Sea State
Supporting documents for the Pentagon’s Future navy force study suggest it’s considering expanding the US Navy to as many as 534 vessels, up from the service’s current target of 355 manned ships by 2030. Many of the new vessels would be smaller and lightly or optionally crewed, and the navy is likely to shift from focusing on large and expensive ships like aircraft carriers to smaller vessels. However, the navy has been struggling to meet the 355-ship target and may face challenges meeting the even larger goal.
Iranian and Russian vessels have conducted joint exercises in the Caspian Sea as part of the multinational Kavkaz exercises. The drills are held each year in one of Russia’s four military districts (western, southern, central or eastern), and the southern district was chosen for 2020. The exercises, held from 21 to 26 September, also included forces from Pakistan, China, Belarus and Armenia. Russian military cooperation with Iran has continued while the US has increased its efforts to embargo arms deals with the country.
Flight Path
The US Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin will be conducting ‘unique sea trials’ of F-35 fighter jets for potential international customers. The trials are part of a broader US$245 million contract to the company to provide ‘engineering, maintenance, logistics manpower and material support’ for the US Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and other non-US participants. Countries that have procured the short take-off and vertical landing F-35B jets include the UK and Italy, but the trials indicate interest from other militaries.
By a tiny margin, the Swiss people have voted in favour of buying new fighter jets worth up to US$6.5 billion to replace the country’s F-5 Tigers and F/A-18C/D Hornets. Just 50.2% of voters polled in favour of the proposal in the third national vote on the purchase of new combat aircraft for the Swiss Air Force in 30 years. The candidates for the fleet of up to 40 jets are the Eurofighter Typhoon, F/A-18 Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale and F-35.
Read the article by Tracy Beattie, Hal Crichton-Standish, Daria Impiombato, Alexandra Pascoe and Albert Zhang in The Strategist.