U.S. to Vietnam: Stop letting Russia refuel planes at base

U.S. to Vietnam: Stop letting Russia refuel planes at base

Friday, March 13, 2015 / No Comments

The U.S. has urged Vietnam to stop letting Russia refuel military planes at a key Vietnamese base because of concerns it could raise tensions in the Asia-Pacific, the State Department said Thursday.

That could put some strain on growing ties between Hanoi and Washington. U.S. officials have said in recent months that Russia has increased air patrols around Japan and South Korea, and is operating as far as the California coast and U.S. territory of Guam.

Last year, a NORAD spokesperson said two F-22 fighter jets were scrambled after a pair of Russian bombers were spotted 50 miles off the coast of California.

The State Department did say that it is aware of an agreement allowing Russia to operate Il-78 refueling planes out of Cam Ranh Bay, a U.S. base during the Vietnam War.

But the department also said the U.S. respects Vietnam's right to enter into agreements with other countries. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki nevertheless urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia doesn't use its access "to conduct activities that can raise tensions in the region."



Vietnam has sought a closer relationship with the U.S. as it looks to counter China, with which it has territorial disputes in the South China Sea. In October, the Obama administration partially lifted a ban on lethal arms sales to Vietnam, and last week, the U.S. ambassador to Hanoi said that the chief of the ruling communist party, Nguyen Phu Trong, will visit Washington this year.

But Vietnam has also weighed its strategic relationships carefully, sustaining its ties with both of its large northern neighbors - China, and Russia.

The deep sea port at Cam Ranh Bay served as a major Soviet naval base after the Vietnam War, and Russia maintained a presence there until 2002. Vietnam subsequently upgraded the base, offering it as a site for maintenance of foreign naval ships and submarines.

In November, Russia's military announced that its long-range bombers would conduct regular patrol missions from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, a show of muscle reflecting tensions with the West over Ukraine.

@cbsnews.com

These planes could someday replace the A-10 Warthog

These planes could someday replace the A-10 Warthog

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The impending mothballing of the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jet has prompted outrage among its advocates in the active-duty military, hand-wringing on Capitol Hill and questions from analysts about whether the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter can be operated cheaply enough to support ground troops on a regular basis.

But it also has sparked a question: Which plane could the U.S. military adopt if it ultimately decides it needs a new, designated plane to provide close-air support?

The mission has been handled by a variety of aircraft in recent years, but it is the A-10, nicknamed the Warthog, that is beloved for its ability to loiter over a battlefield and target enemy fighters, tanks and vehicles. Even as it heads into retirement, it is carrying out about 11 percent of the combat sorties against the Islamic State militant group, Air Force Secretary Deborah James said in January.

Air Force Gen. Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, the commander of Air Combat Command, left open the possibility on Friday that the service could eventually need another plane to fill the close-air support mission. He called it the "A-X," with the "A" meaning its primary mission would be attacking enemy forces on the ground. (As opposed to fighter jets, which get the "F" prefix.)

But the Air Force isn't planning to pay for that anytime soon. Rather, it plans to retire the A-10 and rely on other existing planes like the F-15 Strike Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon to carry out close-air support. Defense officials want the F-35 to eventually take the mission over, but it isn't clear how long that will take. Getting rid of the Air Force's 283 A-10s will save $3.7 billion over five years, senior defense officials said.

Carlisle said that questions about "capacity" leave the door open to an "A-X" plane." Each variant of the F-35 costs more than $30,000 per hour to fly, according to Pentagon estimates that some critics consider conservative. The cost to fly the A-10 is closer to $11,500, according to an analysis by The Atlantic.

The A-10 and possible successors wouldn't fare well in dogfight with other advanced fighters. But against the variety of militant groups that have seized attention in the last year, they'd still be effective, and at a fraction of the price. Here are a few planes analysts discuss in the close-air support mission:

A-29 Super Tucano

The U.S. military thought enough of this turboprop aircraft to purchase a number of them for the nascent Afghan air force, which the Pentagon is funding and training. The first 20 arrived at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in September, as the service prepares to train Afghan pilots there.

The Super Tucano, called the A-29 by the Air Force, is made by Brazilian aviation firm Embraer, and has been used by militaries across the world. It typically costs about $1,000 an hour to fly. It could be outfitted with a variety of bombs and machine guns, and has drawn interest from a variety of African militaries facing insurgencies. The Afghan version is made in the United States by Embraer and Sierra Nevada Corp.

