Quotulatiousness

March 3, 2013

Arms merchant’s golden customer: an Arab nation with oil money

Filed under: Britain, Business, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

Strategy Page explains why some of the most lucrative customers for high-tech weaponry are Arab nations:

Britain has been quite successful selling their new Typhoon fighter to Middle East nations. Two years ago Saudi Arabia bought 72 Typhoons from Britain. That was followed by an order for 12 from Oman and now the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is negotiating the purchase of 60 of these expensive aircraft. This is big money, as the aircraft have a basic price of $65 million each and there are many ways to greatly increase that. For warplanes sold to Arab Gulf states there is an additional bonanza. The biggest additional cost is providing support services and personnel to keep the aircraft operational. The Typhoon manufacturer, BAE Systems, is energetically recruiting qualified maintenance personnel to keep these aircraft flying. This a much larger profit center for Arab customers than for anyone else. Few local Arabs will be recruited for this work and most of these technicians will come from the West. That is very expensive. Why can’t locals be found for these high paying jobs? The reason is simple; there are few Arabs qualified or even interested in such exacting work. This is a common problem in the Middle East.

For example, the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 12 percent and many of those men are unemployed by choice. Not even counted [are] most women, who are barred from most jobs because they are women. Arab men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudis prefer a government job, where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering, and life is boring. Thus 90 percent of employed Saudis work for the government. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the jobs are performed by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs and actually make the economy work. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. One might say that many of them are desperate for some test of their worth, but a job in the competitive civilian economy does not do it, nor does the military.

The Saudi employment situation is not unique. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has foreigners occupying 99 percent of the non-government jobs. The unemployment rate is 23 percent, but only a tenth of those are actually looking for a job. A survey indicated that most of the unemployed are idle by choice. Kuwait is more entrepreneurial, with only 80 percent of the non-government jobs taken by foreigners. The other Gulf Arab states (which have less oil) have a similar situation.

February 27, 2013

Sequestration and the defence budget

Filed under: Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:10

At the Cato At Liberty blog, Christopher Preble graphically refutes the notion that sequestration will automatically weaken the US military:

Click to see full-size infographic at the Cato Institute blog.

Click to see full-size infographic at Cato At Liberty.

Military spending will remain at roughly 2006 levels — $603 billion, higher than peak U.S. spending during the Cold War. Meanwhile, we live in a safer world. The Soviet Union has been dead for more than two decades; no other nation, or combination of nations, has emerged since that can pose a comparable threat. We should have a defense budget that reflects this reality.

To be clear, sequestration was no one’s first choice. But the alternative — ever-increasing military spending detached from a legitimate debate over strategy — is worse. We should have had such a debate, one over the roles and missions of the U.S. military, long before this day of reckoning. And politicians could have pursued serious proposals to prudently reduce military spending. Instead, they chose the easy way out, avoiding difficult decisions that would have allowed for smarter cuts.

Update: Nick Gillespie explains why you shouldn’t worry too much about the sequester:

Update, the second: Putting the actual numbers in perspective:

February 26, 2013

Defence industry lobbyists versus actual USAF needs

Filed under: Business, Government, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:35

Strategy Page talks about the ongoing drama of the Global Hawk UAV and the US Air Force’s attempt to get rid of the weapon:

The U.S. Air Force recently disbanded a Global Hawk UAV squadron. The reserve unit contained 200 personnel and operated an aircraft the air force is getting rid of. This is in spite of political opposition to the move (helped along by the manufacturers many lobbyists).

This all began last year when the U.S. Air Force cancelled all orders for the Block 30 Global Hawk because of reliability issues. This renewed Department of Defense threats to cancel the Global Hawk program entirely. In response Northrop Grumman (the RQ-4 manufacturer) lobbyists made sure that key members of Congress knew where Global Hawk components were being built and how many jobs that added up to. Elected politicians pay attention to that. This move delayed the RQ-4 Block 30 until there was enough political support to convince Congress to order the air force to accept the Block 30 RQ-4s and shut up.

The air force can take some comfort in the fact that Northrop Grumman fixed some of the problems (some of which the manufacturer said don’t exist or didn’t matter). The Block 30 was supposed to be good to go but the air force was not convinced and decided that Block 30 was just more broken promises. Congress was also tired of all the feuding and being caught between Northrup lobbyists and exasperated air force generals. The lobbyists, as is usually the case, eventually won. But the air force is not required to pay for operating the Global Hawks, thus the disbanding of the Global Hawk unit.

