Category Archives: Military

Senator Menendez Hires Qatar Lobbyist?

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Primer: It is Qatar that received the Taliban commanders previously in prison at Gitmo under Obama. It is Qatar that presently has a Taliban diplomatic post as the United States is in talks for some kind of peace in Afghanistan. It is al Thani whose son graduated from West Point. It is Qatar that many of the Gulf nations are at odds with due to Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and jihad networks. It is Qatar that hosts a major U.S. military base, al Udeid.

The Trump administration hopes to restore a degree of normalcy to Qatar’s relationship with its neighbors after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt instigated a month’s long blockade and embargo against the Gulf sheikhdom in June. Both Qatar and the UAE have spent millions of dollars in recent years on rival lobbying campaigns, according to a review of lobbying records.

So, what about Senator Menendez? Well….

Senator Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) hired a longtime aide and lobbyist for the Qatari government to chair his reelection campaign, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday.

Michael Soliman has lobbied Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and other lawmakers on behalf of the Qatari government since 2015.

While the arrangement is strictly legal, ethics experts told the Inquirer that it might constitute a conflict of interest.

“There is a blurring of lines between responsibility to the candidate and responsibility to their client,” said Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog in Washington. “Very little of that is a responsibility to the public.”

In a statement to the Inquirer, Soliman said his lobbying work had “always been fully transparent, above board and properly disclosed.” After receiving inquiries from other publications, Soliman said that “out of an overabundance of caution,” he would not “directly or indirectly lobby the senator or his staff on behalf of any client for the duration of the campaign.”

Menendez was indicted on corruption charges in 2015 in connection with his relationship to a wealthy Florida doctor who procured lavish gifts and vacations for the lawmaker in exchange for help navigating regulatory obstacles in his health-care business. Menendez was ultimately acquitted in January by a hung jury that found he did not perform any “official acts” for material benefit. But the Senate Ethics Committee reprimanded Menendez, writing that he “risked undermining the public’s confidence in the Senate,” in an April letter sent after the Department of Justice had dropped all charges.

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Menendez has paid Soliman’s consulting firm $105,000 since 2015, but a spokesman for his campaign denied any allegations of impropriety.

Soliman has been a “trusted political advisor to the Senator for more than a decade, but neither he, nor any lobbyist, has influenced how the Senator speaks to representatives of any government in advocating for the foreign policy and national security interests of both the United States and our allies,” said Steve Sandberg, a spokesperson for the Menendez campaign.

 

 

Part of Michael’s resume includes:

Strategic advisor to Congressman-elect Josh Gottheimer’s successful campaign against a 14 year incumbent

Lead strategist for U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s successful 2014 Senate campaign

Served as Senator Robert Menendez’s State Director and New Jersey Chief of Staff since 2007

Managed Senator Menendez’s successful re-election campaign in 2012

District Director for U.S. Congressman Steve Rothman

Advised the campaigns of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg, former Governor Jon Corzine, and Congressman Bill Pascrell

Worked on campaigns of various Democratic officials, including Mayor Glenn Cunningham of Jersey City and State Senator Bob Gordon

Frequent guest lecturer at academic institutions including St. Peter’s University and the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics

Appeared on the PolitickerNJ Power List for the past 9 years

Selected as an influencer by Campaigns & Elections Magazine

St. Peter’s University, Political Science (BA)

Bloustein School at Rutgers University (MPP)

Mercury, a high-stakes public strategy firm, continues to expand nationwide and across the globe, most recently through the addition of offices in London and Mexico City. In addition to Soliman, Mercury’s New Jersey office is led by DuHaime, Chris Christie’s top political adviser. Mo Butler, who served as chief of staff in New Jersey to U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, joined the firm.

So, What Really Goes in Space to Have a Space Force?

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Primer: Did you know there is something called the OuterSpace Treaty? Yup, it covers arms control, verification and compliance. Sounds great right? Problem is it is dated 2002.

Then there is the NASA summary of the 1967 Space Treaty.

GPS is operated and maintained by the U.S. Air Force. GPS.gov is maintained by the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing.

