Impact of Gaza aid pier to be investigated by Pentagon watchdog

A Pentagon watchdog announced on Thursday it would investigate the effectiveness of the Gaza pier mission in delivering humanitarian aid.

The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General will coordinate with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s watchdog on two independent investigations, according to a statement from the Office of the Inspector General.

“The agreements between the [Pentagon] and USAID establish roles and responsibilities that help enable U.S. humanitarian assistance to reach Gaza through the maritime corridor,” Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch said in the statement. “Given this, the [Pentagon Inspector General] and USAID [Inspector General] are working together to address the challenges associated with this mission.”

The Gaza pier mission uses a lesser-known military capability called Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, that generally involves sailors and soldiers.

First anchored off the coast on May 16, the pier has delivered 15 million pounds of humanitarian aid to Gaza as of June 25, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday.

But the humanitarian mission has not been without problems.

On May 25, the pier broke apart after heavy winds and high seas pummeled it only a week after it became operational. It took until June 8 for the pier to be operational again.

Three U.S. service members have also sustained non-combat related injuries during the mission, with one in critical condition requiring a medical evacuation to an Israeli hospital.

The soldier was later sent to an Army hospital in Texas.

House shoots down amendment to cut F-35 purchase

Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee are lambasting appropriators who want to buy additional F-35 fighter jets in fiscal 2025 above the Pentagon’s budget request.

The House’s FY25 defense spending bill would procure 76 new F-35s, eight more than the 68 requested by the Defense Department. This puts the spending bill at odds with the House’s FY25 National Defense Authorization Act, passed 217-199 earlier this month, which would cut F-35 procurement down to 58 aircraft.

“At a projected total lifecycle cost of over $2 trillion dollars, the F-35 is the largest program in DoD history despite routinely not meeting cost, schedule, and performance metrics,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a Wednesday statement with Rep. Donald Norcross of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the tactical air and land forces panel.

“This is unacceptable program execution and Congress should not reward this behavior by buying additional aircraft above the President’s budget request,” the statement read.

Smith and Norcross highlighted that the Defense Department stopped accepting F-35 deliveries from manufacturer Lockheed Martin last year “until the enterprise could successfully deliver, test, and field the next version of the Operational Flight Program” — a benchmark it has not yet met nearly a year later.

The two Democrats and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., introduced a bipartisan amendment that would have cut F-35 procurement in the spending bill and bring it in sync with the 58 F-35s authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act.

But the House Rules Committee, which oversees amendment votes, opted not to put Smith’s proposed F-35 reduction on the floor for a vote. The new House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., previously chaired the Rules Committee.

Smith’s proposed reduction of 18 fighter jets from the spending bill would have amounted to a roughly $2 billion procurement cut for the Air Force and Navy.

The Smith amendment would have shifted funds in the form of $526 million to the Air Force to help address F-35 performance issues with development, production and testing.

“It is the duty of Congress to support the long-term viability of the F-35 program and ensure the vast sums of taxpayer money footing the bill are spent where they can ensure program success,” said Smith and Norcross. “A simple short-term reduction in acquisition rates would enable us to mitigate the known systemic problems, correct course and get the F-35 program and workers up and running at full speed.”

Lockheed Martin has faced intense bipartisan scrutiny from the Armed Services Committee for repeated F-35 delays, most recently with the Technology Refresh 3 upgrades. The TR-3 hardware and software upgrades would provide F-35s with better displays, computer memory and processing power.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., attempted to amend the NDAA with a provision that would have authorized the defense secretary to seize intellectual property from Lockheed Martin and open it up to competition, taking aim at the F-35′s software problems.

Moulton sought a vote on the amendment when the Armed Services Committee marked up the legislation in May but had to withdraw it after a Congressional Budget Office cost determination. But multiple committee members, including several Republicans, said they would support Moulton’s efforts to seize intellectual property from Lockheed Martin in the years ahead should F-35 issues persist.

Smith urged caution on Moulton’s efforts, despite his shared frustrations with Lockheed’s execution of the F-35 program.

“In law, we would possibly have to compensate them for that, which would be really, really, really expensive,” Smith said.

Despite efforts from Smith and his fellow Armed Services Committee members to cut F-35 procurement next year, appropriators will have the final word on how many of the aircraft to buy in the defense spending bill.

Further compounding the uncertainty, the Senate version of the FY25 NDAA would procure 68 F-35s — the same number requested by the Pentagon. It remains unclear how many F-35s Senate appropriators seek to procure, as they have yet to release their FY25 defense spending bill.

How Ukraine can defeat Russian glide bombs

In recent months, Russia has terrorized Ukraine’s front-line troops and nearby cities with glide bombs. They are large, free-fall bombs with pop-out wings and satellite navigation, which operate similarly to weapons equipped with the United States’ precision-guided, aerial Joint Direct Attack Munition.