Afghanistan won't receive its first Super Tucanos until December, Gen. Joseph Campbell, the top U.S. commander there, testified last week. The fact that the plane will not be available for fighting season this year is considered a setback for the Afghan military.

The Scorpion

The Scorpion jet has been developed by Textron, which includes Bell Helicopter, Cessna and other major aviation companies. It was first introduced in 2013, and recently reached 300 hours in flight testing, company officials said. It costs about $3,000 per flight hour, and has been pitched by the company as a cheap option to perform maritime security, close-air support and surveillance missions.

Carlisle left open the possibility that the Air Force might pursue the Scorpion when asked about it Friday. But he said other planes also are in play, without naming any.

"We have to keep thinking about those things because, frankly, we haven't been very good at predicting the future and what it's going to look like," the general said.

The aircraft has drawn interest from militaries across the world, and was displayed at an international airshow in Abu Dhabi, the International Defense Exhibition and Conference (IDEX), last month.

The AT-6

Beechcraft's AT-6 has been used by the Air Force as a trainer plane for years, and used by the a variety of militaries abroad, including Iraq's and Mexico's. The single-prop plane can carry a variety of weapons on stations mounted on its wings, and has competed with the Super Tucano for contracts in the past.

The American version is sometimes known as the Texan II. Raytheon is integrating the 44-pound Griffin "mini-missile" onto it in the future, upping its firepower. The Griffin has been used on other U.S. aircraft, including the KC-130 gunship, which is equipped with a powerful Harvest Hawk weapons suite.

@stripes.com

Japanese battleship blew up under water, footage suggests

Japanese battleship blew up under water, footage suggests

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Debris scattered over a large area at the bottom of the sea near the Philippines indicate that the massive Japanese World War II battleship Musashi had blown up in an undersea explosion 70 years ago after it sank beneath the surface.

Experts from a research team analyzing a live feed from an unmanned submersible Friday said they believe the Musashi suffered at least one explosion while sinking to the 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) deep seafloor. The 2 1/2 hour feed provided the first detailed images of the ship.

The research team, sponsored by Microsoft co-founder and entrepreneur Paul Allen, first found the remains of the ship in early March after searching for it for eight years.

The Musashi, one of Japan's biggest and most famous battleships, sank in October 1944 in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, losing half of its 2,400 crew. It was last seen disappearing into the water in one piece after being struck by torpedoes, but what happened subsequently was never known.

"The wreck is actually very damaged," said David Mearns, a marine scientist on the team. "It appears she suffered at least one, if not two, magazine explosions which would have sheered off the bow and the stern, and its entire middle section of its super-structure."

The footage showed fish and other marine creatures occasionally swimming by the rusted debris scattered over a wide area, some chunks covered by coral.

There were holes in the bow area, apparently made by U.S. torpedoes, and the ship's stern is upside down. A propeller is torn off from a shaft and gun turrets and catapults are broken off.

The feed also showed a round teak base on the bow that held the Imperial chrysanthemum seal that only a few battleships were allowed to carry — a key finding that convinced Japanese experts and some survivors that this was indeed the remains of the Musashi.

Historian Kazushige Todaka, head of the Yamato Museum and an expert on warships, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he was "100 percent positive" the ship is the Musashi.

The upright bow section and the upside-down stern mean the ship had an explosion, he said. "It shows there was a tremendous impact that tore the ship apart."

Todaka said closer examination of the video would help explain what happened to the ship as it sank to the sea bottom. He also hoped this would lead to discovery of other sunken warships that are unaccounted for.

Shigeru Nakajima, a 94-year-old former electrical technician on the Musashi, one of only a few hundred aboard who made it safely back to Japan, told the AP he was deeply moved by the footage he saw Friday at a community center near his home in Kashiwa, near Tokyo.

"The captain and those who went down (with the Musashi) must be delighted in heaven by the news of the discovery," he said.

The team says it is collaborating with the governments of Japan and the Philippines over the wreckage. Experts here say it would be difficult to pull up the ship, though technically it may be possible. Some people consider the wreckage as a place where the spirits of the victims rest and should be left at peace.

The timing of the discovery, coming shortly before the 70th anniversary of the war's end, is particularly significant, said Todaka, "as if telling us not to forget the tragedy of the war."

