2009 Archived Articles
The Next Oceana?
Capacity Issues Make OLF An Absolute Requirement
Better Security Lies In Defense Funds
Beijing Takes Aim At U.S. Aircraft Carriers
We Should Build A Bigger Navy
Naval Crisis Deepening, Vice Admiral Warns
A Mixture Of Patriotism, Politics And Agriculture
China's Missile Plans Put US Naval Power In A Weaker Spot
Ship's Design Expected To Follow Russian Model
One of Dr. King's Nightmares
Much Ado About An Aircraft Carrier
The Next Oceana?
(TIDEWATER NEWS 26 SEP 09) ... Steve Stewart
Opponents of a Naval pilot training facility in Western Tidewater have a powerful argument in their arsenal: that Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach is unsuitable as a master jet base for America’s next generation of fighter plane, the F-35.
If the landlocked, urban base has outlived its usefulness, the logic goes, why spend millions of taxpayer dollars building an outlying landing field to support an obsolete master base?
It’s a valid question, one the Navy itself acknowledged in its recent decision to delay release of an environmental impact statement on the proposed OLF. The EIS, which had been scheduled for release this summer, is an important step in the Navy’s quest to pick a site for the OLF and get it built. The environmental study is now on hold until the spring.
Opponents were heartened by this month’s announcement.
“This is undoubtedly a major victory for us,” said Tony Clark, chairman of Virginians Against the Outlying Landing Field. “It supports the assertion that we’ve made all along: that the future of Oceana was suspect. It calls into question whether Oceana is going to be the master jet base in the future.”
If the answer is no, as Clark effectively asserts, what then?
The case against Oceana’s viability is so compelling that it could become a double-edged sword for opponents of an OLF in this region.
What if, instead of an OLF with a few planes a day touching and going on the soil of Western Tidewater, the entire East Coast master jet base was moved a couple of hours inland?
Farfetched? A friend first raised the possibility in a dinner conversation six months ago, and I dismissed it as interesting but fanciful. His point: If the Navy is hell-bent on building an OLF in Western Tidewater and upsetting our citizenry’s rural way of life, local elected officials should go for the “whole tamale”: the master jet base itself.
Fast forward to recent commentary by retired Navy Capt. William “Skip” Zobel, a former commanding officer at Oceana, and the idea of a master jet base in Western Tidewater gains credibility.
“If the Navy really wants to get serious about building another field, then they need to come out and say the site chosen (for an OLF) will be their future Naval Air Station,” Zobel wrote on the Web site military.com. “No one wants the noise without the economic benefit of a new base.
“Quite frankly, I think those plans were in the works when the site in Washington County (N.C.) was being considered. There were actual plans for the Washington County site to be the next Master Jet Base; however, this was kept very quiet because the Navy knew the political climate was not right at the time. Senator John Warner was too powerful for the Navy to announce that Oceana would one day move from Virginia, and the economic benefit of NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach AND Hampton Roads is staggering and would upset many local politicians. Well, Senator Warner has retired, but the area still reaps the benefit.”
As consensus grows on Oceana’s obsoleteness, look for Western Tidewater to emerge as a popular option for Virginia to keep the economic benefits of a Naval air station and provide cover for state and federal politicians who don’t want to lose a master jet base on their watch.
Wrote Zobel: “The Navy should shift its thoughts to one of two options. Allocate the money required and purchase the homes around Fentress to improve the runway environment for more realistic training. Or build a new Naval Air Station somewhere in Virginia or North Carolina. Use it as an OLF at first and then transition it to a full operating base. ...
“The second option will send the signal that economic benefit is coming to the area selected, and the noise issues around Oceana and Fentress will eventually go away.”
Local elected officials have been united in their opposition to an OLF. It’s a political no-brainer, as an OLF offers few jobs, little economic impact and a whole lot of noise.
The prospect of a master jet base makes the politics a lot trickier. A major military installation would transform the economy of a community that has little to bank on in the decades ahead. Agriculture is increasingly less labor-intensive, and the area’s major manufacturer produces a product — paper — for which demand is expected to continue to decline.
The thought of a new anchor employer — which a military base unquestionably would be — would entice many public and private-sector leaders who worry about where the jobs of tomorrow will come from.
The side effects, however, would be massive: noise, traffic and congestion that dwarf what an OLF would create.
Watch this one closely in the years ahead. As the case against an OLF strengthens the case for a new master jet base, well-intentioned opponents of a military installation in Western Tidewater may find themselves in a much bigger fight than they bargained for.
Capacity Issues Make OLF An Absolute Requirement
(TIDEWATER NEWS (N.C.) 13 MAY 09) ... Rear Adm. David Anderson
I am responding to Tony Clark’s guest column (“OLF pursuit boils down to noise and money, Sunday, May 10) in order to address some inaccuracies.
First, to correct the historical record: The first runway at the site that is now Naval Air Station Oceana was built in the 1940s — about the same time as NALF Fentress.
Both sites were built as outlying landing fields to support aircraft based at Naval Station Norfolk. The single air station at Norfolk had two OLFs to support training at a time when night flying, particularly from the decks of aircraft carriers, was anything but routine.
In the 1960s, the Oceana site was designated NAS Oceana and became a Master Jet Base, around the same time as NAS Cecil Field did (which, incidentally, had its own OLF). Fentress had been expanded to accommodate the increasing performance of the jet aircraft and the increasing training requirements to land jet aircraft on aircraft carriers at night. Essentially, this area now had two air stations sharing one OLF rather than the one air station with two OLFs.
Following the first BRAC in the mid 1990s, Cecil Field closed and the F/A-18s previously based there were moved to NAS Oceana, increasing the aircraft density in the area and increasing noise impacts to those living in the vicinity of Oceana and Fentress.
In October 2000, when Adm. Robert J. Natter wrote that the Navy was exploring the establishment of an OLF because of community concerns, he was right on the mark. Nor has the Navy ever suggested that noise or encroachment issues did not exist in Virginia Beach or Chesapeake.
Since Adm. Natter’s statement and following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Navy experienced dramatic changes. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dictated a transformation in the way the military operates.
