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US Defense Chief Visits India Amid high level of defense technology exchange

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is in India during a wave of increased cooperation with India’s military.

The two countries’ defense ministers will discuss "a large number of activities, technology projects, exercises and so forth that reflect the closeness of the U.S.-India strategic relationship,” Carter told reporters after arriving in Goa Sunday.

Carter is looking to improve defense technology and trade cooperation while increasing military-to-military cooperation through additional bilateral and trilateral coordinated operations.

“We are doing things now with the Indians that could not have been imagined 10 or so years ago,” a senior defense official said.

Technology coordination between the two countries is focused on aircraft carrier design and the co-production of jet fighter aircraft, according to a senior defense official.

Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall visited New Delhi ahead of the secretary’s trip to discuss these projects, but another senior official told VOA Sunday the U.S. and India have not yet reached a formal agreement on this technology cooperation.

Carter said his Indian counterpart has stressed co-production and technology sharing “rather than a simple model in which buys military systems from other countries."

The Indians “have an indigenous capability there,” James Clad, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and a senior advisor for the Center for Naval Analysis, told VOA. “They want to be in the rank of people with military capability that is kind of first world.”

The visit aims to demonstrate the priority that the defense department has placed on the Asia-Pacific region.

Carter has touted the U.S.-India relationship as a “strategic handshake,” one that is “destined” to be among the most significant partnerships of the 21st century.

“As the United States is reaching west in its rebalance, India is reaching east in Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi’s 'Act East' policy that will bring it farther into the Indian and Pacific Oceans,” Carter said.

Clad told VOA the pivot has been a good way to formally display the “inside-our-government attitude” that gives Asia the priority many felt it deserved.

"Because we need to be enabled to focus unrelentingly on what is I think the single comprehensive challenge," Clad said, “which is the way the Chinese are coming at us.”

Carter has said the Asia pivot, however, is not aimed at any particular country and “excludes no one.” The secretary has accepted an invitation to visit China that is expected to take place later this year.

His India visit will likely ruffle feathers in (bother) neighboring China – whose aggression has caused concern in the Himalayas and the South China Sea – as well as in Pakistan, India’s rival.

Strengthening ties

Clad believes strengthening ties with Pakistan’s rival is a sensible move and “doesn’t care” if it bothers the Chinese or the Pakistanis.

“Pakistan has been an intervening drain on our resources,” Clad told VOA. “It's a country that's not really our friend. It’s a country that’s played a double and a triple game, vis-a-vis the Afghan war and all the rest of it.”

Goa, Carter’s first stop, is the home state of Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar. Senior defense officials say the visit to Goa underlies the “close, personal relationship” that Carter and Parrikar have developed.

“I enjoy being with him, and he’s become a good friend over several times we’ve been together now,” Carter said during their first stop at the Manguesh Temple, one of the largest and most visited Hindu temples in state of Goa.

Parrikar also showed Carter the Basilica of Bom Jesus, a UNESCO World Heritage site dating back to the 16th century that is said to hold the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier.

Carter will head to New Delhi later in the week for talks with Prime Minister Modi and other senior officials.

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U.S. army is planning to equip its soldiers with pocket drones by 2018.

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USA sets up a secret military base in Israel for missile

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The U.S. Navy Will Continue To Buy F/A-18 Super Hornets Over The F-35

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The U.S. Navy is continuing to buy the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet at reduced rates while increasing its buy of Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighters. However, the sea service has always been somewhat lukewarm toward the stealthy single-engine fighter. Instead, the service has shown a strong preference for more Super Hornets, while either developing a stealthy long-range unmanned strike aircraft or skipping ahead to a next-generation F/A-XX. But the Office of the Secretary had other ideas.

Right now, the plan is for the Navy to keep buying some number of Super Hornets while buying F-35Cs to give the carrier air wing some stealth capability. Meanwhile, the Navy has started work on the next-generation F/A-XX—but the Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike program has been renamed the MQ-XX Stingray and de-scoped into a robotic aerial-refueler. But is that the best plan for the Navy?

There is an argument to be made for building upgraded Block III Super Hornets with reduced radar cross-section and other enhancements. Indeed, Boeing has already demonstrated many of those upgrades—including a new external podded-weapons bay, conformal fuel tanks, new cockpit information systems and RCS reduction measures. Other proposed upgrades would add more powerful and fuel-efficient engines and vastly improved electronic warfare capabilities. Once developed to its full potential, the Block III Super Hornet could perform most of the missions envisioned for the F-35C except penetrating strike—it would have to rely on stand-off weapons for that mission.

The money saved from truncating the F-35C buy could be reinvested into the F/A-XX and a new long-range unmanned strike platform. Arguably, such a platform would be much more useful to the Navy than a new short-range tactical fighter. Given the reach of new Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles, the Navy may have to stand a carrier as much as 1000 nautical miles offshore in order to ensure that the giant 100,000-ton, $13 billion warships are not directly threatened. That in turn will mean that the Navy needs a longer-range air wing—the F-35C and the F/A-18 won’t cut it.

