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14 Aug 21. Joe Biden could pay a price for leaving Afghanistan. When President Biden declared this year that US forces would be leaving Afghanistan his announcement fell short of some expectations. Donald Trump had promised that troops would be home by May 1, and all the new president could offer in his announcement in March was a vague promise that the soldiers would be home within a year.
Whether it was a case of the White House underpromising with a view to overdelivering later, or whether Biden was stung by the criticism, it is not clear but quickly the end of August became the hard date, regardless of the situation on the ground. The troops would be home and the Afghan war would be consigned to history.
“I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan,” Biden said on July 8, achieving what his three immediate predecessors had failed to do and finally ending America’s “forever war”.
He will not have been deaf to former generals and analysts who warned that Afghanistan could quickly fall to the Taliban without a security plan in place, but even they did not anticipate the speed with which the insurgents would skittle through big cities on their march to Kabul.
Biden is a former chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, sees himself as a foreign policy expert and has spoken several times about the idea that “America is back” on the world stage under his leadership.
Analysts predict that the messy withdrawal could lead to America losing the trust of its friends. Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who served under Obama, said: “Let’s not forget that the collateral damage from this catastrophic collapse in Afghanistan will do irreparable damage to the credibility the US has, especially with our allies. Let’s take the United Kingdom as an example: you’ve lost 457 soldiers and there are a lot of families, political leaders that are going to question the next time that special relationship is invoked.”
Biden was a new senator in 1975 when the US left Vietnam and he will have been stung by the comparisons, especially in usually sympathetic newspapers such as The Washington Post, in which a columnist said yesterday: “For President Biden, who had hoped for an orderly US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the chaos in Kabul carries echoes of the fall of Saigon in 1975 — precisely the image he wanted to avoid.”
Yet the White House has been at pains to say that the president has no regrets.
“It is the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country,” Biden said, adding that the US and its allies, including Britain, had “trained and equipped over 300,000 current serving members of the military . . . and provided our Afghan partners with all the tools . . . of any modern military.”
His bet is ultimately a domestic one, and that even if Afghanistan returns to the dark days of the last time the Taliban governed the country, he will be rewarded for getting the troops out and for his ambitious domestic agenda.
Biden knows that the people of Kunduz, Kandahar and Kabul don’t vote in US elections. Since the 2001 invasion, almost 2,500 US personnel have been killed in Afghanistan with the campaign costing close to $1 trillion and Americans have long grown weary of the conflict. A poll commissioned by The Hill website showed that 73 per cent of Americans backed the planned withdrawal.
As the hastily made arrangements were finalised on Thursday to get Americans out of the country, in a back of an envelope plan that had not been considered necessary only a few days earlier, it was telling that Trump did not try to make hay from the administration’s difficulties.
He never holds back when it comes to attacking the man who beat him in last year’s election, but was silent on the issue of Afghanistan.
That is either because Trump also knows that getting American troops home plays well with his supporters or because he is biding his time. Some analysts say that as voters begin to question what the 20-year war was for, Biden will be blamed for the fallout.
“The challenge for Biden is, yes, just like with Iraq, Americans wanted out of Afghanistan, but what that looks like in reality and the images of our defeat projected on the evening news, is a hard pill for a lot of Americans to swallow,” Bruen said. “And yes the image of Saigon falling looms large in the American psyche. The notion that we are repeating that tragic event will hit home politically for Biden quite hard.” Source: The Times)
12 Aug 21. STRATCOM Chief Warns Of Chinese ‘Strategic Breakout.’
“The breathtaking growth and strategic nuclear capability enables China to change their posture and their strategy,” Adm. Charles Richard said.
The head of Strategic Command today described China’s investments in its nuclear arsenal as a “strategic breakout” that will shortly allow Beijing to execute “any plausible nuclear” strategy it wishes to pursue.
“You’re not gonna find the definition of ‘strategic breakout’ in a doctrine or a manual — and I think it’s one of about four words in the Department of Defense that doesn’t have a definition buried in some joint pub somewhere — but it is significant and I don’t use the term lightly,” Adm. Charles Richard told an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “Business as usual will not work.”
Richard based this warning on the fact China is boosting all areas of its missile force, including both quantity and quality of its strategic delivery systems — the “explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. Frankly, that word, breathtaking, may not be enough.”
It’s hardly the first time that Richard — who knows his way around a soundbite — has sounded the alarm about China’s nuclear modernization. But his comments are notable given the open source revelation in the last month about China’s expansion of its nuclear infrastructure.
The STRATCOM head hit on that find directly, and also gave some love to the open source researchers who discovered a tunnel complex in a region used for nuclear testing. “If you enjoy looking at commercial satellite imagery for stuff in China, can I suggest you keep looking? Right? Normally I have to pay people to do it, if you like doing it for free that just helps, and I appreciate that,” he said.
If you add up all of China’s modernization efforts, Richard concluded, “what you get is something that is inconsistent with a minimum deterrence posture. Their actions have long belied a posture more aggressive than their official policy — you’ve got to look at what they do, not what they say. And China has correctly figured out, you can’t coerce a peer — in other words, us — from a minimum deterrent posture.
“The breathtaking growth and strategic nuclear capability enables China to change their posture and their strategy,” he added. (China’s military expansion has already prompted a shift in Pentagon strategy.)
Interestingly, while seemingly arguing that nuclear modernization is part of a broader geopolitical strategy from Beijing, Richard made a point early in his speech to say his concern isn’t about why, but how to counter it.
“Look, and I know, I read the press like y’all do, there’s been a lot of speculation out there as to why they are doing all of this. I just want to say right now, it really doesn’t matter why China is and continues to grow and modernize. What matters is they are building the capability to execute any plausible nuclear employment strategy — the last brick in the wall of a military capable of coercion.”
Although China remains the major focus for everyone in the national security apparatus these days, Richard noted that the biggest nightmare for the US isn’t just Chinese nuclear modernization, but that there would be closing ties between Beijing and Moscow — leaving the US, for the first time in history, up against two nuclear competitors instead of just one.
“I think it’s a mistake to think about them in isolation of each other,” Richard noted, citing a series of recent military exercises between the two powers. “The continued defense relationship should not be underestimated or ignore, and I don’t think our national intellectual capacity has been sufficiently engaged to consider all the ramifications here.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
12 Aug 21. Pentagon readies to identify integrated air and missile defense capability gaps. The Pentagon’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council is set to begin an assessment of the U.S. military’s integrated air-and-missile defense capability gaps as part of a larger effort to develop a joint war-fighting concept and defense strategy, Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Aug. 11 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.