Seeking higher overall readiness levels in anticipation of a long struggle against terrorist threats, the Navy’s plans for operating tempos, emergency response, and training and readiness maintenance changed significantly.
Maintaining higher readiness requires conducting more training. This is the “surge” requirement the Navy has referred to in its EIS documents, and this is one of the drivers of the lack of capacity that has turned an additional OLF from a “nice to have” into a “need to have” facility.
Again, the Navy does not deny that an additional OLF would mitigate — to some extent — noise impacts in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. The lack of capacity at Fentress, however, makes this additional OLF an absolute requirement.
The combination of consolidating aircraft from two bases (NAS Oceana and NAS Cecil Field) to one (NAS Oceana) and increasing readiness levels has created the need for an additional OLF.
As Clark points out, the Navy did agree to some changes as a result of the 2005 Joint Land Use Study (JLUS). But Mr. Clark’s interpretation of the changes in operations misses the mark.
The Navy changed some of the late night operations at Oceana to reduce community impacts. The Navy did not, as Mr. Clark purports, eliminate late night training. In fact, aircraft training at Fentress must still take off and land at Oceana.
For clarity, the Navy does not routinely conduct field carrier landing practice (FCLP) at NAS Oceana. This did not change with the JLUS. Conducting FCLP at NAS Oceana prevents other vital operations for the master jet base, the design of which included an OLF, NALF Fentress. Use of NAS Oceana is only used as a fallback in situations such as when capacity at Fentress is exceeded or cases such as when Fentress recently was temporarily closed for runway repairs. The problem is this is not a sustainable situation operationally. With Naval Station Norfolk using Fentress as well, the capacity is routinely exceeded at Fentress.
Mr. Clark, I agree that noise and encroachment are issues that must be dealt with. The Navy and the City of Virginia Beach are working hard to address those issues. The City’s BRAC compliance reports can be viewed online to see that the City and Navy are committed to being good neighbors.
Noise and encroachment are not the primary drivers of the Navy’s requirement for an additional OLF. That main driver remains the capacity shortfall that has arisen over the last decade in response to a transformed, more capable, and more responsive Navy.
(Rear Adm. David O. Anderson is vice commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command)
Better Security Lies In Defense Funds
(WASHINGTON TIMES 22 JAN 09) ... Kim Holmes
One of the sleeper issues President Obama will need to address soon is how much to spend on national defense. Scarcely discussed in the campaign, defense spending is arguably the most important long-term decision a president makes. At stake is not only the short-term safety of Americans, but the ability of the United States to remain a world leader.
Today, there is an emerging mismatch between annual defense budgets and long-term defense requirements. The disparity is rooted in unwise decisions made in the 1990s by Congress and the Clinton administration.
During that period´s "peace dividend," the administration took a holiday from procuring new weapons and modernizing many weapons systems. The size of the armed force shrunk, and the process of replacing old systems with new ones decelerated. Though many technical innovations have been added in recent years, the armed force today is much smaller. Compared with the late 1980s, the Air Force has some 2,500 fewer aircraft and the Navy fleet has less than half the number of ships.
Did we not need a larger force, you ask, when we faced the formidable threat from the Soviet Union? Put aside for the moment how much military force is still needed to deter Russia and other large powers; the fact remains that, while we never fought the USSR in a hot war, we are fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and undertaking other military operations -- countering terrorists in the Philippines and Horn of Africa, for example. Today´s smaller force is being asked to do more than a much larger Cold War force was asked to do after Vietnam.
All this use takes a toll on the readiness and quality of the force. Fatigued by nearly 30 years of service, F-15 fighter aircraft are cracking up and falling from the skies. In 2007, a sizeable portion of the Navy´s aging maritime patrol aircraft, the P-3, was grounded for wing repairs. The National Guard shows real signs of exhaustion, forced to cannibalize equipment at home to support deployments in Iraq.
The biggest long-term budgetary challenge to our armed force is exploding entitlement spending. In fiscal 2008, only 30 percent of the federal budget was discretionary -- i.e., not mandated for entitlement programs. This compares with more than 65 percent of the budget allocated for discretionary programs in 1965. If the forecast rate of growth in entitlement spending is maintained, unless the government massively increases taxes or reduces domestic spending, the U.S. will have nothing left for defense by 2041.
Experts at the Heritage Foundation estimate that maintaining an armed force capable of defending America requires spending at least 4 percent of the nation´s gross domestic product (GDP) on defense for at least the next five years. Some members of Congress agree; they are introducing legislation specifically recommending a 4 percent base line for defense.
This is not some number pulled out of thin air; it is based on an objective analysis of how much it will cost to build and maintain the right kind of military force. By historical standards, this level of spending is also affordable. It is roughly what Americans spend each year on leisure travel or on entertainment and food away from home.
Some politicians think that we could spend less on defense if we just eliminated "unnecessary" weapon systems. Unfortunately, the easy choices have already been made, by postponing modernization. The Pentagon faces a $100 billion annual shortfall in its procurement and modernization accounts. The question facing Mr. Obama is not whether to trim a few expensive and unnecessary weapons systems, but whether he is willing to forgo America´s comprehensive military edge by skipping or delaying the construction of the next generation of modern weapons.
The economic recession may make meeting a 4 percent commitment politically more difficult, but only because we have not yet had an honest debate about where most government spending has been going. Since 1990, domestic discretionary spending has grown nearly twice as fast as spending on defense and homeland security. The billions more committed to bailouts and stimulus packages will only widen that gap. If budget cutters want to find money to offset spending increases, they should go where the growth is - and it is not in national defense.
A word of caution. More defense spending is needed, but not as a jobs program, as some defense contractors recommend. That would be bad economics (there are more productive ways to stimulate the economy, like reducing taxes). It also would be a misappropriation of public funds.
We should spend only as much as we need to defend ourselves -- no more and no less.
Kim Holmes, a former assistant secretary of state, is a vice president at the Heritage Foundation (Heritage.org) and author of "Liberty´s Best Hope: American Leadership for the 21st Century."
