The Russian president is expected to sign a number of bilateral documents and discuss sensitive topics with Kim Jong-un
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived at Pyongyang International Airport, marking the start of his two-day visit to North Korea, during which he is expected to have a lengthy face-to-face meeting with Kim Jong-un.
The Russian president arrived in the country on Tuesday evening, with most of the talks and events scheduled for the next day. He was greeted at the airport by a delegation of North Korean officials, as well as plaques praising the friendship between the two nations, while the road leading from the airport was lined with Russian flags and portraits of Putin.
The Russian delegation includes numerous top officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, and Transport Minister Roman Starovoyt, as well as Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov, and the head of Russian Railways Oleg Belozyorov.
Putin and Kim are expected to sign a number of bilateral documents, with the Russian leader having earlier authorized the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement with North Korea, which outlines “the prospects for further cooperation” between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Putin’s last visit to North Korea was in 2000, when he met with Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader. Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East last September, with the visit focusing on military and economic cooperation.
In the run-up to his visit, Putin said Russia had consistently supported North Korea in its long “struggle against the treacherous, dangerous and aggressive enemy,” referring to the Western states. The Kremlin has also praised North Korea’s vocal support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict, noting that Pyongyang “understands the true reasons and the essence” of the crisis.
D/C: Putin yet again trying to scare the west .. or?
South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts aimed at North Korea include world news and K-pop hits.(Reuters: You Sung-ho, file)
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In short: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong has warned of “new counteraction” against South Korea over loudspeaker broadcasts and the scattering of leaflets.
South Korea resumed the broadcasts directed at North Korea as tensions increased over Pyongyang sending balloons carrying trash over the border.
Pyongyang said the move was in retaliation for anti-North leaflets flown by South Korean activists as part of a propaganda campaign.
The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has warned of a new response against South Korea if the South continues loudspeaker broadcasts and the scattering of leaflets amid simmering tensions.
“If the ROK simultaneously carries out the leaflet scattering and loudspeaker broadcasting provocation over the border, it will undoubtedly witness the new counteraction of the DPRK,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement late on Sunday carried by state news agency KCNA, using the official names of South and North Korea.
Kim Yo Jong has warned of “new counteraction” after South Korea resumed loudspeaker broadcasts directed at North Korea.(Reuters: Jorge Silva)
“This is a prelude to a very dangerous situation,” said Ms Kim, a vice department director in the ruling Workers’ Party, referring to the South’s loudspeaker broadcasts.
The decision to resume the broadcasts, as a form of psychological warfare, was made after North Korea on Saturday began launching about 330 balloons with trash attached, with about 80 of them dropping over the border, South Korea’s military said.
Pyongyang started sending balloons carrying trash and manure across the border in May. It said the move was in retaliation for anti-North leaflets flown by South Korean activists as part of a propaganda campaign.
North Korea has shown some of the angriest reactions toward the leaflet campaign and the loudspeaker broadcasts, in some cases firing weapons at the balloons and speakers.
South Korea stopped the broadcasts under an agreement signed by the two Korea’s leaders in 2018 but tensions have mounted since then as Pyongyang pushed ahead with weapons development.
South Korea’s broadcasts include world news and information about democratic and capitalist society with a mix of popular K-pop music. The sound is believed to travel more than 20 kilometres into North Korea.
Russian sub – joined by three other naval vessels – will not be carrying nuclear weapons, authorities in Havana said as they announced the visit
Guardian staff and agenciesFri 7 Jun 2024 00.44 BSTLast modified on Fri 7 Jun 2024 10.50 BST
A Russian nuclear-powered submarine – which will not be carrying nuclear weapons – will visit Havana next week, Cuba’s communist authorities have announced, amid rising tensions with the US over the war in Ukraine.
The nuclear submarine Kazan and three other Russian naval vessels, including the missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, an oil tanker and a salvage tug, will dock in the Cuban capital from 12-17 June, Cuba’s ministry of the revolutionary armed forces said in a statement.
“None of the vessels is carrying nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not represent a threat to the region,” the ministry said.
The announcement came a day after US officials said that Washington had been tracking Russian warships and aircraft that were expected to arrive in the Caribbean for a military exercise. They said the exercise would be part of a broader Russian response to US support for Ukraine.
The US officials said that the Russian military presence was notable but not concerning. However, it comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that Moscow could take “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere in the world in response to President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia to protect Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The unusual deployment of the Russian military so close to the US – particularly the powerful submarine – comes amid major tensions over the war in Ukraine, where the western-backed government is fighting a Russian invasion. The Russian vessels’ visit to Cuba will also overlap with Biden’s visit to the G7 leaders summit in Italy.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel met with Putin last month for the annual 9 May military parade on Red Square outside the Kremlin.
During the cold war, Cuba was an important client state for the Soviet Union. The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
Relations between Russia and Cuba have become closer since a 2022 meeting between Diaz-Canel and Putin.
During the Russian fleet’s arrival at the port of Havana, 21 salvoes will be fired from one of the ships as a salute to the nation, which will be reciprocated by an artillery battery from Cuba’s revolutionary armed forces, the foreign ministry said.
A group of Russian warships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, will pay an official visit to Cuba next week, Havana’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces has announced.