The JROC, which serves as an oversight body on the development of new capabilities and acquisition efforts, approved strategic directives July 1 that will help speed up the acquisition system for four key “force supporting” areas identified as critical to the joint war-fighting concept in development.
Those four focus areas are information advantage, joint command-and-control, fires and contested logistics.
The JROC will be conducting an industry day next month, Hyten said, to brief the four strategic directives within the joint war-fighting concept.
Now, he added, the JROC will focus on an IAMD joint concept, which will include a deep dive into current requirements and capabilities and an effort to identify gaps.
The effort to review capability gaps will run through the fall, according to Hyten.
“We do have one significant challenge, a challenge that gives us difficulty in fully fulfilling what we need to do as a JROC,” he added, “and that is we don’t have really good campaign-level modeling across all domains including space and cyber, which shows how all these things fit together across the board.”
To address that problem, Hyten said he has also signed a requirements document calling for the Pentagon to build these campaign models “so that we can look at how these things play together,” and “see how all those pieces work together.”
Additionally, the IAMD strategic directive will feed into the new administration’s Missile Defense Review.
While the previous administration’s Missile Defense Review, Nuclear Posture Review and National Defense Strategy were conducted separately, Hyten said this time the MDR and the Nuclear Posture Review will be an integrated part of the National Defense Strategy.
“I think that’s the most important piece of the puzzle because in the past the Nuclear Posture Review has been separate from the Missile Defense Review, and it was very difficult to align them together for a singular message,” Hyten said. “My desire is to do an integrated review.”
The JROC will work to align all of its strategic directives, to include IAMD, with the development of the new National Defense Strategy, he said.
(Source: Defense News)
12 Aug 21. China, Russia Pose Strategic Challenges for U.S., Allies, Admiral Says. The U.S. is now navigating through uncharted waters with the possibility of strategic deterrence failing under rapidly growing threats from China and Russia, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command said.
Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard described those threats and provided solutions through integrated deterrence in all domains, both conventional as well as nuclear, across the services and in tandem with allies and partners when he spoke today at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
Threats From China
“We are witnessing a strategic breakout by China. The explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. And frankly, that word breathtaking may not be enough,” he said.
China is rapidly improving its strategic nuclear capability and capacity, Richard said. It’s growing and enhancing its missile force, including multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. These include intermediate range ballistic missiles, mobile ICBMs and submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles.
Beijing is also pursuing advanced weapons such as hypersonics, he said.
“Because of these challenges our current terrestrial- and space-based sensor architecture may not be sufficient to detect and track these hypersonic missiles,” he said.
In 2019, China tested more ballistic missiles than the rest of the world combined, he noted.
Beijing is also developing a modern nuclear command and control capability and is modernizing its conventional forces to include ships, submarines and aircraft, he added.
“They have the largest Navy in the world and they have the third largest air force in the world,” he said.
Threats From Russia
Russia continues to use a wide range of capabilities that are below the threshold of conflict, such as cyber and state-sponsored coercion of nations, seeking to solidify great power status, Richard said.
Russia is pursuing modernization of its conventional and strategic forces, he said. Nuclear weapons remain a foundational aspect of Russia’s strategy and they have recapitalized over 80% of their strategic nuclear forces, including expanded warhead delivery capacity.
Like China, Russia is investing heavily in developing hypersonic weapons and a variety of other missiles, he said.
Deterring China and Russia
Nuclear modernization is a Defense Department priority for deterrence, Richard said.
That modernization includes not just the nuclear triad, it also includes investing in a nuclear command and control system that is protected against cyberattacks, he said.
“Every operational plan in the Department of Defense, and every other capability we have, rests on an assumption that strategic deterrence will hold. And if strategic deterrence, and in particular nuclear deterrence, doesn’t hold, none of our other plans, and no other capability that we have is going to work as designed,” Richard said.
Richard also mentioned bolstering conventional forces, missile defense and standing up the Joint Al-Domain Command and Control system. Developing and fielding hypersonics and high-energy laser weapons are also very important.
To better understand and respond to national security threats, the department needs to harness America’s great intellectual community, as it has done before with the RAND Corporation, he said.
The ongoing National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review, are the ideal means to address the threats, inform decision makers and inform the department’s path forward.
Industry as well needs to shore up the nation’s defenses by delivering needed technology and systems on time and at reasonable cost, he said.
The importance of allied and partner interoperability and rigorous joint and combined war games and exercises cannot be overstated, Richard said. (Source: US DoD)
11 Aug 21. General Says Sensors Pinpointing Missile Threats Worldwide Are Critical Capability. Detection of missile threats on a global scale is perhaps the number one capability needed by the Defense Department because if a missile cannot be identified, it can’t be destroyed, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said.
“I would like to have overhead sensors that see everything, characterize everything that goes on on this planet, from a missile perspective, all the time, everywhere. That’s the one capability I would like to have because you have to be able to see it to do anything about it. And that’s a challenge for hypersonics and cruise missiles; that’s a challenge for short range; that’s a challenge for ballistics; that’s a challenge for everything that we have,” Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten today told attendees of the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
That technology has been available for years now, he said.
“We have to get there, and we should be able to get there quickly because that technology is not difficult. In this case, it’s a bureaucratic challenge more than anything else, but I’d love to have that sensor capability but we need that space layer,” he said, noting that the Missile Defense Agency and Space Development Agency are now working on a space layer architecture.
Hyten also mentioned the “functional battles” priorities within the department: integrated air and missile defense; joint fires; contested logistics; joint command and control; and information advantage.
The general offered advice to industry, as well.
Industry needs to move at much greater speed to meet the challenges posed by China and Russia, he said.
The nuclear-powered submarines and the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles were developed and deployed in only about six years, he said, pointing out the speed at which new and disruptive capabilities need to be birthed.
Within the next few months, if not sooner, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council will host an industry day with the commercial sector at a classified level to help explain capabilities DOD urgently needs from industry, Hyten said, noting this is the first time that it has been announced.
Hyten, who retires in November, also offered some advice to warfighters of all ranks that he gained over four decades in uniform.
