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05 Aug 24. Austin, Australian Counterpart Meet in Advance of AUSMIN Consultations. In advance of tomorrow’s 34th Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met today at the Pentagon with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles to discuss the historic military-to-military progress between the two nations.
Austin just returned last week from a trip to the Indo-Pacific, his 11th visit to the region as secretary. He told Marles he was proud of what the two nations have accomplished in the last three years.
“We share with Australia a vision for a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific,” Austin said. “Together, our unbreakable alliance is helping to make that vision a reality. We’re delivering on major force posture initiatives, deepening our defense industrial cooperation and expanding efforts with our regional allies and partners.”
Included in those efforts, Austin said, is the historic trilateral Australia, U.K. and U.S. partnership, called AUKUS. The partnership, announced in September 2021, involves two pillars. The first pillar aims to deliver a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability to Australia. The second pillar involves enhancing joint capabilities and interoperability.
“Today and tomorrow, we’ll keep building on the historic results that we’ve achieved together,” Austin said. ” we’ll chart our path to strengthen our alliance over the coming years.”
The secretary acknowledged his counterpart as a driving force behind the momentum and progress of the partnership between the U.S. and Australia.
Since Austin has been the U.S. secretary of defense, Marles said, the partnership between the two nations has grown significantly.
“So much has happened over the last few years,” Marles said. “You mentioned AUKUS, which is transforming Australia’s military capability. That can’t happen but for the partnership that we have. We’re seeing America’s force posture in Australia grow really significantly, AUKUS is part of that, but it’s not the only part of that. The marine rotation in Darwin is growing across all the domains. We’re now seeing more activities, which has been really fantastic. We are doing more industrially and the breakthrough legislation that went through the Congress at the end of last year in terms of defense export controls is again a transformational change in terms of our relationship.”
Marles also thanked Austin for his leadership in other areas around the globe, including in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
As an example, Marles pointed to the important U.S.-led trilateral partnership developing with Japan and South Korea; and also, to the quadrilateral partnership between U.S., Japan, Australia and the Philippines, aimed at advancing a shared vision for a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
The world remains a challenging place, with a complex security environment, Marles said.
“We’re witnessing that literally play out by the day,” Marles said. “Our relationship with the United States has always been important, but it’s never been more important than now.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong will be joining the two defense leaders in Annapolis, Maryland. (Source: U.S. DoD)
02 Aug 24. US Congress Debates Future of F-22 Block 20 as NGAD Program Pauses. As the US Air Force considers its next steps for the manned Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter in light of a “pause” announced on 30 July 2024 by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, some sentiment in Congress and within the Air Force is to retain the 32 Lockheed Martin F-22 Block 20 fighters as a fallback option to deter China and go to war if necessary.
The Air Force has requested congressional approval to divest the Block 20s and estimated that upgrading these Block 20s to the standard Block 30/35 configuration would cost $3.3bn.
The F-22 Block 20, a variant of the F-22 Raptor, was produced and acquired in the early 2000s. Initially designed for training purposes, 32 Block 20 aircraft are currently in service. While these aircraft lack the full combat capabilities of the Block 30/35 variants, they can still be utilized in combat situations if necessary. The F-22 Block 20 features advanced stealth technology, supersonic cruise speed, and exceptional maneuverability, making it a crucial component for air superiority missions.
Despite being primarily used for training, the F-22 Block 20 possesses significant capabilities. It includes advanced sensor suites for tracking and identifying air-to-air threats and the ability to carry six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9 Sidewinders in its air-to-air configuration. Upgrading these aircraft to the Block 30/35 standard would enhance their avionics, sensors, and weapon systems, aligning them with modern combat requirements.
- A modernization program for the remaining 154 F-22 Raptor “air superiority” fighters, including new cryptography, an expanded open architecture, new weapons, an infrared search and track sensor, and a “Project Keystone” effort to install an advanced threat warning receiver, is expected to cost more than $4.3bn between fiscal years 2023 and 2029.
