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US Marines and JASDF Personnel Conduct Bilateral Exercise
11/05/2010 – U.S. Marines and Japanese Air Self-Defense Force personnel are taking part in an Aviation Training Relocation exercise with the goal of increasing combat readiness and interoperability between U.S. and JASDF personnel.
Credit photos and text: Naval Air Facility Misawa, October 21st, 2010
In the first photo, Marine Cpl. Xavier Figueroa, from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All Weather) 225, left, returns a fuel line to Japanese Airman 1st Class Kentaro Saito, from the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force following the successful refueling of a Marine F/A-18D Hornet here at Misawa Air Base.
In the second photo, Marine Sgt. Lydia Ye performs final flight preps before an F/A-18D Hornet, attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All Weather) 225, gets clearance to move to the Misawa Air Base runway.
In the third photo, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Ludwig, left, and Marine Capt. Brad Buick, both attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All Weather) 225, perform final preparations to their F/A-18D Hornet before taking off at Misawa Air Base.
Super Stallions Transport Supplies in Sindh Province
11/05/2010 – These photos show USMC forces involved in Pakistan Flood relief. Since Aug. 5, U.S. military helicopters have transported more than 12 million pounds of supplies. The U.S. Marine Corps’ 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units have been operating CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters in the Sindh Province since early September bringing relief supplies to those in need.
Credit photos and text: U.S. Air Forces Central Public Affairs, October 21st, 2010
The first photo shows a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion landing at a World Food Programme aid distribution site Oct. 20 near Pano Aqil Cantonment, Pakistan.
The second photo shows Pakistanis watching and waiting for a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion to land with relief supplies at a World Food Programme aid distribution site Oct. 18 near Pano Aqil Cantonment, Pakistan.
The third photo shows a U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion carrying flood relief supplies flies over the Sindh Province Oct. 18 near Pano Aqil Cantonment, Pakistan.
The final photo shows U.S. Marine Corps 1st Lt. Seamus Carey aiding in offloading a CH-53 Super Stallion at a World Food Programme aid distribution site Oct. 20 near Pano Aqil Cantonment, Pakistan.
From Global War on Terrorism to Grass-Roots Maritime Security
By Sebastian Bruns, Assistant Analyst, Risk Intelligence
Sebastian Bruns is an Assistant Analyst for Risk Intelligence and works on naval strategy and maritime geopolitics. He holds a Masters in North American Studies and is a PhD candidate at the University of Kiel, Germany.
The article below was originally published in Strategic Insights, No. 25 (July 2010).
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11/05 /2010
“[Africa Partnership Station] is inspired by the belief that effective maritime safety and security will contribute to development, economic prosperity, and security ashore.”
(U.S. White Paper, Africa Partnership Station)
Africa is back on the maritime security map. For ship owners, masters, CSOs and SSOs who have long been concerned with African trade and maritime threats to their crews and vessels alike, this political shift signals a timely endorsement of the inherent challenges that the continent offers.Stability and prosperity in Africa are obviously good for Africans and a globalised world, and a well-governed maritime environment will contribute to overall security and prosperity. That is why African littoral nations should develop their own ability to govern their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. Observers regard persistent international effort delivered on African terms as the key.
At the same time, the goals of Africa Partnership Station (APS), the U.S.-led approach, coupled with its political objectives and its implementation raise a number of questions to be outlined below. APS is one of three so-called global fleet stations designed to framework frequent deployments of maritime forces (naval ships, coast guard, air squadrons, naval construction battalions).
Moving Beyond a Narrow Focus
Although the fact that President Barack Obama’s paternal roots lie in Kenya may perhaps suggest a somewhat natural coming-into-focus of Africa into U.S. foreign and security policy, American commitment had been beefed up as early as 2007. During the tenure of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, the first APS deployment opened up a new chapter in U.S.-African relations. APS signaled an unprecedented engagement off the coast of sub-Saharan Africa in an effort to strengthen maritime security and safety.
Politically, it is in line with the United States’ ‘Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower’ (also published in 2007), which calls for cooperative international maritime engagement, covering the vast spectrum that maritime security and safety entail.
APS is one of the first examples trying to put this strategy in place.
Thus, it is fundamentally different from the classic role and identity of Navies, over decades largely concerned with battles at sea, anti-submarine warfare, convoy operations, naval gunfire support for land operations, or muscular (in fact, nuclear) deterrence.
In effect, plans to beef up maritime security in African waters reach back to 2003. It is crucial to understand that in those years, foreign policy and maritime security were seen in the larger context of the postulated ‘Global War on Terrorism.’
Thus, any efforts to curb piracy in Africa or to act against shore-based threats to maritime security were thought to be under the general umbrella of a powerful counter-terrorism policy, thus allowing for greater political leverage and more funds to be appropriated to the issue.
With a disregard for the differences and shades of grey between maritime security challenges, APS was off to a shaky start: The new-born U.S. African Command, a military governing body solely devoted to Africa, has not been able to relocate to an African country willing and able to sustain a larger U.S. military presence, underlining the difficulty that military planners had to overcome for their endeavor. Therefore, AFRICOM is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. APS is the responsibility of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, who in turn had to shape APS in a different way.
Unlike port visits in Europe or elsewhere, naval ships on duty with APS cannot rely on a high level of port security and a reliable harbor infrastructure in the countries that they are calling. Many ports are not equipped to handle warships with a larger draft. Unlike maneuvers with allies that often sport aggressive names and rely on firepower and deterrence exercises, APS is distinctly different in its approach, and even by the collegial name of the operation itself, thus a textbook example of the new concept of smart power (the marriage of soft and hard power means).
Unlike U.S. naval forward presence in the Mediterranean Sea, which is being maintained by the presence of a standing fleet headquartered in Naples, Italy, APS aims for persistent presence. This is not limited to a certain ship, platform, type of engagement, nor is it only delivered only at certain times of the year or to a certain country region of Africa.
Unlike previous sporadic engagements in Africa (most notably the West African Training Cruise of the 1970s), APS is specifically designed to sustainably improve relations with African nations and support regional maritime professional education, maritime domain awareness, maritime infrastructure, and maritime response capability.
Objectives: Strengthening Maritime Awareness
Inasmuch as the naval effort is laudable, general objectives rather than concrete benchmarks have prevailed in the political statements. According to APS’s website, it believes in a “recognized relationship between maritime security, maritime governance, development, prosperity, stability, and peace” and has thus “trained thousands of military personnel in subject areas like seamanship, search and rescue operations, law enforcement, medical readiness, environmental stewardship, and small boat maintenance” to date.
In short, APS aims to strengthen maritime domain awareness (MDA) through a number of measures. These include, but are not limited to, improving equipment and education, enlarging medical capabilities, joint exercises and capacity building by training the trainers. Furthermore, public diplomacy such as joint sports exercises; basic medical aid or U.S. Navy Seabees (engineers) efforts aimed to strengthen the smart power component of APS serve to underline the partnership aspect of the program.
However, smart power successes are inherently difficult to measure. The absence of hard military objectives, or even an ambitious political goal such as reducing piracy in the Gulf of Guinea to zero, underline that APS is at least as much about African security as about U.S. security interests. It is, in short, a highly strategically and politically charged operation.
