The US military successfully conducted the first test flight of the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) concept.
In a statement issued by the US Department of Defence, the AHW is a first-of-its-kind glide vehicle, designed to fly long range within the earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed.
The hypersonic flying missile travels five times the speed of sound and is rumoured to gain up to mach 20 speeds. More impressively, it can strike a target in any location on Earth in just 30 minutes.
The problem with a lot of high value targets (HVTs) is the time gap between pinpointing their location and the ability to bring ordinance to bear. Hypersonic, kinetic kill vehicles would narrow that gap considerably, minimizing the chances that the target could move and escape before it can be hit.
The swift advancement of the Chinese military, which is on course to grow into a modern fighting force by 2020, threatens to disrupt the politics of the Asia-Pacific region due to its opaque intentions, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a report released Wednesday.
In the briefing to Congress, the Pentagon said that “uncertainty about how China will use its growing capabilities,” especially in its development of power- projection platforms such as aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter jets, and long-range surface-to-air missiles, is worrying.
This just in, China is not our friend. We’re cutting our military, while China is building up their forces. And, to add insult to injury, we owe them over a trillion dollars.
/every day the Chinese spend dollars fleeced from America on weapons, their military gets stronger, and every day Obama squats in the White House, the United States gets weaker
I think you can safely say that the war’s not going well when you have to pay the enemy to protect your supply lines. That’s just seriously [expletive deleted] up.
The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.
The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations, and “dramatically undermine” larger U.S. objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said.
The report describes a Defense Department that is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents. Military logisticians on the ground are focused on getting supplies where they are needed and have “virtually no understanding of how security is actually provided” for the local truck convoys that transport more than 70 percent of all goods and materials used by U.S. troops. Alarms raised by prime trucking contractors were met by the military “with indifference and inaction,” the report said.
“The findings of this report range from sobering to shocking,” Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.) wrote in an introduction to the 79-page report, titled “Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan.”
The transport contract “has fueled warlordism, extortion, corruption, and maybe even funded the enemy,” Tierney said Tuesday in a House subcommittee hearing on the issue. “U.S. taxpayer dollars are feeding a protection racket in Afghanistan that would make Tony Soprano proud.”
In another twist to the ongoing saga to replace the Air Force’s aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers, United Aircraft Corp. of Russia is planning to bid on the $40 billion contract, according to a person familiar with its plans.
United Aircraft, an aerospace consortium owned by the Russian government, will seek to offer a tanker version of its Ilyushin Il-96 wide-body jetliner, dubbed the Il-98, this person said. The planes would be largely built in Russia, and assembled in the U.S., this person says. United Aircraft will partner with a “small U.S. defense contractor,” which will be renamed United Aircraft Corp. America Inc., this person said, declining to name that contractor.
“UAC will publicly announce by Monday morning the signing of the joint venture agreement for the first of what is hoped to be many opportunities in the U.S.,” says John Kirkland, a Los Angeles-based attorney representing UAC.
A Pentagon spokeswoman said, “the Department of Defense remains committed to a fair and open competition and welcomes proposals from all qualified offerors.”
The Air Force’s aerial tanker replacement program has been tangled in controversy since 2002, when the Pentagon planned to lease a fleet of new tankers from Boeing Co. That plan was revoked and in 2008, Northrop Grumman Corp. and its European partner, the European Aerospace Defence & Space Co., were awarded a contract to build the fleet using the Airbus A330 jetliner. Boeing successfully protested that award and the Pentagon restarted the process yet again last year.
When Mike Furlong was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, he headed up a unit charged with breaking the will of enemies, not by dropping bombs or firing missiles but by messing with their minds.
Now he is the center of a controversy about misusing information gathered for educational purposes. The New York Times reported Monday that Furlong set up a network of private contractors to hunt down and kill militants.
Between August 2005 and February 2008, Furlong was deputy director of the Joint Military Information Support Command at MacDill. As head of the unit, which used to be known as the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element, Furlong was responsible for “military and civilian personnel whose mission is to plan, coordinate, integrate and execute transregional psychological operations to promote U.S. goals and objectives for overseas operations,” according to Maj. Wes Ticer, spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command headquartered at MacDill.
At the time, Furlong was a much-lauded military veteran. He served as an arms control negotiator at the Pentagon. He served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was an operations officer with the 4th Psychological Operations Group at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He commanded the 6th Psyops Battalion and Joint Psyop Task Force in Bosnia. He won a Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star, a Defense Meritorious Service Medal with three oak leaf clusters and a number of other medals and commendations.
