Quotulatiousness

October 26, 2010

The intelligence bonanza of the 2001 American EP-3E incident

Filed under: China, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:30

If you cast your mind back far enough, you’ll remember the political impact of the mid-air collision between a Chinese fighter and an American EP-3E electronic surveillance aircraft. It certainly had the potential to turn into a major standoff between the two powers, but apparently the real story was the intelligence breach following the emergency landing:

On April 1, 2001, an American EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane on an eavesdropping mission collided with a Chinese interceptor jet over the South China Sea, triggering the first international crisis of George W. Bush’s Administration. The Chinese jet crashed, and its pilot was killed, but the pilot of the American aircraft, Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborn, managed to make an emergency landing at a Chinese F-8 fighter base on Hainan Island, fifteen miles from the mainland. Osborn later published a memoir, in which he described the “incessant jackhammer vibration” as the plane fell eight thousand feet in thirty seconds, before he regained control.

The plane carried twenty-four officers and enlisted men and women attached to the Naval Security Group Command, a field component of the National Security Agency. They were repatriated after eleven days; the plane stayed behind. The Pentagon told the press that the crew had followed its protocol, which called for the use of a fire axe, and even hot coffee, to disable the plane’s equipment and software. These included an operating system created and controlled by the N.S.A., and the drivers needed to monitor encrypted Chinese radar, voice, and electronic communications. It was more than two years before the Navy acknowledged that things had not gone so well. “Compromise by the People’s Republic of China of undestroyed classified material . . . is highly probable and cannot be ruled out,” a Navy report issued in September, 2003, said.

The loss was even more devastating than the 2003 report suggested, and its dimensions have still not been fully revealed. Retired Rear Admiral Eric McVadon, who flew patrols off the coast of Russia and served as a defense attaché in Beijing, told me that the radio reports from the aircraft indicated that essential electronic gear had been dealt with. He said that the crew of the EP-3E managed to erase the hard drive — “zeroed it out” — but did not destroy the hardware, which left data retrievable: “No one took a hammer.” Worse, the electronics had recently been upgraded. “Some might think it would not turn out as badly as it did, but I sat in some meetings about the intelligence cost,” McVadon said. “It was grim.”

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

October 19, 2010

UK defence cuts announced

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:57

As I blogged yesterday, quoting a Guardian article, the British government will be cutting their armed forces substantially:

I want to be clear there is no cut whatsoever in the support for our forces in Afghanistan.

The funding for our operations in Afghanistan comes not from the budget of the Ministry of Defence but instead from the Treasury Special Reserve.

So the changes to the Ministry of Defence that result from today’s Review will not affect this funding.

That will help the morale of the troops on the ground in Afghanistan, but the army overall is still being reduced.

Our ground forces will continue to have a vital operational role so we will retain a large well-equipped Army, numbering around 95,500 by 2015 that is 7,000 less than today.

We will continue to be one of very few countries able to deploy a self-sustaining properly equipped Brigade-sized force anywhere around the world and sustain it indefinitely if needs be.

And we will be able to put 30,000 into the field for a major, one off operation.

In terms of the return from Germany half our personnel should be back by 2015 and the remainder by 2020.

And tanks and heavy artillery numbers will be reduced by around 40%.

The garrison in Germany is a relic of the Cold War, and it’s amazing that they’ll still be there until 2020.

We will complete the production of six Type 45 destroyers one of the most effective multi-role destroyers in the world.

But we will also start a new programme to develop less expensive, more flexible, modern frigates.

Total naval manpower will reduce to around 30,000 by 2015.

And by 2020 the total number of frigates and destroyers will reduce from 23 to 19 but the fleet as a whole will be better able to take on today’s tasks from tackling drug trafficking and piracy to counter-terrorism.

Those are the same Type 45’s that haven’t actually had effective main armament, according to The Register.

We have decided to retire the Harrier which has served this country so well for 40 years.

The Harrier is a remarkably flexible aircraft but the military advice is that we should sustain the Tornado fleet as that aircraft is more capable and better able to sustain operations in Afghanistan.

RAF manpower will also reduce to around 33,000 by 2015.

Inevitably this will mean changes in the way in which some RAF bases are used but some are likely to be required by the Army as forces return from Germany.

The retirement of the Harrier is a simultaneous victory for the RAF against their two most dangerous enemies: the army and the Fleet Air Arm. The Harrier was the one aircraft that could provide both naval and ground support, and was therefore considered readily dispensible by the fighter jocks in the Royal Air Force.

