by Dale Brown
LEANING FORWARD, BUT NOT OVERREACHING—(AirForce-Magazine.com, January 27, 2011): Air Force will design its new long-range bomber by leveraging the best of today’s technology and not trying to incorporate exceedingly risky approaches, USAF Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Philip Breedlove told lawmakers Wednesday. “One of the cost-savings approaches we have for this bomber is to not lean forward into technology that’s not proven, but bring our aircraft up to the current day’s standards,” he testified before the House Armed Services Committee. For instance, Breedlove said stealth technology has advanced much since the B-2 bomber came along through subsequent work on the F-22 and F-35. “So the new bomber will have better stealth capability, but not [by] making leaps forward that we can’t count on,” he explained. This same mind-set applies for the bomber’s avionics, information-gathering systems, and so on . . .
MORE FOR LESS—(AirForce-Magazine.com, March 3, 2011): Air Force scientists aim to demonstrate a 2,000-pound-class penetrating weapon that packs the same wallop as one of today’s 5,000-pound-class bunker busters, said Stephen Walker, who oversees USAF’s science and technology activities. This work, occurring under the new High Velocity Penetrating Weapon initiative, is meant “to reduce the technical risk for a new generation of penetrating weapons to defeat difficult hard targets,” Walker told House lawmakers Tuesday in prepared remarks. This weapon “will use a higher velocity impact to increase warhead penetration capability,” he explained. “Advanced technologies,” he continued, “will enhance weapon kinematics, ensure precision guidance in contested environments, and dramatically reduce the size of the overall weapon.” In fact, as a result, future fighters “will be able to deliver bunker-busting capabilities currently associated only with the bomber fleet,” he said . . .
WHAT WAR WITH CHINA WOULD LOOK LIKE— (AirForce-Magazine.com, March 28, 2011): If China attacks Taiwan in 2015 and the United States comes to the island’s rescue, the Air Force would have a tough fight on its hands, predict analysts with RAND Project Air Force. The “significant number” of modern fighters, surface-to-air missiles, long-range early-warning radars, and secure communication links that China is likely to have by 2015, coupled with Chinese capabilities to strike US bases in the western Pacific, would make the air campaign “highly challenging for US air forces,” they write in Shaking the Heavens and Splitting the Earth, a recently issued RAND report. Improving US capabilities to attack China’s aircraft on the ground, “may be the most effective way to defeat China’s air force,” it states.
FORTIFYING GUAM’S INFRASTRUCTURE—AirForce-Magazine.com, April 14, 2011): The Air Force has a number of initiatives planned to bolster the resiliency of Andersen AFB, Guam, one of its strategic hubs in the western Pacific, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told lawmakers last week. For Fiscal 2012, plans are in place to harden infrastructure there, Schwartz told the House Appropriations Committee’s military construction panel. “That includes both facilities and, importantly, utilities,” such as “making sure that we have some redundancy and resilience in the fuel supplies,” said Schwartz. He said there also are plans to disperse Andersen assets “at outlying locations around Guam” in time of conflict . . .
USED USAF F-15S FOR ISRAEL?—(AirForce-Magazine.com, April 20, 2011): Israel may seek to procure a squadron of used USAF F-15s to bridge the anticipated gap until it receives its first F-35 strike fighters . . .
Though Israel inked a $2.75 billion deal with the United States for 20 F-35s last October—with an eye toward an eventual 75—delays in the overall F-35 program may push back the first Israeli deliveries by several years to as late as 2018 . . .
THE LAST GUNSLINGER (by Michael Behar, Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine, June/July 2010): . . . The economy is quashing spendy military ventures, and fifth-generation fighters are already suffering the wrath of the red pen . . . The ongoing F-35 development program, a relative bargain at $155 million per airplane, is already over budget and behind schedule, causing Congressional colic. Cutbacks to its $300 billion-plus program are virtually certain . . .
