Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point has been a crucial part of the Marine Corps since 1942.
To this day it is the largest Marine Corps air station in the world.
Home to 2d Marine Aircraft Wing, the air station is ready to deploy in a moment’s notice.
To read about the history of Cherry Point visit, https://www.cherrypoint.marines.mil/About-Us-History/
01.29.2020
Video by Lance Cpl. Aliannah Bartok
Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point
U.S. Marines with 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, conduct a simulated Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel in an urban environment on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Nov. 6, 2019.
The training was conducted using a Wolfhound, a handheld radio frequency threat warning and direction finding system, in order to maintain high response time and proficiency in an urban environment.
CAMP LEJEUNE, NC, UNITED STATES
11.06.2019
Video by Cpl. Isaiah Campbell
II MEF Information Group
By Robbin Laird
The US Navy over the next decade will reshape its carrier air wing (CVW) with the introduction of a number of new platforms.
If one simply lists the initial operating capabilities of each of these new platforms, and looked at their introduction sequentially, the “air wing of the future” would be viewed in additive terms – what has been added and what has been subtracted and the sum of these activities would be the carrier air wing of the future.
But such a graphic and such an optic would miss the underlying transformation under way, one which is highly interactive with the USMC and the USAF.
A case in point is the coming of the F-35C to the carrier wing.
One could discuss the difference between 4th and 5thgeneration aircraft, and the importance of the fifth-generation aircraft, already operating from amphib decks with the USMC, but it is much more than that.
Such a focus would be limited to what I have called F-35 1.0, namely, simply bringing the aircraft to the force and sorting through how to support it.
But the US Navy is focused directly on F-35 2.0 which is how to leverage the aircraft to transform the combat force into the integrated distributed force.
The coming of the F-35 is a trigger point for a significant remake of the CVW.
The entire process is rethinking the building, operations, transformation, and interaction of the F-35 (and not just operating from the carrier but working with other F-35s in the joint and allied forces) with the core Naval combat force to be able to generate concentrated combat power at the point of interest needed in a crisis.
One clearly needs a different optic or perspective than simply taking an additive approach.
And the graphic above highlights a way to think about the process of transformation for the carrier air wing over the next decade.
What is underway is a shift from integrating the air wing around relatively modest and sequential modernization efforts for the core platforms to a robust transformation process in which new assets enter the force and create a swirl of transformation opportunities, challenges, and pressures.
How might we take this new asset and expand the reach and effectiveness of the carrier strike group?
How might it empower maritime, air, and ground forces as we shape a more effective (i.e. a more integratable) force?
During a recent visit to San Diego, I had a chance to discuss such an evolving perspective with the Navy’s Air Boss, Vice Admiral “Bullet” Miller.
We started by discussing the F-35 which for him is a major forcing function change in the CVW.
But his focus is clearly upon not simply introducing the aircraft into the force but ensuring that it is part of the launch of a transformative process for shaping the evolving air wing or what I call F-35 2.0.
The F-35 is coming to the force after a significant investment and work by the US Navy to rebuild its operational capabilities after several years of significant sustainment challenges.
But now the Air Boss is looking to focus his attention on enhanced combat lethality which the fleet can deliver to the maritime services and the joint force.
What is being set in motion is a new approach where each new platform which comes into the force might be considered at the center of a cluster of changes.
The change is not just about integrating a new platform in the flight ops of the carrier.
The change is also about how the new platform affects what one can do with adjacent assets in the CSG or how to integrate with adjacent U.S. or allied combat platforms, forces, and capabilities.
To give an example, the U.S. Navy is replacing the C-2 with the CMV-22 in the resupply role.
But the Navy would be foolish to simply think in terms of strictly C-2 replacement lines and missions.
So how should the Navy operate, modernize, and leverage its Ospreys?
For Miller, the initial task is to get the Osprey onboard the carrier and integrated with CVW operations.
But while doing so, it is important to focus on how the Osprey working within the CVW can provide a more integrated force.
Vice Admiral Miller and his team are looking for the first five-year period in operating the CMV-22 for the Navy to think through the role of the Osprey as a transformative force, rather than simply being a new asset onboard a carrier.