At the same time, it is certainly neither a simple feel-good cruise nor designed to militarize America’s Africa policy, or those of its NATO allies. In fact, while a generally improved MDA is in the interest of the United States – for example, such as the U.S. approach to limit its dependency on foreign oil that needs to pass maritime choke points (and instead, for example, fostering economic ties with the oil-producing countries in West Africa) – any strategic advantages are merely medium, or even long-term, in style and do not singularly benefit the U.S.
For African nations involved in APS, the effort leads to a welcome opportunity to build MDA capacities and to strengthen their relationship to Washington. By the same token, Washington will have to address and overcome fears of neo-imperialism, militarization, and growing Chinese influence in Africa.
Missions: ‘Good Boat Diplomacy’
Initially, a focus of the international efforts through APS has been West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. 11 nations around the Gulf joined to approach the U.S. in order to gain help and support to combat challenges to maritime security. It was hoped that U.S. efforts through APS would be able to advance basic seamanship, small boat handling, VBSS (visit, board, search and seizure) techniques, search and rescue (SAR), data management and the setting up of operations centers for African law enforcement.
Operational measures included the education of African officials onboard of U.S. vessels, training of the local military, and capacity building in order to fight illegal fishing, combat drug trafficking, smuggling, illegal bunkering, and piracy. From using small Landing Craft Units for port visits, to delivering aid onshore, to joint exercises from maneuvers and even basketball games and training in martial arts, APS brought a wide variety of measures to the table.
In their own words, U.S. naval planners aimed for “good boat diplomacy” instead of “gunboat diplomacy.”
Delivering food, water, and medical assistance is yet another issue for military and policy planners. According to a U.S. AFRICOM press release, APS in 2008 engaged 15 West and Central African nations; saw the participation of 1,500 maritime professionals; hosted 79 ship riders from 10 nations; conducted numerous information sharing, sea-basing and maritime patrol operations with Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Senegal, and Liberia; provided an extensive medical and media outreach; and saw the first known U.S. Navy engagements in Equatorial Guinea and Angola as well as the first U.S. Navy theatre security cooperation engagements in Nigeria.
According to a policy brief in Washington in January 2010, anti-piracy training paid off in the Gulf of Guinea, when Benin recently “conducted a counter-piracy operation where they took back a ship that had been captured by pirates. The chief of the Benin navy said later that his success, his navy’s success, was directly attributable to the Africa Partnership Station and the efforts that we have expended in partnering with Benin and helping them improve their ability to get out on counter piracy operations.”
In the last two years, East Africa has drawn increased attention for APS as well. The outburst of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, the Somali Basin, and the east coast of Sub-Saharan Africa has prompted the U.S. (whose 5th Fleet is a standing force in the general area, covering the volatile Persian Gulf/Strait of Hormuz area) to dispatch some vessels under the APS banner. In February 2009, this expansion towards South and East Africa called port in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya.
At a time when the increased piracy threat incited a broad coalition of naval powers to come together to oust piracy, military and policy planners know very well that the threats to maritime security in East and West Africa could hardly be further apart from each other.
Piracy is structurally different in the Gulf of Guinea; attacks on oil rigs and approaches in port are typical. Off Somalia, piracy is occurring on the high seas. In West Africa, most states are able to maintain a low level of stability, offering an opportunity to build upon when training naval and maritime forces.
On the other end, in Somalia, the classic failed state that is home to civil wars, despair, al-Shebab fanatics and violence, offers no starting point whatsoever to undertake diplomacy through maritime means.
Platforms: Form Follows Function
Past APS deployments have shown a general trend for form to follow function, although it was not really clear at the outset which class of vessels would serve the underlying interest of APS best. Therefore, it did not come as a surprise that a high-speed catamaran served in the area as well as a guided missile cruiser and even the 40-year old behemoth USS NASHVILLE, an ageing Austin-class amphibious transport dock.
To test the waters before APS was officially kicked off, the Navy even dispatched the repair ship USS EMORY S. LAND to Africa in 2005, possibly the most non-threatening military vessel one can think of.
The USS NASHVILLE, which sailed to Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Gabon, and Sao Tome and Principe in 2009, encountered some unique problems herself: Due to her outdated construction, she could not call on the port of Libreville, Gabon, where the waters were not deep enough for the 17,000-ton veteran amphibious ship to navigate safely.
This, in turn, was not only a lesson learned on the absolute need for reliable intelligence and information on the conditions in the port, but also served as sales promotion for the newer gas-turbine powered amphibious vessels such as the Whidbey-Island class dock landing ships (the USS FORT MCHENRY made 19 port visits in 10 countries as part of her 2007 APS deployment).
This class of ships has proven itself practical for APS. In fact, in 2009, The Netherlands, by way of her HNLMS JOHAN DE WITT – yet another amphibious landing ship – became the first non-U.S. country to lead an APS mission (the second European ship to lead the mission was the Belgian Navy’s BNS GODETIA, a command and logistical support vessel designed for anti-mine warfare, in early 2010).
Amphibious transport docks are easier and cheaper to operate than other conventional warships, offer more cargo space for the diverse needs of APS, and provide better accommodation.
APS uses naval assets as mobile schoolhouses, repair shops and medical clinics to deliver training, material, scientific and humanitarian aid.
Another valuable asset of APS has proven to be the involvement of the United States Coast Guard.
During the summer and fall of 2008, the USS LEYTE GULF (a TICONDEROGA-class guided missile cruiser) and the USCGC DALLAS, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, performed a joint mission intended to bring African law enforcement officials onboard. It was designed to underline the increasingly blurry line between the defense of inshore and offshore maritime good order, traditionally a task divided between navies and coast guards.
The cruiser, while it does sport the classic shape of a warship, did not offer as many genuine operational advantages to APS as her Coast Guard companion. The DALLAS, although considerably older than the cruiser, has a long history of nation-building training and professional capacity-building expertise, looking back on operations in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.
The Coast Guard traditionally has a much larger field of expertise than many other coast guards, going far beyond inshore, littoral or EEZ tasks. At the same time, its white hulls and understated armaments are anything but threatening to onlookers.
Although prone to intra-service competition with the Navy over funds and missions, the Coast Guard proved to be, in the words of one analyst, “the perfect fit for Africa” in order to foster maritime law enforcement, search and rescue operations, environmental protection and aids to navigation (subjects that mirror Coast Guard missions).
The high-speed catamaran HSV SWIFT, an innovative platform designed for sea basing (thus eliminating the costly and potentially politically hazardous need for bases on shore), has seen repeated use as part of APS. The vessel served as a potent force enabler and also hosted numerous ship-riders: African maritime security officers or sailors who receive on-the-job training paired with the regular crew, a measure successfully employed on other vessels as well.
Assessment: Interesting Prospects Ahead
Although APS would like to be seen as a solely “good ship” diplomacy effort, there are some inherent shortcomings and criticism to be addressed. The command structure has already been mentioned. The joint effort by coast guards and navies is laudable, and certainly stems from the U.S. understanding of a sea-going U.S. Coast Guard role.
At the same time, African security needs call for a much larger coast guard presence than navy ships could ever provide. To fight piracy, illegal fishing, human trafficking, theft, illicit trade and narcotics smuggling, requires vessels (and crews) adapt to typical coast guard roles.
However, only the U.S. Navy as a forward-positioned navy can supply enough manpower and vessels to APS. From that, a stronger naval role follows. Policy objectives – preference for naval assets vs. a stronger and much more visible U.S. Coast Guard role – confuse and might even handicap some APS objectives.
