2015 01 05 Defense News

Vol. 30 No. 1 $4.50PERIODICALS-NEWSPAPER HANDLING

DefenseNewsw w w. d e f e n s e n e w s . c o m

January 5, 2015

On the national security front,the year 2014 brought about sever-

al surprises — from Russian ag-gression to the rise of the Islamic

State group to cyber attacks. It also

continued the trend of shrinkingdefense budgets as companiesturn their attention to overseas

markets. As 2014 drew to a close, Defense

News reporters in the US, Europe,

Asia and the Middle East took astep back and listed what they ex-

pect to be the top issues and pro-grams in their regions, along with

the top people to watch as those is-

sues play out in the coming year.n In the US, a new defense sec-

retary will steer the Pentagon as itcontinues to struggle with budget

cuts and shifting priorities, while

new leaders in the Army and Navywill be tapped. Page 9.

n In Europe, eastern nations

will continue adding to their bud-gets as Russian movements createtension in former Soviet states. In

Western Europe, elections andnew industry leaders are expectedto shift the dynamics on multiple

fronts. 0.

n In the Middle East, ArabianGulf states will expand their mili-

tary might and weaponry in theface of the Islamic State threat,while Israel faces changes in

spring elections. Page 11.

n In Asia, modernization efforts

march forward as the region keepsa wary eye on China. Page 14. N

People & Programs To Watch in 2015By DEFENSE NEWS STAFF

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP

Eyes on Russia and its President:

Vladimir Putin’s actions have raised

concerns — and budgets — in the region.

SPECIAL REPORTTEL AVIV — Israel has asked Wash-

ington to preserve cut-rate costsand generous terms of a proposedpackage of up to six V-22 tilt-rotor

aircraft pending an ongoing reas-sessment of procurement priori-ties driven by last summer’s Gaza

war.Proposed prices, delivery sched-

ules and deferred payment allow-

ances guaranteed in aPentagon-crafted letter of offerand acceptance (LOA) expired

Dec. 10. Israel didn’t sign the LOA, but

now wants to freeze its terms,

which reduced the estimated $1.3billion package by nearly half, ex-

pedited deliveries and allowed de-ferred payment throughlow-interest commercial loans es-

sentially secured by the promise offuture-year military aid.

In interviews here, officials said

they appreciated the extraordi-narily generous US offer and thepersonal support of Defense Sec-

retary Chuck Hagel and senior USNavy and Marine Corps leaders.

Many also acknowledged what

one termed the “chutzpah” of re-neging on a deal that former IsraeliDefense Minister Ehud Barak and

Moshe Ya’alon — Hagel’s currentcounterpart — insisted was essen-tial for safeguarding Israel’s quali-

tative military edge (QME). “Two successive Israeli defense

ministers lobbied hard to label this

a critical part of QME,” a general inthe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) re-serves said of legislation obligating

the Pentagon to provide “neces-

sary means” for preserving Israel’sadvantage over any likely combi-

nation of regional adversaries.

Israel Angles

To Extend US

Offer for V-22sBy BARBARA OPALL-ROME

See ISRAEL V-22, Page 6

WASHINGTON — A host of new tech-nologies and systems will begin to

enter service when the new air-craft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN78) is delivered in the first half of

2016, and for over a decade it’sbeen a good question whether allthe new whiz-bang technology will

be ready in time. While the US Navy and its suppli-

ers remain under scrutiny to make

it all happen, they’re also increas-ingly confident the key new tech-nologies — including the dual-

band radar (DBR), electromagnet-ic aircraft launch system (EMALS)

and advanced arresting gear

(AAG) — will be delivered.The latter two technologies rep-

resent a big shift for carrier opera-

tions, allowing aircraft to belaunched and recovered without

bulky, manpower-intensive steamcatapults and hydraulic wires.

But, program officials have ac-knowledged, testing and develop-ment of the systems will continue

past the ship’s planned March 2016

delivery. Initial operational test

and evaluation work isn’t to start

until the second half of 2017, with

integration testing continuing tothe end of that year. The ship’s ini-tial deployment is scheduled to

take place in 2019.

See CARRIER SYSTEMS, Page 7

Amid Criticism, US Navy Confident in NewArresting Gear System for Next Carrier

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

MC2 JOHN PHILIP WAGNER/US NAVY

New Landing Gear Technology: An F/A-18E Super Hornet makes an arrested landing on

the carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Gulf last month. The advanced arresting gear on the

carrier Gerald R. Ford won’t rely on hydraulic systems to slow down aircraft as they land.

EUROPE

Food for Fencers?Russia and Argentina are consid-ering a deal in which Moscow

would lease 12 Sukhoi Su-24aircraft to Buenos Aires for beefand wheat. Page 6

NORTH AMERICA

Tanker MilestoneThe KC-46A conducted the firstflight of its engineering test

plane. Page 15

16 Canada: Naval combat system sales.

ASIA & PACIFIC RIM

Stealthy VesselTaiwan receives the first proto-type of a small corvette. Page 17

MIDDLE EAST

Industrial Base Warning Israeli watchdog says strategicinfrastructure must be defined,

protected. Page 16

INTERVIEW

US Rep. Randy ForbesThe chairman of

the US HouseSeapower andProjection Forces

subcommitteediscusses con-gressional sea-

power priorities,the Navy’s plan to

take 11 cruisers out of service and

funding for the Ohio-class sub-

marine replacement. Page 22

PROSPECTS DIM

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STAFF

Ban on Russian CooperationThe Norwegian government is

unlikely to review or revoke its

new 12-month ban on bilateral mil-itary cooperation with Russia un-less it sees a significant change in

the Kremlin’s aggressive behaviorand actions in Ukraine, the Norwe-gian government has said.

Responding to Russia’s annex-

ation of the Crimean peninsula andthe triggering of military interven-

tion in east Ukraine, Norway intro-

duced an initial cessation inmilitary cooperation in March. OnMay 30 it extended that ban to Dec.

31. Norway’s renewed cessationmeans that all scheduled or newmilitary cooperation with Russia is

officially suspended until the endof 2015.

Cyprus Warns Turkey on DrillingCyprus warned Turkey that if it

re-entered the exclusive economic

zone (EEZ) where Nicosia has li-censed exploratory drilling there

would be no chance of resuming

stalled UN-brokered peace talks.Last October, a Turkish ship en-

croached on Cyprus’ EEZ off its

south coast, after Ankara had giv-en notice that a Turkish seismicvessel would carry out a survey in

the same area where Italian-Kore-an energy consortium ENI-Kogas

is operating. In response, Cyprussuspended its participation in UN-led peace talks launched in Febru-

ary.

Three Bid on Polish Helo DealPoland’s Ministry of Defense has

obtained three offers in its much-awaited tender to acquire some 70

new helicopters: Airbus Helicop-ters, Sikorsky, and PZL-Swidnik, aPoland-based subsidiary of Agus-

taWestland.A consortium led by Airbus Heli-

copters is offering the EC-725,

while Sikorsky wants to supply itsS70i Black Hawk and AgustaWes-

tland is offering the AW-149. The

helos are to be supplied in multi-task transport, search-and-rescue,

and anti-submarine variants, ac-

cording to the ministry.

Le Drian Visits Niger Base French Defense Minister Jean-

Yves Le Drian paid a surprise visitto a base being built in northern Ni-

ger to combat the growing flow ofweapons and jihadists from neigh-

boring Libya, according to AgenceFrance-Presse.

Le Drian traveled to Madama, a

desert outpost about 100 kilome-

ters from Libya. Madama is situat-

ed on the route used by jihadistsand arms smugglers in southernLibya to reach Mali and Niger.

First Peace, Then Mistral France would only deliver two

warships ordered by Russia ifthere are concrete signs of lastingpeace in Ukraine, the French de-

fense minister said, according toAgence France-Presse.

Russia has been accused by the

West of arming and bankrolling a

rebellion in eastern Ukraine, acharge Moscow denies. But sanc-

tions imposed by the European

Union and the US on Russia havecomplicated France’s commit-

ment to the €1.2 billion (US $1.5 bil-lion) deal for two Mistral-classwarships.

“There needs to be ... a process ofcease-fire that is respected and a

political roadmap that would leadto the return of peace and calm,”Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1

radio station. N

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n Patrick Cronin, Center for a New

American Security, discusses a CNAS effort

to help the US and allies shape a new

approach toward Asia.

n Jim Hake, founder and CEO, Spirit of

America, explains how his group uses an

entrepreneurial approach to solve specific

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MOST POPULAR

On the WebKC-46A Test Plane Completes First

Flight

The KC-46A Pegasus tanker program hit an

important milestone with the successful first

flight of its engineering test plane.

DefenseNews.com

On the BlogA Closer Look at ‘Modified LCS’

The announcement that the Small Surface

Combatant will be a modified version of

existing littoral combat ships was no

surprise to most followers of this saga.

DefenseNews.Com/Intercepts

On TwitterReport: Russia May Supply Su-24

Aircraft To Argentina In Exchange

For Food

Follow our reporters on Twitter at@AaronMehta @paulmcleary @BennettJohnT @reporterjoe @CavasShips @OpallRome @awadz

ON DEFENSENEWS.COM

In the Dec. 15 issue, Vivek Rae

should have been called a formerdirector general of India’s defense

procurement board. Also, Rae said

that several committees have rec-ommended ordnance factories be

corporatized, not privatized.

CORRECTION

4 DefenseNews January 5, 2015 www.defensenews.com

WorldNews

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistan-Turkey defenseindustrial relationship continues to deepen

with more bilateral projects being promotedand undertaken such as aircraft, ships andtanks.

“As a matter of policy, we encourage Turk-ish industry to broaden their business activ-ity and defense cooperation with Pakistan,”

said a senior official with Turkey’s UnderSecretariat for Defence Industries. “Notonly do the two countries have a fraternal

relationship, politically speaking, but alsothere are prospective areas for technology

sharing and joint development. We do notview Pakistan as a market but as a presentand future partner.”

A London-based Turkey specialist, howev-er, highlighted the restrictions.

“Obviously both sides are keen to cooper-

ate more than past and present. One majorproblem could be Pakistan’s fiscal con-straints.”

The latest agreement was signed betweenPakistan’s Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT)and Turkey’s Nurol Technologies at Paki-

stan’s biennial defense show, the Interna-tional Defence Exhibition And Seminar 2014(IDEAS2014), held Dec. 1-4 in Karachi.

A HIT spokesman confirmed Nurol willtransfer technology to help HIT manufac-ture armored vehicles to B7-plus protection

levels.HIT already cooperates with Turkish com-

panies such as defense electronics firm

Aselsan, a representative of which said the

two sides have cooperated for about 10

years.As a result, Aselsan has supplied sighting

and other sub-systems for Pakistan’s Al-Zar-

rar/upgraded Type-59 tanks and Ukrainian-supplied T-80UDs, and transferred radio de-sign and manufacture technology.

He said it was possible Aselsan could sup-ply technology developed for Turkey’s Leop-ard II upgrade and Altay tank programs for

Pakistan’s Al-Khalid, but claimed Aselsanhad not yet been contacted in this regard.

HIT officials say a key item sought for the

Al-Khalid is a third-generation thermal imag-ing sight such as the Altay’s.

Analyst Usman Shabbir of the PakistanMilitary Consortium think tank said thatsince the French Al Khalid sight is too ex-

pensive, and the Franco-Pakistani defenserelationship has deteriorated, Turkey is a vi-able alternative supplier.

He believes there may be further benefitsin deepening the Pakistani-Turkish defenserelationship that could allow export of the

Al-Khalid, hitherto prevented by high for-eign subsystems content.

Indigenization of subsystems and others

from Turkey will potentially change this.“I don’t see any issue with exporting Al-

Khalid with Turkish subsystems as we are

not competing for the same market, andPak/Turkish relations are also deep and verywell established,” he said.

Aselsan is also partnered with TurkishAerospace Industries (TAI), and defensesoftware firm Havelsan in bidding to up-

grade Pakistan’s ATR-72 patrol aircraft after

the tender was reopened shortly before

IDEAS2014.Havelsan’s Nejat Gokbakar (who revealed

Havelsan had also submitted an indepen-dent proposal) and TAI’s Gokberk Ozturksaid the Pakistan Navy was impressed after

examining the Turkish Navy’s ATR-72s, thestandard of which is now being offered toPakistan. They are optimistic of success.

Ozturk also revealed TAI hopes to buildupon giving subcontracting work on the An-ka UAV to the Pakistan Aeronautical Com-

plex by “looking for opportunities to exportit to Pakistan.”

“We’re aware the Pakistan Air Force is us-

ing FLIR-equipped C-130s, so the Anka is farbetter suited in every respect,” he added.

TAI is pursuing multiple avenues of busi-

ness with Pakistan, including promoting theT-129 helicopter.

Ozcan Ertem, executive vice president

and head of Aircraft Group, said TAI is alsoready to explore any opportunity to supply avariant of its Hurkus turboprop trainer.

However, one Turkish aviation expert said

the Turkish military’s persistent push to buy

an extra batch of Korean-made KT-1 basictrainers could prune export prospects for

the Hurkus.“The reluctant potential buyers could in-

clude Pakistan, given the message of uncer-

tainty over the Hurkus,” he said.The Turkish military has signed a deal with

TAI to buy 10 Hurkus, but is pressing for a

follow-on order from Korean Aerospace In-dustries for 15 KT-1s in an approximately$150 million deal. In 2007, Turkey and KAI

signed a contract for the sale of an initialbatch of 40 KT-1s, with an option for 15 more.The industry widely views the Turkish move

to buy new KT-1s as a sign of mistrust in TAI’sdelivery schedule, planned for 2017-18.

Yonca Onuk, maker of advance composite

fast attack, interception, and patrol craft,also seeks to deepen its relationship withPakistan. Having already supplied it with

MRTP-15 and MRTP-33 boats, it is now hop-ing for success with its MRTP-34.

Ekber I.N. Onuk said the MRTP-34, (of

TURKISH AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES

Copter Promotion:Among the avenuesof business TAI ispursuing withPakistan is theT-129 helicopter.

Pakistani-Turkish DefenseTies Continue to Deepen

By USMAN ANSARI

See PAKISAN-TURKEY, Page 6

WASHINGTON — Many US defense

insiders are hoping for anotherfederal budget deal that againeases military spending limits, but

crafting a deal will resemble a po-litical Rubik’s Cube.

And, in a potential blow to the

Defense Department’s constant

quest for more dollars, a key playeris signaling support for leaving all

spending caps as-is.

As defense insiders and their al-lies on Capitol Hill looked toward

the new GOP-controlled Congress,many eagerly predicted Republi-cans will quickly pass a budget res-

olution that boosts a $535 billion

cap on Pentagon spending for2016.

They were buoyed by chesty talk

in December from incoming Sen-

ate Armed Services CommitteeChairman John McCain, R-Ariz.,

who has placed addressing se-questration as his top priority.

Yet as the 113th Congress

finished its work, the memberswho multiple sources from all po-

litical stripes say are the keys to

boosting the defense cap andblunting sequestration’s blow said

nary a word about such a budget

resolution.What’s more, the members who

crafted and forced through the last

cap-raising budget deal, Rep. Paul

Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Mur-ray, D-Wash., have moved on.

The chairs of the House and Sen-ate Budget Committees in the lastCongress came up with the much-

ballyhooed Ryan-Murray deal. But

Ryan will lead the House Ways andMeans Committee in the new Con-gress, and Murray will be the top

Democrat on the Senate Health,Education and Labor Committee.

That late-2013 deal was passed

by both chambers and signed byPresident Barack Obama, in part,because of the political gravitas of

its authors. Both now will focus on

other matters, including Ryan fi-nally getting the chance to push

major federal tax reform.

Their new roles mean that whatis increasingly being referred to as

a “Ryan-Murray II” package wouldreally be a “Price-Enzi” package.Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Sen.

Mike Enzi, D-Wyo., are stepping

into their shoes as leaders of thebudget committees.

