Le Royaume-Uni
Hard-up RAF flies
second-hand spy planes in US colours. L'ultime plaisanterie:
les anciens-nouveaux avions d'espionnage britanniques voleront sous
les couleurs de l'US Air Force. Après l'affaire Snowden qui a mis en évidence à
quel point les renseignements électroniques de Sa Majesté fonctionnent, dans la
pratique, comme une filiale financée et dirigée par l'Amérique, il fallait le
faire. A quand le remplacement de "Union Jack" par "Stars and
Stripes", pour réaliser des économies d'échelle?
"The RAF’s three RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft will sport
a white top, black nose and grey underside — the same colour scheme as the 17
flown by the US air force (USAF). Flying in another air force’s colours is
likely to prove another embarrassing symbol of the UK’s reliance on its US
ally”. (The Sunday Times, 22 septembre 2013)
Joint Strike Fighter F-35
Turkey Could
Face Huge Fighter Bill. Partout où il passe (ou
plutôt: où il est envisagé de passer), le JSF phagocyte déjà les
budgets normalement alloués à développer-produire-acquérir-maintenir
des capacités réelles, effectivement contrôlées par le pays qui les achète.
"They said Turkey could face a US $50 billion bill in the
next few decades if it decides to go ahead with now maturing plans to build an
indigenous fighter jet and order scores of the US-led, multinational F-35 joint
strike fighter in a parallel move.The [local] fighter program has not yet won
the final green light from the government, but if it does, Turkish budget
planners will have to sit down and find ways to finance both this ambition and
the JSF program”. Evidemment, si Ankara tient à ce que ce
soient des JSF/F-35, faire les deux en parallèle serait un peu comme la
quadrature du cercle.
(Defense News, 22 septembre 2013)
5th-Generation
Fighter, 1st-Generation Tires? "Lockheed Martin Corp.
bills the F-35 as the pinnacle of more than five decades of fighter-jet
development, with the latest in stealth technology, supersonic speed, extreme
agility and the most powerful sensor package available. But someone
apparently forgot to kick the tires."
"Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who oversees the Defense Department’s Joint Strike Fighter program, this week said some parts of the plane break down too frequently. When a reporter asked for examples, Bogdan cited a seemingly mundane component: the tires. Those tires today are coming off the airplane way, way, way too frequently,” Bogdan said Sept. 17 at the Air Force Association’s annual Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition at National Harbor, Md." (Brendan McGarry,5th-Generation Fighter, 1st-Generation Tires?,defensetech.org, 19 septembre 2013)
Drones
US moves drone
fleet from Camp Lemonnier to remote airstrip. Prolifération
des drones US: bientôt ils n'auront même plus besoin de
tirer des missiles pour faire des dommages collatéraux. "The concerns
about drone safety present a strategic challenge for the Pentagon as it begins
to shift more of the robot planes to new frontiers, where they must share
congested airspace with commercial aircraft."
"Last year, the Pentagon was forced to suspend drone
operations in Seychelles, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, after two
Reaper drones crashed on the runway at the main international airport, which
serves half a million passengers a year. The overseas accidents could have
repercussions in the United States, where the military and the drone industry
are pressing the federal government to open up the skies to remote-controlled
aircraft."
Et pour clore, un dernier aspect: "In a separate
interview, a diplomat from a Middle Eastern country cited rising concern that
the civilian side of the Djibouti airport might be targeted by militants
looking to retaliate against U.S. drone operations. Regional tensions have
risen as the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command has carried out
dozens of strikes against al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in Yemen."
“Once you have military installations in civilian facilities,
that civilian facility and the public become endangered,” the diplomat said,
speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. drone strategy in the
region.” (Craig
Whitlock - Greg Miller, US moves drone fleet from Camp Lemonnier to remote
airstrip, Stars and Stripes, 25 septembre 2013)
Relations transatlantiques
Geopolitical
Journey: The U.S.-European Relationship, Then and Now. Un
institut/société et un auteur qui ont leur propre agenda bien connu (voir "Stratforgate: WikiLeaks releases ‘shadow CIA’ mail"),
mais les observations n'en sont que plus instructives. "It is Europe,
taken as a whole, that is the competitor for the United States. Its
economy is still slightly larger than the United States', and its military is
weak, though unlike Russia this is partly by design."
