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With the South African-Brazilian A-Darter air-to-air missile heading for production next year, prime contractor Denel Dynamics is looking to further cooperate with Brazil in missile development, notably on the 100 km range Marlin radar-guided air-to-air weapon.
The A-Darter is in its final stage of development, with production expected to begin next year and the first missiles should be in service by 2016. Testing and integration has already been done on South African Air Force (SAAF) Gripen C/Ds, which should accelerate the integration of the weapon onto Brazilian Gripen NGs when these are delivered from 2018.
Brazil had originally planned to integrate the A-Darter onto its fleet of F-5s but with the purchase of the Gripen NG this has been cancelled as the Gripen will replace the F-5 fleet.
The A-Darter Missile: Credit: defenceWeb
In addition to the Gripen, Denel Dynamics is also integrating the A-Darter onto the SAAF’s Hawk Lead-In Fighter Trainer (LIFT), a process which will take around two years.
There is also talk of integrating the infrared guided weapon onto Brazil’s AMX aircraft.
Components for the 20 km range missile are manufactured in South Africa and Brazil, with extensive technology transfer and integration between the industries of the two countries.
As South Africa is the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), it has done most of the development but ultimately production will take place in both countries on separate production lines.
Deon Olivier, Business Development Executive at Denel Dynamics, said that Brazil will initially buy a hundred missiles for its Gripens as part of an initial production run of around 250 missiles. He said that beyond South Africa and Brazil, other countries have expressed interest in the weapon.
Brazilian defense minister Celso Amorim visited South Africa in March and stopped by Denel Dynamics’ facilities in Centurion to see A-Darter progress first-hand. Whilst in the country he discussed further cooperation in the field of air-to-air missiles.
Amorim and defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula agreed to strengthen the relationship between the defense industries of both countries.
One project that is moving forward is the joint development of a new air-to-air missile with a range of up to 100 km. Called Marlin by Denel Dynamics, the new weapon will feature a radar seeker head and will be developed into an all-weather surface-to-air missile (SAM) that can be used by South African and Brazilian Navies.
The Marlin technology demonstrator program was contracted by the Department of Defence through Armscor and will result in a missile that is launched at a target in three to four years’ time. Marlin technology will subsequently be used for Navy, Army and Air Force applications, with synergy achieved due to common subsystems. The missile will use some subsystems and system architecture from Denel’s proven Umkhonto surface-to-air missile and the A-Darter.
Olivier told defenceWeb that South Africa and Brazil will develop missiles long after the A-Darter project. Tsepo Monaheng, CEO of Denel Dynamics, said that Denel is committed to its relationship with the Brazilian Air Force and Brazilian industry and noted that the success of the A-Darter collaboration will ensure that skills levels in both countries are sustained and improved. Monaheng said he was looking forward to the conclusion of a supplementary agreement that allows collaboration beyond A-Darter.
In addition to post-A-Darter work, Denel Dynamics is looking at collaborating with Brazil on a high-speed target drone and a vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle (VTOL UAV).
Although the A-Darter is arguably Denel Dynamics’ most prestigious product, the company is also working on improving the other missiles in its stable. Last year it conducted firings of the Umkhonto SAM that engaged targets at 20 km, an improvement in range of 5 km. Ultimately the company wants to put a radar seeker head onto the Umkhonto and give it a range of up to 60 km.
Denel Dynamics is adapting its Ingwe anti-tank missile to be fired from different launchers. It was originally designed to be launched from armored vehicles but the company is working on a lighter launcher for integration on light helicopters and light vehicles.
The aim is to have a missile that can be dismounted from a vehicle and fired from a tripod. This would make it more versatile – for instance it could be fired from ships or used to protect bases. According to Christo de Kock, Chief Operations Executive, Denel Dynamics is busy with an internally funded prototype. A working prototype is expected in the next six months.
De Kock said Mokopa and Ingwe are mature missiles in production, with the Ingwe selling internationally. Meanwhile, the Al Tariq guided bomb unit is in production for the United Arab Emirates Air Force through the Tawazun Dynamics company and has been integrated onto the Hawk and Mirage 2000. On the surface-to-air side, the Umkhonto was delivered to the Finnish and South African navies and is in production for an export customer.
De Kock said Denel Dynamics was looking at using common building blocks in adapting its missiles to suit various needs. It is running a program to replace the infrared seeker in the Umkhonto with a radar seeker for all-weather operation, for example.
Some years ago Denel exhibited the Impi missile at Africa Aerospace and Defence as a lighter, smaller Mokopa that could be fired from UAVs.
However, the company has suspended development of this weapon as it is focusing on using UAVs like the Seeker 400 for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance given the sensitivity about armed UAVs.
Looking forward, de Kock said it was important to stay on top of developments and keep an eye on areas of interest, such as improved sensors, modular subsystems, parts commonality, scalability of warheads and cost reduction and Denel Dynamics is exploring all these avenues.
This piece was republished with the permission of our partner defenceWeb:
Editor’s Note: Clearly one trend in military aerospace markets is for emerging markets to find ways to collaborate to shape common technological solutions.
Clearly, Gripen is working to position itself within these markets.
2014-05-16 Second Line of Defense has visited the first operational KC-30A squadron in Australia and has reported on the progress of the squadron.
Its progress has been an important factor in Singapore’s decision to acquire the new Airbus tanker as well.
Second Line of Defense will soon visit the first operational A400M squadron at its base in France and report on progress in the operations of another new aircraft in service built by Airbus Defense.
In August 2013, the first A400M, delivered to the French Air Force, went into service. There are currently around 35 aircraft in various stages of production, including six out of a total of 53 A400Ms for the German Armed Forces.
The photograph shows the A400M on its arrival at Mexico City International Airport. Credit: Airbus Military, May 15, 2014
Recently, the A400M landed in Mexico for a series of demonstration flights.
According to an Airbus Military press release dated May 15, 2014:
The Airbus A400M new generation airlifter landed today for the first time in Mexico, where the aircraft will show its performance in a series of demonstration flights.
Flown by the Experimental Test Pilot Ignacio “Nacho” Lombo, the aircraft landed at Mexico D.F. International Airport at 13.50 (local time). “I’m very proud to bring the A400M to Mexico to show how this aircraft is transforming the world of heavy transport. It will be a honor to demonstrate its capabilities to meet the challenges of this country”, said Nacho Lombo. The A400M will stay in Mexico until the 23 May.
And further progress was made this March, namely air drop trials with the aircraft. According to an Airbus Military press release from March 12, 2014:
The A400M new generation airlifter has successfully completed one of the most important elements of its continuing military flight-test program – the first phase of airdrop trials.
Flying over the Fonsorbes drop zone near Toulouse, an A400M development aircraft dropped a range of different loads by parachute during 11 flights over a two-week period.
In total it dropped 26 platforms and containers weighing from 255kg to 4 tons using the ramp aerial-delivery system (RAS-wedge), and 11 bundles weighing from 15kg to 320kg using the paratrooper doors.
Air drop testing with the A400M. Credit Photo: Airbus Military, March 12, 2014.
And finally, the A400M has been delivered to its second customer, the Turkish Air Force. In an Airbus Military press release dated April 4, 2014:
The Turkish Air Force formally accepted the aircraft from Airbus Defence and Space at the A400M Final Assembly Line in Seville, Spain.
Following today’s contractual transfer of title, the aircraft, which is the third production A400M, will be flown to Kayseri air base in central Turkey where it will initially be used for training.
In Turkish Air Force service the A400M will replace the C-160 Transall offering a dramatic increase in air transport capability to the armed forces.
The coming of the USMC for a 6-month rotation in the training areas of Northern Australia is a concrete manifestation of the US-Australian deepening their working relationship in shaping 21st century Pacific Defense capabilities. The Aussies are engaged in significant defense modernization projects, such as the KC-30A Airbus tanker, the Wedgetail Air Battle Managements System and the F-35.
Along with these projects, the Aussies are engaged in significant research in the field of hypersonics and have partnered with the U.S. on some of the basic research, but going forward the US should consider extending the excellent working relationship with Australia in the hypersonics area.
