Will the Coronavirus Crisis be Wasted?

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on Will the Coronavirus Crisis be Wasted?
03/27/2020

By Robbin Laird

We have raised for some time the question of whether the liberal democracies can effectively crisis manage. And our colleague John Blackburn set up a new Institute in Australia a couple of years ago to focus attention on how Australia could become a more resilient society in facing significant global transitions.

With the Coronavirus pandemic we certainly are facing a global crisis. Governments are hunkering down nationally to deal with the crisis and generating their own solutions to get through the most immediate aspects of the crisis.

But which nations will rise to the task of leveraging the crisis to become more resilient in the future and to shape crisis management capabilities?

The current crisis certainly has exposed both unrealistic social expectations and political leadership shortfalls in the liberal democracies in coming to grips with crisis, as opposed to managing prosperity.

Divergent responses to the crisis across the board in the global liberal democracies will challenge the ability to shape common solutions going forward.

The underlying conflict between the 21st century authoritarian powers and the liberal democracies has been accentuated and highlighted as well. With Putin having tossed out most NGOs from Russia as part of his consolidation of power, the absence of credible information within Russia makes trust in Russia’s ability to contribute to a global management of a pandemic virtually non-existent.

The Chinese government has elevated information obfuscation an art form during the current crisis. This situation raises fundamental questions about trust with regard to China which are rooted in their domestic system going forward. And certainly, the over reliance on Chinese supply chains, a subject to which we have dedicated many articles in the past few years, is highlighted as well.

But will the liberal democracies shape lessons learned and establish more reliable supply chains?

Will the liberal democracies shape more realistic working relationships with one another to have more resilient national capabilities shared across a shared sovereign space?

During my recent visit to Australia and upon my return, I have talked at length with Blackburn and Anne Borzycki, a director of The Institute for Integrated Economic Research-Australia about shaping a way ahead.

Or put a different way, will we waste the experience of the Coronavirus crisis or can we shape lessons learned and carve a more effective way ahead to deal with future crises?

We started the conversation by noting that Australia has had a tough time of over the past few months.

Blackburn: “From an Australian perspective, we’ve been through some of the worst bushfires we’ve experienced. We’ve had floods, hailstorms, dust storms, and now a pandemic. I think that the quote I made yesterday in the post that, “Who could have ever predicted this,” as an excuse for being unprepared actually summarizes the problem we have.

“I’ve been involved myself in pandemic exercises within the military, both as a military officer and a consultant; none of this is that new. However, we didn’t take sufficient notice of a lot of that analysis, because implementing the recommendations would have been difficult politically, and we tend to defer decisions until we are in the crisis itself.  We are in a situation, in my view, largely of our own creation, and our lack of preparedness and the scale of panic we see, is alarming.

Laird: The core focus is too often on the following the soccer ball rather than putting an event in context. The Coronavirus crisis is the current soccer ball, with perhaps a few soccer games, but after the season ends, the hope will be to return to the way it was.

“The challenge is whether the crisis is simply treated as a bump on the road or whether it is recognized as a turning point.

Blackburn: When you’re in the crisis it is too late to prepare for the crisis you’re in.  So, how do we prepare for the next crisis? It will come for sure. How do we adapt? How do we shape a way to prevent the worst effects of a future crisis?

“The key three focus areas for moving ahead are to ‘Prepare,’ to ‘Adapt,’ and to ‘Prevent’ where possible the worst impacts of a future crisis.

“We’ve been following this free market religion that the market can actually fix everything, let’s go for the lowest cost regardless of what the end price is. Just in time supply chains result in less resilience. One of the very first things we have to do is accept that that our current model of business and global supply chains is dead. It not going to work for us, so we have to think of a new model.”

Laird: One analyst has suggested that we are going to need to shift from just in time to just in case supply chains.  And as our colleague Rosemary Gibson has noted that lowest cost approach to supply can end up being the most expensive option from the standpoint of social resiliency and national security … “there is a very high price to cheap.”

Blackburn: When we redesign our supply chains, we need to pursue a “Smart Sovereignty” model. The scale or degree of sovereign capability you have in a country, will vary significantly country by country. A country the size of U.S., with its population and manufacturing capacity, will have a greater degree of sovereign capability.

“A country like Australia, with much smaller population and a different economic base will have a smaller degree of sovereignty, but we need a lot more than we have right now where we’re 90% import dependent for our fuels and we’re 90% import for our medicines.

“We also depend primarily on foreign owned shipping to move our trade; this is a major source of economic and supply chain vulnerability in times of crisis.  Australia has one of the smallest nationally flagged shipping fleets in the developed world with only 14 ships of 2000 Tons or greater on the Australian register.

“What must go with Smart Sovereignty is Trusted Supply Chains. You have to have diverse supply chains, and you have to have assured yourself that you can trust them. What is evident here is the massive outsourcing and dependence upon China as the sole source of  pharmaceutical ingredients and other essential supplies, cannot be ‘trusted.’ We’ve seen it fail in the current crisis.