In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said that a total of four Russian vessels, including the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, oil tanker Pashin, and rescue tug Nikolay Chiker, will visit the island from June 12-17.
”None of the ships carries nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not pose a threat to the region,” the officials said, adding that the visit to the island, which is around 140km off the coast of the US, “corresponds to the historically friendly relations between Cuba and the Russian Federation and strictly adheres to the international regulations.”
According to the ministry, the Russians will conduct a program of activities during their stay, including courtesy visits to the head of the Revolutionary Navy and the governor of Havana, and visits to places of historical and cultural interest. When the group arrives at the Port of Havana, one of the ships will fire a 21-gun salute, the statement added.
Commenting on the announcement, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told CNN that while the US will closely follow the visit, it does not anticipate “any significant national security threat as a result of these exercises.” He went on to suggest that the visit – which he described as “not typical” but pre-scheduled – could be Moscow’s signal to Washington that it is “unhappy” with its efforts to support Ukraine.
US Senator Marco Rubio warned that the Russian exercises “should be a wake-up call to the Biden administration.”
“Our adversaries are dangerously close to our shores, and we must be prepared to defend the homeland from military and hybrid threats in our hemisphere,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
In 1962, Cuba became the arena of a major missile crisis that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. At the time, Moscow stationed nuclear weapons on the island in response to the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Türkiye, and to deter a potential US invasion of Cuba.
The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to comment on the visit, but in late May, it said that a group of warships from the Northern Fleet had set out for the Atlantic on a “long-distance expedition.” It stated that “the main goals of the expedition are to show the flag and ensure the naval presence in operationally important areas of the Far Sea zone.”
A file photo shows Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer Bob McCann talking to Canadian military personnel at NORAD in the United States. Photo by NORAD /HANDOUT
Canada’s soldiers are leaving the ranks because of toxic military leadership, a top adviser to the chief of the defence staff has warned.
Canadian Forces Chief Warrant Officer Bob McCann highlighted his warning April 23 during an appeal for changes in how leaders dealt with lower ranks.
Job dissatisfaction and repeated moves to new locations across the country have been cited in past military reports as the top reasons that Canadian Forces personnel leave.
But McCann, who advises Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre on issues relating to non-commissioned members, said personnel weren’t just quitting because they were being moved to locations they did not want to be.
“A lot of our members leave this organization not necessarily because they are not going where they want to be,” he explained to the audience of officers during a virtual town hall. “They leave because of toxic leadership or bad leadership. This is one aspect that we need to address if we are going to support our members better as they serve.”
Eyre and McCann held the virtual townhall to discuss the Liberal government’s updated defence policy as well as the future direction of the Canadian Forces.
National Defence declined a request to release the video, noting it was for internal use only. But a copy was leaked to this newspaper by military staff who have grown increasingly frustrated with attempts to clamp down on information that could be considered embarrassing to the senior leadership or the Liberal government.
It is common for military leaders to state that the welfare of their personnel is a top priority, but there are concerns in the ranks that such statements constitute only lip service.
During the townhall, Eyre noted that Canada had become a more urbanized country while the vast majority of the military’s bases and installations were located away from major population centres.
“Enticing members and families who grew up in these larger urban centres to move to these remoter locations is going to be an ongoing challenge, one that we cannot fix by building bases in downtown Toronto, for example, because that is just not reasonable,” Eyre said. “So cracking the code on this is going to be increasingly important.”
Various reports done for the Canadian Forces have cited a desire for “geographic stability” and “job dissatisfaction” as reasons that personnel leave the ranks. Others include the need for more pay and benefits as well as military personnel having issues with senior or unit-level leadership.
In October 2023, this newspaper reported that Canadian Forces personnel were increasingly leaving the ranks rather than moving to new military bases where they couldn’t afford housing.
Brig.-Gen. Virginia Tattersall outlined ongoing problems with military accommodation in a June 14, 2023, briefing to senior staff, adding that Canadian Forces personnel who stayed in one location “have a significant financial advantage relative to members who move most often.”
“Increasingly, members will release (from the Canadian Forces) rather than relocate to an area they cannot afford or taking a loss on an existing home,” Tattersall’s briefing noted. That document was leaked to this newspaper.
Canada is in the midst of a housing crisis, but some members of the military are particularly vulnerable as they are required to move around the country often for their jobs.
Military personnel who move more frequently are exposed to “to higher prices and rates more often,” Tattersall’s briefing said.
“Average cost to purchase or rent housing now exceeds incomes of several CAF working-rank levels,” she added.
Military personnel are increasingly becoming frustrated with the lack of action by the Canadian Forces senior leadership on the housing situation, defence sources say.
In 2022, Eyre acknowledged that a lack of affordable housing had emerged as one of the main complaints made by military personnel to senior officers.
David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada.
D/C: One of many massive problems that need to be addressed!!!Not the least paying our way in NATO and getting due respect from the government. Canada’s international reputation has shrunk in so many ways. Canada is NOT back.
Ebrahim Raisi is a hard-line cleric close to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose election as president in 2021 consolidated the control of conservatives over every part of the Islamic Republic.
The 63-year-old former judiciary chief succeeded Hassan Rouhani after a landslide victory in a poll which saw many prominent moderate and reformist candidates barred and the majority of voters stay away.