. . . “You don’t want to make an airplane be the Swiss Army knife of a fighter,” [78-year-old retired colonel Donn Byrnes, who got involved with the F-15 Eagle program in 1969] says. “I’m absolutely not in love with the idea. The F-35 is the worst nightmare of hardware idiocy. It does everything wrong. You need a long-legged fighter, not a short, fat one . . .”
CHINA REVEALS NEW AMRAAM—(by Wendell Minnick, Defense News, May 23, 2011): China has revealed a next-generation air-to-air missile (AAM) that the state-run People’s Daily called a “trump card” and a “secret weapon for gaining air superiority.”
. . . The new Chinese PL-12D AAM might use a new active/passive guidance system, said Richard Fisher, a China defense analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, an Alexandria, VA, think tank. “This kind of combined guidance system confers concealment/stealth advantages, while the passive mode also uses less battery power, allowing the missile to achieve its maximum range,” Fisher said.
“ . . . It is a troubling development,” Fisher said. “That the People’s Liberation Army could field an AAM featuring an active/passive guidance system potentially before the U.S. deploys the AIM-120D is not where we want to be.”
CYBERATTACKS CONSTITUTE AN ACT OF WAR—(www.Stratfor.com, May 31, 2011): The Pentagon on May 31 adopted a new strategy that will classify major cyberattacks as acts of war, meaning the United States for the first time can respond to such acts with traditional military force, The Wall Street Journal and AFP reported. The Pentagon’s first formal cyberstrategy concludes that the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to cyberspace, according to three defense officials who have read the document.
PRICE SMACKDOWN—(AirForce-Magazine.com, June 1, 2011): Boeing on Tuesday challenged Lockheed Martin’s recent comparison of F-35 strike fighter and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet prices. Chris Chadwick, president of Boeing Military Airplanes, called a telecon with defense reporters to rebut last week’s Daily Report entry in which Lockheed’s F-35 business development lead Steve O’Bryan said the F-35 will cost about $65 million in 2010 dollars, a figure that he said is “the same cost” as the Super Hornet. Chadwick said the F/A-18E/F actually costs $53 million in 2010 dollars, and that includes an advanced targeting system, APG-79 advanced electronically scanned array radar, helmet-mounted cueing system, and external fuel tanks. He also said the Super Hornet’s lower costs for production and sustainment are based on actual data versus “estimates” for the F-35. “Lockheed needs to be a little more true with their facts,” asserted Chadwick. Lockheed is assuming volume efficiencies on “aircraft that may never be built,” he said. The two-seat Super Hornet F model also offers superior situational awareness compared to the single-seat F-35, Chadwick claimed, adding that the two independent cockpits mean Super Hornet aircrew can assess and attack more targets simultaneously.
CHINESE WARSHIP INTERCEPTS INDIAN VESSEL—(Stratfor.com, September 1, 2011): An unidentified Chinese warship intercepted Indian amphibious assault ship INS Airavat in international waters in the South China Sea near Vietnam in July, according to unnamed sources close to the event, the Financial Times reported Sept. 1. The Chinese vessel demanded that the Indian ship identify itself and explain its presence. The Airavat had recently completed a scheduled port call in Vietnam.
LOOMING CUTS CAST CLOUD OVER AFA CONFERENCE—(by Dave Majumdar, Defense News, September 26, 2011): . . . The U.S. Air Force will not push the envelope as it historically has when developing new technology for future weapons because declining defense spending will reshape the military’s purchasing priorities.
“ . . . Future development efforts will have to be less ambitious because we cannot assume the kind of risk that past acquisition strategies have incorporated in their development plans,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norman Schwartz said Sept. 20. “While the Air Force has historically “advanced the state of the art” of technology, “we now must be more calibrated in pushing the tec
hnological envelope,” the general said.
“ . . . We must be ruthlessly honest and disciplined when operational requirements allow for more modest and less exquisite, higher confidence production programs,” he said.
CHINA: MILITARY OPPOSED TO INTERNATIONALIZING SOUTH CHINA SEA ISSUE—(Stratfor.com, September 28, 2011): China’s military authority reiterated Sept. 28 that attempts to internationalize the South China Sea issue would further complicate the matter, Xinhua reported. Any move meant to internationalize or multilateralize the issue will not help, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman said, adding that China’s sovereignty over the islands in the sea and the surrounding waters is incontestable.
