world.

Third, Japan like Italy is building a final check out or assembly facility for the F-35, which can function, as well as an MRO facility for allies.  .  In effect, to serve their own needs the Italians and Japanese are in effect putting in place maintenance facilities or MRO facilities which the U.S. Air Force, USN and USMC are able to use in two key regions, central to American interests.

Fourth, the weapons revolution necessary to catch up with 5^th generation aircraft can be the focus of global, not just American investments.  Even though the US has been the core architect for the aircraft, the implementation of the fleet will not be solely and perhaps primarily American.  The diversity of global weapon suppliers – European, Israeli, and Asian – will seek to integrate their products onto the F-35 and integration on one set of F-35s makes them available to the fleet.

A totally ignored aspect of the aircraft as a weapon system is weapons integration.  The software integration of a weapon on one set of aircraft will be available to the fleet.

This means that the weapons to be integrated on Block 4 software F-35s, which includes the new MBDA Meteor Missiles, the Kongsberg Joint Strike Missile or the new Turkish missiles, can be purchased directly by Asians for their aircraft as well.  This is providing for a global investment in the strike capabilities of the F-35 fleet.

In short, the F-35 will be an important fixture of allied and American defense in the Pacific and will bring Europe and the Pacific together inside the aircraft and arming the aircraft in the years ahead.  It will be a key part of shaping new concepts of operations, which will be essential to the safety, and security of America and its allies in a troubled world.

The challenge for the next twenty is to understand how Chinese military power is intertwined with Chinese power projection and how the West and Asia will respond.

But a key element is simply to understand the challenge of how the military dimension fits into the Chinese global presence.

In the accompanying brief, the Second Line of Defense team has put together a way to understand how these different variables are coming together and evolving over the next 20 years.

We start with the question of three ways forward or how the PRC can built out its capabilities.

The basic bottom line is that the Chinese are clearly trying to extend reach from a more secure homeland base.

And they’re doing this in a couple of different ways; one way is building their nuclear deterrent by having a more survivable force hidden in tunnels and deployed via mobile systems.

And at the same time, they are building what is referred to as anti-access, anti-denial capabilities, which at this point in history, is largely is an extension of the homeland.

They are trying to secure the area from which they can operate over time.

This provides them then with a base; the policy is based on the concept that adversaries will accept the sanctuary and demonstrate a lack of interest or capability in intruding into the sanctuary.

It forms the basis for projection power further into the Pacific and the South China Sea up into Japanese waters, up to the Arctic and towards the Malacca Straits and further south.

The question then becomes the approach being shaped to project power into the maritime zones ultimately for the Arctic and for the great royal route to the south.

Traditional power projection tools are being built for these purposes whether they be carriers, airlift, tanking, bombers, long-range missiles.  A variety of Chinese tools are being built to allow the Chinese over time to project power as the United States has understood this over the last 30 to 40 years.

And in fact, the Chinese are following a U.S. model in some respects, that is to say, a very linear air and maritime model using AWACS, using integrated strike packages, and carrier battle group kind of thinking.

But the third level could be understood as leveraging technologies and thinking about the future of power projection very, very differently.

In the interview we did with Mark Lewis, he referred to how the Americans built the USS constitution and that class of frigates in a very innovative way that surprised the British.

We are assuming that some of these game-changing technologies, whether they be hypersonics or innovative use of global ISR assets, space-based e.g., could shape a new approach for the Chinese.

In other words, the Chinese are building out Chinese military power through a building block approach.

By 2030 or so, they will certainly have a global power projection force, but in the interim period, they are focused on securing a sanctuary and building from the sanctuary outward into the Pacific.

In addition,  the global exports of aircraft, missiles and other very exportable technologies will allow the Chinese to build global alliances in the military domain.

This is the double bounce idea of the technology; on the one hand, technology comes into China and then is re-exported in the form of advancing products from China.

Regional reach is the key focus in the next decade.

The anti-access, anti-denial efforts are clearly conjoined with a regional reach perspective.  That means, in effect, the coming out into the maritime air domains of the Pacific.

However, this is a crowded and dangerous three-dimensional operational space, that is to say underwater, above water, and air-breathing.

And several competitors of China have been already triggered to re-shape their capabilities by concerns about what the Chinese are doing, whether they be Singapore or Japan, or Australia.

To build out a global presence involves a variety of tools coming together and over time, shaping a more integrated force structure package.  These include the global exports of missiles, aircraft and capabilities, which allow the Chinese to build out global power relationships as well.

The Chinese are also participating in global missions such anti-piracy to give them the kind of experience of operating abroad far from the homeland, something that they hitherto have had no experience doing.

And this lack of experience for maritime and air reach is a key vulnerability that the Chinese have, of course.

Obviously protecting their engagement in raw materials and transit of goods and services is also a very important aspect of building out capability over time, particularly as the U.S. capabilities attrite which currently is the case as the U.S. has half the size the Air Force it once had.  It has a declining number of ships, so there are legitimate gaps in protecting the global commons, which the Chinese will clearly provide and others will see this provision as a legitimate expression of their global role, which it may well be, but all depends completely on how their role plays out.

But what are the critical pieces or the game-changers for the Chinese?

It really is an interaction between a reactive enemy; and in this case, it’s what the West and Asia do in dealing with the Chinese build out.

The Chinese build out is occurring in a very fluid and dynamic strategic environment, and from this standpoint, one needs to look at what are the most critical technologies or capabilities, which are game-changing for the Chinese themselves.

In other words, it is a question of the build out, the technologies, and the strategic environment and the response of others to this environment.

It is a highly interactive.  The lack of interactive understanding guides some comments with regard to what the Chinese will be able to do, rather than analyzing what they can do up against what other’s will accept or not accept and what they will do to deny the Chinese with the benefits of enhanced military capabilities.

What actions will be taken by the U.S. or its allies which the Chinese consider the biggest threats to their ascendency?