“Show up, and make a difference every day in your job. If you do that, at the end, you will have made a difference for this country, and if everybody does that, this country will be better off,” he said, adding not to worry about your legacy.
He suggested finding some good mentors. Mentors don’t have to be higher ups; they can be from the lower ranks, too. He said he still has mentors who are junior to him that he learns things from.
Another goal for everyone, he said, is to deter conflict so that a war won’t have to be fought. He turned around to look at the service flags lined up behind him and said the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all have many battle streamers that go with each of their flags. The only service without a battle streamer, he said, is the Space Force.
“Everybody’s goal in this room should be to make sure that no banner ever goes up on that, because every banner that goes up means that we failed in our primary mission,” he said, speaking of the Space Force flag. (Source: US DoD)
10 Aug 21. US Senate votes down $50bn defense infrastructure boost. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected a Republican proposal to add $50bn in defense infrastructure spending to Democrats’ budget plan.
Though Republicans hoped to stage a tough vote for centrist Democrats from states with military facilities, Democrats remained unified and the amendment was defeated on a bipartisan basis, 53-46.
Republicans Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Mike Braun voted with the majority.
The amendment effort, led by Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., offered billions for shipyard rehabilitation projects, supply depots, nuclear infrastructure and 5G telecommunications gear.
It is one of many amendments expected to be considered during an hours-long series of votes before Democrats approve the resolution to tee up a $3.5trn spending plan.
Democrats blocked consideration of the amendment when it was offered for a massive $1trn infrastructure package, which the Senate approved earlier in the day. When Shelby offered his amendment again for the budget resolution, he accused Democrats of turning a blind eye to their states’ military infrastructure needs and economic interests.
“These infrastructure projects are absolutely critical to our national security, they impact millions of jobs across the country, both military and civilian,” Shelby said ahead of the vote. “We’re talking about projects not just in my home state of Alabama but in Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, and many more.” (Source: Defense News)
10 Aug 21. Commander Offers Strategies for Deterring Aggression From China and Russia. The commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command described threats from Russia and China and ways to mitigate those threats.
Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck spoke today at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Besides battling wildfires, hurricanes, cyberattacks and COVID-19, NORAD and Northcom are engaged in deterring threats from China and Russia, he said.
“We’re in strategic competition with two strategic competitors, both nuclear armed. We’ve never been there before, and we’re economically intertwined with one of them,” he said, referring to China and Russia.
“Russia has created capabilities to hold the homeland at risk,” he said. Moscow believes it can threaten the homeland below the nuclear threshold using long-range cruise missiles and hypersonics. Those types of missiles are not designed for regional conflict in Europe. Their long-range characteristics mean that they are designed for use against the United States.
Additionally, Russia has modernized its bomber and submarine fleet as well as its nuclear arsenal, VanHerck said.
“In the last year, we got more air defense identification zone incursions than we’ve ever had since the end of the Cold War by Russia,” he said.
China will have the same kinetic equivalents as Russia within a decade, VanHerck said. Today, China is on par with Russia in offensive cyber and space domain capabilities.
In the future, Iran and North Korea could also field capabilities that might also put the homeland at risk, he said.
VanHerck laid out some strategies for building a layered kinetic and non-kinetic homeland defense.
Domain awareness is critical, he said. “If you can’t detect a threat, you can’t defeat it or deter it.”
Information dominance is also important, he said. Warfighters need to have the right information at the right time in order to win.
“We treat data and information as a strategic asset,” he said, noting that data can come from sensors, from warfighters themselves and from other assets including satellites.
Global integration is another vital tool, he said. Problems faced today are all global. They require global solutions in all domains.
“The days of having a single supported combatant commander are over,” he said. “We need the ability to collaborate globally, across all domains in near real time, or in real time to present options to our nation’s leaders.”
By that, VanHerck said he means close collaboration with allies and partners, as well as across the services.
Lastly, the general said that the department needs to embrace the digital culture to gain advantage in the information space, which it doesn’t have right now. (Source: US DoD)
09 Aug 21. Senate Dems’ $3.5trn budget proposes small increases to defense spending. Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled a $3.5trn budget blueprint that proposes limited increases for defense budgets through 2031. While non-binding, the numbers are politically symbolic, and it’s unclear whether the roughly flat top-lines for national defense will repel centrist Democrats or not, especially given the other Democratic priorities in the bill. Party leaders will need all 50 of their members to stay unified to pass the budget blueprint, focused on expanding America’s social safety net, without any Republican votes.
For the national defense budget category “050,” which includes Department of Energy weapons programs and the Pentagon budget, the blueprint proposes $765.7bn in budget authority for fiscal 2022. The number, which includes mandatory spending, tracks with the administration’s fiscal 2022 budget request for $753bn in discretionary defense spending, according to a Senate aide.
In the out-years, the blueprint proposes 2 percent annual increases through 2026 and then 1 percent increases per year through 2031, its final year.
That could rankle Republicans and some Democrats who have said annual increases for defense of 3 to 5 percent above inflation are needed to counter a rising China and other global threats. Some have argued that defense budget boosts that lag inflation are not flat but in fact cuts.
“The Democrats’ reckless $3.5trn tax-and-spend spree increases funding for everything but our national defense,” Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said in a statement. “That’s probably the largest ― but certainly not the only ― unacceptable part of this blueprint for more government, more taxes and higher prices. American families can’t afford this spending spree, especially because a lack of investment in national defense only puts us further behind China and Russia.”
The budget resolution, which maps $3.5trn in spending boosts and tax breaks aimed at strengthening social and environmental programs, sets up an autumn battle over President Joe Biden’s domestic policy ambitions.
The budget’s introduction marks the start of a long legislative trek through Congress that Democrats hope will result this fall in a progressive reshaping of government. To succeed, they’ll have to overcome likely unanimous Republican opposition and find the sweet spot between the demands of their own often antagonist progressive and moderate factions.
That will be a fraught task in a Congress they control by a hair. They’ll need the support of every Democrat in the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, and will be able to lose only three Democrats in the House — margins that give each Democrat leverage.
“At its core, this legislation is about restoring the middle class in the 21st Century and giving more Americans the opportunity to get there,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter to his colleagues unveiling the plan.
