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2017-07-31 In a recent article by Andrew Tillett published in The Financial Review, the growth in Australian defense industry associated with the launch of new Australian defense programs is examined.
Australia has had some success stories. Thales’ Bushmaster vehicle proved its worth in Afghanistan by protecting soldiers from blasts and was snapped up the British and Dutch armies.
And Canberra’s CEA Technologies, which make radar and communications systems, has achieved $260 million in foreign sales over the past five years.
For many local firms, the JSF project has been their entree into global supply chains. Australian companies have about $800 million in contracts as a downpayment.
Varley has been supplying the Australian Defence Force since the mid 1980s and in 2004 won its first contract to provide maintenance equipment for servicing the JSF, beating Italian, Turkish and US companies.
Varley’s defence and aerospace general manager Victor Ugarte said this initial contract had opened the door to more work with US giants Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
“If we are performing well to expectations, there is work to come,” he said.
Likewise, Quickstep’s supply of composite parts for the JSF, as well as the Hercules transport plane, has amounted to an endorsement within the defence sector.
“We’ve been able to use these programs to demonstrate production and quality capability, and that we are globally competitive,” chief executive Mark Burgess said.
Over the past four years, the Bankstown company has grown from 120 to 220 staff, and plans to add another 30 by 2020 as production hits its peak.
“We can’t afford to find out when we manufacture something we’ve got it wrong,” business development manager Chris Isaacs said.
An additional recent piece looking at the upward trajectory for Australian defense industry was published on July 25, 2017 in Manufacturers’ Monthly.
Defence contractor Quickstep is anticipating further growth over the next three years as production of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) ramps up globally.
According to its latest quarterly report, the Sydney-based advanced composite manufacturer has more than doubled its production for the program during the past year.
The company supplies 21 JSF components to Northrop Grumman – a principle member of the Lockheed Martin-led project – including doors, panels, and skins.
“Quickstep’s long-term vision is to become a world leader in advanced composites manufacturing,” said Mark Burgess, Quickstep CEO. “The company is focused on expanding its business in the aerospace, defence, automotive and other high-growth sectors.”
An earlier piece in the same publication looked at the ripple effect from the F-35 program in Australia.
Meanwhile, more than 50 Australian companies have directly shared in more than $800 million in production contracts since the Howard Government elected to make the F-35 Australia’s fighter jet of choice 15 years ago.
The ripple effect will, it is said, indirectly benefit hundreds more Australian companies up and down the supply chain, with net government spend set to jump to $2 billion by 2023. It has become apparent, however, that the flight-path towards truly understanding what Australia companies can offer the defence industry is still in its infancy.
Research carried out by Graeme Dunk, manager of the Australian Business Defence Industry, shows that around five per cent of government (prime) contracts, by value, go out to Australian SMEs – averaging out at roughly $43,000 per contract.
“This analysis is from data on Australian tender, so only shows prime contracts – not subcontracts – and refers to the combined vale of acquisition and sustainment contracts placed by Defence to Australian-owned companies,” Dunk explained.
Air Vice-Marshal Leigh Gordon heads up the JSF Division within the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG); the DoD’s military equipment purchasing arm.
“Governments globally are looking for their dollars to go further and deliver more for their domestic economies,” he told Manufacturers’ Monthly.
“This presents Australian industry with an opportunity to be innovative in driving down the cost of defence capability inputs.”
This means, with production volumes increasing and the F-35 GSS maturing, defence and industry will continue to work closely together to optimise Australian industry participation in the F-35 Progam.
“There are some challenges ahead, which means Australian industry will have to stay internationally competitive by improving efficiency; driving innovation, supporting skills development and maintaining quality,” Gordon continued.
To do this, Australian companies will specifically need to develop associated intellectual property in Australia to market worldwide and enhance their design, manufacturing and maintenance capabilities.
2017-07-31 The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft fleet recently exceeded 100,000 flight hours while the F-35 Integrated Test Force teams are completing the remaining requirements in the program’s System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase.
“This 100K milestone marks a significant level of maturity for the program and the F-35 weapons system,” said Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President and F-35 Program General Manager Jeff Babione. “We are well positioned to complete air vehicle full 3F and mission systems software development by the end of 2017.”
The remaining development flight testing includes validating the final release of 3F software, F-35B ski jump testing, F-35B austere site operations, high-Mach Loads testing for both the F-35B and F-35C and completion of the remaining weapons delivery accuracy tests.
Major SDD fleet test milestones in recent months include:
Completed testing for the F-35A’s final envelope involving high risk ‘edge of the envelope’ maneuvers, stressing the aircraft to its limits in structural strength, vehicle systems performance, and aerodynamics while proving excellent handling qualities.
Completed all U.K. Weapon Delivery Accuracy tests for the AIM-132 ASRAAM and Paveway IV weapons, and completed 45 of 50 SDD Weapon Delivery Accuracy tests including multiple target and multiple shot engagements as well as internal gun and centerline external pod 25mm gun accuracy tests.
Performed multi-ship mission effectiveness tests, such as Offensive Counter-Air and Maritime Interdiction, demonstrating the performance of the F-35 System.
2017-07-31 We often hear about the complexity of code in the F-35, but what is not realized is that code is found in the evolving industrial landscape everywhere one looks.
‘According to a July 24, 2017 article by Aaron Brzozowski, the 2017 Ford GT Supercar contains more code than the F-35.
Here’s a neat stat: operation of the all-new, 2017 Ford GT supercar is powered by approximately 10 million lines of computer code – more code than the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet. That code instructs 25 onboard computers, which receive continuous data streams from 50 different sensors throughout the car, resulting in the generation of about 100 gigabytes of data each and every hour.
Ford says that’s equivalent to roughly 25,000 song downloads per hour.
“The Ford GT’s sophisticated computing systems work hand-in-hand with the vehicle’s core race car architecture to enhance performance, and also deliver greater versatility and flexibility,” says Ford Performance Global Director Dave Pericak. “By constantly monitoring inputs, vehicle loads and environment, and adjusting the car’s profile and responses to suit, the Ford GT remains as responsive and stable at 300 km/h as it is at 30 km/h.”
