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Throughout history, forces have attempted to turn, fix, block, disrupt and deter others through ever-evolving scientific and technological solutions. However, current Terrain Shaping Obstacles are fixed and limited to the land domain.
ERDC is working to help develop Terrain Shaping Obstacles that are mobile, adaptive and intelligent, remotely operated and capable of near-, mid- and far-term delivery in partnership with all-service air, space, land and sea assets. In the future, terrain shaping options will be controllable and reversible, embracing emergent scientific discoveries to manipulate the very nature of the multi-domain battlefield.
VICKSBURG, MS.
01.04.2022
Video by Marisa Gaona
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center
Both the UK and Japan are working towards their next fighter aircraft. Both are members of the F-35 enterprise and can build on that operational experience as well. The Japanese are looking in their F-X program to replace their F-2 aircraft; and the UK is looking beyond its current generation Eurofighter aircraft.
The UK has launched its Tempest program which is aggregating coalition engagement and support.
This agreement deepens the evolving Japanese-UK defense working relationships.
The UK now no longer part of the European Union has through the tempest program launched a way to work new approaches for defense industrial cooperation post-EU.
The recently announced agreement by the UK and Japan to develop a fighter aircraft engine demonstrator is part of such an effort.
According to a UK Ministry of Defence press release on December 22, 2021:
Work on the joint engine demonstrator will kickstart early next year, with the UK investing an initial £30 million in planning, digital designs and innovative manufacturing developments.
A further £200 million of UK funding is expected to go towards developing a full-scale demonstrator power system, supporting hundreds of highly skilled jobs, including many at Rolls-Royce’s Filton facility in Bristol.
Over the next four years, the UK is investing more than £2 billion into its major national and international endeavour to design a world-leading Future Combat Air System. In parallel, through its F-X programme, Japan is looking to develop a future fighter aircraft to a similar timescale to replace the F-2 aircraft.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:
“Strengthening our partnerships in the Indo-Pacific is a strategic priority and this commitment with Japan, one of our closest security partners in Asia, is a clear example of that.
“Designing a brand-new combat air system with a fighter aircraft at its heart is a highly ambitious project so working with like-minded nations is vital. Building on the technological and industrial strengths of our two countries, we will be exploring a wide-ranging partnership across next-generation combat air technologies.
“Having explored opportunities with Japan on future combat air systems for some time, alongside the UK’s growing partnership with European nations, discussions accelerated following a meeting between UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Japan’s Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi in Tokyo in the Summer.”
UK Defence Procurement Minister Jeremy Quin said:
“As I have seen at first hand our partners in Japan have made enormous progress on technologies that can complement our own advanced skills and could help ensure both our Armed Forces remain at the forefront of military innovation.
“We look forward to the continued partnership with a formidable power and close ally.
“International partnership remains at the heart of the UK’s approach to combat air, as set out in the Combat Air Strategy published in 2018.”
UK Director Future Combat Air, Richard Berthon, said:
“This initiative with Japan is a win-win opportunity to develop world-beating power technologies together. Investing and working together with Japan to demonstrate highly advanced engine systems will boost our national industries and design a cutting-edge military capability. We’re looking forward to getting started on this work and continuing our discussions on further collaboration.
The UK and Japan have also agreed a ‘Memorandum of Cooperation’ which enables both nations to pursue joint technologies. Together, the UK and Japanese Defence Ministries will explore the feasibility of further sub-systems collaboration throughout 2022. In the UK, this work will be undertaken by the Team Tempest industry partners: BAE Systems, Leonardo UK, MBDA UK and Rolls-Royce.
Alex Zino, Director of Business Development and Future Programmes at Rolls-Royce, said:
“Across Rolls-Royce we have a longstanding and valued relationship with our customers and industry partners in Japan. The industry teams in both UK and Japan bring complementary technologies that will drive cleaner, next generation power and propulsion for both nations future fighter requirements.
“The joint engine demonstrator programme is an exciting opportunity to bring together some of the best combat air capabilities in the world and will also enable the development of innovative and critical technologies that will be fundamental to the future of the Defence aerospace industry.
This news follows plans announced in the UK’s Defence Command Paper, published in March 2021, to deepen and expand defence industrial relationships in the Indo-Pacific region, including with Japan.
This work will be led by industry from the two countries, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and IHI in Japan, and Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems in the UK.
The UK MOD is also supporting Japan in the delivery of their Joint New Air-to-Air Missile (JNAAM) programme.
