DTN News - DEFENSE & INTELLIGENCE NEWS: China's Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE & INTELLIGENCE NEWS: China's Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged
*It is more efficient for the Chinese to steal innovations and intellectual property than to incur the cost and time of creating their own.
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources WSJ – Mike McConnell, Michael Chertoff, William Lynn
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 5, 2012:Only three months ago, we would have violated U.S. secrecy laws by sharing what we write here—even though, as a former director of national intelligence, secretary of homeland security, and deputy secretary of defense, we have long known it to be true. The Chinese government has a national policy of economic espionage in cyberspace. In fact, the Chinese are the world's most active and persistent practitioners of cyber espionage today.

Evidence of China's economically devastating theft of proprietary technologies and other intellectual property from U.S. companies is growing. Only in October 2011 were details declassified in a report to Congress by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive. Each of us has been speaking publicly for years about the ability of cyber terrorists to cripple our critical infrastructure, including financial networks and the power grid. Now this report finally reveals what we couldn't say before: The threat of economic cyber espionage looms even more ominously.

The report is a summation of the catastrophic impact cyber espionage could have on the U.S. economy and global competitiveness over the next decade. Evidence indicates that China intends to help build its economy by intellectual-property theft rather than by innovation and investment in research and development (two strong suits of the U.S. economy). The nature of the Chinese economy offers a powerful motive to do so.

According to 2009 estimates by the United Nations, China has a population of 1.3 billion, with 468 million (about 36% of the population) living on less than $2 a day. While Chinese poverty has declined dramatically in the last 30 years, income inequality has increased, with much greater benefits going to the relatively small portion of educated people in urban areas, where about 25% of the population lives.

The bottom line is this: China has a massive, inexpensive work force ravenous for economic growth. It is much more efficient for the Chinese to steal innovations and intellectual property—the source code of advanced economies—than to incur the cost and time of creating their own. They turn those stolen ideas directly into production, creating products faster and cheaper than the U.S. and others.

Cyberspace is an ideal medium for stealing intellectual capital. Hackers can easily penetrate systems that transfer large amounts of data, while corporations and governments have a very hard time identifying specific perpetrators.

Unfortunately, it is also difficult to estimate the economic cost of these thefts to the U.S. economy. The report to Congress calls the cost "large" and notes that this includes corporate revenues, jobs, innovation and impacts to national security. Although a rigorous assessment has not been done, we think it is safe to say that "large" easily means billions of dollars and millions of jobs.

So how to protect ourselves from this economic threat? First, we must acknowledge its severity and understand that its impacts are more long-term than immediate. And we need to respond with all of the diplomatic, trade, economic and technological tools at our disposal.

The report to Congress notes that the U.S. intelligence community has improved its collaboration to better address cyber espionage in the military and national-security areas. Yet today's legislative framework severely restricts us from fully addressing domestic economic espionage. The intelligence community must gain a stronger role in collecting and analyzing this economic data and making it available to appropriate government and commercial entities.

Congress and the administration must also create the means to actively force more information-sharing. While organizations (both in government and in the private sector) claim to share information, the opposite is usually the case, and this must be actively fixed.

The U.S. also must make broader investments in education to produce many more workers with science, technology, engineering and math skills. Our country reacted to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik with investments in math and science education that launched the age of digital communications. Now is the time for a similar approach to build the skills our nation will need to compete in a global economy vastly different from 50 years ago.

Corporate America must do its part, too. If we are to ever understand the extent of cyber espionage, companies must be more open and aggressive about identifying, acknowledging and reporting incidents of cyber theft. Congress is considering legislation to require this, and the idea deserves support. Companies must also invest more in enhancing their employees' cyber skills; it is shocking how many cyber-security breaches result from simple human error such as coding mistakes or lost discs and laptops.

In this election year, our economy will take center stage, as will China and its role in issues such as monetary policy. If we are to protect ourselves against irreversible long-term damage, the economic issues behind cyber espionage must share some of that spotlight.

