NATO Pressures Allies To Boost Libya Mission

BRUSSELS - NATO's leadership pressed allies Wednesday to step up their contributions to the Libyan air war to finally dislodge Moammar Gadhafi and begin planning for the day after his downfall.
After three months of air strikes, defense ministers meeting in Brussels said time was working against Gadhafi and urged the defiant colonel to finally step down.

"All ministers agreed we will keep up the pressure for as long as it takes to bring this to an early conclusion," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.
The ministers issued a joint statement pledging their determination to continue the mission "for as long as necessary."
They also said they were "committed to providing the necessary means and maximum operational flexibility within our mandate to sustain these efforts and welcome additional contributions to our common efforts."
With only half of 28 NATO allies taking part in the mission, Rasmussen and British Defence Secretary Liam Fox called on members to step up their participation.
"We want to see increased urgency in some quarters in terms of Libya," Fox said.
Only nine nations are conducting air strikes, with France and Britain carrying out the bulk of the attacks, including with helicopter gunships.
After NATO extended the mission by 90 days through September, Rasmussen said he had encouraged other allies "to broaden" their support of the mission to ensure the "sustainability" of the operation.
A senior U.S. official said this week he did not see any "danger" of the mission losing steam yet but that air crews were beginning to show signs of fatigue.
Spanish Defence Minister Carme Chacon, whose country is participating in the operation but not in air raids, said no other nations came forward with new contributions.
Sweden, a non-NATO nation taking part in the operation, decided to cut the number of fighter jets enforcing a no-fly zone from eight to five, although it lifted restrictions on what type of surveillance mission they can carry out.
Norway, among only eight NATO members conducting air strikes, has said that it would reduce its role if the mission goes past June.
As the ministers met, a wave of air strikes battered Tripoli again early June 8, piling pressure on Gadhafi, who in an audio broadcast said he was "near" the bombing but vowed never to surrender. The Libyan regime said 31 people were killed on Tuesday but NATO said it had no way to verify the claim.
"Time is working against Gadhafi, who has clearly lost all legitimacy and therefore needs to step down," the ministers said. "There is no future for a regime that has systematically threatened and attacked its own population."
NATO said it stood ready to play a role, if requested and necessary, once Gadhafi steps down but that such an effort should be initiated by the United Nations and the international contact group on Libya.
"The time has come to plan for the day after the conflict," Rasmussen said.
The alliance chief said he did not foresee "a leading role" for NATO and ruled out alliance ground forces in a post-Kadhafi Libya.
"We see the United Nations playing the lead role in the post-Kadhafi, post-conflict scenario," said Rasmussen, who has suggested that NATO could focus on helping reform Libya's defence and security institutions.
U.S. Adm. Samuel Locklear, a senior NATO commander, suggested last week that a small ground force might be necessary after Gadhafi leaves power. The troops, he added, could be provided by the U.N., the European Union or NATO.

North Korea Test-Fired Missile: Reports

SEOUL - North Korea test-fired a short-range missile off its west coast last week in the first such launch in 19 months, according to reports June 7.
North Korea fired the KN-06 missile into the Yellow Sea in the middle of last week, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an intelligence source as saying.

The source said North Korea has apparently been trying to increase the range of the KN-06 since last year and last week's launch seemed to be a test.
The defense ministry in Seoul had no immediate comment.
JoongAng Ilbo newspaper also reported a test of the KN-06, which has a range of 62 miles to 68 miles.
It quoted a Seoul military official as saying the launch appeared to have been planned before a series of threats against South Korea last week from the hardline communist state.
The launch, if confirmed, would be the North's first known test of short-range missiles since October 2009, when it test-fired five KN-02 surface-to-surface missiles off its east coast.
Pyongyang in the past has often scheduled such launches for political effect.
Tensions on the peninsula are high following two deadly border incidents last year which Seoul blames on its neighbor.
On May 30, the North announced it would no longer deal with the South's conservative government. North Korea's military threatened retaliation June 3 unless Seoul punishes troops who used pictures of Pyongyang's ruling dynasty as rifle-range targets.

Working Towards Longer Life for Osprey Engines

The U.S. Marine Corps is working with contractor Rolls Royce to increase the durability of the V-22 Osprey's propulsion system, service officials said.