Beijing Takes Aim At U.S. Aircraft Carriers
(JAPAN TIMES 22 JAN 09) ... Michael Richardson
SINGAPORE — U.S. President George W. Bush commissioned America's newest aircraft carrier Jan. 10 at the Norfolk naval base in Virginia. Named after his father, former President George H.W. Bush, the giant ship, which carries 85 planes and nearly 6,000 crew, is a potent symbol of America's global power and presence, despite recent U.S. economic and foreign policy failures.
It is also the last of 10 nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers to enter service with the U.S. Navy. They are the largest warships in the world. However, by 2015 the first of an even bigger and more advanced class of carrier, also nuclear-powered, is scheduled to start replacing the Nimitz vessels. Two years ago, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said that the successor ships "will help ensure the sea power of the United States for the next half century.?
To defend its interests in Asia, the U.S. has been steadily transferring more aircraft carriers and other warships from its Atlantic fleet to the Pacific. As a result, the Pacific fleet's share of the 280 ships in the Navy has risen from 45 percent in earlier years to around 54 percent and continues to increase. The U.S. Pacific fleet now includes six of the Navy's 11 aircraft carriers, almost all of the 18 Aegis cruisers and destroyers that have been modified for ballistic missile defense operations, and 26 of the 57 attack submarines.
To counter the Asia-Pacific focus of the U.S. Navy, China is reportedly planning to deploy ballistic missiles with nonnuclear warheads and special guidance systems to hit moving surface ships at sea in the Western Pacific before they can get within range of Chinese targets.
If China fielded such a weapon, one that could reliably sink or cause heavy damage to aircraft carriers and other major warships far from its shores, it would make a potential adversary think long and hard before sending naval forces to intervene in a crisis over Taiwan or any other regional conflict in which China was involved.
This would reduce the value and deterrent effect of U.S. alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, including its mutual defense pacts with Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. Fortunately, Beijing and Taipei have greatly improved their relations in recent months and an armed confrontation between them that could bring the U.S. into the fighting on the side of Taiwan seems less likely to happen.
Still, Ronald O'Rourke, a specialist in naval affairs for the Congressional Research Service, told U.S. lawmakers in November that the U.S. Defense Department and other analysts believed that China was developing anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs). They would have a range of up to 3,000 km and carry maneuverable re-entry vehicles with warheads designed to hit moving naval ships. The missiles would be launched by rocket propulsion from land in an arc-like trajectory high into the atmosphere and travel at speeds of up to 24,000 km per hour when coming down, making them very hard to defend against.
Ballistic missiles have traditionally been used to attack fixed targets on land and O'Rourke noted that the U.S. Navy had "not previously faced a threat from highly accurate ballistic missiles capable of hitting moving ships at sea. Due to their ability to change course, maneuverable re-entry vehicles (MRVs) would be more difficult to intercept than nonmaneuvering ballistic missile re-entry vehicles."
Some analysts are skeptical and doubt that China has made all the technical breakthroughs needed for an accurate ASBM system. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence concluded in 2004 that it would be "very difficult" for China to field an ASBM force that could successfully track faraway aircraft carriers and other major warships, which can travel at sustained speeds of over 30 knots (55 km) per hour, and then hit them with MRV warheads.
The Bush administration spent billions of dollars to develop defenses against ballistic missiles. However, President Barack Obama says that while he supports missile defense, he wants to be sure that programs are affordable and proven.
One of the more successful parts of the U.S. program, the Aegis ship-based system to defend against shorter-range missiles, experienced two recent test failures, bringing its record to 13 hits in 17 intercept attempts. Even so, it is not designed to provide a shield against the longer range missiles China is reportedly trying to turn into weapons for use against naval vessels.
The Pentagon's latest annual report to Congress on Chinese military power, published last year, said that when incorporated into a sophisticated command and control system, China's ASBMs would be a key component of its strategy to give the Chinese armed forces "the capability to attack ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, from great distances" so as to deny access to waters around China. Some analysts claim that China already operates over-the-horizon radar installations to detect and track ships far out at sea and is backing this up with maritime surveillance using its own satellites in space. They say that China will soon test an ASBM.
If they are correct and the new system works, it could turn potent symbols of naval power into sitting ducks.
Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
We Should Build A Bigger Navy
China Is.
(WEEKLY STANDARD 26 JAN 09) ... Seth Cropsey
About a decade ago the foreign policy establishment was busy dismissing China's efforts to build a powerful, modern military. Writing in the Washington Post in 1997, Michael Swaine, a China specialist then at the RAND corporation, declared that the "enduring deficiencies in China's military logistics system call into question its ability to operate [naval and aviation] weapons over a sustained period, particularly outside China's borders." Well, right now, Chinese naval vessels are deploying in the Gulf of Aden to assist in the international anti-piracy mission. It's 4,000 miles from China to the Gulf of Aden.
Swaine further predicted that China "will remain at least a full generation behind the world's leading military powers." In January 2007, Beijing used a ground-based medium range ballistic missile to destroy one of its own aging weather satellites--an impressive technological accomplishment that only two other nations, the United States and the Soviet Union, have ever achieved.
In 1999, the Brookings scholars Bates Gill and Michael O'Hanlon concluded in an article--"Power Plays . . . While There's Less to the Chinese Threat than Meets the Eye," also in the Washington Post--that China's "ballistic missiles will be hard-pressed to defeat Taiwan's military or sink nearby U.S. ships." Yet the Defense Department's 2008 assessment of China's military noted that "PLA planners are focused on targeting surface ships at long ranges from China's shores. . . . One area of investment involves combining conventionally-armed ASBMs [anti-ship ballistic missiles] based on . . . C4ISR [DoD-speak for command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] for geo-location and tracking of targets, and onboard guidance systems for terminal homing to strike surface ships or their onshore support infrastructure." China's effort to threaten U.S. ships at sea is taken seriously today, as is shown by the debate over whether the Navy's next generation of carrier-based aircraft has sufficient range to accomplish their missions without forcing U.S. carriers to sail within areas of the Pacific to which China seeks to deny access.