@stripes.com

Snowden Reveals Information on New Zealand's Secret Spy Base in Waihopai

Snowden Reveals Information on New Zealand's Secret Spy Base in Waihopai

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 / No Comments

The recent documents revealed by Edward Snowden show how closely New Zealand is working with the NSA to maintain surveillance coverage on the South-Pacific region.

Newly revealed documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the workings of the secret surveillance base in New Zealand.

The spy station located in Waihopai Valley, Marlborough is packed with sophisticated NSA spying technology, used by New Zealand to collect text messages, emails, phone calls, and other communications across the South-Pacific.

According to the information revealed by Snowden, New Zealand has worked closely with the NSA to maintain surveillance coverage of the region.

The spying station intercepts data from satellites, and is run by Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, New Zealand's equivalent of the NSA.

The Waihopai station is codenamed IRONSAND. Its primary targets are large international telecommunications satellites that provide communications to and from all of New Zealand's Pacific Island neighbors and other Asia-Pacific nations.

All the phone calls and Internet communications intercepted and sorted at the base in Waihopai are then send into NSA databases to United States. The only difference between the two is that in Waihopai it is New Zealanders who come each day to maintain the NSA surveillance systems on their citizens.

GCSB is legally banned from spying on New Zealand citizens except under a warrant. According to a secret NSA document the governments of Cook Islands and Niue may be targeted, but not their citizens since they are permitted to hold New Zealand passports.

Cook Island opposition leader William Heather told the media that he was shocked to learn that the GCSB had spied on the island's residents. "We are only a small dot in the Pacific," he said, questioning why New Zealand would "spy on the family," media reports.

The New Zealand Labor party leader Andrew Little called the spying a "mass invasion of privacy."

Reacting to the latest revelations on Saturday, GCSB declined to comment. The agency's acting director, Una Jagose, said, "We do not comment on operational matters.

Everything we do is authorized under legislation and subject to independent oversight," media reported.

© Sputnik

Malaysian ATC Supervisor Reportedly Slept on Night of MH370 Disappearance

Malaysian ATC Supervisor Reportedly Slept on Night of MH370 Disappearance

Monday, March 9, 2015 / No Comments

According to conversation transcripts, the air traffic control supervisor at the Kuala Lumpur airport was asleep on the night of the flight's traceless disappearance.

An air traffic control supervisor at the Kuala Lumpur airport fell asleep during his shift on the night of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Monday.

According to the newspaper, a Malaysia Airlines staff member contacted an air traffic controller at Kuala Lumpur airport in the morning on March 8 asking whether they had successfully handed over responsibility for the MH370 plane to Vietnamese air traffic earlier in the night. The Kuala Lumpur controller said he had just started his shift and needed to wake up his supervisor to get the details on the flight.

"Aaaa … never mind laa I wake up my supervisor and ask him to check again, to go to the room and check what the last contact … all this thing laa," the controller told the Malaysia Airlines staff member, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald, which refers to conversation transcripts.


The conversation took place about four hours after the communications equipment of Boeing 777 (flight MH370) ceased operating, according to the newspaper.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared from radar screens a year ago, on March 8, 2014, less than an hour after takeoff. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

Based on an analysis of aircraft performance data, experts suspect that the plane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, but no trace of it has been found so far.

Cost of US Weapons Programs Skyrockets to the Tune of $27 Billion

Cost of US Weapons Programs Skyrockets to the Tune of $27 Billion

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Many of the programs that increased in cost did so by less than 5%, including a 1.3% increase for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter, the most expensive US weapons system. The F-35 program’s “costs have risen over the past year without any change in quantity, meaning it is paying more for the same amount of capability,” the GAO said.

The biggest increase was 146 percent for the WIN-T Increment 2 tactical communications network, although that’s because the Army decided to buy 3,167 more units.

On top of paying more for some systems, the Pentagon will have to wait longer – more than 29 months on average – to get its hands on them, as the time to deliver initial combat capability for a system increased by more than a month.

The delivery of some programs will be delayed six months or more.

The Navy will wait more than two years – up from 11 months – for a high-altitude drone because of “issues with development and testing,” according to the GAO. But that’s practically speedy compared the delivery of the Remote Minehunting System for the Littoral Combat Ship, which  slipped an additional six months, adding to a delay of more than seven years.

The total net cost for the 78 major weapons declined by $7.6 billion, to $1.44 trillion, due to about $34 billion in reduced costs for 31 of the programs. That didn’t placate the GAO, however, which said the price drop stemmed mostly from cutbacks in two systems, and “the overall cost decrease masks” negative trends.

