Reviewed By Paul McLeary China, The United States And 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a Maritime Security Partnership Edited BY Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein and Nan Li Naval Institute Press, 2010 529 pp., $47.95
Plans are underway to test-fire the Barak 8 surface-to-air naval missile in India this year. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) are jointly developing this version of the weapon. The Barak 8 (the name means lightning in Hebrew) is on schedule to complete testing and be integrated on board the first Israeli and Indian combat vessels by 2012. After entering service, the system will continue with development and phased improvements before achieving full operational capability.
As a Royal Marine warrant officer in Y Sqdn., 3 Commando Brig.’s electronic warfare (EW) unit, Gavin O’Connell became convinced during tours in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 that EW was being squandered as a capability. He saw the need to better integrate EW within a wider signals intelligence (sigint) and intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (Istar) perspective.
After Israel’s deployment of Merkava Mk 4 tanks equipped with Trophy active protection systems (APS) along the Gaza border last November, battle-testing the system was only a matter of time. On March 1, Trophy proved its worth in its first combat engagement against a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fired by a Palestinian antitank team from Gaza. According to IDF sources, the tank was on patrol when its radar detected the RPG launch. Elta EL/M 2133 WindGuard sensors classified the threat as severe, alerted the crew and tracked the missile.
“Smart” munitions for small arms are largely developmental—the Pentagon, for one, wants a guided, .50-caliber projectile that homes in on targets 2,000 meters (6,562 ft.) away—but one non-lethal weapons specialist is supplying a high-tech round for the military and police. Taser International’s wireless XREP (Extended Range Electronic Projectile) may be the most complex round on the market, according to web postings and articles that highlight its design and performance. The XREP is a two-component structure—chassis and projectile—weighing 25 grams.
Maginot this! Editor-in-Chief Bill Sweetman, in London, found one of the Imperial War Museum’s rarest artifacts: one of the 7-ton shells for the Krupp 800-mm guns that were designed to break France’s fortified defense line—and were still being built when German Gen. Heinz Guderian’s tanks bypassed the barrier in May 1940.
The debate over China’s new DF-21D antiship ballistic missile and the impact it could have on sea power in the region is reviving concerns over the threat antiship missiles pose—a threat that had faded with the end of the Cold War.
While the rest of the aircraft carrier community breathed a collective sigh of relief in December when the U.S. Navy’s new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (Emals) launched its first Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet, shipbuilders and contractors for the next-generation CVN-78-class flattop knew the real work was just beginning.
Weapon sales to Libya were legal until a matter of weeks before U.S. and European forces struck the country. In February, the European Union and the U.S. suspended arms exports amid civil unrest and a crackdown by Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Qaddafi. While U.S. arms exports to Libya have been limited to spare parts and non-lethal equipment, EU countries have pushed forward rapidly. A EU report on arms sales says Europe exported €354 million ($502 million) of military equipment to Libya in 2009. Since 2006, the U.S.
Consternation and speculation about the state of Chinese military science spread rapidly around the globe in the wake of Beijing’s recent rollout of the J-20 fighter, which is said to possess stealth characteristics and to be the first serious rival to what had been unchallenged American technology (DTI February, p. 32). Two other events—the stellar showing of Shanghai students in global math and science testing against a droopy American turnout, and, a few years ago, China showing a clear capability to blast satellites from orbit with missiles—also raised eyebrows.
Micro air vehicles (MAVs) typically use a number of sensors to land safely, among them GPS, an altimeter and radar. On platforms the size of MAVs, these take up space, add weight and reduce payload capacity. Yoshiaki Kuwata, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developed a simpler method for MAV landings—replace the sensors with a monocular camera and apply optical flow algorithms to the images it transmits.
Ever since U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the concept of a chemical-laser equipped aircraft for missile defense “highly questionable” and scaled back plans to buy and field such a system, the Airborne Laser test- bed has existed in a state of limbo. But military officials and scientists are now pointing to groundbreaking work on a novel laser they believe could someday replace the chemical laser for antimissile applications.
Researchers at Purdue University and Caltech are developing plasmonic metamaterials that could lead to nanophotonic devices yielding improved sensors, hyperlenses, electronics that process data with light and even invisibility cloaks. The work, by Alexandra Boltasseva, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue, and Harry Atwater, professor of applied physics and materials science at Caltech, seeks to create materials with a refraction index (RI) of less than 1 or 0, far below what occurs in non-synthetic materials.
Military technology plays a key role in deciding whether to go to war. The trouble is it isn’t a good role. For 20 years, precision air attack, by missile, airplane and unmanned aerial vehicle, has made the first step into war almost painless—but that makes it hard for politicians to resist the pressure to do something. Why, they are asked, do we have all this military power if we can’t knock off a crazy-eyed dictator and stop his tanks rolling over yet another city? It sounds cold and callous to ask the question, what next?
Russia plans to spend 19 trillion rubles ($672 billion) on procurement through 2020. First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin says 80% will be for new weapons, 10% for strategic nuclear forces and 10% for R&D. Procurement covers diverse needs. The defense ministry will develop liquid-propellant ICBMs with multiple warheads. The nuclear triad will be enhanced with the submarine-launched Bulava ICBM, slated for service this year after completion of the test program. The ministry plans to buy eight Borei-class SSBNs with Bulavas by 2020.
The U.S. State Department released last month an important report that provides details about the training, equipment and advisory assistance the government is giving Mexico to help in its ongoing war with the drug cartels that operate with impunity across much of the north.
As militaries and governments look to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, work on sustainable alternatives intensifies. One technology that could be viable is being promoted by Joule Unlimited of Cambridge, Mass., which says its patented industrial photosynthesis process can produce biodiesel fuel more efficiently than biomass, and for $30/bbl. once fully commercial. The company, which has 70 employees, has been in business since 2007 and recently received $30 million of second-round investment funding.
This fall marks the 10th anniversary of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. Despite more than $50 billion in reconstruction funds that have poured into the country—$29 billion of which have gone to Afghan security forces, with an additional $11 billion slated to be spent this year—even the most optimistic assessments are that little progress has been made in rule of law, governance and security.
On Feb. 3, the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisition Board cut several remaining pieces of the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) modernization project, while moving the two survivors into separate program offices.
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems of Israel continues to expand the Iron Dome counter-rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) system (see p. 26). The company unveiled a surface-to-surface derivative called Iron Flame, at the international Conference on Fire and Combined Arms in an Urban Terrain, held recently by Israel’s Artillery Corps Association in Zikhron Ya’akov. The low-cost, autonomous weapon, said to weigh “several tens of kilograms,” employs an Iron Dome missile interceptor stripped of its advanced proximity seeker and fuze.
Tank: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College Location: Carlisle, Pa. Profile: A center of strategic research and analysis in support of Army War College curricula
In the 1980s, the Pentagon was so concerned about the ability of the military to maintain power essential for operations after a Soviet nuclear attack that it considered installing small nuclear reactors at bases around the world. More than 20 years later, national security threats have changed, but the idea of having military bases equipped with small nuclear reactors is gaining currency, and companies are touting their designs to the Pentagon.
Hosni Mubarak’s decision to step down as Egypt’s president on Feb. 11 has placated protesters, who had been demanding he leave office since January. The government is being run, at least for now, by Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. But while the demonstrators got what they wanted, the unrest in Egypt that preceded Mubarak’s resignation could have a broad impact on regional stability and geopolitics.
