No Matter What It Takes

     No Matter What It Takes

     October 12, 2010: The latest test of Russia's new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile), the 13th, was a success. This was only the sixth successful test, and several more will be necessary if the missile is to enter service. The last test, ten months ago, was a spectacular failure. That test took place off the northern coast of Russia early on December 10th. The failure resulted in a brilliant light show, in the pre-dawn sky, that was visible to many in Norway. At first the Russians denied that the spectacular lights had anything to do with them. But within a day, they admitted it was Bulava failing its 12th flight test.

     A year ago, Russian political and military leaders became upset (make that VERY upset) at the inept development of the new Bulava missile. This weapon is to arm the new Borei class SSBN (nuclear submarine carrying SLBMs). The Bulava developers were told that they had until the end of the year to make the missile work. Otherwise, the project would be cancelled, heads would roll (OK, people will be fired) and the older R-29RM Sineva SLBM will replace the Bulava. It's already been suggested that the 40 ton R-29RM be used in the new Borei SSBNs. Sineva is the last liquid fuel Russian SLBM in service, and is used in the current Delta class SSBNs.

     Apparently the accountants caught wind of this and told the bosses how much such a switch would cost (we're talking several billion dollars, at least). So now, the final decision (for the moment) is that Bulava will be made to work, no matter what it takes. Moreover, an investigative committee determined that most of the problems may have been due to sloppy manufacturing. So the construction of the Bulavas was ordered moved to another factory. That decision was also reversed, after someone did the math. Several senior development officials have already been fired. More jobs are on the line, although the latest successful test has saved several careers.

     For a while, switching to the older, but more reliable, Sineva missiles looked like a reasonable move. Liquid fuel missiles are more complex than solid fuel missiles, even though they use fuel that can be stored for long periods inside the missile. Unable, for a long time, to develop the technology for solid fuel rockets, Russia made the most of this, and developed some very effective "storable liquid fuel" rockets. It was only near the end of the Cold War that Russia finally mastered the solid fuel rocket construction techniques. But only one solid fuel SLBM entered service, the huge, 90 ton R-39, for the massive Typhoon SSBNs (which are being retired because they were so expensive to operate).

     Many Russian officials believe that the root of all these problems was the flight of so many skilled engineers and scientists from Russian defense industries after the Soviet Union collapsed (and sales promptly dropped over 90 percent). The smart people quickly found lucrative jobs in other industries, and there has been little new blood in the last two decades. The same thing happened on the manufacturing end. During the Soviet period, defense industries had the cash to attract the most skilled manufacturing staff. No more. And the dismal Bulava test performance is yet another result of this brain drain. But it was also noted that some defense plants were better at attracting, and retaining, more capable production people. Thus the suggestion to move to another factory. But in the specialized field of building SLBMs, you have lots of irreplaceable experience at the factory currently building Bulavas.

     All this was triggered by Bulava failing so many test launches. Before the spate of failed tests, Russian officials believed that the Bulava would enter service last year, and that there would be five or more test firings to help make that happen. The Russian engineers thought they had identified the source of the problems. But the December, 2009 test failure was in the first (of three) stages of the missile, which was believed to be problem free. That aroused suspicions that there might be manufacturing problems.

     The Russians had always been confident in the basic technology of the Bulava. They knew there would be test failures, and believed they were facing no more problems that the two most recent U.S. SLBMs. They were very wrong. The American missiles had had a 13 percent (out of 23 tests of the Trident I) and two percent (49 tests of Trident II) failure rate. So as the Bulava test failure rate rose, doubts began to set in. At present, only six of thirteen tests were a success, which equals a 54 percent failure rate.

     What really made many Russians nervous was the fact that the Bulava is replacement for an earlier SLBM that had to be cancelled during development because of too many test failures, and too many design and equipment problems that could not be fixed. Thus the Bulava is basically a navalized version of the successful Topol-M land based ICBM. The reliability of the Topol is the primary reason the Russians moved forward with Bulava, and remain confident that they can make it work, eventually.

     The Bulava is to equip the new Borei class SSBN (nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine). The Borei class boats will replace the aging Cold War era Delta class SSBNs, which are being retired because of safety and reliability issues. Nuclear submarines are one area of military spending that did not get cut back sharply after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but there are still limits to the navy budgets, and the Boreis are being built, in part, to be cheaper to operate. But first the Boreis need a reliable missile.

