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Dick Kugler has recently published an interesting examination of the tough question of how one would deter a nuclear-armed Iran.[1] (http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/Def_Tech/DTP%2067%20Deterring%20Iran.pdf). He examines this from the standpoint of how the U.S. could spearhead an extended deterrent regime to deal with the emergence of a new nuclear power in the Middle East.
As Kugler poses the problem: “Deterring a nuclear-armed Iran led by a radical government with high ambitions and risk- taking propensities will be difficult. U.S. strategy would need to make tailored use of such classical deterrence methods as denying Iran the benefits of aggression, imposing unacceptable costs on aggression, and giving Iran incentives to exercise restraint so that peace would always be preferable to war with the United States and its allies.”
Kugler then lays out an analytical framework for analyzing the problem. He argues that they are six logical alternatives to shaping an extended deterrent regime.
The six options are:
1. Political Deterrence would strive to pursue nuclear deterrence and other goals purely through such means as U.S. political leadership and declaratory policy coupled with diplomatic and economic collaboration with partner countries. It would make no concrete U.S. military commitments to the regime.
2. Variable-Geometry Deterrence would include the measures of option 1, but would also provide concrete military commitments in the form of nuclear deterrence coverage (i.e., missile defenses, retaliatory plans, and homeland security) to Europe and Israel. It would strive to protect friendly Arab/Muslim countries through political assurances: e.g., the type of consultative arrangements that, in Europe, are offered to partner countries not invited to join NATO.
3. Regime-Wide Nuclear Deterrence would make concrete nuclear commitments to Europe, Israel, and friendly Arab/Muslim countries, and would strive to protect vulnerable Arab/Muslim countries from conventional aggression and coercion by using security assistance and training to strengthen their own self-defense forces. It envisions a small U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf: less than 25,000 personnel largely composed of air and naval assets.
4. Full-Spectrum Deterrence strengthens option 3 by providing a larger U.S. force presence that likely would top 25,000 personnel and would be designed for new-era deterrence and reassurance missions.
5. Collective Security Deterrence builds on option 4’s military features by striving to create a region-wide collective security architecture that would bond regime members into tighter political-military collaboration and a common strategic mindset.
6. Integrated Multi-Theater Deterrence is the most visionary option: it strives to join Europe/NATO with a Middle Eastern collective security system so that deterrence policies in both regions can be pursued in lockstep.
For the purposes of sldinfo.com, the Kugler analysis provides an opportunity to suggest that a core challenge would be shaping a concept of operations to implement the core approaches requiring the use of US military forces directly in the region.
The first key question is how would the Iraq withdrawal be linked to an extended deterrent regime? To pose the question is to underscore how strategic Iraq is in comparison with Afghanistan to long-term US interests. How can one craft the withdrawal in ways that could support US concepts of operations in the future in the region?
The second key question is how will the US work with the conservative Arab allies in shaping a collaborative con-ops? Kugler underscores the salience of air and naval power to any such answer, but focusing on the future of air and naval power has downgraded in the US strategic calculus. It would hardly be the new Liberty aircraft that would play the core role. But what would?
The third key question is how will the US work with the Israelis who will push for an assertive approach to deterrence, not a declaratory approach. How will a US concept of operations working with Israel, in turn, allow the US to work with the Arab allies?
The fourth key question is the overlap between European and American approaches in shaping a NATO concept of operations? Kugler spends some time in his piece analyzing the challenge of bringing the US and European allies into congruence on an extended deterrent regime. But the core question is how will the nuclear powers of the Alliance shape a common approach to deterrence?
The fifth key question is the role of missile defense within the mix of forces to provide deterrence? The Administration’s decision on European missile defense heightens consideration of this problem and ties it directly to a regime to deter Iran. Which missile defense systems and what role for deterrence of Iran? How will decision-making be shared? How will the offensive and defensive systems work together to shape a deterrent regime?
The sixth question is the path to military modernization being taken by the United States and how will this strengthen or weaken an extended deterrent regime? The acquisition strategy being followed by the US as it acquires new air and naval systems – both offensives and defensive – will be central to allied deterrence and should be read as such. Acquisition strategy is part of deterrence strategy, and MRAPs will not be a core deterrent force.
The seventh question will be how to deal with the defenses of Iran in denying the capability of the US and its allies to execute a credible extended deterrent regime? Notable in this regard has been the modernization of Iranian air defenses aided by external powers. How will the US ensure that its air and naval capabilities can effectively and with acceptable levels of risks manage the challenge of navigating Iranian air defenses?
Kugler underscores the nexus between the acquisition of nuclear weapons with other aspects of Iranian modernization in shaping a new challenging possibility:
Iran might use its nuclear muscle to bully the Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, to dominate the Strait of Hormuz and related Gulf sea lanes, to try to push the United States out of the Gulf, and to control Gulf oil production. Such local political and diplomatic efforts especially might be pursued if Iran, in addition to acquiring nuclear missiles, succeeds in modernizing its air and naval forces so that they can be used for offensive purposes. Today, Iraq possesses an air force of about 300 combatant aircraft and a navy of patrol combatants and surface-to-surface missiles. In recent years, Iran has been increasing its purchases of sophisticated military technologies from Russia and China. This effort could reach fruition about the same time that Iran deploys a nuclear missile arsenal. Iran could then use modernized air and naval forces to close the Strait of Hormuz, and threaten nuclear retaliation against any military effort to reopen the strait.
The Kugler piece provides an opportunity to shape a debate about near-term concepts of operations that the US will need to craft as well as mid-term requirements. As Kugler warns: The United States will need to forge well-conceived strategic concepts and adeptly blend hard and soft power. Its array of instruments would need to include military power, diplomacy, economic tools, homeland security, information assets, cyber networks, security assistance, partnership-building, and other tools. Its approach to deploying military power would need to be selective, for Middle Eastern politics likely will not permit the kind of weighty forward presences that have marked U.S. deterrence regimes in Europe and Asia. Reliance on offshore forces and swift power projection from CONUS may need to be important instruments of deterrence. Overall, the United States and its partners would need to commit adequate resources to the task, but owing to multiple constraints, the resources available may be scarce. If so, this would further elevate the importance of using resources efficiently.
[1] Richard L. Kugler, An Extended Deterrence Regime to Counter Iranian Nuclear Weapons: Issues and Options (Center for Technology and National Security Policy: National Defense University, September 2009)
Secretary of the Air Force Donley together with the Air Force Chief of Staff Schwartz wrote an oped over this past summer wanting to put the contentious F-22 debate behind them. With their then recent installation and the heated debate on ‘next war itis’’ that surrounded their predecessors departure one might have wondered whether we heard from their head or their heart; but now in the Fall of 2009; perhaps it is time to assess beyond the impact on the Air Force and look at the impact on the Industrial base.
Recently, sponsored by CSBA, Barry Watts looked at the operational impact, and the series of policy, schedule and technology driven decisions, which contributed to the costly appearance of the F-22 (The F-22 Program in Retrospect [pdf]).
Though this required reading into the commentary just a little, producing more units through recurring production from the program would have been a less costly and prudent decision. Especially in light of the continuing assessment by the Air Force Warriors that at 187 units, the mission set was highly risky; 243 was labeled medium risk; and the stated requirement of 381 remains unchanged; and unfulfilled. But, as the Secretary of Defense called these requirements ‘Silly’; the paper reasoned that the decision would allow the Air Force to focus its investment elsewhere because of the central role of the aircraft in future USAF air dominance strategies. Only time will tell which of these arguments – the requirements are silly or that the requirements reflect real needs for air dominance — get validated; but the recent rush for Aviation technology and in integrated Air Defenses by global competitors suggests an increasing probability that there will be a test. And as I have often noted, it is not simply a question of peer competitors; it is a question of access to advanced air defense technologies globally to the Irans of the world which is of consequence to the USAF and to its joint and coalition partners.
As one assesses the impact on the industrial base; it is prudent to do two things. First review the program as an industrial base issue over its history, taking some leads from Watt’s research. Second, look at the program as the industrial base stands today; and the impact of this decision on the future choices the Nation now has due to this decision to terminate.
The program was born of the experience in the Vietnam Engagement when the Nation lost over 2200 Airplanes to a layered, but not integrated air defense system purchased from peer competitors, but operated by non-peer competitor forces from North Vietnam. The specifications for speed, stealth, and precision were very stringent as this was to provide the Nation with Air Dominance though the mid 21st century. At the time, the United States was at the threshold of the revolution in information technology which burned brightly through the 1990’s and beyond. Because of a nagging fear of being hostage to an industrial solution, the Defense Department specified in detail its own operating system, called ADA; and as a result of the pace of the technology change has been left rooted in this operating system. The roster of programs is recognizable by their subsequent history, for the Army—Crusader, and Comanche; for the Air Force, Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) and F-22. The Navy has a similar list.
This excursion shaped by government only specs has since been discarded, and a new philosophy of depending on the commercial investment in information technology and then adapting it to defense is now the vogue. Recently this has brought with it some security concerns which are being separately addressed.
The purpose here is to illustrate the technology barrier that was pierced, and the scramble to retain talent for ADA when careers were being made in DOS, Apple and LINUX. As SBIRs continues to struggle; the problems with the F-22 that surfaced during ground and flight test were resolved slowly by a very dedicated team from both Government and Industry. The costs associated with this effort added to the total for development, but should not go unmentioned in the history. As F-35 enters its period of test, many are predicting delay, but hopefully lessons from the F-22 will smooth its way.
The Nation’s concern for the industrial base was highlighted by the parsing out of the resultant production to the three competitors; and was also a bit of a reward for the massive investment all were asked to bring to the problem.
The expectation of a 750 unit production program for both the Air Force and the navy collapsed with the withdrawal of the Navy from the program. Later their derivative program, the A-12 was terminated, leaving the Navy to wait for the next stealthy program, the F-35.
With the decision by the Secretary of Defense in the early 90’s to reduce the expected volume, and the subsequent decision to stretch-out the technology development; all hope of a positive Return on Investment for the program vanished, and across the board investors fled aerospace stocks.
The concentration of the industrial base was further determined by the meeting held in the early 1990’s with then Secretary Perry dubbed the ‘Last Supper’ wherein he actively sought the exit from defense of the industry. The result was the consolidation of the 1990’s not only at the prime level but also at the suppliers.
This action contributed to the present fragile structure, as well as the concentration and pricing volatility as aircraft programs singled up on the same vendors for supply to get the benefits of quality and reasonable costs. As we will see subsequently, this exacerbates the penalty of terminating one program only to see the costs grow on others.
This same concern for the industrial base was not evidenced by the award of the F-35 program to a single prime; which has the effect of increasing the fragility of the industrial base, and with that the F-22 decision highlights to investors the relative volatility of having incomplete programs terminated not by fulfillment, but by bureaucratic action. Though the present Secretary endorses the need for the F-35, his actions do not speak well for the durability of the department’s loyalty.