A 1998 Foreign Policy Research Institute article written by Avery Goldstein asserted that Beijing was so far behind other advanced industrial states that "successful modernization will leave China with forces by the second or third decade of the next century most of which would have been state of the art in the 1990s." This observation retains some validity, but there is nothing primitive about China's effort to deny the U.S. Navy access to large strategic swaths of the Western Pacific. Indeed, the last few weeks have produced the prospect of another particularly important advance in the Chinese military's steady transformation into a modern, serious, powerful force.
On the last day of 2008, the Asahi Shimbun reported that China is planning to begin construction of two medium-sized aircraft carriers--a contemporary navy's most flexible instrument of power projection--in its Shanghai yards this year. They are scheduled for launch in 2015. The article also repeated widely circulated information that the shipyards in the Yellow Sea port of Dalian are putting the finishing touches on a refurbishment of the 55,000 ton Soviet-built Kuznetsov-class carrier, the Varyag, a vessel that a Chinese company with connections to the People's Liberation Army purchased in 1998 and then towed to China from the Black Sea in 2002.
The Soviet carrier was a good platform to learn--in established Chinese tradition--the architecture, design, and gross characteristics of the aircraft carrier. As a training platform, the Varyag will provide indispensable experience for future carrier pilots and support personnel in the demanding business of naval carrier aviation. China should have three operational aircraft carriers to add to its submarine and surface fleets around the midpoint of the next decade.
All this tracks with the Pentagon's 2008 evaluation of Chinese military power, which noted: "China has an active aircraft carrier research and design program," and "if the leadership were to so choose, the PRC shipbuilding industry could start construction of an indigenous platform by the end of this decade." In November, the director of the foreign affairs office of China's defense ministry, Major General Qian Lihua, told the Financial Times that "the question is not whether you have an aircraft carrier, but what you do with your aircraft carrier." The following month China's defense ministry spokesman, Huang Xueping, offered similar public comments, observing that the protection of national interests required China to undertake carrier aviation.
Aircraft carriers are not only important as a symbol of a great or growing military power. They are useful and tremendously adaptable instruments of force. We are still only witnessing the beginning of China's naval build-up, but the carriers will have a profound impact on her ability to project military force as disputes with its neighbors, including Japan, over potentially energy-rich sea beds and islands in the South and East China Seas fester. The carriers will also give China greater control over the passage of oil from the Middle East and increase Beijing's military influence in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. They will support possible future Chinese claims to Asian hegemony. They will force Japan to consider construction of similar instruments of naval force. The successful operation of the midsize carriers China envisions would lay the operational, logistic, command and control, and tactical foundation for building vessels with the--much greater--striking power and range of the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class carriers.
That's not all, though. The initial focus of China's carriers is likely to be to the south and west, but the vast Pacific lies immediately beyond the chain of islands and land formations that extend south from Japan through the Philippines. The wide but penetrable moat between these islands and the Chinese mainland offers bastions for her growing force of nuclear-propelled, intercontinental ballistic missile-carrying submarines, as the islands themselves shield China from the open ocean. But the eventual passage of her carriers eastward, beyond the moat, re-establishes the potential for naval competition in the Pacific that disappeared with the defeat of the Imperial Japanese navy in 1945.
This challenge did not appear suddenly like a dragon from the mists of China's famous stone forests. The Chinese have been working towards a naval aviation capability for many years. A summer 2008 Congressional Research Service report noted an Indian naval analyst's observation that the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been planning for large naval combatants like carriers and amphibious vessels for a quarter of a century.
A safe and effective naval aviation capability requires mastery of a host of design, operational, logistic, training, and command skills. China has been addressing these deliberately and methodically. Courses for future carrier and amphibious ship commanding officers began at the Guangzhou Naval Academy in 1985. Two years later, the same academy, in sensible imitation of the U.S. Navy's tradition of selecting qualified pilots to command aircraft carriers, initiated a program for young PLAN pilots to prepare them to command ships. These officers are reaching the correct seniority, level of experience, and age to become the PLAN's first carrier commanders. Negotiations with European companies for construction of large amphibious ships took place in the late 1990s. A little over two years ago, the Russian press reported that China was negotiating to purchase as many as 48 SU-33 fighter aircraft, which are built to be launched and recovered by aircraft carriers and can be refueled in flight. In September 2008, an article in Jane's Defence Weekly reported that 50 students had begun a course of study at the Dalian Naval Academy intended to prepare them to become the PLAN's first fixed-wing aircraft carrier pilots.
The Chinese carriers will build on one of the PLAN's most significant accomplishments: the creation of a fleet of attack and ballistic missile submarines. This began, as the carrier program did with the Varyag, with the purchase of Russian subs in the 1990s, specifically the Kilo-class conventional-powered attack submarine of which China now possesses 12 (the Chinese have also acquired powerful surface combatants from Russia). The PLAN's submarine force continues to experience significant growth, in both size and capability, as several new classes of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines armed with rockets of increasing range are being added to its force.
If we assume the year 2020 as a reasonable target for China's gaining genuine competency at naval aviation--particularly the joint operation of carriers with the rest of a fleet--it will have taken just 35 years for China to transform its navy from a large collection of aging World War II landing ships, patrol boats, shore-based aircraft, and submarines with very limited range into a modern naval force with an offensive ballistic missile capability. It will be able to project power and will offer the U.S. Navy a serious challenge in the Pacific. The span is about the same amount of time that it took Japan to turn its coastal defense navy into the battle fleet that destroyed a Russian rival at the Battle of Tsushima Strait in May 1905.
There are numerous similarities between China's and Japan's rise as naval powers. Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward isolated and impoverished China--leaving it with a technologically backward military--as two centuries of Tokugawa rule had isolated and impoverished Japan. Both countries looked abroad for help. China depended initially on Russian naval technology. Japan looked to Holland, France, and especially England to acquire large modern ships as a precursor to developing their own naval industrial base. Both countries depend heavily on the seaborne delivery of critical natural resources. China and Japan--at different times, of course, and at significantly different degrees of national assertiveness--looked to naval forces as the symbol and instrument of broader regional and international ambitions. Japan built a world-class navy in three and a half decades with large strategic consequences for America and the world. China is well on its way toward a similar accomplishment, with the potential for similar consequences.