Which actions will the Chinese target to try to block, and which Asian partners of the United States are most crucial to isolate and undercut in their military modernization efforts to allow for Chinese ascendency?

In our forthcoming book on Pacific strategy, we argue that the U.S./Japanese alliance is the absolute crucial alliance in facing the Chinese in the years to come.

The Chinese military power is coming out into the Pacific and the two greatest naval powers of the 20th century could well become closer together, and this is a major problem facing the Chinese.

And already, the Japanese and the United States have invested in common technologies, Egis, SM-3 missiles and F-35 aircraft, and will seek to integrate this capability in years ahead.

And this integration is a major challenge to the Chinese as the Chinese seek ascendency or an ability to control their environment much further away from the mainland.

In other words, managing the threat is a key part of how you build out military capabilities from a Chinese perspective.

An American-Japanese alliance is clearly a key barrier to Chinese ascendancy.

The Chinese are certainly dedicated to breaking the coalition and its power by undercutting U.S. Military modernization, encouraging the criticisms of the F-35 enterprise, because from a Chinese perspective the F-35 can enable the kind of coalition as can challenge most effectively any Chinese ascendency.

Information warfare involves a set of tools that the Chinese use to try to undercut competitors as well.

The key is to pressure the U.S. lynchpin role in the Pacific to limit what the U.S. can do to reinforce what Asian allies do. It is a Ben Franklin situation where if the allies work together and they work together interactively in the United States, there’s more than sufficient capability to manage the Chinese challenge. If they do not they will have to confront the Chinese challenge largely in isolation from one another.

At the same time, the Chinese are using a diversity of power of tools including information warfare tools to convince folks that there is no real Chinese threat.

Things like the request constantly for transparency from the Chinese, even when the Chinese fly fifth generation aircraft over people calling for the transparency misses the ultimate point that the Chinese are clearly selling the idea that what they’re doing is not threat-based, but it’s a normal projection of Chinese power.

The Chinese power projection effort which is inextricably intertwined with their military is a central reality of the 21st century.

It is a table setter.

How the US, the West and Asia respond will determine the shape of the competition to come.

U.S. soldiers, sailors airman and marines and their leaders in the field, instinctually grasp exactly what General Patton stated–”No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

A treasure trove of historical data is already available for some future scholar to explain the epic myopic disconnect of some self-asserted National Security experts and a minority of Senators during the Hagel confirmation Hearings. The public debate and hearing was so backward focused it was striking.

The real world evidence is simple, because at the same time of the hearings Kim Jung-un the Supreme Leader of North Korea was preparing to nuke the US.  Once confirmed,  Sectary Hagel’s immediate and  correct instinct was a perfect  response to the nutter running North Korea, he answered the threat with mobilized directed action.

Hagel announced almost immediately at the onset of the crisis that the U.S. is deploying 14 new ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska <a href=”http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/20/house-strategic-forces-chairman-slams-obama-on-missile-defense/”>to counter renewed nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran</a>. “That will boost U.S. missile defense capability by 50 percent and “make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression.”

However, there is a time and technology lag of adding additional missiles to achieve a fully functioning extremely accurate ground-based  missile defense system.

But all it will take is one North Korean ICBM hitting Anchorage, Honolulu or the West Coast and  money will not be a  problem.

And that is the point everyone seams to be missing. Indeed, with the deployment of stealth aircraft, first B-2s and then F-22s, Hagel understood the importance of putting advanced US technology and capabilities up against the problem.  The B-2, now operating from more than 20 years, and in limited numbers and that “Cold War” weapon – the F-22 – suddenly recaptured recognition for what it is – part of deterrent warfighting capability against a lethal adversary with designs on American forces, lives and territory.

Instead of being a Cold War weapons, the question asked of the F-22 from the theater was a different one: how many can you send?

It is important to remember that all current 21st Century technology was built on the vision and commitment of bipartisan 20th Century politicians.

We need a similar commitment by Republicans and Democrats to band together and build out the capabilities needed for the next decades of the 21st century.

When America is threatened, our core history shows that as a nation we have often been rudely awakened but rally to fight back.  The danger since the World War II arsenal of democracy was built we have forgotten much.

In the presence of recent wars have been actually slow motion engagements with relatively little loss of aircraft, ships and even tanks, we too often assume dominance which actually has to be built, developed, and deployed.

Slow motion wars are not the norm, but the aberration. Saddam Hussan attacking Kuwait and then giving the US and fellow UN fighting forces an  unbelievable amount of time to marshal forces was an epic military  miscalculation on his part. Our recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been captured perfectly by a young Marine writing on a white board in Iraq. “America is not at war, the Marine Corps is at war, America is at the mall.”

Meanwhile in DC every day after day there is more and pack journalism stories on the effects of sequestration. Much of this is written apparently with the ultimate political agenda of tagging one political party or the other in a never-ending blame game of horror.  Unfortunately, for DOD, the effect of losing some previously counted on appropriations is very real and must be appropriately addressed by the Secretaries and Service Chiefs.

However, there is a very unfortunate law of unintended consequences of downward cycles and lack of investment on what is and will be needed to ensure success.  By focusing totally on sequestration as if it were a strategy, the national command authority and the Congress think about downward spirals, not leadership for the future.

A corresponding question is not being addressed at the highest levels and in public debates—What if America is drawn into a high intensity war almost over night?

Where is the arsenal of democracy, not the cutting board?

It appears that little has been done in prudent mobilization planning and requirements to address a simple statement –if money is not the problem what can we do to build the right forces for the right challenges?

Shifting from MRAP wars to power projection requirements is crucial to shaping the future.

Planning for a war that can be violent and deadly will destroy significant numbers of military platforms and it takes analytical insights to understand the use of the most precious commodity available which is time.

The events unfolding with the bellicose actions of Kim Jung-un can serve as a immediate catalyist to address significant mobilization planning and requirements thinking at the NSC.

