INTERCEPTS
“I really don’t know to what extent the weapon systems that
have been developed over the last 10 years have been penetrated, to what extent the chips are compromised, to what
extent the code is compromised. I can’t assure you that as
you go to war with a cybersecurity-conscious, cybersecurity-capable enemy that any of our stuff is going to work.”
Richard Clarke
Counterterrorism analyst and former presidential adviser
On the potential danger cyber attacks pose to U.S. forces and assets.
Associated Press, Nov. 7
“Once you are in a hole, the first thing that you should do is
stop digging, so I think that it is time to say goodbye to the
submarines right now and focus on the new surface fleet.”
If cut more, “we anticipate confronting stark choices with further
reductions in our ability to perform
our most vital missions,” he said.
“If we lose our ability to be forward deployed and ready to respond
to crisis,” said Mills, deputy commandant for combat development,
it would “create challenges in terms
of weapons of mass destruction,
protection of shipping on the high
seas, protection of American citizens
living and working abroad, reduced
employment, harm to our economic
and financial systems, and, lastly, in
our ability to face adversaries on
their ground — not American soil.”
Steven Staples
President of Canada’s Rideau Institute
On the state of the Canadian Navy’s inactive four-boat submarine fleet.
Wall Street Journal, Nov. 8
significant cuts in forces and funding.
They warned that the $465 billion
reduction in defense budgets over 10
years required by the Budget Control
Act (BCA) — and the possibility that
as much as $600 billion more could
be cut under sequestration should a
congressional supercommittee fail to
find a plan to trim the nation’s budget
deficit — would be unacceptable.
Akin showed a staff-produced
chart that predicted the Navy
would shrink from 288 ships to
263 under BCA cuts and to 238
under sequester.
The hearing’s two naval forces
witnesses, Vice Adm. Bruce W.
Clingan and Marine Lt. Gen.
Richard P. Mills, could not provide
specific information on what those
funding cuts would do to their
forces, because that would be
shaped by future actions by
Congress and the administration.
But they provided vivid details on
what the naval forces contribute to
U.S. and global security, and general predictions on the impact of dramatically leaner budgets.
Clingan, deputy chief of naval
operations for operations, plans
and strategy, said that while all the
services would be impacted by the
cuts, the Navy, “with its capital-
intensive shipbuilding and aircraft
procurement and maintenance
accounts, could potentially be the
service most adversely affected.”
The demand for Navy assets has
been so high that with the current
forces the Navy is able to meet an
average of only 59 percent of the
combatant commander’s require-
ments, Clingan said in his prepared
testimony.
“Without question, the fleet is
operating now at an unsustainable
level,” he said.
The Navy expects funding cuts
under the BCA “will reduce the
capability, capacity and proficiency
required by the fleet to accomplish
our global missions; reduce the
operational availability of those
forces that we retain; and increase
the risk to mission success and our
naval forces to the maximum
acceptable limit,” Clingan testified.
Services Develop
Air-Sea Battle Office
The chiefs of the Navy, Marine
Corps and Air Force have created
an Air-Sea Battle Office to address
the emerging anti-access/area
denial (A2/AD) threat, the Defense
Department announced Nov. 8.
The office is an outgrowth of the
2010 Quadrennial Defense Review,
which directed the services to develop a concept that integrates air and
naval forces in order to operate in
the A2/AD environment.
“It has taken us from then to
about now to complete the work of
writing that concept,” a Defense
Department official told reporters
Nov. 9. “Only just recently, the sec-
retary of defense has acknowledged
the work as credible work and has
given us the green light to move for-
ward with the implementation of
the air-sea battle concept.”
The new office will oversee
implementation by improving coor-
dination among the services, influ-
encing the war games and helping
develop and integrate air and naval
capabilities. The Air Force, Navy
and Marine Corps each must dedi-
cate at least two field-grade officers,
or civilian equivalents, to the office.
“Air-Sea Battle will leverage military and technological capabilities
that reflect unprecedented Navy,