After retiring from the military, Furlong became a vice president and director of the Strategic Communications and Information Operations Division of Science Applications International Corp., a key government and military contractor. He served in a similar capacity at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Then he came to MacDill, where Furlong’s command served “as a key contributor” in the Defense Department’s “ongoing efforts to erode adversary power, will and influence,” according to the U.S. Special Operations Command fact book.
What happened after Furlong left MacDill, particularly in the areas of power, will and influence, was the subject of a front-page story Monday in the New York Times.
In February 2008, Furlong became a strategic planner and technology integration adviser at the Joint Information Operations Warfare Command at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
The Times wrote that in mid-2008, “the military put Mr. Furlong in charge of a program to use private companies to gather information about the political and tribal culture of Afghanistan.”
The paper said that under this “benign government information-gathering program” Furlong hired contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill militants. Those activities “seemed to accelerate” in the summer of 2009. According to one contractor the Times interviewed, Furlong referred to his contractors as “my Jason Bournes,” a reference to the fictional American assassin created by novelist Robert Ludlum and played in the movies by Matt Damon.
Furlong did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
His network ultimately ran afoul of military brass. It was dismantled, and he is under investigation, the Times reported.
Mike Furlong is obviously an extremely skilled operator and an American patriot, well qualified to be running the type of operation he’s alleged to have been running. That it’s possibly illegal is certainly poking around in a gray area of U.S. law. By definition, the CIA breaks foreign law all over the world, every day, that’s what they do. In today’s reality of global conflict, the official line between military, civilian contractor, government agent is blurry almost to the point of imperceptibility.
/anyway, Furlong tried to do the right thing, perhaps in the wrong way (or maybe with tacit, plausibly deniable permission), I hope he doesn’t get in any trouble over this
Remember less than a year ago when Obama and Robert Gates cancelled the F-22 Raptor progam, the world’s premier air dominance fighter, which was already in service, because it was a “waste [of] billions of taxpayers dollars”? In their infinite wisdom, the dynamic defense duo decided to gamble almost America’s entire air combat future on a single, unproven design, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, that has yet to be put into production and won’t enter service in the foreseeable future.
A congressional auditor said Thursday that the Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, “continues to struggle with increased costs and slowed progress,” leading to “substantial risk” that the defense contractor will not be able to build the jet on time or deliver as many aircraft as expected.
Michael Sullivan, the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s top analyst on Lockheed Martin’s jet fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing that the cost of the program has increased substantially and that development is 2 1/2 years behind schedule.
The United States plans to buy about 2,400 of the fighter jets for the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Navy. The projected cost for the program appears to have increased to $323 billion from $231 billion in 2001, when Bethesda-based Lockheed won the deal, according to Sullivan. Eight other countries — Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway — also plan to buy the jets.
The cost to build the plane is now expected to be $112 million per aircraft, according to a GAO auditor.
Sullivan said the program’s “negative outcomes” were “foreseeable as events have unfolded over several years.” He said that the cost increases are largely because Lockheed and the Pentagon are “trying to invent things and build them at the same time,” leading to costly changes in how the plane is being developed, built and tested. That continues to take “more time, money and effort than budgeted.”
He criticized the Defense Department, saying it “does not have a full, comprehensive cost estimate for completing the program,” and noted that it has “fallen short” of its expectations year after year. He said, “Constant program changes and turbulence have made it difficult to accurately and confidently measure progress and maturity of the aircraft system.”
It continues to amaze me as to how they fit all those government clowns into such a tiny car.
/as far as birds go, it’s quite clear now that one F-22 Raptor, already in the hand, is worth way more than two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, still in the bush
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued an order yesterday establishing a command that will defend military networks against computer attacks and develop offensive cyber-weapons, but he also directed that the structure be ready to help safeguard civilian systems.
In a memo to senior military leaders, Gates said he will recommend that President Obama designate that the new command be led by the director of the National Security Agency, the world’s largest electronic intelligence-gathering agency. The current NSA director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, is expected to be awarded a fourth star and to lead the cyber-command.
Gates or his deputy had been expected to announce the command in a speech a week ago. Analysts said making the announcement by memo is in keeping with the Pentagon’s effort to tamp down concerns that the Defense Department and the NSA will dominate efforts to protect the nation’s computer networks.
“Is it going to be the dominant player by default because the Department of Homeland Security is weak and this new unit will be strong?” said James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That’s a legitimate question, and I think DoD will resist having that happen. But there are issues of authorities that haven’t been cleared up. What authorities does DoD have to do things outside the dot-mil space?”
The command will be set up as part of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for commanding operations in nuclear and computer warfare. Gates directed that the command be launched by this October and be fully operational by October 2010.
