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Economics, politics and global threats are reinforcing a shift away from the globalism of the past thirty years and posing the possibility of a new phase of global development, in which nationalism returns as a clearer definer of the way ahead for the global system.
It has been more than six years since the Lehman collapse in September, 2008, and the start of the Great Financial Crisis.
That crisis had debilitating effects on both advanced and emerging market economies. For almost six decades prior to the Lehman shock the world had experienced growth in world trade at a pace roughly twice as fast as domestic growth. This enabled many economies to escape slow domestic consumption and weak government spending by turning to exports as an engine of faster growth.
The Lehman shock not only set in motion systemic challenges to the world’s banking system and financial markets. It also brought about a collapse in world trade into the longest, deepest contraction since the 1930s.
By 2010 world trade recovered to a level comparable to where it had been in August 2008.
However, this pickup was not sustained.
Instead, trade again relapsed and settled in at a far slower pace than had prevailed during the previous six decades. At close to the end of this year, it would appear world trade growth has slowed further, hovering near stagnation.
Not surprisingly, the many national economies around the world that had become dependent for growth on exports into swelling world markets found their economies had lost traction.
GDP growth slipped back to the pace of growth in domestic demand, which had been suppressed, by both inadequate consumption and investment, and negative consequences of continuing global financial market stress.
Some popular analysts pronounced the world had entered a “new normal” path of sub-2% growth, with threatening risks of slipping back into recession and renewal of systemic crises among financial institutions.
Economic growth this year did not demonstrate the recovery forecasted by public and private forecasters. Instead, what materialized in 2014 was a mix of continued minimal growth or stagnation in luckier nations and recession in others.
Global stock markets prospered this year, levitated by various extraordinary monetary measures by central banks, but the gains in wealth from trading paper assets failed to lift the economic conditions of most people. Economic policy debate increasingly turned attention to what appeared to be a long term trend of growing income inequality throughout the world.
In 2014 more and more national governments and their central banks felt growing pressure to devise measures to ease the pains of high unemployment, declining wages, rising health care costs, weakened retirement systems, and growing debt of both governments and individual families.
As it became evident that international common efforts to revive global growth had failed, and as national economic policy priorities rose, consideration of the effects of domestic policies on other economies around the world faded into the background.
Following the Lehman crisis central banks intensified cooperation with one another to stabilize world financial markets. The US Federal Reserve agreed to initiate or enlarge swap lines with a variety of other central banks among advanced and emerging market economies. The Fed also guided US federal government assistance to banks in a manner that would enable troubled European megabanks to gain substantial benefits from US Government aid to large banks and nonbank financial institutions.
The G20 Summit of 2008 was called to formalize cooperation among central banks, finance ministries, and financial regulators. Summit leaders announced creation of a new multilateral Financial Stability Board (FSB), which would undertake continuous deliberations among financial market officials of all countries.
This new consultative framework did succeed in helping most national authorities to develop common ideas on financial regulatory reforms aimed at averting new systemic financial crises.
In particular it advanced collective international discussion of new, heightened capital requirements for banks, identification of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), new attention to liquidity risks in addition to solvency risks, and need for international oversight of derivatives contracts of hundreds of trillions of dollars in scale.
However, by the time the G20 met in Brisbane mid-November this year, the failure of economic recovery to appear had changed international interaction. The scene became set for a return to economic nationalism. This was particularly evident at the Brisbane Summit, where leaders agreed action was needed to lift global economic growth, but could not agree on specific steps or new forms of international cooperation and policy coordination among them.
Expecting currency and monetary policy clashes, they could not even agree to establish multilateral mechanisms to manage differences in national trade, currency and monetary policies. They were only able to announce a purely rhetorical $2 trillion stimulus to global economic growth – an empty pledge without serious national action commitments.
Even the cohesion of the EU and the Eurozone is now being dramatically weakened as individual European governments find themselves unable to agree with each other on how to implement meaningful, synchronized fiscal and monetary actions.
They could not even agree or how to proceed with common financial market reforms such as the proposed EU Banking Union.
What started out a year ago as European teamwork to identify strengths and weaknesses of European financial institutions fell apart in efforts to defend past regulatory practices and national political objectives.
New EU/ECB bank stress tests were announced as a serious effort to gain full transparency of strengths and weaknesses of European financial institutions.
As the stress tests evolved towards the October target date for imposing common criteria for measuring the health of European banks, national priorities overwhelmed the need for common measurements of risk and valuations of bank capital. Instead, myriad parallel measures of bank health were permitted throughout Europe, with every government and every bank permitted to seek means of minimalizing exposure to non-performing assets and maximize estimations of quality capital.
The October EU and ECB stress tests once again hid the most serious vulnerabilities to systemic risk in hopes that optimistic test results would be sufficient to induce private investors to invest in banks once again and encourage banks to resume lending.
EU and ECB authorities made significant efforts to devise and impose common regulatory reforms, particularly requirements for increased bank capital relative to assets, and increased “liquidity buffers” for the biggest banks. However, ongoing disputes developed with US regulators about such questions as imposition of common platforms for trading derivatives, and common capital requirements for US and foreign banks operating in the US.
Late this year European authorities cited these disputes as an excuse for postponing for several more years tougher capital-asset ratios and liquidity buffers on European banks.
One might summarize the European financial market reform process as an intellectual exercise in devising regulatory reforms while simultaneously seeking reasons for delaying such reforms as long as possible.
Domestic political dissatisfaction with austerity fiscal policies, no growth in wages, youth unemployment extremes, out of control immigration, health care and retirement uncertainties, growing public and private debt, and a host of other national and local political issues now preoccupy politics of most national governments.
With widening public disappointment in economic conditions, domestic regional and local political dissent is now rising in many European nations.
The US Federal Reserve modified its traditional domestic bias when world markets and world financial institutions stumbled or came to near collapse during the Great Financial Crisis of recent years. To help stabilize global financial stability, the Fed arranged substantial increases in its swap lines with other central banks to help prevent a global liquidity collapse.
In some cases the swap lines became instruments of specific bank rescue, as when the Fed increased its swap line with the Swiss National Bank (SNB) in order to enable the SNB to bail out UBS bank.
The Fed also facilitated availability of US bank rescue funds like TARP to non-US banks, especially European banks. Now, however, internal Fed discussions are far more focused on the continuing slow growth in the US economy, with far less deference to concerns of Asia and Europe.
The failure of the world economy to bounce back turned attention of central banks inward to execution of national measures to levitate their own national markets.
National governments seemed politically unable to develop coherent fiscal and structural policies to revitalize their respective economies. In the absence of fiscal and structural reforms, central banks sought monetary measures that might avert or at least postpone steep economic downturn or collapse of key financial institutions.
Gradually the attention of central banks moved beyond the objective of ensuring financial market stability to stimulus of economic growth in the absence of needed fiscal and regulatory actions.The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England initiated and gradually expanded QE measures, ostensibly to prop up their banking systems. Now the US and UK extraordinary liquidity injections have come to an end, and both the BOE and Fed are refocused on domestic priorities, especially unwinding the influence of central banks on financial market behavior.
In short, the return to a more economic nationalistic stance reinforces a number of global security trends where nationalism is spurring conflict.
Economics, politics and threats are working together to shape the decade ahead for this part of the 21st century.
The post-WWII international institutions that were crafted to reduce conflicts between nations and deter forceful resolution of disputes all seem to be losing influence. In their place currency wars, resource conflicts, regulatory clashes, and assertions of sovereignty in areas of long unresolved disputes are likely to emerge.
Once again nations will meet in hopes of averting more serious physical conflicts, as they did from the time of Bretton Woods through the rest of the 20th Century.
However, in the present context of global economic stagnation and faltering national responses it will be far harder for individual governments to agree to collective action.
Working in concert now would likely entail yielding some degree of national sovereignty, including sovereignty of parliaments and the historic autonomy of the US Congress. to transnational decision bodies.
A rise of nationalism at a time when most governments are increasingly paralyzed politically by unhappy citizenries will encourage regional and global use of military force to exploit vulnerabilities of some nations relative to others.
Uncontained, rising nationalism could easily degenerate into another era of local, regional, and eventually global military confrontations.
Nigeria, long targeted as a potential customer for the Chinese/Pakistani JF-17 Thunder jet, is close to ordering one or two squadrons, according to reports from Pakistan.
IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly quoted a senior Pakistani Ministry of Defence official at the IDEAS 2014 exhibition in Pakistan as saying that Nigeria was close to signing a contract for the jets and that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has finalised its recommendations for the acquisition of 25-40 aircraft.
This comes after NAF chief Air Aarshal Adesola Nunayon Amosu visited Pakistan in October, where he toured the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) facility where the JF-17 is manufactured. Pakistan also offered Nigeria tanks, armoured personnel carriers, radio equipment and night vision equipment.
At the IDEAS 2014 exhibition, Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt said that Nigeria had expressed interest in the JF-17, reports Army Recognition.
Pakistan JF-17 combat jet. Credit: defenceWeb
In March this year Pakistani and Nigerian defence officials met and discussed defence opportunities. In addition to the JF-17, Nigeria has previously shown interest in acquiring Al-Zarrar main battle tanks, Kaan 33 fast attack craft and small arms.
Nigeria and Pakistan enjoy good defence relations, with Pakistan training Nigerian officers. Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, Malam Dauda Danladi, recently said that 120 officers attended various courses in Pakistan, with 40 currently undergoing training this year.
The JF-17 is jointly produced by the Chengdu Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAC) of China and the Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC).
The Pakistan Air Force has 50 in service and has been flying the type since 2007, although only officially inducting the aircraft in 2010. Pakistan may acquire up to 200.Pakistan and China have also been promoting the JF-17 to various countries, such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Venezuela and Turkey.Last month PAF Air Commodore Khalid Mahmood, head of JF-17 sales and marketing, said Pakistan and China were in advanced talks with ten countries to sell the JF-17. A Middle Eastern country was expected to be the first foreign client.
The FC-1 Xialong/JF-17 Thunder programme was launched in 1991 after the United States cancelled development of the Chengdu Super-7 following the 1989 Tianamen Square incident. Collaboration with Pakistan began in 1995, leading to a joint development contract in June 1999. The aircraft first flew in August 2003 and the first JF-17 squadron was inducted into the Pakistan Air Force in February 2010.
The aircraft has a design service life of 4 000 flight hours or 25 years. It can carry up to 3 600 kg (8 000 lb) of ordnance in addition to its twin-barrel 23 mm cannon. It is powered by a Russian RD-93 turbofan, a variant of the RD-33 used on the MiG-29. However, China is developing the more reliable and powerful WS-13 engine to replace the RD-93. A glass cockpit features an electronic flight instrument system with wide-angle head-up display and three colour multifunction displays.
In addition to JF-17s, the Nigerian Air Force has expressed interest in buying a squadron of Textron AirLand scorpion jets. Last month Air Vice Marshal Rufus A Ojuawo, the director of operations for the Nigerian Air Force, said the NAF wants and needs the Scorpion and that a formal request to buy could be made soon.
The NAF uses seven Mi-24 attack helicopters for counter-insurgency operations as well as 11 F-7 fighter jets, 21 L-39ZA Albatros, 12 MB-339 and 12 Alpha Jet trainer/light attack aircraft. However, the majority of these aircraft are several decades old and have been worn down by attrition. The F-7s are unable to carry precision guided air to surface weapons while the country’s ATR 72 surveillance aircraft are able to detect insurgent activity but not deploy weapons.
Ojuawo told IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly that the Air Force has obsolete equipment with low serviceability rates and that it needs a rapid response capability with concentrated firepower. He added that the NAF would shortly argue the Scorpion’s case with the government in the hope of initially buying a squadron’s worth of aircraft and possibly more in the future.
Republished with permission of our partner defenceWeb.
The Government is fast-tracking modernization of equipment with the armed forces, and it was “comforting” for the Navy to know that long-pending requirements were now being procedurally cleared.
Stating this, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Robin Dhowan told India Strategic in an interview that notwithstanding the delay in the past, various projects, particularly that of the submarines, were on the move now. The construction of six Scorpene submarines at the Mazagon Dock Ltd. (MDL) for that matter “has picked up speed” and the Navy hopes to get the first one in 2016 and the last by 2020.
He said that the construction was now being monitored at the highest level – at the Chief’s level, that is – and that “all major impediments to progress construction of the submarines have been overcome and the pace of construction has been stepped up.
“There is good news on this front, with the construction of six P-75 submarines at Mazagon Docks Ltd, Mumbai, picking up speed” and “I expect the first Scorpene submarine to be delivered by Sep 2016, and the entire Scorpene fleet by 2020.”
The six submarines under Project 75 are being built under a technology transfer agreement from the French company DCNS under a contract signed nine years ago in 2005.
MDL has set up modern facilities and hi-end computers to make all the six submarines, and DCNS has also helped the state-run Indian company in identifying Indian suppliers for progressively increasing the local content.
Indian Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Robin Dhowan. Credit: India Strategic
The last two of these submarines could be fitted with an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system being developed by Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), if found suitable. The system is under development at a DRDO facility in western India.
Submarines are required to periodically come up to the surface for air intake to recharge their batteries but an AIP unit can reduce this necessity and enable a boat to stay hidden underwater for longer durations. Timelines though depend upon capability and efficiency of these units.
Admiral Dhowan observed that the Navy has “a longer term, comprehensive and ambitious submarine building program, with a significant indigenous orientation.” The submarine arm, he stressed, is central to the Indian Navy’s capability development plan.
Notably, the Government had given clearance in 2012 for a second line of six submarines with AIP capability by issuing the procedural okay, technically called Acceptance of Necessity (AON). That is the first vital step in acquiring any platform or system for any of the three Services.
But it is only now, in November 2014, that the Government finally gave the go-ahead for their construction in Indian yards. This is being done under a program designated as Project 75 (I).
Initially, the plan was to import two submarines from the selected vendor. Now, it has been decided to make all the six boats in India as part of the Government’s efforts towards creating a defense industrial infrastructure within the country.
It may be noted that over the last couple of decades, most of India’s defense modernization plans have suffered for one reason or another, and every time the Government is nearing a decision, mostly motivated allegations spring up, triggering political and bureaucratic hesitation.
However, Admiral Dhowan said that the Government had realized the problem and that due attention was now being paid to update naval equipment. “The government is well seized of this issue, and the Indian Navy’s modernisation plans are being progressed on priority.”
Fast Tracking
“Several projects are now being fast-tracked to help make up for the lost time,” he told India Strategic.
As for the AIP-equipped submarines, he said that they will be constructed at a suitable Indian Yard in collaboration with an identified foreign collaborator under Transfer of Technology. Now that the Government has cleared the proposal, required steps to progress the case are being taken.
Said Admiral Dhowan: “This will be a substantial boost to indigenization in this critical sector. P-75(I) envisages acquisition of six state-of-the art conventional submarines with high stealth features, Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), and advanced weapons and sensors.”
DCNS Scorpene submarine. Credit: India Strategic
Tendering for this fleet should be done soon. Nonetheless, it could be years before the AIP-fitted boats are actually available to the Navy.
But he pointed out: “Considering the enormity of the project, in both technological and financial terms, it will be handled expeditiously in accordance with comprehensive guidelines.”
As for the current fleet of old Soviet and German origin submarines with the Indian Navy, Admiral Dhowan said that measures were being taken to meet the interim operational needs “by progressing a proposal for Medium Refit-cum-Life Certification program for a few of the older submarines, which will take us through till the newer submarines are inducted.”
Asked about India’s nuclear submarine program, Admiral Dhowan said that harbor trials of various equipment on board Arihant, India’s first indigenous nuclear-propelled- nuclear-armed submarine –designated SSBN in naval parlance – are over and “the submarine is being planned for sea trials.”
“I am not saying soon but very soon,” the Admiral said optimistically.
Significantly, DRDO Chief Dr Avinash Chander had told India Strategic recently that the missiles and weapon systems for Arihant were ready after due testing.
But every system on board the black vessel was being checked and rechecked by a team of nuclear scientists from the Department of Atomic Energy and DRDO that also includes well-trained officers and sailors from the Navy, who will eventually operate her far away from the shores.
Arihant was launched on July 26, 2009, and its reactor achieved criticality in August 2013.
The Indian Navy has one nuclear propelled but not nuclear armed (SSN) submarine, INS Chakra, on lease from Russia.
2014-12-03 According to a BBC news story, the Royal Navy’s first squadron of unmanned aircraft, commonly known as drones, has been formed in Cornwall.
The 700X Naval Air Squadron has been established at RNAS Culdrose, Helston, to fly the pilotless aircraft.
The Royal Navy said the establishment of the new squadron would pave the way for increased use of similar aircraft in the future.
