Pakistan Considers Naval Base Move After Attack

KARACHI - Pakistan said May 25 it was considering whether to relocate its Karachi naval air base after a Taliban attack killed 10 security personnel and destroyed two U.S.-made surveillance aircraft.
The assault on May 22 was the worst on a military base since the army headquarters was besieged in October 2009, further embarrassing the armed forces three weeks after Osama bin Laden was found living under their noses.

After the attack took 17 hours to repel, Adm. Noman Bashir, the chief of naval staff, conceded that a relocation was possible.
"When the Mehran base was established 36 years ago it was far from the population. But now it is surrounded by civilian populations on all sides, thus the security risks have multiplied," said navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali.
Karachi is Pakistan's financial capital and the assault was the fourth on the navy in a month after three bombings in late April killed nine people.
The city, which is used by NATO to ship supplies to Afghanistan, has also suffered scores of killings linked to ethnic and political tensions between migrant Pashtuns from the northwest and the local Urdu-speaking majority.
Ali said it would be impossible to relocate each of the more than a dozen navy bases in Karachi, but said serious thought was going into Mehran, the only navy air base in the sprawling city of 16 million.
"Relocation is a highly technical and cumbersome task. It is not a matter of days. The authorities are thinking about all possibilities and requirements before shifting Mehran elsewhere," said Ali.
Despite the string of recent attacks, the spokesman insisted that other installations in the port city were "safe and satisfactorily secure."
Pakistan's Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, who accompanied the prime minister on a visit to China last week, said Islamabad had asked Beijing for help in building a naval base at its deep-sea port of Gwadar, west of Karachi.
China's foreign ministry said May 24 it was unaware of the request.
The Mehran base, about 10 kilometers from Karachi's international airport, was set up in 1975.

USMC Chief Looks to Offset China in Pacific Region

U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos wants to send more of his Marines to the Pacific to offset China's expanding influence in the region.
Amos said America's military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have kept more U.S. forces from working with militaries in the southeast and southwest Pacific allowing a growing Chinese military to further establish itself.

"We'd liked to be more engaged in the Pacific, in the southwest Pacific, and that area of the world than we are. Our ability to be able to have that kind of forward presence in that part of the world is challenged right now because we are occupied in another section of the world," Amos said at a May 24 dinner hosted by the Center for New American Security, a Washington think tank.
The head of the Marine Corps said he didn't expect a military conflict with China anytime soon, but he said China's growing reach should concern U.S. leaders. Amos' comments come a week after Chinese People's Liberation Army Chief of Staff Gen. Chen Bingde visited the U.S. as a guest of the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.
"I think we need to be there. I don't think we're there to anywhere we need to be. I think our nation understands that. We'd like to turn that around," Amos said.
In a series of rare public speeches for the Chinese leader whose position is roughly equivalent to the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a "gaping gap" still remains between the two respective countries' militaries.
Amos is just the latest U.S. military leader to speak about his service's plans following the Afghanistan drawdown. U.S. Army leaders have also made their case to deploy Reserve and National Guard units to places such as Africa and South America on what are called "theatre security cooperation" missions to train foreign militaries.
The discussions for future service deployments come as military and congressional leaders debate future cuts to the defense budget. Amos said his service is already preparing to cut its manning down from 202,000 to 186,800 Marines. The U.S. military as a whole is already planning to reduce its footprint in Europe.
The last "five or six" years of spending are over, he said. Military leaders in each service will have to look for efficiencies and reduce spending.
"The Marine Corps will only ask for what it needs. We're done asking for what we want," Amos said he told Congress.
That means cutting programs that go over budget as the Marine Corps decides what Amos said "is good enough" for a service trying to both modernize and reset from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates already cancelled the Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program in January.
"There are some things that we absolutely have to do. There are some things that I think we can postpone and then there are other things that we maybe start to recapitalize in four or five years," Amos said.
The Marine Corps will not automatically expand the fleets of vehicles that performed well in Iraq or Afghanistan, either.
Amos used the example of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle better known as the MRAP. While it may have saved countless Marines in Iraq, its weight is a burden. He said the Corps will put a premium on mobility as it looks to field a new combat vehicle.
Amos said he expects what he described as a return to the Corps' "frugal roots" to last throughout his term as commandant and beyond.
"This traditional dip is typically eight to 10 years … so I think this will be an issue for the 36th commandant and it's going to be an issue for the 37th commandant when we'll begin to realize some growth and some modernization of significant proportions," he said.

Is China's J-20 Better Than F-22?

White House Threatens Veto for 2012 Defense Bill

The Obama administration is threatening to veto the 2012 defense authorization bill if it contains language that would prevent money from being used to enhance the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine or would make an effort to revive the canceled General Electric F136 engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
"If the final bill presented to the president includes funding or a legislative direction to continue an extra engine program, the president's senior advisers would recommend a veto," the White House statement reads. "The administration strongly objects to the language in section 215, which limits the obligation or expenditure of funds for performance improvements to the F-35 Lightning II propulsion system unless there is competitive development and production of such a propulsion system."

