There are plenty of challenges to keep policy-makers busy in 2011. Budgetary cutbacks, procurement programs, nuclear proliferation, regional tensions and cyberattacks will be key issues throughout the year. DTI asked six experts for their views on how these concerns will develop. Here are their perspectives.
Japan’s 2011 defense budget request is virtually unchanged (up 0.1%) from 2010, but seeks enhanced surveillance capability, improved ballistic missile defense (BMD) and defense of the Senkaku Islands, which are at the center of a dispute with China. Major equipment acquisitions for surveillance include a seventh Soryu-class diesel/electric submarine with better satellite communications, at ¥55.7 billion ($666 million); three Kawasaki P-1 maritime patrol aircraft, ¥55.1 billion; and four Mitsubishi SH-60K maritime helicopters, ¥23.3 billion.
Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Andre Deschamps, chief of the Air Staff, is overseeing an ambitious modernization of the service. In 2011, the CAF will begin competitions for two new aircraft while absorbing four others and gearing up to buy F-35A Joint Strike Fighters starting as soon as 2016. Contributing Editor Richard Whittle interviewed Deschamps at the Canadian embassy in Washington about the CAF’s procurement plans. Defense Technology International: What aircraft is Canada buying aside from the F-35?
A specialist in advanced aerospace engineering, Aurora designed and built the 150-ft.-long Phantom Eye Wing for Boeing’s Phantom Eye high-altitude long-endurance aerial vehicle. The wing uses core-stiffened bonded assemblies and internal ribs and spars made of composites. The wing is braced by a tension strap to reduce root-bending movements. This contributes to the design’s low mass, which increases performance. The twin-engine Phantom Eye is designed for endurance of four days at 65,000 ft., while carrying a 450-lb. payload.
Terrorism is organic and adaptive. Organizations such as Al Qaeda have proven their ability to withstand punishing attacks and heavy casualties by reinventing operations. Centralized terrorist groups are increasingly giving way to “franchise operations” comprised of local cells that adhere to a general ideology but act independently of a central—and often distant—authority. These include terrorists who immigrate to Western democracies and capitalize on the social freedoms they are provided to make connections and establish operations.
Internal security is a growing concern in India, as the country deals with the persistent Naxalite insurgency and with a large, and largely unsecured, coastline and regional waters, which terrorists, smugglers and pirates regularly threaten. Add to this the relatively unsecured land borders where dangerous activities flourish. The government is, consequently, increasing funding to strengthen coastal and border surveillance and to provide the necessary equipment and personnel for security enforcement.
The next big development in robotic land vehicles may come from truck manufacturer Oshkosh Defense. The company has developed an autonomous navigation kit for use on its Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV). Called TerraMax, the kit, which can be added during manufacturing or as a retrofit, converts the truck to an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), which can operate autonomously in a leader-follower mode where it follows the route of a lead vehicle, or with supervision from an escort vehicle at a safe standoff distance.
The U.S. Defense Department is rethinking the way it acquires and uses energy to assure there is always a secure and readily available supply to meet its needs. In a move that will doubtless qualify as the largest energy initiative ever, based on how much energy the Defense Department consumes every year, a new office, Operational Energy Plans and Programs, began last July to analyze energy use in the military and look for ways to make consumption effective, efficient and economical.
There were sighs of relief at the level of cuts to the multiyear U.K. defense budget, which runs to 2015; they “only” amounted to 8% across the period. That there were near- cheers was a result of the fact that in the run-up to the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), the regular budget process, only the health and overseas development budgets were protected from cuts—every other budget was in play, and some ministries saw reductions of more than 20%.
Eurofighter has started a low-key campaign in Canada, where the Conservative government’s decision to acquire the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) without a competition sparked a political fight. It is a sign that the European consortium is looking to exploit JSF’s problems to give Typhoon a new lease on life. The Typhoon remains in the running for export sales in Switzerland and India—also in Oman, which has all but signed for 12 aircraft. The latter will, however, be pulled from Royal Air Force stocks and it is uncertain if they will be replaced.
I have very good news to announce,” French Defense Minister Herve Morin declared at a press conference on Nov. 5. “The [Airbus] A400M has taken off and can now fly its destined route.”
