Revised U.S. Fleet Plan Extends Some Ships to 70 Years

he U.S. Navy's two command ships, each about 40 years old, are busy vessels. The Japan-based Blue Ridge, flagship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, recently completed a cruise around the Far East and supported relief operations in Japan. The Mount Whitney, flagship of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, served as a headquarters ship for the initial coalition strikes in March against Libya.

The U.S. 7th Fleet command ship Blue Ridge, left, and the guided-missile destroyer Stethem sail the Pacific. The Blue Ridge will serve until 2039 according to the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan. (MCS 3rd Class Brian A. Ston / U.S. Navy)

The ships are at a stage in their service lives where the Navy normally might be expected to plan for replacements. But in a recent update to the 30-year shipbuilding plans, the ships have been extended to serve another 28 years - until 2039.

That would mean the Blue Ridge, launched in January 1969, will have spent more than 70 years in the water. The Mount Whitney is one year younger.
A notional replacement ship, dubbed LCC(X) - or sometimes JCC(X), where the "J" stood for "Joint" - has faded in and out of several previous 30-year plans. The ships were always dropped for affordability reasons. The Navy then planned for the current ships to remain in service until 2029, and now has extended that deadline.
The 70-year planned service life might be a new record for an active Navy ship. Aircraft carriers are intended to serve for 50 years, and most surface combatants such as cruisers and destroyers are planned for 30-, 35- or 40-year lives. Only the sail frigate Constitution, a museum ship in Boston that was launched in 1797, has been in service longer, and she was never expected to last this long.
The revised command ship schedule is contained in an updated version of the Navy's 30-year plan sent to Congress in mid-May. The updates consist of several tables and a cover letter, and lack the explanations and written information provided in the full plan. Copies of some of the tables were acquired by Defense News.
Starting in 2011, the Navy is no longer required to submit a full plan each year to Congress, but rather is to tie the document to the Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategy document issued ever four years that outlines the requirements for U.S. military forces. Some in Congress, including Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., would rather return to annual filing requirements. Wittman, chairman of the House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee, has scheduled a hearing on the matter for June 1.
No major changes are in the new fleet plan, but some of the tweaks include:
■ As expected, a DDG 51-class Flight IIA destroyer was added in 2014, raising the number from one to two ships to be ordered. The Navy has previously discussed this addition, which is based on a multiyear procurement plan starting in 2013.
■ A fourth littoral combat ship (LCS) has been added to 2012, as reflected in the 2012 budget request.
■ Purchases of the T-AO fleet oilers have been brought forward to 2014 - also previously announced.
■ An extra T-AGOS ocean surveillance ship has been added in 2013.
■ One Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) has been eliminated in 2016, going from two to one.
■ The plan still reflects a Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) ship in 2013, but that ship will be eliminated, as called for in the 2011 defense budget finally passed in early May. The Navy intends to buy three MLPs, the third of which is in the 2012 budget request.
■ In the outyears, the Navy cut an LSD(X) landing ship dock replacement ship from 2039 and now plans to build 11 of the ships.
■ The first LPD(X) amphibious transport dock replacement is set for 2040.
■ A big-deck assault ship is planned for 2041.
■ The buys for LCS replacement ships in the 2030s have been beefed up, with three instead of two ships per year now scheduled for 2036 through 2041.
■ A new surface combatant, previously designated DDG(X), has become the DDG 51 Flight IV, scheduled to begin in 2032 with two ships per year through 2041, except for three ships in 2036. The move means the basic DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class design, first procured in 1985, will be bought continuously for at least 56 years.
The plan does not address shortfalls in major surface combatants - cruisers and destroyers - or in attack submarines.
With all ships accounted for, the revised plan shows the Navy purchasing 270 ships from 2012 through 2041, plus another five JHSVs using Army funds.

