The Evolution of a 21st Century Airbase in the United Kingdom: The Perspective of Group Captain Paul Godfrey, RAF Lossiemouth

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/10/2016

2016-11-10 By Robbin Laird

RAF Lossiemouth currently is a Typhoon and Tornado base, but with the Tornados to be phased out within the next few years, the Typhoons will be joined by the P-8, which will probably operate as well from Lossie.

This provides the opportunity to integrate the Typhoons with P-8s with the F-35s, which will operate off shore from the new carriers or, in other words, shaping a kill web to protect the homeland and to anchor the defense of the Northern NATO countries.

In effect, Lossie will train to support the formation and evolution of a 21st century combat force in which a multi-mission combat fleet of Typhoons will work with the maritime-focused but land-based capable maritime combat system which is the P-8 (which will operate in the area, regardless of the final decision concerning where to base the fleet), and which, in turn, will work with the multi-tasking flying combat system which is the F-35.

It is clear that the base is well positioned to support the evolving dynamics of defense, not only for the UK homeland, but to provide a solid anchor within the defense system for the North Atlantic.

Recently, RAF Lossiemouth provided the air engagement piece for the major NATO Exercise Joint Warrior 2016.

Ben Hendry in story published in The Press and Journal on April 23, 2016 noted the following:

A major military training exercise hosted by RAF Lossiemouth has drawn to a close, with fleets of international aircraft jetting off from the base throughout yesterday.

Operation Joint Warrior brought some of the world’s most advanced fighter jets into the skies above Moray, where they staged a series of spectacular aerial training sessions.

More than 3,400 Nato troops took part in the land, sea and air war games event – including 22 ships, four submarines and more than 40 aircraft from a dozen Nato nations and three partner countries.

For the past two weeks the region has been buzzing with excitement about the event, with enthusiasts flocking from far and wide to glimpse the awe-inspiring machines in person.

But by yesterday afternoon, a hush had descended on the base as normality began to reassert itself.

One onlooker, who made several trips to the viewing area at the northern edge of the RAF Lossiemouth runway, hailed the success of the event.

The former RAF serviceman said that a fleet of Turkish F-16 jets had been the main attraction for a lot of the aviation enthusiasts who visited the area for the event.

He added: “The Turkish jets flew on missions twice almost every day, and were involved with some important training sessions.”

A German crew which had been participating in the war games exercise was unexpectedly called away shortly after it begun, and many experts believe they were summoned to assist with international operations.

A fleet of Poseidon aircraft attached to Patrol Squadron 10 at the “Red Lancers” Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida, proved of special interest to observers and Lossiemouth personnel – as the airfield will secure its own brand new deployment of the craft in the coming years.

The hulking spy planes were stationed at the northern end of the runway throughout the exercise, and it is understood that RAF chiefs plan to keep the station’s new fleet in that area.

RAF experts who have maintained their surveillance skills since the UK’s fleet of maritime patrol aircraft was decommissioned in 2010 spent time conferring with the American pilots and learning more about the machines.

It is believed that they will train the crews who will work with the machines when they take up a permanent residence at RAF Lossiemouth.

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/897689/joint-warrior-concludes/

When you put this exercise together with the recent Cold Response 2016 exercise in Norway, one definitely gets the point that NATO is treating Russian activity in the North of Europe very seriously.

During a visit to Lossie in April 2016, I had a chance to talk with Group Captain Godfrey whom I had first met when he was working on the RAF’s F-35 program. 

And as a combat aviator who has flown a wide variety of aircraft, and working air power integration, he is well positioned to discuss the way ahead for the base at a crucial geopolitical location.

Group Captain Paul Godfrey, OBE has extensive experience of a range of combat aircraft through Harrier, F-16 and Typhoon. As a Harrier weapons instructor, he was the first non-US national to fly the F-16 CJ operationally in the SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) role while on exchange with the USAF and has spent the last 10 years in the Typhoon program with two flying tours including 4th/5th generation fighter training with the F-22.

He also has around 100 flight hours in the Spitfire and 80 hours in the Hurricane.

We started by “Godders” providing an overview on the base and its history.

“The base has been through some significant transformations over the years.

It started off as a bomber-training unit in World War II,  became a bomber base, and then at the end of war there was no requirement in the area for the RAF.

It was passed to the Royal Navy and every single type of aircraft they had through the 50’s and 60’s was deployed up here as HMS Fulmar.

Then a transformation began again when the base went from the Royal Navy back to the Royal Air Force in 1972, and then it hasn’t stopped. We were stable for the last few years with the Tornado fleet that replaced the Buccaneers, as there were four squadrons of Tornado’s  between 1992-2015.

We’ve just come through another period of transformation on the base as I arrived in November last year, with three operational Typhoon Squadrons standing up.

The RAF is drawing down the Tornado fleet so we loose the operational conversion unit that we have up here next year.

One of my priorities for the two years that I’m here is to ensure that ‘future Lossie’ is planned and executed properly.

With P8 on its way, either in the short term with USN participating in Exercises or the longer term aspiration to base the RAF fleet here, there’s a huge opportunity in terms of cross-fertilization of ideas and TTP’s  with the resident Typhoon force.

In terms of bringing F35 into the UK fleet and how we operate, whether it’s NATO, whether it’s other European nations, we will be working this opportunity as well within the Scottish region as the Queen Elizabeth carrier arrives for operations and allows flexible basing.

I think the possibilities are huge with where we’re going, not only in the Royal Air Force, but with working with the joint and allied forces in the region and beyond.”

Question: The recently concluded Joint Warrior 2016 is clearly a harbinger of some of these changes.

How do you see the exercise in light of your transformation opportunity and challenge?

Answer: We had P3’s, P8’s and Turkish F16’s here. There’s an opportunity right there just to look at how other nations do it. There were Canadians, Norwegians, French, Germans, Americans, all operating here.

And, I had a chance to see the P-8 and to get briefed by the crew. It is clearly not just a maritime patrol aircraft. In terms of the software upgradeability of the platform itself, in terms of what it brings straight out of the shop in terms of weapons loads, etc. it is very impressive.

I think that we will widen the P-8 rapidly from an MPA role out to a multi mission aircraft within seconds of getting our hands on it, because of the sensors and its electronic combat capabilities. It’s a 737 with weapon’s hard points; which provides a huge range of possibilitie. The fusion of data in the airplane is another key piece for us.

Having a single fused maritime picture in P-8 connected with the F-35 capabilities with what you bring from Typhoon and suddenly you have that single unified picture amongst a huge range of platforms. We are getting P8 at the same the Queen Elizabeth class carriers with their F-35s become operational for the Royal Navy and Air Force

Within 24 hours of the December vote in Parliament, our first  Typhoons were dropping weapons in Syria.

Clearly the Tornado’s have been doing just as much as well. the mix of forces have performed magnificently, as we all knew they would.

Question: Reliability rates for the Typhoon in Operation Shader have been good?

Answer: Other than weather factors, we did not miss a single combat trip.

Question: You are here off the North Sea, so how is the cooperation with the other North Sea states in providing for air combat capabilities?

Answer: There’s a normal working relationship among the coalition forces.

The quick reaction task requires a close working relationship.

For example, when the Russians flew their Blackjack bombers through our area of operations heading to Syria to deliver their cruise missiles, those bombers were first intercepted by Norwegians and then handed off to us. Those bombers were obviously armed and headed for Syria and then returned on their multiple hour mission and then went back through the Black Sea.

We obviously are preparing the ground for more effective and integrated operations with our allies with dealing with this kind of operational challenge.

Question: Obviously, this is a challenging transition as well.

How is the RAF preparing for this transition?

Answer: It is.

The RAF has started a program, which we call Thinking to win.

It is about getting people to think differently to deal with new technologies and the new challenge.

I think over the last few years we’ve had to innovate because of budgets. The lack of budgets means that we couldn’t throw money at problems therefore we’ve had to think carefully about certain problems that we have and how would you solve them?

What we want to try and do now is just bring that into our normal approach.