Team Tempest: This summer, the UK signed a £250m contract with BAE Systemson behalf of Team Tempest UK partners to drive forward the concept and assessment phase of its programme. The Future Combat Air System is expected to combine a core aircraft, often referred to as ‘Tempest’, at the heart of a network of wider capabilities such as uncrewed aircraft, sensors, weapons and advanced data systems to form a next-generation capability designed to enter service from the mid-2030s.
Memorandum of Understanding with European partners: In addition to this international partnership with Japan, last year the UK, Italy and Sweden signed a trilateral ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ to collaborate on future combat air systems and technologies. Together, the UK, Italy and Sweden aspire to develop concepts and share workload while maximising national expertise.
There is reported interest by the new German government in acquiring the F-35 for its Tornado replacement program. One wonders if such an acquisition might pave the way for the French-German-Spanish FCAS program to find ways to work with the expanding Tempest program.
The featured photo is taken from the UK MoD press release.
Twenty-seven Soldiers who are participating as students in the Fort McCoy Cold-Weather Operations Course (CWOC) class 22-02 practice building an Artic 10-percent tent Jan. 5, 2022, during course training at Fort McCoy, Wis.
The training took place on a snowy, cold day which may have been idyllic for the training. CWOC students are trained on a variety of cold-weather subjects, including snowshoe training and skiing as well as how to use ahkio sleds and other gear, too.
Training also focuses on terrain and weather analysis, risk management, cold-weather clothing, developing winter fighting positions in the field, camouflage and concealment, and numerous other areas that are important to know in order to survive and operate in a cold-weather environment.
Paris – There was perhaps a faint echo of sweeping U.S. sanctions against Vietnam after 1975, as the people of Afghanistan face a winter of starvation due to international restrictions on humanitarian aid and on the Afghan banking system.
News pictures of a chaotic evacuation of Afghan and foreign nationals from Kabul last August prompted media reports to rerun that iconic image of a Huey helicopter on the rooftop of a CIA safe house on April 29 1975 in what was then Saigon.
Beyond the two rushed airlift operations, are there parallels between the dire economic conditions and punitive sanctions after the victories of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the North Vietnamese forces south of the 17th parallel?
Such is the rising risk of widespread hunger in Afghanistan, former British prime minister Gordon Brown and The New York Times separately called for an easing of strict foreign control of humanitarian aid, and the Afghan central bank and commercial lenders.
“The Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – have the money and have made offers to provide assistance, but they fear an American backlash,” Brown said in a Jan. 12 op ed in The Guardian, a British daily.
“Realistically, it will require the U.S. to break the logjam and end the cycle of starvation and death.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times said in a Jan. 14 editorial, “The Taliban remain on the U.S. sanctions list, so the international community has refused to give them money.”
The New York Times went on to say, “Even though U.S. Treasury Department officials say that the central bank of Afghanistan is not under sanctions, financial institutions around the world are treating it as if (it) was. Foreign banks are refusing to wire money to Afghanistan, not only because they don’t want to deal with the reputational risk, but also because they fear that the long arm of the U.S.”
There is that perceived risk of upsetting the U.S. authorities over Afghanistan and the very real punitive sanctions Washington imposed on Vietnam after the 1975 evacuation.
The U.S. cut diplomatic ties with Vietnam, and then imposed an economic embargo in 1978 after Vietnamese forces toppled the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot in Cambodia. That U.S. embargo, which included trade sanctions, was seen back then as punishment of Hanoi, with the victory of North Vietnamese forces fresh in the memory of Washington policy makers.
The U.S. also made sure Vietnam could not receive support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, at a time when the southeast Asian nation was struggling with widespread poverty. The Vietnamese economy – and the people – suffered from weak growth for the 1980s and it was only in 1994 the then Clinton administration lifted the trade embargo and normalized relations with Hanoi.
That allowed the two nations to sign a bilateral trade agreement in 2001, which included a lifting of non-tariff barriers.
Vietnam showed interest in ordering second-hand, refurbished Lockheed Martin P-3 and S-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, Reuters reported in 2016, after the then Obama administration lifted the arms embargo.
That lifting of the arms embargo came despite what broadcaster CNN reported in 2016 as Vietnam’s “dismal” record in human rights, which included the jailing of dissidents.
Vietnam operates a fleet of Airbus C-212 maritime patrol aircraft.
The U.S. handed over of six Metal Shark coastal patrol boats to the Vietnamese coast guard, the American embassy reported in May 2017.
