The sales of all F-14 parts were suspended on January 26 pending a review, the Defense Logistics Agency said in a statement. Dawn Dearden, a spokewoman for the agency, told AFP the sales were frozen “given the current situation in Iran.†Iran bought 79 F-14s from the United States before the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1979. The move comes amid growing U.S.-Iranian tensions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and what Washington sees as Iranian subversion of U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Not to mention Iranian agents have been fingered in the recent Iraq commando raid that killed five U.S. troops, according to The New York Times:
Investigators say they believe that attackers who used American-style uniforms and weapons to infiltrate a secure compound and kill five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20 may have been trained and financed by Iranian agents, according to American and Iraqi officials knowledgeable about the inquiry.
With a confrontation looming, the U.S. is trying to strangle the Iranian air force in advance of a bombing campaign. As I reported last year at Defense Tech, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force has managed to maintain or even increase its combat power despite embargoes:
All told, the IRIAF flies as many as 300 fighters. All are older designs, but have been maintained and, in many cases, upgraded by the indigenous aerospace industry, which has become proficient in reverse-engineering weapons and spare parts -- and perhaps even engines. And the IRIAF has aerial tankers too -- a force multiplier only the most advanced air forces maintain.
Iran's air defense network would be a tough nut to crack, even with our F-22 fighters and aircraft carriers. We could do it, of course, but probably not without loss. But then what?
And don't forget: there is still no direct evidence of state-sanctioned Iranian meddling in Iraq. If there is, our government hasn't entrusted us with it.
January has been a hell of a month for Defense Tech: traffic is through the roof, reader participation is way up, and the quality of material is at an all-time high. So here are the top five most popular posts for the month.
The Law Catches Up To Private Militaries, Embeds Since the start of the Iraq war, tens of thousands of heavily-armed military contractors have been roaming the country -- without any law, or any court to control them. That may be about to change, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow P.W. Singer notes in a Defense Tech exclusive.
Navy's Deadly New Darts David Hambling reveals a fearsome piece of hardware: a modified satellite-guided bomb, releasing thousands of darts, each carrying a payload of a powerful chemical called DETA.
Electric Lasers Shoot Mortars, Gain Strength Real-life laser weapons continue to inch closer to reality. Two recent examples: Raytheon says its "prototype solid-state Laser Area Defense System successfully detonated 60-millimeter mortars." And Northrop Grumman is opening up a new "directed energy production facility" for building high energy, solid-state lasers.
Second Nork Nuke Test Coming? I was skeptical when I heard the news that "senior defense officials" now think North Korea has "put everything in place to conduct a [second nuclear] test without any notice or warning." But the wonks over at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies are warning us: believe the hype.
China Space Attack: Unstoppable China has shown it can destroy a satellite in orbit. What could the U.S. do to stop Beijing, if it decided to attack an American orbiter next? Short answer: nothing.
And here, in no particular order, are ten posts that didn't get quite as many clicks, but really show off the best of the work being done at Defense Tech HQ:
"Non-Lethal" Viruses to "Neutralize" Cities Inside a Cold War plan to develop "biological agents" -- including ones that can lead to "inflammation of the brain, coma and death" -- for "incapacitating" enemies on the battlefield or "neutralizing hostile cities."
Cop Tech Key to Iraq Fight? All the talk is about more U.S. troops. But if there's going to be a shot in hell of winning the war in Iraq, it'll be up to the Iraqi police. And those cops will need to be equipped with the latest crime-fighting gear.
Mr. Plow Eagerly Awaits Nuclear War Step off, Al Gore! Eric Hundman has found a quick fix to global warming. All we need is a handful of nuclear weapons.
Behind the Ethiopian Blitz
David Axe examines how Ethiopia's tiny air force, which just four years ago was in danger of implosion, spearheaded the effort to drive Islamist militias out of southern Somalia.
Real Iraq Surge: Electronic Attack? Any U.S. military surge in Iraq will be far more than a troop increase. It'll include a slew of new technologies to interrupt and infiltrate insurgent networks.
New Army Camos: No Place to Hide? The Army's new uniform was supposed to blend into every environment -- from deserts to jungles to cityscapes. Has it lived up to the promise?
Merc Chopper Shot Down Blackwater should've seen it coming, that one of their copters in Iraq was bound to get blown out of the sky. David Axe explains.
Behind China's Sat-Killer Test Six posts, covering everything you wanted to know about Beijing's strike against a satellite, more than 500 miles up.
200 Years of "Mind Control" Countless thousands of people complain today about the government taking over their minds. But the problem goes way back -- to 1810, David Hambling explains. And not all of the claims are completely crazy.
Cat & Mouse in Cyberspace
Interesting news on the infowar front, in two parts. First, Declan McCullagh has stumbled onto a previously-undisclosed FBI Net-monitoring program that's "broader and potentially more intrusive than the FBI's [infamous] Carnivore surveillance system."
Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords...
Call it the vacuum-cleaner approach. It's employed when police have obtained a court order and an Internet service provider can't "isolate the particular person or IP address" because of technical constraints, says Paul Ohm, a former trial attorney at the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section...
That kind of full-pipe surveillance can record all Internet traffic, including Web browsing--or, optionally, only certain subsets such as all e-mail messages flowing through the network. Interception typically takes place inside an Internet provider's network at the junction point of a router or network switch.
The Global Islamic Media Front [recently] announced the imminent release of new computer software called "Mujahideen Secrets.. [allegedly] the first Islamic computer program for secure exchange [of information] on the Internet," and it provides users with "the five best encryption algorithms, and with symmetrical encryption keys (256 bit), asymmetrical encryption keys (2048 bit) and data compression [tools]."
The package "is comparable to any number of commercial products available here in the United States," says ZDNet blogger Mitch Ratcliffe. "The difference is an Islamist skin, which seems more a gimmick to inspire confidence in the software than a guarantee it will be effective."
But "'Mujahedin Secrets' is the latest example of the growing technical competence of online supporters of al-Qaida and other Islamic terror networks, but encryption capabilities are not new in the world of cyber-jihadis," IntelCenter's Ben Venzke tells UPI.
"This is consistent with the ongoing efforts of jihadist sympathizers online... Encryption is used by some (Islamic terrorists)" and some al-Qaida manuals have addressed the question.
He said encryption is "a standard part of the operational security practiced (online) by those (Islamic terrorists) who take the time to use it.
Armor Lack Behind Copter Crashes?
ThreeAmericanhelicopters have gone down in Iraq in a little more than a week. Is there anything behind this collection of crashes? Or is just lethal coincidence -- part of what happens when troops do something death-defying, over and over again? I asked Defense Tech pal ME, a former Kiowa Warrior pilot who served in Iraq, to weigh in with his thoughts.
I haven't heard of any reason as to why we're losing more lately, but we also haven't lost any in a long time prior to this - I think it's reflective of somewhat of the odds catching up to us and an increased combat operations tempo.
[That said], I would point out that US helicopters aren't that heavily armored. [Something David Axe noted about last week's Blackwater copter crash -- ed.] They have blocks of armor protecting some key parts of the engine, and crew compartments, but it's not nearly comprehensive. Most don't have flare systems, and their only active countermeasure against IR missiles is an ALQ-144 jammer. Relatively speaking, there is very little protection from direct small arms hits.
In my opinion, our greatest threat was from small arms and RPGs while operating at low altitude and low airspeed. My troop was under standing orders not to fly above 500 feet AGL (above ground level) or under 60 knots - and never hover unless absolutely necessary. At low altitude - we felt that it was key to minimize the time available to acquire us as a target. We used the ALQ's but at the time I was there, we didn't see much threat from SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]. Towards the fall of 2003 we did start getting more reports of SAM engagements - spiral smoke trails arcing up, rather than lob shots from RPGs, but in our flight regime, AK's and RPGs were the biggest threat.
The Kiowa Warrior... has very little armor [see the pics]. The Blackhawk is similar, and the Apache has relatively more. A friend of mine who was a troop commander in the (in)famous deep strike to kick off OIF said the only positive from that mission was that they learned that the Apache could soak up a lot of small arms fire and keep flying. When you look at the armor though, it's easy to see how a few small arms rounds in the wrong place can bring a bird down.
There are some other issues with the ALQ-144. Some of them are classified. Some are mundane: they're difficult to keep operational in the desert, and must be cleaned to be effective. They also must be turned off and on as part of a landing checklist (see my next point). The Blackwater birds don't appear to have them at all. If there are new supplies of SAMS coming in, they may be much more effective than RPGs and AKs.
…Complacency kills, especially in an environment as unforgiving as Iraq is. With high temps and flying at high gross weights, there is little performance margin. Combat maneuvers take power, and familiarity (read boredom) take their toll, even on experienced pilots. After a few months, I could fly from Baghdad to Al Asad without a map, and knew every neighborhood in between - and it made me too casual at times, about mission prep and procedures. As pilots go back for repeat tours, they may fall into that even more quickly.
"Since May 2003, the U.S. military has lost 54 helicopters in Iraq, about half of them to hostile fire," according to the AP.
You're Fired!
Navy chief Admiral Mike Mullen has fired the captain overseeing the Littoral Combat Ship program, Defense News reports:
Capt. Donald Babcock, the Navy’s LCS program manager, was relieved of his duties Jan. 29 by his boss, Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton – who also is being reassigned. Hamilton relieved Babcock due to “loss of confidence in his ability to command,†according to a Navy source, who added that Babcock would be reassigned to “administrative duties.â€
Both men got their pink slips after an audit revealed that the Lockheed Martin version of the LCS would come in at around $400 million, nearly double the target cost. Two weeks ago the Navy suspended work on the second LockMart LCS for 90 days, long enough to get new managers in place and, hopefully, put the fear of God in Lockheed Martin.
With 55 ships planned, the LCS is a lynchpin of the Navy's future fleet. The class is designed to work close to shore at high speeds and to carry "modular" weapons and sensors packets to enable it to swing between missions. The idea was to populate coastal waters with large numbers of LCSs anchored by a Zumwalt-class land-attack destroyer. But that concept is in jeopardy if the Navy can't keep down costs on both ships. Already the first Zumwalt is careening towards a $3-billion pricetag. Toss in cost overruns on the LCS and the Navy's future surface fleet is dead in the water.
Far from being discouraged, naval analyst Bob Work sees the pink slips and the work stoppage as positive signs. "The Navy needed to say it had a problem. The second thing they had to say was that we have to build affordable ships. Mullen has shown that he is dead serious about doing that."
Most of you probably know Xeni Jardin for her fun, flirty postings on the Boing Boing uberblog. But beneath the beneath the glam exterior is one bad-ass reporter.
Take the epic, five-part, multimedia series Xeni has put together for NPR, after spending a month in dirt-poor, war-ravaged Guatemala. "An estimated 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala's decades-long civil war, and another 100,000 'disappeared,'" she writes, to introduce the first installment. "Many survivors are still searching for the remains of their loved ones."
One group of forensic anthropologists is using technology to help the country come to terms with its past. For 12 years, the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) has been exhuming clandestine graves that hold victims killed in political massacres.
Most of the people killed in Guatemala's 36-year civil war were indigenous. The army's scorched-earth policy sometimes leveled entire villages.
In traditional Mayan culture, the dead and the living are believed to be in constant communication. For many thousands of Mayan people in Guatemala, however, their dead have never been able to rest. Neither have the relatives they left behind.
Now, archaeologists and anthropologists with the FAFG work to identify the human remains, record evidence for possible trials, and return the dead home for reburial.
You can listen to the audio for part one of the series here or here. And be sure to check out Xeni's narrated tour of the FAFG's facility here.
Micro Drones' Killer Intent
My recent piece on Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) in Wired News> traces a familiar pattern in the evolution of air warfare. When balloons were invented they were first used for observation, then for bombing. The first fragile biplanes flying over the trenches in WWI were unarmed, but within a few years they carrying machine guns and bombs. Unmanned Air Vehicles like Predator were flying reconnaissance for years before they were armed for strike missions. (UAV pedants note: the V-1 doesn’t count as it was only ever one-way)
So it’s not surprising that British SAS troopers should decide that rather than just spying on Taliban with their WASP micro air vehicles, they should be able to take them out. Sticking a small C4 charge on these toy-sized craft is a relatively crude approach, but one that should effectively convert them from silent spies to stealth assassins. And at $3,000 a time they are by no means the most expensive weapon around.
But, as the article explains, the US Air Force has much more ambitious plans for arming MAVs to take out installations, vehicles and people. They might initially be used individually like the SAS’s WASPs, but the obvious approach is to release swarms of them as I have previously described – networked robots forming an efficient single unit.
One area I did not have space for was the use of incendiaries, which can be far more effective than explosive pound-for-pound. This is real ‘fire-ant warfare’.
A single insect-sized MAV carrying a few milliliters of napalm would be a dangerous nuisance, especially indoors or inside a vehicle. Several dozen of them would be lethal, especially when they can locate stored fuel or ammunition. Just program them to look for those distinctive ‘danger inflammable’ signs
Similarly, thermite could give tiny robots a disproportionate destructive capability. A mixture of powdered metal and metal oxide, it burns at very high temperature (up to over 2,500 degrees centigrade), enough to turn most metals to liquid. It can burn through metal; in WWII, thermite charges were used as a quick way of disabling artillery. It would not take too much thermite to make an artillery barrel hazardous to use; and surface-to-air missile batteries are an obvious target.
One armed MAV, or ‘termite with thermite’, would not be too much of a menace, but dozens or hundreds could be effective, against even large installations. The small size of the warhead is offset by the extreme precision with which it can be placed by the sort of flying/crawling robot insect which the Air Force has in mind.
This should help put the earlier report on swarming robot cockroaches intended to attack underground installations into perspective. Such weapons are too indiscriminate to be used in an urban environment, but in an enemy bunker, everything is fair game. Stamp on one and the thermite will burn through your shoes and keep going...
Individual cockroaches can burn through grilles or other obstacles, making a way for the rest of the swarm. With their collective intelligence they can identify the complexes vulnerable points, and by combining together, they can destroy most things. When the lights in your bunker start to go out and the air fills with the smoke of burning insulation, how long would you hang around?
You'd think that the Defense Department's higher-ups would be happy, when their research agencies start demanding results from the scientists and engineers that they fund. Not necessarily. Inside Defense reports that the Pentagon's comptrollers have slashed Darpa's budget by $300 million -- about 10% - for the next fiscal year. Another $200 million is supposed to come off the top, the year after that. The reason: "A project management oversight structure introduced in DARPA... mandat[ing] that projects are reviewed at regular execution intervals to ensure that they are meeting defined program goals and objectives."
The switch "has resulted in more effective linking of resources to outcomes," according to "Program Budget Decision 704," an internal Defense Department document obtained by Inside Defense. Which would be a good thing, ordinarily. Except that Darpa hasn't been spending the money it's been given, apparently. While funding for the agency has gone up, up, up since 9/11, the number of program managers hasn't increased as fast. Combined with the new, results-driven process, that "has slowed execution of DARPA’s funding.... resulting in a significant decline in obligations and expenditures," says PBD 704. So what happened to all that excess cash? I haven't been able to get a straight answer, yet.
The subtext to all this wrangling is the leadership of Darpa chief Tony Tether. In the military research world, he's known as a hands-on manager -- a very, very hands-on manager. No item in his $3 billion budget is too small; even some of the names of Darpa research efforts require his approval. "Nothing happens without his say-so," one Darpa-funded researcher tells me.
That's a change for the agency, which has traditionally let its program managers -- and its researchers -- more or less follow their imaginations. Some current and former Darpa types mumble that the quality of research has been undermined, as a result; after all, "Darpa-hard" problems can take longer than six months to solve. But with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are sucking up more and more money, Defense research budgets are tightening up; demanding results doesn't seem like such a bad thing. We'll see how this one shakes out.
While PDB 704 takes from Darpa, it adds $300 million to the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. That's the widely-criticized effort to build new nukes -- a construction effort many sage observers thinks is completely unneeded.
T.M.I., Robo-Dude
That's "too much information," for those of you over the age of fourteen. These days, information superiority is supposed to make U.S. military forces faster, smarter and more lethal and able to defeat more numerous foes on their own turf. But how much information can one soldier process, and how fast can he make decisions?
Unmanned vehicles sporting sophisticated sensors are key suppliers of new and more voluminous streams of info to grunts on the ground. But in addition to potentially overwhelming customers with too much information, robots require regular input from their human masters.
That's a key problem facing the engineers responsible for developing the Army's human-robot interfaces. At the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in suburban Detroit, Gregory Hudas and his colleagues are trying to figure out what robots should be allowed to do on their own, and what they should ask permission for. The key factors are what human operators are comfortable with, and what they're capable of. "We must be aware of when they [soldiers] get overloaded."
To work out this problem, the folks at TARDEC have linked up two consoles representing the controls of a Future Combat Systems fighting vehicle. Each console boasts three tall touch-screen displays. At the center in front of a padded seat, there is a control stick similar to what you might see on an arcade game. The consoles include a simulation function, akin to a video game, that the TARDEC engineers use for tests.
On one screen, a TARDEC engineer representing an FCS crewman brings up an overhead map of the battlefield dotted with icons representing his vehicle and four robots that he's controlling. One is a Fire Scout aerial drone. The others are ground drones equipped with cameras and guns. On his other screens, the crewman can see what his robots are seeing in addition to what's outside his own vehicle. It's a massive amount of data for one man to process, and things are sure to get worse when he decides to send his drones on a reconnaissance mission, potentially forcing him to also coordinate the movements of five vehicles simultaneously while facing an elusive enemy on unfamiliar terrain.
Which is why the Army decided that each FCS vehicle would include two identical consoles. Side-by-side crewmen would share responsibility for all the functions described above. The Army believed that by coordinating their efforts, one two-man crew should be able to control 10 drones and keep up with all their data feeds.
But that's too many robots, Hudas says. Four drones is the realistic max. And a third crewman at an additional console is ideal. And that's assuming a minimal level of human intervention in the drones activities. Basically, you tell a drone what to do, confirm the command, then let it go. Now, if the drone wants to kill something, it's going to need a soldier's permission. But for surveillance and reconnaissance, it can make its own decisions. "With those applications," Hudas says, "we don't even want a soldier."
Thanks to TARDEC and other research organizations, the Army is making enormous strides in combining thinking men and thinking machines into one cohesive fighting force. That's the subject of a feature slated for our March issue. Stay tuned.
The Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor is the best fighter jet in the world. It's faster, longer-legged, more maneuverable and packs better sensors than anything else flying. But there's one inexcusable gap in its capabilities. Unlike even older fighters, the Raptor can only receive data from external sources; it can't send. Raptor pilots have to get on the radio and tell others what they see on their radars. This at a time when rapidly sharing information between planes, ships and ground forces is the arguably the key to U.S. military power.
I asked the Raptor jockeys at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base about this last year and they shifted uncomfortably in their seats while feeding me some line about how voice comms work just fine. Then they quiety stressed that fixes were being planned. Now those fixes are finally firming up, according to Aerospace Daily & Defense Report:
The F-22 Raptor's "embarrassing success" has created a need for rapid modification of the fighter, says Air Force Gen. Ronald Keys, chief of Air Combat Command. ACC wants a stealthy "tactical target network" data link that can quickly pass key parameters on enemy targets without giving away its position. In initial exercises, the F-22 "was much better at [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and absorbing signals than we had anticipated," Keys says.
Keys went on to say that fixes were planned for the 2008-2013 period, by which time all 180 Raptors should be in squadron service at Langley and in Alaska and New Mexico. The general didn't exactly specify which datalink would be fitted, but recent Air Force experiments, as reported in Defense News last summer, might offer a clue:
The proposed Tactical Targeting Network Technology (TTNT) proved its mettle during a recent two-week exercise in Nevada, allowing troops and military platforms to swap information with Internet-like speed and ease. F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets took in information about proposed targets, gathered sensor data, and sent it to ground stations to be fused with other data for more precise targeting, Boeing Advanced Systems President George Muellner said May 11. “And it’s all machine-to-machine,†Muellner said.
Machine-to-machine. That means automatic, hands-off, fast and easy. It lets the pilot focus on what pilots do best, flying airplanes, searching the sky and ground for targets with their own eyeballs, and making decisions about who to kill and when.
UPDATE 01/29/07 2:44 PM: "The stealthy Raptor fighter and intelligence-gathering aircraft is ready for war, but probably not the war we've got, Air Combat Command's chief, Gen. Ronald E. Keys, tells Aviation Week."
Essential electronic surveillance systems may be too sensitive--overwhelmed by the density of U.S. and allied emitters--to be useful in the electronically polluted environment of Baghdad, the main focus of the new U.S. military surge.
"If war breaks out, I'm sending the F-22," Keys said last week. But not for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. "I didn't buy the F-22 for Iraq. We're looking for what can sop up intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance [ISR] in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is the investment [of sending the F-22] worth it? Is it a good idea or just an attractive idea? Will it complicate the air component commander's problems for no gain?"
Long before the China launched its anti-satellite weapon, the U.S. military had an array of plans in place to research and develop technologies for combat in space. One of the best ways to track those plans is to check out the so-called budget "justification" documents the Defense Department puts out each year with its budget request to Congress.
Most of the money for space capabilities is in the Air Force budget, and space weapons funding now resides almost entirely in the "research, development, test and evaluation" portion of that budget. For those who want to follow along at home, the space-fight material is found in "Air Force RDT&E Volume II," pages 567-577 and 879-896.
Those two sets of pages contain the budget numbers, descriptions and even schedules for the Air Force's "Space Control Technology" and "Counterspace Systems" programs, respectively.
The Air Force requested $27 million for "Space Control Technology" R&D in fiscal year 2007, and $47 million for developing and acquiring the first "Counterspace Systems" that will deployed, such as the "Counter Satellite Communications System" and the "Rapid Identificaiton Detection and Reporting System," or RAIDRS.
The Air Force documents define "Space Control Technology" as systems aimed at "Space Situational Awareness (SSA), Defensive Counterspace (DCS), and Offensive Counterspace (OCS)."
SSA includes "monitoring, detecting, identifying, tracking, assessing, verifying, categorizing, and characterizing, objects and events in space," the documents state. "DCS includes defensive activities to protect U.S. and friendly space-systems assets, resources, and operations from enemy attempts to negate or interfere . . . [or] use U.S. space systems and services for purposes hostile to U.S. national security interests. OCS activities disrupt, deny, degrade or destroy space systems, or the information they provide, which may be used for purposes hostile to U.S. national security interests. Consistent with DOD policy, the negation efforts of this program currently focus on negation technologies which have temporary, localized, and reversible effects."
While the Space Control Technology program funds early-stage research and technology development, the Counterspace Systems program "supports the conduct of critical planning, technology insertion, and system acquisition in support of Air Force space control systems and associated command and control development to meet current and future military space control needs."
In other words, technologies that are nearing the point of deployment as weapon systems are funded in the Counterspace Systems program. That's the section of the budget where you'll find the Air Force's plans for the three space weapons that are closest to becoming reality. Here's what the Air Force says about the purposes of these specific systems, and when they'll be operational:
Counter Satellite Communications System: ". . . mobile/transportable counter satellite communications capabilities and associated command and control. . . . Includes architecture engineering, system hardware design and development, software design and integration, testing and procurement of capabilities to provide disruption of satellite communications signals in response to USSTRATCOM requirements."
The budget documents indicate "first-generation" counter satellite communications capabilities are already in place, while the "second-generation" capability will be built by 2011.
Rapid Identification Detection and Reporting System (RAIDRS): " . . . provide[s] attack warning, threat identification and characterization, and rapid mission impact assessments of U.S. space systems. This effort will investigate and implement the technical architecture, operational concept, support concept, training, verification (test), and deployment of a Rapid Attack Identification Detection and Reporting System (RAIDRS). Incremental capability deliveries are planned."
"Spiral 1" of RAIDRS will reach "initial operational capability" toward the end of this year, while "full operational capability" will occur at the beginning of 2010, according to the budget documents. Air Force contractors are scheduled to begin building "Spiral 2" in 2011.