The U.S. Navy's response to the PLAN's deliberate and steady progress has been diffident. Dismissive of increasing Chinese naval capabilities at first, U.S. naval commentators have lately adopted a more harmonious position as the gulf between the PLAN's reach and grasp has narrowed. Admiral Dennis Blair, former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command and now in line to become the new administration's director of national intelligence, wrote in 2007 that "China is on a positive trajectory" and argued that "the U.S. should offer to involve China in bilateral and multilateral military operations for the common good." Thomas Barnett, a researcher and a professor at the Naval War College until 2004, urged in a 2005 article ("The Chinese Are Our Friends") in Esquire that the president stop the "rising tide of Pentagon propaganda on the Chinese 'threat' and tell Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld . . . that our trigger pullers on the ground today deserve everything they need to conduct counterinsurgency operations."
Whether or not it shares these views of Chinese benignity, the Navy has drifted in recent years. At about 280 combatants, fleet size today is less than half its level during the Reagan administration. The Navy says it needs an additional 33 ships to carry out its various global missions, but the needed increase eludes its leadership. The costs of shipbuilding have increased without effective restraint, and one new class of large surface combatants--the Zumwalt class of destroyers--was cancelled. Another--the Littoral Combat ship--saw overruns double the cost of the first ship and the number to be purchased fall by nearly a fifth. (The price remains stratospheric for a vessel whose most immediate mission would be to chase speedboat-borne pirates.) The programs to replace aircraft carriers as they reach the end of their useful service lives are in irons as a result of a clash between previous DoD decisions that restrict the size of the next carrier and the expansive requirements of the critical systems planned for the next generation of carriers.
Even without the likelihood that China's next large step in developing its navy is the addition of aircraft carriers, the United States needed to increase its combatant fleet. Continued missteps that result in a diminishing U.S. Navy at the same time that China's naval force grows are an invitation to change the balance of power in Asia, the Pacific, and the world.
The Obama administration should use part of its proposed economic stimulus package to begin a naval restoration program that will increase the combatant fleet by at least 15 percent before 2016, and the program should not be relegated to future budget years, which are as changeable as the weather. A Naval Recovery Act should include an immediate advance in the schedule for constructing a new carrier, thus eliminating the undesirable possibility that the Navy will be short one for several years. Similar efforts should aim at drawing Japan closer, developing our connections with the Indian navy, reestablishing a naval base in the Philippines, and building a relationship with Vietnam that could eventually support a U.S. naval presence. Offsetting China's efforts to deny the United States access to our Western Pacific friends and allies requires thoughtful statecraft as well as effective naval forces.
Allowing the current U.S. naval slippage to continue will result in a combat fleet of a size we haven't seen since 1911. Combined with the parallel growth in the Chinese navy and the certainty that Beijing's leadership will use it to fill the vacuums created by a diminishing U.S. naval presence, this would be more damaging and strategically far-reaching than any of the Bush administration's mistakes. The PLAN's likely entry into carrier aviation is interesting for what it says about China's long-term strategy and objectives. How we respond is far more important.
Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, as well as in the U.S. Navy.
Naval Crisis Deepening, Vice Admiral Warns
(AVIATION WEEK 14 JAN 09) ... Michael Bruno
The U.S. Navy's three-star admiral in charge of resources and integration is sounding a little more alarming than I last realized. Aviation Week's Bettina Chavanne has been covering the Surface Navy Association's annual conference near Washington this week where Vice Adm. Barry McCullough is apparently sounding significant warnings.
Today’s Navy is not large enough to meet demands from the theater, he says to no one's surprise. “We are not everywhere we need to be,” McCullough notes. “There’s a deficit for naval forces globally."
But here's where he really gets my attention: “There isn’t enough money in the topline budget to meet the Maritime Strategy."
That would be the national Maritime Strategy. Wow. We've known for a while that the 313-ship plan accepted increased risk already, whether it's submarines or aircraft carriers. But when we're already admitting that the armed services can't meet a practically new national maritime strategy, then we may be deeper in trouble than we know. I mean, it's not like it gets any easier or cheaper to build up the fleet in the future.
“When we developed our fleet response plan, the goal was to meet our global commitments and have a surge-ready force,” McCullough said Jan. 14. “Based on requirements from the combatant commanders, we’re using that surge capacity.” The monetary draw against procurement from operations and maintenance accounts keeps rising, he said, pointing to what he called the “Triangle of Death:” personnel, procurement and readiness.
I'm sure there is some degree of parochial Navy promotion in what the admiral says - the Navy and Air Force have been battling budget conditions favoring the ground forces under the Bush administration. But I've seen McCullough testify on Capitol Hill several times and to call him understated would be an understatement. He doesn't strike me as one to falsely declare the sky is falling.
I hope the new Washington is paying attention.
A Mixture Of Patriotism Politics And Agriculture
(SOUTHEAST FARM PRESS 15 JAN 09) ... Roy Roberson
A recent column I wrote about a North Carolina county’s looming battle over the Navy’s selection for an off-site landing field (OLF) drew some interesting comments. Most folks seemed to think the people of Camden County, N.C. should be patriots and accept the noise and inconvenience of having Navy F18 Super Hornets flying around during the night.
The term one letter to the editor contained was “patriotism, but not in my backyard.” I don’t respond to most letters other than to thank the writer for reading our magazine. This particular letter I felt I had to respond to.
The gist of my response was: All the folks in Camden County, N.C., are as patriotic as any Americans. None of the folks I’ve talked to in Camden or Washington counties are opposed to the Navy building an offsite landing facility to simulate highly dangerous nighttime carrier landings.
The bottom line is the Navy wants to avoid noise problems associated with building a facility near their Oceana Naval Base near Virginia Beach, Va. The Virginia Beach community and the state of Virginia don’t want to lose the revenue and tax base generated by the squadrons of Super Hornets that are based at Oceana.
The Navy and key political leaders in Virginia want it both ways — get rid of the noise, keep the revenue. Several sites in southern North Carolina and South Carolina have openly courted the Navy to build their OLF site there. Moving the OLF site too far from Oceana might lead to moving the F18s out of Oceana — that’s the Catch 22.