With normalization of trade relations, the U.S. became the leading destination for Vietnamese exports, with shipments of textiles, electronics, and seafood, the Council on Foreign Relations reported in 2019. The U.S. exports to Vietnam included cotton, computer chips, and soya beans. Bilateral trade rose to more than $60 billion in 2018 from $451 million in 1995.
On the human rights front, the Vietnamese authorities sentenced on Dec. 14 2021, Pham Doan Trang, a journalist and author, to nine years of prison, with the indictment citing her giving interviews to Radio Free Asia and the BBC.
In the wake of the 1975 victory, there were re-education camps, which saw South Vietnamese officials and personnel being lectured where they had gone wrong.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have re-opened schools for secondary education for boys but effectively banned girls from the class room.
Concern over such measures lay behind the U.S. limiting the release of humanitarian aid. But Washington has eased those restrictions and backed a U.N. security council resolution which exempted most aid from sanctions aimed at the Taliban.
The U.S. Treasury agreed to widen the definition of humanitarian aid by including education, allowing a broader use of funds by aid organizations in Afghanistan. That U.S. agreement meant Afghan teachers could get paid.
The U.N. security council adopted the resolution Dec. 22 2021.
Aid organizations had been pushing the U.S. to ease restrictions, intended to deter the Taliban from weakening women’s rights. Those U.S. restrictions were seen by the aid agencies as increasing the prospect of starvation across the country.
The U.S. backing for the U.N. resolution required a review of the mechanism in a year and full reporting requirements.
Washington has frozen some $9 billion of reserves the Afghan central bank held in the U.S., on the grounds that it was unclear who should have access to the funds. That has led to a severe lack of liquidity for the Afghan banking system and scarce cash for the people of Afghanistan.
Located in Northern Michigan, the National All Domain Warfighting Center is changing the way we train to fight.
The NADWC boasts two extensive maneuver training centers, Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, and possesses the largest overland special-use military airspace east of the Mississippi.
Since its inception in 2020, the NADWC has played host to multiple large-scale training exercises and experiments. Iterations of the Northern Strike exercise series, Mobility Guardian, Exercise Spartan, and the revolutionary Global Information Dominance Experiment 3 have all been supported by the NADWC.
Leveraging 148,000 acres of maneuver training space and 17,000 square miles of special-use air space to
hone our warfighting skills, the NADWC is the premiere all domain warfighting center in The Michigan National Guard’s ever-evolving defense game plan.
On 1 December 2021, the Williams Foundation held its second 2021 seminar, this one focused on shaping a way ahead for a sovereign Australian space strategy.
Since 2018, the focus of the seminars has been increasingly with regard to how to extend the reach of the ADF given the changing nature of the challenges facing Australia in the Indo-Pacific region. The discussions really began with a 2018 seminar which focused on the importance of long-range strike and was followed by seminars which focused on ways to enhance Australian resilience and sovereign capabilities.
The first seminar of 2021 focused on next generation autonomous systems, and the December 1, 2021, seminar on where autonomous systems, namely satellites, have been a regular feature for both military and commercial purposes for many decades.
The first point made throughout the presentations by speakers was that Australia has a long involvement in space activities through its working relationships with its core allies, first Britain, and then the United States. The Australians have been engaged in several support activities for the American space enterprise and that domain knowledge and engagement will continue to be critical in shaping Australia’s own efforts for enhanced sovereignty In space.
The second point is the need to indeed enhance Australian independent space capabilities.
As AIRCDRE Phil Gordon, Director General Air Defence and Space put it: “I would compare our position in space with being a frequent flyer who uses that service. And as we in defense are on the journey from being a consumer of other people’s space products to a contributor owner and operator in our own right.”
The need for shaping sovereign capabilities comes not only from the enhanced importance of space payloads for both commercial and military activities, but from the nature of crises and the nature of allies. Gordon put it succinctly: “It’s relatively easy to have access to space capabilities from allies when there’s plenty to go around.
“But if times are tough, if assets are under attack, if bandwidth is reduced, if satellites and ground stations are targeted and there’s just not enough capacity to do all the things we want to do, then where are those priorities going to lie?” This then means for Gordon: “we have to be able to have control and access of our space capabilities without needing to ask someone else’s permission.”