Some of the questions which must be asked from this perspective are the following:

How fast can more ABM missiles and sensor launch platforms be perfected and built?

How many B-2s, or now a follow on bomber can be enough?

How fast can the F-35 factory in Fort Worth Texas ramp up to produce more than approximately 3 a month F-35s?

What enhanced training should be funded to bring all necessary DOD combat assets in a high state of readiness?

Should trade offs be made quickly in the never ending MRAPs Afghan War with the need for resources to put additional combat teeth in the Air/Sea Asian pivot?

What happens if Iran is struck and Russia and China either or start a rearmament race into Iran which will have a motive to fight back?

Can US and Allies handle both a North Korean combat engagement and a Middle East fight with Iran?

Will rapid runway repair teams have the necessary equipment to act decisively on many fronts?

Is the US ready for quick battle damage repair to ships and planes which we have in diminishing numbers?

Will the training pipeline for combat warriors, air land and sea being killed provide skilled and capable replacements quickly?

What platforms, weapons and people can be traded off to fill attrition gaps?

Mobilization planning and requirements is not equivalent to studying the future of the supply chain. 

It is about surging capability to the warfighter to prevail and not simply cope with negative results.

http://airman.dodlive.mil/2012/12/bird-of-prey/

What is the proper military response to convince the North Koreans that any action on their part what be short sided?

The military question is often off the table while it is discussed largely as a diplomatic game, which requires folks like the Chinese to come round and help constrain “their ally.

Growing North Korean Threat Envelope. Credit: USA Today

But what is the military set of responses to deterrence in a period where the United States has clearly downgraded the nuclear element in its arsenal?

And with weapons like the F-22 declared Cold War weapons, just what does the Administration have in mind to do the job to convince North Korean that we can take their slingshot away?

Simply trying to defend against missile volleys is not enough.

Regime decapitation has to be credible and on the table.

When you are dealing with a regime of thugs, the only thing they will value is their ability to exist, extort and be wealthy as a result of their activities.

As recent USA Today piece highlighted perceptions of the crisis, which still place this in domain of diplomacy, not military deterrence.

On Tuesday, the North Korean army’s Supreme Command said it will take “practical military action” to protect national sovereignty and its leadership in response to what it called U.S. and South Korean plots to attack.

“From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army will be putting in combat duty posture No. 1 all field artillery units including long-range artillery units strategic rocket units that will target all enemy object in U.S. invasionary bases,” the KCNA news agency said.

The North Korean military statement referred to the B-52 flights as a provocation. The Pentagon said it is confident that it can handle any military capabilities that the regime of Kim Jong Un can come up with…..

The North Korean statement came on the third anniversary of a North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 South Korean sailors. North Korea denies the warship sinking.

The two Koreas have clashed repeatedly in recent years and North Korea has vowed in the past to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire.” North Korea has expressed anger over recent joint military drills by the U.S. and South Korea and crippling United Nations-endorsed sanctions in the wake of the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test.

The United States and its allies should respond to the latest North Korean threats by urging China to restrain its ally before the situation escalates, a former U.S. intelligence official says.

U.S. diplomats should talk to their Chinese counterparts and say “your ally North Korea is acting in a very belligerent and destabilizing way,” said Richard Bush, an East Asia specialist at the National Intelligence Council under President Clinton who now heads the Brookings Institution Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies.

“They’re acting in ways that are contrary to the principals you (China) have laid out. The situation is somewhat dangerous. You need to restrain your ally.”

So the deterrence answer lies in getting Bejing to realize what its true interest actually is?  And convinced by Washington about what that true interest is?  Talk about hope not a strategy, this is surely a case in point.

This reminds one of the White House warning to Russia that it was not following its “true interest” in Syria.  The global conflict is not a schoolroom for American “leaders” to teach others the rules of the game.  Hopefully, we don’t have to live the 1930s all over again, where Western leaders often lectured Japanese and Germans on proper behavior with the predictable results.

But not to worry because North Korea is only making empty threats.

The country has made nuclear threats against the U.S. and its allies in the past. But North Korea doesn’t have the capability to strike U.S. bases in Hawaii, Guam or the U.S. mainland with long-range missiles, says James Hardy, Asia Pacific Editor for IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.

“From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula and perhaps reach Japan,” he said.

“They’re empty threats,” Bush said.

The reality is that the reach of North Korean missiles is significant and growing.  If intentions are demonstrated by tests and the evolution of capability, then they certainly are not hollow threats.

And as for help from the Chinese?

The US is getting this sage advice from descendants of Confucius. Chill out, Dude!

China’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Tuesday for all sides in the Korean peninsula to exercise restraint. The threats “are nothing new, they just want attention,” said Shen at Fudan University. “The U.S. is ready to intercept any incoming missiles anyway. Don’t let North Korea think that their threats get any reward,” or they will threaten more, he said.

There is indeed something hollow here but it is not the threats.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/26/north-korea-threatens-rocket-strikes/2020275/

As we looked at the ship from San Diego Harbor, the big gaping hole in the middle is where the change has come: The ship is built on the foundation of an oil tanker which NASSCO built for British Petroleum, but instead of tanks you have open space for loading and offloading at sea.

The ship is designed to have a mix and match functionality for support to the fleet. Modules will be developed to optimize it for particular missions.

For example, the first module to be developed will the Montford Point to simultaneously load three assault hovercraft (called LCACs, short for Landing Craft, Air Cushion).

But the ship can be configured to support disaster relief, such as the Japanese tsunami; to support assault operations, with many vehicles on board; or as a floating support system for aviation, ground forces, or other naval forces, for example small minesweeping craft. It can clearly function as support for higher intensity assault operations or a more sustained operational tempo.

While in San Diego and preparing for the christening ceremony on March 2, 2013, we had a chance to talk with Fred Harris, CEO of NASSCO, the shipbuilder for the USNS Montford Point.