To pass the annual defense authorization bill, lead Democrats have acknowledged in recent weeks that winning support from Republicans ― and some Democrats ― will mean boosting the top-line above Biden’s proposal. Because passing the budget blueprint is expected to be a partisan affair that relies on Democratic unity, the calculation is likely a different one, and how the defense numbers will factor in isn’t immediately clear.
The budget resolution assigns congressional committees specific amounts of money to spend and describes policy changes party leaders support. A follow-up bill would actually enact those changes.
But those committees will have final say on the legislation they produce, and crafting this fall’s Democratic compromise with virtually no margin of error will be a time-consuming challenge for party leaders.
The resolution’s defense numbers are problematic politically, according to Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“In Congress, there are more votes to increase the defense budget than to cut it,” Eaglen said. “Budget resolutions often don’t survive contact with reality, and this one is no different. With inflation at potentially 5 percent or higher next year, the budget resolution would have consequences for nearly every defense community — in red and blue states equally.”
As a practical matter, the proposed numbers beyond 2022 are unlikely to stick and will be revised again next year, said Todd Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“A budget resolution isn’t a law, it’s just a set of guidelines Congress uses to direct the efforts of the appropriators,” Harrison said, adding that the “FY22 numbers would be would ‘binding’ on [Senate defense appropriators], unless Congress comes back and makes an exception ― but the numbers for FY23 and beyond are really just there for the purpose of deficit projections.”
Democrats are expected to approve the resolution over unanimous Republican opposition, perhaps as soon as this week. Passage of the budget resolution is crucial because it would allow a subsequent bill — actually enacting Democrats’ 10-year, $3.5trn plan for spending and tax changes — to pass the Senate by a simple majority. Without that protection, the follow-up measure would fall prey to a GOP filibuster, delaying tactics that require 60 votes to end. (Source: Defense News)
06 Aug 21. Navy Acquisition Boss Shifting Programs To Prep For Project Overmatch. The Navy’s program executive officers must make recommendations about what programs should report directly to the leadership overseeing Project Overmatch by October. The Navy’s acting acquisition executive has directed all program executive offices to identify programs that should be considered for realignment as part of Project Overmatch, Breaking Defense has learned.
“It is my intent that all programs core to the NOA [Naval Operational Architecture] and the success of Project Overmatch will be aligned under PEO (C4I),” according to a July 20 acquisition decision memorandum signed by Frederick Stefany, and obtained by Breaking Defense. “To that end, by 30 September 2021, all PEOs will provide to me the programs or projects that should be consider for realignment to PEO (C4I).”
Project Overmatch is a wide-ranging effort initiated by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday to act as the Navy’s part of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control. Senior service leadership has left many of the specific details of Project Overmatch murky during public engagements, but the reorganization among all the service’s acquisition offices signals the Navy’s commitment to moving forward with the concept.
The choices for which programs should be realigned to report directly to the officers overseeing Project Overmatch will publicly display what elements the service considers most essential to its efforts. The scope of the changes will depend on the PEOs recommendations, but the memo presents an opportunity for major realignments among the Navy’s acquisition offices.
The direct reporting program manager for Project Overmatch “will serve as my principal advisor on all aspects of the development, acquisition and sustainment of the NOA — that is, the communication networking, application and other programs core to the NOA as well as the integration of NOA-compliant systems,” according to Stefany’s memo. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
06 Aug 21. DSCA Looking At ‘Creative Financing’ For Future Foreign Military Sales. DSCA also is looking at ways to better advertise options like third-party transfers to potential foreign buyers, says Air Force FMS specialist Col. Anthony Walker. Spurred in part by a potential sale to Columbia of F-16 fighters, the Defense Department is considering novel ways for cash-strapped allies and partners to finance a buy US weapon systems — by bolstering the ability of domestic industry to compete, an Air Force international sales expert said today.
Although she hasn’t “finalized her thinking,” Heidi Grant, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), “is looking at ways that we can compete … more creative financing options for for partners,” said Col. Anthony Walker, senior materiel leader in the International Division of the Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate (AFSAC). AFSAC, part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, is one of three implementing agencies for DoD Foreign Military Sales (FMS).
“With a lot of partners, they’re asked us to provide funding up front before we actually can execute the contract,” he explained in a briefing with reporters. “But maybe there’s some changes that might be coming out of DSCA at some point that can address that, and perhaps do some things differently in the future.”
One option for countries like Colombia, which don’t have a “giant national budget,” could be a third-party transfer from a different country with a current fleet of older F-16s that is buying replacement jets, Walker elaborated. “It’s a way for the country to get started,” he said, and that initial buy could perhaps be augmented with new ones over time as funds free up.
“I was recently in a meeting with Ms. Grant, [and] we are going to take a stronger look at how we’re advertising to partners what the third-party transfer menu looks like. In the coming months, I think we’re going to be working on a better way to share that with our partners, so that they know what’s available,” he added.
“We do have different programs available for aircraft that the US Air Force is is done flying,” he added. “We can take aircraft out of the boneyard, refurbish it and provide that to a partner; we’ve done that, numerous times in the past few years.”
Or, the Air Force can directly transfer aircraft that are going out of service to a foreign partner, before they are mothballed at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Boneyard in Tucson.
“When we’re ready to offload C-130s that we’re no longer flying, we’re able to transfer those to foreign partners as well and they call that the ramp-to-ramp program,” Walker said. “So, yeah, you know, we’re, we’re constantly scanning the environment for what we can offer and what we, and what partners are looking for in terms of demand.”
Walker noted that the F-16 is often a “platform of choice” for foreign countries looking for fourth-generation fighters. For example, Austria in March asked the Air Force for pricing and availability information. (Austria has been dithering since 2017 about replacing its aging Eurofighter Typhoons.) The service also is “seeing interest” in the Indo-Pacific region, including from Taiwan, and “even in South America” — i.e. Colombia, which expressed interest back in 2019.
“We are seeing quite a bit of interest in the F-16 across the world,” he said.