It is not entirely clear how feasible the two-front approach of APS to both East and West Africa can really be. While naval assets confronting piracy is an important factor, it is – in relation to the objectives of APS – only one of many maritime challenges and, moreover, means confronting the symptoms rather than the sources. Operational demands and strategic goals may not necessarily completely overlap.
The involvement of many European nations (such as the Netherlands, Portugal, France and Belgium, all of which share their own ties to Africa mostly through a colonial past) through platforms and naval officers gives APS a broader legitimacy and, as a by-product, fosters international cooperation between naval forces.
APS also makes it its goal to call on as many African nations as possible, involving members of law enforcement agencies and maritime security experts instead of focusing on a single nation at a time.
The littoral environment (commonly defined as the combination of a maritime zone near the coast with confined and shallow waters as well as busy shipping channels and harbor approaches and a zone on land roughly the distance within the reach of conventional maritime force capabilities) will continue to play an increasingly central role, offering new opportunities and challenges far from aircraft carrier groups and nuclear-powered submarines.
The U.S. Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships (FREEDOM-/INDEPENDENCE-class), fast shallow-draft vessels such as the SWIFT-class sea-basing catamarans due to be added to the fleet, auxiliary vessels which serve as multi-mission platforms, and perhaps even riverine capabilities, are regarded as being future assets to development with African partners.
As long as there is a political will to undergo joint training in basic seamanship and maritime security education and practice, APS will be of great value for Africa – and for the U.S. From positive public relations effects (i.e. sailors helping to protect a sea turtle preserve in Sao Tome and Principe) to concrete help (i.e. in training Nigerian forces to counter the threats of piracy and oil-refinery attacks), APS offers a wide spectrum of opportunities.
What remains unclear is how the postulated whole-government approach and the integration of all forces can help achieve concrete benchmarks in improving maritime security.
If APS is fundamentally about breaking down barriers between countries, navies, U.S. agencies and other institutions, then both the domestic, bilateral and international dimension will be immensely interesting to follow. Some inherent challenges based around the U.S.’s image in the region and certainly cooperation and willingness of African states will also remain.
The vast spectrum of different and difficult challenges, overlapping transnational threats, factors and actors – and the absence of a yet to be defined strategic goal – will raise interesting prospects for Africa Partnership Station.
11/05 /2010 – The Obama administration has decided to pursue a more “proactive” air campaign against the Taliban insurgents and Islamist terrorists operating out of the autonomous tribal regions of northwest Pakistan. Afghan border outposts come under constant attack by Taliban and Haqqani-affiliated insurgents based in Pakistan, especially in North Waziristan. The guerrillas sally forth from their sanctuaries in Pakistan and attack Afghan army outposts in eastern Afghanistan, then flee back across the border with NATO air crews in hot pursuit. From these same sanctuaries, the terrorists plan and develop plots against civilian targets in foreign countries, including in Europe and the United States.
The White House and the Pentagon have become increasingly frustrated by the presence of the Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistani territory and the inability of the Islamabad government to establish control there. The Administration made a decision to double the number of U.S. combat troops in the country as part of its strategy in Afghanistan.
The impending December 2010 deadline for reviewing the results of the Afghan surge strategy has made the Administration especially eager to show some positive military results before then.
While still declining to send U.S. ground forces across the border into Pakistan, the Pentagon has increased the use of both manned helicopter attacks along the border and unmanned aerial vehicle strikes for striking targets deeper inside Pakistani territory. The purpose of these attacks is to deny the insurgents and terrorists a safe haven from which they can infiltrate men and material across the porous Afghan-Pakistan border as well as organize terrorist attacks on foreign countries.
While still declining to send U.S. ground forces across the border into Pakistan, the Pentagon has increased the use of both manned helicopter attacks along the border and unmanned aerial vehicle strikes for striking targets deeper inside Pakistani territory. The purpose of these attacks is to deny the insurgents and terrorists a safe haven from which they can infiltrate men and material across the porous Afghan-Pakistan border as well as organize terrorist attacks on foreign countries.
In one of these operations on September 30, two ISAF Apache helicopters attacked a site from which the insurgents were reportedly preparing to fire a mortar at a coalition base in Afghanistan’s Paktia province. After attacking this target, which resulted in their briefly crossing into Pakistani territory, the American crews concluded that they were taking small-arms fire from the Mandat Kandaho border patrol post, located some 200 meters inside Pakistan in the Kurram Agency. In self-defense, the helicopters re-entered Pakistani airspace and fired two surface-to-air missiles that destroyed the post, killing three members of Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps and wounding three others in the process.
The whole affair was marked by confusion. The incident occurred before dawn, which made it even harder to avoid straying across the Afghan-Pakistan border, with its disputed boundary that typically lacks natural geographic distinctions and is not clearly demarcated.
According to the Pakistani military, the Frontier Corps troops, a poorly trained and equipped tribal patrol force, fired “warning shots” to caution the helicopter crews that they had entered the territory of Pakistan’s upper Kurram Agency. A joint NATO-Pakistani inquiry concluded that the two helicopter crews misinterpreted the shots as an attack against them and fired back.
Coalition officials consider the Frontier Corps’ behavior irresponsibly dangerous considering that NATO interpreted the existing rules of engagement as allowing coalition forces in cases of self-defense to engage targets across the border without seeking advanced permission. DoD Spokesman Geoff Morrell stressed that American troops retain the inherent right to self-defense wherever they are deployed. “And remember… we will retain the right to defend our forces, to defend ourselves. And our forces who operate on the border with Pakistan are in a very dangerous and difficult situation.”
In Kabul, NATO staff criticized the border guards’ decision to fire at the helicopters rather than use established procedures to protest the border overflight, while in Washington, defense officials wondered why the Pakistanis did not simply try to communicate with NATO by car or radio.
U.S. officials initially resisted apologizing for the incident or offering to pay compensation to the victims’ relatives since those killed had opened fire first on U.S. forces. NATO invited Pakistani military representatives to participate in a joint investigation of the cross-border incident. They also offered them access to the video tapes made by the helicopter’s onboard cameras to demonstrate that the crew had acted in self-defense.
But the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs felt compelled on this occasion to call these overt border violations and attacks on its territory a “clear violation and breach of the UN mandate,” which authorized ISAF combat operations only in Afghanistan. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that an investigation was needed to assess the reasons for the attack, in effect to determine in NATO eyes “whether we are allies or enemies.”
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told members of Pakistan’s National Assembly that his government would defend Pakistani national sovereignty at all costs: “We can never allow you [NATO] to infringe on Pakistan’s sovereignty and security. And if you will not explain your actions, compensate us and apologize for this, we can use other means. And we have other options.”
More importantly, the Pakistani officials denied that agreed rules of engagement existed that permitted coalition forces to attack and even enter Pakistani territory in response to insurgent threats. A Foreign Ministry statement insisted that, “there are no agreed ‘hot pursuit’ rules” and that, “Such violations are unacceptable.”
In addition to the rhetorical flourishes, the Pakistani government closed the Torkham Gate at the Afghan border for more than a week. Simultaneously, various groups of militants, perhaps with the complicity of the local Pakistani authorities, torched dozen of the oil tankers and other vehicles at various locations in Pakistan that were conveying supplies to ISAF. But Pakistani officials kept other logistics routes, including the Chaman crossing, open to the NATO conoys.
