LHD Juan Carlos.

Got this from MilitaryPhotos.net...no english translation but it gives a good view of the ship.  Enjoy.

Pic of the day. Nov. 16, 2010.

101102-N-8069G-169
GULF OF ADEN (Nov. 2, 2010) Marines assigned to 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU) embarked aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Carter Hall (LSD 50), depart Djibouti in an amphibious assault vehicle after conducting amphibious training exercises. Carter Hall is part of Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group and is supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kristin L. Grover/Released)

Cameron to the British people..."keep calm and carry on"...

Keep calm and carry on is a catch phrase often quoted by "Morning Joe" headliners.  Unfortunately the British people sense that the massive defense cuts forecast by their leadership is helping to diminish the UK on the world stage. 

They're right and just like here in the US, the people are getting it before the politicians.  Additionally with the UK and the rest of Europe (with the exception of the former Soviet bloc countries and 'gasp' France) falling back into a fortress Europe crouch, its up to the US, Australia, Japan and S. Korea to keep China at bay.

Read the whole story here, but I posted a snippet below.

"The reality of the Prime Minister's foreign policy so far is a shrivelled role for Britain in the world at the expense of British interests."
Sky News' political editor Adam Boulton said: "If you wanted to sum the speech up in a phrase it would be 'keep calm and carry on'.
"Sometimes these annual speeches by the Prime Minister on foreign policy come at moments of crisis and they have become very significant in the years that follow.

A magazine you should read and subscribe to.

Shepard Group out of the UK has a couple of digital magazines that you've got to check out.  My favorite is Defense Helicopter. 
DH NovDec10 Digital Ed

Diplomacy I can get behind.

This via Alert 5 and the Jerusalem Post...

Second squadron of F-35s is ‘an offer hard to refuse’ By YAAKOV KATZ 
11/15/2010 02:06

Defense officials say arrival of joint strike fighters was of critical importance for the security of the State of Israel.

Talkbacks (35)
  Top IDF officers and Defense Ministry officials claimed Sunday that the arrival of a second squadron of F-35 joint strike fighters was of critical importance for the security of the State of Israel.

In an effort to convince the Netanyahu government to impose a three-month moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank, the Obama administration offered Israel last week a long list of security and diplomatic benefits, including 20 F-35s for free.

Israel signed a contract for 20 F-35s – a fifth-generation stealth fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin – in early October in a deal valued at $2.75 billion. Under the offer made to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his meeting last week with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Israel would receive a second, free squadron of the advanced fighter jet if it agrees to impose a three-month freeze on settlement construction.

The F-35 will be one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world and will enable Israel to phase out some of its older F-15 and F-16 models.

According to the IAF, the plane will significantly boost Israel’s deterrence in the Middle East and provide it with an edge over adversaries that operate advanced anti-aircraft systems, since it cannot be detected by existing radars.

The offer of a second squadron of F-35s was first made to Israel in early September, in talks which Defense Minister Ehud Barak led in Washington ahead of the expiration of the previous 10- month freeze on settlement construction, in a bid to get Israel to extend the freeze. At the time, Israel rejected the offer.

After the offer in September, the IDF established a team consisting of officers from the air force and the military’s Strategic Planning Division, which analyzed the effect the arrival of an additional squadron of F- 35s would have on Israel and its strategic standing in the Middle East.

“This is a very difficult offer to say no to,” a senior defense official said on Sunday, amid news that Netanyahu was working to obtain a majority in his cabinet to approve a new moratorium.

It is unclear when the additional squadron would arrive, if Israel accepts the US offer.

Delivery of the squadron Israel ordered last month is scheduled to begin sometime between 2016 and 2017.

My boy does it again!

 

Way to go Loren....I'm sure a certain group of Australians are going nuts!

Rumor Of Marine F-35 Termination Talks Is Wrong

The Navy has made its latest run against the Marine Corps version of the F-35 joint strike fighter, and for something like the twentieth time, it has been rebuffed. The latest failed assault came after the United Kingdom decided to switch its buy of joint strike fighters from the Marine vertical-takeoff version to the Navy carrier-based version. The Navy trotted out the same tired arguments it has been using for a decade -- lack of range, lack of forward support, etc. -- and the Marine Corps responded with its equally aged rationale for why tactical aircraft need to be where the troops are. The Marine Corps prevailed, as usual.

