On This Day In The Navy:1853: Commodore Matthew C. Perry lands and holds the first meeting with the Japanese at Uraga, in which he delivers President Millard Fillmore's request for a treaty to representatives to the Emperor. Allowing time for reflection and discussion, Commodore Perry returns in March 1854 and finalizes the Treaty of Kanagawa.

TOP STORIES:1. Obama Contends With Arc Of Instability Unseen Since '70s Convergence of Security Crises Poses Serious Challenge to Barack Obama's Foreign Policy(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON – A convergence of security crises is playing out around the globe, from the Palestinian territories and Iraq to Ukraine and the South China Sea, posing a serious challenge to President Barack Obama's foreign policy and reflecting a world in which U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous.

2. U.S. Sees Risks In Assisting A Compromised Iraqi Force (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon

WASHINGTON – A classified military assessment of Iraq’s security forces concludes that many units are so deeply infiltrated by either Sunni extremist informants or Shiite personnel backed by Iran that any Americans assigned to advise Baghdad’s forces could face risks to their safety, according to United States officials.

3. Tension Rises As Russia Accuses Ukraine Of Border Shelling (WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... Karoun Demirjian and Michael Birnbaum

MOSCOW – Russia on Sunday accused Ukraine of lobbing a shell over the border and killing a Russian civilian and warned of “irreversible consequences,” in a sharp escalation of rhetoric that raised fears of a Russian invasion in Ukraine’s east.

MIDEAST:4. Gazans Flee After Israel Says Assault Is Imminent (WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... William Booth and Griff Witte

GAZA CITY – Tens of thousands of panicked residents fled their homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday after the Israeli military dropped leaflets from the sky warning those who stayed behind that they were risking their lives because a large, intense operation was imminent.

5. Deadlock Blocks Iraqi Leadership Vote As ISIS Makes Gains Toward Baghdad (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Alissa J. Rubin and Suadad Al-Salhy

BAGHDAD – As Iraq’s deadlocked Parliament was again unable to reach a deal to name a new speaker on Sunday, Sunni militants carried out a raid near Baghdad, a symbolically significant attack signaling their intent to move closer, even if only by a few miles, toward the Iraqi capital.

6. Americans And Iranians See Constraints At Home In Nuclear Negotiations (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... David E. Sanger

VIENNA – Secretary of State John Kerry arrived here early Sunday in an attempt to rescue negotiations with Iran that have stalled on the question of how large a nuclear infrastructure that nation will be permitted to have over the next decade or two. But he quickly confronted the fact that the problem might be less at the negotiating table here than with mullahs in Tehran and members of Congress in Washington.

CHINFO NEWS CLIPSMonday, July 14, 2014

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ASIA – PACIFIC:7. Abe Defends New Japan Defense Policy Prime Minister Acknowledges Debate Played Role in Regional Election Loss(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... Toko Sekiguchi

TOKYO – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defended his government's move to expand the role of the country's military, in his first parliamentary debate with opposition lawmakers since announcing the policy shift two weeks ago.

8. Mistrust Between China And U.S. Is Getting Worse, Analysts Say Despite the positive gloss, talks in Beijing show mutual mistrust is deepening, observers say(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (HONG KONG) 13 JUL 14) ... Teddy Ng

BEIJING – China and the United States are finding it harder to accommodate each other, many observers believe, despite both nations putting a positive spin on the outcome of annual high-level talks.

9. In Pacific, 1st Asian-American Fleet Leader Son of WWII sailor and Japanese bride, Harris is American story(SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE 12 JUL 14) ... Jeanette Steele

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Adm. Harry Harris, the four-star son of Japan and the United States, has an Asian face and a soft Tennessee twang in his voice.

10. Mock Typhoon Disaster Aims To Determine When Military Should Respond (STARS AND STRIPES 13 JUL 14) ... Wyatt Olson

ABOARD THE JAPANESE DESTROYER ISE, Hawaii – A major element of the 2014 Rim of the Pacific naval exercises involves training to coordinate international military response to natural disasters in Asia.

EUROPE:11. Ukrainian Forces Close In On Rebel-Held Luhansk (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Sabrina Tavernise

DONETSK, Ukraine – Ukrainian forces battered the outer suburbs of the rebel stronghold of Luhansk on Sunday, pushing deeper than ever but falling short of retaking the city.

12. Russia Bolsters Crimean Air Defense, E. Europe Eyes Countermeasures (DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Jaroslaw Adamowski

WARSAW – Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine is shaping Moscow’s military priorities, but also sparking a response by some East European NATO members.

AFGHANISTAN:13. Afghans To Alter The Government (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Matthew Rosenberg

KABUL, Afghanistan – The deal that Secretary of State John Kerry brokered to ease the Afghan election crisis with a sweeping audit of the vote was quietly built on an even more profound reshaping of the entire government system, American and Afghan officials confirmed Sunday: The sides have agreed to gradually create an empowered prime minister post after years of an all-encompassing presidency.

14. Afghan Army Docs On Healing Front Improving care at national hospital, clinics down range in critical phase(SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE 13 JUL 14) ... Gretel C. Kovach

KABUL Afghanistan – The hospital beds and gurneys are filled with bodies broken by war.

AVIATION:15. "Excessive" Rubbing Of Engine Blades Caused F-35 Failure-Pentagon (REUTERS 13 JUL 14) ... Andrea Shalal

LONDON – The engine failure that has grounded the entire fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets was caused by "excessive" rubbing of fan blades in the plane's Pratt & Whitney engine, but does not appear to be a fundamental design flaw, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said on Sunday.

16. F-35 Makers Chip In $170M To Shrink Costs (DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Aaron Mehta

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FAIRFORD, ENGLAND – The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) is trying anew to drive cost out of the plane, with industry partners agreeing to spend $170 million on internal research and development (IRAD).

17. The $10B Next Generation Jammer Is ‘On Track, On Schedule’ (BREAKING DEFENSE 14 JUL 14) ... Colin Clark

LONDON – Farnborough is an air show, but many of the briefings scheduled by American companies this year focus on electronic warfare and missiles – not airplanes. Raytheon, winner of the Next Generation Jammer competition, and the other four defense giants know that much of the money to be made in the next decade will come from upgrades and add-ons, not new platforms. And much of the new money is destined for just the sort of technology the NGJ is sure to bring: the area where cyber and classic electronic warfare now merge thanks to digital technologies such as the AESA radar (active electronically scanned array).

18. Boeing Sees F/A-18 Fighter Line Continuing Through 2017 (REUTERS 13 JUL 14) ... Andrea Shalal

LONDON – Boeing Co. said on Sunday it was optimistic it could maintain production of its F/A-18 and EA-18G fighter jets in St. Louis through the end of 2017 – a year longer than expected – if Congress approved additional orders of a dozen more planes.

UNMANNED SYSTEMS:19. Pentagon Delays Navy’s Carrier Drone Program (DOD BUZZ 11 JUL 14) ... Kris Osborn

The Pentagon has delayed the carrier-launched drone program amid ongoing reviews of the program’s requirements and has considered drafting a new, joint capabilities document for the Navy aircraft, defense officials told Military.com.

SURFACE FLEET:20. More Ships, At Least On Paper, In New Fleet Plan (DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas

WASHINGTON – The latest update of the U.S. Navy’s annual 30-year shipbuilding plan shows a jump of 10 ships now in service compared with a year ago, but the updated number is a reflection of new ship-counting rules, not more ship production.

21. Retiring Frigates May Leave Some Missions Unfilled (NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... David Larter

The Navy may be shedding all its frigates by the end of next year, but the ships are still busy and in high demand – creating a dilemma for the Navy over which ships will pick up their missions.

22. Big Supply Ships May Get Reprieve – For Now (DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas

WASHINGTON – They’re the biggest supply ships operated for the U.S. Navy, and the fastest. Rarely does a deployed carrier strike group travel without one. But they’re also the most expensive logistics ships to run, and that’s made them the target of planners eager to reduce operating costs.

AIRCRAFT CARRIERS:23. Cruiser Cut Plan Raises Carrier Questions Overhaul plan and carrier defense called into question by experts, officials(NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS 13 JUL 14) ... Hugh Lessig

Congress and the Navy might have settled a debate over aircraft carriers, but they're still squabbling over the ships that serve as escorts.

24. A Tale Of Two Ships Passing (NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT 13 JUL 14) ... Joanne Kimberlin

NEWPORT NEWS – On the banks of the James River, in the bustle of the sprawling shipyard, two great warriors have come together, a lifetime apart.

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SUBMARINES:25. Navy Lags In Replacing Aging Fleet STRATCOM Relies On To Carry Nukes (OMAHA WORLD-HERALD 13 JUL 14) ... Steve Liewer and Joseph Morton

KINGS BAY, Ga. – The Navy’s Trident missile submarines used to be a high-tech wonder, the symbol of American superiority at sea.

TECHNOLOGY:26. Navy Pushes Ahead With 3-D Printing Metal printing likely next step(NAVY TIMES 13 JUL 14) ... Lance M. Bacon

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. – The fleet’s 3-D printing experiments have produced everything from tools and phone-jack plates to gas caps and training aids in the past year – and done so in hours, rather than the days, weeks or months sailors wait for some parts.

MARINE CORPS:27. Dunford To Inherit Marine Corps At Crossroads (POLITICO 13 JUL 14) ... Philip Ewing

Many leathernecks might argue there’s no such thing as a bad day inside the United States Marine Corps – but even they might also admit there have been better times than this.

PERSONNEL:28. Training Boss Talks Classroom Changes Virtual learning, ‘C’ school access top White’s priority list(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... Mark D. Faram

PENSACOLA, FLA. – Whether training recruits, operating schoolhouses or overseeing the force’s general military training, Naval Education and Training Command runs sailor education and development from cradle to grave.

29. Ball Caps Are Back New rules will let COs make the call on wear with NWUs(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... Mark D. Faram

For most of the past 70 years, ball caps have weaved their way into Navy culture and tradition.

OUTREACH:30. Sailors Anchor In Omaha For Week Of Performances, Demos (OMAHA WORLD-HERALD 14 JUL 14) ... Steve Liewer

Dozens of white-clad Navy sailors will appear at local YMCAs, food banks, businesses and museums in the coming days as the sea service brings Navy Week to Omaha.

WASHINGTON NAVY YARD:31. Crucial Facts Not Shared At Navy Yard Confusion marred police response to Navy Yard shooting, report finds(WASHINGTON POST 12 JUL 14) ... Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams

Communication problems among federal and local authorities complicated the search for the gunman during September’s deadly mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, according to a D.C. police report that says city officers were unable to make use of live video of the shooter as they streamed into harm’s way.

LEGAL:32. Two More Sentenced To Prison In Bribery Scheme (NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT 12 JUL 14) ... Tim McGlone

NORFOLK – Two more contractors have been sentenced to prison for their roles in a widespread bribery scheme involving contracts with the Navy's Military Sealift Command.

33. Retired O-4 Pleads Guilty In Port Services Scandal (NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... David Larter

A former operations boss from the amphibious command ship Blue Ridge is the latest Navy contractor to plead guilty for involvement in the “Fat Leonard” scandal.

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COMMENTARY:34. Iraq's Urgent Need For Unity (NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Zalmay Khalilzad

WASHINGTON – In the coming weeks, Iraq’s leaders must make existential decisions. If they cannot form a unity government led by a new prime minister and motivate Sunni moderates and tribes to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iraq is likely to disintegrate.

35. Analysis: Mideast Crisis A Strategic Stalemate (ASSOCIATED PRESS 13 JUL 14) ... Dan Perry

If the Israel-Hamas fighting feels like a rerun, that's because it is.

36. Our Common Cause With Iran (WASHINGTON POST 13 JUL 14) ... Ryan Crocker, William Luers and Thomas Pickering

An Arab proverb advises, “A problem is solved when it gets tougher.”

37. Countering The ISIS Threat To Jordan The kingdom can repel any direct military attack. It needs U.S. help to deal with terrorist subversion.(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... David Schenker

Since last summer the Obama administration has been missing in action as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, conquered much of Syria and Iraq. But as the terrorist organization now turns its sights on the pro-Western Kingdom of Jordan, Washington can no longer ignore its territorial gains.

38. The Cyber Threat Congress is overdue in dealing with the cybersecurity threat(WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... Editorial

The internet security company Symantec revealed recently that a group of hackers known as Dragonfly infiltrated malware into legitimate software belonging to three manufacturers of industrial control systems – the stuff that controls factories and power grids. In one case, the contaminated control software was downloaded 250 times by unsuspecting users before the compromise was discovered.

39. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Full Speed Ahead(DEFENSE NEWS 14 JUL 14) ... Editorial

It’s been a tough few weeks for the F-35 fighter program.

40. Sailing America: Beginning Of Newest Amphibious Assault Ship’s Legacy On Sea (NAVY LIVE BLOG 11 JUL 14) ... Command Master Chief Chad Lunsford, Future USS America

My name is Chad Lunsford and I am the command master chief of the newest amphibious assault ship in the U.S. Navy, the Future USS America (LHA 6)! I have been aboard this ship since she was first introduced as a ‘pre-commissioning unit.’ I often get asked, “What does it mean to be a part of a pre-commissioning unit?” Honestly, this journey has been incredibly rewarding and one of the highlights of my career…

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TOP STORIES:1. Obama Contends With Arc Of Instability Unseen Since '70sConvergence of Security Crises Poses Serious Challenge to Barack Obama's Foreign Policy(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON – A convergence of security crises is playing out around the globe, from the Palestinian territories and Iraq to Ukraine and the South China Sea, posing a serious challenge to President Barack Obama's foreign policy and reflecting a world in which U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous.

The breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn't been seen since the late 1970s, U.S. security strategists say, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, revolutionary Islamists took power in Iran, and Southeast Asia was reeling in the wake of the U.S. exit from Vietnam.

In the past month alone, the U.S. has faced twin civil wars in Iraq and Syria, renewed fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, an electoral crisis in Afghanistan and ethnic strife on the edge of Russia, in Ukraine.

Off center stage, but high on the minds of U.S. officials, are growing fears that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program could collapse this month, and that China is intensifying its territorial claims in East Asia.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), in a CNN interview Sunday, said the world is "in greater turmoil than at any time in my lifetime." Many of the seeds of instability in the Middle East have taken root since the upheaval that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks. At the same time, post-Cold War shifts are continuing as superpower influence has receded.

The developments have fueled debate over the Obama foreign-policy doctrine, which the president said in a May speech at West Point would rely on U.S. leadership, but not troop deployments.

The president's critics in Washington, as well as some diplomats abroad, believe Mr. Obama's policies have fueled today's conflicts. They cite his decision to pull back from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his rejection of a more decisive U.S. and allied role in the Syrian civil war, and what they see as his reluctance to provide greater support to American allies in Asia and Europe as they face down the newly aggressive foreign polices of China, Iran and President Vladimir Putin's Russia.

"I think our country acting like such a paper tiger to the world on this and so many other fronts is doing incredible long-term damage to our nation," said Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) at a hearing last week on Ukraine. "And I do hope at some point the administration will actually follow through on the things that it continues to tout publicly."

The chaos has meant that the Obama administration finds itself in the middle of a second term reacting to rather than directing world events. Dangers for the president and for the U.S. are growing as militant groups gain greater control. The organization known as the Islamic State, which now holds parts of Iraq and Syria, poses a particular danger.

"If they are able to consolidate their gains in that area, I think it's just a matter of time before they start looking outward and start looking at the West and at the United States in particular," Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday in an

ABC News interview. "So this is something that we have to get on top of and get on top of now."

Mr. Obama's top aides say the U.S. remains as heavily engaged in resolving conflicts as ever, citing the administration's diplomatic initiatives in Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iraq, among others. In Kabul over the weekend, Secretary of State John Kerry forged an agreement between political rivals for an audit of the country's disputed presidential vote, an accomplishment for the administration.

"In every one of these crises, the common factor is that the United States is the one country that's providing leadership," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, in an interview.

In some cases, U.S. allies are complicating matters. European countries have balked at imposing tough new sanctions on Russia, according to U.S. officials. And divisions between South Korea and Japan have undermined U.S. efforts to present a united front against China.

Some foreign diplomats believe the Middle East is weathering a historic intra-Islamic feud between its Sunni and Shiite sects that no outside power could significantly affect and that is undermining the very structure of the region's nation states.

"You are seeing the collapse of the post-Ottoman order in the Middle East," said Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to Washington, referring to the states created after the Ottoman Empire's dissolution in 1918. "One event affects another. I think the order is collapsed. And the new order is shifting itself out."

Mr. Obama campaigned for the presidency in 2008 as the alternative to George W. Bush, as a leader who would wind down the U.S.'s Mideast wars and reach out diplomatically to historic adversaries such as Iran, Syria and Russia. He promised to de-emphasize the role of U.S. military force and intensify the country's diplomatic and moral persuasion.

Mr. Obama's supporters and opponents alike say he has largely followed through on those promises. But many of his critics say he has overcorrected, further eroding the national-security architecture Washington built in the Mideast and Asia during the Cold War and allowing avenues for terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and competing states to fill the security vacuum.

"The U.S.'s regional order in the Middle East is in disarray," said Emile El Hokayem, a Mideast expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

The renewed instability in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent weeks is rekindling criticism that the White House hasn't pushed hard enough to maintain a U.S. military presence in these countries.

Many Middle East leaders also have said Mr. Obama has been too reluctant to use force, which has emboldened terrorist groups and rogue states. They cite the president's failure last year to follow through on a threat to strike Syrian President

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Bashar al-Assad's regime after it allegedly used chemical weapons on its political opponents.

"The state structure in the Middle East has been quickly changing, and the boundaries are shifting in Iraq and Syria," said Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official who is now dean of Johns Hopkins's School of Advanced International Studies. "And then you have this sudden withdrawal of the U.S., which was the stabilizing force in the region."

Mr. Obama's aides said that no single issue links today's crises. Many are still tied to the Arab revolutions that broke out beginning in late 2010.

"It's not really the first time it's been like this," said Mr. Rhodes, referring to the simultaneous revolutions the U.S. faced in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia during the Arab Spring. "The fact that you have a crisis in Ukraine has nothing to do with Gaza."

Still, many diplomats and security experts see in Ukraine a similar dynamic of post-Cold War borders being challenged during Mr. Obama's tenure – this time by Mr. Putin.

The Kremlin moved to annex the Crimea region of Ukraine. And U.S. officials say Moscow continues to supply arms, money and intelligence to pro-Russia militias who are fighting the Kiev government for control of territories in eastern Ukraine.

Obama administration officials said the sanctions the U.S. and European Union imposed on Russia this year have deterred Mr. Putin from grabbing more Ukrainian territory. They also said Kiev's signing last month an Association Agreement with the European Union shows Ukraine's government now has confidence in joining the West.

Ukrainian officials contend that the U.S. and its allies haven't done enough. They note that the Western countries

have so far failed to enact the broader sanctions on Russia's economy known in Europe as "third-stage" measures. "We do deeply believe that the third stage of sanctions is the means that may heavily influence Putin," said Andriy Parubiy, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council. "If we don't stop Putin right now, here in Ukraine… [his security forces] will appear in Kazakhstan, in Belarus, in the Baltics."

U.S. officials have exhibited a greater interest than European counterparts in applying those stricter sanctions.

U.S. and Asian officials also remain concerned that Northeast Asia could emerge as a flash point if territorial disputes between China and its neighbors continue to fester.

There is a growing skepticism in Asia about whether the U.S. would abide by its commitment to defend Japan, Taiwan and other Asian countries if their territorial disputes with China escalate into conflict, according to Asian diplomats.

Messrs. Obama and Kerry have worked to assure Japan and South Korea that Washington remains wholly committed to its defense treaties. But even some security analysts who are close to the White House say the Obama administration's perceived hesitancy in responding to international threats is unnerving U.S. allies in the region.

"Our allies are looking for a quarterback to call some plays here, and our body language sometimes doesn't show that we're doing that," said Brian Katulis of the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "Obama's always been a look-before-you-leap guy. And I think that leads to some of the confusion here at home, but also abroad."

http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-contends-with-arc-of-instability-unseen-since-70s-1405297479

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2. U.S. Sees Risks In Assisting A Compromised Iraqi Force(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon

WASHINGTON – A classified military assessment of Iraq’s security forces concludes that many units are so deeply infiltrated by either Sunni extremist informants or Shiite personnel backed by Iran that any Americans assigned to advise Baghdad’s forces could face risks to their safety, according to United States officials.

The report concludes that only about half of Iraq’s operational units are capable enough for American commandos to advise them if the White House decides to help roll back the advances made by Sunni militants in northern and western Iraq over the past month.

Adding to the administration’s dilemma is the assessment’s conclusion that Iraqi forces loyal to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki are now heavily dependent on Shiite militias – many of which were trained in Iran – as well as on advisers from Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.

Shiite militias fought American troops after the United States invaded Iraq and might again present a danger to American advisers. But without an American-led effort to rebuild Iraq’s security forces, there may be no hope of reducing the Iraqi government’s dependence on those Iranian-backed militias, officials caution.

The findings underscore the challenges ahead for the Obama administration as it seeks to confront militants with the

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which has seized major cities in Iraq, all but erased the Syrian-Iraqi border and, on Sunday, staged a raid less than an hour’s drive from Baghdad.

At the center of the administration debate is whether to send more military advisers, weaponry and surveillance systems – and, if so, in what numbers, at what cost and at what levels of risk – to a country that American combat troops left in 2011, but that now teeters on the brink of collapse.

While sending American advisers to Iraq would expose them to risks and could embroil them again in conflict, waiting to act may also limit the administration’s ability to counter ISIS and encourage the formation of a more inclusive government in Baghdad.

“There’s risks to allowing things just to try to resolve themselves, particularly when there are interests that could affect our country,” Lt. Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the military’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week when asked why the Americans should not let the warring factions in Iraq fight one another.

The Pentagon’s decision this month to rush 200 troops, plus six Apache helicopter gunships and Shadow surveillance drones, to the Baghdad airport was prompted by a classified intelligence assessment that the sprawling complex, the main

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hub for sending and withdrawing American troops and diplomats, was vulnerable to attack by ISIS fighters, American officials have now disclosed.

“It’s a mess,” said one senior Obama administration official who has been briefed on the draft assessment and who, like two other American officials briefed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing review and the delicate nature of the assessment.

The draft of about 120 pages is now being reviewed by Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the military’s Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East. General Austin could make changes or request additional information from the assessment teams in Iraq, but a final version is expected to be sent to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top Pentagon officials this week, officials said.

Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, declined on Sunday to comment on the draft assessment, saying in a statement, “Though the initial work of the assessment teams is largely complete, senior leaders have yet to formally receive or review it.”

The assessment does not contain specific recommendations. Those will be developed separately by the Central Command and the military’s Joint Staff once the final report is forwarded to the Pentagon and shared with President Obama and his top national security aides.

As ISIS advanced across northern and western Iraq, six teams of American Special Operations forces were rushed in to assess an Iraqi Army that was trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of more than $25 billion, but which experienced a drop-off in training after the American withdrawal and has been greatly handicapped by Mr. Maliki’s push to appoint commanders based more on political loyalty than military skill.

The assessment, which took two weeks to prepare under the guidance of Maj. Gen. Dana J. H. Pittard of the Army, graded the strengths and weaknesses of units down to the brigade level, examining their equipment, ammunition, sectarian makeup, morale, leadership and other indicators. Each unit’s overall capability was rendered in a blunt color-coded chart: green if capable; red if not.

One of the assessment’s conclusions was that Iraqi forces had the ability to defend Baghdad, but not necessary hold all of it, especially against a major attack. Already, the capital has been targeted by ISIS car bombs.

Several retired Army generals who oversaw the effort to build the Iraqi Army before the United States withdrawal said American advisers still could make an important contribution.

“We must not only commit the right number of advisers, but they must go to the right places – in the field with Iraqi

security forces,” said Michael D. Barbero, a retired lieutenant general who was in charge of training the Iraqi forces from 2009 to 2011.

“The advisory mission has inherent risks, but they can be mitigated,” he added. “You can put security with them. You can be selective about where you put the advisers. We can apply the lessons learned from dealing with the insider threat in Afghanistan.”

Rick Welch, a retired Army Special Forces colonel who worked with tribes in Iraq, said that advisers could encourage the Iraqi government to focus its attacks on ISIS and not its Sunni political opponents.

“Advisers could focus the military effort with more precision and discourage attacks on the Sunni population, which would remove one of the grievances of the Sunnis and help the political discussions go forward,” said Mr. Welch, who added that advisers should be embedded with Sunni tribal leaders as well as Iraqi military units.

James M. Dubik, a retired Army lieutenant general who oversaw the training of the Iraqi Army in 2007 and 2008, said that Iraq’s security forces could make gains against ISIS even if only half its divisions were effective, but that an advisory effort was very important.

“Even if half was whipped into good enough shape,” he said, “that would be enough to turn the tide.”

The new report’s findings not only reinforce the initial confidential military assessments of the Iraqi forces but also align with public comments in recent days by senior Pentagon officials, notably Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

At a Pentagon news conference on July 3, General Dempsey noted the while Iraqi security forces had stiffened and were capable of defending Baghdad, they were not capable on their own of launching a counteroffensive and reversing the ISIS gains.