Pakistan’s civilian government is in a different situation.
Its members must show Pakistani nationalists that they are not American lackeys and will resist Washington’s pressure. The return to a democratic regime in Pakistan has made it more difficult for the government to pursue Musharraf’s policy of simply ignoring popular views. Pakistanis note that whatever consent Musharraf gave lapsed with his retirement and the end of military rule. Pakistani civilians generally resent these bilateral defense ties since they perceive Americans as having endorsed their military government and as having sought to use the Pakistani army as a mercenary force to fight for Washington. Pakistani public opinion is clearly hostile to the United States, in general, and U.S. military operations within their country, in particular.
Pakistanis widely blame the U.S. war against the Taliban and other Muslim militants for bringing terrorism to Pakistan, which has suffered from suicide bombings and other civil strife in recent years. Pakistanis calculate that they have incurred enormous financial losses and other costs in terms of the elevated terrorist violence Pakistan has experienced since Islamabad’s decisions to side with Washington and support the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom after 9/11. They note that the Pakistani armed forces have suffered more casualties fighting Islamist militants than have coalition forces on the other sided of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
They see the increased U.S. drone and cross-border attacks of recent years as a form of coercive pressure to force the Pakistani government to crack down on the Taliban militants based in the tribal areas, which would further increase Pakistani military causalities and terrorist victims.
But Pakistan receives billions of dollars of assistance from the United States— originally focused on security assistance but increasingly encompassing nonmilitary aid as well—and the civilian government is genuinely opposed to terrorism. Breaking with the United States and NATO would benefit India in the diplomatic competition between the two nations.
Pakistani officials have sought to limit U.S. military operations in their country by affirming their commitment to reign in extremist activity in Pakistan and across the border. The Pakistani army has also resumed military operations against the Pakistani Taliban, though the recent floods have disrupted whatever intent it had to expand operations throughout the remaining tribal areas.
Despite the government’s formal opposition to the drone attacks, it is understood that the UAVs operate within Pakistan with that government’s approval and reportedly with its intelligence assistance—vitally important given the limited U.S. human assets in the region—now that the drones target the Pakistani Taliban as well.
From the perspective of the Pakistani government, the problem with the recent helicopter attacks was that they deviated from the standard rules of engagement as well as the attacks having led to the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers. Pakistani authorities regularly overlook the occasionally firing of a helicopter missile across the border, even the temporary overflight of the copter across the imprecise Afghan-Pakistan border, as long as the incident does not attract much public attention.
They even rapidly overcame the negative fallout from the June 2008 incident in which an ISAF air strike killed 11 Frontier Corps members manning a border checkpoint, leading to an exchange of fire with other Pakistani forces.
But in late September, at the same time that the CIA was launching a record number of drone attacks on Pakistani territory, U.S. helicopters fired missiles into Pakistani territory four times within one week and spoke about the attacks in public. Pakistani officials originally said nothing about the September 24 and 25 helicopter missile strikes on Pakistani territory, but the September 30 attack killed three paramilitary soldiers located inside Pakistan, making it hard to conceal. One of the cross-border helicopter attacks that occurred a few days before the attack on the Frontier Corps members killed as many as 60 fighters who had been attacking an Afghan border post but by the time they were hit had fled to the Pakistani side of the border.
Rather than remain silent, moreover, NATO officials confirmed the media reports that its manned helicopters had on crossed into Pakistani territory and killed Pakistanis located there, actions that alliance representatives justified as legitimate acts of self-defense.
U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan (See the full chart at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/pakaid.pdf)
In the end, NATO officials decided to resolve the crisis by issuing various forms of regret and apologies. ISAF Commander Gen. David Petraeus, who also leads the U.S. Command in Afghanistan, and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chefs of Staff, called the head of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and conveyed his grief over the three deaths. NATO Secretary General Rasmussen “expressed my regret for the incident last week in which Pakistani soldiers lost their lives, and my condolences to the families.
Obviously, it was unintended. Obviously, we have to make sure we improve coordination between our militaries and our Pakistani partners.” Senator John Kerry, one of Pakistan’s staunchest supporters in Congress, spoke with Prime Minister Gilani to help restore ties.
One factor helping to change the Pakistani position was the mysterious emergence at this time of a video depicting the illegal executions of six blindfolded young men by people dressed in Pakistani Army uniforms. The crime threatened to weaken support within Congress for providing further arms and other military assistance to Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities soon claimed to have identified the soldiers involved and indicated they would be punished.
Despite the apologies and reopening of the border crossing on October 10, the incident came at an unfortunate time in that relationship between the United States and Pakistan, which had been on the upswing in the months following a highly successful meeting in Washington between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi for their July 2010 U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.
By early October, frustrated American officials were worrying that the incident has negated whatever goodwill the United States achieved by enacting billions of dollars in aid, including a five-year $7.5 billion civilian aid package aimed to show that Washington wanted a long-term non-military commitment to Pakistan extending beyond the war on terror, and in having the U.S. military assume such a visible role in assisting the Pakistani authorities manage flood relief. The U.S. government spent more than $100 million on Pakistani flood relief partly, as Morrell noted, for “enhancing our reputation and our image in Pakistan.”
They also fear the damage, seen as self-inflicted in Washington, the Pakistani civilian government has incurred from the incident, which follows other problems including a highly criticized response to the floods, continued allegations of corruption, and weak economic performance.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stressed that, while seeking to maintain dialogue and good ties with the Pakistani military, the United States was “working with Pakistan to increase the capacity of this government, the performance of this government. It will be important for a civilian government to demonstrate its value to the Pakistani people. The Pakistani people have made clear that they prefer civilian government to dictatorship.”
Fortunately, few analysts believe the military wants to retake political power. On the one hand, it would not want to assume direct responsibility for the current crises besetting Pakistan. On the other hand, the current civilian government has effectively given the military whatever it wants, including vast resources and considerable autonomy to conduct its military operations as it sees fit, including some unwelcome to the United States and its allies.
Still, Afghan-Pakistan border tensions are likely to recur—and worsen—as NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan. Western governments will increase their pressure on Pakistani authorities to prevent the Taliban from exploiting the vacuum, but Pakistani leaders will want to hedge against the Taliban’s regaining control of some if not all their border regions.
They will seek at a minimum to avoid antagonizing it—and at least certain Pakistani national security managers will invariably be tempted to revise old ties and use the Afghan Taliban as an instrument for asserting Pakistani influence in this important neighboring country while also countering Indian influence there.
Regional Missile Defense: The Challenge of Crafting Integrated Missile Defense in NATO and Other Allied Regions (Part Two)
By Ambassador (Ret.) Jon D. Glassman, Director for Government Policy, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems
11/05 /2010 – The first part of this report discussed the special characteristics of regional missile defense, emphasizing that the requirements for such defense go far beyond the deployment and support of sensors and shooters and their connection into networks. In Part Two, the author offers potential solutions to the challenges faced by the NATO allies and other international partners in creating truly integral regional missile defenses.
NATO, at its impending Lisbon summit, will decide whether to embrace ballistic missile defense of its member nations as an alliance mission. It will also consider whether to extend its capability against medium and intermediate range upper tier threats, to enhance strategic awareness via the Bi-Strategic Command Automated Information System (Bi-SC AIS), and to install theater missile defense (TMD) enhancements to NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS).