In the short-term, there is not much that can be done to address the issue. It takes roughly fifteen years to develop a new aircraft if everything goes smoothly. But the problem will have to be addressed eventually—one way or the other. The solution is to start doing something to address the problem now by taking corrective action immediately.

That solution is to buy more advanced Super Hornets and its electronic attack variant in the form of the EA-18G Growler while investing in a stealthy new unmanned strike aircraft and a future F/A-XX. To pay for those programs, the Navy could cancel its portion of the F-35 buy and reinvest the money. The Navy would have to accept some risks, but the long-term payoff could save the carrier from obsolescence in the era of precision-guided warfare.

Dave Majumdar is Defense Editor of The National Interest.

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US Departments of Defense invites you (well, some of you) to “Hack the Pentagon” this month

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On Thursday, the US Department of Defense announced the launch of a pilot bug-bounty program for the DOD's public-facing websites. Called "Hack the Pentagon," the bounty program will be managed by HackerOne, the disclosure-as-a-service company founded by Alex Rice and Michiel Prins.

Since Hack the Pentagon is a pilot, its budget and duration are fairly modest by DOD standards. The Pentagon has budgeted $150,000 for the monthlong bug hunt, which will begin on Monday, April 18 and end by Thursday, May 12. Payouts for accepted bugs will come from HackerOne and will be doled out by June 10.

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook did not specify which DOD sites would be considered fair game for Hack the Pentagon. "The program will target several DoD public websites which will be identified to the participants as the beginning of the challenge approaches," he said. "Critical, mission-facing computer systems will not be involved in the program."

The program is not open to everyone. HackerOne's page for the program states that only people who meet the following conditions will be eligible for participation:

You must have successfully registered as a participant through this security page.
You must have a US taxpayer identification number and a Social Security number or an employee identification number and the ability to complete required verification forms.
You must be eligible to work within the US; meaning you are a US citizen, a noncitizen national of the US, a lawful permanent resident, or an alien authorized to work within the US
You must not reside in a country currently under US trade sanctions.
You must not be on the US Department of the Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals list [a list of people and organizations identified as being involved with terrorism, drug trafficking, and other criminal activities].

But that's not all. "In addition," Cook said, "successful participants who submit qualifying vulnerability reports will undergo a basic criminal background screening to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely." If you'd rather not go through that screening, you can still submit bugs, but you'll have to decline any payments.

The cash value of bounties also wasn't revealed. "Individual bounties will depend on a number of factors," Cook said.

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Lebanon receives 3 military helicopters from the U.S. Army

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Air Force Moves to Replenish Bomb Stockpile Drained by ISIS Fight

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The Hellfire missile is used in drone strikes to kill terrorists. The Air Force says it has about 2,300 left until the supply runs out. (US Air Force)

An Air Force official downplayed reports that the service is facing a shortage of missiles and bombs as a result of the air campaign against the Islamic State.
“We’re not concerned [about whether] we have the supplies to do what we need to do today,” Lt. Gen. Jay Raymond, deputy chief of staff for operations, told reporters Thursday morning. “But we’re making sure we request [additional supplies] to take care of future, or potential future operations.”
In December, Raymond’s boss, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, made headlines when he said airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, were denting the service’s stockpile of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles used in drone strikes and GPS-guided bombs such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), among other munitions.
The Air Force has expended more than 20,000 missiles and bombs in Iraq and Syria since it began its campaign against ISIS in 2014. It reportedly burned through more munitions in recent months, though still reportedly has an estimated 142,000 smart bombs and 2,300 Hellfires in the inventory.
“I don’t think you can judge the campaign in the number of airstrikes,” Raymond said. “This is an air and ground operation … Those numbers will ebb and flow. So the decrease in the monthly weapons expenditures … is largely due to the successful re-take of Ramadi [in Iraq] and some other operations in Syria and Northern Iraq. So don’t only look at the numbers” of airstrikes.
In addition to arming its own piloted and unmanned aircraft, the Air Force has also provided missiles and bombs fired by coalition partners, a practice for which the U.S. gets reimbursed, Raymond said.
Coalition partners who have conducted airstrikes in Iraq include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Jordan and the Netherlands. In the campaign against ISIS in Syria, those countries have been joined as well by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
Raymond did not say which munitions in particular the Air Force wants to order for any future operations, nor was he able to say which suppliers the service has contacted. But he said the manufacturers “are upping their capacity to build those for us.”
Makers of munitions include Raytheon Co., based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Maryland.
The Air Force has flown more than half of the roughly 87,000 coalition-nation sorties since the campaign against ISIS got underway in 2014. That includes about 67 percent of the 11,000 airstrikes, he said. The service currently conducts about 25 combat missions each day.

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Number of US drones will nearly triple by 2020: FAA

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SAIC receives $121mn prime contract from USMC for 13 Terrex 2 prototypes

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The U.S. Marine Corps awarded Science Applications International Corp. a prime contract worth $121.5 million to build 13 prototypes for the Engineering, Manufacturing and Development (EMD) of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Phase 1, Increment 1 (ACV 1.1).