PROLOGUE
KAMCHATKA PACIFIC MISSILE TEST RANGE, EASTERN SIBERIA
SUMMER 2014
“Bridge, Combat, ballistic missile inbound!” the urgent call came. “Altitude six-seven miles, range three-three-zero nautical, closing speed eight thousand!”
The skipper of the USS Chosin, captain of an American guided-missile cruiser, activated a stopwatch hanging on a lanyard around his neck. “Sound general quarters,” Captain Edward Taverna said calmly. He glanced at the visitor seated beside him on the bridge as the warning horns sounded throughout the ship. Everyone on the bridge already had helmets and life jackets on. “Combat, Bridge, weapons tight, engagement as briefed, acknowledge.”
“Bridge, Combat, weapons tight, engagement as briefed, aye,” came the response.
“Count it down, Combat,” Taverna ordered. He raised a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon to the north, and the visitor did likewise.
“Impact in fifteen seconds . . .” The skipper couldn’t believe how fast this was happening . . . “Ten . . . five . . . zero.”
A tremendous geyser of water reaching hundreds of feet in the sky erupted on the horizon, just a few miles away. Through his binoculars, Taverna could briefly see the shape of a large vessel cartwheeling in the air. “Looks like a direct hit,” he said. “What’s it look like, Combat?”
“Direct hit, sir,” came the reply. Taverna knew there were multiple cameras recording this test, both on the surface and in the sky—he’d look at the video later with the Intelligence section, with the Pentagon and probably the White House watching as well.
“What speed was the target going?”
“The target was being towed at twenty-seven knots, sir.”
Impressive—and ominous, Taverna thought. He turned to his visitor and said, “Congratulations, Admiral.” Then, in the best and oft-practiced Chinese he could muster, he said, “Gong ji, Shao Jiang.” Sign of the times, Taverna thought—more and more senior officers in the U.S. military were learning Mandarin Chinese, much like many learned Russian during the height of the Cold War.
This was shaping up to be the new Cold War: America versus China.
One faint glimmer of hope for a nonconfrontational tone to U.S.-China relations was this very occurrence: an invitation for the U.S. Navy to not only observe this test up close and personal, but to have a senior Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer on board. It had several implications. Yes, China was being much more open about its military capabilities and intentions; it could also imply that, should there be a targeting error, a few Chinese officers would be casualties along with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American sailors—faint consolation, but something. Also, this test was being run on a Russian ballistic missile test range, which implied a high degree of cooperation between China and Russia.
But this was obviously a warning to America as well as an olive branch. The message was clear: your warships are no longer safe in the western Pacific.
“Thank you very much, Captain,” People’s Liberation Army Shao Jiang (Major General) Hua Zhilun said in excellent English. The thin, handsome admiral with the seemingly perpetual smile, young for a Chinese general at age fifty-four, bowed, then shook hands with Taverna. General Hua was commander of the Eleventh Tactical Rocket Division, or Ha Zhao: “Tiger’s Claw,” the special division set up to deploy China’s antisatellite and antiship ballistic missiles. Hua’s division was part of China’s Strategic Rocket Forces, also known as the Second Artillery Corps, the branch of the army that controlled all of China’s land-based ballistic missiles, both nuclear and conventional. “I shall prepare a full debriefing and return in the morning to brief you and your department heads on the results of today’s test.”
“I’m looking forward to it, General,” Taverna said. Hua bowed deeply again, then followed his aide off the bridge, escorted by the Chosin’s executive officer.
“He’s got a reason to smile, the prick,” Taverna said under his breath after Hua had departed. It was not lost on Taverna, and certainly not on Hua or his contingent, that the cruiser Chosin was named for the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, in which a force of sixty thousand Chinese troops encircled a force of thirty thousand American-led United Nations troops at Changjin Lake in northeast North Korea. Although the Chinese lost nearly two-thirds of their attacking forces in two and a half weeks of fighting, it was the first major defeat of United Nations forces in the Korean War and was the beginning of a massive all-out Chinese offensive that nearly pushed American forces south right off the Korean Peninsula and into the East China Sea.
