Ripped from the head­lines at Military.com — I think this is one we can all sup­port…

Swedish female sol­diers are demand­ing the mil­i­tary pro­vide them with combat-tested bras, amid com­plaints that the sports bras they must buy them­selves unhook too eas­ily, offi­cials say.

Unlike their male coun­ter­parts who are pro­vided with military-issue under­wear, Sweden’s 500-odd women con­scripts must buy bras them­selves since there are no military-issue brassieres, accord­ing to the Council of Conscripts, a union-like organisation.

“The women have had to buy sports bras instead. But they are not tested for com­bat sit­u­a­tions nor for fire safety, and they are not func­tional. They unhook too eas­ily,” Council spokes­woman Paulina Rehbinder told AFP.

She crit­i­cised the mil­i­tary for its lack of gen­der equal­ity, in a coun­try widely con­sid­ered a pio­neer in the field.

“This sends a sig­nal to women. You should be able to come to your work­place and be pro­vided with equip­ment that works and that is safe,” she said.

“There have been women in the Swedish mil­i­tary for more than 30 years but bras have never been pro­vided by the mil­i­tary,” she lamented, not­ing how­ever that the mil­i­tary gave con­scripts money to buy their bras. 

Best com­ment from Military.com read­ers “Swedish made bras unhook eas­ily. Who would have ever guessed?”

I stand ready to lend a hand in the upcom­ing “com­bat tests”…any other volunteers?

– Christian

And we’re WORRIED about the Russians?

Russia said Wednesday it plans to buy a new helicopter-carrying assault war­ship from NATO-member France in an unprece­dented deal experts say reflects Kremlin efforts to accel­er­ate mil­i­tary modernization.

The agree­ment for pur­chase of one Mistral-class naval ship also equipped with hov­er­craft and land­ing craft will be com­pleted by the end of the year, the Russian chief of staff, General Nikolai Makarov, said.

He did not name a price, but the Russian gov­ern­ment daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported this month that the ship, which can carry 16 heavy heli­copters, 470 air­borne troops and other gear, costs 700 mil­lion euros (995 mil­lion dollars). 

So Ivan wants to build an amphibi­ous capa­bil­ity for what? An inva­sion of Georgia…OK, good luck with that MedvedevPutin. And your defense man­u­fac­tur­ing and ship­build­ing infra­struc­ture is so mori­bund you have to buy from the French!? Ouch, that’s gotta hurt Mr. “Multi-polar World” guy.

But, oh yeah, you want to do “joint” pro­duc­tion later — uh, huh…

Makarov also said Russia wanted to forge a deal with France on joint pro­duc­tion of more ships.

“We also want to estab­lish pro­duc­tion of a series of at least four or five ships of this class,” he said.

Makarov, an influ­en­tial pro­po­nent in Russia of mod­ern­iz­ing the country’s con­ven­tional armed forces quickly through pro­cure­ment from Western sup­pli­ers, admit­ted the mil­i­tary needs equip­ment that Russia can­not pro­duce at present.

“No coun­try in the world can do every­thing” on its own, he said, adding: “Some things will have to be pur­chased” from for­eign producers. 

Hey, I know…We have an F-22 man­u­fac­tur­ing line Congress wants to keep open — the Russians are “look­ing to the West” to mod­ern­ize — Obama’s reach­ing out to rebuild strained ties — hmmm.

How ironic would it be to turn the F-22 argu­ment on its head and say it’s needed to sup­ply the very enemy it was designed to fight?

…I guess I need some more coffee.