Caught in the middle of the controversy is some of North Carolina’s most productive farmland. Common sense should be enough to warrant not taking land out of production when worldwide the population — and their need for food — is growing and the land base used to produce this food is shrinking. North Carolina, in particular, loses more farmland per year than any state other than California.
Other than its proximity to Oceana, there seems to be no good reason for the Navy selecting the Hale’s Lake site in Camden County, N.C. The site is adjacent to Blackwater, which trains security personnel, including Navy personnel. Some on the Camden County NOLF Committee contend there is collusion between Blackwater and the Navy. Their contentions, they say, are backed up by evidence being gathered for a possible law case reminiscent of the Washington County NOLF Committee, which was granted an injunction by a Federal Court to prevent the Navy from building the OLF in their county.
There is no lack of patriotism or support for the Navy, or disregard for the safety of F18 pilots by the folks in Washington or Camden County. If their site was the best site for the facility and one that helped bolster the security of the United States they would cowboy up and find a way to live with the noise and unwanted nuisance of the F18s.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, much less Navy engineers, to figure out better places to build the OLF. Whether logical thinking engineers can counterbalance politicians with a tax-base agenda remains to be seen. It happened against big odds in Washington County.
At least one site study seems to indicate the Hales Lake, Camden County site is unsuited for the OLF. The report is the result of more than three months of research by Cary, N.C., environmental consulting firm Withers & Ravenel to examine soil make-up, condition, drainage, impacts on local wildlife and any other issues that would be raised by building an OLF in the area.
“This report confirms an OLF in Hale’s Lake would pose serious risk to our citizen’s safety and endanger our economic and environmental well-being,” commented Camden County Manager Randell Woodruff. “In addition, the added costs of building in such a remote area make it hard for anyone to see the logic of choosing Hale’s Lake instead of alternate locations.”
Among other things, the report raised alarms about the depth and prevalence of unstable and highly-flammable peat in the area. Once ignited, peat can burn almost indefinitely, releasing high levels of carbon dioxide into the air for months or years at a time. Last summer’s peat-fueled fires at North Carolina’s Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge took more than a month to extinguish, at a cost of $5.4 million.
In addition to costs to the community to extinguish a potential fire, the report found the Hale’s Lake site may cost the Navy substantially more to build than other sites. Peat soil excavation and replacement costs could add $10-$14 million to the overall construction tab. It will also be necessary to build a new network of roads for construction crews to even access the area.
Common sense, not questions about patriotism or support of our military, should be the determining factors in deciding where the Navy’s OLF should be located. Taking the Hale’s Lake land out of potato and grain production seems like a bad idea to me.
Southeast Farm Press targets issues and interests related to the farmers of cotton, peanuts, tobacco, corn, soybean, vegetables and fruit/nut operations in the Southeast.
China's Missile Plans Put US Naval Power In A Weaker Spot
(THE CANBERRA TIMES (AUSTRALIA) 14 JAN 09) ... Michael Richardson
Outgoing US President George W. Bush commissioned America's newest aircraft carrier last Saturday at the Norfolk naval base in Virginia. Named after his father, former President George H. W. Bush, the ship, which carries 85 planes and a crew of nearly 6000, is a potent symbol of America's global power and presence, despite recent economic and foreign policy failures.
It is also the last of 10 nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carriers to enter service with the United States Navy. They are the largest warships in the world. However, by 2015 the first of an even bigger and more advanced class of carrier, also nuclear-powered, is scheduled to start replacing the Nimitz vessels.
Two years ago, US Vice-President Dick Cheney said that the successor ships ''will help ensure the sea power of the United States for the next half century''.
To defend its interests in Asia, the US has been steadily transferring more aircraft carriers and other warships from its Atlantic fleet to the Pacific.
As a result, the Pacific fleet's share of the 280 ships in the navy has risen from 45 per cent in earlier years to about 54 per cent and continues to increase. The US Pacific fleet now includes six of the navy's 11 aircraft carriers, almost all of the 18 Aegis cruisers and destroyers that have been modified for ballistic missile defence operations, and 26 of the 57 attack submarines.
To counter the Asia-Pacific focus of the US Navy, China is reportedly planning to deploy ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads and special guidance systems to hit moving surface ships at sea in the western Pacific before they can get within range of Chinese targets. If China fielded such a weapon, one that could reliably sink or cause heavy damage to aircraft carriers and other major warships far from its shores, it would make a potential adversary think long and hard before sending naval forces to intervene in a crisis over Taiwan or any other regional conflict in which China was involved.
This would reduce the value and deterrent effect of US alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, including its mutual defence pacts with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. Taiwan is often seen as the prime potential flashpoint between China and the US. Fortunately, China and Taiwan have greatly improved their relations recently and an armed confrontation between them that could bring the US into the fighting on the side of Taiwan seems less likely.
Still, a specialist in naval affairs for the Congressional Research Service, Ronald O'Rourke, told US lawmakers in November that the US Defence Department and other analysts believed that China was developing anti-ship ballistic missiles, or ASBMs. They would have a range of up to 3000km and carry manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles with warheads designed to hit moving naval ships. The missiles would be launched by rocket propulsion from land in an arc-like trajectory high into the atmosphere and travel at speeds of up to 24,000km/h when coming down, making them very hard to defend against.
Ballistic missiles have traditionally been used to attack fixed targets on land and O'Rourke noted that the US Navy had ''not previously faced a threat from highly accurate ballistic missiles capable of hitting moving ships at sea. Due to their ability to change course, MaRVs [manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles] would be more difficult to intercept than non-manoeuvring ballistic missile re-entry vehicles.''
Some analysts are sceptical and doubt that China has made all the technical breakthroughs for an accurate ASBM system. The US Office of Naval Intelligence concluded in 2004 that it would be ''very difficult'' for China to field an ASBM force that could successfully track faraway aircraft carriers and other major warships, which can travel at sustained speeds of more than 30 knots and then hit them with MaRV warheads. The Bush Administration has spent billions of dollars to develop defences against ballistic missiles. But President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office next Tuesday, says that while he supports missile defence, he wants to be sure programs are affordable and proven.
