AROUND AFRICA: C.A.R. Violence Continues; U.S. Special Ops Chasing Kony

C.A.R. Violence Continues.

U.N. peacekeepers and Central African Republic National Police conduct a joint operation in the capital Bangui.
Photo: UN/MINUSCA/Nektarios Markogiannis

The interim president of Central African Republic (C.A.R.) left the United Nations General Assembly opening in New York early this week because of the worst violence this year has broken out in the nation’s  capital, Bangui.

President Catherine Samba-Panza arrived home Wednesday (September 30), according to Reuters (via the Voice of America website), but has yet to make a public statement.

At least 39 people have died in inter-communal clashes, raising doubts about a planned election in mid October.The vote is aimed at restoring democracy to a country following a rebellion and years of turmoil. The violence broke out despite appeals by world leaders and local politicians and the presence of French and United Nations peacekeepers.

Thousands of Central Africans have died and hundreds of thousands remain displaced after two years of violence that erupted after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the majority Christian country in 2013. Seleka abuses sparked reprisals by Christian “anti-balaka” fighters that drove most Muslims from the south in a de facto partition of the country.

Protesters alleged U.N. peacekeepers and French forces did little to intervene in violence Saturday (September 26) and called for the sidelined Central African army, the FACA, to assume responsibility for security, Al Jazeera reported. French and U.N. forces have been trying to halt the violence since first intervening in December 2013. About 900 French soldiers remain in the former French colony, down from about 2,000 last year.

On Tuesday (September 29) United Nations officials continued to voice their concern over the situation – where more than 30 people have been killed, over 100 have been wounded and thousands are seeking shelter amid the recent upsurge in violence. U.N. officials stressed the need for free movement for aid workers to reach those in need.

According to the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (MINUSCA), tensions persist in Bangui, which was the scene of attacks against civilians, violence between communities and attacks against humanitarian personnel since a young Muslim man was murdered on Saturday.

“MINUSCA is conducting patrols around critical areas, with the view of protecting civilians, including one Muslim and two Christian districts in Bangui,” U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

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Special Ops in C.A.R.

Central African Republic
(Map from CIA World Factbook)

Amid the violence in the Central African Republic comes news that U.S. special operations forces aiding in the search for the brutal warlord Joseph Kony are camped out “in a lawless enclave” in the C.A.R. on the borders of Sudan and South Sudan,” the Washington Post reports.

Citing military officials and others familiar with the operation, the Post reports the U.S. special operators are dealing with “some unsavory partners to help find Kony’s trail”  — the Muslim Seleka rebels, whose brutal actions two years ago spawned the chaos in the C.A.R.

Tht Post said the arrangement has made some U.S. troops uncomfortable. The Seleka rebels “are playing us,” one military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Post. The official described Seleka as a “mafia” that is trying to curry favor with the Americans even as the rebels extort local villagers and engage in illicit trade with Kony’s fugitive fighters.

President Obama first sent U.S. forces to central Africa in 2011 to aid several African militaries hunt Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, which has terrorized Central Africa for more than two decades.  Obama will have decide in October whether to reauthorize the deployment and extend it for at least another year.

Several members of Congress think that is exactly what he should do, according to The Hill newspaper. “The United States and other members of the international community must retain our resolve to capture or remove the leaders of the (Lord’s Resistance Army) and any terrorist group the threaten the lives and well being of innocent people worldwide,” said Representative Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican and chairman of the Africa Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat and ranking member on the subcommittee, echoed Smith’s sentiments. Noting that it’s been reported the LRA has dwindled to perhaps as few as small as 200 fighters. “Their intimate knowledge of the inhospitable central African landscapes and total disregard for human life continues to make them a clear and present danger,” she said. Bass called on her colleagues in Congress as well as other U.S. government agencies “to sustain our efforts to rid central Africa of Joseph Kony.”

[UPDATE] TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT: To Battle “Little Green Men” in Coastal Mega Cities

Staying Ahead of the Threat 2015. 