Scan Eagle on Operations. Credit: UK MOD
The pilotless ScanEagle aircraft can stay in the air for 18 hours and beam video into a ship’s operation room.
Lt Cdr Al Rogers, commanding officer of 700X Naval Air Squadron said: “This is a fantastic job. It’s the Fleet Air Arm’s first step into the world of remotely piloted air systems and we are looking to develop our tactics and embrace this new technology ensuring the Royal Navy remains a world leader in aviation at sea – whether manned or unmanned.”
The aircraft is launched by a catapult on a 14ft (4.27m) ramp.
Since being introduced to ships deployed east of Suez at the beginning of 2014, ScanEagle has clocked up nearly 1,500 hours on missions.
It was brought in to provide eyes for the Royal Navy’s minehunting force in the Gulf, but has been used in counter-piracy and counter-smuggling operations thanks to its ability to monitor boarding operation or suspicious vessels.
The new squadron will act as parent unit for the flights deployed on Royal Navy vessels and will try out any future unmanned aircraft which the Fleet Air Arm decides to invest in.
The 700X Naval Air Squadron will be one of the smallest units in the Royal Navy with 12 personnel but that number could double by the end of 2015.
The Boeing Insitu ScanEagle is currently being flown from HMS Kent, which has just arrived in the Arabian Sea to begin counter-piracy patrols.
Last year, the Royal Navy announced its acquisition of the Scan Eagle, a plane operated by both the USN and USMC at sea.
In a story published on June 20, 2013, the Royal Navy indicated that:
The Royal Navy is to get its first unmanned ‘eye in the sky’ in a £30m deal to buy the ScanEagle reconnaissance aircraft.
The pilotless plane has been used by the US Navy over the past decade and has been trialled by the Royal Navy.
Royal Navy warships are to get their first ‘eye in the sky’ pilotless reconnaissance aircraft in a £30m deal.
Whitehall is investing in the small, unarmed ScanEagle robot planes which can be launched from the flight decks of Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels day or night to gather intelligence and survey the wider area of operations.
The aircraft has been used extensively by the Americans for the past decade – and was trialled aboard frigate HMS Sutherland back in 2006.
Now the MOD is buying the small plane to complement the existing intelligence, surveillance and econnaissance assets used on Royal Navy operations such as helicopters and long-range radar.
The small drone – the official military terminology is Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV – has a wingspan of just over three metres (10ft) and weighs 22kg (48lbs) and is launched from a pneumatic catapult.
Flying at about 60 knots, it is piloted by a specialist team on board the ship who will plan the ScanEagle’s missions, control its flights and monitor and analyse the information it gathers using its state of the art sensors, including a video or infra red camera, beaming back ‘real-time’ high resolution images via a satellite link.
For earlier pieces on Scan Eagle see the following:
2014-12-02 Our colleague Amatzia Baram has recently published a new book on Iraq.
We have interviewed Baram, a leading expert on Iraq, published an essay by him and have leveraged his work to suggest a shift in US policy towards Iraq.
His new book looks at the evolution of Iraq seen from the perspective of the impact of the work of Saddam Hussayn in the early 1980s.
The seemingly sudden resurgence of political Islam in the “Arab Spring” did not begin in 2011 nor did it start with al-Qa`ida in the 1990s. The contemporary wave of grassroots political Islam began in Iraq in the early 1980s and immediately exerted powerful influence over the policies of Saddam Husayn and his secular Ba`th regime. In a 1986 secret meeting of the Ba`th Pan-Arab Leadership headed by Michel `Aflaq, the party’s “Founding Father” (al-ab al-mu’assis), his Deputy Secretary General Saddam Husayn launched a profound revolution.
Dragging his reluctant comrades screaming and kicking he forced them to accept a truce, even a kind of alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and the Sudan, among the Ba`th most hated, feared and despised enemies. In this he initiated an incremental long-term Islamization campaign that reached its peak just before the American tanks crushed their way into Baghdad.
When it was established by Aflaq, a Syrian Christian, in the early 1940s the Ba`th Party was very secular, even sending tantalizing sparks of atheism into the conservative Arab skies. Since 1968 as a ruling party in Baghdad the Ba`th made efforts to push religiosity out of the realms of politics, law, culture and education, and deep into the mosque and lock it there.
In 1977 in a programmatic public speech Saddam declared the shari`ah to be caduque, or irrelevant. However, by 2003 many walks of life were already at least partially Islamized.
When, why and how was it done and how did it touch the inner souls of party and leader?
Did Islamization rub deep into the tissue of party and president or was it merely a cynical pretense designed to deceive the Iraqi masses and the Islamic world?
Those questions are asked in the book.
Due to new information that became available with the rise of ISIS (ISIL), the conclusions that were only hesitantly suggested became more certain when the book was already in print.
ISIS was not born ex-nihilo: there is reason to believe that in part ISIS and its affiliates represent an ideological and political leap, using Saddam’s Islamization campaign as a stepping stone.
If correct, then ISIS is Saddam’s dead hand, thrusting as a fist out of his grave in Tikrit.
Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003: Ba`thi Iraq from Secularism to Faith
After our visit to the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at Fallon Naval Air Station where we focused on the training for the current and evolving integrated strike group, we had a chance to discuss our experience with Rear Admiral Michael Manazir, Director of Naval Air Warfare.
The conversation revolved around the impact of fifth generation capabilities on the evolution of the integrated strike group, to include the impact of the new carrier, the USS Ford, and the overall extended capabilities of the evolving sea base, both amphibious assault and carrier strike.
And in a recent interview, which our colleague Gordon Chang conducted earlier this year with the Admiral, the approach which the Admiral is pursuing with regard to the joint and coalition approach to the evolving strike force was evident.
“In the tense settings of the future, the partnerships with allied navies will be force multipliers, taking the strain off America’s shrinking defense budgets.”
In the interview Rear Admiral Manazir drew upon his recent carrier command experience to highlight the role of global partnerships in shaping deterrence in depth capabilities.
Rear Admiral Michael Manazir made this point when he told me how in May of last year he stared down Iranian craft that wanted to interfere with the ships he commanded in international water in the Persian Gulf.
Yes, his vessels must have looked impressive to the Iranians, but what was even more fearsome was the multinational task force of which they were a part.
Manazir’s ships were but a few of the 35 vessels participating in the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise, a freedom of navigation drill that last year included 6,500 sailors and representatives from 41 nations.
There is nothing so frightening for the seamen of a rogue state than to see ships from a unified coalition on the high seas backed by history’s mightiest maritime force.
Question: During our visit to Fallon, it was clear that the key focus of Naval aviation tactics and training is strike integration to successfully fight with the fleet you have, but at all command levels there was also a very clear understanding of always anticipating the future. You are in charge of looking at that future and how do you view that in relation to the current strike integration focus?
Nov. 16, 2012: In this photo taken and released by U.S. Navy, twenty-six ships from the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, including USS George Washington, bottom right, steam together in East China Sea after the conclusion of Keen Sword, a biennial naval exercise by the two countries to respond to a crisis in the Asia-Pacific region.AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Chief Mass Communication Specialist Jennifer A. Villalovos
Rear Admiral Manazir: Fallon is organized for integrated air wing training. They are not focused on whether an airplane is an F (fighter), A (attack) or an E (electronic warfare); they are focused on how does this air wing come together and fight with an F component, an E component and an A component.
The fifth generation is bringing us the opportunity and indeed the imperative to fundamentally alter the way we look at air warfare. The F-35 is not an A or an E or an F; it is all of those.
Earlier we had an F-14, an A-6 and an EA-6B and needed all three to do our job; now one airplane blends those capabilities and we can leverage that as we look at the integration of the other capabilities of the air wing we are developing.
Fifth generation is opening up so many possibilities that how we used to think about our capabilities is changing; how do we wring out the full capabilities of the air wing with the fifth generation as a catalyst for change?
Question: A clear lesson learned from Fallon is the need to alter the training approach to deal with 21st century threats as well as capabilities. To do so, they are focused on Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training. How do you view this in regard to shaping the airwing of the future?
Rear Admiral Manazir: The initial operational capability of fifth generation fundamentally changes the way that we’re going to fight.
Where it used to be platform-to-platform, we now have inherent in a single weapon system, the capability to fold in all those things that we used to think were single missions, like the fighter mission, like the attack mission, like the electronic warfare mission.
