{"id":32128,"date":"2017-05-30T12:30:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T02:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=32128"},"modified":"2017-05-30T09:32:44","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T23:32:44","slug":"sea-air-land-space-updates-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/sea-air-land-space-updates-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea, air, land and space updates"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/strong><\/p>\n Sea State<\/strong><\/p>\n The Pentagon is looking at equipping the US Coast Guard\u2019s planned three new medium icebreakers with heavy weapons. Speaking to a House subcommittee<\/a> on Homeland Security, Admiral Paul Zukunft said it was necessary to \u2018look differently at what an icebreaker does\u2019 and that \u2018US presence in the Arctic is\u2026 a matter of national security.\u2019 The USCG currently has only two active icebreakers, which are split between the Arctic and the Antarctic. America\u2019s arctic capabilities are far out-stripped by that of Russia, which has a fleet including a (huge!)<\/a> \u2018research\u2019 submarine<\/a> and around 40 icebreakers. And, in the last few years, Russia has activated 14 new operational airfields and 16 deep water ports as part of an arctic military build-up<\/a> that one US commander has likened<\/a> to China\u2019s actions in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n Surprising evidence has emerged<\/a> that the first ever Australian ship to reach Japan was in fact sailed by convict pirates from Tasmania. The Cyprus <\/em>was hijacked by convicts in 1829, and, according to fresh translations of samurai accounts, anchored off the town of Mugi on Shikoku island on 16 January 1830\u2014at the height of Japan\u2019s feudal isolation.<\/p>\n Flight Path<\/strong><\/p>\n It seems hardly a week passes in which a US aircraft doesn\u2019t have a close shave with a peer from China or Russia. The Pentagon said two Chinese J-10 fighters \u2018unprofessionally\u2019 intercepted<\/a> a US Navy P-3 Orion in international airspace above the South China Sea last Wednesday\u2014one week after a similar encounter<\/a> over the East China Sea. US officials have characterised the incident as \u2018unsafe\u2019<\/a>, with one Chinese fighter flying approximately 180 metres in front of and 30 metres above the P-3, conducting multiple turns and restricting its ability to fly. China\u2019s foreign ministry wasted no time hitting back<\/a>, claiming the US had entered its airspace and infringed its sovereignty.<\/p>\n French officials are investigating the possibility<\/a> that an iPhone 6S and iPad Mini 4 caused EgyptAir Flight 804<\/a> to crash in May 2016, after the devices were plugged into the wrong sockets in the cockpit, causing their batteries to overheat and burst into flames. Apple has agreed to participate<\/a> in the investigation, but claims that it\u2019s not aware of any evidence linking its devices to the crash. In contrast, Egyptian investigators still believe the crash was a result of criminal efforts<\/a>. The results of the French investigation are expected on 30 September.<\/p>\n Rapid Fire <\/strong><\/p>\n In a report citing a 2016 US government audit<\/a>, Amnesty International has accused the US Army of \u2018failing to monitor\u2019<\/a> the transfer of over US$1 billion of military equipment to Iraq and Kuwait. According to the report<\/a>, \u2018lax controls\u2019 in record-keeping by the Iraqi army resulted in weapons \u2018winding up in the hands of armed groups such as the Islamic State\u2019.\u00a0That\u2019s a worrying accusation considering the transfer allegedly included<\/a> mortar rounds, hundreds of armoured Humvees and tens of thousands of assault rifles. Amnesty\u2019s Arms Control and Human Rights Researcher Patrick Wilcken added that the audit provides a \u2018worrying insight\u2019 into the flawed system by which the US Army controls its weapons transfers in a volatile region.<\/p>\n In other US Army news, are the US armed forces ready for what’s next? In an interview with Michael O\u2019Hanlon from Brookings,<\/em> Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mac Thornberry discussed the strains the US military faces<\/a> in its 16th year of continuous operations. Alongside military \u2018readiness\u2019, Thornberry touched on the need to constantly modernise and \u2018continue fostering innovative change\u2019 as major considerations for the future.<\/p>\n Zero Gravity<\/strong><\/p>\n This week DARPA announced<\/a> that Boeing will build and operate an experimental spaceplane, designed to provide \u2018aircraft-like access\u2019 to space. \u201810\u2019 is the takeaway message from the \u2018Phantom Express\u2019<\/a>: the program aims to reduce launch costs by a factor of 10 and, by around 2021 or so, execute 10 launches in 10 days. Over at DefenseOne<\/em> there\u2019s some discussion<\/a> of what cheap, reliable and rapid launches will mean for the US military; in short, a massive boost to space-based resilience.<\/p>\n Elsewhere it\u2019s been a big week for big space science projects. The world\u2019s most sensitive dark matter detector is up and running, scientists report<\/a>. XENON1T<\/a> is housed deep beneath a mountain in Southern Italy and, shielded from cosmic radiation, it\u2019ll be trying to spot thus-far hypothetical dark matter particles as they stream in from space.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the driest desert on Earth, construction has begun<\/a> on the world\u2019s biggest telescope. Located in Chile\u2019s Atacama Desert, the drily-named<\/a> Extremely Large Telescope<\/a> will eventually feature a mirror some 39 metres in diameter. Its completion is slated for 2024 and, once finished, it\u2019ll gather 13 times<\/a> more light than any existing telescope (and more than 100 million times<\/a> that of a human eye).<\/p>\n At a time when international cooperation is being challenged around the world, big projects like these emphasise the collaborative dimension of science. The billion-dollar Extremely Large Telescope is funded<\/a> by a consortium of European and Southern-hemisphere nations<\/a>, while XENON1T is the baby of various institutions in North America, Europe and the Middle East.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sea State The Pentagon is looking at equipping the US Coast Guard\u2019s planned three new medium icebreakers with heavy weapons. Speaking to a House subcommittee on Homeland Security, Admiral Paul Zukunft said it was necessary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":32129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[320,765,471,1640,351],"class_list":["post-32128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-arctic","tag-darpa","tag-south-china-sea","tag-space","tag-us-army"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n