Monday, July 2, 2012

Gatestone Update :: Taylor Dinerman: Stealth: Not-So-Secret Secrets, and more


Facebook  Twitter  RSS
Gatestone Institute
In this mailing:

Stealth: Not-So-Secret Secrets

by Taylor Dinerman
July 2, 2012 at 4:30 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
If major international war really is obsolete, it is mainly due to America's military superiority: it makes adversaries reluctant to take us on.
We are now seeing Russian and Chinese "stealth" aircraft appear, at least in prototype form. The Chinese have prototypes of the J-20 large fighter bomber, which looks as if it may enter service with the Chinese Air Force in 2018. In a recently published report on Chinese military power, the US Department of Defense wrote that the J-20 shows "China's ambition to produce a fighter aircraft that incorporates stealth attributes, advanced avionics and supercruise capable engines." Supercruise in this context means that the aircraft can fly at supersonic speeds for sustained periods of time. This has only been achieved by the now grounded US SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance jet and the F-22.
Americans should get used to the idea that today's military technological breakthrough will be commonplace on tomorrow's battlefield. It costs a lot to develop and build the best military in the world.
If the pundits are right, and if major international war really is obsolete, it is largely due to America's overwhelming military superiority: it makes adversaries reluctant to take us on. Maintaining this U.S. superiority is what keeps the world more or less at peace.
Russia, meanwhile, is working on the Sukhoi T-80, also known as the PAK-FA -- a supposedly stealthy version of the SU-27 family of fighter bombers. The Russians have negotiated a co-development deal for this aircraft with India, which plans to buy around 200 copies.
Sukhoi has three T-80 test aircraft in operation, and hopes to have 11 more test aircraft flying before the first production model is delivered in 2013. The Russian air force is planning to have the T-80 in service sometime in 2015 or 2016, but its arrival in the Russian Air Force will probably be delayed. How effective the T-80 will be is open to question. Russia has developed some excellent combat airplanes over the years, but it has also built large numbers of fighters that have proven to be less than reliable, such as the 1970s' MiG 23.
Meanwhile, the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which originated in 1993, grinds ahead. It has already cost US taxpayers more than $400 billion. By the time the last F-35 leaves the production line sometime in the 2030s, the whole program will have cost more than one-and-a-half trillion dollars.
The F-35 was supposed to be the final manned fighter airplane built by the US; after that, all combat flying would be done by drones -- but things may not turn out that way. The US Navy has started preliminary work on a new manned fighter attack aircraft called the FA-XX.
The F-35 was also supposed to be a fine example of multinational cooperation. Certainly the US's European partners, including the British, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Italians and the Danes, all had memories of successful collaboration with the US Defense Department on projects in the past. America's foreign partners are already suffering from "sticker shock," but as they have already invested considerable sums in the program, probably few of these partners will choose to walk away.
Any real stealth secrets inherent in the F-35 will almost certainly leak out through these foreign partners. They may have already leaked. However since the classified technology dates from the mid-1990s, it can hardly be considered truly "cutting edge."
Many Americans believe that Stealth technology is still an exclusive US military advantage and that the "Secrets of Stealth" must be preserved at all costs. Stealth, or as it is sometimes called, Low Observable Technology, has acquired an almost mythical significance. This myth tends to blind both political leaders in Washington and many media commentators to the true value of what is misleadingly referred to as invisibility. During the 1980 Presidential campaign, the Carter administration announced that it was working on an invisible bomber, which turned out to be the very expensive B-2 bomber, of which the US Air Force managed to buy a grand total of 21.