In a speech last week, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn stressed that the command’s mission would be to defend military networks. However, he said, “it would be inefficient — indeed, irresponsible — to not somehow leverage the unrivaled technical expertise and talent that resides at the National Security Agency” to protect the federal civilian networks, as long as it is done in a way that protects civil liberties.
Today is a sad day for American military superiority. In addition to cutting several major programs including cutting $1.4 billion from missile defense, Secretary of Defense Gates announced that the Obama administration is also ending the F-22 Raptor program, the world’s most advanced air superiority fighter by an order of magnitude.
The Pentagon’s $534 billion budget request for 2009 shoots down future production of the F-22 Raptor, the stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Marietta, Ga.-based Aeronautics division.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday revealed the Pentagon’s plans to complete its order for 183 Raptors plus four more. But the U.S. Department of Defense will order no more after that. The Air Force had planned to order 20 Raptors in 2010 and 40 more in coming years.
But hey, killing the F-22 frees up all that much more money for more important national defense priorities like community organizing and social welfare programs.
/R.I.P. Raptor, let’s all pray we never have to fight the Chinese or Russians during our lifetimes, because ACORN don’t fly
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates plans to brief congressional leaders and announce Monday a “fundamental shift” in defense spending and priorities, his spokesman said Friday.
The fiscal 2010 funding choices in the announcement will represent the first major defense policy decisions of President Obama’s administration. Specific details of the budget are not expected until the first week of May, but Gates will make the unusual move of announcing several major program decisions weeks ahead of the budget release, according to the spokesman.
“These are not changes to the margins. This is a fundamental shift in direction,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. “And the secretary’s point of view argues for an unconventional approach in explaining that shift to the American people.”
Morrell said that Gates would finalize the decisions over the weekend and brief congressional leaders Monday morning. A press conference will follow.
“The fact of life is that since September 11, 2001, the military has been engaged in irregular warfare activities that require more of our focus, more of our energy, and more of our resources than we have been dedicating to them,” Morrell said. “So Gates is trying to shift between the large scale conventional near peer conflicts that we have to prepare for down the line and the very real conflicts we are engaged in now.”
The timing of the announcement allows Gates to present the strategic rationale for the decisions at once, rather than having individuals criticize the decisions piecemeal as they leak out.
“Gates’ hope is that by revealing it all at once and by explaining it in depth and explaining the strategic rationale for all of these decisions, that people will view it as a whole and not get focused on the individual decisions and not let their parochial interests overcome the fact that it is in our national interests to make these adjustments to the whole of the budget,” Morrell said.
Although Gates repeatedly has warned that no final decisions have been made about specific program cuts, defense officials have noted that some are at serious risk — particularly those that are poor performers or cannot be connected with a current threat.
The programs that many expect to face huge cuts or cancellation include the Army’s Future Combat Systems program; the Transformational Communications Satellite program; the Navy’s DDG-1000 destroyer program; and the VH-71 presidential helicopter program. Some cuts or procurement delays are also expected for the Joint Strike Fighter aircraft program..
Ballistic missile defense, which represents the Pentagon’s largest acquisitions program, also could be on the chopping block. Futuristic missile defense components are at particular risk, including the Airborne Laser Program, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, the Space Based Interceptor, along with plans to begin construction on two missile defense sites in Eastern Europe.
Sure, lets cut missile defense, what a great idea! With Iran building nuclear weapons and North Korea test firing long range missiles, why would we possibly need a missile defense program? Why would the Department of Defense want to, you know, defend our country from attack? Of course, Obama is only fulfilling his campaign promise to unilaterally disarm America, so it’s not like we weren’t warned.
Well, at least now Obama will have the money to pay for sex education for kindergartners while we all live under the threat of a missile attack on our own soil.
/there’s a good reason they’ve been keeping this defense budget process a secret, they know Americans, at least the ones who care about national defense, will absolutely freak out when they find out about all these cuts so Gates and Obama need to make it a fait accompli
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.
In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department’s office of security review noted that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’ ”
The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.
Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.
“There was no memo, no guidance,” Baer said yesterday. “This is the opinion of a career civil servant.”
Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase “overseas contingency operations” in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.
Peter Orszag, the OMB director, turned to it Feb. 26 when discussing Obama’s budget proposal at a news conference: “The budget shows the combined cost of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other overseas contingency operations that may be necessary.”
And in congressional testimony last week, Craig W. Duehring, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower, said, “Key battlefield monetary incentives has allowed the Air Force to meet the demands of overseas contingency operations even as requirements continue to grow.”
Monday’s Pentagon e-mail was prompted by congressional testimony that Lt. Gen. John W. Bergman, head of the Marine Forces Reserve, intends to give today. The memo advised Pentagon personnel to “please pass this onto your speechwriters and try to catch this change before statements make it to OMB.”