Walker explained that unlike some competitor nations on the international marketplace who “are dare doing things that potentially might not even be in the best interest” of the buying nation, the US takes what is called a “total package approach” to ensure a partner nation can sustain the aircraft it buys. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
05 Aug 21. UAE Arms Sale Remains In Limbo Pending Biden Review. Air Force officials confirmed today that the planned sale of MQ-9 Reapers and F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates has yet to be consummated — with the UAE not yet moving to plunk down a deposit of the arms package. Abu Dhabi is apparently worried that the sale will be caught up in a new Biden administration review of arms sales, first reported by Reuters yesterday, aimed at placing greater weight on the human rights records of recipient countries. The Trump administration had significantly loosened the US Conventional Arms Transfer policy in order to bolster foreign sales, particularly in the Middle East. A Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) has been issued by the US and accepted by the UAE, but “there’s been concerns raised that are being settled at the government level,” Francis Crowley, deputy chief of the Central Division at the Air Force Security and Assistance Cooperation Directorate (AFSAC), explained today. AFSAC is part of Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and is one of three organizations that implements DoD Foreign Military Sales.
“This is well beyond my pay grade now,” said Brig. Gen. Brian Bruckbauer, AFSAC director. “To my knowledge, this is up with the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy secretary of state, and the National Security Council. We’re just kind of in a wait and see mode.”
The $23.3bn arms package for the UAE was approved by the Trump administration on Jan. 20, Biden’s inauguration day. The deal includes 50 F-35A fighters worth $10.4bn, 18 MQ-9B drones at $2.97bn, and $10bn worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. On Jan. 27, the State Department paused all FMS sales to give the Biden White House time to potentially reconsider previous decisions; but lifted the freeze on April 13. The sale of the MQ-9, which is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance drone, has been particularly controversial — especially with progressive Democrats in Congress. This is in part because it is based on a Trump administration reinterpretation of the Cold War-era Missile Technology Control Regimes (MTCR), designed to prevent sales of missiles and unmanned aircraft that could carry nuclear weapons. But many in Congress also are critical of the UAE’s human rights record. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
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12 Aug 21. STRATCOM Chief Warns Of Chinese ‘Strategic Breakout.’
“The breathtaking growth and strategic nuclear capability enables China to change their posture and their strategy,” Adm. Charles Richard said.
The head of Strategic Command today described China’s investments in its nuclear arsenal as a “strategic breakout” that will shortly allow Beijing to execute “any plausible nuclear” strategy it wishes to pursue.
“You’re not gonna find the definition of ‘strategic breakout’ in a doctrine or a manual — and I think it’s one of about four words in the Department of Defense that doesn’t have a definition buried in some joint pub somewhere — but it is significant and I don’t use the term lightly,” Adm. Charles Richard told an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “Business as usual will not work.”
Richard based this warning on the fact China is boosting all areas of its missile force, including both quantity and quality of its strategic delivery systems — the “explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. Frankly, that word, breathtaking, may not be enough.”
It’s hardly the first time that Richard — who knows his way around a soundbite — has sounded the alarm about China’s nuclear modernization. But his comments are notable given the open source revelation in the last month about China’s expansion of its nuclear infrastructure.
The STRATCOM head hit on that find directly, and also gave some love to the open source researchers who discovered a tunnel complex in a region used for nuclear testing. “If you enjoy looking at commercial satellite imagery for stuff in China, can I suggest you keep looking? Right? Normally I have to pay people to do it, if you like doing it for free that just helps, and I appreciate that,” he said.
If you add up all of China’s modernization efforts, Richard concluded, “what you get is something that is inconsistent with a minimum deterrence posture. Their actions have long belied a posture more aggressive than their official policy — you’ve got to look at what they do, not what they say. And China has correctly figured out, you can’t coerce a peer — in other words, us — from a minimum deterrent posture.
“The breathtaking growth and strategic nuclear capability enables China to change their posture and their strategy,” he added. (China’s military expansion has already prompted a shift in Pentagon strategy.)
Interestingly, while seemingly arguing that nuclear modernization is part of a broader geopolitical strategy from Beijing, Richard made a point early in his speech to say his concern isn’t about why, but how to counter it.
“Look, and I know, I read the press like y’all do, there’s been a lot of speculation out there as to why they are doing all of this. I just want to say right now, it really doesn’t matter why China is and continues to grow and modernize. What matters is they are building the capability to execute any plausible nuclear employment strategy — the last brick in the wall of a military capable of coercion.”
Although China remains the major focus for everyone in the national security apparatus these days, Richard noted that the biggest nightmare for the US isn’t just Chinese nuclear modernization, but that there would be closing ties between Beijing and Moscow — leaving the US, for the first time in history, up against two nuclear competitors instead of just one.
“I think it’s a mistake to think about them in isolation of each other,” Richard noted, citing a series of recent military exercises between the two powers. “The continued defense relationship should not be underestimated or ignore, and I don’t think our national intellectual capacity has been sufficiently engaged to consider all the ramifications here.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
12 Aug 21. Pentagon readies to identify integrated air and missile defense capability gaps. The Pentagon’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council is set to begin an assessment of the U.S. military’s integrated air-and-missile defense capability gaps as part of a larger effort to develop a joint war-fighting concept and defense strategy, Gen. John Hyten, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Aug. 11 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.
The JROC, which serves as an oversight body on the development of new capabilities and acquisition efforts, approved strategic directives July 1 that will help speed up the acquisition system for four key “force supporting” areas identified as critical to the joint war-fighting concept in development.
Those four focus areas are information advantage, joint command-and-control, fires and contested logistics.
The JROC will be conducting an industry day next month, Hyten said, to brief the four strategic directives within the joint war-fighting concept.
Now, he added, the JROC will focus on an IAMD joint concept, which will include a deep dive into current requirements and capabilities and an effort to identify gaps.
The effort to review capability gaps will run through the fall, according to Hyten.
“We do have one significant challenge, a challenge that gives us difficulty in fully fulfilling what we need to do as a JROC,” he added, “and that is we don’t have really good campaign-level modeling across all domains including space and cyber, which shows how all these things fit together across the board.”
To address that problem, Hyten said he has also signed a requirements document calling for the Pentagon to build these campaign models “so that we can look at how these things play together,” and “see how all those pieces work together.”
Additionally, the IAMD strategic directive will feed into the new administration’s Missile Defense Review.
While the previous administration’s Missile Defense Review, Nuclear Posture Review and National Defense Strategy were conducted separately, Hyten said this time the MDR and the Nuclear Posture Review will be an integrated part of the National Defense Strategy.
“I think that’s the most important piece of the puzzle because in the past the Nuclear Posture Review has been separate from the Missile Defense Review, and it was very difficult to align them together for a singular message,” Hyten said. “My desire is to do an integrated review.”