Like the Internet, GPS is an essential element of the global information infrastructure. The free, open, and dependable nature of GPS has led to the development of hundreds of applications affecting every aspect of modern life. GPS technology is now in everything from cell phones and wristwatches to bulldozers, shipping containers, and ATM’s.

GPS boosts productivity across a wide swath of the economy, to include farming, construction, mining, surveying, package delivery, and logistical supply chain management. Major communications networks, banking systems, financial markets, and power grids depend heavily on GPS for precise time synchronization. Some wireless services cannot operate without it.

GPS saves lives by preventing transportation accidents, aiding search and rescue efforts, and speeding the delivery of emergency services and disaster relief. GPS is vital to the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) that will enhance flight safety while increasing airspace capacity. GPS also advances scientific aims such as weather forecasting, earthquake monitoring, and environmental protection.

Finally, GPS remains critical to U.S. national security, and its applications are integrated into virtually every facet of U.S. military operations. Nearly all new military assets — from vehicles to munitions — come equipped with GPS.

***

There is a robust debate within Washington and the Pentagon if whether or not a new branch of Armed Services is really needed. Presently, the Air Force has most exclusive authority of all things space except for research and exploration which is performed by NASA.

There is even a debate within the Air Force which was raised last February.

US Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein predicted it’ll only be a “matter of years” before American forces find themselves “fighting from space.” To prepare for this grim possibility, he said the Air Force needs new tools and a new approach to training leaders. Oh, and lots of money.

“[It’s] time for us as a service, regardless of specialty badge, to embrace space superiority with the same passion and sense of ownership as we apply to air superiority today,” he said.

These are some of the strongest words yet from the Air Force chief of staff to get the Pentagon thinking about space—and to recognize the U.S. Air Force as the service branch best suited for the job. “I believe we’re going to be fighting from space in a matter of years,” he said. “And we are the service that must lead joint war fighting in this new contested domain. This is what the nation demands.”

The USAF and other military officials have been saying this for years, but Goldfein’s comments had an added sense of urgency this time around. Rep. Mike Rogers, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee chairman, recently proposed the creation of a new “Space Corps,” one that would be modeled after the Marines. The proposed service branch, it was argued, would keep the United States ahead of rival nations like Russia and China. The idea was scrapped this past December—at least for now. Needless to say, Rogers’ proposal did not go over well with the USAF; the creation of the first new uniformed service branch in 70 years would see Pentagon funds siphoned away from the Air Force. Hence Goldfein’s speech on Friday, in which he argued that the USAF is the service branch best positioned to protect American interests in space.

But in order to protect “contested environments,” the US Air Force will need to exercise competency in “multi-domain operations,” he said. This means the ability to collect battlefield intelligence from “all domains,” including air, ground, sea, cyber, and space. “I look forward to discussing how we can leverage new technology and new ways of networking multi-domain sensors and resilient communications to bring more lethality to the fight,” said Goldfein.

Indeed, the USAF has plenty of work to do make this happen, and to keep up with its rivals. China, for example, recently proposed far-fetched laser-armed satellite to remove space junk, while also demonstrating its ability to shoot down missiles in space. Should a major conflict break out in the near future, space will most certainly represent the first battlefield.

“When you think of how dependent the US military is on satellites for everything from its communication and navigation to command and surveillance, we are already fighting in space, even if it’s not like the movies depicted,” Peter W. Singer, fellow at New America and author of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War, told Gizmodo. “If we were ever to fight another great power, like a China or Russia, it is likely the opening round of battle would be completely silent, as in space no one would hear the other side jamming or even destroying each other’s satellites.”

To prepare the United States for this possibility, Goldfein said the Air Force needs to invest in new technologies and train a new generation of leaders. On that last point, the CSAF ordered Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, the commander of Air Education and Training Command, to develop a program to train officers and non-commissioned officers for space ops. “We need to build a joint, smart space force and a space-smart joint force,” Goldfein said.