He took power as Iran faced multiple challenges, including acute economic problems, escalating regional tensions, and stalled talks on the revival of a nuclear deal with world powers.
However, his time in office has been dominated by the anti-government protests that swept across Iran in 2022, as well as the current war in Gaza between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, during which Iran’s shadow war with Israel burst into the open.
He has also faced continuing calls from many Iranians and human rights activists for an investigation into his alleged role in the mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s.
Ebrahim Raisi was born in 1960 in Mashhad, Iran’s second biggest city and home to the country’s holiest Shia Muslim shrine. His father, who was a cleric, died when he was five years old.
Mr Raisi, who wears a black turban identifying him in Shia tradition as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, followed his father’s footsteps and started attending a seminary in the holy city of Qom at the age of 15.
While a student he took part in protests against the Western-backed Shah, who was eventually toppled in 1979 in an Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
After the revolution he joined the judiciary and served as a prosecutor in several cities while being trained by Ayatollah Khamenei, who became Iran’s president in 1981.
Links to Iran’s ‘death committee’
Mr Raisi became the deputy prosecutor in Tehran when he was only 25.
While in that position he served as one of four judges who sat on secret tribunals set up in 1988 that came to be known as the “Death Committee”.
The tribunals “re-tried” thousands of prisoners already serving jail sentences for their political activities. Most were members of the leftist opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).
Iranian opposition activists commemorated execution victims in Paris in 2019
The exact number of those who were sentenced to death by the tribunals is not known, but human rights groups have said about 5,000 men and women were executed and buried in unmarked mass graves in what constituted a crime against humanity.
Leaders of the Islamic Republic do not deny that the executions happened, but they do not discuss details and the legality of the individual cases.
Mr Raisi has repeatedly denied his role in the death sentences. But he has also said they were justified because of a fatwa, or religious ruling, by Ayatollah Khomeini.
In 2016, an audio tape of a 1988 meeting between Mr Raisi, several other members of the judiciary and then Deputy Supreme Leader Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (1922-2009) was leaked.
In the tape, Montazeri is heard describing the executions as “the biggest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic”. A year later Montazeri lost his position as Khomeini’s designated successor and Ayatollah Khamenei became the Supreme Leader upon Khomeini’s death.
When asked in 2021 about his alleged role in the mass executions, Mr Raisi told reporters: “If a judge, a prosecutor, has defended the security of the people, he should be praised… I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held so far.”
Unlikely presidential ambitions
In 2017, Mr Raisi surprised observers by standing for the presidency.
Mr Rouhani, a fellow cleric, won a second term by a landslide in the election’s first round, receiving 57% of the vote. Mr Raisi, who presented himself as an anti-corruption fighter but was accused by the president of doing little to tackle graft as deputy judiciary chief, came second with 38%.
The loss did not tarnish Mr Raisi’s image and in 2019 Ayatollah Khamenei named him to the powerful position of head of the judiciary.
The following week, he was also elected as deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the 88-member clerical body responsible for electing the next Supreme Leader.
As judiciary chief, Mr Raisi implemented reforms that led to a reduction in the number of people sentenced to death and executed for drug-related offences in the country. However, Iran continued to put more people to death than any other country apart from China.
The judiciary also continued to work with the security services to crack down on dissent and to prosecute many Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency on spying charges.
Then-US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Mr Raisi over his human rights record in 2019. He was accused of having administrative oversight over the execution of individuals who were juveniles at the time of their alleged crimes, and of being involved in the violent crackdown on the protests by the opposition Green Movement after the disputed presidential election in 2009.
Mr Raisi presented himself as an anti-corruption fighter at rallies ahead of the 2021 presidential election
When Mr Raisi announced his candidacy for the 2021 presidential election, he declared that he had “come as an independent to the stage to make changes in the executive management of the country and to fight poverty, corruption, humiliation and discrimination”.
The election was subsequently overshadowed when the hard-line Guardian Council disqualified several prominent moderate and reformist candidates. Dissidents and some reformists urged voters to boycott the poll, complaining that the process had been engineered to ensure Mr Raisi faced no serious competition.
He went on to secure a crushing victory, winning 62% of the vote in the first round. However, turnout was just under 49% – a record low for a presidential election since the 1979 revolution.
When he started his four-year term that August, Mr Raisi promised to “improve the economy to resolve the nation’s problems” and to “support any diplomatic plan” that led to the lifting of sanctions.
He was referring to the long-stalled negotiations on reviving a 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear activities, which has been close to collapse since the Trump administration abandoned it and reinstated crippling US economic sanctions in 2018. Iran has since retaliated by increasingly breaching the restrictions.
Mr Raisi also pledged to improve ties with Iran’s neighbours while at the same time defending its regional activities, describing them as a “stabilizing force”.
A deal with the US on reviving the nuclear deal was reportedly close in August 2022, despite Mr Raisi’s tough stance in the negotiations. However, those efforts were then overtaken by events in Iran.
Rocked by anti-government protests
That September, the Islamic Republic was shaken by mass protests demanding the end of clerical rule.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement was sparked the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who had been detained by morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”. Authorities denied she was mistreated, but a UN fact-finding mission found she was “subjected to physical violence that led to her death”.
