Dr. Harald Malmgren Passed

02/24/2025

By Pippa Malmgren

I have been quiet for a little while. I had a series of life events that slowed me down since mid-December. One of them was the passing of my mentor, my great friend, my father. I moved back to Washington DC last year partly to spend time with him in his later years. We wanted to observe the extraordinary changes in American politics being brought about by this last Presidential election together. We could see that things were not unfolding as usual. He had so many incredible prescient insights given his extraordinary career (see below) advising so many Presidents and leaders and major companies and sectors around the world. We worked on a book together. We shared incredible laughs as we got to know each other again. We never expected to have this precious time to share again. You grow up, leave home, and visits to your parents are usually fleeting. But we lived together, which allowed for a much deeper reconnection. It was an incredible gift to us both.

But, I’m finding that my grief is interfering with my writing. I’m pausing the subscriptions and happy to extend any existing subscriptions to allow for this quiet window. I’m about to begin a profound spiritual journey to Kumbh Mela. Somehow my Dad and the universe conspired to send me there just as my father left this earthly plane, last week. We both agreed that the more advanced technology becomes, the greater the demand for humanity to achieve a greater degree of spiritual skill. He wanted me to go on the largest spiritual pilgrimage in the world. 400 million people are attending this year. So I am going to turn my energy to this process and wish to ask you for your indulgence for another two weeks. I will write when I return.

In the meantime, here is my Dad’s bio for those who are not so familiar with him. He had one issue he was especially interested in during his latter days. He quite enjoyed breaking the internet with it. It was the question of what we do as we recognize that we’ve been arrogant to believe that we are alone in the world. What happens as people wake up to intelligence(s) that exceed our own and operate in ways that our caged minds cannot fully comprehend? He did an interview on this, which he finished just before falling ill with aspirational pneumonia. It is coming…..

The Hon. Amb. Dr. Harald Malmgren served as an advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford, to US Senators Abraham A. Ribicoff and Russell B. Long, and United States Senate Committee on Finance, as well as to many Prime Ministers and Presidents of Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Australia and the EU. He was born in Boston and grew up in Rhode Island, on Narragansett Bay. He won athletic and academic scholarships to Rennsalear and then Yale University and graduated second in his class with a BA. He then won a Henry Fellowship for his D. Phil at Oxford University (Queen’s and Nuffield). He was Research Assistant to Tom Schelling at Yale as Schelling pioneered the use of game theory to solve societal problems. He was then supervised in his doctorate at Oxford by Sir John Hicks, both Hicks and Schelling went on to win Nobel Prizes. Malmgren’s paper, “Information, Expectations and the Theory of The Firm,” published in 1961, is still featured as one of a few original historical foundations of the then-emerging field of “New Institutional Economics.” His work was part of the historically important debate on the value of free markets versus central planning, which had been fiercely argued between Ludwig von Mises and Oscar Lange. Both Lange and Friedrich von Hayek spent time with him as he wrote his doctoral thesis. The Soviets later told him they had studied his work on this critical question.

After completing his doctorate at Oxford, Malmgren was immediately appointed the Galen Stone Joint Chair in Mathematical Economics in the Department of Engineering and in the College of Arts and Sciences, at Cornell University, with lifelong tenure. He served there from 1961-62. At Cornell, he was fortunate to befriend Professor Hans Bethe, of Manhattan Project fame, and popularly known among physicists as the most important scientific problem solver of the Twentieth Century. Malmgren also became friends with the writer Vladimir Nabakov and lived in his house during Nabokov’s sabbaticals.

Malmgren left Cornell when Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara asked him to become the youngest of the “Whiz Kids” under President John F Kennedy. He was assigned to The Institute for Defense Analysis and appointed as the joint liaison between The White House National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs just as the Cuban Missile Crisis began. This put him at the center of the crisis negotiations in the Pentagon situation room. He was concerned that he lacked the stature to influence the decision-making. President Kennedy and the Secretary of Defence said his role was to keep asking tough questions that were designed to slow down the Joint Chiefs and buy time for diplomatic solutions. While General Curtis LeMay, Chief of the US Air Force at the time, argued that his bomber squadron should drop nuclear weapons on the Soviet Union to prevent any further nuclear intimidation, Malmgren argued for restraint and negotiation. He pointed out that hitting Moscow with nuclear bombs would leave the US without a counterparty to negotiate with. He suggested it be leaked to the Soviets that the U.S. would not target Moscow, hoping that the Soviets would not target Washington DC in return. The crisis was ultimately resolved peacefully, averting what might have been a nuclear catastrophe.

