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UNITED STATES NEW GLOBAL STRIKE POWER

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US's strike threat catches China off guard
By Peter J Brown

The United States plans to unveil later this decade a new conventional "Prompt Global Strike" (C-PGS) system. It will enable the US to instantly carry out a massive conventional attack anywhere in the world in an hour or less.

Research and development work by the US Department of Defense (DoD) on C-PGS began almost two decades ago, and this shifted into high gear in 2003. Instead of delivering a nuclear warhead, a new US-based missile and/or some other unmanned delivery vehicle may carry a conventional warhead that is able to destroy a distant target in less than an hour.

The DoD issued the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on February 1 - which is mandated by the US Congress. It




specifically mentions C-PGS prototypes as well as other "long-range strike" capabilities.

"The US cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence," wrote US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a commentary accompanying the 2010 QDR entitled, "A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon For a New Age".

"In the case of China, Beijing's investments in cyberwarfare, anti-satellite warfare, anti-aircraft and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles could threaten the United States' primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific: bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them. This will put a premium on the United States' ability to strike from over the horizon and employ missile defenses and will require shifts from short-range to longer-range systems, such as the next-generation bomber."

Gates struck a balance, however, later in his commentary.

"We should be modest about what military force can accomplish and what technology can accomplish. The advances in precision, sensor, information, and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains in what the US military can do," Gates wrote. "The Taliban were dispatched within three months; Saddam [Hussein]'s regime was toppled in three weeks. A button can be pushed in Nevada, and seconds later a pickup truck will explode in Mosul. A bomb dropped from the sky can destroy a targeted house while leaving the one next to it intact."

How best to address the C-PGS program is proving to be a tricky subject for China because there is considerable uncertainty surrounding it.

"It's an emerging realization. I don't think the Chinese have fully come to grips with it," said Dr Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the Washington DC-based New America Foundation. "At some level, the Chinese see the US as investing in precision conventional munitions and have made their own parallel investments. But the more interesting question - 'Could conventional forces hold at risk China's nuclear forces?' - is something that seems to be just settling in."

One senior US policy analyst wonders whether this has China both confused and concerned about the program.

"Confused because I don't think anyone could explain to them what [C-PGS] entailed and perhaps still cannot with any fidelity, and concerned because it is seen as another aspect of American hegemony and space domination plans, and because it potentially changes US nuclear strategy in unanticipated and perhaps undesirable ways," said this analyst.

Lewis points to a recent meeting, a so-called US-China Track II exchange, involving many US and Chinese participants, which demonstrated how the Chinese may have been caught off guard by the way in which C-PGS has suddenly appeared on their radar screen.

"US participants tried to explain the problem with making a 'no first use' promise. What would happen, they asked, if the United States attacked China's nuclear forces with conventional weapons? Would China still adhere to its 'no first use' promise?" said Lewis. "The Chinese side did not understand that the Americans were engaging in a clumsy 'thought experiment' that was purely illustrative, but instead believed that they had been subjected to a very serious threat of coercion. Such misunderstandings are inevitable and, in fact, this is why Track II discussions are essential. It simply illustrates the point that Chinese and American strategists have yet to think through what impact [C-PGS] will have on strategic stability."

As a result, Lewis doubts that China has formed a consensus yet about how to it should view US conventional strike capabilities emerging under the banner of C-PGS.

"It seems likely that Chinese defense planners will coalesce around the idea that the US is undertaking an open-ended strategic modernization which focuses largely on missile defenses and conventional strike capabilities, and that China needs to continue to improve the survivability of nuclear forces, largely through mobility, and continue to investigate ways to disrupt US command, control and intelligence capabilities," said Lewis.