Al-Qaida Plotted to Kill Lockheed Martin Chief: Testimony

CHICAGO - A Pakistini-based branch of al-Qaida was hatching a plot to kill the head of U.S. defense group Lockheed Martin, self-confessed terrorist David Coleman Headley testified in a U.S. court Tuesday.

In this courtroom drawing, David Coleman Headley faces U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber on March 18 in Chicago. (Carol Renaud / AFP via Getty Images)

"There was a plan to kill him because he was making drones," Headley testified during the Chicago trial of his childhood friend, Tahawwur Hussain Rana.

Headley pleaded guilty to 12 terrorism charges related to the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks and other unrealized plots in the wake of his 2009 arrest in Chicago.
He is testifying against alleged co-conspirator Rana in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark.
Headley testified that he secretly used Rana's office computer for research on the plot to assassinate the Lockheed Martin executive but dismissed his brief online search there as insignificant.
"My research is more in-depth than Googling someone a couple of times," he testified during cross-examination by Rana's defense attorney.
Headley said he was working on the plot with Ilyas Kashmiri, the commander of the Pakistani-based terrorist organization Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI), and a senior member of al-Qaida.
Headley pleaded guilty to working with Kashmiri on a plot to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllen Posten, which published controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, after Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) got distracted with the Mumbai plot.
Rana is accused of providing Headley with a cover and acting as a messenger, with prosecutors alleging he played a behind-the-scenes logistical role in both the Mumbai attacks and another abortive plan to strike Copenhagen.
Rana, a Canadian-Pakistani and Chicago businessman, has denied all charges, and his defense attorneys argue that he was duped by his friend, whom he had met in military school.

Gates To Reassure Asian Allies on Military Ties

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to reassure anxious allies in Asia this week that the U.S. military will maintain a strong presence in the region despite budget pressures at home, officials said.

The Pentagon chief will address the allies' concerns "head on" at a security conference this week in Singapore, said a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
As Washington moves to tackle a ballooning deficit and debt, Asian allies fear a scaling back of the U.S. military's role just as China's armed forces take a more assertive stance, defense officials said.
"There's no doubt that the region has that concern, and I think it's one that we're well aware of, and hence it's one the secretary will want to address," the official told reporters.
Gates, who departs May 31 on his global tour, will seek "to assure the region that we will maintain our commitments in the region and that we have both the capability in addition to the will to do so," the official said.
In a speech in Singapore, Gates is "going to talk in greater detail than in the past about what we in DoD (Department of Defense) are doing to make that more tangible, specifically in terms of U.S. presence in the region," the official said.
Gates will stress that the United States is "not distracted" from defense issues in Asia despite crises elsewhere in the world, the official said.
In his last international trip as defense secretary before he steps down at the end of June, Gates will use the speech at the security summit in Singapore to discuss U.S. policy on Asia and the underlying principles that guide it, officials said.
After arriving June 2 in Singapore following a stop in Hawaii, Gates plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Liang Guanglie, to try "to build on the positive momentum that exists in the military-to-military relationship right now," a second official said.
Last year's conference in Singapore was marked by sharp exchanges between Gates and senior Chinese generals, who said U.S. arms sales to Taiwan remained a serious obstacle to building a security dialogue between the two countries.
But officials have cited positive signs more recently, with Gates having traveled to China in January and the People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde making a week-long U.S. visit earlier this month.
During his U.S. tour, Chen struck a mostly conciliatory tone and said his country had no plans to take on the American military in the Pacific.
In his talks with Liang in Singapore, Gates hopes to renew his proposal for a civilian-military dialogue that would address "sensitive security issues," including nuclear weapons, missile defense and cyber warfare, officials said. The Chinese have yet to agree to the idea.
The United States has also disagreed with Beijing over the South China Sea, saying it has a right to sail U.S. naval ships in the area and backing calls from smaller countries for a diplomatic arrangement to settle territorial disputes.
The Spratlys, a reputedly oil-rich South China Sea island chain, is claimed in whole or in part by China as well as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
At the Asia security conference, Gates plans to meet his counterparts from Japan, Australia, Thailand and Singapore as well as Malaysia's prime minister, officials said.
After Singapore, Gates was due to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, where the air campaign in Libya and the war in Afghanistan are expected to dominate the agenda.