Mr. McConnell, a retired Navy vice admiral and former director of the National Security Agency (1992-96) and director of national intelligence (2007-09), is vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton. Mr. Chertoff, a former secretary of homeland security (2005-09), is senior counsel at Covington & Burling. Mr. Lynn has served as deputy secretary of defense (2009-11) and undersecretary of defense (1997-2001).

*LINK FOR THIS ARTICLE COMPILED BY ROGER SMITH FROM RELIABLE SOURCES WSJ – MIKE MCCONNELL, MICHAEL CHERTOFF, WILLIAM LYNN

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DTN News - INSIGHT BIHAR STATE ~ INDIA NEWS: From Darkest India, An Enlightened Leader

Asian Defense News: DTN News - INSIGHT BIHAR STATE ~ INDIA NEWS: From Darkest India, An Enlightened Leader
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Reuters
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 5, 2012:  There's an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honor of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.

A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.

"Give me three years," he told a state leader, "and I can turn Bihar into Japan."

"That's nothing," came the laconic reply from his host. "Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar."

Bihar is no longer the butt of jokes, however, not since Nitish Kumar took charge of the ruined state in 2005 and began to turn it around -- winning such respect that he stands a decent chance of one day becoming prime minister of India.

"My first priority was governance, my second priority was governance and my third priority was governance," Chief Minister Kumar told Reuters at his office in the state capital, Patna, a dusty city where property prices have soared to levels paid in far away New Delhi, even as its streets teem with the desperately poor.

"Bihar suffered not because of bad governance but because of a lack of governance."

When India launched reforms to open up its state-stifled economy 20 years ago, many states surged ahead, leaving behind the 3.5 percent "Hindu rate of growth" that had plagued the decades after the country's independence from Britain in 1947, and with it Bihar.

Bihar is still India's most impoverished state: landlocked, not blessed with resources and prone to catastrophic flooding, its annual per-capita income of about $400 is just a third of the national average. Its 104 million overwhelmingly farm-dependent people have India's worst literacy rate and the lowest proportion of households with electricity, and the state scores miserably on the U.N.'s Human Development Index.

It's hard to imagine that in ancient times Bihar was the centre of the flourishing Magadha empires and the region where the Buddha lived and attained enlightenment.

And yet the state's dismally low income level has grown 250 percent since Kumar took the helm, more than double the national average. The growth of its economy has surged into double figures to become India's second-fastest growing state, driven by hefty public spending on roads and buildings and rapid expansion in services such as hotels and restaurants.

RESTORING FAITH

Kumar has done much more than bring growth. Working until midnight most days for the past six years, he has declared war on crime and corruption, introduced an act that gives citizens the right to efficient public services, launched a frenzy of road-building, empowered women and promoted education, offering a free bicycle to every girl that registers in a Grade 9 class.

"Everything had gone to the dogs," said Prakash Jha, one of Bihar's favorite sons, a Bollywood film-maker who has chronicled many of the state's ills, including the once-thriving industry of kidnapping businessmen.

"What Nitish Kumar has been able to do is restore faith in the society of Bihar. We had almost given up, but now you feel you can do things in Bihar," said Jha, who has put his money where his mouth is, spending $12 million on a shopping mall and cinema multiplex in Patna, the state's first.

Kumar is not without detractors: critics say he is poor at delegating, causes bottlenecks by amassing all decision-making in his office and accomplishes far less than he claims.

"This is a government of denting, painting and decorating," said state opposition leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. "It's all on the surface. Nitish Kumar will hold a ceremony to inaugurate the ditch and then another for the bridge built over it."

Still, the contrast between the hyper-active chief minister of Bihar and the central government in New Delhi could hardly be more stark after months of drift and policy paralysis under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that have contributed to a slowdown in the country's stellar economic growth.