“It really is unclear just where

Price and Enzi stand on raising the

defense caps,” said Roger Zak-heim, a former senior House

Armed Services Committee coun-sel and now with Washington’s Co-vington and Burling law firm. “It’s

really a question of where is lead-ership on this.”

House and Senate leaders from

both parties were mum on theshape of a 2016 budget resolution.

And while the Senate’s Democrat-

ic and Republican leaders willchange jobs, the four congression-al leaders and president that have

for years failed to strike a seques-

ter-nixing fiscal deal will remain.And those who will write a bud-

get resolution, as the new Con-gress is seated this week, havesignaled they support keeping all

federal spending levels within the

confines set out in the 2011 BudgetControl Act.

“The congressman appreciates

the concerns with the cuts that themilitary has been facing and hassaid he believes we need to ad-

dress spending priorities withinthe overall caps,” a Price aide said.

The incoming House Budget

Committee chairman also ismulling two ideas that sources saywould meet resistance in the

Senate, where GOP leaders would

need around six Democraticvotes.

“Possible ideas that could be up

for consideration include findingsavings in mandatory spending

within the 10-year window to off-set increases in defense spend-ing,” the aide said, “or eliminating

the firewall between defense and

the rest of discretionary spendingso there is more flexibility to

Prospects Dim for ‘Ryan-Murray II’ Budget-Relief DealBy JOHN T. BENNETT

See US BUDGET, Page 7


WORLD NEWS

“They took our long-arm needsmuch more seriously than we did,”

the officer said of the Bell Boeingtilt-rotors that Israel aimed to usefor special operations and extend-

ed-range missions. “The chutzpah of this episode

harms our credibility in Washing-

ton.”As of Jan. 2, the Pentagon had

not responded to the Defense Min-

istry’s written request to keepterms of the LOA on ice pendingthe postwar reassessment of in-

vestment priorities.

Long Arm Vs. Ground Maneuvering The proposed V-22 package is

not the only program to beshelved, stretched or staggered

due to the ongoing reassessment,

which defense and industry sourc-es note is being conducted under

conditions of budgetary limbo athome and rapidly escalating re-gional threats.

In late November, Israel decidedto reduce the number of F-35s tobe included in a US government-

administered follow-on contractwith Lockheed Martin from 33 to14 aircraft.

Government and industry sourc-

es have characterized the down-scaled order as a half-step thatbuys Israel more time to budget for

follow-on purchases and preparesto absorb the first tranche of 19aircraft ordered under a 2010

contract.Deliveries of the first 19 aircraft

are scheduled to begin in late 2016

and continue through the end of2019. By then, government and in-dustry sources here said, Israel

hopes to conclude follow-on dealsfor 50 of the 75 aircraft authorizedfor sale by the US Congress.

“They didn’t scale back the pro-gram; they just staggered the or-ders to avoid the expense of having

all those aircraft under the same,

immediate follow-on contract,”said a senior executive of a major

Israeli aerospace firm partnered

with Lockheed Martin on F-35-related subassembly.

In parallel, Israel’s Defense Min-istry is also working with GeneralDynamics Land Systems (GDLS),

its Sterling Heights, Michigan-based partner on the Namer heavytroop carrier, to stretch orders

without renegotiating terms —and risking penalty fees — on a2011 contract.

Sources here said Israel stillplans an inventory of more than500 Namer heavy carriers. Several

hundred of those vehicles will

come from GDLS-produced as-sembly kits that Israel wants to ac-quire at a slower pace than the 60

per year rate specified in its 2011contract.

With no government-approved

budget for 2015, the Israeli DefenseMinistry is operating essentiallymonth-by-month according to

2014-approved funding levels ofsome 51 billion shekels (US $13 bil-lion), which includes US aid.

Compounding obstacles to long-term planning, sources here said,

is a near continuous need to revise

threat assessments due to a regionconvulsing from insurgencies,blurred borders and the steady rise

of radical Islam.“We’re struggling with a cardinal

dilemma: Do we fortify our long

arm [with more F-35s and V-22s] orinvest in more heavy troop carriersand active defenses needed for the

next round in Gaza or Lebanon,” a

government official here said.“We need both and we need them

now,” he added.

Defense officials said the issue isunlikely to be resolved until the

new government to be establishedafter elections here March 17 ap-proves a budget for 2015 and

spending guidelines for future

years. N


ISRAEL V-22From Page 1

WARSAW and LONDON — Russia and Argenti-na are eyeing a deal under which Moscow

would lease 12 Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer aircraftto Buenos Aires in return for beef and wheat,the London-based paper Sunday Express

has claimed.As a result, the British Defence Ministry

has reportedly launched a review of the air

defenses of the Falkland Islands.In a statement, the MoD said it regularly

reviews the military situation around the

South Atlantic islands and would adjustforce levels on the Falklands to meet anynew threat posed by Argentina.

“The MoD undertakes regular assess-ments of potential military threats to theFalkland Islands to ensure that we retain an

appropriate level of defensive capability toaddress any threats. We continue to remain

vigilant and committed to the protection ofthe Falkland Islanders,” it said.

The UK and Argentina, who call the is-

lands the Malivinas, were involved in a shortbut bloody war in 1982 over ownership of thedisputed islands in the South Atlantic.

The dispute has been given new life in re-cent years by Argentinean President Cristi-na Kirchener making reclaiming the islands

a central plank of her policy.

British analysts said Argentina’s acquisi-tion of a credible combat jet force could sig-

nificantly tilt the strategic balance in favor ofBuenos Aires, unless London reinforces theFalklands.

The Falklands are protected by four RoyalAir Force Typhoon jets, Rapier surface-to-air missiles and fewer than 1,200 troops, sup-

ported by a warship.Doug Barrie, the senior air analyst at the

International Institute for Strategic Studies

in London and an expert on Russian aircraftand weapons, said that even with only fourTyphoons, the British would come off better

in any fight with a squadron’s worth of theSu-24.

“I’d back four Typhoons every day of the

week against the threat posed by the 1960/1970s technology of the Russian jet,” he said.

The Su-24MK is a twin-engine, all-weather

land and maritime attack aircraft with aflight range of 2,775 kilometers, according to

data from Sukhoi.Barrie said just how effective the Su-24

would be in the hands of the Argentine Air

Force depended on the weapons packagethat came as part of any deal with theRussians.

“The Su-24 is not what Argentina needs.They have competent crews but they need amultirole platform, not a single-role air-to-

surface aircraft, which is expensive to fly

and expensive to maintain,” he said.

Argentine press reports said Defence Min-ister Agustin Rossi has denied there is anynew defense deal with Russia for fighter jets.

The Argentine Air Force is known to be inthe market for a fighter jet to replace the ob-solete fleet of Skyhawk and Mirage III air-

craft it has operated for several decades.The possible sale of second-hand Mirage

2000 and Kfir aircraft have been discussed.

Most recently a possible sale of Saab Gri-pen aircraft was raised by Argentina, but any

possibility of that deal taking off was rapidlyscotched by the British government.

British companies supply about 30 per-

cent of the new Gripen NG model, and Lon-don said it would block any move to sell theadvanced Swedish jet to Argentina.

Russian jets or the Chinese FC-1/JF-17 areoften touted as potential platforms for theArgentine Air Force.

The hard-up Argentine government won

parliamentary approval recently for an eco-

nomic and investment deal with China.In 2010, Moscow and Buenos Aires signed

a deal under which Russia delivered two Mil

Mi-17 helicopters to the country’s Air Force,marking Argentina’s first purchase of Rus-sian military hardware.

This month, the two sides also struck adeal for Moscow to provide four second-hand tug/supply ships to the Armada

Argentina.In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin

paid an official visit to Argentina, possiblypaving the way for the deal.

Imports of Argentinian food and goods are

viewed as an attempt to bypass Westernsanctions imposed on Russia following thecountry’s intervention in Ukraine and its an-

nexation of the Crimean peninsula. N

Email: [email protected];[email protected].

Report: Russia May Supply AircraftTo Argentina in Exchange for Food

By JAROSLAW ADAMOWSKI

and ANDREW CHUTER

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Exchange for Food?Russian Sukhoi Su-24aircraft fly above theKremlin on May 9.

which he said Qatar has purchasedthree), was an improvement of the

MRTP-33, which Pakistan’s Navyhas praised for “excellent seakeeping and handling qualities”

plus lethality and versatility.Consequently, he believes the

MRTP-34 “is a boat the Pakistan

Navy needs,” specifically for operations in and around the con-tested Indo-Pakistani maritime

border.“The MRTP-34, when operated in

the Creeks area, in conjunction

with a network-centric warfare ca-

pability, means that they would beas lethal as a cobra in the bushes,”

he said.

Also being promoted is the larg-er, more capable MRTP-45, and

there are hopes for wider coopera-tion.

“We see people have understood

the strength of the Turkish defenseindustry, and we will be able toprovide state-of-the-art naval plat-

forms, equipped with state-of-the-art systems, including anti-shipmissiles,” Onuk said.

Therefore, the company is intalks to build its largest design, theMRTP-65, at Karachi Shipyard &

Engineering Works (KSEW). The

steel hull and composite super-structure will be fabricated in Pa-kistan through technology

transfer.Shabbir said “Yonca Onuk is

probably offering to build the

MRTP-65 at KSEW to sweeten thedeal plus cut cost as it will be cer-tainly cheaper to build it at KSEW,”

but he is “not sure if [the Navy] isgoing to go for it though, consider-ing that they need funds for some

other more critical projects.”Despite its vessels growing in

size, Onuk said it will “stick to

what we know” and not offer or de-velop corvettes.

Having already sold a fleet tank-

er design now under constructionat KSEW, the design, project man-agement and technical support

firm STM will continue to promotea corvette design. STM representa-tives discussed present and poten-

tial cooperation with Pakistan

naval chief Adm. Muhammad Za-kaullah at IDEAS2014.

Whether Pakistan will eventually

opt for a derivative of Turkey’s Mil-gem/Ada is uncertain, though STM

is also able to offer its smallerCL-1600 corvette if the Navy re-vives its corvette program shelved

since 2008. N

Burak Ege Bekdil in Ankara contributedto this report.

PAKISTAN-TURKEYFrom

www.defensenews.com January 5, 2015 DefenseNews 7WORLD NEWS

Worries over concurrent design,testing, development and con-struction have been a feature of the

CVN 78 program since its inceptionin the 2000s, when the George W.Bush administration’s emphasis on

transformation forced the Navy tobring forward several technologiesstill in development. Years after the

first contracts were issued for theship, those worries persist, despitereassurances

“Concerns over system integra-tion within platform space, weightand power reservations have been

resolved,” program officials toldthe Government AccountabilityOffice (GAO) in a report released

in March. “Land-based testing forEMALS and DBR has progressedenough that program officials do

not anticipate significant redesign.Further, the AAG test schedule re-mains on track to support ship de-

livery and sea trials.”But in a November report on the

carrier program, GAO continued tosound a worried tone: “The ship-board test program is further at

risk because additional designchanges and modifications to theshipboard AAG units remain like-

ly,” GAO wrote. “This is becausethe Navy will now be conductingland-based testing of AAG even as

shipboard testing is under way.” GAO also cited delays in AAG de-

velopment, which have added four

and a half years to the arrestinggear program, with testing continu-ing to the end of 2016.

Yet Navy officials are more confi-dent than ever that the new radarand launch systems will be ready.

Less has been said about the AAG,which uses a new electric motor-based system and energy-absorb-

ing water twisters to bring super-sonic jet aircraft to a halt within adistance of about 340 feet. As of

now, the arresting gear seems tohave more outstanding issues thanthe DBR or EMALS.

“AAG has had, over the past fouryears, several developmental tests

... that have delayed our test pro-

gram,” Capt. Stephen Tedford, pro-gram manager for the Navy’sAircraft Launch, Recovery and

Equipment Office, said in a Decem-ber interview.

But, he said, the GAO’s claim of

four and a half years of AAG delaysis not accurate.

“We have had delays on the ad-

vanced arresting gear, that is a truestatement,” Tedford said. “We arecontinuing to work through those

delays, and I believe we are still insupport of ship delivery in 2016.”

A serious problem with the water

twisters, discovered early in 2012,was a key factor in the delays, heexplained. Internal plates that take

the force of the water weren’tstrong enough, and finding a solu-tion took time.

“In the arresting gear case, wehave had certain specific issueswith respect to the water twisters

that put us out of test for quite awhile,” Tedford said. “I can’t runthe system until that specific issue

is solved, until we had replacementwater twisters, and we could actu-

ally get back into full envelope test-ing, and not just the low end. Until Iactually start testing at the upper

end where the energy is highest,when I am stressing the system themost, and when I am likely to find

my next issue. But I can’t get backin to test, I can’t find the next is-sue.”

Water twister technology isn’tnew, Tedford said, and manufactur-er General Atomics describes the

system as simple and proven. Butexisting systems are fixed in theircapacity to absorb energy.

“Ours are variable,” Tedford said.“You have an actual moving plateinside the water twister that ad-

justs how much resistance to thewater is generated. Generally,there was an underestimation of

the forces involved inside the wa-ter twister. You are talking about athree-dimensional flow field, it is

very difficult to predict, and it wasunderestimated.”

The solution, he said, was to use

thicker plates. “We beefed up theentire design of the water twister.

The footprint, the outer diameterand the size and the shape are allstill the same. It is the internal com-

ponents that we have made strong-er.”

AAG tests have yet to involve real

aircraft. Rather, dead loads simu-lating the weight of planes have

been used to test the system at a jetcar track installed at Joint BaseMcGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jer-

sey. “To date, that site has executed537 dead loads, so the system doeswork,” Tedford said.

A full-scale AAG is being builtinto a runway at Lakehurst — thesame runway where an EMALS has

been installed and running testssince 2011. Aircraft recoveries willbegin in late 2015, Tedford said.

GAO also repeated longstandingcriticisms that the Navy is perform-

ing tests while delivering compo-

nents to the ship, meaningexpensive changes are made whenproblems are found. The situation

was envisioned and accepted longago, but there is little questionchanges are easier to make before

parts are installed — and for boththe EMALS and AAG, 94 percent ofthe hardware has been delivered to

the Ford. “Yes, we have been concurrent,

with respect to design and produc-

tion, for several years now, and thathas continued,” Tedford acknowl-

edged. “Where we have been ableto get designs changed into the pro-duction hardware prior to delivery

to the ship, we have done so. Forthose that are outstanding, we havea field change work package pro-

gram that brings those changes tothe ship.”

Where to make changes is decid-ed on a case-by-case basis.

“As we have discovery of design

changes in a development test pro-gram, we make a determination oneach and every one if that redesign

is required on the ship, and when itis required on the ship,” Tedfordsaid. “Every one is categorized as it

relates to the ship construction andtest schedule, as well as her post-delivery, post shakedown availabil-

ity schedule. It really depends onthe critical nature of the designchange.”

GAO also raised concerns aboutreliability of both the EMALS andAAG systems. But certifying sys-

tem reliability, Tedford pointedout, can be difficult to prove beforea system is installed.

“Reliability comes from a signifi-cant number of cycles on any sys-tem, it is statistics-based,” Tedford

said. “So you have to have hun-dreds of thousands of cycles in or-der to achieve system reliability.

And the way that reliability growthis established is, it’s not just from

the system installed at Lakehurst,it’s in combination with the shipand the second ship of class, and

the third ship of class over time. Soit was never in our program, as a re-quirement or anything else, in or-

der to meet threshold reliability foreither system when the ship deliv-

ered, simply because it is not pos-sible to get there statistically.”

The single EMALS catapult at La-

kehurst, he said, “is as close as wecan get to the ship-based system onland, but it is not a four-catapult,

identical system to what they haveon CVN 78. Plus, realize that thetesting that we do has been just

that ... developmental testing. Weare trying to find faults in the sys-tem. We are trying to find where it

fails. That is the point. We are notintentionally doing reliability test-ing, which would be part of the en-

velope — repetitive, the same testpoint over and over and over again— to build reliability. That actually

is in the next phase of the test pro-gram that kicks off later this year.”

