Like I said yesterday...
The Navy will build both and put one version on each coast.
More after the Navy makes the official announcement, which will probably come tonight.
Wednesday, November 3, 2024
Western European Navies (week 43)
Political News
THE single biggest news is that the UK and France are going to sign a defence treaty.
The Spanish Secretary of State for Defence , Constantino Mendez, criticized the mismanagement throughout a series of major acquisitions for the modernization and professionalization of the Spanish armed forces.
The Spanish Ministry of Industry will inject €1,250 million into the Spanish MoD.
The French MoD has put a dossier online which looks at the possibility of a future European navy.
They also did a comparison between the number (no, not capabilities) of naval vessels in the EU and the US:
Carriers: EU 7 - US 11
Destroyers: EU 18- US 61
Frigates: EU 119- US 29
Amphibious: EU 27 - US 34
Submarines: EU 50 - US 50
MCMV: EU 157 - US 14
Global Operations
For news on Operation Atalanta: see their website.
Trial against Somali Pirates in Hamburg (Germany) to start November 22.
HDMS Esbern Snare has destroyed a pirate mother ship.
For some reasons the Danes are never part of Operation Atalanta, but they are often present around the Horn of Africa.
The French carrier Charles de Gaulle has returned to sea and is expected to set off on its delayed mission after a very short period of working back up.
Shipbuilding
Changing the flightdeck and installing CATOBAR systems will make the 2 new British carriers at least £500 million more expensive.
France has signed an agreement with DCNS to use the Gowind OPV that DCNS paid for themselves.
The Greek Navy and German submarine builder ThyssenKrupp have ended their quarrel over the Type 214 submarines with the announcement that an agreement has been reached to deliver one completed submarine and resume work on two more.
The minehunters of the Royal Navy are getting an upgrade.
Exercises
The Spanish navy carried out an exercise in the search and rescue of submarines in the Mediterranean.
Upcoming Exercise
Emerald Move 2010
3000 personnel, 11 ships, 19 planes and helicopters from Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and host nation Senegal.
Ships (that I know of):
FS Cassard
FS Siroco
FS Tonnere
ITS San Giorgio
ITS San Marco
HNLMS Johan de witt
Other
MBDA is preparing for the first test firing of a submarine launched SCALP in 2011.
They have also started production of the first SIMBAD-RC prototype.
It looks like the French MPA Atlantique 2 will be getting a systems upgrade, to keep them in service until 2030.
Poland is going to try to renegotiate a contract with Norway for Naval Strike Missiles.
THE single biggest news is that the UK and France are going to sign a defence treaty.
The Spanish Secretary of State for Defence , Constantino Mendez, criticized the mismanagement throughout a series of major acquisitions for the modernization and professionalization of the Spanish armed forces.
The Spanish Ministry of Industry will inject €1,250 million into the Spanish MoD.
The French MoD has put a dossier online which looks at the possibility of a future European navy.
They also did a comparison between the number (no, not capabilities) of naval vessels in the EU and the US:
Carriers: EU 7 - US 11
Destroyers: EU 18- US 61
Frigates: EU 119- US 29
Amphibious: EU 27 - US 34
Submarines: EU 50 - US 50
MCMV: EU 157 - US 14
Global Operations
For news on Operation Atalanta: see their website.
Trial against Somali Pirates in Hamburg (Germany) to start November 22.
HDMS Esbern Snare has destroyed a pirate mother ship.
For some reasons the Danes are never part of Operation Atalanta, but they are often present around the Horn of Africa.
The French carrier Charles de Gaulle has returned to sea and is expected to set off on its delayed mission after a very short period of working back up.
Shipbuilding
Changing the flightdeck and installing CATOBAR systems will make the 2 new British carriers at least £500 million more expensive.
France has signed an agreement with DCNS to use the Gowind OPV that DCNS paid for themselves.
The Greek Navy and German submarine builder ThyssenKrupp have ended their quarrel over the Type 214 submarines with the announcement that an agreement has been reached to deliver one completed submarine and resume work on two more.
The minehunters of the Royal Navy are getting an upgrade.
Exercises
The Spanish navy carried out an exercise in the search and rescue of submarines in the Mediterranean.
Upcoming Exercise
Emerald Move 2010
3000 personnel, 11 ships, 19 planes and helicopters from Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and host nation Senegal.
Ships (that I know of):
FS Cassard
FS Siroco
FS Tonnere
ITS San Giorgio
ITS San Marco
HNLMS Johan de witt
Other
MBDA is preparing for the first test firing of a submarine launched SCALP in 2011.
They have also started production of the first SIMBAD-RC prototype.
It looks like the French MPA Atlantique 2 will be getting a systems upgrade, to keep them in service until 2030.
Poland is going to try to renegotiate a contract with Norway for Naval Strike Missiles.