Just over a year after Mr Raisi became president, Iran was rocked by women-led protests against clerical rule
Mr Raisi vowed to “deal decisively” with the unrest and authorities suppressed them with force. They have not released an official death toll, but the UN mission said credible figures suggested that as many as 551 protesters were killed by security forces, most of them by gunfire. The government says 75 security personnel were killed.
More than 20,000 other protesters were reportedly detained and nine young male protesters were executed after what the UN mission found were summary proceedings that relied on confessions extracted under torture.
Although the protests eventually subsided, there continued to be widespread discontent at the clerical establishment and hijab laws. Many women and girls defiantly stopped covering their hair in public – an act that Iran’s parliament and Mr Raisi sought to confront with new legislation and new crackdowns.
Regional tensions soar
In March 2023, his government agree to a surprise rapprochement with Iran’s bitter rival, regional Sunni power Saudi Arabia, seven years after they had severed diplomatic relations.
But regional tensions soared that October when Hamas carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack on southern Israel and Israel responded by launching a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza.
At the same time, Iran’s network of allied armed groups and proxies operating across the Middle East – including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various militias in Iraq and Syria – significantly stepped up their attacks against Israel in what they said was a demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Fears of that the escalation would spark a region war were heightened in April, after Iran carried out its first direct military strike on Israel.
Mr Raisi supported the decision to launch more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a deadly strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Almost all of them were shot down by Israel, Western allies and Arab partners and an airbase in southern Israel sustained only minor damage when it was hit.
Mr Raisi said Iran’s direct missile and drone strike on Israel in April showed its “steely determination”
Israel responded by launching a missile that hit an Iranian air base following Western calls for restraint.
Mr Raisi played down the significance of that attack and said Iran’s missile and drone strike “showed the steely determination of our nation”.
On Sunday, hours before his helicopter crashed in north-western Iran, Mr Raisi emphasises Iran’s support for the Palestinians, declaring that “Palestine is the first issue of the Muslim world”.
Little is known about Mr Raisi’s private life except that his wife, Jamileh, teaches at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, and that they have two adult daughters. His father-in-law is Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, the hardline Friday prayer leader in Mashhad.
D/C: Sounds like an obit. I am sure there will be many conspiracy theories, Israel, US, IRGC, Saudi, Kurds, UK etc.If he does not live!
The Pentagon has refused delivery of so many F-35s that Lockheed Martin is running out of places to put them, according to a new report from a government watchdog agency.
Last July, the government stopped accepting new F-35s because of hardware and software delays with Technology Refresh-3, a $1.8-billion effort to enable new capabilities for the jet.
The number of jets accumulating outside Lockheed’s plant is “grossly delinquent,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee, told reporters Wednesday.
“We know one thing for certain: it’s going to be at least over 100 aircraft stacked up on the tarmac,” Wittman said.
The GAO report did not say how many aircraft are currently parked, saying the Defense Department deemed that figure “unsuitable for public release.”
But the report said that Lockheed would need to rethink its plans.
“If TR-3 software is delayed past April 2024, Lockheed Martin is projected to exceed its maximum parking capacity and will need to develop a plan to accommodate more parked planes,” it said.
Lockheed officials say they have all the infrastructure and capacity they need to park the aircraft until they are ready for delivery.
“Specific details about parking will not be shared due to security considerations,” officials said in a May 16 statement.
The situation is financial pain for Lockheed: the Pentagon is withholding payments of $7 million for each undelivered TR-3 jet, Bloomberg previously reported.
The government as well will face “significant liability” if any of the parked aircraft get damaged or lost while sitting at Lockheed’s facilities, according to the report.
“It is unique for so many critical DOD aircraft to be waiting for DOD acceptance, instead of stored at lower densities across many military locations throughout the world. This creates unique financial and schedule risks to DOD,” GAO said.
Once the TR-3 upgrade is ready, it will take about a year to deliver all of the jets Lockheed has parked, GAO said.
But challenges with software stability and delayed hardware are pushing the delivery of full TR-3 capability to 2025, the report said. The first TR-3 jets were supposed to be delivered last July.
The Pentagon is working on a plan to restart accepting the jets without the full TR-3 upgrade because, officials say, a part-capability is better than nothing. Those deliveries could start up as soon as July, officials say, but the interim version of the upgrade won’t be combat-ready and will only be used in training.
“According to program officials, this initial TR-3 software will allow the program to accept delivered aircraft but not deliver any new capabilities to the aircraft. TR-3 software with new capabilities will not be delivered until 2025, two years later than originally planned. This means the warfighter will continue to wait for these critical upgrades,” GAO said.
Specifically, the TR-3 software has had trouble supporting the F-35’s radar and electronic warfare systems. Some test pilots have said that they had to reboot their radar and
electronic warfare systems mid-flight, according to the report.
“Program officials stated that early versions of radar and in-flight systems software can commonly experience rebooting issues. However, even after being nearly a year delayed, TR-3 software continues to be unstable, according to test officials,” GAO said.
House lawmakers have grown so frustrated with the program that they have proposed cutting the Pentagon’s F-35 buy in the House Armed Services chairman’s mark of the fiscal 2025 policy bill—and fencing off the delivery of 10 more jets until problems are addressed.
The proposed bill would take the resources that were allocated to buy more jets and use them to create a digital twin of the F-35 and an integrated software laboratory. It’s “astounding” that Lockheed hasn’t modernized how it develops software and hardware for the program, Wittman said.