The F-22 was nearly 20 years from concept to its interim operational capability. Though the F-35 is seen as a model; it will be just about 20 years as well. Though analysts do not like to go back to the JAST research program in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s; this program contained the seeds for the F-35 program. The point here is the continuous nature of the investment in parallel programs to retain the engineering talent.
What is of critical concern in the present era is the lack of a parallel development, as even the investment in the Unmanned aircraft does not have the same requirement for technical breakthroughs; and will likely never get to the same demanding flight regimes without man to protect. The reduction in engineers from both of the Aircraft programs will occur nearly in parallel with the voluntary standdown of the shuttle program by NASA, and thus the net demand by government for science and engineering talent will continue to encourage Americans not to enter this field. Government is the employer today of 50% of the science and engineering talent produced in America, and the reduction will be felt for decades in our universities. While each year is different, there seems to be a generally deteriorating market across the government sector for this talent.
We should not forget the generational qualities underlying our achievements in aerospace and defense and the need to invest today. Progress does not happen without the efforts of talented people. The dramatic output of World War Two was created in the heyday of investment and creativity in the field of aviation, with engineering talent exiting the university system at a critical time for America. Today, our talent is in Finance, and Information Technology, with the physical sciences, and the supporting engineers going begging.
But let’s take a look at the impact of F-22 termination on the manufacturing base we currently enjoy. The backdrop for this is the current stimulus and the many billions being spent to preserve jobs in the automotive sector, and the further billions spent to recover from housing and banking errors made over the past decade.
There is a substantial overlap between the F-35 and the F-22 program stemming from the previous decades of consolidation, and the increasing need to pile on to successful suppliers for cost and quality purposes. As well the increasingly intrusive defense auditing has isolated commercial industrial practices from defense, such that often a commercial product is ‘delivered’ to a defense modification center for conversion. In this way, commercial derivatives can be properly accounted for, while commercial profits contained by the use of commercial fixed price.
This accounting combination has the upside of sharing overhead throughout the sector; and the similar downside of overburdening surviving programs with the overhead and facilities remaining from program cancellations. While it is always very clear at the prime or delivery location, as in the F-22 at Marietta shares facilities with the C-130 program as well as the C-5 modification program; it is just as true at the propulsion level where Pratt and Whitney produces both the F-22 engines and the F-35 Engines. It is therefore expected that costs for the companion programs will rise. But because of the overlap at the lower tier supplier, the cost growth on companion products is often surprising, as in Honeywell avionics, or Goodyear Landing gears; and the list could go on.
Here again the cost sharing can have benefits, such as the international sales of the F-16 have benefitted the Air Force program very dramatically; as have the F-18 international sales benefitted the Navy F-18 program. But, in the case of the F-22, there has been a ban on the international sales, due in no small part to the expected operational impact.
There’s always been an undercurrent, but now with twenty thousand or more jobs across America looming with the cancellation, and the predictable impact of other aviation programs, selling the F-22 internationally is stirring Congress. Japan has previously expressed an interest, and perhaps it could be again stoked; but the previous response from the defense department has sent them off to examine the Eurofighter and other international offerings. Recently, Brazil has announced their intent to purchase the RafaleAircraft from France. This illustrates that there are other sources, and the United States is but one vendor in the global marketplace, and withholding our products may not make sense in this new world. If such a decision not to export is sustained, not only would the defense decision result in this loss of jobs, but now exports will be seen as lost as well.
Because termination has been framed narrowly as a budget decision, simply a cancellation of a future order, the immediacy of the impact is not felt. But because of the decision last year to eliminate any money for long lead items, the immediacy of the present decision is more acute. Immediately, there is no money to provide to Titanium Suppliers in North Carolina. Forging suppliers in the Midwest who were hanging on will now terminate their work and lay off workers. With the decreasing quantity, suppliers will be reevaluating the balance between defense and commercial; with commercial taking a larger slice of investment. Though they are two years away from the final delivery, Lockheed will have to be increasing the price for the seemingly timeless C-130’s that are scheduled for delivery; and considering how to decrease the footprint within and perhaps ultimately the Marietta facility.
Nationally; we have one fifth generation fighter facility left, and that ultimately will be the Fort Worth Facility. Yes, the Navy continues to buy the F-18 from the St. Louis Boeing facility, but the follow on program is the F-35, and the clock is now ticking loudly. Large Aircraft is Long Beach, and without the C-17, that facility will be history. Bomber programs—we have none, and the planned future one seems at risk. C-130 program will suffer further price increases, and the C-130J program barely made it to production as did the C-17.
While you cannot pile the entirety of two decades or more of industrial base decisions and program decisions on this F-22 decision, it is clearly correlated; it is a decision taken in a context and has strategic consequences.
And it is stunning to see the money being given to industries such as the automotive industry and little or no concern being expressed about the fate and future of the aerospace and defense industries. There remains time for a different set of decisions, and in context of $85 Billion for AIG; and more than 30 Billion for automotive, 2 Billion to provide future options for the F-22, and the workforce that has supplied us our freedom is not so much.
The Congress will need to fund some follow-on Air Force simply to preserve the line for international sales. This was done for the F-15 and F-16 programs, and so the precedence has been set; but the present administration has been labeling this decision with presidential aspirations and visions of a different future that will make any change seem far more momentous than ever before.
And how the F-22 is handled has consequences for the F-35. A nagging fear is that as the F-22 was destined at its start to be 750 units, with much fanfare, the expectation for the F-35 is multiple thousands, but the GAO is already calling to reduce the ramp up and the top volume. What the true future holds is a mystery, but if there are both termination of the F-22 and reductions in the orders of F-35, the impact on the industry will be dramatic. One question is why we have to squander a major US strategic defense capability in order to create a symbolic target for a populist President?
Hence the Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff Note on putting this controversy in their rear view mirror. It is not without risk, and it is not without impact to an already fragile industrial base. The cost of this decision is now flowing to other programs, lost opportunities for building international partnerships, as well as displacing a talented workforce honed through twenty plus years of development and production. Should the nation ever want to recover the capability, it will not be at the speed available for World War Two; it will be decades. Let’s all hope our enemies signal us that far in advance.
Secretary Wynne was the 21st Secretary of the USAF; before this he served in the Bush Administration and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and then as the Under Secretary. Mr. Wynne has extensive industrial experience, including with the F-16, M-1 and military space programs. Mr. Wynne was a graduate of West Point and brought to his role as Secretary of the USAF extensive experience with and understanding of ground operations, Mr. Wynne has been an active participant in the F-22 debate and related defense issues. For a recent example of his treatment of the F-22 issue, please see http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/08/27/holes-in-us-defense-umbrella-wynne/
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Reports of China’s impending decision to restrict exports of rare-earth minerals has suddenly awoken the U.S. government to its dependence on China for virtually all of the permanent magnets and rare-earth materials used throughout the defense industrial complex. China controls more than 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare-earth permanent magnets.
High-profile articles in major newspapers describing China’s intention to restrict or end exports of rare-earth minerals have thrust a critical light on the Pentagon’s policies that have embraced cheap global production and that downplayed or ignored the potential negative national security implications of the loss of U.S. industrial capabilities.
Executives working in the U.S. rare-earth metals industries have been warning the Pentagon for years that the country no longer had the ability to produce the powerful magnets that are used in virtually every weapon system and a vast array of consumer and industrial goods. The rare-earth magnet industry is the most vulnerable, since the U.S. has lost almost its entire production capability over the past six years.
Congress has perked up, barely and belatedly, calling for a study. In the Senate version of the Defense Authorization Bill for 2010 (S-1390), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) has requested a report from the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board to determine the extent to which weapons systems are currently dependent upon rare-earth materials “by sources that could be interrupted.” He wants the Pentagon to describe the risks involved in U.S. dependence on foreign sources of these materials, and any steps the Department of Defense has taken or plans to take to address risks to national security.
According to those in the industry, it won’t be any time soon before the United States rebuilds an extensive and technically complicated supply chain for rare-earth minerals, especially for the powerful neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets used throughout the defense, industrial and consumer goods sectors.
The main problem, they say, is that the U.S. manufacturing knowledge base has virtually disappeared along with the industry. Most of the knowledge of how to manufacture high-tech magnets was in the heads of the people working the industry, and they are gone. “Without the ability to manufacture, we lose the ability to innovate,” says Ed Richardson, vice president of Thomas & Skinner, an Indianapolis producer of permanent magnets made from alnico (aluminum, nickel and cobalt).
Those doing the study “are going to be shocked because it is going to be much easier to find where these materials are not being used than where they are being used,” says Richardson. The strongest of all permanent magnets is neodymium-iron-boron, for which there is not a single U.S. producer. By contrast, there are 100 producers of these magnets in China, according to Peter Dent of Electron Energy Corp. of Landisville, Penn.
Neodymium-iron-boron magnets are used in every computer hard drive. “What doesn’t have a hard drive?” Richardson asks. “They are going to find that these rare-earth magnets are used everywhere and then they are going to say, ‘Uh, oh, we have to do something.’ “
The industry has been warning DOD for years of its vulnerability. But to no avail. The most recent “Foreign Sources of Supply” report produced by President Bush’s Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy claims that “the Department is not acquiring military materiel produced overseas to the detriment of national security or the U.S. defense industrial base….The record indicates there has been no difference in the reliability between the Department’s U.S. and non-U.S. suppliers.” It goes on to state: “The Department incorporates foreign items and components into many important systems, and in some cases the Department may be dependent upon foreign suppliers for these items. However, this does not mean the Department suffers from a foreign vulnerability. Foreign dependence usually does not equate to foreign vulnerability. The Department is not vulnerable if it is dependent on reliable foreign suppliers, just as it is not vulnerable when it is dependent on reliable domestic suppliers. The Department of Defense is not aware of any foreign vulnerabilities within its supply chains.”
That policy, which has benefited the large defense contractors, has riled American producers of basic industrial products like printed circuit boards and specialty metals. This “market view of reality [was] installed in the heart of our Defense Department,” says Jim Kennedy, president of Wings Enterprises, a company that owns the only known heavy rare-earth oxide deposit in the United States in Washington County, Mo. The free-market orientation of the government in the area of military security “has no historical precedent and is a total farce — an ideology that feeds financiers and multinational corporations and has led to America being a ‘service’ wasteland,” says Kennedy.
The U.S. industry has been “decimated by China’s unfair trade practices,” adds the recently created United States Magnetic Materials Association. “Currently, China dominates the magnet materials industry and has successfully manipulated the rare earths metals market.”
China is acting it its own best interests. With growing global demand and China controlling 97 percent of the global market for mining rare-earth metals (and nearly 100 percent of the conversion of ore to metal), China could reach its production capacity by 2012. Its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued a draft industrial policy that calls for a “total ban on [the export of] some rare-earth elements in the near future, cutting off the international community’s access to vital materials,” says the Magnetic Materials Association. By doing so, China will supply only Chinese users, which means that foreign manufacturers that use rare-earth minerals in their products will be induced to open manufacturing operations in China.