Too often, there tends to be an attitude in Washington of fiscal limits overcoming modernization.
Yet when one looks at the Pacific, key allies are investing in defense modernization and in significant innovations as well.
The opportunity is to shape convergent modernization to the benefit of the allies and the U.S. to deal with the challenges from China and North Korea.
It is not us versus the Chinese; it is the allied engagement shaping deterrence in depth against a China with no strategic allies, other than Russia and North Korea.
A hypersonic rocket launches skyward during a March 22, 2010 test launch from the Woomera Test Range in Australia. The fight was part of the joint U.S.-Australian HiRise project to test and develop hypersonic vehicles for future aircraft transportation. Credit: Australia Defense Science and Technology Organisation
Recent Chinese tests on hypersonics have underscored that several countries are working to be able to build operational hypersonics platforms, for a variety of purposes. You wouldn’t want to be second to the table with a hypersonic strike missile.
Partnering with a solid ally like Australia can help ensure that does not happen to the United States. But this requires significant commitment to steady investment in the hypersonics research area.
Australia has a small but cutting edge team of hypersonic researchers, with the test ranges to play out the evolving technologies, and with significant global working relationships. Research in this field can clearly yield possible capabilities for space access as well, with an ability to launch rapidly ISR and C2 capabilities for Australia and as part of the effort to overcome the tyranny of distance to deal with longer-range threats and challenges as well.
In fact, hypersonic “air-breathing” engines may be the only solution for dramatic reductions in the cost of launching payloads to orbit.
During a recent visit to Australia, I had a chance to visit several defense installations, including a hypersonics research area. I visited with Dr. Allan Paull and members of the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) hypersonic team located close to Brisbane, Australia.
Dr. Paull made it clear that the team was small but effective.
We combine the skills of several disciplines but each member of the team takes ownership of the entire effort and provides inputs to each and every aspect of the enterprise.
We are not organized around a model of deep pocket experts who stay within the confines of their specialty; we interact across the enterprise to push the research effort forward.
Dr. Paull emphasized that the hypersonic effort required progress in several technologies at the same time, materials, propulsion, computation, etc.
Visiting the workroom of the DSTO where two hypersonic vehicles are being assembled certainly reinforced the point that several moving parts are being worked toward the next hypersonic test.
The key takeaway from the discussion with Dr. Paull was rather straightforward:
By 2015 we will have finished our current round of tests, and by that time there is little question but that the basic scramjet technology works and can be leveraged moving forward.
A key hypersonics program is the HIFiRE program. Australia has worked with the USAF in building out a full set of HIFiRE test vehicles. The objectives of the program are twofold: To develop the science and technology for hypersonic flight with air breathing propulsion; Complete a horizontal flight of a scramjet-powered vehicle for a duration of 30 seconds.
An interesting aspect of the Aussie effort has been to build an engine which can reach hypersonic speeds but fit into the center of a vehicle, thus allowing for an axisymmetric configuration. The team is working a number of innovations to achieve this result.
Such an engine, if proven, would be a major step forward in making practical use of scramjet technology.
If this capability works effectively and can be replicated from a manufacturing point of view, then the path towards achieving hypersonic missiles seems open. Additionally, HIFiRE is testing high angle of attack flight profiles as well which adds a potential of maneuverability to speed.
Much has been achieved by Australia already, working in concert with its partners in hypersonic research in a period of less than a decade. But the importance of this effort, and the need to be on the cutting edge is clear.
The basic hypersonics research effort is being worked for a baseline space system as well.
This program is called SCRAMSPACE which is the first and largest project funded by the Australian Space Research Program. The program is working on a Mach 8 flight experiment. This experiment entails both ground and air tests, with the ground-tests on the vehicles working at up to Mach 14 and the flight test focused on a free-flying scramjet at Mach 8.
The first free flight test for SCRAMSPACE was conducted in Norway but did not achieve the desired results. The first stage rocket motor malfunctioned, which led to the test not being able to deliver the requisite hypersonic flight data.
The Aussies are building a number of hypersonic vehicles and doing ground tests on these vehicles and preparing for future flight tests as well. Tests for the HIFiRE program are performed on an extraordinary test range, the Woomera Test Range, in South Australia. This is a very large area where the vehicles can be recovered and then fully examined to determine their performance parameters. It is not a well-instrumented range, but with proper funding could be.
The US hypersonics program needs a practical focus, as well as a funding and priority boost.
Partnering with Australia can boost the effort by providing for a best value partner, an effective test range, innovative thinking and capabilities from that partner, and an ability to provide that partner with capabilities which they themselves may either lack or would find prohibitively expensive to provide.
For example, if one wished to do a test replicating what the Chinese just did, it would cost 3-5 times more in the United States than in Australia. By building a solid working relationship and joint development, access to the Australian range would make sense for both sides and a more cost effective and capable result in a timely manner could be achieved.
After my visit I had a chance to discuss my findings with Dr. Mark Lewis, the former chief scientist of the USAF and a leading researcher in Hypersonics.
Dr. Lewis underscored the importance of boosting the partnership going forward for a number of reasons.
This is an important relationship because the Australians bring significant intellectual contributions to the table.
They also have important practical flight experience; we can even argue that they flew the very first flying scramjet under their HyShot program, which was a precursor to HiFIRE.
They have an extraordinary test range as well.
Much like the global F-35 would not exist without allies and partners, the effort to work with core partners on other 21st century capabilities is crucial as well.
There is none so more than a steadily and fully funded Australian-US partnership in hypersonics.
Editor’s Note: For a version of this piece which appeared in Space News please see the following:
One of the reasons the USMC is in a key position to shape the future of military aviation is simply because of the growing interactivity between ground and air operations. The Rover revolution and the revolution in air precision dropping are but two examples of innovations in the past decade where air and ground operations are operating on a sliding scale of operational dynamics, notably after air dominance has been achieved.
The Marines with the Osprey innovations under their belt and now building out for further possibilities and with the coming of the 21st century “flying combat system,” the F-35, to the MAGTF, are well positioned to continue to contribute key innovations.
And in driving such innovation the ground combat element or GCE is a key demander and shaper of change as well.
This certainly can be seen with the evolving exercises to reshape a ground insertion force under the influence of the Osprey and other technologies.Recently, we published an examination of the latest path for innovation associated with re-shaping force insertion.
The Marines have been experimenting over the past 15months with ways to shape new ways to connect the GCE within an insertion mission. The approach has been to deploy the Ground Combat Element (GCE) over a tilt-rotor-enabled distance and to insert the force with situational awareness, which can enhance mission success.
We had a chance to discuss with Major Cuomo, the head of the Infantry Officer Course (IOC), the process of innovation that the IOC Team has executed during a meeting at his office in Quantico.
What is clear from discussions with the CO of VMX-22, with Lt. Col. Hendricks, from USMC Aviation, and from Major Cuomo is that an innovative process has been set in motion to shape a new capability and new approach.
Here the GCE is determining a key way ahead in how to more effectively use the new capabilities, which Marine Corps Aviation is bringing to the MAGTF.
Notably, we had the discussion with a Major whose part of a Team at IOC that is clearly a key player in shaping how the USMC thinks about the process of innovation. That is itself a statement about how the USMC is going about this process.
Major Cuomo described the role of the IOC as follows:
We have four classes per year, with each being 13 weeks long.
We produce somewhere around three hundred infantry and ground intelligence officers for the Marine Corps per year.
When a second lieutenant walks out of IOC upon graduation, the assumption is that he can walk into an infantry platoon and go to combat tomorrow
He also explained a key aspect of USMC operations through which air and ground innovations pass from the standpoint of the GCE. This is the key role of the FIST (fire support team) leader.
The FIST leader’s job is to employ all of the combined arms assets, whether at sea, in the air, or on the ground, in support of the GCE and its mission.
There is no other school which integrates the FIST’s role into the overall ground scheme of maneuver like this one
He added that with the addition of new systems, such as the Osprey and F-35, along with other new radar and attack systems, the “FIST commander can now think very differently about GCE and MAGTF operations.”