These ritualized exchanges have been going on for a long, long time. I well remember running into my old friend Gordon England in the Pentagon's E-Ring shortly after he was made Navy secretary in 2001, and hearing his misgivings about the Marine variant. He said he wanted to commission studies of the subject, but the more operational doubts he cited, the more he started to sound like studies that OpNav had already conducted. It seemed that certain admirals were trying to maneuver the SecNav into believing he had discovered problems they had long since decided should doom the new jumpjet.
So now rumors that the Marine variant is in trouble have surfaced once again, and as is often the case, by the time word started getting around the issue had already been resolved. The plane is safe for the fiscal 2012 budget request, because there is no other option for replacing Harriers in the vital role of providing firepower and protection to forward-deployed Marines. The range issue doesn't matter much if the planes are located close to the troops, which is what having vertical agility makes possible. What matters is being there when the air cover is needed. And while it might be nice to have forward-deployed jamming aircraft too, the fact that F-35 is too stealthy to be seen by enemy radars greatly mitigates that concern.
The main reason this argument never goes away is that Marine programs are funded out of the Navy budget, and the Navy usually has some other purpose to which it wants to apply the money. That's why the argument over how many amphibious warfare vessels the Marines need also never dies. Each new amphibious assault vessel is a destroyer or submarine the Navy will never have. But let's be realistic about what it would mean to the Marine Corps to lose the vertical agility it is buying in F-35. It would mean tethering expeditionary warfare to a handful of aircraft carriers that can't be all the places the Marine Corps needs to be. Or it would mean sending Marines in harms way without the continuous air cover that the rest of the joint force counts on for its survival. Since the Navy doesn't seem to have a solution for these dilemmas other than sticking with the program of record, we already know how similar arguments are likely to turn out in the future.

Republicans are back in charge and Senators are being courted...

Sen. John McCain visits Marines

Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, along with Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, commander, regional command (southwest) and the commanding general, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), make their way off of the Forward Operating Base Jaker landing zone during a visit to Nawa, Afghanistan, Nov. 11, 2010. Graham, a senior senator from South Carolina, and McCain, a senior senator from Arizona, along with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, a junior senator from New York, and Joseph I. Lieberman, a junior senator from Connecticut, visited Marines of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, where they toured Khalaj High School, the Nawa District bazaar and the Nawa District Governance Center as well as meeting with Nawa government officials. (Official Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Mark Fayloga)

 After seeing this, do you really think the V-22 will be canceled?  Do you think that a leading Republican Senator that championed killing the F-22 will suddenly switch and revive it?  Our friends from across the sea (includes ex-pats) have alot to learn about the current political environment.

The F-22 cabal...diverse with a single goal.

via Alert 5 and the Atlanta Journal Constitution...

“This isn’t just for the sake of home-cooking, but also for the sake of the country,” Gingrey said in a telephone interview.
But Gingrey conceded that concerns over spending and the federal deficit could make the funding battle a difficult one. The planes have a price tag of $120 million each. “We would have to look at it with a very, very sharp pencil,” he said. “It would take some negotiating.”
Suggestions from the debt commission, made public this week, may hold some possibilities A three-year freeze on federal pay and a 10 percent reduction of the federal workforce “are things that really get me excited,” the Marietta congressman said.
Production of the F-22 ended with its omission from the 2009 defense bill. Critics called the plane a Cold War relic poorly suited for anti-insurgent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of State Robert Gates, a Republican holdover from the Bush administration, recommended the end to F-22 production, and President Barack Obama threatened to veto the defense bill if more funding for the stealth fighter were continued.
Originally, 381 F-22s were to be built. Production ended nearly 200 short. Gingrey said he and many military analysts think the planes are necessary to meet a scenario in which the United States faces two hot wars at the same time.

Is the F-22 Dracula or what? 

What does it take to make this issue go away!

Deficit Commission Report. A poorly flown trial balloon.

Old Bill and his buddy Goon got all hot and excited about the Deficit Commission report that was leaked to the press.

A much closer look and a reading of the political tea leaves reveal something a bit more stark.

It was a poorly flown trial balloon and most of the cuts won't see the light of day.  That's not to say that the US will not follow the lead of Europe and choose the comfort of its citizens over their protection, its just to say that some of these cuts in general and the ones to the F-35 in particular are probably not going to happen.

It was fun, but its time for the anti- F-35 folks to crawl back into their caves and think of a new plan to kill the airplane...this one is a non-starter.