Hence, one can look at the CMV-22 innovation cluster in the following manner:
Such an approach is embedded in the rethink from operating and training an integrated air wing to an integratable air wing.
Vice Admiral Miller provided several other examples of how this shift affects the thinking about new platforms coming onboard the carrier deck.
One such example is the new unmanned tanker, the MQ-25.
The introduction of this new air asset will have an immediate effect in freeing up 4th gen fighters, currently being used for tanking, to return to their strike role.
Even more importantly from a transformation perspective, the MQ-25 will have operational effects as a platform which will extend the reach and range of the CVW.
But MQ-25 will be a stakeholder in the evolving C2/ISR capabilities empowering the entire combat force, part of what, in my view, is really 6th generation capabilities, namely enhancing the power to distribute and integrate a force as well as to operate more effectively at the tactical edge.
The MQ-25 will entail changes to the legacy air fleet, changes in the con-ops of the entire CVW, and trigger further changes with regard to how the C2/ISR dynamic shapes the evolution of the CVW and the joint force.
The systems to be put onto the MQ-25 will be driven by overall changes in the C2/ISR force.
These changes are driving significant improvements in size, capability, and integration, so much so that it is the nascent 6th gen.
This means that the USN can buy into “6thgen” by making sure that the MQ-25 can leverage the sensor fusion and CNI systems on the F-35 operating as an integrated force with significant outreach.
It is important to realize that a four ship formation of an F-35 operating as an integrated man-machine based sensor fusion aircraft is can operate together as a four ship pack fully integrated through the CNI system, and as such can provide a significant driver of change to the overall combat force.
This affects not only the future of training, but how operations, training, and development affect individual platforms once integrated into the CVW and larger joint force.
This will have a significant impact on Naval Air Warfare Development Center (NAWDC) based at Fallon.
A key piece in shaping the integratable air wing is building out a new training capability at Fallon and a new set of working relationships with other U.S. and allied training centers.
Later this year, we will visit Fallon and provide more details on the evolving approach.
The head of Fallon, Rear Admiral Richard Brophy, joined the conversation with the Air Boss, and clearly underscored the challenge: “How do we best train the most lethal integrated air wing preparing to deploy, but at same time, prepare for the significant changes which introducing new platforms and concepts of operations can bring to the force?
As the Air Boss put it: “We need to properly train the integratable airwing and we are investing in expanded ranges and new approaches such as Live Virtual Constructive training.
“I often use the quote that ‘your performance in combat never raises to the level of your expectations but rather it falls to the level of your training.’
“This is why the training piece is so central to the development for the way ahead for the integrable training.
“It is not just about learning what we have done; but it is working the path to what we can do.”
Consider the template of training for CVW Integration.
On the one hand, the CVW trained at Fallon needs to prepare to go out into the fleet and deliver the capabilities that are available for today’s fight.
On the other hand, as this template is executed, it is important to shape an evolving vision on how to operate platforms coming to the fleet or how those assets have already been modified by software upgrades.
A software upgradeable fleet, which is at the heart of the 5th gen transition and which lays down the foundation for 6th generation c2/ISR provides a key challenge.
The F-35 which operated from the last carrier cycle, or flew with the P-8 or Triton, all of these assets might well have new capabilities delivered by the software development cycle.
How to make certain that not just the air wing, but the commanders at sea fully understand what has changed.
The challenge is to shape the template for training today’s fleet; and to ensure that the template being shaped has an open aperture to handle the evolution of the CVW into the evolving integrated and distributed force.
Two measures of the change in the shift from the integrated to the integratable CVW which we discussed are the question of how to measure the readiness of a fifth-generation aircraft and the second is the creation of a new patch in Fallon, which builds upon the lessons learned during the early TOPGUN days.
The first is that aircraft readiness is a key measure of combat preparedness.
Rates of aircraft availability for a combat aircraft, can it fly or not is a baseline indicator of combat availability.
But for VADM Miller, the F-35 needs to be measured by a different standard given its key role in enabling an integratabtle CVW, namely full mission capability.
Can the aircraft fly with its full mission capability today?
This expectation reflects the F-35’s role as a flying combat system, mission manager, and sensor fusion generator for the air wing and strike group.
