APA brief on Russian weapons proliferation in Asia

Air Power Australia has released a new briefing (PDF) entitled Russian Weapons Proliferation in Asia.

The brief includes 25 slides detailing proliferation background issues, and 75 slides covering A2/AD technologies.

The brief was presented as a seminar for Monash Asia Institute yesterday.

Since the end of the Cold War Russia’s defence industry has become a highly successful commercial export industry, with a global footprint. Infusion of Western basic technology, especially digital computing and monolithic microwave technology, has seen rapid evolution of Russian weapons technology, which now in many categories outperforms US and EU products. While Western defence industries are heavily constrained by regulatory regimes, Russia’s is not, and unrestrained exports from Russia have become the principal enabler in the Asian arms race. This seminar will survey the advanced systems being exported by Russia across Asia, including stealth aircraft, counter stealth radars, guided munitions and air defence weapons, and discuss the resulting and manifold strategic impacts of this proliferation.

The ADF that is not

Some reads here and here from "The Strategist" (ASPI blog) in reference to an opinion piece by Mark Thompson.

Thompson may argue that:

"Even taking current shortcomings into account, Australia’s defence force is better equipped and prepared for action than at any time since the end of the Vietnam conflict."

But what is missing, the major issue, is proper adult supervision at the top of the ADF and Defence bureaucracy. Since a purge of Defence critical thinkers in the 1999-2002-era give or take a few years, we now are in no shortage of groupthink and management speak and style over substance. We may be able to do with a smaller ADF but it is less about the size and money spent and more about waste and gross mismanagement.

1.The Collins sub program is a disaster for billions spent and $700M +/- per year on sustainment.

2. The patrol boat sustainment is also very bad. There are around 5 of the 14 Armidale-class boats available and along with that, a variety of crewing and maintenance issues.

3. Our "new" amphib bought from the U.K. who are having a going out of business sale with military gear, is now in repair for 6 months since June due to a mechanical failure. It was marked good-to-go by our genius people that are supposed to look after these things before purchase. It was a response to the DMO-RAN cabal being unable to sustain previous amphib ships.

4. Our helicopter fleet is an expensive quesiton mark when lower-cost solutions will do. I suppose that as we get gouged more and more for gold-plated helicopter "solutions" the voices of the faithful will increase with their praise of the situation.

5. The air power roadmap is a mess. No one thought we would have to sustain old, classic F-18 Hornets out to the 2020s. But that is what is happening. Defence also wanted to waste money on dud jamming gear for the Super Hornet purchase. The Super Hornets were in response to late F-35s. Note: Defence made up all kinds of other reasons after the fact. The F-35 itself has been in serious trouble for years. After the nation spends somewhere north of $20-plus billion on patch-work, the faulty and tens-of-billions F-35 still will not have been here. I am curious what is a-ok with Defence when the Super Hornet costs around $23k per flying hour and the F-35 somewhere around $35k+ per flying hour? And, neither will be able to stand up to emerging threats.

6. Even though it has some problems, thank goodness for the Army. Which along with portions of the RAAF do provide some value.

7. A moribund Navy, an Army that will see more reformation and a RAAF that has some stuff that works and a bunch of other stuff that does not.

Of interest Thompson says:

"First, the sprawling Defence empire must be reformed root and branch."

Well, as I have mentioned, that is show-stopper; a deal-breaker. Any proposals before fixing that are cart-before-the-horse.

Also:

"Recent experience with the so-called Strategic Reform Program shows that this task cannot be left to the generals and mandarins. Outside intervention and independent oversight will be needed to reshape the enterprise so that it can be trusted with taxpayers’ money."

I will continue to observe for more great ideas out of the supposed people with bigger brains on these things than I.

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-Defence White Paper Fantasy
-Analysing "The ADF Air Combat Capability- On the Record"
-Find out who is responsible for the Air Warfare Destroyer mess
-Analysis of Defence Materiel Organisation Major Projects Management and What Needs to be Fixed
-New DMO Boss warns the staff that business as usual is over
-Project of Concern list
-How dangerous is the Defence Material Organisation to our Defence Industry?
-Australia's Failing Defence Structure and Management Methodology
-More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy

Kopp paper is a warning to U.S. leadership

"If the United States wishes to retain its primacy in modern nation-state conflicts, technological strategy must be restored to the prominence it enjoyed during the Cold War period."