Mr. Obama has ruled out sending combat troops back to Iraq. And General Dempsey also emphasized any American military involvement in Iraq would be different than in the past.

General Dempsey has signaled, however, that airstrikes are still an option.

In an interview with National Public Radio on June 27, General Dempsey ticked off three potential aims: targeting “high-value individuals who are the leadership” of ISIS; protecting critical infrastructure, like dams; and “blunting attacks by massed” ISIS forces – a possible assault on Baghdad, for instance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/us-sees-risks-in-assisting-a-compromised-iraqi-force.html

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3. Tension Rises As Russia Accuses Ukraine Of Border Shelling(WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... Karoun Demirjian and Michael Birnbaum

MOSCOW – Russia on Sunday accused Ukraine of lobbing a shell over the border and killing a Russian civilian and warned of “irreversible consequences,” in a sharp escalation of rhetoric that raised fears of a Russian invasion in Ukraine’s east.

The accusation, which Ukrainian officials denied, set off furious denunciations in Russia, with one senior legislator

calling for pinpoint airstrikes on Ukrainian soil of the sort he said Israel was making in the Gaza Strip.

Ukrainian security officials, meanwhile, said that about 100 military vehicles driven by “mercenaries” had attempted to cross the border from Russia early Sunday, and that Ukraine’s military had destroyed some of the vehicles.

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Russian officials summoned the Ukrainian charge d’affaires to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow to protest the civilian’s death. The Russians say it occurred when the Ukrainian army shelled Russia’s Rostov region, hitting a residential building. Two other people were injured, authorities said.

“We need to use precision weapons, like Israel’s, to destroy those who launched the bomb,” the deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, Yevgeny Bushmin, told the state-run RIA Novosti news service.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the incident was an “aggressive action” that “highlights the extremely dangerous escalation of tensions on the Russian-Ukrainian border and may have irreversible consequences, the responsibility for which lies on the Ukrainian side.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that his nation was prepared to take all necessary steps to defend its territory – a declaration that appeared to keep open the option of outright intervention in Ukraine. Ukrainian and Western officials have accused Russia of offering quiet support to the rebels, a charge that rebels themselves appeared to confirm this past week, although the extent of the aid is unclear.

Ukrainian officials denied that they fired onto Russian soil, saying that the attack may have been the work of provocateurs seeking to draw a Russian reaction.

“Forces of the anti-terrorist mission are not firing on the territory of a neighboring country,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told a news conference in Kiev on Sunday.

But he told journalists that there had been shelling in the area early Sunday coming from both rebel and Ukrainian army positions. Pro-Russian separatists made a “massive artillery strike” on Ukrainian military forces in Luhansk, just across the border checkpoint from where the shelling death is alleged to have taken place, he said.

He added that the strike served as cover for “the passage of a major mercenary force into Ukrainian territory” of “around 100 units of armed vehicles and trucks.” Once the column of vehicles was discovered, Ukrainian artillery positions fired on them, he said. Ukrainian officials said they were still working to determine further details about the incident.

It was not immediately possible to confirm either side’s account, and Ukrainian officials did not have an explanation for why, in the fog of war, they could be certain that a stray shell had not hit the Russian side. Russian officials also offered no evidence that the shell was indeed of Ukrainian military provenance.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Sunday that the country was “ready to cooperate” in any Russian investigation of the incident, and in a statement it “expressed regret at the deaths and injuries” of the Russian citizens.

But the Russian warnings of consequences for the reported shelling raised tensions. Ukrainian television channels, including Channel 5, which is owned by President Petro Poroshenko, repeatedly played videos of tanks flying

Russian flags rolling through what they said was easternmost Ukraine early Sunday. Many Ukrainians on social networks noted darkly that when Russian troops rolled into Georgia in August 2008, Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s prime minister, was in Beijing for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics; Putin, now president, was in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday for the World Cup final.

Poroshenko late Sunday urged the European Union to investigate what he said was a border incursion by “heavy military equipment” and attacks from Russian military positions on Ukrainian troop positions, his office said in a statement.

Flashpoint At The BorderSince pro-Russian separatists started seizing territory in

April, Ukraine has struggled to maintain control of its porous border, and separatists have taken over several border checkpoints. Ukrainian officials say that the Russian government has tolerated the passage of a steady stream of military equipment and volunteers to assist the separatists’ fight, a charge that Russia has denied.

Russia has been registering increasingly strong complaints that its border crossings and territory are being shelled from the Ukrainian side, although Sunday was the first time that it said that anyone had died as a result.

Putin on Sunday said that “incidents where shells reach Russian territory, leading to today’s tragedy in the Rostov region, are unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday after the Russian leader met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Interfax news agency reported.

Putin called for a return to the negotiating table to find a settlement in a format that includes the rebels, Peskov said. Negotiators met twice last month during a cease-fire that later lapsed amid charges of violations on both sides.

The rebels made a significant retreat on July 5, pulling back from the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk and fortifying themselves inside the far larger city of Donetsk. Since then, fierce fighting has taken place in Ukraine’s east.

On Sunday, Ukrainian government forces were engaged in a major assault on the rebel-held eastern city of Luhansk, and separatist officials said that the military appeared to be gaining territory.

“They have lost their limits,” said a Donetsk rebel leader, Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, in an interview with the Russian LifeNews television channel. “They are ready to do everything, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they use any available means they have for war.”

Russia has not openly responded to direct appeals for aid from the rebels since the retreat. But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Sunday that the shelling incident “will not be left without a reaction.” He called for “an immediate end to the bloodshed” in Ukraine.

Birnbaum reported from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-warns-

ukraine-of-irreversible-consequences-after-cross-border-shelling/2014/07/13/d2be1bb0-0a85-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html

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MIDEAST:4. Gazans Flee After Israel Says Assault Is Imminent(WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... William Booth and Griff Witte

GAZA CITY – Tens of thousands of panicked residents fled their homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday after the Israeli military dropped leaflets from the sky warning those who stayed behind that they were risking their lives because a large, intense operation was imminent.

Residents in Gaza were whipsawed by growing anxiety and frustration. More than 17,000 people poured into makeshift shelters as Israeli commandos entered the coastal enclave early Sunday to knock out a Hamas rocket-launch site. A brief gun battle with Hamas militants ensued and left four Israeli soldiers lightly wounded.

The brief incursion by commandos followed the single deadliest Israeli bombing of the six-day campaign.

Israeli missiles hit a house where Gaza’s police chief, Tayseer al-Batsh, was praying Saturday night. The explosions killed 18 members of his extended family, including six children, and sent the top Hamas law-enforcement officer into intensive care, where he was clinging to life Sunday.

The latest violence in Gaza came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that Israel has no interest in halting its assault. Israel’s objective, he said at his weekly cabinet meeting, is to inflict “a significant blow on Hamas” that will yield “the restoration of quiet for a long period.”

That goal closely tracks Israel’s ambition in two previous offensives against Hamas – in the winter of 2008-2009 and in late 2012 – both of which succeeded in setting back the Islamist movement’s capabilities, but not for very long. In each case, Israel won just a few years of relative calm, even as Hamas’s rocket range and weapons arsenal expanded.

The cycle has come to be known in Israel as “mowing the lawn” – a temporary disruption of Hamas’s ability and will to fire rockets.

Pressure is growing in Israel to make sure that this time is different.

“The army should not stop until they wipe out Hamas,” said Avner Peretz, 46, just minutes after the windows in his brother-in-law’s house were blown out by a Hamas rocket attack in the southern Israeli town of Netivot over the weekend. “The last two conflicts, we came out looking like the losers. This time, we need to be the winner.”

So far, there’s no doubt that Israel has inflicted far more damage than Hamas, but that’s consistently true in this deeply asymmetrical fight.

There have been 166 residents of Gaza killed in the current Israeli operation, including 36 children and 24 women, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The United Nations estimates that three-quarters of the dead are civilians.

Hamas and its allies have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel – including 130 on Sunday – but most have either landed in open areas or been shot down by Israel’s sophisticated anti-missile system, Iron Dome. Several Israelis have been seriously injured by the rocket fire, but none have been killed.

Israel Radio reported late Sunday that two rockets were fired at Israel from Syria, apparently from Syrian army positions. Israel responded with artillery fire.

A More Isolated Hamas

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency on Sunday called the situation in Gaza “devastating and unpredictable.”

In central Gaza, where Israeli missiles hit the house where the police chief was staying Saturday, there are 17 fresh graves, the bodies marked by mounds of earth, with cinderblock for headstones.

The police chief may not have been widely liked in Gaza – his police are aggressive and zealous in their defense of Hamas – but he was respected. The incidence of ordinary crime in Gaza is low.

One of his nephews, Ahmed al-Batsh, 26, lay in a hospital bed in Gaza, his head swaddled in bandages and his neck and back peppered with shrapnel. “More will die,” he said.

He blamed the United States for supplying Israel with $3 billion a year in military aid. “These bombs are bought by America,” he said, staring through one good eye.

Israeli officials and analysts say there’s little chance that Israel will try to destroy Hamas entirely, given the enormous cost and risk involved. But they say Israel has several key advantages it lacked the last two times it traded blows with Hamas.

Hamas is far more isolated internationally. The Gaza leaders have alienated their former patron in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, by siding with that country’s rebels.

And Hamas lost its closest ally last year when Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president of Egypt, was ousted and replaced by a military-backed government that sees Hamas much the same way Israel does: as an enemy.

“Egypt is doing just about everything it can to make sure Hamas gets hurt by the Israelis,” said Itamar Yaar, a former top official with Israel’s national security council. “They’ll be happy if Hamas disappears.”

Egyptian authorities once looked the other way as Hamas used tunnels beneath the Gaza border to load up on rockets. But Egypt has essentially shut down all tunnel traffic.

Hamas’s long-range rockets could be especially tough to replace. The group can produce its own shorter-range weapons for hitting southern Israel, but it has smuggled – through the border tunnels – rockets from its backers in Iran that are able to target Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other major population centers in Israel’s central core, Israeli officials say.

A senior Israeli air force official said Sunday that Hamas began the current conflict with “hundreds” of longer-range rockets and that the air force has made it a priority to destroy as many as possible.

But the official acknowledged that eliminating the arsenal is impossible.

“You can’t stop the rockets,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss Israel’s strategy and tactics. “You can only make them decide to stop shooting. They have thousands of rockets, and you can’t attack all of them.”

Hamas’s battered finances may be adding to Israel’s leverage. Hamas has been unable to pay government workers for months. Yaar said Hamas may be willing to promise a period of calm in exchange for Israeli cooperation in reviving the devastated Gazan economy.

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But such a deal would require cease-fire talks.Michael Herzog, a former top Israeli military official who

has conducted past negotiations, said Sunday that Hamas wants a reopening of the border crossing with Egypt, the release of prisoners and money to pay Gaza’s 40,000 government employees.

Israel, meanwhile, wants a guarantee of several years of peace, at least, without appearing to reward Hamas’s militant behavior.

“It’s challenging to bring this conflict to a conclusion, because the two parties have totally different pictures of how they want it to end,” Herzog said.

In Gaza, ordinary citizens were just hoping for a night’s rest. Many of those who abandoned their homes in the north walked to Gaza City, with children waving white flags and mothers carrying mattresses. Farmers brought their donkeys.

“We came with nothing,” said Abdul Karim al-Attar, a farmer who arrived with his brothers, their wives and children, 38 in all.

Witte reported from Tel Aviv. Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem and Islam Abdel Karim in Gaza contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/thousands-of-gazans-flee-homes-as-israel-promises-to-press-the-fight/2014/07/13/d37eed04-0ac6-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html

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5. Deadlock Blocks Iraqi Leadership Vote As ISIS Makes Gains Toward Baghdad(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Alissa J. Rubin and Suadad Al-Salhy

BAGHDAD – As Iraq’s deadlocked Parliament was again unable to reach a deal to name a new speaker on Sunday, Sunni militants carried out a raid near Baghdad, a symbolically significant attack signaling their intent to move closer, even if only by a few miles, toward the Iraqi capital.

Although the pretext for the delay was a severe sandstorm that prevented northern Iraq’s Kurdish lawmakers from flying to Baghdad, the real reason appeared to be that last-minute deals between the largest Shiite bloc and the Sunnis were falling apart.

“We were ready, we came with our candidates, but the others haven’t presented their candidates,” said Usama al-Nujaifi, the Sunni lawmaker, who served as speaker in the last Parliament but has agreed not to run this time.

“The country is completely collapsing and we need to unify the nation – the delay means more killing, more displaced and more emigration,” Mr. Nujaifi said.

The failure to hold a vote for speaker delays the formation of a new government because under the Constitution, the appointment of a speaker starts the clock for choosing a president and prime minister.

However, what became clear over the last couple of days was a far more striking problem: Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not given up his campaign for a third term despite his widespread unpopularity among most Sunnis and Kurds and doubts from many of his fellow Shiites.

Iraq has a Shiite majority nationwide and by custom, since 2003 when Saddam Hussein was ousted, the prime minister’s slot has been held by a Shiite. But there are a number of Shiite parties, including several Islamist ones, in addition to Mr. Maliki’s party.

In several conversations with members of Mr. Maliki’s larger State of Law coalition, which includes several Shiite parties, it was apparent that they had done the math and determined that he could pull it off. Thus there was no need for a new person.

“At the end, the Sunnis will accept the prime minister,” said Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament and a close supporter of Mr. Maliki from within the prime minister’s party, Dawa.

“And also the Kurds will accept him – not Barzani, he has a problem, but the PUK will,” he said referring to the president of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, with whom Mr. Maliki has bitterly feuded over the prospect of a

Kurdish referendum on separating from Iraq. The PUK is the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, another major Kurdish party, but it does not support the idea of independence from Iraq at this point.

Another political associate of Mr. Maliki, Walid al-Hilli, suggested that those close to the prime minister had counted the votes: 120 Shiites, including the roughly 95 from Mr. Maliki’s State of Law coalition, would support him; about 35 Sunnis led by Salim al-Jubouri would join them; and so would about 25 Kurds. Mr. Maliki needs 165 votes to retain his job.

“There isn’t any option other than Maliki,” Mr. Hilli said.But those assumptions were tested Sunday when it

became clear that Mr. Jubouri might not support Mr. Maliki. The day before, Mr. Jubouri had signed a document in front of the bloc of Sunni lawmakers promising that in exchange for being named speaker, he would represent the wishes of the six provinces with significant Sunni populations, which now feel discriminated against by the central government and would not back Mr. Maliki for prime minister.

Mr. Maliki learned about the document overnight, and in a meeting with Shiites on Sunday he told them that this raised questions about whether he could support Mr. Jubouri, said several Shiites who attended the meeting.

“It was because of that the Parliament session was delayed and the National Alliance was discouraged about the prospect of voting” for Mr. Jubouri as speaker, said Aboud al-Essawi, a member of the coalition that supports Mr. Maliki.

For all the back and forth, the reality appeared to be that Mr. Maliki was having trouble gathering the votes needed to retain his post, and it seemed that Iraqi lawmakers, principally Shiite ones, were now grappling with how to deal with it.

“We’re confused,” said one longtime supporter of Mr. Maliki, when asked what the options would be if Mr. Maliki could not gather the votes.

As lawmakers took stock, militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were already moving into Dhuluiya, a Sunni town 46 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The local tribes are divided over ISIS, but a majority oppose the group and called for help from the army. Some troops were sent from the two nearest bases in Samarra and Balad, but the soldiers from Balad, who were closest, could not get across the river quickly because ISIS militants had bombed the most convenient bridge.

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The militants attacked Dhuluiya around 4 a.m. and took over the police station, killing six police officers, said an official at the Interior Ministry, who asked not to be named because he is not allowed to speak to the press, as well as a doctor in the town who would give only his surname, Issa. “They brought a big pickup truck and loaded it with explosives and then blew apart the west side of the bridge so no support will come from Balad,” Dr. Issa said.

Later, the ISIS militants appeared to withdraw from the town’s center and are now holding only about 20 percent of Dhuluiya, Dr. Issa estimated.

Police officials suggested that the militants withdrew from the town’s center because they knew that sooner or later the army forces would arrive and they would not be able to

fight them off. The people in the area the militants controlled appeared to support them, residents and provincial police officials suggested.

In Baghdad, the number of dead in Saturday’s raid by gunmen on apartment buildings in the eastern part of the city reached 35, including 29 women. The neighborhood is known as a place where prostitutes live, and a police official said that he had been told that someone had scrawled graffiti, warning: “This is how it ends for all prostitutes.”

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Diyala Province and Tikrit, Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/iraq.html

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6. Americans And Iranians See Constraints At Home In Nuclear Negotiations(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... David E. Sanger

VIENNA – Secretary of State John Kerry arrived here early Sunday in an attempt to rescue negotiations with Iran that have stalled on the question of how large a nuclear infrastructure that nation will be permitted to have over the next decade or two. But he quickly confronted the fact that the problem might be less at the negotiating table here than with mullahs in Tehran and members of Congress in Washington.

During 11 days of intensive negotiations in a palace just steps from where Beethoven and Mozart once lived and worked, a team of sophisticated, westernized negotiators from Iran’s government have given a bit of ground on how some of the country’s facilities will be used and how others will be inspected, according to officials who have been in the rooms where the wording was being discussed.

But the Iranians appeared taken a bit by surprise when their supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a speech in Tehran last week that went into extraordinary detail about how much nuclear enrichment capacity Iran would need – statements that seemed to circumscribe their ability to come up with face-saving ways to dismantle a good portion of Iran’s facilities while still portraying their program as moving forward.

The Americans face their own constraints at home: A letter from key members of the Senate to President Obama describes what a deal to prevent Iran from producing a weapon should look like, and suggests that anything short of that would not lead to the lifting of sanctions, the only incentive the American team can dangle in front of the Iranians.

It was a reminder for Mr. Kerry that there is not one negotiation underway to strike this deal, but three. Mr. Kerry and his counterparts from five other nations are struggling to reach an accommodation with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s American-educated foreign minister, who has been camped out for the past 11 days in the Coburg Palace, which has become a luxury dormitory for the American, Western European, Russian and Chinese negotiators who are living and working just doors away from one another.

But Mr. Zarif has a parallel negotiation underway with Ayatollah Khamenei and the generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which runs the military side of the nuclear program and barely trusts its foreign minister. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, has been in a constant behind-the-scenes

struggle with members of Congress who argue for more sanctions and more pressure. Mr. Obama has threatened to veto such efforts for fear they will undermine chances for a deal that he believes would be a more lasting solution than permanent sanctions or military action against Iran’s nuclear sites.

“It may be the most complex negotiation I’ve ever seen,” said an American official who has been advising the White House, declining to speak on the record about sensitive negotiations. “Everyone is using the constraints they face back home as a reason to avoid compromise. And the fact of the matter is that there are many generals in Iran and many members of Congress in Washington who would like to see this whole effort collapse.”

Mr. Kerry said he was evaluating the process to determine whether to recommend to Mr. Obama that the talks be extended beyond the July 20 deadline.

“Obviously, we have some very significant gaps still,” he said. “It is vital to make certain that Iran is not going to develop a nuclear weapon, that their program is peaceful.” Though Mr. Kerry is not talking about extending the talks – which is permitted under an interim agreement reached in November – that now seems inevitable.

“We are trying to find solutions to narrow the difference,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said to a state-run Iranian news service in an interview here. “Given this context, it’s possible that negotiations will be extended by a few days or weeks.”

American officials will not talk about an extension, for fear it will derail their chances of making progress by the deadline next Sunday. But for Mr. Obama, the downside of an extension is small. The lifting of a relatively modest number of sanctions since November, under the preliminary deal, has not resulted in the wide-scale dismemberment of the sanctions regime predicted by Israeli officials. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency say the Iranians have scrupulously observed their part of the temporary deal, blending down the fuel that the United States feared was closest to conversion to bomb grade.

But the steps the Iranians have taken so far are easily reversible. And the American negotiators, led by Wendy R. Sherman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, are

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haunted by memories of how quickly North Korea reversed a dismantlement program that it negotiated seven years ago.

When it comes to stopping a country from getting a weapons capability, there are only educated assessments about how much warning time can be created by limiting a country’s access to certain technologies, reducing the amounts of fuel that can be quickly converted to bomb-grade fuel and exposing the history of weapons-making efforts. Those bets failed in North Korea and Pakistan; they succeeded in South Africa and South Korea, where leaders decided a weapon was not worth the cost.

It is far from clear that Iran’s leaders – divided between those who want a long-term accord with the West and those who seek a restoration of Iranian influence in the Middle East – have made a decision. Mr. Zarif represents the faction that seems “genuinely convinced,” in the words of one American negotiator, “that a weapons capability doesn’t buy them much.”

Mr. Zarif said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday: “I will commit to everything and anything that would provide credible assurances for the international community that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, because we are not. We don’t see any benefit in Iran developing a nuclear weapon.”

But Ayatollah Khamenei, in describing Iran’s long-range needs, talked of a tenfold increase in enrichment capacity – so large that it would give Iran a “breakout time” of just weeks to produce weapons-grade fuel. He was vague about when Iran

intended to create that capacity. A senior American official briefing reporters on Saturday said that Iran would have to accept sharp limits on its number of working centrifuges – meaning fewer than the 10,000 it has today – for a decade or more.

That is at the core of the problem. Robert Einhorn, who was a central player in developing the American strategy until he left the administration last year, noted recently that “rather than prepare the political ground for some concessions, the Iranian leadership has locked itself into a narrative that they need an industrial capability to produce all their own nuclear power fuel.”

Mr. Obama is also getting tied down. If a deal is struck, he will need Congress to revoke sanctions. But that is a hard vote for Democrats as well as Republicans, and a letter to Mr. Obama now being circulated in the Senate by Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, lays out a series of protections they say they will insist upon if Congress is to relax sanctions as part of any deal.

Among them are a robust inspection arrangement that “lasts at least 20 years” and “access to any and all facilities, persons or documentation” sought by the International Atomic Energy Agency for suspected past work on weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html

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ASIA – PACIFIC:7. Abe Defends New Japan Defense PolicyPrime Minister Acknowledges Debate Played Role in Regional Election Loss(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... Toko Sekiguchi

TOKYO – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe defended his government's move to expand the role of the country's military, in his first parliamentary debate with opposition lawmakers since announcing the policy shift two weeks ago.

At a lower house budgetary committee session Monday, Mr. Abe repeatedly played down the expanded rules of engagement for Japan's Self-Defense Forces, emphasizing that the newly adopted ability for the SDF to aid a friendly nation under attack will be strictly limited.

He said in the session that the country's pacifist constitution continues to put a limit on the mobilization of the SDF to aid its allies. "It will be difficult to allow the exercise of collective self-defense that goes beyond the current government position," Mr. Abe said, adding that Japan's engagement in collective self-defense in a manner similar to other countries would require a formal constitutional amendment.

Mr. Abe stressed the strict conditions that must be met before Japan engages in military action under collective self-defense. It would have be a final resort type of situation to fight against a clear danger that fundamentally threatens Japan's statehood and its citizens, not just to defend an ally, Mr. Abe said.

In discussing the need for diplomatic efforts to maintain regional security, Mr. Abe said he hopes to finally hold a

leadership meeting with China when Beijing hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in November.

"It's unfortunate that we've yet to hold a summit meeting," Mr. Abe said. "My door to a dialogue is always open and I hope China to act similarly."

China's reaction to Japan's military expansions has been skeptical at best, as it accuses Japan of returning to its militarist past.

Monday's debate comes a day after a candidate backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost a regional gubernatorial election, delivering another blow to Mr. Abe's popularity as the public questions the prime minister's strong-arm tactics for pushing his agenda.

The LDP-backed candidate failed to win the open governor's seat in western Shiga prefecture, where opponents banked on overwhelming public opposition against Mr. Abe's pursuit of a historical military expansion by a cabinet decree, rather than a constitutional change.

Mr. Abe reluctantly admitted in parliament that the defense debate played a role in Sunday's gubernatorial race.

"Elections are affected by various factors. I don't intend to deny that the collective self-defense debate played a role, but fundamentally, the election was about who the people chose to determine Shiga's future," Mr. Abe said.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/abe-defends-new-defense-policy-1405317449

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8. Mistrust Between China And U.S. Is Getting Worse, Analysts SayDespite the positive gloss, talks in Beijing show mutual mistrust is deepening, observers say(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (HONG KONG) 13 JUL 14) ... Teddy Ng

BEIJING – China and the United States are finding it harder to accommodate each other, many observers believe, despite both nations putting a positive spin on the outcome of annual high-level talks.

Leaders from both sides used the talks to stress their determination to contain conflicts, and to highlight cooperation over economic, military and climate change issues. But political mistrust is worsening and new flashpoints could emerge easily, commentators warn.

"The talks ended with officials presenting their stances on critical issues but without convincing each other about their strategic intentions," said Sun Zhe, the director of the Centre for U.S.-China Relations at Tsinghua University. "Neither side can present evidence that can change the mind of the other side."

Sun said it was unlikely frictions would escalate into a major confrontation, but mistrust was expected to deepen given the intention of the U.S. to bolster its military alliances in Asia. Beijing would continue to strengthen economic cooperation with the U.S., but was prepared for a "struggle" against Washington.