During the past 15 months, the IOC Team has become intimately involved with the process of innovation associated with various long-range, MV-22-enabled experiments.
But prior to discussing these experiments, it was clear from Cuomo’s previous time in combat, that his sense of the importance of changing how the Osprey can be used with the GCE was shaped by real combat experience and frustration with what had not been achieved, but he, and the IOC Team, felt could be.
A key baseline experience shaping the Major’s understanding of what digital systems can bring to enhance the capability of the GCE clearly came from his time in Afghanistan in 2009-2010.
He described how as a USMC Company Commander that he was given responsibility for 388 personnel, who were responsible for securing an initially very volatile, 25km by 15km area, in Helmand Province. After multiple clearing operations, he ultimately organized his unit into 12 operating areas, with young officers and NCOs in charge of each of the positions; for the last 3 months of the deployment, an extremely capable lance corporal was the senior Marine at one of the positions.
He clearly wanted to keep the forces cross-informed as well as to provide the kind of command guidance useful for a large dynamic combat area. To that point, such interaction was being done largely by radio.
But the Major, then a Captain, was able to leverage a new technology to come up with a much more effective way to operate, namely to use what was called an ECO or Enhanced Company Operations package.
Enhanced Company Operations (ECO) is a United States Marine Corps (USMC) effort to enhance the infantry company, platoon and squad’s Command and Control (C2) and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability in order to conduct various missions in disparate locations.
ECO integrates organic tactical radios, ruggedized computers, cameras and data controllers into a rapidly deployable, man packable system for use by infantry Marines.
During his time in Afghanistan, this “man portable” package weighed nearly 40 pounds, not exactly a light package of equipment!
But what the systems allowed was for the squads to provide daily updates to the Captain throughout the area, and for his headquarters element to shape a fused intelligence picture, which could in turn be passed down to the various units. This then allowed the units to cross verify what they were being told by various tribal leaders and to determine the accuracy of information. This also allowed them to broadcast news within the network for distribution not only to Marines but to villagers when the Marines needed to highlight a development.
The Marines ended up with a powerful database from which to manage affairs in the region and to demonstrate to the elders that the Marines and Afghan security forces were capable of hunting down and eliminating the enemy, all the while helping innocent non-combatants.
A key take-away from the use of the ECO suite was: it was not just about intelligence information; it was about helping to shape perceptions as well.
Major Cuomo has carried this experience with digital systems and to re-shaping how they could be used to support the mission forward into the later experience which we have focused on with regard to the Osprey as well.
An additional combat deployment also significantly influenced the Major’s perspective. On an ARG-MEU deployment after Afghanistan, in the Middle East, the Major experienced, along with his fellow Marines, an inability to capitalize fully on what the Osprey could do because of the need to re-shape operational concepts.
The ship on which he was stationed was tagged to a specific mission offshore and only because of the Osprey were they able to fly to ashore training areas. If they had the CH-46, they would have been stuck aboard ship and not able to train at those offshore areas.
But what the Major sensed is that the Marines by using the Osprey and with a change in the ability to empower the Marines operating on the Osprey could do a range of specialized missions, normally reserved for Special Forces or Special Operations Force.
They also could achieve mission success with a much smaller footprint that the US Army and US Air Force working together in a traditional manner would provide. A smaller footprint is a crucial requirement for many global missions going forward for both military and political reasons.
Rather than simply being frustrated, the Major, along with the rest of the IOC Team, many of whom had similar frustrations, went to work at IOC. He was given a mission-type order to think through how to integrate the Osprey into the IOC curriculum.
He and Captain Jason Deane, one of IOC’s instructors, then went down to New River and met the indomitable Col. Seymour.
When he asked Seymour: “why can’t we fast rope out of the Osprey,” Seymour replied, “who told you that!” And he pointed across the way and indicated that VMX-22 was just over there, and why not work out some exercises with those folks.”
By connecting VMX-22 and the IOC, a process of innovation was begun. But early on, the Deputy Commandant of Aviation, General Schmidle, and his staff became involved in supporting the process. And indeed the full support, which the DCA team has provided IOC, has been an important part of the process of kick starting innovation.
The process started with a bootstrap operation.
The IOC Team started by simply setting up a training exercise operating from Quantico to Paris Island.
We took off from a commercial airport near Quantico.
We flew two Ospreys. We were to fast rope out of the Ospreys at the “enemy” area on Paris Island; we had to fast-rope in due to suspect enemy mines in the primary LZs.
We were doing it at night but one of the Ospreys developed a hydraulic leak, which led to us executing with only 1 Osprey.
We continued on and the 22 guys on the plane fast roped into the objective area.
The exercise highlighted two problems which have been addressed in later exercises: given the distance covered by the Osprey, intelligence received at the point of departure is not that accurate on the point of arrival. And given the distance of the Osprey team from the command element, who is giving the fires approval? In other words, the plane can outrun the normal fire controls process.
The IOC Team, led by Captain Deane, published a piece in the Marine Corps Gazette in January 2013 which General Schmidle read and then contacted Major Cuomo.
This meant that prior to the second exercise in Camp Blanding, FL that DCA and his team offered IOC their full support. Notably, they were offered a “Shadow,” unmanned aerial system (UAS for the second experiment. The idea was to operate in a very humid and tropical objective area similar to many areas in the Asia-Pacific region.
This exercise was very helpful in highlighting the limitations of the “Shadow” for the type of expeditionary operations being tested in the exercise. And as well, it highlighted what kind of UAS support asset the GCE would find most useful to such operations.
And according to the CO of VMX-22, these considerations are crucial for Aviation thinking about the way ahead with unmanned aircraft for the Corps.
The third exercise was based on Cuomo’s real world experience with regard to the range necessary to execute a NEO operation in Africa.
Here the long-range raid from 29 Palms to Fort Hood focused on the ability of the incoming Marines to fast rope onto the key building in the objective area (the U.S. Ambassador’s residence) to facilitate the rescue effort. Again this is Special Forces work in the popular imagery, but something, which is enabled by integrated air, and ground capabilities, which are the bread and butter for the USMC, and a capability, which will only get better with communication improvements, the addition of the F-35 and appropriate innovations in unmanned systems.
Major Cuomo highlighted that Lt. Col. Hendricks came to him from Headquarters Marine Corps Aviation in shaping the forthcoming raid to Fort Hood, and indicated that Lt. General Schmidle wanted to help in any way that he could to re-shape the support to the GCE in this exercise.
The collaboration between the IOC and VMX-22 was deepened with the latest effort, the San Clemente Island assault. Here the force was operating at a distance to penetrate an anti-access, area denial defended area to seize an airfield to enable F-35B operations for the greater USN-USMC team.
The insertion force was a company landing team-minus, landed at the far end of the island and the Marines fought over land under the cover of darkness for nearly 14 miles.
Given the forecasted enemy threat environment in many parts of the world, particularly when it comes to precision weapons, the likelihood and demands for smaller, highly trained units to be able to execute missions such as the one to San Clemente Island are clearly rising.
Additionally, while technological advances certainly increase the capabilities of these smaller forces, the moral, mental, and physical pressure on the Marines executing these types of missions are rising as well. Such a mission requires one to be able to fight dismounted, in this case, over 23 kilometers, throughout the night, against a determined enemy, all the while carrying combat loads weighting 100 pounds or more!
And the impact of the ground combat element on the rest of the force is a key part of the USMC approach. As Major Cuomo put it: “After we had secured the airfield, the Navy, or Blue part of our team, could bring the core amphibious ship forward.”
This is a good statement of how the various elements of a well-designed force insertion effort can work, and it is not always about automated systems!
Major Cuomo then concluded by indicating that one of the goals of the recent experiments was to get a similar digital interoperability capability to the 15th MEU later this year.
It will be a challenge, but the goal is to get a communications capability, in many ways similar although improved from that which we have already experimented with, for the infantry squads flying on the Osprey for their missions in the next MEU cycle.
