Jets shredded, kept away from ‘bad guys’

By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – A mechanical monster grabs the F-14 fighter jet and chews through one wing and then another, ripping off the Tomcat’s appendages before moving onto its guts. Finally, all that’s left is a pile of shredded rubble — like the scraps from a Thanksgiving turkey.

This 1988 photo provided by Dale Snodgrass shows Snodgrass as a Navy Capt. performing a ‘flyby” next to the USS America. The F-14 flyover was shot by a crewman aboard the USS America, during a Dependent’s Day cruise in 1998, during which families of the crew members are brought on the ship for a day at sea. At the time Snodgrass was Executive Officer of the VF-33 fighter squadron (The Starfighters) out of Oceana Naval Base in Virginia deployed aboard the USS America. (AP Photo/Courtesy Dale Snodgrass)
************
The Pentagon is paying a contractor at least $900,000 to destroy old F-14s, a jet affectionately nicknamed “the turkey,” rather than sell the spares at the risk of their falling into the wrong hands, including Iran’s.

Within a workday, a $38 million fighter jet that once soared as a showpiece of U.S. airpower can be destroyed at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz., the military’s “boneyard” for retired aircraft.

“There were things getting to the bad guys, so to speak,” said Tim Shocklee, founder and executive vice president of TRI-Rinse Inc. in St. Louis. “And one of the ways to make sure that no one will ever use an F-14 again is to cut them into little 2-by-2-foot bits.”

The Defense Department had intended to destroy spare parts unique to the F-14 but sell thousands of others that could be used on other aircraft. It suspended sales of all Tomcat parts after The Associated Press reported in January that buyers for Iran, China and other countries had exploited gaps in surplus-sale security to acquire sensitive U.S. military gear, including F-14 parts.

Among other tactics, middlemen for the countries misrepresented themselves to gain access to the Defense Department’s surplus sales or bought sensitive surplus from U.S. companies that had acquired it from Pentagon auctions and weren’t supposed to allow its export.

Investigators also found some sensitive items accidentally slipping into surplus auctions rather than being destroyed as they were supposed to be. In an unusual move when dealing with retired aircraft, the Pentagon is trying to shut off all avenues for Iran’s parts purchasers by demolishing the F-14s, then combing through the scraps to make sure nothing useful remains.

Iran is the only country trying to keep Tomcats airworthy. The United States let Iran buy the F-14s in the 1970s when it was an ally, long before President Bush named it part of an “axis of evil.”

Shocklee’s company won a three-year, $3.7 million contract to render surplus equipment useless for military purposes. The work includes the recent demolition of 23 Tomcats in Arizona, accounting for about $900,000 of TRI-Rinse’s contract. The military is considering using the same process on its other F-14s.

The company has developed portable shredding machinery so the Pentagon can have sensitive items destroyed on a base instead of shipping them long distances to be shredded.

The Tomcat was a strike fighter with a striking price tag: roughly $38 million. By the 1980s it was a movie star with a leading role in the Tom Cruise classic “Top Gun.” But as the planes are mangled into unrecognizable metal chunks, the jets with a 38-foot wingspan appear small and vulnerable.

The shearing machine, which uses pincers to rip apart the planes, weighs 100,000 pounds. The shredder is 120,000 pounds. An F-14 weighs about 40,000 pounds.

Among the shredded victims in Arizona: a plane flown by the “Tophatters” squadron, which led the first airstrike in Afghanistan when the U.S. invaded in October 2001.

The Pentagon retired its F-14s last fall. At last count, the military’s boneyard in Arizona held 165 Tomcats, believed to be the only ones left out of 633 produced for the Navy. The others were scavenged for parts to keep others flying, went to museums or crashed, said a spokeswoman for the air base, Teresa Vanden-Heuvel.

As powerful as the grinding machinery is, not all of the F-14 can be shredded. The landing gear — built to withstand the force of slamming onto an aircraft carrier’s deck — must be cut by hand with a demolition torch. It’s made from steel with parts of titanium, so the shears can’t cut it and the shredder can’t chew it.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., considers the F-14 demolitions a good effort, but wants to go further and outlaw the sale of F-14 parts to anyone except museums. Wyden sponsored legislation that also would ban export licenses for F-14 components, which he believes will be more effective than Pentagon policies that he said have changed over time.

“I don’t think internal rules — these internal initiatives — based on the track record of the Department of Defense, are sufficient,” Wyden said.

The House passed similar legislation in June; a Senate vote is expected later this summer. The White House hasn’t said whether Bush supports the idea.

F-14 preservationists said the Pentagon is handling the Tomcats they obtain differently.

As a Navy pilot, retired Capt. Dale Snodgrass delivered an F-14 to Iran — flying nonstop from the United States with roughly No. 68 of about 80 planes that Iran ordered.

Snodgrass said only key computers were taken out and ejection systems disabled on planes delivered to museums in past years. This year, when an F-14 went on display at a Miami museum, virtually everything was removed, leaving only a shell with the canopy painted black, said Snodgrass, who lives in St. Augustine, Fla.

Snodgrass is part of F-14 history. He flew Tomcats for roughly a quarter-century and amassed the most flight time in them of any pilot: more than 4,800 hours. He was named Navy pilot of the year around the time “Top Gun” hit theaters.

Snodgrass said he understands the Pentagon’s destruction of F-14s but said it would be nice to see some preserved. Pilots dubbed the Tomcat “the turkey” because of its ungainly, turkey-like look when landing on aircraft carriers.