"It is very difficult for the two nations to become partners in the aspect of strategic security," Sun said, adding the South China Sea was a potential flashpoint as both sides stepped up involvement in Southeast Asia. "Both nations are now at a point where they need to reset their ties."

Officials from both sides stressed neither power had the intention of containing or challenging the other. In his opening speech, President Xi Jinping warned of disastrous consequences if the nations could not manage frictions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. was not a rival to China.

The officials said they reached consensus on several issues such as North Korea's nuclear programme. The two militaries would also establish a notification mechanism, and discuss rules of behaviour covering military and maritime affairs.

Yue Gang, a Beijing-based military affairs commentator, said the notification mechanism and rules were aimed at preventing major confrontations.

The mechanism will probably include alerts about the timing and location of military exercises, as encounters between the two sides have become more frequent with China flexing its navy's muscle.

"China is expanding its influence, and the power of the established nation will be offset in the process," Yue said. "[Neither nation has a] proper understanding of the core concerns of the other side. The situation could improve if both sides saw the development of the other as an opportunity instead of a threat."

Although China stressed it had no plan to exclude the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region, Washington was concerned that Beijing was building a security structure based on an "Asia for the Asians" concept, according to a transcript on the State Department website.

On territorial disputes with its neighbours, Kerry urged Beijing to show restraint, while China's chief diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi , said the U.S. should take a "just" position.

Graham Webster, a Beijing-based senior fellow at the China Centre at Yale Law School, said both countries had compelling reasons to resolve their differences. "The U.S. and China have far more common interests than conflicting ones. Both countries need a peaceful Asia-Pacific region and a stable world economy if they want to thrive."

He said there was a looming risk of escalation if the two nations failed to develop confidence over cybersecurity.

The joint cybersecurity working group was suspended following the U.S. indictment of five Chinese military officers for hacking into U.S. companies. "A crisis of [large] scale is unlikely in the short term, but without real effort, it could become a real risk in coming years," Webster said.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1552973/mistrust-between-china-and-us-getting-worse-analysts-say

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9. In Pacific, 1st Asian-American Fleet LeaderSon of WWII sailor and Japanese bride, Harris is American story(SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE 12 JUL 14) ... Jeanette Steele

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – Adm. Harry Harris, the four-star son of Japan and the United States, has an Asian face and a soft Tennessee twang in his voice.

Both may help the U.S. as it attempts to prove that President Barack Obama’s 2011 strategic pivot to the Pacific has legs underneath it.

Harris is the first Asian American to head the U.S. Pacific Fleet, sitting in the same office from which Adm. Chester Nimitz led the Navy against the Japanese during World War II.

How he got there, less than 70 years after the Japanese surrender, is a very American story. Aside from that, Harris’

cultural roots may help him build relations in the Pacific despite a somewhat wary China.

Harris, 57, said his background has served as a conversation starter when interacting with officials from Asian nations. He was sworn in as commander of the sprawling Pacific Fleet in October.

“There’s no Asian-American slant to the way I look at things. I look at things through an American lens only. But it has helped break the ice in relationships with Asian leaders, so it’s been helpful,” Harris said during an interview last week.

He’s a central figure at Rim of the Pacific 2014, the world’s largest naval exercises. San Diego-based ships are

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hosting the war games and humanitarian drills, which will continue around the islands until Aug. 1.

Harris’ father should have been on a ship just across the street from the fleet commander’s office, at Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.

Luckily, the aircraft carrier Lexington pulled left port days before, and Harry Harris Sr. lived to marry a Japanese woman he met after the war.

Harry Harris Jr. was born in Yokosuka, Japan, where his mother had gone to work during the postwar period. She was the oldest of four sisters from the city of Kobe, and her aunt told her to get a job near the U.S. Navy base so she could find an American husband. She did.

Harris said his parents met at a local club or the base’s newspaper office, where she worked as a clerk. They later wed and lived in Sasebo, Japan, until their son was 2 years old.

The elder Harris, a machinist mate chief petty officer, eventually retired and moved his family to a 100-acre subsistence farm in eastern Tennessee.

That’s where Harry Harris Jr. spent his early years. The evidence is in his slight drawl. His mother did not teach him Japanese, wanting him to be totally immersed in the American culture.

But she did tell her son the story of the Japanese-American soldiers who fought heroically in Europe for the 442nd Regiment. Back home, their families were being held at internment camps.

“As a Japanese-American kid growing up in Tennessee, I needed role models,” Harris said, looking back. The story of these Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-American troops, resonated with him. He watched and rewatched the 1951 movie depicting them, “Go for Broke.”

This month at Pearl Harbor, Harris spoke at a ceremony in which six Nisei World War II soldiers received the French Legion of Honor medal. Afterward, he shook each one’s hand, the protégé thanking those who came before.

This is why Harris’ story has resonated so strongly in the Japanese-American community, said Carole Hayashino, president of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.

“It’s kind of a reminder of where we’ve been and how far we’ve come,” she said.

In Japan, America’s biggest ally in Asia, Harris has a bit of a following. When Japanese dignitaries and business people come to Honolulu, they often ask for a meeting with the new Pacific Fleet commander.

The request list wasn’t quite as lengthy for Harris’ predecessors, said Ed Hawkins, a retired Air Force colonel and president of the Japan America Society of Hawaii.

“Because of his background, the Japanese ... they feel an affinity to Admiral Harris. There are always requests, almost too many requests, to meet with him,” Hawkins said. “He’s almost a celebrity.”

But what about the reaction from China, whose historic rivalries with Japan have been rekindled recently in the form of territorial disputes in the East China Sea?

With its growing blue-water fleet, China is the United States’ biggest security challenge in the Pacific, aside from North Korea.

Chinese ships are part of the RIMPAC naval exercises for the first time. Harris presided over the opening news

conference, saying the growing participation means “We can agree to disagree without being disagreeable.”

Yet the record is mixed on how Harris’ heritage is received in Asia.

The Chinese press has gone out of its way to specifically note that Harris’ lineage is Japanese, according to people who watch the nuances of state Chinese-language publications.

Tai Ming Cheung, a China expert at UC San Diego, said Chinese sentiment toward Asian Americans is typically influenced by what’s going on in the diplomatic world.

He noted that former U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke, a Chinese American, was savaged in the state press there when U.S-China relations got rocky and Locke was seen as challenging Chinese values by promoting U.S. ones.

As for Harris’ Japanese heritage, “I haven’t seen any backlash from China or South Korea. I haven’t seen any negativity from these countries that may have some issue,” said Cheung, an associate professor in the university’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

“They may be asking, ‘When will there be a Chinese American or Korean American who may rise through the ranks?’”

At RIMPAC, the leader of the tiny Filipino contingent said he sees the installation of the Asian-American admiral as bolstering the “rebalance” in the Pacific that the U.S. has announced.

“(It) lends teeth and meaning to the rebalance,” said Col. Restituto Padilla, a Philippine Air Force colonel assigned as liaison to the U.S. Pacific Command.

“For Asians, relationships are a big factor. That’s why it’s better if Asians deal with a specific person that we know,” Padilla said. “If he has not completely forgotten (his roots) and still does have some of those traits that an Asian would have, it will help him a lot in his engagements with nations.”

By 2020, about 60 percent of the U.S. naval fleet is set to be stationed in the Pacific – a move that some have interpreted as a hedge against China’s growing military might.

But Asia’s leaders also are well aware of efforts to shrink the U.S. defense budget, raising questions about whether the “rebalance” can succeed.

Harris called the military piece “not the biggest part of the rebalance, but it’s the most visible one.”

The other legs are enhancing treaties with Asian nations and deepening trade relations in the Pacific region.

In Harris’ analysis, the military portion has received “outsized” scrutiny because it involves hardware. In other words, people can count how many ships and aircraft are parked in Pearl Harbor and Yokosuka.

“People ask me, ‘Is the rebalance for real?’ … I would say the military part of the rebalance is here. We’ve rebalanced,” Harris said. “The economic piece is yet to be realized in full. And the other parts aren’t realized in full, either, but I think we are further along in the military piece.”

Despite his military resume – U.S. Naval Academy, P-3 Orion flight officer and commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo during three controversial prisoner deaths – one of the most interesting things about Harris may be his diplomatic credentials.

In 2011, he was military representative to the secretary of state and U.S. roadmap monitor for the Mideast peace process. Harris traveled with Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, giving

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him a front seat to the foremost foreign-policy issues of the decade.

“He is someone who knows the policy instead of just being a ship driver,” said Cheung at UC San Diego. “In a way, that’s a more important attribute to have.”

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jul/12/asian-american-admiral-pacific-fleet/

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10. Mock Typhoon Disaster Aims To Determine When Military Should Respond(STARS AND STRIPES 13 JUL 14) ... Wyatt Olson

ABOARD THE JAPANESE DESTROYER ISE, Hawaii – A major element of the 2014 Rim of the Pacific naval exercises involves training to coordinate international military response to natural disasters in Asia.

Military elements from six nations – America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia and Japan – are conducting a week-long RIMPAC response to a mock typhoon that has hit the fictitious country of Griffon in Southeast Asia.

Some of the troops involved don’t have to imagine what it’s like to respond to a scenario such as this. For example, the Ise was one of three ships Japan deployed to the Philippines last fall in the wake of the devastating Typhoon Haiyan.

The Ise, a destroyer with a large deck for landing helicopters, serves as the maritime headquarters for this year’s relief response exercise for RIMPAC. Japan’s self-defense forces will no doubt play an expanded role in the future for disaster response, but also for regional security: Lawmakers there are in the process of changing laws that could make it easier for Japan’s forces to assist allies in armed conflict.

On Saturday, helicopters arrived on the flight deck of the Ise bearing mock victims of a mass casualty drill. Among the helicopters were several belonging to the U.S. Army – a first for RIMPAC – which posed as aircraft belonging to the typhoon-hit host nation.

The Health Association of Hawaii is using the mass casualty portion of this exercise to certify its disaster-response readiness, said Commodore Kevin Coyne, a U.S. Navy contingency engineer working out of the exercise’s joint task force headquarters on Ford Island in Honolulu.

“They’re going to take 250 patients – full fake cuts and everything – and we’re going to transport by sea, air and land to all five islands and most of their hospitals,” Coyne said. “This is the largest exercise the HAH has ever been part of.”

Also participating in the exercise are numerous non-government agencies, such as Red Cross, along with United Nations agencies.

The “real meat” of the exercise is to test the thresholds at which the host country will need to ask for assistance, Coyne said.

“Can the local government respond?” Coyne said. “Can the UN international clusters respond? If not, that’s when the military comes in. We are the resource of last response.”

The triggers for a military response for such a disaster are twofold, he said.

“Do we have a unique capability that the UN or host nation does not have? Or do we have a capability that we can get to the affected area faster than they do?”

One primary example of that unique capability is logistics – moving supplies into the damaged areas and moving victims out.

The headquarters Coyne is working out of is entirely independent, just as it would be when the military arrives in the midst of an ongoing disaster.

“You have to imagine right now you’re in a country that’s been devastated by a hurricane,” said U.S. Navy Commodore Chris Peterschmidt, who’s in charge of coordinating the side-by-side Japan/U.S. headquarters on Ford Island. “We’re off the grid. We’re not using any cell phone towers. Not using anybody’s water, gas or electricity. We brought it all ourselves. We are entirely self-dependent, and we can do it for about 15 days, with MREs, our own gas.”

That’s gotten a bit easier during this year’s exercise, thanks to the conversion of part of the camp to purely sustainable energy. About 90 percent of the energy used for a camp that could potentially house 264 troops is being operated with solar, wind and hydrogen energy, a project receiving technical advice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The roar of diesel generators filled the air in the headquarters portion of the makeshift camp this week, but the part powered by renewable energy was tranquil.

“If you’d been here a year ago and had an exercise like this, we’d be yelling at each other now because of the generator noise,” said Sgt. Jeremy Nissly with the Corps of Engineers. “We’re doing the same mission right now, and it’s peace and quiet. We have almost no emissions at this point, and our costs are very low.”

He added: “We don’t have to worry about when the next convoy’s coming with fuel.”

Asked whether the camp had to make any compromises to go mostly renewable, Nissly said that the demonstration camp actually had experienced unexpected benefits. For example, a large, solar-topped tent was placed over a regular canvas tent. As a result, while the outside tent converted the sun’s heat to energy, it also prevented the rays from penetrating the lower tent, keeping it cooler.

But testing this kind of technology is a fringe benefit of RIMPAC, not its greater purpose.

“As enamored as I am about the equipment and the hardware, what’s more important – and this is what RIMPAC represents – is the opportunity to practice multinational cooperation in a controlled environment … practice communicating with each other, sharing information, sharing resources,” Peterschmidt said.

“That’s really the hard part.”http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/mock-typhoon-

disaster-aims-to-determine-when-military-should-respond-1.293175

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EUROPE:11. Ukrainian Forces Close In On Rebel-Held Luhansk(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Sabrina Tavernise

DONETSK, Ukraine – Ukrainian forces battered the outer suburbs of the rebel stronghold of Luhansk on Sunday, pushing deeper than ever but falling short of retaking the city.

The Ukrainian forces pounded rebel positions in an area called Yuvileiny just west of Luhansk, a rebel spokeswoman and residents said. Some accounts said the forces had established a checkpoint there, though a Ukrainian military spokesman could not confirm that.

Some news reports said that the government forces had retaken the city, which is crucial for the survival of the pro-Russian insurgency here in part because of its proximity to the Russian border. But residents and rebels said Sunday evening that the city was still in rebel hands.

“So far our forces are holding them back,” said a spokeswoman for the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic who asked not to be identified by name for her safety.

Andrei Anoshin, a journalist for Realnaya Gazeta, a newspaper in Luhansk, said that the city had been shelled intensely for the past week, and that many civilians had been killed. “Today wasn’t that different from other days,” Mr. Anoshin said, adding that in the city center, “it is tense, but militarily calm.”

The military advances came as relations between Ukraine and Russia fell to a new low. On Sunday, a Russian citizen was killed on Russian soil by what the Russian government said was an errant Ukrainian shell. Ukraine denied firing a shell into Russian territory. Russia said the episode could have “irreversible consequences.”

Also on Sunday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Brazil and discussed the Ukraine crisis, Reuters reported. Citing a Putin spokesman, Reuters said the two leaders had called for the resumption of political negotiations on Ukraine but had added that for that to happen, a cease-fire needed to be declared and honored by all sides. Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, declared a unilateral cease-fire last month but

then called it off, saying the rebels had refused to abide by it and had used the truce merely to regroup and rearm.

Ukraine is trying to quell a pro-Russian insurgency that has inflamed its southeastern edge since spring. Luhansk, a region of coal mines and industry that is poorer and grittier than Donetsk, another rebel stronghold, is critical for the insurgents because it shares a long border with Russia, which the West believes is quietly supporting the rebels. Ukraine has been hitting rebel positions for days and has gained considerable ground in areas south and west of the city.

The Russian news agency Interfax cited an unnamed rebel in Luhansk as saying the Ukrainian forces had begun to storm the city from an area called Alexandrovka. The rebel said the attack included not only artillery fire, but also dozens of tanks and two fighter helicopters. It was impossible to verify the report. Three residents interviewed on Sunday said they had seen neither tanks nor helicopters.

In Donetsk, a local emergency worker, Alexander Ryaboshapka, said seven people were killed Saturday in a rocket attack in the Petrovsky district. One of them was a young girl. The Ukrainian military denied responsibility for the attack.

The rockets landed in such a way that suggested that they had been fired from the south, where Ukrainian forces are based. Still, some residents said on Sunday that the rockets had been fired from rebel positions.

The attack caused residents to flee the neighborhood, and on Sunday, it was silent. Vera Alexeyevna, a retired nurse, was cleaning debris in her small, tidy house on Bank Street. A window had been blown in by the blast, and a bed with yellow sheets was covered with shards of glass. She and her husband, both pensioners, did not have the money to leave, she said, so they had nothing to do but sweep up and hope.

“How long will this go on? Please tell me how long,” she said, wiping tears from her face.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/europe/ukraine.html

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12. Russia Bolsters Crimean Air Defense, E. Europe Eyes Countermeasures(DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Jaroslaw Adamowski

WARSAW – Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine is shaping Moscow’s military priorities, but also sparking a response by some East European NATO members.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry is planning to boost the country’s air defense capability in Crimea while some East European neighbors are raising military spending to overhaul their air defense and air combat capacities.

“It’s noticeable that Poland and other [allies] in Eastern Europe have announced much-needed increases in defense spending since the conflict [in Ukraine] began,” said an analyst with a Polish government-run think tank. “Russia will use the Crimea as an outpost to boost its military presence … in the region, and these countries have taken steps … to react to this.”

The annexation of the peninsula by Russia has triggered increased focus on the Black Sea Fleet and naval aviation by Russian policymakers. The planned aircraft procurements are part of Russia’s larger military modernization strategy by 2020, as announced by senior state officials.

Russia’s Air Force in Crimea will be strengthened with the planned deployment of upgraded Su-27SM, Su-25SM and MiG-29 fighter jets to the peninsula, as well as Il-38N anti-submarine planes, Ka-52K, Ka-27 and Ka-29M helicopters, and Tu-22M3 long-range bombers.

In addition, an undisclosed number of new Su-30CM fighters ordered for the Navy’s air units will be deployed to the Russia-controlled peninsula.

The ministry also is planning to upgrade the peninsula’s military airfields and set up new training facilities, reported

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Russian pro-government daily Vzglyad. Additional aircraft have already been deployed by the Air Force, with Mi-35M and Mi-8AMTSh helicopters being stationed in the peninsula since the outbreak of the conflict.

Warsaw Takes StepsIn Poland, while the Defense Ministry is carrying out a

tender for 70 helicopters to be supplied after 2015, a new helo procurement designed to replace Mi-24s with new aircraft and bolster Poland’s air combat capability has been prepared. Deliveries are to begin after 2020, according to the ministry’s military modernization strategy.

Poland’s defense policy is closely related to the developments in Ukraine, and Russia’s military expansion in the region has raised warning flags in Warsaw and across other Eastern European capitals, local analysts said.

“The Russian military is planning purchases of new fighter jets, helicopters … on a large scale, while the Baltic states don’t have their own fighter jet fleets,” the Polish analyst said. “Eastern European countries are … reacting to these developments by increasing defense spending, but they are lagging behind in terms of [armament].”

Poland’s Defense Ministry has pushed forward the tender to modernize the country’s anti-missile and air defense system. The ministry said June 30 it had shortlisted bids by Raytheon, with Patriot interceptors, and the Eurosam consortium by MBDA and Thales, with its SAMP/T system.

The country’s air and anti-missile defense program is estimated to be worth as much as 26.5 billion zloty (U.S. $8.5 billion), local daily Rzeczpospolita reported.

Under the plan, the middle-range interceptors will be supplied by the selected contractor in cooperation with Poland’s defense industry, according to the ministry’s Armament Inspectorate, which is carrying out the procurement.

“The procurement will be implemented accordingly with the procedures related to protecting the national security interests of the Polish state,” the ministry said. “The key role in this field should be played by the Polish Defense Group, which will be responsible for coordinating industry cooperation at national level.”

Set up by the government in 2013, the group is designed to merge Poland’s state-owned defense manufacturers.

Latvia To Double SpendingThe Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are

among the countries most wary of Russian military intervention. In a sign of increased focus on defense after Russia’s invasion of the Ukrainian peninsula, the Latvian government decided to boost defense spending.

According to the recently amended law on military expenditure, in 2016, Latvia’s defense budget is to total at least 1.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). That figure will be gradually expanded to at least 2 percent by 2020, the Latvian Foreign Ministry said in a statement July 4. In 2012, the country’s GDP totaled $28.4 billion, according to data from World Bank.

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that “given the current situation in the world, increasing the funding for Latvia’s national defense is essential. We are thankful to NATO allies for the initial measures taken to reinforce the security of the Baltic states. Nevertheless, we must not forget about our own responsibility for ensuring national defense.”

Some of the planned purchases by the Latvian armed forces include air defense systems and personal weapons for troops.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140712/DEFREG01/307120030

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AFGHANISTAN:13. Afghans To Alter The Government(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Matthew Rosenberg

KABUL, Afghanistan – The deal that Secretary of State John Kerry brokered to ease the Afghan election crisis with a sweeping audit of the vote was quietly built on an even more profound reshaping of the entire government system, American and Afghan officials confirmed Sunday: The sides have agreed to gradually create an empowered prime minister post after years of an all-encompassing presidency.

Nearly a decade after American officials pushed a Constitution that enshrined near-dictatorial powers for the president, it is a tacit admission that changing to a more parliamentary system – a fraught undertaking at any time – is now seen as crucial to holding the country together after years of mounting political crises and ethnic and factional hostilities, officials said.

The change was a central goal for the candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who has brought the entire political system to the brink with accusations of rampant fraud and threats to form a breakaway government, according to officials who were close to the negotiations.

They, like other American and Afghan officials who confirmed the agreement, spoke on the condition of anonymity

because the details had not yet been worked out. They stressed that only a “framework” had been accepted in talks with Mr. Kerry, but they all agreed on its outlines.

The candidate who is declared president after a complete vote audit in the coming weeks would then appoint either the loser, or that candidate’s nominee, to become a “chief executive” for the government, with powers to be agreed on later. Then, in the following two or three years, the Constitution would be amended to create a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister as head of government and a president as the head of state.

That timeline puts important decisions off into a very indefinite future, and will revive a debate that deeply divided Afghan officials a decade ago, with some arguing then that a parliamentary system risked instability.

With no assurances even that the auditing for fraud will go smoothly over the next month, or that the result will be widely accepted, the change then would require a successful parliamentary election and the Afghan equivalent of a constitutional convention, all under the continuing threat of Taliban offensives to seize territory.

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More immediately, the two candidates, Mr. Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, despite the recent tensions, are in the coming weeks to divvy up cabinet posts, governorships and other jobs as Afghan and international elections officials review each one of the more than eight million votes cast in the June 14 runoff.

Both Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani pledged to accept the results and form a national unity government when they announced the deal with Mr. Kerry on Saturday. But the only details they gave were about the audit; all three made vague references to a “political framework” without elaborating.

But Afghan and American officials said Sunday that repeated election crises had made it clear that the Afghan government in its current form rewarded the winner of presidential elections too richly, and cut out the loser too thoroughly for a country with a history of civil strife that has often cut along ethnic and regional lines. Though the plan does not explicitly account for those differences, officials said, the hard lessons of the recent weeks were a signal that Afghanistan’s divides could no longer be denied out of existence.

In essence, Afghan and Western officials had concluded that the only way to hold Afghanistan together in the coming years, as NATO-led combat forces withdraw and the West steps further into the background, was to embrace what divides its people in hopes of creating a government that could keep them united.

Though the deal brokered by Mr. Kerry appeared to be a major potential victory for Mr. Abdullah, some in his camp expressed caution on Sunday. They said that if Mr. Ghani ended up winning, he would probably be able to control the majority in any constitutional convention, and might limit the changes made.

“I wouldn’t call this a winning situation for us, not yet,” said an Abdullah campaign official. “We don’t know yet what is going to happen. We only have an idea. But it is better than what we had when last week started.”

Afghan and American officials said they had been asked by their superiors not to discuss the political component of the agreement brokered by Mr. Kerry. One Western official, who was not briefed on its details, was told that it was too sensitive and that officials wanted time to make sure everyone was on board before talking more widely about it.

But not everyone got the message. Mohammad Mohaqiq, Mr. Abdullah’s vice-presidential running mate, told the BBC Persian service on Sunday that in the national unity government agreed upon with Mr. Kerry, the loser of the election would become the chief executive in the government. The post would become the prime minister in two years, once the Constitution was amended, the report quoted him as saying. Other Afghan and American officials confirmed those claims, and added some details in interviews.

Similar setups, with dual poles of power in the presidency and in Parliament, exist elsewhere, like France. But it is a revolutionary break from what the United States created in Afghanistan. The irony here was that it was largely through the efforts of President Hamid Karzai, the one Afghan who American officials were most eager to be rid of after the election, that Afghanistan’s imperial presidency did not stoke the country’s divisions.

From the outset of his tenure, Mr. Karzai sought to carefully balance his government. He was a southern Pashtun,

and so he put an ethnic Tajik in the No. 2 spot, and ensured that leaders of the Hazara and Uzbek minorities had prominent roles.

A sense of national responsibility helped drive Mr. Karzai’s decisions, by most accounts. But there was also self-interest: He found over the years that the old Northern Alliance, a mainly Tajik alliance of militias that fought the Taliban, remained too dominant a force in Kabul to ignore.

Loyalists of the Northern Alliance, including Mr. Abdullah, who once served as Mr. Karzai’s foreign minister, were spread among the army, police and intelligence service. Mr. Karzai could not operate without some kind of alliance with them, though that also meant keeping some of Afghanistan’s most notorious and corrupt former warlords in his government, earning him criticism and scrutiny from the United States and other Western backers.