We will build both carriers, but hold one in extended readiness.

We will fit the “cats and traps” — the catapults and arrestor gear to the operational carrier.

This will allow our allies to operate from our operational carrier and allow us to buy the carrier version of the Joint Strike Fighter which is more capable, less expensive, has a longer range and carries more weapons.

We will also aim to bring the planes and carriers in at the same time.

That is probably finis for carrier operations in the Royal Navy: but expect both of these ships to show up again in the fleet of India within 5-10 years.

. . . we will retain and renew the ultimate insurance policy — our independent nuclear deterrent, which guards this country round the clock every day of the year.

[. . .]

…extend the life of the Vanguard class so that the first replacement submarine is not required until 2028;
…reduce the number of operational launch tubes on those new submarines from 12 to eight…
…reduce the number of warheads on our submarine at sea from 48 to 40…..
…and reduce our stockpile of operational warheads from less than 160 to fewer than 120.

October 12, 2010

The warplane older than the crew’s parents

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

It’s been an ongoing joke that the venerable B-52 bomber fleet are older than the crews that fly them. With a recent announcement, the US Air Force has ensured that the joke will change — by the time they retire, the planes will be older than the parents of their crews:

Without any fanfare, the U.S. Air Force recently announced that it would spend $11.9 billion to keep its remaining B-52 bombers in service until they are all retired by 2040. At that point, the last ones will have served over 70 years. The new “sustainment program” will cost over $150 million per aircraft, which is about twice what they cost to build (accounting for inflation).

The reason for this investment in half century old aircraft has a lot to do with the fact that the B-52 is very capable, reliable, and cheap to operate. This is especially true compared to the aircraft built to replace it (the B-1B). The U.S. Air Force has been having a hard time keeping its 67 B-1B bombers ready for action. Two years ago, the availability rate (aircraft you can send into action) was about 51 percent. Seven years ago it was 56 percent. Progress is being made, but the B-52 is still more reliable. The B-1Bs are used to drop smart bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are particularly popular in Afghanistan, because you can put one in the air, and it can cover the entire country. While the B-1B is twice as expensive to operate (per hour in the air) than the B-52, the B-1B can more quickly move to a new target over Afghanistan.

B-52s are not only cheaper to maintain, they have a higher availability rate (65 percent.) As a result, the air force wants to keep 76 B-52s in service (despite a Congressional mandate to reduce that number to 56.) With the development of GPS guided bombs (JDAM), heavy bombers have become the most cost-effective way to deliver support to ground forces. The B-52 is the cheapest American heavy bomber to operate, and the oldest.

October 6, 2010

British forces facing imminent cuts

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:15

Lewis Page makes what I think is the correct call for the British government’s National Security Council to keep the Royal Navy’s carrier program and gut the RAF deep bomber fleet and the army’s heavy combat arm:

Thus it is a good bet that the first of the two new carriers for the Royal Navy will go ahead. The second may be downgraded to serve as an amphibious-warfare ship full of troops and helicopters rather than combat aircraft, or it might be cancelled altogether — which means British shipbuilding would be kept alive by bringing forward plans for a new generation of navy frigates.

The RAF and even the Army will be offering up massive cuts of their own — it is expected that the entire Tornado deep-bomber fleet will be retired years early, and the current Cold War style armoured-warfare juggernaut of tanks, mobile artillery and infantry fighting vehicles is set for a major trim back — so there is only one way that the government can preserve a two-carrier navy.

A navy with pretensions to independent action requires aircraft carriers. Plural. A single carrier isn’t enough, and places too much of your naval “capital” in a single hull. Two is the minimum (and three would be even better): you can, with care, always have at least one carrier fully worked-up and ready to deploy.

Even if the RN gets both carriers through the NSC flensing mill, they still face other cuts:

That one way is to finally cut the Royal Navy’s force of frigates and destroyers — collectively known as “escorts”, as their primary role is to protect and defend major warships — down to numbers suitable for actually escorting our biggest ships. For the past many decades, for reasons of history and jobs for the boys, the RN has actually maintained far more escorts than it needs to escort major units such as carriers and amphibious task groups.

Realistically, a combat carrier can actually protect herself using aircraft far more effectively than her escorts can: but it is reasonable to say that sending a carrier out to a major war alone, when just one bomb or missile or torpedo could eliminate Britain’s reach into a given theatre — perhaps cutting off air cover, supplies, even the chance of evacuation for our troops ashore — is a gutsy call.