The second is the creation of the Maritime ISR or MISR patch.
MISR officers are trained as ISR subject matter experts to operate at the fleet or CSG level and to work the sensor fusion for the integratable CVW.
According to the Air Boss: “I think of MISR as additive, not lessening of TOPGUN, but instead akin to a new phase which builds upon our historical experience in the development of TOPGUN in the first place.”
In effect, these are “6th generation officers” in the sense of working the C2/ISR capabilities which enable an integrated and distributed fleet to have its maximum combat impact.
In short, the fleet is in the throes of significant transition.
The emergence and forcing function of an integrated CVW is at the heart of the transition.
And the emergence of a new patch at NAWDC certainly highlights the change.
Air to air combat skills remain important but now with your wingman miles away in a fifth generation aircraft context, or Aegis operating as your wingman, the C2/ISR revolution is highlighting the evolving capabilities of integration for combat dominance.1
The featured photo shows Vice Adm. DeWolfe H. Miller III, Commander, Naval Air Forces, speaking at the Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing (COMVRMWING) 1 establishing ceremony on board Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI) Oct. 10. The Navy established its first CMV-22B Osprey squadron (VRM-30) Dec. 14,
Also see the earlier interview with Vice Admiral Miller:
In the Footsteps of Admiral Nimitz: VADM Miller and His Team Focused on 21st Century “Training”
And below is my briefing given at BIDEC 19 in Bahrain this past November on the emergence of the integrated distributed force:
Foreign Press Center Briefing on “Cyber Successes: Highlights of 2019 and Look Ahead to 2020”.
01.10.2020
U.S. Department of State
By Kenneth Maxwell
Welcome to what the Russian Government owned international news network “Sputnik” is calling the “New Technological Cold War. “
In November last year Huawei launched an Artificial Intelligence (AI ) backed cloud service in Brazil.
Quin Dan the CEO of Huawei Cloud Brazil said at the launch ceremony in São Paulo: “We have the technology, experience, security and support so our clients can transform and expand their businesses.” Erick Schanz, the company’s business manager, said that Huawei Cloud is set up to compete in Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, with U.S. companies that provide similar services such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
Huawei noted in a statement that “another important benefit of cloud is that it is linked to the development in Brazil of 5G technology.”
The company also presented its Huawei Cloud Partner Network (HCPN) which has 291 partners in Latin America and 80 in Brazil. An auction is expected this year for frequency space in Brazil.
The Brazilian 5G auction will be among the largest spectrum sales ever and telecom companies from all over the world are expected to compete for the contract.
The recent UK decision by the Boris Johnson government over Huawei and 5G, which would restrict Huawei to 35% participation in the periphery of the network which connects devices and equipment to mobile phone masts, and exclude it from sensitive core areas such as nuclear installations and military bases, has already had an impact in Brazil which sees the British model as one to follow.
In Britain the potential competitors to Huawei, Ericsson of Sweden and Nokia of Finland, and Samsung, would delay 5G technology rollout and increase costs.
Which is why in the British case the use of Huawei for 5G is supported by Vodafone and BT, both of which have already embedded Chinese telecom technology in their telecom systems.
Most components come from Southeast Asia, principally from China.
Yao Wei, the outgoing President of Huawei in January 2020 met with the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at the palácio do planalto in Brasilia. He was following up on the two meetings between Bolsonaro and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing during a state visit to China in October and at the BRICS summit in Brasília in November.
Bolsonaro had said that “China should be buying in Brazil, not buying Brazil.”
But pressure from the Brazilian agro-business sector had persuaded him to modify his tone.
He sent his Vice President, general Hamilton Mourão, to China in May where he met with Huawei technology company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, and discussed Huawei plans to build a 5G network in Brazil.
The Chinese have been lobbying General Hamilton Mourão and the minister of science, technology, innovation and communication (MCTIC), Marcos Pontes since then, and Huawei has been dangling the possibility of a major US$800 million investment in a factory in São Paulo to manufacture smart phones according to João Doria, the governor of São Paulo.
There are major issues at stake here beyond 5G and Artificial intelligence services. In recent years China has been rapidly expanding its influence in Brazil and in Latin American more broadly.