Still, Mr. Karzai has expressed deep opposition to the idea of a parliamentary system, fearing it would tear the country apart. In fact, his rivalry with Mr. Abdullah, who challenged him in the 2009 presidential elections, was centered on the issue, and he is widely believed to have backed Mr. Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank official, in this year’s runoff.

Asked about the deal brokered by Mr. Kerry, Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for Mr. Karzai, refused to confirm the details. “The candidates have not said it publicly yet so no comment from palace,” he said.

What brought Mr. Ghani around to agreeing to the creation of a parliamentary system was harder to discern. Abdullah Poyan, a spokesman, would say only: “We never refused a national unity government. We know this is very sensitive.”

Though Mr. Ghani had a vast constituency behind him in his fellow Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, he had scant support among northern Tajiks, which would have presented a potentially life-threatening problem for him should he have won a disputed election amid accusations that his team had committed fraud.

As one senior member of the Northern Alliance asked Mr. Ghani before the election: “If you win, who will drive you to the palace? You need allies.”

For American officials, as well, the support for the idea of revamping the Afghan government was born of necessity. This year’s election crisis was the third in five years, including the 2009 presidential election and parliamentary elections a year later, both of which were marred by widespread fraud.

In fact, it was Mr. Kerry who had to come to Kabul in 2009 to talk Mr. Karzai into agreeing to a runoff against Mr. Abdullah, who subsequently dropped out of the race. “You can say that the idea here is to make sure that Afghans don’t have to have negotiations to create an inclusive government each time they have an election,” one American official said. “The political system itself, in the way it is set up, should be set up to be more inclusive.”

Though there have been differences of opinions among American officials about it, the United States did not always see it that way.

At a 2004 constitutional loya jirga, or grand council, it was American officials who pushed hardest for a strong president, arguing that a parliamentary system would be too risky. American support helped Mr. Ghani and other Pashtuns

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overcome the resistance of Mr. Abdullah and his allies in the old Northern Alliance in that debate.

According to a diplomatic cable from 2003 that was released by WikiLeaks, Robert Finn, who was then the American ambassador, was reported to have told his French

counterpart that “Afghanistan needed a strong president given all the vectors of power.”

Carlotta Gall contributed reporting.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/world/asia/afghans-

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14. Afghan Army Docs On Healing FrontImproving care at national hospital, clinics down range in critical phase(SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE 13 JUL 14) ... Gretel C. Kovach

KABUL Afghanistan – The hospital beds and gurneys are filled with bodies broken by war.

Gunshot wounds. Amputations from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Traumatic brain injuries. Hemorrhage, sepsis and shock.

This is the National Military Hospital in Kabul. Afghanistan’s Walter Reed-Bethesda, where the nation’s most severely wounded troops go for life-saving care.

In an impoverished country racked by combat, corruption and illiteracy – to name a few of its many ailments – soldiers medevaced here benefit from some of the best medical care available in Afghanistan.

That wasn’t always the case. Administration of the hospital as well as the neighboring Armed Forces Academy of Medical Sciences has improved greatly in recent years, said Afghan staff members and international coalition advisers.

Now as the U.S.-led NATO coalition prepares to end its combat mission in Afghanistan this year, the push to improve medical treatment at the national hospital and regional facilities near the front lines has reached a critical phase.

Enemy attacks are up and coalition medevac and surgical support is growing more scarce. That leaves Afghan troops with a greater share of the casualties, and Afghan doctors a greater responsibility to heal their injuries.

It is a difficult but sacred mission, according to Dr. Majid Mojib, 30, a physician in the intensive-care unit and an army captain in his second year of residency.

“For our future, we are working hard. There is no option,” Mojib said, speaking in English.

Critical CareOne day at the start of the fighting season in May, staff

members in the intensive-care unit monitored five patients. Mojib, dressed in hospital scrubs and sandals, circulated among them.

A man shot in the head was slowly recovering from sepsis, thanks to antibiotics.

Another with shrapnel embedded in his leg from an IED blast had been unhooked from the mechanical ventilator that morning. “When the patients get better, it’s a wonderful feeling,” Mojib said.

Two other patients, the wife of an army officer and her 12-year-old son, were injured by a remote-control explosive attached to their vehicle. The boy had a lung contusion. His mother lost a leg. Elsewhere in the hospital, her husband was being treated for shock after witnessing the attack.

Like the woman, people who arrive quickly by ambulance generally have a good prognosis. “In the intensive-care unit, these kinds of critical patients we can easily care for,” Mojib said.

“When some patients come from the provinces, that’s difficult,” he added, because infection and even organ failure can develop during transit.

The hospital primarily treats soldiers and their families, as well as some police and high-ranking government officials. It also serves as a backup facility if city hospitals are overwhelmed.

On average, 400 to 500 outpatients are treated daily, including 50 in the emergency room. The 430-bed facility has room for up to 1,000 patients and a staff of more than 500, including 118 doctors.

Kabul is also home to a 200-bed hospital for police. Together they are twin hearts of a nationwide network of military medical facilities.

AdvancesBrig. Gen. Wayne Eyre, a Canadian who finished a tour

in command of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan on July 6, quoted his favorite Afghan proverb when describing the slow and complex effort to improve military medical care in Afghanistan: “A river is made a drop at a time. So we just continue to add drops in that river, to keep it going forward.”

The current has been moving more swiftly in the last months of the NATO combat mission, he said. Almost 10,000 U.S. advisers may remain past 2014, but the race is on to educate Afghans in critical areas such as medical training and counter-IED strategies.

“We see them continually gain more and more confidence,” as training is increasingly conducted by Afghan troops instead of foreign advisers, Eyre said.

The training mission including 17 countries was formed in 2009 to rapidly build a national security force. After fielding well over 200,000 soldiers and police officers since then, the focus now is quality, not quantity.

On the medical side, the big push last year was point-of-injury care to reduce the high died-of-wounds rate. Teachers stress use of tourniquets, distribution of first-aid kits and the training of at least one soldier per squad in combat lifesaver techniques.

Now it is the medevac capability of the fledgling Afghan air force and its larger fleet of trucks. Cultural differences include the Afghan proclivity to evacuate the dead first for quick burials, because of religious provisions, instead of quickly trying to save critically wounded patients.

Illiteracy is also epidemic. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brent Casady, a health-care administration specialist, wonders how many troops can read the “no spitting” sign posted on one of the National Military Hospital’s walls.

But the sign itself is an improvement, said Adelcho Hansen, 47, a doctor from California advising the Afghan army’s medical commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Mussa

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Wardak. Hansen helped the hospital develop its first modern intensive-care unit.

“Before when I came here, they had no rules,” Hansen recalled.

Today, a coalition validation team and Afghan inspectors check standards. For basics such as preventative medicine and record-keeping covered under first-tier inspections, the hospital scores in the 90th percentile, Casady said.

Sgt. Maj. Asifi Munir, 42, has seen many improvements during his 11 years as a soldier. Doctors used to arrive late and leave early without seeing patients. Corruption was high, resulting in shortages of equipment and medication.

“Now because of the management changes ... we have good medical care and lots of construction,” he said, as crews worked outside on a new angiography building.

Emergency room procedures were revamped, said Maj. Mohammad Nadir, the head ER nurse. “Now we are ready to accept a mass casualty.”

The hospital is stocked with a CT scanner, ultrasound and electrocardiograph machines, defibrillators, oxygen tanks, X-ray machines and drawers filled with medicines such as ketamine and dopamine.

The halls are freshly swabbed with disinfectant, and aside from some exposed wiring, the grounds look clean and modern.

“This is the best-equipped hospital in our country,” said Brig. Gen. Abas Mangal.

The orthopedics department is particularly skilled after treating many victims of insurgent bombs, which maim and sever limbs. “They are very experienced. Through the war, they faced all kinds of cases,” Mangal said.

More than 13,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers have been killed, and 16,000 wounded during the war, according to Afghan government statistics released in March. Most of the casualties occurred in the last three years as Afghan troops shouldered more of the fight against an insurgency whose vital signs appear to be increasing.

Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., commander of the International Security Assistance Force, told The Guardian newspaper last September that more than 100 Afghan troops a week were

then being killed. By comparison, the coalition has lost 3,459 troops killed, including 2,335 Americans, since the 2001 invasion, according to icasualties.org.

During a visit by two U-T San Diego journalists, all six beds in an orthopedic room at the hospital were filled with troops from violence-plagued southern provinces: two from Kandahar and the others from Helmand, including a special-forces soldier whose wounds from a rocket-propelled grenade were freshly bandaged.

FutureThe gardens of tall trees, overgrown grass and rose bushes

surrounding the hospital were serene on that May day.Dr. Rabia Gharshin said she hopes the tranquility will

extend across the country. Then she can resume her other job as a news anchor on national television. For now, the 35-year-old gynecologist is too busy working in the intensive-care unit, filling a staff shortage.

It was her childhood dream and her mother’s that she become a doctor, Gharshin said. Her education was interrupted during the Taliban reign, when women were forbidden from attending school or working outside the home, but she eventually graduated from Kabul University.

Today, 10 percent of Afghan National Army postgraduate medical students are female, according to coalition advisers.

“This is a golden time for Afghan people, especially Afghan women,” Gharshin said. “Now Afghanistan is in development period. And every Afghan woman can work for herself, for our families.”

She worries about the potential for increased violence and an economic crash after international forces withdraw. Many Afghans have emigrated, but she has no plans to do so, she said.

“I have a very big love for my country. This is why I come to the military,” Gharshin said. “I am a doctor, I work for Afghan people.”

Her dreams of peace never cease, she said, “because the Afghan people need 100 percent for peace. In peace, we can go to work, to education and quiet living.”

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jul/13/afghan-military-doctors-national-hospital/

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AVIATION:15. "Excessive" Rubbing Of Engine Blades Caused F-35 Failure-Pentagon(REUTERS 13 JUL 14) ... Andrea Shalal

LONDON – The engine failure that has grounded the entire fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets was caused by "excessive" rubbing of fan blades in the plane's Pratt & Whitney engine, but does not appear to be a fundamental design flaw, the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said on Sunday.

Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall told reporters on Sunday there was still a chance that the grounding order could be lifted in time for the F-35 to make its international debut at the Farnborough air show.

Organisers of the show confirmed that the F-35 would not appear on Monday, but said it could still arrive and fly later in the week.

The United States' newest combat jet had already been pulled out of a British military show last week, after the entire

fleet was grounded following a massive engine failure on a U.S. Air Force F-35 at a Florida air force base on June 23.

Kendall said the grounding had halted testing but he did not view the incident as a "fundamental setback" for the $400 billion program, the Pentagon's biggest, which still has about 40 percent of developmental testing to complete.

He said the engine had suffered two issues involving fan blades in the past few years, but they appeared unrelated and not systemic to the airplane.

"None of those things that have happened, including this recent one as far as I know, suggests that we have a fundamentally flawed design," Kendall said.

He said detailed inspections of engines on the fleet of 97 F-35s already built had not shown signs of the kind of excessive rubbing founded on the engine that broke apart,

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although there were signs of milder rubbing in several other engines.

Kendall said the evidence being compiled did not point to a systemic issue, but the analysis was still going on. In this case, engineers found evidence of significant rubbing by the fan blades against a cowl.

"We're not noticing it throughout the fleet," he said. "The design allows for a limited degree of rubbing, but it was enough in this case to cause a structural reaction that ultimately led to failure."

Bennett Croswell, president of Pratt & Whitney's military engine business, declined comment on any details about the engine failure and what caused it.

Marillyn Hewson, chief executive of Lockheed Martin, said it was disappointing that the jet had not flown in Britain thus far, but the company stood ready to support the jet if flights were allowed to resume.

She said military officials from other countries were supportive of the process now under way.

"People who understand the nature of development take this in stride as normal discoveries in development," Hewson said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Potter; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/13/airshow-britain-f-idUSL6N0PO19I20140713

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16. F-35 Makers Chip In $170M To Shrink Costs(DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Aaron Mehta

FAIRFORD, ENGLAND – The F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) is trying anew to drive cost out of the plane, with industry partners agreeing to spend $170 million on internal research and development (IRAD).

Although both the program and corporate sides were clearly disappointed they could not show off the fifth-generation fighter on the first day of the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) here, the two sides instead tried to focus on what Lorraine Martin, vice-president for the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin, called a “landmark approach” to cost savings.

That involves the IRAD investment by Lockheed and its corporate partners BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. The companies will use those funds to find ways to shave costs off the plane, in turn handing those savings over to the Joint Program Office during negotiations of future lots of F-35s.

Martin offered the example of changing the canopy bow frame material.

“We’re going to change the material,” she said. “When we change that, it not only will bring down the price but the lead time. It’s going to take me $340,000 to do that and over the life of the program it’s going to save $31 million. Those are huge return multipliers and that’s what we’re looking at.”

The F-35 team estimates this could shave $10 million off the cost of each jet, saving $1.8 billion through 2019.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, said on July 10 that this “blueprint for affordability” is a sign of increasingly warm relations between the corporate and customer sides of the fighter program. He also noted that while engine-manufacturer Pratt & Whitney is not involved in the plan, it has been conducting a similar program for a few years now with its “War on Costs.”

A spokesman for Pratt said the company plans to spend $5 million a year for the next three years on IRAD to find ways to produce the F135 engine more cheaply.

Companies using IRAD to find savings isn’t new. What’s “creative” with this deal, Martin said, is that the company doesn’t pocket the return. Those are given to the customer, and when the JPO has seen the savings proven, it will pay the corporate investment back with a “minor return.”

“This is a promising and very wise new approach,” said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group. “The F-35 program has been characterized by a lack of understanding of

commercial realities, both with DoD and with export customers. The contractors need to focus on the price tag, and to make it clear that they are partners in breaking out of the low-production-rate/high-unit-cost spiral.”

“It seems rather obvious that [Lockheed, BAE and Northrop] would want to cooperate on investing in cost reductions because they don’t want the F-35 program to be cut,” said Michael Blades, senior industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan. “A $170 million investment, just a little more than the cost of one F-35, is small compared to the risk of decreasing the total buy because of costs. Such a reduction could cause a domino effect with global buyers and reduce the overall potential F-35 buy.

“I think it is commonly accepted that the DoD is expecting industry to foot more of the bill for R&D,” Blades added. “This collaborative is proof of that acceptance.”

That both Lockheed and Northrop are taking part of this plan could have long-reaching implications. Lockheed, teamed with Boeing, is gearing up to go head-to-head with Northrop over the long-range strike bomber, the U.S. Air Force’s next major acquisition program.

“We think this is a best practice that perhaps can be used” for other programs, Martin said.

The Air Force this week issued a request for proposal to corporate competitors; service officials have said they want to select a manufacturer by the spring.

If the “blueprint” works out, it is possible it could become a new way of doing large-scale aviation programs – a way for both sides to find savings amid tight budgets.

“I do expect more programs to engage in some sort of OEM-funded R&D increases,” said Blades, referring to original equipment manufacturers. “If you come to the table with a new program with a bid that includes some investment on the company’s part, it may have an advantage over competing bids. I think this will also lead to more strategic partnerships when bidding for significant programs so the risk can be spread across more than one contractor.”

Multiyear In View?Bogdan indicated that another money-saving option could

be a block buy procurement process with international partners.

“We want to be able to incentivize our partners by saying ‘Hey, you know you’re going to buy x number of airplanes,

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let’s figure out how we can lock you into that number of airplanes,’” he said. “That does great things for everybody.”

While providing a guaranteed, lower price for the country procuring the plane, it also gives stability to the F-35 program and helps drive up the number of planes in production, bringing costs down across the board. Bogdan has said about 80 percent of the costs on the program are related to quantity.

“It’s a win-win for everyone,” Bogdan said. “We will try to implement some of that over the next few years.”

Martin compared it to the foreign military sale block-buy procurement process for the C-130.

“The general has been talking to the countries,” Martin said. “I think it will take a little bit of time to put it together. The nations that like to buy that way really need us to get there quickly.”

Bogdan acknowledged that the program could never have done a block-buy process years ago, and cited it as proof of increasing health for the jet.

“You couldn’t do this eight years ago. Goodness gracious, we didn’t even know if the program was going to survive eight years ago,” he said. “We are in a position now, risk-wise on this program … it is a much better risk proposition for everybody, including industry, to start opening their pocket books.”

Bogdan then jumped to point out that the program has largely been on track with the schedule laid out following its re-baseline in 2010.

“This program has had a tragic past. We all know that. We know it’s a billion dollars over development cost. We know it’s many years late of the initial baseline in 2001. Get over it,” he said. “It’s not the same program it was in 2001, or 2008. It’s been re-baselined. We have been on this baseline for four years, and we are holding to it.”

Bogdan, Martin and Pratt’s head of military engines, Bennett Crosswell, said they expect to be done with negotiations soon on the next group of jets and engines.

Disappointment At RIATAlthough the announcement was hailed as a major cost-

saver for taxpayers, that was small consolation for the aviation fans and potential customers who had hoped to see the F-35B fly here at RIAT or at the Farnborough International Airshow, which begins July 14.

As of presstime on July 11, program officials were holding out hope that the plane could make it for the last day

of RIAT on July 13. But that window was is increasingly shrinking, leaving an appearance later this week at Farnborough still in play.

The planes were grounded July 3 due to the ongoing investigation into a fire that damaged an F-35A model on June 23.

“I can assure you that the U.S. Marine Corps and the UK are sitting perched waiting at [Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland] for any word that they can move their airplanes,” Bogdan said on July 10. “If that clearance does come, they will move. They will sit there until we exhaust the very last window of opportunity to fly either here or at Farnborough.”

It takes roughly 24 hours from the moment the planes are given the all-clear to when they could be ready to present at a show. Although the deployment of the planes is handled by the Marines, Lockheed Martin has funded a team of maintainers, as well as spare parts, which have been standing by at Fairford in case the jet makes an appearance.

Bogdan acknowledged the importance of the plane making it to the air shows in his speech, noting “it is important for the international community to see this is not a paper airplane.”

Martin added that there is operational value for the group of F-35Bs to make the trip, even if for just one day at Farnborough.

“This is a deployment,” Martin said. “This is the U.S. Marine Corps deploying their aircraft overseas, testing spare parts, testing [the plane’s logistics system] remotely, testing their flying profiles and how to do a long-duration flight. This has value in it which far outreaches the air show … they’re going to learn a lot.”

“Lockheed seems to be optimistic about flying an F-35 at Farnborough,” Blades said. “They will make every effort because that is an important showcase especially for potential [foreign military sales] deals. Not flying may not reduce sales, but flying could increase them. Seeing a system that advanced perform to specs would be impressive to buyers on the fence about choosing between Gripens, F/A-18s, Eurofighters or F-35s.”

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140712/DEFREG01/307120027

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17. The $10B Next Generation Jammer Is ‘On Track, On Schedule’(BREAKING DEFENSE 14 JUL 14) ... Colin Clark

LONDON – Farnborough is an air show, but many of the briefings scheduled by American companies this year focus on electronic warfare and missiles – not airplanes. Raytheon, winner of the Next Generation Jammer competition, and the other four defense giants know that much of the money to be made in the next decade will come from upgrades and add-ons, not new platforms. And much of the new money is destined for just the sort of technology the NGJ is sure to bring: the area where cyber and classic electronic warfare now merge thanks to digital technologies such as the AESA radar (active electronically scanned array).

There is news on that front. Since Raytheon’s win over BAE Systems, ITT/Boeing and Northrop Grumman was

reaffirmed earlier this year – in spite of BAE Systems’ successful protest – the program has made very little news.

But we can report that the head of the program at Raytheon, Rick Yuse, says the program’s System Readiness Review (intended to ensure the program can meet all its requirements) ”went extremely well” late last month.

“It’s a solid design,” he said, “well thought through.” He added that “program execution is near perfect.” Initial flight testing on the jammer’s components is now set for September. Initial Operational Capability (IOC) should happen in late 2017 or early 2018, he said.

Anyone who has followed high technology programs in the military knows that they often suffer much of their greatest

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angst in the first few years, as requirements get changed, unexpected technology problems arise, and funding wobbles.

Yuse attributed much of the program’s success so far to the fact that Raytheon “had a plan to do a lot of risk reduction very early in the contract.” He told me that virtually all of the technology sits at or above Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, which is generally just below production-ready and appropriate for subsystem development. More specifically he said, the program’s four key technologies were at TRL six when they started.

Very little has been said publicly by Raytheon or the Navy about the NGJ, its technologies or its capabilities. Yuse continued that trend, very politely. He described the system as covering both offensive and defensive electronic warfare. It is “initially focused heavily on the air-to-ground mission for air defense.”

Perhaps the most intriguing tidbit from our conversation, which occurred July 2, was Yuse’s mention of “an AESA array that can do EW, coms, radar, SIGINT all at the same time.” Most observers know that AESA can handle EW and radar. But there’s been very little public discussion of AESA’s ability to perform Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) or its ability

to serve as a communications array. Aviation Week‘s Amy Butler and I asked Lockheed’s head of the F-35 program on Thursday about whether AESA could serve as a communication’s device, and we got the “I’m not sure I can discuss that” answer.

AESA as a communications device makes sense given its digital nature. If you can turn voice into zeroes and ones, then you should be able to send and receive that information.

Initially, the jammer will be installed on the Navy’s dedicated electronic warfare platform, the EA-18 Growler. Yuse said the pods could also be installed on aircraft such as the Navy’s unmanned UCLASS with relatively few changes required: “It is a very flexible design that does not require a lot of aircraft modifications – we kind of refer to it as smart pod.”

The pod includes algorithms with a data library to read the existing threats or targets and to offer responses. Part of the reason few changes are required for new aircraft is that the pod contains virtually everything needed. “From an operational standpoint it’s pretty independent. It’s not very intrusive into the aircraft’s avionics.”

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/07/the-10b-next-generation-jammer-is-on-track-on-schedule/

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18. Boeing Sees F/A-18 Fighter Line Continuing Through 2017(REUTERS 13 JUL 14) ... Andrea Shalal

LONDON – Boeing Co. said on Sunday it was optimistic it could maintain production of its F/A-18 and EA-18G fighter jets in St. Louis through the end of 2017 – a year longer than expected – if Congress approved additional orders of a dozen more planes.

But the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, Frank Kendall, told reporters that slowing production to extend the line was likely to increase costs at a time when budgets were already tight.

"I don’t see how we can do that without it costing money and we just don't have money to spend on things that aren’t core requirements right now," Kendall said at a separate briefing.

Chris Chadwick, president and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said the company was in discussions with the U.S. Navy about revamping the production schedule for jets already ordered, but added no decisions had been made.

Chadwick said action by several congressional committees to add funding for 12 more EA-18G electronic attack fighters or Growlers "looked very positive" and should allow the company to keep the production line running a year longer than expected.

"I think that will allow us to stretch the line out ... through the end of 2017," Chadwick told reporters at the company's London office ahead of the Farnborough air show.

Boeing, seeking to stave off a shutdown of the St. Louis production line, has been lobbying U.S. lawmakers to add funding for additional EA-18G aircraft, arguing the planes

offer the most sophisticated electronic attack capabilities available.

The company has previously said it needed to build at least two airplanes a month at the facility to keep rates economical.

"We’ll find a way to stretch the line in an appropriate fashion to get through 2017," Chadwick said. "We have to look at what we have in the pipeline, what gets added to it, and how you might be able to spread those (orders) over multiple years."

Kendall told reporters that he understood Boeing's interest in keeping production running, but said it was clear that the F/A-18 and EA-18G line would have to shut down eventually.

"We are not going to be buying the F/A-18 indefinitely," Kendall said. "We’re going to stop buying them... and doing uneconomic things to prolong that process is not in the interest of the department."

Boeing is also chasing international orders for the F/A-18 Super Hornet, but Chadwick stopped short of saying any particular order was imminent.

"There is some interest. We're looking at competing in a number of areas," he said.

Later this year, the U.S. Navy plans to test the possibility of using seven EA-18G Growlers on an aircraft carrier instead of the five currently used.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mark Potter)http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/13/us-airshow-

britain-boeing-fighters-idUSKBN0FI0T620140713

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UNMANNED SYSTEMS:19. Pentagon Delays Navy’s Carrier Drone Program(DOD BUZZ 11 JUL 14) ... Kris Osborn

The Pentagon has delayed the carrier-launched drone program amid ongoing reviews of the program’s requirements and has considered drafting a new, joint capabilities document for the Navy aircraft, defense officials told Military.com.

A planned competition among defense companies has been put on hold as the Pentagon examines plans for the drone and responds to criticism from lawmakers that the initial requirements have been too narrowly configured.

A formal Request For Proposal, or RFP, which had been planned for release by the Navy later this month, has been suspended due to concerns that the requirements do not fully allow for the development of stealth characteristics and other key attributes such as weaponry and payload.

“It appears that the release of the RFP will again be put on hold,” a high-level defense official said.

The Navy plans to deliver a carrier-based drone by 2020, called the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike, or UCLASS, system.

The decision emerged as the result of a preliminary Defense Acquisition Board, or DAB, which criticized the existing requirements for disproportionately favoring long-endurance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over stealth technologies and strike.

Criticism of the requirements has come, in large measure, from analysts, defense officials and lawmakers such as Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the House’s Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee.