Reducing the number of frigates and destroyers would make a lot of sense (except if you’ve “spent your whole life in an effort to be a frigate captain”). A bigger-ticket item than the carriers themselves is the required aircraft to equip the ships. Current plans are for the role to be given to the ultra-expensive F-35B. Politics aside, it would make brilliant economic and military sense to replace those techno-wonders with slightly less capable F-18s:

Really we need a maximum total escort fleet of say 10, as compared to the Navy’s current lineup of 23. Savings just in running costs over the next decade would add up to at least £11bn. Then we can save at least another billion-odd in acquisition costs by not buying the last two Type 45s and their dubious missile systems. All this is far and away more than enough to ensure that the second carrier is built, and to give the two ships catapult launch. This in turn would permit the purchase of much cheaper and more powerful aircraft for them, easing the problems caused for the MoD budget by the rising costs and delays facing the F-35B supersonic stealth jumpjet (currently grounded following the discovery of technical snags during flight testing).

And why would I, a former ground-pounder, be so enthusiastic about aircraft carriers? Because the British experience has been that the RN has been there for the army when needed:

It hasn’t been often that British troops have needed fighter cover since World War II, but when they’ve needed it they’ve really, really needed it. Just ask the Welsh Guards, chopped to pieces by Argentine jets at Bluff Cove. When there has actually been any fighter cover for British troops in combat since World War II, it has come from the navy, not the RAF. Every time a British fighter has shot down an enemy aircraft since 1945, it took off from a ship to do so. Even back during WWII, lack of carrier air killed a lot of sailors and soldiers — and the presence of it saved many more.

September 30, 2010

Inter-service rivalry now compromising SAS training

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:50

Of all the various famous units the British have to boast of, surely the Special Air Service (SAS) is the top of the list. That status still doesn’t exempt the SAS from being a pawn in the ongoing battle between the Army and the RAF:

For five years now, the Royal Air Force (RAF), and the British Army have been feuding over the lack of aircraft for parachute training. The latest row involves Britain’s SAS (Special Air Service) commandos, who have been unable to train all their operators in complex parachuting techniques, because the RAF has been unable to provide transports to carry the SAS personnel into the air. This is considered a more serious matter than previous problems with not having enough transports to train members of the Parachute Regiment. The SAS threatens to send their operators to the United States for training, relying on long standing ties with their American counterparts (the U.S. Army Special Forces and SOCOM). This would be embarrassing for the RAF, and that would be the point.

This sort of feud has been going on for a long time. For example, four years ago it was revealed that the British Army had to decide between supplying its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and providing aircraft for its paratroopers to complete their training. As a result of this shortage, in 2005, only about 25 percent of paratroop trainees were able to make the required jumps, to become qualified parachutists. Back in 2003, 93 percent were able to successfully make their jumps. In addition to the morale boost, being a qualified paratrooper also gets you an extra $3,000 a year in bonus pay.

The RAF, rather like the US Air Force, has different priorities than the other services, and clearly doesn’t value their inter-operational harmony as highly as controlling the equipment and doctrine to support their own mission (as defined by air force commanders). This isn’t a new thing: it’s been going on since the first world war. It also shows a failure of leadership on the civilian side — the civilian bosses should be much more insistent on getting the overall mission done properly than in allowing these turf wars (cloud wars?) to interfere.

September 16, 2010

Army, RN, RAF, and Trident replacement: pick any three

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:03

The British coalition government has declared that they will retain the nuclear option (that is, buy replacements for their current Trident submarines), but still seem to think that you can take £20bn from the Defence budget (in addition to the 10-20% savings you’re already demanding be made) and still have three viable services. Perhaps it’s a strange form of new math:

The £20bn replacement of the UK’s Trident nuclear deterrent could be put off until after 2015, according to reports.

The BBC said ministers were considering delaying the planned 2014 date in an effort to reduce short-term costs and head off a pre-general election political row.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said no decisions had yet been taken on the future of the submarine-based missile system, which is currently the subject of a value-for-money review.

It has been formally excluded from the ongoing strategic defence and security review (SDSR) but the Treasury has made clear the under-pressure MoD budget will have to pay for it. An influential committee of MPs yesterday warned that that decision would have very significant consequences for future defence spending.

Just as the coalition took office, it was mentioned that the previous Labour government had committed to spend £37bn on various new weapon systems, but had not actually provided the funding to make those purchases. Add a Trident replacement bill on top of that and there is no way to successfully pay the bills out of the current military budget.

