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05 Oct 22. DOD Releases List of People’s Republic of China (PRC) Military Companies in Accordance With Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
Today, the Department of Defense released the names of “Chinese military companies” operating directly or indirectly in the United States in accordance with the statutory requirement of Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
The Department is determined to highlight and counter the PRC Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring its access to advanced technologies and expertise are acquired and developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities. Section 1260H directs the Department to begin identifying, among other things, Military-Civil Fusion contributors operating directly or indirectly in the United States.
The Department will continue to update the list with additional entities as appropriate.
The United States Government reserves the right to take additional actions on these entities under authorities other than section 1260H.
The list is available here: https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/05/2003091659/-1/-1/0/1260H%20COMPANIES.PDF (Source: US DoD)
03 Oct 22. DOD Office Looks to Effects of Climate Change on Department. Earth’s average annual temperature is rising, and as service members adjust to new climate realities, the Defense Department must do its part to combat climate change. The Earth is 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in the late 1800s. The last decade, 2011-2020, was the warmest on record. The increase in thermal energy trapped in the atmosphere has had enormous consequences around the globe.
There are historic droughts in many parts of the world, including the western United States and in the countries of East Africa. Desertification is expanding the Sahara and Gobi Deserts. Heat waves are longer and hotter, contributing to more wildfires. According to climate experts, the intensity of hurricanes is projected to increase over the coming decades.
Some recent examples include the heat dome over Europe, where London — the capital of a country where 85 degrees Fahrenheit is generally considered hot — had a temperature of 105 degrees, and the catastrophic flooding in St. Louis and eastern Kentucky.
“DOD must prepare for and adapt to these changes,” Iris A. Ferguson, who is leading on this effort for the Office of the undersecretary of defense for policy, said. Ferguson is the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience. She is a principal advisor to the secretary of defense and other senior DOD leaders for policy matters pertaining to Arctic security and global resilience, including climate and energy resilience.
The effects of extreme weather exacerbated by climate change have already had profound impacts on the DOD. Hurricane Michael — a Category 5 storm — destroyed at least half of the buildings at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, when it roared ashore in 2018. Reconstructing the critical base will cost more than $5bn to repair, Air Force officials said.
The world’s largest naval base, Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, is endangered by rising sea levels, Water in the bay has risen about a foot-and-a-half since the 1920s, and a normal high tide now comes close to lapping over containment walls. The Navy, the city and businesses that depend on the harbor must work to adapt to rising sea levels.
A Missouri River flood in March 2019 engulfed roughly a third of the home of U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The damage was so severe that many facilities at the base must be rebuilt — the cost of which is estimated at more than $500m.
Ferguson’s office will work closely with the other parts of the department that are focused on making bases, posts and facilities more resilient in the future, which could include retrofitting buildings to improve their ability to withstand natural disasters.
“We’re trying to increase understanding of all the ways climate change is impacting the missions of the Department of Defense — and particularly how it impacts the warfighter,” Ferguson said.
Service members are already being affected by climate change and will see increasing demand on the force. On one hand, service members — mostly National Guardsmen — will be called upon to respond to extreme weather events in the United States. The droughts have made U.S. forests into tinderboxes, and service members are often called to augment firefighters. Kentucky National Guardsmen recently helped with flooding in the eastern part of the state.
Climate change is also contributing to extreme weather events around the world, which could increase demand for DOD missions related to conflict, stabilization, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
“For the department, it’s also imperative for us to work alongside our allies and partners to prevent climate change from contributing to instability and insecurity,” Ferguson said.
As regions become too hot for sustaining livelihoods or human habitation, climate change may spur migration. Tensions over water and other resources could lead to instability and conflict. Climate change is already making the Arctic more accessible with nations vying over resources and access. Due to warming temperatures in many regions, diseases and viruses are expected to migrate to new areas of the globe.
Climate change will also affect the environments U.S. service members must be prepared to deploy to and fight in.
Future Arctic combat will require equipment that can operate dependably in that environment. Climate change may also make amphibious operations more complicated than they already are. Sea and air lines of communication will change.