According to a September 2009 report from the United States Geological Survey (“2007 Minerals Yearbook Rare Earths [Advance Release]”) rare-earth minerals are used in rechargeable batteries that are in camcorders, cell phones, PDAs, laptop computers and other portable devices. Rare-earth minerals are used in wind turbines, drinking water filters, petrochemical catalysts, in polishing powders, hydrogen storage, fluorescent lighting, flat panels, color televisions, glass, ceramics and automotive catalysts. They are used in fiberoptics, dental and surgical lasers, MRI systems, as medical contrast agents, in medical isotopes and in positron emission tomography scintillation detectors. They are important in magnetic refrigeration and in the fast-growing world of rechargeable batteries used in hybrid vehicles. Permanent magnets make electric motors more efficient and light.
In the military sector, rare-earth permanent magnets are used in internal guidance systems, microwave communications systems, radar and motors and generators that power aircraft and ships. They are used in actuators for electric propulsion, in space systems and in nuclear reactors — in pumps and control rod actuators. They are found in missiles (Trident, Minuteman, Patriot, AIM, AMRAAM and Tomahawk); in the Aegis destroyer radar; in M1A1 Tanks; and in the Bradley, Paladin Howitzer, Apache Stryker, Humvee, F-15, F-16 F-18, B-52, towed decoys, Joint Strike Fighter and Predator weapons systems.
“Existing production is currently not sufficient to meet world demand,” says the U.S. Geological Survey. In the second sentence of its report, the USGS states: “Rare earths were not mined in the United States in 2007.” It also notes that “the last of the U.S. government stocks of rare earths in the National Defense Stockpile was shipped in 1998.”
In 1999, Chinese president Jiang Zemin stated that China would “improve the development and application of rare earths and change the resource advantage into economic superiority.” In 1992 Chinese president Deng Xiaoping said: “There is oil in the Middle East; there are rare earths in China. We must take full advantage of this resource.”
The total worldwide market size for rare-earth magnetic materials was $9.1 billion in 2007 and is projected to grow to $12 billion in 2011 and to $21 billion by 2020, according to Peter Dent of Electron Energy Corp.
In the 1990s, U.S. magnetic materials producers employed 6,000 workers. There were five alnico magnet producers; five samarium-cobalt magnet producers; four neodymium-iron-boron magnet producers; and many suppliers. But the industry has unraveled. By last year, there were only 500 workers remaining in the U.S. industry, with three alnico magnet producers, one samarium-cobalt magnet producer and zero neodymium-iron -boron magnet producers.
The U.S. industry has long warned of potential supply disruptions, but China’s recent plans to curtail exports makes the situation “dire,” says Richardson of Thomas & Skinner. “We’ve been talking about this since the Mountain Pass [Calif.] mine closed [in 2002] and the last neodymium-iron-boron magnet manufacturer closed in 2005,” he says. “Once that happened we knew we were in trouble.”
But things got worse. In 2003, the former GM subsidiary Magnequench plant closed in Indiana, laying off 225 workers, and moved its equipment to China. Shortly thereafter, VAC closed its Elizabethtown, Ky., operations. In 2004, China National Offshore Oil Corp. tried to purchase Unocal, the owner of Molycorp and the Mountain Pass mine. In 2005, Hitachi closed its Edmore, Mich., production facility, which it acquired from General Electric in the 1990s.
What is to be done? “We can’t just fly out and do something without some basis for it,” says Richardson.
DOD’s study on rare earths is a good first step. It needs to include the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy, since the next generation automobile depends on the availability of rare-earth minerals. “They have to determine a baseline before they can develop a strategy,” says Jeff Green of the magnetics trade association. At some point there will need to be a combination of public and private invest-ment to reestablish the North American supply chain.
“If you look at what is left of the North American industry, all of the players exist,” says Green. “It’s a matter of bringing them together in a way that creates a competitive marketplace.” Incentives will have to be put in place to entice private investment, and there will need to be new policies “that deal with trade or domestic preference regimes or the Defense Production Act,” says Green. “Unless there is a strategy that creates some type of sustainable market, then it won’t work.”
Mark Smith, CEO of Molycorp Minerals LLC, which owns the Mountain Pass mine, says “federal leadership is required.” Congress and President Obama must “commit to directly addressing the capability gaps between rare-earth mining and magnet production.” They can do this by promoting science, technology, infrastructure investment, direct capital assistance and loan guarantees.
Richardson says what he finds “disturbing” is that there are U.S. producers claiming they can solve the problem “just by having the government give them a whole big chunk of money.” Such an effort would likely fail. “It is not accurate for one company to say they can solve the problem of the entire supply chain,” says Richardson. It’s one thing to mine ore, it’s another to process it and refine it for use by industrial companies. “It’s going to be many years and a lot of money — millions of dollars to reconstruct this value chain,” says Richardson. “If we don’t talk about our industry as being a cluster of businesses that need to work together to enable the United States to manufacture magnets, and that this cluster needs a comprehensive industrial policy that takes all of the elements into consideration, then we will be flailing in the water.”
It would be nice if there were industrial policy specialists in the Pentagon who could do the hard work of crafting viable strategies for an industrial revival, Richardson notes. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a monumental job, but if it’s something you work on every day and you have good ideas of what the risks are and where the weak points are, then after several years you might get good at it and maybe after five or 10 years you might have something that is pretty valuable. Unfortunately, there is nothing. We have been fighting with the very people who would do this just to keep alive what we already have.”
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A multi-national naval force, including the San Antonio class-amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde, USS Doyle, USCGC Mohawk, the Colombian navy frigate ARC Independiente, the Dutch navy auxiliary ship HMNLS Amsterdam, and the Uruguayan navy frigate General Artigas, underway in formation as part of FuerzasAliadas PANAMAX 2009. FA PANAMAX is an annual multi-national training exercise tailored to the defense of the Panama Canal.
In an interview with Rear Admiral James McManamon at his office at the Washington Navy Yard in February 2009, the Admiral outlined the Naval Sea Systems Command’s (NAVSEA’s) new approach to logistics modernization. The Admiral described himself as 100% Irish, and with Irish wit and passion the Admiral laid out the course that his organization is taking to get a new approach to logistics modernization on track.
McManamon is the Deputy Commander for Surface Warfare in SEA 21. He is a key player in what the USN calls Team Ships. Team Ships comprises the Surface Warfare Directorate (SEA 21) in the Naval Sea Systems Command and Program Executive (PEO) Office Ships in the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Before SEA 21 existed, PEO Ships would do the modernization of the fleet and the fleet commands would do the maintenance. Alignment would be provided at the federated level, namely at the waterfront.
Set in motion by organizational changes launched in June 2007, SEA 21 is described by the USN as “the focal point of the Surface Warfare Enterprise that ensures warfighting readiness while dealing with fiscal realities, managing to the right metrics and synchronizing lifetime support efforts for all in-service and decommissioned surface combatants, non-nuclear aircraft carriers, amphibious warships and command, mine and special mission craft.” SEA 21 is characterized as “a strategic bridge to the fleet” that connects the Navy headquarters, NAVSEA and Program Executive Officers to the waterfront and operating forces.
SEA 21’s span of work encompasses the introduction of surface ships delivered to the Fleet last week, modernizing and sustain ships delivered to the Fleet decades ago, and disposing of ships after the completion of their service lives. According to the USN, “To so effectively and efficiently, we have structure our operations in focused “product lines” that are managed by senior, highly experienced surface warfare officers and supported skill military, civilian and contractor teams.”
The re-organization is in its early phases, but what was clear throughout the interview was the Admiral’s commitment to shaping practical approaches to achieving a much closer alignment among acquisition, maintenance and modernization. The Admiral underscored the need to shape a course which created buy-in from the various stakeholders in logistics reform, including industry, the commanding officers of the diverse surface ship community, the acquisition community, and the homeport support elements.
The Admiral emphasized that by shaping a new approach, which would get a better handle on maintenance efforts, the USN would be in a better position to shape more effective acquisition as well. “Clearly the best place to influence total ownership cost is in early design efforts. But the reality is that 80% of our 313-ship navy already exists and will be around 30 years, so the question is how to sustain the current fleet without having been able to influence early design. And by shaping a more effective approach to ongoing sustainment, we are in a better position to shape new acquisition and modernization approaches.”
The Admiral noted that the priority of the new approach is to get a handle on fleet class issues, and not just focusing on ship-by-ship maintenance efforts. Many class-wide maintenance issues exist without coherent resolution strategies. The high operational tempo of the surface fleet puts pressure on the ship commanders to prioritize short-term fixes rather than long-term maintenance solutions. But the problem according to the Admiral was simply put: “I can pay now for the needed repairs or pay four times more in five years because I have delayed those repairs.” In many ways, the problem that the Admiral is seeking to address is to provide incentives for ship commanders to be able to do the repairs needed now rather than putting them off until they become critical mass.
Such an evolution was initiated via the Class Squadrons (CLASRONS) organizational concept, which is based on the appointment of an officer in charge of collecting all the maintenance and requirements data relevant for a class of ships –– e.g., guided-missile cruisers — in its entirety across America and abroad.
CLASSRON Homeports, 2009
Ingleside, Texas (moving to San Diego by 2010)
Avenger (MCM 1) mine countermeasures ships
Mayport, Florida
Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG 7) guided-missile frigates
Wasp (LHD 1), Tarawa (LHA 1) and Austin (LPD 4 amphibious ships
San Diego, California
Freedom (LCS 1) Littoral Combat Ships
Whidbey Island (LSD 41), Harper’s Ferry (LSD 49) and San Antonio (LPD 17)
Amphibious ships
Ticonderoga (CG 47)/Bunker Hill (CG 52) Aegis guided missile ships
According to the USN, “CLASSRONs coordinate in-service support by types of ships, wherever they are homeported, which enables SEA 21 to determine if a readiness issue is with just a single ship, a specific homeport or several homeports, or a class-wide concern. The CLASSRONs facilitate alignment and integration of manning, training, equipping, modernizing and sustaining surface warships from a ship-class perspective.”
One of the difficulties for SEA21 is precisely the fact that it has to deal with several different ship classes, compared to counterparts in the submarine and nuclear aircraft carrier communities, which focus on a much narrower group of ships. The Admiral’s task, as he describes it, is “to manage and balance a wide range of resources, maintenance being done in different homeports, by different contractors and different industries”.
He noted, “the submarine community ‘red-lines’ a number of critical maintenance tasks and has indeed adopted a Repair Before Operate (RBO) approach. If these tasks are not performed the sub cannot get under way. Because surface ships are more robust there is a tendency to respond to the drumbeat of operational demands, and to delay repairs until absolutely necessary to do them. And, of course, as the Admiral explains the failure of a “simple valve is not going to have the same effect in a submarine as on a surface ship, and therefore is not going to be dealt with in the same manner.”
