Tiger's Claw

REAL-WORLD NEWS EXCERPTS

PACIFIC POWER MAY SHIFT WITH NEW CHINESE WEAPON—(The Washington Times, August 6, 2010): Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America’s virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China—an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 900 miles.

. . . The weapon, a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade, could revolutionize China’s role in the Pacific balance of power, seriously weakening Washington’s ability to intervene in any potential conflict over Taiwan or North Korea. It also could deny U.S. ships safe access to international waters near China’s 11,200-mile-long coastline . . .

THE SIMMERING STRATEGIC CLASH IN U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS—(Stratfor.com, January 20, 2011): . . . Beijing is compelled by its economic development to seek military tools to secure its vital supply lines and defend its coasts, the historic weak point where foreign states have invaded. With each Chinese move to push out from its narrow geographical confines, the United States perceives a military force gaining in ability to block or interfere with U.S. commercial and military passage and access in the region. This violates a core American strategic need—command of the seas and global reach.

But China cannot simply reverse course—it cannot and will not simply halt its economic ascent, or leave its economic and social stability vulnerable to external events that it cannot control. Hence we have an unresolvable strategic clash; tempers are simmering, giving rise to occasional bursts of admonition and threat. Yet unresolvable does not mean immediate, and both sides continue to find ways to delay the inevitable and inevitably unpleasant, whether economic or military in nature, confrontation.

LEANING FORWARD, BUT NOT OVERREACHING—(AirForce-Magazine.com, January 27, 2011): Air Force will design its new long-range bomber by leveraging the best of today’s technology and not trying to incorporate exceedingly risky approaches, USAF Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Philip Breedlove told lawmakers Wednesday. “One of the cost-savings approaches we have for this bomber is to not lean forward into technology that’s not proven, but bring our aircraft up to the current day’s standards,” he testified before the House Armed Services Committee. For instance, Breedlove said stealth technology has advanced much since the B-2 bomber came along through subsequent work on the F-22 and F-35. “So the new bomber will have better stealth capability, but not [by] making leaps forward that we can’t count on,” he explained. This same mind-set applies for the bomber’s avionics, information-gathering systems, and so on . . .

MORE FOR LESS—(AirForce-Magazine.com, March 3, 2011): Air Force scientists aim to demonstrate a 2,000-pound-class penetrating weapon that packs the same wallop as one of today’s 5,000-pound-class bunker busters, said Stephen Walker, who oversees USAF’s science and technology activities. This work, occurring under the new High Velocity Penetrating Weapon initiative, is meant “to reduce the technical risk for a new generation of penetrating weapons to defeat difficult hard targets,” Walker told House lawmakers Tuesday in prepared remarks. This weapon “will use a higher velocity impact to increase warhead penetration capability,” he explained. “Advanced technologies,” he continued, “will enhance weapon kinematics, ensure precision guidance in contested environments, and dramatically reduce the size of the overall weapon.” In fact, as a result, future fighters “will be able to deliver bunker-busting capabilities currently associated only with the bomber fleet,” he said . . .

WHAT WAR WITH CHINA WOULD LOOK LIKE— (AirForce-Magazine.com, March 28, 2011): If China attacks Taiwan in 2015 and the United States comes to the island’s rescue, the Air Force would have a tough fight on its hands, predict analysts with RAND Project Air Force. The “significant number” of modern fighters, surface-to-air missiles, long-range early-warning radars, and secure communication links that China is likely to have by 2015, coupled with Chinese capabilities to strike US bases in the western Pacific, would make the air campaign “highly challenging for US air forces,” they write in Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth, a recently issued RAND report. Improving US capabilities to attack China’s aircraft on the ground, “may be the most effective way to defeat China’s air force,” it states.

FORTIFYING GUAM’S INFRASTRUCTURE—AirForce-Magazine.com, April 14, 2011): The Air Force has a number of initiatives planned to bolster the resiliency of Andersen AFB, Guam, one of its strategic hubs in the western Pacific, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told lawmakers last week. For Fiscal 2012, plans are in place to harden infrastructure there, Schwartz told the House Appropriations Committee’s military construction panel. “That includes both facilities and, importantly, utilities,” such as “making sure that we have some redundancy and resilience in the fuel supplies,” said Schwartz. He said there also are plans to disperse Andersen assets “at outlying locations around Guam” in time of conflict . . .

USED USAF F-15S FOR ISRAEL?—(AirForce-Magazine.com, April 20, 2011): Israel may seek to procure a squadron of used USAF F-15s to bridge the anticipated gap until it receives its first F-35 strike fighters . . .

Though Israel inked a $2.75 billion deal with the United States for 20 F-35s last October—with an eye toward an eventual 75—delays in the overall F-35 program may push back the first Israeli deliveries by several years to as late as 2018 . . .