There are always economies that can be made in military spending: it’s not unreasonable to assume that savings of 10% can be found in any military force. 20% is pushing the envelope too much unless a scaling-back of commitment is also part of the reduction. 20% cuts, no reduction in tasks, and the Trident replacements (even if you reduce the fleet from four to three) can’t be done.

Update: Lewis Page thinks the Trident replacement is essential:

Proper new Trident, with submarine-launched ballistic nukes, is the right call for the UK. Its cost is tiny compared to UK government spending — just half of a single year’s Department for Work and Pensions budget would buy new Trident boats, arm them, crew them and cover their running costs for decades.

Compared to the MoD’s much smaller budget the costs look bigger, but they are still small — and ICBM submarines represent far and away the best value for money in the MoD. For perhaps £20bn to £30bn in acquisition costs you get an unstoppable, unfindable nuclear hammer capable of shattering a nation in an afternoon. When one reflects that we have spent the same money to get the Eurofighter — a wildly expensive and now rather oldfashioned pure air-to-air platform — new Trident looks like a steal.

One major reason that the Eurofighter is such poor value for money, of course, has been repeated delay so as to achieve short-term savings in the past. This is also true of nearly every other procurement project in the MoD: cumulatively, past politicians failing to grasp nettles are now costing us billions every year. It has to stop, and stop now — as a taxpayer, quite frankly I don’t see why I should pay still more billions down the road just to keep Mr Cameron in Downing Street and Mr Clegg in the Cabinet today.

September 14, 2010

When the bureaucracy strangles its young

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:42

Noah Schactman uncovers the reason it takes a decade for the Pentagon to buy new weapons:

And you thought winning the Afghanistan war was tough. Try building the Army’s new armored vehicle. Or piecing together the Navy’s new network.

All of the complexity of the Afghan conflict — and all of the bureaucracy NATO used to manage the counterinsurgency effort — was summed up by a single spaghetti monster of a PowerPoint slide. “When we understand [it],” war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal joked when he saw the slide, “we’ll have won the war.”

But that slide was child’s play compared to the three-foot wall chart the military uses to explain its gajillion-step process for developing, buying, and maintaining gear. The “Integrated Acquisitions Technology and Logistics Life Cycle Management” diagram is kind of a precis to the whole interminable progression, from “decompose concept functional definition into component concepts & assessment objective” to “execute support program that meets materiel readiness and operational support performance requirements and sustains system in most cost-effective manner.” Stare long enough, and you’ll start to see why it takes a decade for the Defense Department to buy a tanker plane, or why marines are still reading web pages with Internet Explorer 6.

The chart is put out by the Pentagon’s Defense Acquisitions University, where the Pentagon educates 180,000 people a year on its, um, unique process for purchasing equipment.

Full-sized horror of the slide at the link. If you think you can survive the insanity of it.

September 10, 2010

The bitter choices facing Britain’s new National Security Council

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

The new National Security Council will have its first meeting next week. It’s expected to report on Britain’s defence priorities next month. For any kind of government body, that’s a breathtaking pace to set — and the decisions to be taken will have a huge impact on Britain’s armed forces for decades to come.

Thanks to poor decision-making on new defence purchases, the current government has to cut spending by an estimated 10 to 20%. Each service has major new equipment already in the pipeline, which means cancellation won’t automatically mean monetary relief for the government. The RAF has their priority purchase of 40 more Typhoon aircraft (costing £2.8 billion). The RN is desperate to keep their two new aircraft carriers on schedule for 2016 and 2018 (costing £5.2 billion for the ships and a mind-bending £10 billion for the F-35B aircraft to load on to them). In addition, the nuclear option needs to be renewed or (saving £20 billion) scrapped.

The Economist anticipates the bulk of the cuts going to the RAF and the army:

The RAF looks certain to be hit hard. Douglas Barrie, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reckons that the air force will shrink dramatically, losing perhaps 200 jets through the early retirement of Tornadoes and Harriers and a scaling back of the plan for a 160-strong Typhoon fleet. Attack helicopters and unmanned drones will increasingly be used to support ground operations instead. The order for F-35 jets, which are to be shared between the navy and the air force, looks certain to be more than halved to around 60, saving more than £5 billion in purchase costs and at least as much in maintenance.