A recent paper by Dr. Carlo Kopp in July's Joint Force Quarterly, "Technological Strategy in the Age of Exponential Growth" walks you through technology growth patterns over the years. Read the whole paper from the beginning. I promise it won't hurt your head understanding it.

For anyone interested in the well-being of U.S and allied military superiority, this paper is a warning that time is up. We better get strong logic fused into our senior leadership or the consequences could be loss of deterrence. With loss of deterrence comes war.

The inevitable consequence of failing to practice good technological strategy is that opponents will produce breakthroughs. A smart opponent will produce repeated “capability surprise” events to an advantage, as the United States did to the Soviet Union, contributing crucially to the eventual bankruptcy of the Soviet bloc.

Technological Strategy vs. Exponential Growth

The presence of exponential growth in key current technologies is a double-edged sword because these technologies have been commodified and are globally accessible in the commercial marketplace. A Russian or Chinese weapons developer will have access to much of the same basic technology as his peers in the United States. This represents a leveling of the technological playing field unseen since World War II. For instance, the well-developed Russian technological strategy intended to defeat U.S. airpower is disciplined and well-considered, leverages exponential growth in key technologies, and displays a deep understanding of critical ideas and how to leverage globalized exponentially growing technologies.

On a level playing field, with exponential growth in critical technologies, the player who can best exploit talent to an advantage—all else being equal—will inevitably win. For the United States and its technologically competent allies, this period should be one of critical reflection. Many recent high-profile programmatic failures display numerous symptoms of poor practice and implementation of technological strategy during program definition and later development, beginning in the decade following the end of the Cold War. Moreover, poor understanding of exponential growth and concomitant early component obsolescence has contributed to severe life-cycle cost problems across a wide range of programs.

A good case can be made that these failures directly reflect the diminished role of technological strategists in the post–Cold War environment, where imperatives other than defeating peer competitor nation-states became ascendant and dominant, while the last generation of Cold War–era technological strategists progressively retired from government service or retired altogether, with few if any replacements trained or appointed.

Bold emphasis mine.

ANZUS Treaty--stronger than some think

For such a short document, the ANZUS treaty has some good words in it.

It is also a go-to document for Australia and the U.S. to consider in relation to the loss of regional air superiority and overall regional strategic force posture. The later cannot be healthy without the former.

Robert Gottliebsen of Business Spectator presents some strong reason which includes solutions for the current tepid approach by Australia and the U.S. in relation to regional strength. He also has some advice for Australia's Foreign Minister Mr. Carr to take a proper look at the direct language in the ANZUS treaty.

Myself? I am not a Carr fan. But, he is all we have. So, moving right along.

Article 2 and Article 3 of The ANZUS Treaty are strong. Take a moment to consider them.

I also like this part in the beginning:

DESIRING to declare publicly and formally their sense of unity, so that no potential aggressor could be under the illusion that any of them stand alone in the Pacific Area,

Unfortunately, some here in Australia give the impression that they prefer a division. That, Australia seek more approval from China.

I wonder what that same crew thinks of this?

The lead article the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times on Tuesday contained an alarming call for a declaration of war against Vietnam and Philippines, two nations that in recent weeks launched the loudest protests against China’s sweeping maritime sovereignty claims over the South China Sea.

The fiery rhetoric of the article states that “the South China Sea is the best place for China to wage wars” because “of the more than 1,000 oil rigs there, none belongs to China; of the four airfields in the Spratly Islands, none belongs to China; once a war is declared, the South China Sea will be a sea of fire [with burning oil rigs]. Who will suffer the most from a war? Once a war starts there, the Western oil companies will flee the area, who will suffer the most?”

The article further calculates that “the wars should be focused on striking the Philippines and Vietnam, the two noisiest troublemakers, to achieve the effect of killing one chicken to scare the monkeys.”

But back to the loss of regional air superiority. This negative trend is underway with not only the currently failed RAAF/Defence roadmap but that too of incompetent leaders in the United States Air Force and U.S. Department of Defense.