Offensive Counterspace Command and Control (OCS C2): "This effort supports the development of command and control and mission planning capabilities in support of the fielding and employment of Offensive Counterspace (OCS) Systems. It provides for the integration and development of collaborative tools to link deployable OCS systems with Joint Warfighting C2 systems and to enable integrated planning and execution of the OCS mission. Developed capabilities will be integrated into the Space C2 Weapon System / Combatant Commanders' Integrated Command and Control System (CCIC2S)."
Delivery of the first OCS C2 capability will occur in 2008, according to the Air Force budget documents.
So Iran's Fars News Agency is parotingAviation Week's report, that Tehran is about to launch a satellite -- with "the liquid-propellant, 800-1,000-mi. range Shahab 3 missile, or the 1,800-mi. range, solid propellant Ghadar-110," to take the thing into space.
But take these stories with a big heap of salt, Defense Tech's Iran-watching friends remind us. Because reports coming out of Iran are notoriously fickle. In the fall of '05, the press was full of warnings that Iran was about to launch its 65-76 kilogram Mesbah satellite. The thing never made it off the ground. Instead, using a Russian launcher, Tehran sent its Sinah-1 recon satellite into orbit.
So what about this latest claim? "Count me as being very dubious but not totally disbelieving," says one sage observer. "I wouldn't want to say it's totally impossible, but at best you're talking about a very tiny satellite. The Shahab-3 is a single stage rocket, perhaps a little more than half as heavy as the Redstone" missile that was modified to put the first American itty-bitty satellite into orbit, in the '50s.
And that single-stage business is important to keep in mind, notes out pal the Robot Economist. "There is a reason why most [medium-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles] are multi-stagers - they need to drop as much mass during the boost phase in order to maximize their delta-v budgets [the velocity changes needed to get into orbit]. Iran and
North Korea have generally tried to extend the range of their rockets by increasing the size of their single stagers, because it doesn't require as much R&D and resources.
But if the Globalsecurity.org specs are right, the Iranian missile's delta-v is only about half of the 9-10 kilometers/second needed to get into low-earth orbit. "Unless the Iranians have done something amazing to mod up the power of the Shahab-3, which I haven't seen any reliable evidence of, that theoretical satellite is going nowhere," Mr. RE says.
And "we thought 'Kremlinology' was hard. Ha!" says one space-spotter. "At least there was Kremlinology," another replies. "I continue to despair that even though we have been grappling with the Mad Mullahs for over a quarter of a century there seems to have been no concerted systematic effort to try to reverse-engineer their operational code."
On Monday night, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate told guys like David Hambling and me that we were welcome to come check out its microwave-ish pain ray -- provided we could make it to the middle of Georgia on 36 hours' notice. It wasn't exactly the most serious offer, for fellows in London and in L.A. And it's one of several reasons why I decided not to blog about the demonstration, when word about it hit the wires yesterday.
But New Scientist did pick up on one interesting tidbit: Theodore Barna, an assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts told Reuters that "We expect the services to add it to their tool kit. And that could happen as early as 2010." (Here's a promo vid for the system.)
Three years from now, hunh? Well, we'll see. For years and years, there have been promises that the pain ray (or "Active Denial System" if you prefer) was just about to be rolled out to the field. Thirteen months ago, for example, the 18th Military Police Brigade requested ADS "to help 'suppress' insurgent attacks and quell prison uprisings." The head of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force said, after nearly 10,000 trial shots, the system was good to go. $30 million was allocated to outfitting three fighting vehicles with pain rays.
But the military still can't shake fears about ADS, as Hambling so ablynoted last month. As Hambling put it, "the big problem is not with the technology, which seems to work fine. The problem is getting people to accept it. Everyone is still worried the millimeter-wave beam is going to give them cancer, melt their eyeballs or make them sterile."
"An advanced concept, pioneered by BAE Systems' researchers, uses light to multiply the speed and power at which HPM [high-power microwave] pulses... Researchers predict leaps of 10-100 times in power output within two years," making it possible to generate the 100-gigawatt pulse needed "to disable a cruise missile at a useful range."
The development of HPM weapons has been hobbled for the last 30 years by seemingly intractable cost, size, beam-control and power-generation requirements. Tests of modified air-launched cruise missiles carrying devices to produce explosively generated spikes of energy were considered big disappointments in the early 1990s because of an inability to direct pulses and predict effects. New active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars can jam emitters or possibly cause damage to electronic components with focused beams. But power levels and ranges are limited by aperture size.
BAE Systems' photonically driven technology could open the way to much smaller and more powerful electronic jammers, nonkinetic beam weapons for cruise and anti-ship missile defenses, and stealth-detecting sensors.
"You could put a [sensor] system on a fighter-size aircraft that could generate enough power, with a 1-ft. resolution, to see stealthy objects at 100 mi." D'Amico says. "You can defeat stealth with enough power. If stealth takes the signature [of an aircraft or missile] down a factor of 10, you have to increase the [sensor's] power by a factor of 10." Most current fighter-size radars have less than a megawatt of peak power. Detecting stealth would require tens of gigawatts, which is now impossible in fighter-size packages...
"We have shown everything we claimed with a laboratory testbed," says Oved Zucker, director of photonics programs for BAE Systems' advanced concepts facility here. "We are in the process of demonstrating total power substantially above 10 gigawatts, and we have plans to test [the system] further in an airborne mode..."
There's no dearth of missions for HPM technology, including detecting and detonating improvised explosive devices, finding suicide bombers or hidden explosives, and attacking shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles...
"At one end, it can fry anything [electronic] that's out there," Zucker says. "The levels of EW extend from the sledgehammer to just making the [computer's] brain a little bit befuddled so it can't think for a moment. At a lower level, you can kill the detector of the other guy's radar as part of the suppression of enemy air defenses. You don't need much power because you're going after the most sensitive part. You're blinding the system."
The level below that is to momentarily stop electronics from functioning. A radar will try to defend itself by using a chain of circuits to "blink," and thereby shut out intruding signals. One method of exploitation is to do something during the blink. But if an intruding signal is fast enough, the radar can't react in time to keep out the invader...
BAE researchers envision HPM pulse weapons that are powerful enough to disable a tank, a missile, perhaps a helicopter or aircraft, but at the same time are small and light enough to function as part of a microwave radar sensor designed into the skin of an aircraft.
I'm sure this beam combo is harder than AvWeek is making it out to be. But still, it's an interesting concept.
Osprey Ready for Primetime? Part One
“It’s a great aircraft, powerful, stable, twice as fast as a Frog and goes over six times as far.†That’s Lieutenant General. John G. Castellaw, the Marine Corps’ Deputy Commandant for Aviation, comparing the new Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor to the 40-year-old Boeing CH-46 “Frog.â€
More than 20 years after beginning development, and seven years after a spate of crashes that killed 30 people, the $130-million-per-copy Osprey is finally prepping for its first combat deployment. One of the Marines’ two operational squadrons will head to Iraq or Afghanistan sometime this year. Meanwhile, deliveries continue to the Marines and the Air Force, with more than 50 aircraft in service against a planned total of 410.
Despite the Osprey program’s advanced state, critics are still calling for its cancellation. None have been more vociferous than the wonks at Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. On January 18, freelance writer Lee Gaillard presented his CDI-backed report V-22 Osprey: Wonder Weapon or Widow Maker. “This glitch-plagued program … is poised to reveal fundamental flaws that may cost even more lives.â€
* The Osprey is prone to stalling while descending at 800 feet per minute or faster
* The cabin is too small to haul the advertised two squads (around 26 Marines)
* The cabin isn’t pressurized, limiting how high it can fly with troops
* Its range is no greater than that of many heavy helicopter designs
* Lacking guns, it’s vulnerable in hot landing zones
Many of these flaws were revealed in the military’s operational evaluation that wrapped in 2005. Still, the Pentagon cleared the Osprey for service. Gaillard chalks this up to “unstoppable political momentum†resulting from the Bell/Boeing team lining up contractors in 45 out of 50 states.
Of course, the military contests Gaillard’s claims. It says that after the bugs were ironed out, the Osprey not only works – it’s revolutionary.
I'm on the fence. On one hand, I’ve been around long enough to know that defense contractors sometimes lie … and that the Pentagon sometimes lets them get away with it. On the other hand, last year I heard a similarly scathing CDI brief on the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter jet, a brief that didn't really match with what I saw, once I had paid a visit to a Raptor squadron to see for myself. So while the documents Gaillard offers as proof – military evaluations, Government Accounting Office reports (PDF!), etc. – I'd like to make up my own mind, thank you very much. In this series, I'll try to nail down: Is Osprey right for emerging missions in the Long War?
"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department," the Washington Times reports. "On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said."
The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a "nonpaid consultant," a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said.
Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides, who include close adviser Stephen Cambone, are sifting through the thousands of pages of documents generated during his tenure.
The Pentagon official said former secretaries are entitled to a transition office to sort papers, some of which can be taken with them for a library, for archives or to write a book.
The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Some question the size of the staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men.
Get Listed for Your Defense Tech Fix
There have been a whole bunch of fresh faces visiting the site, lately. So I want to make sure y'all know about my weekly-ish, insiders-only, e-mail newsletter. It gives folks a first look at articles I'm writing, and lets 'em know about updates to the site. If you dig Defense Tech, I'd strongly recommend you sign up here. (You'll need a Yahoo ID, which is a bit of a pain. But it'll be worth it, I promise.)
UPDATE 01/25/07 11:27 AM: Reader MS says "one doesn't necessarily need a yahooID to subscribe to your newsletter. Sending a mail to defensetech-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and then confirming it by replying to the following mail does the trick, as well."
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.â€
Last summer, I presented a briefing at the US Army Combined Arms Center Combat Studies Institute’s annual symposium. (full transcript of the conference) I also blogged about it here and here. In attendance at the conference, were such illustrious types as General David Petraeus, Dr. Lewis Sorely, Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, and many others. Granted I was the dim bulb in a room full of klieg lights, but it was interesting experience.
In my briefing, I proposed something very much like the president articulated last night. The crux of the problem is that about 97% of our standing national capacity to perform nation building operations in environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan resides within the military reserves. Most of these units are Army Reserve Civil Affairs units. There are about 7,000 civil affairs billets in the reserves. So a nation of 300 million relies on 7,000 military reservists whom we hope have all the skills we need to perform the stability-and-support, “Phase IV†operations. Four years into Iraq and the electrical grid is still in shambles. As a nation, we can do better.
Clearly our national approach to nation building isn’t working. We don’t have time to build this capacity after the shooting stops or the enemy regime tumbles. Iraq has demonstrated that our reconstruction capability needs to be in place quickly to pacify the civilian population. We have great organizations like USAID performing some of this role, but the American government is not configured to be expeditionary in nature. We need to change.
The military has tried some solutions to this problem like requiring that all reservists register their civilian skills with the military. This is a good idea, but a band-aid at best. In effect, we are relying on a crapshoot to determine if we have the skilled professionals we need in the military to rebuild war-shattered nations. We are hoping that the officers and enlisted men who joined the Army in the 80’s and 90’s have matured into the fire and police chiefs that we brag about having today.
I proposed that we create a standing force of skilled civilians as an augmentation to the military reserves. The same legal protections that apply to military reservists would be extended to these civilians. They would train like reservists and be available for deployment like reservists. They would join with the understanding that they could be put in harm’s way. Many in the blogosphere scoffed at the idea that we would be able to recruit people for this mission, but I believe that in the post 9-11 world many Americans are looking for a way to get in the fight besides going to the mall.
Having this standing capability might also ease our reliance on contractors or the ad-hoc nature that characterized the establishment of the CPA in Iraq. If we are truly engaged in a “generational struggleâ€, then we need to configure our government for it. We wished away “nation building†with political rhetoric in the 2000 election, and now it is time to face reality and enhance our capacity to do it right.
UPDATE 1:55 PM: "I've worked on this issue for many years on and off the Hill," says The White House Project's Lorelei Kelly. The origins can be found (with all due respect, Kris) "in the Clinton era, with the Office of Transition Initiatives."
The Clinton folks wrote the roadmap for complex contingency operations through a set of four presidential directives. Sadly, the new National Security Council threw them all out upon coming to office and so lost some of the most important institutional memory they could have had for subsequent policy crises.
This is an important innovation in government because it operationally begins to re allocate the division of labor away from the military and to civilians, as it should be. The military should not be doing many of the tasks that have accrued to it...but it is a problem solving and manpower heavy organization that does not say "no." Also, I welcome the addition of more civilians working as international public servants. These are jobs that belong in a long overdue discussion about the essential role of government in today's world....the reason the Blackwaters and other private military companies have thrived so during the past decade is not a question of whither mercenaries, its a fat and lazy elected leadership that REFUSES to have this conversation because the easiest budget box to check is to fund the defense budget at any outrageous level...
If we don't talk about the roles and missions of our agencies post 9/11 there will be no end to the spending, and we'll have both the Cold War hangover and legacy budget with an ineffectual grab bag of personnel and tools...all over militarized, and all to our own detriment.
Stressing Iran's preparedness, state television said the Revolutionary Guards planned to begin three days of testing the short-range Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles Sunday. It could not be confirmed if the exercise had begun near Garmsar city, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran.
"The maneuver is aimed at evaluating defensive and fighting capabilities of the missiles," the report quoted an unidentified Guards commander as saying.
Last year, Iran held three large-scale military exercises to test what it called an "ultra-horizon" missile and the Fajr-3, a rocket that it claims can evade radar and use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously. (emphasis mine)
When I first read this, I practically fell out of my chair laughing. For those unacquainted with the Fajr-3, it is spin-stabilized artillery rocket based with a range of about 50 miles. It is typically fired out of tubes mounted on the back of a truck, similar to the classic Katyusha. Iranian generals have tried to pass off the Fajr family of rockets off as some sort of medium range ballistic miracle before, which I imagine was greeted with a healthy amount of skepticism.
The only way an unguided rocket like the Fajr could avoid radar is if it was fired in a really low arc. The efficacy of this option is very limited, however, because it drastically reduces the rocket's range. The MIRV is just silly. The only way that rocket is going to strike a target in multiple times is if it breaks up in mid-air.
By the way, the Fajr also provides a excellent case of why Wikipedia isn't always the greatest source of information. Some poor sap named ArmanJan created a profile for a Fajr-3 ballistic missile based on the erroneous San Diego Trib article I linked to. Check out the discussion page for lots of great back and forth between him and the heroes that defend Wikipedia's veracity on a daily basis.
If that wasn't enough to crack a smile on your face, just look at how inconsistent the AP story is with a CBS.com story on the same subject:
The Iranian military on Monday began five days of maneuvers near the northern city of Garmsar, about 62 miles southeast of Tehran, state television reported. The military tested its Zalzal-1 and Fajr-5 missiles, the TV reported.
The Zalzal-1, able to carry a 1,200-pound payload, has a range of 200 miles, making it able to hit anywhere in Iraq or U.S. bases in the Gulf as well as into eastern Saudi Arabia. The Fajr-5, with a 1,800-pound payload, has a range of 35 miles.
Neither could reach Israel, but Iran is known to have missiles that can. It is not known if either missile tested Monday is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. (again, emphasis added)
To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "Oh my goodness gracious." 1,800 pound payload? I think I will go with Globalsecurity.org and the Nuclear Threat Initiative's more conservative payload estimate of 90 kilograms (about 200 pounds).
As for the nuclear question, I think that even 1,200 pounds is a bit light for basic gun-type payload. We managed to get our kiloton W9 and W19nuclear artillery shells down to 850 and 600 pounds, respectively, but I don't know if the Iranians are anywhere near that level of technical prowess yet.
UPDATE 11:33 AM: Now the Mullahs are claiming they've got a hand-launched UAV, too.
“Researchers in this company have for the first time designed and built four-kilo (nine-pound) hand-launched aircraft,†Rasool Peyghambari, director of aeronautics company Asr-e Talai Factories told the ISNA news agency.
“These aircraft are unique in the country and they are as good as the best and most efficient ones internationally,†he said, adding “we prefer to display its capabilities after operational testsâ€.
This isn't really my areas of expertise. But Armscontrol.ru has a extended article on Iranian drones, with pictures and data. Needless to say, I don't think they can compete with our snappy F-22 Raptor RC plane, let alone the RQ-11 Raven UAV.
UPDATE 11:433 AM:Check out Jane Vaynman's take on the trouble brewing for Iran's psycho president.
Merc Chopper Shot Down (Updated)
The tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries fighting alongside coalition soldiers in Iraq aren't just tooling around in up-armored SUVs sporting submachine guns. These guys have got helicopters too that they use to escort convoys -- and one of them has just been shot down over Baghdad, according to the Associated Press:
Five civilians died in the Baghdad crash of a helicopter owned by the private security company Blackwater USA, according to a U.S. military official. The helicopter was shot down Tuesday over a predominantly Sunni neighborhood, a senior Iraqi defense official said. The crash came three days after a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad, killing all 12 soldiers aboard.
Blackwater should have seen this coming. Unlike U.S. military helicopters, which are armored and equipped with countermeasures to defeat shoulder-fired missiles, Blackwater's McDonnell Douglas MD-369FF Loaches are essentially defenseless, unless you count the two mercs hanging out the cabin doors with their rifles.
Note that Blackwater's choppers -- which fly from the same Green Zone helipad used by the U.S. Army and Marines -- are just civil versions of the Hughes OH-6 Cayuse that the Army began phasing out after the Vietnam War due to their vulnerability. U.S. Special Forces fly updated H-6s, but only at night, when it's safer. It's not clear what time of the day the Blackwater bird was shot down, but I've witnessed these choppers buzzing around in broad daylight.
It's too early to tell what this shoot-down means for Blackwater and for merc ops in Iraq. But one thing's for sure: with the military struggling to scare up another 20,000 troops for its so-called "surge," the demand for private soldiers isn't going away.
UPDATE 1/24/07: Four of the dead Blackwater men were apparently killed execution-style, perhaps after surviving the chopper crash, while the fifth was a member of a second chopper crew also at the site of the crash. All this according to the Associated Press:
In Washington, a U.S. defense official said four of the five killed were shot in the back of the head but did not know whether they were still alive when they were shot. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. ...
Another American official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three Blackwater helicopters were involved. One had landed for an unknown reason and one of the Blackwater employees was shot at that point, he said. That helicopter apparently was able to take off but a second one then crashed in the same area, he added without explaining the involvement of the third helicopter.
The New York Times, citing unnamed American officials, reported that the helicopter's four-man crew was killed along with a gunner on a second Blackwater helicopter.
Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, an industry group that includes security contractors, said the type of helicopter downed, known as a "little bird," is among the safest modes of transportation in war zones.
"Their crews are the best -- they really know their stuff," he said in an e-mail. "They are very good at avoiding fire, flying low and fast -- and the tiny helicopters are very hard to hit."
Doug is a nice guy. But I'll put my money on Axe as the more objective observer.
UPDATE 01/24/07 11:07 AM: Robert Young Pelton has details on the incident -- and recent footage of Blackwater choppers in action.
Today's problems aren't nearly so severe, in comparison. Since th invasion of Iraq, "more than 700 US soldiers have been infected or colonized with [the bacteria] Acinetobacter baumannii," Steve Silberman reports in the current Wired magazine. "The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has recorded seven deaths caused by the bacteria in US hospitals along the evacuation chain."
But it's the way that the American military officials have dealt with the bug's release that's particularly disturbing. "For a long time, the DoD claimed that the bacteria... was a naturally occurring organism in the Iraqi soil that infected soldiers when they were wounded by IEDs," Silberman tels Defense Tech. "As you'll see, this is not the case, and the DoD has known the true source of the infections -- the combat support hospitals in Iraq themselves -- for over a year and a half."
One marine's mom was told her son died of "injuries as a result of enemy action." Turned out, it was Acinetobacter, instead.
Now, this isn't the first time the military has mislead families about how their kin were killed. Pat Tillman is probably the most famous example of this in recent years. First, the Tillmans were told he died from enemy fire; then, from friendly; now, murder isn't being ruled out. But there are many, many others. The question is: Why lie?
So Beijing has finally owned up to blasting one of their satellites out of orbit -- althogh a foreign ministry spokesperson says that "the test is not targeted at any country and will not threaten any country."
But space-tracker Sven Grahn, over on the FPSPACE list, is wondering why the Chinese bothered to hit the sat in the first place. After all, he notes, Beijing didn't have to destroy its orbiter, in order to prove its satellite-killer worked.
The Chinese could have put up a a target satellite with a miss-distance indicator and then launched the ground-based interceptor to fly really close without destroying the target. But who would have noticed? US intelligence perhaps - but what could the US have said? "A Chinese missile came very close to a Chinese satellite!" So what would the general public say? They could say: "just another unsubstantiated accusation from the Pentagon!" The Chinese would not want to announce such a test. To prove that it was effective they would have had to release test data. They also want to keep up appearances that they only want to use space for peaceful purposes.
So, the Chinese decide to really hit a satellite and create a huge cloud of debris. The U.S. detects the intercept and releases the [debris information], provid[ing] the general public with hard evidence that the test really occurred. This raised the credibility of the U.S. And the Chinese are happy because the message they wanted to send to the world has gotten out - loud and clear.
This sort of subterfuge is one of several reasons why Joe Buff thinks that the anti-satellite (ASAT) test wasn't just some rogue operation -- it was authorized from the top. President Hu Jintao "is head of state, commander in chief, and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party all rolled into one," Buff reminds us. "The People's Liberation Army makes sure that the CCP stays in total control of the nation. The General Political Department of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] has commissars everywhere who make sure the armed forces stay absolutely loyal to the Party. So no way was Mr. Hu clueless on any front in this ASAT brouhaha."
This isn't China's only space controversy, long-time satellite-watcher Peter Brown notes in a fascinating piece for the Washington Times. "The loss of another Chinese satellite in early November is causing headaches as well, something that China would prefer to keep quiet."
This involved a spanking new Chinese communications satellite, the largest ever built to date by China. Known as Sinosat-2, it was launched on October 29 and weighed more than 5 tons. In a matter of days, however, any celebrating ended rather abruptly. Sinosat-2 suffered a complete failure and soon was hurtling back into the earth's atmosphere...
Despite initial reports that Sinosat-2 was experiencing problems, Chinese space officials elected to remain silent for two weeks or more -- until late November -- until accounts of this Chinese satellite in distress began appearing in the Asian press...
Why was China reluctant to admit that Sinosat-2 was in serious trouble? First, this satellite represented China's first flight of its new Dongfanghong or DFH-4 spacecraft bus. Second, Sinosat-2 was the first of a new generation of jamming-resistant satellites created by China after satellite broadcasts were jammed in 2002. These incidents were characterized by the Chinese government as deliberate acts of sabotage carried out by the outlawed Falun Gong involving a satellite known as Sinosat-1.
This is a new piece of Navy hardware: a modified satellite-guided bomb, releasing thousands of darts, each carrying a payload of a powerful chemical called DETA. It sounds fearsome, but it's a new countermine technology for taking out mines in the surf zone which I describe in New Scientisthere.
One of the interesting features is the .50-caliber Venom dart, which hits at relatively low velocity, but can still go through ten to twelve feet of water or two feet of stand and retain its effectiveness. The secret is in the blunt nose: it’s another one of those cavitating designs, a relative of the Russian Shkval and its Iranian cousin that caused so much stir last year. These form a bubble around themselves to reduce water friction, and as a result the Venom dart goes way deeper than a conventional design.
Perhaps more significant is how effective it is against sand – making it a kind of miniature version of Lockheed’s bunker-busting Cavity Penetrator I described in 2005. However, the big difference is that sand can act as a fluid, whereas hard rock – which the Lockheed design is supposed to glide through at high speed - is another matter. My suspicion is that this approach will not work well in solids, and we will see if Lockheed can make good on their claims of increasing penetration thriough rock by a facot of five or more.
The Office of Naval Research design releases the cloud of darts from a thousand feet or so, but they all impact in an area just sixty feet across. That in itself is an indication of the level of precision guidance which is now possible with this technique – one which might be adapated for a other munitions attacking small targets without collateral damage.