The White House said that improvements may be needed to the F135 engine as it proceeds through tests. It is adamant that the F136 is not necessary and eats up money needed elsewhere in the defense budget.
The White House also objects to language that would require the Pentagon to store the F136 engines and would mandate an engine competition for the nascent U.S. Air Force bomber program.
The administration also threatened a veto over implementation of the New START treaty and the handling of detainees captured during counterterrorism operations.
In addition, the statement contained a laundry list of other objections, including Abrams battle tanks, cyberspace and shipbuilding.

French Fighter Jet Crashes in Afghanistan

KABUL - A French fighter jet crashed in western Afghanistan on May 24, although the crew escaped without injury and enemy fire was not to blame, a French army spokesman said.
"A Mirage 2000-D crashed 100 kilometers west of Farah," French army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Eric de Lapresle told AFP.

He excluded enemy fire as the cause of the crash, the first of a French plane during the near 10-year conflict in Afghanistan.
"The crew are in good health and have been recovered," the spokesman added.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, under which French forces operate in Afghanistan, also confirmed the incident.
"An ISAF aircraft crashed in western Afghanistan this morning," it said in a statement. "The crew members are uninjured and have been recovered and the crash site has been secured."
The statement added that the cause of the crash of the French-built jet was currently unknown and an investigation into what happened had been launched.
France has six fighter jets based in Afghanistan at Kandahar Airfield in the south.
There are around 4,000 French troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of the 130,000-strong international force fighting the Taliban and other insurgents.

Pakistan Nuclear Security 'Of Concern': NATO

KABUL - The head of NATO said on May 24 that he was confident Pakistan's nuclear weapons were safe, but admitted it was a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base in two years.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks during a joint press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul on May 24. (Shah Marai / AFP via Getty Images)

Anders Fogh Rasmussen was in Afghanistan on a one-day visit and met President Hamid Karzai to discuss the transition of security from NATO-led troops to Afghan security forces, which is due to begin in July.

Rasmussen was asked if NATO was concerned about Pakistan's nuclear weapons after it took Pakistani forces 17 hours to reclaim control of a naval air base from Taliban attackers and following the death of Osama bin Laden.
"I feel confident that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe and well protected," said Rasmussen. "But of course it is a matter of concern and we follow the situation closely."
The attack in Karachi, the worst on a base since the army headquarters was besieged in October 2009, piled further embarrassment on Pakistan three weeks after the al-Qaida leader was found living in the city of Abbottabad, close to the country's military academy.
Rasmussen was scheduled to wind up his Afghan visit on May 24 after spending a night and a full day in Afghanistan.

U.S. Military May Deploy F-35 Before Formal IOC

The U.S. military may deploy the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) before the tri-service fighter is formally declared Initial Operational Capable (IOC), top uniformed officials told Congress on May 24.
While the U.S. Marine Corps has always maintained that it would declare IOC with interim Block 2B software, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy require that the aircraft be fielded with Block 3 software before the jet is formally declared operational. However, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, leaders from both services said they would consider deploying the fifth-generation stealth fighter into combat zones with interim Block 2B software provided that there were no safety concerns.

"If the combatant commander said, 'bring me this capability,' then we clearly would provide it," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, the service's deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements.
The Navy's director of warfare integration, Rear Adm. David Philman, who was also testifying, concurred.
"I don't see any reason we wouldn't be able to be told to go into theater, assuming all the safety considerations have been taken care of," he said.
Both the Navy and the Air Force would have some number of the aircraft prior to any IOC date, but the specifics of how many planes would be available is not yet known.
"We will have a number, probably on the order of a 100, airplanes delivered to operational units before we declare Initial Operational Capability," Carlisle said. "Clearly, although we may not declare IOC, we'll be training, we'll be doing the tactics, training and procedures with the Block 2."
The maintenance and logistical systems would also be built during that period, he said.
Philman said the Navy would have some aircraft available but not as many as the Air Force.
Marine Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, that service's deputy commandant for aviation, who was testifying alongside Carlisle and Philman, said that his service still plans to declare IOC with the interim Block 2B software and would have about 50 F-35s available near that time. He said IOC for the Marines is now estimated to fall between 2014 and 2015, which is a two-year slip.
Even with the interim software, the F-35 would be vastly more capable than existing warplanes, they said.
"There is a lot of capability even in the Block 2 airplanes that look very impressive," Carlisle said.
However, the Air Force and the Navy will both insist upon Block 3 hardware and software for their formal IOC declarations, both Carlisle and Philman said.
Insisting on the Block 3 configuration allows the Pentagon to keep the pressure on Lockheed Martin, the contractor that builds the F-35.
"I'll be perfectly frank: In a lot of cases, if you delay an IOC, you can maintain pressure on a contractor," Carlisle said.
IOC for the Air Force and Navy, like the Marines, will slip by about two years from 2016, Carlisle and Philman said. None of the three services has set a fixed IOC date, but Philman said the 2016 date is no longer valid.