Currently, Ukraine has few counters to glide bomb strikes.

As Ukraine gains new Western arms and technologies, it can better address the threat. But the West will also need to show more flexibility in the conditions it sets for Ukraine’s use of advanced weaponry.

Glide bombs are cheap. Russia is firing hundreds a week at Ukrainian targets at and behind the front lines. These bombs are small and difficult to spot on radar. They do not use propulsion or emit a detectable heat signature. Russian aircraft launch glide bombs dozens of miles behind the front lines, in relative sanctuary.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 3,000 glide bombs hit targets in March. More Patriot air defenses were needed, he said, to stop the bombs from wreaking destruction on infrastructure. The U.S. is sending more Patriots, but interceptors are expensive. The cost-exchange ratio is unfavorable.

The most practical counter to glide bombs is to destroy the launching aircraft — on the ground or in the air. This can be done by employing a mix of tactical missiles, air-to-air capabilities and electronic warfare.

Ukraine is skillfully using tactical missiles and drones against ground targets. In May, long-range (as in 186 miles) U.S.-produced Army Tactical Missile Systems destroyed three advanced combat aircraft in Crimea.

In June, Ukraine fired at least 70 of its own drones against a faraway Russian airfield, possibly destroying three aircraft configured to launch glide bombs.

Under recently relaxed U.S. policy, Ukraine can fire Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, at forces in Russia that are attacking or about to attack Ukraine. But Ukrainians say this applies only to targets 60 or so miles inside Russia. The U.S. may be wise to permit ATACMS to strike distant airfields.

If even longer ranges are needed, the U.S. might provide air-launched, ground-attack Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles. The Finnish and Polish air forces rely on these low-observable arms.

Incoming Western equipment could offer a second way to neutralize glide bombs. Ukraine may soon acquire European F-16 fighters and two Swedish airborne early warning and control, or AEW&C, aircraft.

Pairing them would create a new capability, especially if the U.S. provided long-range (or 20-plus-mile) Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. They could strike many aircraft before bombs were launched. Radar-guided AMRAAMs have a range longer than glide bombs.

Saab AEW&C aircraft will be a force multiplier. They can identify targets out to some 250 nautical miles and detect airborne and ground-based radars. This is essential to track and destroy distant aircraft and air defenses.

Although Ukraine’s F-16s will be older, they will have many modern electronics. This may include Link 16, a NATO-standard system to exchange tactical data. Flying over Ukraine at a safe distance, the AEW&C aircraft could vector F-16s to targets. Some proficient Swedish air battle managers may be needed until Ukrainians are fully trained.

Over time, the U.S. might also assist Ukraine to build a more substantial air force. Some retired F-16s and U.S. Navy E-2 Hawkeye AEW&C aircraft stored in Arizona could be refurbished for Ukraine.

Electronic warfare offers a third way to defeat glide bombs, by confusing their GLONASS or GPS satellite navigation systems. Electronic warfare works better against some systems than others. To protect critical infrastructure, Ukraine would need powerful jammers to block satellite signals over a wide expanse.

A glide bomb may rely on a backup inertial guidance system should satellite navigation fail, but this is less accurate for precision targeting. Errors increase the farther the bomb flies without satellite guidance.

In warfare, silver bullets are rare. Fighting often requires multiple capabilities and innovative or flexible use. More of both will be needed to enable Ukraine to defeat the glide bomb threat. Long-range tactical missiles, F-16s and AEW&C aircraft, plus advanced electronic warfare tools — and more flexible U.S. policies for their use — could give Ukraine a potent force.

John Hoehn is an associate policy researcher at the think tank Rand. He was previously a military analyst with the Congressional Research Service. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at Rand. He previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan, Georgia and the U.S.-Soviet Commission.

Next-gen homeland defense interceptor plans are risky, watchdog says

The Government Accountability Office said the Missile Defense Agency’s development plan for its next-generation interceptor for homeland defense carries both schedule and funding risk, according to a June 26 report from the watchdog.

MDA is developing the Next-Generation Interceptor after canceling a previous effort to field a redesigned kill vehicle in August 2019 for the ground-based interceptors which make up the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system (GMD) designed to protect the U.S. homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles from Iran and North Korea.

MDA wants to field NGI by 2028, but Congress is pushing for an earlier deadline and industry teams have said they could deliver initial interceptors by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2027, one year ahead of schedule.

“The NGI program is on track to start product development in 2024 but the program is planning to overlap design and production activities to accelerate flight testing,” the GAO report states. “Any major design issues could disrupt this strategy.”