“When I first started it,” Snodgrass said, “it was the biggest, the fastest, the most impressive, the most maneuverable fighter on the planet Earth.”

U.S. scores in naval missile-defense test

HONOLULU, June 23 (UPI) — Another successful test of a U.S. sea-based missile-defense system took place in the Pacific with the interception of a ballistic missile  in mid-flight.The test off Hawaii was the ninth success in 11 tries for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and had officials looking ahead to operational deployment aboard U.S. Navy war ships.

“With nine successful intercepts from three different ships with three different crews, we can now clearly see the potential to transfer this capability to any Aegis-equipped ship,” Rear Adm. Brad Hicks said in a statement Friday night.The test saw the cruiser USS Port Royal lock on to the missile and feed the targeting data to the nearby destroyer USS Decatur. The Decatur launched a Standard Missile 3 that destroyed the ballistic missile outside Earth’s atmosphere.The Aegis-equipped Spanish frigate Mendez Nunez was also involved in the test.

Spanish Navy AEGIS frigate.

Lockheed Martin said the test also involved the Port Royal establishing a networking connection with a ground-based Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system.

The THAAD and Aegis exchanged targeting data to demonstrate the interoperability of the two missile-defense systems.

Related:
Proud To Be An American

Navy Conducts Successful At Sea Missile Defense Test

KAUAI, Hawaii, June 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — During a test today, Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System intercepted and destroyed a separating ballistic missile target during its midcourse phase of flight.

In this photo released by the U.S. Navy, A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) is launched from the Aegis destroyer USS Decatur, during a Missile Defense Agency ballistic missile flight test Friday, June 22, 2007. Two minutes later, the SM-3 intercepted a separating ballistic missile threat target, launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. The test was the ninth intercept, in eleven program flight tests, by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, the maritime component of the ‘Hit-to-Kill’ Ballistic Missile Defense System, being developed by the Missile Defense Agency. It was the first time such a test was conducted from a ballistic missile defense equipped-U.S. Navy destroyer. The previous flight tests were conducted from U.S. Navy cruisers. The maritime capability is designed to intercept short to intermediate-range ballistic missile threats in the midcourse phase of flight. USS Decatur is one of 18 U.S. Navy ships (three cruisers and 15 destroyers) that will be identically equipped, by early 2009, with the ballistic missile defense capabilities of conducting long range surveillance/tracking and launching the SM-3 missile. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy)
********************

The test represents the Aegis BMD system’s ninth successful ballistic missile intercept in 11 attempts and is the first ballistic missile intercept conducted by an Aegis BMD destroyer. This also marks the third time the Aegis BMD system has demonstrated its target discrimination capabilities by intercepting a ballistic missile with a separating reentry vehicle. In addition to its record of intercepts, Aegis BMD has successfully supported more than 15 ballistic missile defense system tracking tests since June 2004.

In today’s test, USS Decatur (DDG 73), an Aegis BMD destroyer equipped with the latest U.S. Navy certified version of the Aegis BMD Weapon System (Aegis BMD 3.6), successfully guided a Standard Missile (SM)-3 Block IA missile to intercept a medium range, separating ballistic missile target outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

In addition to USS Decatur, the Aegis BMD Cruiser USS Port Royal (CG 73) and the Spanish Navy Aegis-equipped frigate Mendez Nunez (F-104) participated in the test as a training event to assess the future capabilities of the F-100 Class.

During the test, USS Port Royal used its SPY-1B radar augmented by a prototype Aegis BMD Signal Processor (BSP) to detect and track the separating warhead in real time, and to differentiate — or discriminate — the simulated warhead from the rest of the missile. The BSP’s success further validated the readiness of this advanced discrimination capability against complex threats for installation and deployment as part of the next configuration of Aegis BMD capability beginning in 2010.

Also in this test, USS Port Royal exchanged tracking data with a ground- based Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system ashore. THAAD, also developed by Lockheed Martin, is designed to engage ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of flight. The Aegis BMD-THAAD link verified interoperability of systems and sensors in the nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System.

For this test, Mendez Nunez detected and tracked the ballistic missile with a minor modification made to its Aegis Weapon System.

“With nine successful intercepts from three different ships with three different crews, we can now clearly see the potential to transfer this capability to any Aegis-equipped ship,” said Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, the Missile Defense Agency’s Aegis BMD program director. “Participation by the Spanish crew and the Mendez Nunez demonstrate that Aegis BMD can easily be the common link to proven ballistic missile defense capability for our allies.”

The flight mission was the final event of a series of tests conducted in the days preceding today’s successful intercept. In the previous events, USS Decatur verified Aegis BMD 3.6’s performance in detecting, tracking and targeting a high altitude, anti-radiation missile target, demonstrating the system’s multi-mission capability and conducted simultaneous, simulated engagements against two ballistic missile targets launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. During the same event, THAAD cued USS Port Royal, and the ship’s SPY-1B(V) radar augmented by BSP then acquired and tracked the ballistic missile targets.

Mendez Nunez joined USS Decatur and USS Port Royal after completing its Combat System Ship Qualification Trials (CSSQT) off the California coast with two other Aegis-equipped ships: USS Gridley (DDG 101) and Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen. During the CSSQT — the first ever involving ships from three nations — the three ships operated together to test the performance of their combat systems against a variety of naval threats.

“Aegis again is delivering on its ability to protect against medium range ballistic missile targets,” said Orlando Carvalho, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Surface and Sea-Based Missile Defense line of business. “Mendez Nunez’s participation builds on the demonstrated success we have had with Japan’s Kongo-class Aegis-equipped ships, further using the international reach of Aegis to equip our allies with key BMD capability.”