The F-22 team is working to execute a modernization roadmap to deploy advanced sensors, connectivity, weapons, and other capabilities relevant to the INDOPACOM theater. The Raptor team has recently conducted six flight test efforts to demonstrate and assess advanced sensors on the F-22 required to complete ongoing rapid prototyping for the program. This will lead to a decision on rapid fielding in the near future.
The F-22 is considered a bridge to deploying the NGAD, which will represent another generational leap in technology over the F-22 in terms of the NGAD family of systems and the ability to achieve air superiority in a future highly contested environment.
Air Force General Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command, stated that retaining the F-22 Block 20 is beneficial for training and that, even in an emergency, the Block 20 could be used in a combat situation.
Modernizing Block 20 to a war-ready status would not be a cheap or quick solution. Retaining Block 20 for training purposes is one thing, but using them in operations is another matter entirely. (Source: Google/https://armyrecognition.com/)
02 Aug 24. Pentagon Official: Alliances Are Key to U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Advantage. The U.S. maintains an asymmetric strategic advantage through its global network of allies and partners amid increasing competition, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.
Vipin Narang, acting secretary of defense for space policy, said the Defense Department remains focused on continuing to strengthen its alliances and partnerships throughout the globe as a key pillar to its competitive approach as nuclear risks increase.
“While the administration has long sought to strike a balance between deterrence and arms control, we now find ourselves in nothing short of a new nuclear age,” Narang said during a discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a public policy think tank in Washington.
The new era, he said, is marked by “an unprecedented mix of multiple, revisionist, nuclear challengers who are uninterested in arms control or risk-reduction efforts, each rapidly modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals and openly threatening to employ nuclear weapons to achieve their aims.”
Those challengers include Russia, which continues to threaten nuclear escalation in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine even though Russian diplomats have proclaimed the need to avoid nuclear threats, Narang said.
Narang cited Russia’s growing stockpile of lower-yield, nuclear weapons that are unrestricted by treaties and Russia’s development of a new anti-satellite capability designed to carry a nuclear weapon into space.
The latter capability, he said, poses a threat to “an entire orbit of assets crucial not just to the United States but the entire world.”
Narang also noted the increasing nuclear challenges in the Indo-Pacific posed by China and North Korea.
A 2021 study by nongovernmental researchers revealed hundreds of new intercontinental ballistic missile silos under construction in Western China. Also in 2021, the intelligence community revealed that China had accelerated its nuclear expansion and assessed that China’s government would likely field more than 1,000 operational warheads within the next decade.
“This expansion is being fueled, literally, by Russia as Moscow supplies China with highly enriched uranium reactor fuel, which supports the production of weapons-grade plutonium,” Narang said.
He also noted Russia’s growing partnership with North Korea, which he said further illustrates the disturbing possibility of a collaboration between two nuclear-armed adversaries of the U.S.
“Any one of these nuclear challenges would be daunting by itself, but the simultaneity and growing collaboration and evidence of collusion between them is unprecedented, forcing us to think in new and careful ways about challenges, such as escalation dynamics and deterring opportunistic aggression in this new nuclear age,” Narang said.
The United States’ competitive approach to these growing challenges includes three pillars, he said, including fielding a modern nuclear deterrent and building the future generation of strategic thinkers and leaders to shape future nuclear policy and capabilities.
Additionally, the U.S. continues to strengthen its global alliances and partnerships, which enhance strategic deterrence.
In the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. has focused on tailored dialogues with key regional allies, including South Korea, Japan and Australia. Topics under discussion include conventional nuclear integration, crisis consultation and efforts to bolster the common understanding of U.S. nuclear deterrence posture and capabilities.
NATO has also made significant strides in nuclear deterrence and adapting to the Russian threat, Narang said, including modernization of the alliance’s nuclear capabilities and nuclear planning efforts to improve readiness for a range of potential contingencies.
Narang said the steps the U.S. has taken in the face of the growing challenges “may help incentivize our adversaries to engage in strategic arms control discussions.”
“However, if our adversaries continue to make choices that make them and the world less safe, the United States is prepared to do what is necessary to successfully compete to deter aggression and assure our allies in this new nuclear age,” he said. (Source: U.S. DoD)
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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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