February 21, 2013

RCAF still confident that Sea Kings will last long enough, hopefully

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:27

Sea King unit patchDid you know that the Canadian military is still waiting for the delivery of their new helicopters? This leaves the military brass with little to do but put on a show of confidence and perhaps cross their fingers behind their collective backs:

The head of the Royal Canadian Air Force says he’s confident the military’s 50-year-old Sea King helicopters can stay in the air long enough for their troubled replacements to arrive.

“It’s good for a while,” Lt.-Gen. Yvan Blondin said of the Sea Kings, in an exclusive interview with Postmedia News Wednesday.

“In the short term, the Sea King can fly. Eventually I’m going to replace some equipment on it if I want to keep it flying longer, but I’ve got flexibility.”

That flexibility will likely be needed amid recent reports that the air force won’t receive the first of its planned Sea King replacements, U.S. aerospace giant Sikorsky’s Cyclone maritime helicopters, until 2015 — seven years later than scheduled.

Here’s the long, twisted history of Canada’s attempt to replace the venerable Sea King helicopters:

  • In 1963, the CH-124 Sea King helicopter (a variant of the US Navy S-61 model) entered service with the Royal Canadian Navy.
  • In 1983, the Trudeau government started a process to replace the Sea Kings. That process never got far enough for a replacement helicopter to be ordered.
  • In 1985, the Mulroney government started a new process to find a replacement for the Sea Kings.
  • In 1992, the Mulroney government placed an order for 50 EH-101 Cormorant helicopters (for both naval and search-and-rescue operations).
  • In 1993, the Campbell government reduced the order from 50 to 43, theoretically saving $1.4B.
  • In 1993, the new Chrétien government cancelled the “Cadillac” helicopters as being far too expensive and started a new process to identify the right helicopters to buy. The government had to pay nearly $500 million in cancellation penalties.
  • In 1998, having split the plan into separate orders for naval and SAR helicopters, the government ended up buying 15 Cormorant SAR helicopters anyway — and the per-unit prices had risen in the intervening time.
  • In 2004, the Martin government placed an order with Sikorsky for 28 CH-148 Cyclone helicopters to be delivered starting in 2008 (after very carefully arranging the specifications to exclude the Cormorant from the competition).
  • Now, in 2012, we may still have another five years to wait for the delivery of the Cyclones.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, warship edition

Filed under: Humour, Media, Military, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:56

One of the most influential propaganda films of all time meets one of the least. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN: a mashup trailer created by Josh Nelson.

H/T to Mary Ann Johanson, via John Scalzi.

Looming cutbacks to US military include general officers scrambling for a soft landing

Filed under: Business, Humour, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

It’s a tough world out there. It looks like it’ll be getting tougher for soon-to-be retired US military leaders:

Sources revealed today that a top U.S. Marine General is “extremely hesitant” about plans for his possible retirement, indicating a greater problem with military transition assistance programs.

General John Murphy, the former commander of Fleet Marine Forces-Pacific, is looking toward a future in the private sector, but he says he may have to lower himself to take any position in order to support his family.

“It’s scary out there with the economy the way it is,” said Murphy in a telephone interview with The Duffel Blog. “I’m certainly hoping that I can secure a job as a D.C. lobbyist or a consultant to a defense contractor. But shit, I’m just not sure anymore. I might have to degrade myself and be a military analyst at Fox News just to feed my goddamn kids.”

Murphy’s worries underscore a major problem of assisting military members on their way out of the service. Junior enlisted personnel usually go through a weeklong Transition Assistance Program, or TAP, but the classes for general officers have serious drawbacks.

“The enlisted classes set the guys up for everything. They basically pave the way for them to go college, give them job placement, the whole nine yards,” said Michael Phillips, a counselor with the TAP program. “But for Generals, they need to do a lot of the work on their own. Most of them have to search for at least a few minutes in their rolodex to find a contact at BAE Systems or Lockheed before they have an executive position.”