“We need to test our supply chains. We need to verify them. Smart Sovereignty with Trusted Supply Chains is a part of addressing the problem in terms of ‘prepare, adapt and prevent.’

“We need a much more proactive approach to assuring our own sovereignty, and that’s part of the ‘prepare’ challenge. With regard to ‘adapt,’ we need to look at our supply chains and how they work. With regard to ‘prevent,’ we may need in time to exclude/replace those countries, or supply chain elements that we cannot verify and ensure they meet the required degree of trusted capability.

Laird: We are talking first of about a national strategy, but given we are all in a semi-sovereign state with regard to our economies, our security or are defense capability when considering the liberal democracies dealing with the 21stcentury authorization powers, we need to focus on how the liberal democracies can reset how they work together.

“And the question of trusted supply chains need also to be specific. Each nation needs to take a hard look at its priorities and seek out trusted partners with whom it shares common standards and can be certain that the information available is trustworthy.

“This puts an onus on the authoritarian societies which are clearly built on lack of transparency. This means that your focus requires a serious relook at how specific areas of cooperation can happen with particular countries rather than giving blank checks to the global marketplace or particular allies.

Blackburn: There has been an unwillingness at the political level in Australia to consider the risks of blind reliance on the market or how authoritarian capitalist regimes like China can impact our safety and security. We need to understand that the current crisis is yet another wakeup call and not just one to go back to sleep again after it is over.

Borzycki: In Australia, this is certainly a bipartisan problem, of being blind to the situation we have put ourselves into with regard to an inability to address our vulnerabilities as a core political task to be worked with the private sector. This crisis gives us an opportunity to rework the relationship between government and the private sector to build a resilient capability.

Laird: And this is clearly not simply a political problem; it is about unrealistic social expectations that we just get on with enjoying life and not having to face the inevitability of crises and that we are no likely to face an unchallenged road ahead with regard to international trade, commerce or military conflict.

Blackburn: We’re in the midst of a crisis that we’re trying to manage.  But we also need to lay down the foundation for enhanced resilience in the future.  We also need to  shape more realistic expectations that crisis management is becoming a way of life and not just a “once in 50 year event.”

Borzycki: There is a unique aspect of the challenge facing Australia today. We have had basically 30 years of prosperity and economic growth. We didn’t take a hit during the GFC, so we have a generation of people, now in their forties and in leadership roles across Government and the private sector, whose entire generation’s DNA has an expectation of market growth and prosperity. The prosperity that we have experienced as a nation has become a critical cultural weakness for us as we to try survive and move forward.

Blackburn: Meeting the challenge is not simply a government responsibility. It’s a shared responsibility for governments of all levels, with industry, with the workforce, and with us as individuals.

“When I said ‘prepare, adapt, or prevent’, the ‘adapt’ is what we’re going to have a hard conversation with our whole society saying, “we’re going to have to change our expectations. This is not going to be sustainable.”  We will also have to take a degree of individual responsibility for our personal and community resilience – it is not an issue that the Government can address by itself.

“We have to change our expectations, our behavior. We’re not clients of the government. We don’t have human rights for absolutely everything to be provided to us. We are citizens with a shared responsibility. We’ve got to face these facts, face reality, and change.”

The featured photo shows the German ship, Artania.

In an article by Bernadette Chua published on March 26, 2020, the author describes how the ship has been a focus of German-Australian cooperation in the current crisis.

There are seven passengers on the German ship, Artania who have tested positive for COVID-19. While the ship has no Australians onboard, there are 800 guests and 500 crew members.

The Artania requested urgent medical assistance from West Australian authorities earlier this week and the ship’s operators have told passengers that they will be sent home on chartered flights to Frankfurt in Germany, leaving this weekend.

WA will provide hospital care for passengers with life threatening medical conditions and a man was transferred from the Artania on Thursday night with what is understood to be a heart problem.

The developments come overnight, despite Premier Mark McGowan calling on Australian Navy to get the ship out of Australian waters.

He also requested yesterday, the Commonwealth help and said if any passengers required medical attention on shore, and that they should be taken to a place away from the public.

“We’d like the Commonwealth to assist with that, we’d like those passengers…if they have to, to go into a Commonwealth facility,” Mr McGowan said.

“The Commonwealth has assets here, it has defence assets, it has the navy, we’d like their assistance to try to get the Artania to leave as soon as possible,” he said.

“There’s no Australians on board, it needs to be fuelled, but it needs to leave and go to its home port.

“Its home port is actually Germany, so what we’re saying to the ship is ‘you need to leave’, and we’re saying to the Commonwealth ‘you need to help us get that ship to leave’.

Most of the passengers on the ship are German, but Australian and Swiss passport holders will also travel to Frankfurt.

But Premier McGowan is demanding that the MSC Magnifica, which is now in limbo off the coast after being denied entry by Dubai, leave WA waters.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has also barred cruise passengers from NSW until tougher protocols are established.

Ms Berejikilian has pushed for tougher cruise ship testing after state and federal government let over 2,000 passengers off the Ruby Princess, despite a number of passengers feeling unwell.