Malmgren later traveled and lectured with Herman Kahn (noted physicist and author of On Thermonuclear WarThinking about the Unthinkable, etc.) in the U.S, Asia and Europe. He wrote several classified papers on thermonuclear warNATO defenses, and U.S. anti-missile technologies, and an unclassified paper on battlefield deployment of forces on the NATO central front, “A Forward-Pause Defense for Europe”, Orbis (University of Pennsylvania), fall, 1964. This article on the history and contemporary relevance of static/fixed vs. mobile/fluid defense strategies generated much attention in the US Military and was reprinted in Military Review, the Professional Journal of the U.S. Army, in May 1965. His interest in nuclear matters began at age thirteen when he wrote to the Atomic Energy Commission requesting information on the subject. Karl Compton, President of MIT 1930-1948, who had assembled the Manhattan Project team, tried to recruit him to MIT on a full scholarship when he was just fourteen years old, but he and his parents decided he was too young to leave home.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was asked to formulate a strategy for preventing another such crisis in future and appointed as Head of the Economics Group of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG), in the Pentagon and given responsibility for costing weapons systems. He proposed an Anti-Ballistic Missile System, arguing that this strategy would force the Soviet Union to spend roughly seven times more than the US on defense than it would cost the US to develop the system. It seems doubtful at the time that such a system could be made to work, but, he argued that this did not matter because the Soviets would still be forced to spend to defend themselves against it. Later, Russian officials claimed they could never get any intelligence on this ABM system. It had not occurred to them that it did not actually exist. This strategic concept ultimately bankrupted the Soviet Union when it culminated in The Strategic Defence Initiative, or the “Star Wars”, defence system announced years later by President Reagan. Malmgren oversaw many missile tests in these roles, including the controversial Blue Gill Triple Prime test which prompted both President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson to urgently visit Los Alamos and the Sandia Labs in December 1962.

Malmgren notably predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse from economic pressures, which was far from the consensus view at the time. He then advised the nascent post-Soviet Russian leadership on the reconstruction of Russia after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union. The Mayor of St Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchack, asked him to join an advisory council to Russia that included Vladimir Putin, whom he came to know personally.

President’s Kennedy and Johnson asked Malmgren to create what became the Office of U.S. Trade Representative within the White House. President Johnson sent him on a secret mission to Japan to secure the first-ever Voluntary Export Restraints on Textiles.

Hserved as senior economist and Executive Assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative under Christian Herter (formerly Secretary of State, Governor of Massachusetts, and Member of Congress). In 1965, he was appointed as the first U.S. Assistant Special Representative for Trade Negotiations. President Nixon appointed him the Principal Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, with the rank of Ambassador. In this role, he served as the principal US trade negotiator under President Nixon and then under President Gerald Ford. He later served for several subsequent years as special adviser on trade policy to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. He was behind most of the trade deals struck by the US between 1963 and 1974 when he was deeply involved in the crafting of the landmark Trade Act of 1974. Through 1974, Malmgren personally worked interactively with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Russell Long and Senator Herman Talmadge to draft the historically innovative “fast track trade negotiations” provision, which became embodied in the Trade Act of 1974 – the first major revision of US trade law since the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.

When President Nixon opened the dialogue with the Communist world, he sent Henry Kissinger to Beijing and quietly sent Malmgren to Moscow as his personal emissary on numerous occasions. Nixon asked him, “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” He replied, “Yes”. Nixon laughed and said, “What does that mean?” Malmgren replied, “It means I solve problems for the country.” In early 1972, Malmgren was the first U.S. official to call for the creation of a Transpacific economic cooperation organization. In 1973, President Nixon appointed him as his personal emissary in the negotiations with French President Pompidou, Malmgren and French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing to devise and launch the Tokyo Round of world trade negotiations (1973-1979).