The JROC will work to align all of its strategic directives, to include IAMD, with the development of the new National Defense Strategy, he said.
(Source: Defense News)
12 Aug 21. China, Russia Pose Strategic Challenges for U.S., Allies, Admiral Says. The U.S. is now navigating through uncharted waters with the possibility of strategic deterrence failing under rapidly growing threats from China and Russia, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command said.
Navy Adm. Charles A. Richard described those threats and provided solutions through integrated deterrence in all domains, both conventional as well as nuclear, across the services and in tandem with allies and partners when he spoke today at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
Threats From China
“We are witnessing a strategic breakout by China. The explosive growth and modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces can only be what I describe as breathtaking. And frankly, that word breathtaking may not be enough,” he said.
China is rapidly improving its strategic nuclear capability and capacity, Richard said. It’s growing and enhancing its missile force, including multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles. These include intermediate range ballistic missiles, mobile ICBMs and submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles.
Beijing is also pursuing advanced weapons such as hypersonics, he said.
“Because of these challenges our current terrestrial- and space-based sensor architecture may not be sufficient to detect and track these hypersonic missiles,” he said.
In 2019, China tested more ballistic missiles than the rest of the world combined, he noted.
Beijing is also developing a modern nuclear command and control capability and is modernizing its conventional forces to include ships, submarines and aircraft, he added.
“They have the largest Navy in the world and they have the third largest air force in the world,” he said.
Threats From Russia
Russia continues to use a wide range of capabilities that are below the threshold of conflict, such as cyber and state-sponsored coercion of nations, seeking to solidify great power status, Richard said.
Russia is pursuing modernization of its conventional and strategic forces, he said. Nuclear weapons remain a foundational aspect of Russia’s strategy and they have recapitalized over 80% of their strategic nuclear forces, including expanded warhead delivery capacity.
Like China, Russia is investing heavily in developing hypersonic weapons and a variety of other missiles, he said.
Deterring China and Russia
Nuclear modernization is a Defense Department priority for deterrence, Richard said.
That modernization includes not just the nuclear triad, it also includes investing in a nuclear command and control system that is protected against cyberattacks, he said.
“Every operational plan in the Department of Defense, and every other capability we have, rests on an assumption that strategic deterrence will hold. And if strategic deterrence, and in particular nuclear deterrence, doesn’t hold, none of our other plans, and no other capability that we have is going to work as designed,” Richard said.
Richard also mentioned bolstering conventional forces, missile defense and standing up the Joint Al-Domain Command and Control system. Developing and fielding hypersonics and high-energy laser weapons are also very important.
To better understand and respond to national security threats, the department needs to harness America’s great intellectual community, as it has done before with the RAND Corporation, he said.
The ongoing National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review, are the ideal means to address the threats, inform decision makers and inform the department’s path forward.
Industry as well needs to shore up the nation’s defenses by delivering needed technology and systems on time and at reasonable cost, he said.
The importance of allied and partner interoperability and rigorous joint and combined war games and exercises cannot be overstated, Richard said. (Source: US DoD)
11 Aug 21. General Says Sensors Pinpointing Missile Threats Worldwide Are Critical Capability. Detection of missile threats on a global scale is perhaps the number one capability needed by the Defense Department because if a missile cannot be identified, it can’t be destroyed, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said.
“I would like to have overhead sensors that see everything, characterize everything that goes on on this planet, from a missile perspective, all the time, everywhere. That’s the one capability I would like to have because you have to be able to see it to do anything about it. And that’s a challenge for hypersonics and cruise missiles; that’s a challenge for short range; that’s a challenge for ballistics; that’s a challenge for everything that we have,” Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten today told attendees of the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
That technology has been available for years now, he said.
“We have to get there, and we should be able to get there quickly because that technology is not difficult. In this case, it’s a bureaucratic challenge more than anything else, but I’d love to have that sensor capability but we need that space layer,” he said, noting that the Missile Defense Agency and Space Development Agency are now working on a space layer architecture.
Hyten also mentioned the “functional battles” priorities within the department: integrated air and missile defense; joint fires; contested logistics; joint command and control; and information advantage.
The general offered advice to industry, as well.
Industry needs to move at much greater speed to meet the challenges posed by China and Russia, he said.
The nuclear-powered submarines and the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles were developed and deployed in only about six years, he said, pointing out the speed at which new and disruptive capabilities need to be birthed.
Within the next few months, if not sooner, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council will host an industry day with the commercial sector at a classified level to help explain capabilities DOD urgently needs from industry, Hyten said, noting this is the first time that it has been announced.
Hyten, who retires in November, also offered some advice to warfighters of all ranks that he gained over four decades in uniform.
“Show up, and make a difference every day in your job. If you do that, at the end, you will have made a difference for this country, and if everybody does that, this country will be better off,” he said, adding not to worry about your legacy.
He suggested finding some good mentors. Mentors don’t have to be higher ups; they can be from the lower ranks, too. He said he still has mentors who are junior to him that he learns things from.
Another goal for everyone, he said, is to deter conflict so that a war won’t have to be fought. He turned around to look at the service flags lined up behind him and said the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all have many battle streamers that go with each of their flags. The only service without a battle streamer, he said, is the Space Force.
“Everybody’s goal in this room should be to make sure that no banner ever goes up on that, because every banner that goes up means that we failed in our primary mission,” he said, speaking of the Space Force flag. (Source: US DoD)
10 Aug 21. US Senate votes down $50bn defense infrastructure boost. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday rejected a Republican proposal to add $50bn in defense infrastructure spending to Democrats’ budget plan.
Though Republicans hoped to stage a tough vote for centrist Democrats from states with military facilities, Democrats remained unified and the amendment was defeated on a bipartisan basis, 53-46.
Republicans Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Mike Braun voted with the majority.
The amendment effort, led by Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., offered billions for shipyard rehabilitation projects, supply depots, nuclear infrastructure and 5G telecommunications gear.
It is one of many amendments expected to be considered during an hours-long series of votes before Democrats approve the resolution to tee up a $3.5trn spending plan.
Democrats blocked consideration of the amendment when it was offered for a massive $1trn infrastructure package, which the Senate approved earlier in the day. When Shelby offered his amendment again for the budget resolution, he accused Democrats of turning a blind eye to their states’ military infrastructure needs and economic interests.