Combined, the Ford GT’s 25 onboard computers can analyze roughly a terabyte of data every hour. They control things like the supercar’s electronic stability control, its active suspension damping, active aerodynamics, and the 647-horsepower EcoBoost V6 lurking under the rear clamshell. They also do more pedestrian things, such as powering the GT’s automatic climate control and SYNC 3 infotainment.
It’s mind-blowing stats like these that make it easy to understand what makes the new Ford GT supercar so special, prompting Ford to limit its production to just 1,000 units. Other notable features include a carbon-fiber monocoque and body panels, industry-first Gorilla Glass windshield, and an integrated roll cage that can be modified to meet FIA racing safety requirements with a minimum of parts.
A key element of evolving naval power is the ability to integrate unmanned with manned assets aboard the sea base.
This is not only a work in progress, but a capability which will evolve over time with the technology, the operational experience and the ability to leverage the shift in culture which this integration brings to the fleet.
With the framing of the distributed lethality and kill web concepts, the US Navy and Marine Corps team are focused on distributing and dynamically integrating C2 with ISR with strike capabilities.
The very nature of distributed warfare means that the shift is from looking at a ship simply from the standpoint of what organically is on that ship, to how that ship contributes to the battle fleet by contributing assets to that fleet.
We have looked earlier at two key examples of how the US Navy and Marine Corps are working manned and unmanned integration.
The first is the shaping of a new maritime domain awareness strike enterprise built around synergy between the P-8 and the Triton.
With regard to Triton and P-8, the US Navy will operate them as a dyad. The USN is approaching the P-8/Triton combat partnership, which is the integration of manned, and unmanned systems, or what are now commonly called “remotes”.
The Navy looked at the USAF experience and intentionally decided to not build a Triton “remote” operational combat team that is stovepiped away from their P-8 Squadrons.
The MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system approaches the runway at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., after completing its inaugural cross-country flight from California. The Navy will conduct Triton flight tests at Patuxent River in preparation for an operational deployment in 2017. (U.S. Navy photo by Kelly Schindler/Released)
The teams at Navy Jax and Pax River are building a common Maritime Domain Awareness and Maritime Combat Culture and treats the platforms as partner applications of the evolving combat theory. The partnership is both technology synergistic and also aircrew moving between the Triton and P-8.
The P-8 pilot and mission crews, after deploying with the fleet globally can be assigned significant shore duty flying Tritons. The number of personnel to fly initially the Tritons is more than 500 navy personnel so this is hardly an unmanned aircraft. Hence, inside a technological family of systems there is also an interchangeable family of combat crews.
These new systems are all software upgradeable which sets in motion the opportunity and a need to shape new acquisition approaches to take advantage of software, which can evolve to deal with the threat environment as well.
Software upgradeability provides for a lifetime of combat learning to be reflected in the rewriting of the software code and continually modernizing existing combat systems, while adding new capabilities over the operational life of the aircraft.
Over time, fleet knowledge will allow the US Navy and its partners to understand how best to maintain and support the aircraft while operating the missions effectively in support of global operations.
The second example is being played our right now at sea with the first deployment of the USS America.
The Marines have deployed the Blackjack UAV at sea and are working its integration with manned assets operating within the Amphibious Task Force.
The Blackjack is deployed from a San Antonio class LPD but it launches from that platform but contributes to the entire situational awareness of the task force.
PACIFIC OCEAN – Marines complete final data updates before launching the RQ-21A Blackjack to support surveillance for a visit, board, search and seizure mission conducted by the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit Maritime Raid Force during Composite Training Unit Exercise, May 12, 2017. The RQ-21A Blackjack enhances and extends the lethal and nonlethal capability of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, fostering transformational advancements in battlespace command and situational awareness. The Marine and aircraft is with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 (REIN) attached to the 15th MEU. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Timothy Valero)
And a third example is the work the US Navy has done onboard the LCS with regard to integrating the Fire Scout UAV with the MH-60S manned system.
The entire approach is to shape an operational experience with the two systems working together and then to build forward from that experience.
Ideally, any future acquisition of new systems would build from this operational experience and inform the evolution of fleet capability.
Although the LCS is currently the only ship in the US Navy set up to support integrated Fire Scout/MH-60S operations, obviously this integration can be applied to current or future fleet assets, such as the new frigate.
And the integration effort, which is a work in progress, is part of the overall effort to distribute ISR, C2 and strike and to offboard sensors and strike elements.
Earlier this year, the dyad worked together for the Fire Scout to provide targeting data to an MH-60S to then launch a Hellfire missile.
In an article by Lieutenant Michael DiDonato HSC-23 Public Affairs published on May 15, 2017, this effort was described as follows:
SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND, Calif. (NNS) — The “Wildcards” of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 23 made history this month, operating MQ-8B Fire Scout Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) from Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (NALF) San Clemente Island utilizing a Mobile Mission Control Station (MMCS).
Teams of pilots, aircrewmen, maintenance personnel and civilian specialists functioned organically to complete integrated missions with various surface and air assets.
The two-week operation culminated with the successful employment of the Fire Scout as the laser designating platform for an AGM-114N Hellfire missile, fired from an MH-60S Knighthawk attached to HSC-23 Detachment 2 on board America-class amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6).
Additionally, the team accomplished the first ever long-range transit of the Fire Scout by an operational squadron, executing a “control station handoff” while transiting between NALF San Clemente Island and Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) Pt. Mugu. This operation has paved the way for the future development of the Fire Scout program, functioning as a force multiplier for the larger naval surface community and the tactical application of integrated manned and unmanned platforms in Naval Aviation.
Personnel from HSC-23 began operations from NALF San Clemente Island on May 3.
Prior to this detachment, Fire Scout operators conducted all flight training at NBVC Pt. Mugu, which is approximately 175 miles northwest of San Diego. Bringing the system to NALF San Clemente Island, which is located 80 miles west of San Diego, afforded many opportunities for integrated training with naval assets due to the multitude of ranges and support facilities around the island. The detachment planned and coordinated events despite an array of logistical hurdles, and established procedures for unmanned air vehicle operations within San Clemente Island airspace.
“A primary goal for this detachment was to showcase the capabilities of the MQ-8B,” said Lt. Cmdr. David Barnhill, officer-in-charge of the detachment. “San Clemente Island broadens the training opportunities for our Fire Scout team and gives us the ability to work with a multitude of assets not otherwise available.”
