Meeting the Chinese Challenge

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10/29/2010

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)
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.

China’s share of world publications (Credit: http://www.rdmag.com)

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.

Chinese patent applications (Credit: http://faculty.smu.edu/millimet/classes/eco6375/papers/hu%20jefferson.pdf)Chinese patent applications (Credit: http://faculty.smu.edu)

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.

The above quote from a paper looking at Chinese development underscores forcefully the key point Lewis is making about leap ahead capabilities. (Credit: http://www.cggc.duke.edu/pdfs/workshop/Appelbaum%20et%20al_SASE%202006_China%20nanotech_27%20June%2006.pdf)

A Mad World

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Yakhont missile (Credit: http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100920/160652217.html)

Russia Exporting Missiles to Syria: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world!

By David J. Smith

David J. Smith is Director, Georgian Security Analysis Center, Tbilisi, and Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, and was formerly Ambassador to the Strategic Arms Control Talks in the Reagan Administration.

Published in Tbilisi 24 Saati, September 27th, 2010

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10/29/2010 – Ignoring pleas from America and Israel, Russia says that it will provide Syria with P-800 Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles.  Meanwhile, Russian bellyaching induces Washington and Jerusalem—and every other western capital—to maintain a complete arms embargo on Georgia.  It is apparently OK to arm a cutthroat dictatorship that arms the terrorist Hezbollah and Hamas.  But it is apparently not OK to provide a fellow democracy with the weapons it needs for its legitimate defense in the face of Russian invasion and occupation.

Russia will deliver 72 Yakhont missiles under a 2007 contract worth more than $300 million.  Known in the west as SS-N-26, Yakhont is a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile.  Its engine propels it toward its target just meters above the sea surface.  Low altitude makes it hard to detect and high speed renders most shipboard close-in weapons systems ineffective.

Yakhont’s range is 300 kilometers; however, Syria’s inability to target ships or launch missiles from aircraft will curtail that range.  Moreover, advanced electronic countermeasures can be very effective against it.

Nonetheless, Yakhont will somewhat alter the balance between Israel and Syria, which technically remain at war.

Yakhont missile (Credit: http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100920/160652217.html)Yakhont missile (Credit: http://en.rian.ru)

However, Jerusalem’s main concern is that Syria will supply anti-ship missiles to Hezbollah and Hamas, as it has done with other potent weapons.  Indeed, western security experts were stunned in July 2006 when Hezbollah launched several Iranian-produced C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles.  The Israeli Navy corvette Hanit was hit and badly damaged; a Cambodian-flagged merchant ship was sunk.

Some experts fear that Yakhont missiles in irresponsible hands could also be hazardous to civilian vessels in the crowded eastern Mediterranean Sea.

There should be little wonder, then, that Israel mounted a diplomatic campaign to dissuade Russia from providing Yakhont missiles to Syria.

On September 6, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak took the message right to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Sochi dacha.  The Russians did not budge.  But Barak had already signed an unprecedented Israel-Russia military cooperation agreement.  Moscow will buy 36 more Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles for $100 million.  Joint weapons development and other ties will follow.

Apart from the attraction of lucrative Russian contracts, Jerusalem’s likely main objective is to keep Moscow dissuaded from providing S-300 anti-air missiles to Iran.  “A decision was taken not to supply S-300s to Iran,” General Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the Russian General Staff, confirmed on September 22.  But the S-300 sale has an on-again-off-again history that will certainly take another turn the next time Moscow wants to get Washington’s attention.

Indeed, after Barak’s Sochi sojourn, the Yakhont saga moved to the “reset” capital of the world.

After a five hour Pentagon meeting with his American counterpart, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov publicly dismissed Washington’s concerns about the Yakhont sale to Syria.

“The issue of selling the missiles to Syria was raised during the talks with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates,” Serdyukov said.  “The US and Israel ask us not to supply Syria with Yakhont, but we do not see the concerns expressed by them that these arms will fall into the hands of terrorists…Undoubtedly, [the Syrian contract] will be fulfilled by the Russian side.”

As with Israel, the Russian defense chief had already signed a raft of agreements with the U.S.  He and Gates proceeded to a Potomac River dinner cruise.

Asked by an Interfax reporter about possible future weapons supplies to Georgia, Gates said, “We have been, I think, careful in what we have provided to Georgia.”

It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world!

Israel’s behavior is understandable though short-sighted.  Russia’s support for United Nations sanctions on Iran is tepid and tactical.  And its disregard for Israel’s security is well illustrated by its backing for Syria and its indifference toward the prospect of its weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah and Hamas.

In a wider sense, as a tiny, embattled democracy, like Georgia, often chastised for defending itself, Israel should see the strategic imperative of helping Georgia and of not arming its bully neighbor.

America’s behavior is not understandable.  Washington has banged on the U.S.-Russia “reset” button so hard and so often that its hard drive has crashed!

To reset America’s computations, we need to consider that one reason Jerusalem is hedging its bets in Moscow is that it is unsure whether it can rely upon Washington.  Neglecting allies like Israel and Georgia makes other allies wonder whether they can count on America.