Combatting climate change is also part of the department’s efforts, Ferguson said. New technologies, more efficient platforms, expansion of electric vehicles and alternative methods of producing energy — all these efforts across the department aim to increase combat capability and mitigate risk, she said, and the services have already started to take action with climate strategies and funding.
DOD personnel are learning firsthand about how climate change impacts their mission.
“Our office has our work cut out for us, both internally within the department and externally with allies and partners,” Ferguson said. “Climate change is creating a new operating context for the department, and our success and resilience will be contingent on how fast we can adapt.”
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the creation of a new DOD position: deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and global resilience. Part 1 outlines the strategic importance the Arctic region plays in U.S. national security. (Source: US DoD)
03 Oct 22. USA: Threat From Extremism.
Key Takeaways
- Extreme rhetoric related to divisive social issues espoused by influential figures in the run-up to the midterm elections will drive far-right efforts to recruit and radicalise individuals who do not traditionally adhere to extremist ideology.
- The 6 January committee is unlikely to disclose any information that risks prompting pro-Trump supporters and extremist groups to instigate unrest before the elections. Nevertheless, the growing connections between far-right groups highlighted during the committee hearings this summer highlight the risk that hardliners will organise their activity on a greater scale in the event of escalating unrest.
- The aspiration of far-right groups like the Proud Boys to normalise political violence and bolster the presence of heavily armed protesters at public rallies will embolden their supporters to join demonstrations and possibly engage in violence. Sudden violent escalations in urban areas are likely to pose significant risks to bystanders, including staff and personnel at work.
- The threat of violence pertaining to social issues championed by extremists in the run-up to the midterm elections is not limited to the far-right. Businesses which overtly demonstrate either support for or condemnation of divisive social issues are more likely to be targeted by extremists from both ends of the political spectrum. These issues include abortion rights, race, immigration and claims of electoral fraud. Certain groups, such as LGBTQI+ people and professionals working in the news media industry, are at a heightened risk of antagonism and potential violence by far-right groups like the Proud Boys. (Source: Sibylline)
30 Sep 22. Air Force grounds most C-130Hs due to cracked propeller barrels. The Air Force has grounded most of its older C-130H Hercules cargo planes and variants due to a problem with their propeller barrels.
Air Mobility Command on Friday confirmed a wide swath of its C-130H fleet, which numbered 128 at the beginning of fiscal 2022, is unable to fly, and it’s unclear how long it will take to replace all the defective propeller assemblies.
AMC said 116 C-130Hs, including variants of the mobility aircraft, were grounded on Tuesday due to concerns their propeller assemblies are defective, and that inspections over the coming days will show how many of those are affected.
AMC said the groundings are “widespread” and primarily affect the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
The unofficial Facebook page Air Force amn/nco/snco posted a screenshot of a time compliance technical order on the groundings Wednesday. On Friday, the page posted a screenshot of a slide that said the propeller barrels in question had been installed in 100 C-130Hs, as well as the entire inventories of eight MC-130H Combat Talons, seven EC-130H Compass Calls, and one TC-130H.
In a statement to Defense News, Air Mobility Command said a maintenance crew at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia found a persistent leak coming from a C-130H propeller while test running the plane’s engine after it had undergone depot maintenance.
That propeller assembly was removed and sent to the complex’s propeller shop, AMC said, where a technician found a crack in its barrel assembly.
Further inspections found two more propeller assemblies had the same problem, Air Mobility Command added.
AMC ordered immediate field level visual inspections on all C-130Hs with the older 54H60 model propeller, and then conducted metallurgical reviews and stress analyses, the command said. After those reviews, Air Mobility Command issued another order to immediately replace problematic propellers.
The command said newer C-130Js and C-130Hs that have already had their propeller assemblies upgraded with the eight-bladed NP2000 system are not affected by the order.
This is the second time in more than three years that significant numbers of C-130Hs were grounded due to propeller problems. In February 2019, the Air Force grounded 60 C-130Hs — at the time, nearly one-third of the fleet — for several weeks due to concerns their pre-1971 propeller blades could crack. Those C-130s had their propeller blades replaced over subsequent weeks. (Source: Defense News)
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