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22 Jun 24. Statement From Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder on the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group Departing the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility. Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following statement: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKE CSG) departed the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility today and will remain briefly in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility before returning home after more than seven months deployed in support of U.S. regional deterrence and force protection efforts. Following completion of a scheduled exercise in the Indo-Pacific, the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (TR CSG) will arrive in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility to continue promoting regional stability, deter aggression, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region. During its deployment, the IKE CSG protected ships transiting the Red Sea, Bab-el-Mandeb and the Gulf Aden, rescued innocent mariners against the unlawful attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthis, and helped to deter further aggression. Next week, the TR CSG will depart the Indo-Pacific for the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. The United States will continue to maintain a robust presence in the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen peace, stability, and deterrence alongside allies and partners. (Source: U.S. DoD)
21 Jun 24. Hanwha purchase Philly Shipyard in $100m acquisition.
The acquisition is the latest move that contributes to a ballooning South Korean defence industry in America – a move encouraged by the US Navy Secretary.
Philly Shipyard, a US tanker and cargo construction company, has announced it has entered a $100m share purchase agreement with Hanwha Systems and Hanwha Ocean, two arms of the South Korean defence group, on 20 June 2024.
Currently under the ownership of the Norwegian-based industrial investor Aker Group the shipyard has served as a shipbuilder for a range of maritime vessels, often containers and tankers.
“After two decades of stewardship, it is with great honour that we transition the ownership from Aker to Hanwha,” said Kristian Røkke, chairman of Philly Shipyard ASA. “Recognised as a global leader, Hanwha brings a wealth of sophisticated shipbuilding experience that will enable Philly Shipyard to realise a grander vision for its employees and customers.”
This deal does not stand in isolation. Rather, it is the latest move from a ballooning South Korean defence industry eager to invest in US maritime facilities. It builds on a foundational visit made by the US Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, to Hyundai Heavy Industries in Japan and Hanwha in Korea at the end of February.
At the time Del Toro’s office noted that “discussions were very productive and centered on attracting Korean investment in integrated commercial and naval shipbuilding facilities in the United States.”
Del Toro welcomed the news, stating “Hanwha’s acquisition of Philly Shipyard is a game-changing milestone in our new Maritime Statecraft.
“This will bring good paying union jobs to Philadelphia, a city with a 250-year relationship with the US Navy. Knowing how they will change the competitive US shipbuilding landscape.
“I could not be more excited to welcome Hanwha as the first Korean shipbuilder to come to American shores—and I am certain they will not be the last.”
Korean industry shapes US Maritime Statecraft
This new, somewhat ambiguous term – Maritime Statecraft – has come to define del Toro’s time as head of the Navy.
During remarks at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in September 2023, he explained that China’s naval growth is matched by its commercial maritime power, which means that the superpower has established an ownership stake in 95 ports across 53 countries.
Maritime Statecraft is a proposal to reverse the “operational and economic risk for the American economy,” but how will Korean industry support this aim?
The US Navy have been eyeing Japan and South Korea industry for some time to support the US naval industrial base, which is under significant strain, by providing additional capacity and resources to outmatch China in their naval arms race.
Furthermore, only a few months prior to the share purchase, Philly Shipyard signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyundai Heavy Industries. The two companies will explore a relationship relating to future US government shipbuilding projects as well as maintenance, repair and overhaul projects. (Source: naval-technology.com)
21 Jun 24. AUKUS Shines Spotlight on Power of Partnerships, Pentagon Official Says. The security partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUKUS, is aimed at promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific and represents a tangible example of the Defense Department’s longstanding commitment to deepening alliances, a senior Pentagon official said today.
Madeline Mortelmans, acting assistant secretary of defense for strategies, plans and capabilities, underscored the core role allies and partnerships serve in carrying out the 2022 National Defense Strategy and the lasting impact AUKUS will have on DOD’s approach to strategic competition.
“When I talk about the NDS, the 2022 NDS, and what’s different about it, I always highlight and observe that almost every U.S. strategy, for years, has emphasized the importance of our allies and partners,” Mortelmans said during a panel discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security, a public policy think tank in Washington, specializing in national security issues.
“What’s different about this NDS is a call to action to do things differently, to drive change in breaking down barriers to how we work with allies and partners to bring them in sooner to our planning processes, to actually think at every stage of planning, operations activities about how we can do this better with allies and partners,” she said. “In that context, AUKUS is exactly in-line with our National Defense Strategy.”
The partnership, which was agreed to in September 2021, is aimed at fostering technology exchanges among the three countries and building Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine force.
Under “Pillar 1” of the plan, Australia will purchase three Virginia-class, conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines in time to replace its current fleet of diesel electric subs in the 2030s.
