Air power

This is an interesting piece on air power in-general and some mentions of strategic bombing in WWII.

The author doesn't mention a few important points.

WWII strategic bombing of Germany:

1.It was in effect yet another front (just like the Soviet Union, Italy and France). The German people and logistics tied up in various facilities, flak batteries and fighters tasked for home defense helped even more, to bleed them white.

2.Bombing Germany was instructive to the German populace of what happens when you put a murder in charge of your country. Retaliation. And, a good object lesson for future generations. You want war? Fine. Here it is. Eat it.

3.These were still early days of combat aviation. Man was still learning technology that was appearing faster than their ability to know how to use it.

3. In 1944, with all that bombing, Germany had a high production year for fighter aircraft. The huge problem (which was the same for Japan) was Germany's lack of understanding of the pilot pipeline. By 1944 Germany had low hour rookies and a small number of highly excperience aces. Where the ace said, "we flew until we got the iron cross or the wooden cross."

The U.S. for example, by this time, could get a huge number of low-to-average pilots to the front who may have had a few hundred flight hours before they even saw combat. A big difference from a German 20-hour (or less) wonder. Pilots with experience--in large quantity--went home to teach rookies. The mismatch by 44 was large.

Air power is not everything in war. Not having it in a peer-to-peer fight means you risk losing.

Badly.

Gates ignorant assumptions about air power--verified

Gates, one of the contributors to the reduction of U.S. Air Power Dominance, got his portrait, unveiled in the Pentagon the other day.

I wish I could spit on it.

Meanwhile, all the Gates assumptions about the emerging threat picture have been verified as 100 percent rubbish.

Weak news article quotes flawed audit

The cost of a JSF is expected to drop from $127 million to $80 million as the production rate increases.

Not credible.

Only if thousands were made with little to no development problems.

That train has already left.

File under: "copy-paste journalism".

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Shallow audit held as valuable by some

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.

Shallow audit held as valuable by some

The audits (here and here) of the RAAF fast jet running debacle are weak, shallow, and ignore some significant issues.

Noteworthy too is that the original purpose of the Super Hornet decision was to cover for F-35 delays. Nelson (who was PowerPointed into the con) stated as much. More on that here (including the weak justification for getting rid of the F-111).

The normalization of deviance approach to this issue is not useful.

More on the dangers of a normalization of deviance approach to risks--enhanced by group-think--can be seen here.

Following the F-35 path will cost Australia loss of regional air supremacy. What is interesting in the above mentioned audit is the meme of that will not die; the F-35 as a "fifth-generation fighter".

The audit goes into describing the specs of the F-35 and the Super Hornet but (and this is where the shallowness comes in full-bore) portrays no grasp of why the technical details are important beyond a few simplistic claims.

Here are a few things to consider; what the audit didn't tell the public:

History they don’t want you to know

Boeing official-Super Hornet-handles air-to-air with technology, not speed and acceleration

The Super Hornet Stores Story

More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy

The audit also labels the Super Hornet as "low observable" when such a claim shows a real weakness of understanding balanced defensive measures taken in the design of the aircraft. Those are some low-observable methods to lower signature but just as important: to establish a better known baseline of exposure risks of the aircraft to different threats so that the on-board defensive jamming system is much more efficient. Great, if one does not want to carry any significant weapons capability. Unlike real stealth aircraft, the Super Hornet carries its weapons (not counting the gun) externally. Not very "low observable".

In short, the audit doesn't do much to help the Australian public who are being taken for a ride of billions in wasteful spending for faulty aircraft that will not be competitive against growing Pacific Rim threats.

F-100 Website

F-100.

Look at all the photo albums on the left-side links of the site. Impressive capture of days gone by.

More thoughts on the unveiling of the Chinese J-21 stealth fighter

Bill has some interesting thoughts about China's new J-21 stealth fighter over on Aviation Week's Ares blog.

Bill also points to this piece of history from another source:

In the past year (2009) alone, Lockheed Martin found “six to eight companies” among its subcontractors “had been totally compromised – emails, their networks, everything” according to Lockheed Martin chief information security officer Anne Mullins.

He sees the F-35 if the short-take-off-vertical-landing (STOVL)was not a requirement. STOVL design requirements have caused numerous problems with all 3 F-35 variants.

It will be interesting to see what mission sets China expects out of the J-21. I still think this design is complementary to the J-20 for achieving regional air supremacy.

It is obvious that the compromised U.S. data has born fruit. If it were me designing this thing, I would have built the center section around the F-22 main weapon's bay. It is a better bay for performance aircraft.