     The 45 ton Bulava SLBM is a little shorter than the Topol M, so that it could fit into the sub's missile tubes. Thus Bulava has a shorter range (8,000 kilometers) than Topol. Bulava has three stages and is believed configured to carry ten 150 kiloton warheads.

     Russian doubts about Bulava are consistent with long time problems with their submarine launched ballistic missiles. These problems were largely kept secret during the Cold War, but since then, more information has emerged. One Borei boat is already in service, and it's missile tubes are designed to hold the Bulava (which is 12.1 meters long and two meters in diameter.) The only possible replacement, the Sineva, is 14.8 meters long and 1.8 meters in diameter. The additional length will require substantial revisions in the existing Borei, and the two under construction. The existing solid fuel SLBM that works, and is carried in the larger (and being retired as too expensive to operate) Typhoon, is the R-39, and it is huge (16 meters long and 2.4 meters in diameter.) Much too large even for a rebuilt Borei.

     As some Russians expected, the final (for now) decision was to just bull ahead, declare the Bulava ready for service and install them. As absurd as that sounds, some of the 16 Bulavas on each Borei will work. And with continued development, the percentage that will work will climb from about 40 percent, to something more respectable (like 70 or 80 percent.) That will take time, and all the Russians have to do in the meantime is avoid a nuclear war.  

     Blinded By The Death Of START

     August 25, 2010: The expiration of the START  (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) disarmament agreement last year has caused a potential crisis in the U.S. intelligence community. When START came into force in 1994, it brought with it on-site inspections of Russian and American nuclear weapons and delivery systems, to insure that everyone was in compliance. This allowed the U.S. to shift its spy satellites away from watching Russian nuclear weapons, to other tasks. This became critical after September 11, 2001, when satellite recon was much in demand to track down terrorists. But with the new START treaty un-ratified, there is a call within the intel community to divert some satellite capabilities to once more keeping an eye on Russian nukes. Although both countries said they would keep the requirements of the old one in force until the new one was ratified, Russia has halted most of the on-site inspections.

     The START 1 agreement expired in December, 2009, and a new one was signed in April, 2010. This new agreement has not yet been ratified by the legislatures in Russia and the United States, and won't come into force until it is. The new agreement requires Russia and the U.S. to have no more than 1,550 nukes, and no more than 800 missiles to carry them. Currently, Russia has 800 missiles and 3,800 warheads while the U.S. has 1,180 missiles and 5,900 warheads. 

     Listening In Tongues

     September 4, 2010: After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the U.S. Army still can't find enough linguists (interpreters to help troops dealing with locals and translators to handle documents and recordings). Even before September 11, 2001, the army was having problems finding enough linguists. During the 1990s, there was a big need for Albanian and Slavic language linguists to support American peacekeeping operations there. Currently, the army is spending over $250 million a year for contract linguists. The big demand now is for those who can speak Pashto and Dari, the two major languages in Afghanistan.

     The U.S. military has had some success in finding American troops who speak foreign languages well enough to operate as battlefield translators. This was a major boost for intelligence gathering, since a lot of what you want to know can be found in what the locals are saying. But after five years of effort, there are still problems in identifying troops who can speak specific dialects. The problem is agreeing on how to test for these kinds of skills. It’s complicated, mainly because there are so many dialects in the Arab world, and places like Afghanistan.

     The Department of Defense is also trying to find troops who have sufficient cultural knowledge of a foreign area to be certified as expert enough to be militarily useful. Again, the problem has been one of deciding on criteria, and then applying it effectively. This is all a work in progress, although a solution is promised soon. It always is.

     Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has created several programs to get more translators. The Foreign Language Proficiency Bonus Program, pays troops a monthly bonus if they speak certain languages. But the monthly bonus is paid only when the language is used. For example, the U.S. Navy will pay French speaking sailors an extra $500 a month if they are involved in a part of the world (like Africa) where French is a common second language. Thus it is a contingent (on having to actually use the skill) bonus. In the past, the bonuses were only paid for those who had passed a proficiency exam, and spoke a language the military had few translators for. In particular, Arabic, Pashto and Farsi (the last two are common in Afghanistan) are still in great demand. But the old system paid the troops that $500 a month whether they were using their language skill or not. Now the top bonus is $1000 a month.

     Then there is the LES (Language Enabled Soldier) program, which offers ten months of language training for volunteers. If the student is successful, they qualify for the bonus. Troops also realize that more interpreters make their job a lot easier in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, brigades are going to Iraq and Afghanistan with a hundred or more troops qualified as translators, to one degree or another.