A key aspect of the conversation revolved around the role of South Korean shipbuilders in working with NASSCO to deliver the ship on time and under budget,

Frankly, we were not anticipating this part of the story so pursed this with Harris during the interview.

Harris provided several insights regarding the relationship with South Korea and the contribution of South Korea and Japan to improved U.S. shipbuilding. Harris highlighted the processes followed by the Asian yards, and their commitment to a tight planning and design process prior to building any ship.

He told a story about a meeting which he had in South Korea with a US Congressman in attendance. The shipbuilder was asked how many ships he had built that year and his answer was something on the order of more than 270. The Congressman asked the shipbuilder: How did you get that good?

The South Korean shipbuilder paused and then answered: “We learned from the US during World War II in building the Liberty Ships as manufactured products. We started there and have been working to improve on that model.”

Harris has significant experience with the Asian yards, which of course, is crucial in having the kind of relationships which Asians value and upon which one might build trust and confidence.

As Harris put it:

There are Koreans who still feel a real debt of gratitude towards the U.S. And if you’re willing to take your hat in your hand and walk into a Korean shipyard and say I don’t know. Can you help me with this? In the beginning, they’ll want to try you out a bit and see if you’re serious. But once they understand you are, they will work effectively with you.”

There is almost a mutual bond of shipbuilders that if you’re really talking about learning, and trying to learn, most shipbuilders want to share with you.

According to Harris, South Korean yards have contributed significantly to the design and production of the ship. One key example he gave was with regard to a technology transfer from South Korea to the US.

The deck is 1 ¾ inches of steel. Relying on US methods, we would need multiple passes to build this steel plate on the deck. We called Hyundai on the phone and said: what do you do? One pass. Will you share that with us? Yes. We’ll share it with you.

They shared it all with us, and it’s a process that we have here where you put powdered metal in the joint, it’s actually broken up pieces of weld material. And you autonomously weld, and you fuse all that together. And you build a crown when you put that material in. And it really is fantastic.

The process lead to very little, if any, weld rejects. The issue with one pass for us was we were seeing some weld reject. And we don’t want weld reject. But the Koreans, used a two-pass system. And their joint design was very different than our joint design. We quickly qualified the joint design to the USN spec requirements.

Harris highlighted throughout the interview the importance of the partnership for improving the design and manufacturing process and making it a more exacting effort to drive out cost and to enhance manufacturing performance.

“The partnership helps me leapfrog me 10-15 years worth of technology in a short period of time. We will do everything we can to drive every hours worth of cost out of the ship.”

If one is concerned about competing in the Pacific with the Chinese, then working more effectively with our Japanese and South Korean allies is a good thing. And here the first of its class has that cooperation built in.

The interview and the project also suggests that working with South Korea and Japan in building a new generation of military vessels may make a great deal of sense. As the allies shape a need for ships and more effective ships, driving down cost for the kinds of ships one might want makes a great deal of sense.

In the United States, the Littoral Combat Ship has distorted the conversation about shipbuilding. The LCS has been largely justified on the grounds that you can build many of them because they cost less.

A better approach would be to identify the ships you need and drive down their costs with the kind of global partnerships, which Harris discussed.

Among the most useful of ships are small destroyers, MSC ships, and amphibious ships.

Why not shape a competition to determine the most effective designs, which could be produced in US yards or co-produced in Asian yards?

The USN-USMC and USCG team needs ships; they won’t get them with current shipbuilding approaches, and the surging of a ship defined by cost, and not needed capabilities.

The USAF and the ISAF trainers have been working hard for a number of years to shape a fleet and a trained force to operate that fleet in order to execute such a transition.

The broad transition envisaged by the USAF can be identified as a transition from a gaggle of older aircraft to a much smaller mixed fleet to support counter-insurgency and defense operations for the Afghan forces.  And shaping such a capability puts in place a force with which the US and NATO allies can re-enforce the Afghans as needed with a very flexible and insertable force in the future.

The broad trajectory of change has been to move from a Russian-equipped force in disrepair to shaping a mixed fleet of aircraft able to support the various missions which the Afghans would need: transport, ground support and counter-insurgency ISAR and strike.

A new one is replacing the core fleet of aging Mi-35s and AN-32s.

The new fleet will be a mixed fleet of aircraft as well as adding capabilities to replace the current battlefield lift provided by the Chinooks.

The Mi-35s are being completed and replaced with new or upgraded Mi-17s, a Light Attack Aircraft to provide for both strike and ISR, and lift assets.  Problems in replacement have been generated by the failure to date to procure the Super Tucano, the clear favorite of the USAF for the mission and the collapse of the C-27 program in Afghanistan.

Shaping the right fleet is crucial to shaping an effective training mission.

The broad trajectory of change has been to move from a Russian-equipped force in disrepair to shaping a mixed fleet of aircraft able to support the various missions which the Afghans would need: transport, ground support and counter-insurgency ISAR and strike.

A new one is replacing the core fleet of aging Mi-35s and AN-32s.

The new fleet will be a mixed fleet of aircraft as well as adding capabilities to replace the current battlefield lift provided by the Chinooks.

The  Mi-35s are being completed and replaced with new or upgraded Mi-17s, a Light Attack Aircraft to provide for both strike and ISR, and lift assets.  Problems in replacement have been generated by the failure to date to procure the Super Tucano, the clear favorite of the USAF for the mission and the collapse of the C-27 program in Afghanistan.

Shaping the right fleet is crucial to shaping an effective training mission.

Obviously, beyond simply learning basic rotorcraft or fixed wing flying skills, training has to be focused on the particular aircraft.

Notably, because the leave behind approach really has to be focused on a smaller fleet or rugged, reliable and maintainable aircraft.

http://www.sldinfo.com/training-for-transition-the-re-emergence-of-the-afghan-air-force/

It is clear that the USAF has looked carefully at the plane it wants for the attack and ISR combination and that plane is the Super Tucano.