A 2010 traffic jam in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where population is projected to nearly double by 2050. The Marines are likely to find themselves fighting in complex, congested and contested environments like this around the world.
(Photo: Skyscaper City)

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, VIRGINIA — In the 21st Century, the U.S. Marine Corps will confront a number of challenges, like the hybrid warfare seen in eastern Ukraine and the rise of teeming coastal mega cities around the world, according to a panel of generals and colonels speaking at this year’s Modern Day Marine expo.

In opening the panel discussion on building the future Marine Corps by harnessing innovation, Lieutenant General Robert Walsh noted hybrid warfare was on the rise around the globe in Syria, Iraq and “going on in Ukraine right now.” The hybrid battlefield contains a mix of non-state actors (guerrillas or foreign volunteers) combined with regular military and “state capabilities” like precision weaponry and high tech communications and propaganda methods. “We’ve got to be able to stay ahead of the threat” through innovation, said Walsh, deputy Marine commandant for Combat Development and Integration.

“The new normal was Benghazi,” said Lieutenant General Ron Bailey, deputy commandant for Plans Policies and Operations. As Libya slid into chaos the Marines had to mobilize a special purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force to handle a rapidly disintegrating  situation on the ground, in the air and at sea. In the future, Marines will have to be prepared to fight in five battlespaces: air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, Bailey said.

The hybrid warfare in Ukraine “is the reality of the fight we will have to fight” against soldiers in uniforms mixed in with local citizens and volunteers (the so-called Little Green Men, who were believed to be Russian soldiers in mufti). “We need non-lethal weapons that will enable us to fight among the people” and still be able to take out enemy threats, Bailey added.

In hybrid warfare Marines will confront guerrillas, civilians and regular opposition forces in an urban environments, like these Lebanese troops training with U.S. Central Command.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo)

The future battlefield will probably look nothing like Afghanistan and Iraq, where Marines have been fighting for the last 14 years. Instead, urban areas near the sea and river deltas will be the most likely environment, said another panelist, Brigadier General Dale Alford, commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. And that environment will be “complex, congested, cluttered, contested, connected (with the cyber world), constrained and coastal,” he said. The world population is moving towards the cities and 75 percent of the world’s largest cities are in the developing world – many of them in the littoral areas close to the sea.”That’s where our Marines are  going to fight. That’s where we’re going to have to operate,” he added.

The Marine Corps is looking to industry for solutions for the changing battlespace of future conflicts
(Photo courtesy: Prox Dynamics — click on photo to enlarge)

Pointing at a slide showing images of recent conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, Alford noted the Marines will have to deal with challenges like iPADs and Google Earth being used to direct mortar attacks, off-the-shelf unmanned quad copters being used by terrorists and insurgents for surveillance and reconnaissance, MANPADs (shoulder-fired ground- to-air missiles) “in the hands of teenagers.”

Like other panel members, Alford said innovation and new techniques bubble up from below, from junior officers and sergeants and corporals who are in the fight. “We need our young pups out there to innovate and figure out how we’re going to do this,” he added. Panel members also called on industry to provide technical solutions for these new challenges.

For some arguments opposing the concept of hybrid warfare, click here and here.

A video on the topic, a hot one in NATO circles, is here.

[UPDATES to restore dropped word ‘Corps’ in dateline, expand definition of hybrid war, add detail to “cluttered, coastal environment” explanation and recast headlines to reflect changes.]

FRIDAY FOTO (September 25, 2015)

Red Sky at Morning.

Ohio National Guard photo by Air Force Senior Master Sergean. Beth Holliker

Last week was so busy, we missed wishing the U.S. Air Force a happy 68th birthday. So we thought we’d make it up to the folks work in the wild blue yonder with this photo.

An F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft sits on the flightline before morning sorties at  Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. The aircraft is assigned to the Ohio Air National Guard’s 180th Fighter Wing

WEAPONRY AND EQUIPMENT: Modern Day Marine Conference

Monster “Trucks”

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, VIRGINIA — We went south of Washington this week for a first-time visit to the Modern Day Marine (MDM) expo and confrence.