And that makes would-be aggressors calculate what mischief they can freely wreak.

America has worldwide geopolitical interests, not least in the East-West Corridor through Georgia.  Providing Georgia with the tools it needs for its legitimate self-defense—command and control systems, anti-armor and anti-air weapons—is not only the right thing to do, it is also the best deterrence against another attack on an American interest.

Iraq 2012: Nuclear Security

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10/28/2010

By Dr. Richard Weitz

10/29/2010 –

Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA (Credit Photo: IAEA)
Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA (Credit Photo: IAEA)

Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), faces a major challenge in seeking to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. In addition to the longstanding dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities, he has to address Arab concerns about Israel’s irregular status within the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). During his two-day trip to Israel, the first by an IAEA director since 2004, he met with the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Shaul Chorev, who invited him to Israel. He is also met with other senior Israeli national security officials. One issue likely discussed during Amano’s visit is the effort by many Arab countries, supported by other governments, to pressure Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear activities and join the NPT.

The NPT permits only those five countries that possessed nuclear weapons at the time of the treaty’s entry into force in 1970—Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States—to retain nuclear weapons for an indefinite transitional period while they reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals. All other treaty parties agree to allow the IAEA to monitor their nuclear programs and safeguard their nuclear material to verify that they do not have covert nuclear weapons programs. Israel has never publicly confirmed or denied its nuclear status or revealed its possession of a nuclear weapon by openly testing one. Israelis believe that this policy of nuclear ambiguity allows their country to enjoy the deterrence benefits of nuclear possession without needlessly provoking neighboring countries into seeking their own nuclear deterrents. Successive Israeli governments have always declined to ratify the NPT because Israel would need to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal to meet its requirements.

The 1995 NPT Review Conference (RevCon) adopted a “Resolution on the Middle East” that called for making “utmost efforts” to establish a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in that region. Its adoption was part of a package deal that also saw the RevCon extend the NPT indefinitely and the five nuclear weapons states commit to accelerate their nuclear disarmament and facilitate developing countries’ access to peaceful nuclear technologies.

The lack of progress in implementing the resolution became the most divisive issue at the May 2010 RevCon. Under the chairmanship of Egypt, the 118-member nonaligned movement, including Iraq, sought to press the RevCon to adopt a specific plan for holding a conference dedicated to bringing the resolution into effect. The 2010 RevCon Final Declaration calls for convening a dedicated Middle East conference in 2012 on creating a WMD-free zone in that region, but U.S. and Israeli diplomats sought but failed to remove the explicit reference to Israel in the text, which calls on Israel to join the NPT and subject itself to IAEA inspections. In the end, the Obama administration decided not block adoption of the final declaration over the issue. Nonetheless, U.S. officials, including President Obama, have said they will not support convening the conference if it looks like Israel will be singled out at the meeting.

Iraq will be an important player in these efforts to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Iraq signed the NPT on July 1, 1968, and ratified it on October 29, 1969. Article 9(e) of the new Iraqi constitution states that the Iraqi government shall: “Respect and implement Iraq’s international obligations regarding the non-proliferation, non-development, non-production, and non-use of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and shall prohibit associated equipment, materiel, technologies, and delivery systems for use in the development, manufacture, production, and use of such weapons.” The post-Saddam Iraqi government has taken a cooperative stance regarding the nuclear nonproliferation regime, including by signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 2008. That same year, Iraq signed the IAEA Additional Protocol, which gives the IAEA enhanced inspection rights. As of July 2010, the Iraqi parliament has yet to ratify either agreement. Pending legislative approval, the Iraq government has informed the IAEA that it will implement the Additional Protocol on a voluntary basis. Iran originally followed the same policy, but soon ceased respecting the Protocol after the IAEA continued to uncover suspicious evidence about Tehran’s nuclear program.

(Credit Image: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=NPT/CONF.2010/50%20(VOL.I))

Credit Image: http://www.un.org

In 2009, Iraq announced an interest in developing a peaceful civilian nuclear program. The Minister of Science and Technology cited both research and the growing demand for electricity as reasons Iraq is exploring the feasibility of nuclear technology. Iraq cannot legally pursue a civil nuclear program until the UNSC lifts the Saddam-era restrictions on its nuclear activities specified in resolutions 687 (1991) and 707 (1991). In October 2009, the Iraqi government lobbied the UN and IAEA for approval to restart a nuclear energy program. It argued that a reactor would be used for research purposes only, and it would pursue nuclear energy to update the country’s antiquated electricity networks and infrastructure. Iraqi officials also cite economic reasons for seeking to rekindle its nuclear program, citing nuclear research’s many uses in medicine, industry and agriculture.