I suppose the coming months will see how far these assumptions go.

China puts out the welcome mat for Panetta visit--a new stealth fighter

U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta will be visiting China this week. The NY Times has a short summary of the pivot to Asia such as it is.

Or maybe his visit is about Chinese communist bullying in the region.

China has put out the welcome mat already. Chinese internet sources have shown this photo of the new J-21 stealth fighter prototype.



The J-21 gives the appearance of a pure air-superiorty machine, that would be more in the area of the F-22 than its' predecessor, the J-20.

The absense of rearward facing low observable nozzles on the J-21 could be:

1. They haven't figured that out, and that this of course is a prototype waiting on other design issues.
2. They don't want to spend that much on the airframe and consider something like "affordable stealth" (frontward facing and easy to maintain...like the F-35) good enough for the missions it will perform.

David and others consider the idea that China may only be able to afford either the J-20 or J-21. I'm not so sure. I would put my money on the J-21 being more air supremancy with some possible light strike ability, and the J-20 carrying more (longer range) strike capability yet being able to do interceptor duty.

A balanced approach in capability planning: backed up by tankers, airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and on their own turf, a credible integrated air defence system (IADS).

China's long game is steady. When matched up against a country over $16T in debt that has seriously de-skilled defence-thinking, China should be more than secure about defending their local interests into the future.

UPDATE-Chinese made Backfire long range bomber to see West Pacific service

What will a Mach-capable Backfire long-range bomber that can be air-to-air refueled mean to the future of the West Pacific anti-access discussion? As it seems now, quite a lot.

Back in 2001, there were indications that China wanted to buy 32 Backfire bombers from Russia. A deal at the time which could have been up to $1 biillion dollars. There was mention of this hope as early as 1998.

It seems now that sometime in 2010, China just decided to instead, buy the Russian production line for the jet.

A move by Russia to sell its production line of Tu-22M3 long-range bombers to China for US$1.5 billion to China was confirmed by the US-based US-China Economic and Security Review Commission two years ago and the bomber's name will be changed to the Hong-10, reports the state-run China News Service.

The Chinese name for their version of the Backfire (version is important because it is bound to have PLAAF specific items in it) is expected to fly in the second half of next year.

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UPDATE: Google translate Chinese to English, this source says the H-10 "is expected to go into production next year". Different from the above first-flight mention.

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The continent purchase Backfire bomber production line put into operation next year will be called the H -10

At 12:36 on June 15th, 2012

Aging bomber fleet replacement of old, the Chinese mainland to Russia for $ 1.5 billion purchase of Tu-22M3 Backfire (Backfire) long-range bomber production line, named "H -10", is expected to go into production next year, combat The deployment of 36.

According to Japan's "Sankei Shimbun" reported that, after the end of the Cold War, the continent had financial difficulties in Russia express willingness to buy the Tu-22M bombers, but would undermine the military balance in East Asia, Russia grounds to refuse.

After years of fight, Russia agreed to sell $ 1.5 billion Backfire bomber production line is expected to go into production next year, the actual deployment of 36, the People's Liberation Army into the military after named "H -10". As early as two years ago, the hearings held by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission is responsible for assessing the safety of US exchanges (The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission), has confirmed the deal.

Tu-22M3 bombers maximum combat radius of 2880 kilometers, took off from mainland China in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and even the activities of the Western Pacific, is expected to be a serious threat to the safety of the air defense of the Western Pacific countries.

Hope for JASSM

The JASSM-ER will be one of the few solutions for USAF anti-access strike needs for years to come.

I hope it works.

This press release describes the new 500-mile range variant which compares it to the 200-mile range original variant.

JASSM is sub-sonic and since there aren't any videos of it doing nap-of-the-earth flight profiles, it is possible that it depends only on stealth to survive.

That could be challenging. First day of duck season.

Also mentioned by the USAF is its over-optimism with GPS assistance to the inertial navigation (INS) in the missile. GPS is great for the JDAM which has a short flight time (around 1 minute). If the jet dropping JDAM already has a tight INS fix (better if enhanced by a radar update), the JDAM's INS is going to hit--GPS or no.

The longer range you shoot the more updates you need. GPS degradation is mentioned by the USAF but if it is a long range shot and GPS is denied, good luck hitting much. This comment doesn't hold water:

"Even without GPS, the JASSM can find its target due to its internal sensor."

Also, if they are depending on net-enabled updates, that can be geo-located and/or denied.