Most significantly China is Brazil’s most important trading partner.
The coronavirus crisis in China has had an immediate impact on Brazilian trade. Brazilian exports to China falling by 3.5% over the first weeks after the crisis hit according to the Brazilian Association of External Commerce. Brazil’s dependence on commodity exports makes it especially vulnerable to any decrease in Chinese demand. China is a major importer of Brazilian beef and soy. Powerful Agro-business interests in Brazil, major political supported of Jair Bolsonaro’s Government, have a huge stake in the preservation of good commercial relations with China.
Brazil is a major part of China food security strategy.
Soy is China’s main food commodity which it imports to feed its pigs. Chinese state companies invest directly in Brazil’s supply chain and China buys 70 to 80% of Brazilian soy and has in Brazil some 7,500 employees. The Chinese pledged an investment of US$100 billion in Brazil at the last BRICS summit in Brasília, and have committed US$ 3.1 billion to two BRI (belt and road) Projects in Brazil.
A high voltage transmission system for the belo monte dam in Mato Grosso, and toward the expansion of the port of São Luís in Maranhão, and possibly on support the construction of a new railroad link from Mato Grosso to bring soya to the ports on the Amazonian Tapajos river.
The replacement of tropical rain forest by cattle and soy in the inevitable consequence of Chinese commodities demand.
China has become a major in investor in Brazil’s pre-salt petroleum and takes two thirds of the Brazil’s total petroleum output. The Chinese offshore oil engineering company (CODEC) has constructed floating production, storage and offloading platforms for Brazil, due to bottlenecks in Brazilian yards. One of these platforms, Petrobras P-70, broke from it’s moorings in a storm in Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay off Niterói at the end of January this year having just arrived from China.
The platform was due to move to the Petrobras operated Atapu pre-salt field and is designed to produce 150,000 barrels of oil a day and day 6 million cubic meters of natural gas and employ 160 people and be operational for 25 years.
President Donald Trump in an “apoplectic” phone call to Boris Johnson criticised his Huawei decision, and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has also expressed his alarm and opposition to Boris Johnson’s Huawei and 5G decision, and both have also pressured Jair Bolsonaro over his potential decision over Huawei and 5G in Brazil.
Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro are soul mates of Donald Trump to be sure, but material interest are pulling them in an opposite direction.
Featured Image: Friso Gentsch/picture alliance via Getty Images.
Also, see the following excellent overview on 5G in a strategic context:
Exercise Mobility Guardian is Air Mobility Command’s flagship exercise for large-scale Rapid Global Mobility operations.
As AMC’s largest enterprise-wide training event, the biennial, service-level exercise constitutes the command’s most deliberate validation opportunity for the state of the Mobility Air Force’s readiness.
Exercise Mobility Guardian 2019 executes from Sept. 8-28, 2019 at Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, and exercise operations occur at multiple air bases and military training locations throughout the Pacific Northwest.
More than 4,000 personnel participate in or observe Exercise Mobility Guardian, including Total Force Airmen, Joint, Combat Air Forces, and International Partners.
Exercise training is based on realistic mobility operations scenarios including enabling air base opening, executing joint forcible entry, conducting aeromedical evacuation operations, and support to global strike operations.
09.09.2019
Video by Jamie Chapman, Senior Airman DaQuan Hurt, Staff Sgt. Jarrod Vickers and Trevor Wood
2D Audiovisual Squadron
The Institute for Integrated Economic Research – Australia has just released a report looking at Australia’s medical supply chain.
The report notes that “Australia imports over 90% of medicines and is at the end of a very long global supply chain making the nation vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
Recently, I had a chance to talk with the founders of the Institute, Air Vice-Marshal (Retired) John Blackburn and Anne Borzycki.
It is very appropriate that we are publishing their interview and highlighting their report, for the launch point of their focus on this subject was our own work with Rosemary Gibson, who has done the pioneer work on the critical question of supply chain vulnerabilities for the United States.
Question: How did you get interested in this subject?
Answer: Having read on your website about Rosemary Gibson and then had the opportunity to speak with her about her book, we decided to examine the Australian medical supply chain. Rosemary has highlighted the key dependencies which the United States has upon China in terms of the medicine supply chain and the impacts on national security.