If one wants to avoid war, they have to prepare for it. Today, that is only platitude.

All of the suggestions by Gottliebsen are on-point and are a dire warning of our current path if our governments do not change. If senior Australian leadership ever comes to its senses, they must tell the U.S. (in the spirit of friendship) that their Pacific strategy, is weak without a strong air power roadmap.

Are Mr. Carr and this current government, the people to stand up and do that?

No strategy, just bluster

Whatever.

He welcomed Australia's decisions to commit to the F-35 JSF program and to buy long-lead items for upgrading 12 RAAF Super Hornets to ''Growler'' electronic warfare systems.
"They are choices about hedging and risk management that are well taken," the general said.

Agreeing with thana-marketing isn't a sound strategy.

The F-35 and Growler have nothing to do with hedging and risk management of Pacific Rim threats because they are totally unsuited to the real needs of Australia.

ADF Force Structure for (real) Security

I do not agree with appeasing regional powers; or Chinese communists. Regional powers should see a strong Australian Defence Force--teamed with the U.S.--as a strong commitment to regional coalition security.

I to sympathize with some of what Dupont said:

The savings should be ploughed back into more "boots on the ground", allowing the army to strengthen its ability to deploy more troops on missions like those in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

"We ought not to direct a high proportion of our limited defence resources towards maritime systems and platforms designed primarily for great-power conflicts."

However, we would have a gain in manpower if it wasn't off on the other side of the world doing a fool's errand in Operation:USELESS DIRT.

And, we also need more small patrol ships and a frigate replacement

I am OK with the sub numbers if they are Euro-design small-crews. The big sub rent-seeking effort, the Hobart-class air-warfare destroyers, the Canberra-class flat-tops and the Just So Failed will waste manpower and cash we do not have.

The dumb idea of basing U.S. Marines in Australia

Seems to be some noise out there about basing Marines in Australia.

Dumb in many ways if the idea is to show deterrent value in the Pacific Rim vs. a Chinese Communist threat.

The better alternative would have been a Wing of F-22s. Or at least a Wing of strike eagles.

Such is the lack of understanding in Washington these days. The other problem being this.

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Chinese communists want war, Australian leadership wants to dream

The Chinese communists are fired up. They want war. Hard to believe? Try this.

The lead article the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times on Tuesday contained an alarming call for a declaration of war against Vietnam and Philippines, two nations that in recent weeks launched the loudest protests against China’s sweeping maritime sovereignty claims over the South China Sea.

The fiery rhetoric of the article states that “the South China Sea is the best place for China to wage wars” because “of the more than 1,000 oil rigs there, none belongs to China; of the four airfields in the Spratly Islands, none belongs to China; once a war is declared, the South China Sea will be a sea of fire [with burning oil rigs]. Who will suffer the most from a war? Once a war starts there, the Western oil companies will flee the area, who will suffer the most?”

The article further calculates that “the wars should be focused on striking the Philippines and Vietnam, the two noisiest troublemakers, to achieve the effect of killing one chicken to scare the monkeys.”

In other news, the current Australian leadership is trying to do a white paper on 'The Asian Century and the changing structure of Australia's economy'. This is a good idea if it is realistic.

However, consider this thinking:

"But we are far from pessimistic too. Because there is nothing in our Alliance relationship with the United States which seeks to contain China, because a growing, successful China is in the interest of every country in the region, including our own and because our national strength, and that of our ally, is respected in the region and the world."

My theory is that what this government sees as the definition of a growing and successful China may be significantly different than how communist China sees it.

It will not be an equal playing field. Expect loss of intellectual property. Expect power-plays for our natural resources.

The current Australian government--where some of the politicians hold what can only be described as neo-Marxist ideals--are unable to see the real threat of communism.

Not containing communism is a bad idea. I fear that this new white paper will be weak on security to the point of putting Australia and our Pacific allies at risk.

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim--Part 5--Force Structure

Not news; the U.S. force structure roadmap is in a terrible mess.

Force structure will be difficult to repair with both a lack of money and strategic leadership. If only we had strong strategic leadership, the force structure plans might be fixable with the bleak funding roadmap.