The other interesting thing about the Venom dart is this idea of neutralizing ordnance by chemicals means. Of course it’s been tried before, but in this case there seems to be a genuinely effective means of delivering it from a safe stand-off distance. It would not take too much brilliance to design a hand-held launcher for the darts, a useful option for quickly and reliably dealing with mines and IEDs without having to get close to them.
I guess I'm the last person on the Web to learn about Jeff Han's straight-outta-Minority Reportmulti-touch screens. But add me to the just about endless list of folks who find the displays beyond cool -- almost like a dream about how computers should look and act. (Here's a video of Han and the screens in action.)
In this month's Fast Company, Defense Tech pal Adam Penenberg has the lowdown on how the screens came to be -- and where we might see them in the future. Not surprisingly, the Defense Department is extremely interested. Here's a snip from Adam's story:
Suppressing a smile, Han told the assembled brain trust that he rejects the idea that "we are going to introduce a whole new generation of people to computing with the standard keyboard, mouse, and Windows pointer interface." Scattering and collecting photos like so many playing cards, he added, "This is really the way we should be interacting with the machines." Applause rippled through the room. Someone whistled. Han began to feel a little bigger.
But he was far from finished. Han pulled up a two-dimensional keyboard that floated slowly across the screen. "There is no reason in this day and age that we should be conforming to a physical device," he said. "These interfaces should start conforming to us." He tapped the screen to produce dozens of fuzzy white balls, which bounced around a playing field he defined with a wave of the hand. A flick of a finger pulled down a mountainous landscape derived from satellite data, and Han began flying through it, using his fingertips to swoop down from a global perspective to a continental one, until finally he was zipping through narrow slot canyons like someone on an Xbox. He rotated his hands like a clock's, tilting the entire field of view on its axis--an F16 in a barrel roll. He ended his nine-minute presentation by drawing a puppet, which he made dance with two fingers.
But Han is doing more than just designing the next generation of computer interfaces. He's also got a pair of contracts with Darpa...
...including one involving visual odometry: Modeling his work on the brain of a honeybee, Han has been looking for ways to make a computer know where it has been and where it is going -- part of an attempt to build a flying camera that would be able to find its way over long distances. Han has also made it to the second round of a DARPA project to create an autonomous robot vehicle that can traverse terrain by learning from its own experiences. The goal: to perfect an unmanned ground combat vehicle that could operate over rough trails, in jungles or desert sand, or weave through heavy traffic as if it had a skilled driver behind the wheel.
Who Ordered the Satellite Strike?
I spoke with John Pike, the long-time military space observer and director of GlobalSecurity.org, shortly after the news broke that the Chinese had destroyed a satellite, more than 500 miles above the Earth. He wondered how much "adult supervision" there had been of the sat-killer test. Perhaps this was a small group of China star warriors looking to teach the U.S. a lesson, he mused -- not a big, strategic move from the chiefs in Beijing.
Now, there have been lots of theories about why China decided now to conduct their anti-satellite test. Maybe it was a way to scare the Bush administration back to the negotiating table. Maybe it was done to compete with India's recent ballistic missile test. Maybe it was a designed to show the U.S. how costly an intervention on Taiwain's side would be. (The CIA is "especially concerned," because "the Chinese have become so adept at camouflage," according to Aviation Week.)
Today's analysis in the New York Times, however, seems to lend credence to Pike's guess. "Bush administration officials said that they had been unable to get even the most basic diplomatic response from China," the paper says. Those American officials "were uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were fully aware of the test or the reaction it would engender."
The American officials presume that Mr. Hu was generally aware of the missile testing program, but speculate that he may not have known the timing of the test. China’s continuing silence would appear to suggest, at a minimum, that Mr. Hu did not anticipate a strong international reaction, either because he had not fully prepared for the possibility that the test would succeed, or because he did not foresee that American intelligence on it would be shared with allies, or leaked.
In an interview late Friday, Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, raised the possibility that China’s leaders might not have fully known what their military was doing.
“The question on something like this is, at what level in the Chinese government are people witting, and have they approved?†Mr. Hadley asked.
Last week, I described China's satellite strike as "next-gen," and America's ability to fend off such an attack however somewhere around zero. After all, there's never been a direct ground-to-space satellite smack; and the Air Force itself says such defenses are improbable, at best.
But veteran space analyst Jim Oberg says the anti-satellite test was a little easier than it looked. And there may be some defenses, after all. Because there's a big difference between a "satellite-killing demonstration and the needs of a real weapon — one that would be a genuine threat to other countries' satellites," he notes.
Now it's important to keep in mind that the Chinese carefully timed the launch of their kinetic kill vehicle so that it would intercept the known position and orbit of the satellite it was aiming for—intercepting a target in an arbitrary orbit is a much more difficult proposition...
The missile's kill mechanism is that of a bullet: It crashes head-on into a target moving at 28 000 km/hr, adding its own speed to the total impact velocity...
The Chinese targeted a low-orbiting, obsolete, weather satellite, where the kinetic kill energy was very great. However, the really strategic satellites fly much higher — the [GPS] navigation network is 20 000 km up... [T]he orbital velocities [there] are so much lower that the impact energy would be only about a tenth as high as in last week's test.
Distance introduces a second burden: terminal navigation. When a target satellite is close to the Earth, ground radars can track it and relay final course corrections, both to the rocket during its ascent and to the kill vehicle, once it has been deployed on its hoped-for collision course. Radar operates at an inverse fourth power law, which means that for the Chinese system to aim many times farther than low Earth orbit—as it would have to do to track objects geosynchronously—the demands on a ground-based radar would be simply impossible...
Nor are space targets helpless victims to such kinetic kill attacks, especially at higher altitudes... [A] target satellite can take steps to interfere with the attacker obtaining a workable targeting solution, and the farther from Earth the attack occurs, the more the odds favor the target.
Objects can hide in space, to a greater or lesser degree, by lowering their radar reflectivity or optical brightness along the attacker's expected line of approach. This makes terminal navigation and guidance more difficult. That effect can be augmented with decoys, which can either be deployed when an attack is detected or can be sent, as a matter of routine, to fly in formation with the high-value target. A decoy doesn't have to be a throwaway subsatellite, it could be an inflatable spar a few tens of meters long with a pseudo-target at the end to attract the on-rushing kinetic kill vehicle away from the real spacecraft. Such a decoy could be deployed in a matter of minutes, and even re-stowed afterwards for future re-use.
Even the simple suspicion that a target may have such a capability would discourage a potential attacker. And the realization that a target might also be able to detect and characterize even a failed attack would be an additional deterrent. There would be no way for the attacking country to get away with attempted mayhem.
Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, or UCAVs, have a rather sad history in the U.S. military. When the General Atomics RQ-1 Predator proved, in the 1990s, that you could arm a medium-sized surveillance drone with air-to-ground weapons and turn it into an elusive, lethal and relatively cheap hunter-killer, folks in the Pentagon got real excited. They wanted to take that basic concept, throw some money at it and see what happened if you designed a drone from the ground-up to be a killer. Boeing was working on one of these so-called UCAVs, the X-45, for the Air Force. Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, had the X-47, which was beefed up for Navy use. Both programs were joint efforts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. Looking to boost economies of scale, in 2003 the Pentagon brought both X-planes into the same program, called Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System. As J-UCAS picked up steam, Darpa relinquished control in 2005 and the military took over. A fly-off was imminent. The future looked bright.
Then, without warning in January 2006, the Air Force dropped out, effectively killing J-UCAS. The service said it had decided to focus money and effort on the new Long-Range Strike program to develop a new (perhaps unmanned) bomber. But folks inside the Boeing X-45 office said that was a load of bull and advanced their theories: that the Air Force was scared that the cheap, smart and lethal UCAVs might threaten the manned Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning fighter and start putting fighter pilots out of business; or that the Air Force was uncomfortable sharing technology with the Navy and letting the sea service call any shots in the UCAVs’ designs. (Navy airplanes have to be considerably bulkier and heavier than Air Force planes in order to survive repeated aircraft carrier launches and recoveries.)
Whatever the reason, the Navy was left to salvage something from J-UCAS. They renamed the program, first to N-UCAS for “Naval†then to UCAS-D for “Demonstration.†And they announced their intention to keep both industry teams in the running. It’s taken an entire year for the Navy to piece UCAS-D together; the request for proposals is due any day now. But whether it will eventually produce a real live combat aircraft is anybody’s guess. Technological hurdles are few – but cultural, fiscal and organizational obstacles abound.
Sources inside the Boeing X-45 program say that the office has been effectively split in two, with some staff still surviving on remaining J-UCAS funds and others spending company money while awaiting the Navy contract. Problem is, these two camps are prohibited from working together, for political reasons. And those residing the viable Navy half of the office are apparently being rather mismanaged – encouraged to do advanced work on X-45 despite the contract and prospects for government money being some months away. That’s risky, especially in light of the tenuous health of Boeing’s other drone programs, which have been stripped of people and money in order to keep UCAS-D going. No word on whether Northrop Grumman is suffering similar in-fighting. Probably not, considering that X-47 has long been Navy-optimized and also bearing in mind the firm’s tremendous success with the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone.
After a bullish decade, aerial drones are getting a reality check. The Pentagon has cast its lot with manned fighters over UCAVs and the Army is cutting in half its portfolio of future airborne drones in order to save cash; meanwhile, the Air Force seems to prefer a manned bomber for the Long-Range Strike mission. But if the Navy stands by UCAS-D, drones’ future just might turn around.
My Popular Mechanics piece on ‘bioelectromagnetic’ weapon reseach is now online, and as Sharon Weinberger’s intriguing Washington Post article last week made clear, there has been a great deal of military research into the area of "mind control" (though they would prefer to use the term "behavior modification.")
Many people believe they are being targeted by such weapons. Certainly it's a growing phenomenon in the U.S.:
''In the United States, you don't see nearly as many mentally ill people anymore who have delusions and hallucinations with regard to God and the saints as you did 20 or 30 years ago, when I first doing this work. In our secular society, it's more a matter of, well, the President or the C.I.A. is affecting my behavior by radio waves or microwave receivers in my teeth.''
But the problem goes way back. One case from London was James Matthews, who said he was being influenced by an implant in his head by a gang using a weird electromagnetic device. This group, one of many, he called the Air Loom Gang, and among the tortures they inlicted on him were implanting thoughts ('kiteing'), stopping him from speaking ('fluid locking’), cutting his circulation ('sudden death squeezing’) and ‘brain lengthening’ which would 'cause good sense to appear as insanity, and convert truth to libel'.
So far so typical, except that the case was described in 1810 by John Haslam, the apothecary at the notorious ‘Bedlam’ – correctly the Bethlehem Hospital , the original lunatic asylum. This was the first ever full length clinical description of a single patient, one apparently suffering from delusions of control.
So was Matthews simply a lunatic? Bedlam staff said so, but two doctors declared him completely sane. It seems that Matthews was not incarcerated on medical grounds but on the orders of Lord Liverpool, the Home Office minister, who Matthews had accused of being part of a nefarious plot.
Matthews claimed he had been negotiating a peace settlement with France and had been betrayed. Oddly enough, some of Matthews’s story appears to be true; when his mission to Paris failed the French threw him into prison. He behaved quite sanely; in Bedlam Matthews learned architectural drawing, and drew up plans a new hospital building. The Governors gave him £30 for his work and some of the features of his design were incorporated into the new Bedlam. His family maintained he was eccentric but sane.
Haslam’s account of Matthews – “Illustrations of Madness: Exhibiting a Singular Case of Insanity…†was intended to prove that Matthews really was mad. But Matthews kept his own notes on his treatment, notes which found their way to a committee investigating Bedlam some time after his death. These undoubtedly influenced the committee's decision to dismiss Haslam and order that patients should be treated more humanely in future.
If Matthews was the victim of a plot, what about the infernal engine which afflicted him, the mind-control machine he called the Air Loom? According to Matthews, it sent out ‘invisible magnetic rays’ which influenced a magnet implanted in his head and produced many diagrams of it . We may fairly assume that this was a reflection of the fashionable interest in mesmerism and ‘animal magnetism’ of this period. The alternative is that he was trying to describe advanced technology in an age before the discovery electromagnetic radiation or the electrical nature of the nervous system - and that way surely lies madness.
The case has many parallels with the modern descriptions of 'gang stalking' recounted in Sharon's article and suggests that the situation is a complex one. And if bioelectromagnetic weapons ever actually reach the stage of being fielded, then simply labeling people who claim they are being targeted as 'crazy' will no longer be an option.
UPDATE 3:20 PM: These days lots of people are also worried about the effects of electromagnetic smog. Until scientists like the bioelectromagnetics researchers get to grips with this it will reamin with the fringe, like the makers of this anti-EM spray.
And for an musical last word, it's hard to beat this.
Having a weapon that can disable or destroy satellites is considered a component of China’s unofficial doctrine of asymmetrical warfare. China’s army strategists have written that the military intends to use relatively inexpensive but highly disruptive technologies to impede the better-equipped and better-trained American forces in the event of an armed conflict — over Taiwan, for example...
Some analysts suggested that one possible motivation was to prod the Bush administration to negotiate a treaty to ban space weapons. Russia and China have advocated such a treaty, but President Bush rejected those calls when he authorized a policy that seeks to preserve “freedom of action†in space. Chinese officials have warned that an arms race could ensue if Washington did not change course.
Now, Beijing officials aren't even admitting they destroyed the orbiter, yet. But the China Matters blog uncovers a post by a self-proclaimed Chinese soldier, who seems to reinforce the scare-'em-into-cutting-a-deal motive:
This overweening country [the USA] began to regard space as its own back yard. The national space policy it announced in 2006 nonchalantly regarded space as its private property. At the same time, when China at the United Nations proposed a special international organization to resolve the actual problems of a space arms race that were being faced, the United States, acting as a country far in the lead in space, vehemently opposed, saying that there was no arms race in space...
We hope... [this] will smack the American carnivores back to reason. History shows us that if you don't hit Americans, they aren't willing to sit down at the negotiation table.
UPDATE 01/21/07: Last week's test has given a "shiver of hope" to the "nation’s star warriors, frustrated that their plans to arm the heavens went nowhere for two decades despite more than $100 billion in blue-sky research," Bill Broad says in a tart opinion piece.
Just to update you all: last Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine published a cover story I’d been working on for the past number of months about an extremely large group of people who believe the government is targeting them as part of a "mind control" campaign.
I wrote a brief item here last weekend, and Noah suggested that I check back in a few days and post an update with the response to the article. Well, let’s just say life is an adventure, and the article has elicited strong reactions.
What response? Well, first there are the 75 or so blog entries related to the story, the online discussion and the nine full pages of comments appended to the Washington Post Magazine article, most from people who say they are victims of mind control. There are also some notable reactions here at Defense Tech; and my e-mail inbox (by the way folks, Gmail was wrong about "never deleting another e-mail" -- my account has hit its limit).
Reactions came at two extremes: There were a number of "TIs" (short for Targeted Individuals) who graciously thanked me for writing their story, and then there were skeptics who attacked the article for not concluding the TIs are all schizophrenics in need of medical help. My favorite comment from the Post's site was simply: “Good grief, Sharon, what have you done?!â€
I’ve often asked myself that same question.
There were a few people, however, who seemed to agree that whether the TIs' claims are true or false, there's something to be said about trying to understand why so many people believe the things they believe.
But for anyone who thinks that all TIs are mentally ill people in need of forced medication, I suggest you check out some of the extremely sane tactics they employ. For example, their organized response to the article would make some political campaigns jealous. As one mind control blog advises:
We must write the Washington Post in high numbers to show that this story merits a follow up. We must get our side of the story out, before the perps start inundating them with letters that we are crazy. Please take part in this to give the accurate side of what is really happening and remember to forward any supporting evidence.
There's also a few researchers raising a fascinating question in the medical literature:
One of the defining features of a delusion is that it should not be a belief "ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture". Nevertheless, some researchers have noted that there is no clear measure of what is 'ordinarily accepted'.
It is also possible that cultures or subcultures could be based around beliefs that would otherwise be diagnosed as delusional. Until now, however, there have been no obvious examples of such subcultures identified.
In the Psychopathology paper, ten websites reporting psychosis-like 'mind control' experiences were identified. The reports were anonymised and independently blind-rated by three psychiatrists who confirmed that they reflect experiences stemming from psychosis.
One final thought: Some of the documents I dug up through a Freedom of Information Act request indeed confirmed that the Air Force Research Laboratory patented a device to send sounds and voices into someone's head as a "psychological warfare tool."
So, I guess that begs the obvious question: even if you dismiss everyone who claims they are a victim of mind-invading technology, what do you think Pentagon plans to do with such a device?
There's been immediate fallout -- both physical and political -- from China's satellite killer test.
Debris from the orbital collision has already been spotted, the M-T Milcom blog notes. "As of this writing NORAD has officially cataloged 32 objects... that now pollute a vital area of space (sun-synchronous polar orbit)." The picture to the right is of a few of 'em.
"There are over 125 satellites that operate in this portion of space," the M-T blog observes. Those include reconnaissance satellites, like the Lacrosse and Advanced Keyhole orbiters, as well as weather-monitors, like the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program series. In other words, this test directly affects the American military's ability look for terrorist hideouts, and survey a potential battlefield. These are not small matters. "Our space assets are the first asset on the scene," GlobalSecurity.org's John Pike tells the AP. "They are absolutely central to why we are a superpower - a signature component to America's style of warfare."
Frequent Defense Tech commenter Robot Economist, now with his own blog, warns that "this situation has the potential of becoming the next Katyusha rocket or IED problem for the United States." Even the International Space Station could be at risk. That said, RE reminds us that "it is unlikely that [China's] success... translates into any sort of immediately fieldable capability."
If the spotty record of our ground-based missile interceptors demonstrate anything, it is the difficulty of intercepting even predictable space targets... [And] the Chinese had a pretty good handicap on this test.
The US military isn't completely dependent on spy satellites (in case of war, the Taiwan Straits would be overflown by enough spy and communications aircraft to make the satellites redundant), but destroying them is a way of chipping away at US capability, and thus indicating that China can inflict real costs in case of a US intervention in a militarized China-Taiwan dispute. The public way in which the Chinese have carried out this test, as well as earlier "blinding" tests, and the recent submarine-stalks-carrier debacle indicates to me that they're as serious as possible about showing the US their capabilities, which is key to a deterrent strategy. Also, Chinese anti-satellite capabilities don't have to be targeted against US military satellites; the Chinese may threaten commercial satellites as well, which would help to metastasize the costs of any US intervention.
No wonder, then, that governments around the world are protesting the move. With one exception, apparently: Russia. Arms Control Wonk notes...
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov commented to reporters that he has heard reports of the Chinese test, but thinks that the rumors are quite abstract and are exaggerated.
In an interview, vice-preseident of the Russian Academy of geopolitcal affairs, General Leonid Ivashov, said that he thinks the Chinese used Russian developments for making their antisatellite missiles.
The new chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s sea-power subcommittee is calling for a bigger Navy fleet. “Numbers do matter,†Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss, said last week. Taylor’s district includes major shipyards. Noting that the Navy has shed around 50 major warships under the Bush Administration, Taylor added, “I want to turn that around.â€
Taylor is not the first admiral, wonk or elected official to lament an apparent erosion of the Navy’s strength. Problem is that Taylor, like many others, is fixated on numbers of ships, which these days is one of the least reliable metrics for quantifying naval power. In fact, today’s Navy, while operating fewer warships than at any time since the 1930s, remains more powerful than the next 17 largest navies combined -- a “17-navy standard.†This is the greatest margin of superiority in modern history. The 19th-century British Royal Navy, the world’s previous great naval power, was only slightly larger than its nearest competitor the French navy. What’s more, our 17-navy-standard lead is probably going to grow in coming years.
And it only grows further if you count ships operated by other U.S. services including the Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command and the Army. The Coast Guard alone has embarked on an expansion that will transform it into one of the world’s top 15 navies. Military Sealift Command operates the majority of the world’s large sealift ships.
Today’s numbers game started in the 1980s with President Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship buildup plan. We never quite got there, and post-Cold War cuts resulted in a shrinking force, which alarmed Navy types and resulted in the first of several plans establishing a minimum number of ships. The 1992 Base-Force plan called for 450 major combatants. But aging ships, rising shipbuilding costs and the 1990s “procurement holiday†steadily eroded numbers. “In 1997, the Navy said we’ve got to establish a floor and that’s going to be 300 ships,†says Robert Work, senior defense analyst at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “So the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review says we’ve got have 300 ships.â€
That’s slightly more that what we’ve got right now, if you count only major Navy warships. The problem, Work says, is that “the Navy was psychologically incapable of accepting that number.â€
Why? Because of tradition, a very powerful force in today’s U.S. military.
“There was thing called the TSBF -- the Total Ship Battle Force,â€
Work explains. “It has an old history in navy-versus-navy conflicts,
where attrition was high and numbers were very important. From 1890 to
now, the Navy has followed the TSBF.â€
Obsessed with numbers, in 1997 the service and its congressional and
think-tank allies launched a campaign to grow the fleet. Recent plans
for 375 ships gave way to a more realistic total of 313 endorsed by
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen. Critics such as Taylor
seem to think even that number is too low. But those 313 ships would
mean an only slight improvement to our current superiority over every
other navy in the world.
And here’s why: due to huge advancements in weapons, sensors and
aircraft, today’s fleet carries more missiles than ever, can launch
more aircraft sorties than ever and has brand-new capabilities that no
earlier fleet has possessed. Plus, today's ships are big -- much bigger than past ships.
In subsequent posts, we’ll take a look at all the reasons why
today’s U.S. Navy is more powerful than ever, and probably does not
need to grow or get more money. Part two will address the “Vertical
Launch System revolution.â€
Previous anti-satellite weapons tests, conducted during the Cold War, involved either co-orbiting killer satellites (the Soviet approach) or an air-launched anti-satellite missile (the U.S. approach, also considered by the Soviets but never attempted). Some tests involved shooting ground-based anti-missile missiles toward satellites, but those missiles never hit their mark.
That's because it's hard to nail an orbiter, traveling hundreds of miles up at thousands of miles per hour, from the ground. The fact that the Chinese were able to do it could have troubling repercussions beyond space, as one commenter to the FPSPACE list notes:
Assuming the [Chinese target satellite] was on the order of 3 meters in size, and assuming the kill was made in direct ascent mode as opposed to co-orbiting mode, this test demonstrates the capability to achieve a velocity error on the order of 3 meters / ~1000 seconds, i.e., way less than 1 cm per second. This has obvious implications for their CEPs [Circular Error Probables, the accuracy] of Chinese ballistic missiles.
Now, Beijing seems to have cheated just a bit in this test, Oberg observes.
The last orbital data released by NORAD seem to show one end of the [Chinese target] satellite's orbit being raised by about 20 miles (32 kilometers). Such tweaking is characteristic of a satellite lining up its orbital path for a rendezvous with a ground-launched visitor. The international space station does this in preparation for Russian spacecraft visits.
In fact, the reason the U.S. Air Force chose the air-launched anti-satellite system is that it does not have to have its target line up with a ground-based missile pad. Naturally, a real target in the real world would never make such a helpful maneuver.
Without the target’s maneuver to make itself easier to kill, a ground-based shot would likely have to be made from the side — or “out of plane,†in space navigation parlance. With such a geometry, the final approach for physical contact occurs under much higher rates of angular change, making terminal guidance much more difficult. It can be done, but with less reliability.
But even with some fudging, this remains a very serious technical accomplishment. Oberg's piece has lots more -- including some possible (repeat, possible) countermeasures to a satellite strike. Be sure to read the whole thing.
Of course, for a long time, directly attacking the orbiter with another piece of metal seemed like the least likely, least effective way to knock a satellite out. Since 2004, the U.S. Air Force has had in its arsenal a series of radio frequency jammers, to interfere with satellite operations. Three or four times a year, small groups of junior officers gather at an Air Force Research Laboratory facility in New Mexico to figure out how to take American satellites off-line using nothing more than sweet talk and off-the-shelf gear.
Then there are the lasers. Not only did China recently light up an American orbiter with a ground-based laser. But, as Dan Dupont reminds us, the U.S. military spent much of the 90's testing out a satellite-shooting beam weapon of its own: the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, or "MIRACL."