Many Iraqi officials and scientists, including Iraq’s Oil Ministry, support shifting the focus from the country’s diminishing oil reserves to alternative energy sources. All officials advocating a nuclear program pledge it would only be for peaceful purposes. However, with a civilian nuclear infrastructure in place, the amount of time it would take Iraq to develop a nuclear weapons program would be drastically reduced. In addition, the Iraq civil war from 2005-2007 convinced the IAEA that Iraq was too unstable for nuclear energy at that point.

However, Iraqi government officials remain vigilant in developing a nuclear energy program. In February 2010, Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid invited France to help Iraq build a nuclear power plant. France previously helped Iraq develop a nuclear energy program in the late 1970s and early 1980s. French President Nicolas Sarkozy made no promises in response to this request. In early 2010, the U.N. Security Council said it could eliminate sanctions on Iraqi nuclear energy work and other programs if Baghdad ratified the Additional Protocol to its nuclear inspections agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

As a result of these restrictions, the present Iraqi government is also not pursuing a civil nuclear program of any significance. Most of Iraq’s capabilities at the time of the 1990 Gulf War subsequently deteriorated throughout years of international inspections, sanctions, and additional regional wars. Its remaining nuclear capabilities are limited to medical and agricultural applications. The Iraq government’s current nuclear efforts have been devoted to cleaning up the country’s radioactively contaminated sites.

Due to past military operations, lack of upkeep, and looting, Iraq now suffers from enormous radioactive waste problems, including destroyed nuclear facilities, uncharacterized radioactive wastes, liquid radioactive waste in underground tanks, wastes related to the production of yellow cake, sealed radioactive sources, and activated metals and contaminated metals that must be constantly guarded. Iraq has never had an authorized radioactive waste disposal facility.

As a result, ever increasing quantities of radioactive material must be held in guarded storage. Iraq currently lacks the trained personnel, regulatory and physical infrastructure to safely and securely manage these facilities and wastes. Following the 2003 invasion, the occupying powers did little to secure the sites and various nuclear facilities, including the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility or the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre located southeast of Baghdad.

In June 2003, the IAEA reported that tons of uranium, as well as other radioactive materials such as thorium, had been recovered, and that the vast majority had remained on site. There were several reports of radiation sickness in the area as looters, potentially unaware of the facility’s purpose, emptied containers they had stolen and replaced radioactive materials with water, milk, and other items.

A danger sign outside the Tuwaitha nuclear facility, south of Baghdad. The site was looted following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. (Credit Photo: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/27/iraq-nuclear-reactor-programme)A danger sign outside the Tuwaitha nuclear facility, south of Baghdad.

The site was looted following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Credit Photo: http://www.guardian.co.uk

In June 2004, the United States transferred control of all the facilities to the new Iraqi government. Shortly before this transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government, the United States removed approximately 600 tons of low-enriched uranium formerly-stored at the Tuwaitha facility. Thanks to the U.S. and IAEA, all of Iraq’s fresh highly enriched nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel, low-enriched uranium, and yellowcake have been removed from the country, along with approximately 1,000 radioactive sealed sources.

Still, Al-Tuwaitha is in urgent need of final decommissioning, dismantlement, and site remediation. The sites that previously housed Iraq’s nuclear facilities remain in a radioactively-contaminated and hazardous condition. In July 2008, the U.S. State Department began the Iraqi Nuclear Facility Dismantlement and Disposal Program, which is assisting Iraq in dismantling and disposing radioactively contaminated materials leftover from Saddam’s nuclear program, with special emphasis on cleaning up the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex.

In his May 5 speech to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, Ambassador Mohammed Al-Humaimidi said that his government “is striving to create a world free of nuclear weapons and supports all efforts in this area, and it considers the 2010 Review Conference to be an important step to nuclear non-proliferation at the international level.” He welcomed the convening of the April 2010 Nuclear Security Summit and the signing of the new START agreement between Russia and the United States. He noted that his government has “affirmed that it will be free of Weapons of Mass Destruction and of the means of their delivery, and has confirmed its commitment to the conventions and treaties on disarmament and non-proliferation following the harsh experience of the Iraqi people due to the policies of the former regime.”

In this regard, Ambassador Al-Humaimidi said his government was ‘exerting its efforts with the Security Council to review the remaining restrictions previously imposed on Iraq in the area of disarmament, under the relevant Security Council resolutions, especially Resolutions 687 and 707 (1991).”  He insisted that ‘Iraq has fulfilled all its obligations under Security Council resolutions relating to disarmament which led to Security Council resolution 1762 (2007) terminating the mandate of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the special team of IAEA in Iraq.” Removing these restrictions, he argued, was important because they prevented his people from “benefiting from scientific and technological progress which limit Iraq’s potential to be an active member of the International community and Iraq’s right to benefit from this progress based on the statute of the IAEA.” He called for implementation of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East, which necessitates Israel’s adherence to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.

Unlike many of the other nonaligned countries, Ambassador Al-Humaimidi expressed greater concern about the risks of nuclear terrorism, about how the guaranteed right of all NPT-member States to engage in peaceful nuclear activities must be constrained by the inherent dual-use nature of nuclear technologies, about the potential value of establishing a nuclear fuel bank to reduce the need for national enrichment programs, and how “transparency and cooperation with the IAEA, the application of the safeguards system, and other relevant measures must be emphasized in addition to respect of international conventions.”