Whether you’ve got the money or haven’t got the money you just always want to question why we doing it like that.

Can I do it differently?

Can I do it better?

I am trying to inculcate that here at the base and with whom we work in a joint or coalition environment.

We are clearly working to link the platforms we have and are getting differently or more effectively.

We will have a P8 simulator up here and a mixed synthetic domain. We’re enhancing the Typhoon synthetics in this area, and link them together every day of the week.

One can link them into the Coningsby wing in terms of Typhoons, Waddington in terms of the rest of the ISTAR force, we will be able to link them into Marham in terms of F35.At that point we can then really go to town in terms of developing the next generation of combat leaders and how we actually need fight in a 21st century environment.

It is not simply about preparing for the way we used to do it; it is thinking through how we need to do it in the coming years.

Question: Obviously the training side of the preparation for operations. 

How does the synthetic training work to prepare the force?

Answer: We have the opportunity now to work the Tornados with Typhoons through live and virtual training and this gives us an advantage when we deploy.

We also have 5 Force Protection Wing here. That constitutes an HQ, an RAF Regiment Field Squadron and a reservist, Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment Field Squadron.

Just by getting guys talking together we’ve had the RAF regiment JTACS in the simulators with the Tornado and the Typhoon crews so that theyget the benefit of the real JTACs talking to them on the radio, during a simulated mission.

The JTAC gets controls that you wouldn’t necessarily get out in the real world because he doesn’t have the live assets available to him the whole time.

For our guys working up to the operations in Syria and Iraq, we’ve got scripts and events that have actually happened combined with the data base in the simulator, so that when they walk out the door here and land in Cyprus for the first time, they are ready.

It may be only the first time that landed at Cyprus in the real world, it’s only the first time they been into Syria and Iraq in the real world, but they’ve done it 10’s of times prior to that.

They’ve spoken to real guys on the ground, that ground just happened to be three feet away from him in the simulator up here at Lossiemouth, but that is huge in terms of preparing our people for what they going to do.

And that lays the foundation for shaping the way ahead as new aircraft, and new capabilities enter the fleet and the force.

Question: In short, Lossie is a great place to be for you?

Answer: As you can see out the window, the beautiful sunshine, the beaches and the warm welcome of the Scottish people, there’s no other place I would rather be.

The first slideshow highlights planes involved in the Joint Warrior exercise earlier this year and the photos are credited to the RAF.

The second slideshow highlights Typhoons operating at Lossie and are credited to the RAF.

For earlier discussions with Group Captain Godfrey see the following:

https://sldinfo.com/the-royal-air-force-and-the-f-35-shaping-an-airpower-transition/

The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force Prepare for Cross-Domain Transformation: The F-35 and the Queen Elizabeth Carrier

https://sldinfo.com/royal-air-force-operations-and-evolving-concepts-of-operations-shaping-a-triple-transition/

https://sldinfo.com/visiting-the-royal-air-force-battle-of-britain-memorial-flight/

The Perspective from RAF Lossiemouth’s No II (AC) Squadron: Meeting the Challenges

Posted on | by Robbin Laird

2016-11-10 By Robbin Laird

During my visit to RAF Lossiemouth in April 2016, I had the chance to talk with OC II(AC) Sqn, the commander of one of world’s oldest and most famous squadrons.

He was the squadron commander who led the transition from RAF Marham to Lossie in 2014.

As the Wing Commander described the situation at Lossie:

“This was a Tornado squadron. Typhoons first arrived at Lossiemouth in 2014, with their arrival from Royal Air Force Leuchars in Fife.

When that air base closed, number one and six squadrons moved up from Leuchars, and then in January 2015, we re-rolled from Tornado to Typhoon and moved to Lossiemouth from Marham in Norfolk.”

Lossie is becoming a key Typhoon hub from which the jet is deployed worldwide.

This is placing a significant stress on the hub to support several concurrent forward deployments, a subject discussed with the Wing Commander as well as the Chief Logistics and Engineering Officer at the base in a later interview as well.

Question: How would you describe your mission?

OC II(AC) Sqn: We are a Quick Reaction unit at RAF Lossiemouth .

When conducting Baltic air policing, the key is to learn the template or approach to air policing and to work that with our NATO partners so we can seamlessly pass that mission back and forth to the NATO nations who perform the mission on a rotating basis.

It is a NATO mission and the NATO procedures have to be followed, learned and refined in executing the mission.

 This is the third time that the Typhoon UK force has done the mission and is basically a quick reaction mission but in a NATO context.

It’s a very focused, dedicated NATO mission.

It is a great learning experience for everyone in how NATO works and how NATO operates.

 Quick reaction alerts are a zero to hero mission in a period of minutes.

You can be asleep, completely asleep, dressed up, ready to go; and the engineers will be asleep; and yet, a number of minutes later, you are mandated to be airborne and facing a potential threat, facing a potential escalating situation, and you just don’t know.

You need to have everyone trained, and everyone in the mindset that they have to be ready to go all the time.

An RAF Typhoon fighter takes off from Amari air base in Estonia. CREDIT: JASON ALDEN. The Telegraph.
An RAF Typhoon fighter takes off from Amari air base in Estonia. CREDIT: JASON ALDEN. The Telegraph.

You need to do your job as professionally as you can when you get there.

You need to make sure that you’re following all the protocols that we have.

It is challenging.

Question: One challenge you face is that when you go on a mission, bombing in Libya or air policing in the Baltics, your pilots are honing their skills in one area.

How do you deal with the challenge of training with other proficiencies?

OC II(AC) Sqn: That is a problem.

When you’re out on operations, you’re just doing that single thing. You’re not practicing all the other skill sets; and it’s not like riding a bike.

It is like playing a musical instrument.

Getting people to keep current on lots of different mission sets whilst being deployed is a challenge.

And we are expanding our training systems with regard to synthetics as a key way to try to enhance our multi-mission proficiencies.

Question: This is also significant as you end the Tornado era and operate Typhoon as a multi-mission asset.

How do you see this challenge?

OC II(AC) Sqn: It is a challenge.

There are two different roles for a pilot, control the air and attack; but anyone should be doing both at the same time.

But with the Typhoon doing a multi-role mission we are now taking the two people in the cockpit in the Tornado and relying on only one in the cockpit now to transition among the mission sets.

When we’re teaching swing role, and taking people through swing role mindset, I often see people writing, “Get the bombs on target, and then deal with the rest of the mission.”

Actually, that is not the philosophy at all.

The philosophy is that we are an air system, an integrated air system.

You need to control that air space before you can do anything, be that take photos or get bombs on target

Our entire mission, our raison d’etre, is to control the airspace that we want to operate in, before we even do anything else.

It’s not a mindset change, really, but it’s more of a discipline change, in that “I want to prioritize different things at different times.”

Doctrinally there is a distinction between Control of the Air and Attack, but Control of the Air is the First Among Equals.

No one conducts surveillance, no-one delivers airborne troops and no-one responds to a TIC until we have established the necessary Control of the Air.

We instill in the guys that we train to always think about Control of the Air.

Question: I would like to turn to your experience with Typhoon.

The recent trilateral exercise at Langley brought together two airplanes which now have 10 years of operations under their belt along with Rafale which is a bit older, but the point is that it takes time to get the full combat capability out of a combat jet.

How do you view Typhoon at 10?

IIOC (AC) Sqn: I’ve been lucky to fly the aeroplane for all 10 of those years.

It is fantastically rewarding and satisfying but it has taken those 10 years to get there!

It will take another 10 years to bring in all of the other new equipment that we’re looking forward to incorporating into the jet.

I do think that the British are driving the equipment program because the British have the greatest political imperative to make it work of any nation in the consortium.

We like to think we bring performance in terms of fighter-to-fighter against a Russian threat.

We bring performance and we bring deterrence.

Those are the two things that we bring.

It’s a large aircraft in the F-15 class so we have endurance and a large payload.

Combine that with our performance and we bring a lot to the fight.

What we also bring is that we are different to the F-series fighters.