The Evolution of Expeditionary
My latest column at World Politics Review is on British expeditionary capability:
The idea that wars should be fought at a distance has informed British military policy for centuries. To this end, the United Kingdom has historically structured its military forces with expeditionary capability in mind, even if other missions -- the British Army's commitment to the defense of West Germany, for example -- have at times competed for money and interest. That would seem to apply even more today, when for the United Kingdom, virtually every conceivable military conflict is an expeditionary war.
However, the defense cuts outlined in the Strategic Defense and Security Review (.pdf) threaten to undermine Britain's ability to undertake expeditionary operations. For the first time in centuries, the United Kingdom will effectively lose the ability to conduct unilateral expeditionary war.
I'm an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky.
Post Election Observations
My notebook from election night. I didn't live blog it as I was actually trying to use the notebook as a civics lesson for my teenage daughter. Not sure how much mileage I got from that...The biggest losers last night were Washington, DC, MSNBC/NBC, CBS, and CNN. Watching CNN and MSNBC in particular was brutal TV last night - their problem is they don't have anyone interesting or insightful. Even Rachel Maddow, who I usually like, seemed off her game. ABC and Fox both did a good job IMO.
You are a fool in denial if you don't understand why the Democrat Party got destroyed on Tuesday. My health care premiums are about $2000 higher per year now than they were last year and my taxes are about to go up. The Obama administration agenda to date in DC is 100% the reason for both of those things. That is the state of now for small business owners in the US, one of the main reasons no one can afford to hire anyone, and based on the election results - it turns out I'm not the only small business owner who has noticed these impacts. For all the talk about Democrats in DC supporting working family's - the results say otherwise and the Democrats paid dearly for being ineffective on the economy. Assigning blame is the tactic for losers, and blaming Bush as a tactic for economics made the Democrats losers after two years.
The bigger problem facing the Democrats right now is that they have exactly zero ideas people believe in regarding how to fix the economy. They also have no plans to manage the burdens of the new Health Care law on working families with it's staged enactment, nor find a way for the Bush Tax Cut expiration to avoid directly impacting most of the working class in the country over the next two years without compromising with the Republican House. A family of 4 who makes $50,000 a year is about to pay $2900 more in taxes, and a family of 4 who makes $100,000 a year is about to pay $4500. That is going to make for a lot of unhappy people who just voted Democrat in ignorance this election, because most of them do not realize they are "the rich" who Bush tax cuts impact.
If Democrats think today is bad today, give it two months without making serious changes to policy and I'll show you what 'a lot worse' feels like. America is not in a good place right now, and an election result that just made things even more partisan on both sides will just amplify how things are bad - and trending worse.
Ike Skelton and Gene Taylor both went down. That is a combined 55 years of experience lost on the left in the House Armed Services Committee in 2 races. The bench on the left for Defense in the House has almost no depth, and quite frankly I don't see the left leaning Think Tanks producing any serious discussions either in the mainstream. This is not a good trend for Democrats in general or progressives specifically.
The last two elections demonstrate to me just how old and out of touch folks like Eugene Robinson are in America, and how he - and not America, is who can't let go of prejudice. I can no longer observe elections in America and take his racial arguments in politics seriously, indeed what we have seen the last two elections really does highlight how far America has moved from the civil rights movement, and how far folks like Eugene Robinson are removed from the mainstream. Whether the example is the President, Hillary who almost beat him in the primary, Palin who was the Vice President nominee, or the increasing number of minority candidates that are carrying predominately white districts in the South - it seems to be lost on folks like Eugene Robinson that our nation has the cultural ability to move beyond simple prejudices like skin color or sex and focus on what matters about people in the post civil rights generations - and that really is something unique to America. As a boy from the south - I see it clear as day because I know what racism looks like. As an entrenched career media elitist in Washington, DC - I'm not surprised he doesn't get it anymore.
Real Clear Politics stopped at +61 pickups for the Republicans in the House and +6 pickups for Republicans in the Senate. Partisans on both sides are going to spin this towards their agenda, but that's a brutal loss by every standard. Politics in the US today are extremely volatile, and have been for most of the elections in the 21st century starting with Florida in 2000 (2002 was really the only exception). I don't think the Republican party will be able to work with the Tea Party movement without serious problems, and I don't think the Democrat party will learn the right lessons from these election results.
The only lesson I take from Tuesday is that if you write down the most unlikely, most unpredictable result for the 2012 election - that is probably what happens. Right now the middle in America is completely up for grabs, and both parties are in a hurry to be more progressive, or more conservative.
The Tea Party movement in 2010 looks to me to be a lot like the netroots movement of 2006, except far less organized. Both grassroots organizations eat their own first, and neither organization has any tolerance for cooperation with the other party. One thing I find interesting about the Tea Party though is how it means different things in different states. In New York, for example, the tea party is fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Is that what the Tea Party is everywhere? I doubt it. It seems to me the Tea Party is a loose affiliation of voters united under a fiscally conservative approach in Washington - and doesn't seem to care much about social issues - but ironically, it seems that the social aspect of the candidate (as it relates in the specific state) is ultimately what made the candidate successful or not. Thought that was interesting.