"I've talked about the fragmentation of Europe. Nothing is
more striking than the foreign policy split between France and Germany not only
on Syria but on Mali and Libya as well. One of the central drivers behind the
creation of the European Union and its post-war precursors was the need bind
France and Germany economically. French and German divergence was the root of European
wars. It had to be avoided at all costs.Yet that divergence has returned."
"Whenever I visit Europe -- and I was born in Europe -- I
am struck by how profoundly different the two places are. I am also struck at
how the United States is disliked and held in contempt by Europeans. I am also
struck at how little Americans notice or care.”
"There is talk of the transatlantic relationship. It is not
gone, nor even frayed. Europeans come to the United States and Americans go to
Europe and both take pleasure in the other. But the connection is thin. Where
once we made wars together, we now take vacations. It is hard to build a Syria
policy on that framework, let alone a North Atlantic strategy." (George
Friedman: Geopolitical Journey: The U.S.-European Relationship, Then and Now |
Stratfor, 24 septembre 2013).
Petit historique des projets d' « Union
atlantique ». "Indeed, the congressional record is
peppered with resolutions and hearings from the late 1940s to the 1970s pushing
for Atlantic Union. For example, in 1971, the Foreign Affairs Committee in the
House of Representatives convened a hearing to discuss the prospect of
combining the United States of America and Western Europe into one country.
This “Atlantic Union” would be a federal union, very similar to the the one
described in United States Constitution. Existing countries would become states
under a federalist system, with the larger federal system having its own
currency, military, interstate commerce regulation and foreign relations
apparatus."
"Streit never achieved his goal of having a formal
“Atlantic Union.” But with an international “intelligence community,”
globalized supply chains, increasingly global free trade agreements that
subordinate national court systems, and globalized private and central banks,
all couched under the rubric of promoting “freedom,” he has as much claim to
being the true animating force behind what we’re facing today as anyone
else." (Matt
Stoller, Elites' strange plot to take over the world, Salon, 20 septembre
2013).
Industries d’armement
European defense
industry’s decreasing competitiveness. "Less State
commitment would result into freedom for major industries to decide
on their own according to the market, rather than to political
considerations" Pour l'auteur, c'est une bonne chose. Pour les
nations, c'en est moins.
"Programs such as the F-35 and the new NATO missile shield,
based on the SM-2/SM-3 missile system, seem to drain further European
resources towards investments which favor the U.S. industrial base
rather than the European one, which is already threatened by the outcomes of
the economic depression".C'est justement leur raison d'être principale, à ces programmes.
La
crise économique ne fait qu'accélérer le plan. (Marco Giulio Barone,
European defense industry’s decreasing competitiveness, International Security
Observer, 6 septembre 2013).
Forces
spéciales
Nouveau rapport: U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF).
Les forces spéciales, l’instrument de prédilection de l’administration Obama
(opérant hors les cadres établis, sinon dans le secret le plus total, elles
froissent moins les susceptibilités, permettent d’affirmer une chose et faire
son contraire, se moquer des règles aussi aisément que des frontières), veulent s’autonomiser
encore davantage.
Triplées en budgets /effectifs/
déploiements depuis le 11 septembre 2001, l’USSOCOM (commandement des
opérations spéciales) est devenu, selon son ex-patron, un « microcosme »
(comprenons : un univers complet en soi) du Département de la défense des USA.
Aujourd’hui, l’USSOCOM souhaite voir ses responsabilités élargies au
déploiement et à l’emploi effectif des forces spéciales, avec le feu vert des
seuls commandants régionaux. Sans attendre donc celui du centre à Washington.
Meilleure recette pour accroître toujours davantage l’irresponsabilité et le
chaos.