Under its new government, Iraq might be in a pivotal position to help bridge the gap between the IAEA, Iran, and Israel—providing it receives appropriate assistance and support from Washington despite the ongoing U.S. military withdrawal from that country.

UAS: Shaping the Operational Real Estate

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Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and the Future of the Amphibious Force

By Vince Martinez
Vince Martinez is a regular contributor to Second Line of Defense and is the President and Founder of Affinity Fidelis Consulting and Technologies; a defense consulting firm in Northern Virginia.

***

10/29/2010 – As the military complex churns at a break-neck pace to develop the next generation of unmanned systems, key questions loom as to how these systems will evolve into relevant roles across a myriad of applicable mission sets and operational scenarios.

Although interesting, unmanned systems by themselves do not create desired effects.  Only when such systems are blended into an effective concept of operations will they become useful tools to the warfighter or the global security team.

Although interesting, unmanned systems by themselves do not create desired effects.  Only when such systems are blended into an effective concept of operations will they become useful tools to the warfighter or the global security team.

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have found niches across the strategic, operational, and tactical landscapes of all services. The operational characteristics being considered for future unmanned platforms cross many of the boundaries of manned aircraft mission sets of today – like transportation of troops and supplies, air-to-air interdiction, close air support (CAS), and command and control.

First Fire Scout Autonomous Landing (Credit photo: http://www.strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_2008222131755.aspx)
First Fire Scout Autonomous Landing (Credit photo: http://www.strategypage.com)

However, one of the most significant challenges associated with these emerging unmanned capabilities – specifically for the Navy – is in defining methods for co-existence and interoperability with current and future Naval capabilities.  Compared to other inherent Naval capabilities, the operational value of unmanned systems must be evaluated in terms of their ability to operate off of ships.

For example, the unmanned systems have to be managed aboard ships with their corresponding logistics footprint, having aboard the manpower required to maintain and operate the systems, and able to operate with the operational tempo required to sustain shipboard operations during naval and amphibious operations.

Looking at other emerging capabilities, the Marines are fielding platforms like the MV-22, the F-35, the AH-1Z, the UH-1Y, and the CH-53K which each bring significant operational enhancements over their legacy counterparts.

The key question, then, is what role will UAS play in the future when balanced against the roles and missions of the platforms mentioned above, and what is the logistics offset required to balance the capabilities?

As evidenced by the MV-22’s introduction, along with the exponential capability enhancement of a technologically complex aircraft comes an increase in overall weight, footprint, and stowage. With a corresponding increase in cube and square for ground systems like the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR), the exponential weight growth of the MAGTF has become an issue that now affects how Amphibious Readiness Groups (ARG) look today, and will be even more critical in defining what it looks like in the future.

Where do evolving unmanned systems fit within such a challenge?
As the Marine Corps aggressively moves toward restoring its amphibious roots, the key question looms around what is the most effective and efficient use of space aboard naval shipping in order to maintain and sustain the desired amphibious operational impact.

Other operational questions will arise as well.  When looking at the Aviation Command Element (ACE), as an example, with the anticipated increase in sortie requirements associated with platforms like the F-35s, how will ship-based UAS platforms fit into deck cycles and established operational flows with the other platforms while conducting air operations?  What, then, is the relative value of launching and recovering ship-based UAS platforms when compared against the MV-22 for transportation of troops and supplies, or the UH-1Y for command and control?

An MV-22B Osprey assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 162 prepares to take off from the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau (LHA 4). Nassau is the command platform for the Nassau Amphibious Ready Group supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (Credit photo: USN Visual Service)An MV-22B Osprey assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 162
prepares to take off from the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau (LHA 4).
Nassau is the command platform for the Nassau Amphibious Ready Group
supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation
 operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility.
(Credit photo: USN Visual Service)

Many of the greatest operational challenges for the ACE revolve around the management of deck cycles and how that supports the overall amphibious operation or ground scheme of maneuver.  With ship-based UAS platforms those challenges will only grow more complex.

What will be the UAS demand be on deck cycle, airspace de-confliction, and command and control in order to support ship-based operations?  How will all of the factors of storing, maintaining, and operating UAS platforms aboard naval shipping compare to manned platforms, which in turn raises the question of the system’s relative operational impact?

Clearly, there is a significant role for UAS in the current and future MAGTF for the Marine Corps. The UAS platforms are definitely here to stay.  Their variety is significant and the roles vary from battalion-level Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS), like the Raven B, to the shipboard capable Small Tactical UAS (STUAS) that is expected to operate off of ships around 2013; not to mention the larger UAS platforms like the Shadow and other land-based unmanned aircraft assets anticipated to come into use around 2016-2025.