Should a NATO decision be made either to assume the homeland defense mission or study it further, the path will be opened to elevate NATO’s incipient ALTBMD (Active Layer Ballistic Missile Defense) command, control, communications network linking allied missile defense assets to a new task broader than simple defense of deployed forces.
The currently funded initial capability against short/medium range threats against NATO deployed forces could be expanded to a capability including upper tier defense against medium/intermediate threats both to deployed forces (and implicitly their overseas surroundings) as well as to the NATO homelands.
The unfunded budget for the combined upper tier and NATO territorial defense would total in the range of 485-540 million euros (circa 400 million euros for upper tier integration and 83-139 million euros for extension to NATO territorial defense).
The NATO November decisions may also provide a path forward under the enlarged NATO mission for:
Installation of strategic-level missile defense situation awareness and planning components into NATO’s Bi-Strategic Command Automated Information Systems (Bi-SC AIS) — a comprehensive networked services capability that, among other things, will provide NATO ALTBMD C2 connectivity, and
Theater missile defense (TMD) enhancement of NATO’s Air Command and Control System (ACCS—the alliance’s air C2 capability that combines air defense with offensive air mission planning.)
The ACCS TMD enhancement would provide strategic, operational, and tactical-level missile defense situation awareness and planning plus tactical tasking, based on US-provided SEWS (Shared Early Warning System) space and US and European radar data.
Creating NATO Budgetary Efficiencies
Given the likely budgetary pressure, there could be good reason for NATO to search for funding efficiencies — avoiding duplication with, and building upon, US programs.
There is no reason that a NATO-focused coalition version of the US Missile Defense Agency’s Command, Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system–now at the US EUCOM Gateway at Ramstein Air Operations Center (AOC)–could not provide user-appropriate situation awareness services at all NATO missile defense levels (on the model of NATO’s Afghan Mission Network).
(Credit: SLD)
Additionally, the US Army Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) design to knit together “any sensor and any shooter” (including the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) that may replace Patriot and Hawk in the European theater) could serve as an integration template–expanding from an initial tie-up of US Army, Dutch, and German Patriots plus US THAAD to encompass other European naval and ground sensors and shooters. This could also provide a foundation for a reinforcement concept based on movement and seamless insertion of THAADs from the United States to Europe, as needed.
Such a NATO build-out starting from the US baseline could benefit from the IBCS work with the US Navy to develop a Joint Track Manager function that would link Navy Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) tracks with those being worked by US Army and Marine radars.
The combination of the C2BMC battle management component focused on forward-deployed high capability Missile Defense Agency X band radars (TPY 2) and broadly-encompassing IBCS sensor (US S and X and allied S and L band radars) and weapon integration to include battle management could provide to the US and NATO initially (and later other regional groupings) the ability to manage quickly and efficiently their total collective sensor and shooter resources during an engagement.
In the NATO context, this would provide the detailed battle management functionality now sketched out in the NATO ACCS tactical tasking component. The goal of speed and optimal utilization could drive other decisions that would incentivize cooperation and continuing investment.
Integrating the Space and Air Layers
While discussion to date within NATO, Israel, the Gulf, and the Far East has centered on deployment and acquisition of ground and maritime sensors and shooters, the integration of space and air layers will move up the agenda as operations become the focus.
Space
Engagement by senior civilian and military leaders has to begin prior to hostilities.
Diplomatic actions, defensive and offensive force deployment/readiness postures, and combat authorities/rules need to be decided—informed by space ISR indications and warning and space surveillance.
Possession by some allies/partners of electro-optical and radar ground surveillance satellites and space tracking and imaging radars and telescopes permits decisions based on shared facts.
Allied/partner investment in space ISR and space surveillance could be seen as a collective good. Appropriate US tech transfer and other incentives might accelerate restoration and expansion of the Japanese reconnaissance constellation and encourage European programs such as MUSIS designed to share information from French, German, and Italian imaging satellites (Helios, SAR-Lupe, and Cosmo-Sky Med).
Short ballistic trajectories require early detection and tracking. This can be facilitated by overhead early warning and precision cueing. New architectures providing direct downlink to US assets from US DSP/SBIRS early warning satellites, coupled with lower latency Shared Early Warning System service to allies/partners, would enlarge the battle space permitting more effective, layered response to high-volume challenges.
Allied/partner nations—moving beyond imaging—are now seeking their own early warning satellites—France has the Spirale demonstration program and Japan wants to proceed in the same direction. Dispersed early warning capability could become problematical, however, if confusion is generated over the fact of a launch or track coordinates. At a minimum, US-ally/partner certification of initial and continuing non-US early warning performance appears essential. Additionally, US tech transfer policies need to be reviewed to ensure maximum influence in maintaining common, mutually supportive systems and encouraging allied investment to remediate early warning gaps.
Additionally, allied industrial participation and investment could be encouraged in the envisaged US PTSS satellite constellation—given its importance in providing ascent phase, mid-course tracking to permit early and successful intercepts for the stressed regional defenses.
Air
The forthcoming global deployment of large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as Global Hawk, BAMS, and Euro Hawk, joined with existing manned air-to-ground surveillance (AGS) platforms such as Joint STARS and ASTOR, and Airborne Early Warning (AEW) aircraft such as AWACS, 737 MESA, and E2C/D, could be used to enhance regional ballistic and cruise missile tracking—given an appropriate sensor and networking strategy.
This could come from building out from the US Missile Defense Agency’s ABIRS (Airborne Infra-Red System) concept of UAV-mounted infra-red sensors and the future overseas deployment of US and allied/partner F-35 stealth fighters equipped with advanced AESA (Active Electronically-Scanned Array) radar and the Distributed Aperture System (DAS).
With a demonstrated range exceeding 800 miles with full spherical coverage, multiple DAS on F-35s and US and allied Global Hawk, Euro Hawk, BAMS, and other UAVs, fighters, and AEW/AGS aircraft, could be meshed together in ad hoc networks through secure data links using software being developed in the Missile Defense Agency’s EC2BMC (Enhanced C2BMC) program. This would allow allies/partners to leverage already committed investments to increase missile defense performance and validate its utility against threats in the ascent and terminal phases.
Spurring Investment
A decision to create US-allied/partner cooperative space and air ISR, early warning and tracking, space situation awareness, and air missile tracking capabilities, plus supporting data links and ground processing infrastructure, could provide the foundational elements for successful defense of regions with tight timelines. These programs, in turn, could constitute economically- and technologically-stimulating activities for defense industries in fiscally-challenged states.
Should a coalition of the willing emerge in regions with appropriate industrial capabilities such as Europe, the Far East or Israel, an incentive for national investment could be created through establishment of regional missile defense investment funds permitting 100% return to national industry in exchange for invested national funds.
(Previous national return rates proffered in related fields have been 70% for NATO Air-to-Ground Surveillance and 60% for the subsequently-cancelled Kinetic Energy Interceptor.)
Additionally, just as Japan and the US are cooperating in the development of the SM 3, Block IIA interceptor to defend against IRBMs, foreign content could be contemplated for the planned SM3, Block IIB planned to provide early intercept of ICBM launches. Such foreign content would synergize with the effort to encourage allies/partners to join in/expand their space and air activities enabling early intercept to occur.