Australian Border Force chief Michael Outram earlier this week, said the bungled decision was squarely the responsibility of NSW health and the federal agriculture department.

One passenger, a 77-year-old woman has died.

“The protocols I want far exceed what the existing protocols are and that’s what we’re negotiating with the federal government,” said Ms Berejiklian.

“I don’t want anyone coming off a ship, and I know that’s hard for some families, until the state and federal government agree on what we’re doing moving forward.”

To follow up with The Institute for Integrated Economic Research-Australia, see the following:

https://www.jbcs.co/#/iieraust/

Also, see the compilation of our recent articles on the crisis and shaping a way ahead:

The Coronavirus Crisis: Shaping a Way Ahead

03/27/2020

By Defense.Info

This report provides a compilation of our recent pieces on responses to the Coronavirus crisis, current actions, and the challenge of shaping a way ahead.

The Coronavirus Crisis: Shaping a Way Ahead

 

 

 

 

Blue Small UAS at Seymour Johnson Air Base

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on Blue Small UAS at Seymour Johnson Air Base

TSgt Kyle Lawrence, 4th Security Forces Squadron flight sergeant, conducts the first test flight for the Blue small unmanned aerial system, also known as sUAS, at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. SJAFB is the first installation in Air Combat Command to receive and test this technology that assists defenders in surveillance, security and defense.

GOLDSBORO, NC, UNITED STATES

02.13.2020

Video by Airman 1st Class Kylie Barrow

4th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

French Arms Firms Grapple With Virus Lock Down

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on French Arms Firms Grapple With Virus Lock Down
03/25/2020

By Pierre Tran

Paris – French arms companies have taken major steps following a national lock down ordered last week against the coronavirus, with some factories closed or cutting back, staff working from home, and shipyards working at a slower pace.

The government has declared a state of emergency in the health domain, with the Official Journal publishing March 24 a law granting two months of greater state power in the combat against Covid-19.

The lock down went into effect midday March 17, limiting the right for people to leave home and requiring an official document with boxes to tick for reasons of travel.

The government has since tightened those restrictions, including cutting the distance for personal exercise walks to one kilometer from home and a maximum of one hour to be out of doors. Hefty fines will be imposed for breaches of restrictions.

There are wide expectations the two-week lock down will be extended, as the pandemic continues to take lives.

Trade show cancelled

A spread of the virus has led to cancellation of the Eurosatory trade show for land weapons, a source close to the exhibition said.

The show organizers had decided it was “impossible” to postpone the exhibition, given the complexity for French and foreign exhibitors, and official delegations from around the world.

There were logistical concerns for the show, which takes 1-1/2 years to organize, the source said. A formal decision to cancel was expected March 26.

A  cancellation follows the cancellation of the Berlin ILA and Farnborough air shows.

Eurosatory had been due to be held June 8-12 just outside the capital.

The Royal International Air Tattoo air show, a prominent UK military event, has also been axed.

A launch of a program for a European medium-altitude, long-endurance drone has been pushed back, with a deal expected in October or November, a source close to the deal said. Governments were ready to accept a budget of some €7.2 billion ($7.8 billion), while industry seeks €7.4 billion. France had previously expected an agreement by mid year.

Fighter Jet Factory Locked Down

Dassault Aviation has closed factories and offices, including the key Merignac plant, southwest France, which builds the Rafale fighter jet.

“We are going through an exceptionally serious crisis with consequences on public health, with its breadth and impact on the medical care system, and also its effects on the economy and our company,” executive chairman Eric Trappier said in a March 22 note to staff posted on the company website. Factories were closed since the lock down started last Tuesday.

For office workers who could not work from home, the offices and open work spaces were cleaned every day, hand sanitizer provided and guidance given on distancing, he said.

A return to work would take place once factories and offices had been cleaned, he said in a March 23 note. The company was due to hold March 26 a special meeting of the works council to give an update, with information to be passed on to councils in each plant.

Production remained suspended until the health measures were implemented.

Dassault is prime contractor on the European project for a future combat air system and the Rafale, a key export product factored into the French defense budget. The company also planned to announce the launch of a new Falcon business jet this year. That was before the virus attack.

French Missiles Shuttered

MBDA, the missile maker, last Tuesday shut down its three sites in France, the only country of the four-nation consortium to do so. The plants in Britain, Germany and Italy are open.

In France, there are some 5,100 workers in three MBDA sites, with the head office at Plessiy Robinson, just outside the capital, and plants at Bourges and Selles-Saint Denis, central France.

There are plans to return gradually to work, reflecting priorities assigned to certain programs. Staff will be given protection kit and there will be two work shifts – morning and afternoon – with a cut in the number at work.

The priorities could be delivery of spares and service for the Mica air-to-air missile, ASMP-A airborne nuclear-tipped missile, and MMP anti-tank weapon.

Those in France cleared to work on classified information must work in the office, otherwise staff will work from home.

Shipyards Slow Ahead

Pierre Eric Pommellet takes the top job at shipbuilder Naval Group in these troubled times, succeeding Hervé Guillou, who hit retirement age on March 24.