Those missions were given to separate platforms because we didn’t have the way to fold them into a single platform. Now we have that capability to do that. So that fundamentally causes us to look at the way in which we do business in the future.
When we train, we always train to an integrated capability. At Fallon, we assume that the air wing squadrons are already trained to their individual skill sets, they’re already to a level at which they’re ready for integrated training against a very, very high-end mission set.
That mission set is modelled against an updated threat presentation that we corroborate across all intelligence sources to understand the threat we’re going to go against. And then we build training scenarios to that point at all security levels.
The current air wing that we have is capable of training inside the Fallon battlespace in a way in which we normally train: you use simulators to practice, and then you get in your airplane and you go against representative threat systems. Most of the representative legacy threat systems are on the Fallon ranges. And they are either physically there or we have a simulation that emulates the threat presentation. And all of that can be contained in that air space.
The threat baseline that we’re looking to fight in the mid-2020s and beyond is so much more advanced that we cannot replicate it using live assets. And those advances are in the aircraft capability, the weapon capability, and in the electronic warfare capability of the threat systems. That drives us to thinking about a different way to train.
In order to do that, you have to be able to have a realistic and representative emulation of the threat that is not live. And there are a couple of ways to do that. The first one is you make it completely constructive, and the second way is you make it simulated.
Live, virtual, constructive (LVC) training is a way to put together a representation of the threat baseline where you can train to the very high end using your fifth generation capability. Some of it is live with a kid in the cockpit, some of it is virtual in a simulator, and so “virtual” is actually the simulator environment. And then constructive is a way to use computers to generate a scenario displayed on either or both of the live or simulated cockpit.
You can also combine them to be live-constructive, or virtual-constructive, and by that I mean there are systems out there right now that you can install in the airplane that will give you a constructive radar picture air-to-air and surface-to-air along with the electronics effects right onto your scope.
You’re literally flying your airplane, and through a data link, you can share that information between airplanes, you can share it between dissimilar airplanes.
You could take a set of Navy airplanes, for instance, an E2D and a division of F-18s or F-35s on the Fallon range. And you could have a constructive scenario that is piped into all five of those airplanes. It’s the same scenario, has all the same effects. And then the blue players can act according to that constructive scenario, and react to that constructive scenario in the live environment, but there’s nothing real in front of them…the threat is all simulated by computer generation.
Now let’s say that through fiber network, you pipe that constructive picture over to a coalition partner…for example, you do so to the RAAF in Australia…it is piped to a live airplane or a simulator over there, and let’s say there’s two Australian airplane simulators, and they’re seeing the same picture as the Americans are fighting.
And let’s say that there is a network that goes to the Aegis Cruiser, which is off the coast of Florida, and is going to be their Aegis Cruiser for the training. And you can show them the same picture.
And you can transmit the comms across that. You can easily see the training power in this LVC construct.
There are other systems that will allow you to have a live wingman up in the air in Fallon or on another range, his lead in a simulator, and when the simulator lead looks at his or her visual, he can see a virtual representation of his live wingman doing everything he does in the aircraft , and a link sends the aircraft maneuvers down to the simulator.
And when the simulator or the live person looks through their enhanced Joint Helmet Mounted Queuing System, he can see a virtual airplane on his visor.
When the virtual airplane on the helmet system say, dumps a flare or drops ordnance against the target, you actually see it come off the airplane in your visor. And you can actually fight a virtual bogey on your visor, and the guy’s not there. And you fight it with your airplane, just as if it is a real piece of metal. So that’s the live-constructive piece.
If you optimize the networks so that you have a live airplane flying somewhere, a simulator that’s exactly what emulates a live airplane, and then a constructive scenario that goes to both you now have the full LVC construct. You can overcome the barriers of geography, if the range is not big enough. You could also overcome the barriers of multilevel security, because if you go up and use all of your weapons system modes up in the air, live, there are surveillance systems that can pick up what you’re doing.
NORFOLK (April 17, 2012) Cmdr. Juan Escrigas, commanding officer of the Spanish navy frigate SPS Blas de Lezo (F103), welcomes aboard Rear Adm. Michael C. Manazir, commander of Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 8. Blas de Lezo is in Norfolk for an eight-day visit sponsored by the guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG 109). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class William Jamieson/Released)
In this way, you can protect high end modes with encryption, and then create an architecture where LVC allows you to train to the complete capability of your fifth generation platform integrated into the advanced air wing and connected to AEGIS and the aircraft carrier as well as operations centers ashore. And that’s what we’re looking to do.
We realize that the fifth generation platform has now bumped us up against the limits of our training ranges and that we do not quite have the LVC components built yet, so that is where our current focus lies.
Question: In this approach, clearly you are looking at the “red” side, but the “blue” side is equally demanding.
With fifth generation, you are looking at off-boarding capabilities such as the fifth generation acting as forward deployed scouts identifying targets for Navy weapons.
How do you view this aspect of the challenge?
Rear Admiral Manazir: I could absolutely finish your sentence.
It is as challenging right now to figure out how to use this fifth generation capability as to deal with the “red” side.
We’re thinking about integrating the weapons system capability…not the platform…in reshaping the airwing – that is the challenge.
In the past, any high-end capability, like the F-117 in Desert Storm, went by itself. The approach was: leave me alone, don’t touch me; I can operate more effectively alone. From this perspective, fifth generation is understood as a high end, leave alone capability: the capability to go downtown with a low probability of intercept, low probability of detection data link and associated weapons systems that allows the platform to operate inside the red battlespace.
We are not simply doing that.
We are focused on the ability to connect into the integrated fire control network, pull that fifth generation information into the network.
We’re learning a lot of lessons from F-22, we’re bringing those lessons on as our corporate knowledge starts to gell so we understand how to do this effectively.
You captured the exact point.
We think of integrated capability.
If you take this fifth generation airplane that people like to keep by itself, how do you integrate into the strike group? But integration from the blue side is the key challenge and advantage of adding fifth generation to the airwing.
Question: Another aspect of thinking about the F-35 is the impact of a global fleet of F-35s.
With your ability to operate integrated with your F-35Cs with joint or coalition aircraft, the reach of the carrier air wing is extended significantly.
Rear Admiral Manazir: Reach not range is a key aspect of looking at the carrier airwing and its ability to work with joint and coalition forces. This is clearly enhanced with the F-35.
What you can do with a Carrier, given joint and coalition perspectives is the Carrier automatically extends your reach because you can put it anywhere you want. The mobility of the carrier is a key point. You can put it up against the problem set the national command authority or the joint force commander wishes to address; and then you can move it to deal with an evolving target or operational set of challenges, again aligned with the commander’s intent.
Photo taken as part of German interview about the integration of the German Frigate Hamburg in the carrier strike group. http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/855-interview-commander-of-the-us-aircraft-carrier-group-about-the-integration-of-the-frigate-hamburg/
You can move the reach of the carrier wing as you redeploy it and connect with joint or coalition assets. The carrier has a core ability to operate organically but its real impact comes from its synergy with the joint and coalition force, which will only go up as the global F-35 fleet emerges.
And this will get better with the coming of the USS Ford. What the Ford does is it optimizes the things that we think are the most important.
Some of those capabilities are clear:
Enhanced sortie generation capabilities or the number of times you can get airplanes into the mix to keep the reach out there
The power generation capability, so advanced systems can operate off of the ship.
The ability to take the information that is brought back through the airborne network into the ship and be able to disseminate it to decision makers is enhanced over the Nimitz class.
Question: Another key way to consider the carrier, its airwing and the evolution of concepts of operations is to rethink the role of the sea base.
It is not just about the USS Ford; it is about the USS America, the USS Arlington, the T-AKE ships, the amphibious assault task force and the evolving carrier air wing as a whole.
The capability to link US maritime and air assets as well as those of coalition forces creates a whole new set of possibilities.
What is your take on this dynamic?
Rear Admiral Manazir: I am the son of a Marine. What you are talking about is in my blood. And the Marines are leading the charge on fifth generation capability and bringing it into the fleet.
And when we think back to World War II, the Navy-Marine team in the Pacific was the integration of core capabilities, which defeated the Japanese forces. The new ships, the coming of the F-35 and reworking our concepts of operations enhance such integration.
And a key element is the capability to evolve our systems over time. It needs to be recognized that the USN shares its investment in F-35 combat systems with the USMC, the USAF and coalition partners – we are all using the same combat systems in our aircraft. That is an investment multiplier.