What would help? Celestial navigation. The B-2 has a very accurate celestial navigation unit in its left wing. Some old Cold War ideas had an analog ones...but accuracy only needed to be good enough for nukes.

How did pre-GPS cruise missiles like ALCM off of the B-52 do it? With a terrain contour-matching guidance system (SAC SIOP=highly scripted missions) and again nukes needing less accuracy. Survivablity was based on flying nap-of-the-earth around known threats.

Bomb damage assessment (BDA) of Desert Storm targets hit with ALCM's converted from nuke to conventional warheads, with this technology of the day was mixed; and, over-hyped. Or as General Powell put it: something about bouncing rubble with million-dollar missiles; for those those that made it near the proper target.

Post-Desert Storm, ALCMs were upgraded with GPS assist.

How the JASSM acts in real combat against high-end threats will be interesting. I hope we never have to find out. Scripted range events and all that. It beats the over-sell by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter crowd claiming high-end IADS survival which doesn't exist.

The F-35 problem is that it is too weak to take on high end-IADS and too expensive to operate for any other kind of lesser threat. Unusable for the Pacific. Current legacy aircraft that can carry JASSM have a better shot at taking care of high and low threats.

JASSM was supposed to be an "affordable" cruise missile in the $400,000 each region. What the U.S. pays for each weapon these days isn't anywhere close to that.

So, cruise missiles are it. We are out of money and any real air power advocates are retired, dead, or doing anything else.

And, I wonder, why the USAF thinks 1763 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, still makes any sense.

Personal account of USAF Cold War MiG squadron

Bill Sweetman has a great story of a recent personal account from a former USAF guy that was part of the Cold War program flying Soviet-made (or similar) MiG aircraft in Nevada.

Those days were secret, dangerous yet eye-opening.

That proved to be a very important test. "In 1987 we had the AIM-9P, which was designed to reject flares, and when we used US flares against it would ignore them and go straight for the target. We had the Soviet flares – they were dirty, and none of them looked the same – and the AIM-9P said 'I love that flare'.

"Why’d that happen? We had designed it to reject American flares. The Soviet flares had different burn time, intensity and separation. The same way, every time we tried to build a SAM simulator, when we got the real thing it wasn’t the same.

"I use the AIM-9P because it is out of the system and I can talk about it. The same thing happened to a lot of things that are still in the system and that I can’t talk about."

What the F-22 vs. the Typhoon tells us

The anti-F-22 crowd over at Wired bring up some great points about the F-22 and Typhoon. Also, they may have overlooked or just didn't get around to mentioning some other things in the big picture of air power emerging threats.

For starters, while the F-22 may face some challenges in air-to-air combat, anything less than that is going to suffer a hard time in coming anti-access threat scenarios.

With the Typhoon, consider that (except for its F-18-class airframe profile), its speed and performance mimic some of the SU-35 capability. The SU-35 is the non-stealth reference threat for the Pacific in coming years. It was designed to exploit the Raptor. However many of the SU-35 are made, expect its technology to bleed elsewhere.

One big difference between the F-22 and the Typhoon is that one of them is going to have more difficulty in a high-end SAM environment.

What Wired, or us, do not know, are the rules of engagement for the exercise. By getting the F-22 into within-visual-range (WVR) practice with the Typhoon, we give the F-22 a look at what it will have to deal with when facing emerging reference threats in the SU-35 class of jet: or worse.

Wired is right to bring up the single point of failure in the U.S. air power roadmap. That is the AIM-120 AMRAAM. While it may have some combat victories, they were against poor opponents and not someone using cross-eyed jamming in a new-gen Flanker. Once the AMRAAM probability of kill is lowered to that of a Vietnam-era AIM-7 Sparrow, we have problems.

According to Janes and others, we have even more of a problem with the AMRAAM. Rocket motor production for the AIM-120D AMRAAM (the new supposedly longer range variant) is in dire straits because of serious production defects. This problem has affected all AMRAAM deliveries within the last two years.

The fix here is that the U.S. needs to get competing sources for beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles in the AMRAAM class. Sooner rather than later.

That and a dual mode or family of BVR missiles that use not only radar but optical guidance for terminal homing.

Years ago, when the advanced tactical fighter (ATF) project started--which gave us the F-22--red-force evaluators knew that stealth, for stealth's sake, was not good enough against emerging threats. One had to have extreme altitude and super-cruise to lower the effectiveness of enemy firing solutions by degrading missile no escape zones (NEZ).