AN IDEOLOGY OF HUMANISM

A vegetable garden borders the path that leads to the simple Patna bungalow where the chief minister has his office. On a shelf inside his sparsely furnished room, there are several trophies awarded by media groups for "Indian of the Year." There is just one picture on the wall, an image of Mahatma Gandhi, father of independent India.

Kumar's father was a freedom-fighter during British rule, but the son has always been implacably opposed to the Congress party that led the struggle for independence and its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of leaders, defining himself more by his vision of social justice than any political group.

"His is not an ideology of a political party, it's an ideology of humanism," said M.J. Akbar, one of India's best-known newspaper editors and a former member of parliament for a Bihar constituency.

Meticulously turned out in a creaseless cream tunic, sleeveless Nehru jacket and a grey scarf, 60-year-old Kumar smiles gently as he explains his style of governance: "pro-poor and pro-people."

An engineering graduate, Kumar first got a toehold in state politics and then in New Delhi, where he was a member of parliament and the country's railways minister in a coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He won elections in Bihar for his Janata Dal (United) party six years ago and, in a ringing endorsement of his policies, he was voted back to power in 2010.

Kumar's party is still aligned with the BJP, and popular wisdom has is that if their coalition wins the general election in 2014 he could be a strong contender to become prime minister.

Does he dream of leading the country one day?

"Not really," he says diffidently. "Serving my own people gives me satisfaction. I don't have any ambition. I don't have that kind of desire."

Not content to sit in Patna for long, Kumar gets around Bihar's 38 districts, talking to people on streets and in village squares to find out what they want fixed. These audiences are followed by meetings with district officials at which he prods the state's bureaucracy to respond.

"Why is there darkness around the lamp?" he asked at one such meeting in Patna recently, when he was informed that a scheme to provide free meals for schoolchildren was least effective in and around the city. "This is the capital, you all live here, we have to improve this."

Later, when told of plans to hire more land records staff, he instructed officials to make sure there were desks and offices ready for them. "We don't want them loitering in the corridors," he said, his voice restrained but still dominating the room filled with more than 100 bureaucrats.

This direct and no-nonsense delivery belies his apparent bonhomie.

"He is a very confident person who disguises his confidence with a great amount of modesty," said Akbar.

VOTES ARE 'CASTE'

It is sometimes said that in Bihar people "don't cast their votes, they vote for their caste."

That is because, besides being blighted by poverty, its people have long been sharply divided by Hinduism's social hierarchy. In the fairly recent past, upper and lower caste groups kept private armies, and pitched battles between them or massacres by one side or another were common.

Fanning the caste-based politics of Bihar in the 1990s was Lalu Prasad Yadav, now a lawmaker in New Delhi. A charismatic leader from a "backward" caste whose trademark humor can make a budget speech sound like a stand-up routine, Yadav's reign was dubbed the "Jungle Raj" as the rule of law broke down.

Kumar also belongs to a minority "backward" caste and was aligned with Yadav for years before they parted ways. One factor behind his rise has been his resolve to woo voters not by social blocs but on the basis of his government's performance.

"Caste is the reality in the Indian system, but I have proved that caste does not decide the outcome of an election," he said.

Corruption is still endemic despite Kumar's crackdown. He has confiscated the houses of two corrupt officials to turn them into schools, and many others face the same fate, but critics say he is actually too tolerant of the graft around him.

Law and order remains a serious problem, too. In 2010, Bihar ranked second among the country's states for the number of people killed in violent crimes, and police seize tens of thousands of illegal firearms every year.

Still, many feel that Bihar is a safer place since Kumar launched an anti-crime drive. Residents now feel less frightened to drive at night in rural areas, where roadside hold-ups and kidnappings were once routine.

"Five years ago, if we had to travel from Gaya to Patna, we would leave by 3 in the afternoon so we could get to the city before dark," said Navendu Kumar Thakur, who runs a construction company in the state. Gaya is about 100 km (60 miles) south of the state capital. "Now, it doesn't matter if we leave at 9 at night, there's no problem on the road."