THE LAST GUNSLINGER (by Michael Behar, Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine, June/July 2010): . . . The economy is quashing spendy military ventures, and fifth-generation fighters are already suffering the wrath of the red pen . . . The ongoing F-35 development program, a relative bargain at $155 million per airplane, is already over budget and behind schedule, causing Congressional colic. Cutbacks to its $300 billion-plus program are virtually certain . . .

. . . “You don’t want to make an airplane be the Swiss Army knife of a fighter,” [78-year-old retired colonel Donn Byrnes, who got involved with the F-15 Eagle program in 1969] says. “I’m absolutely not in love with the idea. The F-35 is the worst nightmare of hardware idiocy. It does everything wrong. You need a long-legged fighter, not a short, fat one . . .”

CHINA REVEALS NEW AMRAAM—(by Wendell Minnick, Defense News, May 23, 2011): China has revealed a next-generation air-to-air missile (AAM) that the state-run People’s Daily called a “trump card” and a “secret weapon for gaining air superiority.”

. . . The new Chinese PL-12D AAM might use a new active/passive guidance system, said Richard Fisher, a China defense analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, an Alexandria, VA, think tank. “This kind of combined guidance system confers concealment/stealth advantages, while the passive mode also uses less battery power, allowing the missile to achieve its maximum range,” Fisher said.

“ . . . It is a troubling development,” Fisher said. “That the People’s Liberation Army could field an AAM featuring an active/passive guidance system potentially before the U.S. deploys the AIM-120D is not where we want to be.”

CYBERATTACKS CONSTITUTE AN ACT OF WAR—(www.Stratfor.com, May 31, 2011): The Pentagon on May 31 adopted a new strategy that will classify major cyberattacks as acts of war, meaning the United States for the first time can respond to such acts with traditional military force, The Wall Street Journal and AFP reported. The Pentagon’s first formal cyberstrategy concludes that the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to cyberspace, according to three defense officials who have read the document.

PRICE SMACKDOWN—(AirForce-Magazine.com, June 1, 2011): Boeing on Tuesday challenged Lockheed Martin’s recent comparison of F-35 strike fighter and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet prices. Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing Military Airplanes, called a telecon with defense reporters to rebut last week’s Daily Report entry in which Lockheed’s F-35 business development lead Steve O’Bryan said the F-35 will cost about $65 million in 2010 dollars, a figure that he said is “the same cost” as the Super Hornet. Chadwick said the F/A-18E/F actually costs $53 million in 2010 dollars, and that includes an advanced targeting system, APG-79 advanced electronically scanned array radar, helmet-mounted cueing system, and external fuel tanks. He also said the Super Hornet’s lower costs for production and sustainment are based on actual data versus “estimates” for the F-35. “Lockheed needs to be a little more true with their facts,” asserted Chadwick. Lockheed is assuming volume efficiencies on “aircraft that may never be built,” he said. The two-seat Super Hornet F model also offers superior situational awareness compared to the single-seat F-35, Chadwick claimed, adding that the two independent cockpits mean Super Hornet aircrew can assess and attack more targets simultaneously.

CHINESE WARSHIP INTERCEPTS INDIAN VESSEL—(Stratfor.com, September 1, 2011): An unidentified Chinese warship intercepted Indian amphibious assault ship INS Airavat in international waters in the South China Sea near Vietnam in July, according to unnamed sources close to the event, the Financial Times reported Sept. 1. The Chinese vessel demanded that the Indian ship identify itself and explain its presence. The Airavat had recently completed a scheduled port call in Vietnam.

LOOMING CUTS CAST CLOUD OVER AFA CONFERENCE—(by Dave Majumdar, Defense News, September 26, 2011): . . . The U.S. Air Force will not push the envelope as it historically has when developing new technology for future weapons because declining defense spending will reshape the military’s purchasing priorities.

“ . . . Future development efforts will have to be less ambitious because we cannot assume the kind of risk that past acquisition strategies have incorporated in their development plans,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norman Schwartz said Sept. 20. “While the Air Force has historically “advanced the state of the art” of technology, “we now must be more calibrated in pushing the technological envelope,” the general said.

“ . . . We must be ruthlessly honest and disciplined when operational requirements allow for more modest and less exquisite, higher confidence production programs,” he said.

CHINA: MILITARY OPPOSED TO INTERNATIONALIZING SOUTH CHINA SEA ISSUE—(Stratfor.com, September 28, 2011): China’s military authority reiterated Sept. 28 that attempts to internationalize the South China Sea issue would further complicate the matter, Xinhua reported. Any move meant to internationalize or multilateralize the issue will not help, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said, adding that China’s sovereignty over the islands in the sea and the surrounding waters is incontestable.