Bill Sweetman (Washington), Paul McLeary (Washington)
Conventional wisdom has it that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will leave office this year, giving his successor time to build a resume that supports President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. If so, that successor’s job will not be easy, and not only because he or she will not enjoy Gates’s unique advantage of being appointed by both a Republican and a Democratic president.
President Barack Obama’s foreign policy is under scrutiny by Middle East bystanders, who watch every move Washington makes with concern or glee depending on their allegiances. In this part of the world, allegiances are largely determined by religion, especially Islam’s centuries-old Sunni-Shiite divide.
India is expected to increase defense spending for Fiscal 2011 (April-March 2012) by 10%, which would add approximately $3.2 billion to annual expenditures. Firm numbers will not be released until March.
One advance in satellite technology is equipping miniature satellites, or cubesats, with inexpensive sensors and orbiting them in distributed arrays, from which they transmit combined images with the resolution of a larger-aperture device. Cubesats can be deployed rapidly and at low cost for many missions. One person involved in such work is Stuart Eves, head of military business at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) of Guildford, England. Contributing Editor Michael Dumiak spoke with him about the changing nature of space imaging.
An attempt to put the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program into an achievable trajectory could be the big story in the Fiscal 2012 U.S. defense budget, after a year that has seen isolated good news dwarfed by continuing problems.
The 2011 French defense budget will be the first in a three-year effort during which €3.6 billion ($4.8 billion) will be cut from funds allocated in the six-year (2009-14) military program law. The cuts are part of deficit reduction. Nevertheless, major procurement programs are spared as extraordinary income of €2.3 billion is expected from sales of military radio frequencies, buildings and satellites.
Sometimes simple is best. For Blue Sky, a U.K. design firm, the easiest route to a seating management system for economy-class cabins is seats with adjustable pitch. The company’s Stella Seat can be converted to premium economy seating without changing pitch by adjusting it for 6 extra in. of legroom or moving it 3 in. closer to the floor to increase the recline angle 40%. The seat thus permits creation of premium space without altering seating layout and can be changed according to individual flight needs. Winner: Aero Structures.
Bill Sweetman (Washington), Pat Toensmeier (New York)
Almost 10 years ago, Prof. John Roulston—one of the leading technologists at a BAE Systems unit that is now part of Selex Galileo, Finmeccanica’s sensor unit—said that the company would get into active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radars when they could be made less costly and better-performing. Selex believes that day has come: The “better-performing” side is the wide-angle AESA design adopted for the Gripen NG and Typhoon fighters; “lower cost” is represented by AESAs that Selex Galileo has (uniquely) sold to the U.S.
Russia continues to develop its nuclear deterrent as part of a general rearmament of the armed forces (see p. 53). Planned expenditures on nuclear weapons in 2011 will grow by 44% compared with 2010 and amount to $870 million. According to Viktor Zavarzin, head of the parliament’s defense committee, expenditures for weapons procurement, modernization of the country’s nuclear triad and maintaining the triad’s combat readiness will increase by 50% during the next three years.
Sabic put its materials expertise to good use in developing Ultem rigid polyetherimide foam for use as the structural core in composite aircraft applications. Ultem is lightweight, with low moisture absorption, high energy absorption and low dielectric loss. It is transparent to radar, and suitable for a number of composite manufacturing processes—machining, vacuum bagging, compression molding and thermoforming.
The German armed forces are on the verge of their greatest reorganization since the end of the Cold War. Defense spending will rise slightly in 2011, by €400 million ($535.7 million) to €31.5 billion, but only because of the transfer of military property worth €800 million to a civilian agency. German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has admitted that it will not be possible to reduce defense spending by the €8.4 billion originally planned for 2011-14 because the size of the Bundeswehr will not be cut as drastically as had been envisioned.
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The German army has become the first service to disclose the operational use of infantry-portable fuel cell systems to replace batteries. German forces in Afghanistan are using the Jenny methanol fuel cell system from SFC Energy AG of Munich, which won the Pentagon’s energy prize in 2008. Two substantial orders were placed during 2010, and Austria is using the new system, according to SFC executives at October’s Future Soldier conference here.