The bias in the repair system for surface ships is towards the short term. The surface ship navy does not have strong ‘red-lines’. “The multi-mission redundancy built into our surface ships allows us to defer repairs. But over time this creates problems and the concern is that the notional life of the ship will be reduced by not doing the repairs needed for longevity,” the Admiral explained.
With the declining ship numbers facing the USN, ensuring full life for the surface fleet is imperative. As the Admiral put it, “sustainment is no longer an afterthought; it is now a strategic requirement, especially in a time of tighter budgets”
At the heart of the new approach is creating a knowledge-management capability to assess each ship class. Currently, the Admiral has 30 full-time equivalent staff working on numerous different ship classes to shape a prototype for each ship class of the metrics of life-cycle performance. Based on modeling the real state of each ship class, realistic maintenance and modernization schedules can be crafted to ensure more effective service life.
The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) is also involved in the effort to assess each ship class with regard to expected service life. The challenge is with regard to expected service life to see how each it ship meets its expected service life and to obtain “a snapshot of the age of the ship”. Understanding the actual state of each member of a fleet class in terms of where they fell on the timeline of their real operational service life is becoming crucial to evaluating the real health of the fleet. “Is a 15 year destroyer in terms of chronological age in reality 10 years old or 20 years old in terms of operational service life?”
The government with strong contractor support leads the way. Team Ships is shaping the approach and ensuring that it is in charge of the conceptual understanding of the maintenance and modernization requirements for enhanced service life. The Admiral emphasized frequently throughout the interview that the critical alignment is between acquisition approaches and the twin tasks of maintenance and modernization. The USN will face trade offs between new ships and modernization of old ones and wants to be in a better position to understand whether modernization of a particular ship within a ship class is worth the cost or not.
An example of the type of relationship between maintenance and modernization, which the USN is trying to achieve, is the LSD 41/49 major upgrade program. In July 2008, the USN awarded contracts to modernize the USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44) at Metro Machine Corporation in Norfolk, Virginia and the USS Germantown (LSD 42) at General Dynamics/NASSCO in San Diego. Two ships will be modernized each year through 2013 with the last ship completed in 2014. The modernization encompasses major upgrades to the ship control system, local area network and machinery control system, as was a replacement of the ship’s boilers and evaporators with an all-electric services system. By so doing the latter the need for a costly maintenance support of legacy steam systems is eliminated.
The focus according to the Admiral is upon shaping a realistic and effective “engineered product” or “engineered work package” whereby a class maintenance plan would guide ship maintenance, rather than following a case-by-case approach. The task is to “provide an 80% solution to the 177 commanding officers rather than the current 20% solution.” By shaping a credible “engineered product”, buy-in is more likely from the ship commanders, on the one hand, and from the senior naval leadership, on the other hand, when addressing acquisition and modernization decisions.
As the new approach is put in place, a new relationship between industry and the USN is being shaped as well. The contract vehicle, which is being used to launch the new approach, is the multi-ship, multi-option (MSMO) maintenance-support contracts vehicle.
According to the USN:
The highly flexible cost-plus/award fee contracts are being awarded to single MSMO prime contractors for ships in specific homeports for a class squadron or group of ships. In that way, SEA 21/contractor teams can generate the greatest potential for achieving learning-curve efficiencies.
(In these contracts), the prime contractor will have overall responsibility for:
Scheduled availability execution planning
Continuous and emergency maintenance
Carryout out scheduled availabilities
Non-hull-specific/to-be-determined contingencies.
The federated nature of maintenance – done at the homeports and yards – sees a key role in each area for a prime contractor in working with a set of industrial partners. The Admiral is not seeking to hand over the maintenance effort to a core prime in each port or yard; when a prime is given a lead role, industrial partnerships are crucial to shape a cost-effective and high-performance outcome. “What we are seeing is that even when a prime contract is given, the other industrial players are part of the team but do so by honing their specialized skills. The outcome is better performance for the government and a more cost-effective approach for the contractors. It is a ‘win-win’ situation.”
But change does not come without controversy. The Admiral noted that in the Norfolk area there have been challenges to implementing the MSMO approach. No less that four Government Accountability Office (GAO) protests are currently underway against MSMO contracts but, in spite of this, 19 contracts have been implemented. The Admiral noted that increased teaming within industry has resulted from the MSMO effort in the Norfolk area.
And the Admiral believes that the MSMO approach has already yielded results. “We believe that we have achieved a 30% increase in surface ship underway readiness with only a 10% increase in dollars allocated to maintenance. As a result, “better teaming and more specialization are already noticeable” whereby each player tends to realize that there exists a “business model where not everyone has to be the sole winner”. More expertise in turn tends to reflect itself in better cost-control and timeline delivery.
SEA 21 has been in existence only since mid-2007. The only new ship class being developed concurrent with the launching of SEA 21 is the littoral combat ship. Therefore, it is not surprising to learn that SEA 21 is heavily engaged in the effort to build in enhanced support capabilities from the outset of the design and launching of this new class of ships.
Several contractors have proposed to the USN contractor-led sustainment approaches for the LCS. However, the USN is seeking an alternative approach to launching from the outset a prime contractor-dominated sustainment program. SEA 21 will put in place a core team monitoring the first three years of performance of the initially commissioned LCS ships. During this period, the team will collect metrics and determine the real costs for maintenance of the first ships. Based on these data and evaluation efforts, the USN will then determine the right approach to sustainment for this class of ships. The government will issue a request for information (RFI) for future sustainment along the lines of the MSMO approach.
As the Admiral commented, “My program managers are engaged in working the collection program. They are leading the Integrated Product Team (IPT) which will determine the scope and nature of the RFI to be issued to shape the sustainment approach for the LCS.”
In addition, the new sustainment approach of the USN is to be aligned with its partners. An illustration of the USN thinking was the holding of a conference with international partners at Mayport Naval Station in Florida in May 12-15 2009 to share experiences on modernization and maintenance approaches to the FFG class of ships. The FFG-7 is the most common platform for the international fleet and a key component for supporting the USN global maritime strategy. The focus of the conference was upon approaches to modernization, ways to leverage cost savings, and approaches to reduce obsolescence. There are currently 30 USN FFG’s operating worldwide and 33 FFGs operated by allies via Foreign Military Sales programs. The conference provided a conduit for information sharing among member navies and will seek to find ways to drive down acquisition and life cycle support costs. And additional objective for the USN has been to develop a market for FFG removed equipment for FMS rather than via a disposal and destruction strategy.
Each partner has approached modernization differently. The Australians are currently in the process of modernizing their fleet of FFG’s in order to extend the life of the ship. According to the Admiral, “SEA 21 through PMS 326 (International Fleet Support Program Office) is using some of the lessons learned from the Australian Program to help modernize and extend the life of the FFG’s already operational in Turkey and is assisting in establishing a modernization program for the FFG’s in Taiwan. Sharing experiences at the Conference and discussing approaches can “lead to better outcomes.” “This will be the first time a coordinated ship class specific international symposium will ever be done”.
In short, the Admiral underscored that the effort to align acquisition, maintenance and modernization was in its early stages. But failure to align was not an option. The high tempo of operations coupled with the declining numbers of ships clearly means that logistics modernization is at the heart of the strategic realignment of the USN to meet the requirements of 21st century operations. And the Admiral underscored his passion for logistics in a simple phrase: “Logistics touches the sailor every day; and is at the heart of the operations of the Navy. We need to get this right.”
An earlier version of this article was published in Military Logistics International (January-February 2009) and written by Robbin Laird and Murielle Delaporte. An update on the conference is provided in http://www.navyenterprise.navy.mil/docs/pdf/CRO-13-09.pdf
Ambassador Glassman addresses the important question of how the new governments of the industrial democracies will address defense modernization. The global economic crisis could lead to a significant reduction in the capability of these democracies to defend themselves and their interests. Short-sided economic decisions could be taken to make defense the billpayer for short-term political gain. Alternatively, the opportunity could be taken to shape collaborative opportunities and to reshape allied capabilities. But such a path would need to shape abilities to use the new multi-functional systems emerging in the early 21st centuries. As Ambassador Glassman underscores, we need to meet the challenge.
The new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led government faces major challenges as it seeks to restore Japan’s economy within the context of a (hopefully) recovering regional and global order. Like other former opposition parties empowered in the last 22 months in the US, Republic of Korea and Taiwan, the DPJ’s search, along with the parliamentary opposition, for new forms of economic stimulus and a steady growth path needs to be successful. Otherwise, malaise will deepen with grievous consequences for national well-being and regional stability.
In these circumstances, Japanese defense modernization could fall victim to competing demands for personal revenue enlargement and public debt control. Indeed, defense modernization might be seen as a significant overhead cost which the new government would seek not to pay.
This would be a terrible mistake — Japan, like other major powers, is on the cusp of assimilating new military technologies that not only will safeguard Japan’s population and preserve peace but also will contribute to shaping an ultra-high-performing information management and infrastructure worthy of emulation.
Japan’s failure to partake in this technological transformation of the economic and social base could leave the country an odd man out as the US and China, driven by military imperatives, advance the forward edge of cyber-infrastructure and functionality with possible huge parallel returns in the civilian economy.
Put simply, security modernization is inextricably tied to, and at the core of, needed economic recovery and growth. One need only look to the US Government-spurred defense and space origin of “Silicon Valley” to recognize this truth in historical perspective.
New Political and Technical Challenges
Japan lives in an ambivalent neighborhood –the high population and enrichment of China, South Korea and Southeast Asia provide lucrative markets, but political uncertainties in North Korea, China and Russia, coupled with the latter two’s capacity to invest in forward-edge military systems, mean that Japan’s citizenry is forever exposed to catastrophes that could emerge from circumstances beyond domestic control. Economic reform without defense modernization could alter Japan’s relative risk profile, as the markets became conscious of Japan’s exposure to ever evolving manifold risks not faced by other major economies.
Japan’s need to co-opt and deter neighboring leaders remains essential as during the Cold War and its aftermath. But what is new in this century are potential threats that could arise from political change and decomposition in the neighborhood — whether the emergence of rogue elements from North Korean regime collapse, future decentralization of authority in China, or the emergence of competing power centers in Russia. These incalculable threats, driven possibly by non-rational actors or political forces, require the ability to defend Japan reliably in a murky future — not simply to deter a clearly-defined, single strategic rival utilizing principally the US alliance strategic deterrent umbrella.
Defense modernization in a time of uncertainty becomes for Japan a public good required as both a guard and catalyst of change; the needed magnitude of the defense effort demands careful husbanding of the US-Japanese alliance and an integral approach within that alliance. A patron-protégé and partner relationship must be superseded by organic collaboration. Shaping a collaborative, intertwined US-Japanese defense capability is the strategic challenge facing the new government.
