The Virginia-based aircraft carrier George Washington (pictured) and her strike group of cruisers, destroyers and submarines is heading around South America, bound for the Pacific. Along the way, the 100,000-ton carrier is playing war with Argentina, Brazil and Chile — all to show off the Navy’s new Latin American “4th Fleet,” and to boost the sea service’s new maritime strategy, which aims to “build confidence and trust among nations through collective security efforts.”

But is a lumbering, $15-billion aircraft carrier group, with more combined destructive power than most of the world’s militaries, the right choice for exercising alongside the tiny coastal navies of South America? That’s a mission that might best be performed by smaller, cheaper warships, right?

The admiral in charge of the group, Phillip Cullom, says no. “An aircraft carrier is the perfect platform to bring down here because it can cover the entire spectrum of activities … [with] the ability do both the high-end and the low-end spectrum of training. Plus they don’t see carriers here very often.”

Sure, it’s a treat for the Argentines to see the world’s most powerful class of warship up close, and it’s fun to pretend there’s a Soviet-grade naval threat down south, but are those compelling reasons to send a carrier to do a frigate’s job? Cullom points out that his carrier group is doing the training on the fly, while en route to its “real” job. Using a carrier is “cost-effective,” he says, “because we have to get from here to the Pacific anyways.”

But a more persistent presence would certainly benefit South America, and everyone else whose trade passes through southern waters. That would mean making training a full-time mission rather than something we do on the side. And it would mean getting more small, independent “cruisers” into a fleet that seems destined to concentrate more and more power into fewer, larger ships, “denying the Navy exactly what the surface combatant force needs for a peacetime maritime strategy,” according to naval blogger Galrahn.

(Photo: Navy)

by Zach Rosenberg

The Mexican military of gets about .5% of the GDP, putting them on relative par with such, ahem, heavily notoriously militarized, violent nations as The Bahamas, Moldova and Gambia. The budget, about $4 billion in 2006, has recently received a $500 million boost from the Merida Initiative, which is mainly to be dedicated to reconnaissance and interdiction equipment. The result is a slow upgrade from their weird hodgepodge of outdated systems into a relative modernity. This is not to insult the Mexican military, but seriously, nobody really uses T-33s anymore.

Recent purchases of weapons and associated systems from Israel, Germany and the U.S. will likely result in a real upgrade in capability. However, in a country like Mexico, which has major problems with inequality (Gini coefficient of .54) where citizens have little faith in their governmental institutions, with a history of forceful intervention in domestic affairs (pdf!), military modernization can be controversial. Recent proposals to buy Russian Su-27s for the Navy, for instance, were rejected.

Mexico, surrounded by weak military powers and bordering a world superpower, has long been oriented towards domestic operations, which are now, under significant pressure from the U.S., anti-drug in nature. President Felipe Calderon ordered the military to intervene directly in northern Mexico, superseding and sometimes directly replacing heavily corrupt or ineffective police forces and putting emphasis on national counter-drug operations — despite these measures the military has been generally ineffective in increasing security. This is not unexpected given the level of corruption within the military.

Indeed, Los Zetas, as one of the more notorious drug hit squads are known, is composed partially of deserters from Mexican special forces units. Men in Mexican Army uniforms have been seen (pictured) and fired upon escorting drug shipments over the U.S. border. That said, they are trying. The Army can now be seen all over northern Mexico, backed by heavy weapons, helicopters and surveillance aircraft (from the U.S. as well). While corruption almost certainly means that these resources are being used selectively against a limited range of targets, they are there. The strength of the drug cartels and level of support (and terror) they inspire likely mean that the status quo will not change drastically, but their effectiveness remains to be (publicly) seen.

Those bastards. They went and did it. Cue press release!

The U.S. Coast Guard today accepted delivery of the first National Security Cutter, USCGC Bertholf (WMSL 750), a 418-foot vessel built by Northrop Grumman and equipped by Lockheed Martin with integrated communications, sensors and electronics systems. Acceptance signifies transfer of ownership from industry to government and the start of operational test and evaluation.

Bertholf, which is months late and $200 million over budget, had a surprisingly painless inspection process prior to delivery, showing just 2,800 faults — far fewer than many Navy vessels. But the crankiest part of the ship’s design, her communications suite — which leaks classified data — was deliberately omitted from the inspection process. And the comms might never work as advertised.