Tedford admits challenges re-

main, but he declared confidence. “Both of these systems work,” he

said. “EMALS is on a great trajec-

tory right now, and advanced ar-resting gear is on a similar vector.We are very excited.” N


STAFFSOURCES: US NAVY, GENERAL ATOMICSSOU C S US , G TOMMICSSOURCES: US NAVY, GENERAL AL ATOMMTO ICSICSCSSSICS

The New Carrier Arresting GearUnder development by the US Navy and General Atomics, the advanced arresting gear uses water twisters to absorb the energy of aircraft landing aboard ship.

Watertwisters

CARRIER SYSTEMSFrom Page 1

address priorities and needs.”

The aide added that Price is on record ex-pressing a belief that “we need to have a bud-get that reflects and resources the mission

our military men and women are given.”An Enzi spokesperson did not respond to a

request for comment.

The incoming Senate Budget Committeeboss has made few public comments abouthow lawmakers should address pending de-

fense cuts in a new budget plan.In an October 2013 statement, Enzi re-

ferred to the national debt and deficit as “the

real problem.”

“The debt isn’t as tangible to folks as a

government shutdown, but the shutdown is

only a symptom,” Enzi said at that time. “I situp nights worrying about our nation’s debt.”

And in a March 2013 Facebook post, he

lobbied for deeper spending cuts, writing:“We’ve got shell games and sideshows de-signed to distract people from the fact that in

2008 we were spending less on most of theseprograms than the level the sequester wouldput them.” He also accused the Obama ad-

ministration with making the effects of theacross-the-board cuts worse by cutting cru-cial or far-reaching programs first.

The comments indicate any budget resolu-tion might boost defense spending levels bycutting even more from domestic programs

favored by Democrats.

Zakheim predicts Republican leaderscould face a choice between using a tactic

called budget reconciliation to increasemilitary spending or to tackle a favorite

target.

“The question becomes, is defense a toppriority for leadership, and right now, I

would say it’s not a top priority,” he said.

Another former congressional defenseaide, the American Enterprise Institute’sMackenzie Eaglen, says it likely will take

months until Price, Enzi and their ranking

members can agree to a final budget resolu-tion for fiscal 2016.

“If the first draft of any deal is offered with-out senior Democratic support from keyplayers like Schumer and Sanders, then it

will fail to pass or it will be vetoed,” said Ea-

glen, referring to leadership member Sen.Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and incoming Bud-

get Committee Ranking Member Sen. BernieSanders, I-Vt.

“It’s likely Republicans will seek to pass a

favorably conservative deal first and let itstall out to appease their right flank than try

from the start to work a truly bipartisan

compromise that both sides will like but notlove,” Eaglen said.

“The initial GOP budget will seek to only

increase defense caps while balancing theentire federal budget in 10 years from the

Budget Committee, and in four years from

the Republican Steering Committee,” shesaid. N


US BUDGETFrom Page 4

R1 9SPECIAL REPORT

INSIDE

EUROPE Budgets, Russia and Industry Leadership 10

MIDEAST New Politics, Industrial Development 11

ASIA Major Programs, Regional Struggles Continue Into New Year 14

PEOPLE & PROGRAMSTO WATCH

January 5, 2015 www.defensenews.com

WASHINGTON — Despite all of the

talk in the Pentagon and among thedefense intelligen-tsia in Washington

about the “new nor-mal”— the presentera of battling Is-

lamic extremistswhile putting outsecurity and hu-

manitarian brush-fires across theglobe — there has really never

been a “normal” year when itcomes to national security.

And 2015 will be no different. The

rise of the al-Qaida offshoot in Iraq,the Islamic State, — or Daesh, asUS policymakers are increasingly

referring to it — has promptedWashington to send 3,100 troops

back to Iraq, with other allies offer-

ing about 1,500 more troops to helpadvise and train Iraqi and Kurdish

forces.

The air war over Iraq and Syriawill also continue as the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria appears con-

tent to allow the Islamic State and

other rebel groups battle amongthemselves in a bloodletting thatcontinues seemingly without end.

Add to this the rise of a belliger-ent Russia at NATO’s doorstep,which has caused Pentagon plan-

ners to rethink key elements of the

US military’s withdrawal fromEurope.

The Pentagon has stepped up its

training schedule with Eastern Eu-

ropean and Baltic allies, who areeyeing their eastern borders ner-

vously after Russia’s annexation ofCrimea and underground war inUkraine.

All this occurs while 10,000 UStroops remain deployed in Afghan-

istan, a peaceful “rebalance” to

Asia continues apace, and US Afri-

ca Command oversees increasedoperations in the continent. Any

“peace dividend” that the Pentagoncould have expected after 13 yearsof combat in Iraq and Afghanistan

can pretty much be forgotten.And still, there are the modern-

ization and budgetary fights in

Washington to contend with. While the White House insists on

budgeting as if the Budget Control

Act (BCA) and its attendant budgetcaps don’t exist, some big bills are

coming due in 2015.

The Air Force is expected to kickoff an expensive Long Range

Strike-Bomber program, begin

flight testing of its KC-46 tanker,and the Marine Corps begins flyingits version of the F-35 while wres-

tling with a new amphibious vehi-

cle concept.Likewise, the Navy will begin

budgeting for its $100 billion SSBN(X) Ohio-class replacement ballis-tic missile submarine this year,

while testing will begin on the firstZumwalt-class destroyer. The seaservice will also finish retiring the

last of its frigates, leaving the litto-ral combat ship as its primary smallcombatant.

The Army is also kicking off itsArmored Multipurpose Vehicle ef-fort and awarding a contract for

the much-anticipated Joint Light

Tactical Vehicle program, whichwill eventually provide the service

with 50,000 vehicles.

So it’s another year of “new nor-mal” for a building that has never

What To Expectin2015

Carter

Evolving Security

Threats, Costly

Arms Programs

Await New Leaders

By DEFENSE NEWS STAFF

See US IN 2015, Page 12

SAFIN HAMED/AFP

Prepared for Battle: Fighters of Kurdish Peshmerga forces get ready for an operation in

the town of Sinjar, west of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS/STAFF

Set to Sail: The destroyer Zumwalt, under construction at Bath Iron Works, will go to sea

for the first time in 2015.

10 January 5, 2015 PEOPLE & PROGRAMS TO WATCH

Industrial and political develop-ments could begin reshapingEurope’s business landscape with

new leadership in Thales and Sa-fran, further streamlining at Fin-meccanica, a possible Nexter and

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann joint ven-ture holding company, and even arebranding at Kalashnikov.

Austerity measures could still in-fluence procurement decisions inthe UK, Italy and France, while

Russian aggression has focusedthe minds of defense and politicalleaders across Eastern Europe and

NATO. Meanwhile, a general election

approaches in the UK, a defense

white paper — the first in a decade— is pending approval in Italy, and

France still must grapple with itsdeliver-no deliver decision regard-ing the Mistral to Russia.

UNITED KINGDOM

General Election: Britain faces ageneral election in May with theoutcome highly uncertain. A mi-

nority government eventually fol-lowed by a second election cannotbe ruled out.

Defense Review: Election results

could affect a strategic defenseand security review set to take

place after the election and a re-view of government spending. IfLabour wins, the review could run

to 2016. A Conservative successwould see a more rapid comple-tion. Political uncertainty is likely

to delay the review in any case. Butdefense could face cuts whoeverwins as the major political parties

are committed to a new round ofspending austerity.

Military Manpower: Shortages of

engineering personnel and other

skills are becoming a significantmilitary headache, none more so

than for the Royal Navy, which hadto borrow US Coast Guard engi-neers. Meanwhile, the British

Army can’t recruit the number ofreserves it needs to meet its end-

of-decade force structure require-

ments.Logistics Transformation: The win-

ner of a 13-year support deal to out-

source the purchase, storage andtransport of Defence Ministrycommodities will likely be the first

big program announcement of

2015. Media reports say Babcockhas beaten out rival bidder Leidos.

Expect budget pressures to createmore outsourcing deals.

Type 26 Frigate: Wrangling be-

tween shipbuilder BAE Systems

and the Ministry of Defence overrisk management could delay the

build contract for a new class offrigates. But with first of classneeded by 2022, both sides will be

anxious to maintain some pro-gress even if the main deal is notsealed for a while.

Apache Replacement: A possibledecision on how to sustain BritishArmy attack helicopter capability

out to 2040 could signal the newgovernment’s defense industrialpolicy and whether it intends to

support the UK’s helicopter indus-try. One option being considered isreplacing the existing AgustaWes-

tland variant of the Apache withthe latest Boeing-built AH-64Evariant.

Defense Secretary: When Michael

Fallon was appointed as defensesecretary in July, many viewed it as

a stop-gap measure. But if the Con-

servatives win, Fallon could be re-appointed. According to one

Conservative, Fallon has taken tothe post “like a duck to water.”

Airbus President: Observers are

watching to see what Paul Kahn,the Airbus Group’s new UK presi-dent who took over in October,

does with the UK elements of awider Airbus defense and spacebusiness that is restructuring and

divesting activities like Atlas Elek-tronik. Executives say one ofKahn’s tasks may be to increase

the awareness and growth oppor-

tunities in the aircraft, satellite andcyber fields.

ITALY

Finmeccanica CEO: Furtherstreamlining is expected in Fin-meccanica’s January industrial

plan, including the possible sale ofUS electronics firm DRS. There isalso speculation that CEO Mauro

Moretti, who already announcedhe would turn Finmeccanica’sunits into mere divisions in a cost-

cutting bid after taking the reins atthe Italian group in 2014, may even

sell Finmeccanica’s stakes in

MBDA and Superjet, the businessjet joint venture with Sukhoi.

Chief of Staff: Italian Army Chief

Gen. Claudio Graziano was nameddefense chief of staff just beforeChristmas, replacing Adm. Luigi

Binelli Mantelli. Graziano will bechallenged to protect the militaryfrom cuts and maintain the profile

of a job that is sometimes over-

shadowed by the individual ser-vice chiefs.

Defense Minister: Roberta Pinotti,

Italy’s first female defense minis-ter, is widely respected by the

country’s generals and admirals,but her job became tougher justbefore Christmas when it was an-

nounced ministry spending would

total €13.58 billion (US $16.5 bil-lion) in 2015, almost €1 billion less

than predicted in 2013’s three-year

forecast. New Naval Law: A massive €5.8 bil-

lion funding package for new Navyvessels faces a few remaining bu-reaucratic hurdles before the ser-

vice can sign a contract with localshipyard Fincantieri for new multi-functional ships and a landing plat-

form dock, among other vessels.The funding has been shieldedfrom the cuts being suffered by the

regular defense budget.Joint Strike Fighter: The Penta-

gon’s selection of Italy’s F-35 final

assembly and checkout line asEurope’s maintenance hub provid-ed an economic boost, but chal-

lenges remain in 2015. Beforemaintenance work kicks in, can It-

aly justify the cost of the facility if

it cuts orders and fewer aircraftroll off the line? Will the mainte-

nance work be as technologically

rewarding as Italian industrywould like?

Defense White Paper: Italy’s first

defense white paper in more than adecade, due to be approved earlyin the new year, will help deter-

mine military purchase plans forthe F-35. Advocates of cutting thebuy were told in 2014 to wait for

the white paper’s conclusions.“How many theaters do we expectto operate in and will we need

ground attack aircraft, yes or no?”Pinotti said last year. “It’s prema-ture to talk about numbers until

the white paper is concluded.”

FRANCE

Budget Challenge: The Frenchgovernment may have set the 2015

annual defense budget at the ex-pected €31.4 billion, but civil ser-vants must explore creative

financial engineering as the Fi-nance Ministry will not fully fundthe topline figure, delivering a vir-

tual cut. A public-private partner-ship to lease equipment, ratherthan a straight acquisition, is one

of the options.Mistral and Moscow: Mistral heli-

copter carrier: deliver or not? If

President François Hollande can-celed the Vladivostok sailing east,some commentators see doubt

cast over France as a reliable armsexporter and a financial hit as theRussians are refunded.

Rafale: France is counting on In-dia sealing a deal to purchase 126Dassault Rafales by the end of

March with Qatar also closing inon an order. If contracts aresigned, a financial burden is eased

for Paris and sales confidence inthe multirole fighter grows.

Land Weapons: Nexter and

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann are due towrap up talks on forging a joint

venture holding company to build

land armaments. A thrust at Euro-pean consolidation, there is muchinterest in whether the deal will go

ahead and on Berlin’s policy onweapons export.

Industry Leadership: Patrice Caine

and Henri Proglio will lead Thalesas, respectively, chief executiveand chairman, ushering in new top

management at the electronicscompany.

At Safran, Philippe Petitcolin

and Ross McInnes will lead the en-gine maker as, respectively, CEOand chairman, while Jean-Paul

Europe: Tight Budgets, RussianSwagger and New Industry Leadership

By DEFENSE NEWS STAFF

JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD/AFP

Awaiting Delivery Decision: The Sevastopol, left, and Vladivostok warships, two Mistral class helicopter carriers ordered by Russia, are

seen in Saint-Nazaire, western France.

VASILY BATANOV/AFP

Russia’s Presence: Russian fighter jets fly

above the Crimean port of Sevastopol on

May 9 during a parade. Russia’s actions in

Crimea and elsewhere in Eastern Europe

have sparked responses in neighboring

countries.

See EUROPE, Page 14

January 5, 2015 11PEOPLE & PROGRAMS TO WATCH

ABU DHABI and TEL AVIV — The continuedshifting of the political sands in Egypt, Saudi

Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, greaterindustrial development among the ArabianGulf states and an Israel always preparing

for the next possible conflict will help shape2015’s outlook in the Middle East.

More collaboration is seen among gulf

states both through Emirates Defense In-dustries Co. (EDIC) and a new Gulf Cooper-ation Council (GCC) military command.

Israel will see a new defense chief while na-tional elections also are scheduled forMarch, and the presidents of Egypt and the

Palestinian Authority continue to consoli-date power while pursuing their agendas.

GULF NATIONS

Region: Expect a big showing by Emirates

Defense Industries Co. at February’s Inter-national Defence Exhibition 2015 in AbuDhabi. EDIC will comprise 11 companies

from the subsidiaries of Abu Dhabi govern-ment-owned Mubadala Development Co.,

Tawazun Holding and Emirates AdvancedInvestment and serve as the GCC’s first na-tional military industrial complex.

Unified GCC Command: The new Gulf Coop-eration Council military command will rap-idly take shape following December’s

summit in Doha. The bloc also wants to set

up a joint naval force that the Saudis havestated will be 100,000 strong. US President

Barack Obama has cleared foreign militarysales for the command.

C4ISR in the Gulf: UAE’s agreement to ac-

quire French Falcon Eye spy satellites hasstrengthened its position as a supplier of C4capabilities to GCC countries. Once

launched in 2018, the UAE plans to have sev-en satellites in orbit for commercial and mil-itary use.

Saudi National Guard: As the second son ofthe king, Prince Miteb bin Abdullah is ex-pected to be announced as the heir apparent

to the Saudi throne. His current role as chiefof the National Guard, a position which onlyhis father held previously, and the rapid

modernization under his leadership aresigns of his ascension within the ranks of theHouse of Saud, overtaking his older brother.

EDIC Board Chairman: Homaid al-Shemmariis expected to present the new Emirates De-fense Industries Co. as a global player in

2015 and establish a global footprint for theUnited Arab Emirates in the defense indus-try.

ISRAEL

Prime Minister: If Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu — the frontrunner in

national elections set for March 17 — is re-elected, look for him to form a right-of-cen-ter coalition government more likely to

clash with the United States, Europe and

other world powers on issues of Jewish set-tlement, Palestinian statehood and a P5+1

nuclear deal with Iran.Chief of Staff: Lt. Gen.-designate Gadi Ei-

senkot will succeed Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz as

chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces(IDF) in February. Eisenkot was director of operations during Israel’s 2006 Lebanon

War before assuming command of Israel’snorthern front. Expect him and IDF DeputyChief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan to urge

punishing responses if threatened by Hez-bollah, Syrian regime forces or Islamic jiha-dists.