And as the MEU draws upon this capability, the experiments will continue, but in real world operations.
That is the ultimate test of what experiments yield, but one which could not happen without shaping an effective GCE lead to USMC Aviation innovation.
Note: To date, the process has evolved through the course of four exercises:
Exercising ways to enhance the GCE insertion capability. Credit Graphic: Second Line of Defense
March 2013: Initial long-range night raid experiment between Quantico and Parris Island
The process was started with an initial effort using local resources.
There is a growing sense that the GCE needs to better leverage the evolving capability of USMC aviation, and the exercises are one way to do a better job along these lines.
Captain Jason Deane of the Infantry Officer’s School (IOC) has summarized the approach and findings of this initial experiment in an article in the Marine Corps Gazette published in January 2014.
From January through March 2013 the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) conducted an experiment in a simulated urban littoral, anti access/area denial environment culminating in a long-range night raid between Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) Parris Island.
Given potential future urban littoral environments, the experiment sought to determine the following:
With an acceptable risk level, can a platoon-sized or larger infantry unit fast rope out of MV–22s at night with a 50-to 60-pound combat load?
While in the back of MV–22s for approximately 2 hours, can this unit maintain voice and data communications to maximize situational awareness prior to insert?
Once on the ground 500 miles from the pickup-landing zone (PZ), can this unit maintain voice and data communications with its higher headquarters?
In addition, to connectivity lessons learned from the exercise, the Captain highlighted a key “gap” which has been the focus of the follow on exercises, but also highlights the need for technological innovation to follow the paths opened up by tilt-rotor technology, rather than staying in the rotorcraft enabled force era.
As was the case during this long-range raid, MV–22s quickly outrun all U.S. military rotary-wing close air support platforms—that is, unless these aircraft are forward staged near the objective area, which is by no means always practical or advisable if conducting a real-world mission.
Given rotary-wing close air support limitations when maximizing aspects of the MV–22’s potential, precision guided fires from naval platforms and/or fixed-wing CAS or armed unmanned aerial systems will typically be required to enable ground force actions within an objective area.
Such aviation assets might be on-station for hours prior to the ground force insert.
This said, if the ground force is flying to the objective area for hours in the back of MV–22s, we do not currently have the required capability to provide real-time information updates to our infantry Marines, to include still or full-motion video imagery.
What this meant for our mission was that once the force lifted off from Quantico, the lieutenants did not receive an update on enemy activity in the objective area until they were 10 minutes out from the objective.
This is an unacceptable information gap.
August 2013: Company Landing Team (CLT) operated from Quantico to Camp Blanding Florida in raid
In this experiment, the CLT operated over a 96-hour period, going considerable distance, operating hundreds of miles from its HHQ, against an enemy with anti-access capabilities. The 600-mile aerial assault involved an initial destruction raid and then the force operated as the initial forcible entry capability for a follow-on joint force.
Notably, the experiment focused on testing three core capabilities:
Long-range, air-ground command and control;
Distributed platoon operations with a CLT HQ element providing C2 back to Quantico (which simulated a distance intended for operations from amphibs or an intermediate state base);
Shaping requirements (TTPs) for expeditionary energy systems able to operate in tropical, thickly vegetated environments.
An interesting aspect of the experiment was to unintentionally highlight the limitations of the SHADOW UAV and to shape a clear need for a UAV which can be tossed out the back of the Osprey.
The SHADOW UAV is not expeditionary in any sense of the word, and the size of the team necessary to support it is a problem as well for an agile lean force looking for the kind of rapid force insertion enabled by the Osprey.
According to one report: “A potential employment concept would be to have a 5,10 or 50-100 pound “kamikaze” UAV stored in the cargo space areas of the MV-22” which can be used by the Fire Support Team as needed.
What clearly emerged from the initial two experiments was that a CLT empowered by the right kind of communications gear and able to work closely with aviation elements could operate effectively at a significant distance., while also providing a unique capability for combatant commanders.
But technology must continue to bend to the operational needs emergent from the concept of operation changes.
December 2013: Exercise Talon Reach whereby the CLT conducted a NEO into a semi-permissive environment between 29 Palms and Ft Hood, TX.
In this experiment between 29 Palms and Fort Hood Texas the Marines pushed the envelope further.
The purpose of the experiment was the following:
To validate that the Marine Corps can execute a 1000+ mile crisis response mission in a single period of darkness;
To further develop TTP to support MV-22 operations into the urban littoral (including fast rope insertion);
To figure out how to increase MAGTF C3I capabilities, to include long-range, air-ground digital first and inter-flight communication between the assault force and all supporting air assets to best support the ability to gain and maintain access in the objective area.
One finding from the experiment, also known as TALON REACH I, that reinforced a similar finding from the Camp Blanding experiment was that “the GCE currently has Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and Joint Fires Observer (JFO) manning and equipping shortfalls that are needed to maximize our air combat element’s ever increasing capabilities on a distributed battlefield.”
According to Lt. Col. Bill Hendricks, a Cobra driver, and currently assigned to USMC Aviation Headquarters as the air-ground weapons requirements officer, the exercise:
Provided an opportunity to look at how mission planning can change significantly with the new configuration of insertion forces and how that approach can, in turn, significantly shorten the time from launch to operating in the objective area.
Rather than several hours on the ground planning the mission and then launching the force mission, now the time associated with the Rapid Response Planning Process can be significantly reduced. A new process is being developed.
The insertion force takes off and then does the planning en route (given the range and time in transit) and provides real time information to the GCE and ACE commanders aboard the Osprey prior to going into the objective area.
March 2014: Exercise TALON REACH II whereby a CLT from the training base in Twenty-nine Palms assaulted into an A2/AD environment against enemy positions located on San Clemente Island.
The latest experiment, TALON II, was built around a raid from 29 Palms to San Clemente Island.
According to the tasking:
Among the experiment’s primary objectives were the following:
To assess integrated airborne C5I between a CLT located across multiple aviation platforms;
To assess integrated ground-air C5I between a CLT post-insert and multiple supporting aviation platforms;
To assess the utilization of CLT fires approval processes and control in all phases.
At the heart of the exercise was to secure an airfield to support the concept of distributed STOVL operations as well.
This airfield was 23 kilometers from the enemy’s ASCM sites and required the CLT to conduct an all-night, dismounted movement to contact operation to secure it. In the experiment, the F-35 surrogate, the Cat Bird” was used to provide DAS and other data to the CLT in flight and post-insertion.
And the F-35 working with an Osprey-enabled insertion force could well re-define the meaning of Close Air Support (CAS). The F-35 could enter the objective area prior to the arrival of the CLT, push data back to the incoming force, and then provide fire support, “kinetic” and “non-kinetic,” C2 and ISR support during the insertion and operation.
Col. Mike Orr, the Commnading Officer of VMX-22, worked closely with the IOC in both TALON REACH exercises.
According to Orr, a key question being addressed by the series of exercises is the following:
What technology is out there today that could easily and inexpensively solve some of our connectivity challenges?
Is there smartphone and tablet technology that can be leveraged to re-shape situational awareness for the ground force?
The technological evolution – which is in effect a combat cloud empowering the force – carries with it changes in decision making as well.
According to Col. Orr:
We are pushing the concept of providing situational awareness to a much lower tactical level than we have ever done before.
We are empowering decision makers at a much lower level while shaping a robust ground and air picture for the overall force.
You would be amazed at what can be achieved as we move forward along these lines. And we are just beginning to understand the art of the possible.
Orr added that:
We take an aggregate air picture which traditionally would be only available to an air operations center and push it down to the users at platoon or squad level.
My background as a Link-16 enabled aviator has taught me the benefits of increased situational awareness.
We are trying to take the increased situational awareness picture down to a junior level.
As General Mattis likes to say, we push information to the ‘point of discomfort’.
Amazing things can happen when we act this way.
Another way to look at this is re-shaping how the force is inserted to give it a higher probability of success or to provide for better risk management for the insertion of force itself.
Col. Orr noted that the innovation they are pursuing through the exercise is also very cost effective.