"In October 1997, the Air Force commissioned a test of an ASAT [anti-satellite] system based on the MIRACL laser," the Union of Concerned Scientists notes. "This system was directed toward a satellite orbiting 420 km above the Earth. The MIRACL laser apparently had technical difficulties, but the results of the test were startling."
A lower-power (30-watt) laser intended for alignment of the system and tracking of the satellite was the primary laser source used during the test, and it appeared that this lower-power laser was sufficiently powerful itself to blind the satellite temporarily, although it could not destroy the sensor. That a commercially available laser and a 1.5 m mirror could be an effective ASAT highlighted a US vulnerability that had not been fully appreciated. Although the Pentagon described the test as defensive (i.e., to learn about the vulnerability of US satellites to laser attack), many—in particular the Russians—expressed concern about the offensive capabilities of this system and whether it constituted a breach of the ABM [anti-ballistic missile] Treaty, and formally requested negotiations on an ASAT weapon ban.
China has shown it can destroy a satellite in orbit. What could the U.S. do to stop Beijing, if it decided to attack an American orbiter next? Short answer: nothing.
It takes about 20 minutes to fire a ballistic missile into space, and have its "kill vehicle" strike a satellite at hypersonic speed -- over 15,000 miles per hour -- in low-earth orbit. That's far too quick for anything in the American arsenal to respond, in time. There's "no possibility of shielding" a relatively-fragile satellite against such a strike. "And it is impractical [for a satellite] to carry enough fuel to maneuver away even if you had specific and timely warning of an attack," Center for Defense Information analyst Theresea Hitchens notes.
The American military today counts on its satellites to relay orders, guide troops across battlefields, and spy on enemy hideouts. The U.S. Air Force's primer for war in space -- "Doctrine Document 2-2.1: Counterspace Operations" -- lists a number of measures that can be taken to protect American assets in orbit, including "deploying satellites into various orbital altitudes and planes" and "employing frequency-hopping techniques to complicate jamming." But those tactics are used to preserve the U.S. satellite constellation as a whole. None of them could save a single American orbiter against a direct attack. "Physical hardening of structures mitigates the impact of kinetic effects, but is generally more applicable to ground-based facilities than to space-based systems due to launch-weight considerations," the Air Force document notes. "Maneuver[ing] is limited by on-board fuel constraints, orbital mechanics, and advanced warning of an impending attack. Furthermore, repositioning satellites generally degrades or interrupts their mission."
With today's conventional defenses proving so impotent, expect a new push within the U.S. military for more exotic countermeasures. The Airborne Laser is a modified 747 that's being designed to blast missiles out of the sky, as soon as they leave they launch pad; the jet's first flight test in expected in 2009, after years and years of delays. The Kinetic Energy Interceptor is a long-range, non-explosive missile, meant for the same task. But the weapon "exists mostly on paper, and couldn't be operational before 2014," Defense Tech's David Axe noted recently.
The U.S. could also try to destroy an anti-satellite missile, before it took off. Over the last several years, momentum has been building in the Pentagon for the ability to conduct "Prompt Global Strikes," hitting anywhere on Earth, in an hour or less. But near-term PGS plans -- using modified Trident ballistic missiles -- have been put on hold, for fears that such an attack could start World War III, in the process. Destroying a satellite is as clear an act of war as there can be, however. Perhaps those Trident attacks will now be seen as worth the risk.
In the meantime, GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike figures the Chinese will continue to test their satellite-killing weapons. It takes a dozen or more trials before a strategic weapon like this is deemed reliable enough to be considered operational. "So expect one or two more tests like this every year, for a long time," he says.
The Chinese test, now confirmed by the National Security Council, would be the first successful anti-satellite weapons trial since 1985, when the United States used an F-15 and a kill vehicle to destroy the Solwind research satellite. And that trial was dangerous -- not just for its target, but for nearly everything orbiting in space, Hitchens notes. Even small pieces of space debris can be lethal to spacecraft. The '85 test "resulted in more than 250 pieces of debris, the last of which deorbited in 2002."
The Chinese trial could "lead to nearly 800 debris fragments of size 10 cm or larger, nearly 40,000 debris fragments with size between 1 and 10 cm, and roughly 2 million fragments of size 1 mm or larger," the Union of Concerned Scientists' David Wright notes on the Arms Control Wonk blog. "Roughly half of the debris fragments with size 1 cm or larger would stay in orbit for more than a decade."
"This raises an interesting public policy question because we are so much more dependent on commercial and military satellites that the ASAT [anti-satellite] options available to us are much more complicated than those available to the Chinese," adds Jeffrey Lewis. "This is a race that favors them, unfortunately."
National Journal surveillance reporter Shane Harris has been watching Attorney General Gonzales’ testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He calls an exchange with Senators Feingold and with Schumer about the NSA domestic wiretapping program's new legal status "especially illuminating." Harris sees a new kind of order for the eavesdropping, issued by a single -- likely Administration-friendly -- judge.
First, the attorney general referred to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge who issued this recent authorization as “he,†when Gonzales said, “He was very careful.†That means that the presiding judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who reportedly has expressed concerns about the NSA program tainting other FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] warrant applications, was not the judge who issued this order that apparently allows the NSA program to continue. Of course, Kollar-Kottelly is the only woman on the 11-member court, so that doesn’t much narrow down the question of which judge gave the order.
When Feingold asked Gonzales how long it took the court to issue this order, Gonzales replied that it took “longer than a normal FISA†application. There are varying accounts of how long it takes to secure and execute a FISA warrant, but administration officials have said in the past that they didn’t originally seek FISA warrants for the NSA program, in part, because the process took too long. So, it sounds as if Gonzales is saying that this most recent order from the judge came after longer than usual deliberation on his part.
Gonzales also said that the administration submitted an “application†for this order to the judge, and that it was “innovative.†To the first part—application—this raises the question, which the Justice Department hasn’t answered, of whether this recent order applied to one particular intercept, to more than one, or to the entire program. Sen. Schumer pressed Gonzales for some specificity on this point, but the attorney general declined to discuss what he said were “operational details†of the matter. But reading between the lines a bit, I suspect that Gonzales means the administration has come up with an application for electronic surveillance, one that that fits the special parameters of the NSA program, and that this “innovative†application is different from a traditional FISA application. “It took some time for a judge to get comfortable†with this application, Gonzales said, which I think implies that this application is, indeed, unusual. Whether it will be used on a case-by-case basis, or whether it will cover any and all surveillance conducted under the parameters of the NSA program is unclear. But presumably, if a judge has found this new application acceptable, and has ruled that it does work under the intelligence surveillance law, then the administration would use it again if necessary.
One final note, Gonzales did refer to “orders,†plural, from the judge. He said that these orders “meet the legal requirements under FISA†and that “they also include minimization procedures [to protect personal privacy] above-and-beyond†what is normally required under law. Gonzales also acknowledged that, until the judge issued his recent order, the administration did not believe that “FISA was available†to cover the NSA program. At times, officials have said that they thought FISA did not apply, indicating that they had made a legal judgment independent of the court’s ruling. But Gonzales now seems to be saying that officials were unsure whether FISA applied or not, which is what prompted them to work up this new, innovative application to the court.
One other note: In yesterday's background briefing by senior Justice Department officials, one of the them said that the new orders "take advantage of use of the use of the FISA statute and developments in the law. I can't really get into developments in the law before the FISA court. But it's a process that began nearly two years ago, and it's just now that the court has approved these orders."
"Developments in the law" implies that the recent court order is based not only on FISA, but on recent law, as well. Could be the Patriot Act, which includes electronic surveillance provisions. It sounds as if the judge considered statutes other than FISA in making his decision.
-- Shane Harris
UPDATE 9:33 AM: As TPM Muckracker notes, "Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) out-and-out called Gonzales a liar." The AG claimed he briefed Congress on the surveillance program's new legal boundaries. "She was never told of the plan, she said, and from what she heard yesterday it likely stinks:
Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, “programmatic†approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.
Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,†Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview. She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run.
UPDATE 9:38 AM: Gonzales has met the enemy. And he blogs.
China Tests Satellite Killer?
"China performed a successful anti-satellite weapons test" last week, according to Aviation Week. In the trial, a ballistic missile, armed with a non-explosive warhead, "destroy[ed] an aging Chinese weather satellite target" over 500 miles above the Earth, U.S. intelligence agencies believe.
The news comes just a few months after reports of China testing high-powered lasers to temporarily blind American orbiters. "If the test is verified it will signify a major new Chinese military capability," AvWeek says. And it could be the spark that ignites an arms race in space, analysts believe. Theresa Hitchens, with the Center for Defense Information called it an "irresponsible and self-defeating act" that will give "space hawks… more ammunition to take the United States down a similarly dangerous path."
Details emerging from space sources indicate that the Chinese Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) polar orbit weather satellite... was attacked by an ASAT [anti-satellite] system launched from or near the Xichang Space Center.
The attack is believe to have occurred as the weather satellite flew at 530 mi. altitude 4 deg. west of Xichang, located in Sichuan province...
Although intelligence agencies must complete confirmation of the test, the attack is believed to have occurred at about 5:28 p.m. EST Jan. 11. U. S. intelligence agencies had been expecting some sort of test that day, sources said....
USAF radar reports on the Chinese FY-1C spacecraft have been posted once or twice daily for years, but those reports jumped to about 4 times per day just before the alleged test.
The USAF radar reports then ceased Jan. 11, but then appeared for a day showing "signs of orbital distress". The reports were then halted again. The Air Force radars may well be busy cataloging many pieces of debris, sources said.
Harvard University's Jeffrey Lewis, a self-admitted skeptic about China's space ambitions, has been hearing from many sources in recent months that "China’s ASAT work seem[s] to have been ramping up." He writes over at his blog, Arms Control Wonk:
If China has conducted an ASAT test, this is extremely bad. I had been hoping that the Bush Administration would push for a ban on anti-satellite testing, either in the form of a code of conduct. The Bush folks, however, have been fond of saying that wasn’t necessary, because 'there is no arms race in space.'
Well, we have one now, instigated by an incredibly short-sighted Chinese government.
(Big ups: EM)
UPDATE 11:42 AM: Why would Beijing pull a stunt like this? The China Matters blog has a theory. Meanwhile, one keen space-watcher notes that, if this anti-sat weapon was really "kinetic" -- i.e., hit-to-kill, non-explosive -- instead of a plain ol' exploding weapon, that's extremely bad news. That means the booster rocket has to be very accurate "in order to deliver the kill vehicle to the desired initial trajectory.... Then the kill vehicle needs to tweak its trajectory into a precise collision course using on-board propulsion and either on-board target tracking or... command guidance from the ground." That's no mean task.
The Justice Department has decided to let the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- the traditional, and legal, monitor of government wiretap programs -- start examining the spy efforts. Before, the Bush Administration said no such review was needed -- a legal reading that even former NSA chiefs said was wildly off-base.
The court has already "approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group," the AP says.
It's a huge (and welcome) turnaround for an administration that said previously that the president had the power to order almost anything in the name of fighting terror. (And "still believes that," according to flack-in-chief Tony Snow.) So why the change? Snow mumbled something about the court's increased "agility." But you can bet your ass the new Congress had a whole lot to do with it.
UPDATE 3:28 PM: Shocker. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in his letter describing the rule change, appears to be lying through his teeth shading the truth, saying that the administration has been trying to put the wiretaps under the court's authority since the spring of 2005. If that's the case, Glenn Greenwald asks, "why didn't they say so when the controversy arose?"
There have already been proposals for the FISA court to grant blanket retroactive approval to the program, and if that's what this is, then it's not much of a concession from the administration. If, on the other hand, it's actually case-by-case approval by FISA judges we're talking about, I'm not sure how that's going to square with the reported scope of the program. The ostensible grounds for circumventing the FISA in the first place were that this program didn't fit in the FISA framework. And given that it reportedly does a kind of mile-wide-and-inch-deep network analysis that is antithetical to the personalized, legally sanctioned surveillance contemplated by the FISA, I'm not sure how you can make the two procedures fit. Unless what they're really saying here is that they're abandoning the program altogether, and returning to one-target-at-a-time, retail-rather-than-wholesale surveillance. Which somehow I doubt.
UPDATE 3:35 PM: "It sounds to me like this court just re-wrote the law and made a second category of wiretaps (one that is easier to get but only targeted at overseas communications)," writes Ryan Singel.
He also notes that Gonzales's announcement comes just a day before he is supposed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Pretty sneaky, sis," Ryan says.
UPDATE 4:51 PM: "Another question raised by Gonzales’ letter — indeed, in the first sentence — is which FISC judge issued this order?" surveillance scoopmaster Shane Harris tells Defense Tech.
The letter states that “a judge†issued the order. Does Gonzales mean the court’s presiding (or chief) judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly? Presumably he would have said so if that were the case. Kottelly has been briefed on the NSA program previously. She reportedly has been concerned that information obtained without warrants under the NSA program could taint other warrant applications before the court.
The FISC is made up of 11 sitting federal judges hailing from judicial districts across the country. Did the administration select a particular judge to approach for this order? Here’s the breakdown on how many judges were appointed by a particular president:
Jimmy Carter: 1
Ronald Reagan: 4
George H.W. Bush: 3
Bill Clinton: 2
George W. Bush: 1
New Army Camos: No Place to Hide?
At the middle of 2004, the Army announced that its soldiers would get a new uniform. No longer would G.I.s have keep separate outfits for desert or woodland combat. The new, "digital" Army Combat Uniform, or ACU, would be capable of blending into them all. Slateexplained how, shortly after the roll-out:
Making the ACU as invisible as possible required developing an entirely new "digital" camouflage pattern, derived from the Marine Corps' so-called "MARPAT" camo scheme, which was launched in 2001. MARPAT is pixilated—bit-mapped on a computer, and then "printed" directly onto nylon... Unlike the old camo, digital camo suggests shapes and colors without actually being shapes and colors—like visual white noise. While it may serve a hunter well to appear to be part of a tree, a contemporary soldier needs to be on the move, and so his camouflage must help him blend into the "flow of space."
But how much does it help, really? The ACU has now been in service for 18 months or so; the entire Army should be outfitted with the camos by the end of this year. Some soldiers, gathered on the AR15 website, are complaining that the "universal" cammos aren't really suited to every environment. Yeah, the outfits do a good job of hiding people in the desert and in cities, they argue. But There's very little green in the ACU's pattern, they argue. So the things stick out like a sore thumb wherever there's even a bit of vegetation.
"I just came back from a range, where there was dry sandy areas, grassy areas and a wooded area behind it. Many soldiers still had BDUs [Battle Dress Uniforms, the old green outfits] and the rest had ACUs. Throughout the day I couldn't help but notice that no matter what the backgound was, the ACU attracted the eye and stood out quite obvious, whereas the BDU really only stood out in the sandy areas. What was also quite obvious was the fact that I wasn't the only one that noticed it. From the colonel on down, there were rather drastic remarks on the uniforms ineffectiveness. Not so much bitching about durability, velco, etc., just the colors. It was obvious that at some time, some place, this garbage will get soldiers killed."
"I just returned from A-stan where we were on of the last units to be issued DCU's [the old Desert Combat Uniforms]. When the ACU's started showing up there was quite a stink about the "multi environment" claim as it stuck out badly. The SF guys would wear the "target identification cloth" (ACU) inside the wire but when on an operation would wear BDU or DCU depending where they were going. Only the office and supply pogues at Bagram thought the ACU's were the "hip" thing to wear.
Then there's the conspiracy theory. Different uniform designs were tried out, including a "multicam" pattern from Brooklyn's Crye & Associates, before the Army picked its digital camos. Some say Crye's design (see left) did a better job hiding soldiers -- but wasn't picked, regardless.
"During testing the ACU was thrown out during the first round at Natick [Soldier Systems Center]. A Multicam type of uniform had won in the final testing. As was told by Natick labs, all research was set aside... the final "choice" [was made] with absolutely no soldier feedback or testing... There are hundreds of emails and letters daily as to the ineffectiveness of the ACU. However, leadership is turning a blind eye to these very valid complaints. For what reason is unknown. Political I would guess."
UPDATE 2:17 PM: Just to be clear, there are definitely situations where the ACUs work very, very well. For instance, check out this picture David Axe took at the National Training Center last July. One soldiers' legs are practically invisible.
The Washington Post has this article on the BioShield program. It's a bit of a scorecard on the four-year old program, and the score doesn't look good for homeland security. Let's take a look, agent by agent.
Old Anthrax Treatment: "As the result of an effort that began before BioShield, there are enough antibiotics in the national stockpile to treat 40 million people for more than 60 days, HHS says. Stockpiles also include 9 million doses of an anthrax vaccine produced by Emergent BioSolutions of Gaithersburg, with another 1 million to be delivered by the first quarter of this year." You might know "Emergent BioSolutions" better as BioPort - the controversial supplier of anthrax vaccine to the Defense Department.
New Anthrax Treatment: "The agency is struggling to develop a more modern anthrax vaccine that could be administered in fewer doses and with fewer side effects. In 2004, the agency tapped a small California firm, VaxGen, for an $877 million contract to deliver 75 million doses of an anthrax vaccine. VaxGen encountered delays and technical problems, and HHS canceled the contract in December after the firm failed to begin human testing on time." VaxGen just laid off half its force and its CEO resigned.
Botulinum Antitoxin: "Cangene has begun delivering the first of 200,000 doses of an antitoxin, which would have to be delivered shortly after patients show symptoms to counteract the effects of the toxin. There are currently no plans to pursue a vaccine, according to HHS." Bot tox is not really a mass casualty agent, more of an assassination tool. Not sure the victims will know what they have prior to... ah, dying. Not sure why this is even in the stockpile.
Smallpox: "There is a stockpile of more than 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, enough for everyone in the United States, according to HHS. That effort began before BioShield." Good news - lots of vaccine. Bad news - this is the old smallpox vaccine, which has odds on killing people who take it. No work for a new smallpox vaccine is underway.
Potassium Iodide: "Enough potassium iodide to treat 1 million people is already in the national stockpile, according to HHS. Potassium iodide doesn't treat most aspects of radiation exposure, but scientists believe it can protect the thyroid gland from cancer in such an attack." Great! Now we don't have to worry about stunted growth! Does nothing for the rest of your irradiated body, though.
Plague and Ebola: "Despite President Bush's mention of plague and Ebola in his State of the Union speech, the government has yet to contract with any company to produce a defense. HHS officials say the implementation plan to be issued in the next few months will include a roadmap to address both threats. Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health is pursuing research on vaccines for both. NIH has completed the first phase of human testing for the Ebola version and is seeking volunteers for the second, according to an NIH official, who said it would be several years before it could be stockpiled."
So how's your scorecard look? Four years ago, President Bush announced BioShield as key initiative of the "Biodefense Strategy for the 21st Century." It took two years just to get the legislative language into shape. Four years later, we're still not much better than we were before 9/11. The administration's homeland security policy for medical biological countermeasures has failed.
UPDATE: I failed to consider the British company Acambis work on a new, safer smallpox vaccine. It's in an IND status, not approved for general non-emergency use. I don't think that the R&D work is being funded through BioShield, however. They've been working on the vaccine for several years, with a large international customer base in mind.
Behind the Ethiopian Blitz
Today marks the launch of two blogs from two Defense Tech's most awesomest contributors. Site regulars Sharon Weinberger and David Axe have debuted Ares, a spinoff of Defense Technology International. Meanwhile, the Axe-man has begun his own blog, called War Is Boring. Expect frequent cross-posting. The launch post for both is Axe's analysis of Ethiopia's mechanized blitz through Somalia:
Ethiopia's tiny air force, which just four years ago was in danger of implosion, spearheaded last month's assault into southern Somalia to drive out Islamic Courts and their militia forces. Beginning on December 24, Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker fighter-bombers hit strategic targets and even struck ground troops while at least 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers – 8,000 according to the United Nations – supported by T-55 tanks, Mil Mi-24/35 Hind gunship helicopters and artillery darted more than 150 miles to surround Mogadishu in just seven days. By the first week of January, Islamic forces had fled to the southern tip of Somalia and a jungle enclave and were being tracked by U.S. aerial drones flying out of Djibouti. On Jan. 8, the last Islamic holdouts came under assault by U.S. and Ethiopian forces, signaling the imminent end of large-scale Islamic military resistance.
This is only the latest victory for a storied air service. The Ethiopian air force, then backed by Russia, defeated the powerful Ukrainian-supported Eritrean air force during the two nations' 1998-2000 border conflict. But the service suffered in post-war political crackdowns. Two senior officers, Major Daniel Beyene and Captain Teshome Tenkolu, were abducted by government security forces and reportedly held for years on suspicion of disloyalty. Beyene died last year, apparently assassinated, while Tenkolu and more than a dozen other pilots and technicians defected several years ago, Tenkolu while at the controls of an Aero L-39 jet trainer. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's MiG-21 Fishbed and MiG-23 Flogger fighters were becoming obsolescent.
But an improved Ethiopian political climate and a concerted effort to re-equip the air force and its sister services preceded the Somali fighting. Between 1998 and 2004, Ethiopia received around 16 Flankers plus a handful of Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot attack planes from Russia as well as several dozen Hinds and other helicopters. The army, for its part, bought around 100 pristine T-55 tanks from Bulgaria in addition to Russian- and U.S.-built self-propelled howitzers; these would arm the invasion force and likely inflict the majority of Islamic casualties. But it was Ethiopia's new fighter jets that elicited hysterical comments from Islamic Courts leaders in the days before the Ethiopian invasion. "I hope God will help us shoot down their planes," Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley told the Associated Press in December.
The Sukhois are the backbone of operations in Somalia and are the only jet types mentioned in press reports from the fighting. Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times claimed a jet even strafed the Mogadishu airport on Dec. 25. Hinds, too, have featured prominently in journalists' dispatches. One Hind was reportedly shot down on Dec. 25. Professor Abdiweli Ali from Niagara University, who claims to have contacts with pro-Ethiopian Somali commanders, told Pajama Media that the Islamic Courts were armed with Russian should-fired surface-to-air missiles but had failed to hit the mostly high-flying Ethiopian aircraft. It's not clear what brought down the Hind.
The effectiveness of the Ethiopian air campaign came as a surprise to at least one observer. "There's nothing significant to bomb ... that would really affect the Islamic Courts," Professor Terrence Lyons from George Mason University said at a Dec. 15 Council on Foreign Relations event. Lyons perhaps neglected the disproportionate effects of combined air-ground operations, as demonstrated by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan in 2001. The Ethiopian air force apparently worked in close coordination with ground forces. If doctrine applied during the 1998-2000 border war is still current, the majority of Ethiopian air strikes within sight of friendly ground forces in Somalia were guided by ground-based forward air controllers. (During international mediation of damage claims following the war with Eritrea, the Ethiopian government insisted that of hundreds of attack sorties launched by its air force, only 20 were executed without ground controllers.)
In Somalia, Flankers hit airports, roads, ammo dumps, Islamic militia camps and convoys – disrupting transport, communications and emergency re-supply – while T-55s sporting external fuel tanks crawled south ahead of self-propelled howitzers. Hinds flew top cover and even dropped 250-kilogram gravity bombs. Mil Mi-17 medevac choppers evacuated wounded troops. Helicopters kept pace with the ground advance by way of forward operating bases.
These heavy forces faced just a few thousand Islamic troops boasting nothing heavier than "technicals" – pickup trucks hauling heavy machine guns. There were reports of Eritrean forces aiding the Islamists and even swapping artillery barrages with the invaders; if true, this resistance hardly slowed the Ethiopian advance. The Ethiopian government claims 1,000 Islamist fighters killed while declining to cite its own, surely lighter, losses.
What role the United States has played in Ethiopia's initial success is unclear. For years, the Pentagon has reported only around $200 million annually in military aid to Ethiopia, mostly in the form of technical assistance for aircraft. This assistance might be related to the 1995 U.S. donation of four used Lockheed Martin C-130B Hercules transports.