The third point was embedded in various presentations but put most directly by BRIG Ian Langford. Director General Future Land Warfare. Even though space clearly has its own specific requirements, skill sets and capabilities, it is part of the overall transformation of the ADF and of the next round of the revolution in military affairs, or perhaps we could go back to the term used throughout the Williams Foundation Seminars, namely, a fifth-generation force but now with greater reach.
Langford put it this way: “ Two years ago, I was talking to a US Air Force retired four-star general, and we were talking about the revolution of military affairs, which was demonstrated in 1991 during the first Gulf War. And that was demonstrated in that context through the effectiveness of GPS and the use in application of precision strike and advanced munitions, as it related to the ability of US-led coalition forces to be so effective and so profound in the context of that capability overmatch. Now we are on the edge of a significant defence recapitalization are we now on the edge of the next round of the RMA? And what are we to do about it?”
The fourth point is that shaping of a new Australian space enterprise which started with the 2018 standup of the Australian Space Agency and will see a new ADF command to be stood up in January 2022 is occurring in the context of evolving strategic environment.
And that environment as I noted in a recent discussion with Dr. Paul Bracken, the well-known strategist, is characterized by ongoing limited war with the authoritarian powers and the challenge of escalation control and management.
Space assets are crucial to be able for Australia to shape effective crisis management in the ongoing conflicts with the authoritarian powers. Several speakers spoke about the militarization of space and space war. The challenge is to know when it starts. Both the cyber and space domains are domains within which conflict is ongoing, signaling difficult, but the need to be resilient crucial.
Dougal Robertson of the Williams Foundation highlighted the interaction between space and the various dimensions of the evolving strategic environment. And he underscored this crucial point: “Gray-zone traditionally means we are not at war, but we’re not at peace. The gray-zone actor might be pursuing national objectives, certainly in relation to nation states, and when we talk about gray-zone activity, they’re often pursuing objectives that are linked to military advantage or political or strategic advantage.” If this is the case then, Australia certainly needs space capability which can give the ADF and the government decision making tools to evolute conflicts and crisis management options, occurring in space and cascading out to the entire combat force.
The fifth point, and a major part of the day’s discussion, was on the nature of the space eco-system which Australia needs to shape going forward to have enough sovereignty to have decision making capabilities for both security and defense needs.
Space is expensive and payloads are dynamically changing under the impacts of new initiative sand capabilities generated by the major space powers.
So, what can Australia realistically do and how best to do it?
One approach is to leverage the dynamics of change with regard to new versus old space, which means new ways to launch space payloads, and to leverage the various ways to shape new satellite payloads and constellations.
That effort will be generated as the major space powers refigure how they are working GEO, MEO and LEO payloads, and as they shape various kinetic and non-kinetic ways to shape warfare in space capabilities.
That is why working with the United States and enhancing working relationship with the UK as they have launched a new space command, or with India, or Japan or ESA all will become parts of shaping the space ecosystem for the Australian space enterprise going forward.
Malcolm Davis of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute provided a particularly robust and clear discussion of what Australia’s way ahead in space might look like.
“We need to think about space resilience, and we need to think about space deterrence, and they should complement the existing projects in space. Sovereign launch is clearly going to happen, and I’ve always been an advocate for a high, low mix, where Australia contributes a low end in terms of small satellites that can complement the large geo birds. These small satellite systems could contribute new types of capability and new missions for the Australian defense force.”
The sixth point is the central role which Australia’s geography has and will play going forward.
The cooperation between the United States and Australia in part is based on Australia’s location and its extensive geography. The establishment of Pine Gap is a case in point. This location is strategically significant because of the ability of the facilitates there to work various high value satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, the Asian parts of Russia and the Middle East. And going forward launch locations and ground-based space capabilities will grow in importance as Australia builds out its own capabilities and works with partners and allies in the liberal democratic world going forward.
In the panel, the former air attaché to the United States, Terry Van Herren noted: “If I was a Chinese general, I’d be worried about three things from Australia. First, I would be worried about nuclear powered submarines. Second, I would be quite concerned about long range replenishable strike. The third thing that would worry me would be a robust counter space capability developed and supported in Australia. Why? Because Perth and Beijing are on the same longitude. They would hate to see us develop real space power in this country.”
“France, more than any other country, understands the necessity of the Indian content. And we are fully committed to the Make in India initiative, as well as to the further integration of Indian manufacturers into our global supply chains. Make in India has been a reality for French industry for several years, particularly for defence equipment such as submarines,” Parly said during a virtual session at the Ananta Centre think tank.