After completing unit-level training and confidence testing of the Fire Scout system within local and special use airspace during the first week, Fire Scout crewmembers flew range clearance missions and a successful Hellfire missile event in support of USS America Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) on May 10.
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“The Hellfire shot was absolutely a highlight for this detachment. It proved that Fire Scout is a viable asset to an already potent team,” continued Barnhill. “But more than that, executing a successful in-flight transfer of the MQ-8B from one air vehicle operator to another over 70 miles away was the biggest milestone. It gives us enormous operational flexibility going forward to work with fleet elements on a regular basis.”
This detachment can be classified as a resounding success by bringing UAV operations to the fleet on a larger scale than ever before. The Fire Scout provides critical mission sets to enhance battlespace awareness as well as providing early warning detection and classification capability. HSC-23 is at the forefront of MQ-8B Fire Scout operations, driving the development and refinement of manned/unmanned tactics and providing a clear path for the future of Fire Scout operators.
HSC-23 “Wildcards” are a Coronado-based expeditionary squadron under Commander, Helicopter Sea Combat Wing Pacific. It is the first squadron to deploy a MH-60S and MQ-8B composite detachment aboard an Independence-class littoral combat ship.
I had a chance recently to sit down in the Pentagon with Navy officers involved with shaping the composite detachment and thinking through the way ahead in this dynamic and significant area of innovation for the fleet.
The interview was conducted with Lt. Commander Doug Kay, the Fire Scout Assistant Requirements Officer and previously was the air boss on the USS Fort Worth.
The second officer was Commander Ted Johnson, the Fire Scout Requirements Officer and former commander of an MH-60S Seahawk squadron.
And the final officer was Kyle Gantt, a Surface Warfare Officer who works on future ship requirements.
We had a wide-ranging conversation and during that conversation the officers made a number of key points.
First, as one officer put it: “I think one of the benefits of the manned-unmanned teaming concept is you can play to the strengths and weaknesses of each of the two.
“Right now, we’re deploying Fire Scout with MH-60S detachments onboard LCS. Sierra is somewhat sensor deprived.”
The dynamic decision-making is challenging to program into an unmanned platform so the pairing allows the two-man team in the MH-60S to use the data from the Fire Scout to inform their decisions.
“A Fire Scout has much greater persistence than a manned helicopter and allows it to do broad area maritime search with its payloads and to provide queuing for the manned platform.”
The C2 revolution is at the heart of distributed lethality and shaping kill webs.
And the concept of a composite deployment provides support for that revolution.
As one officer put it: “I think it’s all about using the payloads onboard the UAS and being able to efficiently get that information back to the right decision maker whether that right decision maker is in the cockpit of another helicopter, or that decision maker is on the ship.”
Second, the crewing is being shaped to support the manned-unmanned pairing.
Crew needs to be able to maintain, support and to operate two different systems and to do so within the confines of a small ship, the LCS.
This puts a premium on shaping crew skill sets which can synergistically support the composite detachment.
As one officer put it: “When aviators break the aircraft, they fix them, both the manned and the unmanned.
“All the operators, both the crewmen and the pilots are cross-trained to operate both types of aircraft. We have dual qualified operators.”
And the advantage of doing so provided a better understanding of what the dyad could deliver as an overall capability.
“What we have found is that you create a more cohesive team when the MQ-8 operators also know how to fly the 60, and the 60 operators know how to fly the MQ-8, and have changed those roles several times during the week.
“Basically, they then understand the limitations and abilities of each system and the synergy which can be achieved by operating together.”
In effect, what the Navy is creating is a common operational culture shaped by the two systems, rather than creating an unmanned operational ghetto.
Third, the actual operational experience of working a composite detachment will drive future operations and future operational requirements.
It is an iterative process.
Clearly, the US Navy is acting on the assumption that one needs to get the technology into the hands of the warfighter to drive innovation rather than building better briefing charts.
After all, power point slides only kill the audience, not the enemy.
Fourth, the operational experience of the dyad will be part of shaping the way ahead with ship design, and requirements as well.
As one officer put it: “As we look at what ships we need and how to use them in the future, this concept of manned-unmanned teaming both with organic systems as well as the use of national systems use is really critical to how we will use those ships, and how we’ll deliver those capabilities.”
In simple terms, it is about getting best value out of systems, which operate from the deck space.
As one officer put it: “Everything that goes on the ship has to buy its way on the ship through the capability that it delivers.”
In short, the composite detachment is viewed as a cutting edge capability which will be enhanced in the future.
“The future of aviation certainly offers the distributed fleet a suite of capabilities that are met between a pairing of manned and unmanned systems.
“What missions will go to the manned and unmanned, well that remains to be seen, but most definitely the future of aviation is going to be a pairing of both manned systems and unmanned systems.”
Editor’s Note: The slideshow highlights the composite detachment and the photos are credited to the US Navy.
Growing maritime threats off Africa’s coastline and new offshore oil and gas finds are driving the need for better maritime security while the drop in the oil price means securing oil and gas supplies is more important than ever as there is less margin for loss.
This is according to Hein van den Ende, Marketing Executive Sub-Saharan Africa at Saab, who told defenceWeb that West Africa’s oil and gas industry is facing a variety of threats, from piracy to sabotage and kidnapping for ransom, especially by militants looking for a share of oil revenues.
Van den Ende said threats are definitely growing in Africa, with more kidnappings in the early 2000s than now, but more attacks on infrastructure currently. Oil and gas facilities have been hit hard by the Niger Delta Avengers in recent time, for example. He said attackers are becoming more sophisticated and realise that sabotaging infrastructure makes a bigger difference than kidnapping. Attacks not only damage Nigeria’s economy through lost production but also cause pollution, which in turn affects fishermen.
According to Oceans Beyond Piracy, there were 95 attacks in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea in 2016, up from 54 the previous year. Cargo theft, once the main focus of piracy in the region, has given way to an increase in kidnappings, with 96 crew members taken hostage in 2016 compared to 44 in 2015. Oceans Beyond Piracy estimated the total economic cost of maritime crime in West Africa at nearly $794 million.
Apart from militants and pirates, fishermen also interfere with the oil and gas industry by illegally fishing around platforms and getting their nets caught in them – fish are attracted to the platforms’ lights. Van den Ende said such facilities need to be monitored to prevent vessels sailing around them.