As reported in SpaceNews, the USAF is asking for $8.5 billion for space programs in the 2019 budget, of which $5.9 billion would go to research and development, and the remaining for procurement of new satellite and launch services. Over next five years it hopes to spend $44.3 billion on development of new space systems, which is 18 percent more than it said it would need last year to cover the same period.

 

Putin/Trump Arms Control then Sanctions

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Leaked Document Reveals Putin Lobbied Trump on Arms Control

Vladimir Putin presented President Donald Trump with a series of requests during their private meeting in Helsinki last month, including new talks on controlling nuclear arms and prohibiting weapons in space, according to a Russian document obtained by POLITICO.

A page of proposed topics for negotiation, not previously made public, offers new insights into the substance of the July 16 dialogue that even Trump’s top advisers have said they were not privy to at the time. Putin shared the contents of the document with Trump during their two-hour conversation, according to a U.S. government adviser who provided an English-language translation. Details in the single page agenda for the meeting shows Mr. Putin remains interested in maintaining continued cooperation with the US on nuclear weapons.

A source who did not wish to be identified after obtaining the page translated from Russian into English by Politico, said: “This is, ‘We want to get out of the dog house and engage with the US on a broad range of security issues.” The document fails to address questions raised about what the Russian government meant last month when it said “cooperation in Syria” would be discussed between the two presidents and what they agreed to as a result.

Further murkiness fanned the flames of suspicion after Dan Coats, US Director of National Intelligence, told reporters he was “not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in Helsinki.” Politico

Primer saludo entre Donald Trump y Vladimir Putin en el G20 | El Imparcial photo

New START

Treaty Structure: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms also known as the New START Treaty.

Strategic Offensive Reductions: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, entered into force on February 5, 2011. Under the Treaty, the United States and Russia must meet the Treaty’s central limits on strategic arms by February 5, 2018; seven years from the date the Treaty entered into force. Each Party has the flexibility to determine for itself the structure of its strategic forces within the aggregate limits of the Treaty. These limits are based on the rigorous analysis conducted by Department of Defense planners in support of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.

Aggregate limits:

  • 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments;
  • 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit);
  • 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

Verification and Transparency: The Treaty has a verification regime that combines appropriate elements of the 1991 START Treaty with new elements tailored to the limitations and structure of this Treaty. Verification measures under the Treaty include on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and notifications related to strategic offensive arms and facilities covered by the Treaty, and provisions to facilitate the use of national technical means for treaty monitoring. To increase confidence and transparency, the Treaty also provides for an annual exchange of telemetry on an agreed number of ICBM and SLBM launches.

Treaty Duration: The Treaty’s duration is ten years, unless superseded by a subsequent agreement. The Parties may agree to extend the Treaty for a period of no more than five years. The Treaty includes a withdrawal clause that is standard in arms control agreements. The 2002 Moscow Treaty terminated when the New START Treaty entered into force.

No Constraints on Missile Defense and Conventional Strike: The Treaty does not constrain testing, development, or deployment of current or planned U.S. missile defense programs or long-range conventional strike capabilities.

What is the difference between a “Type One” and a “Type Two” inspection?

The New START Treaty provides for 18 on-site inspections per year. There are two basic types of inspections. Type One inspections focus on sites with deployed and non-deployed strategic systems; Type Two inspections focus on sites with only non-deployed strategic systems. Permitted inspection activities include confirming the number of reentry vehicles on deployed ICBMs and deployed SLBMs, confirming numbers related to non-deployed launcher limits, counting nuclear weapons onboard or attached to deployed heavy bombers, confirming weapon system conversions or eliminations, and confirming facility eliminations. Each side is allowed to conduct ten Type One inspections and eight Type Two inspections annually.

Meanwhile, standing with lab results and in solidarity with Britain:

FNC: Russia used “chemical or biological weapons” to try to assassinate a former British spy, the U.S. said on Wednesday, adding that new sanctions would be imposed on the country for the attack.

“Following the use of a ‘Novichok’ nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, 2018, determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals,” the State Department said in a statement.

“Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, expected on or around August 22, 2018,” the department continued.

Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by the military-grade nerve agent in the British town of Salisbury in March.

