Texas Insider

By Rebecca Grant

For some reason, it’s almost politically incorrect to discuss the economic impact of specific defense programs.  Example: about 5000 people work on the Boeing C-17 airlifter production line in Long Beach, California.  A total of 30,000 work on the plane at other locations such as at supplier firms providing parts & material.  

Contrast that with last week’s high profile announcement of federal aid to a battery factory in Michigan set to produce 300 permanent jobs according to the Washington Post.

Personally, I am all in favor of battery and other investments to move us toward electric and hybrid vehicle choices and to keep us ahead of competitors like China. I’m also glad to see stimulus money for road construction and so on.

Fact is, America is relying on directive federal policy to navigate the economic slow-down.

And here is the Boeing C-17, a battle-tested plane with a growing overseas customer base and jobs in a core competitive niche.

Time to get over the funny prejudice about discussing defense jobs.

Ostfriesland:  21 Minutes of Attack

Summer, 1921. Warren G. Harding was President, the Dow was at 63, and “Kitten on the Keys” was the hit jazz piano tune. And some biplanes were about to change warfare.

Before Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, even the sinking of the Bismarck, there had to be proof that airplanes could lug enough mass to sink a big battleship.

“If the claims of the airplane advocates can be realized, it means that any battleship operating within the radius of planes which are in control of the air will be disabled or destroyed,” wrote Admiral William Sims, who was President of the Naval War College, in May 1921.

Brigadier General William Mitchell’s First Provisional Air Force supplied that proof by sinking the World War I German dreadnought Ostfriesland on July 21, 1921. Biplane Martin bombers and special 1100-lb. bombs did it in just 21 minutes, according to the New York Times report printed two days later.

The bombs were so hot they had to be packed in ice for the train trip to Langley, Virginia.

Mitchell actually had a force of Army and Navy aircrews with the Navy setting up the targets in the waters of the Hampton Roads. They’d sunk another ship on July 18 and would go on to conduct more experiments, but taking down the Ostfriesland was their signature achievement.

“One learns these things only by actual air work and experience,” Mitchell wrote.

Why is the Ostfriesland test worth remembering? Because it takes time to advance technology and tactics.

U.S. Air Force in Cyberspace Warfighting Domain

Have you seen anyone wearing this badge yet? If so, you have encountered an Air Force cyberspace expert.

Pilots wear wings. Cyberwarriors wear this emblem, earned for completing training in cyberspace operations and serving in a cyberspace assignment. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz approved the badge this spring.

The globe symbolizes the reach of cyberspace, the orbits indicate the space dimension and the bolted wings come from the Air Force seal. All a pretty cool representation of just how much airpower – and all joint military power – depends on cyberspace. This is not just email, Twitter or sns.

Cyberspace has been around for a while, arguably since the late 1960s (although the term and concept are older.) But even 20 years ago it had very little tactical or operational relevance to military operations.

The last “old-style” joint campaign was probably Desert Shield/Desert Storm almost 20 years ago.

Now joint forces literally could not run operations in Afghanistan without MIRC chat – secret, encrypted MIRC chat, no less.

“Right now, on any given sortie over Afghanistan and Iraq, we’re in 20 to 30 separate chat rooms,” Lieutenant Colonel Tom Grabowski, of the JSTARS 116th Air Control Wing at Warner Robins, AFB, Georgia told me for an article last year.

It makes the point – cyberspace is a warfighting domain.