Missile Defense: Israel plans to deploy Da-vid’s Sling, its newest layer of active defense,in the first months of 2015. Developed by

state-owned Rafael and US partner Raythe-on, David’s Sling will be sandwiched be-tween upper layers defended by Arrow and

the lower-tier Iron Dome.Israel Military Industries: Israel’s Govern-

ment Companies Authority is readying an

early 2015 request for proposals for foreigninvestors interested in acquiring up to 90percent equity in the nation’s oldest defense

firm. Aside from critical propulsion technol-ogies, which will transfer to a new Defense

Ministry-owned firm, IMI, valued at about$500 million, will be sold as a single package.

Spy Satellite: Israel plans to launch its new-

est spy satellite, Ofek 11, this year. Built byIsrael Aerospace Industries, the low-Earthorbiting satellite will feature a high-resolu-

tion imaging payload.

EGYPT

President: Egyp-tian President Ab-dul Fattah al-Sisi,

despite extremelimitations on freespeech and ongo-

ing abuses of hu-man rights, iseffectively contain-

ing radical Islamand controlling itsborders with Israel

and Gaza. He willplay a key stabilizing role if Israel launchesanother military operation against Hamas in

Gaza.

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

President: Palestinian Authority PresidentMahmoud Abbas is steadily amassing sup-

port for Palestinian statehood throughoutEurope, Latin America and elsewhere de-spite intensified Israeli efforts to discredit

him. Expect him to remain committed tononviolent resistance and retain the alle-

giance of his US-funded, Jordanian-trainedSecurity Forces even as his popularity in theWest Bank and East Jerusalem starts to

wane. N

Email: [email protected],[email protected].

New Industrial Might, Shifting Politics in MideastBy AWAD MUSTAFA

and BARBARA OPALL-ROME

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

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seen anything else.

OPERATIONS, LEADERSHIP

Operation Inherent Resolve:

Countering the Islamic State groupin Iraq will be a focal point of USmilitary operations. The question

is, how quickly can 3,100 US troopsand 1,500 allied forces organizeand train the nine Iraqi Army and

three Kurdish Peshmerga brigadesto take the fight to the Islamic Statemilitants? Are they enough to get

the job done, and what happens ifIslamic State fighters attack theseforces at their bases inside Iraq?

Airstrikes by the US and a hand-ful of Middle Eastern and NATO al-lies may have blunted the Islamic

State group’s advance towardBaghdad. But as Iran’s 1,000 de-ployed military advisers in Iraq

deepen ties with Shia militias, thefuture for an Iraq that is a reason-ably inclusive Shia/Sunni/Kurdish

state remains in flux.Operation Freedom’s Sentinel: The

US and NATO combat mission isofficially over in Afghanistan, ex-cept when it’s not. Washington in-

sists that the 10,900 US forcesbolstered by 4,000 NATO troopswill no longer take offensive action

against Taliban and Haqqani tar-gets, and instead focus on trainingand advising Afghan forces and

building up the ministries in Kabul.But US and NATO forces still will

be allowed to defend themselves if

attacked, and can go after Talibanleadership in extraordinary cases.Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm.

John Kirby said US forces will actonly if the Taliban “directly threat-en our people or our allies,” and

that “we’re not going to target Tali-ban simply by virtue of the fact thatthey’re Taliban.”

With thousands of US troops andspecial operators still in countryfor at least 2015, however, it re-

mains to be seen what kind of tar-get they’ll make for local fighters.

Fiscal 2016 Budget: The Obama

administration has instructed thePentagon to budget as if the BCAof 2011never happened, and has al-

ready said it plans to request about

$36 billion above the BCA’s $499billion cap. While Congress has

found ways around the cuts over

the past several years, the cuts areslated to come back in full force in

2016. How much of that $36 billion will

the new Republican-controlled

Congress be willing to negotiateon? Include the uncertain overseascontingency operation request,

and the new Congress and new ci-vilian and uniformed Pentagonleadership will have a busy, and po-

tentially fractious, year.Joint Chiefs, Defense Secretary:

There’s a big shakeup coming in

some of the top Pentagon leader-

ship positions. With Ash Cartersure to be confirmed as the nextsecretary of defense — after a con-

firmation hearing expected to be areferendum on six years of Oba-ma’s foreign policy performance —

the future occupants of some otheroffices are less certain. What is cer-tain is that the Obama administra-

tion will have to send at least fourtop military officers to the SenateArmed Services Committee for

confirmation hearings.Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mar-

tin Dempsey and Vice Chief Adm.

Sandy Winnefeld are both slated tostep down this year, along withArmy Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odier-

no and Chief of Naval OperationsAdm. Jon Greenert.

Dempsey’s replacement could be

drawn from a wide pool of top offi-cers, including Greenert; Adm.Samuel Locklear, current Pacific

Command boss; Air Force Chief ofStaff Gen. Mark Welsh; CentralCommand boss Gen. Lloyd Austin;

Marine Commandant Gen. JoeDunford; and Air Force Gen. PhilipBreedlove, head of European Com-

mand.Cyber: Cybersecurity took center

stage in 2014, with President Oba-ma announcing he plans to estab-lish “rules of the road,” for the

Internet, which he called, “kind ofthe wild west.” In December , Oba-ma signed five cybersecurity bills,

one of which codifies the NationalCybersecurity and Communica-tions Integration Center, a hub for

the federal government, intelli-gence community and law enforce-ment.

Cyber attacks have hit most ma-jor US companies and the defensesector is far from immune. A Chi-

nese national in July was indictedfor hacking defense companiessuch as Boeing and Lockheed Mar-

tin.

CONGRESS

The Chairman: The US defensesector is worried, as one source

put it, that incoming Armed Ser-vices Committee Chairman Sen.John McCain, R-Ariz., is “coming

for us all.” When asked if compa-nies should be afraid of his time aschairman, McCain responded: “No,

they shouldn’t be scared — if

they’re performing.” He has talkedabout changing the weapons-buy-

ing system to control costs at the

onset of complex programs.The Leadership: The two Senate

leaders, Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., arechanging jobs. And House Speaker

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, has alarger majority. But sources say thepolitics of sequestration — that is,

undoing it — have changed very lit-tle. The leaders charged with bro-kering the kind of fiscal deal that

would end the automatic cuts arethe same who concocted seques-tration and have repeatedly failed

to nix it.

The Freshmen: Five newly electedGOP senators will join the ArmedServices Committee, including

hawks such as Tom Cotton, R-Ark.,and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. McCainhas signaled he hopes the new

members will fall in line with his in-terventionist philosophy. If theydo, Obama administration nomi-

nees and officials will experiencesharp questioning during hearings,and the president’s policies will

face tough scrutiny.The Sequester: McCain has talked

of using his chairmanship to turn

back the spigot of military spend-ing. But no single committee cando it. And as the 113th Congress

was ending, no one else on CapitolHill was talking about a “grand bar-gain” or even a “small bargain.”

The War, The Law: The Senate For-eign Relations Committee quicklycrafted and passed an authoriza-

tion for the use of military force forAmerica’s war against the IslamicState group. Members of both par-

ties say one is needed, but it be-came apparent last month the bigsticking point with the White

House will be something manyDemocrats, and some Republi-

cans, want: Language to essentiallyprohibit US forces from participat-ing in offensive combat missions.

The Streak: Congress has passed aNational Defense AuthorizationAct for 53 consecutive years. But

during the Obama era, getting a billout of the Senate has not been easy.And that was with a Democratic

chairman writing the upper cham-ber’s version of the bill. McConnellvows to again move annual policy

and spending bills. But the GOP islooking forward to includingpolicy riders the president op-

poses, putting the streak at risk.

AIR FORCE

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: Afteryears of delays, cost overruns and

technical failures, the F-35 pro-gram is scheduled to hit a majormilestone this summer when the

Marine’s F-35B “jump-jet” variantgoes operational. That moves thejet from developmental into a fight-

er that will be deployed. If the July 1target date is not hit, it could be a

warning sign for the Air Force and

its August 2016 target date.KC-46A Pegasus Tanker: The

KC-46A is the first in a three-step

process to replace the Air Force’stanker fleet and 2015 will be a keyyear as the first test flight of a fully

equipped KC-46A is scheduled forspring. Getting that step out of theway is crucial to make sure the

tanker remains on track for a 2017initial operating capability date.

Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRSB):

Details of the LRSB, among themost mysterious programs in thePentagon, may become available

soon — a contract award is expect-ed in the first half of 2015. NorthropGrumman is facing off against a

team of Lockheed Martin and Boe-

ing for the right to produce 80-100

of the penetrating bombers.Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan: The F-35

joint strike fighter is about to

switch from test flights into a fullyoperational fighter jet. And Bog-dan, who took over the program in

late 2012, has received praise forgetting the F-35 back on track andforcing a hard line with corporate

partners, but his job doesn’t geteasier. Expect more choices on in-ternational sustainment options,

software upgrades and perhaps in-creased partner buys in 2015.

Deborah Lee James, Gen. Mark

Welsh: Air Force Secretary Jamesand Chief of Staff Welsh face tough

choices in 2015. In addition to mo-rale and personnel crises, such asreforming the nuclear enterprise,

handling drawdowns and the on-going challenge of sexual assault,they have to navigate a Congress

highly skeptical of the service’sbudget decisions, particularly thepush to retire the A-10 Warthog. If

the two can’t repair relations withthe Hill, 2015 could be very rockyfor the service.

Maj. Gen. John Shanahan: The AirForce looks locked into a long airconflict in both Iraq and Syria, one

which likely will be driven by in-telligence, surveillance and recon-naissance. As the head of the newly

stood up 25th Air Force, Shanahanis the point man for managing as-sets and long-term ISR strategy.

His recommendations will helpshape not just the current conflict,but how the service approaches

ISR for the next decade.

NAVY

Destroyers: The huge, futuristicnew destroyer Zumwalt will

emerge this summer from BathIron Works to begin sea trials, giv-ing everyone the best look yet at

the high-tech ship’s unique tumble-home hull and stark profile. Theship should be turned over to the

Navy in the fall.Small Combatants: The last frig-

ates will be retired by September,

leaving the littoral combat ship asthe most significant smaller war-ship. The LCS program should

have a banner year: The Fort Worthwill operate from Singapore

throughout 2015 and new deliver-

ies will double the four-ship LCS

fleet by the end of the year. The Na-

vy will also spend the year refining— and explaining — the modifiedLCS concept.

New Ships, Weapons: The firstbuilt-for-the-purpose Afloat For-ward Staging Base (AFSB) will be-

gin operations, allowing the fleet towork with a new type of ship ableto support a variety of operational

concepts. Experiments will con-tinue with joint high speed vesselsas more become available, and

both JHSVs and the interim AFSBPonce will test new weapons, in-

cluding rail guns and lasers.Unmanned, Carrier-based Jets: The

future of the US Navy’s Unmanned

Carrier-Launched Airborne Sur-veillance and Strike program is inlimbo, awaiting studies ordered by

Congress and the Pentagon overrequirements. At issue: Is this pri-marily a strike aircraft or another

ISR asset? The issue is further com-pounded by cultural and philo-sophical questions about the need

for a pilot in a carrier-based jet.Don’t hold your breath waiting fora decision.

Procurement Costs, SSBN(X): Thefabulously expensive — over $100billion by several estimates —

SSBN(X) Ohio-class replacementballistic missile submarine comesinto near-term planning view with

the 2016 budget submission. Thefirst of the ships is to be ordered in2021, and anyone connected with

Navy shipbuilding is worried aboutthe program’s effect on the rest ofnaval procurement. At issue:

whether to pay for the subs out ofthe normal shipbuilding budget orcreate a dedicated funding path.

Little is expected to be decided this

year, but the debate will certainlygo on.

Leadership: 2015 marks the final

year for Adm. Jon Greenert’s timeas chief of naval operations, and a

successor should be named in mid-year. The age old question: Will thenew CNO be a submariner, like

Greenert, a surface warfare officeror an aviator? Or from anothercommunity? Place your bets.

Any Navy four-star is a possibilityand there are roughly a dozen ac-tive today.

Observers see three primaryfront-runners for the top job: n Adm. Mark Ferguson, a sur-

face warfare officer, leads Naval

T.J. KIRKPATRICK/GETTY IMAGES

Stepping Down:Several officialsare consideredpossiblecandidates toreplace JointChiefs of StaffChairman Gen.Martin Dempsey.

US IN 2015From

January 5, 2015 13PEOPLE & PROGRAMS TO WATCH

Forces Europe and Naval ForcesAfrica. He also served three toursin Washington as chief of legisla-

tive affairs, chief of naval person-nel and vice chief of navaloperations.

n Adm. Bill Gortney, an aviator,took over Northern CommandDec. 5 after vacating his position as

the fleet’s top boss at Fleet ForcesCommand. He would be the firstaviator CNO in 15 years.

n Adm. Michelle Howard, a sur-face warfare officer, is vice chief ofnaval operations. She would be the

first woman and first black servicechief.

Other possible contenders are

Adm. Harry Harris, who has beentapped to lead US Pacific Com-mand; Adm. Cecil Haney, head of

Strategic Command; Adm. JohnRichardson, head of Naval Reac-tors; Adm. Samuel Locklear, the

current PACOM boss, although hecould also be a candidate for chair-man of the Joint Chiefs.

COAST GUARD

Cutter: The Coast Guard willchoose which of three contenders

will build the offshore patrol cut-ter, the largest US governmentshipbuilding contract now up for

bid. At stake is a potentially $10.5billion program to build 25 medi-um-endurance cutters.

ARMY

Chief of Staff: The US Army willget a new chief of staff in 2015 asGen. Ray Odierno completes his

four-year tenure in September.Among the possible candidates:n Gen. Daniel Allyn, the vice

chief of staff, a position that tradi-tionally has been a stepping stoneto the chief’s office. As the officer

in charge of day-to-day operations,Allyn has intimate knowledge ofthe Army’s inner workings.

n Gen. Vincent Brooks, the com-manding general of US Army Pacif-ic. Brooks, a former aide-de-camp

to the vice chief of staff and Armychief of public affairs, has led

USARPAC since July 2013.

n Gen. John Campbell, the com-mander of the International Secu-rity Assistance Force in

Afghanistan. Campbell, formervice chief of staff, has extensivecombat experience as well as

knowledge of the Army, the Penta-gon and Capitol Hill.n Gen. David Perkins, the com-

manding general of Training and

Doctrine Command. Perkins hasspearheaded many key Army ef-

forts, including developing the

new operating concept, rewritingArmy doctrine, and leading the

study and analysis to determinewhat the future Army should looklike.

Army Undersecretary: US Army

Undersecretary Brad Carson, a for-mer Oklahoma congressman and

Army general counsel, is someone

to watch — if you can get him tostand still. In a few months, he vis-ited Afghanistan, Belgium, Germa-

ny, Kuwait, Romania, South Koreaand domestic bases from Alabamato Alaska.

But Carson runs a regular forumat the Pentagon called the ArmyManagement Action Group, a deep

dive into the Army’s priorities afterthe Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Car-son said the next year would be

spent gathering input from senior

Army leaders to implement aphased 25 percent cut for head-quarters units.

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle: The USArmy has set a Feb. 10 deadline forproposals for the Joint Light Tacti-

cal Vehicle (JLTV) program fromcontenders AM General, LockheedMartin and Oshkosh Defense.

A Milestone C production deci-sion for a single vendor is expectedOct. 1.

Under the award, 17,000 JLTVs

would be produced over eightyears, as the military ultimatelypursues 50,000 JLTVs for the Army

and 5,500 for the Marine Corps. Armored Multipurpose Vehicle: The

US Army will report to Congress

on Jan. 30 about whether certainvariants of the Armored Multipur-pose Vehicle (AMPV), due to re-

place the M113 infantry carriers,could include wheeled platforms.