We are using tablet technologies to display the data and connect the force visually.
Rather than radios, tablets provide a very good way to connect the force in route.
We are looking to get away from proprietary and single mission technology to an applications based approach.
These C2 tools are becoming much more user friendly, and working via a tablet helps in that process.
The experiments are continuing and will lead to the deployment of the capability being shaped by these experiments aboard a forthcoming MEU deployment.
And as the MEU draws upon this capability, the experiment will continue, but in real world operations.
In the slideshow below:
Students from the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., completed a “Proof-of-Concept” 1,100 mile, long-range operation from Twentynine Palms, Calif., to Fort Hood, Texas, via MV-22 Ospreys, on Dec. 15, 2013.
The Marines fast-roped into a mock city to secure the embassy and rescue key U.S. personnel.
The United States has secured a ten-year lease extension on Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, an important base in the region, but may extend the lease for twenty additional years.
The new agreement was announced on May 5, 2014 by President Barack Obama and Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh, who was visiting the White House.
“Camp Lemonnier is extraordinarily important to our work throughout the Horn of Africa but also throughout the region. We very much appreciate the hospitality that Djiboutians provide,” Obama said.
“Overall, this is a critical facility that we maintain in Djibouti, we could not do it without the president’s cooperation, we’re grateful for him agreeing for a long term presence there,” he added.
Camp Lemonnier, next to Djibouti’s international airport, is the only official American military base on the African continent and is an important hub for stationing Special Forces and military aircraft operating in the region.
Around 4 000 American and allied personnel are based at Camp Lemonnier.
Guelleh told reporters that Djibouti and the United States had established a “strategic partnership” to deal with “the fight against terrorism, piracy and human trafficking in our region,” he said
“The fact that we welcome US forces in our country shows our support for international peace, and for peace in our region as well.”
The Associated Press reports that the lease will cost $63 million per year for the next ten years.
Marine assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 166 mans the rear cargo hatch during a flight over Camp Lemonnier and surrounding area. Credit: Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, 11/12/13.
Apparently the United States paid Djibouti $38 million a year for the use of the base under the previous lease agreement
The new agreement has provision to extend the lease for ten more years without renegotiating the terms and also includes a provision for a ten year extension beyond that at a new yearly rate.
“We’ve agreed to extend our presence at Camp Lemonnier and to increase our cooperation across a range of areas, including security, counter-terrorism, trade and energy cooperation,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told Agence France Presse.
The US military increased its presence at Camp Lemonnier following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and the base has now become its biggest military outpost in Africa. The Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJF-HOA) is based at Lemonnier.
Due to its importance to the US military, Camp Lemonnier is undergoing a series of upgrades, with $808 million planned to be spent on improving infrastructure at the site. Upgrades include new buildings, including a hangar, air operations center, armory, operations center, warehouse, training facility, vehicle maintenance shop etc.
The upgrades come as the US diversifies the missions assigned to the base.
After the attack on the US diplomatic mission in Libya on September 11, 2012, the Pentagon established a 150 person strong rapid response force at the Camp, the New York Times reports. In December last year, 45 soldiers from Djibouti were sent to the South Sudanese capital Juba to reinforce security at the US embassy there.
Last year the US military stopped flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Camp Lemonnier after a string of crashes, moving operations to a remote desert airstrip.
In late 2010, the US dispatched eight MQ-1B Predators to Djibouti and turned Camp Lemonnier into a full-time UAV base. These UAVs have been used to strike targets in Yemen and Somalia.
However, the operation of UAVs from Camp Lemonnier has been challenged by a number of accidents, with five incidents involving General Atomics MQ-1 Predators since the beginning of 2011, according to AFP.
As a result, Djiboutian officials asked the American military to halt UAV flights from Camp Lemonnier and the UAV fleet in Djibouti was moved to Chabelley Airfield, around 10 kilometers from the capital Djibouti.
According to a document from the US Congress seen by the Washington Post, some $13 million was spent on upgrading the Chabelley airfield in support of UAV flights.
The US military also flies UAVs from Arba Minch in Ethiopia and Niamey in Niger.
In addition to the US military, other foreign countries have a military presence at Camp Lemonnier. France and Spain, for example, base aircraft there, mainly for anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa.
This piece was republished with the permission of our partner, defenceWeb.
The evolution of USMC concepts of operations under the influence of the proliferation of the numbers and experience with the Osprey has been significant.
It is clearly to be anticipated that a similar experience will unfold, as the F-35B becomes part of the MAGTF in the decade ahead.
For the Marines, air power is part of the MAGTF, or put in simple terms, a key element allowing force insertion – built around the ground combat element – to occur in a diversity of settings and situations.
The reach and range of the Osprey has redefined operational dynamics at sea, from the sea and for land operations, including rethinking basic functions such as CASEVAC ops.
A key way to understand the difference between legacy approaches and evolving ones is to contrast a rotorcraft enabled ground force with a tilt-rotor and fast jet enabled force.
A rotorcraft enabled ground force is operating within the operational box of the rotorcraft range as well as the operating bases to support the operations of the helicopter. At sea this meant that the USN-USMC team operated within a 200 square mile operational area with a three-ship task force.
With the tilt-rotor and fast jet combination, the capability to disperse and aggregate force over a much larger area has become a reality.
At sea, this has meant that the USN-USMC team can now operate with a disaggregated three-ship task force covering more than 1000 miles in operational reach. On land, rather than focusing on a FOB defined AOR, one can think much more broadly about the Area of Interest.
A key area where the Marines are shaping a way forward is in working new ways for the Ground Combat Element in flight to prepare for their engagement when on the ground.
In a way, the connectivity technologies being worked on and refined by the Marines are providing an important compliment to the flexibility of the Osprey itself in terms of the ability to operate very flexibly in terms of approaches and departures from a landing zone.
The Marines have been experimenting over the past 15 months with new ways to connect the GCE within an insertion mission, and they are optimistic that their exercises can lead relatively soon to a deployed capability with Marine Expeditionary Units and Special Purpose MAGTFs focused on crisis response missions.
These units, then, can subsequently use the initial capability and drive further innovation.
The approach has been to deploy the Ground Combat Element (GCE) over a tilt-rotor-enabled distance and to insert the force with situational awareness, which can enhance mission success. By shaping new communications capability throughout the flight, the GCE getting off the Osprey is much better positioned for mission success.
With a shift from flying to engaging in a forward leaning operation, a number of key mobility requirements have been highlighted as well:
How to continue to provide SA to the insertion force throughout their mission on the ground?
How to simplify the communications packages and to make them easier to use?
How to shift from more static UAV concepts such as Shadow to a small “Kamikaze” UAV which can be pushed out of the Osprey and work with the mission?
How to leverage the F-35s Distributed Aperture System (DAS) capability and to push that information down to the lowest tactical level?
In other words, by working with a tilt-rotor-enabled force, the Marines are forward leaning their experimentation to procure technology that will enable new capabilities, and not simply fill legacy gaps.
To date, the process has evolved through the course of four exercises:
Credit Graphic: Second Line of Defense
March 2013: Initial long-range night raid experiment between Quantico and Parris Island
The process was started with an initial effort using local resources.
There is a growing sense that the GCE needs to better leverage the evolving capability of USMC aviation, and the exercises are one way to do a better job along these lines.
Captain Jason Deane of the Infantry Officer’s School (IOC) has summarized the approach and findings of this initial experiment in an article in the Marine Corps Gazette published in January 2014.
From January through March 2013 the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) conducted an experiment in a simulated urban littoral, anti access/area denial environment culminating in a long-range night raid between Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) Parris Island.
Given potential future urban littoral environments, the experiment sought to determine the following:
With an acceptable risk level, can a platoon-sized or larger infantry unit fast rope out of MV–22s at night with a 50-to 60-pound combat load?
While in the back of MV–22s for approximately 2 hours, can this unit maintain voice and data communications to maximize situational awareness prior to insert?
Once on the ground 500 miles from the pickup-landing zone (PZ), can this unit maintain voice and data communications with its higher headquarters?