As the head of USAF training in Afghanistan underscored when the Super Tucano was down selected in 2012:

According to Brig. Gen. Tim Ray, the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan commander, the Tucano was “tailor made” for the Afghan’s counterinsurgency mission and provides a cost-effective, easy to sustain platform to help augment the Afghan air force’s already capable lift and training platforms.

“The LAS platform signals a milestone in moving beyond lift and rotary wing where we’re really not going after the enemy,” Ray said.

“The Tucano is the most kinetic, most offensive aircraft they’ll have, and I’m sure a big morale boost to the troops on the ground when they see it overhead. It’s the right kind of platform for the terrain, the fight and most importantly, it’s easy to sustain,” he said.

Built for counterinsurgency missions, the light air support platform — specifically the Tucano — has been the heavy lifter in fighting antigovernment elements around the world. More than 150 units across the globe have logged a collective 130,000 flight hours with more than 18,000 combat hours with no recorded losses.

Mirroring the same success in Afghanistan relies on two primary missions. The first is ensuring related costs of the light air support stay within the Afghan government’s current and projected budgets.

“The LAS operates at a fraction of the cost of other strike platforms,” Ray said. “The engine in the aircraft is incredibly reliable and very simple. We have the same engines in the Cessna 208s and it’s the most reliable in the aircraft industry that I’m aware of.”

The second is training pilots and pilot trainers capable of handling the aircraft in combat scenarios.

“The Afghans are good aviators,” Ray said. “When it comes to the basic stick and rudder skills and bravery, they are more than suitable, and we have two curriculums being refined to train the advisors and to train the students. We already have students flowing out of the different pilot training pipelines and learning the basics of flying fixed wing aircraft. The follow on of course would be a mission training program that would give them the skills to employ the LAS in combat.”

The light air support’s addition marks the final major complement to the Afghan air force’s inventory of more than 100 varied aircraft and sets the stage for future growth. Basic training for the light air support airframe will be conducted at Shindand Air Base with follow on mission training held at a different location yet to be determined.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123286333

There is obviously a getting on with it quality to adding the Super Tucano to the Afghan Air Force fleet to shape the transitional and collaborative capabilities to enable greater competence in providing for their own needs.

But Beechcraft, recently just out of bankruptcy, and having lost repeatedly in the competition to the Super Tucano apparently not only knows better than the USAF but is in line to take charge for a global mission beyond Afghanistan.  And all of this is under the guise that an American product should dominate in the light attack marketplace.

In an amazing letter sent to Congress, Beechcraft and the Machinists Union have provided a parallel universe of reality to explain what OUGHT to happen.

Beechcraft Letter to Congress

One can puzzle over the Machinists Union weighing.  How are those factories in Mexico doing?  And why would Machinists wish to throw away an F-18 aircraft in Brazil for 20 aircraft in Afghanistan?

One can puzzle even more over why Beechcraft is going after the USAF when without the USAF their future as a training aircraft provider can be questioned.

But leaving all of that aside here are some excerpts from this letter.

In the letter we learn that the selection of the Super Tucano was inappropriate because although appropriate to the case in point, there is a broader partnership aircraft program.  And we learn that such a program, if it ever really happens, is “particularly disturbing because the full consequences to our national security, the American industrial base and its works, as well as the American taxpayer, are so staggering.”

Before we go further there are a number of questions to pose.

First, when did Beechcraft become so American?  The video below shows the future of Beechcraft in Mexico.  Apparently speaking Spanish is American; Portuguese is not.

Second, the airframe used by Beechcraft is licensed from Pilatus, that all American Swiss company.  What are the licensing arrangements between Beechcraft and Pilatus and can Beechcraft offer its aircraft without Pilatus approval in each and every country the USAF would wish to partner?

To put a fine point on it, when I was involved with a team working in the UAE with regard to sorting through trainer aircraft options, one of the aircraft in play was Pilatus and then when the UAE Air Force was considering its next iteration of a trainer they wanted what one UAE General called a “modern trainer appropriate to our 21^st century modernization.”

http://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/

http://oldwww.pilatus-aircraft.com/applications/press_release/press/media/links/Press%20Release%20-%20UAE%20selects%20PC-21.pdf

This Inside the Beltway practice of asserting global numbers which never happen – some day there might be 26 nations involved – is used to beat a program to death.  Just ask the US Coast Guard how their acquisition recapitalization is going after the “largest procurement program in USCG history” or Deepwater is going?

We learn that “a foreign sovereign controlled manufacturer is now a critical component of the United State’s ability to conduct security force assistance operations.”

And this is from a company that was willing to sell out to the People’s Republic of China?  Let us get real here.

Even more amazing – it would take a line by line comment to highlight how “puzzling” this letter really is – is the assertion that somehow Beecher has an advantage in “supply chain, logistics and maintenance.”

The AT-6 is an unfinished and new aircraft.  The USAF just went through an experience in Afghanistan of deploying a unique aircraft with little global support – the C27J – and pulled the plug on the aircraft after learning that a mature product globally supported in Afghanistan is what they needed.  Based on that learning, why would the USAF wish to do this all over again with the AT-6.

Oh that is right.  Beechcraft knows best, and the customer does not.

I will leave this breathtaking sentence from a company which tried to sell out its core capabilities to the Chinese.

“Brazil certainly understands, as does China, that the linkages between product development, domestic manufacturing, and strategic investments in their aerospace industrial base and workforce – all strengthen their military capacities while expanding their indigenous industry.”

Oh by the way – the Super Tucano will be built in a foreign country called Florida.  This reminds one of the nonsense from Boeing during the tanker competition when a foreign airframe was going to destroy the US aerospace industrial base.  How is that going by the way?  As the Aussies fly their new tankers, where are the US tankers?

As Prepared for Delivery by Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter, Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Excerpts

Let me turn now to the specific elements of our defense rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region.