General Dynamics Land Systems

pulled out of the competition,

claiming the service’s mobility re-quirements all but excludedwheeled vehicles.

Rival BAE Systems has offered amodified version of its tracked M2Bradley.

The Army plans to buy 2,907AMPVs at a total cost of $10.2 bil-lion. n

John T. Bennett, Christopher P. Cavas, JoeGould, Paul McLeary and Aaron Mehtacontributed.

Special Report:Air Force Leaders and Programs

Top Air Force leaders discuss:• The new bomber• First flight of the KC-46• The latest on the F-35• Future space contracts• Bonus distribution at theAFAWinter show

Issue Date: Feb. 9, 2015

Special report:Middle East defense requirements

This issue will explore the militaryrequirements, land, sea and ISR, inMiddle Eastern countries.• Bonus distribution at theIDEX show in Abu Dhabi


US Defense Budget 2016

The first defense budget with the newGOP-controlled Congress.Defense News will explore:• Army and Marine vehicles• Navy surface combatants and subs• Air Force strike and ISR platforms• Recapitalization vs. new purchases


Surface Navy Focus:Surface Warfare’s Top issues:

• New small surface combatant ships• The latest in radars andship-launched missiles

• Unmanned vehicles andmine warfare

• Bonus distribution atSurface Navy Show

Issue Date: Jan. 12, 2015

Special Report:Off-the-Shelf-Weapons

The Pentagon has launched TheBuying Power 3.0 initiative tostreamline purchasing.• Will it make it easier to acquirecommercial technology?

• How will it change the procurementprocess?


Special Report: Special Operations

US special operations capabilitiesand requirements:• New equipment being developed• Emerging requirements• Budgetary issues• Bonus distribution at the SO/LICconference in Washington

Issue Date: Jan. 26, 2015

14

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TAIPEI and NEW DELHI — In East Asia, variouscountries will continue to pursue military mod-

ernization efforts, often with an eye on China.In Taiwan, a long-delayed submarine programis a priority. In South Korea, an F-16 upgrade ef-

fort became snagged when a contract awardwas reversed.

And in India long-delayed decisions on the

Rafale fighter and a joint fifth-generation fight-er plan may finally come to fruition.

Meanwhile, aggressive anti-corruption moves

by China’s president could spark a backlash; Ja-pan’s new defense minister must deal with de-fense reforms and Beijing intrusions; and Thais

wonder if a military junta will cede to civilianpower.

TAIWAN

Navy Chief: Adm. Chen Yung-kang will con-

tinue trying to secure funds and public/privatesupport for a domestic submarine program. Tai-

wan has had a submarine requirement for 20years but still has not found the money and sup-port needed to buy or build.

SOUTH KOREA

F-16 Upgrade: BAE Systems likely will battle adecision that reversed its winning of a multi-million dollar contract to upgrade Seoul’s F-16

fleet and instead gave the program to LockheedMartin.

CHINA

President’s Agenda: Will President Xi Jinpingsurvive 2015? His grand anti-corruption sweepjailed prominent military and political leaders

in 2014 and could prompt enemies to moveagainst him if his efforts continue.

And observers question whether Xi will con-

tinue to rile neighboring countries by pushingChinese territorial claims in the South and EastChina seas.

JAPAN

New Defense Minister: Appointed Dec. 24,observers wonder if Defense Minister GenNakatani will continue to push military defense

reforms, and if he will challenge the Chinesemilitary and para-military intrusions into Japa-nese waters and island claims.

THAILAND

Junta: Will Thailand’s military junta surrenderpower to a civilian elected prime minister and

parliament in 2015? In May, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha declared

martial law and staged a peaceful coup d’état.

In August, his own military officers appointedto the national legislature elected the generalprime minister.

INDIA

Defense Minister: Defence Minister Manohar

Parrikar will struggle in 2015 to put into placethe policies needed to fulfill Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s dream of “Make in India” de-

fense projects when the domestic industry isstill in its infancy and India imports 70 percentof its weapons needs.

Major Projects: 2015 could finally see the in-king of the $12 billion Medium Multirole Com-bat Aircraft program in favor of Dassault

Aviation’s Rafale, as already lengthy contractnegotiations are unlikely to reach 2016.

A long-delayed final agreement on an Indo-Russian fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA)is likely to be settled, paving the way for the

joint development of the aircraft for the IndianAir Force, which has a requirement for morethan 200 FGFAs worth over $30 billion. N

Email: [email protected],[email protected].

Political Struggles, LingeringPrograms Move Into 2015

By WENDELL MINNICK

and VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI

KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP

Japanese Defense Boss: New Japanese Defense MinisterGen Nakatani addresses the Defense Ministry on Dec. 25.

Herteman steps down as chief ex-ecutive. Sagem hopes its defenseunit can win fresh orders for its ar-

mement air-sol modulaire, an air-to-ground missile, to keep the pro-duction line open.

Politics and Exports: When Jean-Yves Le Drian became defenseminister in 2012, French media re-

ported a critical view of what wasseen as his reluctance to sell

French arms overseas. Le Drian’s

riposte was that his job was tobuild political ties and leave thecompanies to sell. But since Le

Drian’s arrival, he has traveledwidely and exports have risen.There are high hopes for more con-

tract wins.

POLAND

Defense Minister: In September’sCabinet reshuffle, Defense Minis-

ter Tomasz Siemoniak, seen as arising political star, was promotedto deputy prime minister while re-

maining at the helm of the DefenseMinistry. He will oversee plans tospend US $41.5 billion to modern-

ize Poland’s military and purchasenew weapons by 2020.

Missile Defense: Poland’s ongoing

tender to acquire new air and mis-

sile defense systems is likely to

produce the largest military pro-curement among Eastern Euro-pean NATO member states, with

bids by Raytheon and the Eurosamconsortium shortlisted.

UKRAINE

Defense Minister: Col. Gen. Ste-

pan Poltorak was reappointed de-fense minister Dec. 2 in a sign ofpolitical support for the military

reforms he launched after assum-ing office in October. He is seen asa trusted adviser to President Pe-

tro Poroshenko.

NATO

Joint Procurements: NATO alliesin Eastern Europe may boost co-

operation in defense procurement.Current examples include joint airpatrols, special forces operations

and acquisitions of personal weap-ons planned by the Czech Republicand Slovakia, and a project by lo-

cal defense firms to jointly supplynew 3-D radars to the Czech, Slo-

vak and Hungarian militaries.

Crimean Crisis: Russia’s militaryintervention in Ukraine and its an-nexation of the Crimean peninsula

has boosted defense spending inEastern Europe, with a number of

NATO members expected to sig-

nificantly hike their military ex-

penditure in the upcoming years.

RUSSIA

Kalashnikov Marketing: The re-branding of Russian firearms mak-er Kalashnikov Concern, launched

in December, and plans to increaseits revenues fourfold to 24 billionrubles (US $421 million) by 2020,

could help establish Alexei Krivo-ruchko, chief executive and co-owner of Kalashnikov Concern, as

a leader of Russian defense indus-try.

Defense Minister: Defense Minis-

ter Sergei Shoigu, a close adviserto President Vladimir Putin,ranked second in a Person of the

Year opinion poll carried out by theYuri Levada Analytical Center inDecember. No 1? Putin.

Air, Space Defense Upgrades: WithRussia’s December Military Doc-trine document stressing the need

to counter NATO’s missile defense

efforts in Europe, the country isexpected to spend 2 trillion rubles

to upgrade its Aerospace Defense

Forces. The new and overhauled sys-

tems are expected to be operation-al by 2025.

Arctic Command: The Defense

Ministry’s decision to establish an

Arctic Strategic Command and de-ploy new aircraft, radars and other

equipment there demonstrate

Moscow’s rising military focus on

the region. The increased push re-flects Putin’s April declaration that

the Arctic has always been asphere of “special interest” to Rus-sia.

Spending vs. Sanctions: Russiacontinues to back separatists in

eastern Ukraine, but Moscow’s fi-

nancial woes, triggered by cheaperoil and Western sanctions, are like-

ly to affect long-term defense

spending, analysts say. Plans by Moscow to spend 20

trillion rubles on military modern-

ization by 2020 could be in jeopar-

dy. N

Jaraslow Adamowski in Warsaw,Andrew Chuter in London, Tom

Kington in Rome and Pierre Tran inParis contributed to this report.

EUROPEFrom Page 10

ALEXEI DRUZHININ/AFP

Most Popular: Russian President VladimirPutin, left, attends the Defense MinistryBoard in Moscow on Dec. 19 with DefenseMinister Sergei Shoigu, a close adviser.

www.defensenews.com January 5, 2015 DefenseNews 15NORTH AMERICA

WASHINGTON — Proponents of the F-35 jointstrike fighter highlight the plane’s immensedata-fusion capabilities, its stealth technol-

ogies and its overall connectivity.But while the high-tech aspects of the

plane draw the attention, the jet’s simulator

has become vital to both the training of pi-lots and development of tactics. And withPentagon officials saying the advanced jet

has classed itself out of some traditionalrange training, it will only grow inimportance.

As the head of the Air Force Warfare Cen-ter at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, Maj.Gen. Jay Silveria is in charge of developing

tactics for the F-35A. He was also the firstgeneral to be checked out on the F-35, givinghim a unique perspective on how to train

and test with the jet.The simulator is being used to develop

tactics against enemies or situations thatcan’t always be effectively created on a tra-ditional range, Silveria said during a Dec. 5

media roundtable. That data is then fedback into live tests, creating a feedbackloop of sorts to give the tacticians at Nellis a

wealth of information.“In addition to doing operational testing in

the aircraft as we’re flying them on the

range and flying them at Edwards and Nel-lis, we’re going to also fly them in the sim-ulators where we’re going to add in a lot of

the capability that we [will] have as well as alog of the threats that we have,” he said.

Silveria offered an example of how the

simulator can inform live tests. During alive-flight weapons test for a precision-guid-ed munition, pilots felt that the distance the

weapon could be used was not correct.They went into the simulator, ran the samescenario, and used that data to correct the

range used during live flights.“There is a validation of things you see in

the air, and then there is a sort of feedback

back to the way it’s presented in the simula-

tor to test,” he said. “We’re going to con-tinue to refine the sim, because we want to

continue to test it in the sim, and we willcontinue to refine it in the airplane for obvi-ous reasons.”

But while the simulator plays a key part inSilveria’s work, the testing remains “over-whelmingly” live, he said.

For training, however, the simulator of-fers the ability to do things that the physicaljet cannot — including some challenges to

live training caused by how advanced theplane has become.

A major tool touted by proponents of the

F-35 is its data-fusion package. Where a pi-lot on a legacy jet needs to take inputs frommultiple sensors and make a judgment call

on what a potential threat is, the F-35’s sen-sor suite gathers that information togetherand presents a clear picture to the pilot.

That is helpful in operations, but presentsa challenge for training against ground tar-

gets at test ranges. Older surface-to-airweapon systems, such as an SA-6, can bespoofed using emitters and receivers to

look more like an advanced integrated airdefense system that might be seen in ad-vanced operations.

Steven Pennington, director of Bases,Ranges and Airspace for the Air Force,however, notes that the F-35’s sensor fusion

takes in the information and dismisses thespoof as bad data, identifying the system asthe correct older model. In other words, the

plane is too advanced to be fooled — evenfor training purposes.

“What’s happened here is we’ve seen a

technological leap in military aviation withthe 5th gen [generation] aircraft,” Penning-ton said. “Our ranges in the past have

evolved from F-86s to Century series fight-ers, into the F-15 and F-16 era, and they’vebeen able to evolve to meet new require-

ments because they weren’t that muchdifferent.”

“But we’ve seen a leap of magnitude in the

capability of 5th gen, and our ranges have to

make the same leap.”

What can be done? After all, getting a realenemy system onto the range would not

only be cost prohibitive, but logisticallychallenging.

“So it’s very expensive to be able to

recreate, whether it is the Soviet Union orfolks in the Pacific, it’s very expensive tocreate that environment on the ground,”

Pennington offered. “It’s probably muchmore reasonable to create that environ-ment [through] virtual and constructive

[simulation].”The use of simulators also frees pilots of

concerns about impact to the surrounding

area, Pennington said.He pointed out that training for GPS or

cyber-denied operations can be difficult,

because those denied environments are notgeographically constrained and could havean impact on the real world around the

ranges. If a GPS blackout on a range couldaffect nearby cars, it would limit when andwhere those tests could be performed; do-

ing it virtually eliminates that issue.Similarly, local landmarks such as wind

turbines can impact testing envelopes.

Again, Pennington points out, you can

simply eliminate those during virtual tests.

Moving toward more virtual and con-structive training is hardly new. The AirForce has pursued the idea for years, al-

though it has taken on special emphasis inthe last two years as the service has at-

tempted to find budget savings. But the re-

cent explosion of cheap, high-techsimulation capabilities has created greaterfidelity, which allows pilots and tacticians

to rely more on the simulator than in yearspast.

Silveria said he flew 30 hours in the sim-

ulator versus eight hours in the real planebefore being certified, and called the sys-tem an “incredibly capable simulator.”

“When I had my first flight — and it’s asingle-seat airplane so there was nobodysitting in the back for my first landing — the

confidence I had in the training, and theconfidence I had in the simulator on thefirst flight, I felt well prepared,” he said. “So

that was a big eye-opening moment for me.”Challenges remain, including linking up

F-35 simulators across service lines. That’s

not an issue of technology, said Lt. Gen.Christopher Bogdan, the F-35 programhead. Instead, it’s a matter of security and

communication.“We have to figure out how to connect

those together,” Bogdan said. “It’s not hardto do, but the question is, what are the stan-dards for connecting them together? And

that requires coordination among the ser-vices and [Office of the Secretary of De-fense] to figure that out.”

That problem only grows when you bringin the eight international partners and threeforeign military sales customers for the

F-35 program. The biggest concern therebecomes ensuring what Bogdan called“multilevel security” — ensuring that the

data being shared with a partner isn’t leak-ing out through another connection that theother country may have with an unsecured

server.“You need to worry about that boundary,”

Bogdan said. “We don’t have a problem with

connecting a partner’s F-35 enterprise withthe bigger F-35 enterprise. It’s on the backend of that, what is the partner’s enterprise

connecting to, and you want to make sureyou protect that.” N


US Air Force Leaders Say F-35Simulator Is Increasingly Important

By AARON MEHTA

AIRMAN 1ST CLASS JASON COUILLARD/US AIR FORCE

Need for Training: Two F-35s land at Nellis Air Force

Base. Simulator training is deemed vital.

WASHINGTON — The KC-46A Pega-

sus tanker program hit an impor-tant milestone last week with the

successful first flight of its engi-

neering test plane.The Boeing 767-2C, a test version

of the KC-46A without the refuel-ing boom and other tanker equip-ment, took wing at 9:29 a.m.

Pacific time on Dec. 28, landingthree hours and 32 minutes later atBoeing Field just outside of

Seattle. It marks the first test flight of any

kind for the KC-46A tanker pro-

gram, which will produce 179 new

planes to replace the aging KC-135tanker fleet, with production end-

ing in 2027. The tanker replace-

ment program is a major focus forBoeing’s defense arm as many of

its programs wind down.

In a company statement, Boeingtest pilot Ron Johnston said the767-2C performed “flawlessly,”

adding that pilots took the plane upto 28,000 feet and near max speed

while verifying various systems.

The same news release quotedBrig. Gen. Duke Richardson, the

program executive officer for

tankers, calling the flight a “reallycritical step in the life of this pro-gram and the development of this

important capability for the war-fighter.”

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee

James also took to Twitter to markthe occasion.

The test flight of the 767-2C had

originally been scheduled for June2014, then for third quarter of 2014.Boeing has downplayed the delay,

noting that the test flight is an

internal deadline. The service hasagreed, emphasizing that it is onlyconcerned that Boeing meet its

eventual requirement of delivering18 aircraft by 2017.

The program has hit other snags

as well this year, leading to Lt. Gen.