I do not see a bipartisan future in Washington, and the only question will be whether gridlock will improve the economy. If the economy doesn't improve, the next two years are going to be brutal - for Americans.
The Election, The Coming Pain, and the Opportunity
Some of you know that I blog elsewhere in a blatantly biased political fashion. I try (but don't always succeed) to keep it down the middle here. Some things to think about in last night's results.
The losses of Gene Taylor and Ike Skelton will make some navalists nervous. I'll miss Skelton, as I always considered him to be a thoughtful and insightful legislator. Mr. Taylor however, has been a mixed blessing to the Navy over the years, and I don't think his departure will turn out to be a bad thing.
What does the election of a majority Republican Congress mean for navalists? Pain. And here's why.
The Republican majority in the House was put there by an electorate that wishes to see government restrain its spending. Democrats--when in power--have a difficult time cutting defense without looking "soft", while Republicans seem to have no such handicap. When all is said and done, the new Republican majority will want to GET THINGS DONE, and to them, that means budget cutting. Defense spending will be on the table, as they will need to offer the more moderate Senate evidence that their cuts aren't exclusively going to be borne by domestic and social programs. Trades in defense will be made in order to achieve cuts in other programs, including entitlements.
The Department of Defense, unable to objectively assess the relation of grand strategy to resource allocation, will respond with horizontal cuts across the services, and the Navy will suffer its "share" of pain. We will, as I've said before, move toward a military that does essentially the same things, except in fewer places, less often and less well.
But there is an opportunity here, and I hope the Congress and the Administration seize it. There is an opportunity to fundamentally reassess the DoD budget in a way that looks forward, not backward. It is an opportunity to address the challenges of a rising China and our commitment to existing security balances in East Asia. We cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths anymore, waving the "winning the wars we're in" flag as we actively discuss withdrawal timetables. A dramatically decreased defense budget (which I believe is coming) MUST be seen as the driver for thinking differently about how our military power will best serve the strategic ends of the Republic. Will it be used to extend and sustain our position in the global system, or will it be misused in a misguided effort to play Whackamole against the world's endless insurgencies, sapping our strength as our strategic competitors gain in theirs?
I urge the House Armed Services Committee to begin a round of hearings to assess the status of our strategy/resources match, in a manner that leaves open the possibility of fundamental re-alignment. The HASC and the Administration should embrace "creative tension" in order to determine how best to protect, preserve and extend American leadership in a changing world, and the value and logic of equal or near equal shares of the budget pie to each of the Services should be on the table from Day 1.
Like the wise man in the Pentagon once told me, when you run out of money, it is time to think.
Bryan McGrath
The losses of Gene Taylor and Ike Skelton will make some navalists nervous. I'll miss Skelton, as I always considered him to be a thoughtful and insightful legislator. Mr. Taylor however, has been a mixed blessing to the Navy over the years, and I don't think his departure will turn out to be a bad thing.
What does the election of a majority Republican Congress mean for navalists? Pain. And here's why.
The Republican majority in the House was put there by an electorate that wishes to see government restrain its spending. Democrats--when in power--have a difficult time cutting defense without looking "soft", while Republicans seem to have no such handicap. When all is said and done, the new Republican majority will want to GET THINGS DONE, and to them, that means budget cutting. Defense spending will be on the table, as they will need to offer the more moderate Senate evidence that their cuts aren't exclusively going to be borne by domestic and social programs. Trades in defense will be made in order to achieve cuts in other programs, including entitlements.
The Department of Defense, unable to objectively assess the relation of grand strategy to resource allocation, will respond with horizontal cuts across the services, and the Navy will suffer its "share" of pain. We will, as I've said before, move toward a military that does essentially the same things, except in fewer places, less often and less well.
But there is an opportunity here, and I hope the Congress and the Administration seize it. There is an opportunity to fundamentally reassess the DoD budget in a way that looks forward, not backward. It is an opportunity to address the challenges of a rising China and our commitment to existing security balances in East Asia. We cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths anymore, waving the "winning the wars we're in" flag as we actively discuss withdrawal timetables. A dramatically decreased defense budget (which I believe is coming) MUST be seen as the driver for thinking differently about how our military power will best serve the strategic ends of the Republic. Will it be used to extend and sustain our position in the global system, or will it be misused in a misguided effort to play Whackamole against the world's endless insurgencies, sapping our strength as our strategic competitors gain in theirs?
I urge the House Armed Services Committee to begin a round of hearings to assess the status of our strategy/resources match, in a manner that leaves open the possibility of fundamental re-alignment. The HASC and the Administration should embrace "creative tension" in order to determine how best to protect, preserve and extend American leadership in a changing world, and the value and logic of equal or near equal shares of the budget pie to each of the Services should be on the table from Day 1.
Like the wise man in the Pentagon once told me, when you run out of money, it is time to think.
Bryan McGrath
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