– Christian

It has been well doc­u­mented that India did not attack Pakistan after the Mumbai ter­ror attacks sim­ply because Pakistan has nuclear bombs. This has not been lost on tyran­ni­cal regimes who are now at var­i­ous stages of procur­ing nuclear weapons. Recently there have been reports that North Korea is seek­ing to sell the nuclear tech­nol­ogy to Myanmar/Burma. A month ago, it was reported that a cash-trapped Pakistan would sell The Bomb to Saudi Arabia. Iran’s pur­suit of nuclear weapons is well known and even Israel’s worst-kept secret, its 400-plus nuclear weapons, evinces the degree to which that coun­try appre­ci­ates their deter­rent value as it goes out of its way to infu­ri­ate its neigh­bors in the pur­suit of “national defense.”
According to Reuters, Western pol­i­cy­mak­ers are most alarmed by Iran and Syria’s desire to boost their nuclear capa­bil­ity. Washington says Pyongyang has already exported mis­siles and mis­sile tech­nol­ogy to Iran and nuclear tech­nol­ogy to Syria. Al Qaeda and related groups are actively seek­ing nuclear mate­ri­als and know-how, and ana­lysts say North Korea would be one of their most likely sources. (Full news here.)
So if you look at the list of coun­tries fast-tracking nuclear weapons pro­grams they are all dic­ta­to­r­ial or tyran­ni­cal regimes seek­ing to ensure their sur­viv­abil­ity. Luckily Pakistan and North Korea are there to help them, backed by China. (Read “Why China spread nuclear tech­nolo­gies to rogue nations”.) Both coun­tries des­per­ately need cash and believe that any nuclear attack from the buy­ing coun­try is more likely to be aimed at the U.S. or a joint task-force like the U.N. in which case they may band together any­way. (Hillary Clinton is deceiv­ing her­self when she said that Myanmar pos­sess­ing nuclear weapons is a threat to its neigh­bors.)
After China has spread nuclear weapons tech­nol­ogy, now Chinese Chief of Staff Gen Bingde now says (see Globalsecurity arti­cle) that they are seri­ously con­cerned about North Korea get­ting nuclear tech­nol­ogy as it may pro­pel South Korea and Japan to get deter­rent nuclear weapons as well.
– Manu Sood, edi­tor, 8ak

In 1999 the Indian gov­ern­ment had not sanc­tioned money for sheds in one of the depots, so the ammu­ni­tion was lying in the open, grassy fields. Instead of pay­ing some­one to cut the grass, the prac­tice was that the grass was sold at an auc­tioned price. As is com­mon, the local farmer/contractors form a car­tel to keep the bid amounts low and work out among them­selves how to share the money saved.

The local audit offi­cer had placed an objec­tion on the depot for sell­ing the grass in the pre­vi­ous auc­tion at a low con­tract price. So when the ten­der bids for the next sale of grass were opened, the bids were even lower. So the Commander of the depot ordered re-tendering to avoid fur­ther objec­tions by the local audit offi­cer who can get very petty. In the mean­time the grass had grown quite high and was dried up by the sun. It sub­se­quently caught fire and hun­dreds of crores worth of ammu­ni­tion was lost. The Commander felt that this was accept­able to audi­tor rather than the loss of a few thou­sand rupees by way of con­tract nego­ti­a­tions with local farmers.

In a sim­i­lar inci­dent in 2007 , two Army per­son­nel died and the Police had to evac­u­ate vil­lagers within a 30km radius when an ammu­ni­tion dump caught fire.

Think the gov­ern­ment would have learnt their les­son then? Apparently not. The Defense Minister admit­ted in front of the par­lia­ment today that about 85,000 MT of ammu­ni­tion was still lying in the open or in tem­po­rary shel­ters.

(Photo — From Bob Fagelson’s col­lec­tion, the ammo dump at Kanchrapara, circa 1946)

– Manu Sood, edi­tor, 8ak — Indian Defence News

My friend Michael Yon, writ­ing from the islands:

Until recently, Afghanistan was called The Forgotten War. The dra­matic domes­tic, regional, and inter­na­tional pol­i­tics of the Iraq war largely eclipsed the fact that our peo­ple were fight­ing just as hard in Afghanistan. Although were pay­ing atten­tion to AfPak now, off the radar screen an impor­tant and related fight has been unfold­ing in the Philippines.
At the invi­ta­tion of the Philippine gov­ern­ment, the U.S. main­tains about 600 troops, includ­ing Army Green Berets, Civil Affairs, and Military Information Support teams, Navy SEALS and Seabees, along with Air Force per­son­nel and Marines. Our mil­i­tary forces are deployed in six loca­tions: Zamboanga, Mindanao, Jolo, Basilan, Tawi Tawi, and a small num­ber of liai­son staff on Luzon. Their mis­sion is to help the Armed Forces of the Philippines elim­i­nate ter­ror­ist groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf Group and to pre­vent them from estab­lish­ing safe havens from which to train other ter­ror­ists, both inter­nal and external.

Read the whole thing, the details are fas­ci­nat­ing. Open this up to a dis­cus­sion on whether or not it was wise of the Philippine gov­ern­ment to boot us from Subic Bay and Clark Air Base (keep­ing in mind that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front –at the time of our expul­sion– was still rel­a­tively quiet and had yet to declare jihad on the local gov­ern­ment).
–John Noonan

The British mil­i­tary announced today it has begun field­ing an updated ver­sion of its Mk7 hel­met and Osprey body armor.