Ellen Pawlikowski, military depu-ty for acquisition, expressing

concerns in November about

Boeing meeting its “near-term”schedule.

The Boeing release notes that thecompany plans to have the remain-ing three test aircraft — another

767-2C and a pair of fully-equippedKC-46A models — flying in 2015. Asource told Defense News the first

KC-46A flight should occur in thespring. N


KC-46A Test Plane Completes First FlightBy AARON MEHTA

PAUL GORDON/BOEING

Milestone: A 767-2C test aircraft for the KC-46A tanker program takes off during its first

test flight on Dec. 28.


NORTH AMERICA

VICTORIA, British Columbia — Lockheed Mar-tin is eyeing future sales in South Americaand Europe for the naval combat system it

designed as part of the modernization pro-gram for Canada’s frigates.

Work is underway on the first export sale

of the combat management system to theRoyal New Zealand Navy, with installation inthe first frigate to begin here in 2016, accord-

ing to Lockheed Martin Canada officials.That CAN $180 million (US $165 million)

contract was awarded in May for the mod-

ernization of two Anzac-class frigates.But the company is also targeting other

markets for the naval combat management

system, said Don McClure, Lockheed MartinCanada’s vice president of business develop-ment. There are “a number of opportunities

in both South America and Europe that wehave identified and we have been meeting

with those navies in recent months,” he said.McClure declined to discuss details due to

commercial competitive reasons.

But he did confirm that the company isalso examining a potential bid on a programto modernize Greece’s Meko200 frigates.

Greece has decided to modernize the fourGerman-designed ships as part of a mid-lifeupgrade to extend their service life to

around 2030.The Meko200, called the Hydra-class by

Greece, is also the basis for New Zealand’s

Anzac-class frigates. Similar ships are alsooperated by Australia, Turkey, Portugal,

South Africa and Algeria.Lockheed Martin Canada sees nations op-

erating such ships as potential future mar-kets.

But McClure said the company has to first

carefully examine the Greek program. “We’re interested in that and there’s obvi-

ously a process we go through internally in

determining what their requirements areand what we’re prepared to offer is enoughto give us a significant probability of win-

ning,” he explained. “So we’re in the middleof that process right now.”

McClure expects that process to unfold

over the next year as more information be-comes available from Greece on what it islooking for in its modernization.

Defense analyst Martin Shadwick said pur-suing modernization programs for Mekoships makes sense for Lockheed Canada.

“They’ve had success with their first con-tract with New Zealand and there are a fair

number of Mekos out there in various na-vies,” said Shadwick, who teaches strategicstudies at York University in Toronto. “Meko

would be a logical one to concentrate onfirst.”

But Shadwick said Lockheed Martin Cana-

da need not be confined to just that class asits proven and affordable combat manage-ment system could be attractive to other na-

vies and other ship classes.Canada is upgrading its Halifax-class frig-

ates in a $5 billion program that involves

both the modernization of its combat sys-tems, including weapons and radars, as well

as a midlife ship refit program. LockheedMartin Canada is overseeing the main pro-

ject to upgrade the combat systems, with thefinal ship modernization to be finishedaround 2017.

Lockheed Martin Canada designed itscombat management system as an afford-able solution for the international market,

company officials noted.McClure said having a proven design in

service with the Royal Canadian Navyhelped the company’s efforts in winning theNew Zealand contract.

When New Zealand announced in May thatit had selected Lockheed Martin Canada,Des Ashton, the country’s deputy secretary

for acquisitions at its Ministry of Defence,specifically noted that the firm’s experienceon the Halifax-class modernization program

was seen as an important factor in reducingany risk in the Anzac upgrade.

Modernization of the first New Zealand

ship will be finished in late 2016. The secondship will be finished in 2017.

McClure said the process is expected tomove fast since the modernization of the

Halifax-class frigates provides a blueprintfor what needs to be done and the specificdesign work for the New Zealand ships will

be accomplished in the coming year.“A lot of the heavy lifting was already done

in advance,” he added. “In order to take as

much commonality as we could, we tried tokeep our offer very similar to the Halifax

class.”The main differences are in the sonars and

defensive missile systems. The Royal Cana-

dian Navy uses the Evolved Sea Sparrow,while New Zealand selected MBDA’s SeaCeptor air defense missile system.

Sea Ceptor is a version of the Common An-ti-Air Modular Missile being developed bythe UK arm of MBDA.

Work on the New Zealand ships will bedone at the Seaspan shipyards in Victoria,B.C. N


LM Canada Seeks OverseasSales of Naval Combat System

By DAVID PUGLIESE

SAEED KHAN/AFP

Anzac Upgrades: New Zealand’s HMNZS Te Mana, an Anzac-class frigate, sails past a Royal Navy ship near the

iconic Sydney Opera House. Two of the frigates will receive an upgraded combat system.

TEL AVIV — Despite billions ofshekels invested over decades in

its defense industrial base, Israellacks a coherent plan for safe-guarding strategic infrastructure

and critical production capacity,according to the nation’s topwatchdog.

Years of acting “on immediate,

short-term considerations, with-out analyzing national needs and

without an assessment of long-

term consequences,” harms hard-earned self-sufficiency, warned

State Comptroller Yosef HaimShapira.

In a report released Dec. 29,

Shapira, a retired judge, noted thatuntil recently, Israel’s DefenseMinistry had never formally

defined what constituted strategicinfrastructure or determinedwhich production lines must be

preserved.Moreover, the watchdog said the

MoD’s procurement division had

not updated its catalog of industri-

al suppliers for 12 years — a proce-

dural violation that hinders Israel’sability to ascertain indigenous self-sufficiency.

He offered this damninganecdote to illustrate industrialdisarray:

In April 2011, Udi Shani, thenMoD director-general, wanted toassess costs of hardening critical

infrastructure against enemy rock-

et attacks. As such, he wrote tochief executives of aerospace and

defense firms requesting lists of re-

spective strategic productionlines.

But industry was finding it hardto comply with the ostensibly sim-ple request due to confusion over

what constituted strategic produc-tion. “A month later, then-chief ex-ecutive of Israel Aerospace

Industries wrote back to inform[Shani] that MoD has no definitionfor strategic production lines,”

Shapira noted.It was only in August and Sep-

tember 2013 that Dan Harel, MoD’s

current director-general, codified a

definition for strategic production

and determined some — but not all— lines that must be preserved.

“All through the years up until

August 2013, MoD had been usingthe concept of ‘essential produc-tion lines’ without defining or iden-

tifying them,” the report noted.The new definition, coined in the

context of planned privatization of

Israel Military Industries (IMI), but

applicable to other firms, is:“Physical infrastructure or cen-

ters of knowledge that constitute

an essential need and for which areplacement cannot be achieved in

terms of quality of unconditionalavailability via procurement in an-other place.”

The comptroller noted that Ha-rel’s actions in the past 18 monthswere steps in the right direction,

but much more is needed.A Defense Ministry official said

the ministry is implementing plans

to safeguard critical capabilitiesacross Israel’s industrial base. Henoted that MoD has recently in-

vested “millions of dollars” in pre-

serving satellite-testing facilities

and space-related infrastructure atstate-owned IAI as well as publiclyheld Elbit.

As for IMI and ongoing privatiza-tion plans, the official said the MoDhas committed to purchasing

about 550 million shekels (US $140million) annually to preserveheavy weapon production deemed

essential by the IDF.

Shapira urged routine coordina-tion between MoD and the Israeli

military to determine types, quanti-

ties and budget needed for essen-tial weaponry and war stocks.

Similarly, he urged Harel to des-ignate an official within the de-fense establishment as the

government’s recognized author-ity for industrial base issues.

As it now stands, actions are ad

hoc and there are no clear lines ofauthority among planning, budget-ary and monitoring functions.

“There is no systemic approachin coordination with the Israel De-fense Forces [IDF] ... on decisions

pertaining to the extent of required

investment, the preservation of ex-

isting capabilities and develop-ment for the long term,” noted thereport.

Once that authority is named, heor she must initiate “without delay”essential staff work needed to

bring relevant recommendationsto Israel’s defense minister.

The report noted that preserva-

tion of production capacity be-comes more important in periodsof budgetary uncertainty.

“In such cases, there is risk of ne-

glected infrastructure, loss of in-

digenous production capabilities

and harm to timely supply of weap-onry to the IDF and even damageto its operational effectiveness,”

the report noted.After years of building industrial

self-sufficiency, neglect threatens

to “enhance Israel’s dependenceon other nations” for its emergency

needs. The watchdog also warned

that re-establishing lost industrialcapabilities “would involve tre-mendous investment in resources

over a very prolonged period oftime.” N


Israeli Watchdog: Beware Withering Industrial BaseBy BARBARA OPALL-ROME

MIDDLE EAST

www.defensenews.com January 5, 2015 DefenseNews 17ASIA & PACIFIC RIM

TAIPEI — The Taiwan Navy re-

ceived the first prototype of thestealthy Tuo Jiang-class catama-ran corvettes, the PGG 618, in a cer-

emony Dec. 23 at Suao Port, onTaiwan’s east coast.

The new 500-ton vessel complet-

ed a year of testing, with plans tobuild 11 follow-on ships after theprototype’s evaluation is complet-

ed, said Navy sources at the cere-mony. The first ship will be basedwith the 131 Fleet in Keelung on

Taiwan’s northern coast. The legislature has not allocated

the budget yet, a Navy official said.

A media tour of the ship revealedit was equipped with eight “carrier-killer” 130-kilometer range Hsiung

Feng-3 (Brave Wind) ramjet-pow-ered anti-ship missiles and eight160-kilometer range Hsiung Feng-2

anti-ship missiles. There were 12chaff dispensers for infrared and

radio frequency-guided anti-shipmissiles (six at the bow, six stern),one Mark 15 Phalanx close-in

weapon system near the stern,four mounts for 12.7mm machineguns, one Otoberda 76mm bow

gun, and six Mark 32 torpedoes lo-cated inside the stern (three portand three starboard).

The stern deck was too small fora helicopter, but a Navy sourcesaid it might be used for UAVs.

The ship uses an extensiveclosed-circuit television system tolower crew numbers to 44. The

twin-hulled vessel can handle a seastate of seven (20- to 30-footwaves). The ship has a top speed of

34 knots and a range of 2,000 nauti-cal miles.

The shipbuilder, Lung Teh Ship-

building, designed and built theship, with some assistance fromthe military-run Chungshan Insti-

tute of Science and Technology(CSIST). Though details of the wa-ter jet engines were not made

available, control panels inside thebridge indicate Sweden-based Ma-rine Jet Power was an active par-

ticipant in providing propulsiontechnology for the vessel.

The media tour of the ship con-

firmed that other foreign compa-nies participated as suppliers,including US-based Hose-McCann

Communications and Garmin In-ternational, Singapore-based Pan

Delta Controls, South Korea-basedMaster Clock Systems, Germany-based MTU Marine and UK-based

Scott Safety.The ship was built by Vietnam-

ese construction workers sent to

Taiwan for the build program. “Vietnamese were hired for the

hard labor in the construction

process, but were not allowed ac-cess to sensitive or classified sys-tems or compartments,” a Taiwan

defense official said. Vietnamese construction work-

ers attended the ceremony in Suaoand were identified by DefenseNews when they began speaking

Vietnamese.One argument among lawmak-

ers and defense officials for a do-mestic ship program, which willinclude four-to-eight submarines,

was the promise of new jobs forTaiwan’s citizens. However, sourc-es at the commissioning said the

Vietnamese workers were “cheaplabor” and that Taiwanese wouldnot take these types of difficult

jobs.The new class was named in hon-

or of the PC 1247 Tuo Jiang patrol

vessel that fought in the 1958 Tai-wan Strait Crisis and was damagedduring the 44-day battle near Kin-

men Island, said Stanly Yang, aMinistry of National Defensemedia liaison officer.

The ship is reminiscent in capa-bility of China’s 250-ton Houbei-class stealthy guided-missile fast-

attack catamaran. China’s Navyhas 68 Houbei-class vessels de-ployed and each can carry eight an-

ti-ship cruise missiles. The Houbei has also been com-

pared to Taiwan’s stealthy tradi-

tional-keel 170-ton Kuang Hua-6guided-missile patrol boat, capa-

ble of carrying four Hsiung Feng-2anti-ship missiles. Taiwan has 31ofthese fast-attack boats on duty.

In November, a Taiwan militarysource said CSIST is working on animproved Hsiung Feng-2, extend-

ing the range from 160 to 250 kilo-meters.

“It is now in the launch testing

stage,” he said. N


Taiwan Navy Accepts First of New Corvette ClassBy WENDELL MINNICK

WENDELL MINNICK/STAFF

Plans To Build 11: The first prototype of the Tuo Jiang-class catamaran corvettes has

been received by Taiwan.

NEW DELHI — India will rely on domesticfirms to develop and build its first un-manned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), sim-

ilar to the Predator drone built by US-based

General Atomics.The state-owned Defence Research and

Development Organisation (DRDO) willfund 80 percent of the development and pro-totype cost for the Rustom-2 UCAV, with the

remaining 20 percent paid by private Indiandefense companies.

This is the first time DRDO has invited pri-

vate companies to develop prototypes un-der its guidance.

In doing so, the Defence Ministry is re-

versing its decision to build Rustom-2 usingonly DRDO and state-owned HindustanAeronautics Ltd. (HAL), an MoD source

said.

The Rustom-2 project was being fundedby the government because the private com-

panies had been lukewarm about buildingprototypes at their own expense and thenhaving to compete for the project, a De-

fence Ministry source said.

In this category, the government funds upto 80 percent in the development of the pro-

totype, while the remaining 20 percent isfunded by the selected private development

agency, the MoD source said.

“[The] category is a suitable economicproposition to ensure greater involvementof private-sector companies in developing

defense projects, which is now being en-couraged by the new government,” defenseanalyst Nitin Mehta said.

An executive with domestic defense ma-jor Larsen & Toubro (L&T) said the MoDhas agreed to commit to an unspecified

number of Rustom-2 UCAVs, and L&T

would like to participate in the project be-cause the government would also fund the

development of the prototype.

“The financial commitment in the Rus-tom-2 looks promising now,” the executive

said.India began its Rustom-1 UAV in 2006 and

initially wanted participation by domestic

defense companies. However, after the

MoD failed to give firm commitments of or-ders to the selected company, none of the

defense companies from the private sector

participated. HAL then became the produc-

tion agency.Weighing 1,800 kilograms, Rustom-2 will

have a payload of 350 kilograms and a flight

endurance of up to 48 hours. The two 100-

horsepower engines will be capable of fly-ing up to 36,000 feet with a range of 100 kilo-

meters.The development cost of Rustom-2 is esti-

mated to be around $200 million.

India’s domestic private sector defense

companies include L&T, Tata Power SED,

Mahindra Defence Systems, Data Patterns

India and Bharat Forge. All are likely to befrontrunners to compete for the Rustom-2

project.The MoD source added that Rustom-2 is a

tri-service requirement with initial order of

75. The cost of each Rustom-2 would be

around $5.83 million. N


Indian Firms Will CreateCountry’s First Combat Drone

By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI

WIKIPEDIA

First UCAV: The Rustom-2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle would be a follow-on to the Rustom-1, seen here.


BizWatch

Northrop Grumman an-nounced the appointments

of Jack Dorsett as chief exec-utive for Japan, effective im-mediately, and Brian Kim as

chief executive for SouthKorea, effective Feb. 2.

Dorsett was vice presi-

dent, Command and ControlSystems, within Northrop’sInformation Systems sector.

The US Navy veteran was

deputy chief of Naval Opera-tions for Information Domi-nance, Navy chief informa-

tion officer and director ofNaval Intelligence.

Kim joins Northrop from

Boeing Defense, Space andSecurity, where he was vicepresident of business devel-

opment and country direc-tor for South Korea.

Thales has appointed HenriProglio as chairman and Pa-trice Caine as CEO, with the

appointments to be con-

firmed at a shareholders

meeting Feb. 4, the Frenchcompany said last month.