West Africa has a relatively shallow coastline, making oil and gas extraction relatively easy, but East African fields are deeper and farther out to sea – as a result the East coast oil and gas industry is far safer. However, off East Africa the biggest maritime threat is from pirates, which have become resurgent of late and launched a string of attacks against vessels off the Horn of Africa. In the first three months of 2017 armed pirates hijacked two vessels, both off the coast of Somalia, where no merchant ship had been hijacked since May 2012. Twenty-eight crew were taken hostage and released within a relatively short time.
The situation in South Africa is much better, with no great threat to the oil and gas industry, but the big challenge is securing the country’s ports. This is especially important in light of the blue economy component of Government’s Operation Phakisa, which is trying to leverage South Africa’s geographic position to become a vessel and oil and as maintenance and repair hub for Africa. Money has been invested in South Africa’s ports, including Saldanha, which requires harbour security and the tracking of vessel movement along the coast.
In April last year President Jacob Zuma said more than R17 billion had been unlocked in the national economy since the launch of the blue economy sector of Operation Phakisa in 2014 and 4 500 jobs created. R7 billion has been allocated to Transnet National Ports Authority to improve ports.
Unlocking the economic potential of South Africa’s ocean focuses on six priority potential growth areas. They are marine transport and manufacturing, offshore oil and gas exploration, aquaculture, marine protection services and ocean governance, small harbours development and coastal and marine tourism.
Unlocking such potential also requires security. According to defence analyst Helmoed Romer Heitman, the whole region, and not just South Africa, needs to be secure from a maritime perspective. “We need the region around us to be stable, secure and prosperous. The better off they are, the more they can buy from us and the fewer illegal immigrants we will have.”
Saab is offering technology to counter threats before they arrive at oil and gas facilities and equip African countries with technology to monitor their assets – both offshore and on land. One of the company’s most successful products is its TactiCall tactical communications solution that is being used in the North Sea. TactiCall is also used by the South African Navy. The system integrates a multitude of different frequency bands, networks and radio equipment into one central user interface solution that makes communication easy, secure and seamless.
Saab also has coastal monitoring solutions in China and India to monitor vessel movement around platforms. Such vessel traffic management systems (VTMS), like its MaritimeInsight, can include a command and control room on land, AIS beacons on platforms and radar and elctro-optical surveillance systems. Standalone detection systems like Saab’s R5 Supreme AIS Transponder System can detect vessels of all sizes from up to 30 km away, give crew sufficient time to identify any vessel approaching, and to call for assistance should they interpret an incoming vessel to be a threat.
“Our biggest strength as Saab is the fact that we can provide a complete solution,” van den Ende said, in a scalable package, including vessel tracking, communications, coastal radar, subsea remotely operated vehicles and other solutions like maritime surveillance aircraft (MSAs). Van den Ende said a maritime surveillance aircraft is the “holy grail” of solutions as it can monitor an entire coastline at a lower cost than ships.
Van den Ende pointed out that because the price of oil has dropped, any losses are more severe and security is actually becoming more of a focus since the oil price drop. He said Saab attended an oil and gas assembly in France and was approached by a number of companies looking for security solutions.
The oil and gas/energy sector is one of Saab’s focus areas as there is a lot of growth in this market, van den Ende said, noting that more sophisticated threats need more sophisticated solutions. “We want to be seen as your security partner in the oil and gas industry. I don’t think there’s any better partner than any partner who can manufacture Gripen fighter jets to submarines.”
Republished with the permission of our partner defenceWeb.
2017-07-31 In a piece published on July 31, 2017 by Ron Maxwell, the writer and director of the Civil War trilogy of movies: Gettysburg, Gods and Generals, Copperhead looks at why the legacy dominates, and why new approaches remain in the wings.
How Romney Loyalists Hijacked Trump’s Foreign Policy
Those who play the game by establishment rules are waived in. Those who would challenge the status quo are kept out.
In 2015, as Trump’s rise in the polls raised alarms among establishment Republicans, notable proponents of the neoconservative foreign policy began hedging their bets. Ready to back anyone but Trump, they laid plans for a fallback position in case their favored candidates, Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, failed to stop Trump’s populist insurgency. In public expressions and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, they supported Hillary Clinton over the rising Trump. These were die-hard globalists who had argued for every military intervention in the recent past (Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq 1, Afghanistan, Iraq 2, Libya, Syria, Yemen), and they would become the vanguard of the Never Trump counterinsurgency.
Mitt Romney positioned himself as the standard bearer for the Never Trump forces. As the most recent Republican presidential candidate, he was expected to become an insurmountable obstacle to Trump’s hopes for the nomination with pronouncements such as the following: “Donald Trump tells us that he is very, very smart. I’m afraid that when it comes to foreign policy he is very, very not smart….Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud.”
Romney then hatched a plan to block Trump’s path to the nomination: “Given the current delegate selection process, that means that I’d vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio, and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state.”
Within hours of Trump’s emergence as the putative Republican nominee, the Never Trump cadres initiated numerous rearguard actions designed to elect Clinton, whom they correctly saw as the candidate who would implement their neocon foreign policy of regime change, nation-building, humanitarian intervention, meddling in foreign civil wars and domestic affairs, spreading democracy, confronting Russia, maintaining America’s state of perpetual covert and overt war, and requiring the continued presence of hundreds of thousands of troops in every corner of the globe costing billions of taxpayer dollars.
Romney and his Never Trump network even initiated a last-ditch plan in the event the polls narrowed: throw Utah to an independent candidate. In a close election, they reasoned, neutralizing Utah’s electoral votes could foreclose an Electoral College majority, thus throwing the election into the U.S. House of Representatives. There, establishment loyalists of both parties might throw the victory to Clinton.
It was not to be. Although many issues influenced the race, certainly one was the antipathy American citizens held for the pointless nonstop wars perpetrated by Beltway political elites. To cite just two indicators, among many: South Carolina primary voters selected Trump over Jeb Bush even after Trump’s over-the-top criticisms of his brother’s decision to go to war in Iraq. A recent study described in the Kansas City Star reveals that Clinton could have won the presidency if the burden of war was lower in key states. The headline: “Higher war casualties in key swing states may have swung November’s presidential election away from Hillary Clinton.”