“These infrastructure projects are absolutely critical to our national security, they impact millions of jobs across the country, both military and civilian,” Shelby said ahead of the vote. “We’re talking about projects not just in my home state of Alabama but in Arizona, Georgia, Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, and many more.”
(Source: Defense News)
10 Aug 21. Commander Offers Strategies for Deterring Aggression From China and Russia. The commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command described threats from Russia and China and ways to mitigate those threats.
Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck spoke today at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Besides battling wildfires, hurricanes, cyberattacks and COVID-19, NORAD and Northcom are engaged in deterring threats from China and Russia, he said.
“We’re in strategic competition with two strategic competitors, both nuclear armed. We’ve never been there before, and we’re economically intertwined with one of them,” he said, referring to China and Russia.
“Russia has created capabilities to hold the homeland at risk,” he said. Moscow believes it can threaten the homeland below the nuclear threshold using long-range cruise missiles and hypersonics. Those types of missiles are not designed for regional conflict in Europe. Their long-range characteristics mean that they are designed for use against the United States.
Additionally, Russia has modernized its bomber and submarine fleet as well as its nuclear arsenal, VanHerck said.
“In the last year, we got more air defense identification zone incursions than we’ve ever had since the end of the Cold War by Russia,” he said.
China will have the same kinetic equivalents as Russia within a decade, VanHerck said. Today, China is on par with Russia in offensive cyber and space domain capabilities.
In the future, Iran and North Korea could also field capabilities that might also put the homeland at risk, he said.
VanHerck laid out some strategies for building a layered kinetic and non-kinetic homeland defense.
Domain awareness is critical, he said. “If you can’t detect a threat, you can’t defeat it or deter it.”
Information dominance is also important, he said. Warfighters need to have the right information at the right time in order to win.
“We treat data and information as a strategic asset,” he said, noting that data can come from sensors, from warfighters themselves and from other assets including satellites.
Global integration is another vital tool, he said. Problems faced today are all global. They require global solutions in all domains.
“The days of having a single supported combatant commander are over,” he said. “We need the ability to collaborate globally, across all domains in near real time, or in real time to present options to our nation’s leaders.”
By that, VanHerck said he means close collaboration with allies and partners, as well as across the services.
Lastly, the general said that the department needs to embrace the digital culture to gain advantage in the information space, which it doesn’t have right now. (Source: US DoD)
09 Aug 21. Senate Dems’ $3.5trn budget proposes small increases to defense spending. Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled a $3.5trn budget blueprint that proposes limited increases for defense budgets through 2031. While non-binding, the numbers are politically symbolic, and it’s unclear whether the roughly flat top-lines for national defense will repel centrist Democrats or not, especially given the other Democratic priorities in the bill. Party leaders will need all 50 of their members to stay unified to pass the budget blueprint, focused on expanding America’s social safety net, without any Republican votes.
For the national defense budget category “050,” which includes Department of Energy weapons programs and the Pentagon budget, the blueprint proposes $765.7bn in budget authority for fiscal 2022. The number, which includes mandatory spending, tracks with the administration’s fiscal 2022 budget request for $753bn in discretionary defense spending, according to a Senate aide.
In the out-years, the blueprint proposes 2 percent annual increases through 2026 and then 1 percent increases per year through 2031, its final year.
That could rankle Republicans and some Democrats who have said annual increases for defense of 3 to 5 percent above inflation are needed to counter a rising China and other global threats. Some have argued that defense budget boosts that lag inflation are not flat but in fact cuts.
“The Democrats’ reckless $3.5trn tax-and-spend spree increases funding for everything but our national defense,” Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said in a statement. “That’s probably the largest ― but certainly not the only ― unacceptable part of this blueprint for more government, more taxes and higher prices. American families can’t afford this spending spree, especially because a lack of investment in national defense only puts us further behind China and Russia.”
The budget resolution, which maps $3.5trn in spending boosts and tax breaks aimed at strengthening social and environmental programs, sets up an autumn battle over President Joe Biden’s domestic policy ambitions.
The budget’s introduction marks the start of a long legislative trek through Congress that Democrats hope will result this fall in a progressive reshaping of government. To succeed, they’ll have to overcome likely unanimous Republican opposition and find the sweet spot between the demands of their own often antagonist progressive and moderate factions.
That will be a fraught task in a Congress they control by a hair. They’ll need the support of every Democrat in the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, and will be able to lose only three Democrats in the House — margins that give each Democrat leverage.
“At its core, this legislation is about restoring the middle class in the 21st Century and giving more Americans the opportunity to get there,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter to his colleagues unveiling the plan.
To pass the annual defense authorization bill, lead Democrats have acknowledged in recent weeks that winning support from Republicans ― and some Democrats ― will mean boosting the top-line above Biden’s proposal. Because passing the budget blueprint is expected to be a partisan affair that relies on Democratic unity, the calculation is likely a different one, and how the defense numbers will factor in isn’t immediately clear.
The budget resolution assigns congressional committees specific amounts of money to spend and describes policy changes party leaders support. A follow-up bill would actually enact those changes.
But those committees will have final say on the legislation they produce, and crafting this fall’s Democratic compromise with virtually no margin of error will be a time-consuming challenge for party leaders.
The resolution’s defense numbers are problematic politically, according to Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
“In Congress, there are more votes to increase the defense budget than to cut it,” Eaglen said. “Budget resolutions often don’t survive contact with reality, and this one is no different. With inflation at potentially 5 percent or higher next year, the budget resolution would have consequences for nearly every defense community — in red and blue states equally.”
As a practical matter, the proposed numbers beyond 2022 are unlikely to stick and will be revised again next year, said Todd Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“A budget resolution isn’t a law, it’s just a set of guidelines Congress uses to direct the efforts of the appropriators,” Harrison said, adding that the “FY22 numbers would be would ‘binding’ on [Senate defense appropriators], unless Congress comes back and makes an exception ― but the numbers for FY23 and beyond are really just there for the purpose of deficit projections.”
Democrats are expected to approve the resolution over unanimous Republican opposition, perhaps as soon as this week. Passage of the budget resolution is crucial because it would allow a subsequent bill — actually enacting Democrats’ 10-year, $3.5trn plan for spending and tax changes — to pass the Senate by a simple majority.