During a Dec. 23 board

meeting, Thales said in astatement, “Patrice Caine

and Henri Proglio were co-opted as directors, follow-ing the resignations of Phi-

lippe Logak, who had servedas acting chairman and chiefexecutive officer since the

departure of Jean-BernardLevy, and Steve Gentili as in-dependent director.”

Levy left Thales in Novem-

ber to become chairman at state-owned Electricitéde France. Gentili, chairman

of the BRED retail bank,holds one of the four inde-pendent posts on the board,

and his departure allowsProglio to sit on the board.

Proglio was chairman and

CEO of EDF. N

Compiled by Michele Savage.

ON THE MOVE

NEW DELHI — India’s Defence Ministry

has decided that South Korea and Rus-sia must partner with Indian firms in or-der to take part in its helicopter

competition, despite offers of com-plete technology transfer, according toan MoD source.

South Korea is offering its Surionlight utility helicopter (LUH) and Rus-sia its Ka-226 machine. Russian Presi-

dent Vladimir Putin made the offerduring his Dec. 11 visit to India.

“MoD’s decision to buy LUH onlythrough competition from domesticvendors is a virtual rejection of any

government-to-government helicopterproduction deal between India andRussia,” said defense analyst Nitin

Mehta.The MoD source, however, said the

decision not to enter a joint program

with either South Korea or Russia ispart of a policy to boost the domesticprivate sector defense industry, and

that the MoD would like to see partner-ships for weapons programs with over-seas companies.

After coming to power, the govern-ment of Prime Minister Narendra Modicanceled two global tenders for light

utility helicopter purchases and ap-proached the domestic companies toparticipate in the procurement of un-

specified numbers of helicopters, ei-ther alone or in partnership with anoverseas company.

India needs 440 LUHs to replace its

aging Cheetah and Chetak helicoptersused for reconnaissance and logisticsin the high altitude battlefields in the

Himalayas.After the summit talks with Putin,

Modi said in a statement: “I am pleased

that Russia has offered to fully manu-facture in India one of its most ad-vanced helicopters. It includes the

possibility of exports from India. It canbe used for both military and civilianuse. We will follow up on this quickly.”

South Korea has also offered Indiafull tech transfer of the Surion helicop-ter, the MoD source said. A diplomat

from the South Korean Embassy inNew Delhi confirmed that a proposalwas been made to India in December,

but gave no details.In August, MoD canceled the 2012

tender for the purchase of 56 naval util-

ity helicopters, in which Airbus Heli-copters and AgustaWestland were inthe race.

In July, MoD canceled the 2008 global

tender for the purchase of 197 light util-ity helicopters worth $1 billion, inwhich Airbus Helicopters’ AS550 was

in competition with Russia’s Ka-226Tbuilt by Kamov.

India’s helicopter requirement is ex-

pected to grow to 600. In addition, theMoD also plans to procure 90 multirolehelicopters worth $2.5 billion through

the “Buy and Make (India)” route.“Except for state-owned Hindustan

Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), no private-

sector defense major has ever pro-duced a military helicopter,” Mehtasaid. “But in the future, tie-ups are ex-

pected with overseas defense compa-nies to tap the emerging helicoptermarket.”

US-based Sikorsky and Tata Groupalready have an agreement, and in Oc-tober, Airbus Helicopters also an-

nounced a tie-up with the Tata to jointlyproduce Avro transport aircraft. N


Russia, S. Korea Must Find LocalPartners for Indian Helo ContestBoth CountriesHad Offered FullTech Transfer

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP

To Be Replaced: An Indian Army Chetak helicopter makes a fly-past during a National Cadet

Corps parade in New Delhi. India wants to replace its Chetak and Cheetah fleets.

By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHITaiwan To Build Subs

Taiwan said last week itwas launching a project tobuild a fleet of its own sub-

marines, after years spentwaiting in vain for US mod-els.

Deputy Defense MinisterChiu Kuo-cheng told parlia-

ment the ministry has ap-proved guidelines for thedesign contract for an Indig-

enous Defense Submarine.Under a four-year con-

tract, work on the design is

slated to begin in 2016 andcost an estimated Tw $3 bil-lion (US $94.46 million). Pre-

paratory work will begin in2015 with an approved bud-get of Tw $10 million.

It was unclear when workwould start on building thesubmarines.

Vice Adm. Hsiao Wei-min,also speaking in parliament,ruled out a recent sugges-

tion from a US think tankthat Taiwan could build afleet of 42 120-ton mini-sub-

marines. Hsiao said that “atpresent the navy’s demand issubmarines ranging from

1,200-3,000 tons.”

US Army AMPV AwardThe US Army surprised no

one by awarding BAESystems a contract on Dec.

23 potentially worth $1.2billion to begin building the

Armored Multi-Purpose

Vehicle (AMPV).BAE was the only contrac-

tor still in the running for theprogram after one-time com-petitor General Dynamics

Land Systems pulled out ofthe competition in May,complaining that the Army’s

requirements unfairly fa-vored the tracked Bradleyfighting vehicle derivative

that BAE was submitting.The initial $382 million

award calls for BAE to deliv-er 29 vehicles in five variantsin a 52-month engineering,

manufacturing and develop-ment phase that will lead to acontract to replace all of the

obsolete 2,897 M113 vehiclesin the Army’s Armored Bri-gade Combat Teams.

The award also providesan optional low-rate initialproduction phase. If award-

ed, the company would pro-duce an additional 289vehicles for a total contract

value of $1.2 billion.

AMRAAM SalesRaytheon is being award-

ed a fixed-price contractworth more than $491 mil-

lion for the Advanced Medi-um Range Air to Air Missile(AMRAAM), the US compa-

ny announced, including for-eign military sales to Korea,Oman, Singapore and Thai-

land.

The contract is for the pro-duction of the AMRAAM

missile and other AMRAAMsystem items, including thecaptive air training missile,

SAM YEH/AFP

Taiwan Navy sailors salute from a US-built Guppy-class submarine

Sept. 30 at the Tsoying navy base.

RANDOM NOTES

BAE SYSTEMS

BAE Systems’ winning Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle design builds

on those of the existing Bradley fighting vehicle and M109A7 vehicle.

Send personnel news to

[email protected].


common munitions bit/re-programming equipment

and non-developmentalitem airborne instrumenta-tion unit.

Work will be performed inTucson and is expected to becompleted by February

2017.

Laser Mine DetectionThe US Navy has awarded

US-based Northrop Grum-man a $35.5 million airborne

laser mine detection con-tract.

The contract is for produc-

tion of the Airborne LaserMine Detection System,which uses pulsed laser light

and streak tube receivers tofind the hidden explosives,according to Northrop

Grumman’s description. Theequipment will be mountedon MH-60S helicopters.

The contract was awardedby Program Executive Of-fice Littoral Combat Ships. It

is scheduled to be complet-ed by February 2021.

Comms for GendarmerieTurkish military electron-

ics specialist Aselsan haswon a $153.9 million con-tract from the Turkish gov-

ernment, the company saidDec. 31. In a written state-ment Aselsan said the con-

tract involves buildingintegrated communicationsand information systems for

the Turkish GendarmerieForce.

Aselsan, Turkey’s biggest

defense company, said it willcomplete deliveries of thesystem between 2015 and

2018. The program is dubbedJEMUS, a Turkish acronymfor the integrated system.

FLIR contractUS company FLIR Sys-

tems announced it has re-ceived the first full-rateproduction orders under a

five-year indefinite delivery,indefinite quantity contractfrom the US Department of

Defense to support the Nu-

clear, Biological, and Chem-ical Dismounted Reconnais-

sance Sets, Kits, and Outfits

(DR SKO) program. Thecontract is for FLIR’s inte-

grated chemical, biological,radiological, nuclear and ex-plosives (CBRNE) threat re-

sponse system and relatedspares and services. Initialdelivery orders totaling

$27.1 million were receivedfor systems and support.

The DR SKO program, in

development since 2008, is ajoint-service, DoD initiativecentered on CBRNE threat

detection systems that will

be utilized by the Army, Na-vy, Air Force, Marines and

Civil Support Teams.

Radio OrdersExelis has been awarded a

direct commercial contractvalued at $30 million to pro-

vide an existing interna-tional customer single anddual vehicular radios sys-

tems along with installationkits and dismounted soldierradio systems, the US com-

pany said. In a statement,Exelis identified the custom-er only as “a long-standing

international customer.”Under the contract, Exelis

will deliver the RT-1702

SINCGARS (Single ChannelGround and Airborne RadioSystem) for installation in a

variety of military vehicles.

More M1A2S UpdatesGeneral Dynamics Land

Systems has been awarded a$99.7 million follow-on con-

tract for the procurementand production of Saudi

M1A2 (M1A2S) Abramstanks for Saudi Arabia, theUS-based company said.

This modification is part ofan existing contract to up-grade the kingdom’s fleet of

tanks.The Foreign Military Sales

contract, awarded by the US

Army TACOM Life CycleManagement Command onbehalf of the Royal Saudi

Land Forces, extends workstarted in 2008 to updateM1A1 and M1A2 tanks to the

M1A2S configuration. TheM1A2S conversion increasesthe efficiency and capability

of the tank.

Gripen Logistics SupportSaab and the Brazilian

Ministry of Defense, throughthe Air Force Aeronautics

Command (COMAER), havesigned a contract for Gripen

NG contractor logistics sup-

port valued at 548 millionSwedish krona (US $58 mil-lion), the Swedish company

said. The order is expectedto be booked by Saab in 2021.

The contract includes con-

tinuous maintenance andsupport services for the Gri-pen NG aircraft, and their as-

sociated equipment, that

will be delivered to Brazilover five years beginning in

2021. The contractor logis-

tics support services will beprovided to COMAER by

Saab and its Brazilian part-ners. N

Send product information and financial news to

[email protected].

CalendarTO PLACE AN EVENT LISTING,CALL (703) 658-8365 OR EMAIL [email protected]

JANUARY 2015

FEBRUARY 2015

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New Afghanistan MissionThe year 2014 proved to be a

time of critical transition in Af-ghanistan. Defying Taliban intimi-

dation, more than 7 millionAfghans participated in two na-tionwide elections to select a new

president, marking the firstpeaceful, democratic transition ofpower in Afghanistan’s history.

The Afghan National SecurityForces (ANSF) demonstratedtheir professionalism and capa-

bility, fighting tenaciously againsta determined enemy, and prevent-ing the Taliban from achieving

any of its stated objectives for2014. As a result, the ANSF haveearned the Afghan people’s trust

and admiration and are now themost respected institution in thecountry.

For the past 13 years, more than50 countries have contributed tothe NATO mission in Afghanistan.

No coalition of this size in historyhas demonstrated more cohesion,resilience or effectiveness.

On Dec. 31 the InternationalSecurity Assistance Force mis-sion ended, and we commenced

our new NATO mission, ResoluteSupport.

The ANSF have shown through-

out the past two fighting seasonsthat they can win battles. Theynow need our assistance to win

the campaign and build the in-stitutional capability to organize,

train and equip their forces.Hence, we have shifted our focusfrom advising them on tactical

operations to building their long-term sustainability.

This represents both a physical

and mental shift for us. Back in2011, we had more than 140,000troops distributed over 800 sites.

As of Jan. 1, we have about 13,000coalition troops at 25 bases.

Our brave sergeants and cap-

tains used to be our primary

means of carrying the fight to theenemy; now it is our experienced

advisers — senior officers, NCOsand civilians — who serve as our“primary weapons systems.”

These highly skilled individualswill work through essential func-tions such as budgeting, program-

ming, sustainment and forcegeneration to build the systemsrequired to sustain a modern

army and police force. This re-mains a daunting challenge, butone that we can and will over-

come.As we prepare for the future,

2015 will undoubtedly be a deci-sive year. The ANSF must win the2015 fighting season. Resolute

Support will play a vital role.With new Afghan leadership in

place, an increasingly capable

ANSF and coalition resolve, I amconfident we will prevail. I re-main optimistic about the future

of Afghanistan. There is no greater honor we

can bestow upon our fallen and

their families than successfullyfinishing this mission.

US ARMY GEN. JOHN CAMPBELL

Commander, Resolute Support

LETTER

SHAH MARAI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Gen. John Campbell salutes during aDec. 28 ceremony marking the end ofISAF’s combat mission in Afghanistan.

n Email letters to [email protected]. Please includephone number. Letters may be edited. Submissions to Defense Newsmay be published or distributed inprint, electronic or other forms.

W ith Republicans poised to take controlboth chambers of Congress, it’s up to themto strike a budget deal that will avert auto-

matic spending cuts slated to resume in full forcethis year.

Last time, the bipartisan budget deal was crafted

by two budget chairs with significant clout withintheir caucuses: Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep.Paul Ryan, R-Wis. This time, it will be two Repub-

licans, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Sen. Mike Enzi,R-Wyo., who will spearhead a deal.

But to succeed, they must adopt Ryan-Murray

principles to get a deal with broad bipartisan sup-port.

That means including senior Democrats, since a

plan written for the House GOP won’t get the neces-sary Democrats in the Senate to pass. That, in turn,

means also including domestic elements that Demo-crats can support, allowing defense caps to beraised. The deal has to be more than merely red

meat for the right.One option: Add revenue-raisers via corporate tax

code reforms that both parties can support, giving

the Pentagon flexibility to decide what gets cutunder a lessened sequester deal. Another year ofrelief and flexibility on where to cut would be a win

for Pentagon and industry.While there will be enormous appetite to merely

chip away at Obamacare, Republicans now have an

opportunity to put forward a serious proposal toimprove America’s health care.

Reaching any meaningful budget agreement will

require moving fast. The longer the wait, the harderit will be to craft a deal.

EDITORIALS

New Shot at Sequester Relief

2 015 will be the first year since 1972 that Andy

Marshall won’t be the Pentagon’s chief strate-gist. Marshall, 93, retired Jan. 2 as director of

DoD’s Office of Net Assessment, but the office he

founded will survive, reporting directly to the de-fense secretary and his deputy.

That’s very good news. In late 2013, the future of

the office was in doubt.In an era of diverse challenges and rapid techno-

logical change, the practice of net assessment —

determining emerging threats and opportunitiesthrough interdisciplinary analysis — is vital.

Marshall’s strength was taking the time to ask the

right questions and creating interesting scenarios,then conducting sophisticated war games and exer-cises to test the soundness of those scenarios as

well as strategic plans.During his long tenure, Marshall, in nonpartisan

fashion, advised defense secretaries, studying broad

societal, demographic and technological trends to

give early warning of looming strategic challenges,

among them the implications of a strong and assert-ive China. And he mentored a veritable army of topthinkers who will shape national security for genera-

tions to come.While revered in China, Marshall irritated many in

US defense for challenging conventional wisdom

and asking hard questions.No single individual has had a greater, nor more

sustained, effect on US national security, whether

through his work to ensure success during the ColdWar, or the decades after by consistently findingways to impose strategic costs on America’s ad-

versaries.To reward Marshall’s 66 years of uninterrupted

and “especially meritorious contribution to the

security or national interests of the United States,” itwould be fitting that President Barack Obama awardMarshall the Presidential Medal of Freedom with

Distinction.

Honor Andy Marshall


T he recent resignation ofChuck Hagel as US defense

secretary is a sign of thetimes. During his short, unglamor-ous tenure as the Obama admini-

stration’s defense chief, Hagelhad become a symbol of theWhite House’s failed foreign and

defense policies. His principal purpose was to

oversee and

promote theadministra-tion’s defense

budget cutsand largerretreat from

global militaryresponsibility.And when

global events— to saynothing of the

congressionalmidterms —did not com-

port with theadministra-tion’s vision,

Hagel was the leading casualty. In the wake of Hagel’s resigna-

tion, attention rightly focused on

possible replacements with for-mer Deputy Defense SecretaryAsh Carter emerging as the White

House’s nominee. So far, howev-

er, little attention is being paid to

the job that the next defensesecretary must do, and the re-treat that he will be forced to

reverse.Nowhere is this more pro-

nounced than in the domain of

US maritime power. While de-fense secretary, Hagel took con-siderable liberties with the truth

when he stated that even withnaval budget cuts and the moth-balling of the aircraft carrier

George Washington, Americawould still have a 10-carrier com-plement. This is correct only in

the most technical and torturedways; US naval power is unmis-takably in retreat, a situation

made worse by the administra-tion’s heavy-handed, top-downapproach to defense austerity.