The Aegis BMD 3.6 Weapon System, including the SM-3 Block IA missile, was certified for operational deployment by the U.S. Navy in August 2006. Aegis BMD 3.6 enhances the ballistic missile defense capabilities of the current Aegis BMD fleet and adds capability in other warfare areas — as demonstrated in today’s test.

The MDA and the U.S. Navy are jointly developing Aegis BMD as part of the United States’ Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Currently, seven U.S. Navy Aegis-equipped warships have the ability to conduct long range search and track and engage ballistic missiles. Another nine Aegis warships are equipped with Aegis BMD Long Range Surveillance & Track capability. Ultimately 15 Aegis destroyers and three Aegis cruisers will be outfitted with the ability to engage short to intermediate range ballistic missile threats and support other BMDS engagements using the Aegis BMD Weapon System and the SM-3. Japan has purchased Aegis BMD capability for their Aegis destroyers and is a partner developing a larger, faster, and more capable variant of the SM-3.

The Aegis Weapon System is the world’s premier naval surface defense system and is the foundation for Aegis BMD, the primary component of the sea- based element of the United States’ BMDS. The Aegis BMD Weapon System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System, the SM-3 missile and the weapon system’s command and control system. The Aegis BMD Weapon System also integrates with the BMDS, receiving cues from and providing cueing information to other BMDS elements.

The Aegis Weapon System is currently deployed on 83 ships around the globe with more than 20 additional ships planned or under contract. In addition to the U.S., Aegis is the maritime weapon system of choice for Japan, South Korea, Norway, Spain and Australia. Japan began installation of Aegis BMD in its Kongo-class Aegis destroyers in 2007.
*************

Related:
U.S. scores in naval missile-defense test

Proud To Be An American

U.S. and Vietnam: Future Strategic Partners?

By John E. Carey
June 22, 2007

Former adversaries, Vietnam and the United States are now engaged upon a long-term effort designed to create and strengthen an emerging strategic relationship.

Without much fanfare, the process of discussions and diplomatic ties that started in 1982 when Vietnam and the U.S. began talking about accounting for American soldiers “Missing in Action” (MIA) in Vietnam has now blossomed into a multi-level strategic effort to forge a future beneficial to both sides.
 
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen inspects sailors of the Vietnamese People’s Navy during a welcoming ceremony to mark his visit to Hai Phong, Vietnam on June 20, 2007. Mullen is on a seven-day trip to Japan and Vietnam to visit with counterparts and with sailors stationed in the region. (AP Photo/ U.S. Navy, Chad J. McNeeley)
**********************

In June, 2005, President Bush hosted then-Prime Minister of Vietnam Phan Van Khai for a meeting in the Oval Office.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Vietnam early in June, 2006 and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Vietnam at the end of July 2006. 

President Bush traveled to Vietnam in November 2006 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, or APEC.  Today President Bush hosts President Triet of Vietnam at the white House.

Vietnam has expressed its intension of playing a larger role in U.N. peacekeeping and similar international operations. Officers from Vietnam’s military are again participating in War Colleges and other professional development activities in Australia and other friendly nations.

Four U.S. Navy ship visits have been completed in Vietnam over the last four years, including a visit by two ships simultaneously during last year’s U.S. Independence Day holiday.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Vietnamese People’s Navy Vice Adm. Pham Ncoc Phin in Hai Phong, Vietnam on Wednesday, June 20, 2007.  (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Chad J. McNeeley)
*****************

The U.S. and Vietnam relationship includes bilateral medical training, cooperation on the war against terror, and counter narcotics work.

According to Professor Carlyle Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy, “Vietnam will attempt to fully integrate with the world economy through membership in the World Trade Organization.”

Secretary Rumsfeld said after his visit to Vietnam last year that “we have no plans for access to military facilities in Vietnam.” But many observers believe the long-term U.S. goals for the relationship with Vietnam include access to a deep water port like the former U.S. facility at Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam and perhaps access to a major air terminal.

Russia completed a twenty-five year lease arrangement for the port at Cam Ranh Bay in 2002 and Vietnam would like to find a new partner willing to pay for access to this highly capable Asian gem, now neglected and in disrepair.

Observers believe the U.S. partnership with Vietnam is meant mainly to counter China’s burgeoning regional influence, which is also a factor in the U.S. military’s strategic Asian repositioning.

“With the U.S. military moving from Okinawa and mainland Japan to Guam, there exists a dire need for a deep-water port in Southeast Asia,” said Vietnam watcher Quang X. Pham.

“Navy ships are visiting Saigon [now called Ho Chi Minh City or just HCMC]. Vietnam’s upcoming intro to the WTO wouldn’t have happened without the normalization of relations with the U.S. in 1995. Most importantly, Vietnam’s top trade partner is its old nemesis, desperate to counter the expanding Chinese economy and mighty military,” said former U.S. Congressional candidate and author Pham.

Demonstrators protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Friday, June 22, 2007, as Nguyen Minh Triet, the president of Vietnam was to meet with President Bush. The first visit of a Vietnamese president to the White House since the Vietnam War comes amid harsh criticism by U.S. lawmakers of the communist-led nation’s human rights record. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
***********************

Vietnam experts believe the country’s long-standing difficulties with China also play a role. The two nations have a historic record of disagreement and animosity; now compounded by Vietnam’s envy at China’s record economic growth.