“We also believe that the resources from the 10 aircraft that will go to an integrated software laboratory, to digital twin testing, to additional test beds—all those things are capabilities that should have been done years ago and haven’t been done and that’s why we’re so far behind where we are today. So we are saying, you know what, we’re not going to leave this to chance anymore. We’re going to take an active role,” Wittman said.
The F-35 program is on track to cost over $2 trillion, making it the world’s most expensive weapons program.
System can neutralise a swarm of drones for 10p a shot.
UK designed and built system offers operational advantage and battlefield protection
UK Armed Forces will be operating with this technology in the coming years
A new game-changing weapon that uses radio waves to disable enemy electronics and take down multiple drones at once is under development for the UK’s armed forces.
This forms part of work to put the UK’s defence industry on a war footing following the Prime Minister’s announcement last month of an increase to the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.
An example of a Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon (RFDEW), the versatile system can detect, track and engage a range of threats across land, air and sea. The system will be able to effect targets up to 1km away, with further development in extending the range ongoing. It beams radio waves to disrupt or damage the critical electronic components of enemy vehicles causing them to stop in their tracks or fall out of the sky.
At only 10p per shot fired, the RFDEW beam is a significant cost-effective alternative to traditional missile-based, air defence systems, capable of downing dangerous drone swarms with instant effect. The high level of automation also means the system itself can be operated by a single person. This technology can offer a solution to protection and defence of critical assets and bases.
Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge said:
We are already a force to be reckoned with on science and technology, and developments like RFDEW not only make our personnel more lethal and better protected on the battlefield, but also keep the UK a world leader on innovative military kit.
The war in Ukraine has shown us the importance of deploying uncrewed systems, but we must be able to defend against them too. As we ramp up our defence spending in the coming years, our Defence Drone Strategy will ensure we are at the forefront of this warfighting evolution.
RFDEW technology can be mounted on a variety of military vehicles and uses a mobile power source to produce pulses of Radio Frequency energy in a beam that can rapidly fire sequenced shots at individual targets or be broadened to simultaneously engage all threats within that beam.
Dstl Chief Executive, Paul Hollinshead said:
These game changing systems will deliver decisive operational advantage to the UK armed forces, saving lives and defeating deadly threats.
World class capabilities such as this are only possible because of decades of research, expertise and investment in science and technology at Dstl and our partners in UK industry.
The advanced technology is being developed by a joint team from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), working with UK industry under Project Hersa. The next steps for RFDEW is undergoing extensive field testing with British soldiers over the summer.
Goodbye to the Hawk: A Quiet Extinction Event in the Royal Canadian Air Force
By the time you read this, the last Hawk will probably be gone. Seen for more than 20 years in the skies around Moose Jaw and Cold Lake, this is no native red-tailed bird felled by climate change or loss of habitat. Instead, the CT-155 Hawk was a high-performance jet training aircraft; a gateway to a career as a fighter pilot that provided over 1300 young airmen and women with their first critical exposure to fast air operations. Previously identified for retirement in the expectation that the fleet would be out of flying time by 2024, the Hawk has been removed from service. The parade is over, and the colors of 419 Tactical Fighter Training Squadron have been encased and stored away.
In practical terms, this means that Canada no longer has a sovereign fighter pilot training capability. Instead, for at least the next seven years the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) plans to send its fighter pilots to schools in the United States and Italy. In theory, nothing much will outwardly change.
Of course, in the intervening years between the original decision to remove the Hawk from service and now, many things did change. For instance, two years of pandemic and significant reductions in flight training meant that that the flying rate of the Hawk fleet fell dramatically. Unlike previous aircraft retirements, Canada isn’t shedding 17 tired, obsolete rattletraps. Of the current fleet, only five aircraft are beyond their useful life and ready for mothballs. The remaining 12 collectively have thousands of hours of flying time still in them. In fact, Canada’s Hawks are decades newer than the 1960’s vintage T-38 aircraft our pilots will now train on in the United States.
Flying rates are not the only difference. Globally, demand for pilots spiked, fell, and has again rebounded. Fighter pilots around the world are aging out, or trading ejection seats for the lucrative fur-lined comforts of civil airline cockpits. This has created growing demand for fast jet training for a new generation of fighter pilots. Companies are jockeying to fill the need, but the latest generation of training aircraft is only beginning to enter service. This places a premium on older but proven training platforms – among them aircraft such as the Hawk.
And of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and deepening global instability has highlighted not only the need for robust air combat capabilities, but also for more reliable and resilient defence industrial support chains generally. The need to secure and enhance national sovereign resilience across the Alliance underpins NATO’s increasingly strident demands for member countries to pay their share of collective defence’s financial burden, and is intended to focus countries’ attention on making smart, collective choices about which capabilities (including critical training and sustainment capabilities) to retain and enhance, and which to shed.
It is this last point that merits additional consideration.
Ultimately, retiring the Hawk is less about the fate of a single aircraft fleet, and more about whether Canada is making the best possible strategic decisions as it grapples with the need to simultaneously sustain operational capability, introduce new equipment into service, attract and retain scarce talent, and remain a credible contributor to international peace and security. This has always been a tall order for the Canadian Armed Forces. As both the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Minister of Defence recently signalled, these challenges are becoming considerably more difficult to reconcile with recent direction to find hundreds of millions of dollars of annual savings going forward, as part of broad government reductions.