Among the management issues Pommellet must grapple with is slower work at the Cherbourg and Lorient shipyards, with the former building Barracuda nuclear attack submarines, and the latter building the air defense frigate and frigate for defense and intervention.

The Toulon yard handles service for the Rubis class of nuclear attack submarine and Fremm multimission frigate, while Brest handles service of the Triomphant class of nuclear ballistic missile boats.

Toulon is handling the last complete overhaul of the Perle, the most recent of the Rubis boats, website Mer et Marine reported. That service will last some 18 months.

Naval Group employs around 16,000 staff, of which some 4,000 are working from home, plugged into secure computer networks.

Small and medium yards, such as Piriou and Couach, have closed, as they are too small to install the health protective measures.

So far, the plan is to hold the Euronaval trade show October 20-23, a spokesman for Gican a naval trade association said.

Brakes on Military Vehicles

Arquus, a subsidiary of truck maker Volvo, has slowed production of military vehicles at its four sites around France – Fourchambault, Marolles en Hurepoix, Saint Nazaire and Limoges.

There are small teams at the plants sending spares to the French army, a company spokesman. Service support is a vital issue.

There is the prospect of further deliveries of the Griffon multirole troop carrier, one of the armored vehicles in the €10 billion Scorpion Army modernization program. Arquus supplies drivelines and remote controlled machine guns on the Griffon, and is partnered with Nexter and Thales on the Scorpion program.

The joint venture last year delivered 92 Griffon and is due to ship 128 units this year. Some 936 units are due to be delivered by 2025, in a total order of 1,872.

The industrial partners were also due to deliver this year the first Jaguar, a combat and reconnaissance armored vehicle.

A400M Back in Production

Airbus restarted March 24 final assembly of the A400M military airlifter in Seville, southern Spain, after a four-day shut down for a vast cleaning operation.

Airbus flew March 23 an A400M from Toulouse, southern France, to Getafe airbase at Madrid, delivering face masks to the Spanish defense ministry.

Airbus delivered the eighth A400M to the Spanish air force two weeks ago, and is due to hand over the first unit to Luxembourg in a week or so. That Luxembourg aircraft will be flown by the Belgian air force, which will operate its own seven-strong fleet.

Over last weekend Airbus flew an A330-800 airliner to bring some two million masks from China to Europe. That was a test aircraft.

Thales, an electronics company, said on its website, “To minimise the spread of the virus, the group is following the directives of the governments of its countries of operation, adapting its working practices in line with the recommendations of the health authorities, and instructing employees to work from home whenever possible.”

In France, the virus had by March 24 killed 1,100 people, with 240 dying in the previous 24 hours, afternoon daily Le Monde reported. That accounted only for those who dying in hospital, with grave concern for the elderly living in retirement homes.

Five doctors were among those who had lost their lives.

Worldwide, coronavirus deaths approach 20,000, The Guardian daily reported.

The Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office declined comment on the impact of the lock down on the defense industry.

The slideshow below highlights the warnings which the French government is providing to the population. 

79th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron

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U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to the 79th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron aboard a U.S. Air Force HC-130J Combat King II conduct aerial refueling and combat search and rescue training with U.S. Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawks over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Feb. 6, 2020.

The HC-130J Combat King II and HH-60G Pave Hawk deliver USCENTCOM the ability to conduct day or night personnel recovery operations into hostile environments to recover isolated U.S., coalition, and foreign-national forces.

02.06.2020

Video by Senior Airman Brandon Cribelar

U.S. Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs

“No-one Could Anticipate This”: A Reality Check

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on “No-one Could Anticipate This”: A Reality Check

Historical change is generated through crises.

And clearly we are facing one now.

But as General Stonewall Jackson put it: “Never take counsel of your fears.”

Clearly, it is not being governed by our fears that we will do the kind of resiliency reset we need to address and to set in motion an approach which can allow for the liberal democracies to deal with realities which they have clearly not wanted to address.

Our colleague, John Blackburn and his team, have been highlighting for years the need to face the downside of globalization and to rebuild our supply chains and to shape more resilient societies, notably when dealing with the 21st century authoritarians who are working the global disinformation game to further sow disunity in our midst.

The challenge is clear — get real and make significant change.

According to Blackburn:

No one could have anticipated this” – Absolute Rubbish.

I listened to the Services Australia bureaucrat on the ABC this morning say just that in response to the dismal performance of the Centrelink system.

It is time that we stop hiding behind such statements and admit that, as a society, we have been complacent to the significant changes in the world and our lack of resilience.

It is not as if the issues have not been raised. Bill Gates has been loudly stating the issue of pandemics for years and has been largely disregarded.

A multitude of think tanks and commentators have raised issues regarding a range of risks, only to be dismissed as irritants by politicans.

In my supply chain risk and resilience work I have been dismissed by Ministers from both sides of politics; a Labor Minister once told me to go away and focus on “defence issues” and a current serving Liberal Minister told me that my concerns were not valid and that the “market” could address any issues that arose.