In 1975 when Malmgren left government service, he became a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1998, he co-founded the Cordell Hull Institute with former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. He also lectured at Georgetown University, SAIS and at George Washington University as Professor of Business and Public Management. He also served as adviser to Several Presidential Commissions, Special Adviser to the OECD Secretary-General, the OECD‘s Wise Men’s Group on Global Economic and Financial Reform, and the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

He became Special Adviser to Senator Abraham Ribicoff in 1971, advising on the negotiations to assist the Jewish community in the Soviet Union secure safe passage to the United States after the Soviets raised the cost of exit visas in the early 1970’s.

When President Ford took office in 1974 he asked him to serve as Special Adviser on global economic and security issues and to William Seidman, Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs. President Ford’s first request of him was to redesign the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) and bring in greater input from the NSA. The PDB had, in his view, too much information about the private lives of foreign leaders and not enough about grain shipments and oil flows as indicators of stress and intent. During his career he also briefed and advised virtually every Prime Minister in Japan from 1971 to 1985. He was also an advisor to The Blue House in Korea. In the mid-1980s former Japanese prime minister Takeo Fukuda asked Malmgren to serve as policy adviser to the Interaction Council, the independent association of former heads of government of all nations. He continued in this role with Fukuda’s successor, Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor of Germany, who had overseen the reunification of Germany and with whom he became close friends.

He advised Toyota Corporation for many years and encouraged them to set up manufacturing facilities inside the U.S. in the early 1980’s, just as American car firms began outsourcing production overseas. Mr. Toyota asked him to identify potential locations. They agreed that Toyota’s teamwork approach to the assembly line would work best in the parts of America where people have a strong sense of community and “help each other build their homes and barns.” This is how they chose Lexington Kentucky. Toyota opened a plant there in 1986 which quickly became Toyota’s most profitable and innovative manufacturing facility in the world. Ever since, Toyota has produced more American-made auto content than any other automaker inside the U.S. His understanding of the U.S. Japan relationship was so deep that the Japanese Government asked him to quietly tutor one of their young diplomats while she was working in Washington DC working for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She later became Empress Masako of Japan.

In 1977 he founded the Malmgren Group (international economic consultancy and advisory services on corporate and financial strategies to several CEOs of major U.S. and foreign corporations and banks, and consultancy services to the European Union Commission), and in 1979 also founded the UK company, Malmgren, Golt & Kingston Ltd., 1979 to 1995, consultants to multinational companies, financial institutions, and the Commission of the European Union on European business and regulatory affairs. Most recently, he collaborated with me, his eldest daughter, to serve as the Chairman of my Geopolitica Institute.

He wrote numerous peer-reviewed scholarly articles. articles in diverse journals, including those of The National Academy of Sciences, The National Academy, The Royal Academy (UK), Royal Academy of Science (Sweden), Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, which was founded by his close friend and collaborator Samuel P Huntingdon.

His work also influenced the law. In 2019, Malmgren was called in as the closing expert witness in the historic breakup of AT&T in U.S vs. AT&T, presided over by Judge Harold Greene. He argued that the US should not break it up, or at least proceed slowly to give time to US manufacturing to pick up the work that had been done at “Ma Bell.” His exposition of the historic background and Congressional intent of key provisions of the Trade Act of 1974 (M.J. Marks and H.B. Malmgren, “Negotiating Nontariff Distortions to Trade,” Law and Policy in International Business, Georgetown University, Vol.7, No.2, 1975 was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States as explanatory basis of its historically significant trade policy determination in Zenith vs. US Treasury, 1978 [Zenith Radio Corporation v. United States, 437 U.S. 443 (1978)].

He wrote Economic Peacekeeping in Phase Two in 1973 and was interviewed by Robbin Laird in a book that was released just a few days after his death: Assessing Global Change: Strategic Perspectives of Dr. Harald Malmgren.

This was published by Pippa on her substack publication.