Hardly anyone could miss Trump’s style in victory. If he could have had a Triumphal Arch constructed at government expense on the Washington Mall, he would have done so, along with his own version of Hadrian’s wall at the southern border. His ubiquitous post-campaign rallies are modern day equivalents of Caesars’ triumphal processions through the streets of Rome.
And it wasn’t surprising that the unlikely victor would summon the defeated Mitt Romney for what looked like rounds of public submission and humiliation. Romney was all too eager to oblige, proving once again that those who lust for power can be easily manipulated.
But through all of that, in thought, word, and deed, the highly networked neocons demonstrated their fierce devotion to the globalist, internationalist, interventionist cause. No amount of failure, death, destruction, or proliferation of failed states in the wake of their implemented strategies compelled a rethinking of their goals or a modification of their utopian theories.
While prominent neocon and establishment luminaries who derided Trump from the beginning couldn’t expect seats at the Trump table, their lesser known minions infiltrated key precincts of Trump’s transition teams. Their astute sponsors, the neocon bigwigs, knew the neophyte president could not know who was who in the political and policy firmament of Washington. Neocon cadres had had at least a quarter century to embed themselves into every nook and cranny of the federal bureaucracy—at State, Defense, national security agencies, congressional offices, think tanks, nongovernment organizations, and the national media.
Within weeks a pattern emerged in the new administration. Covert Never Trump Republicans were getting hired; proven and loyal Trump supporters were blocked. Of course, notorious neocon Never Trumpers who had signed public letters knew they couldn’t possibly enlist, so they resigned themselves to moving their protégés and acolytes into positions of influence and power. Occasionally they tried for direct access to appointments for themselves, but this was a heavier lift. Elliott Abrams was a case in point.
Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
Rex Tillerson, formidably accomplished in global business, was nevertheless as much a neophyte as his boss when it came to navigating the policy terrain of the D.C. swamp. As is well known, in building his team he relied on those two neocon avatars, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, who had originally promoted his own candidacy for secretary of state. But Rice had been a vocal part of the neocon Never Trump coalition. Her anti-Trump pronouncements included: “Donald Trump should not be president….He doesn’t have the dignity and stature to be president.” The Washington Post greeted her 2017 book, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom, as “a repudiation of Trump’s America First worldview.”
Thus it wasn’t surprising that Rice would introduce Elliott Abrams to Tillerson as an ideal candidate for State’s No. 2 position. This would have placed a dyed-in-the-wool neocon hardliner at the very top of the State Department’s hierarchy and given him the power to hire and fire all undersecretaries across the vast foreign policy empire. Rice, one of the architects of George W. Bush’s failed policies of regime change and nation building, would have consolidated a direct line of influence into the highest reaches of the Trump foreign policy apparatus.
Not only was Abrams’ entire career a refutation of Trump’s America First foreign policy, but he had spent the previous eighteen months publicly bashing Trump in harsh terms. Cleverly, however, he had not signed either of the two Never Trump letters co-signed by most of the other neocon foreign policy elite. Abrams almost got the nod, except for a last-minute intervention by Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who was armed with every disparaging anti-Trump statement Abrams had made. Examples: “This is a question of character.…He is not fit to sit in the chair of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln….his absolute unwillingness to learn anything about foreign policy….Hillary would be better on foreign policy.…I’m not going to vote for Trump….”
But Abrams’ rejection was the exception. As a high profile globalist-interventionist he could not easily hide his antipathy toward the Trump doctrine. Others, whose track records and private comments were more easily obscured, were waived in by gatekeepers whose mission it was (and remains) to populate State, DoD, and national security agencies with establishment and neocon cadres, not with proven Trump supporters and adherents to his foreign policy.
But how did the gatekeepers get in? Romney may have disappeared from the headlines, but he never left the sidelines. His chess pieces were already on the board, occupying key squares and prepared to move.
Once the president opened the door to RNC chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff, to Rex Tillerson at State, to James Mattis as defense secretary, and to H. R. McMaster at NSC, the neocons just walked in. While each of these political and military luminaries may publicly support the president’s policies and in some instances may sincerely want to see them implemented, their entire careers have been spent within the establishment and neocon elite. They don’t know any other world view or any other people.
Donald Trump ran on an America First foreign policy, repeatedly deriding George W. Bush for invading Iraq in 2003. He criticized Clinton and Obama for their military interventions in Libya and their support for regime change in Syria. He questioned the point of the endless Afghan war. He criticized the Beltway’s hostile obsession with Russia while it ignored China’s military buildup and economic threat to America.
Throughout the campaign Trump made abundantly clear his foreign policy ethos. If elected he would stop the policy of perpetual war, strengthen America’s military, take care of U.S. veterans, focus particularly on annihilating the ISIS caliphate, protect the homeland from Islamist radicalism, and promote a carefully calibrated America First policy.
But, despite this clear record, according to Politico and other Beltway journals, the president has been entreated in numerous White House and Pentagon meetings to sign off on globalist foreign policy goals, including escalating commitments to the war in Afghanistan. These presentations, conducted by H.R. McMaster and others, were basically arguments to continue the global status quo; in other words, a foreign policy that Clinton would have embraced. Brian Hook and Nadia Schadlow were two of the lesser known policy wonks who participated in these meetings, determining vital issues of war and peace.
Brian Hook, head of State Department policy planning, is an astute operative and member in good standing of the neocon elite. He’s also a onetime foreign policy adviser to Romney and remains in close touch with him. Hook was one of the founders, along with Eliot Cohen and Eric Edelman, of the anti-Trump John Hay Initiative. Hook organized one of the Never Trump letters during the campaign, and his views are well-known, in part through a May 2016 piece by Julia Hoffe in Politico Magazine. A passage: “My wife said, ‘never,’” said Brian Hook, looking pained and slicing the air with a long, pale hand. ….Even if you say you support him as the nominee,” Hook says, “you go down the list of his positions and you see you disagree on every one.”
One might wonder how a man such as Hook could become the director of policy planning and a senior adviser to Rex Tillerson, advising on all key foreign policy issues? The answer is: the Romney network.