The Pentagon saved about $8.9 billion by purchasing 32 Littoral Combat Ships instead of the 52 it had planned on buying. It also is buying fewer Increment 3 of the WIN-T tactical voice – a video and data network with fewer capabilities than its previous version – reducing those costs by $11.8 billion.

The Pentagon is entering the fifth year of its “Better Buying Power” campaign, which was introduced in 2010 by Ashton Carter, who was then the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer. Five years later, Carter is now defense secretary, and asking Congress to increase the Pentagon’s weapons accounts by $20.4 billion, or 13 percent adjusted for inflation, over this year’s level.

“While real progress has been made” since 2010 toward acquisition reforms, “DoD still faces challenges” fully implementing them, the GAO said.

Source : http://sputniknews.com

Calling All Hackers! Pentagon Adds 3,000-Strong Army to Cyber Command

Calling All Hackers! Pentagon Adds 3,000-Strong Army to Cyber Command

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Established in June 2009, Cyber Command organizes cyberattacks against adversaries and network defense operations.

Command leaders yesterday asked Congress to grant them the ability to make compensation deals with prospective employees more quickly, Nextgov reported. They claimed the hiring process has become too protracted, while threats from enemy hackers continue to grow.

The pay scale for the open positions starts at $42,399 and goes up to $132,122.

Now, instead of rating applicants based on traditional competitive criteria, the Pentagon can offer jobs based on candidates’ unique skills and knowledge, Nextgov reported. The special qualifications include the ability to analyze malware, respond to incidents, manage cyber fire drills and detect vulnerabilities, among other things.

The new hiring powers expire on December 31 of this year. 

Cyber Command’s target workforce size is 6,200 employees, Adm. Mike Rogers, the force’s chief, told Congress on Wednesday, according to Nextgov.

Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, head of the US Army Cyber Command, told House Armed Services subcommittee members that “recruiting and retaining Army civilian cyber talent is challenging given internal federal employment constraints regarding compensation and a comparatively slow hiring process.

According to Vice Admiral Jan Tighe, the top official at the Navy Fleet Cyber Command, it will only become more difficult for Cyber Command to hire personnel when the economy improves.

So Rogers requested Congress supply the command with more appropriations.

“Where we need help from you is with resources required to hire personnel to fill the team seats as well as necessary operational and strategic headquarters operations, intelligence, and planning staffs,” he told House members.

As of February, the Pentagon had reached the midway point of staffing Cyber Command, but was backing away from the long-held held goal of employing a full staff by 2016.

Source : http://sputniknews.com

More armed forces cuts predicted

More armed forces cuts predicted

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Thousands more soldiers, sailors and airmen will face the axe in the next parliament whichever party wins the general election, a defence think-tank has warned.

A report by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) said it was inevitable that Britain’s defence spending would drop below the Nato target of 2% of GDP in the face of continuing austerity cuts.

It warned that up to 30,000 service personnel could go – with the Army likely to bear the heaviest cuts – leaving the armed forces with a combined strength of just 115,000 by the end of the decade.

Even if defence spending is given the same level of protection being promised to health and schools, it said the forces are still likely to have shed 15,000 personnel over the next parliament.

Plans for equipment spending could also be affected, with the need to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent leaving other programmes vulnerable.

The findings are likely to increase the pressure on David Cameron from Tory MPs demanding the Conservatives go into the election with a manifesto commitment to maintain the Nato 2% target.

However the Rusi paper, written by research director Professor Malcolm Chalmers, said that would require an extra £3 billion of spending in 2016-17, rising to £5.9 billion a year in 2019-20.

“In the context of wider austerity in public spending, such an increase is not plausible,” the paper states. “The Government is not yet convinced that strategic security risks are high enough to justify an exemption for defence from austerity.”

Even on current plans based on the assumption of a “modest” real-terms increase, the paper said that defence spending is set to dip below the 2% target falling to 1.95% of GDP in 2015-16, with a further drop to 1.85% in 2016-17.

However it said an analysis of the three main parties’ spending plans suggested the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could be facing a real-terms cut in its budget of up to 10% over the next four years.


Past experience indicated that in such circumstances the Army was likely to suffer the most – potentially losing 20,000 of the estimated 30,000 military personnel who would face the axe.

If Royal Navy numbers were protected because of the need to crew the new aircraft carriers, the Army could find itself taking 80% of the total reduction.