China, now becoming one of the world’s most thirsty consumers of oil, is increasing its naval expansion westward toward the Middle East. Though not a “blue water navy” the equal of the U.S. Navy, the PRC’s naval forces are improving. China’s covetous glare toward Taiwan is also a factor.

“The PRC wishes to take Taiwan whole and intact. To this end, it will follow Sun Tzu’s teachings to win without fighting, bringing every element of national power into full play,” wrote U.S. Air Force Colonel Lawrence M. Martin, Jr. in the Air & Space Power Journal. “Chinese leaders see that a possible US intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict will rely on a joint force dependent on naval power and airpower.”

A U.S. presence at Cam Ranh Bay could someday markedly change the strategic balance in the region.

China’s acquisition of submarines, more modern anti-ship cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles arrayed across the straight from Taiwan all indicate a future ability to inflict grave damage on the U.S. Navy. Already these forces pose an element of intimidation to Taiwan and the U.S., playing a major role in the U.S. Asia-Pacific military realignment.

Consider also that Vietnam’s national leadership changed last year at this time.  Nguyen Tan Dung was chosen by the Communist ruling body as Vietnam’s youngest post-war Prime Minister, arguably the most significant leadership position in the government. Nguyen Minh Triet, the Communist Party head in Ho Chi Minh City, was chosen as Vietnam’s new president, a more ceremonial position. Nguyen Phu Trong was named as new chairman of the national assembly.

Two of the top three Vietnamese leaders are from the south (the home of the government formerly allied with the U.S.). These leaders named nine new cabinet members who were confirmed by the national assembly, including two deputy premiers and the foreign, defense and finance ministers.

Although the Communist party has a firm grip on politics in Vietnam, this sweeping political change marked a watershed. The new leaders are younger, more open to democratic progress, however gradual, and desperately want to increase the economic prosperity of Vietnam.

Many of Vietnam’s goals for the new relationship with the U.S. involve economic expansion. Asia watchers note small signs of deference and respect that signal dramatic new initiatives and areas of emphasis by the Communist leadership. When Bill Gates visited Hanoi during the Party Congress in May 2006, for example, Vietnamese leaders, in a rare gesture of respect, took a recess from the Congress to meet him.

The Communist government of Vietnam offers huge incentives to Vietnamese-Americans, the so called “Viet Kieu” or “overseas Vietnamese,” to open businesses in Vietnam.

Vietnam just opened a newly-constructed Saigon High Tech Park. Again, government incentives make the Viet Kieu from America favored investors and business partners.

And starting in the 2006-2007 school year, all high schools must provide accredited and extensive IT education to all students. Each high school must also be equipped with a computer center with at least 25 computers connected to the Internet. These reforms are dictated by the Communist Party’s Ministry of Education and Training.

But the Vietnamese leaders, like the Communists in China, want to control the internet, monitor usage by individuals , and limit access to many western sites. Prohibited search words include “democracy,” “freedom,” and “declaration of independence.” Many sites Americans take for granted are prohibited in Vietnam.

In the past six years, the Vietnamese economy has grown at an inflation-adjusted average of 7.4%. This year, the government expects GDP to grow by 8.5%. This economic surge is helping to lift many from poverty and is leading to general improvements in infrastructure and quality of life. The poverty rate has decreased to 18% in 2002 and the income per capita has been on the rise, attaining US $550 per person in 2005.

The new leaders have also taken an active role in eliminating corruption and organized crime: decades-long blights on the communist system in Vietnam. Yet progress has been slow: in 2005 Vietnam was ranked 107th of 158 countries on transparency of government corruption according to the annual survey by the Berlin-based organization Transparency International. Despite strong talk about reforms by the government of Vietnam, Transparency International says Vietnam’s ranking has fallen every year since 2001.

Human rights issues, undoubtedly, will become an issue between the U.S. and Vietnam. The U.S. Department of State lists just about every kind of human rights violation as part of Communist Vietnam’s troubling record: including child prostitution, trafficking internationally in human beings, torture, attempts to eliminate undesirable indigenous people (the Hmong) and harassment and beating of religious leaders.

The U.S. Department of State’s report on human rights in Vietnam can be summed up with this quote: “The [Vietnam] Government’s human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses.” But that clinically correct statement almost sugar-coats the reality.

The Communist Vietnamese government has been on a long-term economic improvement effort called “renovation” (Doi Moi). But this reform movement is entirely economic: there are no perceptible renovations in freedom or human rights to date.

Vietnam and the United States are in the midst of a growing strategic relationship that shows great promise for both sides. Today we are at neither a beginning or an end. Whether the two nations can carry forward their objectives to forge a more complete strategic alliance over the course of the next decade depends upon how much each side can accommodate cooperation with the other.

Mr. Carey is a former U.S. Naval officer, president of International Defense Consultants, Inc., and frequent contributor to U.S. national and international media on world affairs.

Editor’s Note: The Author wishes to thank Professor Carlyle A. Thayer, Australian Defence Force Academy, a noted expert on Vietnam.

The Power China Is Building

By Gary Schmitt
The Washington Post
Thursday, June 14, 2007; Page A27

Last month’s annual Pentagon report on the Chinese military took note of Beijing’s sizable expansion of its capabilities — as have all the reports since the Defense Department began producing them in 2000.

And, as in previous years, much of the commentary inside and outside of the government has focused on China’s lack of transparency. We complain that we don’t know exactly how much China is spending on its military and what exactly it is acquiring. Most important, we complain that we don’t know the strategic “why” behind this buildup.