The three countries will also develop a state-of-the-art platform designed to combine and leverage their shared submarine technology. The “SSN-AUKUS” as the future platform is known, is slated to be fielded by the U.K. in the 2030s and by Australia in the 2040s.
The second pillar of the agreement is focused on developing joint capabilities to further enhance interoperability among the participating nations with a focus on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and additional undersea capabilities.
Mortelmans said today that the three countries have made long strides since the agreement was first announced.
She noted that over the last year, the U.S. has increased submarine visits to Australia, and hosted Australian naval personnel at U.S. training schools. Australia has also begun to set the foundation with industry for the future production and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines.
Under Pillar 2, she said, the partner nations are well underway in developing, experimenting and fielding new technology together.
In the coming years the partnership will continue pay dividends, Mortelmans said.
“I want to emphasize that AUKUS is not static,” she said. “It will continue to grow. The ideal vision is that AUKUS becomes part of how we, at the Department of Defense, operate together — breaking down those barriers, realizing the vision of our 2022 NDS that said that we’re going to figure out how we plan, how we develop, how we field, how we operate together earlier and more effectively.”
“AUKUS is critical to realizing that vision,” she said. (Source: U.S. DoD)
20 Jun 24. Pentagon tech hub to launch dozens of new projects with FY24 funding. The Defense Innovation Unit plans to spend most of its nearly $1bn fiscal 2024 budget to accelerate existing projects and add new ones in technology areas like counter uncrewed aerial systems and space transport.
Congress approved a nearly 10-fold funding increase in FY24for the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub to support its expanding mission to help the Defense Department quickly foster and field commercial capabilities in large numbers. Prolonged budget deliberations delayed the release of appropriations, which meant that DIU’s funding came more than five months into the fiscal year, presenting the organization with the challenge of using that money in a short period of time.
DIU Director Doug Beck has said the funding would be split among four areas: accelerating existing programs; launching new ones; supporting projects housed within other Defense Department innovation organizations; and addressing some of the challenges commercial companies face as they try to work with DoD.
In a June 20 statement, DIU said offered more details on that split, revealing that 50% of the funding — or about $491m — would be directed toward speeding up its priority efforts. Another 25%, about $246m, will fund new projects.
“While DIU has already begun putting the new budget into action, with Congressional oversight, over the next few months, DIU expects to release two dozen solicitations using our FY24 appropriations for new projects,” the organization said.
Existing priorities include technologies to support attritable uncrewed systems, the Pentagon’s Joint Fires Network and other space, cyber, energy, logistics and human systems efforts.
Along with space transport and Counter UAS, new projects will focus on cross-cutting software and advanced manufacturing with the goal of helping enable more resilient and integrated autonomous systems operating across multiple domains.
“DIU’s FY24 spending is concentrated on closing the U.S. military’s most critical operational capability gaps with the focus, speed, and scale required to help us deter major conflict or win if forced to fight,” Beck said in a statement.
The remaining 25% of funding will support DIU’s role in coordinating various Pentagon innovation organizations like the Air Force’s AFWERX and the Navy’s NavalX and breaking down “systemic barriers” to adopting non-traditional technology within the Pentagon. That includes expanding DIU’s network of OnRamp Hubs, which are based around the U.S.
“DIU, working with partners across the Department, will continue industry outreach through a variety of in-person and virtual engagements, providing informational content about how to work with DIU and, more broadly, how to better engage the DoD,” the organization said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
18 Jun 24. Congress wants to restore nukes on conventional B-52 bombers. Congress is laying the groundwork to restore nuclear weapon capabilities on roughly 30 B-52H Stratofortress bombers that had been converted to drop only conventional munitions as part of the New START arms control treaty with Russia.
Both the Senate and House defense policy bills for fiscal 2025 would require the Air Force to once again make these conventional bombers part of the nuclear triad nearly a decade after removing those capabilities to comply with limits under the New START treaty. The current treaty is set to expire in February 2026.
Lawmakers are eager to beef up the U.S. nuclear arsenal given Russia’s suspension of the treaty and China’s rapidly expanding strategic warhead production. Opponents of the measure argue that the directives will make it more difficult to negotiate a new treaty while complicating efforts to significantly extend the lifespan of the B-52 bomber fleet first introduced during the Cold War.
“The treaty expires in 2026, and the prospect of Russia coming to the table for serious arms control discussions is incredibly unlikely,” House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said last week upon introducing the amendment to the FY25 defense policy bill, legislation the House passed 217-199 on Friday. “We need to be prepared to face a nuclear environment without any treaty limitations.”