Photo courtesy of Modern Day Marine Military Exposition

Unlike massive military and industry conferences like the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space in April and the Association of the U.S. Army gathering next month in Washington, Modern Day Marine is held outdoors (in large air conditioned tents) instead of in a huge convention center. Even the panel discussions conducted by Marine Corps brass are held in a very big tent with folding chairs on temporary flooring.

At the first panel discussion, several generals and a couple of colonels talked about the importance of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), pronounced MAGTAF. It’s the Corps’ basic expeditionary force that can put Marines ashore via landing craft, helicopters —  or both — as part of a rapid response to a crisis. We’ll discuss this more over the weekend.

But we want to get to the four monster amphibious vehicles on display facing each other in one of the expo’s big tents.

For years the Marine Corps has been looking for a replacement for its aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV), a tracked landing craft that has been around since the 1970s. Five companies are competing for the contract to build the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) to replace the AAV.

The original planned replacement vehicle, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), was cancelled in 2011 by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates for being too expensive and behind schedule.

Now the Marines are looking for a big vehicle that can carry at least 10 Marines (beside an operating crew of three), get them to the beach from a ship as much as 12 nautical miles off shore, at a speed of at least 6 knots. The ACV will have to be as rugged and protective as a tank but be able to carry troops far inland quickly, if necessary.

Lockheed Martin’s entry in the ACV competition.
(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle)

Lockheed Martin unveiled its offering for the first time on Tuesday (September 22). Like all of the others on display, it is an 8×8 behemoth. The desert tan vehicle can carry as many as 13 Marines as well as a three-person crew.

BAE Systems, which makes the current AAV, is hoping to replace it with its entry displayed in forest camouflage colors.

BAE Systems ACV entry.
(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle

Science Applications International Corporation, better known as SAIC, had its gray Terrex 2 vehicle on display. The Terrex can carry 11 passengers plus a crew of three.

SAIC ACV on display at Modern Day Marine.
(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle)

Last but not least was a solid green 8X8 from General Dynamics.

The General Dynamics entry in the Marines’ ACV competition.
(4GWAR photo by John M. Doyle)

Also in the hunt for the ACV program — but not at MDM — is a team consisting of of Advanced Defense Vehicle Systems and St Kinetics, a Singapore company.

The Marines are expected to select two vehicles from the five offerings in November. Each company will then provide 16 vehicles to be tested in all types of climes and conditions.

[More on Modern Day Marine this weekend. Stay tuned.]

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE: The Top Eight Security Threats [UPDATE]

Future Flashpoints.

Soldiers fire missiles from a multiple rocket system, during the South Dakota Army National Guard’s annual training at Camp Guernsey, Wyoming in August.
(Defense Dept. photo)

UPDATES with link to full story below

Russia continues to act aggressively on land, sea and air from the Baltics to the Black Sea — and now in Syria. China is blamed for massive cyber hacks of U.S. commercial and government computers, while continuing to antagonize its neighbors by a military buildup in the South China Sea. North Korea has nuclear weapons and wants more, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Iran has been trying to develop nuclear capability for years, as well as missiles with increasing range.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on global threats earlier this year, Senator John McCain of Arizona, the panel’s chairman, noted “the current international environment is more complex and dangerous than at any time in recent memory.”

Here are just a few of the top current and future threats facing America and its partner nations — and the likely challenges they pose to integrated air and missile defense:

Russia – The new chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford and Air Force General Paul Selva – say Russia is the greatest threat to national security because of its nuclear and ballistic missile capability – second only to the U.S. arsenal. Moscow’s bullying tactics towards western neighbors – especially former Warsaw Pact members like Poland and the Baltic states that are now NATO members, is creating tensions in Europe not seen since the Cold War ended. Moscow’s deployment of tanks and combat aircraft have policy makers around the globe wondering what’s next?

Russia has made significant progress modernizing its nuclear and conventional forces and developing long range precision strike capabilities, notes Marine Corps Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart , director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). “In the next year, Russia will field more road-mobile SS-27 Mod-2 ICBMs with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles,” he told Congress, adding that development of the RS-26 ballistic missile, the Dolgorukiy ballistic missile submarine and next generation air- and ground-launched cruise missiles will continue.