China’s defense spending has been on the rise for more than 15 years. For the first few years, Western commentators dismissed its military modernization plans as insignificant. Initially they argued that the Chinese only wanted to modernize their forces for homeland defense, and once that was done we could expect a leveling-off. Then they argued that even if the Chinese continued their buildup, it would be decades before they presented a real problem to the United States or its allies in the region.

Then, when the pace and scope of the buildup continued beyond what most China watchers had expected, the argument was: China has a robust, growing economy; it’s natural that it would use those additional resources to build a modern military capability.

And now, as China adds hundreds of advanced fighters; builds scores of new submarines, frigates and destroyers; modernizes and expands its strategic nuclear arsenal; and fields hundreds of new theater-range missiles, the argument is that China is bent on building up its military capabilities to unprecedented levels because it sees the United States spending more on its military than it has since World War II.

Chinese Army Reservists on parade.

There is some truth in that point, but only some. The fact is that the Chinese military buildup really began after the demise of the Soviet Union — that is, precisely when China had the least reason to worry about its defense needs. And the buildup continued during a period when the United States was cutting its own defense budget by significant amounts. Moreover, no other Asian regional power was putting forward double-digit defense increases. To the contrary, Taiwan — presumably China’s main military concern — was slashing its defense budget.

And Japan, the only possible regional “great power” competitor to China, was suffering from a decade of economic stagnation, with a static defense budget to match.

Of course, since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. defense spending has skyrocketed. But the vast majority of that increase, as the Chinese well know, has gone toward fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If one strips away the defense supplemental appropriations for the wars and factors in the jump in personnel costs, America’s defense burden as a percentage of gross domestic product is about what it was during the middle of President Bill Clinton’s time in office. And if the Bush budget office has its way, defense spending will return to those levels or lower after the wars end.

To take but one example: Under current procurement and decommissioning plans, the U.S. Navy’s attack submarine fleet will shrink to fewer than 30 boats by the late 2020s. China, meanwhile, has added more than 30 advanced submarines to its fleet over the past decade and has six new submarine programs underway.

Obviously, greater transparency by the Chinese would be helpful. But absent a significant shift toward political liberalization in China, there’s no reason to expect that to happen. And anyway, after a decade and a half of military buildup, do we really need greater transparency to understand what China is up to?

The Chinese are a proud people and they want to be seen as a powerful, potentially dominant, state. And power, they understand, includes not only a strong economy but a powerful military. When the Chinese look at the world today, who gets in their way most of the time? It’s certainly not the Europeans, who have economic strength but little hard power. It’s the United States.

There is a tendency on the part of American Sinologists to think that China’s “peaceful development” precludes it from craving what all rising powers before it have craved — power and recognition. Yet the Chinese don’t think the two are opposed at all. They view a growing economy as critical to solving their domestic problems, but they also know that it is critical to providing the resources for military modernization and expansion.

The lack of transparency is, if anything, a dodge we’ve used to avoid dealing with the real problem: China’s ambitions to be as great a power as it can be. It’s understandable, perhaps, that with all that is on America’s plate at the moment, we’re not inclined to add China. But that doesn’t change the fact that Beijing believes the more military power it has, the more likely it is that those ambitions will be fulfilled.

The writer is director of the American Enterprise Institute’s program on advanced strategic studies.

Admiral: Bureaucracy hampers terror war

By RICHARD LARDNER and ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Two years after the nation’s commando forces were given broad authority to attack terrorist networks, the elite units remain hampered by uncertainty over coordination, says the admiral chosen to head the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Navy Vice Adm. Eric Olson said that while the command has the lead for “synchronizing” the Bush administration’s global war on terror, enforcement of that expanded jurisdiction has been difficult.

The command’s “ability to drive behavior within (the Defense Department) is limited due to unclear definition of authorities,” Olson said in a written response to a question from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The response was made public Tuesday as the committee met to consider Olson’s nomination to run the command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.

Olson’s brief answer indicates President Bush’s  March 2005 decision to broadly empower U.S. commandos continues to be a source of friction within the military’s hierarchy.

Most of the disagreement comes from other war-fighting commands responsible for managing operations across wide but specific stretches of the globe. These commands have been concerned the new license would encroach on how they manage their own theaters.

Olson, 55, has been the command’s deputy chief since August 2003. If confirmed by the full Senate, he would receive a fourth star and replace Army Gen. Bryan Brown, who has been the top special operations officer since September 2003.

To resolve the dispute, Olson said he would work with the Defense Department’s senior leadership to clarify the issue “of influencing or conducting operations inside and across” the areas run by other commands.

Olson will become the first Navy SEAL to achieve four-star rank and the first Navy officer to lead Special Operations Command.

The command, formed in 1987, has long been the province of Army generals. Prior to Olson, the only other non-Army officer to run special operations was Air Force Gen. Charles Holland, who held the post before Brown.

There will be two Army three-star generals reporting directly to Olson at MacDill: Francis Kearney has been picked to be Olson’s deputy, and David Fridovich will run the command’s Center for Special Operations.

Under the Bush administration, special operations has grown dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The command now has an annual budget of nearly $7 billion and close to 50,000 personnel.

A native of Tacoma, Wash., Olson graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1973. A year later, he completed the rigorous SEAL training regimen and over the following two decades served in a variety of military assignments, including several tours overseas, according to his military biography.

In October 1993, Olson played a key role during a bloody urban battle in Mogadishu, Somalia. After a pair of Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by enemy fire, Olson helped organize and lead a relief team to the crash sites.

The nighttime mission became known as the “Mogadishu Mile,” a reference to the distance covered bringing the wounded and trapped American troops to safety. Olson was awarded a Silver Star, the military’s third highest award for combat valor.