This capacity to collaborate and defend becomes more difficult as neighboring countries expand their physical capabilities to reach out and touch Japan with ground, naval and air-launched missiles — ballistic and cruises. The complexity in space (trajectories, axes of attack) and time (velocity, frequency) of new military threats requires means of response capable of performing multiple tasks sequentially and simultaneously.
Japan’s need to manage an ever more complex threat intersects with that of its US ally who also needs to find new ways to cope: multi-mission platforms, sensors, and weapons are very costly and increase the economic burden of defense. As projected out-year budget deficit estimates escalate in the United States, it becomes clear that the unipolar moment has passed — a lone-handed security umbrella maintained exclusively or even primarily by the United States is no longer sustainable.
The solution, therefore, resides in collaborative US-Japan operational and defense industrial developmental cooperation and division of labor. The purpose of this shared approach to investment and execution needs to go beyond the traditional budgetary “burden-sharing” argument.
The issue is no longer the equitable split of effort, taking into account Japan’s constitutional inhibitions. Today’s imperative is the need to finance the multi-mission platforms, sensors and weapons and their remote sensory and command, control and communication enablers critical to the real-time challenges facing Japanese and regional security. Absent a collaborative formula, Japanese security will be weakened with its future decided by others.
The shortfall in US wherewithal to play a lone-handed role as the East Asian security guarantor will have its own impact. The American security umbrella has permitted repudiation of ultra-nationalists along the Eurasian periphery who, absent the US umbrella, would be in a strong position to argue for independent nuclear and missile capabilities.
Therefore, while one can presume continuing critique by potential adversaries of efforts to strengthen or expand US-East Asian alliance ties, it is possible to assume their grudging acquiescence in modernization of collaborative capabilities needed to support existing and evolving US-East Asian alliance tasks.
Enlarging the Scope of Security Collaboration
There has been a valid assumption over the years that the combination of efforts to deepen US and allied cooperation with China and Russia and, in parallel, to foster US defense and economic ties with Japan, the ROK, Australia and selected ASEAN states has created an atmosphere propitious for regional and global trade and financial flows. The validity of this assumption has been demonstrated by both the remarkable economic success of the region over past decades along with the damage most recently done as a result of the US economic downturn.
There is consensus — demonstrated most eloquently by the Chinese advice regarding how to restore US economic stability — that the existing East Asian economic and security order needs to be made whole again. This requires involvement of all trade and financial partners — most particularly China. A strategic construct must be fashioned to permit close US-China and China-East Asian economic cooperation while providing sufficient security for Pacific Rim states to deny Chinese hegemony and to forego independent missile and nuclear capabilities. Chinese actual and potential creation of military disequilibrium should be neutralized without creating a specter of US-China and East Asian polarization.
The way forward on this in the security realm may be to enlarge the scope of regional security collaboration — both in terms of tasks performed and participants involved. This seems consistent with some of the themes surfaced in the Japanese election campaign and could itself spur recovery along with stability.
What could be created — as a possible build-out from Six-Party efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue — is a regional forum, involving also the United States along with China and Russia (and maybe, in the future, North Korea), addressing issues of common security concern. These could include items such as crisis communications, missile launch and military exercise notification, space situation awareness, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, disease surveillance, maritime security, and WMD non-proliferation and transparency.
In parallel with this, current bilateral US-East Asian alliances would be preserved but built out to permit broadened participation in operationally-focused shared security zones (SSZs)—geographic “security triangles” emanating south, west and north from the US force core in Guam, Japan, and Korea.
The SSZs would permit cooperative functional security divisions of labor with a widened sphere of participating partners:
Southern Maritime Zone (sea domain from Arabian Sea to Northeast Asia): US, Australia, Japan, India, Singapore + other ASEANS (and possibly China) to keep energy/trade transit open;
Northeast Asia Zone: US, Japan, ROK to maintain dynamic equilibrium with China, North Korea, and Russia via traditional and new US-allied defense cooperation augmented by CBM and arms limitation negotiation;
Arctic Zone: US, Canada, and Japan (and possibly Russia) to preserve access to Arctic resources.
In short, the new Japanese Government faces the opportunity to shape a new defense and economic modernization model — advancing security and economic recovery in East Asia and shaping a new relationship with the United States. New military systems and approaches built on collaborative capabilities can provide the building blocks for the military infrastructure needed for such an approach. Japan can challenge the United States toward true collaboration and the United States can offer core systems which can be shaped to meet this challenge. We need to ensure this opportunity is not missed.
Ambassador Jon Glassman is a retired career Foreign Service officer who is currently Director for Government Policy of the Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Electronic Systems sector. While at the Department of State, Ambassador Glassman served in many countries, including Afghanistan. Ambassador Glassman also has served as the Assistant to the Vice President of the United States and as Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs. The views in this article are his own and do not reflect neither the views of Northrop Grumman Corporation nor the United States Government.
The shape of tactical vehicle modernization impacts on other services and on other procurement choices. We discuss elsewhere the C5M modernization effort: determining what vehicles the lift fleet will carry is an important driver in debates about what to modernize and what to buy in the air and sea lift arena. With the demise of FCS and with a relatively clear determination of what vehicles would be procured, significant strategic uncertainty is now unleashed with regard to the future of the vehicles to be procured and their role within the overall joint force structure.
As the Army “regroups” after the cancellation of the Main Ground Vehicle (MGV) portion of the Future Combat Systems (FCS), other developments in the procurement of future vehicles are combining to paint a picture of increasing austerity in terms of fielding new vehicles. The overriding trends, however, have less to do with technology or procurement developments, and more to do with politics and economics.
Let’s take the overriding trends first. The defense budget, according to nearly every analyst, is heading down – the debate simply is how far and how fast. The downward drift (or some would forecast “plummet”) will be driven by the current Administration’s clear intention (some would claim overwhelming need) to focus upon domestic issues (i.e., the economy and healthcare) first. The remedies being offered already have driven the projected federal budget deficit higher than any in history, and promise to drive it (almost geometrically) higher. The trend clearly is towards a “crowding out” of the defense budget by dramatically increasing domestic obligations.
Moreover, the current Administration also has embarked upon a campaign to redefine the global war on terror as a law enforcement exercise. The equally clear intention here is to change the American public’s perception of the threat. This said, the Administration – if only implicitly – is being characterized (at least by the House of Representative’s leadership) as too militaristic concerning Afghanistan and its consideration of increasing US military force commitments. The fundamental point is that Democrats currently occupying leadership positions in both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government have set out to re-shape the American public’s perception of threat in such a way as to lessen the need for military spending.
These trends suggest a dramatic, rather than gradual, dip in defense spending over the next 2-5 years. Many, in fact, already characterize the current Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) as an exercise designed to establish the basis for significant defense spending cuts. This, in turn, will force the military services into increasingly more difficult choices in terms of investment spending. Given the fact that operational commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be “turned off” over night, the politics and realities of the environment will tend to protect operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts spending – the effect will be a smoother O&M accounts decline, rather than a more dramatic fall that the investment accounts are likely to experience.
Over the last several years, DoD’s vehicle investment accounts have experienced a dramatic increase in funding – a “spike” attributed to both the resetting and upgrading of legacy (both combat and tactical) vehicles and the procurement of a totally new class of vehicles – Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. At the same time, development continued on new vehicles, ranging from FCS MGVs to Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) to Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles (EFV) to Marine Personnel Carriers (MPC). The Bush Administration was committed to fund both operational requirements as well as development of future classes of vehicles.
The new Administration, however, thus far has not shown the same commitment. Instead, Secretary Gates has been explicit that his first priority will be to fund operational requirements and that the development of new classes of vehicles will then be reconsidered, presumably under the increasingly austere budget environment described above.
The Secretary’s first decision was to cancel the MGV component of the FCS program. While he conceded to the Army leadership the opportunity to develop a replacement combat vehicle – the ground combat vehicle (GCV) – many doubt whether it will survive future budget reviews. A more likely outcome, given a presumed dramatic fall in Army investment accounts, will be the continued use of recently upgraded legacy vehicles within the Army’s Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT) formations.
The upgrading and resetting of legacy vehicles, while still ongoing, have slowed down – a product of a more sustainable rate of vehicle usage in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fact that the Administration’s clear intent is to withdraw as quickly as feasible from Iraq, if not Afghanistan. Regardless of this slowdown, military vehicles for the next several years will continue to require reset work – if only to address the backlog of equipment awaiting repair and upgrades. Future upgrades to these vehicles have been under design for months, if not years, so the continued use of legacy vehicles within the HBCTs is a given outcome.
As the Army begins to recover/reorient from continuous combat operations over the last six years (and still counting), a debate already emerging – but still muted, given the focus upon FCS MGVs and the GCV — has been the overall number of brigades (also called “force mix”) – HBCTs vs. Stryker brigades vs. Infantry brigades; as well as the proper mix of legacy vehicles within these formations. The fate of the Vietnam-era M113 armored personnel carriers, and its numerous derivatives (currently scheduled, but unfunded, for retirement) – that is, whether they will remain in the force or be replaced by other legacy vehicles (e.g., Strykers or Bradleys) — will be one of its key aspects. The outcome of these debates will be a central driver within the combat vehicle market within the U.S.. The essence of the industrial base implications will be the relative health of the two key players in this market segment – General Dynamics (which produces the Abrams tanks and Stryker combat vehicles) and BAE Systems (which produces Bradleys, M113s, and virtually every other combat vehicle within today’s HBCT – except the Abrams tank).
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), on the other hand, has a true dilemma. Their new amphibious assault vehicle, the EFV, continues to languish as a program. Despite years of significant funding, price escalation and technological shortcomings have delayed and halved the production run of the vehicles. Today, it remains not ready for production. This has led to a relatively new, updated USMC vehicle strategy which emphasizes three new vehicle programs – the EFV (being developed by General Dynamics), the MPC (development contract not yet advertised), and the JLTV (competing development contracts currently held by the following three teams: Lockheed Martin-BAE Systems, General Dynamics-AM General, and BAE Systems-Navistar).
Meanwhile, Secretary Gates has directed an amphibious requirements study which some suspect is a review of the amphibious mission itself. Whatever the outcome, the Marines will need combat vehicles capable of supporting their mission, however defined. There will need to be either a continuation of the current programs, new procurement program(s), or a transfer of legacy vehicles to enable their combat forces to perform operations. In the austere budget environment forecast, the likelihood of the Marines fulfilling their vehicle strategy with three new vehicle procurement programs seems highly unlikely.
Tactical vehicles, with the exception of the light family of vehicles, seem fairly set to continue with the legacy vehicle programs. The two big issues within this category of vehicles are: 1) what contractor will manufacture the Family of Medium-weight Tactical Vehicles (FMTV), and 2) whether JLTV will survive as a program and, if so, who will build it.