In the end, the U.S. will go into any major conflict in the Pacific with a gross imbalance in force structure. Wrong platforms and communities eat large amounts of logistics better used for effective war-fighting forces.

As Aviation Week's Defense Technology International editor Bill Sweetman stated recently, would the United States Air Force have entered the Advanced Technology Fighter (ATF) project (wich gave us the F-22) in 1986 if they knew that they would only get 140 fighters and spend a billion per year on upgrades? The answer is probably; no. A similar line of thought can be used with the F-35 and other weapons systems.

Good force structure depends on well fed and capable engineers. We have been down-sizing that resource since the end of the Cold War.

Without proper air power domination in the Pacific, you end up with results like this. Also, any overseas bases we currently have can end up as POW's or worse. Much like the fall of the Phillipines at the beginning of WWII. Obsolete carrier air wings mean sunk ships and lost battles.

American industry can't provide the kinds of weapons our Allies need in the coming years. You can get parity products or better for less money from the Russians or Chinese. Want an affordable, effective and sea-worthy frigate for policing your waters? You can't get it from the U.S.

All of this means loss of deterrance which helps to stop wars. And, unless we change course to fix this, we will get war. We will lose influence. We will have to retreat.

And with that retreat, goes any hope for democracy and free speech in the Pacific Rim.

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim-
Part 1, Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats
Part 2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
Part 3--Energy
Part 4--Their Weapons

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Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim--Part 4--Their Weapons

The kinds of weapons the U.S. may face in any future Pacific Rim conflict will be formidable, if for no other reason than the fact that the U.S. has under-invested in proper strategic thinking.

Let us look at a sample of some of the threats.

Inertial navigation bomb kits; China now has similar capability to our JDAM and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). This used to be a trump card for the U.S. in past conflicts. Now, for this area of interest; no more. We face parity or near parity.

Integrated air defenses. China is fielding high end surface-to-air missile systems in quantity. China is on a path to field high end fighter aircraft in quantity. Worse in this area is China is now approaching parity or near parity. This used to be the golden rule of U.S. air domination thinking that facing parity was not a good thing. Now, in our strategic ignorance, we seem destined to have no choice.

Cruise missile technology; China is able to field this kind of weapon in enough quantity to make conflicts expensive. And they are improving. Super-sonic cruise missile technology is already being fielded in the Pacific; and not by us. One hopes that the Pacific Rim doesn't look like this someday; a SCUD hunt from hell; only worse.

Naval mines. China has these in mass quantity. Our mine sweeping skills are not very large and always an after-thought until a war shows up. This will be way more than a nuisance threat in any conflict involving China.

Communism. A large scale weapon and worse; scalable to be used as China sees fit to motivate its people; backed up by negative reinforcement. They would probably say; positive reinforcement.

If we can contain this with a proper and credible deterrent, history may show us as very lucky.

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim-
Part 1, Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats
Part 2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
Part 3--Energy

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim--Part 3--Energy

Our ability to pay for and use large amounts of fossil fuel in the future will be strategically limiting.

This is already showing now. For instance, a few years ago during a price spike in oil, we had some U.S. Navy ships go dead in the water for parts of the day to save fuel.

Because of its industry, China consumes much more fossil fuel as a portion of the world supply.

For any U.S. deterrent effort to work, we need platforms that address this problem. This means we need to develop a nuclear powered destroyer for the main purpose of escorting our aircraft carriers. This way a carrier strike group (carrier,surface escort and subs) is all nuclear powered.

We need a frigate class ship that is energy efficient (more details on this later on the topic of force structure). Woe be it to us that we have wasted money on two energy inefficient and strategically worthless ships; the DDX and LCS.

Burning up fuel on sort-range fighter aircraft (and the associated air-to-air refueling resources) also has little strategic worth in the Pacific. The United States Air Force is the biggest consumer of fossil fuels in the DOD. We need to employ these resources sparingly and only where they contribute to deterrence.

Driving expensive amphibious groups around the Pacific (or elsewhere) eats up a tremendous amount of fossil fuel. The days of Tarawa and Iwo Jima are over. How we show the flag and respond with ground forces will have to change.