February 17, 2013

It turns out it actually was the Burmese equivalent of Al Capone’s vault

Filed under: Asia, Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:51

Back in early January, the archaeological dig for buried WW2 Spitfires was announced:

Then, the doubts began to grow:

And now, even the sponsoring organization says there are no buried Spitfires after all:

A global video gaming company that funded a high-profile hunt for dozens of World War II-era British fighters in Myanmar has some bad news for aviation enthusiasts: It says none of the legendary planes are buried in the Southeast Asian country.

Excavation teams carrying out surveys on the ground, however, said Saturday that they would not give up the search.

The hunt for the lost planes was launched amid hope that as many as 140 rare Spitfires were hidden in crates in pristine condition in three locations in Myanmar.

But the Belarusian video gaming company Wargaming.net, which had backed the venture, said in a statement late Friday that the planes were never even delivered to the country by Allied forces as the war drew to a close nearly 70 years ago.

“The Wargaming team now believes, based on clear documentary evidence, as well as the evidence from the fieldwork, that no Spitfires were delivered in crates and buried” in Myanmar between 1945 and 1946, the statement said.

I’d been rather doubtful of the story from the start — even though it would have been awesomely cool to find a stash of Spitfires.

Money talks, fading historical memories edition

Filed under: Britain, Middle East, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:42

The British army’s officer training college at Sandhurst (think “West Point” in the American context) has invited a lot of criticism for this decision:

Britain’s top military academy, Sandhurst, has come under fire for renaming a sports hall commemorating a First World War battle after the King of Bahrain.

The Mons Hall — named after the 1914 battle where thousands died — will have its name changed to honour the Bahraini monarch who has given millions in funding to the Army’s officer training college.

The building will now be called King Hamad Hall and will reopen next month after being refurbished thanks to a £3 million donation from the king, who is the patron of the Sandhurst Foundation but is known for brutally repressing demonstrators at home.

Sandhurst has also accepted a £15 million donation from the United Arab Emirates to build a new accommodation block, raising questions about the college’s links with authoritarian Gulf states accused of human rights abuses.

Critics say the Army is betraying the soldiers who gave their lives and that Bahrain and the UAE are trying to avert criticism of their regimes by buying silence with donations.

The 1914 Battle of Mons was the first major battle of the war. Against overwhelming odds, the British Army inflicted 5,000 casualties on the Germans. At least 1,600 British troops were killed.

February 14, 2013

Crony capitalists make pitch for industrial policy in defence purchases

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:02

Canada doesn’t really have a defence industry — certainly not in the sense of Britain, France, or the United States. We have some companies which happen to make products of use to the military (armoured vehicles, for example), but our government is not tightly tied to the fortunes of these companies in some sort of maple-flavoured Military-Industrial Complex. Some movers-and-shakers want to change that:

It goes without saying that the proposal to siphon funds to defence contractors is gussied up in industrial-policy jargon. For instance, we’re told how defence industries are “important sources of technological dynamism and innovation [and] leading-edge participants in global value chains.” (Who today isn’t part of a global value chain?) Also in keeping with current industrial-policy trendiness, the government is instructed to be strategically selective in KIC-starting the sector. “KIC,” you see, stands for “Key Industrial Capabilities,” which is what we’re told we should focus on.

But despite the alluring bells and whistles, the message to firms selling to the government is clear: Either pay up or forget about getting the contract. From now on, if the committee gets its way, how you plan to spread the industrial booty around the Canadian economy will weigh directly in the balance with how your product performs. The new fighter jet doesn’t accelerate quickly enough to elude missiles? Well, never mind that, it comes with a new plant in Mississauga. Shells pierce the new tank’s armour? Too bad. But the innovation spinoffs for Thunder Bay are just too good to pass up.

You might think that interpretation extreme. Surely safety for our soldiers and value-for-money for our taxpayers come first. But what else could be meant by the recommendation that bidders specify the industrial benefits they’re offering as part of their bid itself, rather than as an add-on after the performance characteristics of their product or service have won them the contract?

Suppose that instead of causing defence contracts to be inflated with offsets for Canadian industry, this committee consisting of a high-tech CEO, a former chief of staff at national defence, an IP specialist in a defence company, a retired general and Paul Martin’s one-time policy guru recommended levying a 5% tax on all government defence purchases and using the revenues thus generated to subsidize Canadian defence contractors?