Training support is another matter. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. soldiers headquartered in Djibouti have instructed Ethiopian troops in infantry tactics. "This goes from troop-leading procedures to react to contact, break contact, reconnaissance, patrolling, vehicle searches and so on," Army 1st Lt. Christopher Anderson told a military journalist in April.
"They love it and eat it up," Sgt. Ryan Castro said in the same article. "A part of this class is short-range marksmanship. The Ethiopian army shoots maybe ten rounds a year. Here, they went through 400 to 500 rounds in a week."
This murky relationship is getting clearer. On Jan. 8, CBS news reported attacks by a U.S. Air Force Boeing AC-130 Spectre gunship on Islamic forces in southern Somalia. CBS also mentioned supporting operations by unspecified U.S. aerial drones, most likely General Atomics RQ-1 Predators based alongside the Spectres in Djibouti. Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and her battlegroup departed their station in the Arabian Sea and headed towards the Somali coast, apparently to support further operations against "terrorist" forces in Somalia.
What happens next in Somalia is anyone's guess. In weeks of furious fighting, Ethiopian forces proved effective at conducting fast-moving, conventional air-ground operations leveraging one of the world's most advanced fighter jets. Whether the same forces will succeed or even attempt to provide post-conflict security remains to be seen.
Real-life laser weapons continue to inch closer to reality. Two recent examples: Raytheon says its "prototype solid-state Laser Area Defense System (LADS) successfully detonated 60-millimeter mortars." And Northrop Grumman is opening up a new "directed energy production facility" for building high energy, solid-state lasers.
Raytheon's announcement is interesting, because solid-state, electric lasers haven't yet hit the 100 kilowatt threshold which many people consider to be the minimum strength for weapons-grade lasers. (They're not too far off, though.) But Raytheon says they zapped these mortars using "an a proven, existing, off-the-shelf solid-state laser, coupled with commercially available optics technology."
So how did the company pull it off? I got a non-answer from a company flack, something about "view[ing] the problem from the user point of view."
Now, this was a very limited test. These mortars were small -- just 60 mm. The company wouldn't say how long they were zapped (even a weak laser can bore holes in metal, given enough time). And the mortars were on the ground, around 550 yards away, not flying through the air. But this LADS is built on the back on Raytheon's 4,500-round-per-minute Phalanx gun, which is already knocking down mortars in Iraq. So presumably, the targeting and tracking piece is won't be that hard to manage. In-air tests of the laser are planned for later this year.
Meanwhile, Northrop has opened up a new facility, south of Los Angeles, to build what the company hopes is the world's first 100 kilowatt, solid-state laser. It'll start by putting together the series of 32 garnet crystal "modules" that form the heart of the system. Shine light-emitting diodes into 'em, and they start the laser chain-reaction, shooting out focused light. Combine all those beams into one, and you've got yourself a battlefield-strength ray. The array is similar to what Northrop used in its 25 kw demonstrator. But the gum-stick-sized crystals have been shrunk by about 50% -- part of the company's effort to make the laser small and rugged enough for war zone use.
50 people should be hired over the next year in the new facility. Company officials say they're still on track on demonstrate their 100 kw laser by the end of next year. If everything works according to plan, there should be enough room in the new building to simultaneously build and test three weapons-grade lasers at once.
Real Iraq Surge: Electronic Attack?
"Any U.S. military surge in Iraq will be far more than a troop increase," Aviation Week says, in a fascinating new article. "A key element in the deployment will be an accelerated effort to bring more and newer technologies to bear on the foe, in part by targeting insurgent commanders, often through their communication networks."
But perhaps the most intriguing family of systems being "readied for operations" is BAE Systems' Suter network exploitation programs, designed to "break into enemy networks to hear communications, see what enemy sensors are seeing and, in some circumstances, become the systems manager with the ability to manipulate enemy sensors."
"Suter finds the doors that have to be opened," an Air Force official tells Aviation Week.
L-3 Communications' Network-Centric Collaborative Targeting tool is considered Suter's "eyes and ears." With the system, three planes can pick up, within seconds, "the location (within a few hundred feet) and identity of enemy emitters -- radios, low-power cell phones and satellite phones, as well as other devices used for command and control and detonation of explosives... Plans are to have UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] or manned aircraft nearby that can deliver weapons or guide ground teams to the emitter's location within minutes."
A series of Suter programs explored the ability to pipe data streams -- embedded with specialized algorithms -- into enemy communications networks without being detected. The portals into the network are found by precisely locating antennas (as aiming points for the data streams) whether they are part of an air defense system or a hand-held communications device linked to others in an ad hoc tactical network for a small insurgent team.
However, there's the possibility that [the new gear] could interfere with [existing] U.S. [military] technology. Baghdad, where the force buildup is expected, is electronically polluted. For example, one smart system that jammed improvised explosive devices locked onto another smart system because of a lack of coordination between electronic warfare systems operated by different services and agencies. Jammers also can conflict with surveillance and communication systems... The problem is so pervasive that antennas have been put on 110-ft.-high poles to get them out of the worst interference.
Washington Post Meets Soldiers' Justice
Twelve days ago, Peter Singer broke the story here, that private military contractors were going to be subject to the same laws as soldiers. Since then, big media outlets from the Boston Globe to the Financial Times have picked up on Singer's scoop. Today, it's the Washington Post'sturn. The paper puts the story on the front page.
"Right now, you have two different standards for people doing the same job," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who pushed the provision. "This will bring uniformity to the commander's ability to control the behavior of people representing our country."
Graham, an Air Force Reserve lawyer, said the change will help morale in the field. "If the troops see someone getting away with something that hurts the overall mission, that is a morale buster," he said.
Under military law, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, commanders have wide latitude in deciding who should be prosecuted. Crimes include many that have parallels in civilian courts -- murder and rape, for instance -- as well as many that don't, such as disobeying an order, fraternization and adultery.
Legal experts say that latitude is one reason why attempting to hold civilians to the same standards as U.S. troops could be a messy process. It is also likely to raise constitutional challenges: Civilians prosecuted in military court don't receive a grand jury hearing and are ultimately tried by members of the military, rather than by a jury of their peers...
To try to solve the problem, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) introduced legislation last week that he said would strengthen MEJA [the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which supposedly expand federal prosecutors' authority to foreign battlefields], an option he considers superior to using military law. "Military law is not appropriate for civilians," Price said. "The constitutional questions just confuse the issue."
The New York Times also gives our lil' site a shout-out over the scoop, in the "What's Online" column.
For many years, national security experts, prominent scientists, and probably Dennis Kucinich, have received hundreds of e-mails that begin something like this: “I am surveilled, harassed and gangstalked everywhere I go 24/7/365.â€
I’ve certainly received them, and Defense Tech has gotten its fair share, too.
The letters typically state that the person is a victim of an organized mind control plot that involves weapons that beam voices into their head; shoot powerful pain rays at them; and often includes around-the-clock harassment and monitoring. One of the common claims is that the people are targeted by microwave weapons.
What do most people do with these letters? Defense writer William Arkinsays he hits the “delete†button when he gets those e-mails. Jon Ronson, author of the wonderfully wacky Men Who Stare at Goats has stated that mind control is an area that he doesn’t “want to get into.†(This from a gifted writer who interviewed a man who believes the world’s leaders are extraterrestrial lizards in disguise.)
What do I do with these letters? I read them, and this Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine has a cover story based on my nearly year-long investigation into their claims.
I try to raise what I think are some fascinating questions about the Pentagon’s involvement in microwave weapons and the auditory effect (which could be used to send sounds or voices into people’s heads).
As for whether there's any evidence that hundreds, if not thousands of people, are being targeted by microwave weapons, well, read for yourself.
"The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States," the Times reports. It's "part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering. And the CIA is joining in, also "issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies."
The letters “provide tremendous leads to follow and often with which to corroborate other evidence in the context of counterespionage and counterterrorism,†said Maj. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman...
But even when the initial suspicions are unproven, the documents have intelligence value, military officials say. In the next year, they plan to incorporate the records into a database at the Counterintelligence Field Activity office at the Pentagon to track possible threats against the military, Pentagon officials said...
Some national security experts and civil liberties advocates are troubled by the C.I.A. and military taking on domestic intelligence activities, particularly in light of recent disclosures that the Counterintelligence Field Activity office had maintained files on Iraq war protesters in the United States in violation of the military’s own guidelines. Some experts say the Pentagon has adopted an overly expansive view of its domestic role under the guise of “force protection,†or efforts to guard military installations...
One prominent case in which letters were used to obtain financial records, according to two military officials, was that of a Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who was suspected in 2003 of aiding terror suspects imprisoned at the facility. The espionage case against the chaplain, James J. Yee, soon collapsed, and he was eventually convicted on lesser charges of adultery and downloading pornography.
Eugene Fidell, a defense lawyer for the former chaplain and a military law expert, said he was unaware that military investigators may have used national security letters to obtain financial information about Mr. Yee, nor was he aware that the military had ever claimed the authority to issue the letters.
Mr. Fidell said he found the practice “disturbing,†in part because the military does not have the same checks and balances when it comes to Americans’ civil rights as does the F.B.I. “Where is the accountability?†he asked. “That’s the evil of it — it doesn’t leave fingerprints.â€
Still, I have a feeling this story, from the Telegraph, is a little over-blown.
Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks, say Army intelligence sources.
Documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents last week uncovered print-outs from photographs taken from Google.
The satellite photographs show in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers are parked.
Written on the back of one set of photographs taken of the Shatt al Arab Hotel, headquarters for the 1,000 men of the Staffordshire Regiment battle group, officers found the camp's precise longitude and latitude.
"This is evidence as far as we are concerned for planning terrorist attacks," said an intelligence officer with the Royal Green Jackets battle group. "Who would otherwise have Google Earth imagery of one of our bases?... We believe they use Google Earth to identify the most vulnerable areas such as tents."
As the paper notes, "it is unclear how old the maps are." But unless they're very recent, it's hard to believe they'd show today's tents all that accurately.
Not too long ago, the Littoral Combat Ship was looking like the cornerstone of the U.S. Navy's future: a 400-foot, reconfigurable ship that could chase terrorists, hunt for mines, and scout for subs in coastal waters all around the world. Best of all, the LCS was cheap -- the main ship would cost about $220 million. So the Navy could afford to buy 55 of them, making up the biggest component of the planned 313-ship fleet.
But now, LCS is running into serious problems. So serious, the Navy has ordered Lockheed Martin to stop work on one of the two LCSs the company is building, Navy Times reports. The order, which lasts 90 days, came after estimates for the ship jumped from $220 million to between $331 million and $410 million.
The increase is related to "contractor poor performance" and increased labor costs, Navy spokesman Lt. John Gay tells the Washington Post.
For example, a key part of the propulsion system was delayed 27 weeks because of a manufacturing error, driving up costs, he said...
The order applies to the second of two vessels that Lockheed is building for the Navy. Work on the first one, which is 70 percent completed, is to continue so the Navy can launch it and evaluate the design...
While it is not uncommon for the cost of the first versions of a new line of ships to increase, Lockheed knew the requirements, Gay said. "It remained unchanged, that is why we are concerned," he said.
Lockheed acknowledged a problem with a part related to the propulsion system, saying it had been cut incorrectly by a subcontractor, but the company also blamed changes the Navy made to the way the ship was to be constructed and a shortage of the kind of steel it required...
A Navy official was unavailable last night to respond to Lockheed's claims, but earlier said steel-related cost issues already had been accounted for.
The cost of stopping and restarting the program could be about $14 million, Quigley said, adding that Lockheed is likely to attempt to recoup those costs from the Navy.
General Dynamics, which is building a pair of its own LCSs -- with a radically different, trimaran design isn't affected by the stop-work order, Navy Times notes.
But the price of GD’s first ship also is rising, although one source claimed the price for the first GD ship remains well under $300 million, and that “the estimate for the second GD ship will be around $240 million to $250 million.â€
...A similar cost review will be performed on the General Dynamics ship.
The news comes about a week after the Navy reassigned its admiral in charge of ship-building, Charles Hamilton, to a new position. According to Navy Times, "sources said the reassignment was not due solely to problems with the Littoral Combat Ship."
Cop Tech Key to Iraq Fight?
All the talk is about more U.S. troops. But if there's going to be a shot in hell of winning the war in Iraq, it'll be up to the Iraqi police, argues Bing West in the current Atlantic. And those cops will need to be equipped with the latest crime-fighting gear.
In the United States, a cop who pulls you over calls up your record and finds out where and when you were last stopped, and what the charge was. The Chicago police [well, some of 'em - ed.] carry a device that takes fingerprints and transmits them over the radio, with the results of a database search received in minutes.
In Iraq, the police have no detective equipment; no reliable identification system has been widely fielded. As a result, American soldiers on patrol futilely call in [if they can even call -- ed.] the phonetic spelling of Iraqi names on whatever ID card they are handed...) A few enterprising American rifle companies have conducted their own independent censuses, employing rudimentary spreadsheets and personal digital cameras. But no central information system exists.
This is the greatest technical failure of the war. For all of our efforts, we have ignored one of the most fundamental axioms of counterinsurgency warfare: an insurgency cannot be defeated if the enemy cannot be identified.
Now, of course, tech alone isn't a solution. There needs to be a major upgrade of the Iraqi police, which West calls "among the most wretched in the world. New York City cops send some 26,000 criminals to prison every year; in Baghdad, with twenty times the murder rate, that number is at best 2,000." And the local cops are often in bed with militias like the Mahdi Army.
But "when U.S. military manpower and technology work hand in hand with" competent Iraqi cops, "the combination can be effective," West says.
Every day, aerial cameras hover over Anbar; some are mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and others on helicopters; some are infrared, others stream down video in sharp, brilliant colors. I was in a company operations center in Haditha when Captain Bert Lewis, the air officer, pointed at a screen showing a video feed... On the screen, we watched a man in a white dishdasha hastily scooping dirt over a boxy package, while cars passed by without slowing down.
"FedEx delivery," Lewis said, to general laughter. "I don't believe this dude." The Nissan drove away as the man finished packing dirt around the improvised explosive device, or IED...
"Nail that sucker," Lieutenant Joshua Booth said... The man looked up and down the street, and then ran south. The picture tilted, then zoomed in, holding him in the center of the frame. A series of black numbers scrolled along the right edge, updating the GPS coordinates. The target, solidly built and in his mid-thirties, had left the road and was now running along the riverbank...
As a Quick Reaction Force patrol closed on the GPS coordinates, the fugitive sat down in the shade of a palm tree, beckoning to someone on the river. Just as a square-nosed wooden skiff punted up to the man, the QRF, mounted in two Humvees, converged on the riverbank. The man scrambled to his feet, saw he had no place to run, and half-raised his arms to show he had no weapon.
I was a little skeptical, when some blog-buddies started worrying that the President had "declare[d] 'secret war' against Syria and Iran" in his speech this week. But events may be proving them right, after all.
“There has been a decision to go after these networks,†Ms. Rice said...
Ms. Rice said Mr. Bush had acted “after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity†among Iranians in Iraq, “and increasing lethality in what they were producing.†She was referring to what American military officials say is evidence that many of the most sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, being used against American troops were made in Iran.
Good Luck Stopping Missiles Early
"I have to say that it is the ugliest aircraft I have ever seen."
That's what Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant General Trey Obering said when he laid eyes on the Airborne Laser at a rollout ceremony in October.
I'm not one of those guys that swoons in front of aircraft. But I were, I guess I'd agree, with the modified 747's turrets and antennae and protrusions. But the Airborne Laser isn't mean to win beauty contests. It's being to blast ballistic missiles -- using a chemically-powered, megawatt-class laser -- as they're first climbing into the sky. That's when missiles are slowest and most vulnerable.
This is called boost-phase intercept. Mid-course intercept is up to the Navy's SM-3 missile and the Ground-Based Interceptors based in California and Alaska. Terminal interception -- right before the suckers hit -- is left to Army Patriot missiles, Navy SM-2s and the Army's forthcoming Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense missile, or THAAD. It takes defenses in all three phases to make a fully-functioning missile shield.
The boost-phase intercept is the hardest. There's just a short window before a missile accelerates, noses over, deploys decoys and gets a lot harder to kill. Some folks in the military think the job is so difficult, we shouldn't even bother, going with "pre-boost phase" defense instead -- blowing up the missiles before they ever get off the launching pad, with lightning-quick attacks. But with three Airborne Laser jets, you could maintain a 24-hour orbit near a launch area and zap the missiles mere seconds after launch. Theoretically.
Problem is, the 747's chemical laser and delicate sensors don't quite work yet, despite about a zillion tests, and planning going back the Reagan Administration. The first was supposed to enter service in 2002, then 2005. Now, the target date has been pushed back at least until 2009, and further production is on hold. Obering says he hasn't lost hope -- yet. "Airborne Laser, if it pans out, is very capable," he said at the Surface Navy Symposium, held yesterday in Crystal City near Washington, D.C. "[It is] our primary boost-phase program -- but it's a high-risk program. If it doesn't pan out, we [still] need a boost-phase capability."
So Obering has a back-up... sorta. It's called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a fancy name for a "hit-to-kill" (no explosion) long-range missile. Obering figures it will launch from ground silos or from the Navy's projected CG(X) missile cruiser. The general prefers the latter. "I'm a big believer in a more mobile capability. An increased emphasis on seabasing ... is important."
But the Kinetic Energy Interceptor exists mostly on paper, and couldn't be operational before 2014. So too the CG(X), which is still in the study phase. It's supposed to be based on the $2-billion DDG-1000, itself clinging to life after a series of cutbacks. A theoretical missile on a theoretical cruiser is hardly a confidence-inspiring alternative to the finicky flying chemical bomb that is the Airborne Laser.
But nobody's got a better idea.
UPDATE 12:10 PM: "Besides the [Airborne Laser's] technical difficulties, of which there are many, I don't think that MDA [the Missile Defense Agency] has even begun to address how one could realistically try to use ABL in an operational setting," adds missile defense analyst Victoria Samson.
One justification for the ABL is that it's better than other types of interceptors because it can continually shoot at a target until the threat is gone - unlike others, which would have to shoot-look-shoot. However, that doesn't take into consideration the logistics of how one would continually shoot the ABL. That's a heavy requirement of your chemicals. How much do you need for one shot? For two? For five minutes' worth? And how would the aircraft fly with that type of dangerous load on-board?
As pressure grows in Congress to hold private military companies such as Blackwater USA more accountable for their conduct, reports have surfaced of a Dec. 24 shooting in Baghdad that could serve as a textbook case.
the contractors subject to the military's laws and penalties serves as a deterrent, defense analyst Larry Korb said. "It gives the commanders there the ability to say, 'Look, you are in my zone of responsibility. Here's the ground rules, and if you violate them, here's what happens.'"
Doug Brooks... president of the International Peace Operations Association, [which] represents private security firmsgroup's president... said the military justice code is not well equipped to handle crimes committed by civilians.
"We're all for accountability, and frankly the UCMJ will be great if it can work," Brooks said of the rule change. "But UCMJ isn't the right thing to do this."
He cited concerns about the constitutionality of subjecting civilians to military legal processes, thereby depriving them of certain aspects of the regular judicial process.
Brooks said it also was unclear whether the military justice code could be applied to non-Americans. If the law applies only to Americans working on Defense contracts, he said, it would ultimately cover less than 10 percent of the contracting force in Iraq, which includes people from around the world.
Christopher Beese, chief administration officer for ArmorGroup, a security company that operates in Iraq, said he doubted whether the new law would have any impact until the US, UK and Iraqi authorities "demonstrate there is resolve to take action where action is necessary".
Mr Beese added that even in situations where ArmorGroup had itself raised concerns about the actions of some of its employees, it had found great difficulty getting the authorities to act.
US Army Colonel Peter Mansoor, an influential military thinker on counter-insurgency and a veteran of the Iraq war, told Jane's in a recent interview that the US military needs to take "a real hard look at security contractors on future battlefields and figure out a way to get a handle on them so that they can be better integrated - if we're going to allow them to be used in the first place".
One of the biggest homeland security nightmares is a nuke, smuggled aboard a shipping container. Today, port authorities "scan containers for illicit radioactive materials ashore," New Scientist notes. But "to avoid delaying shipments... detectors generally have no longer than 1 minute to do their work, which is not always long enough."
One possible solution, from MIT's Richard Lanza: hide radiation detectors "inside ordinary shipping containers and sent [them] around the world with other cargo. These covert detectors would spot high-energy gamma rays given off by plutonium or HEU, which cannot easily be shielded."
Lanza proposes using detectors consisting of inorganic crystal scintillators that emit photons when hit by gamma rays. Each emitted photon has a different energy level depending on the isotope the gamma rays come from, allowing the isotope to be identified.
Lanza has made a detector with an array of scintillators behind a mask pierced with holes. Gamma rays passing through a hole would excite one of the scintillators, causing it to emit a photon. He has shown that this can be used to generate an image of a radiation source, allowing the source to be located.
"The technology certainly has merit," one radiation detection specialist, working for the government, tells Defense Tech. And "the Coast Guard, [along] with Customs and Border Patrol, has been considering the use of 'sticky pagers': small boxes that would clamp on a container out of, say, Antwerp, and would take a continuous 1-week reading of the contents of the container as it's shipped across the ocean."
Obviously, you'd be able to get a very good reading of the half of the container nearest the detector, but the minimum detectable activity might be pretty bad near the far side.
I don't know of any specific "sticky pager" development programs going on within DHS [Department of Homeland Security] (including the Coast Guard) right now, but just because I don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't happening. There is interest, though -- there were a few presentations on this type of thing (mostly out of LANL [Los Alamos]) at the winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society.
Our expert does have a small, geeky quibble with the New Scientist story, however. The article keeps talking about "U-232" and how its radiation would "penetrate 22 metres of cargo on average." First of all, U-232 isn't really used in nuclear weapons -- that'd be another isotope, U-235. And U-232's penetration? More like 22 centimeters. Plus, New Scientist: note the spelling of "meters," ok? That's an American-built Internet you're publishing to. We expect things to be spelled our way.
The Speech: Sadr Bought Off? (Updated)
Has Moktada Al-Sadr, the Shi'ite strong man, been bought off, somehow? This is just a theory, an intellectual exercise -- not even a guess -- based on the President's speech.
Hear me out: A big part of Bush's plan relies on Iraq's cops. "18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades [will be] committed to" securing Baghdad. And "these Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations" there. But last time I checked, these police units were largely fronts for thuggish militias like Sadr's Mahdi Army. Also, the President talked about avoiding the "sectarian interference [that] prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods in Baghdad." How is that interference being avoided, or run over? By buying off its leadership, maybe?
UPDATE 01/11/06 10:50 AM: Or maybe not. "Iraq's prime minister has told Shi'ite militiamen to surrender their arms or face an all-out assault by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, senior Iraqi officials" tell the AP.
On the other hand, "An Army officer who recently commanded a battalion in Baghdad predicted [to the Washington Post] last night that the plan would fail because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government 'will do things to maintain protection' of Sadr's forces."
UPDATE 11:24 AM: "I would suggest that PM Nuri al-Maliki's warning to the Mahdi Militia to disarm or face the US military is in fact code," Juan Cole says. "He is telling the Sadrists to lie low while the US mops up the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sadr's militia became relatively quiescent for a whole year after the Marines defeated it at Najaf in August, 2004. But since it is rooted in an enormous social movement, the militia is fairly easy to reconstitute after it goes into hiding."
UPDATE 12:47 PM: Check out the weirdly ambiguous interchange between a reporter and SecDef Gates today, courtesy of Inside Defense.
Q: Is the United States military and/or the Iraqi government prepared now to arrest or kill Muqtada al-Sadr as part of this new increase?...
SEC. GATES: I think a source of frustration for both Iraqi and American forces in the past has been political interference during clearing operations... I think one of the most important commitments that the prime minister has made is that in this offensive, the military will have the authority to go after all law breakers. There are no exceptions. I'm not going to hang specific targets on specific people, but all law breakers are susceptible to being detained in this -- or taken care of in this campaign.