We examined the Australian case and found we have a similar problem but very few people have focused on it. An exception was Dr Simon Quilty who wrote an article in 2012 where he focused on the need for the Australian Regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, to make it mandatory to have companies report medicine shortages.
We reached out to Simon regarding his article whilst he was visiting the UK studying their National Health system. Following our discussions, he subsequently met with Rosemary Gibson in the United States to discuss her book and and he is now a Fellow of our Institute as well as a co-author of our report.
Question: What have you discovered in your research?
Answer: We found that Australia imports over 90% of the medicines Australians consume and that we are at the end of a very long global supply chain that makes us vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration has itself acknowledged these supply chain risks when they reported that, at times, there may not be enough of a specific medicine in the Australian marketplace, leading to potential weaknesses in supply.
We concluded that Australia is particularly vulnerable to medicine shortages arising from factors outside our control. These factors can include manufacturing problems, difficulties in procurement, political instability, pandemics, another global economic crisis and a range of natural disasters. The current Coronavirus emergency is an example of this.
In effect we have incrementally outsourced almost all of our medicine supply chain to the global market. We import a significant proportion of our medicines from the United States but, as Rosemary Gibson has underscored, a significant component of US medicine supplies come from China.
So, we suffer from the same problem described by Rosemary, i.e. we import from the United States which has itself ignored the vulnerability of its supply chain arising from its significant dependence on China for the manufacturing of medicines.
This dependence has been described in US Congressional Commission hearings as a risk to US national security.
Whilst Australians embrace free trade, it does not look like we have a level playing field.
We could see from Rosemary’s investigation that the Chinese Government, by using its financial power, has shaped the market by undercutting the US pharmaceutical industry. We were surprised to learn that China is fast becoming one of the leading manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (commonly referred to as APIs) that go into medicines.
The next challenge we found was to try to understand the medicine supply chain. It has been difficult to analyse Australia’s medicine supply chain risks given the limited information available to the public.
Clearly this is not a problem confined just to Australia.
As was noted in 2019 by the US Government’s US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, supply chains are not understood, vulnerabilities are not fully understood and no one agency seems to have responsibility or accountability.
Question: What can be done?
Answer: Let us return to the efforts of Dr. Quilty. He has argued for the need for mandatory reporting on drug labelling and accurate information on critical medicine supplies.
This is a great first step.
However, whilst such reporting is now occurring in Australia, we cannot see much, if any, action being taken by the Government to address the medicine supply chain vulnerabilities.
Scandinavian countries seem to be better organized that we are. There is a good example from Finland discussed in our report. Like most nations, Finland has strategic stockpiles of key drugs and hospital supplies for what their Ministry of Defence calls ‘disruptive situations’ and ‘exceptional circumstances’.
However, the Finnish government has also recognized that these stockpiles are becoming increasingly reliant on imports and they see this as a risk to national security. Furthermore, they recognize that the restructuring of the pharmaceutical industry may have a detrimental effect on Finland’s security of supplies in the future, especially as Finland is ceasing production of infusion fluids and vaccinations. Finland recognizes this risk and acknowledges that options need to be explored to mitigate future vulnerabilities.
What we are trying to do with our report is to get the Australian people, and in turn our Government, to recognize the risks to our medicine supply chain and to acknowledge that options need to be explored to mitigate future vulnerabilities.
Question: You noted in your report that the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration has mandated new medicine labelling requirements, but they do not require labelling of country of origin.
Isn’t your earlier point that country of origin is not enough if the exporting country is not clearly indicating the SOURCE of their supply rather than being simply a transit point for re-export?
Answer: That is clearly a key part of the challenge.
We need to focus on building an approach which ensures security of supply.
To do that the supply chain must be transparent, all the way from ingredient supply through medicine manufacturing to the consumer.
Apart from not knowing where the APIs or specific medicines have been sourced, we in Australia have not done a comprehensive risk analysis of our Maritime Trade supply chains; that in a country that depends on maritime trade for 98% of its imports (by volume.)