It is best not to rule anything out when addressing the topic of C-PGS because there are so many variables involved, and so many possible outcomes as well. A report by the Washington, DC-based Center for Defense Information in 2008 - "An Examination of the Pentagon’s Prompt Global Strike Program: Rationale, Implementation, and Risks" - concluded, among other things, that:
[W]eapon systems developed in pursuit of a PGS capability could raise the probability of an inadvertent nuclear exchange and complicate future arms control negotiations. Accordingly, the ramifications of a PGS capability must be considered within the context of US arms control, nonproliferation and nuclear safety objectives. Only then will policy-makers and Congress be able make informed assessments of the potential advantages, risks and tradeoffs of PGS. As members of Congress consider future DoD budget requests for PGS programs, they should take care to remember that achieving a PGS capability is not an end in and of itself; it only has value in as much as it helps US achieve its broader goals of thwarting attacks on the US homeland, promoting a stable international environment and preventing further proliferation and use of WMDs [weapons of mass destruction].
For years, several DoD-funded C-PGS projects have proceeded, including the Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle (HTV), the Blackswift hypersonic aircraft, the X-51 scramjet-powered vehicle, and the Conventional Strike Missile, or CSM, which is a modified Minuteman III ballistic missile, to name a few. The US Air Force (USAF) Research Laboratory, the USAF Space and Missile Center, and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency oversee this activity.

CSM is the definite frontrunner as the C-PGS development effort unfolds. US defense giant Lockheed Martin, which plays a central role in the satellite-based US Global Positioning System (GPS) that supports global positioning, navigation, and timing, is also a lead contractor for C-PGS.

In late December, the DoD announced that Lockheed Martin was awarded just over US$16 million "for all design elements through the preliminary design review. Lockheed Martin shall design, fabricate, integrate and test payload delivery vehicle for flight demonstration for the [C-PGS] capability."

Using above-ground launch facilities for CSM is seen by US military planners as a way to make it easy for China and Russia to distinguish quickly that the US missile in question is being fired as part of a C-PGS strike and not a nuclear strike. It is quite likely that CSM will be based at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and fall directly under the command of the US Strategic Command rather than the new USAF Global Strike Command.

USAF General Kevin Chilton, head of the US Strategic Command, recently said that a C-PGS deployment by 2016 is a "reasonable objective" and yet "he wanted to see a first [CSM] missile on alert, with two spares, before the end of 2012" [1]

That may be optimistic, according to Jason Sigger, a Washington DC-based defense policy analyst who maintains a blogsite called Armchair Generalist. "I question Chilton's insistence that we have this capability in the near term - I just don't see the urgency," he said.

"This capability, in particular, calling for persistent surveillance, electronic warfare, and precision attack capabilities, is going to be tricky. I don't particularly like our military's reliance on technology, but I understand it. We really need to downscope and emphasize good, sustainable weapon systems and better training, rather than to build smart UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and 24-hour strike capabilities."

US submarines carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles, bombers carrying the same type of cruise missiles, along with UAVs such as Reapers and soon perhaps stealthy US aircraft carrier-based UAVs, might be tapped to conduct C-PGS strikes. However, the US Navy's Trident submarine-launch ballistic missiles have already been ruled out by the US Congress for possible C-PGS missions.

C-PGS fits quite neatly into President Barack Obama's "Global Zero" plan to create a nuclear-free world. Still, the 2010 QDR will only prompt opponents of C-PGS to speak out more loudly. Consider what Alexei Arbatov, a scholar in residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, stated at a recent conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
There are very few countries in the world that are afraid of American nuclear weapons. But there are many countries that are afraid of American conventional weapons. In particular, nuclear weapons states like China and Russia are primarily concerned about growing American conventional, precision-guided, long-range capability, [or C-PGS] systems.
[2] The Russians comprehend the inherent ambiguity in the US initiative, and they quickly became the most vocal and adamant opponents of C-PGS in general. It was the strong message from Russia that helped to cancel out the Trident in terms of any C-PGS role after the Russians argued successfully that it would be virtually impossible for them to discern quickly whether a long-range missile fired from a US submarine was carrying a nuclear or a conventional warhead.

Russia may brand CSM as an unwelcome spin off of Trident in this regard.

Now that China has terminated all military-to-military exchanges as a result of the US decision to proceed with arms sales to Taiwan, many important issues including C-PGS will probably not be addressed at all in the coming months. And strangely, China in past discussions with the US on nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament has often alluded to the need for the US to be more mindful of the overall superiority of its conventional firepower.

Whether or not China and the US are talking, Japan is proceeding with the launch of its Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). The emergence of the QZSS satellite constellation coupled with the recent approval by the Diet (parliament) of Japan's New Basic Law for Space Utilization - which opens the door for Japan's military space programs - are two important and related developments which China is watching closely.