     The military has also been actively recruiting recent immigrants who could go through training to improve their skills and teach them how to use those skills for translation in a military situation. This is the EHLS (English for Heritage Language Speakers), which takes native speakers of these languages, living in the U.S., but lack the English language skills to be effective translators. The program involves a government paid, six month (720 hour) intensive course that improves the students English language skills. Those who successfully finish EHLS will be offered translating jobs with the U.S. government, but the students are under no legal obligation to take any of those jobs. However, those who speak one of the needed foreign languages as their native language, and express interest in a government translator job, will be given priority in getting into the EHLS program. The Department of Defense currently has a shortage of translators able to handle Arabic, Persian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Pashto, Urdu and Korean. This program has been successful, although the government continues to employ thousands of contract translators.

     The U.S. Department of Defense believes it needs 140,000 translators, for over 60 languages. A survey of the entire Department of Defense found that 217,000 people (about eight percent of all active duty reserve and civilian personnel) could speak a foreign language. But it's taken a lot of effort, and new programs, to get the translators for the right languages, to the places where they are needed most. In the meantime, the Department of Defense has found that private firms are more efficient (and expensive) in finding suitable linguists. These contract linguists can earn up to $200,000 a year, compared to $15,000 a year for local hires. The contract linguists often have security clearances (essential for secret documents and situations), and there are never enough of those. While the local hires are cheaper and more abundant, they are not as reliable. There's always the potential for incorrect translation (often because the interpreter simply doesn't like the tribe you are dealing with).  

     We Must Be Quick

     October 5, 2010: Intelligence is very important in Afghanistan, and not much talked about because, well, the more the enemy knows how the foreign troops collect information, the more likely the bad guys will come up with better ways to hide their secrets. So here are some of the obvious methods, with details, the enemy hasn't sorted out yet, left suitably vague.

     UAVs are particularly useful because they can observe an area constantly and stay out of range of enemy weapons. More UAVs are being equipped with equipment for listening in on wireless communications (SIGINT, or signals intelligence). This usually consists of listening in on enemy cell phone and radio conversations. One problem with SIGNINT is getting enough translators familiar with the local dialect. One useful solution for this is software that can pick out important conversations, so that a human translator can be called in to listen to the whole thing. The enemy in Afghanistan is particularly lax in their use of cell phones and other wireless devices (walkie-talkies and such). More experienced Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are forever hassling the young guys about this, but Afghan warriors tend not to pay attention. NATO trainers have the same problem with Afghan army and police recruits. The more attentive Taliban do attempt to use a lot of code words, which your intel people will have to try and quickly decode, or have the code in advance.

     Another technique honed to perfection in Iraq is quick exploitation of information found after a bomb or missile strike on the enemy. Whenever possible, troops are rushed to the site to grab whatever documents, and survivors. There are specialists who can quickly check out the data and report it to an intel center that has huge databases and software that can plug in new information and quickly get a list of likely new targets. These are then promptly gone after. Do this right, and the friends and associates of the guys who just got blasted will get attacked or arrested before they even find out their buddies have been taken down.

     The Special Forces and other special operations also have a lot of effective tricks for obtaining and quickly exploiting information. This is kept very secret for good reason, as the special operations troops work in small groups, and rely on stealth, secrecy and surprise to succeed and survive. 

     A New Generation Of Russian Warships

     November 2, 2010: Russia is hard at work building a new class of 4,500 ton frigates (the Gorshkov class or "Project 22350"), but only two are under construction and one was recently launched, but is still only half complete. The navy wants twenty Gorshkovs, but the government has only promised money for twelve. That is a big improvement, because until a few years ago, Russia was facing the loss of nearly all its surface warships.

     For over a decade, Russian admirals have been aware of the fact that they won't have much of a navy in a decade or so. The problem is that, in that period, most of the Cold War era warships that now comprise the fleet have to be retired. These ships are falling apart, as there was not any money, since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, for repairs and upgrades. The Russian parliament finally came up with more money, to build enough surface ships to maintain a respectable fleet. But there's a problem. Most of Russia's warship building capability has disappeared since 1991. To that end, the government is negotiating with France to import modern warship building techniques, by purchasing a Mistral amphibious assault ship/helicopter carrier, and the right to build three more in Russian shipyards. During that process, Russian shipbuilders will learn how it's done in the West. For the last two decades, most of the Russian construction effort went into finishing a few subs, and building some surface ships for export.

