“It’s a great airplane and very dangerous, especially if they make a lot of them,” one senior U.S. military official with extensive experience on fifth-generation fighters told me some time ago. “I think even an AESA [active electronically scanned array-radar equipped F-15C] Eagle and [Boeing F/A-18E/F] Super Hornet would both have their hands full.”
The Syrian deployment will allow the Russian air force to gain valuable operational experience on the Su-35 — even if four warplanes don’t add a decisive material value to the fight.
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Category Archives: Blog
F-35s hit by another big setback
The code delay is the latest—and possibly most damaging—setback for the Pentagon’s ambitious and controversial plan to replace almost all of its Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighters with three different versions of the F-35 at a cost of more than a trillion dollars over the next 50 years.
Damaging, because the military and F-35-maker Lockheed Martin have increasingly sold the F-35 as a sort of “flying computer” whose software can outthink enemy pilots even when the enemy’s own planes fly faster, maneuver better and carry more weaponry than the F-35 does.
The stealth fighter’s software is its last possible claim to being a first-class warplane. If the F-35’s code doesn’t work, then neither does the F-35. Saddled with thousands of dysfunctional F-35s, the Pentagon could lose command of the air. Continue reading
American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Infrastructure Report Card: $3.6 trillion invetment needed by 2020
Now the 2013 Report Card grades are in, and America’s cumulative GPA for infrastructure rose slightly to a D+. The grades in 2013 ranged from a high of B- for solid waste to a low of D- for inland waterways and levees. Solid waste, drinking water, wastewater, roads, and bridges all saw incremental improvements, and rail jumped from a C- to a C+. No categories saw a decline in grade this year. …
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Hans Blix supports Corbyn’s call to scrap Trident
In this web extra, Hans Blix, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supports Corbyn’s call, saying Trident is “a tremendous cost and very little gain”.
The former IAEA chief also says he does not think it adds to British security. “I think it’s more a question of sentimental status seeking,” Blix says, “They will keep their seat in the Security Council even if they do not continue Trident.”
” I have never seen such destruction conducted in such a short period as in Yemen”
Many civilians continue to live in Saada, northern Yemen, despite almost daily airstrikes in the area. Michael Seawright from Auckland, New Zealand, was recently Project Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) projects in the war-torn region.
“I’ve worked in war zones for the past 11 to 12 years, in some of the worst conflicts like Syria, but I have never seen such destruction conducted in such a short period as in Yemen. I was based in Saada, in the north, in a Houthi-controlled area that was experiencing almost daily attacks from Coalition air forces. These air strikes were often close to our facilities and we clearly felt their effects.
Offshore Balancing
… but sometimes a concept drawn from such discussion points to an overlooked and fundamentally better way to approach such decisions. Such a concept is offshore balancing, which involves the United States not trying to do everything itself but instead exploiting rivalries between other states to prevent any one of them from acquiring hegemonic power and regional dominance. Scholars such as Christopher Layne and Stephen Walt have elaborated on the concept, and in the not-too-distant past the principles involved were applied to some actual U.S. policies with major regional import.
UK to spend tens of millions of pounds more to refit £1bn warships’ unreliable engines
In an email seen by the BBC, a serving Royal Navy officer wrote that “total electric failures are common” on its fleet of six £1bn Type 45 destroyers.
The Ministry of Defence said there were reliability issues with the propulsion system and work to fix it would be done to ensure “ships remain available”.
One Royal Navy officer said the cost could reach tens of millions of pounds. Continue reading
British Brimstone missile
Proving George Orwell’s dictum that “Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks the whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns somersaults when there is no whip,” significant sections of our free press and many so-called independent experts faithfully echoed the government’s official line.
“The missile uses a low-powered but highly focused explosive warhead to reduce shrapnel hitting civilians,” noted the Telegraph. “The Brimstone is capable of hitting moving targets travelling at speeds of up to 70mph” and “can be launched from an aircraft up to seven miles away from as high as 20,000 feet.” The Daily Mail transformed from a newspaper into a sales brochure: “The missile that never misses: watch the incredible moment a drone launched Brimstone hits a car moving at 70mph from seven MILES away’. The Sun was equally enthusiastic just a week before the parliamentary vote: “Raining hell on IS: RAF missile will pinpoint jihadists SEVEN miles away.” The online media watchdog Media Lens accurately dubs this kind of overexcited narrow focus on the technical aspects of weaponry as “war porn”, with the BBC a big culprit.