QZSS works closely in tandem with the US GPS System, for example. It is designed to vastly improve the overall accuracy and availability of satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing information in Japan and East Asia as well as, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia and Australia.

Both QZSS and the Basic Law involve their own inherent element of ambiguity. While both impact commercial activities in Japan, both could influence the shape and scope of future joint US-Japanese military programs as well the US C-PGS program.

Plans call for the four QZSS monitoring stations in Japan - these are in Hokkaido, Koganei, Ogasawara and Okinawa - to be joined by five other QZSS monitoring stations in India, Hawaii, Guam, Thailand and Australia. QZSS signals are easily accessed over the entire Korean peninsula as well and do not require ground stations there.

While Japan prefers to promote the vast array of commercial and civilian applications of QZSS technology, the military applications cannot be overlooked. QZSS is tied directly to the US GPS satellites, and China is certainly aware of this link. Could QZSS pose a threat to China? This seems entirely feasible.

New Japanese satellites in this instance may seem to be of little consequence, but here again, the ambiguity is pervasive. China remains confused and concerned in the process, and perhaps believes that the US C-PGS program may already exist under another name. The lack of clarity that surrounds this program may make it quite difficult for Beijing and Moscow to figure out exactly what the US is up to here. On the other hand, the US is quite capable of deliberately orchestrating this ambiguity so that North Korea and Iran in particular can only guess what exactly the US has in mind.



Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.


GUYS IN THIS THREAD WE DISCUSS ABOUT THIS US'S NEW CONVENTIONAL POWER:cheers:
 
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some other updates:Prompt Global Strike Vs nuclear weapons Formae Mentis NGO?


According to senior officials in the Obama administration, the U.S. is to significantly and permanently reduce its stockpile of nuclear weapons by thousands of weapons as part of a major rethinking of American nuclear policy.


Boeing X-51


As part of the new policy, conventional weapons will have a greater role in the future. According to officials, there are thousands of weapons that could be retired, largely by eliminating those currently stored.

The move comes as a significant step towards Obama’s stated goal of reducing and eventually ending the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide.

The policy changes come as part of the Nuclear Posture Review, a document which is undertaken by all presidents. In addition to the reduction of nuclear weapons, Obama’s review will also adjust the United States’ defense towards non-nuclear options, including missile defense, largely within striking distance of the Persian Gulf to reduce the threat posed by countries such as Iran.

A centerpiece of the new policy is a new plan called the “Prompt Global Strike,” which involves a new type of conventional weapon that could be fired from the U.S. and reach anywhere in the world within an hour, providing an effective option for attacks worldwide, such as against a missile launch from North Korea or a strike against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The new weapons would achieve the same effects as nuclear weapons, without the threat of conventional war escalating into nuclear war.

The changes reflect a new focus on nonproliferation and arms control by the Obama administration, policies that were largely dismissed by the Bush administration. In conjunction with new domestic policies, the Obama administration is trying to win passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear explosions for any purposes.

The treaty was defeated in the 1990s, during the Clinton presidency, and still faces strong resistance in the U.S. Senate. The Obama administration is also trying to revise the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close loopholes that been exploited by North Korea and Iran.

The administration has also been pressured to redefine the role of America’s nuclear arsenal. Democrats have been pressuring the administration to formally declare that the role of America’s nuclear weapons is solely to deter nuclear attack on the United States.

American military officials, as well as some officials within the White House, however, have urged the administration to retain more ambiguous wording from the Bush era, which says that nuclear deterrence is only the primary role of American nuclear weapons, which would leave open the option of using nuclear weapons against enemies that threaten the US with chemical or biological weapons.
 
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u.s starts to think from a point were everybody stops,thats why they a global power

Countries around the world are trying to make a 5th Generation Fighter & they have started thinking about 6th Generation Fighters :usflag: :usflag:


The Sixth Generation Fighter


By John A. Tirpak
Executive Editor
The technologies are emerging, but what’s needed is a program to pull them together.

Within the next few years, we will begin work on the sixth generation [fighter] capabilities necessary for future air dominance.” The Secretary of the Air Force, Michael B. Donley, and the USAF Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, issued that statement in an April 13 Washington Post article.