The House bill would require the Air Force to begin reconverting the bombers within a month after the current treaty expires and complete the restoration of their nuclear capabilities by 2029. The House passed the B-52 amendment by voice vote over opposition from Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
“The Department of Defense is not interested in doing this,” said Smith. “What they’re interested in doing is investing in the B-21, which is the next generation nuclear-capable bomber. This would cost a great deal of money. Also, they’re currently trying to extend the life of a number of B-52s out to 2050, which they think they can do. This would be another added expense to that.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 22-3 on Friday to advance its version of the bill with a similar provision directing the restoration of nuclear capabilities across the entire B-52 fleet.
The Air Force’s 76 B-52s are the oldest bombers in its fleet and have been flying since the early 1960s. During the Cold War, the Air Force flew nuclear-armed Stratofortresses along the edge of Soviet airspace.
Today, it remains one of the key elements of the U.S. nuclear triad, and is capable of carrying the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, or ALCM, nuclear weapon.
The weapon systems officer station in the belly of a B-52H Stratofortress contains the controls to release the conventional — and in some cases, nuclear — weapons the six-decade-old bomber can carry. (Stephen Losey/Defense News)
Not all B-52s have that capability. The Air Force in 2015 began removing nuclear capabilities from about 30 B-52Hs to comply with New START requirements.
The Senate ratified New START in 2010. The treaty limits both countries to 1,550 deployed warheads. Although Washington and Moscow agreed to extend the treaty for five years in 2021, Russia suspended its participation in New START in 2023 amid heightened tensions with NATO over its invasion of Ukraine.
Air Force Global Strike Command declined to comment about the potential restoration of nuclear capabilities to the rest of the B-52 fleet.
Mark Gunzinger, a former B-52 pilot and director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said that if it does happen, the reconversions would probably take place during depot maintenance at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, as the B-52 fleet receives top-to-bottom upgrades.
Later this decade, the Air Force will begin a sweeping overhaul of the B-52 fleet, giving the six-decade-old bombers new engines, radar, avionics, digital cockpit displays, wheels and brakes, and other improvements.
The modernization is so significant that the service plans to redub these bombers the B-52J. The service eventually plans to have a fleet of two bombers, with the B-52J flying alongside the new B-21 Raider once the Air Force retires the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit.
Deployed warheads
President Joe Biden’s arms control adviser Pranay Vaddi told the annual Arms Control Association conference in Washington this month that the U.S. has reached out to Russia about negotiating a follow-on agreement to New START but that Moscow has been unwilling to engage.
He said the Biden administration does not currently plan to increase the number of deployed warheads, though those decisions would be contingent on Russian and Chinese actions ahead of New START’s expiration.
“The reasons for having an increase in your day-to-day deployed nuclear weapons has to be pretty compelling for a decision to be made to do that,” said Vaddi. “One of the main triggers for that or the latest indicators that we have to pay attention to is what the [People’s Republic of China] ends up doing.”
“Those are important considerations for us to bear in mind as we march toward February 1, 2026.”
The U.S. deploys some 1,770 strategic nuclear warheads while Russia deploys around 1,822, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative. China currently has around 500 operational warheads and the Pentagon expects Beijing will reach 1,500 by 2035.
Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, argued the B-52 amendment and other measures in the defense bill could make negotiating a follow-up treaty with Russia more difficult.
“This provision as well as some other provisions that are in the bills that purpose steps to increase the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons are extremely premature, counterproductive and – given the skyrocketing cost of the existing nuclear weapons modernization program – they’re cost prohibitive,” Kimball told Defense News. “Some members of Congress unnecessarily panic and are looking for ways to increase the US stockpile without a clear national security rationale.”
Another provision in the Senate defense policy bill from Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, the top Republican on the Strategic Forces panel, would require a plan to develop an additional 50 Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles on top of 400 ICBMs already deployed.
Gunzinger said that with Russia no longer adhering to the New START treaty, it makes sense to bolster the B-52 fleet’s nuclear capabilities given the potential threats the United States could face from China and Russia, as well as Iran and North Korea.
“We’re now facing a situation where there’s two nuclear peers,” Gunzinger told Defense News. “We have a nuclear triad that’s sized for a single nuclear peer, Russia.”
Gunzinger said the restoration could probably be done without much difficulty. The necessary wiring is probably still in place, he said, and physical components that had been removed could be re-installed.
“It’s doable, and that’s the beauty of maintaining bombers that can be re-equipped with the appropriate [nuclear weapons] components,” he said. “It’s a hedge against future uncertainty, and we are now in a future where it’s not one that we expected, even just a few short years ago.”
(Source: C4ISR & Networks)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Homeland Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need.
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