Clearly the market cannot address the range of issue that we are facing now.

So stop the excuses, accept we have stuffed up and get on with addressing the crisis of our own making. After the crisis, we need to have a very difficult conversation in this country.

We will have to face reality.

He posted this on LinkedIn and two comments posted in response to his comment further underscore the challenge.

The first underscores the reality check and its significance.

I think you would agree that a lot of people have found it hard to imagine this would be our reality, others have seen it coming for a long time.

I’ve learnt over the years that its not until a lot of people can touch, feel, live the experience are they able to process the reality of it.

This is definitely a time when a fair percentage of the population is beginning to ‘get it’ – let’s try to help them see the bigger picture now we’ve got their attention. 

The way they think, plan and act is now no longer sufficient and they’re finding out the hard way.

Your expertise in this area is invaluable and it would be great to turn all our attention to how we can learn from you (and others) and be able to process what’s happening so we make better decisions from here on. 

Let’s turn the negative into the positive. 

What do you say, shall we have a go?

The second highlighted the impact of reality shock

John, couldn’t agree more.

Our society has been very complacent with our political leaders not understanding and not willing to understand the sovereign risk they faced.

The COVID-19 outcome is the classic result of putting something off and hoping it won’t happen on my watch – except…it did.

It is not a response based on our fears that will allow for the policy challenges we need to be met to indeed be met.

It is by addressing issues which have been percolating for years that simply have not been mainstream ones but now they are.

 

 

 

The View from the Hill: The UK in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on The View from the Hill: The UK in the COVID-19 Pandemic
03/24/2020

By Kenneth Maxwell

I am quarantined on my hill in Devon.

The British Media had been celebrating the “Dunkirk” spirit.

The British Prime Minister, the old Etonian, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, better know as as “Boris” or “BoJo” is the author of a book on Winston Churchill. He likes to think of himself as a Churchill Resurrected.

He has always wanted to be the prime minister.

Over the past fortnight he has been holding reassuring daily briefings in 10 Downing Street often flanked by the chief medical and the chief scientist officer, on the unfolding coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis over a lecturn emblazoned with the slogan “Save the NHS.”

Yet as Italy became the coronavirus global hot spot and Spain followed and France enacted draconian measures to contain the coronavirus, Britain remained an outlier, safe it seemed in a BREXIT inspired off-shore island, splendidly isolated from Europe and from the World.

In Shakespeare’s words: “This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war.” But on Monday 23 March “Britain Alone” was not enough. Boris Johnson has belatedly decreed a national “stay at home” policy and introduced tough new restrictions on daily life.

It is some irony in a British conservative prime minister is acting now to save the NHS and with it begin a desperate and belated attempt to contain the coronavirus epidemic.

The British National Health Service (NHS) was established after WW2 by the post-war Labour government. Winston Churchill and the Consevative Party had been roundly rejected by the British electorate in the general election of 1945. Churchill has called the election when opinion polls had showed him receiving strong approval. He was basking in the euphoria of victory in Europe. But in the general election in July 1945 the Labour Party under Clement Attlee won an overwhelming victory which was based in large part on their social policy proposals, and in particular on their policies on theIr proposals for public health.

As the leader of “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” (King George VI was then the British Monarch) Winston Churchill and the Conservative party opposed the legislation establishing the the NHS (the Tories voted against it 21 times). The British Medical Association was also ferociously hostile. Churchill, always a man with the ability to mobilize words had called the Labour Party “some form of gestapo.”

Boris Johnson is better known for his florid hair than for his rhetorical skills though he is not far behind Churchill (or Trump) in his capacity to invent and hurl rhetorical insults.

The diligence, persistence, and the passion of the Labour party’s Health Minister, Aneurin Bevan, got a universal free at the point of service national health care system funded by general taxation established throughout the United Kingdom between 1946 and 1948  The NHS has long since become a much beloved and totemic British national institution (though it was scandalously underfunded by conservative led governments over the past decade).

Yet one thing is now absolutely certain. Boris Johnson and the NHS is about to be tested as never before by the Coronavirus epidemic which is about to hit Britain with the force of a hurricane.

And on the scale which has already hit Italy and Spain.

Hence my preemptive quarantine on my hill in Devon.

The Dunkirk “spirit” saw hundred of small boats put out to sea to pluck 340,000 allied soldiers from the sandy beaches of northern France close to the border with Belgium. In 2020 the British are showing a much less than doughty spirit. They are impatiently waiting congregated in huge lines to strip the supermarket shelfs of toilet rolls and pasta.

Although pubs and restaurants were closed down on Friday night, City parks, rural tourist beauty spots and beaches, from Cornwall to Snowdonia, were packed with visitors over the warm spring weekend.

And on Monday the London underground was crowded with jam packed commuters. Few it seems we’re taking any notice of Boris Johnson’s confusing advise to “stay at home” and to “social distance.”

In the face of the impending plague we were for too long much less in the “Age of Dunkirk” than in the epoch of “Phoney War” the eight month period from October 1939 until March 1940 at the start of WW2 when following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, only limited military action took place.