The Air Force may have to move a little faster to develop that next generation fighter. While anticipated F-22 and F-35 inventories seem settled, there won’t be enough to fix shortfalls in the fighter fleet over the next 20 years, as legacy fighters retire faster than fifth generation replacements appear.

The Air Force will have to answer a host of tough questions about the nature of the next fighter.

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Should it provide a true “quantum leap” in capability, from fifth to sixth generation, or will some interim level of technology suffice? When will it have to appear? What kinds of fighters will potential adversaries be fielding in the next 20 years? And, if the program is delayed, will a defense industry with nothing to work on in the meantime lose its know-how to deliver the needed system?

What seems certain is that more is riding on the Air Force’s answers than just replacing worn-out combat aircraft.

Initial concept studies for what would become the F-22 began in the early 1980s, when production of the F-15 was just hitting its stride. It took 20 years to go from those concepts to initial operational capability. Industry leaders believe that it will probably take another 20 years to field a next generation fighter.

That may be late to need. By 2030, according to internal USAF analyses, the service could be as many as 971 aircraft short of its minimum required inventory of 2,250 fighters. That assumes that all planned F-35s are built and delivered on time and at a rate of at least 48 per year. The shortfall is due to the mandatory retirement of F-15s and F-16s that will have exceeded their service lives and may no longer be safe to fly.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has set the tone for the tactical aviation debate. He opposed the F-22 as being an expensive, “exquisite” solution to air combat requirements, and has put emphasis on the less costly F-35 Lightning II instead. He considers it exemplary of the kind of multirole platforms, applicable to a wide variety of uses, that he believes the US military should be buying in coming years. He and his technology managers have described this approach as the “75 percent” solution.

Gates has also forecast that a Russian fifth generation fighter will be operational in 2016—Russia says it will fly the fighter this year—and a Chinese version just four years later. Given that US legacy fighters are already matched or outclassed by “generation four-plus-plus” fighters, if Russia and China build their fifth generation fighters in large numbers, the US would be at a clear airpower disadvantage in the middle of the 2020s. That’s a distinct possibility, as both countries have openly stated their intentions to build world-class air fleets. If they do, the 75 percent solution fails.

What You See Is What You Get

The Air Force declined to offer official comment on the status of its sixth generation fighter efforts. Privately, senior leaders have said they have been waiting to see how the F-22 and F-35 issues sorted out before establishing a structured program for a next generation fighter.

The Air Force has a large classified budget, but it seems there is no “black” sixth generation fighter program waiting in the wings. A senior industry official, with long-term, intimate knowledge of classified efforts, said the F-22 wasn’t stopped at 187 aircraft because a secret, better fighter is nearly ready to be deployed. He said, “What you see is what you get.”

That opinion was borne out in interviews with the top aeronautic technologists of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the three largest remaining US airframers. They said they were unaware of an official, dedicated Air Force sixth generation fighter program and are anxiously waiting to see what capabilities the service wants in such a fighter.

The possibilities for a sixth generation fighter seem almost the stuff of science fiction.

It would likely be far stealthier than even the fifth generation aircraft. It may be able to change its shape in flight, “morphing” to optimize for either speed or persistence, and its engines will likely be retunable in-flight for efficient supersonic cruise or subsonic loitering.


The sixth generation fighter will likely have directed energy weapons—high-powered microwaves and lasers for defense against incoming missiles or as offensive weapons themselves. Munitions would likely be of the “dial an effect” type, able to cause anything from impairment to destruction of an air or ground target.

Materials and microelectronics technologies would combine to make the aircraft a large integrated sensor, possibly eliminating the need for a nose radar as it is known today. It would be equipped for making cyber attacks as well as achieving kinetic effects, but would still have to be cost-effective to make, service, and modify.

Moreover, the rapid advancement of unmanned aircraft technologies could, in 20 years or so, make feasible production of an autonomous robotic fighter. However, that is considered less likely than the emergence of an uninhabited but remotely piloted aircraft with an off-board “crew,” possibly comprising many operators.

Not clear, yet, is whether the mission should be fulfilled by a single, multirole platform or a series of smaller, specialized aircraft, working in concert.