In addition, to connectivity lessons learned from the exercise, the Captain highlighted a key “gap” which has been the focus of the follow on exercises, but also highlights the need for technological innovation to follow the paths opened up by tilt-rotor technology, rather than staying in the rotorcraft enabled force era.
As was the case during this long-range raid, MV–22s quickly outrun all U.S. military rotary-wing close air support platforms—that is, unless these aircraft are forward staged near the objective area, which is by no means always practical or advisable if conducting a real-world mission.
Given rotary-wing close air support limitations when maximizing aspects of the MV–22’s potential, precision guided fires from naval platforms and/or fixed-wing CAS or armed unmanned aerial systems will typically be required to enable ground force actions within an objective area.
Such aviation assets might be on-station for hours prior to the ground force insert.
This said, if the ground force is flying to the objective area for hours in the back of MV–22s, we do not currently have the required capability to provide real-time information updates to our infantry Marines, to include still or full-motion video imagery.
What this meant for our mission was that once the force lifted off from Quantico, the lieutenants did not receive an update on enemy activity in the objective area until they were 10 minutes out from the objective.
This is an unacceptable information gap.
August 2013: Company Landing Team (CLT) operated from Quantico to Camp Blanding Florida in raid
In this experiment, the CLT operated over a 96-hour period, going considerable distance, operating hundreds of miles from its HHQ, against an enemy with anti-access capabilities. The 600-mile aerial assault involved an initial destruction raid and then the force operated as the initial forcible entry capability for a follow-on joint force.
Notably, the experiment focused on testing three core capabilities:
Long-range, air-ground command and control;
Distributed platoon operations with a CLT HQ element providing C2 back to Quantico (which simulated a distance intended for operations from amphibs or an intermediate state base);
Shaping requirements (TTPs) for expeditionary energy systems able to operate in tropical, thickly vegetated environments.
An interesting aspect of the experiment was to unintentionally highlight the limitations of the SHADOW UAV and to shape a clear need for a UAV which can be tossed out the back of the Osprey.
The SHADOW UAV is not expeditionary in any sense of the word, and the size of the team necessary to support it is a problem as well for an agile lean force looking for the kind of rapid force insertion enabled by the Osprey.
According to one report: “A potential employment concept would be to have a 5,10 or 50-100 pound “kamikaze” UAV stored in the cargo space areas of the MV-22” which can be used by the Fire Support Team as needed.
What clearly emerged from the initial two experiments was that a CLT empowered by the right kind of communications gear and able to work closely with aviation elements could operate effectively at a significant distance., while also providing a unique capability for combatant commanders.
But technology must continue to bend to the operational needs emergent from the concept of operation changes.
December 2013: Exercise Talon Reach whereby the CLT conducted a NEO into a semi-permissive environment between 29 Palms and Ft Hood, TX.
In this experiment between 29 Palms and Fort Hood Texas the Marines pushed the envelope further.
The purpose of the experiment was the following:
To validate that the Marine Corps can execute a 1000+ mile crisis response mission in a single period of darkness;
To further develop TTP to support MV-22 operations into the urban littoral (including fast rope insertion);
To figure out how to increase MAGTF C3I capabilities, to include long-range, air-ground digital first and inter-flight communication between the assault force and all supporting air assets to best support the ability to gain and maintain access in the objective area.
One finding from the experiment, also known as TALON REACH I, that reinforced a similar finding from the Camp Blanding experiment was that “the GCE currently has Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and Joint Fires Observer (JFO) manning and equipping shortfalls that are needed to maximize our air combat element’s ever increasing capabilities on a distributed battlefield.”
According to Lt. Col. Bill Hendricks, a Cobra driver, and currently assigned to USMC Aviation Headquarters as the air-ground weapons requirements officer, the exercise:
Provided an opportunity to look at how mission planning can change significantly with the new configuration of insertion forces and how that approach can, in turn, significantly shorten the time from launch to operating in the objective area.
Rather than several hours on the ground planning the mission and then launching the force mission, now the time associated with the Rapid Response Planning Process can be significantly reduced. A new process is being developed.
The insertion force takes off and then does the planning en route (given the range and time in transit) and provides real time information to the GCE and ACE commanders aboard the Osprey prior to going into the objective area.
March 2014: Exercise TALON REACH II whereby a CLT from the training base in Twenty-nine Palms assaulted into an A2/AD environment against enemy positions located on San Clemente Island.
The latest experiment, TALON II, was built around a raid from 29 Palms to San Clemente Island.
According to the tasking:
Among the experiment’s primary objectives were the following:
To assess integrated airborne C5I between a CLT located across multiple aviation platforms;
To assess integrated ground-air C5I between a CLT post-insert and multiple supporting aviation platforms;
To assess the utilization of CLT fires approval processes and control in all phases.
At the heart of the exercise was to secure an airfield to support the concept of distributed STOVL operations as well.
This airfield was 23 kilometers from the enemy’s ASCM sites and required the CLT to conduct an all-night, dismounted movement to contact operation to secure it. In the experiment, the F-35 surrogate, the Cat Bird” was used to provide DAS and other data to the CLT in flight and post-insertion.
And the F-35 working with an Osprey-enabled insertion force could well re-define the meaning of Close Air Support (CAS). The F-35 could enter the objective area prior to the arrival of the CLT, push data back to the incoming force, and then provide fire support, “kinetic” and “non-kinetic,” C2 and ISR support during the insertion and operation.
Col. Mike Orr, the Commnading Officer of VMX-22, worked closely with the IOC in both TALON REACH exercises.
According to Orr, a key question being addressed by the series of exercises is the following:
What technology is out there today that could easily and inexpensively solve some of our connectivity challenges?
Is there smartphone and tablet technology that can be leveraged to re-shape situational awareness for the ground force?
The technological evolution – which is in effect a combat cloud empowering the force – carries with it changes in decision making as well.
According to Col. Orr:
We are pushing the concept of providing situational awareness to a much lower tactical level than we have ever done before.
We are empowering decision makers at a much lower level while shaping a robust ground and air picture for the overall force.
You would be amazed at what can be achieved as we move forward along these lines. And we are just beginning to understand the art of the possible.
Orr added that:
We take an aggregate air picture which traditionally would be only available to an air operations center and push it down to the users at platoon or squad level.
My background as a Link-16 enabled aviator has taught me the benefits of increased situational awareness.
We are trying to take the increased situational awareness picture down to a junior level.
As General Mattis likes to say, we push information to the ‘point of discomfort’.
Amazing things can happen when we act this way.
Another way to look at this is re-shaping how the force is inserted to give it a higher probability of success or to provide for better risk management for the insertion of force itself.
Col. Orr noted that the innovation they are pursuing through the exercise is also very cost effective.
We are using tablet technologies to display the data and connect the force visually.
Rather than radios, tablets provide a very good way to connect the force in route.
We are looking to get away from proprietary and single mission technology to an applications based approach.
These C2 tools are becoming much more user friendly, and working via a tablet helps in that process.
The experiments are continuing and will lead to the deployment of the capability being shaped by these experiments aboard a forthcoming MEU deployment.
And as the MEU draws upon this capability, the experiment will continue, but in real world operations.
That is the ultimate test of what experiments yield.
In the slideshow below, some photos taken during the San Clemente raid are highlighted:
In the first photo, Marines conduct patrols through the night during the Infantry Officer’s Course aboard San Clemente Island, Calif., Mar. 24. The Marines patrolled a total of 23 km before taking the final objective during the course.
In the second photo, Marines employ the Wasp Micro Air Vehicle to scout ahead to inform the Marines of potential threats during the Infantry Officer’s Course aboard San Clemente Island, Calif., Mar. 24.
In the third photo, 2nd Lt. Kyle Olson, an Infantry Officer’s Course student, utilizes a tablet to communicate with his Marines in real time during the Infantry Officer’s Course aboard San Clemente Island, Calif., Mar. 24. Olson patrolled with his Marines 23km before taking the final objective.