Credit graphic: ID 210749666 © Anett22 | Dreamstime.com

 

Finnish Readiness Exercise

U.S. Marines and Sailors with 2nd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, Marine Rotational Forces Europe, under the command and control of Task Force 61/2, and members of the Finnish Defence Forces, conduct live-fire naval surface fire support training with the PGG Hamina-class missile boat during Finnish Readiness Exercise on Camp Dragsvik, Finland, Aug. 6, 2024. Finnish Readiness Exercise exemplifies the strong defense partnership between Finland and the United States through combined training activities while enhancing operational readiness and effectiveness. Task Force 61/2 commands and controls fleet Marine forces in support of the U.S. Sixth Fleet commander while synchronizing Navy and Marine Corps units and capabilities in the U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command area of operations.

CAMP DRAGSVIK, FINLAND

08.06.2024

Photo by Staff Sgt. Josue Marquez   

U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Europe and Africa

CH-53K at SLTE 1-25

02/23/2025

U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron (HMH) 461 conduct simulated troop insertion operations with 2nd Battalion 23rd Marines at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, Feb. 07, 2025.

HMH-461 and other squadrons assigned to 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing trained to integrate with and support Marine ground units during Service Level Training Event (SLTE) 1-25, a series of training events designed to prepare Marines for operations around the globe.

TWENTYNINE PALMS, CALIFORNIA

02.07.2025

Video by Cpl. Anakin Smith 

2nd Marine Aircraft Wing

Integrated Training Exercise 1-25: The CH-53K Contributes

Integrated Training Exercise 1-25: The CH-53K Contributes

As the Trump Administration considers a way ahead for U.S. forces, support for the USMC should be front and center.

Multi-domain warfare delivered by a survivable and lethal force is at the heart of effective distributed operations.

The Maines have crafted the most advanced air enablement capability for the ground forces whether in support of land or sea operations in the world.

I have had the privilege of seeing this capability stood up since 2007 and have written extensively about this transformation of Marine Corps airpower in service of what I have called the Three Dimensional Warriors.

First, I have followed the standup of the Osprey, a revolutionary aircraft whose journey since 2007 in transforming the USMC since its introduction, I highlight in my forthcoming book, A Tiltrotor Enterprise: From Iraq to the Future.

Second, I have been engaged in the creation of the F-35 global enterprise from the beginning. having the privilege of working for Secretary Wynne. I have written about that in one already published book. My Fifth Generation Journey and two forthcoming books: Italy and the F-35 and America, Global Military Competition, and Opportunities Lost: Reflections on the Work of Michael W. Wynne.

The F-35 gives the Marines an unprecedented capability to enable a distribute force in the form of the F-35B.

And with the upcoming block upgrade, the aircraft will be able to operate several autonomous systems as well.

Unfortunately, there are those who seem to believe that manned systems are sunsetted with the arrival of drones but rather they are the leaders in shaping a combined arms approach to the use of such systems. And the Marines can be at the forefront of a new combined arms capability built around man-machine teaming, not the least of which because of their experience of how a wolfpack of F-35s works across the joint and coalition forces already.

And the latest arrival to the force is the King Stallion, which combines its air refuelability heavy lift platform with a digital ecosystem enabling it to evolve with the coming autonomous system revolution.

I have written about this but in a preliminary way in my book, The Coming of the CH-53K : A New Capability for the Distributed Force.

And the King Stallion which is initially based at 2nd Marine Airwing is becoming a frequent participant in the advanced training of the USMC as at the Integrated Training Exercise 1-25 at Training Area Lead Mountain, Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California being held currently.

The video below highlights its presence as do the photos in the slideshow below.


I would argue that the USMC role could grow if the Trump Administration embraces the paradigm shift in maritime operations before our eyes. This is a subject I address this year in detail in my new book with that title. The challenge is to embrace the forces and capabilities which can deliver distributed maritime effects, not dependent solely on capital ships. The Marines are accelerating their ability to do so and should receive the recognition and the funds to do so.

31st MEU FARP Operations

02/21/2025

U.S. Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 262 (Rein.), 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, conduct a forward arming and refueling point exercise at Ie Shima, Okinawa, Japan, Aug. 21, 2024.