Discussion at the DAB centered on the need to create a new, joint Capabilities Development Document, or CDD, for the UCLASS program designed to ensure that the RFP addresses more expansive requirements including stealth, weaponry and electronic attack.

A new, joint CDD would likely include substantial input from other services, such as the Air Force, the defense source said.

Through the engineering of stealth platforms such as the B-2 bomber, the Air Force has extensive experience designing low-observable or stealth aircraft.

Analysts have questioned whether the platform can adapt over time or whether features like stealth and electronic attack need to be engineered into the original design at from the start.

In particular, low-observable or stealth specifications are needed to help the UCLASS evade increasingly sophisticated enemy air defenses and a broadly scoped payload or weapons delivery capability is needed to maximize its effectiveness for future engagements, lawmakers and Pentagon officials have said.

Furthermore, the UCLASS drone will need to overcome what the Pentagon refers to as anti-access/area-denial, or A2/AD threats, meaning adversaries with increasingly sophisticated long-range missiles and air defenses, among other things.

One source explained if the UCLASS is configured to carry the extra fuel needed for longer-endurance missions, then it will need to be built with a larger vertical signature and therefore have a less-stealthy design. For this reason, advocates for more expansive requirements have favored planning for more aerial refueling of the drone in order to ensure that it is engineered with a stealthy, low-observable design.

While not willing to comment publically on plans for stealth or low-observability for UCLASS, Navy program officials have maintained that the program’s requirements do call for a weaponized strike platform as well as an ISR vehicle. However, the weapons capability is something that is described as incremental, meaning it will be engineered into the platform over time, Navy officials explained.

Critics however, have questioned whether this is possible and favored building an original design at the beginning of the program with stealth and weaponry factored into the construction and engineering.

Last summer, the Navy awarded four contracts valued at $15 million for preliminary design review for the UCLASS to Boeing, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2014/07/11/pentagon-delays-navys-carrier-drone-program/

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SURFACE FLEET:20. More Ships, At Least On Paper, In New Fleet Plan(DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas

WASHINGTON – The latest update of the U.S. Navy’s annual 30-year shipbuilding plan shows a jump of 10 ships now in service compared with a year ago, but the updated number is a reflection of new ship-counting rules, not more ship production.

The plan was sent to Congress on July 1 after being delayed for months as Navy and Pentagon officials reviewed and revised key passages, particularly those dealing with future submarine funding and a request to inactivate and modernize half the fleet’s cruisers.

Alternately referred to as the 30-year fleet plan, the report includes numerous tables projecting ship counts through 2044, and provides details on a variety of individual programs.

Under new rules by which the Navy counts ships in its battle force, the ship totals have changed compared with previous years. The changes allowed the Navy, among other things, to count its two hospital ships and deployed coastal patrol vessels in the battle force. The changes are somewhat controversial, as some feel the Navy is inflating its ship count.

A chart using the old counting methods is included at the end of the report. A comparison with the new counting rules shows a number of differences. The fleet in 2015, according to

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the new rules, has 284 ships. Under the old rules, that would be 274. The new rules show about 10 ships more per year than the old rules, although that margin drops to single digits in 2019 and continues to drop.

The highest projected new-rule fleet is in 2028 with 319 ships, while the previous rules maxed out the same year with 316.

Sequestration AsteriskLike last year and reflecting the overall 2015 budget

request, the report is replete with warnings about the negative impact of the Budget Control Act (BCA), which created sequestration. If the 2016 budget is constrained to BCA caps, the report said, “the Navy will be unable to execute the plan.” As a result, “it is unlikely that the force remaining will be able to meet the totality of the missions” required by the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review.

Despite that, the Navy said in the report, “the strategic and operational risk to national security associated with the presented force structure of naval vessels is acceptable.”

In a cover letter to Congress, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work again noted that BCA funding caps would force the retirement of the aircraft carrier George Washington, even as Congress is steadily rejecting that notion as it works its way through the 2015 defense bills.

Indications are growing that the Navy, behind the scenes, is bowing to Congress’ will and starting measures to resume planning and funding for the ship’s refueling and overhaul. No official announcement has been made, however, and none is expected, at least until after the Senate Appropriations Committee – the last of the four key defense committees to do so – marks up its 2015 defense bill. The markup is scheduled for July 17.

The issue of how to fund the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines of the Ohio Replacement Program – also known as SSBN(X) – rates special attention in the report. The first of 12 submarines is scheduled to be ordered in 2021.

“The average cost of this plan during the period during which the [Navy] is procuring Ohio Replacement SSBN(X) cannot be accommodated by the Navy from existing resources,” the Navy said. As a result, “the battle force will fall far short of meeting the QDR requirements.”

The projected annual shipbuilding budgets show minor adjustments from last year. In the near-term planning period, 2015 to 2024, the Navy will need an average of $15.7 billion per year for shipbuilding. For the mid-term period, 2025 to 2034, the figure is $19.7 billion, reflecting the cost of the SSBN(X). The far-term period, 2035 to 2044, forecasts $14.6 billion.

From 2015 through 2044, the plan shows an average of $16.7 billion per year for shipbuilding – down from last year’s figure of $16.8 billion.

An unexplained feature in the plan shows some revisions in the number of attack submarines ordered in specific years, particularly in the 2020s, when both Virginia-class and SSBN(X) submarines will be built. Last year’s plan featured three years in which three submarines a year were planned – two attack subs and one missile sub – a costly eventuality few outside the Pentagon think can be realized. This year’s plan doubles the three-per-year instances, to six different years – every other year beginning in 2024.

A follow-on design to the Virginia class is mentioned in the report, with research and development work scheduled to begin in 2034.

Surface Fleet ModificationsLittoral combat ship procurement has changed, reflecting

a Pentagon decision this year to review the program and possibly build a new or modified design. A special Small Surface Combatant Task Force is to deliver a report at the end of this month, after which decisions are to be made that will be incorporated in the 2016 budget plan. Until then, LCS procurement has shifted to three ships per year – except for two ships in 2019 – through 2025.

Procurement of the large LHA(R) amphibious assault ship remains programmed for 2017, but funding of the LX(R) amphibious ship has slid one year, with advanced procurement now scheduled for 2019 and full funding in 2020. A total of 11 ships is planned.

Funding of the first T-AO(X) fleet oiler replacement program remains in 2016, with the second ship in 2018. Seventeen ships are planned, funded through 2033.

The report, however, reflects an ongoing debate about how many support ships to keep in operation. Two of the large AOE fast replenishment ships, Bridge and Rainier, are scheduled for inactivation – Bridge in September and Rainier a year later, and the Navy has wrestled with proposals to inactivate all four AOEs – powered by gas turbines, the highly capable ships also are the most expensive logistics force ships to operate.

Deletion of the fleet’s four ATF fleet tugs and four ARS salvage ships also has been discussed, and the new report shows two of each of those types scheduled for inactivation in 2016.

Plans to replace these and other support ships continue, however, with four new fleet tugs to begin in 2017 and four new salvage ships in 2020. Replacements for the fleet’s two submarine tenders also continue to be programmed, one each in 2023 and 2025.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140712/CONGRESSWATCH/307120024

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21. Retiring Frigates May Leave Some Missions Unfilled(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... David Larter

The Navy may be shedding all its frigates by the end of next year, but the ships are still busy and in high demand – creating a dilemma for the Navy over which ships will pick up their missions.

Defense experts say that it’s an open question of when the littoral combat ships joining the fleet will be ready to take on

challenging missions like counterdrug operations and sub-hunting – frigate mainstays that have pushed their deployment pace. Some anticipate that Military Sealift Command ships and other auxiliaries may pick up some of the slack.

“There is a big unknown in regard to LCS when the three types of [mission] modules will come online and will test

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sat[isfactory],” said retired Capt. Jan van Tol, who’s now a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Even toward the end of their service lives, Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates play an oversize part in Navy operations. Between 2011 and 2013, for instance, frigates spent roughly a third of their time underway on average, higher than many ship classes.

The LCS is a revolutionary warship designed to load out separate mission modules, like those being developed for mine hunting, antisubmarine warfare and combating small boats.

When the frigates vanish by the end of 2015 – an accelerated retirement schedule due in part to budget pressure, experts say – there will be roughly eight LCS hulls in the fleet, fewer than the 11frigates currently in service.

And it remains unclear when they can be deployed for missions such as narcotics interdiction or ASW.

The LCS is also slated to take over mine-hunting missions from the Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships, now nearing the end of their service lives.

In a statement, Navy spokeswoman Lt. Jackie Pau said that the service would employ whatever ships it could to fill the mission requirements.

“Our missions are platform-agnostic,” Pau said. “There is no singular ship replacement for the decommissioning frigates as outlined in the Navy’s Future Years Defense Plan or the 30-year shipbuilding plan. The missions previously conducted by FFGs will be performed by other elements of the fleet, including LCS, [destroyers] and JHSVs.”

‘Ad Hoc Response’Navy observers agree that the service will have to string

together a strategy to make up for the absent frigates.To fill the gap, the Navy is going to have to get creative,

and some missions, such as the counterdrug patrols and presence missions in South and Central America, could suffer, said retired Cmdr. Bryan Clark, a former aide to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert and an analyst at CSBA.

“I imagine they’ll go into the kit bag to cover some of these missions,” Clark said, adding that the move would be “not such a bad thing, because it will force them to look at different ways of using the mobile landing platform, perhaps the [dry cargo ships] or the joint high speed vessel. But this is all based on sort of an ad hoc response to something they should have anticipated.”

Navy leaders view these vessels as alternatives for low-end missions like training foreign navies and disaster relief. At

April’s Sea-Air-Space exposition, Greenert extolled the JHSV as a cheaper option to cover missions like counter piracy, freeing up blue-water combatants for other missions.

“We need lower-cost approaches,” Greenert said. “We need to tailor the ship more to the mission.”

This is something that’s already happening in the fleet. In May, the Spearhead, the lead ship in the JHSV class, returned from Africa Partnership Station, one of the many train-and-assist missions that frigates have done in the past.

The Spearhead is now in the Caribbean on patrol, having made stops in the Dominican Republic and Belize. The Navy is ordering 10 of the JHSVs, which will be forward- deployed around the world.

But the Navy isn’t the only service eager to use the JHSV – the Marine Corps is also excited by the platform.

Capt. Marc Lederer, a former mission commander for the JHSV Spearheard, told Navy Times in May that the ship can carry as many as 312 Marines and 600 tons of equipment. And the Office of Naval Research is testing a lightweight ramp that can support an M1-A1 tank.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Jim Amos recently joked that the ramp was the “John the Baptist of ship-to-shore connectivity.”

Ultimately, though, the Navy will need another frigate, van Tol said, and the service is looking at options including adding vertical launch tubes to a future frigate class for missiles, better preparing the vessel for more high-end missions like defending an aircraft carrier from incoming missiles.

“There are frigate missions that LCS is just simply not designed to do,” van Tol said. “Carrier operations is one of them, and there are questions about its survivability. I suspect that’s one of the principal reasons that the Pentagon put out a proposal for a new ship that will serve as an actual replacement for the frigate.”

In February, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel cut the number of LCSs the Navy plans to buy from 52 to 32 and directed that the service put forward “alternative proposals to procure a capable and lethal small surface combatant, generally consistent with the capabilities of a frigate.”

In testimony before Congress, both Greenert and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus have said that the new frigate-like ship will likely be a variant of the LCS, because it is difficult, time-consuming and expensive to design a whole new ship from scratch.

http://www.navytimes.com

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22. Big Supply Ships May Get Reprieve – For Now(DEFENSE NEWS 12 JUL 14) ... Christopher P. Cavas

WASHINGTON – They’re the biggest supply ships operated for the U.S. Navy, and the fastest. Rarely does a deployed carrier strike group travel without one. But they’re also the most expensive logistics ships to run, and that’s made them the target of planners eager to reduce operating costs.

The result is a classic cost-versus-capability debate that continues to be played out behind the scenes in Washington and at fleet headquarters in Norfolk and Pearl Harbor.

“They” are fast combat support ships – T-AOEs in Navy lingo – designed to carry enough fuel, ammunition and supplies to supply a carrier group. The 49,000-ton ships are

powered by the same gas turbines that drive the fleet’s cruisers and destroyers, reaching speeds approaching 30 knots.

The four ships of the Supply class were commissioned in the 1990s as Navy-manned and operated fleet units, but were transferred to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) in the 2000s. Even with civilian mariners, their crews number around 160 sailors, and each ship costs about $75 million per year to operate.

Matched up against older oilers – at around $40 million per year – and newer dry cargo ships running about $50 million a year, the T-AOEs became attractive inactivation

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candidates for a Navy scrambling to reduce spending any way it can. By 2013, the service announced it would inactivate the Bridge in September 2014 and the Rainier a year later.

A plan was proffered to assign the remaining two ships – Supply and Arctic – to U.S. Central Command and Pacific Command, where they could serve deployed strike groups.

In discussions this year, one proposal envisioned laying up even those two ships in a reserve operating status of up to 45 days, meaning it would take at least that much time to reactivate them.

Operators squawked at the proposals.“When I had the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, we

didn’t do a 16-knot transit to get where we’re going. It was often 20-24 knots. You constructively can often be doing a transit somewhere at 25-26 knots,” former strike group commander Rear Adm. Tom Shannon said in a June 26 interview. “And who can run with you, except the T-AOEs?”

Between them, oilers and dry cargo ships can carry everything one T-AOE does, but at speeds little more than 20 knots. To Shannon, it’s a clear choice.

“From a war-fighting perspective, from how we operate and exercise, one-stop shopping from one ship as opposed to bringing along two slower ships, I just think it’s a very practical way to go.”

Shannon now looks at the issue from a very different perspective, as commander of MSC, the Navy entity that operates the fleet’s civilian-manned combat logistics and service support ships – including the T-AOEs, oilers and dry cargo ships.

“It’s a budget fight. This is all about money,” Shannon said. “What I want to argue is sometimes, because of the line of work we’re in, you don’t always make the smartest financial decision. You make the smartest war-fighting decision. That’s the rub.”

Fleet operators agree. According to Navy sources, U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Virginia and Pacific Fleet in Hawaii have been arguing strenuously to keep the ships in service. Fleet Forces balked at the idea it would lose its T-AOEs to overseas commands.

“Yes, these T-AOEs are expensive, but that is a capability we need to retain,” said Bryan Clark, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, and a former planner for Navy leadership.

Clark acknowledged, however, that a solution might be to place the ships in reserve.

“Is there an alternative approach” to keeping them in operation, he asked. “Put them in [reserve operating status] so they’re still available if we get into a conflict and need more ships.”

The issue continued to be hotly discussed as June turned into July. “There was a strong backlash” to keeping the ships, a defense official said. A decision is required quickly because Bridge will soon reach the point where MSC will have to begin the inactivation process.

“Talks with the fleet regarding fleet requirements are ongoing,” the defense official said July 10. “Fleet readiness is a priority and we take very seriously all concerns the fleet has brought up regarding the inactivation of the T-AOEs.”

As last week ended, it appeared there might be some movement on the T-AOE issue, with one source claiming the Navy would drop plans to inactivate Bridge this year and Rainier in 2015. But the issue could come up again in 2016, the source said.

A similar debate is looming for two lesser-known fleet support types. MSC operates four T-ATF fleet tugs and four T-ARS salvage ships. The ships are valuable enough that replacements are scheduled in the 30-year shipbuilding plan – T-ATFs beginning in 2017, T-ARSs beginning in 2020. But planners have debated inactivating all eight active ships, and a compromise calling for the removal from service of two ships of each type in 2016 is in the latest shipbuilding plan. The issue is far from over.

“There’s an initiative out there to kill those [ships] and go fully commercial,” Shannon said. “And we really need to think our way through that.”

Clark agreed the ships are valuable assets.“COCOMS [combatant commanders] ask for T-ATFs and

T-ARSs a lot because they do a lot of security cooperation work with partners,” Clark explained. “They do salvage operations, annual BALTOPS and CARAT exercises, ordnance disposal. I was often amazed at how often COCOMS asked for them,” he added.

Like the T-AOE debate, the T-ATF/T-ARS issue has prompted a similar waterfront reaction.

“The fleets were adamant they needed the capability,” a Washington source said. “And they want us to own it.”

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140712/DEFREG02/307120025

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AIRCRAFT CARRIERS:23. Cruiser Cut Plan Raises Carrier QuestionsOverhaul plan and carrier defense called into question by experts, officials(NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS 13 JUL 14) ... Hugh Lessig

Congress and the Navy might have settled a debate over aircraft carriers, but they're still squabbling over the ships that serve as escorts.

The fate of Navy cruisers, workhorses of the fleet that protect carriers on the open seas, has national and regional implications. The Navy wants to temporarily shelve 11 of its 22 cruisers and gradually return them to the fleet in more modern condition. Two of the 11 are based in Norfolk. The

USS Vella Gulf and the USS Anzio have about 680 sailors spread across two crews.

The plan, which is unprecedented, has prompted skepticism in Hampton Roads – from key members of Congress to the commercial shipbuilding industry. Because the long-range plan depends on support from future Navy leaders and upcoming sessions of Congress, critics fear that a temporary shelving might end up permanent.

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The debate played out last week in a hearing chaired by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake, considered an influential voice on shipbuilding. What the Navy calls a phased modernization program sounds more like "phased euthanasia," he said.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley said the plan isn't perfect, but is the best way to maintain military strength as money runs short and other needs pile up.

"We're doing this because of the budget," he said.Plan, And ProblemsOn paper, the plan is simple. The 11 targeted cruisers are

the newest in the fleet. As older cruisers age out, the newer ships are modernized and brought back as replacements, giving the Navy its cruisers well into the 2030s, Stackley said. Without the plan, the current cruisers are all retired by the late 2020s, he said.

The House-passed National Defense Authorization Act already blocks the Navy's plan. It forbids obligating or spending money toward ship retirement, inactivation or placement in storage. Conversely, the Navy's plan would save taxpayers $4.7 billion over the long term, Stackley said.

Forbes remained skeptical. The Navy had previously proposed decommissioning seven cruisers and Congress opposed that. Why should Congress believe future Navy leaders will stick with this plan?

"Give me some comfort level," he told Stackley.Shipyards in Virginia and elsewhere would see extra work

under the Navy's plan because cruisers would be tied up in the yards. But operators of those yards share Forbes' concern, said Bill Crow, president of the Norfolk-based Virginia Ship Repair Association.

"The potential of repairs is viewed with skepticism by the commercial ship repair industry," Crow said Friday. "There is just so much uncertainty in the future and so many unanswered questions."

Crow, a 30-year Navy veteran, said he has never seen a plan where ships are deliberately taken out of service for periods of time and then returned. There are concerns with ships sitting idle for that long.

"If you take that ship and tie it up, things will degrade just from having a piece of metal sitting in salt water," he said.

Carrier ImplicationsThe Forbes hearing began on a positive note. Stackley

said the Navy is "making every effort" to set aside money to refuel the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, a multibillion-dollar job that provides work for Newport News Shipbuilding and contractors in Hampton Roads.

But the debate over cruisers touches on how carriers are protected once they sail out of Naval Station Norfolk. Anyone in Hampton Roads who follows Navy homecomings and deployments knows that aircraft carriers are never alone. They deploy with cruisers and destroyers armed with guided missiles.

Cruisers are more suited to escort aircraft carriers on the open seas, said Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, director of surface warfare, who testified with Stackley. Cruisers in a carrier strike group host a Navy captain and senior staff assigned to air defense. A cruiser is better suited, both physically and technologically, to handle this task than a destroyer.

During deployments, "we will keep the cruiser with the aircraft carrier and send destroyers on other missions," Rowden said.

Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., asked Rowden what would happen if cruisers were not available for a carrier strike group. Rowden said if that role fell to a guided missile destroyer, the Navy would have to boost training "and perhaps increase the level of experience" of a destroyer crew.

After the hearing, Forbes said in an interview that the cruiser debate is similar to what happened with the aircraft carrier Washington. The Navy first said it would decommission the ship in 2016 if sequestration cuts returned. Congress opposed that, and it now the Navy appears to be complying. Congress has to show the same resolve with cruisers.

The carrier debate "would not have moved in that direction until Congress took that stand," Forbes said.

http://www.dailypress.com/news/military/dp-nws-cruiser-destroyer-debate-20140713,0,5416658.story

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24. A Tale Of Two Ships Passing(NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT 13 JUL 14) ... Joanne Kimberlin

NEWPORT NEWS – On the banks of the James River, in the bustle of the sprawling shipyard, two great warriors have come together, a lifetime apart.

At Pier 3, the Ford is being born.At Pier 2, the Enterprise is dying.The timing is coincidental – just the ebb and flow of work

at the yard. But even here, where warships have come and gone for over a century, the poetry of the moment isn't lost.

Seeing the nation's latest aircraft carrier side by side with the first nuclear-powered one puts lumps in the throats of hard-hats and sailors alike.

Tom Moore, a rear admiral who oversees the Navy's carrier program from Washington, said the sight strikes a chord whenever he's in town and catches a glimpse of the flattops from Interstate 664.

"It's the past and the future right there," Moore said. "That kind of grabs me every time."

It's bittersweet. On the Gerald R. Ford – which is nearly 80 percent complete – hissing air hoses and pinging hammers are the sounds of progress. Right next door – where the Enterprise is being stripped for scrapping – those same sounds signal a funeral.

"A lot of people have emotional ties to the Enterprise," said Chris Miner, a vice president of Newport News Shipbuilding. "I've never seen anything like it, and I've been here 30-plus years. It's a dagger in the heart to see her go."

John Meier, the Ford's captain, said the scene at Piers 2 and 3 is like "A Tale of Two Cities," the novel by Charles Dickens that opens with the classic line: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

"We're on the upswing and they're on the decline," Meier said. "I can only say it's good to be on this end of that life cycle."

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It's impossible not to be awed in the presence of an aircraft carrier. Sheer size, capability and longevity create a warfighting machine "unmatched in the world," Moore said.

The Ford's slogan, "100,000 tons of diplomacy," is up from the 90,000-ton weight of its predecessors. Like the Enterprise, it's a prototype, the first in a new class of carriers.

The Ford's realm is a sweathouse of activity. Roughly 2,700 shipyard employees stream on board daily, with another 1,300 providing support from shops, offices and warehouses. Workers in coveralls occupy every unfinished cranny of its decks – painting, welding, wiring, twisting wrenches, shuttling materials.

As compartments are "brought to life," they're turned over to the captain. Roughly 500 of the carrier's 2,600 "spaces" now belong to Meier and the 1,000 sailors already assigned to the Ford.

"There's an incremental transfer of ownership," Meier said. "It's like eating an elephant, one bite at a time."

There's an energy in the organized chaos – the atmosphere of people on a roll. Chatter flows, jokes ricochet, and supervisors are eager to show off the carrier's next-generation features and "smart" technology.

Aircraft will be launched using electric catapults instead of steam. Systems will be state-of-the art. Automation will reduce the crew size. Accommodations will be cushier.

"This is my kid's ship," said one supervisor. "Flat screens instead of gauges."

No one seems prouder of the Ford than Meier. Originally from the Pittsburgh area, he's 50, with broad shoulders, an earnest air and enough silver in his hair to suit his new role – the biggest assignment of his career.

Technically, Meier is the Ford's "prospective" commanding officer, since the carrier isn't an official part of the fleet yet, but he hopes to still be at the helm in March 2016. That's when the $14 billion ship is scheduled to start its 50 years of duty as a seagoing airbase, carrying out its mission and making its mark.

"Being chosen is a great honor," he said. "I'm excited about the responsibility and accountability, but mostly about the sailors I get to work with. They're spectacular."

Meier lives in Virginia Beach, is married and has two sons at Kellam High School. Like all carrier commanders, he's nuclear-trained and an aviator with plenty of time in a cockpit under his belt. Back then, his call sign was "Oscar," a play on his last name.

A man on the rise, Meier comes across as polished and politically correct, a poster of the new-school military – much like his ship, which, by the way, has no urinals, a reflection of modern co-ed crews.

Old school is on the next pier, just a stone's throw away.Capt. Bill Hamilton is known as "Boomer," a call sign

earned long ago after he pushed his fighter jet past the speed of sound during war games over Valdosta, Ga. He blew the windows out of a J.C. Penney and ruptured its plumbing, soaking the merchandise.

"It was an incredible act of stupidity," he said with a grin, knowing that the same move would likely sideline a military career today. Instead, Hamilton rose through the ranks to become the last commanding officer of the Enterprise – the Big E.

"She's a hard ship," he said. "But she's amazing. One of a kind."

Literally. Built at Newport News when atomic technology was young, the Big E was the largest warship in the world, intended to be the lead in a new class of six carriers.

But the Navy decided to switch to the Nimitz design. That left the Enterprise in a category all its own, the only carrier ever built with eight reactors. All others, including the Ford, have two.

"So she became an experiment," Hamilton said. "Would eight reactors play nice together? Would it work? Would it pay off? There were no expectations she'd go past 20 years. She made it to 51."

Such a lifespan entwined the Big E with American history, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq – infusing the ship with a certain "romance," Rear Adm. Moore said.

Moore, who spent three years on the Enterprise, describes it as one of his "favorite ships of all time," even though it was manpower-intensive and harder to maintain with each passing year. Near the end, replacement parts were often made by hand, their original manufacturers long out of business.