“I think this next round [of fighter development] is probably going to be dominated by ever-increasing amounts of command and control information,” said Paul K. Meyer, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Programs and Technology Division.

Meyer forecast that vast amounts of data will be available to the pilot, who may or may not be on board the aircraft. The pilot will see wide-ranging, intuitive views of “the extended world” around the aircraft, he noted. The aircraft will collect its own data and seamlessly fuse it with off-board sensors, including those on other aircraft. The difference from fifth generation will be the level of detail and certainty—the long-sought automatic target recognition.

Directed Energy Weapons

Embedded sensors and microelectronics will also make possible sensor arrays in “locations that previously weren’t available because of either heat or the curvature of the surface,” providing more powerful and comprehensive views of the battlefield, Meyer noted. Although the aircraft probably won’t be autonomous, he said, it will be able to “learn” and advise the pilot as to what actions to take—specifically, whether a target should be incapacitated temporarily, damaged, or destroyed.

Traditional electronics will probably give way to photonics, said Darryl W. Davis, president of Boeing’s advanced systems division.

“You could have fewer wires,” said Davis. “You’re on a multiplexed, fiber-optic bus ... that connects all the systems, and because you can do things at different wavelengths of light, you can move lots of data around airplanes much faster, with much less weight in terms of ... wire bundles.”

Fiber optics would also be resistant to jamming or spoofing of data and less prone to cyber attack.

A “digital wingman” could accompany the main fighter as an extra sensor-shooter smart enough to take verbal instructions, Meyer forecasted.

Directed energy weapons could play a big role in deciding how agile a sixth generation fighter would have to be, Meyer noted. “Speed of light” weapons, he added, could “negate” the importance of “the maneuverability we see in today’s fashionable fighters.” There won’t be time to maneuver away from a directed energy attack.

Pulse weapons could also fry an enemy aircraft’s systems—or those of a ground target. Based on what “we have seen and we make at Northrop Grumman,” Meyer said, “in the next 20 years ... that type of technology is going to be available.”

With an appropriate engine—possibly an auxiliary engine—on board to provide power for directed energy weapons, there could be an “unlimited magazine” of shots, Meyer said.

Hypersonics—that is, the ability of an air vehicle to travel at five times the speed of sound, or faster—has routinely been suggested as an attribute of sixth generation fighters, but the industry leaders are skeptical the capability will be ready in time.

While there have been some successes with experimental hypersonic propulsion, the total amount of true hypersonic flying time is less than 15 minutes, and the leap to an operational fighter in 20 years might be a leap too far.

“It entails a whole new range of materials development, due to ... sensors, fuzes, apertures, etc.,” Meyer noted, “all of which must operate in that intense heat environment at ... Mach 5-plus.”

Still, “it is indeed an option that we would consider” because targets will be fleeting and require quick, surgical strikes at great distances. However, such an approach would probably be incompatible with a loitering capability.

Davis said he thinks hypersonics “will start to show up in sixth generation,” but not initially as the platform’s power plant, but rather in the aircraft’s kinetic munitions.

“I think it will start with applications to weapons,” Davis said. And they may not necessarily be just weapons but “high-speed reconnaissance platforms for short missions on the way to the target.”

Because of the extreme speed of hypersonic platforms and especially directed energy weapons, Davis thinks it will be critical to have “persistent eyes on target” because speed-of-light weapons can’t be recalled “once you’ve pulled the trigger,” and even at hypersonic speed, a target may move before the weapon arrives. That would suggest a flotilla of stealthy drones or sensors positioned around the battlefield.

Not only will hypersonics require years more work, Davis said it must be combined with other, variable-cycle engines that will allow an aircraft to take off from sea level, climb to high altitude, and then engage a hypersonic engine. Those enabling propulsion elements are not necessarily near at hand in a single package.

The sixth generation fighter, whatever it turns out to be, will still be a machine and will need to be serviced, repaired, and modified, according to Neil Kacena, deputy director of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects division. He is less confident that major systems such as radar will be embedded in the aircraft skin.

“If the radar doesn’t work, and now you have to take the wing off, ... then that may not be the technology that will find its way onto a sixth gen aircraft,” he said. In designing the next fighter, life cycle costs will be crucial, and so practical considerations will have to be accommodated.