A FARP is a multi-discipline operation that increases the speed of maneuver for aerial operations, utilizing expeditionary advanced base operations, enhancing strike capabilities by decreasing the distance required for refueling and rearming while increasing the range of combined-joint all domain operation capabilities.

The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of the America Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific Region.

OKINAWA, JAPAN

08.21.2024

Video by Cpl. Apollo Wilson

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit

Dealing with the World We Are In: Guidance for a Way Ahead

02/19/2025

By Robbin Laird

We are publishing four books this year which provide detailed assessments of the question of how did we get where we find ourselves today.

In addition, we are publishing assessments as well of aspects of shaping a way ahead, which provide a partial answer to how we leverage what we have in order to achieve what Western leaders determine we need to do in response to the rise of the multi-polar authoritarian dynamic.

There is one book which we are publishing that does both, even though it is rooted in explaining how we got to where we are in terms of the U.S. force structure.

That book is entitled: America, Global Military Competition, and Opportunities Lost: Reflections on the Work of Michael W. Wynne.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the West believed in the ascendency of liberal democracies. The United States became the sole superpower or hyper power and Western Europe celebrated a “peace dividend” and dismantled much of their defense capability.

The focus of the West was not on the rise of the next round of great power competition, and the American leaders the focus was upon the dramatic events of September 11, 2001 and a priority on a war on global terrorism and then the George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq and a stepped up engagement in Afghanistan. President Obama would follow this with closing the Iraq phase and ramping up “the good war” in Afghanistan.

“Stability operations” rather than building and maintaining a force for great power competition was the order of the day and Europeans strengthened their “out of area” forces rather than direct defense forces.

But someone failed to send the memo to Beijing and Moscow that the great power completion was over. In this book, we look at the lost decade of the United States in focusing on the land wars at the expense of a focus on building an innovative new force for great power competition.

We do so by looking at the dramatic firing of the Chief of Staff of the USAF and the Secretary of the USAF in 2008 which marked a symbolic transition to shaping a military primary able to do counter-insurgency warfare.

In the book, we look at the work of Michael Wynne, the 21st Secretary of the USAF and members of his team, as they continued to highlight opportunities throughout this decade to do course correction. Fortunately, the F-35 global enterprise was woven throughout the decade, with little support from DoD or any president for that matter, and that thread has been part of the great power competition awakening and shaping of the forces needed to compete with China, Russia and the other players in the rise of multi-polar authoritarianism.

The “rules-based” order of the West is shrinking as the area influenced by mutl-polar authoritarian powers, groups and movements is expanding. “Stability operations” was an investment which only accelerated the new global order.

Now we have Trump 2.0 focused on dealing with the global shift and seeking ways to do so and moving the Western coalition as well to confront these challenges.

But Trump 2.0 faces major challenges in sorting through how to reshape how the United States shapes a force structure to work effectively in such a situation.

There are many essays in the Wynne book which both analyze how we got where we are but point to a way ahead. In fact, this is what is unique about Wynne’s work

One essay suggestive of the Wynne approach which was published on March 30, 2014 was entitled, “Existential Warfare: Preparing the USAF for the Decade Ahead” and contains thoughts on dealign with the seizure of Crimea and the need to re-focus the force.

That essay follows:

The Crimean crisis and the PRC pushing out in the Pacific are two reminders that the world is not of our own making. The defense of Europe and the Pacific requires capabilities to deter and prevail where global reach and dominance is a sine qua non of playing the game.

The Air Force of today has been shaped to reflect the requirement for more efficient conduct of the wars of the past decade, and not the next. Rather than looking at Putin’s actions as that of a romantic ideologue of the 19th century, they are part of the reality of the 21st century.

Though we all quest for the congenial society of the “global commons” which interestingly remains the quest of our State Department, others are muscling in on either territory or territorial waters desiring to restore empires of old or simply rewriting the map to their advantage. They are trying to shape a “global commons” to their advantage, not simply sending representatives to the UN to debate the subject.

The heritage of the USAF has not been to be in a holding pattern while others remake the map. The tradition has been to hold hostage any geographic location in the world to protect U.S. interests.

This was the mantra of General Curtis Lemay as he formed Strategic Air Command with its rigid rule set and later of President Ronald Reagan as he realized that weakness was what led to war, while strength underwrote deterrence.