Theoretically, one or both of the navy’s aircraft carriers could be cancelled. That would drastically reduce Britain’s expeditionary capability; but the advanced state of construction, the amount of money already spent and the 10,000 or so jobs at stake make it unlikely. Ditching just one of them is impractical, since two are needed if one is to be continuously available for operations. Despite some excitable recent talk of sharing a carrier with France, the difficulty of agreeing what to do with such a shared vessel make that idea unworkable. Dr Fox has ruled it out, though he is exploring other areas of co-operation.

[. . .]

And despite Afghanistan, the army will not escape entirely. A growing emphasis on special forces in ground warfare, combined with rising scepticism about the future utility of heavy armour should allow two or three battalions of infantry to be eliminated, the mothballing of most of the army’s main battle tanks and thus big savings in manpower and logistical support. A smaller army — comprising perhaps 95,000 soldiers rather than the current 107,000 — would also make it possible to repatriate most of the roughly 19,000 British troops still stationed in Germany without building new bases or housing.

Can anyone adequately explain why Britain still has nearly 20,000 troops in Germany at this late date? What possible strategic value are they, sitting in the middle of Europe?

September 6, 2010

The start of the Blitz, 1940

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:44

September, 1940: the start of the Blitz:

The London Blitz started quietly. Less than 100 incidents reported by the London Fire Brigade up to 5pm on September 7, 1940. Only a few weeks after the British victory in the Battle of Britain, what came then must have been a terrible shock for Londoners. You can read the original Guardian archive report of the night here.

At 5.30pm, some 348 German bombers escorted by 617 fighters pounded London until 6.00pm. Guided by the flames, a second group attacked with more incendiary bombs two hours later, lasting into the next day.

Note, that link to the Guardian archive is a bit badly behaved: it resized my browser window.

Update: Rare colour footage of the Blitz.

August 13, 2010

UK to reduce number of senior officers in armed forces

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:46

In a desperate search for economies in the army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force, Liam Fox announced a good first step:

The number of senior military officers could be cut in an attempt to curb spending in the Ministry of Defence, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, said today.

In a speech setting out his vision for the future of the MoD, Fox said the reforms were intended to make the department leaner, less centralised and more effective.

He said military chiefs would be given greater control over the armed services as he attempted to sweeten what he described as “difficult and painful” cuts he blamed on the “dangerous deficit” left by the Labour government.

Fox said it was a “ghastly truth” that Labour had left the department with a £37bn “unfunded liability” over the next 10 years. However, he made no specific commitments on cuts, which are not expected to be announced until October.

It’s probably a safe bet that you could reduce the number of generals and admirals by half without in any measurable way decreasing the effectiveness of the armed forces — this is true in almost any nation’s armed forces, not just in Britain. Above the rank of Brigadier/Commodore, there are very few combat posts to be filled, but lots of administrative ones. When a senior officer transitions to being an administrator, their focus shifts from supporting the combat mission of the service to building their bureaucratic empire. It’s startling to see that an army of 100,000 troops “needs” 85,000 civil service workers to support it. (I’ve touched on this before.)

Each of the services has been starved of capital improvements so that any reduction in funding at this point will be very detrimental to long-term defence capabilities. The Royal Navy is starting to look more and more like a coastal defence force than a blue water navy . . . and getting rid of one or both of the new aircraft carriers would end Britain’s pretensions to be able to do any force projection at all (but Argentina would be happy to see it). The RAF had hoped to be next in line for shiny new aircraft to replace their current lot. The army has been wearing down their armoured vehicles at a steady pace and were also hoping for new, improved models in the immediate future.

In spite of the statements of the new coalition government, I don’t see why they’re bothering to replace Trident: you’ve already admitted that you can’t support the current force levels — which are clearly inadequate to meet the challenges of today, never mind those of tomorrow. Forcing the Trident replacement into the military budget could almost literally mean scrapping the rest of the RN just to retain those few nuclear submarines and their support structures.

August 10, 2010

Free flight in Indian helicopter? No, thanks, I’ll walk.

Filed under: India, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:51

Strategy Page would recommend that you think twice before climbing aboard an Indian helicopter:

The Indian Air Force is being criticized for mismanaging its fleet of over 300 helicopters. It gets worse when you realize that this is not enough helicopters for all of the needs of the Indian armed forces. But despite that, over ten percent of those helicopters are diverted to UN peacekeeping operations and for transporting VIPs (senior government officials). In addition, it’s been publicized that helicopters are often assigned to fly the wives of senior air force officials. That, and maintenance problems, mean that only about 60 percent of the helicopter fleet is available for military needs.