Britain earlier accused Russia of being behind the attack, which the Kremlin has vehemently denied.

On March 15, President Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May said in a joint statement that they “abhorred” the attack against Skripal.

“It is an assault on U.K. sovereignty and any such use by a State party is a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all,” the statement read.

Skripal was discharged from a U.K. hospital in May, following his daughter’s April release.

Since the March attack, two other British nationals with no ties to Russia have been poisoned by the substance.

The Process for Fallen Troops’ Identities

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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii —

When her duty day is over, Army Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Owen often wonders if she did enough to help identify fallen service members.

A lab worker examines personal effects that may have belonged to a fallen service member.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Owen, a morgue noncommissioned officer for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, examines a personal effect that may have belonged to a fallen service member in a laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, March 12, 2018. Army photo by Sean Kimmons

As the noncommissioned officer in charge of the morgue at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which is tasked to account for more than 82,000 Americans missing from past conflicts, she analyzes human remains and personal effects in hopes to close a cold case.

“At the end of the day, I have to be able to look in the mirror and say I’ve done my best,” she said. “And when I get up in the morning, I say I’m going to do better, because these families have been waiting years and years.”

Owens is one of about 100 service members and civilians who work at the agency’s laboratories here and at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Each year, the labs identify the remains of around 200 Americans that are then reunited with families.

On Aug. 1, more than 50 cases containing remains believed to be those of American service members were provided to DPAA by North Korea.

The remains are now undergoing further analysis and identification at the labs.

The painstaking work, which can take months to years to complete, is Owen’s passion. Whenever a positive identification comes in, she said, it is as if the service member’s name is given back.

‘These Are All Heroes’

“What drives me the most is that these are heroes,” she said, looking across a lab holding hundreds of unknown remains. “These are all heroes [who] have a name and a family.”

Each year, DPAA conducts up to 80 investigation and recovery team missions throughout the world to pinpoint last known locations of missing Americans and to attempt to excavate their remains.

“The work is complex, the work is difficult, and it takes that dedication, that passion … to be able to perform this solemn obligation that we make to the nation and to the families,” said Kelly McKeague, the agency’s director.

The joint agency, which employs many service members and veterans, has agreements with nearly 50 nations that assist in its missions, he added.

Most of the missing fell at World War II battle sites in the Pacific region. There are also almost 7,700 service members unaccounted for from the Korean War, with the majority believed to be in North Korea.

DPAA teams were allowed to conduct missions in North Korea from 1996 to 2005, but operations were halted as diplomatic relations deteriorated in the region. Agency officials hope these missions could soon start up again.

Before he became the agency’s lab director, John Byrd had the opportunity to help recover Americans who fought in North Korea at the Battle of Unsan. The 1950 battle pitted Chinese forces against American and South Korean troops.

When remains are identified by his staff it is always a testament to good field and lab work that solved the decades-old case, Byrd said.

“It’s extremely gratifying,” he said, “and it kind of keeps you grounded where you know why you’re here and why you’re doing this work.”

DNA Testing

A majority of DPAA cases involve some type of DNA testing. Samples are taken from the remains and sent to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab in Delaware.

To help this process, family members who have a missing loved one are encouraged to provide a DNA sample that will serve as a comparison.

If no reference samples are on file, a battalion of professional genealogists working for service casualty offices will try to locate family members.

Many times their starting point is the service member’s home address from the 1940s, if they served in World War II. This makes it extremely difficult to track down a living family member as the years pass on.

“It’s one of the greatest challenges of all. How do you find close family members of a missing serviceman from 1944?” Byrd asked. “It’s not easy. Some [cases] we run into dead-ends and we can’t find anybody.”

The Defense Department has kept dental records of troops dating back to World War I that can be used to help in the identification process.

In 2005, the agency also discovered another method that has proved successful. Many troops who served in early conflicts had to get chest X-rays as part of a tuberculosis screening when they first signed up.

Like the dental records, these radiographs were stored in a warehouse by the DoD. DPAA later obtained thousands of copies of them. Lab personnel use them as a comparison tool, since the shape of each person’s chest is different.