But now it’s too late to do anything about it. If the Coast Guard were truly responsible stewards of the taxpayer’s money, the service would have rejected the ship, returned it to builder Northrop and electronics maker Lockheed, and demanded a refund. But in an age when senior officers are all salivating over lucrative post-retirement industry jobs, that kind of integrity is rare. So the Coast Guard — and the taxpayer — now owns Bertholf, problems and all.

(Photo: Coast Guard)

Here at War Is Boring I’ve been accused of only caring about the major hotspots in the U.S.-led “Global War on Terror,” plus, for some reason, East Timor. There are lots of conflicts and potential conflicts way outside the scope of the ol’ GWOT, folks have pointed out — and they’re absolutely right. So I’ve recruited an up-and-coming young writer to brief me — and you — on some of the places I’ve overlooked. Everyone, meet Zach Rosenberg. He’s here to tell us about Mexico. Take it away, Zach …

Mexico enjoys a close relationship with the U.S., with high levels of trade and culture exchange. This closeness brings great rewards to both countries, but also creates problems. In Mexico’s case, many of these problems have to do with the fact that it sits next to the U.S. So, what are some of the major problems, and why should they concern us?

1) Drugs: The U.S. is by far the world’s largest market for drugs, and despite billions of dollars poured into efforts (pictured) to stop them from coming in, the smugglers don’t seem to have many export problems. The vast majority of cocaine and crack is smuggled over land across the border. While I find the U.S. “War on Drugs” to be tragic and ridiculous, the fact is that drugs can be dangerous, and the flood from Mexico creates serious public health and law enforcement issues all over the country. Readers from the Southwest probably have some interesting stories about it.

2) Gangs: Many of these problems come from the drug gangs themselves. They are, for the most part, tightly organized, well financed, and heavily armed. The Mexican government is fairly corrupt at all levels, but the local police take that particular cake. The consequence of this is that drug gangs, despite the efforts of Mexico City, operate in a law enforcement vacuum, intimidating and killing rival gang members, police, reporters and innocents, and few people try to stop them. They are so imbued into the local culture that narcocorridos, songs about drug dealers, are a popular favorite in the region; many people pray to the patron saint of the trade.

3) Oil: Yes, oil. Lots of it. The U.S. imports huge quantities of the stuff from Mexico, and it’s a hot issue on the Mexican political scene these days. The Mexican state oil company, PEMEX, works with old equipment and technology and has serious problems with funding and payment, say nothing of the complex political environment. This issue is ongoing.

Next, Zach will tell us about the Mexican military and how it factors in all these problems. Check back later.

(Photo: A.P.)

A couple weeks back I reported on NATO’s decision to cancel a program to train former Afghan militiamen as “auxiliary police,” despite these cops’ vital role defending outlying towns against Taliban attacks. The end of the auxiliary police program (pictured) seemed to signal a change of heart about the widespread practice of using tribal armies as proxies in the U.S.-led “war on terror.”

The big question was, without local cops, what would NATO do to defend Afghan towns? Army Colonel Tom McGrath, from the Afghanistan Regional Command - South, has the partial answer: more U.S. Marines to train up more and better national cops, who must meet higher standards than the auxiliaries.

Here’s McGrath:

What we’re going to have them do is what we call in-district reform, which allows the Marines to move into Taliban-controlled areas and begin the crucial work of, you know, training the Afghan National Police as uniformed officers over a period of eight weeks. That’s the training period, eight weeks.

What’s important to note about the mission is that not only are they going to be training [police] in areas that are considered hot spots or places we haven’t had many coalition in the past, but they’re also taking on the role of mentors. …

The bottom line is, what we do is, we go into a district and we remove the [existing national] police force. And most of these policemen are untrained, and I mean untrained, poorly equipped, no uniforms. We take them off to a centralized training area and we train them for a period of eight weeks. During that period, we backfill them with the Afghan national civil order police, which is a highly trained national police force that they have. And then when that’s complete, we rip them back in and move the ANCOP into another area. And it’s worked quite well. At the end of March, we had our first group, out of Zabul province to the east, in three different districts, move back in. And they’ve done extremely well.

The high point is that you have a very professional police force that is making its way through the villages and the towns and the bazaars. But also they’re engaging Taliban. We’ve killed approximately 60 to 70 Taliban in the last couple of weeks. And that’s a first, for the Taliban, that they’re getting killed by the ANP. …

The Taliban, through our intelligence, are confused, because they’re getting hit by the ANP. Their morale’s down, and they’re having trouble gathering up momentum to get things moving. It is the poppy season, though. We’re waiting for the poppy season to end. So you know, we’ll see what happens after that.