"She was such a wild beast," Moore said – full of idiosyncrasies. "It took a lot of sweat and tears to tame her."

Serving on the Big E became a "badge of honor," Moore said. "And she was fast. There was some pride that went along with that. It's my understanding that, on her last time out, Captain Hamilton got permission to crank her up to top speed."

Standing on the dock in front of the Enterprise, Hamilton narrows one eye when he hears what Moore said about "permission."

"I didn't have to ask anybody's permission," he said. "I'm the captain."

The Navy won't say exactly how fast its carriers will go – "30-plus knots" is the standard answer – but in 2012 off the North Carolina coast, when Hamilton "opened her up" for one last hard run, he said, "she was off the charts. You can really chew up some water with 280,000 horsepower and 90,000 tons."

Now, the Big E is at rest. The yard has 1,200 employees gutting the ship, but compared to the ruckus next door at the Ford, the Enterprise seems silent as a tomb.

Its crew, once 3,000 strong, has been whittled to 750 sailors. They monitor the reactors, stand guard, and help yard engineers write the blueprint for future defuelings. Even on death row, the Enterprise is setting precedents. No one has ever scrapped a nuclear-powered carrier before.

Safety concerns keep Hamilton from giving tours. Yawning holes have been cut through decks to access the reactors. Interiors have been stripped, walls torn down, and the mast, antennas, radars and war systems removed.

"There are times when I'm on board," Hamilton said, "and I have to stop myself and think, 'Where am I?' So much of it is already unrecognizable."

At 58, Hamilton is less than a decade older than the Ford's new captain. But he has the bearing of an old salt, the weathered look and wide stance of a man with permanent sea legs. He lives in Chesapeake with his wife. Their two daughters are grown, married and living elsewhere.

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When the Big E's nuclear fuel is removed in 2016 and its skeleton is towed to Puget Sound in Washington state to be broken apart, Hamilton will "walk off into the sunset" as well. He has plans to go play with his grandkids, maybe retire to his native Alabama.

"I'll see her all the way to the end," he said of the mountain of gray steel behind him.

"It's time. For both of us."http://hamptonroads.com/2014/07/tale-two-ships-passing

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SUBMARINES:25. Navy Lags In Replacing Aging Fleet STRATCOM Relies On To Carry Nukes(OMAHA WORLD-HERALD 13 JUL 14) ... Steve Liewer and Joseph Morton

KINGS BAY, Ga. – The Navy’s Trident missile submarines used to be a high-tech wonder, the symbol of American superiority at sea.

Now, as the subs head into their fourth decade of service, they’re getting a little creaky – a fact that worries everyone from the highest military leaders to the sailors who crew them.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel heard as much last week during a tour at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, when a young sailor asked about replacements for the boats that carry the United States’ sea-based nuclear weapons.

“They’re starting to kind of show their age a little bit,” said the sailor, a second-class petty officer from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “My last ship was older than I was.”

That’s not surprising. Most submarine crew members are in their early 20s. The Tridents – classified as “Ohio-class,” after the first boat in the series – range in age from 18 to 31. The Navy already has stretched their projected lifespan from 30 years to 42. They’ll be decommissioned beginning in 2027.

Hagel reassured the sailor that replacement subs are coming. But defense leaders also acknowledge that they already are struggling to control the cost of the new subs and to keep production on schedule.

The current 14 Ohio-class subs hold up the sea-based leg of the United States’ nuclear arsenal. Collectively they can carry more than 1,000 nuclear warheads, running quietly under cover of the sea. Experts at the U.S. Strategic Command have calculated that the Navy needs to field at least 12 subs to deter a nuclear attack against the United States and its allies, although some analysts argue that fewer are needed.

The problem is that the current subs will be retired faster than their replacements will be finished, even under the most optimistic of projections.

Starting in 2029 the Navy’s fleet of nuclear-missile subs will drop to 11, and then to 10. The fleet won’t be back to the optimal 12-sub size until 2042.

And that assumes that the replacement schedule for the submarines – which could cost more than $100 billion to develop and build – remains on track at a time when the defense budget is tightening. A federal budget sequester that has severely crimped spending on new Navy ships already has pushed back the schedule by two years.

The replacement subs are a huge concern for Adm. Cecil Haney, a former submarine officer who now heads STRATCOM, based at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha. STRATCOM controls America’s nuclear weapons.

Haney called the Ohio-class replacement subs his “top modernization priority” when he testified in February before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The Ohio replacement program must stay on schedule,” Haney said. “No further delay is possible.”

Although it’s been in development since 2008, the first new submarine isn’t slotted for delivery until 2030 – three years after the Tridents begin retiring.

It may seem odd to worry now about a ship that won’t be delivered for 16 years. But experts say it takes a long time to develop something as complex and expensive as a nuclear submarine.

“The things you buy now build the force you have 20 years from now,” said Todd Harrison, a fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

The current fleet of 14 allows for two to be in port for refueling or maintenance while 12 are on patrol.

Experts say the Navy can’t get any more life out of the submarines. After the planned 42 years, it will become too dangerous to expose them to the extreme pressure of the ocean depths.

“The current boats will wear out,” said Norman Polmar, an independent naval analyst and author of 50 books on military topics. “It’s the stress on the hulls. After so many dives, you don’t want to take them down anymore.”

Hagel toured the 26-year-old USS Tennessee during his visit to Kings Bay, in part to focus attention on the nuclear deterrent force, which has faded from public consciousness since the end of the Cold War. Strategists say ballistic-missile submarines play a vital role in defending the nation.

“If I were building a military from scratch, the first thing I would probably buy are SSBNs,” said Harrison, referring to the subs by their Navy acronym. “They can assure your national survival.”

Navy leaders at Kings Bay say the goal of a ballistic-missile submarine crew is to have a completely uneventful mission.

Or to put it another way, they said: “If something happens, we’ve failed.”

The sub is equipped with high-tech communications gear to ensure it stays in contact with its chain of command. If the president gives the order, the ship must be able to deliver a strike.

It’s no pleasure cruise. Nine-person bunks for the crew are slotted in between the missile tubes. The Tridents go through a typical cycle of 77 days on patrol, then a 35-day refit period, then another 77-day patrol.

During the refit period, equipment gets updated or replaced. Sometimes refitters pull out equipment just because they think it might go bad soon. It’s difficult to fix things while underway, and it’s critical that these boats don’t miss a day at sea.

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Although the refitting process helps keep the submarines in fighting trim, it’s obvious they’ve been around for a few years.

For example, the Tennessee’s periscope still employs World War II-era technology, augmented with updated electronics. Newer submarines use cameras in their periscopes.

“Some of the bigger components, there’s only so much you can do,” said Lt. Cmdr. John Gonser, the Tennessee’s executive officer.

Since 2008 the Navy has been studying what it needs to replace the Ohio-class sub. Two years ago it released some details about its plans for the new boat.

It will be 561 feet long and 43 feet across, nearly the same as the Ohio-class subs. It will feature a new X-shaped stern for greater speed, quieter electric motors, and special tiles on its hull that will make it harder to detect with sonar.

And it will cost a bundle.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last year

estimated the total cost of buying 12 replacement submarines at $87 billion (in 2013 dollars), plus up to $15 billion in development costs. The Navy’s cost estimates are lower, and it is trying to trim the costs by reducing the number of missile launchers, increasing competition among subcontractors and using technology from other classes of submarine.

“The Navy is investigating all options to minimize the construction cost of the Ohio replacement program,” said Lt. Jackie Pau, a Navy spokeswoman.

Analyst Polmar, though, doesn’t want to see the Navy save a few billion dollars by recycling old 20th-century technology in the Ohio replacement subs, some of which are slated to serve nearly until the 22nd century.

“They’re using lots of technology from the Virginia (class of attack submarines) – and the original Ohio-class (submarines),” Polmar said. “I think it’s a big mistake.”

The two-year scheduling delay has worsened a gap from 2029 through 2041 when the Navy will have fewer submarines than it says it needs. Navy officials say they can scrape by with as few as 10 subs during that period, but some analysts aren’t so sure.

“That’s not enough to provide coverage,” Harrison said. “Really, this is a long-term Navy problem.”

Currently the Navy gets about $13 billion a year to build new ships, a share that could shrink if Congress reimposes the budget sequester next year. The Ohio replacement subs are so expensive, they threaten to crowd out most other Navy shipbuilding.

In releasing its 30-year shipbuilding plan last week, the Navy described the current course as “unsustainable.”

Last year Navy officials asked Congress to create a special $60 billion fund outside the normal shipbuilding

budget – $4 billion a year for 15 years beginning in 2021, the period in which the new subs will be built.

If the fund isn’t created, the Navy will have to eliminate 32 other ships from its shipbuilding plan, warned Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, director of the Pentagon’s Undersea Warfare Division.

But government watchdogs such as the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight contend that it’s important for the Pentagon to live within its budget. Creating special funds for big-ticket items sets a bad precedent, they say.

“The Navy, like the other services, has to learn to balance its priorities,” said Ethan Rosenkranz, the group’s national security policy analyst. “If the Navy is successful making the case that this is a national strategic asset, you can bet that the Air Force will make a similar case.”

STRATCOM, in fact, is facing what Rosenkranz and other analysts are calling a “modernization mountain” in the next decade.

Much of the nation’s nuclear arsenal needs to be refurbished or replaced, including new land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, new strategic bombers to replace the ancient B-52s and the aging B-2s, development of a new cruise missile and an upgrade to the B-61 gravity bomb.

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimated the cost of these improvements at $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

Rosenkranz thinks some of these programs can be delayed. The new strategic bombers aren’t needed yet because the existing B-1s and B-2s are being upgraded, and the B-52s are expected to last until at least 2045. Also, current plans call for the new F-35s to eventually carry nuclear weapons.

Rosenkranz suggested that the Navy could field a smaller fleet of Ohio replacement subs.

“We can safely go down to eight,” Rosen-kranz said, because those eight subs collectively could carry 1,024 nuclear warheads – more than the 1,000 allowed by current arms treaties.

Such a move would save $18 billion upfront, he said, and $122 billion over the life of the subs.

But Polmar warned that the Pentagon should include a generous margin of safety when planning weapons systems that will be in use for decades into the future.

“Today there’s no (military) peer competitor in the field,” Polmar said. “But who knows what it’s going to be like in 30 or 40 or 50 years?”

http://www.omaha.com/news/military/navy-lags-in-replacing-aging-fleet-stratcom-relies-on-to/article_6f57663f-c835-5d6c-b615-7f94097c2ab6.html

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TECHNOLOGY:26. Navy Pushes Ahead With 3-D PrintingMetal printing likely next step(NAVY TIMES 13 JUL 14) ... Lance M. Bacon

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. – The fleet’s 3-D printing experiments have produced everything from tools and phone-jack plates to gas caps and training aids in the past year – and done so in hours, rather than the days, weeks or months sailors wait for some parts.

The state-of-the-art technology allows a sailor to blueprint a needed part and then fabricate it on the spot. So far, the Navy’s tests have used plastic to fashion spare caps on a big-deck amphib and scaled ship models for naval engineers.

Officials are sold on the concept and are asking sailors for lists of high-demand items to be made from plastic, with the aim to have 3-D printers able to manufacture from metal and other materials like industry. The hope is that one day a ship crew will be able to manufacture complex parts from the middle of the ocean.

But to get there, the Navy will have to navigate a host of issues, from certifications and copyrights to materials and obstacles specific to a ship at sea.

The Navy’s active-duty innovation team is passing the technology onto the operational Navy and its engineering centers, according to interviews with officials at the “Print the Fleet” workshop held at Combat Direction Systems Activity Dam Neck in late June.

The Navy technology centers on refrigerator-sized printers that layer thin polycarbonate plastic following a 3-D blueprint to create a part. In the fleet testing over the past year, sailors and civilians have used commercial programs to create 3-D renderings of items, even designing new or modified items that can be tested at a relatively low cost.

It’s the hobby shop of the future for “military MacGyvers,” said Vice Adm. Philip Cullom, deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, who spoke via video link to sailors at the exhibit.

Navy printers can use just about any plastic material that can be melted and placed in a spool, said Jim Lambeth, additive manufacturing lead at CDSA Dam Neck.

Uses identified so far include the manufacture of out-of-production circuit card clips for Tomahawk cruise missiles; a custom oil line wrench for the MH-60R Seahawk helicopter that saves hours of work on each oil change; a lighter, cheaper hydraulic manifold for the V-22 Osprey; and cheaper Pylon Adapter Modeling for the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol airplane.

Sailor InputMost sailors have a horror story or two about a long wait

for a part – sometimes an inconsequential one, like a gas cap that’s hard to replace in the middle of the ocean.

“A lot of times, it’s not the $100,000 part that really drives you crazy because those are in the stock system,” said Capt. Jim Loper, who heads the concepts and innovation department at Navy Warfare Development Command. “It is the $1 little plastic part that really drives you crazy.”

At the workshop, many wished they could get their hands on a printer setup now, like Senior Chief Logistics Specialist

(AW/SW) David Bracy, who works at Fleet Readiness Center Norfolk.

“If we had this capability right now, we could have our [technical directives] up to code in a matter of weeks,” Bracy said. “That takes the current supply system a matter of years.”

Aviation Electronics Technician 1st Class (AW) Andrew Fath, who also works at FRC Norfolk, said he was compiling a list of the “countless tools and parts from back in the day that now have to be locally manufactured.”

Fath is confident this technology will cut down wait time – and is interested in using the 3-D modeling software to produce new tools.

The Navy in the coming year will establish near, mid- and long-term implementation goals, said Dave Barrett, who heads the Navy’s additive manufacturing initiative for the chief of naval operations.

While the suits take care of administrative matters, 3-D printers are scheduled to produce F/A-18 Super Hornet ducts in fiscal 2015, and a metal printer is expected to come on line that year.

Lt. Ben Kohlmann, project manager for Print the Fleet, is a Hornet flier by trade. He said the technology to produce certified mechanical parts is not yet there, but is getting closer. Boeing is printing F/A-18 air baffles and fuel nozzles for other aircraft.

A polycarbonate wing spar also has been printed for the F-35 joint strike fighter.

“Right now, I wouldn’t want to fly with a plastic part,” Kohlmann said. But once metal parts meet certification standards, he continued, “absolutely, put them on.”

While the possibilities are endless, the problems are many.

Accreditation and certification top the list. Any mission-critical part must be certified, meaning rigorous tests to ensure it is resilient enough to withstand the system it is in, whether in a seawater pump or diesel engine or flight deck crane.

The quality of shipboard printing is another issue.“A printer in a steady, climate-controlled environment is

going to have a different result than a printer on a ship that is rocking and rolling,” Loper said. “It is a little more difficult to control temperature and humidity on a ship, and you have to contend with a constant vibration.”

The Navy has gathered much data from the amphibious assault ship Essex, which has used a 3-D printer since last year. Similar evaluations are expected in the future.

In the meantime, the Navy has to work out copyright issues. Companies make a lot of money on spare parts and may not relinquish those rights, but it is likely future contracts will allow the Navy to produce a set number of spares, officials said.

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140713/NEWS04/307070049

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MARINE CORPS:27. Dunford To Inherit Marine Corps At Crossroads(POLITICO 13 JUL 14) ... Philip Ewing

Many leathernecks might argue there’s no such thing as a bad day inside the United States Marine Corps – but even they might also admit there have been better times than this.

Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, nominated to become the 36th commandant of the Marines, is set to inherit the smallest of the Defense Department’s military services at a time when it’s getting even smaller. It’s trapped in a budgetary straitjacket imposed by Congress. And it’s struggling with goals as different as getting more women into front-line units and determining how to build a new amphibious vehicle.

“We’re in a transition period,” said retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, the former boss of the U.S. Central Command. “It’s going to take someone with intellectual acuity to guide the Marine Corps.”

But insiders and outsiders alike say Dunford, likely to enjoy a warm reception at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, is prepared for the challenge. He’s coming off a more than 16-month tour as the top commander in Afghanistan, where he’s credited with helping preserve the gains of the Afghan National Security Forces.

“He’s an outstanding officer, one of the finest I’ve ever served with,” Mattis said. “He’s calm under fire; he’s tough; he’s resolute – he’s unintimidated by any complex problem.”

Dunford’s history in Washington and his performance in Afghanistan have made him very popular with defense advocates in Congress. He also enjoys near-universal acclaim from his fellow Marines and the wider national security world in Washington.

Hailed for his sharp intellect, his wealth of experience and his deft personal touch, Dunford is already among a few names being tossed around to potentially replace Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, another Iraq War veteran who ascended swiftly after doing a toe-touch as the chief of his service.

But before he moves on, Dunford must get through the next few months closing out his tenure as the head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. He must oversee the continued withdrawal of about 20,000 more American troops – assuming the government of Afghanistan signs the bilateral security agreement that will permit the remaining force of fewer than 10,000 to stay there past Dec. 31.

Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Campbell has been nominated to take Dunford’s place in Kabul.

When the dust settles, Dunford will have gone from being the boss of the guys who kick in doors downrange to the man responsible for organizing, training and equipping them at home. Put another way, he’s trading his hooch in Kabul for an office in the E-Ring, and that can mean something of a culture shock.

“There’s a learning curve in every job,” Mattis said.But Dunford has an advantage, said retired Marine Gen.

John Allen, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, in having done Washington tours before, including as assistant commandant of the Marines.

“I think, while certainly living in Washington again will be a different experience for someone who’s spent the last year plus in command, of all the people who could have been unsettled, Joe Dunford will have the least amount of requirement to adjust,” Allen said. “Every day, he was dealing with the challenges that the Marine Corps faced as a service.”

Even so, there will be plenty waiting for him in his new role.

“He’ll be looking to reset the Corps after 13 years of war – he’ll have a lot of challenges,” Allen added. “These are challenges that come naturally from a service at this point in history. When I say challenges, though, I mean that in the context of them also being opportunities. Joe Dunford is the guy who can seize those opportunities.”

The Marines have spent the Iraq and Afghanistan era fighting as a second land army but now must switch back to their classic role as a light, nimble amphibious force ready to project power ashore from Navy warships at sea.

“I’d imagine that a lot of time and effort will be spent on rebuilding expeditionary expertise through training and recapitalizing equipment needed to conduct expeditionary operations,” said Chris Dougherty, a research fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

All the military services are also under intense pressure from the White House and Congress to crack down on sexual assault. Dunford’s tenure as commandant will see the expiration of a one-year timeline set by President Barack Obama to get control of the problem. If he and the other Joint Chiefs can’t show enough progress to satisfy the White House, that could bring another showdown over sexual assault between the commander in chief and his top brass.

What’s more, Dunford and his fellow service chiefs must determine how they’ll implement the Pentagon’s order to open up as many combat jobs as possible to women, including in the infantry and front-line combat units. So far, the Marines have struggled to get many women through training and into infantry units, and officials may have to decide whether to persist or ask the Pentagon for permission to keep women out of some jobs.

“It’s going to fall on Gen. Dunford to determine how do that that and whether or not he’s going to to request exemptions,” said Mark Geis, director of Marine Corps programs for the research center CNA Corp. “That will be a very visible thing he has to do – there will be a lot of politics involved.”

Dunford also must keep momentum going for the Marines’ big weapons programs, including its over-budget and behind schedule F-35B Lightning II fighter, which officials hope reaches its “initial operational capability” as early as next summer.

Just as critical are the Marines’ hopes for a new amphibious vehicle that can swim out of Navy warships and carry troops ashore to fight. The Marines’ first attempt, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, wound up an expensive failure that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates ultimately cancelled.

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Above all is what service officials call their top priority: their troops. About 63 cents of every green Marine Corps dollar goes to pay Marines or finance their benefits, health care or other personnel perks, says Gen. James Amos, the outgoing commandant. Service officials say there’s no need to apologize for the compensation the troops have gotten since 2001 – but they do argue Congress must begin ramping it down.

As commandant, Dunford will have to strike a balance between executing the Pentagon’s desire to cut personnel costs and his need to back Marines. In that arena, he might have the toughest challenge of any service chief, Geis said, because the high percentage of the Marine Corps’ budget tied up in personnel costs means it doesn’t have as much to maneuver.

“All these are going to come to a head during Gen. Dunford’s tenure as commandant,” Geis said. “He’ll be the one who has to make the hard choices.”

One thing Dunford evidently does not find difficult is dealing with the troops.

On July 4, 2012, then-Lance Cpl. Mamadou Diallo was leaving the White House after what he called “a great day for me” – a naturalization ceremony to become an American

citizen. Downtown Washington was packed with crowds for the holiday fireworks, he remembered, and it was impossible to get a cab. Diallo decided to walk back to his post at Marine Corps Barracks Washington, nearly four miles away.

Diallo noticed a young woman waiting to cross the street. A crowd of five or six men was getting too close, he told POLITICO, and “she was kind of scared and afraid because they were attempting to rob her. I stepped in with my attention to the crowd and told her, ‘Ma’am, I can escort you if you don’t feel safe.’ She was very nervous. I told her I was a Marine, to not be afraid … the crowd stopped what they were attempting to do.”

Diallo walked the woman back to Capitol Hill and then climbed into his rack at the Barracks.

Two months later at a retirement ceremony, Diallo was called over to meet the assistant commandant, who wanted to congratulate him. Demonstrating the level of preparation that Mattis praised, Diallo said he didn’t even have to tell Dunford the story.

“He already knew about it,” he said.https://www.politicopro.com/story/defense/?id=35829

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PERSONNEL:28. Training Boss Talks Classroom ChangesVirtual learning, ‘C’ school access top White’s priority list(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... Mark D. Faram

PENSACOLA, FLA. – Whether training recruits, operating schoolhouses or overseeing the force’s general military training, Naval Education and Training Command runs sailor education and development from cradle to grave.

The new head of NETC says his main focus is finding ways to bring advanced training to the fleet – those “C” schools critical to commands and sailors alike.

Sailors need Navy enlisted classifications, and commands need expertise – but with limited budgets, Rear Adm. Mike White is rethinking traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms and finding ways to leverage technology to keep sailors close to home, while giving them the skills they and their units need to advance and deploy.

White believes “A” schools should be shorter and more focused on a sailor’s first job, while “C” schools should be offered in fleet concentration areas to let sailors continue their training later in their careers – steps he foresees will increase sailor’s shots at getting advanced training.

White, who took over NETC in January, sat down with Navy Times on July 8 to talk about his plans for schools, tablets and more. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity.

Q. How have your priorities grown or changed in your first seven months?

A. I see my opportunity to break the mold that we’ve had in NETC for many years that I call “one school, one time.”

You came in the Navy to be a hull [technician] and you went to hull tech school and went off to the fleet to be one and that was it. But I think our systems have become so complex, and our schools so lengthy, [that] we need to make a change to

truly produce a sailor who has the right training at the right time.

We train that person for a period of time and send them to the fleet to do that job. Once they garner some experience, there’s an injection of new training we give them.

Take a sonar technician, or a radar tech. Maybe we train him for six months to be an operator and he operates that piece of gear for a year. Then we give him more school that teaches him to maintain that gear.

So he’s familiar with it and has fleet experience, and now we train him further to specialize more in that gear. We would assume in a four-year initial tour that sailor would migrate from an operator to a maintainer or whatever progress we’d expect from his rating.

Q. “A” schools have always aimed to capture the whole rating upfront, so this is a fundamental change in philosophy. How do you get there?

A. So to deliver on that I need to bring the training to the sailor – ideally on his ship, but at least in his home port, because I can’t ask his [commanding officer], after a sailor has been there for a year, to give him back to me for additional training.

I’ve asked my team to look at how you logically separate that training, so that a sailor is effective and useful in his unit and at the same time, we break it up and deliver it to the sailor at the correct points in his tour.

Q. There’s been talk for years about more advanced training – “C” schools – in fleet concentration areas, but in a resource challenged environment, how do you get there?

A. It’s a combination approach. One of the areas we’re very excited about is virtualization. And you have to go into

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this discussion knowing it’s not the solution for every training we do.

So the example I’ll give is, what if we can provide a desktop environment where a subject-matter instructor is on the opposite coast or maybe stateside while the sailor is in Japan or Rota? The sailor receives instruction on this desktop.

You have to take the leap of faith that it’s not just looking at a computer screen and doing training. You are engaged in a classroom environment with an instructor who is watching you manipulate a console that’s replicated on your desktop.

As you manipulate this console, it reacts as if you are operating the actual gear on your ship – and the instructor is watching you do that just as if he was watching you manipulate that piece of gear over your shoulder.

We are piloting and working on some technologies that would allow us to distribute that training without having to buy a schoolhouse and instructors and everything that comes with it.

Q. Where are you piloting it?A. We are just starting it out at the Fleet [Anti-Submarine

Warfare] Training Center in San Diego, using instructors back in Dahlgren and Norfolk.

It’s brand new, and I’m excited about it. I’m sure there will be hiccups as we learn more about it. But it’s virtualized classroom instruction and you have to realize that this isn’t just a video teleconference.

They’re not watching the instructor on a TV. They’re on a [computer] desktop screen or monitor and they are seeing the instructors work in a classroom environment, but then at the same time they can manipulate a piece of gear. And the instructor watches them doing that, and the simulation reacts to what they’re doing and they learn from that.