GAO found NGI’s schedule to be “already optimistic when compared to development timeframes of similar weapon systems,” and added that the agency is also struggling to meet testing goals across the board, which could further derail the ambitious schedule.

The program’s cost has also gone up by hundreds of millions of dollars in the last year, the GAO found. Even so, it has yet to rise above planned funding levels.

Yet the GAO said, “MDA officials expect further increases due to supply chain issues and rising material costs.”

On time

MDA is working to field NGI by 2028 as threats grow rapidly in complexity and capability.

While the NGI program is meeting schedule goals now, GAO showed skepticism that NGI would maintain its timeline. Historically, the office said, comparable technology development has taken longer.

The agency is buying long lead materials for the interceptors, particularly for ones to be used in upcoming flight tests, but GAO notes NGI designs “are not yet mature, and any changes could necessitate rework on interceptors currently in early production.”

The agency was carrying two teams through a competitive design phase. Lockheed Martin and its Aerojet Rocketdyne partner completed the preliminary design review for its NGI in September 2023 and a Northrop and RTX team passed through the same design review at the end of January.

But nearly a year prior to a deadline for two competing teams to reach a critical design review phase, MDA chose Lockheed Martin in April to move forward rather than continue with both teams into the next phase of technology development.

According to the GAO report, both NGI contractors “made progress developing critical technologies” and MDA plans to assess NGI’s critical technology maturation status prior to a product development decision expected in the third quarter of FY24.

NGI’s schedule has flight tests beginning roughly six years after MDA awarded the development contracts. GAO noted that a 2019 study by a federally funded research and development center found “kill vehicles, satellites and strategic systems” take roughly seven years from contract award to first flight.

Flight test schedules will have an impact, the GAO said, and MDA has not been able to stay on track even for GMD testing. NGI production, the GAO notes, is contingent on completing three intercept flight tests within two years.

“GMD program has never successfully executed more than two intercept flight tests within a span of 2 years since the program started testing operationally configured GMD interceptors in 2006,” the report states.

“NGI might face similar challenges, in part, because DOD plans for NGI flight testing to increase in difficulty with each successive test,” it adds.

On budget

The GAO found the NGI program’s development cost has already increased in its “early stages.” The Pentagon has anticipated the program cost to be “a few billion dollars higher” than MDA’s early estimates, which is in line with the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office’s independent cost assessment in 2021.

“NGI’s costs remain within the program’s current funding level, but the cost growth accumulated in the first 3 years of the program has reduced the government’s funding margin as a result of accelerated schedules,” GAO states. Moreover, GAO said typically the most significant cost growth happens later in development and production.

The rising cost, according to the office, is mostly due to contractors taking steps to mitigate schedule risk as well as growing material costs “which directly related to supply chain issues and were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

While MDA has traded cost for schedule in the first phases of the program, the agency did acknowledge that will not be “sustainable going forward,” the GAO notes.

Technical risk

In 2022, the Pentagon’s research and engineering branch found technical risk in the NGI program. MDA “disagreed” with a large portion of that assessment and GAO said the agency has “taken limited steps to address the identified risks.”

GAO reported MDA has completed all required survivability testing on component-level parts, but the agency “is not fully addressing risks associated with NGI’s threat requirements.”

And MDA is not “fully developing” models and simulation that it needs to verify technology maturity and performance, the report states.

GAO found other DOD components like GMD’s Technical Direction Agent, U.S. Northern Command, MDS Operational Test Agency and the DoD’s director of operational test and evaluation were concerned about the lack of modeling and simulation capabilities for the program and the agency’s ability to get the needed capabilities developed in time for ground testing expected in FY26.

“CAPE officials told us in February 2024 that foregoing adequate simulation capabilities directly amplifies risks to the program because MDA will be relying on these same models and simulations for verification activities in lieu of more extensive flight testing,” the report states. “CAPE officials added that insufficient modeling and simulation would potentially leave some of the most critical questions regarding NGI’s performance unanswered.”

But MDA told GAO that it would ensure “NGI-specific requirements for the MDS-level modeling and simulation framework are identified, planned for, and implemented,” according to the report. This includes aligning development of an all-digital MDS-level simulator with the program.

“DOT&E officials told us this new digital simulator will be essential for conducting NGI operational assessments because it will provide significantly greater simulations capabilities, once developed,” the GAO states.

South Korea orders first batch of KF-21 fighters

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Nine years after development of South Korea’s KF-21 Boramae began, the government has signed a deal with Korea Aerospace Industries for the production of 20 fighter jets.

The order comes as KAI reports the fighter’s development is currently 80% complete.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration awarded KAI the 1.96 trillion won contract (U.S. $1.41 billion) for the Block 1 batch, the company announced June 25. The platforms are considered 4.5-generation aircraft.