As the F-35 and its fifth generation data fusion capabilities continue to advance through the follow-on development of the software, processing that information that we’re going to be able to get from the environment through the fifth generation systems into the Carrier, and then to be able to input that information into a decision loop, and then acting will be a big step forward.
Question: And the flexibility of your evolving carrier air wing to support the kind of 21st century strategic environment is crucial as well.
The carrier air wing can lead an effort, support a joint effort, or lead or support a coalition effort.
The President spoke of leading from behind, but I would prefer supporting a coalition partner, but one can envisage new possibilities.
For example, the Aussies are leading an effort in their part of the woods and have made their new Canberra-class amphibious ships a flagship of their operation.
They fly their potential F-35Bs off of those ships.
The planes connect directly to your carrier F-35s and then your carrier Admiral can provide significant real time support to that Australian effort up to the level desired by the US National command authority.
The capabilities of the USS Ford to support such a decision effort are a significant step forward as well.
Rear Admiral Manazir: They are.
But to get full value from the scenario you described the training piece is crucial. Exercises and training will be essential to shape the kind of convergent capability, which the new systems will allow. Training unlocks those kinds of options. It is not just about technology.
And as we re-shape our concepts of operations under the influence of fifth generation capabilities, we need to re-focus our investments on the missing pieces revealed by re-shaping our concepts of operations.
As we think about the threat baseline, as we think about the potential scenarios that we could be in, and as we think about our operational plans, and about our campaign analyses, we will look at our evolving integrated capability, and then figure out where our gaps are.
My job is to buy those capabilities. I need to be able to look at the entire spectrum of the operational level of war, and determine where I invest.
I’m able to balance my investments, taking advantage of fifth generation capability.
I’m thinking about what is my potential with investment, to enhance my capability.
And when I am focused on the evolving impact of integration I am thinking of both the F-35 and the USS Ford and what these two platforms together bring to wring out the capabilities of legacy assets and to shape a way ahead for new ones. It is about the impact of the carrier and its airwing on the role of the seabase within the joint and coalition environment.
The photos in the slideshow above provide various shots of operations aboard the USS Nimitz in early November 2014.
The photos are credited to Naval Media Services.
A condensed version of this interview has appeared initially on Breaking Defense:
For a Special Report with all the Fallon interviews along with interviews with the past and current heads of Air Warfare for the USN see the following:
2014-11-28 The UK has added new tankers and is starting the process of adding a new airlifter to its lift fleet, the A400M.
This follows the first operational squadron being set up in France.
According to a piece by Murielle Delaporte based on a visit to the French base:
The French Air Force has activated its first 400M squadron.
And it did not take much time for the new plane to be put to operational use.
The A400M in the past months has been involved in various theater missions for Operations Barkhane in the Sahelo-Saharan zone and Chammal against ISIS.
While a lot of tactical capabilities remain in the process of completion, the French Air Force has been able to start using its recently acquired airlifters for logistic missions only a few months after acquiring them.
A400M at the Orleans Operating Base for the French Air Force, June 2014. Credit: Murielle Delaportes
And she added based on interviews at the base:
“A strategic airlifter with tactical capabilities” is the way Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Creuset, who was at the time in charge of setting up the future A400M squadrons, describes this new bird which France has been acquiring at a steady rate since August 2013.
By the end of 2014, the sixth one will be joining the forces with a delivery schedule of fifty aircraft by 2024. 1
The A400M is central to the success of French XXIst Century power projection strategy as most of its current fleet acquired since the 60’s is progressively being retired.
And now the first A40oM has arrived at Brize Norton in the UK.
The arrival of the A400M at its new base in the UK was announced by the UK government as follows in a November 27, 2014 press release:
The first of the UK’s A400M Atlas next-generation military transport aircraft has today been officially unveiled by the MOD at its new home at RAF Brize Norton…..
With a cargo capacity of 32 tons and a hold optimized for carriage of heavy vehicles, helicopters or cargo pallets, the aircraft is capable of supporting a wide range of operational scenarios.
The UK is the third country to operate the aircraft, after France and Turkey and the £2.8 billion program will see a total of 22 aircraft delivered to the RAF in the coming years.
The first Royal Air Force A400M Atlas arrives at RAF Brize Norton [Picture: Steve Lympany, Crown copyright]Prime Minister, David Cameron, said:
The arrival of the A400M Atlas will greatly add to our defence capabilities – increasing our ability to move troops and deliver military equipment, aid and medical supplies anywhere in the world quickly and effectively.
It will be a huge contributor to future air mobility in the RAF and is a further example of this Government’s continued investment in the equipment our armed forces need, which is only possible thanks to difficult decisions taken elsewhere as part of our long term economic plan.
I know from my postbag how much local people appreciate the loyalty and endeavour the RAF at Brize display on our behalf and the expansion of RAF Brize Norton is good news for us locally.
Defence Minister Philip Dunne said:
To have the first A400M Atlas here in the UK is a great achievement.
The programme has been at the forefront of modern technology, with its software, wings and aircrew simulator British-manufactured, creating or securing work for around 8,000 people in the UK.
Working with our European partners and industry we have been able to deliver this world class airlift capability to the RAF to support our servicemen and women as they carry out operations around the world.
We now look forward to a steady drumbeat of delivery of this state-of-the-art transport aircraft over the next few years.”
Delivery of the aircraft – which was assembled in Seville, Spain – took place at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.
This is where the fleet will be based and where its pilots and ground crew will benefit from state-of-the-art training facilities.
The aircraft will give the RAF the ability to move people and equipment rapidly around the globe for military and humanitarian operations – combining the intercontinental range of the C-17 with the ability to do the tactical rough landings of the C-130 Hercules.
The A400M Atlas will be able to transport the growing family of 30 tonne protected mobility vehicles, including the recently ordered Scout fighting vehicle or Foxhound vehicles.
It is also capable of carrying up to 116 armed forces personnel, including paratroopers.
RAF Brize Norton is the largest station in the Royal Air Force with approximately 5800 Service Personnel, 1200 contractors and 300 Civilian staff members.
The Station is home to the RAF’s Strategic and Tactical Air Transport (AT) and Air-to-Air Refueling (AAR) forces, as well as host to many lodger and reserve units.
With its mixed fleet of aircraft, RAF Brize Norton provides rapid global mobility in support of UK overseas operations and exercises, as well as AAR support for fast jet aircraft both on operations and in support of UK Homeland Defence.
A press release from Airbus Defense and Space highlighted the arrival of the aircraft to the base in the UK:
The A400M will replace the C-130 in RAF service but, because it can carry approximately twice as much load, or the same load twice as far, fewer aircraft will be required.
Uniquely it is able both to cruise at jet-like speeds and altitudes over intercontinental ranges due to its extremely powerful engines and advanced aerodynamic design, as well as to operate repeatedly from short and unprepared airstrips close to the scene of military action or humanitarian crisis.
At Brize Norton the A400M will operate alongside the RAF’s Airbus Voyager multi-role tanker transport fleet.
The wings of both aircraft are built in the UK at Filton and Broughton respectively. Additionally the Voyager’s engines are produced in the UK by Rolls-Royce, which is also a member of the Europrop International consortium that produces the A400M’s TP400 engines.
First A400M for the RAF in flight. Credit: Airbus Defense and Military.
And the RAF website for RAF Brize Norton discusses the future of the A400M at the base:
The Royal Air Force will shortly take delivery of the first Airbus A400M Atlas, which will herald the staged delivery of a further 21 aircraft, in a schedule expected to be complete by 2019.
Although the aircraft will employ its strategic reach and impressive payload capacity by operating initially in the strategic air transport role, Atlas is primarily a tactical airlifter.
Its tactical capabilities will be developed over the next 8 years as it assumes the roles performed by the Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules prior to the C-130’s planned retirement from RAF service in 2022.
The Air Force Board Standing Committee has confirmed that No. LXX Squadron will stand up as the first operational Atlas Squadron, to be based at RAF Brize Norton.
The Squadron stood up, in an administrative and engineering support capacity, on 1 October 2014, allowing sufficient time for it to beconfigured and manned appropriately, prior to formally accepting air transporttasking from Summer 2015.
The aircraft will be operated initially by No. XXIV Squadron, the Fixed WingAir Mobility Operational Conversion Unit, which is responsible for conducting training for Atlas aircrew and engineering personnel. Additionally No. 206(R) Squadron will test andevaluate Atlas as part of the aircraft’s capability development process.