Further, America does not fieldits entire fleet. Rather, the usualstate of affairs is to have one-

third of the fleet on station, an-other third en route to relieveactive duty ships and a final third

in maintenance. Under these

circumstances, the US is attempt-

ing to create global stability withjust three carriers on station — atask that is both impossible and

dangerous.The global system is dependent

on the preservation of open and

safe waterways. This task rangesfrom keeping waterways free ofpirates, aiding in water-based

disasters, acting as a deterrent toregional naval warfare, all theway to forestalling a great power

naval conflict. And for the mo-ment, the only nation whoseexisting seapower can accom-

plish these global tasks is theUnited States. It is a challengethat Congress must now take up.

It is not often remembered thatone of the first strategic battlesfought by the office of the presi-

dency and the Congress was overthe issue of the American Navy.Early questions about whether to

have a navy at all, and whether tohave a large one, defined conflictnot only between the presidency

and the legislature, but between

factions in the House and Senate

for decades.It was John Adams who fought

to create a US Navy, knowing the

danger to the new republic of nothaving an effective one. His anti-federalist rival and friend, Thom-

as Jefferson, would subsequentlyuse that small Navy to greateffect against the terrorists of the

19th century: the Barbary pirates. Since that time, naval power

has enjoyed pride of place in

American strategy. In the 1890s, asmall group of military, strategicand philosophical leaders began

preaching a new religion of desti-ny, geopolitics, diplomacy andpower projection. The most

prominent among them wasAlfred Thayer Mahan, whose“Influence of Sea Power upon

History” laid out the intellectualargument for hegemony throughnaval dominance.

His ideas were translated intoaction by President TheodoreRoosevelt, whose heavy invest-

ments in America’s maritime

force-projection capabilitiescontributed greatly to the emer-

gence of Pax Americana. During its time in office, the

Obama administration has ques-

tioned this paradigm. With Hagelas the implementer, the WhiteHouse has worked to draw down

America’s naval power, includingits most visible manifestation: thecarrier task force. Current ad-

ministration plans, which by all

accounts will survive Hagel’sdeparture, call for reducing

American carrier strength to asfew as eight, with potentially direeffects for international stability.

The American carrier fleet isseen by many as the ultimateoffensive platform to project

power. It is also the greatest toolfor stability in the internationalsystem, granting the United

States multiple strategic alterna-tives in the face of global con-flict. It gives dictator, terrorist,

pirate and criminal alike greatpause knowing that the UnitedStates patrols the blue ocean

with what the US Navy likes tocall “4.5 acres of sovereign andmobile American territory.”

Restoring that strength to itsformer pride of place should be atop priority of the next defense

secretary. N

The Next Secretary’s TaskReverse US Global Retreat, Especially Naval

By LamontColucci, senior

fellow in national

security affairs at the

American Foreign

Policy Council,

Washington.

T he US Department of De-fense has launched a long-range research and devel-

opment planning effort, and DoDleaders have stated that roboticsand autonomous systems will be

a critical component. Swarming robotic systems will

be key to sustaining US military

dominance, asthey can cre-ate decisive

advantagesover adversar-ies by bringing

greater mass,coordination,intelligence

and speed tothe battlefield.Don’t be

fooled by their

sci-fi soundingname — robot

swarms are

real, they’rehere and they

will changehow militaries

fight. Last year,

the Office of

Naval Research (ONR) demon-strated a swarm of small boats ina mock high-value vessel escort

operation on the James River. Inthe demonstration, a single sailorsimultaneously controlled mul-

tiple small boats, each of whichwere uninhabited, autonomousand cooperative.

Rather than control each boat

individually, as uninhabited vehi-cles are controlled today, the

sailor directed the swarm toperform an action and the boatscooperatively and autonomously

accomplished the task together,deconflicting and coordinatingtheir actions.

ONR’s demonstration was oneof the more high-profile swarmdemos, but robot swarm re-

search is ongoing in academic,military and industry labs. Asswarming capability matures, not

just in boats but in air, groundand undersea vehicles, it willhave significant implications for

warfare. Swarming will enable

militaries to field forces on thebattlefield with greater mass,

coordination, intelligence and

speed, providing major advan-tages over those who fall behind.

MassBy allowing one person to

control many robotic vehiclessimultaneously, swarming can

expand the amount of mass a

military brings to the battlefield.A military heavily invested in

swarms could field forces fargreater than what would bepossible by human-inhabited or

even remotely controlled unin-

habited vehicles. This makesswarming a particularly attrac-

tive option for volunteer militar-

ies, especially the US military,given the steady budgetary

downward pressure on end-strength.

Rather than invest in small

numbers of expensive, exquisiteplatforms, swarming offers thepotential for a different model:

large numbers of low-cost dis-tributed platforms.

This has several advantages.

Combat power can be dispersed,increasing resiliency and compli-cating an adversary’s targeting.

Survivability can be balanced

against cost and the ability toafford larger numbers of sys-

tems, shifting the focus from thesurvivability of the platform tothe resiliency of the swarm as a

whole. Greater mass allows the grace-

ful degradation of combat power

as individual platforms undergoattrition, as opposed to a sharp

loss in combat power if a single,

more complex platform is lost. Robot swarms would still re-

quire maintenance, but mitigat-

ing approaches could minimizethe burden. Robots could be

made cheap and numerous, withmodular design so that if any onepiece broke, it could be easily

swapped out. Robots could be

kept “in a box” during peacetimewith only a limited number used

for training, much like missiles.

And for some applicationswhere swarms would be needed

in wartime but not in peacetime,mixed-component units thatleverage National Guard and

reserve maintainers may be acost-effective way to managepersonnel.

Coordination, Intelligence, SpeedA deluge is not a swarm, how-

ever, and the advantages ofswarming extend far beyondmerely bringing additional mass

to the battlefield. Swarming innature leads to collective intelli-gence, allowing simple animals

like ants and termites to effi-

ciently forage for food, transportlarge objects, build bridges and

other structures, and defend

against attackers. Similarly, coor-dination among swarming robots

will allow them to fight dis-persed, but as a coherent whole.

Cooperative behavior willenable self-healing networks forreconnaissance or communica-

tions, distributed sensing andelectronic attack, advanceddeception operations, and coor-

dinated attack and defense.Swarming is also the ultimate incentralized command and decen-

tralized execution, pushing deci-sion-making to the battlefield’sedge and shortening the timeline

for reacting to enemy decisions.

Building the SwarmHarnessing the full potential of

robot swarms will require further

improvements in vehicle autono-my and protected communica-tions, but the biggest hurdles are

conceptual and cultural. The history of revolutions in

warfare suggests that it is not

technology alone that leads todisruptive changes on the battle-field, but the incorporation of

technologies into new conceptsof operation and doctrine, alongwith the training and organiza-

tional structures to capitalize onthese advantages. It is this para-digm shift that is most challeng-

ing, however, as militaries tendto view new technologiesthrough existing paradigms,

rather than see their potential to

change how militaries fight. Experimentation is the key to

uncovering the best way of ap-

plying robot swarms, not toreplace humans but merely ex-

tend their reach, survivabilityand lethality. As part of its new

long-range research and devel-opment plan, DoD should devel-op an aggressive program of

experimentation and iterativetechnology development to har-ness the power of the swarm. N

Swarming the Battlefield

By Paul Scharre, a

fellow and director of

the 20YY Warfare

Initiative at the

Center for a New

American Security

and author of CNAS’

report, “Robotics on

the Battlefield Part II:

The Coming Swarm.”

n Send your opinion pieces to

[email protected].

Submissions must be roughly 800

words long and are subject to editing

for space and clarity.


Interview

Q. What do see as seapower priorities

in the new Congress?

A. The No. 1 priority is not just in

a seapower lane, but I don’t thinkwe can do any of the rest of thepriorities unless we get sequestra-

tion pulled off. So the No. 1 focuswe’re all going to have going intothe new year is getting sequestra-

tion done away with as it pertainsto national defense.

Q. Do you feel comfortable about

accomplishing that?

A. I do. I just feel like we’re mov-

ing in the right direction, thatthere’s a new feel up here with somany people on the fence. So I’m

optimistic that we’ll get thatdone.

One of the things is how we

have the debate — I have madethis same presentation to theleadership in the House and to

many chairmen of the commit-tees. What we have historicallydone for the last five, six years on

Capitol Hill is really backwards

when it comes to defense. Wehave asked the question how

much money do we want to

spend on defense? Then onceyou’ve locked in that figure, what

kind of strategy can you utilizefrom that budget and how canyou implement that strategy? We

have to change the debate towhere we start talking aboutwhat our goals are for national

defense.If they answer those questions

and if we phrase it that way, then

I believe you have a much betterchance of doing the math andbacking up how many ships we

need and what that’s going to

cost. If we are in a debate be-tween spending money on aTomahawk missile or a new

playground or park or highway,defense is going to lose. If thedebate is where it should be —

which is, do you want our menand women fighting to defendthis country with platforms or

weapon systems equal to or infe-

rior to their opponents, or wherethey may not have air dominance

in a fight — then we win thatdebate. And that’s the way weneed to shift this debate among

policy-makers.

Q. Let’s go to some specific programs

and issues. The Navy’s request to take

11 cruisers out of service for a phased

modernization program was soundly

rebuffed last year by Congress. It’s

admittedly a complicated issue, but

how do you think they should proceed?

A. I am hopeful that the Navy isgoing to come back to us with aplan of how they keep those

cruisers and how we actually dothe modernization.

Q. So you didn’t buy the Navy’s argu-

ment that it needs to take these ships

out of service to preserve service life,

then modernize them at a later date

and return them to service?

A. If you buy that argument, I

have some swampland I want tosell you. It’s kind of hard whenyou get the Navy coming over

here and saying we want to de-stroy seven cruisers. And ussaying no. Then all of a sudden

they come back saying instead ofeuthanizing them, can we talkabout modernizing them. When

they first came over they didn’t

even have a plan. This wasn’t

something they walked over thisyear with the budget getting ridof these 11 cruisers. They didn’t

have a plan. So no, I’m not soldthat the real motivation wasmodernization. If it is, we’ll try to

work with them and make surewe get these cruisers modern-ized.

Q. You have proposed an alternative

way to fund the Ohio-class replace-

ment submarine outside the basic

Navy shipbuilding budget, essentially

opening a dedicated bank account.

But as an authorizer, you can’t put

money in that account. Is this a viable

topic for the new Congress?

A. It’s not just a viable effort, it’s anecessary effort. There is no way

we can afford to have the Ohio-class replacement as far as theshipbuilding budget of the Navy

[is concerned] or we’re going todrop dramatically down fromwhere we are. You’re exactly

right, I cannot actually fund it; Ican only help set up the account.But this is not a one-time, get-it-

all-done [situation]. This is some-thing we’ve started hopefully witha long enough lead-time that we’ll

have the opportunity to get thatdone as the time approaches.

Q. You have been a strong proponent

of urging the Navy to field an un-

manned strike aircraft. But the Navy’s

unmanned carrier jet effort has

stalled, and the Pentagon has now

pushed it out for more studies —

something which could be seen as

setting the stage to kill the program. Is

the unmanned carrier jet dead for

now?

A. I hope it’s not. I wish I couldtell you a definitive answer. The

best thing we were able to do wasgive them a second look andallow the Department of Defense

to make absolutely sure theyweren’t heading in a wrong direc-tion for the next 20 or 30 years

with the development they were

using. As you know, individuals inthe Navy wanted to utilize the

[Unmanned Carrier-Launched

Airborne Surveillance and Strike]aircraft just as a very different

kind of ISR vehicle. It’s my feelingthat we can do most of what theywanted to do already. I was very

concerned that the platform they

would be developing wouldn’teven be able to make it through

some of the defenses we see

today, much less what we wouldsee 10 or 20 years from now.

So I am hoping the Navy willcome back having relooked at

that. But I certainly don’t want tosee this program killed. I think it’san important program. I just think

it needs to head in the right direc-tion.

Q. The Pentagon is in the midst of

searching for new offset strategies —

ideas to counteract enemy capa-

bilities. Will you focus on this?

A. We already have, with a hear-ing in early December, and we’re

going to continue to explore that.What we’re trying to do is makesure people understand what we

are even talking about with theterminology of the offset strategy.This isn’t a brand new strategy

that’s going take the place of thevacuum kind of strategic planningthis administration has been

doing. But there are two keys: unless

we get rid of sequestration and

have the funding, then all theplanning, all the research, doesn’treally do us that much good.

Second, they’re not to be imple-mented six weeks from now, butdoing the research, developing

the offset strategies is going to be

important so we can have thatdone when we do get the dollars

to implement them.

Q. Are you satisfied with the Navy’s

progress at moving 60 percent of its

forces to the Pacific region?

A. I think what the Navy is begin-

ning to realize is they may notnecessarily be able to just pullaway from the Atlantic. We’re

seeing continued problems in theMiddle East and I don’t see thatgoing away tomorrow. And of

course you see the Russian move-ment in Europe now, and theRussian increase in capability and

capacity.

I think the answer is it may notbe something as simple as saying

OK, let’s put 60 percent of ourassets over here. The question I’ll

be asking is do we have enoughcapacity, capability, in the Asia-Pacific area? And do we have

enough capacity and capabilitywhen it comes to dealing with theMiddle East and Europe? That’s

something I think this administra-tion has really put its head in thehole and hasn’t answered.

Q. Is the answer a Reagan-era strategy

of just outbuilding everybody?

A. Absolutely not, just the oppo-

site. What I would suggest is, Iwould not be sending a signal

around the world that we’reretrenching, that we’re going topull a carrier out of my fleet,

beach 11 cruisers, get rid of sixdestroyers, not give the Marinesthe amphibious ship they need,

take away the Tomahawk missileproduction line. I would be sayingwe’re going to have the military

we need. But we’re going to beginwith the strategic review andanalysis to make sure we’re de-

veloping that. But it’s a huge

difference when all of the majornations in the world are building

their Navy up and we are reduc-ing ours. I think that sends anenormous message.

Q. How worried are you about Russia’s

increased military aggressiveness?

A. You don’t have to have a mil-

itary conflict with them. Youdon’t have to try to muscle them

around. But when you’re sending

a message that “it’s OK to doeverything you want to do, and by

the way, we’re just reducing ourmilitary capabilities,” I thinkwe’re encouraging bad actions.

And we’re certainly not doing

anything to discourage them. N

By Christopher P. Cavas in Washington.

US REP. RANDY FORBESChairman, House Seapowerand Projection ForcesSubcommittee

Rep. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, returns in 2015 as chair-man of this influential subcommittee, one of a handful of con-

gressional entities that directly shape and alter the makeup anddirection of the US Navy. As might be expected from a Virginia repre-sentative, Forbes is keenly interested in shipbuilding, but he’s also

delved deeply into numerous seapower issues, from unmanned aircraftand amphibious lift to Chinese naval expansion and the US Navy’s shiftto the Pacific. Forbes has campaigned strenuously for better funding

for the sea services and is a strong opponent of sequestration spendingrestrictions.

On the eve of the 113th Congress, he shared his views on what hesees in the year ahead.

THOMAS BROWN/STAFF

Responsibilities: The Seapower and

Projection Forces Subcommittee of the

US House Armed Services Committee

has oversight over the US Navy, Marine

Corps and maritime programs.

Members: In the 113th Congress, Rep.

Randy Forbes, R-Va., will be chairman

of the subcommittee, with Rep. Mike

McIntyre, D-N.C., as ranking member.

Source: US House of Representatives website

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