I sent the original Globe and Mail URL to Jon saying, “The very last thing Canada should be attempting is to use government money to build a ‘defence industry’. Let the military buy what they need on the open market — regardless of country of origin — at market prices. The fetish to have a domestic defence industry is pure crony capitalism clothed in a “patriotic” fig leaf.”

February 13, 2013

US Cyber Command’s recruiting headache

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Strategy Page on the “who could possibly have seen this coming” problems that the new electronic warfare organization is having with staffing:

U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) has been operational for two years now, and it is encountering some serious problems in recruiting people qualified to deal with the enemy (skilled hackers attacking American networks for whatever reason). People in the software and Internet security business have been telling Cyber Command leaders that they will have to change the way they recruit if they want to get qualified people. That means hiring hackers who lived on the dark side (criminal hacking) at one point or another. Such recruits would not pass the screening usually given to potential government employees who would be handling, and protecting, classified information and critical Internet systems. Few government officials are willing to bend the rules, mainly because no one wants to be responsible for some rogue hacker who got hired without the usual screening. It’s safer to go by the book and use that for your defense when the inadequate recruiting effort leads to a major Cyber War disaster.

Cyber Command is headquartered in Fort Meade (outside Washington, DC), most of the manpower, and capabilities, come from the Cyber War operations the military services have already established. Within Cyber Command there are some smaller organizations that coordinate Cyber War activities among the services, as well as with other branches of the government and commercial organizations that are involved in network security. At the moment Cyber Command wants to expand its core staff from 900 to 4,900 in the next five years. Twenty percent of those new people will be civilians, including a number of software specialists sufficiently skilled to quickly recognize skillful intrusions into American networks and quickly develop countermeasures. That kind of talent is not only expensive, but those who possess often have work histories that don’t pass the normal screening. These are the personnel Cyber Command is having a difficult time recruiting.

The big problems are not only recruiting hackers (technical personnel who can deal with the bad-guy hackers out there) but also managing them. The problem is one of culture, and economics. The military is a strict hierarchy that does not, at least in peacetime, reward creativity. Troops with good technical skills can make more money, and get hassled less, in a similar civilian job. The military is aware of these problems, but it is slow going trying to fix them.

February 7, 2013

Japan scrambles fighters after two Russian aircraft intrude

Filed under: Asia, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:39

Japan’s military forces are getting quite a workout these days, with the standoff with China over the Senkaku Islands and now the Russians are getting aggressive about probing Japanese airspace:

Two Russian fighter jets have violated Japanese airspace, prompting Tokyo to scramble its own aircraft, reports say.

Japan lodged a protest after the planes were detected off the northern island of Hokkaido for just over a minute.

The incident happened after Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said he was seeking a solution to a territorial dispute with Russia over a Pacific island chain.

Russia’s military denied the incursion, saying the jets were making routine flights near the disputed islands.

Mr Abe was speaking on the anniversary of an 1855 treaty which Japan says supports its claims to the islands.

The four islands — which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories — are the subject of a 60-year-old dispute.

Because of the dispute, the two nations have not yet signed a peace treaty to end World War II.

Almost a clean sweep of top Canadian military leadership

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

As Andrew Coyne noted in a tweet, “In some countries, this would be big news”. Lee Berthiaume in the Ottawa Citizen on the upheaval at the top of Canada’s defence establishment:

Spring cleaning has come early at the Department of National Defence as the Conservative government announced Wednesday it was sweeping out a number of the military’s top officers — including the head of the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Navy — in a major shuffle.

The moves represent a dramatic change at the top as National Defence faces a major shift in focus from the days of the Afghanistan war and increasing budgets, to a state of deep budget cuts and limited deployments.

[. . .]

In addition to [vice-chief of defence staff, Vice-Admiral Bruce] Donaldson, those leaving include Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice-Admiral Paul Maddison and Canadian Army commander Lt.-Gen. Peter Devlin.

Maddison’s deputy, Rear-Admiral Mark Norman, will take over as commander of the navy; Lt.-Gen. Marquis Hainse, who was serving as deputy commander to the NATO headquarters in Naples, Italy, is the new head of the army.

Lt.-Gen. Walter Semianiw, who oversaw all Canadian military missions inside Canada and North America, including the Caribbean, is also on the way out, the apparent casualty of a Defence Department restructuring that started last year.