From 1994 to 1997, he commanded the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, the formal name for the service’s secret “SEAL Team Six” anti-terrorism unit.

In 1999, Olson was named head of the Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, Calif.

Although Olson strives to maintain a low profile, his duties as deputy commander have made him a well-known figure on Capitol Hill where he has made frequent appearances before the military oversight committees.

Retired Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations from 2000 to 2005, called Olson a “quiet warrior.”

“He’s a humble person, but very much an action guy,” Clark said.

Admiral Mullen’s Thousand Ship Navy

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chief of Naval Operations and named last week as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (pending the president’s nomination and confirmation by the Senate) has long been considered one of the Navy’s great strategic thinkers. The essay below might give some insights.

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Armed Forces Journal
May 31, 2007

It’s an innocuous shipping container, no different than thousands of others moving every day across the globe. Traveling on a Taiwanese container ship across the Pacific, the box — designed as part of a global, commercial intermodal system and transported on ships, railroad cars and 18-wheel trucks — carries documentation saying it’s filled with medical supplies from Indonesia. It might be loaded and unloaded onto several ships before it winds up on a dock in Baltimore, where an inspector looks over the documentation and sees nothing suspicious. The container becomes the load for a truck bound for Cincinnati, where it’s delivered to a supply company that’s a front for a terrorist organization.

In Ohio, a laboratory-grown sample of the smallpox virus is removed from the legitimate medical samples in the shipping container. The terrorists infect themselves and fan out across the U.S., traveling on airliners and walking around shopping malls, movie theaters and grocery stores, infecting thousands of people with a potentially fatal virus that won’t be detectable for nearly two weeks.

Stopping this threat and other forms of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from making their way across the world’s oceans is a challenge for the U.S. Navy and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen. Mullen acknowledges that inspecting each container entering the U.S. is not practical and is seeking the cooperation of friendly navies, international organizations and even shipping companies to garner the kind of intelligence that would allow a WMD-laden container to be identified and intercepted long before it hits the country’s shores. One of the mechanisms for making that happen is the “Thousand-Ship Navy” (TSN), a metaphorical term for combining efforts on an international scale to halt or divert the movement of threats on the high seas.

The dangers were laid out this summer in a briefing by Vice Adm. John Morgan, deputy chief of naval operations for information, plans and strategy. Along with WMD menaces such as nuclear, chemical and biological terrorism, Morgan identified such significant threats as the proliferation of ballistic missiles, the creation of regional instability, threats to the global economy and “the rise of evil genius.” New threats, Morgan said in his brief, will be “market-driven and decentralized,” meaning they will likely be aimed at targets of significance with the threat materializing from a diffuse origin.

“Only global coalition-sharing intelligence and information can forestall nuclear terrorism,” Morgan said in his brief, and the Navy is applying that solution to other threats, as well.

A THOUSAND SHIPS DEFINED

Mullen summed up the Thousand-Ship Navy concept in an opinion piece published Oct. 29 in The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper: “[The fleet is] a global maritime partnership that unites maritime forces, port operators, commercial shippers, and international, governmental and nongovernmental agencies to address mutual concerns.

“Membership in this ‘navy’ is purely voluntary and would have no legal or encumbering ties. It would be a free-form, self-organizing network of maritime partners — good neighbors interested in using the power of the sea to unite, rather than to divide. The barriers for entry are low. Respect for sovereignty is high.”

The name itself captures the scope of the effort. It’s not actually about having 1,000 international ships at sea. It’s more about capabilities. Everyone brings what they can, when they can, for as long they can.

The Thousand-Ship Navy is one of three overlapping strategy initiatives now in development. In 2006, Mullen called for the Navy to develop a new Global Maritime Strategy to guide its concepts of naval operations and proposed a concept called Global Fleet Stations to build relationships and support forward presence in countries around the globe. Taken together, the efforts are aimed at positioning the Navy to operate against a range of concentrated or diffuse threats ranging from major international competitors to individual terrorists.

In putting out these ideas, Mullen has stressed that they are operating concepts — not acquisition programs. The idea is to change on an international scale how people do business and operate with one another, not to add to the Navy’s already stretched budget.

Mullen has been tireless over the past year in preaching the virtues of global maritime cooperation and urging the formulation of the TSN. Examples of the concept in action that he frequently cites include:

• Humanitarian assistance operations after the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster along the Gulf Coast of the U.S. and the October 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan.

• International rescue efforts to save the crew of a trapped Russian minisub off Petropavlovsk in August 2005.

• Maritime evacuation operations in Lebanon in July after the Israeli invasion of that country.

In those operations, navies “self-organized — in free-form style — with no treaty or alliance, and seamlessly accomplished a vital mission,” Mullen said in recent addresses.

In day-to-day operations to counter “ideologues, pirates, proliferators, criminals and terrorists,” Mullen points to recent initiatives such as:

• Implementation of automatic identification systems (AIS) on ships at sea, allowing ships to automatically communicate information about their position, course and identity to other vessels or authorities on shore.

• Creation of the Virtual Regional Maritime Traffic Center, an Italian-led effort to create a communications network allowing navies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea region to track merchant ship traffic.

• Coordinated operations by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to counter piracy and terrorist movements around the Strait of Malacca — “clearly a model maritime network,” Mullen said.

Navy officials have pointed to the Strait of Malacca situation as an example where the intended goal was accomplished without the direct participation of the U.S. “We don’t have to do it ourselves,” one Navy official said.