Having a fourth-fifth gen force mix allows plenty of scope for innovation and great tactical benefit.

We have different sensors and capabilities to the F-jets, as does Rafale, so any potential adversary would have to defeat a number of networked sensors.

We are however looking at new generations of Russian aircraft.

We are looking at upgrades of Russian aircraft we’ve been looking at evolving Russian SAM systems for years.

But it is not just about showing up.

What are they doing with that Russian aircraft?

How many have they got?

I do think that Typhoon brings to the modern combat air party a very capable, large weapons platform with plenty of room for expansion.

What I particularly like in terms of comparing it against Russian aircraft is that I bring performance, and I bring size and scale.

That’s what I really like about it.

Question: The squadrons at Lossie are operating worldwide, what strain does that put on the hub at Lossie?

OC II(AC) Sqn: One great advantage about being deployed is that you get full support in the field, often better than we would get at home.

Therefore every deployment puts greater pressure on ‘the hub’ to provide forward sustainment.

The challenge of delivering training and delivering serviceability to the variety of micro Typhoon fleets is a significant one.

Editor’s Note: A brief history of No. II (AC) Squadron with AC standing for Army Cooperation, hence the knot in its squadron emblem, is provided on the RAF website.

II(Army Cooperation) Squadron was formed at Farnborough on 13 May 1912 as one of the original Squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). It quickly gained a pioneering reputation as it set the British altitude record of 16,000ft in August 1913 and, in August 1914, deployed the first British fixed-wing aircraft to fight in a war as the Squadron deployed to France.

World War I

The Squadron deployed to France with the R.E.1 and was later equipped with the B.E.2, Vickers FB5 and Bristol Scout. It initially performed reconnaissance duties but as technical innovations rapidly advanced, II(AC) Squadron increasingly acted in an air-to-surface attack role.

On 26 April 1915, whilst conducting a raid on Courtrai, 2nd Lt Rhodes-Moorhouse became the first airborne recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), which was awarded posthumously.

A second VC was awarded to 2nd Lt Mcleod in April 1918 after he shot down 3 Fokker Triplanes and crash landed his damaged aircraft between lines before dragging his observer to safety from the wreckage.

It was in 1916 that the Squadron began painting black triangles on the fuselage, which were later painted white, as a means of friendly identification to ground troops. To this day, the white triangles remain as the Squadron symbol.

Inter-War Years

On its return to the UK, II(AC) Squadron was soon conducting Army Cooperation activities in Ireland and in 1927 it deployed to China where it operated the Bristol F2.B fighter from Shanghai racecourse. In 1931, the Hereward knot was approved for use on the Squadron crest symbolising its close relationship to the Army.

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, II(AC) Squadron was operating the Lysander aircraft in a reconnaissance role as well as performing supply drops and inserting Special Operations Executive (SOE) Agents into occupied France. In August 1941 it was equipped with the Tomahawk as the Lysander had become inadequate in the reconnaissance role and the Squadron proved the utility of fighter aircraft as a photo-reconnaissance platform.

In 1942 II(AC) Squadron was re-equipped with the P-51 Mustang which it operated in tactical reconnaissance sorties in the D-Day landings in 1944. The Squadron flew 36 sorties on D-Day and it was a II(AC) Squadron aircraft that brought back the first aerial photographic images of the landings.

II(AC) Squadron supported the Canadian Army as they advanced through Europe and saw out the war with later marks of the Spitfire. 

Cold War Years

After World War II, the Squadron moved to Germany where it spent 47 years before moving to RAF Marham with the Tornado GR1A. The years in Germany saw II(AC) Squadron operate Swifts, Hunters, Phantoms and Jaguars in a number of large NATO exercises as well as deploying on exercise to El Adem in Libya in 1963. 

Post-Cold War Years

In 1991, II(AC) Squadron conducted sorties in support of Operation DESERT SHIELD over Iraq and in 1999 it policed the No-Fly Zones of Northern and Southern Iraq. It then deployed twice more to Iraq in 2003 and 2005 as part of Operation TELIC flying the Tornado GR4.

Following the retirement from service of the Harrier GR9, the Tornado GR4 began to operate in Operation HERRICK from Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan.

II(AC) Squadron performed several tours of Operation HERRICK until British forces withdrew at the end of 2014. The Squadron also sent aircraft to Operation ELLAMY in Libya, performing long-range sorties from their base in RAF Marham. 

Present Day

On 9 January 2015, II(AC) Squadron became the fifth front-line Typhoon squadron and is now based at RAF Lossiemouth. It contributes to the Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) mission of the Station, which maintains a high state of readiness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the defence of UK airspace. The Typhoon is a multi-role capable combat aircraft and the Squadron prepares to deploy on contingency operations around the globe as well as participating in large international exercises such as Red Flag. 

http://www.raf.mod.uk/organisation/2squadron.cfm

The slideshow above shows Typhoons involved in protecting NATO and British airspace against Russian aircraft. 

The photos are credited to the RAF.

Perspectives at the Valdai Conference on Russia, Europe and the United States: What Will Be Impact of the Coming to Power of President Elect Trump?

Posted on | by Robbin Laird

2016-11-10 By Richard Weitz

Pessimism about Europe’s global power potential was pervasive at the Valdai Conference.

Many speakers, from Russia and elsewhere, saw the Continent in current crisis and generation-long decay.

In particular, they cited deep dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic, technocratic, and formalistic nature of the institution and its disrespect for national diversity and traditional European values.

Valdai Discussion Club

Europe’s defenders countered that there were no wars between EU members and that Europeans enjoy good housing, wages, and life expectancy. They denigrated European populists as nostalgic for an old but lost Europe that was much less developed and cannot be recreated.

Even so, hopefully the shock of Donald Trump’s election as the next U.S. president will act as a catalyst for imparting new momentum in Europe.

The international shock is clearly evident.

Carl Bildt, former Swedish foreign minister, described Trump’s election, along with the Brexit vote, as a “double disaster” for the West. Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s defense minister, described the result as a “huge shock” that might signify the end of “Pax Americana” in Europe and the world. Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said Trump’s elections “raised questions” for Europe’s foreign-policy plans.

The most prominent Europeans welcoming the results were representatives of Europe’s leading anti-immigration parties, such as France’s National Front and the Alternative for Germany party.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Trump on his victory and pledged to work with the new administration to resolve Russian-U.S. differences and expand cooperation in other areas.

Other Russian leaders also expressed cautious optimism about future progress provided Trump could overcome the expected opposition from what is seen as the pervasively Russophobic U.S. bureaucracy and Washington political establishment.

At Valdai, Putin and other Russian officials said they regretted this animosity and wanted a strong Europe. The sincerity of these statements can be questioned, but the Russian speakers described Russia as a European nation (the largest in terms of population) with critical mutually beneficial social and economic partnerships with Europeans.

Some Russians also recalled how Russia has saved Europe on several previous occasions and, without offering details, insisted that Europeans cannot overcome their current crises without Russia’s assistance. Yet, one British speaker countered that a Europe stretching from London to Vladivostok would fail due to Russia’s unique traditions and interests that must be respected.

More interestingly, some Russian speakers argued Russian-European cooperation could be improved by focusing more on pragmatic interests instead of ideological principles (though many Russian participants stressed that they saw themselves as upholding traditional European social conservative values that have lost favor in many European countries).

One Russian participant believed that Russia-EU relations might improve if the parties followed “the principles for resolving contradictions in Central Asia between Russia and China….[with] recognition of the strategic interests of the partner in the region, advance warning about projects and actions to be taken, their coordination and discussion, as well as a multilateral, rather than a unilateral, approach.”

Even under current conditions, some European speakers noted that Russia had been able to circumvent the EU as an institution and cultivate good relations with key European leaders of various left- and right-wing movements in Europe.

Moreover, one speaker expected that Britain’s withdrawal from the EU would weaken trans-Atlantic ties since Britain has historically played an indispensable role in anchoring the United States in Europe and treating Russia as an external actor within Europe.