The new Osprey Assault Vest is sup­posed to have the same bal­lis­tic capa­bil­i­ties of the cur­rent Osprey but with less weight and bet­ter, closer fit. I have no first-hand insight into this armor, but from the pics that are drift­ing around the web on this, it doesn’t look any more com­fort­able than the cur­rent Brit bul­let busters.

The MOD did say the armor takes advan­tage of a new bal­lis­tic plate that is thin­ner and lighter than cur­rent ones — clearly a sys­tem using more improved Dyneema or Spectra. Also the vest bor­rows from its Yank coun­ter­parts in adding MOLLE web­bing to attach pouches and other gear directly to the vest. But just from the look of it, the vest doesn’t look like much of an improve­ment in fit. Kinda like when the Corps fielded its “Modular Tactical Vest” that looked like a Rube Goldberg patch­work of bad ideas (and turned out to be widely unpopular).

On the other hand, the Brits look like they’re finally tak­ing a rad­i­cal depar­ture from their spaghetti bowl hel­mets and get­ting a lit­tle more 21st Century on their new Mk7. The new hel­met fea­tures a bet­ter cut that allows for head­phones, NVGs and keeps its cov­er­age even in a prone aim­ing posi­tion. There’s also an updated and more com­fort­able har­ness sys­tem to keep the lid on the noggin.

Again, haven’t seen any of this first hand. But you know me and my obses­sion with armor devel­op­ments, so I thought I’d bring it to your atten­tion. If any­one has any insight into these sys­tems, please com­ment here or send me an email.

The UK plans to field about 10,000 of the new ensembles.

(Gouge: GW)

– Christian

From the horse’s mouth, so they say, German sol­diers “are soft­ies who lack dis­ci­pline, hate respon­si­bil­ity and show an inad­e­quate desire to serve their coun­try.”

General Wolfgang Schneiderhahn, the gen­eral inspec­tor of the Bundeswehr, told the German par­lia­ment that depite their pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion in Afghanistan, com­plaints from troops about their con­di­tions were an “embar­rass­ment”.
“We have given a good account of our­selves in Afghanistan, but we can­not guar­an­tee an all-round feel-good feel­ing for sol­diers,” said the gen­eral, before going on to detail the less dig­ni­fied side of the country’s armed forces.
He cited com­plaints reach­ing him about the qual­ity of sleep­ing bags used in a deploy­ment in the Congo.
“Are our sol­diers too soft?” asked the best-selling daily German news­pa­per Bild.
Gen Schneiderhahn told politi­cians in Berlin on Monday that the descen­dants of the country’s mighty mil­i­tary machines of the past needed to have “a bet­ter feel­ing for dis­ci­pline and to show a greater readi­ness to serve the state”. 

Interesting devo­lu­tion, from what was once the most feared mil­i­tary machine in the world to noth­ing more than a glo­ri­fied gen­darmerie. In fair­ness to our Kraut allies, this is largely a polit­i­cal prob­lem, in that the Germans are –under­stand­ably, given their his­tory– reluc­tant to use mil­i­tary force out­side their bor­ders. Remember that up until 1994, the Bundeswehr was restricted to bor­der defense only.
Here, war might be the answer. There’s noth­ing more demor­al­iz­ing to a com­bat unit than to be demoted to occu­pa­tional force (the German army mainly does peace­keep­ing and recon­struc­tion). Allowing the Germans to fight in Afghanistan, along­side their British, Dutch, American, and Canadian allies, could jump­start their inner war­riors — and hope­fully give them more impor­tant to worry about than sleep­ing bags.
–John Noonan

“For Somali Pirates, Worst Enemy May Be on Shore,” in the New York Times on May 9, fea­tured an inter­view with Puntland pirate boss Abshir Boyah, who claims to have hijacked more than 25 ships. Boyah says he’s wor­ried because Islamic cler­ics would like to cut off his hands as an un-Islamic thief, and drive him and his ilk out of town and out of busi­ness. His solu­tion? Let the mul­lahs find jobs for his hijack­ing crews that pay nearly as well as their booty does now — and help senior pirates like him form a Somalian coast guard. 