Mullen has pointed out that “technology and information technology, in particular,” may very well be the single largest contributor to our maritime security.”

“Not long ago,” he told an international naval audience Oct. 31 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, “security at sea depended upon one’s ability to remain unseen. In the future, that security will depend on the network, on being seen and identified.”

To flesh out these Maritime Domain Awareness strategies and concepts, Mullen started a series of discussions around the country to examine the issues and raise and address concerns. Few argue with the scenarios described by Mullen or with the need for a Thousand-Ship Navy. But participants from U.S. and foreign military services and governments, think tanks and industry openly brought up specific problems with implementing the plans.

• Mistrust among nations. “Everyone wants to see the common operating picture, but they aren’t necessarily willing to contribute to it,” said one former senior naval officer who attended two TSN conferences. “The guy next door might be watching, and we don’t want him to see what we’re doing. Those local issues of suspicion are probably going to translate into problems.”

• Mistrust from leadership. Several nations in South America now are led by people who at one time were imprisoned or hurt by the military, pointed out one group at a discussion. “Having military things just doesn’t strike them as a cool thing,” the former senior naval officer said. And in many countries where the U.S. seeks cooperation, he noted, significant differences exist between the officer corps and enlisted troops, who also see many officers benefiting from illegal profiteering. “Those local issues of suspicion are probably going to translate into problems,” he said.

• Communications. “We might want to send some digital burst stream up in the air and these guys are sitting there with only a VHF set that does only voice communications,” the former officer said. “There are also language difficulties,” he noted, and cultural differences among naval, military and civilian groups that make proper translation even more difficult.

• Incentivizing participating nations. Navies with meager financial resources often look at the U.S. as a source for funds or equipment, some discussion participants pointed out. Addressing the “what’s-in-it-for-me” factor is key to making the concept work, participants said.

Underwriting the entire discussion of the Thousand-Ship Navy concept, said one former military officer, is the need to disassociate it from being a purely U.S. idea and appeal to international needs. “If TSN is perceived as an American thing, it is dead in the water,” he said. “For it to work, explicit and implicit references to U.S. security concerns have to go.”

Among the positive ideas emerging at the conferences has been the suggestion that international shipping companies be enlisted in the information-gathering and awareness effort.

Maersk Line, a Danish concern, which with more than 500 ships and 1,400,000 containers is one of the world’s largest shipping companies, has held talks with the U.S. Navy on how it could participate. The company notes that its ships travel across the globe and can gather significant amounts of information.

“They know all the stuff that’s going down. Who the drug guys are. Who’s slipping people into containers,” the former naval officer said. “Not to mention the ships and what they see.”

In response, the former officer said, Maersk might expect breaks on AIS costs or getting a pass on having its ships stopped multiple times at sea for inspection. “If their ship has to stop three times for inspections, it’s interference,” the former naval officer said. “But if you can vector your limited security resources to other guys, he makes more money.”

A key to making the TSN concept a success, the former military officer pointed out, is the Navy’s ability to succinctly explain the idea to potential participants. “TSN,” he said after an August conference, “could be stillborn unless the concepts are better understood, packaged and presented.”

Mullen, by constantly promoting the idea, is working to do just that. But the CNO also is anxious to begin seeing more action rather than discussion. Mullen briefed President Bush on the Thousand-Ship Navy idea during a presidential visit to the Pentagon on Aug. 24. According to a Navy source, “The admiral hit a home run” with the president.

“It was very well-received,” the source said. That the briefing occured so soon after the idea was initially conceived indicates it has widespread support from the administration, another observer said.

The bottom line, Mullen points out, is that a nation’s security rests on international cooperation. “We must act quickly. None of us can do this on our own,” he told the Pearl Harbor audience. “We need each other.”

Japan requests missile defense upgrade, interceptor missiles

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Japan has requested the possible missile defense upgrade to one of its sea-based Aegis air defense systems and nine SM-3 interceptor missiles, the Pentagon said Friday.

This US Navy photo shows a Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) launching. Japan has requested the possible missile defense upgrade to one of its sea-based Aegis air defense systems and nine SM-3 interceptor missiles, the Pentagon said Friday.(AFP/US NAVY-HO/File)

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency estimated the value of the proposed sale at 475 million dollars.

Deployed on Japanese ships, the upgraded Aegis system and SM-3 Block IA missiles will provide “the initial ballistic missile defense for mainland Japan,” the agency said in a statement.

“Although comparable weapons are not currently deployed in Northeast Asia, the proposed sale of SM-3 missiles and BMD upgrades to the Aegis Weapon System will not significantly alter the existing military balance in the region as the proposed sale enhances only defensive capabilities,” it said.

Congress has 30 days in which to block the sale if it is opposed.

Pace to Be Replaced as Chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs

Holly Rosenkrantz

June 8 (Bloomberg) — Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace, who helped plan and direct U.S. military operations in Iraq, will be replaced because his confirmation by Congress for a second term would be “very contentious,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

Gates is recommending Admiral Michael G. Mullen replace Pace. Gates said he had planned to nominate Pace for another two-year term until lawmakers indicated that the hearings would be bruising.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen

“The nation, our men and women in uniform and General Pace himself would not be well served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference. Pace’s term ends on Sept. 30.Pace served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs for two years and as vice chairman for four years, as the military planned and carried out the war in Iraq. Many lawmakers say the war was mismanaged and have urged a change in U.S. military strategy.

Mullen, 60, has been the chief of naval operations since July 2005. He is a 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy and has served in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.