Former President of Austria Heinz Fischer, citing how Wallonia, a province in Belgium, was able to block a trade agreement negotiated by all EU national governments and Canada, and said that Europeans needed to strengthen the authority of the EU’s central institutions–the Parliament, the Commission, and other policy organs—to make the EU more effective.

Yet, Fischer noted that, for many Europeans, jealous of their autonomy and suspicious of EU centralism this was a sensitive point: “So if somebody says, let’s start the process of modernizing and changing institutions of the European Union, at this moment … it would create a very bitter fight in most or in several European countries.”

Perhaps tongue in cheek, Putin followed Fischer’s comments by observing that, while the EU’s rules may need to change due to the transformation of the organization’s environment in the decades since its founding, “in this case, you would first have to give the people who created this organization a chance to change it through a democratic process and then obtain their approval.”

In the security domain, Putin accused NATO leaders as talking up the Russian threat to simply sustain high military spending, despite knowing Russia would was not going to invade anyone and that NATO’s population was more than four times larger than Russia: “they continue to churn out threats, imaginary and mythical threats such as the ‘Russian military threat’. This is a profitable business that can be used to pump new money into defense budgets at home, get allies to bend to a single superpower’s interests, expand NATO and bring its infrastructure, military units and arms closer to our borders.”

Vladimir Putin Addresses 13th Annual Valdai Discussion Club © Sputnik/ Maksim Blinov
Vladimir Putin Addresses 13th Annual Valdai Discussion Club © Sputnik/ Maksim Blinov

Other Russian speakers also believed NATO is an outdated organization and its existence, and especially its membership expansion, harms European-Russian relations, something some of Trump’s advisors also believe.

Sergei Karaganov, one of Russia’s most notable international relations experts, said that he did not expect Europe to stop its decline for at least a decade since, in his view, a new generation of European leaders was needed to take charge and fundamentally chane their nations’ policies. This is why he advocated that Russians focus on building deeper ties with Asia and Eurasia, which he believed would eventually make Russia a more attractive partner for Europeans.

Meanwhile, prominent U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer warned that NATO and transatlantic ties faced long-term decline if Europeans, as he expected, do not help the United States balance against China. He expects Europeans to instead prioritize their own trade and other economic ties. As other speakers noted, these will likely deepen as China builds its Silk Road Economic Belt connecting Europe and China through Eurasia.

Trump has stated that he would pursue a much tougher negotiating stance with China; and might concerned if Europeans fail to support Washington’s tougher policies towards China. One Chinese speaker described his country as having become a major stakeholder in European stability and prosperity, given Europe’s status as China’s primary economic partner. However, he lamented that Europeans cannot get their act together on economic policy, immigration, and other issues.

Still, one prominent European speaker what they saw as the end of Pax Americana as forcing Europeans to come together and solve their own problems.

Editor’s Note: About the Valdai Conference

The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.

The Club aims to promote dialogue of Russian and international intellectual elites and to deliver independent objective scholarly analysis of political, economic, and social developments in Russia and the world.

The intellectual potential of the Valdai Discussion Club is highly regarded both in Russia and abroad. More than 1,000 representatives of the international scholarly community from 63 countries have taken part in the Club’s work. They include professors from major world universities and think tanks, including Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Stanford, Carleton Universities, the University of London, Cairo University, the University of Tehran, East China University, the University of Tokyo, Tel Aviv University, the University of Messina, Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Economics, King’s College London, Sciences Po and the Sorbonne.

The Valdai Club’s regional programmes, the Asian, Mid-Eastern and Euro-Atlantic Dialogues, have drawn considerable attention from the international expert community. The Club holds a special session at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The Club’s meetings have been attended by many leading politicians, experts, public figures and cultural figures from Russia and other countries. Russian participants have included Sergei Ivanov, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office (2011-2016); Vyacheslav Volodin, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office; Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister (attended as President of Russia in 2008–2012); Igor Shuvalov, First Deputy Prime Minister; Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Sergei Shoigu, Defence Minister; Sergei Sobyanin, Mayor of Moscow, and others. Foreign guests have included Wolfgang Schьssel, Chancellor of Austria (2000–2007); Romano Prodi, Prime Minister of Italy (1996–1998, 2006–2008); Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of France (2005–2007); Mustafa Barghouti, General Secretary of the Palestine National Initiative; Volker Rьhe, German Defence Minister (1992–1998); Franзois Fillon, Prime Minister of France (2007–2012); Krzysztof Zanussi, Polish film and theatre director and producer; Shlomo Ben Ami, Israeli Foreign Minister (2000–2001) and Security Minister (1999–2001); Franco Frattini, Italian Foreign Minister (2008–2011); Robert Skidelsky, Member of the British House of Lords; Jбn Čarnogurskэ, Prime Minister of Slovakia (1991–1992); Vбclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic (2003–2013) and many others.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with the participants of the Valdai Club’s annual meetings every year since its founding.

In 2014 the Club moved away from the format of “telling the world about Russia” to practical work aimed at forming the global agenda and delivering a qualified and objective assessment of global political and economic issues. One of its main objectives is to promote dialogue within the global intellectual elite in order to find solutions to overcome the current global crisis.

The Club actively collaborates with opinion makers across various fields, including international relations, global politics, economics, security, energy, sociology, communications, and so on.

The non-profit Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2011 with a view to expanding its activities to new areas, including research and outreach work, regional and thematic programmes. In 2014 the Foundation assumed all responsibility for management of the Club’s projects. 

The Foundation’s founders are the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy (CFDP), non-profit partnership Russian International Affairs Council, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MGIMO), and the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).

The Board of the Foundation is responsible for the Foundation’s affairs. The Board is chaired by Andrey Bystritskiy, renowned Russian media manager, author of articles and publications, and media and communications researcher. Fyodor Lukyanov, well-known Russian international relations and foreign affairs expert and editor-in-chief of the “Russia in Global Affairs” journal, is the Academic Director of the Foundation. The Foundation’s day-to-day operations are managed by Executive Director Nadezhda Lavrentieva, Honoured Economist of the Russian Federation, and former top manager at major Russian media outlets.

http://valdaiclub.com/about/valdai/

 

 

President Trump and the Way Ahead on Defense: The Perspectives of Secretary Wynne

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/09/2016

2016-11-09

With the election of President Trump, a key question is how he will pursue national security and how he will shape American defense capabilities in the period ahead.

He has clearly indicated that he does not want to send the US military on ill defined operations with questionable strategic purpose; he has indicated the need for shaping a more effective and targeted strategic policy.

With regard to what President Trump will do in defense, we will republish two recent op-eds by Secretary Michael Wynne with regard to a possible way ahead to provide some specifics on how things might change.

The first op-ed appeared on Breaking Defense and the second on Florida Today.

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/the-case-for-donald-trump-on-national-defense/

After eight years of reckless cuts to national defense, discarded “red lines”, emboldened competitors, and discouraged allies, the American people are ready for a new direction in Washington. The time has come for not just a different approach, but a fundamental rethinking of what it takes to keep the United States safe and to advance our national interests, in short, to make America great again in the eyes of the world. In all of the military domains — ground, marine, air, space, and cyberspace — we need to restore US leadership.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have not shown interest in appropriately resourcing our military, with the president presiding over hundreds of billions in dollars in cuts to national defense, an unprecedented readiness crisis, and the shrinking of our military to near historic lows. As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has failed to discuss our national defense at all, refusing to address a subject that will, perhaps more than any other, shape the next Commander-in-Chief’s options on the world stage.

President Elect Trump delivering his victory speech at the New York Hilton, November 9, 2016.
President Elect Trump delivering his victory speech at the New York Hilton, November 9, 2016.

By contrast, Donald Trump has laid out a comprehensive, detailed, and forward-looking vision for the future of the American military. It is predicated on “peace through strength” and a sober appraisal of US national interests. Mr. Trump understands that, without a revitalized and strengthened military, the ability to shape events globally to our advantage is substantially diminished. He understands the crisis our military is facing, both now and long-term if current trends persist, and has vowed at nearly every campaign stop to make rebuilding our military a national project.