First, our rebalance means that a higher proportion of our assets will be in the region.  Secretary Panetta announced last year that 60 percent of our naval assets would be assigned to the Asia-Pacific region by 2020 – a substantial and historic shift.

The Air Force, for its part, will increase its posture and presence in the region by 2017, to include tactical aircraft like the F-22; space, cyber, and bomber forces; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets like the MQ-9 Reaper, the U-2, and the Global Hawk.

And we will be able to leverage more capacity from our ground forces – including Army, Marines, and Special Operations Forces, now that they are coming home to the Pacific from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also, we are modernizing and enhancing our forward presence across the region in cooperation with our allies and partners.  Let me start with Northeast Asia, from where I just came.

We are modernizing and updating our alliances with Japan and South Korea.  In Japan, we have added aviation capability, we are in the process of realigning the Marine Corps presence in Okinawa, we are upgrading our missile defense posture, and we are working to revise the defense guidelines to meet the challenges of the 21stcentury.  On the Korean Peninsula, we are implementing the Strategic Alliance 2015 and taking important steps to advance the alliance’s military capabilities to meet the North Korean threat.

Beyond Northeast Asia, we are enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region as well.  In this regard, I think it’s important to underscore, as National Security Advisor Donilon did last week, that we are not only rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific but also within the Asia-Pacific, in recognition of the growing importance of Southeast Asia to the region as a whole – emphasizing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, capacity building, and multilateral exercises….

Next, while we will preserve and integrate the counter-insurgency capabilities that we have worked so hard to develop over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are giving prioritization in our investments in our budget to the development of platforms and capabilities that have direct applicability and use in the Asia-Pacific region.

These investments include the Virginia-class nuclear powered submarine, the fifth-generation Joint Strike Fighter, the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, the Broad Area Maritime Sensor, a new stealth bomber, the KC-46 tanker replacement, cruise missiles, and ISR platforms.

We are also protecting our investments in future-focused capabilities that are so important to this region, such as cyber, science and technology investments, and space.

In addition to investing in technical capabilities, we are also investing in our people: in language and culture skills, regional and strategic affairs – to ensure that we cultivate the intellectual capital that will be required to make good on our rebalance.

And with regard to our military installations and infrastructure, we’re making critical investments in training ranges and bases such as in Guam, which we are developing as a strategic hub for the Western Pacific.

Fourth, finally, and most important, we are revitalizing our defense partnerships across the region.  I’ve already mentioned the work we are doing with Japan, Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, but we are doing many other things in other parts of the region as well.

For example, last November, we worked with our treaty ally Thailand to update the U.S.-Thailand Joint Vision Statement for the first time in 50 years.

With New Zealand, the signing of the Washington Declaration and associated policy changes have opened up new avenues for defense cooperation in areas such as maritime security cooperation, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and peacekeeping support.

In Burma, we have resumed limited military-to-military relations and are working to ensure the Burmese military supports Burma’s ongoing and dynamic reforms.

With the Vietnamese, we are expanding our cooperation – as set forth in a new memorandum of understanding – in maritime security, search-and-rescue, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

In Malaysia and Indonesia, we are similarly working to build partner capacity to conduct maritime security and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

With China, we have invited the Chinese to participate in the RIMPAC exercise which we host, and we are delighted that they have accepted.  We seek to strengthen and grow our military-to-military relationship with China, which matches and follows our growing political and economic relationship.

Finally, India – a key part of our rebalance, and, more broadly, an emerging power that we believe will help determine the broader security and prosperity of the 21stcentury.  Our security interests with India converge on maritime security and broader regional issues, including India’s “Look East” policy.  We also are working to deepen our defense cooperation – moving beyond purely defense trade towards technology sharing and co-production.

Multilaterally, we recognize the importance of strengthening regional institutions like ASEAN that play an indispensable role in maintaining regional stability and resolving disputes through diplomacy.  In this regard, we have made attendance at key ASEAN ministerial meetings a priority for our secretaries, especially the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus.

We strongly support ASEAN unity and we applaud the efforts of ASEAN member nations and China to develop a binding code of conduct that would create a rules-based framework for regulating the conduct of parties in the South China Sea.   Our position is clear and consistent: we call for restraint and for diplomatic resolution; we oppose provocation; we oppose coercion; and we oppose the use of force.  We don’t take sides when it comes to competing territorial and historical claims, but we do take the side of peaceful resolution of disputes in a manner consistent with international law.

We are deeply engaged in exercises planned this year, including a humanitarian and disaster relief exercise that will be hosted by Brunei, a counterterrorism exercise that we are cosponsoring with Indonesia, and a maritime security exercise co-chaired by Malaysia and Australia.

So there is so much that goes into the rebalance.  Let me close by noting that there are those who have concern about, and perhaps some who have hope for, a theory that the U.S. rebalance will not be lasting, or that it’s not sustainable.

I’m a physicist, and I therefore put facts against theory, and let me tell you why this theory doesn’t fit the facts.

The rebalance will continue, and in fact gain momentum for two reasons.

First, U.S. interests here are enduring, and so also will be our political and economic presence.  This presence is accompanied by values of democracy, freedom, human rights, civilian control of the military, and respect for the sovereignty of nations that America has long stood for, and that human beings welcome and I think can relate to.

So our interest in staying in the region will, we believe, be reciprocated.

According to the assessment of Ian Easton and L.C. Russell Hsiao, the PRC is weaving UAVs into its planned projection of power out into the Pacific.

http://project2049.net/documents/uav_easton_hsiao.pdf

The Evolution of Chinese UAVs

The PLA’s expanding UAV capabilities could complicate U.S. and allied operational planning across the Western Pacific battle space, ultimately impacting upon equities in all service branches.

As a matter of policy, it may therefore be appropriate for the U.S. and allies and friends in the Asia-Pacific to consider placing a greater emphasis on joint regional air and missile defense efforts.