China – Beijing continues an unprecedented buildup of army, naval and air forces to protect what it sees as its territorial integrity and sovereignty, including Taiwan and a number of islands in the South China Sea, where overlapping claims with at least five other countries — some of them U.S. allies — remain a potential flashpoint. China continues to produce JIN-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, and sub-launched ballistic missiles. It has 50-60 ICBMs, according to the DIA, and is adding more survivable road-mobile launch systems, enhancing its silo-based systems and developing a sea-based nuclear deterrent.

China continues to deploy growing numbers of the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, which could limit U.S. force projection in Asian waters. And China is developing a tiered ballistic missile defense system. The People’s Liberation Army is augmenting more than 1,200 conventional short-range ballistic missiles.

Proliferation – “Nation states’ efforts to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems or their underlying technologies constitute a major threat to the security of the United States,” according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Among the likely suspects he told a Senate hearing earlier this year: Iran for its continuing quest to build missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,. Klapper noted that Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.

North Korea has exported ballistic missiles and other materials to several countries including Iran and Syria. “Today, nine nations possess, or are suspected of possessing, nuclear weapons and 22 have ballistic missile capabilities,” says Lieutenant General David Mann, commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command.

To read the complete version of this story, Click here.

The threats these developments pose will be among the topics discussed next week at the Integrated Air and Missile Defense conference in Arlington, Virginia. The three day event, hosted by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement (IDGA), runs from September 28-30.

FRIDAY FOTO Extra (September 18, 2015)

Taking One for the Team.

Washington National Guard photo by Army Sergeant Matthew Sissel

A member of the Washington National Guard uses his body to create an opening in a wire obstacle so his team can assault a position during Exercise Grizzly Defender in Alberta, Canada.

To us this photo (click on it to enlarge the image) looks like a hyper-realistic painting or a still from a major motion picture. It shows U.S. troops — citizen soldiers — training to adapt and overcome obstacles. It also showcases the skills of military photographers.

Grizzly Defender is a joint training exercise with the Canadian Army Reserve that focuses on offensive tasks including patrols, convoys, raids, information operations, traffic control points and company-level group attacks.

FRIDAY FOTO (September 18, 2015)

Joint Venture.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Pena) Click on photo to enlarge image.

Like some sort of giant blossoms, paratroopers from the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry Regiment descend from an Air Force C-130 Hercules over the Malemute drop zone at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska.

Troops from the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force and U.S. Army paratroopers conducted the practice jump utilizing Royal Australian Air Force and U.S. Air Force planes as part of Pacific Airlift Rally 2015. The exercise is a biennial, multilateral tactical military symposium designed to enhance military airlift interoperability and cooperation between nations of the Pacific region for future humanitarian missions.

The C-130 is assigned to the 374th Wing from Yokota Air Base, Japan. The 1st Battalion is part of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the 25th Infantry Division, based in

 

TECHNOLOGY: 3-D Bioprinting’s Promise for Military Medicine

High Tech Help for Wounded Warriors?

Improvements in body armor and vehicle explosive protection design have led to fewer fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan than in previous conflicts. But the survivors of roadside bombs and other explosions are still suffering catastrophic wounds and severe burns.

Now another technology breakthrough — additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3-D printing — holds great promise for helping rebuild tissue, bone and muscle.

3-D printing is being used by Army researchers to make prototype replacements for external body parts.
(U.S. Army photo)

Additive manufacturing is already expected to have a profound effect on U.S. Army logistics and supply. Officials like Dale Ormond, director of the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM), say it’s conceivable to imagine “the possibilities of three-dimensional printed textiles, metals, integrated electronics, biogenetic materials and even food,” he wrote in Army Technology magazine’s 3-D Printing issue.

And researchers today are beginning to manufacture biological materials like biopapers for regenerative skin cells and prototypes of replacments for external body parts like ears.  “Many of the injuries soldiers receive in the field are not traditional. A lot of the medical community sees this as a new approach to medicine,” says Thomas Russell, director of the Army Research Laboratory. “We can 3-D scan injuries. We can replicate what those injuries are,” Surgeons and medics can practice on those specific types of injuries and provide better service to the warfighter, he adds.