One of the prime considerations of our basing in the Pacific has to be how much fossil fuel they consume vs. their strategic value. Host nations pay for some of this, but, in the bigger picture, not all of it.

If we do not realign our force structure as it pertains to fossil fuel consumption, our deterrent ability in the Pacific Rim will be limited. This increases the possibility of war.



Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim-
Part 1, Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats
Part 2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim--Part 2--ISR

Part 2, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) in the Pacific Rim.

At the end of the Cold War the U.S. Department of Defense downsized its ISR capability. So much so that at one point, they had to bring back the SR-71 from retirement. Large portions of SOSUS have been retired. P-3 Orion capability has been downsized. The S-3--which was the only long-range asset on the aircraft carrier--has also been retired. DOD leadership still thinks we are in a post Cold War world when, in fact, another one is coming along.

Communism has to be contained. This was the lesson from the Cold War. For this discussion we are talking about China. Yes, North Korea also, but their aggression is enabled by China.

With all that, some sycophant/PowerPoint warrior will tell you everything is under control. This is untrue. We do not have enough ISR to secure the Pacific Rim. Along with our overall poor strategic vision, the over-focus on the suite of Operation: USELESS DIRT wars has helped to denude the Pacific Rim of much needed resources.

The U.S. needs to build up the P-8 platform in a large way. It also needs ISR variants of the base platform to take over duties of Rivet Joint, JSTARS, and from what we can see of China's expansion of military capability, all of the other funny-named xC-135 special mission aircraft.

The U.S. needs to invest in a AWACs replacement. Not perfect but the Wedgetail, will help.

If we are to believe in aircraft carriers in Pacific operations, we need to bring the S-3 out of retirement. There are a variety of senors that can be put on it, and it is even handy for anti-piracy ISR if that is your thing.

Air-breathing/manned ISR in no way can be replaced by UAVs. We don't have the money to crash that many airframes (look at the UAV mishap rate). But yes, UAVs are important. The Global Hawk platform is a important part of our ISR needs.

Finally, on the topic of manned ISR, even the submarine force contributes to all of this. While on the mentioning of submarines, yes, more of them have been home-based in the Pacific, but given all of the other signs of U.S. strategic glaucoma this is not enough.

We need to install a modern-day SOSUS in the Pacific.

All of this has to be supported by a secure and robust orbital space infrastructure that I don't even know if we have to a proper level today.

Add all this up and--along with some other things such as the rest of our SIGINT/COMINT resources--and you have overlapping and supporting layers of ISR.

There are ways to pay for all of this, even in our bleak funding outlook. Yet, if we had all the money to do these things, it would take visionary leadership. This is also in short supply.

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim--Part 1--Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats

Ideas for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim

What is the future for U.S. strategic control of the Pacific Rim? How can we plan for this with the current budget troubles?

Part 1- Strategic Strike for Anti-Access Threats

I propose that we cannot afford 15 billion dollar Ford class carriers with crews of 4600 (not counting the escorts) that have obsolete aircraft in the air wing that are unable to take on anti-access threats. Manpower costs as well as faulty weapons system program management eats our budget alive.

(click image to make it larger)


We need to have a more balanced and affordable approach to how we deal with Pacific Rim high end threats for both sea control and strategic conventional strike. I suggest that our two most important platforms that we grow are the Virginia class submarine and the long range bomber.

We can keep B-52s flying as long as we have smart engineers. Dirt cheap. I suggest that we get the Tomahawk Block 4 certified on the B-52. That along with improving the reliability of JASSM will give us versatility. The long range bomber gives us the ability to strike within a very short time span of the start of hostilities; including rinse and repeat over days.

The Virginias have the ability to keep a variety of enemy targets at risk inside the boat’s area of influence. The Virginias and long range bomber offer affordable balance. No, it isn’t perfect balance. It certainly beats the delusion of strategic thinking like this.

So what about carriers? Yes we still need them. But like the B-52, as long as we have engineers we can still refurb the ones we have.

Maybe when we have a stable economy we can branch out. Until then, we have to plan for worst-case budget scenarios.

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