The most economically and politically sustainable place to begin such efforts would be in better defending the air bases the U.S. has in the region. At a minimum, there should be at least one protective shelter for every fighter aircraft parked at Yokota, Atsugi, Iwakuni, Futenma, Kadena, and Guam.

Every regional air base should have a detachment of military engineers for rapid runway repair. And every base should have underground facilities with hardened pilot quarters and logistics stores. These should be fully stocked with spare parts, aviation fuel, water, armaments and other supplies. In this regard, the United States and Japan could learn much from Taiwan. The U.S. should also consider investing in the construction of large air bases on Tinian and Wake Islands in order toassure greater regional access and diversify its power projection portfolio.

Of course, another way to address this is to complicate dramatically the PRC’s ability to operate against the US and its allies operating a distributed force.

As part of deterrence or warfighting you re-shape the expectations of where your forces can operate or how you can re-shape your force packages on the fly.

A suggestion of the way ahead has already been seen in Forager Fury with the initial operations of the Osprey. In our interview with the Commanding Officer of First Marine Air Wing, Major General Owens, the CO highlighted his thinking which certainly would be part of any Chinese push out into the Pacific.

SLD: There is a broader strategic point, which emerges from your exercise and the range and speed of the Osprey and the multiplier effect, which it and the coming F-35Bs could have on Pacific operations.  There are many islands in the Pacific.  With the flexibility and relocation skills evident by the USMC (e.g. with regard to expeditionary airfields), islands can be a useful compliment to amphibious to provide the kind of presence which we may well need in the years ahead.  What is your thinking along these lines?

MG Owens:  This makes sense. We have a relative paucity of amphibious shipping. When I was a young lieutenant and captain, I think we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 amphibious war ships in the Navy inventory.  Right now, we have 28 and they’re spread about as thin as they possibly can be.  We’re running through their lifecycle faster than anticipated, and yet they’re never enough.

Going back to the whole challenge in this AOR is getting to where you need to be with some capability.  Being able to stretch the legs of the aircraft and operate from austere sites is critical.

A good case in point is that we just brought a couple of KC130s back from disaster relief in the Philippines, a typhoon rolled through Mindanao and Palawan a few weeks ago.  And we deployed a couple of KC130s to haul relief supplies from Luzon to Mindanao.

The KC-130J was the aircraft of choice because there was a useable airfield at the southern end, at the affected end.  But had there not been an airfield, which is often the case after tsunamis and typhoons, we could have done the same thing with the Osprey; flown it to Clark Field, operated out of Luzon — loading supplies in Luzon and dropping them to a point landing site in Mindanao supported by KC130s in the air, providing aerial refueling.

And it’s a capability we’ve never had before, and I expect that within the next couple of years, we’ll have an opportunity to demonstrate that the Osprey may be the only aircraft that can get in to an affected area at the distance that we’ll be required to support from.

Whether it be from an intermediate staging base, like Clark or flying directly from MCAS Futenma here in Okinawa.

SLD: So in effect, an airborne infrastructure that allows you to have the reach and range to affect the situation on the ground.

MG Owens:  That is a good way to put it. When we put the KC130 into the mix, we can bring some forward basing capability in the form of the maintenance crews that are required not only for the KC130s, but also for MV22s or whatever else that the tanker can drag to the objective area.

We also are experimenting with a kit that could replace our direct air support center (airborne) the system that we used in the legacy KC130s, which does not fit in a KC130J.

We’re looking at a modernized and upgraded version of that kind of command and control capability that we can put in a KC130J.  And one of brilliant things about the J is it is so capable; we can do that in an aircraft that is still tanker capable.  In other words, it will still have plenty to give in its wing tanks while using the cargo bay, not to hold additional fuel, but to hold the maintenance crews or a command and control capability and so forth.  And it’s one aircraft that can do it all.

And as you know, you can configure that aircraft with the low-speed Drogues to refuel helicopters, or the high-speed drogues for the tactical jets and Ospreys.  In fact, you can put one of each type in one tanker, so that tanker can have the flexibility to fuel both low-speed or high-speed aircraft.

When you add to that the Osprey and its range and speed, you now have a wider selection of landing spots if we needed an intermediate support base.

A good case in point would be when we wish to deploy helicopters from Futenma to the Philippines, there are a couple of places that we must land for fuel.  For one leg, there is only one site, which allows us to do this. But when you have an aircraft with greater range, it opens up more possibilities.

If, in a time of conflict, we were going someplace and an adversary wanted to deny us the ability to put in a refueling point or intermediate support base, they would have to now take into account a much greater number of islands.  With only helicopters, an adversary could draw a 100-mile ring around a base and know where we could operate.

Ospreys, particularly when supported by KC-130Js, would significantly complicate an adversary’s attempts to predict our movements and operations.

http://www.sldinfo.com/shaping-operational-flexibility-an-interview-with-major-general-owens/

And adding the F-35B to the mix will further enhance capabilities to deal with any push out of Chinese power projection forces, including robotically enhanced capabilities.

Ed Timperlake has highlighted in various assessments how the B works into the F-35 as a Pacific fleet to provide for expanded viability for the joint and coalition force.  And such an approach is integral to dealing with the threat, which the authors underscore concerning the evolution of Chinese UAVs.  As Timperlake always argues, in warfare, there is always the reactive enemy.

Too often analysts forget that as competitors like China innovate, so does the United States and its allies.

But strikingly in conversations in the United States, the F-35 is the forgotten piece of the puzzle, although it can be central to the shaping of distributed operations.

In a war at sea, hitting the carrier’s flight deck can cripple the Carrier Battle Group (CBG) and thus get a mission kill on the both the Carrier and perhaps even the entire airborne air wing if they can not successfully divert to a land base.

With no place to land, on the sea or land and with tanker fuel running low, assuming tankers can get airborne, the practical result will be the loss of extremely valuable air assets.