Toward that end, he said, Lockheed Martin is working on new composite manufacturing techniques that use far fewer fasteners, less costly tooling, and therefore lower start-up and sustainment costs. It demonstrated those technologies recently on the Advanced Composite Cargo Aircraft program.

Given the anticipated capabilities of the Russian and Chinese fifth generation fighters, when will a sixth generation aircraft have to be available?

Davis said the Air Force and Navy, not industry, will have to decide how soon they need a new generation of fighters. However, “if the services are thinking they need something in 2020” when foreign fifth generation fighters could be proliferating in large numbers, “we’re going to have to do some things to our existing generation of platforms,” such as add the directed energy weapons or other enhancements.

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Kacena agreed, saying that Lockheed Martin has “engaged with both services and supplied them data and our perspectives” about the next round of fighter development. If the need exists to make a true quantum leap, then sixth generation is the way to go, but, “if it’s driven by the reduction in force structure [and] ... the equipment is just getting old and worn out in that time frame, then [we] may very well be on a path of continuous improvement of fifth generation capabilities.” Lockheed Martin makes both the F-22 and F-35.

He said the company’s goal is to find the knee in the curve where “you get them the most bang for the buck without an 80 to 90 percent solution. Something that doesn’t take them beyond the nonlinear increase in cost.”

Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance and a fighter pilot, said the next fighter generation may well have characteristics fundamentally different from any seen today, but he urged defense decision-makers to keep an open mind and not ignore hard-learned lessons from history.

Although great strides have been made in unmanned aircraft, said Deptula, “we have a long way to go to achieve the degree of 360-degree spherical situation awareness, rapid assimilation of information, and translation of that information into action that the human brain, linked with its on-site sensors, can accomplish.”

Numbers Count, Too

Despite rapid increases in computer processing power, it will be difficult for a machine to cope with “an infinite number of potential situations that are occurring in split seconds,” Deptula added, noting that, until such a capability is proved, “we will still require manned aircraft.”

It’s important to note that America’s potential adversaries will have access to nearly all the technologies now only resident with US forces, Deptula said. Thinking 20 to 30 years out, it will be necessary to invest properly to retain things US forces depend on, such as air superiority.

However, he warned not to put too much emphasis on technology, per se. “Just as precision air weapons and, to a certain degree, cyberspace are redefining our definition of mass in today’s fight, we have to be very wary of how quickly ‘mass’ in its classic sense can return in an era of mass-precision and mass-cyber capabilities for all.”

In other words, numbers count, and too few fighters, even if they are extremely advanced, are still too few.

Hanging over the sixth generation fighter debate is this stark fact: The relevant program should now be well under way, but it has not even been defined. If the Pentagon wants a sixth generation capability, it will have to demonstrate that intent, and soon. Industry needs that clear signal if it is to invest its own money in developing the technologies needed to make the sixth generation fighter come about.

Moreover, the sixth generation program is necessary to keep the US aerospace industry on the cutting edge. Unless it is challenged, if the “90 percent” solution is needed in the future, industry may not be able to answer the call.

Under Gates, Pentagon technology leaders have said they want to avoid cost and schedule problems by deferring development until technologies are more mature. Unfortunately, this safe and steady approach does not stimulate leap-ahead technologies.

Meyer said, “We need to have challenges to our innovative thoughts, our engineering talents, our technology integration and development that would ... push us ... to the point where industry has to perform beyond expectations.”

He noted that today’s F-35 is predicated on largely proven technologies and “affordability,” but it was the B-2 and F-22 programs that really paved the way for the systems that underpin modern air combat.

The B-2 bomber, he noted, “was a program of significant discovery,” because it involved a great deal of invention to meet required performance. The B-2 demanded “taking ... basic research and developing it in the early ... phases” of the program, which yielded nonfaceted stealth, enhanced range and payload, nuclear hardening, new antennas, radars, and flight controls.

Today, Meyer said, most programs are entering full-scale development only when they’ve reached a technology readiness level of six or higher (see chart).

“We probably had elements on the B-2 ... that were at four, and a lot at five,” Meyer said.