“The process of comparing this induction chest x-ray to an x-ray we take from the remains is analogous to doing fingerprint comparison,” Byrd said. “It’s a very similar kind of mindset that you take when you look at the two side-by-side; you’re looking for commonalities and differences.”

When a service member is identified, family members often come to the lab so they can participate in escorting the remains back home, he said. For those who work at the lab, those family member visits make the months or years of work seem worthwhile.

“When you have a family member come in and the staff who actually worked on the case get to meet them, they get to see the tangible results of their hard work,” Byrd said. “It’s definitely a boost to their morale.”

In the Field

Before that sort of closure can start for families, recovery teams spend weeks at a time doing the grunt work of excavating sites.

Army Capt. Brandon Lucas, who serves as a team leader, recalled his team digging nearly 20 feet into the ground in Laos in search of an F-4 Phantom fighter pilot who vanished during the Vietnam War.

A lab worker holds an item under a magnifying panel.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Owen, a morgue noncommissioned officer for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, examines a personal effect that may have belonged to a fallen service member in a laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, March 12, 2018. Army photo by Sean Kimmons

While no remains were found on that mission, they were still able to confidently close the site and shift efforts elsewhere.

Then there was another mission in Slovenia, where the tail gunner of a bomber aircraft from World War II went missing.

When his plane crashed, the gunner was the only one in his aircrew killed. Residents later buried him next to a church.

As Lucas’ team arrived at the site, the townspeople still knew about the crash and the gunner. Residents regularly visited his team, often bringing Lucas and the others food and drinks. An elderly woman even told him that for decades she would clean the grave site once a week.

When his team recovered the remains, a somber tone spread through the community.

“A lot of them actually shed tears when we found the remains,” Lucas said. “It was special to them and it was special to me.”

The poignant moment, along with others he has experienced during missions, galvanized the meaning of the mission for him.

“I’m potentially bringing back a fallen comrade,” Lucas said. “I would want to know that if it was me lost out there somebody is trying to recover me and give my family closure.”

Maritime Recovery

Recovery missions also extend out into the sea, where many service members have disappeared as a result of aircraft crashes or ships sunk.

While she served as commander of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command, Army Maj. Gen. Susan A. Davidson was an advocate for her unit to support the solemn mission.

The unit regularly supplies DPAA with highly-trained Army divers from the 7th Engineer Dive Detachment, who often work on the sea floor with no visibility and use a suction hose to remove loose sediment from recovery sites.

On a barge, team members then sift through the sediment for the remains or personal effects of those missing.

When divers returned to Hawaii, she encouraged them to share their experiences and what they got out of the mission with others in the unit.

“They come back a different person and they have a different respect for our Army and for what we do,” Davidson said.

Back at the lab, Owen and others strive to identity those heroes who have been found.

“I feel that I am part of something so much bigger that I can contribute to,” she said.

Chinese/Russian Subs Prowling East Coast, Atlantic

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In a press gaggle today, a member of the media asked Secretary of Defense Mattis:

Q:  Mr. Secretary, you stated you’re watching submarines in the North Atlantic and elsewhere.  But are Russia and China putting more submarines out to look at the United States than they have since the Cold War?   

SEC. MATTIS:  Yes, we always keep an eye on the — on the submarines at sea.  And I’d prefer not to say anymore than that.  Thanks.

Humm, okay let’s go deeper.

The Navy reactivated a the fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and the North Atlantic. The 2nd Fleet was deactivated in 2011 and Secretary Mattis upped the defense strategy earlier this year.

We do know that the Russians are snooping around all undersea telecommunications cables used by NATO. The Russian submarines are equipped with anti-submarine missiles and little is published about the Chinese submarines. Meanwhile, the United States has deployed patrols using manned and unmanned surface ships, attack submarines and air surveillance by the P-8 Poseidon, a sub hunting warplane.

Crew | USS SOUTH DAKOTA SSN 790

The most advanced US advanced fast attack submarine named the USS South Dakota is equipped with the most advanced technology including advanced stealth features.