This makes the manner in which Canada chose to retire the Hawk all the more regrettable.
The original plan was to find a commercial buyer for the remaining fleet. This would have generated revenue for the Crown while also allowing Canadian industry to offer novel options to provide short-term training services to Ukraine or other NATO and partner users. Instead, the RCAF reversed course, and unexpectedly elected to send the remaining flyable aircraft to CFB Borden. There, they will be dismantled and repurposed for maintenance training, prematurely ending their flying days.
There is no denying that maintenance training is a critical enabler of operations, or that such training is best conducted using modern aircraft parts and systems. Canada’s engine, avionics, and airframe technicians need high quality training assets – and too often settle for second-class equipment and training processes as acquisition of new operational systems are prioritized over sustainment funding. But in this case, there were already five grounded Hawk aircraft that might have been committed to the maintenance training requirement at any point, with no impact on the remaining fleet.
This makes it difficult to understand how it could be operationally advantageous for Canada to decommission fully-functional, flyable aircraft – particularly aircraft that under a commercial model could have been kept flying for training purposes at little incremental cost to the Government of Canada – especially when there are prospective users among our allies and partners who could benefit significantly from access to fighter training capabilities that Canada is historically well-positioned to provide.
So why would the Canadian Armed Forces unexpectedly reverse course on the plan to sell the Hawk fleet, when doing so could raise money for general revenues, keep a proven flight training capability in service (albeit as a commercially-furnished rather than military-operated capability) and provide collective security benefits to partners and allies?
While it might not be possible to arrive at an exact reason, what is clear is that Canada’s military is currently engaged in a desperate attempt to find savings. Although overshadowed by recent high-profile announcements of additional future funding, the fact remains that the RCAF and the other services are looking for any and all options to save money now, and to avoid or limit future costs to reduce the impact of recently mandated cuts on operations and ongoing procurement.
This is not a new phenomenon.
During the so-called “decade of darkness,” DND and the Canadian Forces were forced to implement wide-ranging austerity measures, often under significant time pressure with little analysis. Among the articles of faith for those tasked with achieving savings was the idea that there was no point in incremental reductions when it came to capital equipment. If even a single aircraft, naval vessel, or combat vehicle of a given fleet was kept in service, the need to sustain it meant that any savings from a fleet reduction would necessarily be limited.
It can be presumed that in this case, a similar concern exists. If the Hawk were retained, even under the ownership of a commercial operator, there might always be a chance that the RCAF could be somehow dragooned into continuing to support it – thereby incurring unanticipated costs, demanding additional personnel they don’t have, and perhaps even imperilling longer-term goals of bringing a new fighter lead-in trainer into service to replace the Hawk.
Although disappointing, such fears are not unfounded.
During the decade of darkness and in later waves of Strategic Review (SR) and Deficit Reduction Action Plan (DRAP), hastily-implemented cuts created adverse second order effects and unintended consequences that damaged the operational effectiveness of the Forces in myriad ways. The cuts also shaped the instincts and inclinations of the current generation of senior officers and defence bureaucrats alike. Defence has rarely been rewarded for innovative thinking or programmatic risk-taking, and bitter past experience is a disincentive to innovation. So perhaps in the end, the idea of a commercial fighter training operation – even one as Canadian as maple syrup and a prairie sunrise – just felt like too much uncertainty, or too much unnecessary risk, coming at the wrong time.
But if we are to avoid repeating past errors, decisions like this need to be questioned.
More than ever before, national defence and national security are more than simply the byproduct of whatever equipment Canada chooses to purchase and retain. A modern military is a complex ecosystem of people, operational platforms, and processes, brought together by money and national will to do what other organizations cannot. What it delivers must be more than flying hours, ships at sea, or troops in the field. It must also provide national security options to Canada, including those which offer the opportunity to achieve beneficial strategic outcomes or position Canada advantageously with its allies and partners – even when doing so might require the Department of National Defence (DND) to consider innovative and unconventional ways of delivering military capability.
Canada and its allies are entering a strange and difficult time, and there is much uncertainty in the world. We know that like the wider domestic economy, DND is facing financial headwinds that it cannot ignore. We also know that in the past this led us into dark and difficult decisions about our national security apparatus. In this instance, there are legitimate options available that could allow Canada to cost-effectively retain national sovereign capabilities that the RCAF might otherwise have to give up – including the ability to simultaneously improve maintenance training while also retaining a basic fighter pilot production capability. Why wouldn’t we explore the full range of options, and ensure our choices reflect the widest possible strategic context rather than the narrow perspectives of fear and fiscal uncertainty?
When we look to the changing natural world, evidence suggests it may not be the most visible extinction events that are the most dangerous. Rather, it is the unremarked and unremarkable losses that may ultimately cost us most dearly. So too with military capabilities – even with ones as humble and seemingly insignificant as the Hawk, you sometimes don’t realize what you had until it’s gone.
About the Author
Jeff Tasseron is the Director of Business Development & Strategy at CAE D&S Canada. In this capacity he leads business development and complex program capture activities in Canada, contributes to strategy development at regional and international levels, advises on technology and market changes, and assesses and champions opportunities for non-organic portfolio growth, including partnering, mergers, and acquisitions.
