France's 2012 defense budget has had to cut €267 million ($352.4 million) from its original request of €31.72 billion. Had the axe not fallen, this budget would have remained stable, since the original 1.8% rise on the 2011 figure was just above the 1.7% inflation rate. The increase now is 0.75%.
Franz Gayl, U.S. Marine Corps science adviser, knows the perils—and potential payoffs—of being an advocate for technological change. Gayl, a retired Marine, played a critical role in pushing the service to adopt Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles, in the process exposing official intransigence. Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates cited media reports prompted by Gayl's concerns for bringing to his attention the urgent need for MRAPs. The vehicles ended up saving thousands of lives.
Will 2012 bring as many unexpected events as 2011? Changing orders in the Islamic world add more unpredictability, because nobody is sure where the new leadership will fall on the scales of idealism and pragmatism or on the role of Islamic law in society. Certainly, nobody a year ago anticipated an all-air NATO campaign against Libya.
Wide-area surveillance systems are the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flavor of the month in Afghanistan, and several systems are due to be deployed in 2012 or be integrated on new platforms. The nomenclature for these systems can be confusing and sometimes reflects a complex heritage. Take, for example, BAE Systems' Argus-IS (Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System), which was originally a U.S.
Unlike 2010, there were no lethal skirmishes between North and South Korea in 2011, nor tense confrontations between China and Japan. But the underlying causes of the conflicts and disputes remain unresolved, with no solution in sight.
In theory, the plan for the U.K.'s two new aircraft carriers is now set and can proceed. The 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) changed the ships, and the aircraft that are to fly off them, from the B-variant, short-takeoff/vertical landing (Stovl) version of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), in favor of the larger, heavier, longer-range F-35C carrier variant. As such, there is now a requirement for catapults and arrester gear.
The Cold War is dead but one of its offspring, nuclear proliferation, is very much alive. Following is a review of programs underway in the Middle East, Asia and Russia, which could soon be flashpoints.
It has been an interesting 12 months for U.K. defense, and 2012 promises to have as many noteworthy points as 2010-11. The end of 2010 saw publication of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), with consequent cuts in the force structures of all three services. Then there was the budget settlement, which promises only minimal funding to 2015. The Libyan campaign appeared out of nowhere, but ended well, while raising serious questions about the outcome of SDSR.
Covering Armageddon is not always the most comfortable place for a reporter. Worldwide, the defense enterprise is shuddering from multiple impacts. Forces are stretched from long deployments—the expensive high-tech weapons of the Cold War era, which are mostly what everyone uses, were designed for training and a brief, intense war. Too many bungled, overwrought projects ate all the fodder in the barn through infancy and adolescence, then dropped dead and left the oldsters and the starving siblings to pull the plow.
At press time, two optionally piloted Kaman K-Max cargo-lift helicopters, modified for the mission by Lockheed Martin, were supposed to be on their way to Afghanistan—finally, after a lot of on-and-off decisions about unmanned cargo helicopters. If they make it, they will be the first in theater for the time being, ahead of the Boeing A160T, which was also being evaluated by the U.S. Navy for a Marine Corps support mission. Unmanned cargo helicopters ought to be a good fit for the distributed small-unit operations seen in Afghanistan.
Early Warning The public face of 2Excel Aviation, a Northamptonshire, England, company, is exciting: The Blades is the only aerobatic display team in the world licensed as an airline. It carries fare-paying passengers on stunt flights in two-seat Extra EA-300 LPs. But what 2Excel Aviation is doing behind the scenes could have an enormous impact on the future of aviation. While unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are an essential part of military fleets, the development of a civil market is hampered by their inability to be legally flown outside restricted airspace.
It's over. Or is it? In March 2003, the U.S. and U.K. spearheaded the invasion of Iraq, and when the last American combat troops pulled out in December, more than 4,400 Americans had died, 32,000 had been wounded, and the nation spent $800 billion on the effort. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police also died in a war whose casus belli relied at times on unvetted intelligence made worse by selective readings, stovepiping and a staggering level of incompetence inside and outside Washington.
U.S. Air Force leaders in December signed off on a report called “Energy Horizons,” which looks at ways to reduce the service's dependence on imported oil, improve energy efficiency and increase use of alternative fuels. “The report has been approved,” says Mark Maybury, Air Force chief scientist. The final report will likely be cleared for release in early 2012. The report looks at fuel consumption across air, space, cyber and infrastructure, and recommends ways to increase efficiency.