With budget constraints that extend across all services, however, and with the litany of challenges that exist today in defining strategies for designing, funding and fielding naval vessels that can accommodate future aviation platforms, the challenge will remain to find the right operational balance.   For UAS, this means shaping its roles with a brood of very capable manned platforms that are fighting for space aboard navy ships right alongside them.

The Navy has to ask some very tough questions of all their aviation platforms as they look toward the future – UAS included.  The services need to determine what embarkation strategies are the best, not only the MAGTF, but for the naval force as a whole. Such a calculation must include answering hard questions about a given system’s footprint versus its operational impact.

With budget constraints that extend across all services, however, and with the litany of challenges that exist today in defining strategies for designing, funding and fielding naval vessels that can accommodate future aviation platforms, the challenge will remain to find the right operational balance.   For UAS, this means shaping its roles with a brood of very capable manned platforms that are fighting for space aboard navy ships right alongside them.

Integrating Regional Missile Defense (Part One)

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The Challenge of Crafting Integrated Missile Defense in NATO and Other Allied Regions

By Ambassador (Ret.) Jon D. Glassman, Director for Government Policy, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems

Ambassador Glassman provides a two-part assessment of the challenge of building effective, integrated missile defense systems in NATO and in other regional allied settings.  This part lays out the problem; the second part identifies some paths to resolution of the problem. [1]

10/28/2010 – As NATO considers assumption of homeland territorial ballistic missile defense (BMD) as an alliance mission at the Lisbon Summit in November, and as Israel, the countries around the Persian Gulf, and Japan proceed with their own BMD acquisition, missile defense now moves beyond the exclusive focus on engineering and development to the realm of operations.

The transition to operations draws in a new set of decision-makers — national political leaders and military commanders — each with priorities going beyond simple physical functionality of systems.

The priorities of these decision-makers in each theater need to coalesce in regional or parallel bilateral understandings on the objectives of missile defense and the means of its execution. If the political leaders and military operators do not create collective or synergistic approaches, the inadequate weight of the theater missile defense effort may render it futile — leaving only pre-emptive offensive action as an option.

(Credit: SLD)
Click to enlarge (Credit: SLD)

Regional missile defense architecture—in the hoped-for world of political and military concord—will have to embody more than wire-diagram connectivity of systems.

Additionally, a consensus must emerge that will stimulate self-sustaining growth and transformation of missile defense in the face of evolving threats through mutually reinforcing investment and cost savings produced by coordinated and parallel operations.

For the last 45 years, debate has centered on the physical practicality of missile defense: could a bullet hit a bullet? Mercifully, that debate has ended and, in the face of looming threats from Iran and North Korea and uncertainties in Eurasia, real investments are now being made by the United States and other nations to provide a rudimentary and, eventually, more robust homeland and regional defense against missile attack.

As missile defense goes operational, architectural and engineering studies are underway within regions to knit together U.S. sensors and shooters—and, in the future, those of partners—in networks allowing command-and-control. These networks and directive capabilities will be stressed in some regional contexts because of short timelines between launch and impact and the weight of incoming numbers.

The need to create an effective response to voluminous challenges within rigid time constraints makes investment, operational, and policy planning/coordination imperative; yet this vital need is only beginning to be recognized in regional missile defense discussions.

Why is it important to get these issues right?

Investment Considerations

Defense Effectiveness Considerations
Click to enlarge: Defense Effectiveness Considerations (Credit: SLD)
  • The US, as a technological and thought leader, has identified impending threats and moved to forward-deploy naval and land missile defense assets. This presence, particularly in Europe, cannot be sustained politically within the U.S. absent reciprocal investment by regional partners.
  • States undergoing severe fiscal stress—much of Europe and Japan—need formulas allowing investment to benefit national defense industries at a yield no less than the budgetary bite. Otherwise investment will not be feasible.
  • In places where partner investment has occurred (Japan and the Persian Gulf), newly-acquired missile defense assets must be made to work effectively—to be cued and enabled in time to produce reliable defense. Without this, these initial investments will be seen by regional partners ultimately as wasteful and will not be repeated. The expense of missile defense guarantees that total numbers of sensors and shooters will always lag the offensive threat. This provides strong incentive to promote partner missile defense sensor and interceptor acquisition via imports and, in some cases, domestic production.
  • The growing likelihood of raids (multi-missile salvos) and combined ballistic and cruise missile assault makes advisable pre-planned coordination and resource management of total U.S. and partner defensive assets, both sensors and shooters. This, in turn, requires electronic and cyber protection and decentralized control, at least as a default.
  • The high value of defended assets (heavily-populated and critical to economic well-being), and the likely quantitative asymmetry between threat and defense, make timely and coordinated offensive action by defenders a potential necessity to mitigate the volume and duration of attacks. Offense-defense fusion with partner attack assets is, therefore, highly desirable.
  • The provision of strategic and tactical warning, and subsequent battle damage assessment, requires the consolidation of U.S. and partner air and space intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities and correlation of their data; the process of engagement must be defined as beginning well “left of launch.”