European, Japanese, Korean and other efforts to develop indigenous interceptors could also be encouraged. While the US directly supports Israeli interceptors such as Arrow 2 and 3 and David’s Sling, non-budgetary support can be provided by developing alliance/regional requirements for maritime and ground deployment of future systems if/when they acquire BMD capability, eg, the Aster/SAMP-T/PAAMS upgrade program and Exoguard in Europe/Persian Gulf and CEAFAR/CEAMOUNT in Asia/Middle East (Australia has still not embraced territorial BMD).
(Credit: SLD)
Coordinating Operations
The cueing of sensors and shooters to allow timely interception is a requirement for success in regional missile defense. But it creates only a possibility for success–not a certainty –since misallocation of sensor and shooter resources or the sheer weight of incoming numbers in a constricted time period could spell defeat.
The issue of numbers was raised implicitly in a June 3, 2010 US Air Force memo signed by the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the US Air Force. It reaffirmed the joint doctrine that offensive action to destroy and disrupt enemy missile sites, airfields, and command-and-control infrastructure had to be fully integrated with air and ground efforts to defeat incoming enemy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles. Defense was inseparable from offense.
This defense-offense fusion generates the requirement for political and military operational coordination with allied and partner air forces and with US and allied navies possessing air and offensive ballistic and cruise missile capability. The precedent of coalition air and tactical missile operations in Afghanistan and Iraq supported by multinational ISR assets is helpful in this regard.
Now with the incorporation of the Missile Defense Agency’s C2BMC situation awareness, planning and limited battle management tool into Air and Space Operations Centers (the Air Force integrates offensive and defensive counter-air/missile activities in each Combatant Command), the stage is set for US Air Force, Navy, and Army and allied/partner determination of functions and procedures for executing an integrated offense/defense Concept of Operations (CONOPS).
The defensive part of this CONOPS will be complicated by the fact that the US Army and Navy and allies/partners control the shooters—not the Air Force. Above and beyond this force structure issue, each of the shooter owners is mobile and has intense self-interest in preservation of valuable assets critical to the fight beyond missile defense.
The shifting preoccupations on the defensive side as attacks vary in mode and intensity at particular locations calls forth the need for sensor and shooter resource allocation to ensure that limited assets are not frittered away for less than optimal campaign purposes. The execution of this allocation through centralized control is complicated or made impossible by the self-preservation issue, national sovereignty considerations, and communications survival and latency problems.
The solution to this acute dilemma resides in joint and allied/partner acceptance of a modus operandi that can be executed on a decentralized basis. The nature of this resource allocation solution will be both technically complex and difficult to negotiate. Work toward it can begin through scenario-based simulation and wargaming conducted by regional authorities. The coming inauguration of a regional IAMD Center of Excellence in the UAE offers a potential venue for such activity.
Additionally, STRATCOM’S NIMBLE TITAN international BMD wargaming series and the Netherlands’ technically–focused Joint Project Optical Windmill offer opportunities for the development of political-military and warfighting techniques relevant to resource allocation management—the ultimate key to successful regional missile defense.
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[1] The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of neither the Northrop Grumman Corporation, nor the U.S. Government.
Marines And Philippine Marines Raid Beach As Part of Phiblex ’11
11/05/2010 – Marines from Company B, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and Philippine Marines from 12th Marine Battalion Landing Team, Armed Forces of the Philippines are shown conducting a boat raid training exercise on October 11th, 2010. The raid was part of Amphibious Landing Exercise 2011, a bilateral training exercise conducted with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and is designed to improve interoperability, increase readiness and continue to build professional relationships between the two countries. Throughout the exercise U.S. service members work alongside their Philippine counterparts to carry out a series of Civil-Military Operations, to include engineering, dental and medical civil action projects.
3rd Marine Division, October 12th, 2010, Katungkulan Beach, Republic of the Philippines
The landing teams boarded their 18 Combat Rubber Reconnaissance Crafts, and set off to complete the raid, assault a mock enemy and secure the objective. After a 15-nautical mile journey, the Marines and their counterparts stormed the beachhead dismounted and began their assault.
“A boat raid is an integral part of an amphibious landing,” said Capt. Robert Rodriguez, company commander, Company B, BLT 1/7. “The purpose is to land clandestinely on a hostile shore to assault and seize enemy targets near water,” the Chicago native said. He added that the unit is trained to designed to make a quick strike on the enemy and withdrawal to amphibious shipping, or nearby ship assets. Rodriguez’s Philippine counterpart, 2nd Lt. Jan Job Elumbaring, the company commander for 12th Marine BLT, said there were several benefits to conducting this bilateral training. “This training benefits both the Philippine Marines and the U.S. Marines by enhancing our military skills,” he said. “It also is great for building comradery, and gives us an overview on some modern equipment.”
According to the 3rd MEB leadership, this sort of training is exactly what Phiblex ’11 is designed to accomplish. The Brigade’s participation in Phiblex ’11 not only improves interoperability with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, but also supports peace and stability in the region, said Sgt. Maj. Robert L. Caldwell, sergeant major, 3rd MEB. “This exercise is particularly important for these Japan-based Marines and sailors in their ability to support the peace and security of the Asia-Pacific region.”
First ATC Marine qualified on UK radar controller position
11/05/2010 – U.K. Sgt. Paul Rigby, the Air Traffic Control officer, 903rd Expeditionary Air Wing, here observes Sgt. Thomas C. Foster, an air traffic controller with Marine Air Control Group 38, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), as he monitors the radar screen for approaching aircraft. Foster received his certificate of competency and operational endorsement from the U.K. military October 24th, 2010. He is the first Marine to be qualified as an approach and arrival controller at the ATC Squadron, 903rd EAW.
Sgt. Thomas C. Foster, an air traffic controller with Marine Air Control Group 38, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), communicates with the Air Traffic Control tower and informs them of what he sees on the radar screen.
The Evolution of Chinese Science and Technology Capabilities
An Interview with Mark Lewis
10/29 /2010
In September 2010, Second Line of Defense sat down with Mark Lewis, President, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Willis Young Professor and Chair, Department of Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Lewis is the former Chief Scientist of the Air Force under Secretaries James Roche and Michael Wynne. He is a distinguished expert among other things on hypersonics.
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A Chinese artist's rendering of the Chang'e-1 probe heading to a successful crash landing on the Moon
(Credit: Xinhua)
SLD: As the Chinese tend to make large investments, not only internally, but also as they’re reaching out around the world in a few key areas of technology, what do you perceive to be the goals for these investments in certain areas of science and technology?
Professor Lewis: If we look at those technologies that the Chinese are investing in, not surpringly in some cases they’re the same technologies that we’re investing in. And so, I think an obvious question is why are they doing this; what are their goals, what are their interests? Before we address specific technical areas, I’ll tell you a very interesting story, which just happened yesterday. I got a paper to review for one of our technical journals: the author was extremely familiar with the American literature in the field – the Chinese actually read our literature very carefully – though we’re not able to read their technical literature in the way that they’re able to read our open literature. In this particular case, it was obvious that this researcher had read our literature, because he had actually committed wholesale plagiarism out of sections of papers that were written by American researchers in his paper.
China’s share by main field (Credit: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/88/8802sci1.html)
As I’m staring at this, I’m thinking that there are several aspects to this that are intriguing:
First, the author is clearly someone who’s trying to make an entrée into the international research community and trying to do so with credentials that are being derived from another source.
Second, it shows a familiarity with the work that we are doing in the U.S..