“We are honored to have been selected by the U.S. Marine Corps to deliver a truly amphibious solution that will support infantry Marines ashore,” said Tom Watson, SAIC senior vice president and general manager of the Navy and Marine Corps customer group. “Our solution provides the Marine Corps with an ACV that is fully-protected and has superior maneuverability with amphibious ship-to-shore capability. We are pleased that the protest for this program has been favorably resolved. Now, SAIC and the Marine Corps can move forward on this important program.”

During the EMD phase, SAIC, along with teammate ST Kinetics, will provide the Marine Corps with 13 prototypes that will be tested next year. Work will be performed primarily in SAIC’s facility in Charleston, South Carolina, where the company is currently providing the Marine Corps with initial survivability upgrades to 10 Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) prototypes.

SAIC and ST Kinetics’ enhanced ACV 1.1 solution, called TERREX 2, is an 8x8 wheeled, armored ACV with improved mobility that can transport a combat load of up to 11 embarked Marines and three crew members through hostile territory. On land, TERREX 2’s independent suspension system improves ground mobility and ride quality for U.S. Marines. In water, TERREX 2’s hydraulically driven propulsion systems with full independent thrust control authority allows safe operation at Sea-State 3 and through six-foot plunging surf.

"ST Kinetics is pleased to be informed of the Marine Corps’ selection of the TERREX 2 for the next phase of evaluation for the ACV 1.1 program,” said President of ST Kinetics Ravinder Singh. “Following GAO's decision to proceed with the ACV 1.1 program, and together with our teammate SAIC, ST Kinetics now moves into the EMD phase of the ACV program."

For more than 10 years, SAIC has modified and upgraded armored vehicles for the US Department of Defense ensuring warfighters are protected during combat, while securing command and control and repair capabilities. ST Kinetics is one of Asia's leading land systems and specialty vehicles companies having delivered hundreds of TERREX 1 vehicles to the Singapore Armed Forces as well as the Warthog, a twin chassis, multi-purpose articulated tracked carrier, to the British Armed Forces.

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New Defense Pact Allows US to Increase Troop Presence in Philippines

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Amid escalating tensions in the South China Sea, the US and the Philippines have formalized a new defense pact that specifies five military bases where American forces will be allowed to operate.

As Washington continues to pressure its Pacific allies to counter China’s growing influence in the region, the US and the Philippines on Friday announced a new defense pact.

Goldberg stressed that the United States is not opening new military bases in its former colony, and will only operate in conjunction with the Philippine government.According to US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg, the agreement allows the US to move additional troops and military units through five military bases in the Pacific nation. It also gives Washington permission to conduct construction and supply missions on Philippine soil.

All permanent US military bases in the Philippines were closed in 1992.

With no specific date mentioned, Goldberg indicated that US troops will be deployed to these new positions "very soon."

While Washington is currently at odds with Beijing over its construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea, the US ambassador maintains that the pact is in no way aimed at China.

"It is not aimed at any country, but rather at improving our bilateral relationship" with the Philippines, Goldberg told reporters.

Still, the US Navy has launched a number of aggressive patrols in recent months, sailing within the territorial limit of China’s land reclamation projects.

Earlier on Friday, US Navy chief Admiral John Richardson expressed concerns over an expanding Chinese presence near Scarborough Shoal.

"I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, survey type of activity, going on," he said. "That’s an area of concern…a next possible area of reclamation."

Scarborough Shoal is located in waters also claimed by the Philippines.

A highly contested region, through which nearly $5 trillion in trade passes annually, China lays claim to most of the South China Sea, though there are overlapping claims by Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

While Washington has accused Beijing of trying to establish an air defense zone in the region, Beijing maintains it has every right to build within its own territory and that the islands will be used primarily for humanitarian purposes.

The United States has no territorial claims in the South China Sea.

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Nexus

US Defense Chief Visits India Amid high level of defense technology exchange

U.S. army is planning to equip its soldiers with pocket drones by 2018.

USA sets up a secret military base in Israel for missile

The U.S. Navy Will Continue To Buy F/A-18 Super Hornets Over The F-35

US Departments of Defense invites you (well, some of you) to “Hack the Pentagon” this month

Lebanon receives 3 military helicopters from the U.S. Army

Air Force Moves to Replenish Bomb Stockpile Drained by ISIS Fight

Number of US drones will nearly triple by 2020: FAA

SAIC receives $121mn prime contract from USMC for 13 Terrex 2 prototypes

The U.S. Marine Corps awarded Science Applications International Corp. a prime contract worth $121.5 million to build 13 prototypes for the Engineering, Manufacturing and Development (EMD) of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Phase 1, Increment 1 (ACV 1.1).

New Defense Pact Allows US to Increase Troop Presence in Philippines

Amid escalating tensions in the South China Sea, the US and the Philippines have formalized a new defense pact that specifies five military bases where American forces will be allowed to operate.

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