Partnership/Alliance Viability Considerations

  • The deployment of U.S. and partner interceptor assets in regions—beyond the need for military technical effectiveness—creates a requirement for U.S., partner, and alliance agreed processes to accomplish pre-conflict consultation, undertake joint/collective diplomatic and political-military action, grant weapons release authority, establish rules of engagement, and accommodate national and regional sovereignty concerns.
  • Policies and capabilities need to be in place to deal with demands on interceptors to cross/not cross third-party airspace, to de-conflict with civilian and military air traffic, to avoid third-party confusion between offensive and defensive action, and to deal with on-ground damages and liability claims arising from interception.
  • National and regional systems should be created to enable technically the agreed policy processes and outcomes: minimally providing collective situation awareness, facilitation of communication and collaboration, and exercise of positive control over defensive and offensive assets.
  • Regional capabilities and procedures need to be established to mitigate the human, economic, and military consequences of missile attack and engagements, to include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear explosive (including electromagnetic pulse [EMP]), and satellite effects.
  • Beyond the military requirement to reconstitute and sustain defensive and offensive assets and enablers, the macro-economic consequences of missile penetration must be dealt with, both in the directly effected region and those burdened by secondary and tertiary problems occasioned by transportation, energy, and trade disruption.

Toward Integral Missile Defense (Credit: SLD)

Toward Integral Missile Defense (Credit: SLD)

As outlined above, the requirements for regional missile defense go far beyond the simple deployment and support of sensors and shooters and their connection into networks. The integration of sensors and shooters into networks is a necessary building block, but is insufficient in itself to deliver the comprehensive construct of broad-spectrum threat defeat and mitigation, optimal use of resources, political/economic coordination and planning, and continuing investment required to ensure long-term defense.

Integrated air and missile defense is but a part of the needed integral defense of regions embracing:

  • Defeat of the full range of threats, both ballistic and air-breathing: rockets, artillery, and mortars (RAMs) to theater ballistic missiles, powered glide bombs and UAVs to long-range air-to-ground missiles and cruise missiles
  • Effective cooperation across time: from threat gestation (pre-launch indications and warning) through detection/tracking/engagement, offensive action, and consequence management/reconstitution
  • Achievement of optimal defensive effect through efficient allocation of defensive resources and offensive-defensive fusion
  • Enabling of coordinated investment strategy and political-military policy determination and execution

The next part of this piece will provide recommendations on how integral missile defense can be implemented in NATO and in other missile-threatened regions.

———

[1]  The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Northrop Grumman Corporation nor the US Government.

The USMC and Expeditionary Logistics

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10/27/2010

Reshaping and Incorporating New Capabilities

An Interview with Lieutenant-Colonel Applewhite

10/29/2010 – Earlier this summer, Second Line of Defense talked about the most recent USMC logistics game and some of the conclusions that might be drawn from that wargame for USMC approaches to expeditionary logistics.  At the time of the interview, Lt. Col. Applewhite was head of maintenance policy at the Headquarters USMC.


(Credit Image: USMC)

(Credit Image: USMC)

***

SLD:  The USMC’s latest logistics game set up to test expeditionary logistics – Mobile Provider – highlighted a number of capabilities and challenges.  One element, which you underscore in the exercise, is something you refer to as logistics intelligence.  What is the role of logistics intelligence in expeditionary operations?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: When we think about logistics intelligence, it actually drives our need to gather the right information in order to make decisions.  How do we transfer information into knowledge in the operational environment? There’s a lot of information on the battlefield from a logistics perspective but how do we turn that information into useful knowledge?

One aspect of the problem is getting information from the platforms operating on the battlefield and aggregating that information into useful intelligence. And that’s where we look at autonomic logistics, we look at sense and respond, how do we transmit off the platform that data, and then once we have it, how do we put it into a format that we can actually make good decisions?

A CH-53E "Super Stallion" helicopter from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, Marine Aircraft Group 40, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, settles over two pallets of water to hook onto the cargo and transport it to Marines operating in remote areas of southern Afghanistan, January 29, 2010. The squadron ended up moving more than 58,000 pounds of water in just a few hours. (Credit Photo: USMC)
A CH-53E "Super Stallion" helicopter from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, Marine Aircraft Group 40, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, settles over two pallets of water to hook onto the cargo and transport it to Marines operating in remote areas of southern Afghanistan, January 29, 2010. The squadron ended up moving more than 58,000 pounds of water in just a few hours. (Credit Photo: USMC)

Looking at the logistics data as part of the entire MAGTF common operational picture, what’s the logistics data that commander needs so that he or she can make decisions that are going to affect the operations?  And how do we aggregate that into one common operating picture?

SLD: There are some new technologies and IT capability that enhances the ability to do this.  But the goal clearly is not just to collect information for its own sake, but to make better decisions in the battlefield context.  So can you speak to that in terms of Marine Corps thinking about having the right kind of information as opposed to just collecting information?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Having the right type of information — predictive type of information — you’re looking at trend data on platforms so that we can position an inventory in an expeditionary environment.  You constantly have to overcome distribution constraints by being able to position the inventory at the right location, to make sure that the maintainers have the right toolsets.