The U.S. Marine Corps wants Rolls Royce to increase the durability of the MV-22 Osprey propulsion system. (Lance Cpl. Santiago G. Colon Jr. / Marine Corps)

The service is working to increase the engines' "time on wing" by 45 percent, said Marine Col. Greg Masiello, who heads the V-22 Joint Program Office at Patuxent River, Md., speaking before reporters during a tour of Boeing's manufacturing facilities in Philadelphia on June 6.

However, that measure varies depending upon where the aircraft is deployed. In benign environments the propulsion system performs better while under harsher conditions it does not. Masiello declined to give specific numbers because the service's figures are an aggregate.
One solution the Marines are working on is a system to prevent dust from entering the engines in the first place, Masiello said. Conventional filters found on normal helicopters could rob critical engine power from the hybrid fix-wing/rotary wing design during normal flight in the cruise configuration.
As such, the V-22 team is looking at the propulsion system as a whole to mitigate any power loss incurred by the addition of dust filters, said Boeing's John Rader, program director for the Bell-Boeing team that builds the aircraft. A number of options are being considered, he added.
Rader said some of these improvements are already flying as a proof of concept on test aircraft.
"We actually have hardware that we have already flown through developmental testing at Pax River," Masiello added.
Those improvements could be fielded to the deployed Marine forces as soon as the end of the calendar year, he said.
The added filters could add 30 percent more "time on wing" to the aircraft's engines, Masiello said.
Additionally, the Marines are making a software change that could potentially increase the time on wing by a further 80 percent. "That will fly this summer, we have a target in August to have that airborne and flying," Masiello said. It will also increase the engines'- and the aircraft's- performance.
It would not be the first time software has been used to improve engine performance on the Osprey. An earlier software upgrade added to the engine's power output. The increased power enables the aircraft to cruise some 20 knots faster, said Lt. Col. Romin Dasmalchi, commander of the MV-22 squadron of that recently flew the pilot rescue mission over Libya in March.
The engine improvements are applicable to the Air Force's CV-22 fleet as well.
The service is also making progress more generally in reducing support costs, Masiello said. Some of those cost reductions come from repairing components that would otherwise have been thrown away, he said.

Lockheed, Raytheon Submit JAGM Proposals

Lockheed Martin and Raytheon submitted their proposals for the next phase of the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) program June 6.
Built to replace AGM-114 Hellfire, BGM-71 TOW and AGM-65 Maverick missiles, the Government Accountability Office estimates the JAGM program will be worth more than $6 billion over 20 years.

The two defense industry giants are competing for a 48-month contract to continue development and begin low-rate initial production on the missile. Army officials said the Engineering and Manufacturing and Low-Rate Initial Production contract is worth $3.8 billion.
James Smith, a Raytheon executive, said his company expects the Army to make a decision on the contract in October. Army Aviation and Missile Command issued the request for proposal in April.
"Lockheed Martin's JAGM builds on Hellfire, Longbow and Javelin, three of the most trusted precision-guided weapons on the battlefield today," said Frank St. John, vice president of Tactical Missiles at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, in a statement.
Lockheed chose to outfit its entrant with a cooled seeker, while Raytheon used an uncooled seeker. Raytheon officials said a cooled seeker, while more capable than an uncooled seeker, isn't what soldiers and sailors want in combat.
"Rather than complicating matters by using a cooled seeker, we worked in close concert with our customers to determine smarter and simpler ways to arrive at a superior system solution," said Bob Francois, Raytheon vice president of Advanced Missiles and Unmanned Systems, in a statement.

NATO, Russian Jets Hold First Ever Joint Exercise

WARSAW - NATO and Russian fighter jets held their first ever joint exercise June 7, teaming up in a bid to prevent attacks such as the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the United States, a NATO official confirmed.

Col. Sylwester Bartoszewski, supervisor of Vigilant Skies 2011, explains the first of two planned exercises of Polish F-16s and Russian Sukhoi jets on June 7 in Warsaw. NATO and Russian fighter jets held their first ever joint exercise. (Janet Skarzynski / AFP via Getty Images)

"Today was an important step for NATO-Russia relations, and therefore in my opinion, also an important step for the world because the threat of terrorism is a common one," Georges D'hollander, general manager of the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency told reporters in Warsaw on June 7 after the first of two planned exercises were completed.