A retired Naval Aviator and former Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Colonel, Jeff is trained as an Air Navigator and Tactical Coordinator (TACCO). His extensive operational background includes deployed sea time with the Royal Canadian Navy, flying the CH-124 Sea King helicopter in antisubmarine and surface warfare roles. In addition to positions such as NATO Fleet Air Officer (OP SHARP GUARD) and 12 Wing Operations Officer, he commanded 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
D/C: Mark was a Distinguished Alumnus at the CGAI.
Exclusive: Key defence contractor says UK’s capabilities are ‘very limited’ as a result of long-term under-investmen
Daniel Boffey Chief reporterSun 12 May 2024 17.10 BSTLast modified on Sun 12 May 2024 20.15 BST
Britain’s air defence systems are “very limited, to the point of being negligible”, a key defence contractor has claimed, as the Ministry of Defence warned of the gravest risk of attack from the skies in 30 years.
Northrop Grumman UK, a leading provider of defence technology to the RAF and Royal Navy, offered its assessment in response to questioning by a parliamentary committee examining lessons to be learned from the war in Ukraine.
Asked whether there was a need for increased investment in integrated air and missile defence (IAMD), the company said Britain’s lack of capacity was a major risk to national security.
“Current capabilities are very limited, to the point of being negligible, which is the result of long-term under-investment and an over-reliance on Nato partners’ capabilities,” the company said. “This capability gap poses a significant risk to national security and the war demonstrates why IAMD is now a critical requirement.”
The intervention ranks among the starkest of public assessments of Britain’s state of readiness by an organisation with intimate knowledge of the country’s defence. Northrop Grumman UK supports the RAF’s F-35 Lightning II and the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers and submarine fleet, which are key pillars of Britain’s air defence.
The company negatively contrasted the UK’s capacity to deal with an air salvo to that of Poland, whose government recently signed a $2.5bn deal with the US government to acquire a system that will synchronise its air defence weapons, including Patriot missile launchers.
“Put simply, the UK must strengthen investment in IAMD,” the company said. “This will require an investment in the architecture that delivers true integration, as Poland has done, alongside an investment in sensors and effectors. The investment required to protect military capability, government and critical national infrastructure will require significant resources. However, Russia has shown itself willing to target all three in this war and the UK is within effective weapons range of Russian systems.”
The comments echo a recent report from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), which found that the UK’s ground-to-air systems were “not currently equipped to be able to defeat many kinds of air threat” and that Russian submarines were within range to strike the UK without warning.
The number of personnel with expertise in air defences was said to be “very small”, and the government had not invested in the latest, most sophisticated systems that use a range of radars that are difficult to destroy or deceive.
The MoD relies on RAF Lightning and Typhoon jets to take out rogue aircraft and the Royal Navy’s six Type-45 destroyers to shoot missiles out of the sky, but many of these have been out of action for prolonged periods for maintenance or repair.
Six Sky Sabre ground-based air defence systems are each able to shoot down multiple missiles but at least two are understood to be currently deployed overseas.skip past newsletter promotion
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The MoD said in its own evidence to the House of Lords committee that it was exploring how to improve its air defences.
Officials said: “The challenge of protecting ourselves against attack from the skies, both overseas and at home, is at its most acute for over 30 years – as evidenced in the war in Ukraine and recent events in Israel.”
Last month Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, told LBC that discussions were taking place about building an Iron Dome similar to that used by Israel. The technology is designed to use radar to detect rockets and calculate their threat level. Interceptor missiles are only fired at those expected to strike populated areas.
A MoD spokesperson said: “The UK is well prepared for any event and defence of the UK would be taken alongside our Nato allies. As part of our commitment to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% over the next six years, we continue to review potential opportunities to develop our capabilities and modernise air defence across Europe in close discussion with allies and partners.”
D/C: Canada and UK seem to be in the same boat in terms of budget and maintenance!!
The government’s attitude toward its spy agency poses problems for the future security of Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa on Wednesday, April 10, 2024. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press.
I first Googled “How do I become a Canadian spy” in July 2005. I was living in London, U.K. working in finance when a bus and several subway stations had just been blown up by domestic homegrown terrorists only a few blocks from my office. Fifty-two people were killed and 770 were injured. Just four years earlier when two passenger planes hit the Twin Towers murdering nearly 3,000, I was a senior at Brown University in Rhode Island. This was followed by terrorists killing 191 civilians on a Madrid train. For those who don’t remember this time period, it was the age of terrorism. It was an age where not only did you know what the threat was, but it felt very real and dangerously close.
So, I signed up to be an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and joined the Canadian Forces Infantry Reserves with the Queens Own Rifles of Canada. I became part of a generation of young, idealistic Canadians who, as one of my former colleagues put it, “ran away and joined the circus.” We wanted to serve Canada and really weren’t all that sure what that meant or how to do it. If I’m honest, my first Google search was actually “Does Canada have spies?”
I would go on to spend nearly a decade serving in both organizations, leaving in 2016. Looking back, I am extremely proud of where I worked, what we accomplished, and the important work my former colleagues continue to do to keep Canada and Canadians safe. I was able to share some of this in my memoir, but most of it will always be a secret.