The lift is a constraint; everything’s a constraint in an expeditionary environment.  So, the decisions that you actually make become more and more important, and you less lead time to react to any changes in the environment.  So, being able to gather that information and make those decisions becomes critical to success.

SLD:    If you could collate this information, have a sense of the lift requirements or the other requirements for sustainment, you can get both tactical and strategic impacts from having this kind of information?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Most definitely.  For example, from a strategic level, the amount of sustainment needed to be pushed by Transcom is affected. We can adjust our logistics plan to reflect the realities on the battle space.  As our assumptions about fuel levels and about impact of the enemy change, we may not have used as much ammunitions as we thought, for example. We then can start rearranging our transportation assets to bring the required supplies in as opposed to being locked into a fixed plan, which basically pushes in inventory that may not be needed anymore.

SLD: And throughout the report and discussion of the mobile provider exercise, you talk about autonomic logistics and EPLS data infusion.  Talk a little bit about that and how that reinforced some of the discussion earlier about how that’s a potential game changer?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: The ability to take the data from the platform where the platform can tell you what’s going on with it allows you to take that data, extract that data and then push it out.  For example, we can make a decision about where’s the inventory associated to the specific fault repair that’s happening with the platform.  We can design our data systems to be able to make those types of calls.

So now, it’s basically like getting a call from the platform saying I’ve got this problem, I need this inventory and I need this type of mechanic to be available within this period of time.  So it gives us a more responsive type of environment, versus run into failure and then having to react to an unknown problem.

Marines prepare to board a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion assigned to Helicopter Marine Medium “White Knights” on board USS Peleliu. This group is the first wave to go ashore in Pakistan to help maintain the heavy lift aircraft the Navy and Marine Corps are providing to deliver relief supplies to flood-stricken regions. (Credit Photo: USN Visual Service, August 12th, 2010)

Marines prepare to board a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion
assigned to Helicopter Marine Medium “White Knights” on board USS Peleliu.
This group is the first wave to go ashore in Pakistan to help maintain
the heavy lift aircraft the Navy and Marine Corps are providing
to deliver relief supplies to flood-stricken regions.
(Credit Photo: USN Visual Service, August 12th, 2010)

SLD:    What kind of cultural change does that place on both the maintainers and decision makers in the logistic chain?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: From a cultural aspect, we need to understand the nature of the reliability of a platform.  So that we can make decisions and trust in the decisions that we’re making.  If we trust in the reliability of the platform and what the platform is telling us, we have to be able to make decisions based on that information. And that’s going to require more planners, more thinkers, more folks who can translate that knowledge into actions.

SLD:    The final question would be to look at the role of the UAVs in the exercise itself. How could the possibility of having an effective UAV logistics vehicle, how could that be a kind of game changer for the ground operator?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: By testing in the game the impact of a logistics UAV vehicle on operations, we can shape acquisition requirements.  One thing it allows us to do, at the same time that we’re building the requirements for that platform, we can look at how we’re going to employ it and maybe change some of their requirements, add requirements, take requirements away from our original assumptions.  And that’s a capability that generally hasn’t existed before, because you just go with your assumptions and then when you get that platform, you make the determination of whether or not that’s what you really want it, and then you go back to the acquisitions side an suggest your requirements as seen by both operators and logisticians.

An option for a Logistics UAV, the Kaman-Lockheed Martin UAV (Credit Photo: Lockheed Martin)
An option for a Logistics UAV, the Kaman-Lockheed Martin UAV (Credit Photo: Lockheed Martin)

SLD:    And that’s because of modeling and simulation?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Correct. We actually have decision makers involved in the planning process.  So, instead of saying well, it can go this far, well, I need to go 20 miles more.  I can go well, you know what?  Maybe the capacity isn’t the right capacity.  I can actually help shape the desired capability prior to having built it.

With regard to the cargo lift UAV, we were able to play out the impact of having that capability versus sending a full convoy.  What is the impact of being able to send up just enough resources for accompanying an appropriately sized operation?          I can use a cargo UAV and then send just the inventory that I need without committing other resources that may have other priorities.

The other piece was to take the next logical leap of well, what if we took the cargo aircraft and provided a capability down to the direct support activity, as opposed to the 2,000-lb heavy cargo unmanned aircraft as a general support capability. If we can develop a direct support capability, what would be the impact of having that type of UAV?

SLD:    So a targeted specific smaller UAV able to provided targeted sustainment?

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Yes.  For immediate sustainment. When we’re looking at the realities of distribution, and really — being expeditionary is more defined by what you don’t have than what you do have — the constraints are mainly distribution.  So, if I send the convoy, and it takes a day to do its turn, then you may not see a resupply for two days.  And I have things in the queue that didn’t fit on the first convoy that now become further and further back.