(Photo: me)

It was a decades-old Army tradition that junior officers would eat lunch together every day in Army-run dining halls. There they would trade ideas they’d picked up in their training. But in the last decade, to save money, contractors such as Kellogg, Brown and Root have replaced the old dining halls with civilian-style cafeterias, some boasting big-screen TVs. The officers stopped gathering … and stopped talking. That had the effect of isolating young leaders, preventing them from getting answers to life-and-death questions — and from sharing their own answers they might have learned the hard way.

Lt. Cols. Tony Burgess and Nate Allen were captains in the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division in the mid-1990s when they started noticing the absence of this traditional “informal knowledge-sharing.” Besides the demise of old-school chow halls, a growing wave of political correctness had killed off the tradition of leaders drinking together at the Officer’s Club after work. So Burgess and Allen instead had taken to hanging out on each other’s front porches at night, talking shop. But they wanted some way to bring more people into the conversation. They turned to what was, for the mainstream Army, a fairly new technology: the Internet.

Ten years later, Burgess and Lt. Col. Pete Kilner oversee a family of password-protected, Army-sanctioned, Web-based forums that connect officers all over the world — including many in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their so-called “Center for Company-Level Leaders,” nestled in an airy office at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has become the high-tech chow hall/o-club/front porch for a generation of wartime leaders.

Getting from those front porches in Hawaii to the Army’s intellectual fortress at West Point was a long, hard journey. The forums braved skeptical generals, meddlesome reporters and the perennial scourge of the modern Internet: malicious commenters called “flamers.” But the results speak for themselves. From humble beginnings — maybe 50 legitimate participants per day — the forums now engage thousands of officers on a daily basis. And the ideas they’ve discussed have helped shape the Army at a critical juncture in its history: locked in a low-intensity, global war against a clever, elusive, Internet-savvy enemy.

Read the rest at World Politics Review.

(Photo: me)

The so-called Future Combat Systems, which has cost taxpayers roughly $20 billion so far, has come under fire from the Government Accountability Office for exceeding cost estimates. Other critics say [its] electronics network is pure fantasy. Still others contend that the new hybrid vehicles – which are still in development and should enter production in 2013 – are modeled on an outdated style of firepower-heavy conventional warfare. But the program, co-managed by Boeing and consultants SAIC, has also produced some smaller technologies, like new bomb-defeating robots, that are clearly useful in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Rep. John] Murtha [D-Penn.] has proposed adding another $20 billion to FCS research and development this year, in an effort to speed up these more immediately useful technologies. But there’s a caveat: in exchange for the extra cash, the Army might have to cancel the rest of the program.

Future Combat Systems was launched in 2002, before the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The program was designed for a U.S. Army that would be fighting high-tech battles similar to those of the 1991 Gulf War: tank versus tank on open terrain. By contrast, low-tech insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan move on foot, blend in with the civilian population and prefer ambushes, sniping and roadside bombs to any stand-up fight. For this reason, some critics contend, FCS is outmoded before it even enters service.

“FCS is yet another iteration of attempts since the 1950s, if not earlier, to automate human conflict,” Elise Szabo and Ana Marte, from Center for Defense Information, a Washington policy organization, wrote last year. “These multiple efforts have resulted in repeated failures and frequent defeats for the side attempting to employ them … FCS, if ever deployed, is more likely to impede U.S. military mental and physical agility on the battlefield, rather than facilitate it.”

But the $160-billion, 20-year program does have a number of secondary technologies that might be useful for current wars – provided they’re finished fast enough. FCS, which has already eaten up about $3.5 billion per year and growing, features improved robots plus new sensors and a family of “universal” radios that can connect robots, armored vehicles and airplanes in a single network. Murtha wants to know if any of these technologies are good candidates for fast-tracking. “If the subcommittee gives the Army an extra $20 billion, what can they do with it?” said Matt Mazonkey, a Murtha staffer. “He [Murtha] wants to get stuff out.”

(Photo: me)

“A U.S. military drone crashed in a Somali coastal area south of Mogadishu today, a local government official and witnesses told AFP” last week:

“It’s a small unmanned American plane. It’s small and can be carried by three people,” said Mohamed Mohamoud Helmi, the government official in charge of security in the town of Merka.