When I wore my army uniform in public, people used to walk up to me and thank me for my service. But my military career was mostly confined to parade nights at the armoury and the occasional weekend exercise in rural Ontario. It was while wearing my intelligence officer uniform (a generic button-down shirt and navy blue blazer) that I got to do the cool spy stuff that no one would ever know about or thank me publicly for.
Working long hours, dealing with stressful cases, and then lying to everyone I knew about what I was up to was a challenge. Occasionally you’d get a rah-rah speech from CSIS management saying things like, “The powers that be [the politicians in power] really appreciate everything you’re doing. They were so impressed with the information you were able to collect and you are making a real difference in the safety of our country.” It was a thankless job in many ways, but we did it because we believed we were making a difference.
Today, I am not sure how any executive at CSIS will be able to stand up and give that speech with a straight face after watching Prime Minister Trudeau and senior officials at the foreign interference inquiry hearings say under oath, repeatedly, that they don’t often read CSIS briefs. That they take our intelligence with a huge grain of salt. That they don’t think our findings are worth following up on.
“There is a certain degree of—I would not say skepticism—but of critical thought that must be applied to any information collected by our security and intelligence services,” explained Prime Minister Trudeau.
The reason this is a major problem is not the hurt feelings of former spies, but what it reveals about the government’s attitude towards its spy agency and perhaps the wider public’s views on security. It’s an attitude that poses problems for the future security of Canada. There has always been a naiveté and complacency about the threats we face in an increasingly dangerous world. Canadians just don’t think much about our security. There is a general attitude of: “What does anyone want with us?” The lack of pressure the public is applying to government to fund our military in recent years may be a good illustration of this.
The reality is that our national security is not an accident. It is the result of thousands of men and women in our intelligence community, military, law enforcement, and corporate security, getting up each day and going to work. The safety we enjoy is on some level proof that the system is working. This also means our security is not guaranteed to continue. I believe Canada has been able to get by on the sacrifices of the few men and women who do these jobs, and that our political leadership, despite a lack of political pressure, has taken generally this threat seriously. Unfortunately, I fear that as the threats we face become more nuanced, those we entrust with our safety are increasingly unwilling or not sufficiently empowered to protect us.
The CSIS mandate is to collect, analyse, and advise government on threats to the security of Canada. There are four main threats: espionage and sabotage, foreign interference, terrorism, and subversion. It was my job to be a “collector” of information. As an intelligence officer for a domestic security service in the post-9/11 days, I was in the coffee and conversation business. I would often knock on doors 20 minutes from where I grew up, asking people for information and help with my national security investigation.
Back then when we tackled enemies like the 2006 Toronto 18 terrorists and the 2013 Via Rail derailment plot, it was a pretty straightforward job. We didn’t want to see the domestic attacks we saw around the world happen here at home. They were tangible threats we could see and easily explain at those doorsteps.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, left, and Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, right, wait to appear before the Special Committee on Canada-People’s Republic of China Relationship (CACN) on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press.
The threats CSIS is being asked to monitor today are far more nuanced and less visible. My colleagues and I used to worry about bombs going off in capital cities, but now an act of terrorism could be someone hacking into a water treatment plant to change chemical levels. In my day, foreign interference was honey traps and the attempted blackmail of elected officials. Now, we are uncovering potential state-sponsored misinformation campaigns during elections. Espionage and sabotage are rampant in the theft of IP and the hacking of companies. These threats are far less tangible and often difficult to attribute to a single source. Often we’re left with no easy answers to mitigate the risk.
Meanwhile, during this period when threats are evolving, our security apparatus is left to contend with a political leadership that is hesitant to listen to our warnings and seemingly content with avoiding having to deal with them.
Recently the government announced legislation to counter the threat of foreign interference, including expanding CSIS powers and a foreign agent registry. While many will be applauding these actions, I can’t help but think back to how this all began and what it took to finally get government to act. The public inquiry was the result of political pressure caused by the leaking of sensitive information to the media on the growing threats and their continued inaction on foreign interference. Leaking is wrong. It’s also not done lightly. It is a symptom of an intelligence service that felt its reports and advice were not being dealt with appropriately. I hope this is a wake-up call because it’s a terrible way to make national security policy.
I worry about what all of this means for Canadian security. What has this complacency meant for the next generation of army reservists and intelligence officer recruits?
In 2024, what is prompting their Google searches before submitting a job application to CSIS? And what are they going to encounter if they get there? In my time working for the intelligence service, it was a growing organization capitalizing off of a strong mandate, an army of bright-eyed recruits, and a risk-tolerant executive. Today, I fear that, at a time when their job is more difficult than ever, we may be losing our will to support those who are working to keep us safe. This is a dangerous direction to be going in.
Andrew Kirsch served as an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for 10 years. His memoir “I Was Never Here: My True Canadian Spy Story of Coffees, Code Names, and Covert Operations” was a national bestseller. He is currently CEO of Kirsch Group, a security risk consulting firm based in Toronto. He is a public speaker on issues of cyber, physical and national security. He also ran for the Ontario PC Party in the 2018 Ontario provincial election in the riding of Toronto-St Paul’s.
D/C: We have known for years about foreign interference. So sad that the government has done absolutely nothing to stop it, for purely political reasons.
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