In the late 1970s, the US Air Force was working on a smaller Stealth aircraft, the F-117 Nighthawk, which secretly entered into service in 1982. Publicly unveiled in 1989, the US Air Force hailed it as a giant breakthrough in its military technology. That was nearly quarter of a century ago, it is hard to see why anyone expects that the secrets of stealth are still secret.
The US had been working on radar-evading and heat-signature-suppressing technologies since the late 1950s. There is nothing either very secret or surprising about this. All military forces try to hide their forces and are willing to spend a lot of money and effort on various forms of camouflage and concealment.
Stealth technology as we know it came into being in the 1970s, thanks in part to work by a Russian mathematician, but mostly thanks to advances in US computer technology. Lockheed was able to build a technology demonstration aircraft for the air force called the "Have Blue," which showed that an aircraft with the new radar-evading technology could penetrate Soviet-style 1970s integrated air defense systems.
"Have Blue" was followed in the early 1980s by the secret F-117 Stealth "Fighter," which was never actually a fighter but, as it was roughly the size of a fighter, the Air Force choose to call it a fighter, even though it would have been more accurate to call it a light reconnaissance bomber.
Although the F-117 was first used during the overthrow of the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989, it proved itself during the 1991 Gulf War. The Iraq air defense system, which at the time was the best that Saddam's oil wealth could buy, was unable to shoot down a single F-117, even though they flew dozens of missions over the most heavily defended parts of Iraq, especially over Baghdad. The F-117s were able repeatedly to hit Iraqi headquarters and other critical targets such as bridges and industrial facilities. It was this that crippled Saddam's ability to continue the war.
At the same time in the early 1990s, the Air Force was introducing its new strategic bomber, the B-2. This was, and is, an extraordinary aircraft that combines stealth with a long range. The B-2 can fly more than 5000 miles on a single fuel load, as well as anywhere in the world with air-to-air refueling, even with a heavy payload. This bomber was first used against targets in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001.
Since its existence was revealed during the 1980 Presidential campaign, "stealth" has become surrounded by an aura of mystery and invincibility that tends to obscure its value in being able to defeat the most advanced air defense systems. Although talk about invisible and invulnerable airplanes was hogwash, normally skeptical journalists and media commentators bought into the myth, and sometimes used it to propagate a dangerously sterile vision of modern war, especially the idea that wars can be fought with no friendly casualties and almost no casualties on the enemies' side.
In 1999, during the Kosovo operation, an F-117 was shot down over Serbia by an old Soviet SA-3 surface-to-air missile. This seems to have been done by a Serb missile battalion commander who, using basic intelligence methods, analyzed US air operations. Specifically, Serbian intelligence had informers with cell phones around US bases; the informers would phone in the departure times of US aircraft. Using this data the Serbs were able to make educated guesses when and where US aircraft would appear in the skies over their missile launchers.
The pilot ejected and was rescued, but the wreckage of the plane was recovered by the Serbs; it is believed they gave the debris to Russia as a "thank you" for Moscow's political support.
Whatever the next military technological breakthrough is, if it keeps American troops alive and victorious in war and globally respected in peacetime, it will be worth every penny.
Related Topics:  Taylor Dinerman