Mullen “has the vision, strategic insight, experience and integrity to lead America’s armed forces,” Gates said.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Gates “a little over two weeks ago” told President George W. Bush that consultations with lawmakers “had not gone well.” Gates recommended not going forward with Pace’s nomination, and talked about it last night with National Security Adviser Steve Hadley.

Hadley informed Bush this morning and the president agreed, Johndroe said.

Bush “appreciates General Pace’s long and distinguished service to the country and as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Johndroe said.

Loren Thompson, vice president of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based defense research organization, said Mullen is known as a meticulous, effective manager within the Navy.

“It’s not a slap at Pace, but a recognition that he’s seen as too close to Rumsfeld and the Iraq war,” Thompson said. “He couldn’t get a fair hearing in the Senate for a re- nomination.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he expects the “confirmation process for Admiral Mullen will be fair, thorough, and swift.”

Gates said he would also recommend that Bush name General James Cartwright, head of the strategic command, as the next vice chairman, replacing Admiral Edmund G. Giambastiani Jr.

Cartwright has been responsible since 2004 for global command and control of U.S. strategic forces, computer network operations, Department of Defense information operations, as well as global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
*********

Pace out as head of Joint Chiefs

By Joel Havemann, L.A. Times Staff Writer

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that he had decided not to recommend Marine Gen. Peter Pace for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he feared that Pace’s Senate confirmation hearing would provide a stage for senators opposed to the Iraq war.

Gates said he would recommend that President Bush nominate Adm. Mike Mullen of Los Angeles, head of naval operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the two-year term that begins in September.

Speaking with reporters, Gates made the unusual acknowledgment that his choice of the nation’s top military officer was dictated by politics more than merit.

Pace, who had served for four years as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs before becoming chairman in 2005, was the top officer or the understudy for the entire span of the Iraq war. Gates said he had solicited advice from senators and was told that Pace would provide the opportunity for a “backward-looking” confirmation process that could turn into a “divisive ordeal.”

“There was the very real prospect,” he said, “the process would be quite contentious…. I am disappointed that circumstances make this kind of a decision necessary.”

Pace will be the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs to serve only a single term since the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s.

Gates had nothing but praise for Pace as a military leader. His decision, he said, “has absolutely nothing to do with my view of Gen. Pace’s performance.”

Gates also had kind words for Mullen, whom he called “a very smart, strategic thinker.” A 1968 graduate of the Naval Academy, Mullen has commanded three ships, including the guided missile cruiser Yorktown.

Related:

Bob Gates at Pentagon: No Longing for Rumsfeld

Admiral Mullen’s Thousand Ship Navy

U.S. warship hits targets in Somalia

By Mohamed Olad Hassan
Associated Press
June 3, 2007

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A U.S. warship pounded Somalia’s remote coastal northeast, targeting Islamic militants hours after a gunbattle with Somali government forces that left eight insurgents dead, officials said yesterday.
    
The fighting late Friday, which the provincial government said included an American militant, appeared to mark the opening of a new front against Islamic militants in Puntland, a semiautonomous region that has remained relatively peaceful through Somalia’s anarchy.
    
The government declared victory in April against insurgents in the Somali capital, which is in the south. Since then officials of the government and Ethiopian troops sent to prop it up have been targeted in bomb attacks.
    
Puntland Vice President Hassan Dahir Mohamoud said that eight foreign militants were killed in the fighting and that Somali forces were pursuing five others. He said there were no civilian casualties because the area is uninhabited.
    
Mr. Mohamoud said the Puntland government had requested the U.S. Navy to help fight the militants.
    
He said that the government knew the home nations of five of the foreign militants: the United States, Britain, Sweden, Eritrea and Yemen. He said security forces identified them from their passports.
    
“We have successfully completed the operation against the terrorists who came here, and we are chasing the other five,” said Mr. Mohamoud, speaking from Puntland’s capital, Garowe. He said the total number of militants was 13; government officials earlier reported as many as 35.
    
Muse Gelle, a regional governor, said the militants arrived in the area near the port town of Bargal by speedboat on Wednesday. He said a U.S. destroyer attacked late Friday.
    
Musa Ismail Mohammed, a former government economist who lives in Puntland, compared the area where the fighting took place to Afghanistan’s Tora Bora, which U.S. forces besieged in 2001 in a failed effort to flush out Osama bin Laden.
    
“Americans should strike it harder than yesterday and then they will succeed. If they do not do that, then maybe Bargal may become a stronghold for terrorists,” Mr. Mohammed said, speaking by phone from Puntland’s main port, Bossaso.
    
A task force of coalition ships, called CTF-150, is permanently based in the northern Indian Ocean and patrols the Somali coast in hopes of intercepting international terrorists. U.S. destroyers are normally assigned to the task force and patrol in pairs.
    
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, could not confirm U.S. involvement in Friday’s fighting, but said: “The very nature of some of our operations, as well as the success of those operations, is often predicated on our ability to work quietly with our partners and allies.”
    
Puntland’s minister of information, Mohammed Abdulrahman Banga, said the extremists arrived heavily armed in two fishing boats from southern Somalia, which Islamists controlled for six months last year before being routed by Ethiopian troops.

“They had their own small boats and guns,” he said.
    
The United States has repeatedly accused Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union of harboring terrorists linked to al Qaeda and for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
    
Washington sent a small number of special-operations troops with the Ethiopian forces that drove the Islamic forces into hiding. U.S. warplanes have carried out at least two air strikes in an attempt to kill suspected al Qaeda members, Pentagon officials have said.