"This is a confidence-building initiative which originated by the decision of the NATO-Russia Council," D'hollander added, at once stressing its "important political dimension."
The unprecedented exercise began the morning of June 7 with the departure of a Polish CASA 295M aircraft from Krakow simulating a hijacked civilian aircraft. Two Polish F-16s from the Krzesiny air base near Poznan, central Poland, later intercepted the "renegade" aircraft and then handed the mission over to two Russian Sukhoi jets that guided the plane to the northern Polish city of Malbork.
"This was the first time in history when there was co-operation between Russian and NATO fighters in this kind of a scenario," NATO exercise director Czech Colonel Petr Mikulenka told reporters in Warsaw.
The aircraft were taking part in the four-day NATO-Russia "Vigilant Skies 2011," event that began Monday involving flights over Poland and the Black Sea.
On June 8, three Turkish F-16s and two Russian Sukhois will intercept a rogue plane over the Black Sea.
"The aerial exercises are to test the NATO-Russia Council Cooperative Airspace Initiative (CAI), aimed at preventing a new 9/11 by "sharing information on movements in NATO airspace and Russian airspace, and by coordinating interceptions of renegade aircraft," according to a NATO statement.
The initiative hopes to "improve air safety for the thousands of passengers using international flights between NATO airspace and Russian airspace each day, and the millions of inhabitants on the ground."
The new airspace security system "provides a shared NATO-Russia radar picture of air traffic and allows early warning of suspicious air activities through commonly agreed procedures."
"In situations when an aircraft starts behaving erratically, the air traffic coordination system offers increased information sharing and communication to ensure rapid, joint responses to terrorist threats," a NATO statement said.
The system has two coordination centers, one in Warsaw and another in Moscow, with local coordination sites in Russian cities of Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don and Murmansk as well as Warsaw, Bodo in Norway and Ankara in Turkey.

NATO Nearing 'Decisive Blow' In Afghan War: Gates

KABUL - Defense Secretary Robert Gates, wrapping up a final visit to Afghanistan as Pentagon chief, said on June 7 that U.S.-led forces are on the verge of securing a "decisive blow" against the Taliban.
"I leave Afghanistan today with the belief that if we keep this momentum up, we will deliver a decisive blow to the enemy and turn the corner on this conflict," Gates told coalition officers in Kabul.

"And if we do, it will be because of the service and sacrifice of all of you," he said, before departing for Brussels.
During a four-day trip that took him to American bases in the south and east, Gates offered a cautiously optimistic forecast for the war effort, saying now was not the time to ease up on the Taliban-led insurgency.
Although the main purpose of his trip was to say goodbye to troops, Gates found himself sparring at a distance with White House aides who are pushing for a faster drawdown of the 100,000-strong U.S. force.
Gates' farewell remarks reflected his view that a troop surge in the nine-year war has begun to bear fruit and that a withdrawal, set to start in July, should proceed at a cautious pace.
His comments in recent days amounted to a rebuttal to some White House officials who believe the death of Osama bin Laden and a ballooning budget deficit demand a steep reduction in the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
Appointed by former President George W. Bush in December 2006, Gates has spent his time at the Pentagon consumed with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Brussels, Gates is due to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers on June 8 and June 9, where the drawdown in Afghanistan and the alliance air campaign in Libya will top the agenda.

India-Boeing Deal Will Support 23,000 Jobs: U.S.

NEW DELHI - The United States on June 6 hailed India's decision to buy military transport planes worth more than $4 billion from U.S.-based aviation giant Boeing, saying it would sustain 23,000 American jobs.
The U.S. reaction came a day after the Indian cabinet approved a long-pending program to acquire 10 C-17 Globemaster III planes from Boeing.

"This comprehensive purchase will support an estimated 23,000 jobs in the United States," U.S. ambassador Timothy Roemer said in statement.
He said the deal would also provide India with maintenance infrastructure and aircrew training, and that more than 600 American firms would benefit indirectly.
The C-17 advanced airlifter can carry large combat equipment and troops or humanitarian aid across international distances to small airfields, according to Boeing.
India is spending billions of dollars to upgrade its military with hardware imports from Britain, France, Israel, Russia and the United States.