Major Cyber Attack Is Act of War: Pentagon Report

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has adopted a new strategy that will classify major cyber attacks as acts of war, paving the way for possible military retaliation, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 31.
The newspaper said the Pentagon plans to unveil its first-ever strategy regarding cyber warfare next month, in part as a warning to foes that may try to sabotage the country's electricity grid, subways or pipelines.

"If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," it quoted a military official as saying.
The newspaper, citing three officials who had seen the document, said the strategy would maintain that the existing international rules of armed conflict - embodied in treaties and customs - would apply in cyberspace.
It said the Pentagon would likely decide whether to respond militarily to cyber attacks based on the notion of "equivalence" - whether the attack was comparable in damage to a conventional military strike.
Such a decision would also depend on whether the precise source of the attack could be determined.
The decision to formalize the rules of cyber war comes after the Stuxnet attack last year ravaged Iran's nuclear program. That attack was blamed on the United States and Israel, both of which declined to comment on it.
It also follows a major cyber attack on the U.S. military in 2008 that served as a wake-up call and prompted major changes in how the Pentagon handles digital threats, including the formation of a new cyber military command.
Over the weekend, Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest defense contractors, said it was investigating the source of a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack against its information network one week ago.
President Barack Obama was briefed about the attack.

Controlling Asia's Arms Race

The Indonesian Navy's reportedly successful test-launch of a Russian-built Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missile over a distance of 250 kilometers on April 20 highlighted the growing ability of Asian militaries to destroy targets at long range. These countries are also expanding their capacity to deploy more substantial forces over greater distances.
It is true that buying new equipment does not auto-matically improve military capability. But when bolstered by developments in doctrine, training, C4ISR, logistical support and joint-service operations, and placed in an environment where the local defense industry is increasingly able to adapt, and in some cases produce, advanced systems, it is clear that many armed forces are improving their all-around capabilities.
In its latest annual edition of The Military Balance, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (which has a Singapore-based Asian branch) highlighted significant shifts in the distribution of relative military strength away from the West and toward Asia. While economic problems are undermining defense spending in the United States and Europe, Asia is becoming increasingly militarized.
Sustained economic growth in Asia is boosting resources to the armed forces, which often leverage their substantial political clout for material benefit in authoritarian or semi-democratic political systems.
In recent months, much media coverage has justifiably focused on developments in China's People's Liberation Army, notably its aircraft carrier and J-20 fifth-generation combat aircraft programs. But the PLA's anti-ship missile and submarine programs, which receive less media attention, are perhaps more strategically important, particularly for the U.S. Navy.
Military developments in other Asian states are also significant. India has major procurement programs underway, including the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition, and is expanding its own aircraft carrier capabilities. South Korea is quite rapidly building a blue-water navy.
In Southeast Asia, several states - notably Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - are investing in air and naval capabilities. And despite stagnant defense spending and the recent national disasters, Japan's revised National Defense Program Guidelines foresee major capability improvements.
The Asian strategic context, cha-racterized by a major power balance in long-term flux, widespread suspicion among Asian states and a range of latent conflicts that could worsen, provides rationales to expand military capabilities.
It is well known that concerns over China's relentlessly growing power and assertiveness, doubts over the future U.S. strategic role, escalating anxiety over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, not to mention its generally aggressive behavior, and renewed worries about Taiwan's security influence Asian states' defense choices. These rationales constitute the conventional wisdom and allow many Asian governments to justify boosting military spending.
What makes contemporary Asian military modernization programs dangerous is that they often reflect undeclared efforts to hedge against the ulterior motives of other regional players. This is leading to potentially destabilizing interaction among defense strategies, doctrines and capability development programs.
China's strategists are viewing military power not just in the context of Taiwan but in relation to the country's territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. Some Southeast Asian states are upgrading their armed forces not on the basis of their overt, but anodyne, military modernization explanations, but because they want to deter adventurism by China - and by each other - in the South China Sea.
South Korea's defense planners think not just about a potential meltdown on the peninsula but also Korea's possible strategic rivalry with Japan in a post-unification scenario. And as China's Navy expands its operations into the Indian Ocean, India thinks increasingly in terms of balancing its major-power rival.
While boosting conventional deterrence may be the leitmotif of these developments, there is great emphasis on developing capabilities that could be used offensively and possibly pre-emptively.
Whether or not there is an arms race in Asia is a favorite essay topic for university courses in international relations and security studies. But this is a curiously semantic debate. It is evident that contemporary military developments in Asia closely resemble neither the pre-1914 Anglo-German naval arms race nor the U.S.-Soviet missile race of the 1960s.
However, it also is clear there is a real danger of multiple and wastefully expensive subregional military competitions destabilizing Asia's security, and that there are no effective regional security institutions to mitigate this threat.
The 10th IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, on June 3-5 in Singapore, will be a useful venue to increase transparency in regard to defense policies and military modernization. However, now is the time to creatively think about how to develop and implement arms control measures in a multipolar region where strategic amity and enmity are both unclear and in flux.
By Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies-Asia in Singapore.