Q: Sir, why are you vague on the treatment of al-Sadr? Because he has a long history here in this conflict as being on the most-wanted list of the United States; then the Iraqis persuaded the U.S. not to arrest him; he leads the Mahdi Army. I mean, this is the bad guy that the United States makes clear is helping to bring down this government, so why not commit to what our posture is with regard to him now?
SEC. GATES: What I will say is that all parts of Baghdad are going to be involved in this campaign, including Sadr City. (Cross talk.) (Laughter.)
* Carter: "As an Army captain, I learned to take risks, not gambles. And this really looks like a gamble. One where the odds are really long."
* Ricks: Surge "could put U.S. military commanders in exactly the sort of tough urban fight that war planners strove to avoid during the spring 2003 invasion."
* Kaplan: If Bush had delivered the speech "two years ago, he would have deserved praise for candor, equanimity, and breadth of vision. But given its actual timing, one can only wonder about his grip on reality."
All the attention is on the army and police, right now. But Iraq's tiny air force is about to get a bit bigger, C4ISR Journal reports:
Working through the U.S. Air Force, Iraq’s nascent defense ministry has ordered six new Raytheon King Air 350 twin turboprop aircraft and related support services in a firm-fixed-price contract valued at $132 million. Disclosed by the Defense Department, the deal includes five King Air 350 Extended Range aircraft equipped for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and a single King Air 350 earmarked for the light transport role. Support equipment, spare and repair parts, training and technical data are included in the sales package.
The new planes will be operated, in part, by 70 Squadron based at Basra Air Station. In October, U.S. Air Force advisor Lieutenant Colonel Kelly Latimer showed me the squadron's modest fleet of single-engine Seeker and CH-2000 patrol planes, which she said could be outrun by cars. The King Airs are faster, can carry more surveillance gear and have longer legs but are still simple and robust enough for the Iraqi Air Force to keep flying.
$1 billion in arms sales to the Iraqi government, including the King Airs, helped the United States achieve record arms sales in 2006, as my boss Sharon Weinberger reported recently in Aviation Week:
[One] factor driving the bottom line is Iraq. Its sovereign government is now able to buy equipment directly from the U.S. [Jeffrey] Kohler, [director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency] says Iraq is allocating about $1 billion a year out of its own budget to purchase defense equipment--and about $800 million has gone for U.S. equipment this year alone. With Iraq expecting to allocate $1 billion annually to arms purchases, such large buys from the U.S. could grow.
Almost every time I've heard President Bush talk over most of the last six years, I felt like the guy was speaking to me from a parallel dimension. A Disneyland, happy-face universe, where freedom was always on the march, and terrorists were just about to be smoked out of their holes. No matter how bad Iraq got, the good guys were winning. No matter how many people got blown up, everything was just fine.
Tonight was different. A visibly nervous President Bush stepped out of the Magic Kingdom, and spoke to us, for once, from the White House. He described an Iraq that matched up to the one my friends serving there describe - the one I've seen myself. He was honest about the challenges ahead. And he was straight-up about how his plan to settle Iraq down hadn't worked.
When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation... We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together – and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.
But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq – particularly in Baghdad – overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam – the Golden Mosque of Samarra – in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.
The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me.
Now, I'm pretty damn skeptical that Bush's solution for Iraq -- 21,500 more U.S. troops -- is really going to turn things around. There are some intriguing elements, yeah. And there are some good, new commanders to carry the strategy out -- ones who seem ready to commit to counterinsurgency's most basic tenets. But it all seems like too little, too late.
The only way this plan even has the smallest scrap of hope of working is if it's governed by cold-eyed reality, not fuzzy-headed wishes. So give the President credit, at least, for driving out of Disneyland.
"Surge": Some Good News (Updated Again)
I just spent a couple of minutes on a White House conference call on the troop increase. There wasn't a ton of new information, unsurprisingly. But there was one, teeny-tiny encouraging tidbit: at least some U.S. soldiers are going to be redeployed from their massive bases, and spend 24/7 in Baghdad itself.
The city will be divided into 9 sections. Each will get a brigade of 2500 Iraq troops. And joined to that brigade will be an American combat battalion of 650 men. These people will live, full-time, "in the neighborhoods themselves," White House chief flack Tony Snow says. Unlike before, when U.S. troops would often take a 'hood -- and then head right back to their bases.
Those were smaller cities, however. Baghdad is a city of six million. An extra 5,000 U.S. troops there full-time is nice. Is it really enough?
UPDATE 4:41 PM: "President Bush tonight is expected to announce plans to increase the permanent size of U.S. ground forces by as many as 90,000 uniformed personnel," Inside Defense is reporting.
UPDATE 6:28 PM: OK, this is potentially interesting, too. "The rules of engagement governing where troops could and couldn't go were severely restricted by politics in Baghdad during previous operations," says a White House fact sheet. "Prime Minister Maliki has made clear that this is going to change. The extremists will no longer have safe havens in Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi troops cannot enter."
Also, this set of National Security Council slides -- especially #7, on the changed "key assumptions" about Iraq -- is, for this White House, almost jaw-dropping realistic and head-headed.
Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror – and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America’s course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror.
When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together – and that as we trained Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.
But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq – particularly in Baghdad – overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam – the Golden Mosque of Samarra – in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.
The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.
It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. So my national security team, military commanders, and diplomats conducted a comprehensive review. We consulted Members of Congress from both parties, allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts. We benefited from the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group – a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.
The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.
The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad. Eighty percent of Iraq’s sectarian violence occurs within 30 miles of the capital. This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis. Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.
Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.
Let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort – along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations – conducting patrols, setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.
This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence – and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I have committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them – five brigades – will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.
Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents – but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we will have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighborhoods – and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.
I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people – and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: “The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.â€
This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad’s residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas. Most of Iraq’s Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace – and reducing the violence in Baghdad will help make reconciliation possible.
A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.
To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend 10 billion dollars of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation’s political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws – and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.
America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units – and partner a Coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped Army – and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq. We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self reliance. And Secretary Rice will soon appoint a reconstruction coordinator in Baghdad to ensure better results for economic assistance being spent in Iraq.
As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists’ plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq’s democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.
Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders – and protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. As a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to step up the pressure on the terrorists. America’s men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda’s safe haven in Afghanistan – and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity – and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing – and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.
We will use America’s full diplomatic resources to rally support for Iraq from nations throughout the Middle East. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists – and a strategic threat to their survival. These nations have a stake in a successful Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors – and they must step up their support for Iraq’s unity government. We endorse the Iraqi government’s call to finalize an International Compact that will bring new economic assistance in exchange for greater economic reform. And on Friday, Secretary Rice will leave for the region – to build support for Iraq, and continue the urgent diplomacy required to help bring peace to the Middle East.
The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time. On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy – by advancing liberty across a troubled region. It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom – and help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.
From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence, and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists – or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?
The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security. Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue – and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.
Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship. But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world – a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people. A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them – and it will help bring a future of peace and security for our children and grandchildren.
Our new approach comes after consultations with Congress about the different courses we could take in Iraq. Many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States – and therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq’s borders and hunting down al Qaeda. Their solution is to scale back America’s efforts in Baghdad – or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.
In the days ahead, my national security team will fully brief Congress on our new strategy. If Members have improvements that can be made, we will make them. If circumstances change, we will adjust. Honorable people have different views, and they will voice their criticisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed.
Acting on the good advice of Senator Joe Lieberman and other key members of Congress, we will form a new, bipartisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror. This group will meet regularly with me and my Administration, and it will help strengthen our relationship with Congress. We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century. We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas – where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.
In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us. These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary – and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time. They serve far from their families, who make the quiet sacrifices of lonely holidays and empty chairs at the dinner table. They have watched their comrades give their lives to ensure our liberty. We mourn the loss of every fallen American – and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice.
Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve. It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom. Yet times of testing reveal the character of a Nation. And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed. Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can and we will prevail.
We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.
# # #
"Surge": What's the Use?
Obviously, the giant news of the day is Bush's plan for more troops in Iraq. And I have to say, I'm having trouble getting my arms around the story. Because I can't find anyone -- anyone -- that thinks this "surge," this "escalation," is a good idea. That believes it will truly deliver a significant impact.
I know a lot of you guys who hang out here at Defense Tech are committed supporters of the President. Who think he's done a solid job, given extremely difficult circumstances. So let's hear from you: Will adding 20,000 troops really make much of a difference in Iraq? How?
Don't get me wrong. For more than three years, I've had soldiers complaining to me about the lack of boots on the ground. About how winnable this war might be with more troops. But these guys didn't want a 10 or 15 percent increase in manpower, like the President will call for tonight. They wanted several divisions to join 'em. Enough troops to completely blanket the country -- or at least to pull off the classic counterinsurgency move of clearing out neighborhoods of guerrillas, and holding the areas for the good guys.
As Fred Kaplan notes, incoming Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and his co-authors "discussed this strategy at great length" when they put together the Army's new counterinsurgency field manual.
One point they made is that it requires a lot of manpower — at minimum, 20 combat troops for every 1,000 people in the area's population. Baghdad has about 6 million people; so clearing, holding, and building it will require about 120,000 combat troops.
Right now, the United States has about 70,000 combat troops in all of Iraq (another 60,000 or so are support troops or headquarters personnel). Even an extra 20,000 would leave the force well short of the minimum required — and that's with every soldier and Marine in Iraq moved to Baghdad. Iraqi security forces would have to make up the deficit.
In the short term, then, say for a year or so, enough troops might be concentrated in Baghdad if troops now deployed in Iraq have their tours of duty extended, troops due for redeployment to Iraq are mobilized several months ahead of schedule, nearly all these troops are transferred to Baghdad, and enough Iraqi troops can be mobilized to make up the remaining slack.
Meanwhile, how will Petraeus be able to keep Baghdad's insurgents from simply slipping out of town and wreaking havoc elsewhere? This is what happened in Fallujah when U.S. troops tried to destroy the insurgents' stronghold in that city. (emphasis mine)
It doesn't even seem like the surge's intellectual authors even back the plan. Gen Jack Keane, who helped push the idea to the White House, called for 32,000 troops -- 50% more than what the President is supposed to ask for. John McCain, Congress' most visible backer for more troops, is squirming, too. On the Today show last week, the Senator was asked if 20,000 more soldiers would be enough. His answer: "I’m not sure... To make it of short duration and small size would be the worst of all options to exercise, in my opinion."
UPDATE 1:55 PM: "The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than Humvees," says the Baltimore Sun.
Vehicles such as the Cougar and the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle have proven ability to save lives, but production started late and relatively small numbers are in use in Iraq, mostly because of money shortages.
UPDATE 2:20 PM: Good analysis in this video from Paul Rieckhoff and Lt. Gen. Rick Francona. "This is not like a Haily Mary pass on the part of the President," Paul says. "This is like calling a draw play when you're down big in the 4th quarter."
UPDATE 2:33 PM: The surge option "has deep blind spots that destroy my confidence in [its] proposed solutio[n] as anything except a recipe for accelerated defeat," says former Bush-backer Joe Katzman. He's got a long, detailed list of the escalation effort's unanswered questions. A few:
* If capturing terrorists in Iraq continues to result in "catch and release" due to a poorly-functioning and often intimidated Iraqi judicial system, what do you expect to accomplish with more troops? A higher flow-through rate?
* What are the fundamental attitudes on the ground of Sunni and Shi'ite leaders? Are the Sunnis really prepared to deal, or are they still maniacally focused on their loss of dominance in Iraq?
* If you stupidly continue to let Moqtada "death squads" al-Sadr live, what lasting good do 50,000 troops do when you propose to deploy them for a while in Baghdad? US troops have whittled down his forces before - how do the long-term results look now? What happens after US troops leave, if al-Sadr is still breathing?
UPDATE 3:50 PM:Matt Yglesias has a pair of talking point memos on the surge that are almost indescribably vacuous. Click on over for a laugh. Or a cry.
There is one substantive point in these memos, however: that two-thirds of the "new" Iraqi troops in Baghdad will be Kurdish pesh merga. That could actually be the move that brings warring Shi'a and Sunni factions together: both groups absolutely, completely hate the pesh's guts.
I was skeptical when I heard the news last week, that "senior defense officials" now think North Korea has "put everything in place to conduct a [second nuclear] test without any notice or warning." After all, wasn't the first Nork test a total dud?
In early December 2006, intelligence sources indicated activities were underway at the Mount Mant’ap nuclear test site near the village of Punggye-ri in North Hamgyŏng Province. The activities were first disclosed by South Korean National Assemblyman Chŏng Hyŏng-gŭn of the Grand National Party (GNP or “Hannaradangâ€) on December 21. Chŏng’s disclosure followed South Korean Defense Minister Kim Chang-su’s December 15th admonition to 30 senior military commanders “to be thoroughly prepared to counter the possibility of a second or third nuclear test by North Korea.†According to National Assemblyman Chong, North Korea had prepared two tunnels under Mount Mant’ap, and the October 9, 2006 test was conducted in a tunnel on the eastern side of the mountain while recent activities have been at the western tunnel. According to a South Korean government source, the movement of people and vehicles has been detected at the site, and the activities are similar to those that preceded the first test.
National Assemblyman Chong revealed that in December 2006 an unidentified object was moved to the western tunnel entrance and up to 15 people were observed moving about the area. Chong said that the North Koreans were seen constructing a temporary building 10 meters from the tunnel entrance and it is very likely the North Koreans were preparing the tunnel for a nuclear test. Chong also claimed that after the October 9th test in the eastern tunnel, the North Koreans removed the three temporary support buildings near that tunnel entrance and excavated and subsequently filled in a 95-meter long ditch between the buildings and the tunnel, which indicates they could be preparing the eastern tunnel for a future test as well.
Military Going Green... But Chugging Oil
The Wall Street Journal takes a tour today of the Pentagon's clean energy plans. It's a fair and balanced piece -- in the old, pre-Murdoch sense of the term. And it throws some needed cold water on a (slightly over-) enthusiastic essay I wrote for the current issue of Good magazine. In it, I get all rosy-glasses, counting off the military's alt-power projects:
In September 2005, the federal government decreed that 7.5 percent of its power should come from renewable sources by 2013. The Pentagon is already there [and is headed towards 25 percent renewables by 2025]... In sunny San Diego, California, Naval Base Coronado's solar power is saving the annual equivalent of 6,000 barrels of oil. Wind turbines help Warren Air Force Base in gusty Wyoming, keeping 4,866 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from escaping into the atmosphere per year. Then there are the nine military bases that are powered geothermally, by the heat of the earth. California's Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake kicks off 270 megawatts of electricity, keeping lights turned on as far away as Los Angeles.
True, true. But while clean power is nice, the Journal notes, it's small potatoes compared to the oil, gas, and jet fuel the Defense Department guzles:
In the past 20 years, [the military] has cut energy use at facilities 28%. Still, oil accounts for roughly 75% of total energy use. The military's focus has been on saving power -- also a laudable goal, critics say, but not an answer to dependence on oil...
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have increased military fuel use by as much as 56,000 barrels a day. In addition, the military's improved ability to deploy troops to battlefields comes at the cost of increased fuel use: today, more than half of the fuel consumed in combat theaters is used not by front-line soldiers but by supply convoy... The military uses fuel at twice the rate it did in the first Persian Gulf War and four times the rate it did in the Second World War.
Bottom line: It ain't easy, getting to green.
UPDATE 5:10 PM: "The Air Force last month successfully demonstrated how hydrogen fuel cells could one day be used for generating power at forward operating bases and remote locations to help reduce the dependence of U.S. forces on local energy sources and foreign oil," Inside Defense reports.
During the Dec. 14 test, officials from the service’s Advanced Power Technology Office studied how well a newly developed hydrogen fuel cell called the “Multipurpose Electric Power System†could provide electricity to halogen lights, comparing the results to the performance of a diesel generator now used in theater...
The demonstration was the latest in a series of tests under the office’s “tent city†initiative, which examines new alternative energy technologies that may one day help U.S. forces in theater power equipment more efficiently.
UPDATE 01/10/07 11:38 AM: Last week, Defense News had an even deeper look at the military's alt-fuel and alt-power conundrum.
With fuel prices escalating, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., is urging the Navy to go all-nuclear.
For now, only submarines and aircraft carriers are propelled by nuclear power. That’s about 80 of the Navy’s 286 ships. But Bartlett, who chaired the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, says it’s time for the nuclear Navy to grow. “The line has already been crossed for big-deck amphibious ships,†Bartlett said.
When oil hit $60 a barrel, it became more expensive to operate amphibs on oil than it would be on nuclear power, he said.
“And we will shortly cross the line for cruisers,†Bartlett said.
The Navy calculates that nuclear power becomes economical for cruisers after oil costs $80 a barrel, and for destroyers when oil costs about $205 a barrel.
But...cost is a major roadblock for nuclear-powered ships... Nuclear propulsion systems would add “several hundred million dollars†to each ship. The timing is not good. Congress is already distressed about escalating shipbuilding costs. “Once they see the numbers, it will be very hard to convince them†to go all-nuclear, he said...
[In the meantime,] the Navy also taking [smaller] steps to reduce energy consumption. It has installed bulbous bows and stern flaps on some of its ships. Each of these increases fuel efficiency by a few percentage points, according to John Young, the Pentagon’s director of research and engineering.
The Navy also is considering applying coatings to ship propellers to “potentially get 4 or 5 percent savings in fuel efficiency and possibly some reductions in maintenance,†Young told the House Armed Services Committee in September. “It looks like it pays for itself in no more than about a year.â€
The current TomDispatch has a great round-up of Darpa's research into the future of urban warfare. But man, do you have to put up with a lot to get to the good stuff.
The article's main thrust is that the Pentagon is readying itself for a "low-intensity world war of unlimited duration against criminalized segments of the urban poor." There's an "assumed need to be in the urban Iraqs of the future, [so] the question for the U.S. military becomes a practical one: How to deal with these uppity children of the third world."
Yeah, I'm rolling my eyes, too. Like the failed-state jihadists of the world will just go about minding their own business... if the U.S. just stays out their slums. Sure. Worked like a charm, before 9/11.
Besides, the U.S. has been fighting in cities since... well, since before there was a U.S. (George Washington tangled with the Red Coats in New York City, for example.) And we've never been all that good at it. The fact is, American armed forces have almost always preferred a stand-up fight -- an open war -- to some close-quarters, urban combat. That's what are training is oriented around. That's what our gear is made for. But the guys plotting to hurt us and our allies are in cities. So it's into urban canyons our military must go.
The article winces about American military talk of prepping for "Baghdad 2015" and urban fights of the issue fights. "Today, it's Baghdad; tomorrow...it could be Accra, Bogota, Dhaka, Karachi, Kinshasa, Lagos, Mogadishu or even a perennial favorite, Port au Prince." But given how badly "Baghdad 2007" is going, doesn't the Pentagon -- and especially, its research arms -- owe it to the rest of us to get better at those kinds of conflicts? Especially when Baghdad is only one in a long list of urban operations (Mogadishu, Srebrenica, Kabul) the U.S. has found itself in over the last few decades? Wouldn't anything less would be... well, a dereliction of duty?
Anyway. After several more paragraphs, we get to the meat of the story, on "the wide range of efforts to visualize, map out, and spy on the global mega-favelas that the U.S. has, until now, largely scorned and neglected." Most of these programs won't be new to close readers of Defense Tech. But it's interesting, and helpful, to see 'em all in one place. Items include...
VisiBuilding: This is a program aimed at addressing "a pressing need in urban warfare: seeing inside buildings" by developing technology that will allow U.S. forces to "determine building layouts, find anomalous quantities of materials," and "locate people within the building..."
UrbanScape: This program aims "to make the foreign city as ‘familiar as the soldier's backyard'" by providing "the warfighters patrolling an urban environment with an up-to-date, high resolution model of the urban terrain that can be viewed, manipulated and analyzed."
Urban Hopping Robots... a semi-autonomous hybrid hopping/articulated wheeled robotic platform [like this one, maybe -- ed.] that could adapt to the urban environment... and provide the delivery of small payloads to any point of the urban jungle while remaining lightweight, small to minimize the burden on the soldier.
Close Combat Lethal Recon This deadly, loitering explosive expressively for use in urban landscapes will expand a soldier's killing zone by reaching "over and around buildings, onto rooftops, and into open building portals." Think of it as a smart grenade or, according to DARPA Director Tether... "a small mortar round with a grenade-size explosive in it. A fiber-optic line unreels from its back end and provides the data link that allows the soldier to see the video from the munition's camera and to fly it into the target."
If it works -- and that's always a big if, when you're talking about a Darpa project -- that does sound like a nasty weapon. Not just in a city. But in any environment.
FWIW, The story leaves of of its list two of the creepiest Darpa programs geared towards urban fights. "Combat Zones That See" tries to strap cheap cameras together, giving soldiers watch over an entire city at once; the "Integrated Sensor is Structure" program aims to do the same thing -- with a giant, all-seeing blimp. And then there's Darpa's next robotic road race. It's through... a city! (Cue scary music.)
Pentagon's Iraq Message: T.B.D.
Newsweek has a must-read story on something we've hammered on againandagain here at Defense Tech HQ: the American military's inability to get its message out in any sort of sensible way. Especially through new media.
A draft report recently produced by the Baghdad embassy's director of strategic communications Ginger Cruz... makes the stakes clear: "Without popular support from US population, there is the risk that troops will be pulled back ... " Under the heading DOMESTIC MESSAGES, Cruz goes on to recommend 16 themes to reinforce with the American public, several of which Bush is likely to hit: "vitally important we succeed"; "actively working on new approaches"; "there are no quick or easy answers."
What's even more telling is that the IRAQI MESSAGES—the very next section—are still "TBD," to be determined. Indeed, the document so much as admits that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the United States has lost the battle for Iraqi public opinion: "Insurgents, sectarian elements, and others are taking control of the message at the public level." Videos of U.S. soldiers being shot and blown up, and of the bloody work of sectarian death squads, are now pervasive. The images inspire new recruits and intimidate those who might stand against them. "Inadequate message control in Iraq," the draft warns, "is feeding the escalating cycle of violence..."
Sunni insurgents in particular have become expert at using technology to underscore—some would say exaggerate—their effectiveness. "The sophistication of the way the enemy is using the news media is huge," Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told NEWSWEEK just before he returned to the United States. Most large-scale attacks on U.S. forces are now filmed, often from multiple camera angles, and with high-resolution cameras... In some cases, U.S. officials believe, insurgents attack American forces primarily to generate fresh footage...
What the insurgents understand better than the Americans is how Iraqis consume information. Tapes of beheadings are stored on cell phones along with baby pictures and wedding videos. Popular Arab satellite channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya air far more graphic images than are typically seen on U.S. TV—leaving the impression, say U.S. military officials, that America is on the run...
The U.S. military's response, on the other hand, usually sticks to traditional channels like press releases. These can take hours to prepare and are often outdated by the time they're issued. Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, director of the military's press operations in Baghdad until this past September, complains that all military-related information has to be processed upward through a laborious and bureaucratic chain of command. "The military wants to control the environment around it, but as we try to [do so], it only slows us down further," he says. "All too often, the easiest decision we made was just not to talk about [the story] at all, and then you absolutely lose your ability to frame what's going on."
If you're standing near Sharon Weinberger, be careful. Her head may explode, after reading this post.
Despite her best efforts -- including a whole freakin' book -- to explain to folks that a nuclear hand grenade violates science's most basic principles, the idea just won't die. The latest example: OK, OK... it's from Maxim, not the New Republic or Foreign Policy. But still, the fact that the nuke grenade (also known as the "hafnium bomb") survives a basic fact-check -- from any magazine -- says something about the imaginary weapon's durability.
Get ready for an adrenaline-pumping international game of dodgeball. For years - and to the tune of $10 million so far - the Department of Energy has been pursuing the idea of nuclear grenades, handheld weapons that could yield kilotons of destructive power thanks to one central ingredient: superexcited elements called isomers. A golf ball holding the energy of just one halfnium 178 isomer- the element being considered for use in the weapon - would contain the equivalent of 10 tons of explosives. The moment researchers discover the best way to trigger the release of that energy...we're all screwed!