Egypt: What Happened?
From the Fall of Mubarak to the Rise of Morsy

by Tarek Heggy
July 2, 2012 at 4:30 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
The Obama administration's support for the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] emanates from an extremely wrong understanding of the Ikhwan's agenda, which has not changed since its inception in 1928: Replacing French, Napoleonic law with Islamic Sharia law, and the vision of a Caliphate, which aims at combining all Muslim societies under one single ruler.
The recent political developments in Egypt in Egypt since the fall of its president, Hosni Mubarak, on February 11, 2011 have been stressful and troublesome. Mubarak's fall was unavoidable, mainly because of his determination to have his son, Gamal Mubarak, succeed him. Gamal Mubarak's succession was refused my most the Egyptians not only because of its humiliating nature -- a son of the President of the Republic inheriting Egypt as if it was a private property -- but equally because of Gamal Mubarak's oligarchic power and wealth that dominated political life in Egypt. In November, 2010, the Gamal Mubarak faction made its fatal mistake when they monopolized 98% of the seats of the Egyptian Parliament.
Since the fall of Mubarak, Egypt's military rulers, the SCAF, have made a number of fatal mistakes that strengthened the Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] and weakened liberals. The first grave mistake was to delegate an Islamist, Tarek al Bishry, to draft the constitutional amendments that were endorsed by a popular referendum on March 19, 2011. Instead of starting democratic reform by drafting a new democratic constitution, the committee decided to start the process not only by electing a new parliament that was overwhelmingly Islamist, but by giving this new parliament the right to draft the constitution. The plea by Egyptian intellectuals to have the constitution drafted by a committee of educated, intellectual figures was ignored by the ruling SCAF, which incorrectly calculated that members of the Ikhwan, who had far more outreach and popularity, would accept playing whatever role the SCAF designed for them.
The victory of the Islamic groups in the parliamentary election of November 2011 was a natural result of the following factors: A) the 19/3/2011 constitutional amendments, B) reliance on a number of Islamist advisers, including Essam Sharaf, who was Prime Minister for a number of months, and C) the unjustified rush, driven by the Islamist advisers, that was characterized by early parliamentary elections and also by totally ignoring the article in the constitution that bans political parties that have a religious agenda.
Since the Islamists' triumph in November, 2011, the battle stood mainly between the Ikhwan, who became excessively confident that Egypt would ultimately fall into their hands, and the members of the military SCAF, who mainly were eager to protect the military establishment's various assets, benefits, merits and immunity. For instance, the Ikhwan announced their intention to give the leadership of the army, intelligence service, security services, and the Ministry of Interior to MB figures certainly not on SCAF's recommendation, but mainly to figures known for their sympathy with the MB.
The Ikhwan benefited enormously when SCAF pressed Ahmed Shafeeq to run for Egypt"s Presidency. It was not difficult for the Ikhwan to launch a campaign of character-assassination against Shafeeq, who was a member of Mubarak's narrow circle as well as Mubarak's last Prime Minister.
The Obama administration's support for the Ikhwan was of immense value to its candidate. In parallel to the strong support of the Obama administrating, huge Qatari funds were also instrumental.
Although there were rumors that Ahmed Shafeeq won more votes, the SCAF chose to announce Morsy's victory, probably to avoid consequences similar to what happened in Algeria slightly more than 20 years ago, when a civil war broke out after the Algerian president cancelled the results of the parliamentary elections when they seemed to be overwhelmingly in favour of the Islamists. It is rumored that in case Ahmed Shafeeq were to be announced as victorious, a violence would have exploded all over Egypt.
The Obama administration's support for the Ikhwan emanates from an extremely wrong understanding of the Ikhwan's agenda, which has been unchanged since its inception in 1928. The two pillars of this project have been: First, abolishing the entire judicial and juridical system that had been introduced in Egypt in 1883 and was based on the French legal system, the Napoleonic Code. Instead, the Ikhwan would introduced a legal system based on Islamic Sharia law, including amputating hands, stoning and whip-lashing. Second, reviving the political vision of a Caliphate, which aims at uniting all Muslim societies under a single ruler, similar to the Ottoman Empire abolished by Kemal Ataturk ninety years ago.
Related Topics:  Egypt  |  Tarek Heggy

Assessing the Maldives

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
July 2, 2012 at 4:00 am
Be the first of your friends to like this.
The Foreign Ministry said it was "extremely concerned" by the growth of Islamist rhetoric. The possibility of an Islamist president next year seems to be on course.