To me, Boyah comes across like he’s toy­ing with his inter­viewer and bait­ing the cler­ics. The pirate groups are armed to the teeth with AK-47s and RPGs that they can use ashore just as well as at sea. They may be an irre­li­gious lot, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t united and moti­vated by a sig­nif­i­cant shared set of val­ues: Boyah describes piracy like the sport of hunt­ing, and nego­ti­at­ing as a “reli­gion.” Pirate lead­ers feel deeply obliged to sup­port their fam­i­lies and clans. Social pres­tige plus mate­ri­al­ist dis­si­pa­tion in this life can be cher­ished by some just as much as a sure path to Heaven in the next life is cher­ished by oth­ers. Somali cul­ture in gen­eral puts high stock in not back­ing down from con­flict and con­fronta­tion, even when things do turn deadly. 

Many of the pirates recently arrested in their skiffs and dhows by inter­na­tional naval forces were quickly set free, mak­ing the threat of pros­e­cu­tion no real deter­rent. Withholding for­eign aid and char­ity is prob­lem­atic; eco­nomic sanc­tions usu­ally strengthen the grip of tyrants and war­lords. One won­ders whether the Puntland cler­ics mean busi­ness about any crack­down, or are just talk­ing tough, hold­ing out (nego­ti­at­ing?) for a take of the big pirate prizes. 

For the West and other inter­ested par­ties to look to local Muslim cler­ics to dimin­ish Somalian piracy will likely prove inef­fec­tive. Counter-terror experts are con­cerned that Islamo-fascists such as al Qaeda might hire or infil­trate the pirates, or study and adapt ship hijack­ing tac­tics them­selves. If mul­lah mili­tias do go after Boyah’s crowd, the pirates will surely fight back, lead­ing to more civil war all along the strate­gi­cally located Somali coast. The chaos would cre­ate a power vac­uum into which could pour nau­ti­cal sui­cide bombers led by fanat­i­cal lead­ers. The beef of Puntland cler­ics is with piracy-financed spend­ing on sin­ful liquor, ille­gal drugs, and illicit sex. To let this benign moral­ist agenda be replaced by al Qaeda’s pur­pose of destroy­ing whole soci­eties would be a grave error indeed.

(more…)

Is it just a coin­ci­dence that, on 21 April, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead ordered the U.S. Navy to begin prepar­ing to mark the 67th anniver­sary of the Battle of Midway, 4–7 June, while he was in China 16–22 April for the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s 60th aniver­sary? China used an inter­na­tional fleet review held at Qingdao to show off to the world some impressive-looking (but not their very best) PLAN assets, includ­ing two first-generation home-built nuclear subs. Midway marks a deci­sive American vic­tory over Imperial Japan, China’s nextdoor neigh­bor and the last Asian coun­try (so far) to quickly build a mod­ern navy — and go to war with it in the Pacific.

Roughead’s order reminds its read­ers that Midway put America back on the offen­sive only six months after the dis­as­trous sur­prise attack on Pearl Harbor, at a time when the IJN out­num­bered the USN due to a gap in longterm ship­build­ing pro­grams com­bined with asym­met­ric bat­tle losses; there is also today real con­cern about the ade­quacy of the cur­rent USN longterm ship­build­ing pro­gram. Interestingly, Roughead goes on to reach back to the Great Depression to praise the “inno­va­tion and resilience,” in what con­struc­tion did occur and in tac­ti­cal devel­op­ment, that dur­ing the 1930s lay the ground­work for suc­cess at Midway in 1942; cur­rent eco­nomic con­di­tions are notably more harsh than any­thing since the Great Depression.

Each fleet con­cen­tra­tion area and regional com­mand around the world (such as Pearl Harbor, Guam, and Yokosuka) is to pre­pare and then com­mu­ni­cate, to both sailors and civil­ian com­mu­ni­ties, a knowl­edge base about Midway and its vet­er­ans, with a coor­di­nated global wreath-laying cer­e­mony, “to carry their legacy for­ward.” Roughead’s order charges the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) and the Chief of Naval Information (CHINFO) with prepar­ing a Battle of Midway les­son plan and a pub­lic affairs plan.

These edu­ca­tional prod­ucts, with their use by local com­man­ders, will be cru­cial to the suc­cess of the CNO’s direc­tive to pre­serve his­tory, learn from the past, and pre­pare for the future.

At a time when infor­ma­tion is power like never before, and soft power is very real power, this con­flu­ence of USN and PLAN anniver­saries — if han­dled prop­erly — could “fos­ter rela­tion­ships between the two nations and explore areas for enhanced coop­er­a­tion,” which the CNO’s PAO says was the main pur­pose of Rougheads’ visit to Qingdao.

– Joe Buff