“And if I am here today, it is to say how precious is the friendship between France and India. It is based on historical and dense relations. This friendship, this trust that we have in each other, has developed and blossomed considerably in recent years, to such an extent that the distance between the Ganges and the Seine sometimes seems to be lessened.
“Our relationship is not only one of state to state; it is a friendship between two peoples. Two peoples who strongly cherish their diversity and share universal values: the French Enlightenment is one of the inventors of modern democracy while India has imposed it as a reference model in Asia. This is the strength of our partnership,” she added.
The relations between the two countries, she said, were predicated on five pillars.
“First, France and India are both viscerally committed to national sovereignty and independence: and I think that our industrial partnership is proof of that.
“Second, we both promote multilateralism and the defence of a rules-based international order. When the world and the region experience such upheavals, it is good to refer to rock-solid principles.
“Third, we are both very involved in building international security: India is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations, and France contributes to international security in many parts of the world – yesterday in Afghanistan, today in the Sahel and in the Middle East.
“We also share the ability to mobilize international partners on major issues and global challenges, starting with the fight against climate change: I believe that armed forces have a lot to contribute to the fight against climate change: this is the meaning of an initiative we took at the Paris Peace Forum in November. I think we have a lot to learn from India, which is very determined to meeting the commitments of the Paris Agreement and is actively working on it.
“Finally, we want to preserve the Indo-Pacific as an open and inclusive area. It must be free from any coercion and based on compliance with international law and multilateralism,” Parly said.
To France, the Minister said, the Indo-Pacific in not an “artificial juxtaposition” of the Indian and Pacific oceans but “should be understood as a wide geographical continuum facing common challenges”.
“So, we have developed an exceptional partnership. And it is more necessary than ever to reinforce it. As you well know, we face both global and regional challenges,” she said.
The first challenge is terrorism.
“Terror has struck France and Europe repeatedly over the last few years and has not spared the Indo-Pacific, including India. This fight is not over and will continue for many years to come. The threat of attacks on our countries has not disappeared. I am thinking in particular of the situation in Afghanistan, which is a matter of concern for both France and India,” she said.
The second challenge is the respect of international maritime law.
“Everyone knows that some of the waterways are crucial for the economic security of a number of states in the region. They are actually essential for the economic security of many states outside the region, as well. No one should consider themselves as entitled to bypass international maritime law.
“We particularly insist on two principles of the rule-based international order: disputes should be resolved by legal means and negotiation, not by fait accompli. And freedom of navigation must be upheld. More generally, we need to work together to preserve access to global commons such as cyber, space, maritime and air domains. We can see that these are areas of strategic competition and we must ensure that they do not become the new Far West,” the Minister said.
These objectives have driven France to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific.
“The French deployments were very large and unprecedented in 2021: France has deployed an attack submarine, the Emeraude, for eight months and up to over 15,000 kilometres from its mainland territory, across the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and the China Sea.
“This mission is part of a larger spectrum of operational activities such as the air mission Skyros (February 2021) or the deployment of the Jeanne d’Arc amphibious Task Group which both made stopovers in India. We also took part to multilateral exercises like La Pérouse in the Gulf of Bengal or ARC 2021 in the Japanese waters,” Parly said.
Noting that both exercises involved Japanese, Australian, American, Indian and French navies, she said: “We do not see France and India as the two poles of an exclusive partnership but rather as the core of a network of cooperation. We are already working together with the countries of the Indian Ocean, for example, to respond to environmental disasters and, if possible, to address them.”
The two ministers, during their Defence Dialogue, discussed a wide range of bilateral, regional, defence and defence industrial cooperation issues.
“The Ministers reviewed the existing military-to-military cooperation, which has increased in spite of pandemic challenges. They discussed ways to increase defence cooperation in all domains. India and France have recently concluded their annual bilateral Army Exercise, Shakti, with focus on counter-terrorist operations, in France in November 2021. Defence industrial cooperation was discussed with focus on future collaborations and co-production between the two countries,” the Defence Ministry said.
“The Ministers acknowledged their convergences on number of strategic and defence issues. They expressed commitment to work together to enhance cooperation in bilateral, regional and multilateral forums. France is the current chair of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and shall take over the Presidency of European Union from January 01, 2022. The two Ministers decided to work closely on a number of issues during the French Presidency,” the Ministry added.
This article was published by India Strategic in December 2021.
Featured Photo: French Minister for the Armed Forces Ms Florence Parly inspecting the Tri-Service Guard of Honour in New Delhi on December 17.