In this pilot, we’ll have the group in the virtualized instruction and we’ll have another doing the training as they always have with everyone in the same classroom. We’re going to follow this training along and see if it’s effective.

Q. What’s the limit of this training – where can you use it and where can’t you?

A. You can see that in training on a complex piece of electronic gear, this can be effective, but if you’re training a hull tech to weld, you can’t really do that in a virtual world and we will look to develop that kind of training in other ways, in cooperation with [shore maintenance facilities] or possibly the mobile training team idea.

Ideally, if you are training to deploy, a mobile training team comes to your ship and touches the gear there, and that’s more of where we’re at now in partnership with the [afloat training groups].

Q. What levels of training will this work for?A. It’s kind of important to realize this is kind of specific

to the “C” school level. The “A” school is very foundational to what we do, and I think that needs to stay in a brick-and- mortar environment. These are brand-new sailors, and

sailorization is also a part of the “A” school training, and that has to continue.

Q. If the idea isn’t to build new schools, only to facilitate training through technology – what’s your plan and time frame to get this going?

A. We’re approaching it through multiple paths. In the immediate future, we are on a plan to upgrade our electronic classrooms throughout all the fleet concentration areas. If this technology presents itself, we have the ability for a sailor to stay in his home port [and] go to one of these electronic classrooms that we’re hoping to develop.

In the short term, we’ll continue to replicate existing classes in fleet concentration areas.

For example, we’ll pilot a “C” school here at [Naval Aviation Technical Training Center] having to do with the [FA-18G] Growler and then pump it out to the fleet at [Naval Air Stations] Oceana and LeMoore. We can do this kind of thing by validating the class and qualifying instructors in those areas.

Q. How about your cadre of instructors – a few years ago NETC boosted the number of instructors with a move back toward more instructor-led training. Do you see more instructor plus-ups?

A. We have had tremendous support from leadership over the past several years to rebuild the instructor cadre. So today, we would tell you our instruction is about 15 percent computer-based and 85 percent instructor-led.

That’s our formula. We use computer-based [instruction] to reinforce basic lessons and the instructor to put it all together not only in physical instruction, but in hands-on training.

We have 5,800 dedicated instructor billets. If you look at our workforce as whole with civilian instructors and contractors as well, it’s close to 8,000. Realistically, I don’t see growth. As we’re in an era of zero growth, an instructor billet given to me is a loss elsewhere.

Q. What impact will Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (AW/NAC) Mike Stevens’ effort to get tablets into sailors’ hands have on NETC training?

A. It’s going to take years, but the potential is amazing. Some people call this an electronic professional support system – EPSS.

Let me build you a picture of how I see this. You have this device and on it, you have your manuals, your instruction – your checklist, if you will.

Also, you could have 3-D manipulated images. So you could be heading to work on a piece of gear and bring up your picture and manipulate it, move it around and look at it from different angles. Then there’s maybe a video of the procedure you’re about to do.

The potential is just amazing. But lots of things have to come into play to make this a reality.

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29. Ball Caps Are BackNew rules will let COs make the call on wear with NWUs(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... Mark D. Faram

For most of the past 70 years, ball caps have weaved their way into Navy culture and tradition.

But there’s one place they haven’t been, at least for the most part, in the last six years: on their heads of sailors

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wearing the service’s most common garb, the Navy working uniform.

But that’s about to change, thanks to sailors’ persistent demands.

The popular headgear is set to return to full duty Sept. 1, with your skipper able to decide the rules at your command instead of Big Navy.

“We’re going to move forward very soon to authorize [commanding officers] to make the determination, if they want to allow their sailors to wear ball caps with NWUs as an option in place of the eight-point cover,” said Vice Adm. Bill Moran, the chief of naval personnel and head of the uniform board, in a July 10 phone interview. “It’s up to the COs to determine what kind of policy they want to set within their own command,” Mo-ran said.

The reason for the change? Sailor complaints, Moran said.Sailors have brought up bringing back command ball caps

again and again at all-hands calls with Navy leaders like Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (AW/ NAC) Mike Stevens and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus – who finally decided enough was enough.

“When we sat down a couple weeks ago, we discussed if this was something we should consider changing,” said Moran, who added that by the time the meeting adjourned, Mabus ordered the policy changed.

“I wouldn’t say this is an issue that has everyone up in arms, but I will say that it’s come up enough for all of us that when we sat down a couple weeks ago, we discussed if this was something we should consider changing,” Moran said.

The New RulesThe new rules will be simple by design, officials say. The

command will make the call on whether to allow ball caps with NWUs in place of the eight-point cover. If the command gives the green light, sailors can wear the ball caps wherever they can now wear the NWU.

“We recommended, along with MCPON, to change the policy and allow COs to determine what’s best for their units,” Moran said. “As long as we stay in the uniformity, fit and function criteria for uniforms, we don’t see this as a big issue.”

The rule change doesn’t only apply to the Type I “aquaflage” gear – commands can authorize ball caps with the digital desert and woodland cammies, too, starting in September.

Officials are still working to hammer out wear rules; updated regulations will be released in a naval message.

Some sailors have called for allowing ball caps to be worn with service uniforms, as well, but Moran didn’t say in the interview whether further expansion is being considered. In the past, ball caps were worn with winter blues and summer whites by watch standers while in port.

The start date, Moran said, gives COs and regional bosses lead time to develop rules and policies. Moran said he expects the Navy’s collective chiefs’ mess to be involved in developing the new policies and explaining the rules to sailors.

Commands are expected to have the option to set their own policies: ball cap or eight-point or both, Moran said.

“We don’t want to just throw this out there and generate confusion,” Moran said. “The goal is to make it simple, easy to understand and easy to comply with. Let me be clear: We’re

not going to have separate rules for eight-point covers and ball caps. They’ll simply be interchangeable.”

Ball Cap Back And ForthThe issue has been a contentious one since it first came up

during NWU developing and testing.Initially officials closed the door, with some saying that

ball caps with a camouflage uniform looked sloppy. Some sailors saw Air Force airmen doing it and thought it looked unprofessional.

“Those sailors have told us repeatedly, ‘Please don’t adopt a [battle dress uniform-style] uniform and authorize the ball cap for wear with it,’“ said then-Command Master Chief (SS) Robert Carroll in 2005; he was, at the time, the top sailor on Task Force Uniform.

Carroll, who has since retired, now heads the Navy Uniform Matters Office in Arlington, Virginia. But Carroll and others who resisted allowing ball caps were trying to fight the tide of Navy heritage.

Ball caps date to World War II, when leaders like Adm. Raymond Spruance helped make them famous in and out of the Navy. But even during the war, Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz nixed a proposal to make the cap a sea bag item.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the idea grew as a grass-roots effort. Many commands started adopting and wearing unofficial caps with dungarees and flight suits.

In the early 1970s, the Navy ditched the crackerjack uniforms in favor of a coat-and-tie single uniform for all ranks. With it went the iconic “Dixie cup,” which for years had been the only official headgear for E-6 and below.

With the change, a solid blue ball cap with no embroidered letters began to be issued at boot camp. Sailors replaced the generic cap with command-specific caps, and most never looked back.

Many commands started a tradition of giving sailors their first command caps when they reported aboard – after that, they’d have to buy new ones in the ship’s store, a practice that continues today at many commands.

‘History And Tradition’Since NWUs entered the fleet in 2008, the wear of

command ball caps has been tightly restricted.Under the current rules, ball caps can be worn by

everyone in three uniforms: coveralls, flight suits and the physical training uniform.

Only bridge watch standers and command training teams have been able to wear ball caps with NWUs, at the CO’s discretion. Ashore, training teams can wear them during “field exercises held in restricted areas” so that safety observers and supervisors are easily recognized. But those caps can’t be worn either to or from the exercise or even “in the vicinity of the command area,” per the existing rules.

Moran expects not everyone will back the change, but informal polls show the split to be about 50-50, making officials take notice.

Ball caps get their special status at the start of a sailor’s journey. After the “Battle Stations” graduation event at boot camp, an inductee’s “RECRUIT” cap is replaced with one emblazoned “NAVY” – marking them a shaving earned the right to be called sailors for the first time.

“There is so much history and tradition behind the ball cap,” Moran said. “And it starts that day in boot camp when

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they’re no longer recruits and they become sailors and are given their ball caps.

“They look forward to that event. It’s very emotional for them early in their careers, and I think there’s unit

individuality that can be honored and unit cohesion that can be established by having unit ball caps worn with the NWU.”

http://www.navytimes.com

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OUTREACH:30. Sailors Anchor In Omaha For Week Of Performances, Demos(OMAHA WORLD-HERALD 14 JUL 14) ... Steve Liewer

Dozens of white-clad Navy sailors will appear at local YMCAs, food banks, businesses and museums in the coming days as the sea service brings Navy Week to Omaha.

“We like to get to middle America – places that don’t normally see a significant Navy presence,” said Lt. Tim Page, who is coordinating the event for the Navy Office of Community Outreach in Millington, Tennessee.

This week’s activities are packaged with a traditional Air Force event, the Defenders of Freedom Air Show at Offutt Air Force Base on Saturday and Sunday.

The Blue Angels – a Navy precision flight team – will headline the air show, which also includes the Navy Leap Frogs parachute team, an F-22 Raptor demonstration, vintage P-51 and P-38 warbirds, and stunt pilots Michael Goulian and Michael Wiskus.

Lots of Air Force aircraft are scheduled to be on static display, including a C-17 Globemaster, A-10 Warthog, C-5A Galaxy, F-15E Strike Eagle, B-1B Lancer, and a B-52 Stratofortress, according to the air show website, offuttairshow.com.

Both Navy Week and the Offutt air show are returning after a one-year hiatus. The Pentagon in 2013 canceled all such promotional events because of funding cuts imposed by the budget sequester.

Navy Week is being held in six cities this year: Omaha; Baltimore; Dallas/Fort Worth; Duluth, Minnesota; Pittsburgh; and St. Louis. Before the budget cuts last year, Page said, the Navy used to sponsor 20 or so Navy Weeks each year.

“They’re smaller in numbers, but they’re more in-depth,” Page said, because the Navy can deploy more sailors and equipment to each city.

Omaha hosted Navy Weeks in 2007 and 2011. Local Navy veterans are glad to see it back, and happy for the attention on their former branch of service. There are a lot more of them around here than you might think, said Butch Kirkland, president of the Nebraska chapter of the Navy League.

“There’s a pretty nifty footprint of Navy here in landlocked Omaha,” Kirkland said. “You’ve got tons of Navy vets from the heartland who joined to go and see the world.”

He’s been working to build up a once-dormant chapter of the Navy League, a national organization of volunteers that supports and promotes the Navy through local chapters across the country. It has raised funds for a Navy ROTC scholarship and a summer camp for youths interested in the sea service. It also supports Navy-related charities.

“It keeps me connected to the Navy that I served for 30 years,” said Kirkland, who retired with the rank of commander in 2005. “We’re going to do the best we can without any haze-gray ships on the Missouri River.”

His group is helping the Navy Outreach Command to organize events across the Omaha metro area this week. And it’s co-hosting a reception with the Big Red Sub Club, a local USS Nebraska booster group, at Anthony’s Steakhouse on Thursday evening for some of the Navy visitors.

Events are scheduled across the metro area. Sailors from an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit will demonstrate robots used in their duties to young people at several sites, including the Southwest, South, Maple Street, Downtown, Sarpy and Council Bluffs YMCAs, as well as the Omaha Children’s Museum. They’ll also appear Saturday at Riverfest.

Sailors from the 18th-century frigate USS Constitution and the ballistic-missile submarine USS Nebraska will join local sailors volunteering with several local charities, including Food Bank for the Heartland, Habitat for Humanity, and Boys and Girls Clubs of Omaha.

The Navy Band Great Lakes contemporary music ensemble Horizon will perform Thursday evening at Jazz on the Green at Midtown Crossing, before the Omaha Stormchasers game at 6 p.m. Friday, and between 3 and 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Riverfest in Bellevue.

Besides performing at the weekend air show, the Leap Frogs parachute team will jump into Jazz on the Green on Thursday and the Stormchasers game Friday.

For dates and times of specific events, visit www.navyoutreach.org/programs/navy-weeks/omaha

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/sailors-anchor-in-omaha-for-week-of-performances-demos/article_d8c6bf2d-5a87-504b-95f4-063242be4946.html

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WASHINGTON NAVY YARD:31. Crucial Facts Not Shared At Navy YardConfusion marred police response to Navy Yard shooting, report finds(WASHINGTON POST 12 JUL 14) ... Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams

Communication problems among federal and local authorities complicated the search for the gunman during September’s deadly mass shooting at the Washington Navy

Yard, according to a D.C. police report that says city officers were unable to make use of live video of the shooter as they streamed into harm’s way.

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The report says the U.S. Navy failed to tell police commanders that a video feed from 160 cameras in the corridors where Aaron Alexis, 34, opened fire could be accessed from a room just inside the building. A private security guard had locked himself in the room and apparently did not try to contact anyone.

Too many command buses crowded the scene, officers talked over each other on different radio channels, and there was confusion among some responders – and even top officials – about who was in charge.

“We never saw the base commander during the entire incident,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in an interview. She said Navy officials set up a separate command center. “We’re still not sure who was the right person to be the decision-maker,” Lanier added. “It should have been the person in charge of the base.”

Access to the video feed probably would not have saved any lives on Sept. 16 – 10 of the 12 victims were killed within the first six minutes, before the first active shooter teams entered – but it might have prevented Alexis from wounding a police officer, Lanier said. It would also have allowed police to more quickly discount reports of a possible second shooter. Authorities kept a swath of the District in lockdown and on edge for three hours after officers fatally shot Alexis, who was acting alone.

Lanier said she does not know why the security guard in the video room did not notify anyone. “The only thing we can assume is that the person froze, didn’t know what to do,” the chief said.

A spokeswoman for Navy District Washington did not respond to specific questions raised in the report about the base commander or the security guard, who was not identified. “I can tell you that the Navy Yard leadership is working closely with [D.C. police] to strengthen our ties and to further develop our joint procedures during crisis situations,” according to a statement from the spokeswoman, Chatney Auger. She said there are ongoing discussions with police “to improve response efforts.”

The 82-page report – intended to scrutinize law enforcement’s response and help D.C. police and other agencies prepare for future attacks – was obtained by The Washington Post under a Freedom of Information Act request. It details Alexis’s movements as well as the heroics of officers and Navy Yard workers over 69 harrowing minutes. It praises the cooperation between officers from myriad agencies who entered the building in teams – 117 officers in all – but highlights flaws in the coordination at the command level.

The report echoes some problems raised after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the inability of all responders to talk to each other over their radios. Although some kinks have been worked out in recent years, such massive, multilayered responses are still difficult.

With several agencies setting up command centers outside the 600,000-square-foot building, some critical information did not reach D.C. police officials who were directing the vast response, the report concludes. That included floor plans for Building 197: They were in a Homeland Security command bus just feet away, but they never got to Lanier.

The report’s authors stress that on the morning of the shooting, officers and commanders were making instantaneous decisions in a deadly situation. Authorities did not know how

many shooters there were, and early reports suggested that it could have been two or even three. Police initially encountered locked gates and located Building 197 only because hundreds of people were running out of it. The first officers inside took a slain security guard’s badge, which gave them access to many locked sections, and propped open doors for others who followed.

“The actions and decisions of that day were made, often in a split second, in a dynamic and extraordinary environment under extreme duress, facing a multitude of unforeseen challenges and dangers, without the benefit of hindsight,” the report says. But, the report stresses, access to live feeds during the 69 minutes “may have also allowed police to quickly identify the shooter, ascertain his location, and help in determining whether others may have been involved.”

The report recommends 76 changes in training, policy and equipment. It found that the AR-15 assault weapons officers carried were too long and unwieldy in the close office confines, so police will also be getting shorter-barrel M4 rifles. Scott Williams, a D.C. officer who was shot in the legs, believes that radio transmissions gave away his location, leading to plans to have officers now wear earpieces. And officers realized that the formation they’d been taught to use to hunt active shooters didn’t work in the narrow hallways and cubicle mazes.

No officers, officials or victims are named, but some of their identities are known through previous reporting.

Alexis, a contractor who had worked at the Navy Yard in information technology for a week, walked into Building 197 at 8:08 a.m., using his key card at the main entrance. He took an elevator to the fourth floor and walked to the men’s room, where police said he assembled his Remington 870 shotgun. He left the men’s room at 8:16 a.m. and started shooting, killing three people in less than four minutes. He killed others on a different floor; by then, police were streaming into the building.

He was fatally shot by police at 9:25 a.m. The FBI has said Alexis was driven by delusions and thought he was being controlled by low-frequency radio waves. Police noted in the report that Alexis’s demeanor changed after he knew that police were closing in. “He has gone from hunter, to hunted,” the report says.

Lanier attributed some of the problems to well-intentioned reforms made after shootings at Fort Hood in Texas, which called for military bases to set up their own emergency call centers, similar to 911. In this case, it created confusion, because the calls from workers who described Alexis and his whereabouts didn’t go to a single, central location, the report says.

Unlike many military bases, Lanier noted, the Navy Yard is more like a typical office complex. Its 14,000 workers are mostly civilians and unarmed, including the 3,000 in Building 197, and they’re protected by a small Navy police force that had just six officers on duty at the time of the shooting.

“This military base sits in the middle of a major metropolitan city that has a very large and well-trained police force,” Lanier said. “This military base doesn’t have a large armed presence.” But, she added, “we’re just as guilty on our side for making the assumption that we’d never have to go in there and defend the base.”

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The report notes close encounters with workers who narrowly escaped Alexis. It details the actions of police officers, including Williams, who led a four-person team, and Dorian DeSantis, who along with a U.S. Park Police officer killed Alexis during the final firefight. A bullet struck DeSantis in the chest, but he was saved by his police vest.

Live video “may have saved Scotty,” Lanier said. “It may have saved Dorian from being shot. I don’t think it would have prevented the final confrontation with Aaron Alexis. I think that was the final confrontation that Aaron Alexis wanted.”

Lanier said there was a Navy official in her command center police thought was a liaison with higher-ranking authorities. But that turned out to be wrong.

The report says that someone in the building told police that he or she had seen a man wearing tan miliary-style

clothing holding a gun at his hip, which sparked a search for a second shooter.

When police got access to video from external cameras partway through the incident, they saw two men outside the building, one in tan clothing holding what looked like a gun. On the video, Lanier said, “we see this guy drop. He’s been shot. The other guy runs.”

Police thought they had just seen the second gunman. But three hours later, when the interior camera feed was finally obtained, they saw what wasn’t available before: Alexis stepping out of a doorway and shooting, hitting the man in the head from 100 yards away.

Authorities then concluded that Alexis had acted alone.http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/navy-yard-

shooting-report-details-coordination-problems/2014/07/11/4fda6ce8-08e7-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html

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LEGAL:32. Two More Sentenced To Prison In Bribery Scheme(NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT 12 JUL 14) ... Tim McGlone

NORFOLK – Two more contractors have been sentenced to prison for their roles in a widespread bribery scheme involving contracts with the Navy's Military Sealift Command.

Adam C. White of Windsor was sentenced Friday to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery.

White told the judge at sentencing that he had "nothing but regret, embarrassment and humiliation" for what he had done.

Chief U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith found White to be the "least culpable" of five defendants in the conspiracy who have pleaded guilty so far, and she gave him a slight break from recommended sentencing guidelines.

During a five-year period, about $265,000 in bribes were paid to two government officials who funneled lucrative Military Sealift Command contracts to two companies, including one part-owned by White.

White admitted paying about $26,000 of those bribes over a yearlong period, through intermediaries, to the sealift command contracting officials Kenny E. Toy and Scott Miserendino Sr. White also admitted giving Toy flat-screen televisions.

"This bribery scheme constitutes serious conduct that erodes the public's confidence in government and government officials," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

"Public corruption, like the sort paid for by White's bribes, breeds cynicism and mistrust of public officials. It causes the public to disengage from the democratic process, and it has the potential to shred the fabric of democracy by

making the average citizen lose respect and trust in his or her government."

Smith had similar sentiments."It hurts every law-abiding citizen and taxpayer in this

country," she said.Assistant U.S. Attorneys Stephen Haynie and Emily

Woods asked for a sentence within the recommended guidelines range of 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison. But Haynie noted that White's cooperation in the case "outweighs almost everyone's."

"My knowledge of him suggests he's a decent man," Haynie said.

White's attorney, Jon Babineau, said his client is "significantly ashamed about his conduct."

"I think that he's honest in his remorse," the judge said in agreeing to a lower penalty.

Another contractor, Dwayne Allen Hardman, who worked with White at the Chesapeake company involved in the bribe payments, Mid-Atlantic Engineering Technical Services, was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison for his role in the scheme.

Hardman admitted he paid $144,000 in bribes in exchange for the company receiving millions in government contracts. His partner, Roderic Smith, was sentenced last month to four years in prison for his role.

Toy has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Miserendino and another alleged conspirator, Timothy S. Miller, are scheduled for trial Sept. 30.

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/07/two-more-sentenced-prison-bribery-scheme

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33. Retired O-4 Pleads Guilty In Port Services Scandal(NAVY TIMES 21 JUL 14) ... David Larter

A former operations boss from the amphibious command ship Blue Ridge is the latest Navy contractor to plead guilty for involvement in the “Fat Leonard” scandal.

Retired Lt. Cmdr. Edmond Aruffo made the plea July 3 in San Diego to charges that he overbilled the Navy for millions of dollars as an operations manager for Glenn Defense Marine

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Asia, and faces up to five years in prison. He is expected to be sentenced later this year.

Aruffo retired in 2007 and became head of Japanese operations for GDMA, a Singapore-based husbanding agency that provided port services to ships and submarines across the Pacific.

Authorities have accused the husbanding firm and its larger-than- life head, Leonard Francis, of bribing Navy officials to win inflated contracts that cost the Navy more than $20 million. Aruffo and others allegedly overcharged the Navy by as much as $2.5 million for Japanese port services – including tug boats, harbor pilots, trash removal, line handlers and transportation for the crew on shore.

Aruffo is the fourth person to plead guilty in the expanding criminal probe. Former Logistics Specialist 1st Class Dan Layug, who prosecutors allege traded favors for hotel rooms and electronics, pleaded guilty in May, as did former Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent John Beliveau, as well as a relative of Francis.

Cmdrs. Jose Sanchez and Michael Misiewicz have pleaded not guilty and are still awaiting trial. Misiewicz, a former operations officer on Blue Ridge, is accused of doing favors in return for luxury hotel stays and prostitutes.

Sanchez was charged in November after authorities say he accepted more than $100,000 in cash, along with travel expenses and prostitutes while he was deputy logistics officer at 7th Fleet headquarters in Yokosuka, Japan, then later as director of operations for Fleet Logistics Command in Singapore.

The investigation has been sweeping and could still result in more criminal charges or administrative punishment for ethical lapses, officials have said. Among those caught up: intelligence boss Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, and a one-star deputy, Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, for their connections to Francis. Neither has been charged in the investigation.

Branch, the director of naval intelligence, and Loveless, the director of intelligence operations, have both had their

classified access suspended for nine months while the investigation continues.

Branch and Loveless are at work but had not regained their access as of July10, the Navy’s top spokeswoman confirmed. “Vice Adm. Branch and Rear Adm. Loveless are performing their respective functions to the extent restrictions placed on their access to classified material permit,” Capt. Dawn Cutler said in a statement. “Action to resolve the access suspension is pending additional information from the ongoing investigation conducted by the Department of Justice and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.”

The scandal has been among the most high-profile for the service in decades, with active-duty officers criminally charged or fired from their positions, in the expanding investigation that could implicate dozens of Pacific Fleet officers and sailors. Francis, known as “Fat Leonard” for his considerable girth, was a fixture of Western Pacific cruises for many years as 7th Fleet’s lead husbanding agent.

Francis was known for targeting senior officers and supply officers with gifts, often putting them in an awkward position by sending expensive cigars or bottles of champagne. On one occasion, Francis offered Misiewicz tickets to a Lady Gaga concert.

In exchange for the gifts Francis expected information, some of which was classified – ship’s schedules, for example – and the rerouting of ships to more lucrative ports where GDMA was better able to overcharge undetected.

A July 3 release from the Justice Department said the investigation is continuing into the GDMA scandal – and that the fallout may continue as well. “This corruption scandal continues to lead us in new directions, and we continue to marvel at the extent of it,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said in the release. “If there are others who, like Edmond Aruffo, have traded integrity and honesty for greed and profit, we will find them and prosecute them.”

http://www.navytimes.com

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COMMENTARY:34. Iraq's Urgent Need For Unity(NEW YORK TIMES 14 JUL 14) ... Zalmay Khalilzad

WASHINGTON – In the coming weeks, Iraq’s leaders must make existential decisions. If they cannot form a unity government led by a new prime minister and motivate Sunni moderates and tribes to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Iraq is likely to disintegrate.