Heavy tactical vehicles are produced by Oshkosh, who appears set to continue producing these legacy vehicles for the foreseeable future. Medium weight vehicles – the Family of Medium-weight Vehicles (FMTV) – over the last several years have been built by BAE Systems at the legacy Stewart & Stephenson plant in Sealy, Texas.
In a recent government contract award decision, however, Oshkosh appears to have taken the FMTV contract from BAE Systems. The decision is under protest, by both BAE Systems and Navistar, so the outcome remains unclear until the end of this year. If the government’s decision is upheld by the General Accounting Office, then Oshkosh – which also recently won the latest version of MRAP contracts, the MRAP – All Terrain vehicles (M-ATV) for Afghanistan – will be producing two-thirds of the military’s tactical vehicle families of vehicles. The industrial base implications for this may prove significant, given that M-ATV in some quarters is considered a possible replacement for what many consider to be an unaffordable program – JLTV.
The JLTV is a joint Army-Marine program designed to replace High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) with a new family of light tactical vehicles – the third leg of the three families of tactical vehicles. While it offers a leap in capabilities from the current fleet of HMMWVs, the unit cost of the JLTV (which averages over $400k per copy), is significantly higher than what the military has paid (~$250k) in the past for light tactical vehicles. Given the austere budget environment forecast, the JLTV program clearly will receive increasing scrutiny in terms of its fiscal feasibility.
AM General, the manufacturer of HMMWVs, has offered upgrades to the HMMWVs clearly designed to close at least a major portion of the capability gap while maintaining a cost profile more in line with what the budgetary environment will allow. M-ATV, in that it represents a version of MRAPs that are lighter and capable of off-road mobility, also could be considered a replacement for the heavier versions of the JLTV.
This leads to one last component to the future US military vehicle puzzle – the future role of MRAPs. While the services have strongly resisted the incorporation of MRAPs as an integral component of standing tactical formations, Secretary Gates has directed yet another review of this issue. Ultimately, it appears likely that, as the investment accounts shrink and the procurement cycle of MRAPs conclude, the services will be forced to consider and implement the integration of various classes of legacy MRAPs into tactical formations at a level previously not preferred. This, in turn, will lead to significant industry opportunities to upgrade and reset MRAPs, all of which were hastily designed and built to respond to an urgent operational requirement. Many have noted that such haste has led to a fleet of MRAPs that could greatly benefit from a concerted upgrade effort.
In summary, the U.S. military vehicle market over the next 2-5 years will be shaped by two fundamental drivers. First, continuing upgrade and reset programs of legacy vehicles will provide selected manufacturers with a steady stream of revenues. Secondly, the outcomes of three key programs (i.e., whether they are funded and which manufacturers are selected to produce them) – the GCV, EFV, and JLTV – will determine the overall health and the future major players of the industrial base.
Robert Johnson is President, National Security Division of RAPC, and is a West Point graduate, retired Army officer, and a defense industry executive. Most recently, he was VP, Strategy of BAE Systems’ Ground Systems Division, which produces Army combat vehicles such as the Bradley, MRAPs, and Amphibious Assault Vehicles. R. Johnson provides an assessment of the strategic context within which tactical vehicle decisions are being made and a forecast of likely paths forward.
The evolution of 21st century air operations is unfolding under the impact of a new generation of aircraft and a significant shift in the role of air operations in support of ground and maritime forces. The “5th generation” aircraft have largely been viewed as simply a next iteration of airframes whereby “legacy” or “4th generation aircraft” will be replaced by new stealth airframes. And aircraft have been largely viewed as operating within the classic domain of air operations, largely playing the role of air superiority, air dominance, air defense, strike and support roles seen as separable sequences of tasks.
While it is clear that expeditionary military operations cannot succeed without control of the skies, the fifth generation aircraft will be able to contribute to a significant change in the role of manned aircraft within air, ground and maritime operations. The change is significant enough that one can speak of the challenge of crafting a concept of 21st century air operations transformed by the introduction and use of the new aircraft. The transformation is underway as the 5th generation aircraft are being introduced, affecting employment concepts and roles of legacy air elements as well. Rather than anticipating change only with a significant replacement of one class of aircraft by another, changes in operations of “legacy” aircraft are already anticipating the changes to be accelerated by the new aircraft, and these changes will be accelerated as the new aircraft enter in larger numbers. The new “5th generation” aircraft will generate significantly greater “integrated” capability for the non-kinetic use of aircraft and an expanded use of connectivity, ISR, communications, and computational capabilities built around a man-machine interface which will, in turn, shape the robotics and precision revolutions already underway.
21st century air operations are a significant building block for overall U.S. and allied joint and coalition operations. Capability to connect air, ground, and maritime forces throughout the battlespace via air assets can support the decision-making of the ground and maritime command elements. Indeed, the C4ISR envisaged in network operations is becoming re-shaped into C4ISRD whereby decision-making is shared across the battlespace. Distributed information and distributed decision-making will be enhanced as air operations become much more capable of providing information in support of the deployed decision-maker, and kinetic and non-kinetic support elements can be cued in support of air, ground, and maritime combat requirements.
Considerations for a 21st Century Con-Ops: Reflections on the Controversial RAND Air Combat Briefing
Earlier this year, a RAND brief on Air Combat issued in August, generated significant debate and controversy about the future of U.S. air capabilities in confronting difficult combat scenarios in the future.[1] In particular, the F-35 came under scrutiny in much of the political and analytical coverage. This brief and the reactions to it provides a good shorthand to start the discussion of the changing nature of concepts of operations induced by the introduction of the new manned aircraft.
The Project Air Force analysts in “Air Combat: Past, Present and Future,” focused on a core challenge facing the U.S. Air Force for the 21st century, namely the evolving capabilities of competitor air systems and counter-air capabilities. In particular, the RAND study focused on a 2020 scenario over the Taiwan straits in which the Chinese forces sought to deny U.S. air superiority.
The study was based on three key building blocks for U.S. superiority — the use of nearby bases or seas, the use of stealth advantages and the use of beyond visual range (BVR) missiles – to counter Chinese capabilities. The study argued that all three advantages could be countered by an overall combined Chinese strategy. This strategy would combine significant Chinese numbers, anti-access denial strategies, counter-stealth innovations, and counter measures and operations with attrition of BVR missiles. The Chinese innovated; the U.S. did not in its concept of operations.
The study underscored realistic concerns. Numbers do matter; anti-access strategies are rapidly evolving; and defensive measures to stealth and against BVR missiles as well as the proliferation of numbers and of capabilities of Chinese missiles are growing. Simply building new platforms, and at relatively low numbers is not an effective strategy for the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. military.
That is the bad news; the good news is that the U.S. by leveraging the capabilities of its new systems, crafting a 21st century approach to a concept of air operations, and more effectively combining legacy and new U.S. Air Force and Naval forces and, equally significantly, by evolving combined and allied operations can counter the evolution of a competitor like China. One can also add that the proliferation of capabilities being developed by China and Russia globally to U.S. and allied competitors is enhancing the need for a rapidly evolving concept of operations for U.S. and allied forces informed by the “forcing function of fifth generation aircraft” and associated air and naval systems.
Before returning to the analysis of the RAND brief, I want to develop an understanding of 21st century air operations and the role of 5th generation aircraft and unmanned systems within the con-ops. I will then apply the 21st century con-ops approach to the RAND analysis and suggest how the outcome might look quite different.
Emergence of 21st Century Air Operations Con-Ops
21st century air operations is characterized by a significant capability to connect air, ground, and maritime forces and whereby air assets can support the decision-making of the ground and maritime command elements. In the older con-ops, the air assets were largely self-contained and needed to bring their own assets to support their operations, notably AWACS and separate electronic warfare specialized air assets. Air combat power was measured by a self-defined combat capability and strike assets carried by the combat aircraft ITSELF and those of its nearby wingmen. In the new concept of operations driven by the 5th generation aircraft, the combat and strike power of a single aircraft within the operation is not defined by what it carries itself but by its ability to direct and rely upon network partners. Any assets within range of an identified target, which carries weapons, can be directed to strike by the 5th generation aircraft, whether this weaponry is carried by air, ground or maritime platforms.
In traditional con-ops, credit for combat power could only be given for internal storage of weapons; no credit could be given for external strike assets or weaponry directed from outside of the lethal zone. For the 5th generation aircraft, a core ability to direct strikes from outside itself is a core competence for the aircraft and a key element enabling 21st century air operations.
Air battle management becomes networked as well, and not simply reliant on AWACs, which potential adversaries will seek to destroy early in an air battle. The USAF considers the combined air operations center or CAOC as a weapon system in and of itself.
But until the advent of the 5th generation aircraft, CAOCs are physically located on the ground or [directed by] dependent on AWACS, which presents a large profile for available air-to-air missiles. With the advent of the 5th generation aircraft, first by the F-22 and then by the much more numerous and allied anchored F-35, the CAOC will be become enabled by the flying ISR and C2 systems which constitute the 5th generation. The combination of sensors and stealth allows the new aircraft to operate at altitudes (in the case of the F-22) or over adversary air space (in the case of both aircraft) that allow the aircraft to serve as nodes in a dispersed or distribution air battle management system. In this way, they act as an extension for the CAOC.
The key “forcing function” of the 5th generation aircraft is to create a distributed air operations across the air, sea and ground platforms within which unmanned assets and networked information and strike assets become central to the overall capability of the air force itself. The F-22 is evolving into a battle management system able to fly at substantially higher altitude than the F-35. After performing its air dominance missions, the F-22 can transition into a battle management and strike management aircraft. Indeed, with Block 35, the F-22 can be conceived of as the brain of the overall strike force of air and naval strike assets.
This connectivity focus has received a new boost from a recent Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) decision. In July, the JROC approved the F-35 data link as the new standard for integrating airborne assets. Specifically, the Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) is to be used by both the F-22 and F-35 as the centerpiece for their data transfer and, because, the 5th generation aircraft will be transferring data to robotic airborne radars, the MADL will be important for the next generation UAVs as well. The JSF MADL system includes six phased Array Antenna Assemblies (AAAs) and three Antenna Interface Units (AIUs). The system allows aircraft to communicate within and between flights in order to share a common view of the battle space. USAF and senior officials in the JSF program office view MADL as the centerpiece of elaborating a new relationship between manned and robotic aircraft. Currently, UAVs are built with little regard to their connectivity with manned systems. With the F-35 coming on line as a “flying combat system,” to use the phrase favored by the USMC, the computer systems of the F-35 will manage new robotic systems. And those robotic systems will become part of the airborne air battle management system. As General Davis has recently underscored, “We will change processing systems twice within the next four years. We will do this by simply taking out the chip and replacing it. The F-35 is a flying computer able to manage the battlespace.”