The Nasheed Government and its Islamist Opposition

Mention the Maldives, and you think of vacation brochures, beaches and coral reefs. But as a country whose citizen body is completely Muslim, how does it compare politically to the rest of the Islamic world?
The Maldives did not have its first democratic elections until 2008, and then only thanks to gradual reforms introduced under the rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the midst of civil unrest in 2003 and 2005.
Those elections were won by the pro-democracy activist and former political prisoner Mohammed Nasheed, in partnership with Mohammed Waheed Hassan. As part of a left-of-center coalition, they defeated the incumbent president Gayoom and his Maldivian People's Party (DRP).
Nasheed, as the leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), aimed to implement a reformist agenda to secure the democratic framework. As Freedom House noted, Nasheed "introduced draft bills guaranteeing freedom of expression and press freedom that remained under consideration by the parliament at the end of 2010."
Also underlying the plans for liberalization was an economic motive: Gayoom had bequeathed a legacy of financial ruin to Nasheed that included Gayoom's failed Air Maldives venture which, after suffering losses of $50 million, declared bankruptcy in March 2000.
In June 2010, several cabinet ministers resigned in protest over what they said were the opposition's hindrance of plans for reform. This opposition, which consisted chiefly of the DRP, had won a plurality of seats in the 2009 in parliamentary elections generally deemed free and fair; together with the judiciary, they then put a stop to Nasheed's initiatives to expand the tourism sector. According to the current tourism minister, Ahmed Adheeb, Nasheed's government tried to bypass the tourism ministry in the allocation of some islands that were to be developed for tourists.
While Nasheed was able to survive that, political opposition to him, most having a Islamist flavor, was escalating. As he began to lose allies in the coalition government, protests by both the opposition and the NGO-organized "street" started to strengthen.
Feeling pressure from the demonstrations, the government announced at the end of December 2011 plans to impose on the Maldives a complete ban on alcohol and pork, a ban on Israeli airlines from operating flights to and from the islands, and a ban on massage parlors, widely equated with brothels.
The tourism industry, however, ignored these restrictions; Nasheed was apparently against imposing them as well.
A few weeks later, in early 2012, the government reversed its stance. The Supreme Court, although rejecting requests for an opinion on whether the Maldives could import pork or alcohol without violating its constitution, rooted in Islamic law, nonetheless declared that there was regulation in the legal framework of the Contraband Act to import both products -- so the practice was not illegal.
Nasheed made his sentiments clear in the wake of this about-face; he affirmed that "the silent majority woke up and they wanted to reverse the ruling…Such extreme calls do not really quite find the resonance with the majority of the people in the country."
Further, Nasheed expressed concerns in January of this year over the revival of the custom of female genital mutilation [FGM, or "female circumcision"], for which countless religious groups had campaigned, along with barring girls from attending school.
The Sydney Morning Herald, which interviewed Nasheed, quoted Shadiya Ibrahim, of the Maldivian women's rights organization the "Gender Advocacy Working Group," as saying, "Being a woman is harder now. The religious Wahhabist scholars preach more forcefully than anyone else can."
Although there is perhaps some blame to be placed on an influx of Wahhabism, the revival of FGM is said to be particularly strong on the outlying islands, where, as the SMH notes, "local imams hold significant influence."
The Maldives, like parts of East Africa and Lower Egypt, mainly follow by tradition the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence, which rules that female circumcision is obligatory. It is therefore to this tradition, and not Wahhabi ideology, that local Maldivian imams appeal.
As protests gained momentum throughout January, the foreign ministry affirmed that it was "extremely concerned" by the growth of Islamist rhetoric. A leading member of the opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party, Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, was arrested on charges of hate-speech.
Jameel was said to have accused Nasheed of acting under the influence of Jews and "Christian priests" to undermine Islam in the Maldives; the first charge a reference to Nasheed's policy of trying to normalize relations with Israel. The reports on Jameel's words against Nasheed seem probable: note, for comparison, this anti-Nasheed pamphlet released by Jameel's Dhivehi Qaumee Party.
Accusations arose of authoritarianism on Nasheed's part; these only intensified the protests. On January 16, Nasheed ordered the military to arrest the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court, Abdulla Mohamed, on charges of corruption and obstruction of justice against the friends and family of the former president Gayoom.
Whatever one thinks of Nasheed's claims that "Gayoom is running the judiciary," Nasheed's subsequent defiance of the Supreme Court's calling for Abdulla to be released certainly did not help.
Although it would not be fair to describe Nasheed as an autocrat by nature, he seems to have misstepped in lashing out in his frustration at the judiciary at a time of political crisis. His actions only led many of his allies to turn against him, as opposition activists tied Abdulla's arrest to the fact that Abdulla had deemed Jameel's detention illegal.

