Current Events in the Americas

From How the North-South divide plays out in three key swing states (Lexington Institute's Early Warning blog) [excerpt] Harpoon is no stranger to North vs South scenarios, however unpleasant such a prospect might be ...

Part 1: Preparing for a First Deployment (Defense Media Network)

From Defense Aerospace The Pentagon, JSF and the Sacrificial Goat (Source: defense-aerospace.com; published June 5, 2008) By Giovanni de Briganti PARIS –-- The Senate Armed Services Committee’s June 3 hearing on the cost of Pentagon weapon programs has thrown up a couple of nuggets that demonstrate just how politically vulnerable the Joint Strike Fighter program has become. In his opening statement , SASC Chairman Carl Levin quoted a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which estimated that recent cost overruns on the Pentagon’s 95 major weapons programs amount to $295 billion. To put that figure into perspective, Levin said, “For $295 bi…

The Pentagon's 'Concurrency Myth' Is Now Available In Supercarrier Size (Foxtrot Alpha) Too true.

The Pentagons Frankensteins (National Review Online)

The Power Of The Navy By H.D.S. Greenway NEWPORT, R.I. -- 100 years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt made an extraordinary gesture to illustrate American global reach and power. He had 16 battleships painted white and sent them on a round-the-world voyage. "The Great White Fleet," as it came to be known, was painted white to show America's peaceful intentions, but the message was clear. America was a force to be reckoned with. The ships sailed for 14 months and visited 20 ports on six continents. Enthusiastic crowds greeted the ships everywhere. The battle fleet was mostly obsolete and no match for British and German "dreadnoughts " then coming off the wa…

From ARES Deficit Reduction Plans: the President and the Raptor Posted by Michael Bruno at 2/23/2009 9:59 AM CST Bloomberg is reporting that President Barack Obama's budget cuts rely heavily on reductions in military spending, and several other news organization said the same over the weekend. Maybe you've heard already, but if not then it's worth noting that Obama this week will be talking about cutting the "exploding" U.S. deficit in half by the end of his in 2013 (his word). According to administration officials, who previewed info to many reporters on back-ground conditions last week, the plan will rely in part on the drawdown in combat forces in Iraq and…

Yes, America Has Another Secret Spy DroneWe Pretty Much Already Knew That (War is Boring blog)

The Shocking Strategy That Dooms the LCS (Next Navy blog)

From Defense Aerospace Issue Brief: The Slow Death of American Air Power (Source: The Lexington Institute; issued Jan. 16, 2007) By Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. Now that America has an Islamo-centric security posture, any danger that doesn't fit within the counter-fundamentalist framework tends to be ignored. That's sort of ironic, since the biggest military threats to democracy in the last century came from atheists. Five years into the "global war on terror," the evidence suggests that Islamic radicals are real good at blowing each other up, but not so good at projecting power abroad. As long as western nations maintain halfway decent domestic security arr…

From Defense Aerospace Joint Common Missile: Why Argue With Success? (Source: The Lexington Institute; issued Feb. 21, 2007) By Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. Here's a fantasy. Imagine three military services agreed on the need for a versatile air-to-ground missile that could precisely destroy a wide range of elusive targets -- everything from camouflaged armored vehicles to terrorist speedboats. Imagine they found a low-cost design that could do those things day or night, good weather or bad, even when enemies were trying to jam the missile. Imagine the services selected a company that developed the missile on time and on cost, meeting all of its performance object…

From Defense Aerospace Navy Ship $840 Million Over Budget and Still Unfinished (Source: The Virginian-Pilot; published June 30, 2007) By Louis Hansen NORFOLK, VA --- The highly touted nerve center of the new, $1.8 billion amphibious ship San Antonio is fraught with computer hardware crashes that could cripple operations. The ship lacks basic safety equipment, such as hand rails and reliable guns to battle close-in attacks. In all, Navy inspectors found 30 major flaws aboard the San Antonio, according to an internal report obtained by The Virginian-Pilot. Despite the deficiencies, the Navy has earmarked $13 billion to purchase nine amphibious ships …

The U.S. Navy Does Not Need an Air-Defense Frigate (Real Clear Defense) What say you?

Best to have a thread on this - especially as it may well affect military pay and ultimately budgets.

From Armed Forces Journal, July 2008 Think small Adding small combatant ships would beef up the Navy’s capabilities BY MILAN VEGO The Navy has a relatively large number of surface combatants capable of conducting a wide range of missions in a high-intensity conflict. However, the Navy lacks adequate capabilities to operate effectively in the littorals, in particular in enclosed and semi-enclosed seas (popularly called “narrow seas”). A force of the new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), when they enter service in the next decade, will not significantly increase the Navy’s capabilities in conducting littoral warfare. This bad situation can be changed by building or…

From DefenseNews [excerpt] Link to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report here (PDF)

From Defense-Aerospace Pentagon Contract Announcement (Source: US Department of Defense; issued June 27, 2006) Lockheed Martin Corp. Maritime Systems & Sensors, Moorestown, N.J., is being awarded a $197,644,515 cost-plus-incentive-fee/award-fee modification under a previously awarded contract to exercise an option for construction of one Flight 0 Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The LCS will be a networked, agile, and high-speed surface combatant with versatile war-fighting capabilities optimized for littoral missions. Work will be performed in Lockport, La. (63 percent); Moorestown, N.J. (36 percent); and Arlington, Va. (1 percent), and is expected to…

From Defense Aerospace Navy Names Littoral Combat Ship USS Fort Worth (Source: US Navy; issued March 6, 2009) WASHINGTON --- Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter announced March 6 that the newest littoral combat ship (LCS) will be named USS Fort Worth. The announcement continues the practice of naming the agile LCS vessels after American midsized cities, small towns and communities. For more than 150 years, the patriotic citizens of Fort Worth have supported the Navy and all of our men and women in uniform. Home to ranger outposts, training facilities, aviation depots, and defense manufacturing, Fort Worth has answered the call whenever our nation needed it. …

From DefenseNews Posted 09/10/07 21:39 Third Time Could Be the Charm for LPD Program By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS PASCAGOULA, Miss. — With the U.S. Navy still smarting from the unsatisfactory delivery of two amphibious ships, Northrop Grumman has put a special emphasis on making sure the third ship avoids the pitfalls of its predecessors. If early returns are any indication, the shipbuilder and the Navy might be third time lucky. The USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19) carried out its initial builder’s trials in mid-August in the Gulf of Mexico. The ship returned Aug. 16 to Northrop’s Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula flying two brooms — a traditional “clean sweep” symbol represe…

I've been doing a little thinking about the LCS, both in terms of the politics and the possibilities for scenario design. My limited understanding of the controversy surrounding the LCS is that a) people are annoyed that the ship has cost so much to develop and build and people are disappointed that some of the promises associated with the design (all those modules, etc.) have not been delivered. I don't know how justified these complaints are, but it sounds like there have been a lot of problems with the development of the LCS, and these are certainly legitimate reasons for people to be upset. Question...from what I can tell, there are currently contracts to bu…