It gets worse. Despite needing a third more helicopters, the helicopters are dying of old age. As in 78 percent of current choppers have exceeded their design life. The aging equipment was no secret, but the navy only began obtaining new helicopters in the last three years (and for the five years before that obtained none.)

July 20, 2010

Welcome back to the draft era

Filed under: Government, Law, Liberty, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:11

. . . at least, if Representative Charles Rangel gets this piece of dreck through the legislative process:

HR 5741 IH

111th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5741

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.

If this passes, I’ll be happy to welcome the next generation of draft dodgers into Canada. In spite of their sometimes loopy politics, we managed to absorb the last bunch reasonably well.

July 19, 2010

Canada well known to Afghan would-be refugees

Filed under: Asia, Cancon, Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:01

Strategy Page updates the story about the 17 Afghan military trainees who disappeared from their assigned quarters in Texas while on a language training course:

Now the air force has carefully checked their records and found that at least 46 foreign troops had walked away from their training courses in the last five years. All but two (one from Iraq, another from Djibouti) were Afghan.

These men had disappeared from a U.S. Air Force language school, where they learned enough English so they could attend U.S. military training courses. The media coverage implied that some of these guys could be terrorists, who joined the Afghan military, qualified for training in the United States, and then disappeared once you got there, so they could carry out attacks. But it appears the reason behind the disappearances was economic, rather than ideological or religious.

That does make a lot of sense, from their point of view: going from one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest, the temptation to stay must be considerable. Of interest to Canadians:

After the first 17 missing Afghans was revealed, American immigration officials went looking for them. They soon reported that they had tracked down at least eleven of the missing Afghans, using just Facebook. These men had gone to Canada, using the military ID the U.S. provided them while in the United States. It’s easier to claim asylum in Canada, a fact widely known in Afghanistan (and often exploited by those leaving the country for a better life in the West.) U.S. officials believed they had located all but two or three of the missing seventeen Afghans, and expected to track down the rest soon.

In spite of the fears of pacifists in Canada, apparently our “warmongering” hasn’t seriously damaged our pre-existing reputation as a soft-touch for refugee claimants.

June 25, 2010

Internet access forces retirement of military TV network

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Media, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:18

Strategy Page notes the imminent demise of two media staples: Armed Forces Network (AFN) broadcast television and the traditional base newspaper:

U.S. military television stations in Europe are halting the broadcasting of their signals. Not because so many American troops have left Europe since the end of the Cold War, but because everyone has cable. A few broadcasting towers will keep operating, for the few areas where barracks are not yet wired for cable. The big losers are American retirees and military families living off the base. In addition, a lot of locals enjoyed the availability of the “American Channel” and the military oriented content. It was something they could not find on the largest local cable plans. AFN often broadcast American TV shows before they were bought by local networks for broadcast in dubbed format. The dubbing is often poor, and many Europeans speak English, and like to get American TV shows as soon as they come out. But now that’s all history.

[. . .] the technology tidal wave is also destroying the oldest form of American military media; the base newspaper. Four years ago, U.S. Air Force bases began to scrap a century old tradition; the base newspaper. Some bases later brought the papers back, because they found there were a significant minority of base residents who did not use the Internet (which was supposed to replace the newspaper.) But that is not going to last long.

These weeklies were almost standard on military bases, mainly as a vehicle for getting out information of use to all those who lived or worked there. There were administrative announcements, as well as social ones. The base newspapers served a morale function, as well as a practical one. But the news papers cost money, some $3,000-$5,000 a week. The papers were distributed for free, and now there’s a trend towards eliminating the papers, and just putting out all the information on the base web site. All bases now have web sites, and troops, especially younger ones, find these more useful than newspapers. Surveys indicate that most junior troops don’t even read newspapers (nor do their civilian peers). But all these young troops rely on the web for news, and other information. The troops also note that, when they are deployed overseas, or just away from the base for a few days, they only way to stay in touch with what’s happening on the base is via the web site. But many older NCOs and officers, along with their spouses, do still read newspapers. It’s a generational thing, so the base newspaper is still doomed.

June 10, 2010

QotD: Historic first

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:50

In defiance of 143 years of tradition, the government plans to replace our aging CF-18s before they enter their third or fourth decade of obsolescence.

Chris Taylor, “Canadian defense procurement shocker”, Taylor Empire Airways, 2010-06-08

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