The first aircraft will be delivered by the end of 2026, and the final from this series by Aug. 31, 2027, according to KAI.

“Despite many challenges and difficulties, the KF-21 system development project was able to reach mass production stably, thanks to the solid cooperation of related organizations,” KAI President Kang Goo-young said in a news release.

Jinseok Song, who works on the firm’s KF-X program management team, named after the initial title for the KF-21, told Defense News last year that the company would manufacture 40 KF-21 Block I and 80 Block II aircraft. However, DAPA has initially ordered 20, per recommendations from the government-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

The government may order another 20 next year, after further verification of the aircraft’s performance.

Song said production for Block II, slated for development from 2026 to 2028, will add air-to-ground capabilities and an expanded performance envelope. About 2,200 test sorties are to be flown by 2026.

KAI has been preparing for this production contract by readying a supply chain of 600 domestic companies, building production facilities and acquiring tools. KAI aims to achieve a localization rate of 65% for the aircraft.

The KF-21 will replace South Korea’s F-4 and F-5 fighters, with the former having retired this month.

Additional agreements

DAPA also recently signed a contract with Hanwha Systems for 20 active electronically scanned array radars for 110 billion won.

And on June 25, Hanwha Aerospace announced it inked a 556 billion won contract to produce 40 General Electric F414-GE-400 engines plus spares for the first score of KF-21s.

The first engine is expected to be ready by the end of 2025 and will be produced at a new factory in Changwon. With the capacity to manufacture 300 engines annually, Hanwha Aerospace broke ground for this new $30 million facility in April.

Hanwha Aerospace has reportedly manufactured more than 10,000 aircraft engines over the past 45 years, 82% of which were produced under license.

“This contract serves as a stepping stone for Hanwha Aerospace’s plans to develop next-generation engine technologies,” the company said.

The firm added that it “is actively pursuing research and development in sixth-generation engine technology.”

Similarly, looking beyond the KF-21, KAI said it will “further develop sixth-generation manned and unmanned system technology.”

Dronemaker Skydio hiring team in Ukraine amid strategy shift

U.S. dronemaker Skydio said it has started hiring employees in Ukraine, a first step in an effort to expand its business there.

CEO Adam Bry described the work in an interview with Defense News Wednesday, hours before he testified before Congress.

“I’ve never met drone users as sophisticated as the folks in Ukraine,” Bry said. “We want a team there.”

For now, the hires are in the single digits, with employees focused on engineering and customer support. Bry said he could see Skydio manufacturing drones in the country later on, but thinks building smaller components — like the equipment that helps prevent jamming — is more realistic at first.

The war in Ukraine is the first to feature widespread use of small, commercial style drones. In the last two years, it’s become a sandbox for companies around the world trying to test their equipment. U.S. firms including AeroVironment to Shield AI have sent their products to help defend Ukraine and see how they perform in intense electronic warfare environments.

That said, most of the drones used in Ukraine so far have been made in China, the world’s dominant manufacturer in the sector.

Bry went as far to say that Ukraine’s needs are driving Skydio’s product development, even when that doesn’t overlap with the U.S. government.

His company’s main defense contract is with the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance program, which Skydio won in 2021. Defense firms are now competing for that contract’s second iteration, to be selected in 2025, and Skydio is putting forward its new X10D drone to do so.

Ukraine is also interested in that drone. Its Ministry of Interior has formally requested “thousands” of them — though Bry wouldn’t specify how many — atop the thousand or so drones Skydio has already sent Kyiv since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The requirements laid out by the Army are similar to what Ukraine needs, Bry said, but they’re not one for one.

“This has been a shift in strategy for us,” he said. “Where there’s discrepancy, we’re prioritizing what we’re seeing in Ukraine.”

The main difference between the two sets of requirements is in resiliency. Ukraine’s biggest need is for drones that can counter intense Russian jamming. That is not what the short-range reconnaissance program has focused on to this point, Bry said.

Still his argument is that Ukraine is the “proving ground” for small drones. If they can survive there, that should be a good sales pitch for the U.S. military as well. But that’s not guaranteed, Bry acknowledged.

“It’s a risk from a business standpoint,” he said. “But I think it’s a risk worth taking.”

Denmark to bring home F-35 jets from Arizona amid upgrade delays

PARIS — Denmark plans to bring home its six F-35 Joint Strike Fighters currently being used to train pilots in the U.S. as the delivery schedule for an upgraded version of the aircraft continues to slip.

The six Danish F-35 jets in TR-2 configuration stationed at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona will be repatriated to the Royal Danish Air Force’s Skrydstrup air base, the Defence Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. They’ll join the four stealth fighters already there to bring the country’s operational F-35s to ten, as Denmark prepares to phase out its fleet of F-16 jets.