The facts are clear and disturbing. Under the Obama administration, the Navy has shrunk to its smallest size since World War I. The Army is the smallest it has been since before World War II. The Air Force is the smallest in its history, and its aircraft are the oldest. Readiness levels across the services are the worst in a generation, with pilots facing significantly reduced cockpit time and deferring critical maintenance, Navy ships and crews deploying as long as 10 months, and Army units are deferring critical training before deployments. The horror story of naval aviators taking spare aircraft parts from museums to keep their planes flying is simply unacceptable for those who wear our nation’s uniform.

Donald Trump’s agenda for the first 100 days of his presidency includes working with Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to repeal defense sequestration. Without this essential step, our military will continue to struggle to plan strategically and resources will be misallocated. He has correctly identified it as the source of so many of our national defense problems, and only by eliminating the sequester can we begin moving in the right direction.

Mr. Trump has called for building toward a 350-ship Navy, a recommendation echoed by the bipartisan, high-level National Defense Panel. He has spoken of his desire to rebuild our surface fleet and undersea capabilities, and to continue investment in the DDG-51 Flight III guided missile destroyer. Further, he has called for modernizing a significant number of the Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers, which the Obama Administration has unsuccessfully tried to dismantle and then refused to seriously modernize. Both our cruisers and the Flight III of DDG-51 are essential to the comprehensive ballistic missile defense system Mr. Trump has proposed, which is critical given the growing missile capabilities of North Korea and Iran.

Mr. Trump has adopted the recommendations of respected defense thinkers at the Heritage Foundation to increase the Air Force’s active fighter inventory to 1,200 and to grow the Marine Corps from 27 to 36 battalions. The Air Force is facing growing challenges as Russia and China invest in new, fifth-generation aircraft. He sees that parity in the Air is unacceptable, and must be rejected as a policy. The Marine Corps, after 15 years of constant ground warfare, is desperately in need of recapitalization.

Under the Trump plan, the Army will grow from 490,000 soldiers today to an active end-strength of 540,00, the number that the Army’s Chief of Staff has told Congress he requires. Given today’s threats, it is only prudent to bring the Army’s force structure back closer with the average of recent decades.

During President Reagan’s rebuilding of our Navy in the 1980s, the US was blessed with a truly national defense industrial base. Today, after decades of defense reductions, our defense industry is significantly smaller and concentrated in a handful of locations. The Trump plan will require a truly national effort, with a reinvestment in places like the Philadelphia Navy Yard that have a long history of service to our military, room for expansion, and proximity to vibrant private industry. Utilizing these assets will relieve stress on our already over-burdened industrial base and facilitate the expansion Mr. Trump envisions.

For example, there exists a real need to invest in the skilled civilian craftsmen who build and repair our Navy’s ships. Just like career military officers receive continuing professional education as they progress toward the pinnacle of their careers, these craftsmen require additional investment in their skills as they approach the “master craftsman” level. To that end, Mr. Trump will establish “centers of excellence” in places like Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Hampton Roads in Virginia; and the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Only by harnessing all of our nation’s capabilities can we truly rebuild the military.

The choice on November 8th is clear. China and Russia are rapidly modernizing their militaries and their cyber abilities. Iran and North Korea are on track to obtain nuclear weapons with sophisticated ballistic missile capabilities. ISIS and other Islamist terror organizations remain serious threats. The United States military must be readied to meet each of these challenges, and only Donald Trump has proposed a serious plan to do so. Our country and the world simply cannot afford another four years of military and national decline.

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/opinion/columnists/guest-columns/2016/11/03/trumps-national-security-plans-best-space-coast/93236868/

Florida is home to over 1.5 million veterans, with a significant number residing here along the Space Coast.

Our veterans know firsthand the challenges facing our military and understand the need for strong, decisive leadership from our commander-in-chief.

Unfortunately, over the last eight years, the United States has been lacking the leadership we need to keep our country safe and advance our interests around the world. Though our military remains stalwart, it is seriously stretched.

Under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Russia and China are emphasizing their military and cyber capabilities while acting increasingly assertive in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. Iran and North Korea are advancing toward nuclear weapons with sophisticated ballistic missile capabilities. And ISIS and other Islamist extremists now pose a serious threat to Western Europe and even the U.S. homeland.

Yet while these dangers have mounted, the Obama administration has presided over record declines in our military capacity and capability. The Air Force is the smallest and oldest it has ever been. The Army is the smallest since before World War II.

And the Navy is the smallest since World War I. Under sequestration, our services are experiencing the worst readiness crisis in over a generation, with training hours curtailed, maintenance on aircraft and vehicles deferred, and some pilots even forced to take spare parts for their planes from museums. Frankly, our serving Military deserves more.

Donald Trump has proposed the most significant investment in national defense since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has been completely silent on the crisis facing our military.

The Trump plan, which was endorsed by 35 of the country’s leading defense experts, calls for immediately working with Congress, on a bipartisan basis, to remove sequestration from defense so our services can get the stability they need. Under a Trump presidency, our men and women in uniform will never be sent into harm’s way without the training and equipment they need to be successful and return home safely.

Under Mr. Trump’s plan, the Air Force will grow to 1,200 fighter aircraft, which an independent analysis says is required to meet today’s threats. The Air Force’s next generation bomber, emerging right here in Brevard is very high on the agenda. The Army will expand from 490,000 active soldiers to 540,000, the number the Army’s chief of staff says he needs. The Navy will grow to 350 ships from 272 today, as recommended by the bipartisan National Defense Panel. And the Marine Corps, in need of urgent recapitalization after fifteen years of protracted ground combat, will expand from 27 to 36 battalions.

Florida, and the Space Coast, will play a major role in Mr. Trump’s defense agenda. This includes protecting our nation’s satellites, and readying formidable replacements as we prepare to protect our leadership position in space. He has proposed a comprehensive missile defense system, involving our Navy’s cruisers and space-based early warning and detection capabilities to counter growing missile threats. The Air Force’s Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base will be an important part of protecting our nation from Weapons of Mass Destruction challenges.

Mr. Trump clearly recognizes the challenges facing our country in outer space, given the investments being made by potential competitors like Russia and China in anti-satellite weapons and hypersonic missiles than can overwhelm traditional missile defense systems. The United States cannot fall behind in emerging technologies like hypersonics, and the men and women of the Space Coast’s aerospace industry will be on the front lines of this effort. Mr. Trump has committed to sustaining the type of investment our aerospace sector needs through real public-private partnerships that will produce the technologies of the future.

Under a Trump Administration, NASA will regain its critical role as a leader in outer space research and innovation while the private sector partners keep innovating. With the right policies, this region is on the cusp of becoming a center of advanced aerospace manufacturing, providing new, high-paying jobs, whether in Titusville or the Melbourne area.

Donald Trump’s vision for national security is based on strength, at home and abroad. By rebuilding our military and investing to restore American leadership in the Space domain, Mr. Trump has found the right ingredients to ensure peace abroad and prosperity at home.

The people of the Space Coast, and across the United States, have a clear choice on November 8.

 

The Third Wave: Donald Trump as President Elect

Posted on | by Robbin Laird

2016-11-09 By Robbin Laird

In an historic election, the American people of chosen Donald Trump as there President.

To say that there is shock in the media and among the Inside the Beltway folks would be to put it mildly.

I remember walking into the Pentagon after Reagan became President to find virtually ever office empty of political appointees.

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The President fired everyone before appointing his own. I would assume we could see something similar across the board.

Earlier this year (June 12, 2016), I wrote a piece asking the question of what this election was most like in American history.

And I am going to reprint it here for it identifies how fundamental a shift we are talking about, and would suggest that of the two options, the second one is the most likely, namely the progressive movement which played out in the late 19th century happening again in the wake of the election of President Trump.

This year’s presidential election is unusual.

But what do we get from The Washington Post?