Without that protection, the follow-up measure would fall prey to a GOP filibuster, delaying tactics that require 60 votes to end. (Source: Defense News)
06 Aug 21. Navy Acquisition Boss Shifting Programs To Prep For Project Overmatch. The Navy’s program executive officers must make recommendations about what programs should report directly to the leadership overseeing Project Overmatch by October. The Navy’s acting acquisition executive has directed all program executive offices to identify programs that should be considered for realignment as part of Project Overmatch, Breaking Defense has learned.
“It is my intent that all programs core to the NOA [Naval Operational Architecture] and the success of Project Overmatch will be aligned under PEO (C4I),” according to a July 20 acquisition decision memorandum signed by Frederick Stefany, and obtained by Breaking Defense. “To that end, by 30 September 2021, all PEOs will provide to me the programs or projects that should be consider for realignment to PEO (C4I).”
Project Overmatch is a wide-ranging effort initiated by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday to act as the Navy’s part of the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control. Senior service leadership has left many of the specific details of Project Overmatch murky during public engagements, but the reorganization among all the service’s acquisition offices signals the Navy’s commitment to moving forward with the concept.
The choices for which programs should be realigned to report directly to the officers overseeing Project Overmatch will publicly display what elements the service considers most essential to its efforts. The scope of the changes will depend on the PEOs recommendations, but the memo presents an opportunity for major realignments among the Navy’s acquisition offices.
The direct reporting program manager for Project Overmatch “will serve as my principal advisor on all aspects of the development, acquisition and sustainment of the NOA — that is, the communication networking, application and other programs core to the NOA as well as the integration of NOA-compliant systems,” according to Stefany’s memo. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
06 Aug 21. DSCA Looking At ‘Creative Financing’ For Future Foreign Military Sales. DSCA also is looking at ways to better advertise options like third-party transfers to potential foreign buyers, says Air Force FMS specialist Col. Anthony Walker. Spurred in part by a potential sale to Columbia of F-16 fighters, the Defense Department is considering novel ways for cash-strapped allies and partners to finance a buy US weapon systems — by bolstering the ability of domestic industry to compete, an Air Force international sales expert said today.
Although she hasn’t “finalized her thinking,” Heidi Grant, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), “is looking at ways that we can compete … more creative financing options for for partners,” said Col. Anthony Walker, senior materiel leader in the International Division of the Air Force Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate (AFSAC). AFSAC, part of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, is one of three implementing agencies for DoD Foreign Military Sales (FMS).
“With a lot of partners, they’re asked us to provide funding up front before we actually can execute the contract,” he explained in a briefing with reporters. “But maybe there’s some changes that might be coming out of DSCA at some point that can address that, and perhaps do some things differently in the future.”
One option for countries like Colombia, which don’t have a “giant national budget,” could be a third-party transfer from a different country with a current fleet of older F-16s that is buying replacement jets, Walker elaborated. “It’s a way for the country to get started,” he said, and that initial buy could perhaps be augmented with new ones over time as funds free up.
“I was recently in a meeting with Ms. Grant, [and] we are going to take a stronger look at how we’re advertising to partners what the third-party transfer menu looks like. In the coming months, I think we’re going to be working on a better way to share that with our partners, so that they know what’s available,” he added.
“We do have different programs available for aircraft that the US Air Force is is done flying,” he added. “We can take aircraft out of the boneyard, refurbish it and provide that to a partner; we’ve done that, numerous times in the past few years.”
Or, the Air Force can directly transfer aircraft that are going out of service to a foreign partner, before they are mothballed at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Boneyard in Tucson.
“When we’re ready to offload C-130s that we’re no longer flying, we’re able to transfer those to foreign partners as well and they call that the ramp-to-ramp program,” Walker said. “So, yeah, you know, we’re, we’re constantly scanning the environment for what we can offer and what we, and what partners are looking for in terms of demand.”
Walker noted that the F-16 is often a “platform of choice” for foreign countries looking for fourth-generation fighters. For example, Austria in March asked the Air Force for pricing and availability information. (Austria has been dithering since 2017 about replacing its aging Eurofighter Typhoons.) The service also is “seeing interest” in the Indo-Pacific region, including from Taiwan, and “even in South America” — i.e. Colombia, which expressed interest back in 2019.
“We are seeing quite a bit of interest in the F-16 across the world,” he said.
Walker explained that unlike some competitor nations on the international marketplace who “are dare doing things that potentially might not even be in the best interest” of the buying nation, the US takes what is called a “total package approach” to ensure a partner nation can sustain the aircraft it buys. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
05 Aug 21. UAE Arms Sale Remains In Limbo Pending Biden Review. Air Force officials confirmed today that the planned sale of MQ-9 Reapers and F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates has yet to be consummated — with the UAE not yet moving to plunk down a deposit of the arms package.
Abu Dhabi is apparently worried that the sale will be caught up in a new Biden administration review of arms sales, first reported by Reuters yesterday, aimed at placing greater weight on the human rights records of recipient countries. The Trump administration had significantly loosened the US Conventional Arms Transfer policy in order to bolster foreign sales, particularly in the Middle East.
A Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) has been issued by the US and accepted by the UAE, but “there’s been concerns raised that are being settled at the government level,” Francis Crowley, deputy chief of the Central Division at the Air Force Security and Assistance Cooperation Directorate (AFSAC), explained today.
AFSAC is part of Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and is one of three organizations that implements DoD Foreign Military Sales.
“This is well beyond my pay grade now,” said Brig. Gen. Brian Bruckbauer, AFSAC director. “To my knowledge, this is up with the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy secretary of state, and the National Security Council. We’re just kind of in a wait and see mode.”
The $23.3bn arms package for the UAE was approved by the Trump administration on Jan. 20, Biden’s inauguration day. The deal includes 50 F-35A fighters worth $10.4bn, 18 MQ-9B drones at $2.97bn, and $10bn worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. On Jan. 27, the State Department paused all FMS sales to give the Biden White House time to potentially reconsider previous decisions; but lifted the freeze on April 13. The sale of the MQ-9, which is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance drone, has been particularly controversial — especially with progressive Democrats in Congress. This is in part because it is based on a Trump administration reinterpretation of the Cold War-era Missile Technology Control Regimes (MTCR), designed to prevent sales of missiles and unmanned aircraft that could carry nuclear weapons. But many in Congress also are critical of the UAE’s human rights record. (Source: glstrade.com/Breaking Defense.com)
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