With its AN/ALR-94, it has an interesting way of detecting targets; passively. Also the F-22 has usable combat range. And, certainly more than the F-35 will ever see, if it ever shows up in combat trim.

The most important thing that the Typhoon vs. F-22 flights show us is that against almost any emerging threat for the foreseeable future, the F-35 is dead meat. It's BVR capability may count for something, but with the AMRAAM PK taken into effect and a serious lack of dancing ability, what will be delivered to the warfighter are tales of the Brewster Buffalo, Vindicator and Helldiver.

The Pacific isn't looking all that great for air power deterrence. In part, we can thank, Gates, Schwartz and Donley: three people that when you combine their total fund of air power knowledge, it could be written inside of a match-book; with a large-sized crayon.

This should also worry the Israelis when looking at all those Typhoons. For them, the F-35 will not provide a credible deterrence. There was a time we supported our allies. President Clinton did promise them the F-22. Too bad for them, the U.S. didn't follow through.

Today? All the U.S. really wants from its allies is to purchase faulty weapons systems. No matter what the consequence.

That is about all we have

JASSM has had its trouble over the years.

It is now integrated for use by the F-15 Strike Eagle community.

For the Pacific--in the non-long-range bomber category--the F-15 Strike Eagle can at least carry JASSM some distance.

The B-1, B-2, B-52, F-15 Strike Eagle and F-22 are the aircraft with any real "anti-access" fire-power for the Pacific.

The Navy helps out with the Tomahawk: which would be nice to see cleared for the B-52.

Shoot first. Shoot enough.

With the coming budget woes, this situation is unlikely to improve much.

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.

Saab Gripen Farnborough briefing

The Saab Gripen Farnborough briefing below goes with this Aviation Week, Ares blog post which will explain more.

*UPDATE* Enemy within

In their continuous war against the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard, USAF boss General Schwartz and Secretary of the USAF Donley have scored another victory.

Currently there are only a handful of C-130s that can be configured for fire-fighting duties. Efforts to improve the situation look bleak as USAF continues to waste billions each year on the failed F-35.

Using excuses like Operation: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 or the coming budget sequestration fear-mongering as a cause and future cause are invalid.

Keeping a variety of AF Reserve and Air National Guard special use, convertible C-130's operational is not hard to justify or fund.

*UPDATE* And we just lost one of the configurable USAF C-130s doing fire-fighting ops. Status on crew not certain. Word is three picked up by helicopter.

H/T-War News Updates

Obsolete carrier air wing

The U.S. Navy is starting to realize that it is facing the prospect of taking an obsolete carrier air wing to war.

The Super Hornet won't be up for emerging threats in the Pacific.

The Navy states that the solution against anti-access threats will not depend on just one weapon. The problem is that as far as fighter aircraft off of carriers, they do not have even one weapon to take on such threats.

It gets worse. The F-35 is in no way up for the challenge. By virtue of its operational document drawn up in the 1990's to determine a design need, it was assumed that there would be hundreds of F-22s to take on the high-end threats.

Finally, what the Navy will not say publicly is that the Super Hornet beats the F-35 in every relevant operational metric.

Unless the Just So Failed can someday actually prove otherwise.

And, at what cost?

USAF boss General Schwartz argument about not needing C-27 is shot down by Australia

The boss of the USAF is wrong.

Again.

Australia will purchase 10 C-27J aircraft. Read the reasons why below from the Defence press release. Note the airfield comparison metrics between the C-130 and C-27.

Schwartz (never a 4-star genius on air power issues) assumes America will never need to get into airfields unavailable to the C-130.

Minister for Defence and Minister for Defence Materiel – Joint Media Release – New Battlefield aircraft for the Air Force

10 May 2012

Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today announced that the Government had agreed to purchase 10 Alenia C-27J Spartan Battlefield Airlift aircraft at a cost of $1.4 billion.

The C-27J will replace the Caribou aircraft which was retired from service in 2009 after a career spanning more than four decades. The C-27J complements the capabilities of the C-130 and C-17 aircraft and uses common infrastructure and aircraft systems such as engines, avionics and the cargo handling systems.

The acquisition of the C-27J will significantly improve the ADF’s ability to move troops, equipment and supplies. The C-27J has the capacity to carry significant load and still access small, soft, narrow runways that are too short for the C-130J or runways which are unable to sustain repeated use of larger aircraft.