Programs such as the sixth generation fighter “are the ones we relish because they make us think, they make us take risks that we wouldn’t normally take, and in taking on those risks we’ve discovered the new technologies that have made our industry great,” he asserted.

Davis said that other countries are going to school on the US fighter industry and taking its lessons to heart.

“We still think you have to build things—fly them and test them—in order to know what works and what doesn’t,” said Davis. “And, at some point, if you don’t do that, just do it theoretically, it doesn’t get you where you need to be.”

He added, “If we don’t continue to move forward, they will catch us.”

The Sixth Generation Fighter
 
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http://www.*******.com/file/251264199/f0b22760/Russia_and_the_Prompt_Global_S.html
 
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A Progressive View on Military Affairs C-PGS

At Aisa Times, Peter Brown discusses DOD's desire for "conventional prompt global strike or C-PGS. This topic got a few paragraphs in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review. He gets some observations from two good sources: Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and, ah, ME.

Research and development work by the US Department of Defense (DoD) on C-PGS began almost two decades ago, and this shifted into high gear in 2003. Instead of delivering a nuclear warhead, a new US-based missile and/or some other unmanned delivery vehicle may carry a conventional warhead that is able to destroy a distant target in less than an hour.

The DoD issued the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on February 1 - which is mandated by the US Congress. It specifically mentions C-PGS prototypes as well as other "long-range strike" capabilities.
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How best to address the C-PGS program is proving to be a tricky subject for China because there is considerable uncertainty surrounding it.

"It's an emerging realization. I don't think the Chinese have fully come to grips with it," said Dr Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the Washington DC-based New America Foundation. "At some level, the Chinese see the US as investing in precision conventional munitions and have made their own parallel investments. But the more interesting question - 'Could conventional forces hold at risk China's nuclear forces?' - is something that seems to be just settling in."
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USAF General Kevin Chilton, head of the US Strategic Command, recently said that a C-PGS deployment by 2016 is a "reasonable objective" and yet "he wanted to see a first [CSM] missile on alert, with two spares, before the end of 2012."

That may be optimistic, according to Jason Sigger, a Washington DC-based defense policy analyst who maintains a blogsite called Armchair Generalist. "I question Chilton's insistence that we have this capability in the near term - I just don't see the urgency," he said.

"This capability, in particular, calling for persistent surveillance, electronic warfare, and precision attack capabilities, is going to be tricky. I don't particularly like our military's reliance on technology, but I understand it. We really need to downscope and emphasize good, sustainable weapon systems and better training, rather than to build smart UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] and 24-hour [available] strike capabilities."

I hadn't actually thought about the concept of using C-PSG against an adversary's strategic nuclear force. I do know of Russia's desire to consider conventional long-range bombers as "strategic" issues of concern, thought. My thoughts were that, sure, some people in the military probably think that it would be pretty cool to be able to get a call from an agent in the field, pick up a phone and say "launch Delta 54 on these coordinates," and be able to destroy a target anywhere on the globe from the United States within the hour. But is this a sound concept? Let's look at two scenarios.

First there's the scenario of a conventional combat operation against another nation or against insurgent forces. Why do we need prompt global strike in this situation? Nine times out of ten, we'll have lots of combat power in theater to handle any identified threat, because that's how US military forces roll. So there is the other scenario - that the US military has not deployed, but there is some high-value target that the US government has decided has to be hit, and there are no forces in theater, there are no allies to assist us. So someone picks up the phone and dials it in (assuming that the military wants "eyes on" target and isn't working off of "near-real time" satellite coverage). I call this the "24" scenario.

In this second scenario, we're risking strategic interests to take out a tactical target. What if the asset mistook the target or entered the wrong GPS coordinates? what if the asset moves within the hour? what if the missile goes off course flying from the United States over the ocean and into Europe/Africa/Asia? It would be a shame to take out the Chinese embassy again, when you were aiming at an insurgent headquarters. And then there's the China/Russia strategic concern that's mentioned in the article.

As SecDef Gates calls for less gold-plating of defense acquisition projects and more realistic technology objectives that permits faster fielding and less expensive capabilities, this C-PSG really sounds half-
baked.

Armchair Generalist: Why Do We Need Prompt Global Strike?
 
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