Kumar says restoring faith in the police and judiciary was a top priority.

"A reign of terror used to prevail in the society, Bihar used to be in the news for all the wrong reasons," he said. "My first task was to ensure rule of law and trust in the system."

WEAK ECONOMIC BASE

With the improvement in law and order, there has been tentative interest in setting up industries in Bihar, which is 90 percent dependent on agriculture after the mineral-rich region of Jharkhand was hived off into a separate state in 2000.

New industries in Bihar can receive up to 300 percent of capital invested in VAT refunds over 10 years, in addition to a host of other incentives.

"He (Kumar) has shown that grass can grow in a desert," said Prem Kumar Agrawal, part-owner of a biscuit-making plant in the Hajipur industrial park near Patna, where half a dozen factories have opened in the past six months. With 300 workers, his enterprise produces 70-75 tonnes of biscuits per day.

"I give Nitish 9 out of 10 in terms of industrial policy," Agrawal said. "Bihar is now on the map."

But the new factories are only part of the story: abandoned buildings litter the rest of the industrial park, the metal fences on road dividers are rusty and the link to the nearby highway is a potholed and narrow road.

Manufacturing has in fact contributed very little to the surge in the economy's growth: with power cuts common, highways often jammed and graft still thriving, few investors are willing to brave Bihar yet. No surprise, then, that Bihar was ranked bottom last year in a state-by-state survey of economic freedom.

Official figures show that even agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has contracted for the past six years, suggesting that the Bihar boom has been far from inclusive. Much of the growth has instead been generated by hefty public spending on construction, which means the Bihar boom may not have a solid enough base to be sustainable.

Indeed, Bihar is Exhibit A for the case that India is a two-track economy, with industry-friendly seaboard states rushing ahead as others grow from extremely low bases.

Shaibal Gupta, secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, reckons that even if Bihar's growth continues at its current double-digit clip it would take 18 years to catch up with the present-day wealth of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai.

"We can't call it a miracle," Gupta said. "It's some change at an initial level that should have happened 60 years ago."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Reuters
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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: MDA Awarded Contract To Lockheed Martin In Conjunction To Upgrades For THAAD System

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: MDA Awarded Contract To Lockheed Martin In Conjunction To Upgrades For THAAD System
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 4, 2012: The Missile Defense Agency is announcing the award of a sole-source indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to Lockheed Martin Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.  The total ceiling award value is $515,400,000. Under this follow-on contract, the contractor will be responsible for development, integration, and testing of any upgrades to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. 

Task orders issued under this contract will address the continued development, enhancement, and testing of the THAAD components/system.  The THAAD element is comprised of the following components:  interceptor, THAAD fire control and communication, launcher, peculiar support equipment, and AN/TPY-2 radar integrated into a weapon system.  

Examples of task orders include, but are not limited to, communications upgrades, obsolescence mitigation, flight and ground testing, and spiral development to further integrate THAAD in the BMDS architecture through development of unifying missile defense functions.  

The work will be performed in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Huntsville, Ala.  The ordering period is from Feb. 1, 2012 through Jan. 31, 2017.  Fiscal 2012 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used to incrementally fund the initial orders.  

Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  This is not a Foreign Military Sales acquisition.  The MDA, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the buying activity (HQ0147-12-D-0001).

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: U.S. DoD Awarded Contract To Oshkosh Defense For Navy LVSR

Asian Defense News: DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: U.S. DoD Awarded Contract To Oshkosh Defense For Navy LVSR 
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 4, 2012:  Oshkosh Defense, Oshkosh, Wis., is being awarded $94,352,041 for fixed-price delivery order 0151 under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (M67854-06-D-5028) for the purchase of 143 Logistics Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR) production cargo vehicles, federal retail excise tax for 113 cargo vehicles; 69 LVSR tractor (fifth wheel) vehicles; and federal retail excise tax for 20 tractor vehicles.  

Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wis., and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2013.  

Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  The Marine Corps System Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources DTN News & U.S. DoD February 3, 2012
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DTN News - AUSTRALIA DEFENSE NEWS: Australia Acceptance Of Two CH-47D Chinook Helicopters

Asian Defense News: DTN News - AUSTRALIA DEFENSE NEWS: Australia Acceptance Of Two CH-47D Chinook Helicopters
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Australian Government Department of Defence
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 3, 2012: Minister for Defence Stephen Smith announced on Wednesday ~ February 1, 2012 that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) fleet of Chinooks has increased to seven following the arrival of two additional CH-47D Chinook helicopters in Townsville.

In November last year, the Government approved the purchase of the two ex-United States Army Chinooks following the loss of one ADF Chinook on operations in Afghanistan in May 2011.

The Minister said the new Chinooks would enter a period of deep maintenance and modification to bring them up to the same configuration as the existing ADF Chinook fleet.

Both Chinooks are scheduled to be delivered to the Australian Army to support operations by the middle of 2012.

The CH-47D Chinook is a highly capable medium-lift utility helicopter.  Its roles include troop movement, battlefield equipment transport, search and rescue and disaster relief.

Chinooks have been highly capable workhorses since they entered ADF service in 1995 in operations both in Australia and overseas.

Chinooks have been deployed on Operation Slipper in Afghanistan since 2006.

They have performed an outstanding service for both ADF and International Security Assistance Forces and are in high demand across Afghanistan due to their superior performance in hot and high altitude conditions.

The ADF CH-47D fleet will be replaced with seven new CH-47F Chinooks from around 2016.

Media Contacts: 

Mr Smith’s Office: Andrew Porter (02) 6277 7800 or 0419 474 392
Department of Defence: (02) 6127 1999

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Australian Government Department of Defence
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DTN News - BRAZIL DEFENSE NEWS: Brazil Minister Heads To India To Improve Defense Ties

Asian Defense News: DTN News - BRAZIL DEFENSE NEWS: Brazil Minister Heads To India To Improve Defense Ties
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Defense News - AFP
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 3, 2012: Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim is to travel to India this week for talks on boosting bilateral military cooperation, his office announced.

Brazil and India are members of the BRICS group of emerging powers (along with China, Russia and South Africa) and Brasilia views its multi-faceted partnership with New Delhi, including in the defense field, as a “strategic priority.”

Amorim was due in New Delhi on Feb. 7 at the start of a five-day visit that will include talks with Prime Minister Manmoham Singh and Defense Minister A.K. Antony as well as visits of military installations, his ministry said in a statement released Feb. 1.

India “has one of the world’s biggest armed forces” and like Brazil “seeks to reduce its technological dependence on other countries,” the statement added. “There is a great potential for scientific, technological cooperation (with India), to develop projects of mutual interest.”

Brazil is keen on expanding its own defense industry and its military purchases to upgrade its air and naval forces are conditioned on technology transfer and construction in this country.

Amorim was expected to discuss naval cooperation with his Indian counterparts, particularly plans to build aircraft carriers and Scorpene-class submarines, in addition to expand exchanges between military academies of the two countries.

India announced Feb. 1 that it has selected the Rafale, a modern multi-role jet built by French firm Dassault Aviation, as its preferred next-generation interceptor, but details of the $12 billion (9.1 billion euros) contract remain to be ironed out.

Last December, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said during a visit to Brazil that he was confident that Brasilia would buy the Rafale because the aircraft’s technology cannot be matched.

The Rafale is competing against U.S. aviation giant Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and Swedish manufacturer Saab’s Gripen jet to supply Brazil with 36 multi-role combat aircraft.

India has also purchased Legacy 600 business jets from Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer.