Taverna also knew that Hua was in command of the forces that attacked American Kingfisher antisatellite and antiballistic missile weapon garages in Earth orbit last year, causing the death of an American astronaut and the eventual suspension of the entire U.S. Space Defense Force program. There had never been any meaningful American response to those attacks or to other antisatellite attacks by Russia, something that really steamed Taverna. Chinese and Russian carrier battle groups were now everywhere, shadowing American warships and shipping—and still no response from anyone in Washington except more cutbacks. It was getting pretty pathetic.
Taverna shook himself out of his reverie and picked up the phone to the Combat Information Center. “Yes, sir,” Commander Ted Lang, the operations officer, responded.
“So how did it look, Ted?”
“Pretty awesome, sir,” Lang replied. “Direct hit from fifteen hundred miles away. I haven’t seen the slow-mo video yet, but judging by the effects it looked like a good penetration angle. Sawed that target ship right in half.”
“So you think it could penetrate an armored carrier deck?”
“If they use a nuclear warhead, it doesn’t need to, sir,” Lang said. “If it’s just a kinetic warhead, it has to hit almost perfectly vertical—if it hits at an angle it would probably glance off a carrier’s deck, even going eight thousand miles an hour.”
“And the missile was directed by satellite?”
“That’s what they claim, sir,” Lang replied. “The Chinese have several radar and infrared ocean-surveillance satellite systems in orbit. They certainly have the technology. They had lots of aircraft in the area observing the test, and one or more of them could have actually aimed the missile. The missile uses inertial guidance with GPS updates—our GPS satellites, by the way—to get within the target area. Then the warhead itself supposedly gets updates from outside sensors—satellites or aircraft, communicating directly with the warhead’s terminal guidance package—then uses its own on-board radar to steer itself in for the kill.”
“Big question, Ted: Could a Standard SM-3 have knocked it down if it was aimed at us?” Taverna asked. The Standard missile was the carrier battle group’s primary antiaircraft missile; the SM-3 was an upgraded version designed to knock down ballistic missiles and even satellites in low Earth orbit.
There was an uncomfortably long pause before the operations officer replied. “Today, we had the advantage of knowing exactly from where and when it was coming, sir,” Lang said. “The SM-3’s auto-engage system is normally not activated unless we’re heading into a fight, so if it’s a ‘bolt from the blue’ attack . . . no, sir, I don’t think we’d have the time. If it’s engaged, I think the SM-3 would get one warhead. If there are multi
ple maneuvering warheads . . .” And his voice trailed off.
“Got it, Ted,” Taverna said. “Let me know when Intel is ready to debrief.”
“Yes, sir.”
The skipper hung up the phone. The chill he felt just then was not because of the weather.
JACK’S VALLEY, COLORADO
THAT SAME TIME
“What do you think you’re doing, Basic?” the cadet technical sergeant instructor screamed. “Get moving, now!”
“Oh, Christ,” Bradley McLanahan muttered for the umpteenth time that morning. The muzzle of his M-16 rifle had—again—snagged itself in the barbed wire under which he was crawling. He reached out to clear it, but only ended up puncturing his finger with a mud-covered barb. “Shit . . . !” he shouted.
“You will not use foul language on my confidence course, Basic!” the cadet instructor shouted. He was a tall, wiry, weaselly looking guy from Alabama with thick horn-rimmed sports glasses, and he definitely knew how to shout. “If you are having difficulties negotiating the course, you will resolve the obstruction or request assistance from your cadet instructors. Which is it, Basic?”
“I don’t need any help,” Bradley said.
“What? I can’t hear you!”
“I said I don’t need any help!” Bradley shouted.
“Are you dense or just feebleminded, Basic?” the instructor shouted. “When you address me, you will preface and end your reply with ‘sir,’ do you comprehend? Now state your deficiency to me properly, Basic!”