The Coup

Nasheed was finally ousted on February 7, forced to resign, as he claimed, ''under duress'' in a de facto coup d'état; and replaced by Mohammed Waheed Hassan, who had been Nasheed's partner in the 2008 elections. There is much evidence that vindicates Nasheed's account of events on February 7.
First, Abbas Adil Raza, an official of the Jumhoory party that was in opposition to Nasheed at the time, claimed that Nasheed and his supporters were aiming to implement a "devious plan" to "massacre" their opponents on the night of February 6, but only the police and army prevented it. This is, in effect, an admission that there was a coup against Nasheed, albeit justified as a preventive measure. There is nothing to suggest that Nasheed or his supporters were planning any sort of 'massacre.'
Second, the former Environment Minister, Mohamed Aslam, and the former National Security Advisor, Ameen Faisal, both members of Nasheed's MDP party, recently co-wrote a report claiming that the help of police and army officers had been sought to bring about the overthrow of Nasheed.
Rather than trying to answer the allegations of the report put out by Faisal and Aslam, the current government under Mohammed Waheed Hassan has simply called the release of the report, with its list of names of army and police officers as alleged conspirators, an "act of terrorism."
Despite initial denials, the police arrested Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed and other officers who cooperated with the report issued by Faisal and Aslam.
For now, Hameed has been released on the orders of the Criminal Court, but on June 19, the police affirmed the existence of an ongoing investigation against Hameed that includes accusations of leaking information to stir up discord among the ranks of the police.
In short, the ousting of Nasheed came about because members of the army and police sided with the growing and increasingly violent protests at the beginning of the year.

The Aftermath

Although Mohammed Waheed Hassan may be telling the truth in his insistence that he had no role in the planning and execution of the coup, what is clear is that he was chosen as Nasheed's replacement because he is less willing to confront Islamism in the country, as revealed in an Islamist mob attack in the wake of the coup on the country's national museum. Although this rampage destroyed 99% of the Hindu and Buddhist artifacts associated with the islands' history, dating from the pre-Islamic period prior to the twelfth century, so far, no arrests have been made.
Mohammed Waheed Hassan's response has been to deny any problem with Islamism. As he told reporters, "I can assure you there is no extremist violent action in this country."
Even though there had been incidents of Islamist violence, and Islamist sentiment became more and more overt under the government of Nasheed, at least he recognized the problem and tried to push a program of reform.
In contrast, the current president prefers to be acquiescent and pander to Islamists, incorporating them into his cabinet.
According to Nasheed, Mohammed Waheed Hassan has called his supporters "mujahideen" [holy warriors], and has urged them to defend the Maldives against "the enemies of this country."
What then of the country's future? Nasheed recently announced his intention to stand for the presidency next year, but it is doubtful if he can reclaim the position. Although Nasheed has his supporters, the coup against him was not simply a conspiracy by a few sinister individuals.
Rather, the military and police, facing increasing civil unrest, sided with the opposition against him. Nasheed's liberal views did not sit well with a considerable section of the population; in the 2009 parliamentary elections, the MDP did not even win a plurality of seats.
Even now, apparently many of Nasheed's opponents in government are aiming to have him jailed before the next elections: the parties that opposed Nasheed's government had a recent motion passed in the parliament to set up a committee to investigate allegations of illegal conduct on Nasheed's part: in particular, the possession of containers of alcohol at his residence and the arrest of Abdulla Mohamed. The deputy leader of the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) has already expressed his confidence that Nasheed would be imprisoned by the time of the next elections.
As in Indonesia, the trends on the ground point to the growing influence of the Islamists, who clearly have sympathizers and supporters in the army and police. They also indicate the acceptance of the current president based on how unwilling he is to tackle Islamism head-on, or perhaps even in any fashion. The possibility of an Islamist president after next year's elections seems to be on course.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Related Topics:  Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
You are subscribed to this list as vicky13@rogers.com.
To edit your subscription options, or to unsubscribe, go to http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/list_edit.php
To subscribe to the this mailing list, go to http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/list_subscribe.php
Posted by solsticewitch13 at 1:28 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)