If the central government fails to grant satisfactory concessions to Sunnis and Kurds, the Kurds will push for sovereignty and independence. The Kurds are serious, and the international community must adapt to this emerging reality. While all Iraqi leaders bear responsibility for resolving the current crisis, the greatest share lies with the country’s Shiite politicians, who dominate the central government. Shiite parties must select a candidate for prime minister who can share power, decentralize the government and depoliticize the security forces.

As a prerequisite for working with the central government, Kurdistan seeks the right to export its own oil; integrate Kirkuk and other recently acquired areas; settle past

budget issues and keep its own autonomous finances; and maintain control of the region’s Peshmerga security forces, including acquiring weapons to defend itself against ISIS.

The Kurds aren’t confident that Baghdad will accept these demands and have initiated parallel preparations for independence. Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, has asked the region’s parliament to establish an electoral commission and set a date to conduct a referendum.

Kurdistan’s arguments for sovereignty are reasonable. It is different than Arab Iraq: it is more stable, more prosperous and more tolerant. Baghdad is unable to protect its people, and won’t be able to do so for the foreseeable future. Close to one million Iraqis, including many Christians, have taken refuge there.

In the wake of ISIS advances, Kurdistan now shares a 600-mile border with a terrorist entity that proclaims itself the new Islamic Caliphate. In order to defend itself, the Kurds must be able to acquire their own arms and maintain security

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relations with other nations. Baghdad has suspended budget payments to Kurdistan. To pay its bills, Kurdistan must therefore sell its oil.

For years, Iraq’s Shiite-led government has failed to treat Sunnis or Kurds as equal partners. Many Sunnis now so profoundly oppose the government that they have aligned themselves with a terrorist organization that even Al Qaeda considers extremist. The Sunnis demand federalization and autonomy for their provinces, an end to de-Ba’athification, and the delegation of local security to local forces.

For their part, the Kurds were incorporated into Iraq against their will, and endured much of the 20th century under repressive, often murderous, rule. In recent weeks, Kurdish leaders have launched a major diplomatic initiative, both regionally and internationally, to promote their dual-track approach to independence.

As Washington adapts to the new reality on the ground, it would do well to adopt a similar two-pronged strategy: continue to help Iraq’s leaders forge a unity government, but prepare for the failure of those efforts.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose parliamentary bloc emerged victorious in the April 30 election, has no intention of giving up power. The major obstacle to the formation of a unity government is the vehement opposition of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and some Shiite parties to prolonging Mr. Maliki’s rule. Iraq’s senior Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has also signaled his preference for change.

As the American ambassador to Iraq, I worked directly with Mr. Maliki, and I know that he will stubbornly resist attempts to replace him. If he ultimately agrees to step down,

he will likely demand a guarantee that his successor be chosen from among a small, trusted circle; he may also insist on a position elsewhere in the government.

Absent the formation of a unity government, Iraq’s civil war will continue unabated. Sectarian conflict, and chaos in the Sunnis areas, will grow – and so will ISIS. Shiites will become more reliant on sectarian militias, and on Iran.

This trajectory threatens America’s security. The United States must continue to work for a unity government in Iraq, and extend limited assistance in the fight against ISIS. But it should also step up relations with Kurdistan by deploying a team to assess Kurdistan’s needs and coordinate security strategies to protect the region against ISIS. To help Kurdistan pay it bills, Washington should soften its opposition to direct Kurdish oil sales while increasing humanitarian assistance for refugees and displaced persons there.

The coming weeks will be decisive. The best-case scenario would be the establishment of a decentralized Iraq with a federal system in the Arab-majority areas, operating in confederation with Kurdistan. The alternative is civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, and the emergence of an independent Kurdistan.

Although Washington shouldn’t abandon its efforts to help Iraq form a unity government yet, it must think seriously about realistic alternatives if Iraq falls apart.

Whatever happens, strengthening ties with Kurdistan now will serve American interests down the road.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the president of Gryphon Partners, was the United States ambassador to Iraq from 2005 to 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/opinion/iraqs-urgent-need-for-unity.html

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35. Analysis: Mideast Crisis A Strategic Stalemate(ASSOCIATED PRESS 13 JUL 14) ... Dan Perry

If the Israel-Hamas fighting feels like a rerun, that's because it is.

This is the third round of Hamas rockets and Israel airstrikes since the Islamic militant group seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. And issues each time seem much the same: How can Hamas be compelled to stop firing rockets? Does Israel really have the will to reconquer a Hamas-ruled Gaza and oust the militants? Can the world tolerate Israel reacting with far deadlier force than the rockets themselves, as evidenced in the hugely lopsided casualty count that each time appears anew?

This round of violence came after peace talks collapsed, Israel tried to scuttle a Palestinian unity government and violence ratcheted up. With the Gazans now suffering more, one might expect internal pressure on Hamas to end the rocket fire, which would likely bring the airstrikes to a stop. But in a region where honor is key, and with the two sides not talking, outside mediation is badly needed for a mutually face-saving cease-fire.

In a strategic stalemate where neither side seems able to accept or defeat the other, here are some key issues at play:

For Israel, It's All About The RocketsThe Israeli point of view is that Hamas has grown

accustomed to firing rockets and no country would tolerate such attacks. Doing nothing is not an option, and pounding Hamas hard enough seems to eventually win some quiet. It

views civilian deaths in airstrikes as regrettable but blames Hamas for locating launchers and weapons at civilian sites. Israel's makes efforts to minimize "collateral damage," like warning calls to residents and preceding big attacks on buildings with smaller bombs, a practice dubbed "roof-knocking." Beyond this, Israelis see Hamas as a ruthless mortal enemy that cannot be accommodated and, due to its radical Islamic tenets, can barely be reasoned with.

Palestinians Are Angry And FrustratedPalestinians cast a wider net. For them the very situation

in Gaza is unacceptable: since the Hamas takeover Israel has blockaded it by land from the north and the east, and by sea from the west, preventing air travel as well. Egypt completes the siege by keeping a tight leash on its border with Gaza to the south. The strip's 1.7 million people are crammed into low-rise shanty towns in a territory no more than 20 miles (35 kilometers) long and just a few miles (kilometers) wide. And even though Israel pulled out all soldiers and settlers in 2005, claiming this ended its occupation, Gazans depend on the Jewish state for electricity, water, communication networks and even the currency.

For many Palestinians, even those who do not support Hamas, non-conventional means like rocket fire against their perceived tormentors are an acceptable response. At least, some reason, the world will take notice. Some 20 years of peace talks failed to yield an independent state in the West

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Bank and Gaza, and with the collapse two months ago of the latest round led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, some fear the occupation of the West Bank may be permanent. Coupled with the dire situation in Gaza, the other part of the would-be Palestinian state, it is a situation that breeds despondency and despair.

Rare Consensus For NetanyahuIsrael is a society so divided that normally it's hard to

describe the Israeli point of view – but not so when it comes to Hamas and its rockets. That's a rare opportunity for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Many Israelis dislike his policies toward the Palestinians in general, and some truly abhor the Jewish settlement of the West Bank which Netanyahu continues to promote. But the vast majority of Israelis distrust and despise Hamas – perpetrators of countless suicide bombings targeting civilians and plainly aimed, over the years, at derailing peace efforts by more moderate Palestinians. For Netanyahu, each round with Hamas offers him a genuine popularity that's otherwise elusive.

Hamas Has Few AlliesArab politicians will heap condemnation on Israel but few

genuinely shed tears for Hamas. The Palestinian group is the local chapter of a wider political Islam that in the wake of the Arab Spring is under siege in much of the region, firstly in Egypt but also in much of the Gulf and beyond. Even one-time ally Iran has backed away, funding sources have dried up, and the West largely views it as a terrorist group. The Palestinian Authority recently set up a joint government with Hamas, but its animosity with the secular Fatah group of President Mahmoud Abbas runs deep. Hamas also has not accepted the conditions set by the world community to become a legitimate player: recognize Israel, abide by past agreements and renounce violence.

Disproportionate CasualtiesIn the battle for global public opinion, Israel may be a

victim of its own success in preventing domestic casualties. Its Iron Dome missile defense system has shot down incoming Hamas rockets, leaving many in Tel Aviv with the conflicting sensation of fear and the desire to post videos of the

interceptions online. No Israelis have been killed in the past week, while more than 160 Gazans have died, many of them civilians. Similar ratios were posted during the last round, in late 2012, and also during the largest mini-war, that began in late December 2008. That buys Netanyahu time with domestic opinion – but international pressure can soon be expected for Israel to find a way to stop. And in the end Hamas may get renewed relevance and even some of its prisoners released. After all, part of its motivation currently is gaining the release of supporters who were recently rearrested in a West Bank sweep that followed the kidnap-killing of three Israeli youths that Hamas did not claim but was blamed on the group.

Many believe Hamas is therefore not entirely averse to provoking Israel into its attacks. Public opinion matters somewhat less in the strip, which is hardly a democracy, than in Israel. And it is hard to see a scenario in which the populace rises up and topples the militants: Gaza is small enough to control and the alternatives have essentially been stamped out.

Israel Prefers To Rule The SkiesIsrael could probably change the game quickly by

invading Gaza and rooting out its Hamas rulers, and Sunday already saw a small version of it with a first land skirmish inside the strip. But a true invasion would probably be a bloody affair and Israel has little stomach for great numbers of casualties. If it does go that route, a ground incursion likely would repeat the strategy of 2008-9, in which there was some ground fighting but the heart of Gaza City was not retaken and the Hamas leadership essentially left intact. And from the perspective of the longer term, Israel has no desire to again occupy the strip, as it did from 1967 to 2005. That leaves Israel with few attractive choices, which might explain why Hamas continues to fire the rockets: to poke Israel in the eye, and live to tell the tale.

Dan Perry has covered the Middle East since the 1990s and currently leads Associated Press' text coverage in the region.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_MIDEAST_STALEMATE_ANALYSIS

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36. Our Common Cause With Iran(WASHINGTON POST 13 JUL 14) ... Ryan Crocker, William Luers and Thomas Pickering

An Arab proverb advises, “A problem is solved when it gets tougher.”

Illustrating that point, the advance in Iraq and Syria of the Islamic State poses a threat to the United States while clarifying choices for U.S. policymakers. The question confronting the United States and Iran is no longer whether to work together but how to do so. And in light of decades of distrust and animosity, communications between the two countries can be greatly facilitated by reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement in talks underway in Vienna. Failure, however, would leave only bad options.

If the Islamic State is to be contained, the United States and other nations will have to reconsider past policies and manage enmities.

For Iran, the breakup of Iraq and the creation of a radical Islamist Sunni state next door would be catastrophic. Iranian leaders now must decide whether to join Iraqi Shiites in a bloody sectarian war or, along with the use of force, work with

others to build a federalized Iraq in which ethnic groups share in the responsibilities and benefits of statehood.

Meanwhile, after years of clandestinely supporting radical Sunni Islamists throughout the Middle East, the Persian Gulf monarchies face a choice between denouncing the Islamic State, which poses a significant threat to them as well, or continuing to emphasize the sectarian struggle with the Shiites.

In Syria, the choice for Bashar al-Assad’s government is either to turn its military power against the Islamic State or to continue to kill fellow Syrians. It makes no sense for the West to support a war against Assad as well as a war against the Islamic State. Assad is evil, but in this case he is certainly the lesser evil.

The Turkish leadership seems to have decided already to support Kurdish military action against the Islamic State, choosing to risk enabling more independence for the Kurds given that the alternative is a radical Islamist regime on its

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border. Israel, too, must see that this violent Islamist turbulence requires it to reconsider which foreign power represents its most serious threat.

Iran and the United States share interests in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran’s intelligence network, religious identity, political influence, history and geography give it a pre eminent role in both countries. At the same time, U.S. air power, special forces, military advisers, recent history and a commitment not to waste the lives and money the United States invested in both places likewise assure that it has a major part to play. While some direct, low-key talks on Iraq have already taken place, the nuclear negotiations must be resolved before the United States and Iran will agree to have regular talks on the issue. Any such discussions must also be sensitive to the reactions of Sunnis, particularly those in Iraq who loathe Iran.

Both sides are clearly committed to making a maximum effort to get a nuclear agreement by July 20, and a good accord is within reach. Despite the expectations of many observers, remarkable headway has been made. Iran has already met most of the demands of the six nations involved in the talks, and the sides are working to establish a practical time frame for Iran to comply with limits on its nuclear program under extraordinary monitoring and safeguards. The negotiations have been more civil than anyone imagined a year ago. But important – perhaps deal-breaking – details regarding the ultimate size and scope of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program remain unresolved.

A breakdown of the talks – still a possibility – would revive the specter of military conflict and result in the collapse

of the worldwide alliance that helped bring Iran to the table. It would make bilateral communications impossible, with both sides blaming the other. As the U.S.-built coalition crumbled, Iran might succeed in establishing its own trade and political relationships with Russia, China and Western Europe.

Failure would also undermine the hopes for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s government and could lead to the removal from office of those Iranian leaders who have sought to put the confrontational Ahmadinejad era behind them.

A new strategic relationship between the United States and Iran may seem impossible and risky, yet it is also necessary and in the interests of both. While an alliance is out of the question, mutually informed parallel action is essential.

Another Arab proverb advises, “At the narrow passage there is no brother or friend.” Indeed, as we enter a new era of Middle East conflict, the path is narrow and fraught, and the United States will have to work with many strange bedfellows. But with the right nuclear agreement and pragmatic strategic decisions by Tehran and Washington, there is a way forward.

Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, is dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. William Luers, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia, is director of the Iran Project. Thomas Pickering was U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs from 1997 to 2000 and ambassador to the United Nations from 1989 to 1992

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-a-us-iran-nuclear-deal-could-help-save-iraq/2014/07/11/cd2d1b72-085c-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html

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37. Countering The ISIS Threat To JordanThe kingdom can repel any direct military attack. It needs U.S. help to deal with terrorist subversion.(WALL STREET JOURNAL 14 JUL 14) ... David Schenker

Since last summer the Obama administration has been missing in action as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, conquered much of Syria and Iraq. But as the terrorist organization now turns its sights on the pro-Western Kingdom of Jordan, Washington can no longer ignore its territorial gains.

Jordan does not appear threatened by an ISIS military offensive. But if ISIS is not rolled back in Iraq, terrorism perpetrated by the radical Islamist group will eventually reach the kingdom.

The Jordanian Armed Forces is cohesive, competent, nonsectarian and loyal to King Abdullah. It trains extensively with U.S. forces and receives $300 million in annual U.S. military assistance. In armor and air power, the kingdom's defenses are more than adequate to secure its 112-mile border with Iraq. Jordan has fortified its positions along its 225-mile Syrian frontier as well.

On June 22 ISIS captured the Iraqi city Ar Rutba, 90 miles from Jordan, as well as the border crossing of Turaibil. Jordan quickly reinforced its defenses, moving tanks and troops – reportedly including the vaunted 71st Counter Terrorism Battalion – to the border. It also dispatched F-16 fighter jets to target ISIS forces on the Iraqi side of the border.

A more pressing concern than the border is that ISIS will establish a base of support within Jordan of men committed to violent subversion. The scenario is not far-fetched. From

2002-05 Jordan experienced a series of deadly terrorist operations perpetrated by ISIS's antecedent, al Qaeda in Iraq, a group led by Jordan national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jordanian militants today generally appear to be more sympathetic to the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate Jebhat al Nusra, but ISIS does have a cadre of supporters. On June 20 dozens of men demonstrated in support of ISIS in the town of Maan.

In April several Jordanian ISIS members fighting in Iraq posted a video on YouTube, invoking Zarqawi and shredding and burning their passports. The jihadists – one of whom is wearing an explosive belt – describe King Abdullah as "despotic" and "a worshiper of the English," vowing to "slaughter" him.

Jordan takes the terrorist threat seriously – in 2013 it spent $1.3 billion, nearly 13% of its budget, on internal or homeland security and national defense. The U.S. provided the kingdom with more than $1 billion in 2013, including $360 million for economic assistance, $300 million in military aid, a $200 million supplemental cash transfer, and $140 million to care for nearly one million Syrian refugees.

To better enable Jordan to counter militant Islamist inroads, Washington is going to have to do more – particularly in economic support. In addition to raising economic assistance to $700 million next year, the U.S. could convene a "Friends of Jordan" conference to encourage the monarchy's

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Western friends and regional allies – like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to increase financial contributions.

Today the underserved, economically depressed and restive regions such as Rusayfa, Zarqa, and Maan provide the lion's share of Jordanian jihadists in Syria. Economic development and job creation might make these areas less fertile ground for militant Islamist recruitment. In the near term, a large cash infusion would at least diffuse domestic tensions and foster more good will toward Amman.

The kingdom would benefit from expanded U.S. training in counterinsurgency warfare and detecting improvised explosive devices. Jordan's operational capabilities would also be improved by additional U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, which are well suited for rapid troop deployment and counterterrorism missions. Jordan has only eight of these aircraft in service.

U.S. Central Command should coordinate a joint border-defense strategy for Jordan and Saudi Arabia, two states

currently in ISIS's cross hairs. Until Baghdad regains control of its western border, Washington should encourage Jordan to continue aggressive cross-border actions against ISIS. Now that Washington has deployed drones over Baghdad to defend the U.S. Embassy, the Obama administration should consider moving armed unmanned air assets over western Iraq to help Jordan establish an ISIS no-drive zone along the Jordanian border.

ISIS and Jebhat al Nusra can feed domestic instability and subversion within Jordan. The key is to act now to insulate the kingdom from any onslaught. Given the trajectory of Syria and Iraq, the pro-West regime in Amman is too valuable for Washington to leave to chance.

Mr. Schenker is director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/david-schenker-countering-the-isis-threat-to-jordan-1405290956

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38. The Cyber ThreatCongress is overdue in dealing with the cybersecurity threat(WASHINGTON POST 14 JUL 14) ... Editorial

The internet security company Symantec revealed recently that a group of hackers known as Dragonfly infiltrated malware into legitimate software belonging to three manufacturers of industrial control systems – the stuff that controls factories and power grids. In one case, the contaminated control software was downloaded 250 times by unsuspecting users before the compromise was discovered.

This kind of cyberattack is not new, but it is audacious and dangerous. One of the first such assaults was the Stuxnet campaign, which had sabotage as its primary goal, against the Iranian nuclear program. By contrast, Dragonfly was a multi-pronged infiltrator, aimed at cyber-espionage and gaining long-term access to computers, with sabotage as a future option, perhaps flicking off the electrical power to a city or shutting down a factory. Dragonfly probably was state-sponsored from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Not alarmed? Then take a look at a proposal from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. According to Bloomberg, Wall Street’s biggest trade group has suggested setting up a high-level U.S. government-industry council to deal with cyberthreats. What do they fear? Attacks that “destroy data and machines” and could lead to runs on financial institutions, loss of confidence in the banking system and “devastating” consequences for the economy. The group predicts attacks could result in “account balances and books and records being converted to zeros,” Bloomberg reported on July 8.

A torrent of cyberattacks – disruption, espionage, theft – is costing U.S. business and government billions of dollars.

This is reality, not science fiction. In March, Chinese hackers broke into the U.S. government agency that houses the personal information of all federal employees.

For several years, it has been clear to many in government and the private sector that the nation needs to vastly improve protection of its private networks and that only government has the sophisticated tools to do that. But Congress has balked at legislation that would ease the necessary cooperation.

Thus it was encouraging to see the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence vote 12 to 3 last week to approve a cybersecurity bill that would begin to bridge the gap. Its prospects in the full Senate are uncertain. A similar bill passed the House last year.

Understandably, the legislation has triggered alarms about invasion of privacy. There are legitimate fears that the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command will, in pursuit of cybersecurity, scoop up too much information about Americans. Certainly, the disclosures by former contractor Edward Snowden about how much the NSA vacuumed up in telephone and Internet data have undermined confidence in the government. But this supercharged privacy debate should not stand in the way of a good cybersecurity bill. Rather, it is a reason for Congress to build in workable and sufficient privacy protections and get on with passing legislation that is long overdue.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-is-overdue-in-dealing-with-the-cybersecurity-threat/2014/07/13/2dc20bb2-0841-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html

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39. F-35 Joint Strike FighterFull Speed Ahead(DEFENSE NEWS 14 JUL 14) ... Editorial

It’s been a tough few weeks for the F-35 fighter program.What was supposed to be a much-touted international

debut at Britain’s premier air shows turned into a PR

nightmare after the Pentagon grounded the fleet in the wake of an engine fire.

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Despite a race to get the planes back in the air, it remained unclear at press time on July 11 whether four F-35B short-takeoff, vertical-landing jets would make the Royal International Air Tattoo and the Farnborough International Airshow. A jet that was to have been the star of both shows instead became the butt of jokes and raised new questions about whether the jet is worth the massive investment.

That’s nonsense.Missing the air shows or arriving late was a public

relations disaster, but it is inconsequential over the long term. Even though 100 jets have already been delivered, the program is still very much in development. Whether the fire represents a serious flaw or was simply an anomaly, it’s far wiser to delay a PR flight than risk losing a jet over the ocean – or worse, in the midst of one of the world’s largest air shows.

Any ambitious development effort on this scale is bound to experience problems. JSF has already overcome numerous setbacks that critics said were show-stoppers. It will overcome this one, as well – and likely many others, besides, before it is successfully fielded.

Launched nearly two decades ago, JSF is the world’s largest and most complex military program ever. Changing requirements and mounting engineering challenges have slowed schedules and spiked costs over time, but the Pentagon and its partners have made cost control a top priority.

The program has been restructured, oversight has increased and testing requirements improved. The U.S. and its eight partner nations have ratcheted up the pressure on prime

contractor Lockheed Martin and its partners, like engine-maker Pratt & Whitney, to deliver on cost and schedule.

Now, with 60 percent of development testing completed, the program is moving through test goals and demonstrating real capability and declining cost. That’s a success story. It was that growing confidence in the jet that led officials to decide it was time for the F-35 to make its international debut in Britain, America’s first and leading international partner on the fighter. Indeed, London’s unwavering commitment to F-35 is said to have kept the program alive in Washington. JSF’s competitors have good reason to snipe about the cost overruns and program delays. They dedicate considerable energy into undermining the fighter program and questioning its cost and utility, because each nation that signs up to buy the jet is one less customer for their existing fighters.

Those planes are already struggling on the global market. And there is a struggle within partner nations themselves, given the massive size of the program, where JSF spending is crowding out other acquisition priorities.

For all its challenges, the JSF remains a critical program that delivers game-changing capability. The key for the U.S. and its partners is to complete development and then field it – in numbers great enough to ensure reasonable production and operating costs.

“JSF has already overcome numerous setbacks that critics said were show-stoppers. It will overcome this one, as well – and likely many others.”

http://www.defensenews.com

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40. Sailing America: Beginning Of Newest Amphibious Assault Ship’s Legacy On Sea(NAVY LIVE BLOG 11 JUL 14) ... Command Master Chief Chad Lunsford, Future USS America

My name is Chad Lunsford and I am the command master chief of the newest amphibious assault ship in the U.S. Navy, the Future USS America (LHA 6)! I have been aboard this ship since she was first introduced as a ‘pre-commissioning unit.’ I often get asked, “What does it mean to be a part of a pre-commissioning unit?” Honestly, this journey has been incredibly rewarding and one of the highlights of my career…

Pre-commissioning units start with a few key leadership roles and they slowly grow over time. In our case, just two years ago, there were only 26 America crew members and today America stands close to 1,100 members strong. The beginning phases were mostly critical schools that can take up to six or more months to complete.

As the time got closer to our move aboard date on April 10, the date when the Navy took custody of the ship, and the ship’s Sailors and Marines officially move aboard, we started gaining more Sailors. In the two months prior to move aboard, the command gained close to 450 Sailors, which was a logistical challenge to say the least.

However, once the America crew moved aboard and started living on the ship, we have spent the last three months away from our families, working very long hours, including most weekends, to train for what most ships complete over the course of a year or more. We are required to train and certify in every warfare area that existing ships certify in, however, the difference is America did all this while operating in a shipyard. The greatest challenge of a pre-commissioning unit

is bringing together 1,100 individuals from various commands throughout the fleet and building one team.

Now that we are certified and safe to sail, we are prepared to get underway as a crew for the very first time. Today is an amazing day for everyone who has been involved in America’s pre-commissioning process. To witness our Sailors and Marines come together as one team and bring a ship to life is like no other experience in the world. Today, we begin our transit from the shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., around South America, to our new homeport of San Diego. Once we arrive in San Diego, we will begin preparing for our commissioning ceremony in San Francisco, Oct. 11.

America will bring a different set of unique capabilities to the strategic table for the U.S. Navy. We have increased aviation capabilities and communication centers to quickly move larger groups of Marines and their equipment to the needed locations throughout the globe. We are designed specifically with the MV-22 Osprey and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in mind and have the capabilities to sustain longer air operations.

In my opinion, there is no greater reward than to take a group of 1,100 individuals from commands spread throughout the fleet and develop a team of warfighters who are ready to answer our nation’s call. I am impressed daily with the hard work, motivation, and professionalism of our Sailors and Marines, America’s sons and daughters. I am proud to be part of America – “Our Ship, Our Country!”

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http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2014/07/11/sailing-america-beginning-of-newest-amphibious-assault-ships-legacy-on-sea/

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