     The Gorshkov's are armed with a 130mm gun, two Kashtan autocannon systems for missile defense, 8 Yakhont 3M55 or PJ-10 BrahMos anti-ship missiles (both are three ton supersonic missiles, with the BrahMos being an advanced version of Yakhont developed in cooperation with India), a launcher for 24 Uragan 1 (SA-N-12) anti-aircraft missiles (30 kilometers range, 70 kg/154 pound warhead), four 533mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes, four RPK-9 (SS-N-29) anti-submarine rockets and a helicopter. These ships require a crew of 210 sailors and will have the latest electronics the Russians have available for anti-air and anti-submarine work. These ships cost about $400 million each, and will replace larger ships like the 7,900 ton Sovremenny class destroyers. These older, larger, ships, were designed for high seas operations far from Russian shores. The new fleet will be a return to the traditional Russian coastal navy.

     There are also  two of the new Stereguschyy class corvettes in service, with four more building. These are small ships (2,100 tons displacement), costing about $125 million each. These "Project 20380" ships have impressive armament (two 30mm anti-missile cannon, one 100mm cannon, eight anti-ship missiles, six anti-submarine missiles, two eight cell anti-missile missile launchers). There is a helicopter platform, but the ship is not designed to carry one regularly. Crew size, of one hundred officers and sailors, is achieved by a large degree of automation. The ship also carries air search and navigation radars. It can cruise 6,500 kilometers on one load of fuel. Normally, the ship would stay out 7-10 days at a time, unless it received replenishment at sea. Like the American LCS, the Russian ship is meant for coastal operations. The navy wants at least fifty of them.

     Meanwhile, the fleet is a collection of aging Cold War ships. This includes about a dozen SSBNs, two dozen SSNs (nuclear attack subs) and about fifty diesel-electric boats. There's one aircraft carrier, five cruisers, 17 destroyers, eleven frigates and about fifty corvettes. There are about twenty amphibious ships still in service. All these Cold War era ships suffered from years of neglect during the 1990s, and most are not in the best of shape. In ten years, all of them will be gone. The new fleet, even if construction picks up, will be much smaller. The Russian fleet will go from 170 ships and subs now, to less than a third of that. This is not popular with most Russians, but the money, capability and will is not there to do much more. 

     Для ФСБ 

     Emailing Russian Secrets To The Pentagon

     May 19, 2010: In Russia, a local man, Gennady Sipachev, was convicted of espionage, for emailing classified Russian military maps to a Department of Defense organization. The prosecution asserted that these maps could be used to select targets for cruise missile attacks. Sipachev was sentenced to four years in prison. There was no comment from anyone in the U.S. government.

     While American photo-satellites have scoured Russia for decades, Russian military maps may have revealed installations that the Russians were known to have built to deceive satellite observation. At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Unit had thousands of troops in units that specialized in deceiving American spy satellites. Some of the expertise, and specially built installations, remain.

     Predictive Analysis And Death From Above

     May 13, 2010: The increased use of UAVs, armed with Hellfire missiles, to attack targets in Pakistan's tribal territories, has led to the deaths of hundreds of Islamic terrorists. The question has often been raised about how the targets were found. Vidcams and electronic sensors on the UAVs, plus monitoring Internet traffic and recruiting local informants has played a role. But another key tool has often been ignored in the media (until recently, at least). This tool is predictive analysis, and the CIA, which runs this UAV campaign, has been using this for decades.

     The way predictive analysis works is quite simple. With more data (from the vidcams, electronic eavesdropping and informants on the ground) it's possible to create a model (or simulation) of what terrorist activity on the ground looks like. Thus, if the CIA analysts see certain patterns of actions on the ground, they can accurately predict where the Islamic terrorists are, what they doing and, often, exactly who (like a key Taliban or al Qaeda operative) is down there. At that point, the Hellfire missiles are applied. The track record of the accuracy of these predictions has been striking. Few civilians have been attacked, nearly all the targets have been, as the predictive analysis indicated, terrorists.

     A key factor in making all this work was the U.S. government changing its policy, in the last two years, of only attacking terrorists on a list (of up to 500) of named individuals. Predictive analysis cannot always guarantee that a target will be a specific individual, but it can, with near certainty, indicate that the target is an Islamic terrorist.