F-22 Getting New Brain

It has proved so difficult and expensive to upgrade the F-22 Raptor, whose stealthy body contains sensors and electronic brains, that the U.S. Air Force may take the unprecedented step of threading what amounts to a second central nervous system into a fighter jet.
By introducing an open architecture to one of the world's most tightly knit proprietary systems, service officials hope to make it much cheaper and easier to insert new technology - even gear developed for the F-35 Lightning II - into the stealthy air-superiority fighter.
"This jet has a very highly integrated avionics system. Because of that tight coupling and that highly integrated nature, it makes it very difficult, and we are highly reliant upon [Raptor makers] Lockheed Martin and Boeing to do any kinds of modifications to the jet," said David Weber, deputy director of the F-22 System Program Office (SPO) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Weber said the open-architecture effort is meant to allow the Air Force to open upgrade work to competition.
Today, he said, "the architecture is proprietary to Lockheed Martin, and we're kinda stuck with Lockheed Martin when we want to integrate something new."
Weber said the work is at such an early stage that the F-22 SPO has no guess how much it might cost.
This year, service officials plan to study the options, in part by issuing a request for information inviting contractors to suggest demonstration projects to help flesh out the alternatives.
"All of them have different ideas about how to go about doing this," Weber said.
In October through December, the service will award contracts to allow contractors to demonstrate ideas in a lab or flying testbed, said Col. John Williams, who runs the F-22 SPO's modernization office.
The SPO officials said Boeing and Lockheed would be welcome to bid on the demonstration contracts.
Lockheed, which had earlier proposed to essentially port the hardware and software architecture of the F-35 Lightning II into the Raptor, might respond to the Air Force solicitation with a similar proposal, said Jeff Babione, Lockheed's Raptor program manager. But Babione said the company might propose a different solution, depending on the service's requirements.
The Air Force will ultimately select one contractor to install the new architecture on its Raptors - ideally, said Weber, all 185 that will be built, less two losses.
"From our perspective, the fleet size is so small compared to where we wanted to be, our objective would be to make this applicable to all aircraft," he said.
The SPO deputy director said it may be deemed too costly to install the new architecture on the 34 oldest Raptors, which are currently used for training. Those planes are also not slated to get the Increment 3.2 upgrade, the next major group of hardware and software upgrades for the Raptor fleet.
But Weber noted that the new architecture might also make it cost-effective to bring those oldest Raptors up to the 3.2 standard.
If all goes well, development work could begin in earnest around 2014 as part of the development of Increment 3.2C, which is slated to begin installation in 2019 or 2020, he said.