“The object, a small plane, is now in the hands of the police forces. It fell near the coastal area of Agaren,” said Osman Hassan Hussein, Merka’s police chief.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Agaren is located around five kilometres south of Merka, a large town around 100 kilometres south of the capital Mogadishu.

“It was flying from the direction of the ocean and it crashed in an area where children were playing football,” said Helmi. “It doesn’t appear to be damaged and we are ready to hand it back to anyone who claims ownership,” he added.

Several witnesses told AFP the drone was found early today.

“I saw the small plane, it’s about one metre and a half,” local president Mohamed Saddam said. “It has cameras on it and things like computer components.”

What kind of drone was it? And what does that tell us about U.S. Navy operations off of Somalia?

My guess, based on the description, is an Insitu Scan Eagle — a 40-pound drone launched by catapult and recovered in a net. The Marines use leased Scan Eagles for spotting insurgents in Iraq. The Navy recently announced it would buy some of the birds outright, and promptly began testing Scan Eagles aboard cargo ships, destroyers and Special Operations boats.

The latter is key, I believe. Last week the Navy launched a cruise missile to take out a suspected jihadi in southern Somalia. While the crashed Scan Eagle might have been used to conduct post-strike reconnaissance, I believe that it’s more likely the drone was supporting U.S. Special Forces on the ground.

Good, high-fidelity intel is damn hard to come by in Somalia. The lack of info practically begs for SF teams on the ground to provide solid targeting data. (There are persistent rumors that American special operators were in Somalia during the Ethiopian invasion in December 2006.) The Scan Eagles, launched from boats or warships off the coast, might be the SF teams’ eyes in the sky.

(Photos: Navy)

One of the funniest things about the new Iron Man movie: the corrupt “Stark Industries” defense contractor that hero Tony Stark is trying to reform appears to be modeled on number-one U.S. weapons maker Lockheed Martin.

The proof? First, in the world of the movie, Stark Industries builds Lockheed Martin F-22s. Also, there’s this:

So is LockMart working on super-suits for soldiers? Well, no, that’s Raytheon territory. But like Stark, with its illicit sale of super-powered rockets to a shadowy terrorist group, Lockheed has been fined for selling … wait for it … unauthorized glue to South Korea.

Last year I almost started a riot at a Mogadishu movie theater. Last week Alex Strick van Linschoten had his own close call:

The atmosphere can change in a matter of seconds while working in Somalia. Today we were traveling with a militia south of Mogadishu in part so that Philip could take some photos of a ‘technical’, the well-known battlewagon in Somalia popularized in the fighting of the 1990s.

All went well until we reached the limit of where the militia could operate and we stopped momentarily at the border to say goodbye before moving off to the next area on our own. Mustafa, our fixer, said we should get out of the car and Philip takes a photo as we get out.

Small discussions break out around us. We have two guards in the car with us, but between militia soldiers and the border checkpoint soldiers there are perhaps 20 other men armed with anything from an AK-47 to the large Duska/Duskia anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of the technical.

Our own two militiamen get out of the car, shouting all the while. To our right, two men raise their weapons both holding the barrels of each other’s gun. The soldier is tall and has his finger on the trigger of his half-metre long automatic weapon. Philip and I are a metre away, moving slowly back into the car. Our guard is confronting the border guards and all the militiamen have cocked their weapons against each other.

Now they’re lunging out, snatching each others’ weapons. Our two guards are disarmed. Philip is telling me to get back into the car. I swing into the left-hand side at the back, keeping the door open with Philip to my right. The atmosphere is tremendously tense and everything is happening too quickly.

The right side of the car is now a whirl of movement, people repositioning themselves. I look for Mustafa and tell the driver we should leave. He stays.

Mustafa walks calmly round the back and gets in on the left side. Militiamen still arguing, with arms locked and outstretched in anger, our guards are handed back their AK47s through the right window.

We are slowly moving off but still we leave them mid-argument. Throughout the whole incident – which lasts perhaps three minutes, but feels a lot longer – I have no real idea what is going on or what the problem is.

One of our guards jumps on the outside frame on the right-hand side of our 4WD car and we pull out of the dusty square on the side of the road. Philip lights up a cigarette; I look at him, take a deep breath.

Turns out the soldiers at the border checkpoint assumed we had paid the militiamen to have the right to take photos. They were demanding money from us.

“It’s amazing how it takes about 3 seconds for things to go from plain sailing to you’re-about-to-die,” Alex told me by email today.

(Photo: Alex)