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UK’s role in Saudi-led bombing campaign
A United Nations panel investigating the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen has uncovered “widespread and systematic” attacks on civilian targets in violation of international humanitarian law, raising questions over UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the role of British military advisers. Continue reading
The U.S. “is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world”
After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore, the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in on the act, helping the world’s rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
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The $2 trillion redline
During the 1980s, the Cold War and the global nuclear arms race propelled total military spending in the world higher than ever before. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the idea of the “peace dividend” got hold and for a short while, it did indeed look like that was where the world was going and that global military spending would gradually normalise to a much lower level, appropriate for a reduced-conflict, non-confrontational, uni-polar world. The two biggest spenders saw the biggest drop in their spending. Russia simply could not afford the Soviet level of spending after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its economy went from crisis to crisis, further diminishing their ability to spend. In the United States, without any notable enemy and significant military threats to their national security, military spending gradually came down while the economy boomed. It came down to the lowest point in recent history in the middle of the Clinton years. Since the USA is the largest military spending nation by far (accounting more than one thirds), it coincided with the lowest point in global military spending too.
NHS spending too low compared to EU-14 and OECD countries
Over the next few years spending on the NHS increased substantially, pushing total (public plus private) spending to 8.8 per cent of GDP by 2009. By then, however, the EU-14 spend (weighted for size of GDP and health spend, and minus the UK) had moved on to 10.1 per cent of GDP. Still, the gap between the UK and its European neighbours was closing.
Since then, however, the gap has started to widen (particularly against countries that weathered the global financial crisis better than the UK) and looks set to grow further. UK GDP is forecast to grow in real terms by around 15.2 per cent between 2014/15 and 2020/21. But on current plans, UK public spending on the NHS will grow by much less: 5.2 per cent. This is equivalent to around £7 billion in real terms – increasing from £135 billion in 2014/15 to £142 billion in 2020/21. As a proportion of GDP it will fall to 6.6 per cent compared to 7.3 per cent in 2014/15. But, if spending kept pace with growth in the economy, by 2020/21 the UK NHS would be spending around £158 billion at today’s prices – £16 billion more than planned.
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UK government is cutting Police number guarding nuclear plants
The Tories are axing 200 frontline staff from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary this Parliament. This amounts to a 16 per cent cut in numbers, Continue reading
J-20, F-35, F22: How China developed its fifth generation stealth fighters
This is probably oversimplified, but Yang is certainly an influential individual in the development of China’s modern military aircraft. Beckhusen argues that Yang has basically invented the Chinese evolutionary approach to designing and building combat aircraft. Instead of designing and building a brand-new aircraft from scratch, it “borrows” from other countries’ design, integrate some imported and/or indigenous technology, and produces it at a fraction of the price.
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German gun maker targets more sales to U.S. civilians
German gun maker Heckler & Koch will try to sell more guns to civilians in the United States, forced by Germany’s restrictions on arms exports to the Middle East to look for revenue growth elsewhere, its majority owner told a newspaper. …
“If politics force us to generate practically no sales in the Middle East, we have to look for alternatives,” daily Die Welt quoted Andreas Heeschen, who owns 51 percent of Heckler & Koch, as saying.
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London is de-privatising its rail services
This is intereting. We know that the Conservatives have been ridiculing the idea to re-nationalising the national railways, but when the elections come calling and leadership ambitions to be fulfilled, free market/privatisation will have to take back seat. The Tansport for London is in the process of taking over the running of most if not all of London’s rail network routes. Continue reading
Philanthrocapitalism
Two reports.
And a study (pdf) just out from the Global Policy Forum, an international watchdog group, makes the case that powerful philanthropic foundations—under the control of wealthy individuals—are actively undermining governments and inappropriately setting the agenda for international bodies like the United Nations.
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Netherlands: Estimates of F-35’s Costs go much higher
The Joint Strike Fighters are intended to be the successor of the F-16’s in the air force. In September Hennis already wrote that the purchase of the 37 fighter jets may cost 550 million euros more than expected. She did not adapt her budget at the time to include the new estimate, because it would mean drastic measures when it is still uncertain whether they’d be necessary.
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UN Human Development Report: UK most unequal Western country
The United Nations Development Programme, which published the Human Development Report, said last week: “The United Kingdom, unfortunately, has an exceptionally high degree of inequality.”
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Davos Class: a silent global coup d’etat
The real concern about the WEF, however, is not the personal hypocrisy of its privileged delegates. It is rather that this unaccountable invitation-only gathering is increasingly where global decisions are being taken and moreover is becoming the default form of global governance. There is considerable evidence that past WEFs have stimulated free trade agreements such as NAFTA as well helped rein in regulation of Wall Street in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Less well known is the fact that WEF since 2009 has been working on an ambitious project called the Global Redesign Initiative, (GRI), which effectively proposes a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. In other words, by stealth, they are replacing a recognized model where we vote in governments who then negotiate treaties which are then ratified by our elected representatives with a model where a self-selected group of ‘stakeholders’make decisions on our behalf. …
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Tipping Point North South 