One of the more successful parts of the US program, the Aegis ship-based system to defend against shorter-range missiles, experienced two recent test failures, bringing its record to 13 hits in 17 intercept attempts. Even so, it is not designed to provide a shield against the longer-range missiles China is reportedly trying to turn into weapons for use against naval vessels. The Pentagon's latest annual report to Congress on Chinese military power, published last year, said that when incorporated into a sophisticated command and control system, China's ASBMs would be a key component of its strategy to give its armed forces ''the capability to attack ships at sea, including aircraft carriers, from great distances'' so as to deny access to waters around China. Some analysts say that China already operates over-the-horizon radar installations to detect and track ships far out at sea and is backing this up with maritime surveillance using its own satellites in space. They say that China will soon test an ASBM. If they are correct and the new system works, it could turn potent symbols of naval power into sitting ducks.
Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is a visiting senior research fellow at Singapore's Institute of South-East Asian Studies.
Ship's Design Expected To Follow Russian Model
(SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST 12 JAN 09) ... Minnie Chan
Nine nations in the world have aircraft carriers, but they vary greatly in capacity and design.
Leading the pack are the United States' nuclear-powered "supercarriers". At the other end of the spectrum is the Thai Royal Navy's helicopter carrier, which is never fully armed and rarely put to sea.
Now the mainland is planning to build one of its own.
Details of the mainland's first aircraft carrier have been subject to intense speculation since Beijing confirmed its intention to build one.
Most analysts believe it will be similar to the former Soviet Union's unfinished Varyag, bought by China from a Ukrainian shipyard through a Macau tourism company in 1998.
China's Varyag
Varyag was of the same class as Russia's only aircraft carrier - the Admiral Kuznetsov, Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of the Canada-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, said.
"The first Chinese aircraft carrier will be of medium size with more than 60,000 tonnes of full displacement, loaded with 24 Su-33-type folding-wing fighter jets and more than 20 anti-submarine helicopters," Mr Chang, who has monitored China's carrier project for more than 10 years, said.
As on the Admiral Kuznetsov, the 16,700-square-metre flight deck on the carrier would feature a final section angled upwards at 12 degrees to assist takeoff, he said. Four arrestor wires would be fixed on the other side of the deck to help landings by 26-tonne fighter jets such as the Su-33.
SU-33 Flanker
A Shanghai -based military expert, who has visited one of the mainland's aircraft carrier production shipyards, said the carrier would be gas-turbine driven with a displacement of 65,000 tonnes. "China will not be, and is in fact incapable of, building a nuclear-powered supercarrier such as the USS Ronald Reagan, as it wouldn't match our traditional military strategy," he said.
"(China) chose the medium-sized one simply because we prefer qualities of small size, speed and agility."
The USS Kitty Hawk has been the centrepiece of the US carrier battle group that has patrolled the South China Sea in the past few years. It will return to the US for decommissioning on January 31, to be replaced by the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carrier, the USS George Washington, which is already based at Yokosuka in Japan.
The US$4.5 billion USS George Washington is the same class as the USS Ronald Reagan and displaces 97,000 tonnes, can carry 90 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and accommodates 6,250 crew members.
Accompanied by at least four auxiliary vessels, the US battle group can support itself in deep waters for up to three months.
The Shanghai expert said: "However, our first (carrier) battle group might need up to 6,000 people as per the Reagan because the number of our army officials will be double that of the US due to a system of political commissars at every level to monitor the army's thinking and morale.
"The other key reason (for more crew) is that we have no operational experience on the high seas."
He said the recent first foray by People's Liberation Army Navy ships to the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden was aimed at testing combat capability on the high seas.
The Gulf of Aden mission was the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949 that its navy had been deployed on such a mission - protecting UN aid shipments, key maritime trade routes and Chinese vessels in foreign waters.
Mr Chang said the mainland had been structuring its navy to accommodate an aircraft carrier strike group since the 1980s.
The carrier project was first proposed to the PLA's Central Military Commission in the early 1980s by Admiral Liu Huaqing, the navy's former chief commander and commission vice-chairman. In 1985, he also established a training course for aircraft carrier commanders.
In its 10-year plan set out in 1986, the central government postponed Admiral Liu's project under Deng Xiaoping's "Daoguang Yanghui" policy - a diplomatic doctrine stressing the need to maintain a low profile on the international stage.
"But the PLA Navy believed they would be allowed to build aircraft carrier battle groups at some point in the future," the Shanghai expert said.
With the mainland's shipbuilding capabilities and skills in copying other countries' technology, the expert said it intended to build four aircraft carrier strike groups and operate all of them together by 2020.
Mr Chang said China's first aircraft carrier battle group might have its first sea trial in 2014, with the help of Russia and Ukraine, but that it was impossible for it to launch another three within six years.
"It will take a long time to train a whole aircraft carrier battle group in joint operations which involve at least six warships and manpower in the thousands," Mr Chang said.
He said many technical problems still needed solving, such as synchronising on-board combat systems.
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One of Dr. King's Nightmares, by Steve Cobble, from The Huffington Post, January 12
As we approach what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 80th birthday, we should remember not just his dream, but his nightmares--his fear that without a "true revolution of values," the "giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
On April 4, 1967, in New York City's Riverside Church, Dr. King spoke truth to power, making a powerful case against an earlier immoral war. But Dr. King was not just against the Vietnam War; he understood that the world cried out for both justice and peace. And the words our greatest prophet spoke that day still call to us: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Spiritual death.
Yet more than four decades later, the U.S. still accounts for nearly half the world's spending on war, and preparations for war. More than four decades later, we still spend half our own discretionary budget on war, and preparations for war.
The newspapers this week are filled with discussion of our massive deficit, and the usual pundit fear-mongering over the need to cut Social Security and pension funds and Medicare. "Blue Dog Democrats" are quoted saying that they may have to oppose the stimulus plan, or any new health care plan, unless President Obama shows them where he will find the equivalent cuts in other programs (so-called "pay-go" cuts).
Well, I've got a suggestion on where to find a big chunk of that money--look across the Potomac River at that five-sided building which has enjoyed massive funding increases during the entire Bush/Cheney Administration. Heck, it's almost two decades since the Cold War collapsed, a quarter century since Ronald Reagan brought Grenada, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to their knees (snark), and almost six years since everyone but Dick Cheney admitted that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--so do we really still need all the costly programs on the DOD's drawing board?