Lockheed Martin is running out of space to park undelivered F-35 jets amid hardware and software delays linked to the Technology Refresh 3 update, or TR-3, whose full delivery will be delayed into 2025, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in May. That’s disrupting fleet-replacement plans by the likes of Denmark, Belgium and Norway, whose F16s have been flying for more than 40 years, and whose fleets are counted in dozens of aircraft rather than hundreds.

“It’s very positive that we have now found a solution, so that the delays from the manufacturer affect us as little as possible,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in the statement. “F-35 fighter jets are a major investment for Denmark that will be important for our defense and security for many years to come, and it’s crucial that we follow the phase-in closely.”

The TR-3 software, originally planned for summer 2023, continues to be unstable, the GAO reported in May, with the watchdog saying some test pilots had to reboot their entire radar and electronic-warfare systems mid-flight to get them back online. The update includes improved cockpit displays and more on-board computing power, and is supposed to serve as the basis for a further upgrade known as Block 4 that adds new weapon and electronic-warfare capabilities.

Lockheed Martin will initially deliver F-35 jets with a limited version of TR-3 that can only be used for training purposes, Denmark said. The Danish jets in the older TR-2 configuration will be repatriated as aircraft with the TR-3 software and hardware upgrade are delivered to Luke Air Force Base, the Defence Ministry said.

Bringing home the TR-2 jets will allow Denmark to maintain the operational milestones for phasing in of the F-35 and increase the training level of pilots and support personnel at Skrydstrup, while allowing pilot training at Luke AFB to continue, the Defence Ministry said.

The Danish move feeds into fears by other European F-35 customers, present and future, that their carefully calibrated aircraft-delivery and upgrade schedules could be perturbed by the TR-3 saga.

While the Netherlands and Norway already operate fleets of more than 30 F-35 jets and therefore face less urgency than Denmark or a country such as Belgium, which is yet to receive its first F-35, the delays risk pushing back full operational capability.

Defense officials in Norway said they have made their concerns clear to the Pentagon’s Joint Program Office, which represents the U.S. and international governments involved in the F-35 program. Oslo’s fear in particular is Lockheed Martin feeding a salad of halfway solutions and different versions into the production pipeline that would grow to be unmanageable.

“We don’t want interim configurations,” said a Norwegian defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The Netherlands anticipated development delays and in late 2022 requested delivery of six aircraft in the TR-2 configuration rather than the upgraded version, saying deliveries could continue through to March, according to an annual government progress report published April 2.

The Dutch were slated to get their first TR-3 configured F-35 in late 2024, and should the software not be available then, the delays will have a “limited impact” on plans to stand up the third Dutch F-35 squadron in the middle of 2027, according to the report.

Denmark has purchased 27 F-35s, and the remaining aircraft will be delivered in TR-3 configuration “towards 2027,” the Danish ministry said. The situation isn’t expected to affect the donation of F-16s to Ukraine, nor Denmark’s obligations to NATO in a crisis situation, according to the Defence Ministry.

The country will stop training Ukrainian F-16 pilots in Denmark after 2024 as Skrydstrup air base switches fully to the F-35, Poulsen was reported as saying at a press conference with his Norwegian counterpart Bjørn Arild Gram on Monday.

The Danish Ministry of Defence didn’t immediately respond to questions regarding the timeline for repatriating the six aircraft from the U.S. or the delivery of the remaining 17 F-35s.

The Navy’s ongoing carrier conundrum

After a grueling eight months leading the Navy’s effort to counter Iran-backed Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower received a reprieve this month when it transited the Suez Canal and headed into the Mediterranean Sea, on its way back home to Norfolk.

During more than 200 days taking down a barrage of Houthi drones and missiles, the Ike became the latest East Coast-based carrier to see its deployment extended multiple times.

Dating back to 2021, carriers Harry S. Truman, George H.W. Bush, and most recently, the Gerald R. Ford, also encountered extended periods underway to fulfill American naval presence requirements amid pressing global events.

Altogether, these carriers spent roughly nine months at sea – up from the standard seven-month deployment schedule.

And while the Ike is now wrapping its deployment, another East Coast carrier isn’t ready to replace its presence in the region – prompting an already deployed West Coast carrier Navy to replace it.

Ike’s latest extended cruise and its replacement once again raises questions about the finite carrier fleet’s ability to respond to a seemingly relentless series of global events that require the uniquely American naval presence of a flattop.

Ultimately, the requirements levied on the carriers by the Navy and combatant commanders are greater than what the 11-carrier fleet can meet, according to Bradley Martin, a retired surface warfare officer and director of the RAND Corporation’s National Security Supply Chain Institute.