In turn, a 21st century con-ops enables the operating characteristics of the 5th generation aircraft to be optimized. The RAND brief underscored that the Chinese air capability certa 2020 would prevail, in part, because of the numbers of aircraft and numbers of weapons. Too few USAF platforms with too few weapons would allow for a decisive Chinese advantage. To quote Douglas Barrie of Aviation Week and Space Technology, “in the Rand study’s combat scenario, while the exchange ratio is hugely in favor of the F-22, weight of numbers (of a capable combat platform) coupled with weapons load-out still mean key “Blue” assets—tankers, airborne warning and control, maritime patrol and surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles—would be lost.”[2]
The study evaluated F-22s and F-35s only in their stealth mode, which requires and counts only missiles contained in the internal bay. But the 5th generation aircraft will not operate only in a stealth mode; indeed, the advantage of this aircraft is that it can be loaded heavily with external missiles operate outside of the “stealth operational” range, launch missiles which are in turn guided by 5th generation aircraft or unmanned systems operating within the “stealth operational range.” After firing the external weapons or fuel tanks, the 5th generation aircraft can return to the tanker, return to the fight and then operate in stealth mode, enter the combat zone and operate as forward air controllers, ISR, or C2 assets with the internal bay still loaded with missiles.
Figure 1 From Major General Davis, Mission Critical Enterprise Symposium, October 28, 2008.
In other words, the 5th generation aircraft assumed to operate in the study have vastly greater missile load capacity than assumed by making calculations of operating only in a stealth mode. The authors assumed the 5th generation aircraft were going to operate as if they were combat aircraft operational in a 1991 air operations con-ops.
5th Generation Aircraft: Core Capabilities
For the novice, the shift from “legacy” aircraft to 5th generation aircraft is largely about the airframe or that the aircraft is stealthy. For this point of view, the first stealth aircrafts, the F-117 and the B-2, demonstrated the utility of stealth to support strike operations and to be able to dominate air defenses.
Stealth is important but is the conjunction of stealth with a number of other capabilities, which create a different capability for a flying force.
First, it is stealth plus integrated sensors, which are especially important. Stealth allows the aircraft to operate over enemy positions and, with the sensors on board, they are able to target mobile as well as fixed targets. Indeed, a major threat to air superiority in the 21st century are the growing capabilities of mobile air defenses, because “legacy” aircraft rely on target data obtained outside of the aircraft itself to launch strikes. With stealth and sensors integrated on the aircraft mobile targets, an increasingly important element of adversarial systems, are within the scope of effective strike actions.
Second, the aircraft are built around integrated capabilities. When pricing 4th versus 5th generation aircraft, the price for 4th generation aircraft often quoted do not include the add-on systems, which are placed on these aircraft to make them more effective. The C4ISR capabilities of the new aircraft are built into the aircraft itself. The integration factor then allows the aircraft to process data and to make informed decisions much more rapidly than a fleet of 4th generation aircraft. These aircraft need AWACS, electronic attack aircraft and a variety of specialized assets to accompany them to work effectively in a 21st century threat environment.
Third, the processing capabilities of the new aircraft are significantly greater than “legacy” aircraft. The F-35 has an advanced distributed computer system on board which can be upgraded simply by changing the chips empowering the system.
Fourth, the processing power and integration of the aircraft facilitate a man-machine relationship on the aircraft. The aircraft can process data and assist pilot decision-making. But more fundamentally, the pilot will not make many of the decisions, which makes the aircraft useful to 21st century air operations. The man-machine relationship on the 5th generation aircraft is essential to using airborne robotic systems in an integrated fashion for 21st century air operations.
The new 5th generation aircraft create an inherent capability to broaden a connected battlespace, whereby the manned aircraft becomes a node on the airborne network, that can support other assets, direct other assets or combine with air, ground and maritime assets into flexible military force packages. The inherent flexibility of the 5th generation aircraft built around on board C4ISR capabilities robust automation capabilities via the man-machine interfaces is what makes this aircraft the centerpiece of transition in 21st century air operations.
Working through enhanced collaboration is an evolving effort as 5th generation aircraft are introduced and a “collaborative workspace” is shaped with other aircraft and between air and surface elements. The potential is significant because of the core capabilities of the new aircraft; for the potential to be fully realized will require shaping collaborative tools and concepts of operations which leverage the elements of a national or allied force structure. Platforms are significant; but working through effective concepts of operations in using those platforms is central as well. And providing for the tools, which allow for a concept of operations to be implemented is an important element as well. This is why one should speak of the “forcing function of 5th generation aircraft,” rather than assuming simply by introducing these aircraft into the inventory is a platform magic wand.
The F-22
The first of the new aircraft is the F-22.[3] The aircraft has gone through nearly 30 years of evolution from its anticipated role as the replacement for the F-15 and to provide for air dominance. Originally conceived of as an air superiority fighter against the Soviet Union, the focus was largely upon shaping the F-22s capabilities to generate multiple kills of enemy aircraft.
And while air dominance remains the sine qua non of successful air operations and the entry of power projection forces into denied territory, the F-22 story has largely remained understood in terms counter-air operations. But the aircraft is evolving and its evolution is important as F-35 is introduced in the next few years. Some of the key lessons learned from F-22 deployments will be transferred to the F-35 fleet, but, above all, the air dominance capabilities of the F-22 allow the F-35 to focus on its synergistic role for air, ground and maritime platforms.
The F-22 has been deployed now for three years and its evolution is having a significant impact on rethinking air operations. The decade or more of deployment prior to F-35 will provide a significant impact on the F-35 and its concept of operations.
Additionally, the F-22 as a dedicated air superiority aircraft relieves the F-35 of the task of being redesigned for this mission set. The primary task of the F-22 is air-to-air dominance followed by core competence in counter-air defense missions. This latter task is increasingly difficult given the evolution of mobile air defense systems.
For example, the SA-10s and SA-20s can be dismantled, moved and ready for action in a very short period of time. The trend line is towards rapid mobility in the adversary’s air defenses, and mobility in this domain means that the incoming strike aircraft must be able to do target identification, target acquisition and strike missions virtually simultaneously. A key aspect of the new fifth generation aircraft is its machine processing capability on-board, which allows the pilot to do simultaneously operations, which historically required several platforms operating sequentially.
But the most significant evolution of the F-22 is in its ISR and C2 capabilities, both associated with its unique AESA radars.[4] The F-22 is evolving into a battle management system able to fly at substantially higher altitude than the F-35. After performing its air dominance missions, the F-22 can transition into a battle management and strike management aircraft. Indeed, with Block 35 the F-22 can be conceived of as the brain of the overall strike force for air and naval strike assets.[5]
F-22 and F-35 Dynamics
But the limited numbers of the F-22 will ensure that the F-35 will be the dominant 5th generation aircraft both in terms of numbers and availability in a coalition environment.[6] From the standpoint of thinking through 21st century air operations, the ability of the F-22 and F-35 to work together and to lead a strike force will be central to U.S. core capabilities for projecting power. And it is to be remembered that the F-35 is coming off of USAF airfields, allied airfields, USN carriers, and, in the case of the F-35B, virtually anywhere close to the action.
Figure 2 Graphic by Robbin F. Laird Based on Discussion with the USF, USMC, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman
The graphic above conceptualizes how the F-22 and F-35 might work together in supporting air dominance, kick in the door, and support for the insertion of a joint power projection force. Here the F-22 largely provides the initial strike and guides the initial air dominance operations; 4th generation aircraft as well as the F-35 support the effort, with the F-35, because of its stealth and sensor capabilities, able to operate in a distributed network to provide strike and ISR and capabilities to suppress enemy air defenses as well attack shore defenses against maritime projection forces.
The “Forcing Function” of the F-35: Shaping the “Wolfpack” for 21st Century Air Operations
The F-35 is less a fifth generation fighter than a first generation flying combat system.[7] F-35 is far more than a replacement for aging aircraft inventories, because the effects that the F-35 can deliver on the battlespace are flexible, synergistic and multi-dimensional (air, ground, maritime).[8]
This is due to two core developments – new technologies associated with the aircraft and the evolution of military doctrine by the nations acquiring the F-35. It has been characterized as 5th Gen by the impact of stealth and the advanced capabilities associated with a multi functional sensor suite, which includes network, communications, sensors, electronic warfare, and reconnaissance capacities.
The F-35’s open architecture allows this “flying combat system” to become the focal point of three core activities: air-to-air, air-to ground, and air-to-maritime roles and missions. The F-35 will be defined by how its open architecture is customizedby national militaries in meeting their perceived priority needs and mix of air, ground, and maritime mission sets. Its combat capabilities will be defined in part by con-ops customization.
One example of an opportunity for conops customization derives from the F-35’s multi-modal/multi-mission capability, which includes the ability to deliver both kinetic and non-kinetic (information and cyber warfare, electronic attack, ISR and C2 contributions to ground forces, management of robotic ISR elements, processing of information to support shared decision-making between the air and the ground forces) effects, offering decision makers many more potential options. The nature of conflict places increasing demands on military planners to provide options for the delivery of non-kinetic effects – demands that the F-35 is well suited to handle.
The F-35 is central to operationalizing the netted or connected battle management environment. It can provide services (communications, intelligence, and electronic support) to others in the battlespace in ways that are transparent to the pilot operating the F-35. Large platforms that are used to provide battle management can be augmented by a reduced force mix of the F-35 and unmanned vehicles shaping a 21st century approach to air operations.
Conops customization is why the F-35 STOVL version is of special interest. The USMC, the Royal Air Force, the Italian Navy, and others will use the STOVL variant differently than today’s non-vertical lift aircraft. As a result, ground-air integration and conops will be performed differently than with that of the F-35 conventional take-off version. And almost certainly weaponization and ISR requirements will be modified to work with the STOVL-enabled con-ops.[9]
An additional aspect in developing joint or coalition concepts of operations for the F-35 will revolve around its interaction with other manned and unmanned assets. With regard to manned assets, a key challenge will be to work an effective “connectivity” battle space with other manned aircraft, like the Typhoon or “legacy” U.S. aircraft. Here the advantages of each platform in contributing to the air battle and to the type of flexible military force packages, which 21st century air capabilities contribute, will be the focus of a joint concept of operations.
In addition to the core dynamic of working with a variety of manned aircraft across the joint and coalition battlespace, the F-35 will be highly interactive with the evolution of robotic elements as well. UAVs are not well designed for self-defense. For early entry UAVs to stay alive, they need to be part of a woolpack built around the protective functions of the manned aircraft. As air dominance and air superiority operations succeed, their significance can recede during a particular operation, which then allows the role of the unmanned aircraft can go up significantly and over the duration of the operation supplant manned aircraft in an ISR and C2 role.
But the man-machine and computational capabilities of the F-35 provide a significant opportunity to evolve the robotic elements within airspace to provide for data storage, transmission, collection, weapon emplacement, loitering strike elements, all of which can be directed by the manned aircraft as the centerpiece of a manned-robotic strike or situational awareness wolfpack. Rather than focusing on robotic vehicles as self-contained units with proprietary interfaces and ground stations, the F-35 can be useful in generating common linkages and solutions to combine into a core wolfpack capability.