People went on then as they did now behaving as if nothing was happening.

But national health staff were and are still crying out in desperation for wider coronavirus testing and above all for protective equipment (PPE) for the professionals tending to coronavirus victims, and for the desperately needed increased supply of ventilators in the face of chronic shortages.

Eventually and belatedly Boris Johnson got the message and decreed a national shut down on Monday evening 23 March.

”You must stay at home” he said in a national televised address. We are clearly in for difficult days ahead. Many war time restrictions are likely to reappear. We are told that food supplies are not under threat though the impatient and angry crowds outside supermarkets in recent days clearly do not believe it.

Boris Johnson much like President Donald Trump has a mighty deficit of trust to overcome.

His “stay at home” decree brought back memories of the age rationing which persisted in Britain until 1954. I remember going to the “tuck shop” at my boarding school as a ten-year old with my ration coupon a slip I got up once a week for the dry surgery mixture we could buy (sugar was rationed until 1954) as a substitute for “sweets.”

And the mad rush at the British supermarkets to buy toilet paper reminded me of the neatly cut and sting suspended small rectangular cut wads of old newspapers in the school “bogs” (our term for the school’s outside toilets) which we used to wipe our bottoms.

At least this will not be store for the bottoms of today since the Internet has virtually wiped out the age of newsprint.

But be prepared.

From my hilltop in Devon l am anticipating dark days ahead.

This is the first in our occasional series of reactions and reflections on the state and dynamics of the global management of today’s plague.

The featured photo was taken from the following source:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7955757/Bournemouth-hierarchy-ridiculed-wearing-club-branded-coronavirus-face-masks.html

 

 

The New Australian Offshore Patrol Vessel: Its Impact in the Perspective of Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on The New Australian Offshore Patrol Vessel: Its Impact in the Perspective of Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett
03/23/2020

By Robbin Laird

The first time I met Vice Admiral (Retired) Tim Barrett was at the 2016 Williams Foundation Seminar in which he addressed the evolving role of the Australian Navy in the transformation of the Australian Defence Force. He provided a keynote presentation to the August 2016 Seminar on new approaches to air-sea integration.

His presentation at the Seminar presaged why the new Offshore Patrol Vessel was destined to be a launch platform to the new integrated distributed approach.

Barrett made it very clear that what was crucial for the Navy was to design from the ground up any new ships to be core participants in the force transformation process underway.

In his presentation at the conference, he underscored that “we are not building an interoperable navy; we are building an integrated force for the Australian Defence Force.”

He drove home the point that ADF integration was crucial in order for the ADF to support government objectives in the region and beyond and to provide for a force capable of decisive lethality.

By so doing, Australia would have a force equally useful in coalition operations in which distributed lethality was the operational objective.

He noted that it is not about massing force in a classic sense; it is about shaping a force, which can maximize the adversary’s vulnerabilities while reducing our own.

And he re-enforced several times in his presentation that this is not about an ‘add-in, after the fact capability’; you need to design and train from the ground up to have a force trained and equipped to be capable of decisive lethality.

He quoted Patton to the effect that you fight war with technology; you win with people.  

It is about equipping the right way with right equipment but training effectively to gain a decisive advantage.

The recapitalisation effort was a “watershed opportunity for the Australian Navy.”

But he saw it as a watershed opportunity, not so much in terms of simply building new platforms, but the right ones.

And with regard to the right ones, he had in mind, ships built from the ground up which could be interoperable with JSF, P-8, Growler, Wedgetail and other joint assets.

“We need to achieve the force supremacy inherent in each of these platforms but we can do that only by shaping integrated ways to operate.”

He highlighted that the Navy was in the process of shaping a 21st century task force concept appropriate to a strategy of distributed lethality and operations.

A key element of the new approach is how platforms will interact with one another in distributed strike and defensive operations, such as the ability to cue weapons across a task force.

In the interview after his presentation which I did with him, he highlighted key elements which can be seen in play as the Commonwealth builds a new class of ships.

“I am taking a very long view, and believe that we need to build our ships in Australia to generate naval capabilities integrated within the ADF.

“We need agility in the process of changing ships through life—continuing to evolve the new ships depending on how the threat is evolving.

“This means that we need to control the combat system software as well as build the hulls.  We will change the combat system and the software many times in the life of that ship; whereas, the hull, machinery in the plant doesn’t. That might sound like a statement of the obvious.

“But it’s not a statement that’s readily understood by our industry here in Australia.

“We need to organise ourselves to have an effective parent navy capability.

“We need to manage commonality across the various ship build processes.

“That will not happen if we build someone else’s ship in Australia which is designed to operate in separate classes.

“I don’t want an individual class to be considered in isolation. I want to cross-learn and cross-operate throughout our various classes of ships, and notably with regard to software integration and development.”

My visit to Australia this month was focused, in part, on building a case study of the new build OPV precisely as the launch platform for the new approach to building out a sustainable and upgradeable Royal Australian Navy fleet.