In Australia, the C-27J can access over 1900 airfields compared to around 500 for the C-130 Hercules aircraft. In our region, the C-27J will be able to access over 400 airfields compared to around 200 for the C‑130 Hercules aircraft.

These aircraft will provide battlefield airlift but are also capable of conducting airlift in our region. They will be able to operate from rudimentary airstrips in Australia and overseas and will be able to support humanitarian missions in remote locations.

The flexibility of the C-27J allows it to undertake a wide range of missions from delivering ammunition to front line troops to undertaking aero-medical evacuation of causalities.

A Battlefield Airlifter needs to be able to operate in a high threat environment. The C-27J with its missile warning systems, electronic self protection, secure communications and battlefield armour provides protection from threats ranging from small arms to highly lethal man portable air defence systems (MANPADS).

The C-27J was assessed by Defence as the aircraft which best met all the essential capability requirements and provides the best value for money. It was assessed as being able to fly further, faster, higher while carrying more cargo and requiring a smaller runway than the other aircraft under consideration, the Airbus Military C-295.

The acquisition of the 10 C-27J aircraft with associated support equipment will be conducted through a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) arrangement with the United States (US) at a cost of around $1.4 billion. The first aircraft are expected to be delivered in 2015 with the Initial Operating Capability scheduled for the end of 2016.

Initial logistic support, including training for aircrew and maintenance personnel will be provided through the FMS program, utilising the system that has been established in the US. Defence will seek a separate agreement with the C-27J manufacturer, Alenia, in order to ensure that RAAF can operate, maintain and modify the aircraft throughout its planned life.

Since the retirement of the Caribou fleet in 2009, Australia’s military airlift capability has comprised C‑17 heavy lift aircraft, C‑130 H and J model Hercules aircraft, the Interim Light Transport aircraft (8 Beechcraft King Air 350 aircraft) and Navy and Army helicopters.

In the Budget the Government announced the retirement of the C-130H, which will proceed in an orderly fashion over the course of the year.

The 10 C-27J will be based in Richmond.

Media Contacts:

Mr Smith’s Office: Andrew Porter (02) 6277 7800 or 0419 474 392

Mr Clare’s Office: Korena Flanagan (02) 6277 7620 or 0418 251 316

Defence Media Operations (02) 6127 1999

The wars we fight today and tomorrow

I like Mark Thompson's work on Battleland blog. I also agree with pilots that don't want to fly in jets they deem unsafe.

However this part of the post makes little sense:

"Designed to combat the next-generation of Soviet fighters – which never materialized – the planes have sat on the tarmac despite the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya raging in the skies above them. They have no role in today’s wars, and by the time there’s someone to battle, they’ll be obsolete."

Trident nuclear missiles were not used in Afghanistan (Operation: USELESS DIRT 1), Iraq (Operation: USELESS DIRT 2) or Libya (Operation: USELESS DIRT 3). I don't think Mark has a grasp on why no-peer-level air power exists.

Today's wars could suddenly mean N.Korea or an encounter near the South China Sea. The, "by there's someone to battle, they'll be obsolete" statement is valueless. Also, no other aircraft in the U.S. inventory besides the F-22 has a hope of standing up to SU-35, PAK-FA, J-2x, and the Chinese JSF knock-off that is coming.

The strategy that one wants to fight anti-access threats at a peer level or worse is bad. That is exactly where the moribund DOD "strategic" thinking is going.

The F-22 exists so-as to clean any opponents air assets off the table. The fact that the oxygen mess in the F-22 isn't fixed yet points just as much to USAFs thin engineering manning as it does Lockheed Martin incompetence.

If USAF had the proper number of free-thinking engineers, along with the requisite amount of strong moral leadership to back them up, the F-22 would not have reached IOC until a serious matter like oxygen and stealth-skin defects were solved.

With that, restarting F-22 production using resources from the failed F-35 program is the right thing to do.



The guy on the left; his moustache is out of reg, but he his Guard and we overlook that a bit. But hats off to both of them for making a very hard decision, and, maybe even one that saved their life. Having an oxygen bottle ring is of little use if you are incapacitated to such a level you are unable to remember where it is. Given an incompetent engineering, flight-safety and senior leadership environment, what choice did they have?

Real Defence White Paper Security

There is a lot of heat-up in the Spratlys lately. You would have to be asleep not to notice.

This Australian Defence exercise is routine.

However, if Australia had real air power leaders in Defence, that exercise; at this time; would be a show of real regional security with RAAF F-22s and F-111s.

The definition of contributing to regional security.

By example.

By using deterrence.