A team of scientists at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is studying how to map a wound or severe burn with a laser and then print skin cells  onto the patient using a 3-D bioprinter.  Meanwhile, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has developed and patented thin polymer/hydrogel scaffold sheets, or “biopapers,” which act as substrates—the surface on which organisms grow–for cell and bioprinting.

Diagram of the Navy platform for cell printing
(Courtesy of Naval Research Laboratory)

To read more of this story and learn more about 3-D printing and other breakthroughs in military medicine, visit the free content page on the military healthcare link. The Institute for Defense and Government Advancement is sponsoring a conference on military healthcare in Arlington, Virginia in December.

FRIDAY FOTO (September 11, 2015)

Watery Exit.

U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Cyr

This is not a photo of a flooded underground parking garage. This is actually the inside of a Navy ship: the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans.

Here we see Seaman Elana Hunter, a boatswain’s mate, signaling Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs) to launch from the ship’s well deck during Exercise Dawn Blitz 2015 in the Pacific Ocean off the California Coast. The well deck is where amphibious vehicles like these AAVs, first meet the sea as they head down a ramp in the amphib’s rear (stern) that opens out onto open water. (See photo below)

Dawn Blitz is a Navy and Marine Corps training exercise to practice amphibious task force operations while also building interoperability between U.S. and coalition forces, which this year, include military units from Japan, Mexico and New Zealand. The New Orleans is a San Antonio class amphib.

What the AAV crews see heading out the back of the USS New Orleans.
(U.S. Navy photo)

SPECIAL OPERATIONS: Ranger School Now Open to Women

Skill, Not Gender.

The U.S. Army announced earlier this month that its elite Ranger School will be open to any female soldiers who meet the criteria.

Army Capt. Kristen Griest was one of the first two women to complete the Army Ranger course and earn the coveted RANGER shoulder tab.
(U.S. Army photo)

That announcement came less than a month after two female West Point graduates passed the grueling 61-day program and became the first women awarded the RANGER shoulder tab.

“We must ensure that this training opportunity is available to all soldiers who are qualified and capable and we continue to look for ways to select, train, and retain the best soldiers to meet our nation’s needs,” Army Secretary John McHugh said September 2.

“Giving every qualified Soldier the opportunity to attend the Ranger course, the Army’s premier small unit leadership school, ensures we are maintaining our combat readiness today, tomorrow and for future generations,” Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley added.

And now, two U.S. senators are pushing for a resolution honoring the first two women to earn the Ranger tab, according to POLITICO’s Morning Defense. The resolution, honors Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver for “proving that skill, not gender, determines military aptitude and success.” The resolution offered by Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, is backed by 16 other women senators.

Army 1st Lt. Shaye Haver was one of the first two women to complete the Army Ranger course and earn the coveted RANGER shoulder tab.
(U.S. Army photo)

In a statement to Morning Defense published Thursday (September 10) Mikulski said “Capt. Griest and First Lt. Haver have shown that women can compete on a level-playing field with men to serve in the defense of our nation. The Army’s recent announcement to permanently open Ranger School for women marks another important step in expanding roles for women in the military. Continued gender integration will improve readiness and help our Armed Forces to recruit the best talent we can throughout all of our services.”

In January, the Army announced that as an experiment, it would open Ranger School for the first time to women, as part of a “Ranger Course Assessment.” That assessment kicked off in April, as part of Ranger Course 06-15. Haver and Griest, who were part of that Ranger School class, eventually graduated the school August 21.

That class started at Fort Benning, Georgia with 381 men and 19 women. The students had to train with minimal food and little sleep while learning how to operate in the woods and mountains of Georgia and coastal swamps of Florida.

Students also had to undergo a physical fitness test that included completing 49 pushups, 59 situps, a 5-mile run in 40 minutes; a swim test; a land navigation test; a 12-mile foot march in three hours, several obstacle courses, four days of military mountaineering, three parachute jumps, four air assaults from helicopters and 27 days of mock combat patrols, according to CNN.