Category Archives: Defense Department

Contractors & Vendors, Defense Department

Australian MP: US selling allies short on F-22

An Australian member of parliament says the US is giving its allies the shaft by not selling them the F-22 Raptor, and sticking them with the less-capable Joint Strike Fighter.

Key US allies – particularly Australia, Britain, Japan and, although with a very different relationship, Israel – have been told the Raptor is simply too good for them and that they will have to be content with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (and a hobbled export model at that, to ensure even America’s closest friends remain inferior in the skies).

Considering that the survival of the F-22 program is in considerable doubt, and the dependence of the US to achieve its mission overseas on coalition partners, maybe it’s time for the US to rethink its policy on exports?

Standard
Defense Department

Preparing for "hybrid warfare" – including cyber

Marine Corps General James Mattis, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, said in a speech on Feb 13 that the US has lost some of its edge in conventional warfare, and is “not superior in irregular warfare.” To meet the demands of this century, he said, the military has to transition toward superiority in “hybrid warfare”–being able to fight both in conventional and unconventional means.

As the blueprint for that transition, he pointed to the recently published Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO), approved by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And part of the CCJO spells out the role that space and cyberwarfare will play in a hybrid force:

Future operational success will also rely increasingly on the use of space and cyberspace. Providing adequate lift and maintaining sufficient control of the global “commons” — areas of sea, air, space, and cyberspace that belong to no one state — thus will remain a vital imperative of future joint force design.

Standard