|
| Last
Updated: Fri Jul 30 14:32:11 UTC 2010
|
APA NOTAMS ISSN 1836-7135
A Perspective on the Quadrennial Defense
Review
|
|
Air Power
Australia - Australia's Independent Defence Think Tank
|
Air Power Australia NOTAM
10th
February,
2010
|
Peter Goon, BEng (Mech), FTE
(USNTPS),
Head of Test and Evaluation, Air Power
Australia
Dr Carlo Kopp,
SMAIAA, MIEEE, PEng,
Head of Capability Analysis, Air Power Australia
|
| Contacts: |
Peter
Goon
|
Carlo
Kopp
|
|
|
Mob:
0419-806-476 |
Mob:
0437-478-224
|
|
|
First prototype of the T-50 PAK-FA during
an early test flight, January 2010. This aircraft renders a decade of
OSD fighter planning wholly irrelevant. It is the sharp end of advanced
anti-access weapon proliferation (Sukhoi image).
|
The
very
recently
released
Quadrennial
Defense Review (QDR)
document is, for all intents and purposes, a public endorsement by the
Pentagon of two pivotal strategic matters which the founders of Air
Power Australia have argued for over more than a decade, these being
the enormous strategic impact of globally proliferating high technology
anti-access and area-denial
weapons, and the need for a survivable, persistent strike
and surveillance capable theatre combat aircraft.
In the air combat domain, anti-access and area-denial weapons
technologies comprise
rapidly
deployable, highly mobile advanced radars and Surface to Air Missile
systems, counter-stealth
radars, passive geolocation sensors, and advanced digital air
defence
C4
networks, all of which were developed to work
in concert with advanced fighter aircraft such as the Su-35S
Flanker and the stealthy, “F-22-like” Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA, unveiled last
week.
In the maritime combat domain, anti-access and area-denial weapons
technologies
comprise advanced air, sea, sub and coastal battery launched supersonic
anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM), terminally guided anti-ship
ballistic missiles (ASBM), quiet submarines armed with digital
torpedoes, including supercavitating designs. In the basing domain,
proliferating cruise missiles and terminally guided ballistic missiles
render many existing US foreign bases effectively unusable for
deployment of aircraft, warships and ground forces, and the logistical
elements needed to sustain these.
These weapons are now seriously challenging the ability of the United
States and its close allies to conduct military interventions in many
parts of the world. A nation which is equipped with much less than the
full gamut of anti-access and
area-denial weapons will be in the position to hold key
US and allied in theatre assets at serious risk. Over the coming
decade,
this trend will drive the United States toward disproportionate
responses if a contingency demands intervention, as many elements of
the existing and currently planned US force structure will simply be
unusable.
The inclusion in a QDR document of anti-access and area-denial weapons as a
strategically important aspect of the current and future threat
environment is an important step forward, without a doubt.
What is of
some concern is that this trend was evident over a decade ago but was
not being actioned in any fundamental strategic planning by the US OSD,
indeed numerous unilateral funding and policy decisions made by the OSD
over the last two years indicate that anti-access and area-denial weapons were
neither
understood, let alone considered, in planning for the US Air Force,
especially tactical aviation planning.
Decisions to cancel funding for
additional F-22 Raptors, and defer the new replacement for the B-52 and
B-1B, sustained in the current QDR document, are fundamentally at odds
with the very same strategic reality of anti-access weapons
proliferation articulated in the very same QDR document.
Indeed, the unveiling in late January, 2010, of the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA
prototype, with superior
aerodynamic and kinematic performance to the F-22 Raptor,
and comparable in stealth performance to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,
but with far greater range and overall persistence, makes a
complete mockery of most of the OSD planning for US TacAir
capabilities over the last decade.
Commercially,
economically, operationally and strategically
non-viable programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter were and
continue to be preferentially funded over strategically critical and
far more cost
effective programs like the F-22 Raptor and a replacement heavy
bomber, despite
the undeniable reality that the lame, just-so-flawed F-35 JSF aircraft
would
be killed in large
numbers if flown against the much superior PAK-FA or Su-35S or advanced
SAM systems like the S-400 Triumf / SA-21.
This situation is made
even more disturbing by the fact that both the PAK-FA and S-400
programs, in addition to the Su-35S, have been well documented in
open-source
data over the last
decade, and all are in the process of being
exported to a global clientele.
The inclusion in this QDR document, of funding for a future
"penetrating persistent strike and surveillance aircraft" for
theatre operations, is one of the few genuinely relevant and important
capabilities planned for dealing with anti-access and area-denial weapons.
This capability is one which the founders of APA defined a decade ago,
in the CONOPS and design definition of the “F-22A/Evolved
F-111
Force
Mix
Option”
proposal.