This sort of thing:

How does Donald Trump stack up against American literature’s fictional dictators? Pretty well, actually.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2016/06/09/how-does-donald-trump-stack-up-against-american-literatures-fictional-dictators-pretty-well-actually/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory#

Or this:

Clinton and Trump are primed, but the voters are . . . perplexed

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-and-trump-clinch-but-the-voters-are–perplexed/2016/06/11/f882de2e-2f29-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_campaignamerica-4pm1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Ok let us help The Washington Post become less perplexed.

One candidate came completely from outside the normal political process to be in the position to be nominated as the candidate of the Republican Party.

Most of the press analysis has really focused on what they do not like about Mr. Trump, but miss the core point that the establishment was overwhelmed by popular support for Mr, Trump.

At a minimum, this would make him the anti-establishment candidate, and certainly one many Republican leaders are, at best, ambivalent about.

And for the Inside the Beltway High Priests, whether journalists or PhDs or former think tankers who are really simply former staffers waiting for their next job, Trump is an anathema – he is NOT one of them and they really do not know him and he reflects concerns which are not theirs.

The establishment candidate will by Hillary Clinton who made one of the most amazing comments during the campaign when she argued that as a woman she could not be part of the establishment.

This might have been true 30 years ago, but wake up Hillary and look the world in 2016! There could not be any more establishment a candidate than you are.

Which explains why a marginal candidate like Senator Sanders could mount a surprisingly effective candidate against a well-backed, well-funded and establishment orchestrated candidate like HRC.

If you put Trump and Sanders together one realizes that a strong majority of voters in the primaries voted AGAINST the political establishment.

That is the real story of 2016 and even if HRC becomes President the revolt will continue and perhaps accelerate.

This year’s campaign could well be the third wave election in American history.

The first wave was the collapse of the Democratic Party in the 1850s in front of the slavery challenge.  Lincoln challenged the the political establishment and came to power as the country faced Civil War.  The political process was reestablished after the Civil War but was very different from before.

The second wave was the progressive revolt of the 1890s against the corrupt political parties and the role of Theodore Roosevelt in challenging the political order and generating a process of change was significant.  The parties changed again as the political process was clearly ruptured.

With significant political upheaval on the left and right and significant unhappiness with the current political parties, we could easily be witnessing a significant turning point when the ability of the political elites to ignore fundamental concerns of the publics will lead to a restructuring of the political system.

Trump clearly poses that challenge and HRC will seek to rally the forces of the establishment to defend the current structure of government.

There has been no better symbolism of pushing government down the throats of Americans than Obamacare and after all HRC was the original Obamacare advocate before Obama.

A Trump election will be a significant input to a process of change not only Inside the Beltway but within U.S. national politics.

I am asked by many Europeans to explain the Trump phenomenon to them for if they simply read the main stream media there would no way to actually understand what the dynamic is all about.

I usually refer them to Milo Yiannopoulos and this interview with Dave Rubin:

The 2016 Presidential Election: The Third Wave?

 

 

Visiting RAF Lossiemouth: The RAF Shapes a Way Ahead

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/08/2016

2016-11-08 By Robbin Laird

In April and June 2016, I had a chance to visit RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland and to talk with the base commander, and several officers involved with the combat operations and logistical support for the aircraft operating from the base.

As such, the interviews provide a slice of current activities and preparation for the transition associated with the evolution of the RAF combat aircraft, including the coming of the P-8.

According to the RAF Lossiemouth website:

RAF Lossiemouth has entered another significant period of its history. The Station remains an important fast jet main operating base within the Royal Air Force, with both Tornado and Typhoon squadrons based here.

RAF Lossiemouth remains the home to the Tornado GR4 Operational Conversion Unit, XV (Reserve) Squadron, who train all Pilots and Weapons Systems Operators to operate the Tornado GR4.

During the summer of 2014 two Typhoon squadrons, 6 Squadron and 1 (Fighter) Squadron, relocated to RAF Lossiemouth. The Station’s third Typhoon squadron, II(Army Co-operation) Squadron relocated from RAF Marham in early 2015.

lossiemouth-raf-8

As part of the changes, the Station assumed Quick Reaction Alert (Interceptor) North (QRA(I)N) duties from September 2014. RAF Lossiemouth is now primarily responsible for maintaining QRA(I)N – providing crews and aircraft at high states of readiness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to police UK airspace and to intercept unidentified aircraft.

Additional units at RAF Lossiemouth include No 5 Force Protection Wing of the RAF Regiment. 5 Force Protection Wing includes a regular field squadron, 51 Squadron RAF Regiment, and a reserve squadron, 2622 Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment.

RAF Lossiemouth currently is a Typhoon and Tornado base, but with the Tornados to be phased out within the next few years, the Typhoons will be joined by the P-8, which will  operate as well from Lossie.

This provides the opportunity to integrate the Typhoons with P-8s with the F-35s, which will initially operate off shore from the new carriers or, in other words, shaping a offensive and defensive enterprise to protect the homeland and to anchor the defense of the Northern NATO countries.

In effect, Lossie will train to support the formation and evolution of a 21st century combat force in which a multi-mission combat fleet of Typhoons will work with the maritime-focused but land-based capable maritime combat system which is the P-8 (which will be based at RAF Lossiemouth), and which, in turn, will work with the multi-tasking flying combat system which is the F-35 which will be based at RAF Marham.

Typhoons from RAF Lossiemouth are currently in Estonia as part of a Nato peacekeeping mission. Credit: RAF
Typhoons from RAF Lossiemouth seen in Estonia as part of a Nato peacekeeping mission. Credit: RAF

It is clear that the base is well positioned to support the evolving dynamics of defense, not only for the UK homeland, but to provide a solid anchor within the defense system for the North Atlantic.

In this series, the 10 interviews will be published in turn and then a Special Report drawing together the various interviews with an overview published at the end of the series.

In that Special Report, the transitions at RAF Waddington and RAF Marham will be discussed as well with regard to the changing infrastructure to support 21st Century air operations from the United Kingdom.

We will include as well a discussion of RAF Lakenheath, and a look at how the USAF transition can provide for enhanced synergy with the US and other allied air forces transitions as well.

A Tornado GR4 aircraft of 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force made famous by the Dambusters, flies high over it's parent station of RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. The Tornado GR4 is a variable geometry, two-seat, day or night, all-weather attack aircraft, capable of delivering a wide variety of weapons. Powered by two Rolls-Royce RB 199 Mk 103 turbofan engines, the GR4 is capable of low-level supersonic flight and can sustain a high subsonic cruise speed. The aircraft can fly automatically at low level using terrain-following radar when poor weather prevents visual flight. The aircraft is also equipped with forward-looking infrared and is night-vision goggle compatible, making it a capable platform for passive night operations. For navigation purposes, the Tornado is equipped with an integrated global positioning inertial navigation system that can also be updated with visual or radar inputs. The GR4 is also equipped with a Laser Ranger and Marked Target Seeker system that can be used for ground designation or can provide accurate range information on ground targets.
A Tornado GR4 aircraft flies high over it’s parent station of RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. Credit: Wikipedia

We will start with the first interview with Group Captain Paul Godfrey, the base commander with regard to his perspective concerning the evolution of the base in preparing for the RAF airpower transition.

We will then present interviews, which look at the coming retirement of the Tornado, its legacy and its contribution to the transition as well.

We will then look at the Typhoon and its key role for the RAF, in Quick Reaction Alerts, Operation Shader and in the Baltic Air Patrol.

Insights are provided by interviews with the 1 (F) Squadron, 2 (AC) Squadron, and those charged with the responsibility of maintaining and supporting the Typhoon fleet at Lossie and in its expeditionary operations, which include deployments to the Falklands as well.

We will then publish an interview with an officer involved in keeping the skill sets alive while waiting for the P-8, which highlights how the RAF is handling a very difficult transition, namely. the retirement of the Nimrod PRIOR to receiving a replacement aircraft,.

We will then close the series from RAF Lossiemouth with the second interview with Group Captain Paul Godfrey, who will highlight the challenges and opportunities of shaping RAF transformation as seen from a key operating base for the RAF.