Consider also the case of Margaret Peterlin, assigned as a Sherpa during the transition to guide Tillerson through the confirmation process. Another experienced Beltway insider, Peterlin promptly made herself indispensable to Tillerson and blocked anyone who wanted access to him, no matter how senior. Peterlin then brought Brian Hook onboard, a buddy from their Romney days, to serve as the brains for foreign policy while she was serving as the Gorgon-eyed chief of staff.
According to rumor, the two are now blocking White House personnel picks, particularly Trump loyalists, from appointments at State. At the same time, they are bringing aboard neocons such as Kurt Volker, executive director of the McCain Institute and notorious Russia hawk, and Wess Mitchell, president of the neocon Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). As special representative for Ukraine negotiations, Volker is making proclamations to inflame the conflict and further entangle the United States.
Meanwhile, Mitchell, another Romney alumnus and a Brian Hook buddy from the John Hay Initiative, has been nominated as assistant secretary of state for European and Erurasian affairs. Brace yourself for an unnecessary Cold War with Russia, if not a hot one. While Americans may not really care whether ethnic Russians or ethnic Ukrainians dominate the Donbass, these guys do.
Then there’s Nadia Schadlow, another prominent operative with impeccable neocon credentials. She was the senior program officer at the Smith Richardson Foundation, where her main job was to underwrite the neocon project by offering grants to the many think tanks in their network. For the better part of a decade she pursued a PhD under the tutelage of Eliot Cohen, who has pronounced himself a “Never Trumper” and has questioned the president’s mental health. Cohen, along with H.R. McMaster, provided editorial guidance to Schadlow for her book extolling nation-building and how we can do more of it.
Relationships beget jobs, which is how Schadlow became deputy assistant to the president, with the task, given by her boss H.R. McMaster, of writing the administration’s National Security Strategy. Thus do we have a neocon stalwart who wrote the book on nation building now writing President Trump’s national security strategy.
How, we might ask, did these Never Trump activists get into such high positions in the Trump administration? And what was their agenda at such important meetings with the President if not to thwart his America First agenda? Put another way, how did Trump get saddled with nearly Mitt Romney’s entire foreign policy staff? After all, the American people did not elect Mitt Romney when they had the chance.
Trump is a smart guy. So is Barack Obama. But even Obama, Nobel Peace Prize in hand, could not prevent the inexorable slide to violent regime change in Libya, which resulted in a semi-failed state, tens of thousands killed, and a foothold for Al Queda and other radical Islamists in the Maghreb. He also could not prevent the arming of Islamist rebels in Syria after he had the CIA provide lethal arms strictly to “moderate rebels.” Unable or unwilling to disengage from Afghanistan, Obama acquiesced in a series of Pentagon strategies with fluctuating troop levels before bequeathing to his successor an open ended, unresolved war.
Rumors floating through official Washington suggest the neocons now want to replace Tillerson at State with Trump critic and Neocon darling Nikki Haley, currently pursuing a one-person bellicose foreign policy from her exalted post at the United Nations. Not surprisingly, Haley and Romney go way back. As a firm neocon partisan, she endorsed his presidential bid in 2011.
As UN ambassador, Haley has articulated a nearly incoherent jumble of statements that seem more in line with her own neocon worldview than with Trump’s America First policies. Some samples:
“I think that, you know, Russia is full of themselves. They’ve always been full of themselves. But that’s – its more of a façade that they try and show as opposed to anything else.”
“What we are is serious. And you see us in action, so its not in personas. Its in actions and its what we do.”
“The United States …calls for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea. Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.”
One must ask: Is Ambassador Haley speaking on behalf of the Trump administration when she says it is official U.S. policy that Russia, having annexed Crimea, must return it to Ukraine? Is the Russo-American geopolitical relationship to be held hostage indefinitely because in 2014 the people of Crimea voted for their political reintegration into Russia, which they had been part of since 1776?
Since there is as much chance of Russia ceding Crimea back to Ukraine as there is of the United States ceding Texas back to Mexico, does this mean there is no possibility of any meaningful cooperation with Russia on anything else? Not even in fighting the common ominous threat from Islamist radicalism? Has Haley committed the American people to this dead-end policy on her own or in consultation with the President?
On July 14, the Washington Examiner wrote that “Haley’s remarks…set the tone for Trump’s reversal from the less interventionist, ‘America First’ foreign policy he campaigned on.” Little wonder, then, that in a little-noticed victory lap of her own, coinciding with the release of her book, Condoleezza Rice acknowledged the near complete takeover of Trump’s foreign policy team. “The current national security team is terrific,” she said. She even gave Trump her anointed blessing following their recent White House meeting, during which the septuagenarian schoolboy received the schoolmarm’s pat on the head: “He was engaging,” she said. “I found him on top of his brief….asking really good questions.” That’s a far cry from her campaign-season comment about Trump that he “doesn’t have the dignity and stature to be president.”
American foreign policy seems to be on auto-pilot, immune to elections and impervious to the will of the people. It is perpetuated by an entrenched contingent of neocon and establishment zealots and bureaucratic drones in both the public and private sector, whose careers, livelihoods, and very raison d’etre depend on an unchallenged policy of military confrontation with the prestige, power, and cash flow it generates. Those who play the game by establishment rules are waived in. Those who would challenge the status quo are kept out. This is the so-called Deep State, thwarting the will of President Trump and the people who voted for him.
This isn’t merely a story of palace intrigue and revolving chairs in the corridors of power. Brave Americans in the uniform of their country will continue to be sent into far-off lands to intercede in internecine conflicts that have little if anything to do with U.S. national security. Many will return physically shattered or mentally maimed. Others will be returned to Andrews Air Force Base in flag-draped coffins, to be saluted by serial presidents of both parties, helpless to stop the needless carnage.
This article is republished with the permission of the author.
Editor’s Note: The Maxwell article highlights a a key challenge to restructuring US foreign and defense policy, namely the continued dominance of the Washington high priesthood.
A key challenge to restructuring US foreign and defense policy is the Washington high priesthood.
President’s may come and go but the establishment remains and establishes the bounds of the permissible.
The only problem is that legacy US and defense policy is not viable in meeting the rapidly challenging world of this decade of the 21st century.
The reset of the strategic elite is crucial if the kinds of intellectual thought necessary to fuel a successful adaptation to the new realities of global competition.