Grafting On

As currently envisioned, the new network would be grafted onto the F-22's existing avionics, Weber said. The twin-engine jet's current network would continue to carry data between existing components, while upgraded ones would be linked by the new network. The data from both architectures would be translated and fused so that the jet continues to operate as a cohesive whole.
The installation of the new architecture might happen in one step, or it might proceed piece by piece, Williams said.
"Potentially, you could do it multiple times based on what you're trying to open up," he said. "You're opening up the [communication, navigation and identification]; maybe you're opening up the radar more, something like that. You may actually have multiple guys doing it, but it will be to a common standard."
As more systems are ported over to the new architecture, the older systems would wither away.
"Gradually, you'd have to start migrating some of the functions that we currently have in our core integrated processor away from the core integrated processor, so that everything doesn't flow through that piece," Williams said.
It may or may not be possible to migrate all of the Raptor's functionality.
"It depends on the degree we can open up the architecture," Weber said.
Lockheed's Babione said it might not be cost-effective to move everything to the new system.
The F-22 has received one upgrade - called Increment 2 - since it first arrived on Air Force flight lines in 2005. Those upgrades have added the capability to drop two 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions to the aircraft.
A planned upgrade, called Increment 3.1 and slated to begin this year, will add synthetic aperture radar mapping, the capability to carry eight Small Diameter Bombs, and other features.
In 2014, a software-only upgrade called Increment 3.2A will add electronic protection against jamming, better Link 16 receive capability and combat identification, and other improvements. In 2017, Increment 3.2B will add support for the plane's AIM-9X short-range and AIM-120D medium-range anti-air missiles, among many other upgrades.
In 2008, then-Pentagon acquisition chief John Young put the total cost of developing and installing Increment 3.1 and what became 3.2A and 3.2B at around $8 billion. The figure has likely gone up because the Air Force now plans to upgrade more F-22s.
Once the new architecture is installed, "if we want a new capability on the airplane, we can go out to industry with an RfI [request for information] and say, 'You all got good ideas; can you make it work with this architecture?'" Weber said.
The ultimate goal is to allow systems such as new radars to be "plug-and-play," as a printer might be to a desktop computer, he said.
This might allow the Raptor to use technology developed for the F-35 Lightning II without time-consuming and expensive integration work, Williams said. Ë

Obama Announces Joint Chiefs Appointments

President Obama on May 30 nominated U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Among the appointments announced May 30 were U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, third from right, as Joint Chiefs chairman; U.S. Navy Adm. James Winnefeld, second from right, as JCS vice chair; and U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno, right, as Army leader. (Chris Maddaloni / Staff)

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dempsey will replace U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, who retires Sept. 30.