Congressman Barney Frank recently suggested a 25% cut in the military budget. He has a point, and it's not really that hard to see how to get there.
If we want to turn the page on the Bush/Cheney foreign policy, and show the world the new face of America, we should not only end the occupation of Iraq and close down the detention/torture camp at Guantanamo, but also shut down several hundred other overseas bases. America was founded in opposition to Empire, not to become one.
If we need to find hundreds of billions of dollars to fund a real stimulus program and build a new "green economy" that makes Mideast oil obsolete, why not cancel the "non-stealth", over-budget F35 Joint Strike Fighter, with its estimated one trillion dollars cost? And the next allotment of F22 Raptors, which have no mission? And the V-22 Osprey, which even Dick Cheney once tried to kill? And the DDG-1000 Virginia class submarine, another weapon without a purpose? And dangerous and costly efforts to militarize space?
Let's convert our national weapons labs completely to anti-nuclear-proliferation work and to alternative energy R&D. Aren't "loose nukes" and climate change two of our true security threats?
The Bible says that "...where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Is this really where America's heart is, spending half its treasure on a military/petroleum complex while its own people go without health care, pensions, good schools, affordable housing, even bridges and levees?
This week, the inauguration of President Barack Obama shows that we have come a long way towards Dr. King's dream of measuring people not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." This is a very good change, well worth celebrating.
But while we are enjoying the wonderful view as our new President strolls down Pennsylvania Avenue, we should remember that Dr. King also fought for jobs & justice; that he called for an end to poverty & racism; and that he warned us about an immoral war & warned against the growing nightmare of a permanent war economy.
Dr. King prophesied that militarism would bring us economic and spiritual disaster. Maybe it's time we paid him some mind.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-cobble/one-of-dr-kings-nightmare_b_157237.html
Much Ado About An Aircraft Carrier
(TAIWAN JOURNAL 09 JAN 09) ... Jean Brisebois
For Beijing, it seems that no year is complete without floating the idea of adding an aircraft carrier or three to its fleet. On Dec. 23, 2008, it was again time to go back to the future when Col. Huang Xueping, a mainland Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman, stated that the People's Liberation Army Navy would "seriously consider" building its first flattop.
Not one to stray far from a well-worn script, Huang spoke of an aircraft carrier being a "symbol of a country's overall national strength as well as the competitiveness of its naval force." He explained that a flattop would guarantee mainland China's maritime security and sovereignty, but gave no timetable for launching such a vessel.
As if on cue, the international media jumped all over Huang's announcement, with the usual suspect defense analysts treating the aircraft carrier's launch as a fait accompli. But U.S. Navy experts remain skeptical, unsure as to whether the mainland Chinese could commission such a vessel before 2020 due to the enormity of this challenge.
For over two decades, reports emanating from the Middle Kingdom have tipped the communist leadership's hand on the subject of creating an aircraft carrier force as part of a drive to achieve blue-water naval capability. In 1982, the PLAN initiated a feasibility study on the design and construction of flattops. Three years later, an Australian carrier was acquired for scrap, with PLAN naval architects and engineers giving the vessel a thorough going over before its landing deck was removed and retained intact for pilot training.
Throughout the 1990s rumors continued to swirl linking the mainland with aircraft carrier purchases from France and Spain, and homegrown construction projects. By 2000, Beijing had acquired three Soviet Union-era flattops. Two of the vessels became floating tourist attractions, but according to Jane's Navy International, the third underwent a program of refurbishment and was named "Shi Lang" after the Ching dynasty (1644-1911) general who claimed Taiwan in 1683. However, at the end of 2008, the carrier was still lying idle in a Dalian dry dock in Liaoning Province.
The reason why many believe Beijing's most recent aircraft carrier announcement appears to carry more weight this time is its coinciding with the deployment of a PLAN task force on active duty beyond the Pacific Ocean. The departure Dec. 26, 2008 of two destroyers and a supply ship to join the multinational anti-piracy fleet patrolling off the Horn of Africa represents a new phase of PLAN operations, which now extends beyond defending mainland coastal waters and impeding U.S. military intervention in the event of a conflict involving Taiwan.
But Beijing's participation in this mission should come as no surprise and does not confirm a greater commitment to the construction of an aircraft carrier. As a growing stakeholder in the world order, it is only logical that mainland China shoulders its fair share of backing up the United States in policing the world's shipping lanes. With around 10 percent of the mainland's gross national product moved by sea, and seven of the world's 20 largest ports situated on its coastline, Beijing's newfound naval activism benefits its economy and goes someway toward addressing shared global security challenges.
One long-standing school of thought holds that if the mainland acquires flattop capability, strategic equations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea will be altered. Indeed, it is difficult to deny that a PLAN aircraft carrier would set alarm bells ringing throughout East Asia, especially in Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul and Southeast Asian capitals. This development could trigger a regional arms race and cause a dangerous destabilization of existing security relations. Moreover, U.S. naval policy in the Asia-Pacific region would also be affected.
The challenge would be for Beijing to reassure its neighbors that such a vessel does not signal its intention to settle territorial disputes by force. Accordingly, the region's governments would need time to adjust policy, much in the same way they have done so to accommodate the mainland's unrelenting military buildup.
There is little argument that Beijing's piecemeal acquisition of aircraft carrier technology over the years has probably put it in a position where constructing an indigenous flattop is possible. As the world's largest shipbuilder after South Korea and Japan, the vast array of skills and technology required for such a project have already been bought, borrowed or stolen from foreign suppliers.
But the real question is whether Beijing has the political will and economic capability to tackle the astronomical logistical and financial costs associated with such a project. With the global economic crisis beginning to bite hard on the mainland, there are very few who believe the communist leadership is prepared to risk the fiscal consequences of such an ambitious shipbuilding program. So for now, it is a safe bet that the mainland's dream of joining fellow permanent U.N. Security Council members in possessing an operational aircraft carrier will remain just that for some time to come--a dream.
Jean Brisebois is a free-lance writer based in Montreal, Canada.