Neither the Globe nor Defense News could find any big defense contractor to comment on the five-word change to the law, spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and former JAG. But they've caught the legal and private military interest groups squirming.
Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, an organization that represents government contractors, tells Defense News that "one result [of the rule change] may be that contractors now can be punished for actions not ordinarily prosecutable under U.S. law."
The UCMJ’s "behavioral requirements are very different and potentially in conflict with contract law and criminal law," Soloway said...
Civilian contractors now might be punished for disrespecting an officer, disregarding an order or committing adultery — actions that are not prosecutable under U.S. law, Soloway said.
"If a general or colonel directs a contractor or government civilian to do something that is outside terms of contract, under U.S. procurement law, the contractor does not do it without authority from the contracting officer," Soloway said. But under the UCMJ, "that might be failure to follow an order."
"I think there should have been some kind of hearing before Congress passed this measure," Eugene R. Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, tells the Globe.
"Ultimately, if this power is used, it will create a substantial issue that would likely reach the Supreme Court, and it will put us at odds with contemporary international standards."
Fidell said that US courts have a history of throwing out convictions of civilians who were tried in military courts, including the 1957 case of a wife who killed her husband on a military base.
"There was a period of decades that you could have crimes by US persons overseas that could never be punished," he said.
UPDATE 4:04 PM: More changes at the top: Army chief of staff Peter Schoomaker is out. Iraq commander Gen. General George Casey is in. (Big ups: Dan)
So there's a new general slated to take over Iraq: Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the well-regarded, media-savvy chief of the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth. While he was there, he "helped oversee the drafting of the military’s comprehensive new manual on counterinsurgency," the Times notes.
Petraeus was tapped over several more senior generals. He's "arguably the Army general whose star is rising most rapidly on the basis of his performance in Iraq," Tom Barnett noted in a March profile for Esquire. The general "led the 101st Airborne Division in northern and central Iraq during the first difficult postwar year and then assumed leadership of the coalition effort to rebuild Iraq's security forces... [he] worked the sheikhs well enough but let a horrifically efficient insurgency build on his watch."
On his blog, Barnett calls Petraeus "a solid choice" for Iraq commander.
Petraeus doesn't shy from the nation-building role and since building Iraq from the army outward is the most feasible pathway of success, putting him in charge makes a lot of sense; he's got the most experience and has done the most thinking and revamping of doctrine on the more general topic of counter-insurgency. Plus, Dave's just a really good guy.
I'm stricken with a case of the "what ifs" and "if onlys"! What if Gates had been at the Pentagon in 2003 and Petraeus had been in charge of the US military in Iraq and Crocker had been there instead of Paul Bremer? These are competent professionals who know what they are doing. Gates is clear-sighted enough to tell Congress that the US is not winning in Iraq, unlike his smooth-talking, arrogant and flighty predecessor. Petraeus is among the real experts on counter-insurgency, and did a fine job of making friends and mending fences when he was in charge of Mosul.
The Post's William Arkin, on the other hand, isn't so sure. "Though Petraeus may be an intellectual and promotional wizard, I have a hard time seeing any true success and product from his early work in or on Iraq."
Regaining control of Baghdad - after we threw it away - will require the defiant use of force. Negotiations won't do it. Cultural awareness isn't going to turn this situation around (we need to stop pandering to our enemies and defeat them, thanks)
His fans believe he's a new-style officer for a new type of warfare, where battles can be won with superior technology and firepower, but true victories can be secured only by good peacemaking and politics. They say he proved himself—and his methods—in the aftermath of the war last year. (It's widely accepted that no force worked harder to win Iraqi hearts and minds than the 101st Air Assault Division led by Petraeus.) These boosters include many in the White House. "People's body language shifts" when they talk about Petraeus there, says one official. Yet critics regard Petraeus as one of a type they call "perfumed princes," a derisive term for officers who have advanced from one staff job to another, essentially working as efficient courtiers to the four-stars. They say he won a short-term peace in Mosul at the expense of allowing insurgents to organize themselves mostly unmolested. They rankle at Petraeus's penchant for self-promotion and PR.
UPDATE 01/06/06 6:08 PM: "Believe the hype," says Spencer Ackerman. Then he warns...
Petraeus is in a horrible dilemma. He has no plausible way of refusing this assignment. Yet Iraq is beyond repair. Bush is using Petraeus -- the only symbol of wisdom and, indeed, success that the military has left -- as a human shield. He has no problem putting Petraeus through the agony of Iraq if it means a more "dramatic" move on Wednesday. If there's any irony here, it's that the arrival of Petraeus in Baghdad will make it harder for anyone to argue that the war was lost on the home front, since now it's in the hands of the wisest general in the U.S. Army.
After the jump, there are some more illustrative snippets from that Esquire piece on Petraeus...
With his Princeton Ph.D. in international relations, Petraeus is the closest thing the Army has to its own Lawrence of Arabia, a comparison he does little to discourage, as he seems to identify with the British colonel's experiences in the region during the First World War and the enduring wisdom of his advice to those military officers caught in similarly trying circumstances (Lawrence's legendary book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom), which Petraeus appears to know by heart...
One of the first challenges Petraeus faced while occupying much of northern and central Iraq—including the huge Al Anbar province—with the 101st Airborne in the spring of 2003 was the small matter of there being no government there whatsoever. Sudden, unanticipated problem, usually not the preserve of generals: How to get the local government to continue paying its workers. The acting governor of Al Anbar pointed Petraeus in the direction of a central bank manager, who, it just so happened, had set aside a substantial sum of Iraqi currency for just such a post-invasion occasion. Problem was, this banker felt he had no authority in a post-Saddam environment, because his entire career he hadn't sneezed without first asking permission from Baghdad. So he said to Petraeus, "You have the authority." Petraeus thought about that and said, "You're right, I do!"...
Petraeus also has his own version of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which in his case number thirteen. It's a simple PowerPoint package of thirteen slides of lessons learned in the war. Number one is, Lawrence had it right. By this he means: It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them. Mao Tse-tung, Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh would readily recognize Petraeus's other pillars as eternal truths: Armies of liberation have half-lives. Money is ammunition. Intelligence is the key. Cultural awareness is a force multiplier. Success depends on local leaders.
That last one seems to be the most important to Petraeus. So when the Iraqi leaders of Mosul came to him as commander of the 101st Airborne in the first months of the postwar occupation asking for his help in getting the city's university back up and running, Petraeus didn't hesitate. He had helicopter assault troops available, so Petraeus told them, "Hey, you won the lottery. You're going to rebuild Mosul University." The place had been completely looted and was a shambles, but a month or so later, a Big Ten–sized university was holding classes in Mosul, finishing out the school year a little late, with American helo pilots filling in as college administrators.
That follows with the main lesson General Petraeus has learned from Iraq: "Everyone does nation building."
The international consultancy that McConnell has worked at for a decade as a senior vice president, Booz Allen Hamilton, won contracts worth $63 million on the TIA "data-mining" program, which was later cancelled [kinda sorta -- ed.] after congressional Democrats raised questions about invasion of privacy... While his role in the TIA program is unlikely to derail McConnell's nomination, spokespeople for some leading Democratic senators such as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ron Wyden of Oregon say it will be examined carefully.
McConnell was a key figure in making Booz Allen, along with Science Applications International Corp., the prime contractor on the project, according to officials in the intelligence community and at Booz Allen who would discuss contracts for data mining only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "I think Poindexter probably respected Mike and probably entrusted the TIA program to him as a result," said a longtime associate of McConnell's who worked at NSA with him...
Intel experts agree that McConnell will need all the good will he can get from the intelligence and defense communities. "It's a good appointment for a bad office," says John Arquilla, who teaches intelligence at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. "The directorate of national intelligence should not exist. It's very redundant." Insiders say Negroponte was frustrated by his lack of budgeting control over Pentagon intelligence, and the resistance of the CIA to his direction since his office was created in 2004 as part of the Bush administration's post-9/11 reforms.
And by the way, Rutty asks in the comments (I'm paraphrasing heavily here): What was McConnell's role in Echelon -- the NSA's massive information sweeper, which got some much attention during the Clinton years? (The project had been around for decades, remember.)
My CO had a very interesting way of making sure the civilian contractors in his area to behave. Before he came the civilian contractors were acting like thugs. My CO in the civilian world is a cop. So he got his friends to pull up personal data on the civilian contractors.
He had a meeting with them and basically told them if they keep on acting the way they did he will make sure their personal information makes it's way to the insurgents and he will personally hand them over to members of the Iraqi police that he is fairly certain are members of the insurgency.
Funny thing was after that meeting the civilian contractors stopped being thugs to the Iraqis. Posted by: Billy at January 4, 2007 03:21 PM
Good. Exposure to the UCMJ means additional risk, which means more money. I need a raise.
Being subject to the UCMJ will make us immune from Iraqi law under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), just like soldiers.
Also, the US government will not turn us over to the International Criminal court (ICC) to be tried for war crimes; real, imagined, or concocted.
I lived under UCMJ for 22 years. A few more will not make any difference. Posted by: Thorn... at January 4, 2007 01:39 PM
The British Investigation into the "Elvis" video event released its report before Christmas concluding that all the footage in the video came from legitimate operations. Strange you mention the case to support your argument but don't mention the (previous) resolution. Raised major red flags with me about the enitire article. Posted by: Michael Stora at January 4, 2007 02:48 PM
I am on my 3rd tour, I have seen a contractor shoot a civilian in the head because he protested when the contractor grabbed his daughters breasts. There was nothing that anyone could do about it when re radioed it in we were told to lethim go. This isjust one of dozens of stories and one that I saw myself. Posted by: WKean at January 4, 2007 01:49 PM
UPDATE 01/05/06 11:30 AM: Pat Dollard sends as an interesting take on the rule changes from one military officer. Check it out after the jump.
1. There are a few Articles [in the UCMJ] that apply [to reporters]…
Article 82 - SOLICITATION (this would apply to the guy who pimped the soldier to challenge Rumsfeld about the vehicle armor); Article 88 – Contempt; Articles 89 - Disrespect, Article 107 - MAKING A FALSE OFFICIAL STATEMENT (I would like to pay some people back); Article 117 – provoking speeches or gestures, Article 132 - FRAUDS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES…
2. For contractors (we are actually referring ONLY to security contractors like BlackWater, Triple Canopy)… This amendment to the already existing law will help area/unit commanders control their actions and their movement. Since they are mercenaries, and many prior military, every single article applies to them…
3. You can see how this tool will effect BOTH "contractors" and media personnel. The way I see it is this:
A- [Applied to reporters, it is] a tool for the government to allow/use the military to control media content and output. This could be a VERY controversial issue.
B- [Applied to contractors,] it allows for unit and area commanders to CONTROL the conduct and accountability of civilians/contractors/reporters that are operating in their Area of Operation. As a military commander, who personally, and intimately dealt with both agencies outlined above, I feel that this is the greatest merit of the "amendment" to the law.
4. What is missing is an appendix, that deals with the specific application of all the articles of the UCMJ as it applies to contractors, reporters, etc. It already exists, but there are a few grey areas that immediately pop out. Realize there are many, but here are few to get your mouth wet: Is there a specific authority that can adjudicate the law? Right now, as a Captain, I can punish/adjudicate the law to all those who the law applies to. My authority, as well as at the battalion level - uses Non- Judicial Punishment to adjudicate the law. We take away rank, money, assign "extra duties", and restrict or "ground" them. So, it would make sense to me that all of these cases will be referred to a higher authority in order to adjudicate the law by Court Martial. All the money, rank, etc applies, but there is imprisonment factors and felony/criminal charges that carry the same implications as in the "real world".
There is no "double-jeopardy". We cannot charge, and punish you against the UCMJ, and then punish you for the same offense in the civilian court system. So, I cannot use MEJA and the UCMJ together, it has to be one or the other.
These laws need to be explained to everyone that it applies to. And in my opinion, there needs to be some sort of signature/contract that binds them to these laws.
5. While I like the whole concept, it leaves too much to interpretation and needs to be strictly defined, so that when it comes time to hold the "target audience" accountable for their actions - there can be no way they can get out of it. We can do MUCH better, and I am surprised that no one has taken the initiative on this.
Since the DOJ, MEJA, and all the other bullshit cannot take care of this issue on their own, they will continue the trend of piling this responsibility upon the shoulders of the US service members. Since we are already carrying the State Department on our backs, in addition to battling a raging insurgency, and rebuilding a nation - I guess we can make room for the DOJ. I guess it really makes sense. Do you really think they will send Department of Justice personnel to Iraq to help enforce MEJA and all applicable laws? As it applies to most of our public officials, they are not willing to shoulder the same burden and make the same sacrifices as the American, and now Iraqi, service members. But, like I said, this would be a much appreciated tool for military commanders to control their battle-space. So, all bitching aside, I like it. And it makes me want to go back even more.
Nuke Scarecrow Put Out to Pasture
Security at the nation's nuclear weapons complex has been comically awful for years. But despite meth dealers caught with classified info, despite the barely-armed guards patrolling the Livermore Lab, despite the short-cut security drills at Oak Ridge, and despite the faked investigations at Sandia -- not to mention that pesky reporter who waltzed right into Los Alamos -- the guy supposedly in charge of security has somehow been able to keep his job.
The nuclear watchdogs over at the Project on Government Oversight are understandably psyched. They've been calling for Brooks' resignation since 2004. "This is an opportunity for the National Nuclear Security Administration to finally live up to its name," said POGO chief Danielle Brian said in a statement.
The NNSA was created back in 2000, after the Wen Ho Lee scandal and other security lapses hit Los Alamos. Maybe the group can finally start doing its job, under a new director. See ya later, Linton. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
When Gen. Michael Hayden, the former NSA director, was nominated to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a few folks were worried. The CIA was supposed to be in charge of informant and spies -- human intelligence, or HUMINT. The NSA was a signals intelligence, or SIGINT, shop. Could the CIA really trust someone like Hayden, who specialized in technical snooping?
At the time, it seemed like a minor point. Hayden, after all, had a HUMINT background, too. And his resume wasn't really the issue; his authorizing of warantless wiretaps loomed much larger.
But the SIGINT/HUMINT divide is bound to come up again, now that Hayden's boss, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, is getting ready to skedaddle. Because Negroponte's likely replacement is Admiral Mike McConnell, another former NSA director. Another SIGINT guy.
Now, since 9/11, just about everyone in the intelligence field has talked about how crummy our network of flesh-and-blood informants is. Can a certified geek like McConnell fix that? Or is this one more acknowledgment of the triumph of technical intelligence -- and the decline of human snoops?
UPDATE 5:59 PM: Speaking of spying, let's hope the Daily News somehow got this story wrong. Because if George Bush really just granted the government, by executive fiat, the power to read our mail without a warrant, it violates every notion of privacy and due process under the law we've built up over the last 230 years in this country.
UPDATE 01/05/06 11:36 PM: "John D. Negroponte's exit from the nation's top spy post after just 19 months will temporarily stall reform efforts for the nation's 16 intelligence agencies and sow further instability," Siobhan Gorman reports in today's Baltimore Sun.
The departure leaves Negroponte's likely successor, retired Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell, with little time to put the fledgling office on solid footing before the next White House turnover, tlawmakers and intelligence officials said.
The leadership change in the Director of National Intelligence office is compounded by the absence of a deputy to replace Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who left the job as second-in-command last spring to head the CIA.
Contractors have traditionally not been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the body of laws that governs the behavior of soldiers. Other laws apply to contractors, but many remain untested.
"You have two different types of people operating under different sets of rules," said Scott L. Silliman, executive director of the center on law, ethics and national security at Duke University.
E.O.D. Olympics
The Navy command responsible for testing bomb-disposal tactics and equipment for the entire U.S. military recently has hosted its first annual "Explosive Ordnance Disposal Top Tech Challenge," a three-day slate of competitions for Navy bomb squads, as I report over at Military.com:
EOD Training and Evaluation Unit Two, part of Naval Expeditionary Combat Command headquartered at this facility near Virginia Beach in southern Virginia, in November welcomed five two-man teams from Navy bases around the world, according to the unit's skipper, Commander Tom Smith, 42.
"It's an absolute uber-challenge," Smith says of the competition, going on to describe grueling events including booby-trap defusing, rappelling, land navigation and a "limpet mine" challenge where bomb technicians must dive into a "cold lake on a cold morning" to find and disable a replica of the kinds of mines terrorists might attach to the bottom of a ship.
"We threw the kitchen sink at them," Smith laughs.
This year, an EOD team from Sigonella, Italy took top honors. Calling the competition a success, Smith adds that his unit is already planning for next years. He says the 2007 Challenge will involve as many as a dozen teams.
P.S. -- Slate has a sweet roundup of Iraq war comics that includes my book WAR FIX as well as cool entries from Brian Wood (DMZ) and Joe Sacco (WAR JUNKIE). Check it out.
The Law Catches Up To Private Militaries, Embeds
Since the start of the Iraq war, tens of thousands of heavily-armed military contractors have been roaming the country -- without any law, or any court to control them. That may be about to change, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow P.W. Singer notes in a Defense Tech exclusive. Five words, slipped into a Pentagon budget bill, could make all the difference. With them, "contractors 'get out of jail free' cards may have been torn to shreds," he writes. They're now subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the same set of laws that governs soldiers. But here's the catch: embedded reporters are now under those regulations, too.
Over the last few years, tales of private military contractors run amuck in Iraq -- from the CACI interrogators at Abu Ghraib to the Aegis company's Elvis-themed internet "trophy video" —- have continually popped up in the headlines. Unfortunately, when it came to actually doing something about these episodes of Outsourcing Gone Wild, Hollywood took more action than Washington. The TV series Law and Order punished fictional contractor crimes, while our courts ignored the actual ones. Leonardo Dicaprio acted in a movie featuring the private military industry, while our government enacted no actual policy on it. But those carefree days of military contractors romping across the hills and dales of the Iraqi countryside, without legal status or accountability, may be over. The Congress has struck back.
Amidst all the add-ins, pork spending, and excitement of the budget process, it has now come out that a tiny clause was slipped into the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 budget legislation. The one sentence section (number 552 of a total 3510 sections) states that "Paragraph (10) of section 802(a) of title 10, United States Code (article 2(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice), is amended by striking `war' and inserting `declared war or a contingency operation'." The measure passed without much notice or any debate. And then, as they might sing on School House Rock, that bill became a law (P.L.109-364).
The addition of five little words to a massive US legal code that fills entire shelves at law libraries wouldn't normally matter for much. But with this change, contractors' 'get out of jail free' card may have been torn to shreds. Previously, contractors would only fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, better known as the court martial system, if Congress declared war. This is something that has not happened in over 65 years and out of sorts with the most likely operations in the 21st century. The result is that whenever our military officers came across episodes of suspected contractor crimes in missions like Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, or Afghanistan, they had no tools to resolve them. As long as Congress had not formally declared war, civilians -- even those working for the US armed forces, carrying out military missions in a conflict zone -- fell outside their jurisdiction. The military's relationship with the contractor was, well, merely contractual. At most, the local officer in charge could request to the employing firm that the individual be demoted or fired. If he thought a felony occurred, the officer might be able to report them on to civilian authorities.
Getting tattled on to the boss is certainly fine for some incidents. But, clearly, it's not how one deals with suspected crimes. And it's nowhere near the proper response to the amazing, awful stories that have made the headlines (the most recent being the contractors who sprung a former Iraqi government minister, imprisoned on corruption charges, from a Green Zone jail).
And for every story that has been deemed newsworthy, there are dozens that never see the spotlight. One US army officer recently told me of an incident he witnessed, where a contractor shot a young Iraqi who got too close to his vehicle while in line at the Green Zone entrance. The boy was waiting there to apply for a job. Not merely a tragedy, but one more nail in the coffin for any US effort at winning hearts and minds.
But when such incidents happen, officers like him have had no recourse other than to file reports that are supposed to be sent on either to the local government or the US Department of Justice, neither of which had traditionally done much. The local government is often failed or too weak to act - the very reason we are still in Iraq. And our Department of Justice has treated contractor crimes in a more Shakespearean than Hollywood way, as in Much Ado About Nothing. Last month, DOJ reported to Congress that it has sat on over 20 investigations of suspected contractor crimes without action in the last year.
The problem is not merely one of a lack of political will on the part of the Administration to deal with such crimes. Contractors have also fallen through a gap in the law. The roles and numbers of military contractors are far greater than in the past, but the legal system hasn't caught up. Even in situations when US civilian law could potentially have been applied to contractor crimes (through the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act), it wasn't. Underlying the previous laws like MEJA was the assumption that civilian prosecutors back in the US would be able to make determinations of what is proper and improper behavior in conflicts, go gather evidence, carry out depositions in the middle of warzones, and then be willing and able to prosecute them to juries back home. The reality is that no US Attorney likes to waste limited budgets on such messy, complex cases 9,000 miles outside their district, even if they were fortunate enough to have the evidence at hand. The only time MEJA has been successfully applied was against the wife of a soldier, who stabbed him during a domestic dispute at a US base in Turkey. Not one contractor of the entire military industry in Iraq has been charged with any crime over the last 3 and a half years, let alone prosecuted or punished. Given the raw numbers of contractors, let alone the incidents we know about, it boggles the mind.
The situation perhaps hit its low-point this fall, when the Under Secretary of the Army testified to Congress that the Army had never authorized Halliburton or any of its subcontractors (essentially the entire industry) to carry weapons or guard convoys. He even denied the US had firms handling these jobs. Never mind the thousands of newspaper, magazine, and TV news stories about the industry. Never mind Google's 1,350,000 web mentions. Never mind the official report from U.S. Central Command that there were over 100,000 contractors in Iraq carrying out these and other military roles. In a sense, the Bush Administration was using a cop-out that all but the worst Hollywood script writers avoid. Just like the end of the TV series Dallas, Congress was somehow supposed to accept that the private military industry in Iraq and all that had happened with it was somehow 'just a dream.'
But Congress didn't bite, it now seems. With the addition of just five words in the law, contractors now can fall under the purview of the military justice system. This means that if contractors violate the rules of engagement in a warzone or commit crimes during a contingency operation like Iraq, they can now be court-martialed (as in, Corporate Warriors, meet A Few Good Men). On face value, this appears to be a step forward for realistic accountability. Military contractor conduct can now be checked by the military investigation and court system, which unlike civilian courts, is actually ready and able both to understand the peculiarities of life and work in a warzone and kick into action when things go wrong.
The amazing thing is that the change in the legal code is so succinct and easy to miss (one sentence in a 439-page bill, sandwiched between a discussion on timely notice of deployments and a section ordering that the next of kin of medal of honor winners get flags) that it has so far gone completely unnoticed in the few weeks since it became the law of the land. Not only has the media not yet reported on it. Neither have military officers or even the lobbyists paid by the military industry to stay on top of these things.
So what happens next? In all likelihood, many firms, who have so far thrived in the unregulated marketplace, will now lobby hard to try to strike down the change. We will perhaps even soon enjoy the sight of CEOs of military firms, preening about their loss of rights and how the new definition of warzone will keep them from rescuing kittens caught in trees.
But, ironically, the contractual nature of the military industry serves as an effective mechanism to prevent loss of rights. The legal change only applies to the section in the existing law dealing with those civilians "serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field," i.e. only those contractors on operations in conflict zones like Iraq or Afghanistan. It would apply not to the broader public in the US, not to local civilians, and not even to military contractors working in places where civilian law is stood up. Indeed, it even wouldn't apply to our foes, upholding recent rulings on the scope of military law and the detainees at Gitmo.
In many ways, the new law is the 21st century business version of the rights contract: If a private individual wants to travel to a warzone and do military jobs for profit, on behalf of the US government, then that individual agrees to fall under the same codes of law and consequence that American soldiers, in the same zones, doing the same sorts of jobs, have to live and work by. If a contractor doesn't agree to these regulations, that's fine, don't contract. Unlike soldiers, they are still civilians with no obligation to serve. The new regulation also seems to pass the fairness test. That is, a lance corporal or a specialist earns less than $20,000 a year for service in Iraq, while a contractor can earn upwards of $100,000-200,000 a year (tax free) for doing the same job and can quit whenever they want. It doesn't seem that unreasonable then to expect the contractor to abide by the same laws as their military counterpart while in the combat theatre. Given that the vast majority of private military employees are upstanding men and women -- and mostly former soldiers, to boot -- living under the new system will not mean much change at all. All it does is now give military investigators a way finally to stop the bad apples from filling the headlines and getting away free.