The RAF website explains the contribution and the way ahead for the A400M within their lift force:
The Airbus A400M, which is a collaborative venture involving the governments and industries of six European countries, will support the deployment of the Joint Rapid Reaction Force and will give the RAF a tactical and strategic-airlift aircraft capable of supporting all three services and be interoperable with other nations.
The aircraft will be capable of carrying a load of 25 tonnes over a range of 2000nmls at speeds comparable with pure-jet military transports.
It will be capable of operating either at low-level (down to 150ft agl) or at high-level altitudes to 40,000ft, and it will be able to deploy troops and/or equipment between and within theatres of operation either by parachute (up to 108 paratroopers), or by landing on short, unprepared or semi-prepared strips…..
The aircraft will be driven by four Europrop International (EPI) turboprop engines, which will be the most powerful turboprops developed to date in the western world, they will be lighter, easy to maintain and will consume 20% less fuel per mission relative to a similar turbofan engine.
A modern Defensive Aids Suite will be fitted, incorporating radio and infra-red frequency detectors, electronic-countermeasure equipment and chaff/flare dispensers.
The cargo bay of the ATLAS will be controlled by one air loadmaster and can be configured for a number of roles: pure troop carrying, or a mixture of troops and support equipment; palletised cargo or military wheeled and tracked vehicles; two attack helicopters such as the Apache or Puma; or a mixture of light and heavy engineering equipment.
Off-loading equipment or stores after landing can be achieved using conventional ground equipment, the aircraft’s internal load-roller system, by airborne parachute or by gravity extraction from the aircraft’s rear ramp.
In addition to its tactical capability ATLAS will complement the C-17A Globemaster III in providing the UK with a strategic airlift capability when and wherever it is required.
21st century warfare technologies concepts of operations and tactics and training are in evolution and revolution.
At the heart of reshaping US and allied approaches to airpower and its evolution is the emergence of the F-35, the significant impact which a global fleet of F-35s will have on US and allied capabilities and the approaches to leveraging other capabilities in the warfighting tool kit.
There is always the reactive enemy, so that the roll out of new approaches shaped by the impact of the F-35 will see reactions from various competitors and responding to these reactions will part of the re-set of evolving US and allied airpower and combat approaches.
U.S. Marine Corps F-35 Lightning II aircraft and F-18 Hornets assigned to Naval Air Station Pensacola fly over the northwest coast of Florida May 15, 2013. Credit: USAF
The F-35 is at the heart of change for a very simple reason – it is a revolutionary platform, and when considered in terms of its fleet impact even more so.
The F-35, Lightning II, has a revolutionary sensor fusion cockpit that makes it effective in AA, AG and EW.
US and Allied Combat pilots will evolve and share new tactics and training, and over time this will drive changes that leaders must make for effective command and control to fight future battles.
An issue has been that the F-35 has been labeled a “fifth generation” aircraft, a sensible demarcation when the F-22 was being introduced.
But the evolution of the combat systems on the aircraft, the role of the fusion engine, and the impact of a fleet of integrated F-35s operating as a foundational element will make this term obsolete.
The global fleet of F-35s will be the foundation for a fundamental change in the way air power operates and with it overall combats concepts of operations for the US and allied insertion forces.
It is not an in and of itself platform; it is about what an integrated fleet of F-35s can deliver to TRANSFORM operations.
The decade ahead can be very innovative if what the fleet brings to the fight is learned and applied and the combat warriors leverage what they learn and then the application of those lessons to reshaping the force are applied.
As a senior RAF pilot involved with the F-35 program has put it well: “While much of the world still debates the existence of the F-35, we are moving rapidly forward to figure out how to use the aircraft and leverage it.”
At the heart of the transformation is the combination of two powerful trends: the emergence of Tron warfare and the forging of a combat cloud integrating combat capabilities.
The F-35 fleet operates at the cutting edge of both.
Part Two Begins:
The F-35 and the Aviation Design Cycle
In the opening days of US combat in World War II, extremely courageous Navy and Marine pilots went up against the Imperial Japanese Navy in inferior aircraft. For the Marines, the F2A Brewster Buffalo was woefully inadequate at the Battle of Midway and an entire Navy torpedo squadron, Torpedo-8 except for a single pilot, was killed in combat.
However, independent of technological aircraft short comings, the aircrews of Torpedo-8 did not die in vain, Ensign George Gay was the sole survivor, because all the Japanese fighter were pulled down to sea level.
In searching for the main Japanese Carrier strike force LCdr. Wade McClusky leading the USS Enterprise bombing group at altitude saw the wake of a Japanese Destroyer and followed it to the enemy carriers. USN dive bombers could then concentrate on their targets unimpeded by Japanese fighters.
With the entire world in combat and nations fighting for their very existence, aircraft design teams pressed ahead with all the resources and intellectual vision they could bring to the design table. What the U.S. air forces introduced during those years was a steady introduction of type, model, and series (T/M/S) of always improving airborne killing machines.
From the F2-A Brewster Buffalo to the F-4F and F-4U to the F-6 and at wars end, the F-8 Bearcat the Navy had a series of prop driven Fighters that mastered the Japanese Zero. The Army Air Corps went from P-39 to P-38 Lighting, P-47 Thunderbolt to the P-51 Mustang with its wonderful bubble canopy to carry the fight to the heart of Germany.
Along the way emphasis was placed on pilot survivability by putting armor plates in the cockpit and having self-sealing fuel tanks. Since the entire objective was to get first “tally” and then out maneuver the enemy to kill him, the total design focus was to always improve a blend of speed, range, and maneuverability—better engines and smarter airframe designs.
Of course, while the main effort was producing enough “motors and gun sights,” industry and research lab efforts were underway to change yet again the technology of the air fight.
The P-61 “Black Widow” was an early attempt to put radar on a night fighter, and the Germans tried a rocket plane against B-17 formations. The Italians Germans, Brits and, ultimately, Americans experimented with early jet engines. The German ME-262 changed the dynamics of combat. Although, the Germans employed it in an inefficient manner in following Hitler’s call for it to be committed to an air to ground role.
After WWII, the jet engines started the same dynamic seen in the prop years –improved airframe system performance by improving speed, range and maneuverability.
But two new dynamics were added both related to “payload”.
For a fighter in WWII, the “payload” was simple –what caliber and how many machine guns or cannons fit the design to give the pilot enough “deadly bursts” to kill several of his opponents.
In the jet age, the complexities of adding airborne systems and improving the weapons carried, changed the technology vectors of design considerations and introduced two more synergistic, but relatively independent research and development paths.
Airborne radar and sensors were added to fighters and those systems helped the payload—guns and early IR fire and forget missiles became more efficient with the AIM 9 sidewinder series.
But then, concurrently, independent performance was put into the payload by improving missiles and linking long-range (BVR) missile shots to radar technology. At first, radar guided missiles needed continuous guidance from the fighter but eventually even radar guided missiles became BVR self-contained “fire and forget.”
So unlike WWII research and development, where research on airframes and engines was the mantra, in the jet age there were two other huge design factors at work.
The first was always questing to improve the radar systems in the fighters and, secondly, as technology allowed independent designs could improve the weapons carried. Yet again, the art of aeronautical design had to work in partnership with the science of military R&D.
Along the way survivability shifted from armor, speed, and focusing on a good canopy into the era of Electronic Warfare and now the incorporation of stealth characteristics through both design considerations, composite materials and the wonders of chemistry for paint.
Stealth is a survivability factor and is critically important because it multiplies the effectiveness of the fighter—one doesn’t add stealth but incorporates it into the very existence of the fighter. Being a multiplying factor means it is sensitive and can really drive the entire performance of the airframe and system combat performance.
F-35B arrives with two F-18s. The past escorts the present. Credit Photo: Yuma Sun
So ending the 20th Century the complexities of fielding the best fighter was a much bigger challenge because of three synergistic but independent factors — basic airframe performance improvements, internal system R&D and constantly improving weapons.
However, with the very real computer revolution moving with light speed into the 21st Century there is now a forth design dynamic at work —the man-machine interface.
With the very real capability of three-dimensional sensing and being able to distribute information to other warfighters (airborne and on the ground or at sea), the relationship of the individual pilot to knowledge of the bigger air battle is truly revolutionary.
For example, one of the most important capabilities of the F-35 is the distributed information capability. The least experienced fighter pilot to the most experience all are flying into the air battle in yet to be developed formations are all equally capable of having the same knowledge and situational awareness.