I visited both the Henderson shipyard where the second batch of OPVs will be assembled as well as the submarine base where Collins operates and where it is evident that Collins modernization presages capabilities to be transferred to the new build submarine.

After those visits, I had a chance to talk with Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett about his perspective on the OPV program as the building block for the template for change for the ADF and the Royal Australian Navy in shaping a way ahead to a integrated distributed force.

Question: How important is the OPV to the approach you identified and put in motion while you were Chief of Navy?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: It is an extremely important demonstration of what was, at the time, an idea and a prospect for future development of our navy.

“We see new shipyard capabilities and new industrial partnerships being forged to build a new approach to shipbuilding.

“It is being done with a new approach which is not just focusing on a traditional prime contractor method of building the hull and having the systems targeting that specific platform.

“It is about building a sovereign capability for our combat systems so that we can upgrade our systems onboard this class and all future classes of Australian ships.

“The OPV is providing some concrete manifestations of what we set out to do. It should be the marker for what follows in the continuous shipbuilding program.

Question: My discussion with the OPV team working in the Department of Defence highlighted their approach to dual tracking the platform build from the management of the combat systems build.

And they highlighted the importance of being able to leverage the combat systems build in the OPV program and take this forward into the design and build processes for the next round of new build platforms.

How do you view this effort?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: In my view, this approach is quite profound. We have had a history building propriety ships with their associated combat systems. We have managed the combat systems within a particular platform only.

“Government made a clear decision with its new shipbuilding approach, to manage the combat system as a separate entity. The principle role of the ship going to sea is to manage the combat system. The Commonwealth team for the OPV is the first manifestation of this new approach.

“It is a sensible outcome which shows that you are managing the asset as warfighting component of a distributed, and interconnected system, rather than purely managing an individual combat asset or class.

“I am very keen to see this approach expressed by the Commonwealth team.”

Question: Is a primary goal to take this OPV build and management process forward to the other new build programs?

 Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: It is. The speed and the pace with which combat systems and associated capabilities are evolving clearly requires a new approach. You need to be adaptive and to make required changes rapidly.

“In effect, you have to design into your warship build approach a way to be rapidly adaptable rather than figuring out later how in fact you will adapt.

“What we have with the OPV is the ability to shape it to operate in a number of different ways, including operating maritime remotes across the operational space. Rather than simply building a hull form to do classic constabulary tasks, we are building a ship which is capable of being morphed into a variety of missions with an extended operational combat or gray zone space.

“It is an experimental process not only in terms of build but in terms of the mission systems management process.

“This is a significant shift from how the Commonwealth has bought combat systems in the past.

“The proof is still to be manifested in the work to be done.”

Question: The ship is clearly going to operate in the gray zone as people refer to it. How do you view this challenge?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: With an emphasis on distributed lethality, then every vessel you send to sea has a part to play. The OPV is being built with this approach in mind.

“While the combat system onboard the OPV will be less complex than an Air Warfare Destroyer, it needs to contribute to the broader distributed integrated force.

“And we are talking about the ability of the Air Force and Navy to work together through the integrated approach to deliver capabilities for the common mission the force will be focused on achieving in a crisis management situation.”

Question: The OPV is being birthed in an age where maritime remotes are coming to the force and will become more significant over its life cycle.

How do you see the role of the OPV in this process?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett:  The ship has been designed from the outset to operate airborne unmanned systems as well as trusted autonomous maritime systems.

“It is being designed to be able to work with unmanned systems and AI-governed remotes as part of its extended reach into the operational space.

“Fundamental decisions were made early on with regard to how the vessel would be built that it could physically host and manage to handle a variety of unmanned systems.”

Question: In effect, it is crucial to have a C2 suite or a synergy management system onboard the OPV to be able to work the variety of systems onboard but highly interactive with other platforms with interactive capabilities.

How do you view this process?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: “This ship was conceived at a time when we were looking at the rise of autonomous systems but in the context of an ability to do synergy management.

“This is why we look at the OPV as part of the evolving integrated force whereby its data is part of the broader whole.

Question: What are the major challenges facing this overall approach?

Vice Admiral (Retired) Barrett: It is a significant change in thinking. We live in a world where there are rapidly changing demands on our military forces.

“We have no real alternative but to find ways to more rapidly adapt our combat and mission systems.

“The approach to the OPV is a step in this direction but will challenge legacy thinking in industry, in the forces and in government.

“The enterprise approach we have taken is designed to enhance the prospects for success.

“Clearly, change is required by industry, the government and the navy to shape a new approach.

“But new capabilities, digital shipbuilding, asset data management, and upgradeable combat systems which can share approaches across platforms, provide us with some of the tools to shape, execute and management a continuous shipbuilding process.”

 The featured photo shows

Former Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, AO, CSC, RAN (Ret.) spearing with Director Multi-role Aviation Training Vessel MV Sycamore Captain Allen Whittaker CSC, RAN on board MV Sycamore.  On Wednesday 14th August 2019, the Royal Australian Navy’s multi-role aviation training vessel (MATV) MV Sycamore hosted members of the Fleet Air Arm Association (FAAA), Navy Safety & Environment Policy Coordination, Office of the Defence Seaworthiness Regulator, and Navy Technical Bureau for a day sail in Jervis Bay.