Dempsey's promotion came less than two months after he took over as the Army's 37th chief of staff.
Obama called Dempsey "one of our nations most respected and combat tested generals. In Iraq he led our soldiers against a brutal insurgency," Obama said. "Having trained Iraqi forces he knows that nations must ultimately take responsibility for their own security."
Obama continued, "I expect [Dempsey] to push all our forces to continue adapting and innovating to be ready for the missions of today and tomorrow."
Obama also announced that he has chosen U.S. Navy Adm. James "Sandy" Winnefeld Jr., currently commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Winnefeld took command of NORTHCOM and NORAD in May 2010. Winnefeld, too, will also have to be confirmed by the Senate.
In a statement, Mullen praised the appointments of Dempsey and Winnefeld.
"Both men are extraordinary leaders, who will provide the Secretary of Defense and the President not only their best military advice, but also the great benefit of their decades of military experience and their command in combat operations.
"I know, too, that they will represent faithfully and stridently the 2.2 million men and women in uniform, as well as their families."
Obama called Dempsey "one of our nation's most respected and combat-tested generals."
Dempsey, 59, was sworn in April 11, replacing Gen. George Casey Jr., who served four years as chief of staff. Dempsey had been commander of Training and Doctrine Command. Obama also joked about Dempsey's short term as Army chief, saying "your tenure as chief may go down as one of the shortest in Army history."
Dempsey's family has deep Army roots; all three of Dempsey's children have served in the Army, and Maj. Christopher Dempsey is currently on active duty.
Winnefeld will replace U.S. Marine Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright, current service vice chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For months Cartwright had been considered the front runner to replace Mullen.
"Sandy knows we have to be prepared for the full range of challenges," Obama said.
Moving Dempsey up left an opening for the U.S. Army chief job, one that Obama said would be filled by the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno.
Dempsey leaves the Army at a time of significant transition - and a time when nearly half the service's four-star generals are at or nearing retirement.
Dempsey was chosen over Cartwright, who was often called Obama's favorite general and considered the front-runner to replace Mullen.
Obama praised Cartwright saying "I've also benefitted from the advice and counsel of Hoss Cartwright. I'll always be personally grateful to Hoss for his friendship and partnership."
Cartwright's management style has met increasing criticism, and a Pentagon investigation into claims of misconduct with a young female aide hurt his chances. The Pentagon's inspector general cleared Cartwright of the most serious claims, which suggested he'd had an improper relationship with the woman. But the investigation found that he mishandled an incident in which the aide was drunk and either passed out or fell asleep in his hotel room, where he was working, as his security personnel stood nearby.
Dempsey has significant combat experience. He served two tours in Iraq and served as acting commander of Central Command.
Dempsey's appointment as Joint Chiefs chairman, along with the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus to head the CIA, would put combat vets at the top of national security chain. Despite 10 years at war, a soldier has not served in the military's top position since U.S. Army Gen. Hugh Shelton retired in 2001.
Dempsey's replacement, Odierno, took the helm at U.S. Joint Forces Command on Oct. 29, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates had already decided to close the $1 billion command in less than a year - and promised Odierno a better job to follow.
Insiders say Odierno was neck-and-neck with Dempsey for the Army chief's spot earlier this year. He led forces in Iraq from September 2008 to September 2010 and the Multi-National Corps in Iraq from December 2006 to February 2008. The field artillery officer is most noted as the operational architect of the 2007 surge that significantly reduced violence in Iraq, and contributed greatly to the subsequent drawdown of U.S. forces there.
The leadership changes come at a time when many of the Army's top officers are growing long in the tooth.
There currently are 12 four-star generals on the books, not including Dempsey. Four are entering retirement: Casey, Petraeus, Gen. Walter Sharp and Gen. William Ward. Four of the remaining eight have a 2008 date-of-rank: Chiarelli, Odierno, Gen. Ann Dunwoody and Gen. Carter Ham.
Like Gens. James Thurman and Lloyd Austin, Gen. Keith Alexander was promoted in 2010. Gen. Robert Cone received his fourth star this year.

U.S. Army's change of plans

Dempsey's promotion will likely cause a delay in the forthcoming roadmap to the future.
Dempsey planned to unveil his modernization plan to build the Army of 2020 on the Army's birthday in mid-June. That Army that will look different from today's Army in many ways, he said.
Most analysts agree that Dempsey now will likely withhold those details to allow the next chief to pen his own plan.
No matter who signs his name on the dotted line, the plans would likely address many of the same issues.
Topping that list is a plan to cut 22,000 active-duty soldiers by the end of 2013, and a combined 27,000 in 2015 and 2016. The Obama administration plans to cut another $400 billion from the defense budget, and there are many questions regarding whether troops will be cut to provide some of those savings.
There also is the push to add a third battalion to Brigade Combat Teams, the need to rightly balance heavy and light forces and the integration of the Guard and Reserve.
But arguably the biggest burden resting on the next chief is the need to overhaul the way requirements become procurement