Eisenhower carrier strike group deployment extended

“There really just aren’t enough ships to go around,” Martin told Navy Times. “Now, that’s not necessarily strictly, or always, a carrier problem. It’s also a destroyer or [amphibious assault ship] problem. But it’s a problem of size, it’s a problem of capacity.”

As Ike left the theater and a Houthi battle that officials say is the Navy’s most kinetic since World War II, the Pentagon announced that the San Diego-based carrier Theodore Roosevelt would steam into the Middle East from the Asia-Pacific to replace Ike’s presence and capability.

It will be the first time a non-East Coast carrier has operated in the Middle East since the Japan-based Ronald Reagan headed there in 2021 to oversee the American pullout from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Martin said he suspects that such extended deployments will become the norm, given the need for carrier presence in the Middle East, the Pacific and around Europe as the Ukraine war rages on.

Carriers like the Truman, Bush and Ford faced roughly nine months at sea during their respective deployments in recent years – up from the standard seven-month deployment schedule.

Out on the West Coast, the carrier Nimitz underwent a roughly 11-month deployment that spanned most of 2020 and the first part of 2021.

“As long as combatant commanders want to have these ships on a fairly constant basis, these types of situations are going to come up,” Martin said. “For the foreseeable future, these types of delays, extended deployments, are probably likely.”

As Ike’s deployment fate hung in the balance before leaving the Middle East this spring, Navy officials said in a statement to Navy Times that “the flexible nature of a carrier strike group allows us to be prepared to conduct operations for as long as needed.”

Capacity Issues

Experts say the taxed carrier fleet comes from a mix of two few ships and global events that are beyond the control of anyone in Washington.

Events like the Israel-Hamas war have unexpectedly placed an additional strain on the fleet – especially for ships based on the East Coast.

Ike carrier heads home as Houthi attacks continue in the Red Sea

The composition of the carrier fleet allows the Navy to deploy a carrier in the Indo-Pacific, but not in both the Middle East and European theaters simultaneously, where the Iran-Hamas and Russian threats linger, respectively, according to Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer captain and head of the FerryBridge Group defense consulting firm.

Before Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the East Coast carrier Ford was operating in the Mediterranean Sea, serving a deterrence role against Russia, as carriers have since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in early 2022.

But after that, Ford and then Ike’s, focus turned toward Israel and the Middle East.

“We are a nation that has a need for three [carriers] out and about all the time,” McGrath said. “And we are a nation that possesses essentially enough to do two at a time…The bottom line is that these assets are tremendously in demand because nothing says you care more than an aircraft carrier.”

“This just so seriously undercuts the case of the people who talk about the aircraft carrier being obsolete – and it’s not,” McGrath added.

This capacity issue would be exacerbated in the event of multiple global crises, experts warn. Countering multiple threats across the globe was the focus of the Navy and Marine Corps’ Large Scale Exercise in 2023, testing the services’ ability to globally synchronize operations to defeat several threats in different geographic regions at the same time.

The Navy has not made the results of that exercise public.

Outside of exercises, experts agree the Navy would encounter difficulties juggling simultaneous conflicts in various geographic areas.

The current fleet, Martin said, “is not sufficient to meet multiple crises at once without taking some extraordinary measures.”

A look at where the Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers are now

Ships, including carriers, would face extended deployments and maintenance delays, an arrangement that would be difficult to sustain for an extended period, he said.

While the Navy likely won’t build any more aircraft carriers beyond what’s already scheduled, given technological advancements and the fact that multiple Ford-class carriers are still years away, Martin said the service could reevaluate its force structure and identify ways to meet requirements that carriers provide through alternative means.

“Ultimately, it’s going to take more of something in order to meet what I think are bonafide national needs,” Martin said.

The Navy’s new long-range shipbuilding plan released in March calls for an inventory of 11 or 12 aircraft carriers over the course of the next decade. Overall, the proposal sets a goal of 381 ships by the year 2042 – up from the previous target of 373 ships by that time.

Still, accomplishing these numbers are dependent on the industry eliminating lengthy backlogs and cost overruns, coupled with consistent congressional funding.

McGrath said pouring more funding into a bigger fleet could mitigate some of today’s challenges.

“Money doesn’t solve everything, but it solves an awful lot of things, and right now we are spending woefully less money than we need to,” McGrath said.

Why additional strain on the East Coast?

Experts attribute part of this strain to East Coast carriers having to shoulder more geopolitical hotspots than their brethren elsewhere.

Currently, the West Coast hosts the aircraft carriers Carl Vinson, Abraham Lincoln, Nimitz and Theodore Roosevelt.