The change in the law is long overdue. But in being so brief, it needs clarity on exactly how it will be realized. For example, how will it be applied to ongoing contracts and operations? Given that the firm executives and their lobbyists back in DC have completely dropped the ball, someone ought to tell the contractors in Iraq that they can now be court martialed.
Likewise, the scope of the new law could made more clear; it could be either too limited or too wide, depending on the interpretation. While it is apparent that any military contractor working directly or indirectly for the US military falls under the change, it is unclear whether those doing similar jobs for other US government agencies in the same warzone would fall under it as well (recalling that the contractors at Abu Ghraib were technically employed by the US Department of Interior, sublet out to DOD).
On the opposite side, what about civilians who have agreed to be embedded, but not contracted? The Iraq war is the first that journalists could formally embed in units, so there is not much experience with its legal side in contingency operations. The lack of any legal precedent, combined with the new law, could mean that an overly aggressive
interpretation might now also include journalists who have embedded.
Given that journalists are not armed, not contracted (so not paid directly or indirectly from public monies) and most important, not there to serve the mission objectives, this would probably be too extensive an interpretation. It would also likely mean less embeds. But given the current lack of satisfaction with the embed program in the media, any effect here may be a tempest in a tea pot. As of Fall 2006, there were only nine embedded reporters in all of Iraq. Of the nine, four were from military media (three from Stars and Stripes, one from Armed Forces Network), two not even with US units (one Polish radio reporter with Polish troops, one Italian reporter with Italian troops), and one was an American writing a book. Moreover, we should remember that embeds already make a rights tradeoff when they agree to the military's reporting rules. That is, they have already given up some of their 1st Amendment protections (something at the heart of their professional ethic) in exchange for access, so agreeing to potentially fall under UCMJ when deployed may not be a deal breaker.
The ultimate point is that the change gives the military and the civilians courts a new tool to use in better managing and overseeing contractors, but leaves it to the Pentagon and DOJ to decide when and where to use it. Given their recent track record on legal issues in the context of Iraq and the war on terror, many won't be that reassured.
Congress is to be applauded for finally taking action to reign in the industry and aid military officers in their duties, but the job is not done. While there may be an inclination to let such questions of scope and implementation be figured out through test cases in the courts, our elected public representatives should request DoD to answer the questions above in a report to Congress. Moreover, while the change may help close one accountability loophole, in no way should it be read as a panacea for the rest of the private military industry's ills. The new Congress still has much to deal with when it comes to the still unregulated industry, including getting enough eyes and ears to actually oversee and manage our contracts effectively, create reporting structures, and forcing the Pentagon to develop better fiscal controls and market sanctions, to actually save money than spend it out.
A change of a few words in a legislative bill certainly isn't the stuff of a blockbuster movie. So don't expect to see Angelina Jolie starring in "Paragraph (10) of Section 802(a)" in a theatre near you anytime soon. But the legal changes in it are a sign that Congress is finally catching up to Hollywood on the private military industry. And that is the stuff of good governance.
America, it turns out, is suffering from a science and engineering shortage. Students are bypassing the sciences for sexier and more lucrative jobs...
This creates something of a national security problem... According to Dr. Barker, who works in the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, those who manage the national labs and others who conduct sensitive research have been saying for years "how hard it is to find qualified graduate students who are US citizens..."
Barker notes that 50 percent of America's scientific-and-engineering workforce will be eligible to retire in the next five years. Who's going to replace them?...
Hollywood... [may] be part of the solution. By writing and producing movies that have more scientific themes - and more authentic and appealing science protagonists - boosters think the US could encourage more young people to pursue careers in plasma physics, molecular biology, and other fields...
So what they've done for the past three years is convene a three-to-five-day screenwriting class at the venerated American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Called the Catalyst Workshop, it's a lot like other screenwriting classes that have become a cottage industry across the nation. But here's the twist - all participants in this one are actually scientists. Hardcore, PhD-laden, lab-certified scientists.
The military is paying closer attention to business... because the world of geopolitics has discovered itself to be on the same road that business has been on for some time. That road is flatter, more networked and more decentralized than ever.
Large companies are groping for strategies to fend off disruptive competitors, including YouTube, Kazaa, Skype and Wikipedia, companies that are giving away video, music, long-distance and information while eroding the revenue stream of companies that charge for it. YouTube is a website where users swap millions of free videos. With fewer than 100 employees, it has created anxiety throughout the giant industries of film and TV...
How large, traditional companies fare in this fight may prove invaluable in developing a strategy against al-Qaeda. That's why the military is going to school. A book making the rounds at the Pentagon is The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. It was written for a business audience, but military strategists are saying, "This is the best thing I've read that applies to counterterrorism," says Lt. Col. Rudolph Atallah, a Defense Department director in international affairs.
The premise of The Starfish and the Spider is that centralized organizations are like spiders and can be destroyed with an attack to the head. Decentralized organizations transfer decision-making to leaders in the field. They are like starfish. No single blow will kill them, and parts that are destroyed will grow back.
When Starfish co-author Rod Beckstrom arrived at USA TODAY's suburban Washington, D.C., headquarters for an interview in November, he said he had just come from meetings with representatives at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the "intelligence community." He said he was contacted "out of the blue" in September by one of the highest-ranking officers in special operations, and more recently by a high-ranking special operations officer at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Step off, Al Gore. I, with a little help from an eager group of atmospheric scientists, have found a quick fix to global warming. All we need is a handful of nuclear weapons! They can even be small ones!
You’re probably thinking that the heat is messing with my mind. A slewofstudies released in the past few months, though, has confirmed that using nuclear weapons could significantly -- perhaps even catastrophically –- cool the planet.
This phenomenon was first studied towards the end of the Cold War, in the early 1980s. The idea was that the smoke and carbon particles released by fires (in turn caused by nuclear attacks on cities, where much of the world's fuel is stored) could have similar cooling effects to those known to be caused by the ash released in major volcanic eruptions –- only worse (due to physical and chemical differences between ash and smoke). A seminal study in 1983, often called TTAPS (after its authors), confirmed this hypothesis and coined the term "nuclear winter."
Even using extremely crude modeling, TTAPS projected that a massive nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. could cause catastrophic cooling in the continental interiors –- a change of as much as -35 degrees C (-63 degrees F). For comparison, the last global ice age, at its peak, saw average global cooling of only -5 degrees C (-9 degrees F) –- though the cooling at continental interiors would have been more drastic. Later studies concluded that these changes would persist for around 3 years.
Nuclear winter studies continued until 1990 and then ceased abruptly (presumably the end of the Cold War sucked the urgency out of the issue). This fall, however, Alan Robock of Rutgers University and some of his colleagues have published several new studies on nuclear winter –- the first such studies in almost 20 years.
Climate models today –- and the computers to run them –- are considerably more sophisticated than those of the early 1980s. Using these improved models, Robock et al. confirmed that the nuclear winter theory holds, in general. The temperature effects for a massive nuclear exchange should actually be slightly less extreme than originally predicted, but according to the new model they would last for over a decade, rather than just for a few years.
Taking a completely new approach, one study also examined a scenario no one bothered to consider during the Cold War: a regional nuclear conflict. They found that massive, superpower-style nuclear exchanges are not required to force major climate change. Even a relatively small nuclear exchange between, say, India and Pakistan, could cause average global surface cooling of over 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) and peak cooling at continental interiors of around 4 degrees C (7 degrees F).
Interestingly, the studies found that the persistence of the climate changes did not depend on the size of the nuclear exchange. In other words, the climate effects from a regional nuclear war would last just as long as those from a global nuclear war, though they would be less extreme.
Recent modeling has also confirmed that nuclear exchanges will drastically reduce global precipitation, by as much as -45% for a massive superpower exchange and -10% for a regional exchange. In the former case, for instance, Northern Hemisphere monsoon seasons would disappear entirely.
These studies have weaknesses –- for instance, they assume nuclear weapons will only target cities, where most smoke-generating fuel is gathered, rather than isolated military installations –- but collectively they are a reasonable step towards updating the science of nuclear winter. After such a long hiatus, with nuclear proliferation looming in Asia and the Middle East, and even though nuclear winter itself is rather terrifying, I find it reassuring that long-neglected effects of nuclear weapons are being studied anew.
UPDATE 7:10 PM: Russell Seitz says the whole nuclear winter thing has been oversold.
UPDATE 01/05/06 4:25 PM: Eric rebuts the rebuttal, here.
U.N.'s High-Tech Rides, Low-Tech Intel
The U.N. force in southern Lebanon ain't what it used to be. In the wake of the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, has grown from a lightly armed body of observers to a mobile armored force with real teeth.
In stark contrast to Western armies operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, United Nations forces in southern Lebanon enjoy unqualified healthy relationships with native security forces and local residents. These facilitate intelligence-gathering and cooperation that boost the force's effectiveness.
... On December 18, a two-vehicle patrol from [Italian Lt. Col. Ciccarelli] Giordano's [cavalry] regiment descends from the regiment's hilltop base near the town of Chama and heads down a seaside road. Periodically, it stops and soldiers hop out of the armored vehicles to stand on the side of the road, making themselves visible to passing motorists.
"They stay here to observe and to report every kind of situation," says Lieutenant Livio Lombardi. "Sometimes [people] ask for us to intervene ... in medical problems or in the presence of bombs [leftover from the summer war]."
Discovery Channel gives viewers unprecedented access to the latest military weapons in the second season of FUTUREWEAPONS, including several that are exclusive to Discovery Channel cameras. Host and ex-Navy SEAL, Richard “Mack†Machowicz, goes to manufacturing sites around the world to test weapons, detail the science behind the hardware and explain how it gives soldiers strategic advantages during combat. FUTUREWEAPONS premieres Monday, January 15, 2007, at 9 PM (ET/PT).
Some of the exclusive weapons featured in the series include two that are currently being used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Boot Banger neutralizes car bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and the Gatecrasher breaches walls so that troops can shoot or climb through. Throughout the second season, more than 15 featured weapons will be exclusive to Discovery Channel, in addition to a look at more than 15 different weapons that are currently being used by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“FUTUREWEAPONS gives viewers a unique perspective on wartime strategy that no one else is offering,†said Jane Root, EVP and GM of Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Military Channel and Discovery Times Channel. “We are pulling back the curtain on 21st century weapons to bring viewers to the cutting edge of technology.â€
Viewers looking for more information about Mack and the hardware featured in the series can go to readyaimfuture.com for an exclusive interactive weapons gallery, games, behind the scenes footage and a video diary where Mack discusses his favorite weapons, his experience as a Navy SEAL and his history.
In addition to a robust website with exclusive content and in-depth information, Discovery Channel’s sister network, The Military Channel, will air WEAPONOLOGY at 10 PM (ET/PT) on Mondays immediately following FUTUREWEAPONS. In this new series viewers learn about the history to develop better, faster and stronger weapons. The line of fire from basic weapon to modern super weapon is far from straight, and WEAPONOLOGY brings together the great leaps that designers have made in military technology over the last century. During the FUTUREWEAPONS broadcast, viewers will be prompted to The Military Channel for WEAPONOLOGY with in-program promos.
New Gear Stuck in Labs
Nobody puts more money into bleeding edge R&D than the Pentagon. And a surprising number of those studies actually pan out. So why is the military still relying on gear that's decades old? The problem is crossing the so-called "valley of death" between research projects and "acquisition," when the Defense Department actually starts to buy stuff in bulk. National Defense magazine offers up some examples.
Last year, the Georgia Tech Research Institute developed a lightweight ceramic armor for a vehicle... The message from military officials was that they needed this technology immediately for troops in Iraq. “We prototyped one vehicle and delivered it to Quantico,†where the Marine Corps acquisition command is based. “We are waiting to hear from the Marine Corps on what the next steps are,†Cross says. “This is where we all get frustrated … We think it’s a good solution. There’s no technology impediment for moving forward. It’s the acquisition process.â€
The armored vehicle is not likely to go into production any time soon. The Army and the Marine Corps are studying proposed designs from major defense contractors for a new light tactical vehicle that would replace the Humvee. The program is not expected to deliver new vehicles for at least two more years.
Frustrations with the defense bureaucracy also can be found at a California university where Congress created a “technology transfer†office specifically to expedite the transition of promising concepts from the commercial sector to the military.
“The challenge is getting into acquisition programs. That consumes most of our time,†says Stu Gordon, director of the Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization at California State University San Bernardino...
Recent products that, with CSU’s help, contractors successfully sold to the Defense Department include biological detectors, radios, batteries and fuel cells.
“We have contacts at the office of the secretary of defense,†Gordon says. “They are very supportive … But when we ask them how we get into acquisition programs, frankly, they don’t know. This is true for many of the technologies we have.â€
Getting to the right person who can write a purchase order so someone in the military can buy the product is “really a hard thing to do,†Gordon says. Some officials at the Defense Department “want to help us but they don’t know how.â€
UPDATE 3:40 PM: John Robb has some interesting ideas on how "tinkerers' networks" should be brought into the R&D process.
We Get Letters: French Sub-Makers, UFO-Spotters
While we silly Americans were busy clinging to our neo-pagan rituals -- decorated trees! oil lamps! dropping balls! bowl games! -- the intrepid scientific truth-tellers of France were hard at work, spreading the word about their world-shaking discoveries. Two of these researchers graced me with their communiques in recent days. And I now share these remarkable messages with you:
=====================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Contact: XXXXXXXXX
UFOs Explained at Last
Anti-gravitation, propulsion of UFOs, crop circles, abductions have scientific proof
Since October 2003, over 6400 sightings of unidentified flying objects throughout the world have been reported, and, according to multiple surveys over the last several decades and from different countries, 5-7% of people report having seen a UFO - equivalent to 15-20 million Americans. But is there proof of such a thing? And what about other paranormal occurrences like crop circles, poltergeists, and even time travel? Author Eric Julien says there is science behind the paranormal and presents it in his breakthrough work, _The Science of Extraterrestrials: UFOs Explained at Last._ After more than 50 years of investigation, Julien posits that the fractal nature of time and its three dimensions led to the emergence of a revolutionary global theory: Absolute Relativity. Written for the layman but presented in a solidly scientific way,
_The Science of Extraterrestrials_ highlights the mistakes of science and will furthermore offer insight into extraterrestrial technology. In his book, Julien methodically covers the following:
Anti-gravitation
Propulsion of UFOs
Alien abductions
Formation of crop circles
Strange luminous phenomena
Poltergeists
Ghosts
Post mortem survival
Time travel
Praised by the international scientific community, _The Science of Extraterrestrials_ is "probably one of the best books of ufology from a scientific point of view," said Pascal di Scala, a French professor of mathematics.
About the Author: Eric Julien is a former fighter pilot trainee, a military air traffic controller, twin jet pilot in commercial aviation, station manager for an international airline company and airport manager in the great Parisian airports... He has had contact with extraterrestrials and shares in this body of work his understanding of the universe.
FWIW, I see that the French space agency will be "publish[ing] its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online." Maybe this monsieur's close encounters will be included.
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from: XXXXXXXX
to: defense@noahshachtman.com
date: Jan 2, 2007 7:50 AM
subject: Sub sea innovative project for civil and Defense strategies.
We do register, as new start up French company, three patents for a very new system of absolute autonomous submarine drone, but more than that, an unlimited sized autonomous submarine *structure* available for all kinds of sea tasks, itself available as completed machine with embedded equipments for many different tasks.
French Marine Headquarter is seriously interested in, but financial conditions are not allowed to start this project. We would like to be known in many countries and by many possible partners in the world.
Meaddle East interlocutors are seriously interested by one version for drinkable water detection and captation for unlimited quantities, without pumping nor pipes at any depth (our technology), but we need strong partners to start and build a proptotype (around two millions Euros). Many options are already designed for Defense original solutions, as submarine rescue, heavy recovery, carrier ships protection, mine hunter or sleeping fire bases as coast undetectable patrolling units.
Would you tell us if you can help us to find contacts for business ?
The middle years of the Cold War were, in many ways, a Silver Age of bad weapons ideas -- from nuclear bazookas to one-man "aerocycles." But this has to be just about the worst I've heard yet: Developing "biological agents" -- including ones that can lead to "inflammation of the brain, coma and death" -- for "incapacitating" enemies on the battlefield or "neutralizing hostile cities." It's one of a number of head-scratching ideas University of Bradford researcher Neil Davison reveals in his new report, "The Early History of 'Non-Lethal' Weapons." (Two others: military-strength strobe lights and "odor warfare.")
The US military, for example, standardized viral agents Coxiella burnetii (Q fever) and Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) [whose symptoms range from "mild flu-like illness to...inflammation of the brain, coma and death," according to the CDC -- ed.] bacterial agent Brucella suis (brucellosis), and toxin agent staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), as incapacitating biological weapons...
The political advantages of these agents were that their foreseen limited “lethalityâ€, (the aim was to develop agents with a 1-2% lethality), would enable greater freedom in the use of force. From a tactical perspective these agents might be used to cause large-scale incapacitation and thus overwhelm medical and logistical services. They may also be used in situations where there was a risk to civilian or friendly forces...
The relative ease of weaponizing and conducting human tests with [these] incapacitants... meant that they were standardized earlier and investigated more fully. [A] May 1970 paper... considered biological agents as potential “nonlethal†weapons for the military:
The biological agents, while having much of the versatility of chemicals, lack a rapid onset of effect. Their tactical incisiveness is severely limited so they are less applicable to the class of conflict discussed in this paper [limited and urban warfare]. They may, however, have a substantial application in capturing and neutralizing hostile cities at highly intense levels of limited warfare. (emphasis mine)
Cluster bombs, people. Hundreds of thousands of them.
In the wake of the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, southern Lebanon is pretty quiet. But every once in a while an explosion rolls over the region's seaside cliffs and green hills, testimony to the ongoing cleanup of ordnance leftover from the conflict. This is the subject of my latest piece for The Washington Times:
Lt. Col. Ciccarelli Giordano, commander of an Italian army cavalry regiment that belongs to a battle group based on a hilltop near the Mediterranean coast, is philosophical about the dangerous ground his troops tread.
"You know what happens after war," he said.
There are 11,000 troops -- including 3,000 Italians -- assigned to the U.N. force, up from 3,000 just six months ago. ... The Italian contingent is drawn from forces recently withdrawn from Iraq.
The Italian battle group's experiences in Iraq and in providing security for the 2004 Olympics in Athens have helped prepare it for the dangerous job of defusing or destroying unexploded munitions.
Italian EOD teams are modeled after their British counterparts. The Italians train in the U.K. and use mostly British-made kit, including Wheelbarrow robots. They ride in Puma armored vehicles tailed by trucks and ambulances. They dress in your standard bomb suits. And they stay very, very busy.
"Yesterday we found a new cluster bomb-contaminated area," bomb squad Capt. George Colombo said. Minutes later, a distant blast testified to another squad's work.
The U.N. estimates there are between 700,000 and 1 million unexploded munitions in southern Lebanon, some left over from the 1978 Israeli invasion.
Less than 15,000 have been destroyed thus far, said French Lt. Col. Jerome Salle, a U.N. spokesman.
Most of the stories from my stint in Lebanon are still embargoed by my boss at DTI. Expect a flurry of posts in a few weeks.
I haven't heard of any reason as to why we're losing more lately, but we also haven't lost any in a long time prior to this - I think it's reflective of somewhat of the odds catching up to us and an increased combat operations tempo.
Take the 
So it’s not surprising that British 
The 
Most of the money for space capabilities is in the Air Force budget, and space weapons funding now resides almost entirely in the 
But take these stories with a big heap of salt, Defense Tech's Iran-watching friends remind us. Because reports coming out of Iran are notoriously fickle. In the fall of '05, the press was full of warnings that Iran was 
"An advanced concept, pioneered by 
Last summer, I presented a 
Today's problems aren't nearly so severe, in comparison. Since th invasion of Iraq, "
But space-tracker 
In this month's 
Now, there have been lots of 
But veteran space analyst 
So far so typical, except that the case was described in 1810 by John Haslam, the apothecary at the notorious ‘Bedlam’ – correctly the 
I wrote a 
"There are 
Taylor is not the first admiral, wonk or elected official to 
First, the attorney general referred to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge who issued this recent authorization as “he,†when Gonzales said, “He was very careful.†That means that the presiding judge, 
The news comes just a few months after reports of China testing high-powered lasers to 
Great news: The NSA's domestic spying program is finally being 
Then there's the conspiracy theory. Different uniform designs were tried out, including a "
The 
Ethiopia's tiny air force, which just four years ago was in danger of implosion, spearheaded last month's assault into southern Somalia to drive out Islamic Courts and their militia forces. Beginning on December 24, 
In Somalia, Flankers hit airports, roads, ammo dumps, Islamic militia camps and convoys – disrupting transport, communications and emergency re-supply – while T-55s sporting external fuel tanks crawled south ahead of self-propelled howitzers. Hinds flew top cover and even dropped 250-kilogram gravity bombs. 
Raytheon's announcement is interesting, because solid-state, electric lasers haven't yet hit the 
A third squadron of 
Twelve days ago, Peter Singer 
I’ve certainly received them, and Defense Tech has gotten its 
"The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States," the Times reports. It's "part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering. And the CIA is joining in, also "issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies."
But now, LCS is running into serious problems. So serious, the Navy has 
I'm not one of those guys that swoons in front of aircraft. But I were, I guess I'd agree, with the modified 747's turrets and antennae and protrusions. But the Airborne Laser isn't mean to win beauty contests. It's being to blast ballistic missiles -- using a chemically-powered, megawatt-class laser -- as they're first climbing into the sky. That's when missiles are slowest and most vulnerable.
More big media outlets are picking up on -- and adding to -- Peter Singer's Defense Tech scoop, that 
One possible solution, from MIT's 
Has 
Almost every time I've heard President Bush talk over most of the last six years, I felt like the guy was speaking to me from a parallel dimension. A Disneyland, happy-face universe, where freedom was always on the march, and terrorists were just about to be smoked out of their holes. No matter how bad Iraq got, the good guys were winning. No matter how many people got blown up, everything was just fine.
I just spent a couple of minutes on a White House conference call on the troop increase. There wasn't a ton of new information, unsurprisingly. But there was one, teeny-tiny encouraging tidbit: at least some U.S. soldiers are going to be redeployed from their massive bases, and spend 24/7 in Baghdad itself.
I know a lot of you guys who hang out here at Defense Tech are committed supporters of the President. Who think he's done a solid job, given extremely difficult circumstances. So 
I was skeptical when I heard the 
The article's main thrust is that the Pentagon is readying itself for a "low-intensity world war of unlimited duration against criminalized segments of the urban poor." There's an "assumed need to be in the urban Iraqs of the future, [so] the question for the U.S. military becomes a practical one: How to deal with these uppity children of the third world."
While the Pentagon 
If you're standing near 
The 
"The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of 
Petraeus was tapped over several more senior generals. He's "arguably the Army general whose star is rising most rapidly on the basis of his performance in Iraq," Tom Barnett noted in a March 
If you haven't had a chance yet, go check out the 
Security at the nation's nuclear weapons complex has been comically awful for years. But despite 
When 
WaPo: "New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put 
EOD Training and Evaluation Unit Two, part of Naval Expeditionary Combat Command headquartered at this facility near Virginia Beach in southern Virginia, in November welcomed five two-man teams from Navy bases around the world, according to the unit's skipper, Commander Tom Smith, 42.
Over the last few years, tales of private military contractors run amuck in Iraq -- from the 
The Air Force is 
Step off, 
Climate models today –- and the computers to run them –- are considerably more sophisticated than those of the early 1980s. Using these improved models, Robock et al. 
That transformation is the subject of my upcoming feature in 
The US military, for example, standardized viral agents Coxiella burnetii (
In the wake of the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, southern 
Italian EOD teams are modeled after their 