Placing the 21st Air Con-ops “Grid” onto the RAND Scenario
Unlike the authors of the RAND study, I am assuming that the U.S. is innovating as well and is applying a 21st century approach to a concept of operations which will complicate Chinese planning and effectiveness. The Chinese will attack U.S. air power with counter air assets, including fighters in number and in force, and with significant missile strike assets. The Chinese will assume as do the RAND authors that the USAF will fight alone and following 20th century air battle management and attack con-ops. This assumption will be an important contribution to the Chinese defeat in this scenario.
First, the USAF and the USN can operate as an integrated strike and defense approach. The 5th generation aircraft will be used as forward air assets to support co-coordinated strike and defense operations. As the Chinese reach out to strike U.S. air assets, the distributed operations of the air and naval forces will use unmanned, 5th generation air assets, legacy air assets, integration with Aegis systems, and reliance on USN strike missiles to provide a comprehensive capability. Allies who can contribute weapons to the fight whether land-based, sea-based or air-based can contribute. It is important to remember here that the 5th generation forward air controllers can call for missile strikes from virtually any asset – US bombers, missiles from any US Naval asset (or allied asset for that matter). By providing a significant and complicated set of vectors of attack and defense, the Chinese strike assets will be exposed to counter-strikes as they seek to reach out to assets they think they can see in the forward area.
Second, the 5th generation fighters will draw on lethal assets outside of the forward area to attack approaching Chinese forces. The distribution over the battlespace, including operating simply as nodes in the strike determination network, will allow the 5th generation aircraft to guide strikes and to determine core targets for a counter-offensive.
Third, the vertical lift F-35Bs can be distributed throughout the battlespace on dispersed launch points to contribute to the diversity of vectors of attack and defense against the Chinese. For the STOVL F-35, their ability to penetrate the battlespace in a stealth mode, land in a remote area and then wait to deploy against a primary target is an additional capability, which this 5th generation aircraft contributes to the new con-ops.
Fourth, allies will be available to contribute ISR and other nodes in the attack and defense network, which can contribute to a further enhancement of the distributed network. Australian F-35s can participate in the fight or their Wedgetail and Global Hawk assets deployed to provide further battle management capabilities.
Fifth, the introduction of UAVs, like the USN’s new UCAS systems can provide important strike assets which can be directed by the F-22s and F-35s functioning as forward air controllers.
Sixth, the movement away from AWACs to the use of the 5th generation fighters as air battle management assets will significantly reduce the ability of the Chinese to shut down the force multiplier aspects of a air battle management directed force. Indeed, the RAND study provides an important warning for why the US needs 5th generation aircraft. Simply continuing to rely on the AWACS provides an increasingly easy target for a force like China.
Figure 3 Both this and the following slide are taken from the brief placed on the web by Steve Trimble
Seventh, the tanker vulnerability identified in the study is a very good argument for the next generation tanker. The tanker selected by the USAF in 2008 (the NG A330) would deploy further from the strike area, be able to remain aloft indefinitely (with crew rest areas) and capability to be re-fueled while deployed, and would provide an important force multiplier for the 5th generation fleet. This fleet operates as a combined strike, ISR and communications asset and as such needs to stay on deployment as long as the pilot’s duration allows, not simply with regard to how large the plane’s weapons load is.
In short, by confronting the Chinese with a distributed 21st century concept of air operations, the US and its allies can prevail. If the USAF operates alone and follows 20th century air concepts of operations and relies on the limitations of legacy aircraft, the US loses. Surely, the US if it followed such a strategy would lose. That is why it is imperative to focus on a 21st century con-ops and to build, buy and deploy joint and combined assets, which enables such a con-ops.
Conclusion: Moving Forward on Acquiring the Pieces for the 21st Century Con-ops Puzzle
Obviously, acquiring 5th generation aircraft in sufficient numbers to enable 21st century air operations is crucial. The termination of the F-22 now poses fundamental questions of how the USAF will use the remaining F-22s as a special asset in shaping capabilities and concepts of operations. By reducing numbers, the F-22 might well be configured to be used as special assets somewhat similar to the F-117. And the termination might well lead to the need to slow down the possibility of eliminating several legacy systems, which was possible if F-22s had been acquired in greater numbers. If acquired in greater numbers, one could have eliminated several legacy systems, e.g., AWACS and dedicated electronic warfare assets, which saves money in terms of acquisition and logistics as well as enhances the capability of U.S. operations.
Leveraging legacy fleets is equally important. The F-35 and its relationship to legacy aircraft will be central to shaping the evolution of 21st century air capabilities. The F-35 as a “flying combat system” will have an immediate impact on air capability with its initial deployment. The first squadron(s) of aircraft will bring a C4ISR platform into the air combat domain and with it a major contributor to air-surface operations. But beyond the core capability of the new fighter comes its ability to force multiple legacy assets.
Figure from Rand Corporation
How will the F-35 work with legacy air assets and in an air-to-surface environment? The key way to think about the F-35 as shaping a transition in capability is its ability to process data in the air, using its revolutionary man-machine capabilities, and then its transfer of processed data into Link 16 message sets. Surface assets suffer from a significant bandwidth problem: F-35 processors can assist by processing data and sending appropriate results to the ground forces.
And organizing air combat operations is significant as well. The later generation aircraft such as Eurofighter and upgraded F-15s and F-16s can be optimally organized for operations by F-35. The older aircraft can be organized more efficiently as well by F-35 processing and stealth capacities.
And rolling out of capability as squadrons are added to the fleet will transform operations as numbers of F-35s are augmented in the fleet. Each new squadron will allow the F-35 to become a more significant player in shaping the operations of air and surface forces. A way to think about the insertion of F-35s in the fleet is to conceptualize a sliding scale of capability, which grows as F-35s supplant legacy. But the great thing about the F-35 is that you do not have to wait for the legacy fleet to be completely replaced to get significant enhancements of overall fleet capabilities.
The F-35 has the further advantage of being a joint and coalition aircraft. This means that the integration of a significant part of U.S. power projection forces – USAF, USN and USMC – is built-in to the acquisition of the aircraft. And as coalition partners acquire the aircraft worldwide, working joint concepts of operations with those allies allows the US to enable both allies and the US to operate in a 21st century concept of operations approach.
Indeed, integration of the USN and the USAF within an overall power projection force is suggested by such an approach. As the USN deploys its first 21st century carrier, it will carry F-35s and hopefully UCAS on board. This will allow the USN to configure the carrier as a significant contributor to joint con-ops. And the UCAS will precede any new bomber for the USAF and, as such, can contribute an important technological and operational step towards defining how a new bomber can contribute to the joint battlespace.
And the USN by becoming much more closely integrated with the USAF can make intelligent decisions about the future of its surface fleet. The F-22 will play a key role as the lead element of a USN or USAF strike force. But the RAND analysis underscores the need for the US to have a significant increase in the number of “bullets” which it can bring to the fight. The USN can provide these bullets in terms of missiles carried and launched from the surface fleet.
And, the further developed of the unmanned contributors to the joint fight should be defined by their ability to work with the 5th generation aircraft. Some simply need to operate as decoys against threats like China whereby the Chinese fire against what they think are deployed US strike assets only to discover that they are striking decoys and by so striking open themselves to a powerful counter strike from distributed assets. Some will operate as airborne routers operating in the battlespace to receive data from 5th generation fighters machine systems and then distribute that data to the relevant assets in the proximate battlespace. Airborne routers and other assets would as well dump data to ships for further processing and distribution in determining strike and defense positions which can then be provided to the shooters available to strike key targets.
In short, a 21st century concept of air operations opens the way to an overall 21st century concept of power projection con-ops. And shaping such an approach is crucial to defeating an adversary such as that sketched in the RAND report, or to the general ability to link U.S. and allied capabilities into a collaborative force able to provide for a global security enterprise.
[1] Wendell Minnick, “RAND Study Suggest U.S. Loses War With China,” Defense News (October 16, 2008), Stephen Trimble, “Under Attack,” Flight International (14-20 October 2008), “The F-35’s Air-to-Air Capability Controversy,” Defense Industrial Daily (October 12, 2008). The brief can be found on Steve Trimble’s Dew Line.
[2] Douglas Barrie, “Quantity and Quality,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (11/3/08), p. 66.
[3] Michael Sirak, “F-22A: The Next Stage-Raptor Rapture,” Jane’s Defence Weekly (January 18, 2006).
[4] “F-22 Demonstrates Sensor Data Transfer,” Defence Systems Daily (May 6, 2008); “F22s May Deploy to Middle East,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (March 31, 2008), p.21; “Not just Fighters,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (June 25, 2007), p. 27.
[5] David Fulghum, “F-35 EW System Redefines Combat,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (January 21, 2008), p. 50. David Fulghum and Graham Warwick, “New Missions for the F-35,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, July 23, 2008, p. 13.
[6] Graham Warwick, “USAF Plots Path from F-22 to F-35,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (September 29, 2008), p. 36.
[7]
[8] See General Davis comments in Douglas Barrie, et. al., “Industrial Dogfight,” Aviation Week and Space Technology (July 21, 2008), p. 24.
[9] Robbin Laird, “Recovering the Strategic Context for JSF,” Defense News (September 4, 2006), p. 21.
The F-22 debate has been highly charged politically. It has been used as a symbol for “defense waste” and “high technology irrelevance” by its detractors; and as a symbol of declining commitment by the United States to global power projection and strategic protection to its allies.
But missing in this debate is a clear and honest look at the industrial impact of cancellation on the U.S. defense industrial base and its ability to support core aerospace systems and capabilities. A number of considerations should be brought to the fore as key elements of any F-22 termination approach or decision.
The F-22 employs a number of highly qualified workers and engineers who will be displaced while waiting for an F-35 ramp up;
The F-22 electronics increasingly overlap with those of the F-35 and gaining actual operational experience with the F-22 provides a substantial impact on the reliability of the F-35;
By buying additional US aircraft (40-60) the US would be in the position to keep the line in production so that exports to Japan, and Australia and possibly Israel would allow up to another 100 F-22s to be procured which would then represent 1/3 of the deployed US and allied fleet;
Secretary Wynne explores these issues in his op-ed on slidinfo.com. But there is another issue which has received virtually no consideration: how will the aircraft be maintained in the years ahead? For industry, across the board, a key issue is to be able to shape a core business in logistics support and maintenance. To do so requires, effective public-private partnerships or an expanded private role in sustainment.
But in the case of the F-22, the USAF is seeking to curtail sharply the role of the private sector in maintaining the aircraft. This raises fundamental questions with regard to the role of depots in relationship to industry and how to ensure a collaborative relationship with industry, which delivers best value in sustainment. As one industrial executive put it to sldinfo.com: “The USAF wants to go back to 1975. We are deeply concerned that the return to a virtual depot system will significantly reduce the efficiencies built into modern manufacturing.”