Consequently in the formation if one pilot gets inside the opponents OODA loop (observe orient decide act) all are capable of having that same joint knowledge. The revolutionary point is the enemy can splash an individual F-35, but cannot kill the knowledge gained by all: that aspect of modern warfare is truly unique 21st Century technology brought to an air battle.
Conversely, on the offensive if one F-35 picks up an enemy’s airborne vulnerability such as an aircraft system or weapon frequency emission or stealth breakdown it can be sent to all. Thus, another unique aspect of F-35 21st Century capabilities is that every Lightning II is a real time intelligence collection system. The entire engagement is also captured electronically for immediate and direct refinements to tactics and analysis during the air battle.
Fleet wide information sharing among services and allies will be a huge factor in winning an air campaign.
Recognizing and exploiting man-machine three-dimensional knowledge is truly a brave new world.
Consequently, the F-35 is capable of constantly updating this next generation of U.S. fighters but not by building a new airframe but staying inside the F-35 basic airframe and adding the next generation of systems and weapons with soft-ware upgradeable programs.
The learning curve to improve F-35 sensors, systems capabilities and weapons carried compared to building another airframe is a new American way of industrial surging. The American arsenal of democracy is shifting from an industrial production line to a clean room and a computer lab as key shapers of competitive advantage.
The Training Challenge for 21st Century Con-Ops
The challenge at all times is to prepare for the future with the forces available. Just like the evolution of technology for generational clustering of ever improving combat aircraft the training has to be flexible to fight the force as generations shift.
The Navy training with regard to the F-4 at “Top Gun” is a perfect example. While many services and allies were flying the F-4, Top Gun was the place where the ability of the aircraft was really understood. Since the Israeli Air Force had had combat success with the F-4 they very generously shared their flying tactics.
The focus at “Top Gun” was the Air-to-Air Mission, even though the F-4 was also proficient in air-to-ground. The Marines MAWTS process also kept focus on AG by the nature of their requirement to always support ground combat troops.
Over time the Phantom was replaced by the F-14 but the Navy still had an “Attack Community” flying A-6 and A-7 Aircraft. The Marines stayed with F-4 and AV-8 and the Air Force introduced the F-15, F-16 and kept the A-10. Both the F-15 and F-16 were superb AG aircraft.
The most interesting technology training and tactics evolution was in the introduction of the 4th Gen F/A-18. The designation of “F” for fighter and “A” for attack in the same aircraft changed everything as the Navy and Marines adjusted. Since the Marines kept their AV-8 Harriers they still had a designated CAS/GA attack aircraft.
But for the Navy everything changed as the A-7 was phased out and eventually the A-6 and F-14. Consequently the Navy had to adjust during an airframe generational shift to successfully integrating a well designed from its conception multi-mission aircraft, the Hornet.
The History of the USN “Grim Reapers” shows this progression of type/model/series (TMS).
The F-4, which evolved into a multi-mission platform, began life as an interceptor. The F/A-18 Hornet began life with both an “F” and an “A”, and in a very practical sense the F/A-18 forced two communities to join together. The Navy “Fighter” community and “Attack Community” were completely different even operating from different Naval Air Stations and only come together in exercises and as part of a Carrier Air Group” when deployed.
Navy leaders figured all this out and created a multi-disciplined curriculum at NAS Fallon. But Fallon is much more than just “Top Gun.” Fallon Naval Air Station is in the desert of Nevada. It is where the Navy trains for the advanced tactics for core air platforms but most importantly shapes its integration of the air wing prior to going to sea for final preparation for combat. Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center (NSAWC) is known in the Navy as “Strike University.” Strike U was set up to deal with combat failures of naval aviation, and to shape better tactics, training and concepts of operations to prevail going forward.
The mission we have here started with TOPGUN, 45 years ago. TOPGUN was founded out of failures in combat during the Vietnam War. TOPGUN training led to measurable improvements in Air-to-Air kill ratios.
Additionally, as a result of failures in combat in Lebanon, STRIKE University, now call simply Strike, was stood up in 1984 to target training at the integrated warfighting level. Through the years, other communities have mirrored the TOPGUN model including the EA-18G HAVOC course, the E-2 CAEWWS course, and the H-60S/R SEAWOLF course.
These courses target advanced training at the individual level. We have learned a lot of lessons at Fallon and we have had a lot of time to shape an effective combat learning environment. Bottom line: My job here is to prepare our forward deployed air wings to fight and win in a wide variety of missions across the globe.
With the coming of the F-35 and the evolution of the threat envelope in the next decade, the USN is changing its training approach.
F-35C on the USS Nimitz. November 2014. Credit: USN
And in so doing, they will establish a framework more appropriate to developing, and executing 21st century concepts of operations.
I think it important to emphasize that adversary A2AD capabilities pose a serious threat not only to Navy, but to our entire Joint ability to fight and win.
I think of A2AD as the proliferation of precision for potential adversaries and how this proliferation of precision effects joint forces ability to maneuver where we need to be and when we need to be there.
For me, it is about expanding the battlespace and training with regard to how to do this.
Training for an expanded battlespace means that the extensive ranges at Fallon are not enough to train to prevail in the evolving battlespace.
This is why the Navy is spearheading a broad effort to expand the envelope of training to combine live training with what is called Live Virtual Constructive training. What is entailed is folding in red and blue assets to shaping an evolving strike integration training process.
As Captain McLaughlin, the outgoing CO of Strike, explained in an interview with Second Line of Defense:
The current Fallon ranges – although large – are too small to train against an advanced threat, which can shoot longer than the ranges. We need to train to a 21st Century Plus type of threat with very long-range missiles in the mix.
It is not about succeeding; it is about how we are going to do this with highest probability of success.
We are rolling in Live Virtual Constructive Training to provide the extenders for our operators to work in that threat environment and to reach out to other assets – Navy and joint – which can allow us to fight in an expanded battlespace.
Rear Admiral Mike Manazir, the Admiral responsible for the future air systems of the US Navy, perfectly describes Live Virtual Constructive Training:
Live, virtual, constructive (LVC) training is a way to put together a representation of the threat baseline where you can train to the very high end using your fifth generation capability. Some of it is live with a kid in the cockpit, some of it is virtual in a simulator, and so “virtual” is actually the simulator environment. And then constructive is a way to use computers to generate a scenario displayed on either or both of the live or simulated cockpit.
You can also combine them to be live-constructive, or virtual-constructive, and by that I mean there are systems out there right now that you can install in the airplane that will give you a constructive radar picture air-to-air and surface-to-air along with the electronics effects right onto your scope.
You’re literally flying your airplane, and through a data link, you can share that information between airplanes, you can share it between dissimilar airplanes.
You could take a set of Navy airplanes, for instance, an E2D and a division of F-18s or F-35s on the Fallon range. And you could have a constructive scenario that is piped into all five of those airplanes.
It’s the same scenario, has all the same effects. And then the blue players can act according to that constructive scenario, and react to that constructive scenario in the live environment, but there’s nothing real in front of them…the threat is all simulated by computer generation.
Now let’s say that through fiber network, you pipe that constructive picture over to a coalition partner…for example, you do so to the RAAF in Australia…it is piped to a live airplane or a simulator over there, and let’s say there’s two Australian airplane simulators, and they’re seeing the same picture as the Americans are fighting.
And let’s say that there is a network that goes to the Aegis Cruiser, which is off the coast of Florida, and is going to be their Aegis Cruiser for the training. And you can show them the same picture.
And you can transmit the comms across that. You can easily see the training power in this LVC construct.
There are other systems that will allow you to have a live wingman up in the air in Fallon or on another range, his lead in a simulator, and when the simulator lead looks at his or her visual, he can see a virtual representation of his live wingman doing everything he does in the aircraft , and a link sends the aircraft maneuvers down to the simulator.
And when the simulator or the live person looks through their enhanced Joint Helmet Mounted Queuing System, he can see a virtual airplane on his visor.
When the virtual airplane on the helmet system say, dumps a flare or drops ordnance against the target, you actually see it come off the airplane in your visor.
And you can actually fight a virtual bogey on your visor, and the guy’s not there. And you fight it with your airplane, just as if it is a real piece of metal. So that’s the live-constructive piece.
If you optimize the networks so that you have a live airplane flying somewhere, a simulator that’s exactly what emulates a live airplane, and then a constructive scenario that goes to both you now have the full LVC construct. You can overcome the barriers of geography, if the range is not big enough. You could also overcome the barriers of multilevel security, because if you go up and use all of your weapons system modes up in the air, live, there are surveillance systems that can pick up what you’re doing.