Saudi Arabia held its biggest ever-military exercise over two weeks this April in three theaters across the country reportedly involving some 100,000 personnel from its army, navy and air force.
Details were sketchy as usual from the rather secretive kingdom but officially published reports said that the exercise, codenamed Saif Abdullah (or sword of Abdullah in Arabic), was meant to test the capability of the Saudi Arabian forces in both offensive and defensive roles.
On its concluding day on April 29, rulers, royalty and top military commanders from the neighboring gulf states attended the final parts of the show as well as the ceremonial retreat at Hafr al Batin in the country’s north-east.
Militarily, Saudi Arabia is among the best-equipped countries in the world, building, maintaining and continuously upgrading a leading edge in the region, mostly with US, British, German, French and Italian weapons.
According to western sources, the exercise involved Boeing-supplied F 15 Eagle and AWACS aircraft as well as Apache helicopters, British Aerospace’s Tornado aircraft, Raytheon’s missile and air defense systems and a host of formidable equipment.
Saudi Arabia holds the exercise every year actually, but the dimension and scale of deployment this time was unparalleled, as the kingdom officially let it be known albeit without divulging details.
Saudi Arabia began its military buildup right from the 1970s but accelerated it in the 1980s following the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which also threatened to export it to destabilize its Arab Gulf neighbors.
In May 1981, Saudi Arabia, and its five neighbours, UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait also formed the regional economic and security grouping of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which declared that an attack on any of them would be considered as an attack on all of them and tackled jointly.
In fact, all the Gulf countries, particularly UAE and Saudi Arabia, have wisely used their military acquisition programs to leverage investments as offsets to build their domestic industry from scratch. In this perspective, UAE has particularly made impressive strides in oil, aerospace and defense technologies.
The GCC grouping has meanwhile held strong, except that in March this year, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar alleging latter’s interference in their internal affairs. Issues include Qatar’s support to Egyptian dissidents and rather ‘loud’ news reports by Doha-based Al Jazeera Arabic and English TV channel. Qatar has not reciprocated in this regard but its envoys in the three countries are not obliged with official diplomatic opportunities.
Understandably, the ruling family or military officials from Qatar, which shares border with Saudi Arabia, were not invited.
According to UAE’s state-run Emirates News Agency WAM, those at the ceremony included:
UAE’s General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces,
Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, Sheikh Khalid Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Kuwait,
Field Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, Commander-in-Chief of the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF),
and Mohammed bin Nasser Al-Rasebi, Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence of Oman.
Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif also attended, and according to Pakistani media, he took the opportunity to offer JF-17 thunder aircraft that Pakistan produces jointly with China.
Hafr al Batin is located near Saudi Arabia’s borders with Kuwait and Iraq at the head of the strategic Gulf waterway in east. The area hosts the King Khalid Military City.
But according to reports in the Saudi media, the exercise was held both on the country’s eastern Gulf Coast and the western Red Sea coast. Saudi Arabia has some tension with Yemen, and a chunk of the exercise deployment was on that border in south-west.
WAM said that the exercise was “staged in three theaters of operations to strengthen Saudi armed forces’ combat capability” in both offensive ad defensive roles while another report said that Electronic Warfare (EW) units were also used extensively.
In the US-allied war against Iraq in Feb 1991, in Operation desert Strom, US forces created deception cells at Hafr Al Batin and generated false but intense VHF traffic to mislead the Iraqis to believe that the main attack units were based there.
Movement of bogus military convoys, bunkers and dust were created while the main armour and infantry units attacked Iraqi forces in Kuwait from another route to penetrate the Iraqi defenses. Arial and naval bombing from the Gulf waterway pulverized Iraqi forces in their own country.
The significance of Hafr al Batin lay in the fact that as a convergence point between the three countries, it was a natural route to both Kuwait and Iraq. The area is some 90 km from Kuwait and 70 km from Iraq. The Gulf waterway is nearby.
This article was republished with the permission of our partner India Strategic.
Even a year ago Russia seemingly played a limited role in the Middle East.
Today Russia is vigorously advancing throughout the entire region.
America’s widely, and sadly justifiably, perceived strategic retreat, confusion, and ineptitude only account for part of this transformation. While even Russian analysts admit that US failures opened the door for Moscow, Russian policy has been tenacious, purposeful, and aligned to a genuine strategic vision if not strategy.
Moreover, Moscow expects further advances in the Middle East.
Graham Allison wrote from Sochi that a high-ranking Russian official confidently told him that Moscow believes that “when Obama sees the whites in the Iranian eyes, it will again be Russia to whom he must turn in order to stop Iran’s nuclear program without war.”[i]
Shaping a Strategic Role in the Region
Unfortunately few understand that Russia’s gains stem not merely from opportunism, though surely that is present, but are also is the result of the pursuit of core strategic objectives.
Russia has leveraged or managed the Syria crisis to its advantage. Though fully committed to the Assad regime and flooding Syria with weapons, economic assistance, and presumably intelligence support, Russia and the United States co-chaired the abortive Geneva-2 conference to fashion a political settlement to Syria’s civil war. Indeed, Moscow’s unwavering support for Assad and insistence that Assad’s opponents essentially surrender as a precondition of progress helped torpedo the conference.[ii]
Russia has played both sides of the Iranian coin. Russia has substantial economic relationships with Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel and is negotiating a huge energy deal with Iran that would effectively break the sanctions regime.[iii] Again it does so despite being a major participant in the 5+ 1 talks on Iran’s nuclearization. Here too Moscow simultaneously functions as both Iran’s prosecutor and defense council, highlighting the sheer opportunism that typifies its policies.
Weapons sales are an important tool to the pursuit of Russian influence in the region. Moscow sells weapons not only to Syria but also to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and is negotiating resumed arms sales to Algeria and Libya. Moscow also fully grasps that many weapons it sells to Syria or Iran then go to Hezbollah and Hamas.
Russia is expanding its naval presence in the region as well.
It has permanently reconstituted its Mediterranean Naval Squadron and repeatedly employed gunboat diplomacy to deter Western intervention in Syria and Turkish intervention in Cyprus.[iv]
The Tsezar Kuniko has been used in Syrian support operations over the past two years. It is an amphibious assault ship. Credit Photo: Wikepedia
Moscow has also acquired naval bases in Syria and Cyprus as well as an air base in Cyprus and evidently wants a renewed presence in Alexandria and even Montenegro to have permanent bases on the Mediterranean. Indeed, the new Egyptian government has said they were ready to franchise Russia to build a military base either in the Red Sea or the Mediterranean.[v]
Since “power projection activities are an input into the world order,” Russian force deployments into the greater Middle East and economic-political actions to gain access, influence and power there represent competitive and profound, attempts at engendering a long-term restructuring of the regional strategic order.[vi]
The energy tool is a crucial one as well in regular presence and expanded influence.
Russia has concurrently concluded major energy deals with Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq, and is negotiating the aforementioned deal with Iran. Finally Turkey has had to set aside its policy in the Middle East and the Caucasus for the sake of expediency due to Russia’s adroit diplomacy and energy leverage.[vii]
These policies too demonstrate Russia’s tactical flexibility and opportunism in Iraq where it buys and develops energy holdings for the Iraqi government and the KRG, thus playing both sides against the middle.[viii]
Clearly, these achievements’ impressive scope and range belie explanations emphasizing merely Russia’s tactical flexibility and opportunism.
Those elements represent only one dimension of the principles animating Russian strategy and policy. The utter absence of a thorough and comprehensive analysis of Russia’s objectives, tactics, the policy instruments it possesses, the goals it has reached, and its activities’ implications from the public discussion contributes to the indecisive, groping, and vacillating U.S. foreign and defense policy in the Middle East and towards Russia.
Due to Russia’s achievements US allies like Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (who is underwriting Egypt’s purchase of Russian weapons) are making deals with Russia or looking for other partners (e.g. Pakistan in Saudi Arabia’s case[ix]), signifying their growing skepticism if not worse about US policy.
These energy and arms deals give Russia legitimate entree into the complex energy rivalries around Cyprus, Israel, and Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran.