Australia has almost no capacity to manufacture any active pharmaceutical products or most of the products listed on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. We simply do not understand the risk to our national security by focusing primarily on lowest cost.
The lowest cost can come at a high price …
Question: What are the next steps to deal with the situation?
Answer: The US Congress has raised some fundamental questions about the current Chinese dominance situation.
We would like our Parliament to join in this effort, and to sort through practical steps to ensure medical supply security.
Question: Perhaps the Gibson focus on building national capacity for core ingredients which allows for ramp up of medicines to ensure supply of essential medicines in a crisis might make sense for Australia?
Answer: It does.
But any case, we need to build out national production capabilities and to build resilient reliable supply chains with partners.
This can only be done with a clear policy of transparency about countries of origin for medicines, as well as ensuring that we can produce essential drugs in a crisis, whether due to natural disaster or political manipulation by authoritarian powers.
Editor’s Note: We recently interviewed Rosemary Gibson with regard to her recommendations about how to launch a proper response.
According to Gibson: “We’d have to see how much capability there is organizationally there is in the United States to ensure essential medical supply production and otherwise to actually do the work because we’re talking about thousands of medicines and many different kinds of active ingredients. It’s not going to happen overnight.
“That’s why we should start with those essential medicines that are core to any national health security and national security.”
She concluded: “We need a system just like we do for energy supplies and good commodities.
“We need an entity within the Federal government that does this tracking and projection of those vulnerabilities of global supply and demand current production levels for certain medicinal products so we can be prepared and know if this is shutting down what’s our alternative?”
See also the following:
Dealing with the Chinese Challenge: The Case of the Pharmaceutical Industry
The New Warfare: Rethinking the Industrial Base for National Defense and Security
And for recent stories which highlight the challenge facing the European Union as well as India, see the following:
https://www.newkerala.com/news/2020/23876.htm
We have highlighted in our work both on Pacific and European defense, the importance of shaping a deterrence in depth strategy to deal with the 21st century authoritarian powers.
Such a strategy is facilitated by global partnerships, which allow for enhanced interoperability, and in some cases operating core innovative platforms in common.
The Aegis global enterprise has been one example; the F-35 global enterprise another. Now the Osprey by adding the Japanese to the force, and by expanding the users of the platform to include the US Navy with its CMV-22B, are augmenting the fleet and shaping global reach for the platform.
This will also drive the need for enhance global support to ensure that the platform can contribute more effectively to deterrence in depth.
In a July 9, 2014 article, I highlighted the way ahead for Japan and the coming of the Osprey to the JDF.
“When we wrote our book on Pacific strategy, a key element in considering how the key challenges facing the United States and its allies was how Japanese relationships with the US and the Pacific allies might evolve.
“The entire second section of our book deals with Japan, and after a history of the relationship, which was largely, the work of Dr. Richard Weitz, we focused on where Japanese defense policy might evolve in the coming years. We argued that with the emergence of the “dynamic defense” approach Japan would reach out to shape new capabilities to provide for perimeter defense and to plus up its working relationships with allies in the region.
“We argued that:
The Chinese seem bent on driving the two greatest maritime powers of the 20th century together into a closer alliance.
And at the heart of this alliance are key joint investments and procurement working relationships.
Japan is a key technological partner for the United States throughout. They are a founding member of the Aegis global enterprise.
They are an investor and operational partner in the SM-3 missile capability to enhance missile defense.
They are a major player in the F-35 program, which will allow the shaping of an attack-and-defense enterprise.
They are building a final assembly facility for the F-35, which will become a key element in the F-35 global procurement system, subject to Japanese government policy decisions.
And they are keenly interested in seeing how the Osprey can shape greater reach and range for the “dynamic defense” of Japan.2
Recently, when I visited Amarillo, Texas for the ceremony officially launching the CMV-22B into the Navy fleet, I had a chance to tour the line. And on the line were several Ospreys being prepared for the Japanese Self Defense force.
Part of the reshaping of the JDF strategy is to push the perimeter of their defense capabilities, and to be able to defend their outer islands, and to operate more effectively as an amphibious force. Both the F-35B and the Osprey are being procured as part of enhanced capabilities to provide for perimeter defense.