The carrier George Washington is completing a deployment to South America this summer as it moves from the East Coast to Japan after wrapping up an extended and oft-delayed mid-life refueling and complex overhaul, or RCOH, in Virginia.

GW will replace Ronald Reagan, which will leave Japan and undergo maintenance at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington.

The Ike, Truman, Bush, Ford, George H.W. Bush and Stennis call the East Coast home.

Unlike the West Coast carrier fleet, nearly all those East Coast carriers are unavailable to deploy due to various maintenance needs.

Stennis will be out of the picture for some time as it undergoes its own mid-life overhaul.

Bush returned home from its own extended deployment last year and entered maintenance in December, and Ford got home from its extended cruise in January and is expected to undergo roughly a year of work before it can go again.

That leaves Truman as the next East Coast carrier up.

It wrapped up a maintenance period in December, and the Navy initially said it would deploy in early 2024, which would have seen it eventually replacing Ike in the Middle East.

But that didn’t happen, and officials now say Truman likely won’t deploy until later this year, following its pre-deployment Composite Training Unit Exercise, or COMPTUEX, this summer.

While West Coast carriers are largely able to focus solely on Indo-Pacific deployments, East Coast carriers are having to navigate cruises in Europe and the Middle East, given the current state of the world.

“The East Coast is under pressure,” McGrath said. “Again, fewer carriers servicing a larger number of hotspots creates deficits.”

Cyclical Maintenance Problems

While the carrier deployment schedule is designed to accommodate the extensions facing East Coast carriers, the main consequence of these lengthy deployments is the maintenance the carriers must undergo once they return, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology.

In addition to throwing the maintenance schedule out of whack, extended deployments wear the aging carriers down faster, increasing the likelihood of new breakdowns accumulating, which presents additional challenges when those carriers go into the yards, Clark said.

Despite false Houthi claims, the Ike aircraft carrier fights on

Scant data exists for how a carrier reaching the 45 or 50-year point will perform, and what kind of maintenance such a ship will require, Clark said.

“You’re seeing that with some of the older carriers, how they get delayed coming out of maintenance, because new stuff is breaking that has not broken before,” he said.

The Eisenhower, the second oldest carrier in the fleet, commissioned in 1977, underwent 15 months of maintenance after it returned from a double-pump deployment in 2021.

Following this most recent cruise, McGrath predicted Ike would “almost certainly” face another lengthy period in the yard.

“Without regular maintenance, the more things break, the more things get added to packages, those packages get bigger and the potential time that the ship spends in the yard potentially increases,” McGrath said. “The more you spend in the yard, the less time you have to get ready to get back out and get going next time.”

In the end, the Navy has limited options to remedy the strain currently afflicting its carriers, McGrath said.

“There are only two levers to pull: a larger Navy, smaller requirements,” McGrath said. “Either the nation decides that it has fewer things for the Navy to do…or it builds a bigger Navy.”

Under the Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan, introduced in 2014, aircraft carriers follow a 36-month cycle for maintenance, training and deployments. But across the fleet, surface ships remain plagued with maintenance delays.

Specifically, the Government Accountability Office found there was a seven-day increase in maintenance delays for aircraft carriers between 2014 and 2021, according to a report released last year.

Another GAO report from 2022 found the Navy projecting that it faced a maintenance backlog that totaled nearly $1.8 billion.

On the bright side, that report noted that “aircraft carriers have experienced minimal increases in backlog” and the bulk of the backlog stemmed from other surface ships.

“There are still difficulties getting ships out of shipyards on time, and I think that that’s something that’s going to take a long time to get corrected,” Martin said.

Doing the work

Pentagon officials argue that the mission performed by Ike and its strike group was critical to keeping the region from exploding since Hamas’ attack on Israel.

They say a significant U.S. naval commitment to the region sends a strong signal to the commercial shipping industry that vessels can get protection as they travel the crucial transit route through the Red Sea, from the Suez Canal to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

About 12% of the world’s trade typically passes through the waterway that separates Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, including oil, natural gas, grain and everything from toys to electronics.

The Houthis have attacked ships since November, saying they want to force Israel to end its offensive in the Gaza Strip against Hamas. But the ships targeted by the Houthis have largely had little or no connection to Israel, the U.S. or other nations involved in the war. The rebels have also fired missiles toward Israel, though they have largely fallen short or been intercepted.

Ike and its strike group–including the cruiser Philippine Sea and the destroyers Gravely and Mason–also have participated in five major joint missions with British forces to target dozens of the militant group’s drones, missile launchers and other facilities and targets in Yemen.

All told, Ike’s air wing has flown more than 12,100 sorties, totaling over 27,200 flight hours, and the strike group has launched more than 350 air-to-surface weapons and more than 50 air-to-air missiles.