Putin’s Syrian Policy: “We need to Fight the Terrorists: There is No Alternative.”

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/07/2016

2016-11-07 By Richard Weitz

At this writing, a Russian naval battle group is assembling in the East Mediterranean off Syria’s coast. It includes Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is now making its first combat mission following years of repair and modernization.

The small carrier carries four Su-33 fighter jets, 10 MiG-29K/KUB ground-attack planes and a dozen Ka-52 attack helicopters; these planes are armed with various air-to-surface missiles.

Along with some smaller surface vessels, several submarines equipped with Kalibr long-range land cruise missiles accompany the Kutnetsov. The recently launched Admiral Grigorovich frigate, armed with the same land-attack missiles, will join the battle group from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The flotilla’s tactical mission is to provide maritime naval and air power in support of Assad’s ground offensive in the Aleppo city region and perhaps in the greater Damascus area and elsewhere.

The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. Photograph: STR/AP
The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. Photograph: STR/AP

Yet, the strategic goals of the deployment are more important, since the Russian Air Force and Caspian Sea Flotilla can already provide comparable air and naval missile strikes against targets in Syria.

These strategic goals include exhibiting Russia’s naval power to foreign observers, ideally to generate more foreign arms sales, strengthening Russia’s image as a naval power, and compel the United States and other Western governments to negotiate with Russia and Syria on other issues.

At the Valdai Conference, former Russian ambassador and regional expert Alexander Aksenyonok introduced the panel on the Middle East by calling the situation increasingly confusing and lamenting how entire civilizations in this region were being destroyed. Aksenyonok hoped that the imperative of cooperation would override the competitive geopolitical dynamics dividing Russia from its Western partners.

Other Russian speakers at Valdai claimed that the region’s instability, designed to appear as an internally driven reform process, is actually being geopolitically engineered by the West in support of a campaign to overthrow undesired regimes there.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Putin, and other Russian speakers maintained that the Western-led coups and the destabilization of existing regimes has created vacuums that terrorists, allegedly backed by the United States and its allies as instruments of regime change, rushed to fill.

In Putin’s words: “Attempts were made to train these terrorists and set them against al-Assad, because there were no other options and these groups were the most effective.

This continues today because these are the most effective fighting units and some think that it is possible to make use of them and then sort them out later. But this is an illusion. …

This is a very dangerous game and I address the players once again: The extremists in this case are more cunning, clever and stronger than you, and if you play these games with them, you will always lose.”

Bogdanov said this issue stymied Russia-U.S. cooperation in Syria. He related that, following U.S. criticism that the Russian Air Force was attacking both pro-Western insurgents and terrorists, the Russian military asked Washington for the location of the moderate forces. After months of back and forth, Moscow realized the problem was that the U.S.-backed forces were co-located with the extremist groups.

Given this situation, the Russian officials asked the Americans to separate the groups, which they agreed to do.

But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that Washington had proven unable, or unwilling, to fulfill these pledges to Moscow.

In Putin’s assessment, “There were people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.”

However, the Russians at the conference now viewed the West as experiencing a devastating blowback from terrorist attacks in many European cities. Bogdanov read from a long list of terrorist attacks in European and other countries. “Looking at the world as a whole,” Putin added, “there are some results in particular regions and locations, but there is no global result and the terrorist threat continues to grow.”

The Russian navy’s frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, on its way to the Mediterranean. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters
The Russian navy’s frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, on its way to the Mediterranean. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

The Russian officials also believed their countermeasures in Syria and elsewhere made the West understand that it could not isolate Russia in the region. For this reason, Putin, Lavrov, and other Russian representatives renewed their offer of some kind of grand bargain in which Moscow and the West would set aside their differences and form a global coalition against terrorism.

Donald Trump has endorsed, in principle the Russian proposal. However, Hillary Clinton’s advisers, including some at Valdai, insisted that the United States could never support Assad, that the Russian and Syrian forces were deliberately attacking pro-Western insurgents and civilians using saturation bombing, and that Moscow’s policies in Ukraine and other places also had to change.

Both the Iranian and Turkish speakers at Valdai supported the grand coalition idea. Mehdi Sanaei, the Iranian Ambassador to Russia, believed the Middle East’s instability reflected the general transformation from a unipolar to a multipolar world. Due to this transition, the United States either could not prevent regional instability or fanned it as a means of sustaining its primacy by dividing potential rivals.

He argued that the United States and its allies needed to reverse course, respect the national sovereignty of other countries, and cooperate with Russia and China to manage terrorism and other mutual threats.

Former Turkish Foreign Minister Yaşar Yakış essentially apologized to the audience for the current Turkish government’s misguided policies towards the Syrian conflict. In his evaluation, Ankara mistakenly assumed Bashar Al Assad’s regime would soon fail. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, descended from the Muslim Brotherhood, saw an opportunity to establish a likeminded regime in Syria. Turkey therefore armed rebel groups to remove Assad despite growing evidence that extremists were assuming control of the insurgency.

According to Yakış, the Turkish government only recently changed its goals to now prioritize maintaining Syria’s territorial integrity by fighting the Kurdish militia in Syria, leaving the defeat of ISIS there to Russia and other foreign forces. Turkey’s recent Operation Euphrates Shield offensive sought to clear the Kurdish PYD (which he described as a re-formation of the outlawed Kurdish PKK terrorist group) away from Turkey’s border.

With a stretch of logical and overlooking divisive factors among them, Yakış argued that since preserving Syria’s territorial integrity has now become a shared goal among the United States, Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government, there is now a “golden opportunity” for international cooperation regarding Syria.

The Russian speakers bristled at the Western criticism of the large number of civilian casualties caused by the Russian air campaign in Syria. They saw these complaints as hypocritical, given the numerous civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern war zones.

They also blamed the West for failing to fulfill the requirements for a ceasefire, namely the separation of civilians and moderates from the extremist Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda affiliated; now called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), which at times the Russian speakers described as a more serious threat than ISIS, at least in Syria.

Putin made it clear that Russia would persist in its air strikes, which have been temporarily halted pending arrival of the flotilla, regardless of the civilian casualties:

“Do we leave the nest of terrorists in place there, or do we squeeze them out, doing our best to minimize and avoid civilian casualties? …

Look at Israel’s example. Israel never steps back but always fights to the end, and this is how it survives.

There is no alternative.

We need to fight.

If we keep retreating, we will always lose.”

The author would like to thank Lance Alred for his research assistance for this article.

Visiting the Eurofighter Squadron at Albacete, Air Base, Spain

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/06/2016

2016-11-06  On November 2, 2016, Second Line of Defense visited the Spanish Eurofighter squadron based at Albacete, Air Base in Spain.

During the visit our hosts, Captains Antonio Duque Polo and Sergio Martinez Pėrez provided us an overview on Eurofighter, their recent deployment to Lithuania and the support structure on base for the Eurofighter as well.

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We will provide our interviews and analyses in future articles.

In this article, we are focused upon the photos, which we took that day and associated narrative for the visit associated with the photos.

In an article published on January 11, 2016 by the Spanish Air Force, the deployment earlier this year to the Baltics, which involved our hosts, was described.

On January 4, four Eurofighter planes took off from Albacete Air Base with Siauliai in Lithuania as their destination. Their aim was to join the VILKAS detachment and therefore carry out surveillance missions of the air space of the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In this way, NATOs commitment to the carrying out of air policing in the Baltic has been continued.

Spanish Eurofighters leaving Albacete Air Base for the Baltic, January 2010. Credit: Spanish Air Force
Spanish Eurofighters leaving Albacete Air Base for the Baltic, January 2016. Credit: Spanish Air Force

After four hours of flight and the re-fuelling of an Italian KC-767 in German airspace, the aircraft arrived without stopovers and without event at Siauliai. Following the relief of the previous nation Hungary, the first alert service was in place within days. Ahead, there are four months of air policing in the Baltic, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Head of Force Juan Antonio Ballesta Miñarro.