As a nation we realized that this notion could lead to our providing an umbrella for growth around the world and under that umbrella governments would become more interested in growing their economies then growing their defenses. This was built on the ability of the U.S. to demonstrate leadership within which global military reach was a reality, not an aspiration.

The Challenge

The United States, for now, seems to have temporarily forgotten the history of the rise and fall of nations. Trips to the Mayan Villages or the Roman Ruins show that ferocity beats acquiescence in hoping for a better future.

It would appear that in the midst of the current administration’s desire to be liked around the world, it is finding that weakness is either tolerated or taken advantage of. Likes and dislikes factor into geo-politics as part of alliance structures, but for the U.S. to lead those alliances it needs to reinforce its support with effective military global reach.

First Georgia, and now Crimea, reminds us that the defense of Europe is not a done deal, but a continuing effort. If we are pivoting to the Pacific and part of the alliance structure to defend Europe, global reach by definition is crucial, not simply parking regional capabilities for wars against relatively backward militaries.

No matter what happens on the global stage, some have difficulty recognizing the reality of a brutal world.

We hear the echoes as Secretary of State Kerry calls global warming our greatest enemy and President Obama chides the Russian Government for not measuring up to his projected standards of appropriate conduct.

The question is clearly on the table for the Baltics and Poland: how will the U.S. and European nations actually move to defend them rapidly if necessary? In fact, shaping an exercise program to do so would make more sense than the U.S. subsidizing the Russian energy czars by giving Ukraine extra money to pay for the increased price of Russian imported natural gas.

Air Force Modernization to Enhance Global Reach

The Chief of Staff of the USAF, General Welsh, is seeing his modernization plan, one held on abeyance to pay in part for the Afghan war, a war we are now exiting or being tossed out of, facing significant difficulties in getting either budgets or strategic attention.

Strategic attention is in short supply in today’s Washington. The debates focus more on insider positioning than on dealing with the intrusions of global reality. It is not about playing on the chess board with pawns and no Queens.

General Welsh has called for a new strategic plan, the first in nine years, and asked that the theme be ‘Strategic Agility.’ Being one of the co-authors of the previous plan, I would suggest he focus on the ‘existential defense’ and global reach as the key themes underwriting the strategic necessity of his new strategic plan.

Having an Air Force which can operate globally and hold key adversaries at risk is not a nice to have luxury but a key underpinning of ensuring that the global commons in which we operates meets the U.S. and its allies interests, and not those of our adversaries.

As one CNO extolled, America needs to build a force prepared for the existential fight and all other wars are therefore a lesser-included case. This concept has been left fallow as we concluded that the existential case was far too low probability to fund and the weapons for the lesser-included wars far less expensive.

For the Air Force, this meant buying King Air platforms and for other services rules of engagement that promoted a fair fight and led to placing our warriors in legal limbo for decisions made under fire.

Is this the way we want to fight the existential fight?

Current events would argue for refocusing our attention on what are proper ways to modernize our military. In part it is about money, in part it is about the priorities within which money is to be spent. It is also about the opportunity to leverage what our allies are investing in and how to cross our modernization strategies with theirs.

It is not just about money, but it is about focusing on effective outcomes to force modernization.

I have written previously about the ‘Offensive Enterprise’ and the ‘Defensive Enterprise.’ We historically separated offense and defense whereby Batteries of Nike Missiles and F-106 Air Defenders served simply the defensive enterprise.

But America’s strength lies in the ‘Offensive Enterprise’ where we put our forces at risk, but the world understood the effectiveness of reprisals.

With the conjunction of the fifth generation revolution with new missile defense sensors and shooters a new approach is possible.

But first we must start with where we are. This is a position of structural weakness: in which leading from behind is confused with global leadership.

We are in a situation where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says he doesn’t want to put our Airman, Navy in this case, at risk and demurs on providing a Syrian ‘No Fly Zone’ but days later the Israelis show this as weakness in command as they fly in and destroy a questionable weapons depot.