On March 22, 2011, two Bell Boeing MV-22B Osprey tiltrotors launched from the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsage to retrieve two U.S. Air Force F-15E pilots whose aircraft suffered mechanical failure over Libya. The fact that the MV-22Bs reached the pilots faster than a helicopter could have has been the central theme of a Marine Corps public relations offensive to polish the controversial Osprey's image. If it hadn't been for the V-22, Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos said in November, “we'd have been negotiating for the release of those two pilots.”
Paul McLeary (Washington), Bill Sweetman (Washington)
In many respects, the election-year debate over U.S. defense budgets has yet to start, for two reasons: The defense topline over the next decade is unknown, within a very wide range, and Congress, lobbyists and the rest of the Washington defense machine have yet to grasp that unprecedented changes, compromises and even sacrifices may be needed to balance the books without ending up with a “hollow force.”
BMT Defense Services may be one of the most influential defense companies you have never heard of. Naval architecture—the equivalent of preliminary design in the aerospace world—employs only a few people worldwide, and even fewer in the warship business. Part of the BMT Group, a company held in a trust that is formally dedicated to the interests of its staff, BMT Defense Services has a core of 60 engineers and performs much of the Royal Navy's work in naval architecture.
A $1.7 billion November contract for seven low-rate initial production P-8A Poseidon multimission maritime aircraft, following an earlier batch of six, indicates that Boeing's big maritime patrol aircraft is well underway. Although cancellation of the U.K.'s Nimrod MRA4 leaves it as the last Western program of its kind, aside from the unexportable Kawasaki P-1, Boeing hopes it is the first of a long family.
Kevin Kit Parker is not a typical traumatic brain injury (TBI) researcher. As an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University, his research interest until a few years ago was primarily cardiac cell biology and tissue engineering. But Parker, who is also a reserve officer in the U.S. Army, began to pursue a new area of research between two tours in Afghanistan. There, improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the No. 1 killer of U.S. and allied troops, and Parker saw firsthand the effects of TBI.
The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will leave the country without the ability to directly defend its airspace for at least two years. That's because Iraq won't get its first F-16s until late 2014 or early 2015, according to Maj. Gen. Russell Handy, commander of the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Iraq and director of the Air Component Coordination Element-Iraq. “There will be a gap, and it's up to the Iraqis [to decide] how they deal with that gap,” Handy says. Iraq has pilots in the U.S.
The economic crisis in the European Union is affecting defense spending, of course, but one way to optimize funding is to expand coordination and integration of program development among partner nations. The European Defense Agency (EDA) and NATO launched initiatives with this in mind—EDA proposes pooling and sharing agreements, while NATO promotes Smart Defense, which stresses joint development of weapons and systems to save money, streamline manufacturing and improve interoperability.
Until last summer, it seemed that security and defense would be spared major cutbacks. The financial crisis in Europe, however, is forcing the Italian government to include these areas in austerity plans.
The first operational NH90 helicopter from NH Industries, called Caiman by the French armed forces, entered operational service with the French navy on Dec. 8. The French army was due to receive its first Caiman, a tactical transport version, before the end of December. The helicopter's arrival in the navy was also the occasion to revive Flotille 33F, which had been “put to sleep” in 1999. Based at Lanveoc-Poulmic in Britanny, 33F will eventually have nine Caimans, while 31F fleet at Hyeres near the Mediterranean will have 12.
In November, a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put the Iranian nuclear issue at the top of his agenda. News reports began claiming that Israeli officials supported an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and reached fever pitch with publicity over the test launch of a long-range, apparently nuclear-capable, delivery vehicle from a secret base in central Israel.
There is no tougher radar target than a periscope—small, designed and treated to emit a low radar cross-section and surrounded by sea clutter. Even worse, its electro-optical and infrared sensors mean the scope just has to pop up, sweep the horizon and vanish while the crew studies the view at their leisure. In 2012, the U.S. Navy's long-sought answer to the modern scope undergoes operational evaluation as part of an upgrade to the Sikorsky MH-60R helicopter.
As part of its general rearmament effort, Russia continues to enhance nuclear deterrence. Significant attention is being paid to sea- and land-based components of the nuclear triad. The growing defense budget (see p. 43) is enabling industry to make substantial progress in developing and fine-tuning strategic weapons.