Une des raisons invoquées : l’USSOCOM
pourrait ainsi faciliter ses relations avec des armées étrangères. En réalité,
il s’agit de la construction, déjà en marche, d’un réseau global de forces
spéciales, avec l’USSOCOM au gouvernail et l’Etat-major des opérations
spéciales de l’OTAN (NSHQ)comme laboratoire. Pour le secrétaire général
Rasmussen, il s’agit de la clé de l’avenir : les forces spéciales sont, avec la
cyberdéfense et le système antimissile, l’une des composantes de la nouvelle
triade stratégique. Inutile de préciser que le personnel du NSHQ de l’Alliance
est majoritairement américain, et que son patron est directement nommé par le
président des Etats-Unis.
(Andrew Feickert, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF):
Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, 18
septembre 2013)
Supériorité
américaine
Démystification
de la supériorité aérienne US. Avec de précieux retours en arrière
pour voir de plus près la performance de l'USAF lors des conflits du dernier
siècle. Culmine par l'examen du F-22 Raptor, illustration jusqu'à l'absurde des graves
dysfonctionnement du système. En cela, digne précurseur du F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
"The service’s most expensive fighter aircraft, the F-22
Raptor, has never flown a single combat mission. According to the
Government Accountability Office, the total price tag for the Raptor comes in
at more than $80 billion (a lot of money until you consider that the Pentagon’s
more recent aircraft procurement program, the F-35 Lightning II, is expected to
cost $392 billion to acquire, according to current estimates)."
"At almost $420 million a plane, American taxpayers might
expect that F-22 pilots have a tremendous advantage over our allies or
potential adversaries whose fighter jets cost a fraction of the F-22’s price
tag."
"While Air Force officials maintain that the F-22 fights
well in training exercises, a report published last year in Combat Aircraft
Monthly showed that the Raptor did not out-perform cheaper, non-stealthy
European fighter aircraft during combat training exercises."
Et un (autre) petit cocorico pour la fin: en évoquant un
exercice entre alliés en 1966, l'auteur observe que "Things did not go
well for the Americans during this exercise with France, the country that
enabled the US to win the Revolutionary War and to survive the War of 1812.
Actually, not well is quite an understatement. The French pilots simply outflew
the Americans time and time again. In fact, right from the start, clever and
skilled French pilots brutally disproved the American theory that the French
cannot fight."
"The French aircraft were all older models, some dating
back to the Korean War era, whilst the Americans flew the much newer and more
powerful F-4 Phantom. The rules of engagement specified that visual
identification was required before attacking hostile aircraft, which obviously
limited the use of the Phantom's radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. The
rationale for this rule was to prevent fratricide. In other words, pilots had
to make visual contact before engaging a target to minimize the possibility of
a “blue-on-blue” incident. This was an eminently reasonable precaution, but
keep in mind that the dogma in the USN and the USAF at the time was that beyond
visual range missiles had made dogfighting obsolete. The French felt otherwise,
and as we'll see later, for good reason."
"As F-4 pilot Lieutenant Junior Grade John Monroe “Hawk”
Smith put it 'The French decimated our jets then bolted out of the area before
we could launch." The French were able to do this because, thinking
tactically, they had been monitoring the movements of the American forces and
found it all too easy to predict when they should strike.“As the exercise
progressed,” wrote Auten, “... and the number of engagements increased, it
became clear that America's aircrews were usually outmaneuvered and outclassed
by the French.”The French, unlike the Americans, still knew how to dogfight.
"
(Roger Thompson, Reforming America's Overhyped Airpower, 17
septembre 2013,http://www.pogo.org/our-work/straus-military-reform-project/military-reform/2013/reforming-americas-overhyped-airpower.html )
Pour rappel: une récente entrée sur l'USAF
"à l'abri des attaques et libre d'attaquer"
La
France
Quelle France dans 10 ans ? Débat avec des think tanks.
Par moments, le débat fait penser à ce poème de Bertolt Brecht: «J'apprends
que le gouvernement estime que le peuple a "trahi la confiance du
régime" et "devra travailler dur pour regagner la confiance des
autorités". Dans ce cas, ne serait-il pas plus simple pour le gouvernement
de dissoudre le peuple et d'en élire un autre ? »
(Bertolt Brecht, La Solution)
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