We had capability but didn’t want to use it. This might be seen as a difference between existential war and wars of choice. It certainly was by many of our allies causing the Administration to rush to the podiums with support for treaty allies and force allocation decisions that are still being realized but continues to leave some with questions of intent.

Now the President asks NATO to beef up its defenses; and stand with America. What does that mean in the absence of a clear strategic plan and commitment to funding that plan?

Ending wars is one thing but failing to prepare for the ones already hitting you in the face is another. This is not about the future; it is about the reality of the present being recognized as an attempt by adversaries to shape the future.

In this continuing saga, the budget shrinks the Navy, collapses the Army and now has fostered a description of ‘Pipe Dreaming’ by the principal Airman.

What are we missing when assembling a deterrent force for an existential opponent or for the next war not of our choice?

We can take some guidance from our constitution, which has in the preamble ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.’

Given this charge, we need to alert our Congress, as did General George Washington, of the need to fund properly the requirements and get on with the business of defense. It would appear that Gen Welsh in declaring the current defense plan a ‘Pipe Dream’ is doing his best to alert the present-day Congress of this outcome.

While he is sounding the alarm, his investment decisions are becoming evident in what funding he has asked for. Though recognizing that the out years are swelling beyond what might be allowed, he is also following some internal dictums.

These are steering the Air Force structure away from non-stealthy platforms and towards straightforward air dominant platforms shaped by a global force of fifth generation aircraft. He has asked for investment funds for the sixth generation air dominance platform and is turning more and more into disciplinary constructs that while tolerant of social needs recognize that attention to duty is a primary requirement for service in a fighting force.

Gen. Welsh has stipulated his top three investments for the future in the Air Domain as the F-35, the Long Range Strike Platform and the Range extending Tanker. There are undoubtedly corollaries in the Space and Cyber Domain but these have been expressed often.

We could add a fourth, new weapons for the air fleet. Hypersonics appears to be a crucial and breakthrough technology, which can reshape the impact of weapons, but we are flying a fifth generation aircraft with third and fourth generation weapons.

We can get to a weapons revolution by leveraging the global enterprise of the F-35 and our allies building new weapons for the global fleet as well as leveraging allied investments as well. For example, our working relationship with Australia allows us to accelerate our joint hypersonics research both more cost effectively and in terms of capability as well.

Though it is hard to surprise your competitors in this period of sharp and intrusive cyber attacks, our airmen have always surprised with their training competence and so also in the future war, as our coalition members learn about the intrinsic value of the F-35 beyond its value as a fighter and understand through exercises and realities its value as a Battle Management Platform.

Without a doubt, as we embrace the concept of coalition warfare, we have built and are distributing an interoperable battle management platform that connects available shooters with available targets and with intense training will surprise even our own leadership with our collective capabilities.

Devil Ray T18 Smart Uncrewed Surface Vehicle

According to a MARTAC press release dated November 4, 2024:

On 11/4/2024, Maritime Tactical Systems, Inc. (MARTAC), an innovator in Smart Uncrewed Surface Vessels (SUSVs), is proud to unveil its much-anticipated Devil Ray T18 (5.8 m) SUSV, adding a new capability worldwide including to the over twelve countries where our products operate in harsh maritime environments.

The base configuration Devil Ray T18 (T18) is designed as a high performance SUSV capable of burst speeds of 60+ kts, open ocean cruising range starting at 300 nautical miles, and a payload capacity up to 750 pounds. Designed with a common hardware and software architecture as the larger Devil Rays, the T18 has the same proven maneuverability and stability across sea states.

In addition to these capabilities, the T18 can also be stealthily transported worldwide in a 20-foot CONEX box allowing operators to transport and store these systems without detection.

 

Desert Guardian Exercise

02/17/2025

U.S. Central Command and 10th Mountain Division modernize their forces and offer opportunities for innovation of emergent equipment that the U.S. Army will use to modernize tactics, techniques, and practices on Fort Drum, Sept. 30 – Oct. 4, 2024.

Desert Guardian showcases 10th Mountain Division and Fort Drum’s continuous effort to create and build upon existing regional partnerships.

FORT DRUM, NEW YORK

10.07.2024

Video by Pfc. Alyssa Norton 

27th Public Affairs Detachment