The warships have each traveled more than 55,000 miles, and they’ve launched more than 100 Standard and Tomahawk missiles. In all, the strike group has gone after about 430 either pre-planned or dynamic targets in its mission to defend U.S., coalition and merchant ships.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Philippines seeking call with China over emerging Sierra Madre crisis

The Philippines is seeking to schedule a call with Beijing “very soon” amid an emerging crisis in the South China Sea, according to the Southeast Asia country’s ambassador to the U.S.

At issue is the Sierra Madre, a rusting World War II-era ship run aground on a reef known as the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippines uses the ship as an outpost and resupplies its soldiers there about once a month.

China considers the area part of its rightful territory — despite a 2016 ruling by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to the contrary. The Chinese Coast Guard has long harassed Filipino ships resupplying the post but has recently grown more violent.

Those confrontations escalated on June 17, when Chinese sailors boarded Filipino vessels, jettisoned equipment and injured eight personnel, according to Manila. One lost his thumb, prompting a hospital visit from President Ferdinand Marcos jr, who only weeks earlier warned that he would consider the death of a Filipino citizen “very close” to an act of war.

Such a decision could invoke a mutual defense treaty with Washington and pull American into the conflict. When asked about that possibility in early June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said America’s commitment to the treaty was “ironclad” but declined to comment further.

Since the escalation, the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs has tried to schedule a call with counterparts in China, said Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez, speaking with reporters at the embassy in Washington.

That call could occur by early July, he said.

“We have tried all sorts of ways to be able to bring down the level of tension,” he said. “Obviously, most of [those] have not worked and so we feel that perhaps a frank, clear discussion … with the Chinese is probably the best way to go.”

Romualdez also confirmed reporting that the Philippines has reinforced the Sierra Madre — a concern for China, which objects to any attempts to harden the fragile site. That said, the work done so far has been to improve “living conditions” for the soldiers stationed there, the ambassador said.

“As to what we will do down the road if, if that ship starts to fall apart, we don’t know,” said Romualdez. “But again, we have no intention of abandoning” it.

Austin’s outreach

On Wednesday, Austin spoke over the phone with his counterpart in Manila. According to a Pentagon readout of the call, Austin “reaffirmed” America’s support for the Philippines amid the standoff.

In the last year, the two countries have deepened their security relationship. America now has access to four new potential military sites in the Philippines’ north, and a military exercise hosted in the country known as “Balikitan” — or “shoulder to shoulder” in Tagalog — is larger than ever. In April, America deployed a mid-range missile system to the Philippines for the first time, though officials in both countries haven’t specified where it is now.

Despite objections in Beijing, which considers each of these steps a provocation, the Philippines maintains that the new security agreement is defensive.

“It is not going to be used for any kind of offensive situation,” Romualdez said, “unless, of course, the situation calls for it”

In April, the U.S. passed a massive new round of extra security funding, including $4 billion for the Indo-Pacific. Half of that was in long-term arms sales subsidized by the U.S. and another half was to replace Pentagon stocks sent directly to other countries.

Most of that money is headed for Taiwan, but the Philippines will likely get a share. Romualdez said Manila is hoping for a portion of the longer-term Foreign Military Financing and didn’t specify whether his country was seeking a part of the other funding.

“A situation like this calls for decisive action on our part — on all our parts,” he said.

Extended range version of Army guided rocket enters production

The Army has given the greenlight to Lockheed Martin to produce an extended-range version of its Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, according to the company and the service.

Lockheed was awarded a $200 million fiscal 2024 contract modification in May to build as many as 240 extended range GMLRS. The funding includes production, tooling and depot spares, an Army spokesman told Defense News in a June 26 statement.

The Army made the decision to cut GMLRS ER into Lockheed’s production line in Camden, Arkansas, in January, according to a Lockheed spokesperson.

GMLRS ER has had multiple successful flight tests leading up to the production decision. The extended range version can reach 150-plus kilometers compared to the 70-kilometer range capability of GMLRS.

The company won a $4.8 billion deal for GMLRS in 2023 as the U.S. adjusted its production numbers to replenish rockets sent to Ukraine.

The U.S. has been providing GMLRS, along with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers used to fire them, to Ukraine since mid-2022 to help it fend off Russia’s invasion.

The service plans to ramp up GMLRS production from 6,000 rockets a year to 14,000 and expects to sign a multiyear deal for them in FY24, thanks to a new congressional authority. Multiyear contracts, usually reserved for expensive and large programs, provide longer-term certainty that can lower the cost.

The service is also expected to spend $1.2 billion in FY25 to buy 6,408 missiles as part of the anticipated multiyear contract, according to the Army’s FY25 budget request.