In this way, you can protect high end modes with encryption, and then create an architecture where LVC allows you to train to the complete capability of your fifth generation platform integrated into the advanced air wing and connected to AEGIS and the aircraft carrier as well as operations centers ashore. And that’s what we’re looking to do.
We realize that the fifth generation platform has now bumped us up against the limits of our training ranges and that we do not quite have the LVC components built yet, so that is where our current focus lies.
And in that interview, the head of N-98 highlighted that recently the USN headed a government wide group looking at the approaches to shaping and implementing VLCT across the combat enterprise.
The F-35 is a key element of shaping Navy thinking about operating in an expanded battlespace.
Aviation leadership is looking forward to the impact of F-35 on the evolution of the strike fleet, much as a leaven for change than the sum and substance of that change.
“Looking forward, we need to continue to provide trained and ready aircrew to operate forward. In five years we are going to have JSF in the fleet.
In five years we may have UCLASS on our carriers. In five years, the Super Hornet of today is going to be different. In five years the E-2D capabilities and our networks will have matured. In five years the threat is going to change and competitors will have more capability.
In working with Naval Aviation Leadership, we are on a journey of discovery of how to best create a training environment that replicates potential adversary’s capabilities.”
Training to operate in the expanded battlespace is a key requirement to deal with the threat and to leverage what the F-35 brings to the force and to an ability to tap into the entire panoply of joint and coalition warfighting assets to deal with 21st century challenges.
The Marines are experiencing a similar transformation at Yuma MCAS as they bring the F-35B on line and prepare for IOC next year.
According to the Executive Officer of the VMFA-121, Green Knights, Major Gregory Summa:
In the F-35, the fusion engine does a lot of that in the background, while simultaneously, I can be executing an air-to-air mission or an air-to-ground mission, and have an air-to-air track file up, or multiple air-to-air track files, and determine how to flip missions.
Because the fidelity of the data is there right now, which allows me to determine if I need to go back into an air-to-air mindset because I have to deal with this right now as opposed to continuing the CAS mission.
And I have a much broader set of integrated tool sets to draw upon. For example, if I need an electronic warfare tool set, with the F-18 I have to call in a separate aircraft to provide for that capability. With the F-35 I have organic EW capability. The EW capability works well in the aircraft. From the time it is recognized that such a capability is need to the time that it is used requires a push of a button. It does not require that a supporting asset be deployed.
Question: Obviously your pilots need to be trained to combine the air-to-air and CAS capabilities and to use the new organic tools sets as well?
Major Summa: It does. Now we’re going to have a pilot that’s versed in doing CAS, if he needs to use the electromagnetic spectrum or exploit it to accomplish his mission, he’ll be educated and have the equipment to do so.
If he needs to use it in the air-to-air arena to exploit it, to accomplish his mission, he’ll have the training and the equipment needed to use it as well.
In the current situation, I would deploy a Prowler to work with my legacy fighters. The Prowler would have to be sortied and would operate only for a period of time and in a specific operational area. With the low observability of the F-35 combined with the organic EW capability of the aircraft, the aircraft expands my capabilities for both air-to-air and CAS.
With respect to different but similar pilot cultures Major Suma captures that US way of war and the training for combat:
Working with the other service pilots provides an important window on where we want to go with the concepts of operations of the aircraft.
We have different backgrounds — Harrier, F-18s, F-16s, F-22s and F-15s — but we understand that, given the commonality of the aircraft, these different backgrounds suggest common ways ahead. We are all able to contribute to the way ahead for a common aircraft.
Operating on the Z Axis
The F-35 is known as a 5th generation player in the state-of-the-art for both the Air-to-Air Fighter, and Air-to-Air Attack combat roles. It also adds an “electronic” or “tron” warfare component to the fight–the Z Axis and the “Fusion Engine”
This is the beginning of a combat aircraft design that is building along a new axis-the “Z-axis.” The “Z axis” is a core discriminator.
The F-35 aircraft is not a linear performance enhancement from F/A-18 4th Gen; it has a third performance axis “Z.”
The “Z” axis is the pilot’s cockpit C4ISR-D (for decision) loop axis.
Starting at the beginning air fleet Command and Control from WWI on it has morphed into C5ISR (useful but getting silly) – Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
Traditionally, in looking at the progression of aircraft a two-dimensional design depiction has been used; the x-axis is time and the y-axis is performance.
That graph captures individual airplanes, but they do tend to cluster in generation improvement. Each aircraft clustered in a “generation” is a combination of improvements.
The aeronautical design “art” of blending together ever improving and evolving technology creates improvements in a linear fashion, if not performance would eventually go asymptotic.
The airframe design characteristics blended together prior to F-35 have been constantly improving range, payload (improved by system/and weapons carried), maneuverability (measured by P Sub s), speed, and range (modified by VSTOL–a basing mobility plus factor).
The F-35 is also designed with inherent survivability factors, redundancy and hardening and stealth. Stealth is usually seen as the 5th Gen improvement.
But reducing the F-35 to a linear x-y axis improvement simply misses the point.
The F-35 is now going to take technology into a revolutionary three-dimensional situational awareness capability. This capability establishes a new vector for TacAir aircraft design.
This can be measured on a “Z” axis.
Historically, Command and Control (C&C) was external to 1,2,3, 4th and some 5th Generations of TacAir. Now known as C5ISR the goal was still enhancing fleet wide combat performance for all Type/Model/Series (T/M/S) of TacAir.
This is the current modern AWACS (hub and spoke) battle management concept. But by using a three-dimensional graph, one can understand that the “Z-axis” takes airpower into a totally different domain.
The shift is from externally provided C5ISR into C5ISR-D for decision into the cockpit. This is the revolutionary step function that breaks the linear progression of previous Generations. The “Z” axis in which the F-35 is the prototype is the first fusion technology with 360 awareness “D” (for decision) cockpit.
A design focus of F-35 is the cockpit, and helmet displays of trusted fused integrated systems.
Enabled with that technology the pilot can also be a distributed information decision-maker.
This is the Z axis in action and the enabler is the trusted “fusion engine.
The engagement process of content in context empowers dynamic situational decisions at all levels and gives the fighting force the best chance of prevailing.
Col John Boyd’s OODA loop formula was a brilliant insight in merging technology, training and tactics. TacAir development was in a never ending quest to quest to always achieving “SA”–Situational Awareness—the Observe/Orient part of OODA.
And because of the technology limitations of Command and Control battle management was focused on building a better and better “Observe Orient” half of his OODA formula”, AWACS and Navy E-2s are examples of providing “bogy Dope” to a radar empowered fighter.
With the F-35 Cockpit Z-axis the key words are actually now embedded in the second half of Boyd’s OODA –the words “decide, act.”
The quest for US way of war to always fight and win is to now embrace the entire spectrum of Boyd’s OODA by not questing just for Situational Awareness, because that is only half way but rather everything should is now focused on developing technology, training tactics and C&C at all levels to empower “Situational Decisions.”
Consideration has to be taken into account of the F-35 active systems, both radar and DAS but also the combat revolution of attacking in a stealth aircraft using state-of-the-art passive sensing beyond anything ever seen in combat.
This is the true revolutionary step beyond just SA that the “z-axis” F-35 “fusion engine” brings to the fight as a catalyst for a 21st Century refocused way of support equipping and training all Service joint con-ops.
General Mike Hostage, then Commander of the USAF Air Combat Command captures this dynamic of 5th gen and F-35 perfectly:
People focus on stealth as the determining factor or delineator of the fifth generation. It isn’t; it’s fusion. Fusion is what makes that platform so fundamentally different than anything else. And that’s why if anybody tries to tell you hey, I got a 4.5 airplane, a 4.8 airplane, don’t believe them. All that they’re talking about is RCS (Radar Cross Section).
Fusion is the fundamental delineator. And you’re not going to put fusion into a fourth gen airplane because their avionic suites are not set up to be a fused platform. And fusion changes how you use the platform.
Editor’s Note: This is the second of three part series.
At the end of the series, a Special Report entitled “Shaping a 21st Century Approach to Tron Warfare” will be made available to our readers.
![The first Royal Air Force A400M Atlas arrives at RAF Brize Norton [Picture: Steve Lympany, Crown copyright]](https://sldinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/BZN-OFFICIAL-20141117-1235-001g-300x200.jpg)