If, as the Conservatives have promised, the defence equipment budget is protected, the reductions in personnel would be even greater, rising to 42,000 for the forces as a whole leaving an Army of just 50,000.

The paper described cuts on such a scale as “perhaps the most pessimistic, but still plausible, scenario” in the current circumstances.

However, even under the “optimistic scenario” that defence was protected alongside health and schools, the paper said that there would have to be cutbacks of around 15,000 across the three services.

As a proportion of GDP, defence spending would be down to around 1.75% by 2019 – a decrease of a third since 2010 when it stood at 2.6% – while the total MoD workforce, both civilian and military, would have fallen by around 30% from 265,740 to 184,000.

A Government spokesman said: “With the second largest defence budget in Nato and the largest in the EU, the Government is committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence.

“Decisions on spending after the financial year 2015/16 will be determined in the next spending review.

“Over the next decade we are committed to spending £163 billion on equipment and equipment support to keep Britain safe. That includes new strike fighters; more surveillance aircraft; hunter killer submarines; two aircraft carriers; and the most advanced armoured vehicles.

“The Prime Minister has said that he does not want to see our regular armed services reduced below the level that they are now and remains committed to growing the Reserves to 35,000.”

British Army could be reduced to just 50,000 troops, defence expert warns

British Army could be reduced to just 50,000 troops, defence expert warns

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The British Army could be reduced to just 50,000 troops – the lowest level since the 1770s, when the UK lost the American War of Independence, according to a leading defence expert.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, director of UK defence policy at defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), analysed the main political parties’ budget plans and produced a “pessimistic” and an “optimistic” forecast of what this would mean for the military, The Daily Telegraph reported.

In the worst-case scenario, the Armed Forces would be cut from about 145,000 to just 115,000, including 50,000 in the Army. Under the latter prediction, the total numbers would fall to 130,000.

Professor Chalmers said: “In either scenario, the result will be a remarkably sharp reduction in the footprint of defence in UK society over a decade.

“The prospects for the defence budget remain closely tied to wider economic growth. The government is not yet convinced that strategic security risks are high enough to justify an exemption for defence from austerity.”

Concern has been growing over cuts to the military in part because of Russian actions in the conflict in Ukraine, with fears that Moscow could turn its attention to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are all in Nato members and which the alliance’s other members are duty bound to protect.

Lord Dannatt, a former head of the Army, told the Telegraph that the report made “sober reading”.

“I think pressure is beginning to mount on the Government to recognise that there might be some votes in defence after all,” he said.

Andy Smith, of the UK National Defence Association, added: “We do not need a huge army but we certainly need an army that enables us to secure our homeland and our international interests.

“Military strength guarantees political influence, and we certainly wouldn’t have any influence at all with an army of just 50,000. It would put the United Kingdom in a potentially perilous situation and would represent political failure by our leaders on a monumental scale.”

The Army is currently being cut from 102,000 to 82,000 soldiers.

Mike Curry : veterans turned successful entrepreneurs

Mike Curry : veterans turned successful entrepreneurs

Saturday, March 7, 2015 / No Comments

After a decade in the armed forces, including tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, Mike Curry broke his leg, forcing him to take a break from his career. While he was recovering, he patented UniKurve, a compact mini multi-gym that can be carried over the shoulder. The idea was inspired by his experience of exercising in the desert, using outdated equipment, which encouraged him to be resourceful in his workouts.

As Curry found, entrepreneurship is a viable option for veterans, offering the opportunity to apply the skills developed in the army – resilience, ambition and leadership.
Curry says he was told to pack in his idea and stop dreaming, but didn’t. “Persistence, thick skin, 100% support from my family, that is how UniKurve is here today.”

Curry describes serving in the army as a mixture of “boring, exciting, challenging, hot dusty, cold, dry”, yet says starting a business is tougher. “You’re not guaranteed a wage every month, and you can’t plan for the future like the army. I’m still answering emails at 11pm on a Saturday.”

X-Forces is an organisation that works with charity Help for Heroes. Its main aim is to help ex-servicemen move into business ownership. X-Forces gets 20 new registrations per day – testament to the military community’s desire for self-employment and entrepreneurship.
It’s not just UK army veterans who are starting their own businesses; US veterans own 9% of all stateside firms, and are 45% more likely to start up than a non-veteran.

Ren Kapur, X-Forces CEO, says: “The barriers [to starting a business] may be even more serious amongst the wounded, injured and sick, yet the spirit and tenacity to succeed is perhaps even greater.”