February 5, 2013

Japan lodges formal protest after Chinese ship targets Japanese ship near Senkaku/Diaoyu islands

Filed under: China, Japan, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:13

The BBC has the details:

“On 30 January, something like fire-control radar was directed at a Japan Self-Defence Maritime escort ship in the East China Sea,” Mr Onodera told reporters on Tuesday.

The minister said Japan’s Yuudachi vessel and the Chinese frigate were about 3km (one mile) [ed: conversion error here, 3km is about 2 miles] apart at the time, Japan’s Kyodo News reports.

Asked about the delay in filing the protest, Mr Onodera said it took the ministry until Tuesday to determine that a fire-control radar had indeed locked on the Japanese ship.

He added that a Japanese military helicopter was also targeted with a similar type of radar by another Chinese frigate on 19 January.

“Directing such radar is very abnormal. We recognise it would create a very dangerous situation if a single misstep occurred,” he said.

Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

February 3, 2013

US poised to increase involvement in Mali

Filed under: Africa, France, Military, Religion, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:27

Sheldon Richman explains why it could be a problem if the American presence in northwestern Africa is further expanded:

Ominously but unsurprisingly, the U.S. military’s Africa Command wants to increase its footprint in northwest Africa. What began as low-profile assistance to France’s campaign to wrest control of northern Mali (a former colony) from unwelcome jihadists could end up becoming something more.

The Washington Post reports that Africom “is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest Africa [probably Niger] so that it can increase surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region.” But before that word “surveillance” can bring a sigh of relief, the Post adds, “For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.”

Meanwhile Bloomberg, citing American military officials, says Niger and the U.S. government have “reached an agreement allowing American military personnel to be stationed in the West African country and enabling them to take on Islamist militants in neighboring Mali, according to U.S. officials.… No decision has been made to station the drones.”

The irony is that surveillance drones could become the reason the “threat worsens,” and could provide the pretext to use drones armed with Hellfire missiles — the same kind used over 400 times in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, killing hundreds of noncombatants. Moving from surveillance to lethal strikes would be a boost for jihadist recruiters.

February 2, 2013

Hidden under Britain’s defence HQ: Henry VIII’s wine cellar

Filed under: Architecture, Britain, History, Military, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:44

It’s not open to the general public — and given what’s built on top of it, that’s probably no surprise:

Like the Pentagon, its better-known counterpart in the United States, Britain’s Ministry of Defence building is a fairly mundane, if gigantic, office block camouflaging a much more exciting subterranean realm of secret tunnels, bunkers, and — at least in the MoD’s case — a perfectly preserved Tudor wine cellar.

IMAGE: Henry VIII’s wine cellar, photograph by Nicola Twilley. The cellar is apparently occasionally used to host Ministry of Defence dinners and receptions, but is otherwise off-limits to the public other than by special request.

IMAGE: Henry VIII’s wine cellar, photograph by Nicola Twilley. The cellar is apparently occasionally used to host Ministry of Defence dinners and receptions, but is otherwise off-limits to the public other than by special request.

This stone-ribbed, brick-vaulted undercroft was built in the early 1500s by Cardinal Wolsey, as part of a suite of lavish improvements to York Place, the Westminster residence of the archbishops of York since the thirteenth century. The additions, which also included a gallery, presence chamber, and armoury, were intended to make York Place into a palace splendid enough to host the King. They succeeded well beyond Wolsey’s intentions: when Wolsey fell from favour, due to his inability to secure the papal annulment Henry VIII needed in order to marry Anne Boleyn, the King decided to move in.

[. . .]

York Place became the Palace of Whitehall, the principal residence of the English monarchy in London for nearly two hundred years, and Wolsey’s expansive cellar (he apparently received the first delivery of Champagne ever exported to England) became King Henry VIII’s Wine Cellar, the name by which it is still known today.

In Tudor times, the wine was stored in barrels, which presented a certain problem for service: “The barrels are historical reconstructions to represent how wine was stored in Tudor times. Henry VIII’s court consumed something like 300 barrels of wine each year, mostly exported from France and delivered to the palace by river. Interestingly, the wine was drunk very young by today’s standards — an August harvest might be on the table by November — and it was carefully blended with water, honey, and spices to mask its increasing sourness, as half-drunk casks allowed air into contact with the wine, which gradually oxidised into vinegar.”

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