The draft, laid out in detail to commission members during two closed-door, hours-long sessions, spares virtually no "sacred cow" programs, proposing dramatic changes to Social Security, once called the "third rail" of politics, pushes for limits to Medicare, axes the popular mortgage interest deduction in favor of lower income tax rates for all, freezes Defense Department salaries and bonuses for three years and noncombat pay at 2011 levels for the same period, and the list goes on.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, a commission member, did not sound confident that 14 of the 18 members could agree on any proposal in order to move it to a vote in Congress. "We've had trouble getting 14 people to agree on what time of the day to meet," the Budget Committee Chairman said.

F-35B formation flight...

Lt. Col. Fred Schenk is at the controls of F-35B BF-1  and Lt. Col. Matt Taylor of BF-3 for the first formation flight of two F-35Bs. The formation was flown on the seventy-seventh flight of BF-1 and the sixty-fourth flight of BF-3 on 10 November 2010 from NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

Thompson scores another touchdown.

I admit the Lexington Institute is aligned more closely with my political views than other "think tanks" that I can name but Thompson cuts through the BS found in most of the talking head pieces and gets to the truth of the matter...his article in its entirety follows...

Deficit Proposals Are Right About Need For Defense Cuts, But Full Of Errors On Weapons

Author:

Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.

Date:

Friday, November 12, 2010

 

The chairmen of the bipartisan deficit-reduction commission have done the political system a big favor by illustrating the kinds of budget cuts that will be needed to bring federal expenses into closer alignment with fiscal resources. They have also removed any illusions that defense spending will be "off the table" when the new Congress turns to dealing with the deficit next year. With roughly 40 percent of federal spending currently being borrowed, items like Medicare and Medicaid would have to be cut in half to balance the budget if defense were left out of the equation. As I said in a Bloomberg Business News story yesterday, that is arithmetically and politically untenable.

The $100 billion in illustrative defense cuts the chairmen propose for fiscal 2015 all make sense, although it will be much easier to implement cuts in procurement than adjustments to military healthcare. Thus, the pattern seen in past defense downturns of weapons programs being cut first and cut furthest is likely to repeat itself again in the years ahead. (Secretary Gates already cut $330 billion in planned weapons spending last year, killing the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the Navy's next-generation destroyer, and the Army's proposed family of networked combat vehicles.)
Where the deficit commission chairmen went wrong on defense, though, was in trying to identify specific weapons programs that are suitable candidates for termination. Their lack of expertise on that subject is readily apparent in the proposals they make. They incorrectly state the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that the Air Force is buying. They understate the cost of alternatives. They mis-identify the under secretary of the Navy and the name of the department's future radio system. They contradict themselves, saying in one paragraph that production of the V-22 rotorcraft should be ended early and then in the very next paragraph that an amphibious vehicle is less important to future warfighting than the capabilities provided by the V-22.
Little mistakes like these bespeak a broader ignorance of military plans and technology that leads the chairmen to exaggerate the savings their proposals would generate. For example, if the Joint Tactical Radio System were terminated as they propose, over dozen different legacy radios -- some of which cannot communicate with each other -- would need to be maintained indefinitely in the joint force. The cost of sustaining these aged devices and working around their numerous inadequacies would eventually come to match if not surpass the cost of fielding the new joint radio. The situation is similar with regard to their proposal for buying fewer F-35s and using more existing planes in the mix. Not only do those existing planes cost more than the commission seems to realize, but all sorts of additional outlays would be required to make them survivable in the environment for which the stealthy F-35 was conceived.
No one should be surprised to see the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle or the Army's Joint Light Tactical Vehicle on the chairmen's hit list. The projected unit costs of those systems have made them easy targets for budgeteers. But what the chairmen of the deficit commission don't seem to fully grasp is that when a program meeting a validated warfighting requirement is eliminated, something else has to take its place. In the case of the Marine Corps, there basically isn't any alternative to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle -- the slow-moving legacy amphibs are deathtraps. In the case of the Army's proposed light tactical vehicle, the alternative is to keep Cold War humvees in service, even though they too have turned out to be deathtraps since insurgents in Iraq discovered improvised explosive devices.
Bottom line: yes, weapons purchases will have to be cut. But the commission should set broad targets and leave the specifics to Pentagon policymakers. Otherwise, it will say foolish things that undercut the credibility of its broader recommendations.

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