There are clearly several interpretations you can derive. One is, they recognize the value of what we do, and they recognize the quality of research content. Two, it shows a level of monitoring of the sorts of things that we’re doing. Three, I think it shows a desire to at least match some of our activities, and to interact, maybe participate, maybe compete, maybe also collaborate in certain areas.
I’ll give you another anecdote. About 10 months ago, we had a major international conference in my own primary field, hypersonics. It was sponsored by an American organization, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I’m actually the president of that organization this year.
The meeting was hosted by the German Aerospace Center, the DLR, in Bremen, Germany, and so it had a significant international draw. About 30-percent of the papers submitted at that conference came from Mainland China.
Now you step back and you say what is the range of applications of hypersonics? It’s everything from reentry from space, and we know they have a robust space program, to high-speed weapons, to maybe eventually space launch vehicles. So the Chinese work could play into a full range of products, both military and civilian
But it suggests a level of investment; as one of my colleagues at the conference said, a few years ago when we would see Chinese submissions at these sort of venues, the papers were frankly less sophisticated than papers coming from Europe and the United States.
SLD: More entry level?
Professor Lewis: More entry level. Now they’re extremely sophisticated; they’re asking the right questions. They obviously understand the work that other people are doing, which to me shows that not only are they investing the time and the effort into becoming familiar with the literature, but also they’re obviously doing their own work along the way. They’re asking questions that show that they’re investing heavily in their own research activities.
SLD: In the 50’s, the Japanese started replicating simple technologies from Europe and the United States, then they migrated to develop some innovations of their own. In a certain sense, part of the problem of anticipating Chinese development could well be that we’re expecting the same kind of migration, but it seems that some of the investments that you’re describing are game changing or breakthrough technologies that do not suggest simply migration.What is your sense about this?
Professor Lewis: I remember all the discussions about Japan and their increasing technological capability. Every once in a while, you’d hear the sort of sneer, a dismissive “Well, but they’re just imitative, they’re not innovative.” Even then, I’d point out that when we train our students, we start them out in high school, and even as undergraduates, by shoveling knowledge into them. Most of our undergraduates, learn their material by memorizing things, they learn how to do things often by rote. They’re not creating new knowledge.
SLD: They’re iterative.
Professor Lewis: They’re iterative indeed, but when they become graduate students, the great leap to becoming a graduate student is that we expect them to be innovative. We expect them to do research, formulate their own problems, and to develop their own approaches. I think countries follow an analogous process. I think that a country such as Japan or China, or frankly, any country that’s trying to build up a capability in a technology area will actually start out by first learning what others have done. When I start a graduate student on a research problem, I say go to the library, read the papers, and see what other people have done. And then they start formulating their ideas, they understand the advances, they understand the shortcomings, and then they begin to build on that to do their own innovation.
I think that’s what we’re seeing across the board with the Chinese. Hypersonics is one of those areas where a few years ago we saw that they were just getting up to speed in the area. They were just, obviously, reading the papers in the open literature. And now we’re seeing them presenting and developing new ideas. Exploring the field, presenting papers on basic research, building facilities. So that’s one aspect.
There’s another element that I think we have to remember, and that is that quantity has a quality in and of itself. Again, I’ll often hear people say dismissively, “well yes, the Chinese are producing many more engineers, but they are not up to the standards that we have,” (although in many cases, they are). And to that I’ll answer “well, if we’re producing a thousand experts in our field, and they’re producing 10,000 experts in the field, and if 10-percent of their people are as good as the people we’re producing, they’re still doing pretty well.
If you generate a certain volume of expertise in a field; if you invest a certain amount in the field, not only in dollars, but also across the board in the workforce, you’re bound to see benefits.
We’ve seen the ability to leapfrog in technology. My friends in directed energy tell me that they have seen advances in the open literature in what the Chinese are doing that really surprised them, that they were moving at a pace that was much faster than anyone had previously expected. I think a lot of that is just putting in a lot of resources. We’ve done that in the past in our country, in the Manhattan project: when you think about the investment in the Manhattan project, we were able to realize incredible technological accomplishments with massive investments.
Other example: the B-29 Bomber. It’s one of my favorites from aeronautics. We basically sunk a lot of money and a lot of resources and a lot of manpower and produced an aircraft that, at the end of World War II, was literally a generation beyond the aircraft that have preceded it. So when you make those sorts of investments, and especially when you’re in a country where labor isn’t that expensive, you can have these incredible accomplishments. And I think it behooves us to step back and say well, why are they making these investments? What are their goals, what are they after? I think that’s a question all of us with an interest in this subject should ponder.
SLD: It’s pretty clear that aerospace, generally, has been identified as an important growth area for them, commercially and militarily, but we should remain a bit humble in assuming we understand what the Chinese science and technology growth model might be, don’t you think?
Professor Lewis: Correct. For quite some time, we’ve had a very high number of Chinese students in the United States educational system. The joke is that there are some science and engineering departments in the United States where the dominant language is Mandarin Chinese. And that’s been the case for many years.
The joke is that there are some science and engineering departments in the United States where the dominant language is Mandarin Chinese.
What we’re seeing in recent years, including on a campus such as ours, is a rather profound change. Whereas 10 years ago, when we had Chinese students arrive, their goal was generally to stay in the United States. They wanted to get an education here and they wanted to become Americans, and they wanted to work in American technology. And so the question they’d ask is how do they become citizens? How do they become part of the American experience?
Now more and more, we are seeing students whose goal is to learn, and then go back to their homeland and bring the lessons that they’ve learned here back to their home country. In many cases, they see more opportunities; they see tremendous economic opportunities there. They also see, I think, social opportunities to advance faster in their home country than they see here.
To a certain extent, I think we’ve hurt ourselves when we have created barriers for some of these folks to remain here, though in some cases we have done so for very good reasons. But as a byproduct, we are essentially helping to create our own competition.
Clearly there are crosscutting choices or trends. On the one hand, you don’t want to close your doors entirely; the free flow of information, the exchange of ideas is one of the things that drives the scientific community. When you clamp down strongly, then you hurt yourself; you limit your own ideas, you wind up getting stuck in your own sandbox. So bringing in fresh ideas, having an international exchange is a normal part of academic life.
There are really smart people all over the world. And so you don’t want to stop that sort of free flow of information when it’s appropriate. When I was on the Air Staff I’d always point to the example of the United States Air Force having very robust international research programs. The Air Force has a research office in Tokyo, a research office in London, and just opened up a research office in Santiago, Chile. They fund researchers around the world, and there are many good reasons for doing so.
There are smart people all over the globe that you want to tap into them. There’s also the argument that when we bring people in from overseas that they learn about us; they learn about our systems, they absorb our values, they learn why this is such a great country. And I think they carry that message back.
But of course, there’s also the flipside, which is that we wind up in some cases, selling the farm. We wind up giving away technologies, giving away knowledge. It’s that fine line that I think we’re frankly very challenged by, and that in some cases we’ve seen other potential adversaries, potential competitors exploit and use against us.
SLD: It seems that we’re really at a crucial crossroads or threshold: on the Chinese side, if they don’t commit to serious protection of intellectual property, it raises fundamental questions about what the strategic purpose of their goal is. On the other side, if the United States, as well as Europe, do not get more serious about competitive manufacturing capability; about their own projects in aerospace and defense, then we will only have ourselves to blame for losing the competitive race.