As we wrote earlier this year:
The strategic certainties and alliances of the post Cold War world are all now facing severe challenges.
The certainties of the period of globalization are clearly contested on many fronts.
The causes of this crisis are multiple.
Some see the causes as originating in the imperial overreach of the United States in the Middle East. Others blame the imperial overreach of Europe to the borders of Russia. Some blame Russia and Putin for the seizure of the Crimea.
But these causes will be the subject for future historians.
What is clear now is that a new phase is beginning which requires clear headed analysis.
The tectonic plates are shifting and the United States needs to think carefully about the prospects and consequences of these profound changes between (and within) nations, and how best to respond to this new world order (or disorder).
The coming of Trump to Washington could have ushered in this kind of rethink.
It has not happened so far, and, in part, it is the weight of the legacy Republican Party in this case projecting the verities of the past as proper policy.
But one can ask how legacies of nation building and stability operations are going to help the US to get ready for the kind of high tempo and high intensity threats on the doorsteps of the nation?
One can ask how the nation will be respond the last NORAD and Northcom’s Commanders plea to ramp up to deal with the threats from the 10 and 2 O’clock to the nation?
This is a notional rendering of the 10 and 2 O’Clock challenge. It is credited to Second Line of Defense and not in any way an official rendering by any agency of the US government. It is meant for illustration purposes only.
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I have focused in several interviews on the basic shift towards building software upgradeable platforms as the base line for shaping a 21st century air enabled combat force.
The strategic shift has been to develop and buy core multi-mission platforms and to modernize them through software upgrades.
Yet the US acquisition system and its business rules are not set up to manage this historical transition.
The result will be much slower modernization and needless combat deaths or combat failures as reactive enemies seek to exploit slo mo software modernization caused by bureaucratically determined requirements priorities.
Indeed a key capability necessary to stay ahead in the tron warfare world is much more rapid software upgrades.
The Aussies have referred to this as the challenge of software transient advantage and have highlighted the need to shape a 21st century acquisition system, which allows this to happen.
They are trying to make this happen in key programs like the Wedgetail.
In an interview with Group Captain Bellingham, the Officer Commanding 42 Wing, this process was discussed as follows:
Question: During the visit, we have been in the squadron building, the hangar and in the System Program Office collocated with the squadron.
What advantages does that bring?
Group Captain Bellingham: “It facilitates a close working relationship between the combat force and the system developers.
“We can share our combat experiences with the RAAF-industry team in the SPO and to shape a concrete way ahead in terms of development.
“The team is very proactive in working collaboratively to get to the outcome we’re looking for.”
A No.2 Squadron E-7A Wedgetail aircraft takes off from RAAF Base Williamtown.
Question: In the SPO facility, you have a Virtual Wedgetail, which is the currently configured Wedgetail systems but located on the ground.
How has that worked for you?
Group Captain Bellingham: “It is crucial for reaching out to the warfighting community. We have plugged into both Army and Navy officer training courses.
“We are using it to work closely with the Army and Navy getting ready for our Fall exercise with the LHD to shape a task force concept of the amphibious ships.
It provides a realistic way for Army and Navy officers to see what we contribute to their warfighting tasks.
“We need a crew in the Virtual Wedgetail to make it work because they have to have the right experience and background to provide that level of reality to the force which then the warfighters can experience what we can bring right now to the fight.
For transient software advantage to become the coin of the realm, the operators need to be working directly with the software code writers without the interference from hierarchically distant acquisition officials and “testers.”
Once the platform has been built and software enabled, then the users and the code writers need to be funded to provide capabilities, which the platform as a system can deliver.
Acquisition leadership then becomes strategically sorting through which capability should be enhanced on which platform within the evolving 21st century combat force.
The RAF officer in charge of the ISTAR force described this shift to strategic acquisition leadership as opposed to hierarchical assurance of slow mo software upgrades as follows:
“We have the iPhone 6 generation in the Force now, yesterday’s analogue approach to our business is no longer appropriate.
“With the aperture fully open, the individual platforms and capabilities become the apps that enable the integrated Force ‘iPhone’.
“Thinking of it in this way, will allow us to tap this new generation of warriors.”
Air Commodore Dean Andrew. Credit: RAF
He also seeks to build a sense of strategic purpose and community from bottom to top.
He cited the example of when President Johnson met a janitor at the NASA space center in Houston and when asked what he was doing, the janitor replied: “I am helping put a man on the moon, Mr. President.”
“We are driving to a similar mindset in the ISTAR Force – everyone contributing regardless of where they work.”
He argued that this perspective was essential to mission success.
“The paradigm shift needs to be cultural and organizational if the ISTAR force with a large F to become a reality.
“We are going from a tradition where we have operated isolated force elements to one where an integrated force can deliver 24/7 support and we need to shape a Whole Force solution approach.”
Getting it right for ISTAR is critical to the success of the RAF’s contributions to operations and to the UK’s intelligence and understanding of the world.
The Air Commodore concluded:
“One cannot simply pause, and recapitalize the force in a vacuous power point exercise.
“It is about transformation ‘in contact’ and ensuring that we leverage maximum integrated capability from the new platforms coming to the RAF, while re-brigading the legacy systems as best we can and putting in place the foundations required for an adaptable, upgradeable and technology driven capital F force in the 2025 time frame and beyond.”
Recently,General Ellen Pawlikowski, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command, provided a hard-hitting overview on how important she thought the need to break through on management of software upgradeability.
At a Mitchell Institute breakfast meeting on July 14, 2017, she focused on the barriers and need to shape a combat force, which was empowered by agile software development.
Her presentation focused on what she referred to as the cultural barriers to change but being even blunter the current acquisition approach guarantees that unnecessary review and control layers in the bureaucracy will slow software upgradeability.
One could easily ask how many acquisition officials could even read let alone write code, but the broader point is that the so-called oversight system needs to be radically changed.
The General was kinder and gentler than I am being here.
But she was certainly direct enough in her outstanding presentation on the challenge and how to meet it.
The acquisition system has been built around a 20th century systems engineering model, one which sets requirements and designs the way ahead in a manner in an iterative requirements process which is simply inappropriate for a software driven force.
“We are very much enamored with our systems engineering processes in the Department of Defense.
“We have processes that drive us to start with requirements and continue to work those requirements through rigorous testing.