Since Moscow has already intervened in Cyprus’ quarrels with Turkey over gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean by sending its navy to support Cyprus, and clearly seeks an air base at Paphos in Cyprus, those moves plus its gunboat diplomacy in Syria and strong support for Assad underscore the inextricability of Russia’s energy policy, diplomacy, and displays of force in this region.[x]
Therefore we cannot abstract Russia’s accomplishments from its overall objectives in the region.
Russia’s deals and achievements confirm that for Russia, if not other major actors, “Geopolitical power is less about the projection of military prowess and more about access and control of resources and infrastructure.” [xi] Russia’s energy deals in the Middle East, if not elsewhere, also demonstrate the fundamentally strategic and political motives behind its overall energy policy.
Russian Strategic Objectives in the Region
In short, Russia pursues a number of key strategic objectives in the Middle East and the Mediterranean and opportunism is seen as providing the opportunities to both pursue these objectives and enhance influence.
The first objective is to restore the perception that Russia is a true great power that is able and willing to block American initiatives, power and values, prevent the US from unilaterally consolidating any regional geopolitical order, and force Washington to engage Moscow’s interests and even its veto power through the UN on US policies.
The second objective is to gain the status in Arab eyes of such a great power and thus demonstrating to all foreign and domestic audiences its inherent and unconstrained ability to conduct a truly “independent” great power policy.[xii]
The third objective is to create a bloc of states aligned to it that opposes US positions on the Middle East. Moscow aims. In particular it is attempting to create such a bloc with Iran, the Iraqi government, and Assad’s Syria.
anian President Hassan Rouhani (L) shakes hands with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Bishkek. (Iranian TV file photo).
This amounts to a pro-Shiite bloc against Sunni fundamentalism embodied by Saudi Arabia. Arguably it is no accident that this grouping exactly resembles the Rejectionist Front of the late 1970s and 1980s that opposed the Camp David treaty and US policy in the Middle East under Brezhnev.
The fourth objective is to demonstrate at home and abroad its reliability as an ally and its staunch resolve to fight terrorism while simultaneously pretending to be an exemplar of inter-civilizational understanding and the only true exemplar of universal religious values.
The fifth objective it to obtain, through energy and arms deals, as well as the judicious display of force enduring leverage within if not over these states that gives it a permanent base of influence upon their policies. By enhancing thereby the regime’s domestic standing as a successful exponent of Russia’s great power interests and resolution in fighting terrorism while not letting itself be perceived as an enemy of Islam-a major consideration given its growing and large Muslim minority
Russia pursues these goals through the medium of the utmost tactical flexibility.
Russia is not permanently wedded to any regime or state and seeks influence and leverage where the possibilities emerge.
Russia deems it an advantage that it not burdened by support for human rights imperatives but that also it has no principled commitment either to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states or to their stability, which might operate as barriers to strategic maneuver.
Editor’s Note: Dr. Blank’s more extensive look at these issues appears next month in the Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs.
An example of the dynamics which Blank discusses is the Iranian-Russian relationship. In a piece from the Iranian source Press TV, the centrality of the alliance was recently highlighted as follows:
Both Russia and Iran made it clear that they would support Syria in the case of a US aggression and this was certainly the main reason that pushed the Obama Administration to have second thoughts about an attack on Syria.
Although Syria and Iran have been the targets of the latest Western threats, Moscow knows that Russia and China are the ultimate objectives of the US military and diplomatic strategy. In recent years, Russia has set up a military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which has become a pariah for the West and NATO.
The war on Serbia, the independence of Kosovo, US support for pro-Western forces in Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan and the deployment of parts of a US defence missile system in Europe are clear evidences of Western contempt for Russia and its interests. The US has also pledged to undermine Moscow’s Eurasia Union project, which it is seen as a recreation of the former Soviet Union.
Against the background of US warmongering policies, Russia and Iran have expanded their relations significantly in recent months. The offensive led by the US and its allies, especially France, in the Middle East has destabilized the entire region and it is a fact that is driving both nations into an alliance. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Rogozin warned last January, “If anything happens to Iran and this country is drawn into any sort of political or military difficulties, it would be a direct threat to Russia’s national security.”
Andrei Arashev, the deputy director of the influential Russian think tank Strategic Culture Foundation, said in June that the intervention of the United States in Central Asia and the Middle East would endanger the territorial integrity of Russia, China and Iran.
Due to this fact, Arashev called for a “strategic alliance” between Iran and Russia: “The destruction of Arab states in the immediate vicinity of Iran and on the distant periphery of Russia and China, the perspective of a military intervention in Syria or the fall of Syria into chaos would have a direct impact on the national security of our countries.
To put it another way, in order to prevent combat on the streets of Iran and then on Russian streets, we must stand on the side of our ally Syria”, wsws.org quoted him as saying. Russia and Iran are already cooperating on security issues in different regions. Both countries share important interests. They want to strengthen security in these nearby regions and prevent extremist groups from taking over power in Afghanistan, Syria and other nations.
[i] Graham Allison, “Putin’s Olympic Gamble,” The National interest, February 12, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/putins-olympic-gamble-9869?page=1
[ii] Anne Gearan and Loveday Morris, “Syria Talks End on a Note of Uncertainty, U.S. Frustration With Russia,” Washington Post, February 15, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com
[iii] Open Source Center, OSC Analysis, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Central Eurasia, Henceforth, FBISSOV, January 31, 2014
[iv] Stephen Blank, ”Putin’s Agenda: Gunboat Diplomacy,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, December 12, 2011
[v] “Egypt Turns to Russia to Buy $4 billion Weapons Supplies,” Middle East Monitor, November 9, 2013, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/8246-egypt-turns-to-russia-to-buy-4-billion-weapons-supplies-; Theodore Karasik, “Arms to Egypt, From Russia With Love,” Al-Arabiya, November 20, 2013, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2013/11/20/Arms-to-Egypt-from-Russia-with-love.html; “Government refuses Russia’s request to set up a military base in Montenegro,” Independent Balkan News Agency, December 20, 2013, http://www.balkaneu.com/government-refuses-russias-request-set-military-base-montenegro/
[vi] Henk Houweling and Mehdi Parvizi Amineh, “Introduction,” Mehdi Parvizi Amineh and Henk Houweling, Eds., Central Eurasia in Global Politics: Conflict, Security, and Development, International Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2004, p. 15.
[vii] Fehim Tastekin, Washington, Al-Monitor, in English, February 9, 2014, FBIS SOV, February 9, 2014
[viii] Stephen Blank, ”Russia’s High-Stakes Game in Iraq: Expanding Their Role in the Middle East,” Second Line of Defense, January 19, 2014, www.sldinfo.com
[ix] Zachary Keck, “Saudi Arabia May Buy Pakistani-Chinese Fighter Jets.” The Diplomat, January 24, 2014, www.thediplomat.com; “Saudi Nuclear Weapons ‘on order’ From Pakistan,” BBC News Middle East, November 6, 2013,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846
[x] Stephen Blank, ”Russia Seeks Naval and Air Bases in Cyprus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, July 17, 2013; Jean Christou, ”Greece and Russia Rally Behind Cyprus,” Cyprus Mail, October 2, 2011, http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/greece-and-russia-rally-behind-cyprus/20111002; “Turkey, Israel, Greece and Russia Mobilizing Over Cyprus,” www.Asianews.it, October 5, 2011; Moscow, Interfax, in Russian, in English, May 7, 2012, FBIS SOV, May 7, 2012
[xi] Corey Johnson and B. Matthew Derrick, “A Splintered Heartland: Russia, Europe and the Geopolitics of Networked Energy Infrastructure,” Geopolitics, XVII, NO. 3, 2012, p. 495
[xii] Sergei Lavrov, “Vneshnepoliticheskaya Samostoyatel’nost’ Rossii Bezuslovnyi Imperativ,” (Russia’s Foreign Policy Autonomy is an Unconditional Imperative) Moskovskiye Novosti, January 19, 2007, http://www.mn.ru/issue.php?2007-1-56;