In such circumstances, The TacAir aircraft mortality rate would be the same as if it was during a combat engagement with either air-to-air or a ground –to-air weapons taking out the aircraft.

The only variable left, between simply flaming out in peacetime, vice the enemy getting a kinetic hit would be potential pilot survivability to fly and fight another day.

However, with declining inventories and limited industrial base left in U.S. to surge aircraft production a runway kill could mean the loss of air superiority and thus be a battle-tipping event, on land or sea.

Now something entirely new and revolutionary can be added to an Air Force, the VSTOL F-35B.

Traditionally the VSTOL concept, as personified by the remarkable AV-8, Harrier was only for ground attack. To be fair the RAF needed to use the AV-8 in their successful Falklands campaign as an air defense fighter because it was all they had.

The Harrier is not up to a fight against any advanced 4th gen. aircraft—let alone F-22 5th Gen. Fighters that have been designed for winning the air combat maneuvering fight (ACM) with advanced radar’s and missiles.

Now though, for the first time in history the same aircraft the F-35 can be successful in a multi-role. The F-35, A, B &C type, model, series, all have the same revolutionary cockpit-the C5ISD-D “Fusion combat system” which also includes fleet wide “tron” warfare capabilities.

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-f-35-as-a-%E2%80%9Cflying-sensor-fusion-engine%E2%80%9D-positioning-the-fleet-for-%E2%80%9Ctron%E2%80%9D-warfare/

There has been a lot written about the F-35B not being as capable as the other non-VSTOL versions such as the land based F-35A and the Large carrier Battle Group (CBG) F-35, the USN F-35C.

The principle criticism is about the more limited range of the F-35B. In fact, the combat history of the VSTOL AV-8 shows that if properly deployed on land or sea the VSTOL capability is actually a significant range bonus. The Falklands war, and recent USN/USMC rescue of a Air Force pilot in the Libyan campaign proved that.

The other key point is limited payload in the vertical mode. Here again is where the F-35 T/M/S series have parity if the F-35B can make a long field take off or a rolling take off from a smaller aircraft carrier-with no traps nor cats needed it can carry it’s full weapons load-out.

Give all aircraft commanders the same set of strategic warning indicators of an attack because it would be a very weak air staff that would let their aircraft be killed on the ground or flight deck by a strategic surprise.

Consequently, the longer take off of the F-35 A, B or C with a full weapons complement makes no difference. Although history does show that tragically being surprised on the ground has happened.

Pearl Harbor being the very nasty example. Of course, USN Carrier pilots during the “miracle at Midway” caught the Japanese Naval aircraft being serviced on their flight deck and returned the favor to turn the tide of the war in the pacific.

In addition to relying intelligence, and other early warning systems to alert an air force that an attack is coming so “do not get caught on the ground!” dispersal, revetments and bunkers can be designed to mitigate against a surprise attack.

Aircraft survivability on the ground is critical and a lot of effort has also gone into rapid runway repair skills and equipment to recover a strike package. All F-35 TMS have the same advantages with these types of precautions.

The strategic deterrence, with tactical flexibility, of the F-35B is in the recovery part of an air campaign when they return from a combat mission, especially if the enemy successfully attacks airfields.

Or is successful in hitting the carrier deck-they do not have to sink the Carrier to remove it from the fight just disable the deck. War is always a confused messy action reaction cycle, but the side with more options and the ability to remain combat enabled and dynamically flexible will have a significant advantage.

With ordinance expended, or not, the F-35B does not need a long runway to recover and this makes it a much more survivable platform — especially at sea where their might be no other place to go.

A call by the air battle commander-all runways are destroyed so find a long straight road and “good luck!” is a radio call no one should ever have to make.

But something revolutionary now exists.

In landing in the vertical mode the Marine test pilot in an F-35B, coming aboard the USS Wasp during sea trials put the nose gear in a one square box. So the unique vertical landing/recovery feature of landing anywhere will save the aircraft to fight another day.

It is much easier to get a fuel truck to an F-35B than build another A or C model, or land one of the numerous “decks” on other ships, even a T-AKE ship then ditch an F-35C at sea.

This unique capability can be a war winning issue for countries like Israel, Taiwan and the U.S. Navy at sea.

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-impact-of-the-f-35b-strategic-deterrence-with-tactical-flexibility/

General Hostage, the head of the Air Combat Command clearly has in mind the ability to use the entire distributed air fleet, including the unique war winning capabilities of the B, to shape what he has called and “air combat cloud.”  By shaping a distributed force able to operate over a 360 degree battlespace and leveraging multiple basing modes, US and allied forces can create a much more effective warfighting and hence deterrent force against the PRC as its evolves its capabilities to project power.

http://defense.aol.com/2013/01/10/why-the-air-force-needs-a-lot-of-f-35s-gen-hostage-on-the-com/

This is also why we have focused on the shaping of an attack-defense enterprise as the way ahead whereby new multi-mission platforms can shape new ways to operate over a distributed battlespace.

Shaping the rules of engagement for the Second Nuclear Age entails forging capabilities to execute what we called in an earlier piece an “attack and defense enterprise.” The evolution of 21st century weapon technology is breaking down the barriers between offensive and defensive systems. Is missile defense about providing defense or is it about enabling global reach, for offense or defense? Likewise, new fifth generation aircraft such as the F-22 and the F-35 have been largely not understood because they are inherently multi-mission systems, which can be used for forward defense or for forward offensive operations.

In Operation Chimichanga, the Air Force demonstrated the impact of an integrated air force upon an adversary. “The first sign of the coming U.S. air raid was when the enemy radar and air-defense missile sites began exploding. The strikers were Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, flying unseen and faster than the speed of sound, 50,000 feet over the battlefield.”

http://defense.aol.com/2013/03/19/chuck-hagels-first-test-north-korea-and-the-second-nuclear-age/

The evolving threat certainly can be dealt with but not if the U.S. and its allies fail to innovate in terms of technology and concepts of operations.