MV Sycamore has been acquired to support a range of Navy training activities including initial helicopter deck landing qualifications as well as other Navy mariner skills training, such as at sea familiarisation, practice weapon recovery, navigation training and limited fleet support duties.

The MATV has contracted civilian core crew of 20 personnel which will be supplemented across the range of training activities by Australian Defence Force and other government personnel as required.

Also, see the following:

Industry and the Australian Arafura Class Offshore Patrol Vessel: The Role of Luerssen

Industry and the Australian Arafura Class Offshore Patrol Vessel: The Role of CIVMEC

Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown: The Impact of the Offshore Patrol Vessel Program

The OPV Decision: Meeting the Challenge of Shipbuilding in Australia and Leveraging a “Continuous Shipbuilding Appraoch”

 

France Sails Helicopter Carrier on Medical Mission

Posted on | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment on France Sails Helicopter Carrier on Medical Mission

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The French navy sailed a helicopter carrier to the Mediterranean island of Corsica to pick up patients hit by the coronavirus infection, the armed forces ministry said March 22.

Florence Parly tweeted the arrival today of Thunder, a Mistral class helicopter carrier, at the port of Ajaccio, on the west coast of Corsica, known as the island of beauty.

“Solidarity with our medical staff,” she said.

“The services are there to protect the French.”

Parly thanked the sailors and the medical wing of the armed forces who conducted the evacuation.

Two ambulances drove on board the helicopter carrier, which had sailed from Toulon, the key naval base on the southern coast, the armed forces ministry said.

A medical team of military and civilian specialists sailed to receive the patients, who were placed in strict confinement.

The patients will be transferred to hospitals in the south of France.

The maritime mission was called to lighten the hospitals on Corsica, which had registered164 cases and seven fatalities due to coronavirus by March 19, said the local health authority, BFM TV reported.

The Mistral class is equipped with an onboard hospital, with two operating theaters and 69 beds, which can be extended. A 200-strong crew sails the warship.

The navy sailed Thunder on a humanitarian mission to the French Caribbean in 2017, when the islands of Saint Martin and Saint Bartholomew were hit by hurricane Irma. Last year, the helicopter ship diverted from the annual Joan of Arc naval mission to sail to Mozambique, after cyclone Idai  hit southern Africa.

The two other Mistral class ships, Mistral and Dixmude, are sailing in the Indian Ocean and western Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, on March 21st, the French Air Force flew a second flight of the A330 MRTT equipped with the Morpheus flying hospital unit, flying six patients to Bordeaux from Mulhouse.

The first medical flight of the A330 MRTT took place two days before, flying six patients from Mulhouse to Istres airbase, south of France.

The French air force has added a second Falcon jet to its medical evacuation flight, which now comprises six pilots and two cabin teams, a Falcon 2000LX and Falcon 900, the service said. The transport squadron flies that emergency service.

The airborne medical squadron has been stood up in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Those flight crews are trained to fly in conditions of nuclear, bacteriological, chemical and radioactive warfare, with the staff wearing protective gear and the aircraft disinfected. The pilots can fly with protective masks and gloves.

A crew from that squadron flew March 18 the A330 MRTT which brought six patients from Mulhouse, eastern France, to the south of the country

Parly visited March 18 Villacoublay airbase, just outside the capital, and met crews of the two specialist units. Parly said the services would support the national effort, especially the air force and its medical evacuation capability.

The army is setting up tents for its field hospital in the car park of the public hospital in Mulhouse.

That field hospital, equipped with 30 beds for intensive care, is intended to take some of the pressure off the staff in the general hospital, which is struggling to cope with the intake of stricken patients.

Specialists in the Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office are testing safety masks proposed by companies, with some 700 samples received for tests. Results of tests are expected in the next few days, the ministry said.

The defense innovation agency has set a €10 million budget for a tender for projects to fight the pandemic, looking for ways to protect and test the population, track the course of illness in a patient, or how to limit the constraints during the health crisis, the ministry said.

The ministry has stood up five of the eight military hospitals around the country, with some 100 beds in each hospital set aside for patients with coronavirus, of which 40 are for severe cases. The ministry closed the noted Val de Grâce hospital in the capital in 2016.

The number of fatalities in France rose almost 20 percent to 562 over Friday and Saturday, with 6,172 in hospital, of which 1,525 are in intensive care, Le Monde afternoon daily reported March 22.

The first hospital doctor in France has died while treating coronavirus.

“This is a war, it will last,” president Emmanuel Macron said in Journal de Dimanche, a Sunday paper.

There was need to protect the most vulnerable and the health system, as well as control the stress on society, he said.

There was also need to tackle an unprecedented financial crisis and crisis in the underlying economy.

Featured Photo: Hospital facilities aboard Mistral-class LHD Tonnerre. File picture: ©Emmanuelle Mocquillon/Marine Nationale/Défense