The 14th Wing will act as the lead nation of the assets deployed in the Baltic; specifically, of the Belgian F-16s stationed at Amari, Estonia.

Deployment of VILKAS Detachment Personnel

On January 3, the act of bidding farewell to the first relief of the Air Force personnel that will form part of the VILKAS detachment, within the framework of Operation Baltic Air Policing, took place at Albacete Air Base.

The contingent is made up of 105 military personnel, as well as one other staff member, and it belongs mainly to the 14th Wing. It will unite with those that left from Spain with Siauliai Air Base, Lithuania, as their destination on December 27. The objective was to reach full operative capacity on January 8.

This is the third time that the Air Force has participated in this mission. From August 1 to November 30 2006, it did so from Lithuania and as the lead nation, with four C.14 Mirage F-1s from the 14th Wing. Later, from January 1 to May 4 2015, and with four C.16 Eurofighters from the 11th Wing, they carried out operations from Amari Air Base, Estonia. The Eurofighters from the 14th Wing will lead the missions during the first quarter of 2016: this time from Lithuania.

In total, approximately 230 personnel will form part of the detachment in the four months that the mission will last. Half way through it, a relief of crews, controllers, health workers and maintenance staff will take place.

The event was presided over by the Chief of Staff of Air Combat Command, Division General César Miguel Simón López, on behalf of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Air General Francisco Javier García Arnaiz. General Simón, who was accompanied by the Head of the 14th Wing and Albacete Air Base, Colonel Julio Nieto Sampayo, offered Christmas greetings to the members of the contingent and their families in the name of the Chief of Staff. He also expressed the wish that the detachment´s tasks will pass without event. Echoing the recent words of the President of the government, the general also reminded the attendant personnel that they are the “best ambassadors for Spain” outside of our borders.

Baltic Air Policing

“Baltic Air Policing” is a NATO mission framed within the principle of collective defence. It has as its aim the protection of the air space of the Baltic countries that lack their own resources to carry out air policing tasks.

(Also see, https://sldinfo.com/spain-takes-over-air-policing-mission-in-baltic-states/).

In our slideshow (photos credit to Chloe Laird, Second Line of Defense) we highlight a number of points during the visit.

Upon entering the base, the most recent historical aircraft flown by the squadron greet visitors. The next photos show our hosts Captains Antonio Duque Polo and Sergio Martinez Pėrez during the interviews.

We next walked to the Eurofighter simulator at the base where training is facilitated by time in an artificial intelligence environment. Duque is seen in the simulator as well as the SLD photographer and translator on the visit, Chloe Laird, currently studying in Spain in nearby Valencia.

We then went to the maintenance facilities where we had a chance to look at some second order maintenance on the engines and discuss with the crew chief the approach to maintenance of the engines. The Eurofighter engines are a solid achievement on the aircraft; because it is a modular engine, many of the repairs are done on base, but bench testing of engines is done at the Moron airbase. The Albacete air base is hoping to receive its own capability to bench test on base so that engines do not need to be sent to Moron for bench testing.

We then visited a maintenance hanger where Eurofighters were being worked on, including a two seat version of the aircraft.

We then crossed over to a hardened hanger where the latest two seat Eurofighter arrived, and is the latest software configured Eurofighter, namely, the version being flown by the RAF in the Middle East, which the RAF refers to as Operation Shader ready aircraft.

https://sldinfo.com/operation-shader-as-a-driver-for-change-in-the-raf-typhoon-fleet-the-perspective-of-wing-commander-peters-oc-engineering-and-logistics-wing/

Because the simulator has not yet been upgraded to the latest version of software, training for this version is being done on this upgraded two seat aircraft on base.

And finally, on the way from the maintenance bays to the hardened hanger, we saw a Spanish Eurofighter in the process of landing at the base.

For Operation Shader, the RAF operates a version of Typhoon which they refer to as P1Eb. According to the RAF officer we discussed this modification with at RAF Lossiemouth, “P1 EB is a software upgrade, with minor hardware changes.”

According to November 27, 2014 article published on the RAF website:

“P1Eb is predominantly an air to ground capability upgrade; it provides enhancements to the Litening III Laser Designator Pod (LDP) and Helmet Equipment Assembly (HEA) (helmet mounted sight) integration, as well as with Paveway IV.

The LDP can now also be used seamlessly with the HEA to visually identify air tracks at long range, as well as identifying, tracking and targeting points on the ground.”

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/first-paveway-iv-release-for-raf-typhoons-at-raf-lossiemouth-27112014

The Spanish are bringing a similar capability to their Eurofighters.

Earlier this year, the Spanish Air Force fired their first Paveway weapons from their Eurofighters.

A test team from the Air Force´s Arms and Experimentation Logistical Centre (CLAEX) has successfully carried out the first launch of an EGBU-16 (GBU-48) bomb from a Tranche-2 C.16.

The launch was carried out during the week of June 20 – 24 in the waters of the Gulf of Cadiz, and with the support of the CLAEX “El Arenosillo” experimentation centre.  This was after the target was identified, a guided launch was performed by GPS signal, and laser illumination was used during the terminal phase by means of a “pod litening-III,” installed on the aircraft. 

This event means that a significant increase in the air-ground capabilities of the  C.16 fleet has been certified, and this permits the execution of high precision, totally autonomous, “any time” attacks.  Moreover, the arms employed will enable the C.16 to carry out simultaneous offensives against several ground targets.

In combination with the evaluation of the integration of the air-ground arms, the launch of the first  Iris-T in digital mode, executed from Tranche-2 C.16 aircraft, was also performed.  In consequence, in the very near future this capability will be available for the Air Force´s entire Eurofighter fleet, and the use of the arms system for other users is also brought forward.  This follows on from the previous integration carried out by CLAEX for Tranche-1 aircraft, verified in 2015.

Spanish Eurofighter in GBU-48 tests. Credit: Spanish Air Force.
Spanish Eurofighter in GBU-48 tests. Credit: Spanish Air Force.

These achievements demonstrate the strong will of the Air Force to maximize the capabilities of the C.16 arms system in the shortest time possible.  They bring forward the entry into service of the Tranche-2 planes with new capabilities – aircraft that have been developed by means of an international programme and the parallel implementation of organic improvements made to the Tranche-1 aircraft.

Albacete, Air Base is also playing a key role in enhancing Eurofighter integration as well.

Four nations (Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) of the European Air Group (EAG) conducted a multinational exercise, VOLCANEX Eurofighter Typhoon Interoperability Project (ETIP) LIVEX 15, from 14 – 18 September at Albacete Air Base (Spain).

The aim was to strengthen Eurofighter/Typhoon interoperability and standardization between the EAG nations through the use of common Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), and to familiarize ground crews on other nations AGE (Aircraft Ground Equipment) ,“Turn around” and QRA procedures. 

The key to success in multinational operations is a common understanding and efficient coordination and communications between nations of what to do and how to do it.

The EAG, consisting of the Air Forces of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom, seeks to improve the operational capabilities of the Parties’ Air Forces to carry out operations in pursuit of shared interests.

One way of achieving this goal is by developing common doctrines and procedures. VOLCANEX is the European Air Group’s name for current and future multinational exercises on which it seeks to refine and validate its developed products and procedures.

http://www.euroairgroup.org/project/volcanexdobex-livex-2016-2/

During a visit to the European Air Group at High Wycombe earlier this year, we discussed the approach with officers of the EAG involved in the effort.

https://sldinfo.com/the-european-air-group-and-typhoon-integration-shaping-a-way-ahead-for-more-effective-operational-impacts/

But now that we operate more together, we need clear common operating procedures, notably with regard to maintenance of the aircraft.

 In turn, this drives a wedge in common modernization which needs to be done with the broader fleet.”

 The approach is based on sharing information and to get the pilots and maintainers to together to share experiences and to shape common standards.

And from our visit to Albacete, it is clear that shared information among the partners is important as well in operations such as the Baltic Air Patrol as well.