Then defined around Australia's environment, this concept was, by
necessity, and for reasons of
cost effectiveness, constructed around an existing in service
high performance
airframe, the F-111. Central to this proposal, as defined in 1999/2000,
was that the weapon system provide a full dual role capability across
the persistent strike and ISR spectrum, exploiting the ever growing
capabilities of modern digital radar, passive radio-frequency, and
imaging optical technologies.
That the idea of a shared role strike/ISR
system was sound from the outset is reflected in the effort invested by
the US Air Force to develop this capability in the FB-22A, which was
unfortunately killed by the OSD during the past decade.
That the
capability has now re-emerged by necessity in the current QDR, shows
that the need identified and defined by APA a decade ago is now so
critical, that an OSD with an overtly anti-air-power agenda has agreed
to fund it.
While the proliferation of advanced anti-access and area-denial weapons is a
critical problem for US services, it is catastrophic for America's
smaller allies.
Consider America's closest ally in the Pacific, Australia. In the
Australian context, the criticality of anti-access and
area-denial weapons in the absence of any countering capability to
provide air superiority let alone air dominance may be seen in the
following strategic impact chart wherein for somewhat less than the
investment to purchase 24 x Super Hornet F/A-18F trainer aircraft,
Australia could be denied access, let alone control of the Air-Sea-Land
Gap to the north of the continent - the centre piece of Australian
Defence and Security Policy for
decades.
With the advent of the
Su-35S and now the PAK-FA T-50, with their internal fuel load of
~25,000 lb, extreme agility, far ranging strike and air-to-air
weaponry, and, in the case of the latter, stealth capabilities that
match and may exceed those of the just-so-flawed F-35A JSF, this
picture
gets a whole lot worse and not just in the air power stakes.
Superior, if not dominant, air power in the hands of a peace loving
nation like Australia is the key to maintaining strategic and tactical
balance in the South West Pacific region. It is the ultimate
conventional deterrent
that has served our nation and this region well for over 40 years.
To replace such capabilities with the less than capable Super Hornet
and just-so-flawed JSF is not only absurd, but quite irresponsible, and
shows flagrant disregard to the maintenance and sustainment of peace
and security in the region for Australia and its neighbours who,
rightly, are concerned and will do what they need to do to protect
their interests.
Without the solid foundation of dominant or, at the very least,
superior air power, as directed by successive governments in successive
Australian Defence White Papers, the Australian equivalent to the QDR,
Australia's “system-of-systems” based force structure,
when tested, will collapse like a house of cards.
The annihilation in combat of its less than capable air combat assets
will be the
curtain raiser for high cost capital assets such as the Wedgetail
AEW&C, Aerial Refuelling MRTT, C-17 Globemaster III , AP-3C Orion
and C-130J aircraft remaining on the ground or risk similar
annihilation; its ground forces in the North and deployed being at risk
of attack from the air where “one aircraft/three bombs/one Batallion”
will be the order of the day; and, those embarked on the LHD and
AWD ships steaming into the Air/Sea/Land Gap will risk being turned
into shark bait. These are the realities to which the current
Australian Defence leadership display a total
indifference.
For America and its allies, similar scenarios described by
similar
strategic impact charts are already forming around the world due to the
ongoing proliferation
of anti-access and area-denial
weapons, from the Taiwan Straits to the Borders of Afghanistan
to closer to home scenarios like Venezuela and Mexico.
That good relations might now exist between neighbouring countries is
not in question.
What is in question is the seemingly deliberate move of the Gates OSD
away from the teachings of
conventional wisdom and the multiple impacts the resulting
strategic and
tactical imbalances will have on such relations. That which the
Gate's OSD chooses to ignore or, at best, show a total indifference
towards, says such impacts cannot be good.
|
|
Related
Reading:
Date
|
Format
|
Author
|
Briefing
/
Submission
Title
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jun
2009
|
PPS
|
PDF
|
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
The Global Impact of Anti-Access Weapons
|
May
2009
|
PPS
|
PDF
|
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
High
Technology
Air
Defense
Weapons
vs
Planned
US Force Structure
|
| May
2009 |
PPS |
PDF |
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
Why
187
F-22s
Are
Not
Sufficient
|
| May
2009 |
PPS |
PDF |
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
The
Failed
Fighter
Recapitalisation
Plan
|
| May
2009 |
PPS |
PDF |
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
The
Proliferation
of
Counter-Stealth
Systems
|
| Feb
2008 |
-
|
PDF |
Carlo
Kopp
Peter Goon |
Strategic Needs and Force
Structure
Analysis: The Thinking Behind the F-22A and Evolved F-111 Force Mix
Option |
|
© 2009, 2010, Carlo Kopp and
Peter Goon
|
 |
Air
Power Australia Website - http://www.ausairpower.net/
Air Power Australia Research and
Analysis - http://www.ausairpower.net/research.html
|
|
|
![Australia's First Online Journal Covering Air Power Issues [ISSN 1832-2433]](apa-analyses.png "Australia's First Online Journal Covering Air Power Issues [ISSN 1832-2433]")