Meanwhile, Amorim was to stop in the southern Italian city of Palermo on Feb. 6 for talks with his Italian counterpart Giampaolo Di Paola And on Feb. 10, the Brazilian minister will be in Rabat for talks with Moroccan Defense Minister Abdellatif Loudiyi and Foreign Minister Saad Eddine Othmani.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Defense News - AFP
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DTN News - SINGAPORE DEFENSE NEWS: Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Steps Up Deterrent Capabilities

Asian Defense News: DTN News - SINGAPORE DEFENSE NEWS: Singapore Air Force (RSAF) Steps Up Deterrent Capabilities
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Flight International
 (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 2, 2012: This month's Singapore air show falls on the 70th anniversary of the fall of Singapore to Japan in the Second World War. While Asia is an unimaginably different place now, Singapore's leaders have never forgotten the speed with which Singapore fell - or the three years of brutal occupation that followed.

Memories of the war have played no small part in the development of Singapore's world-class military, backed with what is unquestionably southeast Asia's most powerful air force. While Singapore will never have the strategic depth of a larger nation, its advanced military will create a "poison shrimp" dynamic to give any aggressor pause.

The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is unique in southeast Asia. Apart from being the region's largest, it is also the best trained, led, and equipped. It places a high priority on maintaining its equipment to ensure both readiness and safety. While political concerns are inevitably a part of acquisition decisions, it chooses aircraft and weapons systems based mainly on their utility in combat - something that is not always the primary consideration in other countries.

© Billypix

Tim Huxley is an analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, and has written a book about Singapore's armed forces. "Over the last forty years, Singapore's air force has evolved incrementally toward having an extremely powerful capability by regional standards," he says.

"This is not just in terms of modernity and weapons, but in the way equipment integrates to form an overall air capability. It is an integrated and well-balanced force, and careful thought has been given to logistics."

For the time being, Singapore appears content with its fighter fleet. The RSAF has yet to reveal its future fighter procurement plans, and there is no major competition under way to obtain new fighters. Indeed, the last of Singapore's Boeing F-15SGs - a variant of the F-15E - have yet to be delivered. Nonetheless, Singapore will eventually need to make decisions about its future force structure.

Analysts and industry experts interviewed for this article are all but unanimous that Singapore will one day obtain Lockheed Martin's F-35. Like Israel, Singapore is a tier four "security co-operation participant" in the programme. While it cannot influence the design of the aircraft, it has access to programme information and can request special studies. Sources say Singapore could also be interested in the F-35B, the type's short take-off and vertical landing variant.

Huxley says Singapore's tier four status is appropriate because the eventual size of any Singapore F-35 buy would not have justified the country being a founding partner in the programme. "In all military areas Singapore tries, where possible, to acquire a qualitative edge over possible contenders, and other countries feel that only the F-35 offers this qualitative edge in the future. There is no other similar equipment in the pipeline, and it's effectively the only potential in terms of a new airframe."

Richard Bitzinger, senior fellow of the Military Transformations programme at Singapore's Rajaratnam School of International Studies, thinks Singapore could eventually buy up to 100 F-35s. "Delays in the F-35 programme are not a problem for Singapore because they probably won't place an order for several more years anyway," he says. "In 2015, I could see them upgrading some of their [Lockheed Martin] F-16s, and also ordering 40-odd F-35s, with an additional F-35 order perhaps in 2020."

Given Singapore's long history with the F-16. it is a leading candidate to upgrade these aircraft. In this it would follow Taiwan and South Korea, which in 2011 disclosed plans to upgrade their F-16 fleets. The salient element of these upgrades is the addition of an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The contenders are Northrop Grumman's Scalable Agile Beam Radar and Raytheon's Advanced Combat Radar. Industry sources say the first AESA to win an order will be all but assured to hold the entire F-16 AESA upgrade market and, by default, ascertain the eventual radar modification for Singapore's F-16s.