Professor Lewis: Right. I would agree. One of the policy issues I was most concerned about on the in aerospace occurred a few years ago, when the Chinese launched their first astronauts. I was actually expecting kind of a hue and cry from Americans saying wow, look at that. We’ve got to get back into a little bit of competition. It’s not bad competition, but let’s robust our space program. We saw that in Sputnik, right? The Russians launched Sputnik and there was a national panic that we were allowing our science/technology to whither. But when the Chinese launched their astronauts, it was buried in the back of page 3 or 4 in the Washington Post, and you heard very few comments. I’ve heard people prognosticate that the Chinese will probably be back to the moon before we get back to the moon. And at the rate we’re going, that’s almost certainly true. Where’s the popular concern?
We’ve got to get back into a little bit of competition. It’s not bad competition, but let’s robust our space program. We saw that in Sputnik, right? The Russians launched Sputnik and there was a national panic that we were allowing our science/technology to whither. But when the Chinese launched their astronauts, it was buried in the back of page 3 or 4 in the Washington Post, and you heard very few comments.
SLD:One thing about the Chinese space program is that there is an assumption that we’ve already done it, and therefore we don’t have to do it. And it goes back to your proposition of quantity is a quality all of its own. They’re investing; they’ve got thousands of engineers in the space program. We may make the judgment that well, it’s repetitive, and so what do you get out of it? The problem is that we’ve gone through a period of global dominance and there are assumptions that we can drift along and still be dominant. People tend to be confusing an event or a program such as returning to the Moon with a particular historic moment. And not understanding the question is an investment in an overall capability at a different moment in history. Does that make sense?
Professor Lewis: I would agree with you completely. We know that they’re investing in space, and openly talking about their aspirations in both civil and military space. Take one example: materials development is a tremendous driver for aerospace. The Boeing 787 is an example: its great advance is the use of composites instead of metal. Mike Wynne, when he was secretary, understood this very well, and he placed a very strong emphasis on composite materials coming into the air fleet. We know that the Chinese are investing very heavily in that area as well.
Materials technology development has military applications; it has civilian applications as well. Directed energy is another bellwether field. We know from their publications in the area, that they’re very interested in lasers. Laser technology has applications across the board, everything from telecommunications to defense applications.
I think it’s pretty clear that they’re investing heavily in cyber, and we know that they’re making significant inroads in cyber technology; I think the military applications there are obvious. In many cases, I’m intrigued because it looks like the Chinese have gone back and looked at where we were talking about making investments in the past, and maybe sometimes we didn’t make the investments, but they are.
The other point I’d make is that they’re making an investment in long-term education. I’ll tell you another interesting story; shortly after I came back to campus full-time from the Pentagon, I found out that we have an exchange office on campus that was actually bringing in a group of Chinese faculty members who are coming to our university. Their goal was to sit in our classes and learn how we teach, and what material we teach, and then go back to their home institution and teach those same sorts of classes. The intriguing thing was, they weren’t necessarily interested so much in the specifics of our course material, they weren’t interested in that. Instead, they were interested in our delivery methods. How do we actually instruct our students? What processes do we put our students through?
That bespeaks a long-term investment in education, which cuts across disciplines. And of course, they’ve got a very close relationship between their universities and their military infrastructure. And in many cases, their universities serve as designed bureaus for their military, so there’s a very close coupling.
SLD: One way to look at this is that there’s a strategic vacuum in the West. You have this kind of strategic vacuum or pause or however you want to characterize the situation; it’s not moving forward.On the other hand, China is becoming a strategic juggernaut. So you put this strategic Chinese dynamic with a Western strategic pause, you create a different phase in the global competition. Strategic vacuums interacting with strategic juggernauts have a strategic consequence. And that’s really the point.
Professor Lewis: I would agree with you completely. If I look across the board at aerospace technologies, we have essentially produced only two new rocket engines in the last 30 years. In many cases, we’re coasting in technology. In the aircraft area, how do we build on design experience? What comes after the F-35? We’re not even really having those conversations yet to think about how we’re going to be developing our future systems. With regard to airliners, we have a lot of advanced ideas on the drawing board, but not a lot of real programs. NASA’s got concepts for future air and space systems; the Air Force has a lot of concepts as well. But even when you look at something as modern as a 787, as you correctly point out, it’s building on older technology and our hard-earned knowledge base.
So, I’d almost invoke the classic rabbit and tortoise analogy; if the rabbit makes great leaps, but then stops and rests on its laurels, it’s relatively easy for the tortoise to catch up. That’s especially true if the tortoise gets himself supercharged, and if after he’s caught up, he takes off at rapid speed.
I think that in general we tend to see examples where there’s a tendency to invest in a certain level of technology, and then coast. Railroads are a perfect example. At the beginning of the 20th century, the United States had a phenomenal railroad system. Our railroad system was the envy of the world. But once built, we didn’t invest very much in it. Now you look at Europe, Asia, their rail systems are far superior to ours because they invested later on and they got newer technology. We stopped making those major investments.
SLD: And a key development is the intersection between the new manufacturing base in China, the Manhattan style investments, and the growth in S and T capabilities. It has a magnet effect on the rest of the world as well. Let me give you a story, which reflects on that intersection. I listened to a presentation from Michelin about how they were inverting their supply chain role to becoming a prime manufacturer of automobiles. And the strategic partner is China. And the entire concept from the Michelin side is a tire is something that you put on, the car generates everything else. But in fact, if you start thinking about electric propulsion or internal propulsion systems, you can put much of what’s in the rest of the car on the tire. And they’ve actually got designs for this. Who’s their strategic partner? China. Chinese are investing heavily in this technology area. It’s just a natural thing attracted by the marketplace, the investments, and the manufacturing base. So I think we’ve also deluded ourselves that in establishing a very significant manufacturing base in China, there are no strategic consequences, because they’re kind of like Japan. They’re not Japan.
Professor Lewis: Right, exactly. I remember General Moseley was asked if he really thought the United States Air Force would be facing a Chinese military threat at some point in the future? And I think he made the very profound observation that the chances that we’ll be facing off directly against China are extremely small, but the chance that we’d be facing off against their equipment in the future is actually quite high. Unfortunately, a lot of the reporters picked up the first part of the quote, and they didn’t pick up the second part of the quote.
I had an experience when I was the Chief Scientist of the USAF on a trip to Brazil, which highlights this point. During my visit, the Brazilians took me to their space agency and they walk me into a facility where they’re assembling satellites. They have very ambitious plans for space; they had been trying to build their own launch system, they were looking at microsatellites. And I always remember that visit, because they walked me into big high bay area, their assembly area for satellites. They took me up to the fourth floor, I went out onto this sort of balcony area, I’m looking down, standing behind a pane of glass.
And on the floor of the facility are about 30 or 40 Chinese engineers working hand-in-hand with the Brazilians. I asked what’s going on here? The answer was the Brazilians had a wonderful working relationship with the Chinese. The irony was that all their equipment was American-made; they had American shaker tables, they had American environmental chambers to test their satellites. But the guys on the floor who were working with them were Chinese.
And oh by the way, I asked what’s the language for communication? Oh, English. The Chinese spoke English, the Brazilians spoke English, so they’re all speaking to each other in English. And I asked the Brazilians, “Well, why aren’t you working with us?” And the answer I got was, “It’s too difficult.” That was interesting.
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Additional reference:
The below quote from a paper looking at Chinese development underscores forcefully the key point Professor Lewis is making about leap ahead capabilities.