In other words, deterrence in depth for Japan reached back into the Bell factory in Amarillo.
This means that the work force of Amarillo is, in effect, a key contributor to the defense of a core ally.
The Osprey is one of the most complex airplanes ever built and requires highly skilled workers to craft such an outcome.
At the ceremony held on February 7, 2020, the Commander of the Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing 1 or COMVRMWING, which had been stood up on Oct. 10, 2019 to manage the CMV-22B entry into the fleet, Captain Dewon “Chainsaw” Chaney emphasized how he saw the importance of the workforce to his mission.
“I would like to first acknowledge the artisans that put this fine machine together. I visited the Bell factory on Wednesday and had a brief walkthrough of this factory yesterday.
“This is an incredibly complex machine that you have built, and I am in awe of your precise talent, and even more inspired by the magic that makes it fly,” Captain Chaney said.
Before the ceremony, I was fortunate to have the Mayor of Amarillo, Ginger Nelson, sit next to me, and she graciously allowed me to visit her at her office in the afternoon for an interview.
And my core question was simple: Why Amarillo?
From where are these skilled workers coming from, and why is Bell here?
“Because we want Bell here, because we have a tremendous workforce here in the Texas Panhandle,” Nelson said.
“We are a city fed by the small-town rural communities that surround our region.
“Our people are only one or two generations from having grown up on a farm or having owned their own small business.
“And the work ethic for our people is simply: if you are not doing it, it is not going to get done.
“Our work ethic is strong; and patriotism is a core value in the Texas Panhandle.
“For Bell, this means that they need to produce a highly complex aircraft, and they can rely on the ethics, commitment and competence of our workforce dedicated to defend our country by building these machines.”
“The culture that Bell brings with its innovation mixes well with our rural roots,” Nelson said. “The people that work at Bell are leaders in our community in many other ways – on the Chamber of Commerce and many nonprofit boards.”
“We rely on Bell to bring leadership and innovation into our community. Bell relies on us to supply dedicated, competent workers who are ready to meet the responsibilities that include the defense of our nation.”
Going from the delivery to Japan for its latest aircraft to Amarillo, that is what I would call truly deterrence in depth.
And for the Chinese government, I would warn you to not mess with Texas.
Editor’s Note: In the video below, produced on July 31, 2018 by Channel 10, Amarillo, Texas in July 31, 2018, a test flight by Bell of their V-280 was highlighted by both the Lt. Governor of Texas and by the Amarillo Mayor.
V-280 Amarillo 2018 from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick views the company’s involvement in Amarillo as a success.
“The fact that Amarillo had the foresight to say, ‘we are going to invest in Bell and bring Bell here’,” said Lt. Governor Patrick. “It is really a tribute to the forward thinking of the people of Amarillo.”
A military contract could spell huge economic growth for the area. If granted a contract, Bell plans to build 120 to 150 V-280 aircraft every year.
“We have over 800 direct jobs here at the plant,” said Amarillo Mayor Ginger Nelson. “But, we have over 5,000 indirect jobs related to the work Bell does in our community. When you begin to look at the potential army contract for the V-280, it is a huge impact.”
Mayor Nelson said a contract would also bring recognition to the Panhandle.
“When all that comes together to have a national and worldwide impact for us, and we here in Amarillo played a part in that,” said Mayor Nelson. “It makes me extremely proud of our workforce here in Amarillo as well as our vision for the economic impact that Bell has in our community.”
Lt. Governor Patrick said big businesses investing in small towns is what keeps Texas,Texas.
“When you think about Texas, you think about towns like Amarillo, and it’s important that we keep them vibrant,” said Lt. Governor Patrick. “We know that most of the population is going to be in the triangle of Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and then now Austin with that corridor, that’s where most of the growth is. But it’s important we attract businesses to our towns in rural Texas to keep these great cities, and communities alive.”
Lt. Governor Patrick hopes more people are inspired by Bell and more areas will receive business that can help local economic growth.
The above comes from the article by Mike Makie published on July 31, 2018.
For the full interview with Mayor Ginger Nelson, see the following:
Why Amarillo? Mayor Ginger Nelson on the Amarillo Community and Bell