Bitzinger says an F-16 upgrade could also see Singapore retire the last of its venerable Northrop F-5s, which have been in service since the 1970s.

A likely beneficiary of any RSAF F-16 upgrade programme would be domestic maintenance, repair and overhaul provider ST Aerospace. The company has an intimate relationship with the air force, which includes dispatching technicians in RSAF uniform to provide support for aircraft on overseas deployments. It also has a long history of complex upgrades, including a programme in the 1980s to install a non-afterburning version of the General Electric F404 engine on the McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, which resulted in a lighter aircraft with 500lb (2.2kN) more thrust. The company also routinely performs upgrades to Lockheed C-130 transports, a niche in which it claims to be "a centre of excellence".

© AirTeamImages.com

Nonetheless, ST Aerospace president Chang Cheow Teck is tight-lipped about the prospect of upgrading RSAF F-16s. He will only say that, historically, the company's military upgrade capabilities have been driven by the air force's needs.

Eventually, Singapore will also need to replace its Fokker 50s. The decision facing the RSAF is whether to acquire a newer aircraft of similar capability, such as the Ruag DO228NG, which will be attending the Singapore air show for the first time, or a larger platform, such as surplus US Navy Lockheed P-3C Orions or even a variant of the Boeing P-8A Poseidon.

In 2010, Lockheed revealed Singapore had issued a letter of request to look at the P-3. Mark Jarvis, Lockheed's director, design and production for P-3 programmes, says Singapore's interest could be for about four or five aircraft, possibly drawing on the configuration of the 12 secondhand Orions due to be delivered to Taiwan starting this year.

Given Singapore's limited economic exclusion zone, and that the majority of its patrols take place close to home, experts feel the P-8A is an unlikely choice.

"If they really think they will conduct long-range maritime patrol as a permanent mission they might [buy the P-8A], but on the other hand they might just keep flying around the region," says Bitzinger. He adds that while Singapore has a strong tendency to buy new aircraft, in some circumstances, such as with the Boeing KC-135 tanker, it will buy used equipment. "The most important thing with maritime patrol is not the airframe, but what goes into it," he adds.

Huxley says for long-range patrols Singapore already has a resource in place with its six Formidable-class frigates. The Republic of Singapore Navy has openly stated that these large warships were obtained to defend the nation's sea lines of communications. A major element of the reach of these ships is their Sikorsky S-70B Seahawk shipborne helicopters.

Another area for potential new aircraft is in the tanker role, in which Singapore operates ex-US Air Force KC-135s. These aircraft provide air-to-air refuelling for both the RSAF and its allies, but suffer similar obsolescence issues to USAF KC-135s. During the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace exhibition in Malaysia in December 2011, an RSAF contingent visited the Royal Australian Air Force's Airbus Military A330-based KC-30A mutli-role tanker/transports, on static display. A source said the delegation was interested to learn about the aircraft's capabilities, which also includes the ability to carry passengers and cargo.

As with its fighters, Singapore also appears to be in no rush to replace its key tactical platforms, namely Eurocopter Super Puma and Cougar helicopters and C-130H Hercules. Helicopter suppliers have heard nothing about a Super Puma/Cougar replacement, with industry observers believing Singapore is happy to stay with these types for another decade.

Ultimately, it is difficult to obtain a clear picture of the RSAF's acquisition plans and the future roles this envisages. Bitzinger feels this aids the all-important deterrent role of the Singapore armed forces. "This ambiguity lets the other guy project his concerns and fears," he says.

"The last thing the Singaporeans want is to fight last-ditch battles on Singaporean soil," he adds. "A lot of this goes back to the fall of Singapore in 1942. That history is very poignant to them - the idea that once the Japanese crossed the straits of Johore, it was all over. They never want to have this happen again. They will take the war to the enemy."

• View images of RSAF assets in action during the 2010 Singapore Airshow

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Flight International
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