“When I was on the job at SMC I learned that OCS had failed their preliminary design review.
“But preliminary design reviews don’t make any sense when you are doing software development.
“Agile Software development is all abut getting capability out there.
“The systems engineers approach drive you to a detailed requirements slow down.”
She highlighted that this cultural barrier, namely reliance on the historical systems engineering approach, needed to be removed.
“We have to change the way we think about requirements definition if we’re going to really adopt Agile Software Development.
“Maybe the answer isn’t this detailed requirements’ slow down.”
“By the way, once you put it in the hands of the operator maybe some of those requirements you had in the beginning, maybe they don’t make any sense anymore because the operator sees how they can actually use this and they change it.”
She went on to highlight what the Aussies are doing in Willliamtown with Wedgetail without mentioning them at all.
“You need to put the coder and the user together…
“We have to empower at the right level, and that has to be at the level of the person that’s going to use the software, and we have to stop thinking about independent OT.”
She then went after the way sustainment is thought about for the software enterprise.
“The other thing that we have is this idea that software is developed and then sustained.
“What the heck does that mean?
“Software doesn’t break.
“You may find something that doesn’t work the way you thought it was, but it doesn’t break.
“You don’t bring it in for corrosion mitigation or overhaul on the engines.
“When you’re look at what we do in software sustainment a lot of it is continually improving the software.”
General Ellen Pawlikowski, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command, at the Mitchell Institute breakfast, July 14, 2017. Credit: SLD
She also argued that we need to change the approach to contracts and to the working relationship with industry.
“The teams are there for life.
“I don’t mean that it’s one person, but we don’t think about putting a team together to do the development and then push them out the door.
“That team stays with that system forever…
“We need to make the user the operational user and acceptance authority.
“Perhaps we need to shift to more use of time and materials contracts to support such teams.”
In effect, if the shift is to build the kill web rather than buy stovepiped systems the ability to manage software upgradeability in an agile manner is a crucial capability.
“Right now, the network is the tail on the dog.
“The weapons systems are the big ones that call all the shots.
“Just think about the challenges you’ve always had at getting new GPS capability on our platforms.
“We only do it 1/15th of the schedule for the hardware.
“That’s not going to work.
“How are we going to do this right?
“Some of it is cultural.
“Some of it we’re going to have to drive changes in DOD and Air Force policy.”
2017-07-22 Earlier we highlighted the key way in which allies are leading the way for the United States in standing up F-35 squadrons abroad.
A key dynamic in the shift from COIN-centric land wars to a twenty-first century combat force is what the US and its closest allies will learn from each other thanks to the core weapons systems they are buying at the same time.
A case in point is the F-35. There was much press on the recent arrival of Air Force F-35As in Europe, landing at RAF Lakenheath, operating from there and then some of those aircraft going to Estonia and then Bulgaria.
The Supreme Allied Command Europe (SACEUR) himself showed up at Lakenheath to underscore how significant the arrival of these aircraft was.
Wall notes that the U.S. does not intend to permanently deploy the jets in Europe until 2020, and that “several allied air forces, are also buyers.”
But missing in plain view (or perhaps plane view) is the reality of the F-35 global enterprise created before the arrival of any permanent U.S. deployment, and that that global enterprise is being laid down by the US and its allies, not just the U.S. by itself.
Gen. Tod Wolters, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe- Air Forces Africa, speaks Thursday, July 20, 2017, at an F-35 leadership forum at USAFE headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. JENNIFER H. SVAN/STARS AND STRIPES
And in a recent article by Jennifer Svan published in Stars and Stripes on July 21, 2017, the key role allies are playing in USAFE’s standup of its own squadrons was highlighted.
The U.S. Air Force has yet to stand up a squadron of F-35s in Europe, but it’s already working on how to integrate the fifth-generation combat jet with some of its closest allies in the region…..
The two-day forum on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter served to promote cooperation among the U.S. and its European counterparts that are already flying the plane or plan to do so.
The goal was to share lessons learned and build common approaches that will support integrated flying operations in Europe in the future.
“We have to find a way to nest it all together,” said Gen. Tod Wolters, USAFE and Air Forces Africa commander.
“At the end of the day, if we can say this is something that we’re fusing into the system … we’re in a great place,” he told the group, which included fighter pilots, base commanders and chiefs of staff. The Army, NATO and the Marine Corps also sent representatives, as did Lockheed Martin, the F-35 Lightning II manufacturer.
The forum, which concluded late Thursday, was the first of its kind in Europe, officials said. It followed a similar conference held in March in the Pacific, where Japan, South Korea and Australia have all purchased the F-35.
Joining the U.S. at the European forum were Israel, Italy, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey. Those nations have all purchased the aircraft. Israel and Italy are the first to be flying the plane in the region.
“We like to remind (people that) Italy was the first nation to fly the airplane overseas, across the Atlantic, so we are very proud of that,” said Maj. Gen. Aurelio Colagrande, chief of staff of Italy’s air command, noting that his country’s air force currently has three F-35s in its inventory…..
Of course, one could underscore that naval aviation is already leading the way as the USMC has not only embraced the F-35 but has accelerated the general operational learning curve for the entire F-35 global enterprise.
The MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system approaches the runway at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., after completing its inaugural cross-country flight from California. The Navy will conduct Triton flight tests at Patuxent River in preparation for an operational deployment in 2017. (U.S. Navy photo by Kelly Schindler/Released)
PACIFIC OCEAN – Marines complete final data updates before launching the RQ-21A Blackjack to support surveillance for a visit, board, search and seizure mission conducted by the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit Maritime Raid Force during Composite Training Unit Exercise, May 12, 2017. The RQ-21A Blackjack enhances and extends the lethal and nonlethal capability of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, fostering transformational advancements in battlespace command and situational awareness. The Marine and aircraft is with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 (REIN) attached to the 15th MEU. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Timothy Valero)
This is a notional rendering of the 10 and 2 O’Clock challenge. It is credited to Second Line of Defense and not in any way an official rendering by any agency of the US government. It is meant for illustration purposes only.
Air Commodore Dean Andrew. Credit: RAF
General Ellen Pawlikowski, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command, at the Mitchell Institute breakfast, July 14, 2017. Credit: SLD