“China is improving the lethality and survivability of its attack submarines and building quieter, high-end diesel and nuclear-powered submarines,” he said.
Both China and Russia have also increased their presence in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, where Harris said 230 of the world’s 400 foreign submarines are operating.
Roughly 160 of those 230 submarines belong to China, North Korea, and Russia, according to Harris.
Forbes said the United States must also develop a strategy to counter Chinese and Russian activity in “gray zones” where they are incrementally expanding their presence by strategically “fighting and competing” through military posturing.
China’s claims in the South China Sea represent one glaring example as to how they’ve been able to successfully implement this type of strategy in a way that allows them to expand their military reach without engaging in direct confrontation, according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, a significant upgrade has taken place and that is to SOSUS.

Now, in what may be the biggest upgrade to the Navy’s fixed undersea surveillance system since the Cold War, General Dynamics has been recently awarded a contract by the Office of Naval Research to develop the Deep Reliable Acoustic Path Exploitation System (DRAPES). DRAPES appears to be part of a suite of upgrades to the Navy’s submarine detection capabilities to cope with expanding fleets of advanced submarines around the world.

When the Cold War ended, the U.S. Navy no longer faced a “peer threat” to its control of the seas and many capabilities and weapons necessary for defeating advanced adversary ships and submarines were decommissioned. Research for more advanced follow-on technology was also put on hold. After operating 30 undersea surveillance sites around the world during the Cold War, the Navy has only three operational today. But as Russia, and especially China, have developed larger and more advanced submarine fleets, the U.S. Navy has had to re-learn old Cold War anti-submarine warfare competencies while developing new capabilities to tackle more challenging modern submarine technology.

While the Navy says relatively little about the advanced sub-hunting capabilities of the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS), of which SOSUS is a part, some IUSS systems have received more public attention. The afloat Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) is a small fleet of civilian-crewed ships that carry sensitive towed listening (passive) arrays that can detect submarines from great distances. These ships grabbed headlines in 2009 when the SURTASS ship USNS Impeccable was harassed by Chinese Maritime Militia while operating in the vicinity of China’s South China Sea submarine bases on Hainan Island. The SURTASS ships have also received technical upgrades since the Cold War. The introduction of the Low Frequency Active (LFA) capability, an “active” system that transmits low frequency “pings” that bounce off of submarine hulls and are then picked up by the existing passive SURTASS arrays dramatically increases their ability to detect submarines at great distances.

By contrast, little is known publicly about the SOSUS networks after the Cold War. Defense Systems reports that DRAPES, like SOSUS, will be a fixed passive listening system with a new communications capability to transmit its data. Mobile systems like SURTASS have the advantage of being able to get closer to possible contacts and follow them, but can only be in one place at a time, and must eventually return to port. Fixed systems like SOSUS, and now DRAPES, have the advantage of providing permanent coverage over target areas and then “cueing” a mobile sensor capability, like a ship or aircraft, to zero in on a submarine it detects.

One reason there were 30 IUSS sites during the Cold War is that the SOSUS systems had to be connected to collection facilities by underwater cable, requiring sites to be relatively local to the target area. But DRAPES will apparently use a new underwater communications system to transmit the acoustic data it collects to the three remaining Navy Operational Processing Facilities (NOPFs). These facilities combine data from the static SOSUS networks and SURTASS ships to provide “detection, localization, and tracking of submarines.” DRAPES’ ability to provide wide coverage from a fixed location in the ocean, apparently without the need for additional NOPF facility footprints, would be a substantial improvement over the old SOSUS network.

As China and Russia have asserted themselves anew as “pacing competitors,” as described by Undersecretary of Defense Robert Work, the U.S. Navy has taken a renewed interest in its traditional Cold War antisubmarine warfare mission. Together, DRAPES and SURTASS promise to provide a persistent, long-range ability to detect adversary submarines around the globe. Using cueing data from those platforms, improved local anti-submarine assets like the P-8 Poseidon sub hunter aircraft (which replaces the 50 year-old P-3 Orion) and surface combatants with new, improved towed sonar arrays of their own, like the Multi-Function Towed Array, can then close on a target, and track or engage it as needed.