Well, if from a direct support of capability, I have the ability to deliver rapidly within under 20-30 minutes, a critical part—blood plasma or something like that for resupply—then that commander may be able to get a platform up that they thought they were going to take longer; I can get it out more immediately, because the only thing I was waiting on was a part.

So, the further back in the distribution chain that we have to wait for resupply, which is primarily ground, unless it’s ammunition or medical-related or critical density for a specific operation.  You’re just going to wait until you get it, which could take weeks if not months.

SLD:    And the Marine Corps has the advantage of the F-35Bs, which could work with these unmanned vehicles to give them the unmanned aircraft to give them protection.  Because clearly that’s one of your concerns, which is, these are expensive vehicles to bring on the battlefield and certainly valuable to carry these resources, but they’re not really useful; they’re just targets.  So, the Marine Corps has an advantage here of your air/ground integration to use these air assets with protection.

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Because of their importance to the operation and the nature of what they can provide, the logistics UAVS will be an enemy opportune to target to take that out.  We’re saying that that type of aircraft will be used to deliver the most critical immediate resupply.  Then command and control and also protection of those assets are going to be essential.

SLD: One of the interesting aspects of the way you structured the exercise is that you have combat folks dialoguing and a real-time exercise with logistics folks.  And in this UAV case, you’re actually trying to think through some of the implications for an acquisition option.  So that triad of combat, logistics, and acquisition could be a game changer itself.

Lt. Col. Applewhite: Well, the better we shape and provide our requirements, the easier it is for the acquisition community to deliver our capabilities.  Even if we also know how we’re going to employ it and how we expect to do the maintenance on it really allows us to be able to focus our acquisition community.

Building the “Osprey Nation”

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An Update on Osprey from New River (III)

 

An Interview With Captain Smith Ospreys based on the West Coast in an exercise at 29 Palms Credit: USMC

10/29 /2010 – In the discussions of the Osprey at New River, a concept new to us was that of the Osprey Nation. What the pilots and maintainers were in effect saying was that critical mass was being forged in the USMC built around an emergent domain knowledge for operations and maintenance. And the resultant “Osprey Nation” was, in turn, shaping corporate understanding about the aircraft as a USMC asset.

In an interview with Captain Paul Smith, the notion was introduced and discussed.

 

Captain Paul Smith (Credit: SLD)Captain Paul Smith
Credit: SLD

SLD: Could you give us a sense of your background?

Captain Smith: I’m actually an Osprey student pilot. I just transitioned from being a FROG guy. I did two deployments in the FROG, flew them in various countries, combat zones from Afghanistan, Iraq, the whole nine yards. I’m new to the Osprey, but what I’m not new to is the process of maintenance.

SLD: I understand that the MAG has been split here at New River. Could you explain this?

Captain Smith: This year, 2010, the MAGs have split temporarily to make MAG-26, our MAG, strictly Ospreys. We have an all-Osprey staff, all the way from the CO on down. Everybody here is an Osprey guy and then the other MAG is everybody else.

SLD: And this is driven by having enough critical mass on Osprey to focus on Ospreys?

Captain Smith: Yes, but when we deploy as a MEU we still deploy as a normal MAGTF with the Osprey replacement of the FROG being the core, the nucleus and then all the other type model series come with us, Cobras, Hueys, Harriers and the like.

SLD: In effect, you are creating domain knowledge in one place and now that the Ospreys are also based in California, you are setting up ways to share joint experience, trying to figure out how best to maintain and operate the aircraft?

Captain Smith: As we come onto the neophyte type phase of operating this aircraft, we are shaping an “Osprey Nation”. The advantages are obvious. For example, if squadron A is hurting to get some qualifications done, squadron B and C have a trained up instructor who’s rated in that regime and I need my guy up to speed. Well, if we’re all under the same MAG, we’re all in the same street; it makes it a lot easier.
 Same thing for maintenance; if these guys were O level and they needed a particular wrench because theirs is broken or something is on backorder, it’s much easier if we’re all under the same umbrella, the same street to walk 100 yards. When he goes to get a soda, he walks 100 yards. He walks 100 yards, goes and grab another maintainer. Same thing with me, if I need to get that X out this week in order to make the boat period for example. Well, my OpsO calls the OpsO right next door or sees him at chow at the same place and can ask “I really need to borrow your NSI for XYZ flight on Thursday.” And get a response like “Hey, I can’t do it Thursday but if you don’t mind flying Friday, we can make it happen.” Or, “Oh, by the way, you know what, I’m loaning you my NSI. Can you give my two crew chiefs in the back this training and that training?”

Again, we’re all under the same umbrella. We’re all under the same SOP. It makes everything flow and work that much easier. So that’s the sure intent, it’s to support V-22 nation. Shared assets, shared experiences are building our domain knowledge.

We’re all under the same umbrella. We’re all under the same SOP. It makes everything flow and work that much easier. So that’s the sure intent, it’s to support V-22 nation. Shared assets, shared experiences are building our domain knowledge.

SLD: So you generate “Osprey Nation” through critical mass of operational Ospreys so to speak.

Captain Smith: Yes, sir.